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 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BV4310 .M28 
 
 Twelve sermons : delivered at Antjoch Co 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 342 817 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://archive.org/details/cu31924029342817 
 
TWELVE SERMONS. 
 
TWELVE 
 
 SERMONS: 
 
 DELIVERED AT ANTIOCH COLLEGE 
 
 B Y 
 
 HORACE MANN 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 TTCICTSrOR .A.T<rr) FIICLDS. 
 
 M DCCC IjXI. 
 
\ LIBRARY 
 
 Entered according- to act of Congress in the year 1B6U, by 
 
 TiCKNOB AND FlELDS, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 cambhidqe: 
 THURSTON" as MILES, 
 
 Stcreotypers and Printers. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The Twelve Sermons constituting this volume, were 
 written and delivered while Mr. Mann was President 
 of Antioch College. The Facultv of the College re- 
 tained the privilege of preaching in their own hands, 
 and either officiated alternately, or agreed upon invit- 
 ing other clergymen, or perchance laymen, from abroad, 
 to take their places. 
 
 The Editor has added to the Sermons the Medita- 
 tions that were found in the manuscripts, and which, 
 though not read, undoubtedly formed the basis of the 
 prayers accompanying the Sermons. 
 
 The careful revising hand of the Author would 
 doubtless have given these Sermons to the world, if be 
 had ever published them, in a more perfect form, and 
 with the addition of much that was spoken extempo- 
 raneously when delivered ; but they will be valuable as 
 they are, it is hoped, to those who loved to listen to his 
 teachings. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. God's Beino, the Foundation of Human Dutt, . . 11 
 
 II. God's Character, the Law op Hcjman Duty, . . 33 
 
 m. God's Law, the Principle of Spiritual Liberty, . 55 
 
 IV. Sin, the Transgression of the Law, .... 85 
 
 ■ V. Testimony Against Etil, a Duty, 109 
 
 VI. The Prodigal Son, 133 
 
 VIL The Prodigal Son, 153 
 
 Vni Temptation, 167 
 
 IX. Retribution, 195 
 
 X. The Kingdom of Heaven, 217 
 
 XI. Immortality, 245 
 
 XH. Miracles, 273 
 
GOD'S BEING THE FOUNDATION 
 OF HUMAN DUTY. 
 
SERMONS. 
 
 I. 
 
 GOD'S BEING THE FOUNDATION OF HUMAN DUTY. 
 
 In Ithe new and almost parental relation in which I 
 stand to young men and young women, I propose to 
 deKver a series of Discourses on various subjects per- 
 taining to Human Duty, and particularly designed to 
 show that the reaUzation of Happiness can alone come 
 from the performance of Duty. 
 
 These Discourses will not be theological, though they 
 will have sometliing to say respecting the existence, 
 character, and attributes of God, and much to say re- 
 specting his laws and government on earth. They will 
 not be strictly scientific ; though they will welcome and 
 solicit the aid of all those departments of systematized 
 knowledge which we dignify with the name of science ; 
 — all our natural and moral sciences being but expres- 
 sions of God's win as manifested in nature and man. 
 Least of all will they be devoted to mere questions of 
 political economy, or profit and loss, in a mercantile or 
 worldly sense ; though even here, they wiU avail them- 
 selves of every opportunity to demonstrate that, as 
 " godhness is great gain," so there can be no great 
 gain, or gain of any kind, in despite or in defiance of 
 
 godliness. 
 
 ^ [11] 
 
12 god's being the 
 
 Not being an ordained minister of the Gospel, I may 
 conform to the almost universal custom of such persons, 
 in not speaking from a text ; and yet I may be allowed 
 to cite the text which an ordained minister would preach 
 upon. 
 
 in regard to Duty, I believe not only in the Ten 
 Commandments, but in ten thousand. God lives and 
 rules by law ; and, therefore, wherever He lives, and 
 wherever He rules, there is law, and a law of God is a 
 coimnand. All the kingdoms of nature around us — 
 the inorganic which exists, and the organic which hves, 
 and the sentient which feels — are pervaded by God's 
 laws. We also, in all our powers, faculties, and sus- 
 ceptibilities, are the subjects of God's laws. Our hmbs 
 and our body, our stomach and our brain, not less than 
 our heart, each is the subject of God's laws. That is, 
 there is a right way, and there are "wrong ways for them 
 all ; and God commands the right way. There is, 
 therefore, not only a Decalogue, but a Mirialogue. 
 
 Of course, among all these commands, there must be 
 the first ten. But having learned these, we ought to 
 go on and learn the rest as fast as we can ; and, as "we 
 leam, we ought to obey ; otherwise, the learning is but 
 the unprofitable hoard of the miser. 
 
 But if I discourse on Duty, I must have a foundation 
 for my discourse. I must have proof of the solidity and 
 validity of that foundation. No man should affirm any- 
 thing, or deny anything, without proof, that is, without 
 reason. With all rational minds, it is in vain for me to 
 build the most magnificent superstructure of argument, 
 and leave the four comers hansing in the air. 
 
 I find the foundation of Duty in the being and altri- 
 butes of God. There are secondary and incidental 
 
FOUNDATION OF HUMAN DUTY. 13 
 
 arguments, but this is the primary and original one. 
 There are collateral argniments ; but this is fundamental. 
 Even on the atheistic hypothesis of no God, it could be 
 shown that Duty is expedient ; but on the theistic hy=- 
 pothesis of a God, it can be demonstrated that the 
 knowledge and the performance of Duty are the highest 
 moral necessities for every human being. 
 
 It may be a very easy matter to adduce such evidence 
 of the existence of God as shall be acceptable and satis- 
 factory to one who believes it already. Such a one is 
 only to be moved down the inclined plane of argument, 
 and goes easily. But I wish to adduce such evidence 
 as shall be imperative and constraining to those minds 
 which do not derive their evidence from their behef, 
 but their belief from their evidence. Such minds are 
 to be moved up the inclined plane of argument, and so 
 both friction and weight are to be overcome. 
 
 First, then, I would reverently attempt to prove the 
 existence of a God, by the same kind of evidence as 
 proves the existence of the external and material world. 
 Do vou believe in the existence of rivers and forests, of 
 mountains and oceans, of sun, moon, and a firmament 
 of stars ? Do you believe in the existence of men, and 
 of the various zoological races, whether they walk or 
 fly, or creep or swim ? Do you believe in the existence 
 of anything outside of yourself, or in anything that is 
 not yourself? 
 
 People who do not believe in the existence of any- 
 tliing outside of themselves, or in the existence of any- 
 thing which is not themselves, are commonly considered 
 the subjects of medical treatment, before they become 
 the subjects of syllogistic or argumentative treatment. 
 And this medical treatment, in well-ordered states, is 
 
14 god's being the 
 
 administered inside a lunatic or insane asylum. When, 
 therefore, we see a man outside of an asylum for the 
 insane, we are entitled to presume that lie does believe 
 in the existence of a material world. As to those who 
 are inside of the insane hospital, let them first go tlttough 
 with a course of medicine, and afterwards, if necessary, 
 with a course of logic. 
 
 But on what evidence do we believe in the existence 
 of a material universe outside of ourselves ? I answer, 
 on the evidence of the senses, and of reason. 
 
 On the evidence of the senses. There is an ancient 
 proverb, that " seeing is believing." By our eyes, we 
 see that things exist around us. And we see the great- 
 est differences between these things, in color, shape, 
 size, &c. If all of them, taken together, are not some- 
 thing, then they are nothing ; and it seems to me that 
 Nothing would look more alike, — that is, if it could 
 look at all. The external world gives out its myriad 
 varieties, of sounds to our ear, of odors to our smell, of 
 tastes to our palate, and of tactual sensations. The 
 mountain top does not appear like the mountain cave ; 
 the shriek of a drowning man does not sound hke an 
 infant's laugh ; water new-born from a pure fountain 
 does not taste nor smell hke the drunkard's foul beve- 
 rage ; and the thorn-tree does not feel like the pigeon's 
 plumy breast. If Nothing could be seen or heard, or 
 smelt, or tasted, or felt, Avould it not be more alike ' 
 When Nothing can blast the eye-balls in the lightning's 
 flash, or solace the diseased vision in the verdure of 
 spring ; when Nothing can stun in the whirlwind's roar, 
 or whisper a welcome to its sweets as its comes o'erladen 
 from spicy groves ; ^\\\e\\ Nothing can congeal us with 
 arctic cold-i, or dissolve us with tropic heats ; when 
 
FOUNDATION OF HDMAN DUTY. 15 
 
 Nothing can tear us in pieces by the tiger's fangs, or bind 
 lip our wounds with iEsculapian skill ; when Nothing 
 can consume our bodies and scatter the ashes to the 
 winds, or, with Egyptian unguents can preserve these 
 same bodies for thousands of years ; — when Nothing 
 can do all these things, and ten times ten million more 
 like them, and repeat them forever, then it will be time 
 to alter its name, and call it Something. Now, that is 
 the Something, which is not you, but is outside of 
 you, whose existence I am demonstrating. But, if you 
 say that the thing which you call Nothing has the 
 power to put on all this myriad of forms and to do all 
 this myriad of things, then you mean by Nothing, what 
 I mean by Something, and we Avill not dispute about 
 words. 
 
 Now I think it can be shown that there is as high a 
 kind of evidence to our spirits of what we call the Spir- 
 itual World, as there is to our bodily senses of what we 
 call the Material World. 
 
 I think it can be as convincingly proved that Ark- 
 wright and Fulton had mechanical talent ; that Lord 
 Chatham and Dr. Franklin had statesmanshij) ; that 
 Shakspeare and Milton had poetic genius ; and that 
 Howard and" Oberlin had philanthropy ; as that they 
 liad bodies, lived in houses, breathed air, and ate food. 
 My mind or spirit has proof of the existence of mind 
 or spirit in others, — proof of affection, talent, genius, 
 virtue, devotion, just as my bodily senses have of the 
 existence of what we call the material universe, — seas, 
 plains, fish, beast, bird, man, stars, galaxies. The spirit 
 has powers of perception for spiritual qualities outside 
 of itself, just as the body has organs for the perception 
 of material properties outside of itself. What is this, 
 
16 god's being the 
 
 which we call love or hate, which we call philanthropy 
 or misanthropy, which M'e call fidelity or perfidy, which 
 we call saintliness or sin, devotion or impiety ; — are all 
 these the attributes and qualities of Nothing also ? The 
 Levite and the Samaritan, Napoleon and Washington, 
 Judas and Jesus, were they all the same, too ; or rather, 
 were they all Nothing ? I say, as I said before, that I 
 think we should find Nothing less variously diversified ; 
 or, if you say that Nothing does put on this multiplicity 
 and diversity of forms, then you affirm that it is no 
 longer Nothing, but Something. Rational beings, then, 
 who believe in the existence of what we call Matter, 
 cannot escape fi-om a belief in what we call Mind. 
 
 But perhaps an objector will say, that a proof of the 
 existence of mind does not prove the existence of a 
 Supreme Mind, — of a creative, intelligent, sovereign, 
 first cause. But here, too, it seems to me that the evi- 
 dence is overwhelming. It is the same in nature, or in 
 kind, as the evidence before referred to, — the evidence 
 of the existence of matter, and of the existence of mind, 
 — the same in kind, though infinitely greater in amoimt 
 and in demonstrativeness. 
 
