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FAREWELL SERMON

PREACHED IN

UNION STREET CHURCH, BANGOR,

MAY 24, 1857,

By JOSEPH HENRY ALLEN.

PUBLISHElf BY BEQUEST.

BANGOR:
PEINTED BY SAMTTEL S. SMITH-
1857,

SERMON.

I CORINTHIANS, iv : 3, i.
With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you,
or of man's judgment : but he that judgeth me is the Lord.
The fragrant Spring time, this glad and balmy day,
brings our brief season of fellowship to its close. It is
with a clear mind and conscience, though with perplexity
and pain, that I approach these last services in which
we engage together as pastor and people. Circum
stances, some of them very clear to me, some rather
puzzling and obscure, have sundered the engagement
that was made two years ago, with the good hope on
both sides of its being permanent. In my own mind,
and in the expression you have given of them, they are
connected essentially with the long depression and dis
couragement of business in this place, which more than
a year ago led me to think of the termination of the
contract as probable, or even inevitable. When I clearly
saw that a crisis in our affairs must be met somehow,
the steps I took to meet it were voluntary, deliberate,
and independent. Of course I knew there would be
no risk, in throwing myself on the resources and the
justice of this society. But, as simple conscience and
honor had kept me here two years ago, under every
prospect of great personal gain in leaving, so con
science and honor lead me freely to. retire now, with no
prospect but of much present uncertainty and loss.,
It cannot be other than a deep disappointment and
sorrow to me, to abandon thus the sphere I have
esteemed so honorable,, the task which has been brought
by degrees into so promising and satisfactory shape,
the hopes, interests, and 'personal associations which
have become entwined and blended with this six years'

ministry. Just half my professional life has now been
spent in your service.* It was from no choice or desire
of mine, but by the force of circumstances, that I was
first led to accept after twice declining it ; and to bind
up my highest ambition and hopes of professional
success with it. Full of anxieties, and beset with fre
quent misgivings of the future these years have been ;
and I lay the burden down with a lighter heart than I
took it up. The summons of events I have learned
to heed as the call of Providence. What duty seems
in any case to require, should be done simply, firmly,
and without prevarication. As soon as this relation
loses the moral support of harmony, confidence, and
courage in the future, and becomes a simple business
relation, of legal right on one side and obligation on
the other, its sacredness and value cease. A state of
affairs which I need not dwell upon, appeared to justify
me in throwing the matter open to you for reconsider
ation. I was unwilling to assume the responsibility of
a future harassed and uncertain as ours seemed like, to
be. And so the step was taken, freely and of< choice,
which has resulted in this sundering of mutual and
sacred ties. Not without a struggle, yet without re
sentment or reproach, I accept the event. I have cher<-
ished no thoughts but those of gratitude and gladness
for the past, and reliance on the holy Will of Him I
serve. These years have been years of prifilege and deep
thankfulness to me. A season of changeful, sometimes
anxious experience, and laden with the sense of mis
takes and fallings short sometimes. Yet, as I am con
scious of having harbored no disloyal thought towards
this Church confided to my care, as I have known no other
desire and aim than for its best welfare and truest harmo
ny, so into that one predominating sentiment has melted
all or most of what might otherwise have harassed and
grieved me. This I can say in all sincerity, that I have
respected and honored these very qualities in this place
which make, in part, the precise difficulty and embar
rassment of this ministry; — the severe standard of
intellectual demand; the force and independence of.
* Since October 27, 1850, with an interval of five months in 1855.