 Whether unaided human reason would ever have 
 conceived or originated the idea of^ a God, has been 
 questioned, and is perhaps questionable. But this I 
 deem to be a fact not questionable ; that there is a sen- 
 timent in man, something instinctive, though infinitely 
 higher and wider in its functions than mere animal in- 
 stinct, which does suggest, intimate, nay, which would 
 originate the conception of a Supreme Being. And if 
 any pestilence of atheism could suppress or abolish all 
 expression and belief of the existence of a God in a 
 whole generation, the next generation would originate 
 
rOUXDATIOX OF HUMAN DUTY. 17 
 
 the same idea for itself. Extinguish it in the parent, 
 and it would blaze up anew in his children. Just as 
 perfect arms and perfect feet will come to cliildren, 
 though bom through a father whose own limbs have all 
 been amputated, so an inborn sentiment and apprehen- 
 sion of a God will come to a child whose father has 
 striven to smother and stifle that sentiment in himself. 
 All nations and tribes which have ever been discovered, 
 and into whose condition any adequate scrutiny has 
 been made, have been found to possess the idea of a 
 Supreme Being. The pohshed Athenians erect a tem- 
 ple to the Unknown God. The Persians worship the 
 sun. The degraded African has his Fetich. And 
 thus, I say, we have inward faculties of veneration and 
 wonder, which of their own mere action suggest the 
 existence, evolve the idea of a great Spiritual Being 
 above us, just as we have outward senses that excite the 
 idea of material objects around us. To any one who 
 could perfectly comprehend our structure, a knowledge 
 of the eye, even before birth, would coramunicate the 
 fact of the existence of light ; a knowledge of the struc- 
 ture of the ear would show that it was made for sound ; 
 and an inspection of lungs and blood would prove the 
 existence of the air. Just so the religious sentiments 
 of veneration and wonder, which are natural to us and 
 born in us, suggest or originate the conception of a God. 
 Now we may call this Being by any one of a thousand 
 names, — with the Hebrews, Eloi ; with the Greeks, 
 Theos ; with the Romans, Deus ; with the French, 
 DieM ; with the Germans, Grott ; or with the English, 
 (xod; or we may call Him the Unknown or the Un- 
 named God ; or we may call Him by the sublime appel- 
 lation " I am." That is another matter. We are now 
 
18 god's being the 
 
 speaking of tlie sentiment in the human mind, and not 
 of its name in a human language. 
 
 After these strong religious sentiments of veneration 
 and wonder have excited the idea of a God, just as 
 thirst or hunger excite the idea of water and food, then 
 the reason or understanding takes up that idea, and 
 gives it shape and qualities. And here two things are 
 certain ; that, in forming its idea of God, the mind can 
 attribute to Him no quahty or attribute of which it has 
 itself no conception, and that it will attribute to God 
 such quaHties and attributes as most abound in itself. 
 You may hear a thousand men expatiate upon the char- 
 acter of God, and no two of them will apportion His 
 perfections alike. The austere man always attributes 
 to Him more of a stern justice ; the benevolent man 
 more mercy ; the lover of grandeur and sublimity regales 
 himself and exults in God's wonder-working Omnipo- 
 tence ; while the self-esteeming man thinks God loves 
 him and his friends better than the whole world besides. 
 How can it be otherwise ? How can man build up the 
 idea of God in his own mind out of conceptions or 
 thoughts which he never had in that mind ? If he has 
 no science, no idea of the laws of nature and of mind, 
 how can he conceive of a God, who works eternally by 
 law ; or if he be supremely selfish, how can he conceive 
 of a God of love ? 
 
 After our rehgious instincts, then, have given us the 
 conception of a God, or after we have been taught by 
 our parents or otherwise, to form this conception in con- 
 formity with our religious instincts, then our own appe- 
 tites and passions, hopes and fears, reason or unreason, 
 humihty or pride, go to work to think out a God for 
 themselves, or to find one in the Bible, or in the Koran, 
 
FOUNDATION OF HUMAN DUTY. 19 
 
 or in the events of Providence ; and they put into tiieir 
 conception or picture of God, more or less of this quality 
 or that, just as they have more or less of this quality or 
 that in their own minds. The contrary would be to 
 say that a man could in his theology attribute ideas and 
 ■qualities to God of which he himself had no conception ; 
 that a painter can put colors into a picture, when he 
 neither has any such colors on his pallet, or any idea of 
 them in his mind. 
 
 Here, then, we arrive at two great conclusions ; first, 
 that the natural powers of man do suggest the idea or v' 
 conception of God, so that we find the most savage and 
 barbarous nations in possession of the belief; and second, 
 that human passions and reason modify this belief. All 
 men, then, are alike in having the conception of a 
 Deity ; but they are amazingly unlike in the Deity 
 they conceive of. I suppose there are no two men in 
 the world, nor ever were, whose conceptions of the 
 Deity were precisely alike. One man is a cannibal, 
 another is a Christian ; one man has vast knowledge of 
 the works of God, another has ignorance vaster still ; 
 one man has fervid religious sentiments, another is cold 
 and phlegmatic. Now, if such different men should 
 agree to repeat the same stereotyped phrases respecting 
 the Deity, and should repeat them ten thousand times, 
 the ideas and emotions attached to them and excited by 
 them in their minds, would be as different as the men. 
 The iron or the chalk, the ivory or the fungus, will 
 show in the fabric that is made from them. Are there 
 any two persons in all the British realms who have pre- 
 cisely the same idea of Queen Victoria ? nay, could they 
 all see her, what different views they would cany away ! 
 
 Not only so, but each man's own ideas of God un-^. 
 
20 god's being the 
 
 dergo the greatest changes, nay, revolutions. Jolm's 
 idea is not only different from Peter's, but Jolm's idea, 
 when a man, is vastly different from John's idea when a 
 child. How different is the geologist's idea of a God, 
 when he sees in the great strata of the earth an illu- 
 minated volume, aU pictorial with proofs of power, wis- 
 dom and goodness, — how different, I say, is his idea of 
 God, from that of a President of a certain Southern 
 College, who professes to believe that the bones of the 
 mastodon, shells, sharks' teeth, trilobites, and other fossil 
 remains of preadamitic ages, were scattered about by 
 God at the time of the creation, only as a puzzle for 
 the human race, and to see how much nonsense men 
 would believe for His glory ! How different the idea 
 of God which an astronomer has, who comprehends the 
 subhme laws of the solar and the stellar system, and 
 who can foretell every eclipse that will happen for ten 
 thousand years to come, and when the comets will re- 
 turn from their unutterable distances — how different 
 is his idea of God from that of the barbarian — who 
 believes the heavens to be only a few miles above our 
 heads, and that the stars are nothing but spangles made 
 for show. Indeed, all sects and theologies are founded 
 on the differences of idea which men entertain of a 
 God. 
 
 And there is another consideration far grander and 
 more important than this. Variant, conflicting, irrec- 
 oncilable as are men's ideas, when compared A^'ith one 
 another, respecting the character and attributes of God ; 
 yet the very extremes of them do not differ from each 
 other one ten thousandth part so much as they must 
 all differ from the truth, — from a true, adequate and 
 absolutely correct conception of ^vhat God is. Can 
 
FOUNDATION OF HUMAN DUTY. l!l 
 
 your finite mind comprehend and embrace tlie infinite 
 God? If not, then what is that ahnost infinite part of 
 Him which hes outside of your comprehension ? So 
 impossible is it for finite natures to understand the 
 whole of God's infinite nature, that we may say with 
 reverence, that even He, the Infinite himself, cannot 
 make us wholly understand it. How can His infinite 
 knowledge of Himself be transferred to our finite facul- 
 ties '? As well might His infinite power be incorporated 
 in our mortal arm, or His all-seeing wisdom be matched 
 by our dim faculties, or He make us infinite like Him- 
 self. He can hold the ocean in the hollow of His hand ; 
 but with us, in our present state of development at 
 least, to do this is a natural impossibility. Now that 
 part of God's nature which we do not understand, may 
 be vastly different from the part of which we think we 
 have some just conception : not contradictory to it, but 
 different phases of it, as the colors of the rainbow differ 
 from one another. God loves variety ; and He may 
 have constituted other worlds different from ours. How 
 different the forms of fife He has created upon earth ! 
 How different the fish from the bird, and both from the 
 quadruped, and- all fi'om man ! The aerolites that fall 
 upon the earth have elementary combinations differing 
 from any found on the earth. The moon is supposed 
 by philosophers to be without an atmosp)here. If so, 
 no breathing thing can live there, and lungs would be a 
 supernumerary organ. But does it follow that the 
 moon is a great waste or desert, in which is no life, no 
 happiness ; but everywhere silent, melancholy desola- 
 tion ? It may have inhabitants differently constituted 
 from us, physically ; and why not differently constituted 
 from us morally ? — that is, inhabitants to whom God 
 2 
 
..Q 
 
 GOD S BEING THE 
 
 makes known some other £i;lorious part of His infinite 
 nature ? The stars that fiR the firmament are of such 
 different colors, that if they could be thrown together 
 in a mass, as we throw glass beads into a cup, they 
 would be as variegated with colors of red, blue, yellow, 
 &c., as a cup full of parti-colored beads. What right 
 have we to say that the inhabitants of these starry 
 realms are not as differently constituted from each 
 other, as are the shining robes of light that adom them? 
 What right have we to say that God has not revealed 
 to them other attributes of His infinite nature, and 
 manifested Himself to them in other forms, which shall 
 appeal to their natures, as His goodness, power and 
 wisdom appeal to ours ? 
 
 The hght of our sun pours out on all sides. A beam 
 of that light strikes the earth, another beam strikes 
 the planet Venus, another Mars, and so on : but what 
 a vast proportion of that light passes through the inter- 
 planetary sjiaces, and seems to go off into immensity 
 and be lost ! But if we really believe in an immensity, 
 and believe that immensity to be Hill of God's worlds, 
 then not a particle of light is lost. Some of that which 
 passes through the inter-planetary spaces strikes the 
 stars, and is seen by them, and that which passes 
 through the inter-stellar spaces, strikes the constella- 
 tions and systems beyond, until somewhere in the vast 
 concave around us every particle of light that radiates 
 from our sun shall, in the immensity of God's universe, 
 help illuminate a world, and none of it go off into un- 
 inhabited space to be lost. Why may it not be so — 
 nay, have we not reason to beheve it is so — in regard 
 to the infinity of God's spiritual attributes, as well as to 
 His natural light, and that in different worlds there are 
 
FOUXDATION or HUMAN DUTY. 23 
 
 different beings, and that He apportioiLS some part of 
 His infinite perfections to each, so that it requires tlie 
 knowledge of all of them to know sometliina: of all of 
 Him, and that it will be a part of the work of the end- 
 less ages of eternity to read the lesson in this volume of 
 God, which, for want of a better name, I must call an 
 Infinity of Infinities. 
 
 We, therefore, on this narrow earth of ours, can no 
 more tell what new powers and wonders, Avhat other 
 exquisite senses, and what other enrapturing objects of 
 sense, what other glorious faculties, and what other 
 magnificent theatres for the exercise of those faculties, 
 God may have created in other parts of His boundless 
 universe, than the aborigines who once inhabited this 
 beautiful neighborhood could tell, from its climate, its 
 vegetable growths, and its animals, what other climate, 
 what other vegetation and animal life would' be found 
 in the toirid or arctic zones, or among their antip- 
 odes. And it would have been an incomparably less 
 folly in them to pretend to know all about the richness 
 and variety of God's works throughout the four quar- 
 ters of our globe, from what they saw in this vicinity of 
 ten miles square, than for us to pretend to know through 
 what perfections God manifests Himself in stars and 
 constellations outside of Sirius and Orion and the 
 Pleiades, because we know something of His provi- 
 dence in this sublunary world. 
 