personal opinion ; the hardy and obstinate energy , de
veloped in the hazards of business or the conflicts of
public life. These impart a positive character to the
field, racy qualities to the soil, which we try with such
skill as we have to turn into the Lord's vineyard. I
trust they may find a more capable and successful hus'
bandman. And again, while I have had my own very distinct
notion of the work I ought to do, and the way in which
I could bestow my means to the best advantage, — I
have been fully aware that I could but slowly win, if
at all, the understanding and sympathy, much more the
cooperation, of many in whose service I was engaged.
This, however much it might be a matter of regret, has
never been with me a matter of disappointment. While
I had my convictions, you of course had yours : while
I must be content with my capacities, you must seek
the full satisfaction of your wants. And I trust that
as little personal asperity has been felt on your side,
as I have been conscious of on mine.
Meanwhile, I must thank you for the very large meas
ure of generous and friendly confidence which I have
found ; for that success, dearer than any other to my
heart, and more grateful to my ambition, which consists
in finding the way to your regard and sympathy, and
winning testimonials of the spiritual good that has
flowed in the channels thus thrown open. Especially I
desire most gratefully to acknowledge the general good
will and support of this society, which has sustained me
in carrying forward a course of labors that have result'
ed in a Church better organized to its sacred ends, and
with more avenues of influence and instruction open to
bear upon the community, in larger and more generous
relations to the world of religious thought, and the va
rious spheres of moral life, and better sustained by
the intelligent interest of those to whose support and
sympathy it is due, more satisfactory in the field it opens
and the various wants it meets, than any other with
which fourteen years of very considerable experience
have made me acquainted. Not (I mean) that it ex-
i eels all in every qaulity, but each in some.
This is what I claim as the result of the service and
commission you have entrusted to me here. Especially

6
I speak of the time — now near four years — since the
completion and opening of this house of worship. In
my ten years of professional life, I had then pretty dis
tinctly formed to myself and matured the conception of
what a Church, made up and situated as ours is, should
be. Our experience since, we have found its partial
realization. How imperfect often the result, how mis
taken even the means, I need not say I have often my
self seen and lamented. But it is with deep thankful
ness, and steadily increasing satisfaction, that I have
witnessed the growth of successive years. And through
whatever portion of life shall be hereafter granted me,
I cannot conceive that I shall think otherwise than as
one of the dearest privileges in it, of the idea of the
Church of Christ, adapted to its various ends of wor
ship, instruction, comfort, and especially the education
of mind and conscience on the higher plane of truth and
in the broader field of right, which you have aided me
in carrying into practice here.
I wish to speak of this more distinctly in these last
words I shall probably ever address to this congrega
tion-swishing to leave as distinct an impression as pos
sible both of the idea that has animated me, and of the
principles by which I desire to be judged. As you may
suppose, having chosen this profession in early youth,
and having associated freely for near twenty years
among those who have been most eminent and success
ful in it, it has been with me an object of anxious study,
how best the institution of the Christian Church should
fulfil its sacred commission to our age and country.
Two conditions seemed to me to be most especially
demanded :
First, that the church should not be turned into a
lecture-room, or a theatre of oratorical display; that
the pulpit should not assert and monopolize the
sole function and office of religious things. It is a fatal
thing, it seems to me, and most degrading, when personal
ambition usurps the place of humble and resolute ser
vice, — a sort of spiritual apoplexy, of which many a
church has already perished, all its vital forces running
to the head, and gradually dying out. This was the
first condition, then, that the church should be a living
and organized body, and its ministrations should minis-