 Did I not say then truly, that, much as theologians 
 or sectarists may differ- from each other in their belief 
 of the attributes of God, — the Trinitai'ian from tlie 
 Unitarian, the Partialist from the Universalist, the Ne- 
 cessitarian fi'om the believer in Free Agency, the 
 Catholic from the Protestant, — their distance from 
 
24 god's being the 
 
 each other is almost infinitely less than the distance of 
 all of them from the trath. Oh, would to Heaven that 
 those who condemn and doom their fellow men because 
 of certain metaphysical differences of belief respecting 
 God's character and attributes, would for one moment 
 reflect what would be their own fate if God should 
 condemn and doom them because of the difference be- 
 tween their best conceptions of Him, and His consci- 
 ousness of Himself. How would they stand appalled 
 and overwhelmed if the rude picture of God in their 
 minds were exhibited by the side of the Divine Origi- 
 nal, and they were held punishable because the mortal 
 limner had not correctly imitated the Inunortal Proto- 
 type ! 
 
 Now, this view of our subject leads to several con- 
 clusions. 
 
 First, it shows us that the learned man and the .illite- 
 rate man, the scientific man and the ignorant man, not 
 only do not, but they cannot, while remaining as they 
 are, have the same conception of God, any more than 
 they can have the same idea of Paradise Lost, or the 
 liad ; any more than they can have the same idea of the 
 Principia of Newton, or the Mecanique Celeste of La 
 Place. The philosopher cannot expunge from his mind 
 his knowledge of the works of God, and receive back 
 into it the crude conceptions, or caricatiu-es, which 
 infested it when he was a child. Nor is this difference 
 confined to intellectual conceptions of the Creator. 
 The same is true of all our moral perceptions of the 
 character of God. How can a man, who, during his 
 previous life, has been accustomed to the bratality and 
 abomination of Cannibalism, or to the gross and foul 
 rites of Fetichisni, ever have those immaculate concep- 
 
rOUXDATION OF HUMAN DUTY. 25 
 
 tions of God's nature which the prophet Habakkuk felt 
 when he described liim to be of " purer eyes than to 
 look on iniquity " ? How can a child or young man 
 who has wallowed along, for twenty years, through the 
 filth and loathsomeness of Wapping or St. Giles ; or 
 who has swam for twenty years, as a fish swims in 
 water, amid the squalor and beastliness of the wynds of 
 Edinbm-gh, or the Five Points of New York, cleanse his 
 mind from the fetor it has contracted, and come out 
 fresh and fragrant as a June morning, full of the per- 
 fume of flowers and the sonas of birds ? Though lais 
 general conceptions of God's character may be changed, 
 though a new set of resolves and desires may supplant 
 the old ones, yet, as the pot Avill smell of the ointment 
 it has held, so will the odors of sanctity and even the 
 incense of praise that come from him, be adulterated by 
 the foul emanations of his previous life. This is the way 
 that Clu'istianity became corrupted with the doctrines 
 of Paganism. The Pagans who became Christians did 
 not leave all their Paganism behind. And this we all 
 know to be the case, when men of low life and man- 
 ners, of vulgar and beastly associations, become Chris- 
 tians now. As the crooked spine sticks to the hunch- 
 back, so the old moral tang inheres in all the savor of 
 their lives. 
 
 But secondly, if men, in this state of existence, with 
 their unequal faculties, unequal attainments, and une- 
 qual opportunities, are not alike, and never can be alike 
 in their intellectual or metaphysical conceptions of the 
 Deity, how can they be alike in Avorshipping the same 
 hving and true God ? I answer, that with the greatest 
 diversity of thought, they can be alike in their affec- 
 tions. Love must be the same in all ^\orlds. The love 
 2* 
 
26 god's being the 
 
 that trembles and flickers in the bosom of the lowliest 
 worshipper upon earth, is precisely the same, in nature 
 and in substance, with that which blazes forth from the 
 loftiest and most adoring seraph, and makes the wide 
 heavens resound with its celestial anthems. There are 
 some things which must be the same wherever they 
 exist. They are incapable of alteration ; for, if altered, 
 their very nature is abolished and lost. Arithmetic and 
 mathematics must be the same in all worlds. Nowhere 
 can two and two be more than four, or less than four. 
 Everywhere the three angles of a plane triangle are 
 equal to two right angles. So love must be the same 
 in saint or seraph ; just as hate is the same in murderer 
 or fiend. The altar may be mean or magnificent ; the 
 censer, where we bum our incense, may be large or 
 small, of gold or of clay, but the flame of devotion that 
 ascends from it is the same in all. Alike it aspires to 
 heaven. We cail be alike in sj)irit? however great or 
 small we may be in thought ; " for, thus saith the high 
 and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is 
 Holy ; I dwell in the high and holy place ; with him 
 also that is of a contrite and humble spirit ; " but no- 
 where is it said that God dwelleth.with the preat Intel- 
 
 O 
 
 lect ; or with the intellect that can form the grandest 
 conceptions of Him. 
 
 Here, then, is a point of conformity, of uniformity, of 
 identity even, among men in other respects antagonistic 
 and antipodal. No two men can picture out God in 
 thoughts that shall exactly match each other, as a cubic 
 foot of space is like another cubic foot of space, or as a 
 right angle is like another right angle ; but all can love 
 the God whom they conceive. They may and must 
 have somewhat difl'ercnt ideas of His perfections ; but 
 
FOUNDATION OF HUMAN BUTY. 27 
 
 alike tliey can adore the perfections they know. They 
 have various hypotheses about His modes of govern- 
 ment ; but ahke they can have the resolve of obedience 
 to His laws. They may have different beliefs in arti- 
 cles respecting His purposes and plans, but all can have 
 that trust in His wisdom, and that confidence in His jus- 
 tice and goodness, which will enable them to say, " Not 
 my will, O Father, but thine be done." 
 
 The only unity, then, which there can be among the 
 worshippers of God, is a unity of spirit. Even in the 
 world of the blessed, while the archangel has a less in- 
 adequate conception of the Supreme, while he can com- 
 prehend a larger segment of the great circle of all 
 perfection than you or I, his idea of the Being whom 
 he worships must be different from ours ; but let us 
 thank God that our humble tribute of devotion, though 
 poured from the nut-shell capacity of our hearts, will be 
 as acceptable to Him as though its copious floods came 
 from the hollow of the ocean, or the concave of the sky. 
 The bond of love engirdles the universe ; it is the one- 
 ness of Creator and created ; so that, as Christ said to 
 his disciples, " ye shall know that I am in my Father, 
 and ye in me, and I in you." 
 
28 MEDITATION. 
 
 MEDITATION. 
 
 Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy 
 name. We acknowledge Thy infinite perfections in 
 the hope of elevating our own characters by a con- 
 templation of Tliine. We acknowledge Thy power 
 which in the past eternity did create the earth and the 
 heavens, and in the fulness of time did prepare this 
 world to become a fitting place for the habitations of 
 men. We acknowled<j;e Thy omniscience which doth 
 see through all the immensity of Thy works, and dost 
 so order the events of Thy providence, that all" which 
 follows is in grand and glorious harmony with all that 
 preceded. We acknowledge Thy justice which will 
 never do us wrong ; and oil, most devoutly would we 
 acknowledge Thy love, which sees all our inward wants 
 and makes provision for them. Oh, Heavenly Father, 
 may we enlarge our knowledge, may we expand our 
 minds, may we stretch out our conceptions, so as to 
 form a less narrow, a less limited, a less imperfect con- 
 ception of Thee, and when our faculties have exerted 
 all their powers to comprehend Thy works and Thy 
 glorious nature, may we say with Job ; " Lo, these are 
 parts of His ways, but how little a portion is heard of 
 Him." 
 
 We thank Thee that when the world was sunk in 
 iniquity and corruption, when tyrants governed nations, 
 and selfish passions governed men ; when pride and 
 
MEDITATION. 29 
 
 vanity and appetite reigned tlirougli social life ; when 
 the strong oppressed the weak, and the cunning over- 
 reached the simple ; and the worship of Thee had de- 
 generated into idolatry in some nations, and into proud 
 Phariseeism in others, — that Thou didst send Thy Son 
 Jesus Christ to be an example to the world, of perfect 
 purity and goodness ; to show men what they must do 
 to secure salvation from evil. May we study his char- 
 acter profoundly, and imitate the beauty of his life. 
 Was he obedient to his parents ? so may children now 
 be ! As he never defrauded his neighbors, may we 
 practise honesty in all our dealings ! As he never 
 owned a bondman, may we see how opposite to his 
 life and example is the ownership of bondsmen ! As 
 he went about doing good, may we also go about, giving 
 bread to the hungry, knowledge to the ignorant, and 
 showing the way of salvation to those who sit in the 
 region of the shadow of death ; and may we, like him, 
 though nailed to a cross of public odium and calumny, 
 never feel one revengeful impulse towards our enemies, 
 but be ready, as he was ready, to carry the malefactors 
 upon the cross in his arms to Paradise. And may we 
 aspire to that sublime and godlike sentiment which 
 prompted liim, in the midst of his agonies, to say, 
 " Father, forgive them, they know not what they 
 do!" 
 
 Heavenly Father, may we ask of Thee aright ; may 
 we not ask Thee to give what Thou hast enabled us to 
 obtain — and made it our duty to obtain — for our- 
 selves. May we not ask Thee for harvests, while we 
 will not sow ; may we not ask Thee for learning, while 
 we will not study ; may we not ask Tliee for wisdom, 
 while we disdain to meditate upon Thy laws ; may we 
 
30 MEDITATION. 
 
 not ask Tliee for strength and health, while we are in- 
 dulgent to oiir appetites ; may we not ask Thee for 
 happiness, while we refuse to love ; may we not ask 
 Thee for heaven, while we neglect to learn and obey 
 Thy laws here. 
 
GOD'S CHARACTER THE LAW OF HUMAN 
 DUTY. 
 
II 
 
 GOD'S CHARACTER THE LAW OF HUMAN DUTY. 
 
 I INTRODUCED my last discourse, by telling you, my 
 young friends, that I meant to address you, from time 
 to time, on subjects pertaining to Human Duty. First, 
 however, I desired to establish a foundation for Human 
 duty ; else when I had reared the most comely and 
 imposing superstructure in my power, its four corners 
 should be left hanging in the air. I took the position 
 that the foundation of human duty is to be found in 
 the being and attributes of God : and that as we have 
 a group of bodily senses, — sight, hearing, taste, smell, 
 and touch, — by which we recognize material objects ; 
 so we have a group of mental faculties, which develop 
 within us the conception of a God. And as no nation 
 or tribe, however barbarous, was ever found, who did 
 not believe in the existence of the earth, and of sun, 
 moon and stars, so no nation or tribe was ever known 
 to exist who did not believe in the existence of a God. 
 
 This led me to consider how, or in what manner, 
 after having first obtained the idea of a God, different 
 minds fashion that idea into such an infinite variety of 
 forms, and accumulate upon it, one after another, the 
 attributes which they suppose it to possess. How al- 
 most infinitely different is the Hottentot's or the Esqui- 
 maux's God from the God of Dr. Chalmers or of Dr. 
 Channing ; and if the ideas of God entertained by Dr. 
 3 [s;;] 
 
34 god's character the 
 
 Chalmers and Dr. Channing were brought together, 
 and laid side by side, how different from each other 
 would they also be ! 
 