ter to its diversified and changing wants ; the eye not
saying to the hand, I have.no need of thee, nor the
head to the feet, I have no need of you. And
Second, that the office of Christian preaching should
be in harmony with the most large, liberal and cultivated
thought of the day; and should apply itself to the
actual conditions, wants, wrongs, the moral and social
life of the day, clearly, decisively, and on the largest
scale. '
Some such conception of the work I had chosen seems
to me the only worthy or possible choice. Of course I
could feel the danger of wasting one's forces in too
many details ; of failing in the one thing one might do,
from attempting other things which he could not. Still,
I am not conscious of having neglected the essential
points. Much personal popularity as a preacher I have
never expected to attain ; and perhaps I am justified
in saying that I preferred not to seek it. Certainly, if
I have had any ambition that set that way, I have re
pressed it as a hindrance and a false thing. I know
and acknowledge no other standard of success, than
that of seeing the church — not large, wealthy and pros
perous — but in faith and humility doing the work de
manded of it by God and man. The testimonies of it
I have welcomed have been the cheering assurances of
doubts dispelled, of grief soothed and hallowed, hearts
brought to rest in God, minds directed to serious
thought, and consciences fortified by Christian princi
ple. The affection of the young, the blessing of the
poor, the gratitude of the afflicted, the sympathy of the
good, the confidence of the humble and destitute, — .
these are the favors and testimonials which outweigh
all splendor and success that might adorn the outer
tabernacle, or applause that might echo from its walls.
And these, — in devout gratitude to God I say it, — I
have found them here.
Some of the tests by which we should judge this office
of the Christian ministry are such as can only be ap
plied by time. If experience should prove that the
good results we have found are lasting ; if our children
do grow up into more intelligent, thoughtful, conscien
tious men and women ; if the community is made per
manently better by the thought and care that have been

spent to meet its moral wants ; if, especially, the Church
itself flourishes in strength and harmony, and discharges
faithfully its guardian office to those within its fold, its
saving and healing office to those without, — these would
be that full proof of our ministry, which a brief, broken
and disappointed experience of a few years cannot hope
to show.
Let me speak, however, of the spirit and aim with
which that has been done which has been done. Most
warmly grateful for the hands that have helped and the
hearts that have sympathized, I would now repeat in re
trospection what I once said in anticipation, of the office
and work of this ministry. It has three leading aims ;
and these, with your understanding and consent, have
been represented in the three religious services
of Sunday, — each of them so essential and impor
tant in my view of it, that, if the free choice were left
to me, I should long hesitate which to give up first.
1. First in time, however, as in general regard and
demand, is the service of worship and instruction — the
assembling of the congregation for the morning hour of
Sunday. Let us look at it a moment, and see where its
points of interest lie. Here we are assembled, a repre
sentation of every age, every condition and occupation,
every form of moral and spiritual want. Here are the
indifferent to be awakened, the weary and overburdened
to be soothed, the mourner to be comforted, the doubt
ing and ignorant to be instructed, the old and young,
rich and poor, gathered to share in one act of common
worship. Here is the one thought which presses heavily
on the conscience of him who bears this office, — how all
these many and infinitely varied wants may best be met.
The courses of Divine providence, the conditions of hu
man discipline, how may they be interpreted to the
waiting mind and heart? The great thoughts and
hopes that link themselves with the Christian gospel, —
thoughts of duty, truth and holiness, hopes that reach
forth to the invisible and lay hold on heaven, — how
shall these be so wrought into the texture of our mind
and experience, as to be our strength and joy forever ?
The forms of worship, how shall they be filled, rendered
living and life-giving, by the spirit that seeks these walls ?
By what solemn ceremony, by what venerable words or

chanted strains of devotion, shall the heart be led up
ward to peace in God ? How shall an unmeaning form
ality be avoided, that the words we speak may be true
words, and the house of prayer be " none other than the
house of God and the gate of heaven ?"
All these questions touch the moral conditions, the
very life of Christian worship. How shall they be met ?
or shall we abandon the hope of restoring vitality to the
ancient forms of faith, and let this pass as a hollow out
ward service which decency requires, but having no sense
or reality to the mind engaging in it ? In these words I
indicate real dangers, real tendencies, of which we all
must be at times aware.. To be a real thing to us,
religion represented in this service must be genuine and
sincere. It must at least attempt honestly to meet the
real thought, experience, doubt, scruple, or sophistry,
that besets the serious and sincere. It must at least
attempt honestly to interpret the great facts of human
life, character and duty, in the lightof Christian truth.
Any other office of Christian preaching seems to me
subordinate to this main office of interpretation, re
quiring as it does the maturest thought and experience,
and the clearest moral purpose. And this field of spir
itual instruction, counsel and guidance, is precisely that
thrown open in our service of Christian worship. Con
troversy and argument, mere doctrine and mere debate,
it seems to me must yield before this task of simple
spiritual exposition. Whatever gifts of genius or graces
of eloquence God may bestow here and there, are to be
chastened and subdued to this primary purpose, when
brought to the service of the sanctuary. An atmo
sphere of spiritual elevation, of moral thoughtfulness,
should pervade the place, shedding its balm upon the
grieved and wounded spirit, or fostering in the young
the growth of manly honor and purity of soul. What
ever, in short, is best, purest, noblest, divinest in life,
that and that only should have its representation
here. In the freedom of exposition, in the infinite variety of
play, for which this stated service of ours finds room, it
would be impossible and absurd to expect that all opin
ions should find an echo, or every want of everybody
be always met ; nay, that something should not some-