 How come men to have such conflicting ideas of the 
 Supreme Being, and of His attributes ? It is because 
 they build up their ideas of Him out of ideas previously 
 existing in their own minds. And how else can they 
 do it? How can a man form a conception of any 
 being, or of any thing, but out of ideas already pos- 
 sessed? Can the dramatist put sentiments into the 
 mouths of his characters, or an orator put arguments 
 into his speech, of which sentiments and of which ar- 
 giunents neither of them ever before had any possession, 
 or any conception even ? As Solomon could not have 
 built the temple of the Lord out of the cedars of Leba- 
 non, and made doors of the ohve-trees, and overlaid 
 the floors with gold, if he had had no cedars, nor olive- 
 trees, nor gold, to do it "with, so he could form no con- 
 ception of that Lord, btit out of ideas already in his 
 possession. Hence the universal truth that men's con- 
 ceptions of God, and the attributes they ascribe to Him, 
 are gathered and fashioned after their own ideas, senti- 
 ments and characters. Is it said that God made man 
 in His own image ? It is no less true that man makes 
 God in his own image. Hence that ascending scale in 
 the attributes of God, as they are conceived by the 
 lowest savage, by the enhghtened heathen, or by the 
 Christian philosopher. As you begin at one end of 
 this scale, you find the gods of the African or Asiatic 
 tribes, mean and contemptible idols ; or niahgnant 
 divinities, not fit to have the control of apes or baboons. 
 Rising from these, you have the gods of the sensual 
 nations, who have prepared a paradise of immortal 
 
LAW or HUMAX DUTY. 35 
 
 beauty, where tlie passions are to be forever fresli and 
 forever gratified. And at the higher end of the scale 
 you have one only living and true God, — a Being of 
 infinite power, wisdom, love and holiness. The gods 
 of the Greeks were beautiful, because the predominating 
 idea of that people was the idea of beauty. The gods of 
 the Romans were proud and bloody divinities, because 
 the Romans were a proud and bloody nation. It is 
 impossible for the selfish man to have the same ideas of 
 God as the benevolent man ; impossible for the ignorant 
 man to have the same ideas as the learned man ; and 
 as impossible for the grown-up man of educational cul- 
 ture to return to the crude and unworthy conceptions 
 which he had of God when he was a child, as it is for 
 the oak to go back into the acorn, or for the bird to re- 
 trmi to its shell. Had every individual who has ever 
 lived daguerreotyped his ideas of God, to be arranged 
 in a gallery as pictures are arranged, there wordd be 
 millions and millions more of such pictures than of all 
 the human beins-s who have ever lived. And if God 
 does not expect impossibihties, then He never expected, 
 in tliis state of the world, uniform conceptions of His 
 nature and attributes. 
 
 And furthermore, no mortal man ever had or can 
 have an adequate idea of the one living and true God. 
 It would be as easy to put your arms around immensity 
 and clasp your hands on tlie opposite side, as to com- 
 prehend adequately, with any faculties which we 
 possess, the infinite attributes of the Omnipotent, Omni- 
 scient, All-holy and Everlasting God. After enume- 
 rating all parts of His nature which we do know, we 
 must have algebraic signs to indicate those still greater 
 parts of Him which we do not know. Nay, is it not 
 
36 god's CHAKACTEIl THE 
 
 impious for feeble and ignorant man, who cannot take 
 larva or chrysalis, and by dissection foretell the properties 
 of the insect it shall produce, to speak with flippancy 
 and arrogance, as we often hear, of the most secret 
 counsels and the most remote purposes of the Eternal 
 Jehovah ? 
 
 Is it said we have a revelation in the Scriptures, and 
 therefore we may affirm what He is ? I answer that 
 there are many points which the Scriptures do settle, 
 and concerning which there is no dispute ; but there are 
 also many concerning which, in our present state of 
 knowledge, the wisest and the most pious of men are at 
 variance ; and this should teach us diffidence and 
 modesty, and not presumption or dogmatism. 
 
 After all, however, what a wonder of wonders it is, 
 that amidst the almost infinite diversities of conception 
 in the human mind, respecting the Deity, there is one 
 point of absolute uniformity among all his true worship- 
 pers ! In ideas they conflict, but in love they all har- 
 monize. Love is the same in all worlds, and in all 
 natures. If a hundred stringed instruments, all in 
 chord, are placed in a single apartment, and any one 
 of them be touched by a master's hand, the strings of 
 all the others will vibrate in miison with it, and will 
 give out strains of accordant music. So all the hearts 
 that love God are in sweet accord, and when one of 
 them is touched, it thrills hallelujahs through all the 
 moral universe. The music of the planetary spheres is 
 at least a beautiful imagination, but the music of the 
 spheres of love is no fiction. 
 
 At this point let me pause for a moment, to make a 
 single reflection. If men necessarily build up their 
 ideas or conceptions of God and of His attributes from 
 
LAW OF HUMAN DUTY. 37 
 
 their own previous ideas, from the resources of knowl- 
 edge and of affection which they previously had in 
 their own minds, then every step in education, the 
 inculcation of every new idea, the acquisition of every 
 new scientific principle, the development and training s 
 of each intellectual and moral faculty, furnishes precious 
 materials out of which a more adequate and glorious 
 idea of God can be formed. As out of richer paints 
 and purer marble, the artist can make a better picture 
 or statue, so, out of grander and nobler thoughts and 
 out of diviner affections, can we form sublimer and 
 more God-like conceptions of our Father in Heaven. 
 Cannot the geologist, who looks backwards into the 
 myriads of ages that were spent in bringing the world 
 into a habitable condition for man ; and the astronomer, 
 who knows that the whole solar system is wheehng on 
 around a centre so remote, and ' through an orbit so 
 wonderfully vast, that, during the six thousand years 
 since the creation of Adam, it has moved through only 
 about one degree, or made only one three hundred and 
 sixtieth part of the first revolution ; cannot these, I 
 say, have an idea of the everlastingness and infinitude 
 of God, such as is impossible for the blind mole of a man 
 who moves for a few feet to and fro, in darkness, under- 
 ground, along a groove, which some other blind mole 
 of a man cut for him ? Have not the mathematician 
 and the natural philosopher an idea of the exactness 
 and inevitableness of God's laws, such as a man who 
 was cast on the waves of ignorance at his birth, and 
 has been floating liither and thither on those waves 
 ever since his birth, can never have ? Cannot the 
 profound judge, accustomed all his life to discern be- 
 tween the right and the wrong, form a truer idea of 
 
 3* 
 
38 god's chaeacter the 
 
 Divine justice, and of righteous laws and measures of 
 retribution, than one whose hand never so much as tried 
 to poise the balances of equity? Cannot the benevolent 
 person, — a Howard, an Oberlin, a Wilberforce, a Mrs. 
 Fiy or a Miss Dix, — rise to more vivid and glorious 
 conceptions of God's goodness and love, — to concep- 
 tions more impiilsive to good, than a cannibal who feeds 
 on human flesh, or a kidnaj)per who feeds on human 
 hearts, — better than a man whose brain and muscular 
 system are as non-electric, as great non-conductors of 
 sympathy as a statue carved out of chalk, while his 
 heart is only a nodule in the middle of it ? And 
 cannot the mind that has been trained to logical and 
 coherent thought, that can lay its fomidations of ever- 
 lasting principles, that can build up systems of juris- 
 prudence, of ethics and of government, and radiate 
 over the whole, the celestial sentiments of philanthropy 
 and reverenc?, — cannot such a man dehneate portrait- 
 ures and flash out conceptions more true, more radiant, 
 more honoring to God, than the moral idiot, or the 
 butterflies of fashionable life? I repeat, then, that 
 every lesson of sound science or knowledge, of what> 
 ever kind, which the teacher gives or the student learns ; 
 every energy which the student rouses or the teacher 
 directs, supplies materials and means in our minds for a 
 nobler idea of the God we worship. Knowledge, tlien, 
 enters largely and essentially into the true idea of a 
 Christian, and the highest type of a Christian cannot 
 exist without it. 
 
 Havii-^ now taken a view of God from the human 
 side of the question, I shall endeavor to take a view of 
 him from the Divine side, — fi-om a contemplation of 
 those attributes which the wisest and best men concur 
 in ascribing to Him. 
 
LA^V OF HUMA>f DUTY. 39 
 
 First, let us consider the eternity of tins existence. 
 Was there ever a time, a first period when God did not 
 exist ? If so, then, how came He into being ? He 
 could not create Himself, for that would be to suppose 
 Him in existence as a Maker, before He was in exist- 
 ence as a Being made. If created by another, who was 
 that other ; and could he have made him different from 
 what he is ? And how came that precedent Being into 
 existence ? If created, then again, by Avliom ? and so 
 backwards and backwards forever. No, ojir faculties 
 ■can find no resting-place, save in the conclusion that 
 God was not created, but is Uncreate. And if our 
 finite minds cannot fully embrace and comprehend the 
 idea that God is self-existent and eternal, they are still 
 driven back to this conclusion from every other attempt 
 at solving the difficulties of the question. The mag- 
 nificent language of the Psalmist, that He is '•'■from 
 everlasting to everlasting," affords the only scope for 
 our knowledge, and the only solace for our ignorance. 
 
 Of God's attribute of power, how feeble and pale are 
 our most high-wrought and vivid conceptions. How 
 little we comprehend the significance of the tremendous 
 words. Almighty, All-powerful, Omnipresent, — words 
 that should strike the soul as successive thunder-claps 
 would strike the ear. We catch a feeble glimmer of 
 God's power from the lightning, wliich so sweeps all 
 vitality out of the man whom it strikes, that the process 
 of putrefaction begins in a moment ; in the tornado, 
 whose swiftness turns the fluid and voluble air into 
 wide-reaching, iron-headed solidity, so that it strikes 
 cities and forests hke a battering-ram ; in the ocean 
 storm, that tosses proud navies upon its surface like 
 bubbles ; in the earthquake, which shakes cities as 
 
40 god's character the 
 
 though they were toys in its hand ; in the volcano, the 
 mere reflection of whose terrors seems to fill the sky 
 with demon shapes of fire, and whose fathomless caul- 
 dron up-boils as a fountain of desolation. Yet these 
 occasional manifestations no more represent God's 
 resistless forces working through all the frame of nature, 
 than the leakage of a few drops of water, or a little jet 
 of steam, or a feeble hiss of imprisoned air represents 
 the driving, cleaving, or crushing force of the fiery and 
 ponderous machines of human workmanship. Animal 
 fear sees God's power with the senses, — in noise, in 
 tumult, in flame ; but reason sees it in silence, in order, 
 in its still yet eternal activities. Reflect, for a moment, 
 what this power is constantly doing, in the inanimate, 
 insentient world. Who, from the surface of the earth 
 and of the sea, lifts up those particles of water that form 
 the clouds, that descend in rain, that sustain all vegeta- 
 ble and animal fife, that fill the channels of the rivers 
 and brim the ocean ; who impels the winds in their 
 variable or their periodic courses, and who sends the 
 ceaseless currents of electricity around the globe ? 
 
 But the thought is too vast, and in attempting to 
 grasp too much, we lose all. Let us divide the great 
 theme, and look at it in parts. Take the first warm day 
 in spring ; go out into the cultivated fields ; walk through 
 the solemn woods, or by the streams. What millions 
 of millions of roots are now waking from their wintry 
 slumber ; how in all their veins they tingle with new 
 life, as, through all their myriad pores they suck in the 
 water that hes by their side ! How many seeds beneath 
 your feet are alive ; what gases are in fermentation 
 within them to swell, and burst, and send out the new 
 germ ! The air is populous with insects that perform 
 
LAW OF HUMAN UUTY. 41 
 
 their mystic dances in the sunbeam. The migratory 
 birds rise in such flocks as darken the air, to go north- 
 wards on their heaven-appointed course, and the migra- 
 tory fishes make a wave swell up in the sea as they 
 journey southward, to fulfil the great economy of life. 
 Yesterday, the branch of every tree as it stood out 
 iigainst the sun was naked ; to-day, his light is obscured 
 by its myriad leaflets. Each one of all those insect 
 swarms, of those flocks of birds, of those shoals of fish, 
 has its bones and muscles, its lungs and brain ; and an 
 instinct that guides them to their destination burns in 
 them all, as though each one were a king or a queen, 
 and gloried in his royal blood. What varied, what 
 amazing, what incalculable Ufe ! Who fashioneth these 
 countless forms ? From whose capacious urn are they 
 filled with life and joy ? Who metes out the span of 
 aU their days, and upholds the order of their genera- 
 tions ? 
 
 Take a day in summer ; the winds are astir, the 
 waters flow, the light descends. Can you count the 
 spires of grass in all the fields, or number the flowers in 
 garden, and copse, and dell ? Every stalk of grain is 
 higher and larger at night than in the morning, and 
 with what motions, and selections, and adaptations, its 
 growth has been accomplished. Take a single tree that 
 has been cut down, and count its pores, multiply these 
 by all the trees of all the forests in all the earth, and 
 multiply these again by all the particles of sap that have 
 travelled up and down in them all. Who supphes these 
 countless growths with the peculiar nourishment that 
 each one needs? Who winnows light, air, and the 
 oases, that the sour and the sweet, the nutritious and 
 the medicative, may receive according to their affinities ? 
 
42 god's chakactek the 
 
 Who superintends this vast laboratory, and keeps it 
 from lapsing into chaos ? 
 
 Take a day in autumn, when the infinite grains of 
 corn are ripening ; when orclaard-trees, and forest-trees, 
 and the vines that cling and festoon upon them, are 
 preparing their innumerable fruits and seeds, and when 
 the bulbs beneath the ground are finishing the work of 
 their year and their life. Who is the Sculptor that 
 moulds their forms ? Who is the Limner that paints 
 them with such exquisite tints? Who is the great 
 Chemist that fills them with such delicious and infinitely 
 varied savors and flavors, for the nutrition, the health, 
 and the gratification of man ; — some for tlie young and 
 some for the old ; some for the strong, and some for the 
 invalid ? 
 
 Now somewhere, on tliis globe of ours, and at all 
 times, there is spring; somewhere there is summer; 
 somewhere there is autumn ; and all the varied jDro- 
 cesses of spring, summer, and autumn, are going on 
 together. 
 
 Look at the higher fife of man. It is supposed there 
 are nine hundred millions of human beings on this globe. 
 Who opens and closes their ever-beating hearts ? Who 
 heaves and contracts their restless lungs ? Who, 
 through artery and vein circulates their ever-flowino- 
 blood ? Who kindles in the brain the steady light of 
 truth, or coruscates across its dome the auroral liwht of 
 sentiment and love ? Who spreads the table at which 
 these multitudes are fed ? Who spreads out the beau- 
 tiful drapery of twihght before drawing the curtain of 
 darkness around their bed ; and who, when the morning 
 sun comes rolling westward with its broad wave of 
 light, wakens them to joy and activity again ? 
 
LAW OF HUMAN DUTY. 43 
 
 What I have now referred to is obvious and open to 
 the naked eye. But take a microscope, and what infi- 
 nite wonders are revealed, — vast populations, not 
 merely like di-ops of water, hut in drops of water, — so 
 minute, that were they to assemble in World's Conven- 
 tions, in the London of a drop of water, they would not 
 alter its balance, any more than our World's Conven- 
 tions, in our London, changes the equilibrium of the 
 earth. Who gave them their gladsome hfe, their 
 winged motions, their ecstatic loves ? 
 
 But let us spring from this to the opposite extreme, — 
 from the microscopic to the telescopic, — to the infinite 
 worlds above us and around us, compared with which 
 our earth is but a drop of water or a grain of sand. 
 And all these worlds, too, are they not as full of ele- 
 mental forces, as swift in their velocities, and as resistless 
 in their strength, as is our own ? Are they not, 
 also, full of some form of glorious life ? Who is it that 
 burnishes the heavens every night with those glorious 
 orbs, and upholds them and keeps them from sinking 
 back into chaos ? 
 
 Go out at midnight ; look up into that dread yet glo- 
 rious concave, and ask your soul whose arm it is that 
 upholds those unpillared chambers of the sky : who fills 
 that vast domain with organized, and sentient, and 
 doubtless with rational and spiritual life ; and then re- 
 flect that all the galaxies and constellations which you 
 can behold with the unassisted eye, are only the frontis- 
 piece, not to the mighty volumes of God's works, but 
 only to the index of the mighty volumes ? Beyond 
 Sirius, beyond Orion, beyond the Pleiades, the azure 
 fields of immensity are all filled with worlds, system 
 beyond system, and i-ank behind rank, whom God in 
 
44 god's characteu the 
 
 His mercy lias removed-to those immense distances from 
 us, lest our mortal vision should be blasted by their 
 overwhelming effiilgence. And as you cannot find one 
 inch of our lower earth where God is not at work, so 
 there is not one inch in all those boundless upper realms 
 where God is not at work. 
 
 My children, against such a God, as with feeble words 
 and inadequate thoughts I have attempted to describe, 
 — against such a God, do you wish to lift, or do you 
 dare to hft, your pigmy arm ? His resistless laws that 
 cleave a pathway wherever they are sent, and piinish 
 the transgressor wherever they are transgressed, — these 
 laws do you dare to break ? If you would hesitate to 
 violate a father's command, when he stands over you 
 with a rod ; if you would shrink from resisting the au- 
 thority of a sovereign, who has judges, and officers, and 
 armies, and navies, in his control, then, oh how can you 
 ever dare, how can you ever wish to dare to confront 
 the power and majesty of the Eternal One ; — of that 
 One who can enwrap the heavens with His thunder- 
 clouds, and make you the mark of all their volleyed 
 lightnings ; who can array His volcanoes in battalions, 
 and bury you beneath their molten lavas ; who can sink 
 you in the earth's central fires, to lie, without consum- 
 ing, in that seething cauldron, or imprison you in the 
 eternal solitudes of polar ice ; or — unspeakably more 
 terrible than all this, — can turn your own soul inwards 
 in retrospection upon its past life, to read its own his- 
 tory of voluntary wrong, in its self-recorded Book of 
 Judgment ? Nor can you find refuge in non-existence. 
 You may call upon the seas to drown you, but there is 
 not water enough in all the seas. You may call upon 
 the fires to consume, but the fires will say, we cannot 
 
LAW OF HUMAN DUTY. 45 
 
 consume remorse. You may call upon arctic frosts to 
 congeal the currents of life, but they will say, we have 
 no power over the currents of thought, or the pulses of 
 the immortal life. You may call upon the universe to 
 anniliilate you, but the universe will respond, " God 
 alone can annihilate, and God will say, live forever." 
 
 I do not address you, my young friends, as members 
 of this or that religious denomination, into which the 
 world is so unhappily divided ; I do not appeal to you 
 merely as Christians, acquainted with the blessed life 
 and character of Jesus Christ. You might be Mahome- 
 tans, you might be Pagans, you might be savages, and ; 
 still I would say, do you dare encounter and confront ; 
 the great Ruler of heaven and earth ? Oh, that I could 
 so thunder in your ears, that the sound would never 
 cease to vibrate in your hearts, that word which God 
 has written in letters of flame over every avenue to 
 temptation, — which he .has inscribed on the lintels and 
 door-posts of the gate- ways of sin, which is blazoned on 
 the liither side of every seducement to wrong. 
 
 Beware ! If you tkead there, or look there, 
 or thixk there, you encounter omnipotence. 
 
 God is Omniscient. Must not He who made every- 
 thing, knovi^ how every thing is made ? Must not He 
 who can regulate the beating of an animalcules pulse, 
 who can touch with exquisite life the nerves in the 
 antennse of a microscopic insect ; — must not He know 
 what is going on in your mind and in your heart ? In 
 your widest reaches of thought, how infinitely beyond 
 you He thinks ; in your farthest scope of knowledge, how 
 infinitely beyond you He knows. On all sides. He is 
 outside of you. Is there any deepest cavern, or black- 
 est midnight, where you go to contrive alone, or to 
 4 
 
4G god's character the 
 
 conspire with others, where He is not present ? Think, 
 then, of this, my young friends, that God not only 
 knows of your most secret desires and purposes, but 
 knows the mental and moral habits and forces out of 
 which they come. What is there, then, that you 
 would refrain from doing before the friend you love, or 
 the master you fear, that you woitld dare to do before 
 the God who knows it all ? 
 
 Among God's other attributes is that of justice. The 
 most just men upon earth, — those in every nation who 
 are worthy to be called its Aristides, may do wrong. 
 Limited knowledge may vitiate the best of purposes, 
 and finite beings may make mistakes that Avill condemn 
 the innocent or save the guilty. But an Omniscient 
 Being is safe from all errors ; and therefore, of one 
 thing we may be certain, that in His dealings with. us, 
 and in His administration of the universe. He will never 
 do wrong. 
 
 Of tlie fact of God's attribute of Justice, no truly 
 religious man doubts ; but in regard to the manner in 
 which that attribute is exercised, the Christian world 
 holds opposite opinions. One party maintains that 
 every voluntary departure from God's laws, whether 
 more or less heinous, deserves an eternity of punish- 
 ment, and hence that such eternal retribution must be 
 suflFered by the ofPender himself ; or that a third person 
 must suffer vicariously for him. \ The other party main- 
 tains that when a sinner leaves off sinning, he does, to 
 a great extent, leave off suffering. They explain God's 
 laws in regard to moral evil, by the analogy of His laws 
 in regard to natural or intellectual evil ; that, as when 
 the drunkard leaves off drinking his liquid fire, he 
 quenches the Tophet which he had kindled in his stom- 
 
LAW 01' HUMAN J)UTY. 47 
 
 ach, and stops the scorcliing flame from ascending into 
 liis throat ; and, as when the man who lias sought to 
 gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles, finds that they 
 will not gi-ow thereon, he plants another stalk, and gets 
 his fruit ; so, when the man who has lived without God 
 in the world, turns to God in obedience and adoration, 
 he leaves behind him with his atheism, the blankness 
 and solitariness of his atheistic life. The one party- 
 paints the consequences of sin as so vast and terrible, 
 that a third person must be called in to lift off the 
 burden of those consequences ; while the other party, 
 though they paint the consequences of sin just as terri- 
 ble, while the sin lasts, yet maintain that when the sin 
 ceases, the consequences mainly cease. I say, mainly 
 cease, for all admit that the mortification and shame of 
 the old sin, like the scar of some dishonorable wound, 
 remain forever. Both, too, acknowledge the efiicacious 
 intervention of a third person ; but the one maintains 
 that the mediator bears off the penalties from themselves, 
 wliile the other maintains that the mediator only helps 
 the sinner to escape fr'om the sin, and then the penal- 
 ties stop, of course, as fiery thirst stojjs, when slaked 
 with water. The latter say, that the order of the 
 Divine government is, " the soul that sinneth, it shall 
 die." " But if the wicked man will turn from all his 
 sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, 
 and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely 
 live, he shall not die." 
 
 Now, on this contested point, I give no opinion. I 
 here intimate no opinion. Let it be to you as though I 
 had no opinion. Sufficient for our present purpose is 
 it, that either view vindicates God's glorious attribute 
 of Justice ; for how glorious it is — glorious in both 
 
48 GOn's CHAEACTEE THE 
 
 views, glorious on both sides of it. How admirable for 
 the innocent man always to be able to say, I know that 
 my judge is just ; I know that where I am innocent I 
 never shall be condemned. And what a noble govern- 
 ment is that, Avhere the tempted man must say, I know 
 that if I sin, I cannot escape from suffering. Protected 
 in innocence, sure of punishment for offences, how can 
 the rational man, in the exercise of his reason ; — mark 
 me, in the exercise of his reason, — how can the rational 
 man ever dare to commit a sin ? 
 