10
times be said, that jars the temper, or crosses the*
opinion, or grates the prejudice of some who hear.
A person who respects himself, and maintains any sort
of manly independence, cannot wonder if he sometimes
meets resentment and opposition, where he looked for
sympathy or at least indulgence. You all know that
to converse on any matter of duty or opinion, to fall into
a street discussion on any controverted. question, or let
drop a word in any public meeting on any public thing,
is like walking among eggs, if one expects to do it with
out conflicting with any one else. Decent respect we
have all a right to demand for our honest opinion, even
for our wilful prejudice, by the' courtesies of public
speech : but the pretence of agreement, or the compli
ment of silence and reserve, certainly not, when a
question of duty or sincerity comes in.
Still, my own principle, my own experience, leads me,
more and more, to hold our stated Sunday service
sacred to the higher uses of devotion, and illustration
of spiritual truth. This morning hour I would keep, if
possible, sacredly clear of the vexed and controverted
topics, which divide men's opinions and try their tem
per. There is an order of truth, which need never pro
voke opposition or angry controversy. We may con
ceive the statement of that truth to be so broad, that
all must see their own thought reflected therein ; so pos
itive, as to answer back to their conviction, living and
earnest as that might be. The message of God here
spoken should come home with authority to the under
standing and heart. And authority in religious things
is only authority, when ratified and acknowledged by
the mind's brest consciousness. To speak with such au
thority as the message of religion should always bear,
one must speak in the spirit of absolute and universal
Truth : not with divided heart and voice ; not as standing
on one side of those invisible lines that sunder the good
and true into parties and sects and clans. There are
some things, I am sure, which the mind knows and recog
nizes as soon as it is educated up to the point whence
they may be seen ; as from a mountain top we may see
twilight all night long, harbinger of the sun, and stars too
remote for our vision here. The ministry we mainly
want is the ministry of reconciliation, and love ; not that

11
Which stibdues strong feeling, or hampers the honest
independence and integrity of one's thought : but that
which merges the lower in the higher ; which occupies
the common ground of that generous, humane, devoted,
yet resolute faith, which is at bottom, through all diver
sities of creed, prejudice and life, the heart's religion
and the real faith of every good man. If there can
not be union here, among the earnest and good of every
opinion, then in its best sense religion itself is obsolete,
and there is no hope for Us.
2. Another service, of at least equal importance and
value, concerns the religious instruction of the young.
To "feed'the lambs" is as essential a part of the pas
toral office, as to lead the flock into green pastures and
beside the still waters. The hour we appropriate to
this, — I do not call it the "Sunday School," for a system
of voluntary class instruction is only one part or inci
dent Of it,— has proved, in the past four years' experi
ence, that a want existed here, which (in some measure
at least) we have been able to meet. Consider for a
moment how deep and vital that want is ; how deep and
vital the injury of that ignorance and neglect which
have so often passed it by. A pastoral responsibility
and charge I regard it, which, except by pressure of ex
treme necessity, I should be unwilling to relinquish to
any other. The long familiar custom of singing the
same hymns and reciting the same words of prayer to
gether ; the sacred, soothing influence of the place, with
the holy associations that gather about the symbols of
Christian worship ; the opportunities ever opening to
impress some sacred thought, or unfold the meaning of
some divine truth, — in the change of seasons, the flow
of rivers, and budding flowers, in the course of events,
or the character of the good, — these have made to me
a most interesting, sacred and cherished part of my min
istry here. And it is a point of peculiar gratification,
that, — while elsewhere we hear continual doubts and
complaints of the Sunday School system, while many
are almost ready to abandon it, and others make strain
ing and almost hopeless efforts to give it its right^weight
and character, — we have found from the first only grat
ification, encouragement, and constantly growing success,
in the simple discharge of this pastoral office of the