 I can now mention but one more of the Creator's 
 attributes. " God is Love." How striking this expres- 
 sion of the Evangelist, not only once affirmed, but re- 
 peated. God is declared in the Scriptures, times almost 
 without number, to be holy and just and true, but no- 
 where is it said that God is holiness, or is justice, or is 
 truth. The adjective is used, indicative of a quality 
 inhering in some being, but not the substantive noun, 
 in Avhich the qualities inhere. We can conceive of 
 each one of all God's attributes, as being a vacuum to 
 all the others ; so that they can co-exist without inter- 
 ference and act without obstruction. But of no attribute 
 save this of love, is there such intense and vehement 
 expression, to signify that this is the sublime, paramount, 
 crowning fact of the Godhead ; as though this were 
 His whole natvu'e, and all other qualities were absorbed 
 and swallowed up in this perfection. God is Love. 
 
 And does not all that we know of God's works con- 
 firm this sacred declaration ? What more beautiful 
 than this wonderful world which He has spread out 
 around us? What more perfect than the unerring 
 laws, by which it is governed, and which the sciences 
 have just begun to re\oal to us ? Not only how mor- 
 
LAW OF HUMAN DUTY. 49 
 
 ally, but liow mathematically true it is, that " all things 
 work together for good to them that love God," — that 
 is, to them that learn His laws and obey them ; for 
 knowledge and obedience are the only true manifestar 
 tions of our love to Him. How beneficent, that when 
 we have gone astray, we can be restored ! 
 
 I said before, how can any of you, finite and feeble 
 as you are, dare to brave the terrors of the Omnipo- 
 tent ; how can any of you dare to violate the law 
 of one who is All-knowing to know, and All-just to 
 judge your offences ? But here, the key-note changes ; 
 my expostulations turn fi:om alarm to entreaty ; from 
 fear to gratitude ; and if I could, I would say to you 
 all, in tones of sweetness and affection, deep and tender 
 as those which angels use, how can you ever do with 
 your hands, or speak with your lips, or conceive in your 
 hearts, anything that is blasphemous, or defiant, or dis- 
 honoring, or unpleasing, to that Being of perfect Love ? 
 
60 MEDITATION. 
 
 MEDITATION. 
 
 OuE, Father, we adore Thee as that Being whose 
 power extends over all worlds, whose wisdom and skill 
 have been incorporated, and are now and evermore in- 
 dwelling in all created things ; whose love pours forth 
 over the universe and through all the ages — that love, 
 one drop of which fills the ocean of immensity and still 
 leaves the infinite of Thy nature full. We render Thee 
 thanksgiving that in the far off ages of past eternity, 
 Thou didst make provision for the natural wants of 
 man in the fertility and exuberance of the earth, in the 
 riches of the forest and the mine, in the variety and 
 abundance of tropical and temperate zones, in the ful- 
 ness of rivers and seas. We thank Thee for the beauty 
 Thou hast showered down on all terrestrial scenes, for 
 the green and flowery earth, and for the azure sky ; for 
 the effulgence of the rising sun and the many-colored 
 drapery of his setting hour ; for rainbows and autoras, 
 for the varied beauties of seasons, of island and conti- 
 nent ; for all that can tend to excite the ardor of our 
 devotion, by showing Thee to be so excellent. We 
 thank Thee for those glorious faculties of intellect -with 
 which TIiou hast endowed man, and for those laws and 
 principles, uniform and eternal, blended with each 
 created thing, which are the objects of those faculties ; 
 some, capable of being known by a child, simple as the 
 alphabet, easy as its mother's name, yet, rising in com- 
 plications and profundities, to such as task, such as sur- 
 
MEDITATIOX. 51 
 
 pass an archangel's power. Oh, our Heavenly Father, 
 we thank Thee that we have the prospect of studying 
 these wonderful traths in the ages of eternity, — an ex- 
 haustless source of knowledge of the grandeur and the 
 glory of Thy nature. We thank Thee for the men of 
 talent, of skill, and of genius, who have risen up, from 
 time to time, and, by deep study and long vigils, have 
 sought out these laws, and have thereby helped to save 
 mankind from idolatry ; have swept away ten thousand 
 superstitions that tormented the race, and have sup- 
 planted the folly and vagary, the senseless dreams 
 and caprices of ignorance with the eternal principles of 
 knowledge, systematized in science, and made trans- 
 missible to all our descendants. But above all, for that 
 moral part of our nature which dominates all the rest, 
 and for the seers and prophets, men wise in holy things, 
 who have illustrated it. If in the majesty and robust- 
 ness of the intellectual powers. Thou hast shown the 
 paternal character ; in the sweetness, the tenderness, 
 the dehcacy and purity of our affectional nature, Thou 
 hast shown the maternal character. If one class of 
 these gifts is such as an Infinite Father would give us, 
 the other is such as an Infinite Jlother would give. 
 
 Heavenly Father, may we seek the love of truth ; — 
 truth in outward act, in inward thought, ay, in the in- 
 nermost thoughts of the heart, at all times, in the 
 market-place, and in the forum; in sohtude, and at 
 midnight ; in business, in pleasure, in study, and espe- 
 cially in investigating Thy nature and laws. May no 
 preconceived opinions ever chain us, ever deter us from 
 this search, though instilled into us by a father whom 
 we revered, though we drank them in on a mother's 
 breast, sweetened with a mother's caresses. If our 
 
52 MEDITATION. 
 
 riglit eye offend Thee, may we pluck it out ; if our 
 right hand lead us to do wrong, may we cut it off. 
 
 When assembled together for improvement in health 
 and strength, in knowledge and virtue, may the earthly 
 teachers teach youth to go to Thee who can teach them 
 more than all earthly intelligences. If tempted to do 
 wrong, may they remember the friends who have sent 
 them away t(j be taught ; may they see the paternal 
 eye, feel the maternal hand, hear the maternal voice, 
 saying. My son, my daughter, if sinners entice thee, give 
 not heed unto them. May they help one another, and 
 feel it impious to ask Thy help while they do not regard 
 each fellow being as a brother, or stand as stumbling- 
 blocks in each other's way. 
 
LAW-THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF 
 SPIRITUAL LIBERTY. 
 
III. 
 
 LAW — THE FIRST PRIlSrCIPLE OF SPIRITUAL 
 LIBERTY. 
 
 In former Discourses, I have endeavored to give some 
 proofs of the Being or Attributes of God. But all this 
 would be nothing but mere curious speculation, if we 
 did not hold the closest personal relations to that Being, 
 and if our nature and destiny did not primarily de- 
 pend upon His attributes. If accident should cast us 
 upon the shores of an unknown country, our first and 
 most anxious inquiry would be, what kind of men and 
 government lived and reigned within its borders ; 
 whether man-lovers or man-eaters ; whether an arbi- 
 trary, tyrannical, and cruel king, or a beneficent and 
 parental one. So when we are cast upon the shores of 
 time, and see this outspread universe around us, the 
 most momentous question we can ask is, what kind of 
 a Being governs it, and what we must do to adjust our- 
 selves to our new condition. If God be the Creator 
 and Governor of all existences, then He is our Creator 
 and Governor. If He be All-powerfdl, then it is use- 
 less, nay, it is madness, for us to defy or resist Him. 
 If He be Omnipresent, then we cannot escape out of 
 His jurisdiction, as guilty men sometimes flee from the 
 rod of the civil magistrate. If He be Omniscient, then 
 no omissions or technicalities of an imperfect criminal 
 code, no craft of counsel, nor suborning of witnesses, 
 could save us ; and it would be of no use to plead " Not 
 
 [55] 
 
66 LAW — THE FIRST PRINCIPLE 
 
 Guilty," wlien we were guilty. If He be just and 
 good, then we know that in order to have any sympa- 
 thy or communion with Him, we, too, must be just and 
 good. What He loves, we must love ; what His holy 
 nature repels, we must repel ; or else we array ourselves 
 in perpetual warfare against Him, and such a warfare 
 must be fatal to the weaker party, that is, to us. 
 
 Since, then, there must be the most intimate relation, 
 — a relation at all points between God and ourselves, 
 no fact can be more important for us to know than 
 what that relation is. In what relation, then, do we 
 stand to our Creator, Governor, and Final Disposer ? 
 and in what correlative relation does He stand to us ? 
 
 The grand and paramount relation in which God 
 stands, not only to the whole human race, but to all 
 creatures that have life, and to all things that have no 
 life, is that of Law-giver. He has made laws for what- 
 ever He has created. There is not a constellation so 
 vast, nor an atom so small ; there is not an archangel 
 so exalted, nor an animalcule so insignificant, that is 
 not all penetrated and encompassed, bound in and bound 
 down, by the law which God has impressed upon its 
 being. In us, no thought nor desire rises into the light 
 of consciousness, no muscle contracts, no nerve A'ibrates, 
 no drop of blood flows in our veins, or hair grows upon 
 our heads, but in accordance with the laws which God 
 has severally impressed upon them. 
 
 But before going further, let us understand the mean- 
 ing of this superb and majestic word, Law. 
 
 " Law," says Mr. Justice Blackstone, " in its most 
 general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of 
 action ; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of 
 action, whether animate or inanimate, rational or irra- 
 
OF SPIRITUAL LIBEETY. 57 
 
 tlonal. Thus we say the laws of motion, of gravitation, 
 of optics, or mechanics, as well as the law of nature and 
 of nations." " Thus, when the Supreme Being formed 
 the universe, and created matter out of nothing, He 
 impressed certain principles upon that matter, from 
 which it can never depart, and without which it would 
 cease to be. When He put that matter into motion. 
 He established certain laws of motion, to which all 
 movable bodies must conform." — If we further ad- 
 vance from mere inactive matter, to vegetable and 
 animal life, we shall find them still governed by laws ; 
 more numerous, indeed, but equally fixed and inva- 
 riable. — " Tills, then, is the general signification of 
 law, a rule of action dictated by some superior being." 
 
 " The word law," says Mr. Erskine, " is frequently 
 made use of, both by olivines and philosophers, in a large 
 acceptation, to express the settled method of God's 
 providence by wliich He preserves the order of the ma- 
 terial world in such a manner, that nothing in it may 
 deviate from that uniform course Avhich He has 
 appointed for it." 
 
 " Laws," says Montesquieu, " in their most general 
 signification, are the necessary relations derived from 
 the nature of things. In this sense, all beings have 
 their laws ; the Deity has His laws ; the material world 
 its laws ; the intelligences superior to man have their 
 laws ; the beasts, their laws ; man, his laws." — " God 
 is related to the universe as Creator and Preserver ; 
 the laws by which He created all things, are those by 
 which He preserves them. He acts according to these 
 rules, because He knows them ; He knows them because 
 He has made them ; and He made them because they 
 are related to His wisdom and power." If all things, 
 6 
 
58 LAW THE FIRST PKINCIPLE 
 
 then, have their law, you see what infinite niunber antl 
 variety of laws there must be. There are not only ten 
 Commandments, but ten thousand times ten thousand. 
 Parents make laws for their families, schools and col- 
 leges are governed by laws. All societies and associa- 
 tions ; all states and nations have their laws ; and there 
 are international laws, designed to regulate the inter- 
 course of nations with each other, whether they are in 
 peace or at war. We speak of the Mosaic law, meaning 
 the institutions of Moses, as distinguished from the 
 Gospel. We speak of the Ceremonial law, also, which 
 commanded certain external rites and observances for 
 specific cases, and for a limited time, as distinct fi'om 
 moral precepts, which are of perpetual obligation. 
 Written laws are laws written out and enacted by the 
 supreme legislative power of a country ; and unwritten 
 laws are those which derive their binding force from 
 established usage or long custom, and they are ex- 
 pounded and defined by the courts. Each of the organs 
 of our Physical system has its laws. If, during the 
 process of digestion, we take iced-water, or any other 
 cold substance into the stomach, in sufficient quantity 
 to reduce its temperature below 98°, digestion, forth- 
 with, ceases ; and if that temperatur& be not raised, 
 digestion will not re-commence, and sickness must 
 ensue. If the brain be over tasked, inflammation, and 
 at last, insanity ensues. If the lungs are stinted for 
 air, or are filled with bad air, the blood cannot be 
 oxygenated or vitalized ; black blood is sent into the 
 head, and then all the capacities of the mind, its joy 
 and its genius, must suffer. Each of all the myriad 
 varieties of vegetable growths has its law. Some plants 
 demand the tropical and some the arctic zone. Some 
 
OF SPIIUTUAL LIBERTY. 69 
 
 aspire to the skies, and stand up with independent 
 strength ; some creep along the ground, or parasitically 
 chng to a self-sustaining trunk ; like a toddling child 
 ^Yho can walk only as he holds up by a stronger hand. 
 Thus weak minds toddle. 
 
 Did you ever observe the law by which each leaf of 
 the deciduous tree has a joint near the stalk where it is 
 attached, and by means of which joint it is making 
 preparation, all the time it is growing, for dropping off 
 as soon as its functions as a living orgai> are perfoiTned ? 
 Did you ever observe the wonderful arrangement of the 
 leaves of trees by which their attachment to different 
 sides of the tree can be expressed arithmetically ? Thus, 
 if you mark the point at which one leaf starts out from 
 the trunk or branch of certain kinds of trees, you will 
 see that the next leaf above it is exactly on the opposite 
 side, so that the third one is over the first, the fourth 
 over the second, and so on, — each two leaves being 
 equal to one turn round the tree as you ascend. 
 This is arithmetically expressed by the fraction of one- 
 half; because each new leaf makes half a turn round 
 the tree. In the plant called succory, it takes three 
 leaves to make this spiral turn round the stalk ; so that 
 the fourth leaf comes perpendicularly over the first, and 
 begins a new turn. As it takes three leaves here to 
 make one turn, we denote this by the fraction of one- 
 third. In the apple tree, five leaves or buds make two 
 tunrs round the tree, so that this fact is expressed by 
 the fraction two-fifths. In the currant bush, eight 
 leaves make three turns, so that the ratio here is three- 
 eighths. In the plant called shepherd's purse, it is five- 
 thirteenths ; and in another still, twenty-one successive 
 leaves, as you ascend spirally around the tree, require 
 
60 LAW THE FIKSX PKINCIPLE 
 
 thirteen turns. And here another most curious fact is 
 observed, that these several numbers form an ascending 
 series in vrhich the denominator of the preceding frac- 
 tion is the numerator of the succeeding one ; and the 
 denominator of the succeeding one is the sum of the 
 two preceding denominators. Thus, starting with 1-2 
 and 1-3, we then have 2-5, 6-8, 8-13, 18-21sts, and so 
 on. Here, as you will see, the • denominator of the 
 2-5ths is the numerator of the 5-8ths, the denominator 
 of the 5-8ths is the numerator of the 8-13ths, and the 
 denominator of the 8-13ths the numerator of the 18- 
 21sts. So you will see the other wonderful fact I men- 
 tioned, that the succeeding denominator is equal to the 
 sum of the two preceding denominators. Thus, 1-2, 1-3, 
 2-5 ; 2 + 3 = 5; 1-3, 2-5, 5-8 ; B + 5 = 8 ; 8-5, 5-8, 
 8-18; 5 + 8 = 13; 5-8, 8-18, 13-21; 8 + 18=21. 
 In this last statement, there is one apparent anomaly, 
 too subtle for explanation on this occasion, though 
 adding to the beauty of the result. 
 
 Now this exemplifies, in Botany, what I mean by a 
 law. It applies to the rose-bud, the oak-leaf, the pine- 
 cone ; and though we can conceive of other methods of 
 arranging the leaves, on plants and trees, yet such other 
 methods are nowhere to be found in nature. 
 
 And it is a phenomenon hardly less worthy of note, 
 that if, in the position to which leaves and petals 
 belong, they find an obstruction to their development, 
 such as a deficiency of hght, for instance, they will 
 strive to find some other way, and turn aside and 
 avoid or surmount the obstacle. Do Ave do so, when 
 we encounter obstacles in obeying God's moral laws ? 
 Like the little blind germs of the leaves, imbedded in 
 darkness beneath the bark of the tree, do we strive 
 
OF SPIRITUAL LIBERTY. 61 
 
 to reacli outward, and bask ourselves in God's moral 
 light ? 
 
 Now turn your attention for a moment to a field of 
 nature as different from what we have been contemplat- 
 ing, as the planets above our heads are from the vegeta- 
 tion beneath our feet. The mean motion of each planet, 
 as compared with its next interior planet, is uniformly- 
 represented, with great approximation to exactness, by 
 one of the fractions of the same series I have given you 
 in reference to the growth of leaves. 
 
 Look now into another department of nature, and 
 behold the chemical law ; — that law which determines 
 the manner in wliich atoms shall combine with each 
 other. For instance, water is composed of oxygen and 
 hydrogen, and there are always eight weights of oxygen 
 to one of hydrogen, and the oxygen and hydrogen will 
 not combine in any other proportions. But when oxy- 
 gen and sulphur unite to form hydrosulphurous acid, 
 then eight parts of oxygen require sixteen parts of 
 sulphur, or they will not unite. But if sulphur and 
 hydrogen unite, it takes sixteen parts of sulphur to 
 combine with one of hydrogen. So fourteen grains of 
 nitrogen will unite with eight, or sixteen, or twenty- 
 four, or thirty-two, or forty grains of oxygen, but in no 
 other proportions. One grain of hydrogen will not 
 unite with nine or with seven grains of oxygen, but 
 only with eight. These are the laws of chemical com- 
 bination ; but when you come to mechanical admixtures, 
 there you may mingle bodies together in almost any 
 proportions you please ; — as a pound of sugar or of 
 salt with a gallon, or with a hogshead of water. To 
 form the great constituent bodies of the physical world, 
 nature's laws are peremptory and invariable, but to 
 5* 
 
62 LAW THE FIKST PRINCIPLE 
 
 adapt those bodies to the common and variable uses of 
 life, we have unbounded scope and discretion. 
 
 Look, for another law, at the analogy between man 
 and the birds and fishes. A fish's fin, a bird's wing, 
 and a man's arm, are only the same rudimentary organs 
 differently developed, proving that they all had a com- 
 mon Author. After contemplating such facts of 
 wliicli all the kingdoms of nature are full, how much 
 deeper the impression, — and the impressiveness too, 
 with which we read such passages as these : " Hear, O 
 Israel ; the Lord our God is one Lord ; " or, " I am the 
 Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the 
 land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou 
 shalt have no other gods before me." Not only the 
 reason of man, but all nature, through all her organs, 
 responds, " There is no other God but Thee." 
 
 I have spent all this time in illustrating the idea of 
 law, because it is a fundamental idea. It is to all 
 theology and ethics, what a definition or postidate is 
 to geometry. You cannot take a second step without 
 error, unless you understand tliis first step. 
 
 Now let us see what are some of the limitations and 
 characteristics of the idea of Law. 
 
 1. Though we personify Law and speak of it as a 
 separate existence or power, yet it is not a being of 
 itself, and it has no power. In scientific strictness, 
 God's law means simply the mode in which God acts, — 
 in which He creates, upholds, commands, warns, re- 
 wards or punishes. 
 
 When the heathen nations looked out upon the uni- 
 verse, and saw the vast variety of God's works, and 
 the boundless diversity of their modes of action ; — the 
 stars rolling, the tides heaving, the fountains gushing, 
 
or SPIRITUAL LIBERTY. 63 
 
 the rivers flowing, the lightnings flashing, the winds 
 bloAving, and all vegetation springing into green life, 
 with all the other activities which the full realms of 
 nature reveal, they could account for the phenomena 
 only on the supposition that a god presided over each 
 class of activities, instead of supposing one God who 
 acted in so many ways. And hence, when we speak of 
 the goodness of God, the power of God, or the wisdom 
 of God, we mean nothing separate or distinct from 
 God, but only the benevolent, powerful, and wise man- 
 ner in wliich He imiformly acts ; — just as when we 
 speak of the patriotism of Washington, or the philan- 
 thropy of Wilberforce, we do not mean to excite the 
 idea of any existence separate from Washington or 
 Wilberforce, but only to describe their love of country 
 and of mankind. 
 
 2. Carrying this idea of the word laio along with 
 us, let me observe in the second place, that God's laws 
 are resistless ; — that is. He is resistless in whatever he 
 does. Who shall measure strength with the Omnipo- 
 tent ? If He has attached pain and early decrepitude 
 to gluttony and intemperance, can you detach them, so 
 as to commit the offence and still escape the penalty ? 
 When He has enabled you to protect the eye against 
 the sun's hght, can you gaze with impunity upon its in- 
 tolerable splendor ? When He has made the air a 
 necessity for the lungs, can you fill them with water 
 and still hve ? When He has made your body out of 
 combustible materials, can you leap into bm'ning Etna 
 and come forth unscathed ? When He has culled the 
 subtlest and choicest particles from all nature's elements, 
 out of which to form that wonderfiil electric battery, 
 your brain and nervous system, so that your lightning 
 
64 LAW THE FIRST PIUNCIPLE 
 
 thoughts and joyous emotions can leap and flash, Hke 
 auroras over the whole; can you consume or corrode 
 that brain or nervous system with alcohol, tobacco, or 
 other narcotics, without impairing its native velocities 
 and dimming its native splendors ? — any more than 
 you can pour tar and vinegar into the wheelwork of 
 your watch, and still have a good time-keeper ? Every 
 one knows that in every human face there is an im- 
 palpable, immaterial something, which we call expres- 
 sion, which seems to be, as it were, the soul made visible. 
 Where minds live in the region of pure thoughts and 
 happy emotions, the felicities and sanctities of the inner 
 temple shine out through the mortal tenement, and 
 play over it like lambent flame ; the incense makes the 
 whole altar sweet ; and we can understand what the 
 poet means when he says, that 
 
 ' ' Beauty born of murmuring sound 
 Shall pass into lier face." 
 
 On the other hand, no man can live a gormandizing, 
 sordid, or licentious life, and still wear a countenance 
 hallowed and sanctified with a halo of peace and joy. 
 Around such great manufacturing towns as Birming- 
 ham in England, or Pittsburg in this country, where 
 bituminous coal is used, you will find the roses in the 
 flower-bed and the strawberries and grapes on the vines, 
 blackened and defiled by a foul deposit from a thousand 
 chimnies. Thus do obscene, profane and irreverent 
 men scatter their grime and stench upon the innocence 
 and beauty around them ; but most deeply and foully 
 upon themselves. And since God has throned con- 
 science in the human soul, no man can violate its dic- 
 tates and still escape its scourge and sting without 
 repentance and reformation. 
 