12
nurture of the young. Our best thoughts and hopes of
our Christian institutions always centre in our children.
What the Church has not perfectly done for us we trust
it shall do for them. And I have to thank you again,
both for your ready appreciation of the work, and for
the aid we have never sought in vain, in conducting it.
3. Again, besides its office to the congregation and
the young, this ministry has an office to fulfil in the in
terpretation of Christian truth in its larger relations,
and its application to social conditions, wants and laws.
Here is the most doubtful and disputed ground of reli
gious discussion, and one which from the first I have
endeavored most clearly to define and occupy, — as I
suppose, with the clear understanding and express con
sent of the great majority of this society. Not obtru
sively ; for only on two or three occasions in all have
I ever knowingly trespassed on ground which the strict
est constructionists would fence off from the sanctuary ;
yet so as distinctly and fully to convey my convic
tion, that the office of Religion in this age is to meet
all social wants and heal all human wrongs. I have
therefore asserted and shown a liberty in the selection
and discussion of topics in the evening service, (when I
regard myself as addressing not this congregation in
special, but the community at large,) which I should
neither claim nor justify in the morning service. Only
give time ; and scarce a topic of thought, experience or
morals, but would be freely taken up and comprehend
ed in it ; scarce a single phase of an honest intelli
gence or a faithful life, that would not be included in its
range. In the course of things, many matters of old
controversy lose their interest, and grow obsolete. New
questions turn up. New matters are stirred. The
general mind becomes awake to interests unfelt before.
All this is part of the providential ordering of events.
And, if religious thought is to be in any sense the life
of the world's thought, it must not remain halting and
slipshod in the rear. However humble our success, our
aim must always be to interpret in its religious sense
the profoundest experience and the most various knowl
edge of the time, — never sheltering ourselves behind
the barriers of past ignorance and prejudice ; never
holding this organization, or the office which represents

13
it, to be " set apart" from anything that belongs to the
conviction, condition or character of men ; never de
clining to speak in the language and think in the ideas
of the present day.
Topics will here present themselves, which cannot be
duly met, except by an intellect trained in the arena
of modern controversy, nourished with large and sound
thought, and tried by the severe discipline that comes
of itself in the experience of a thoughtful man. It is
to such minds that society should entrust the discus
sion of those questions which vitally affect'its welfare
and its character. Otherwise, we give them over to the
reckless, the embittered, the rashly speculative, the ig
norant, passionate and superficial who make them the
staple of the platform and the party journal ; and men's
minds get more afloat than ever, their speculative opin
ions more and more at war with what they feel at heart
to be sound and right. The trained intellect of Chris
tian men should then interpret the vague yet generous
sympathies of a large humanity ; and reconcile the zeal
ous conscience with the sober thought.
I have not rashly or overmuch occupied this perilous
ground. In marked crises of public affairs once or
twice, and in one or two special discussions of social
morals, I have spoken with that freedom which seemed
to me to become a citizen and a man, asking not your
assent to my opinion, but your reflection for yourselves.
And I have chiefly of all to thank the candor and good
will of those who, differing from me in judgment, have
yet respected the liberty I claimed.
The method I thus vindicate opens to the pulpit the
way to many classes of topics, which discretion and
good taste would keep from its customary ministra
tions. It is the free and ample field, rather than the
special manner of occupying it, that I have valued in
this feature of our service. In general, I have not de
parted from the usual and long sanctioned routine of
religious address ; only seeking and enjoying the privi
lege of meeting thus not a single congregation only,
but a large and continually varying company of those
who otherwise would never be brought within the reach
of our voice. Special courses also, of discussion and
instruction, I have taken as the occasion seemed to jus*

14
tify : an extended course of Lectures on the Hebrew,
and afterwards the Christian, religious history; a
discussion of the several main points of public morals,
or social evils and their remedy ; a series of addresses,
mainly to the young, on life and its practical lessons to
them ; narrations of the experience and instruction of
foreign travel ; lectures on the disputed doctrines of
orthodox and liberal Christianity ; and now, lastly, the
modern institutions and applications of religion, with
its relation to the forces that move society, and the
moral and Spiritual wants of man.
These are but slight beginnings, it is true, — only in
dications of the breadth and compass of that field,
wherein Christian truth is to be interpreted and applied.
I wish, as far as I may, to illustrate and insist upon this
office of the Church and ministry, to come in contact at
every point with the general mind, the public interests
and morals of our community. The social .aspect of
Christianity, its answer to the mental and moral wants
of a community of men, is one which least of all can
suffer neglect or mistake at the present time. Religion
should deal freely with those questions which affect men
in their welfare, their occupations, and their homes. It
should inspire in them earnest thought, sobriety, and
self-respect. It should abate the hruel and unhappy
prejudices which too often separate class from class.
It should show the real meaning of those social laws
which govern the distribution of property and employ
ment; explain the true economies of life, in reference
to education, health, external comfort and subsistence,
amusements and general intercourse ; and, above all,
make clear those moral laws of life, whether for na
tions or for men, which so bless by their keeping and
chastise for their neglect. In some such way as this, I
would fain think, the Christian Ministry, which first
addressed itself so loudly and emphatically to the
popular mind, might work towards the fulfillment of its
comprehensive scheme. Such is, in part, the method
and the purpose I have kept in view, in steadily enlarg
ing and following up, as far as I was able, the range of
discussion for which the order of our service finds a
place. »

15
I need not speak here of other points, which I have
loved to think of; and gradually to engraft upon the
plan I ha/e so far followed. I have already occupied
more time than I designed in this retrospect. 1 have
endeavored to set before you, in its most general fea
tures, that Idea of the Christian Ministry, which in part
I brought with me, and in part matured here ; that to
which all I have designed or done has been shaped ;
that which it would have been my gladness and pride to
carry fully out as my life-work, among surroundings so
pleasant and friends so hearty and intelligent, as I have
found here. But I accept without remonstrance the
decision, that it must be left incomplete, — perhaps bet
ter so, since it is but a delusive dream we can ever
have of finishing any work in this life ; and since the
purpose, clearly seen yet unfulfilled, may stimulate oth
ers to labor to the same end more worthily.
I do not conceal from myself, that it is a serious and
anxious thing, thus to break off suddenly in the midst,
with partly the sense of failure' and disappointment ; to
drift away from the moorings where one has dwelt long
enough to win dear and sacred associations of sympa
thy and fellowship ; in the midway of life, and surroun
ded by its dearest cares, to slide from the track of hon
orable and wholesome duty, and lose utterly one's
grasp upon the visible ^future. But I have been wonted
to think as well as teach, that our times are not in our
own hand ; and that the outward courses of our life,
to the faithful and obedient, are ordered in a Wisdom,
which if not now, we may learn to see hereafter. I
cannot give you counsel for the future, further than I
have, already and often, in the past. I need not assure
you, that the highest welfare of this Church and people
will be dear to me hereafter, as it has been my nearest
and most constant thought for the waking hours of
nearly seven years. Commending you therefore, earn
estly, to mutual love and harmony, and to the rich mer
cies of Almighty God, I close the account of my imper^
feet ministrations here ; and leave with you, whom I
have learned here to esteem and love so much, my most
grateful, most affectionate Farewell.

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