OF SPIRITUAL LIBERTY. 65 
 
 3. In the third place, I believe the laws of God to 
 be infinitely wise. Some learned and pious men have 
 said they could not believe in the doctrine of Optimism ; 
 that is, that this world was constructed upon the best 
 possible plan. In the infinite varieties of God's works, 
 they think He has practically compared the adjective 
 good, and having a good, a better, and a best, that this 
 world can at most be called good. I am an Optimist. I 
 believe the order of Providence to be the best possible 
 order ; and I have no faith in the criticisms which a 
 blind mole may make on the range and height of the 
 mountains under which he burrows. All the exceptions 
 ever yet taken to the perfectness of God's works have 
 turned out to be futile and presumptuous. Sir Isaac 
 Newton thought there was a screw loose somewhere in 
 our solar system. He supposed the moon to be gradu- 
 ally sliding out of its orbit, so that in process of time 
 it would require to be set back into its path by miracu- 
 lous interference. But La Grange, on revising New- 
 ton's calculations, found him, and not Jehovah, in error, 
 and that the moon wheeled by a law that never erred, 
 or rather, that in the wap God's hand moved it, it is 
 sure to come round to the true place at the true time. 
 
 4. God's laws exhibit infinite skill. When we use 
 the word skill, in relation to an earthly contrivance, we 
 mean that foresight which can adapt means to ends, 
 and can predict effects fi-om causes, and can do 
 these things so as to secure successful results. In 
 human works there are all degrees of skill, and of 
 the want of it. A few years ago, the Emperor of Aus- 
 tria ordered a splendid barge to be made, in which the 
 royal family might sail upon the grand canal. So the 
 skill of the kingdom was put in requisition, and a 
 
66 LAW THE FIKST PKINCIPLE 
 
 structure of immense costliness and splendor was made. 
 When they launched it, it would sail very well on the 
 canal, but was too wide to pass through one of the 
 locks. Even the most ingenious inventors are obliged 
 to modify their original plans, and often wholly to 
 reconstruct their niachines before they succeed. How 
 long did Fulton experiment before he triumphed, and 
 what vast improvements have been since made upon 
 him ! It is but about a year since Ericsson supposed he 
 had invented a hot-air engine which would supersede 
 the steam engine, and no inconsideraJble part of the 
 civilized world rung with acclamations at the astounding, 
 triumph. A trial trip to Washington forced him to 
 take his whole machine to pieces, and it is doubtful 
 whether a new one will lead to any better results. 
 But look at Grod's works. Does the solar system ever 
 get out of gear ? Are not the three angles of any pos- 
 sible triangle always equal to two right angles ? Does 
 the law of specific gravities ever change ; or that of 
 chemical combinations ? Will frost and snow, of them- 
 selves, make flower-beds and harvests ? Or can a 
 wicked man ever enjoy that yeace of God which passeth 
 understanding ? No. Whatever you desire, or yearn 
 for, or hope for, you must first find out the law of God 
 which applies to that case, and then obey it. And 
 when you understand that the universe is not a mere 
 machine, which God, having first made, now " stands 
 outside and sees it go ; " but, on the other hand, that the 
 luiiverse is only the manifestation of God himself, up- 
 holding and moving the work of His hands, it becomes 
 not only plain but inevitable, that everything pertain- 
 ing to it must be infinitely skilful. He himself being 
 the actor. He must act according to His own eternal 
 attributes of Power, Wisdom, and Love. 
 
OF SPIRITUAIj LIBEllT'Y. 67 
 
 5. In the next place, God's laws are uniform. If 
 His laws merely define the manner in which He works, 
 then, as there is no variableness nor shadow of turning 
 in Him, there can be no failure in His laws. It follows 
 from this that in the contemplation of God, or, looking 
 at the subject from the divine side, there can be no such 
 thing as a miracle. If God foresaw everything from 
 the beginning, how can he be taken by surprise, or ever 
 encounter an unexpected event ? Babbage invented an 
 extraordinary machine, called a Calculating Machine, 
 which, by the turning of a crank, would perform the 
 most wonderful mathematical problems. He said he 
 could make his machine so that it would bring out the 
 same result a million times, and then, the next time, 
 bring out an exactly opposite result. Now, to a by- 
 stander, who had seen the same result a million of times, 
 and should then, the next time, see a contrary result, 
 this would seem a miracle, but it would be no miracle 
 to Babbage himself, for he would expect it. A miracle, 
 then, is, to us, a supernatural event. Even the deist 
 admits the existence of miracles, in this sense, as when 
 the sun was spoken into being, and when the inverte- 
 brate orders of animals, the fishes, the birds, the quad- 
 rupeds, and afterwards man, were called into life. 
 None of the events which marked these mighty eras 
 were contrary to the course of nature, they were only 
 in further development of it. When, therefore, you 
 can account for any event or phenomenon, on natural 
 causes, that event or phenomenon is not a miracle. 
 For a cork to swim, or for lead to sink, is not a miracle ; 
 but the contrary would be. For a man to get diseases 
 and early decrepitude by a life of debauchery, is not a 
 miracle. Debauchees without the diseases and the 
 
G8 LAW THE FIRST PRINCIPLE 
 
 decrepitude, would be the miracle, — a miracle whicli 
 God will not work, and the devil cannot. 
 
 Many people seem to think that they honor God 
 more, by supposing that He is constantly working mira- 
 cles, constantly interfering and wresting the order of 
 nature, to prevent some evil, or to effect some good, 
 than by believing that He established an order of nature 
 so perfect at first that it needs no interference. Sup- 
 pose one clockmaker were to make you a clock that 
 should keep such imperfect time as to require him to 
 come to your house every day to set it and repair it. 
 Suppose another to make you a clock so perfect that it 
 Avould run for years without error, which of the two 
 would be the best clockmaker ? 
 
 Ignorance is one of the main causes of the belief that 
 God is constantly wresting the order of nature. Before 
 men understood astronomy, their only way to explain 
 an eclipse was to suppose that God darkened the sun 
 or the moon, instead of believing that the earth and the 
 moon, in their accustomed revolutions, intercepted the 
 sun's light. When people did not know that filth, 
 intemperance, and other forms of bad living created 
 contagious and fatal distempers, then they attributed 
 pestilences to the direct act of God. Before the laws 
 of electricity were understood, when any particular man 
 or house was struck with lightning, it was supposed that 
 God specially aimed at and hit that man or that house, 
 just as a sportsman aims at a particular bird. And it 
 is one of the most remarkable facts in all histoiy, that, 
 just in proportion as science has advanced, su.pposed 
 miracles, or a belief in common miracles, has ceased. 
 I say, just in 'proportion as science has advanced, sup- 
 posed 7niracles, or a belief in cor.imon miracles, has 
 
OF SPIEITUAL LIBERTY. 69 
 
 ceased. This is true, not only of our predecessors, but 
 of our contemporaries. Now, among barbarous nations, 
 in Asia, Africa, or elsewhere, miracles are just as rife, 
 just as much a thing of daily occurrence, as they were 
 among the heathen nations of antiquity, Or among the 
 so-called Christian nations of the Middle Ages. This 
 is so true, that in regard to the present age of the world, 
 the universal fact may be expressed in this formula : — 
 Knowledge has its boundary line, where it abuts on 
 ignorance ; on the outside of that boundary line are 
 ignorance and miracles ; on the inside of it, are science 
 and no miracles. And what is very remarkable, is, that 
 the same fact holds true, in regard to' the same people, 
 who are ignorant on one class of subjects, and learned 
 on another. In the subjects which they understand, 
 there are no miracles ; in the one they do not under- 
 stand, miracles abound. 
 
 Pride, or self-conceit, is another prolific cause of a 
 behef in miracles. It is so grateful to a selfish man to 
 beheve that God loves him better than He loves others, 
 that he riots, and wantons, and gloats over the idea wij;h 
 a conceitedness and self-flattery, which to a man of in- 
 telKgent piety, is most offensive. When an epidemic 
 prevails, and one man escapes ; when a steam-boat 
 explodes, and one man is saved ; if he be a selfish or a 
 vain man, he is sure to attribute his rescue to God's 
 special interference in his behalf. When the terrible 
 Norwalk tragedy happened last year, why was Elder 
 Barr, a man so good, so pious, so devoted to the inter- 
 ests of education and rehgion ; — why was he lost, 
 while so many others who, as compared with him, were 
 so worthless, useless, or contemptible, were saved ? No. 
 God acts by general laws ; and when any one comes 
 6 
 
70 LAW — THE FIEST PRINCIPLE 
 
 within the action of those laws, be he a President of the 
 United States, or a Missionary carrying salvation to the 
 heathen, he has no escape from their uniform and resist- 
 less force. Not one jot or tittle of the law shall pass 
 away. 
 
 The next characteristic or quality of God's laws 
 which I shall mention, is, that they are so comprehen- 
 sive, so universal, that they absolutely exclude all 
 chance. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as 
 chance in the universe, and when a philosopher uses 
 the word chatioe, he does not mean to exclude the idea 
 of law, but only to show that he is ignorant of the law. 
 When we speak of probable storms at sea, or of winds 
 on land, we do not mean to intimate that the event of 
 which we doubt is not certain in itself ; we only mean 
 to declare our ignorance of the causes which will decide 
 it. Even Chaos — a word we use to express the nega- 
 tion of all law — must have its law. If it be in motion, 
 it must have its laws of motion ; and if it be at rest, it 
 must have its law of inertia. 
 
 In resard to these great classes of facts which science 
 has not yet explored, and wliich, therefore, we call 
 uncertain, we have demonstrative proof that they are 
 certain, in themselves, because, when you take great 
 numbers of individuals, or extensive periods of time, Mie 
 results are uniform. If asked respecting any particular 
 family, how many of its children are sons, and how 
 many are daughters, we should have no rule to deter- 
 mine our conjecture. But if asked respecting a million 
 of children who were bom last year, how many of them 
 were sons, and how many were daughters, we should 
 immediately answer, with a certainty of being correct, 
 that the number of each was nearly equal, — probably 
 
OF SPIRITUAL LIBERTY. 71 
 
 the daughters a Kttle in excess. It is so in regard to 
 crime in given states of society. The criminal statis- 
 tician, in France or England, will tell you to-day, with 
 hut very little departure from exactness, how many 
 crimes will be committed next year, in their respec- 
 tive countries, and not only so, but how many of each 
 sort ; — so many murders, so many burglaries, so 
 many thefts, &c. So, though you cannot tell whether 
 the children of Mr. A. B.'s family will be at school 
 or not, next year, yet you can tell with great approxi- 
 mation to accuracy, how many children will be at 
 school in the State of Oliio, and in the United States. 
 
 Now, my young friends, do not all these events 
 incontestibly demonstrate a lawgiver ? That lawgiver 
 is God, the Creator of all tilings. 
 
 Some have contended that all this universe of 
 events, and the laws by which they are governed, 
 could have been the product of chance, — Lucretius, 
 among the ancients, the French and German schools 
 of atheists among the modems. I mention this now, 
 only to show that I do not think their arguments 
 have been met with the right answer. Cicero en- 
 countered this hypothesis, but I do not think he met 
 it with the right answer. In contesting the opinion 
 of those who maintained that the universe was formed 
 by a fortuitous concurrence of atoms, he says : * — 
 " If any one thinks that this could be, I do not see why 
 
 * " Hoc qui existimat fieri potuisse, non intelligo , cur non idem putcs, 
 si innumerabilis unius et viginti formae letterarum, vel auroe vol quEt- 
 lislibet, aliquo conjeoiantur, posse ex his in terrain excussis, annales 
 Enuii ut deinceps legi posaent eifici ; quod nescio, an, ne in uno qui- 
 dem versu, possittantum valere fortunse." (De Nat. Dcorum, Lib. 
 11., p. 509. Ernest, Lend. 1819.) 
 
72 LAW THE FIRST PRINCIPLE 
 
 the same man should not suppose that if an innumerable 
 quantity of letters of the alphabet were thrown promis- 
 cuously upon the ground, they would not .fall so as to 
 make the annals of Ennius ; whereas it seems to me, it 
 would be scarcely possible for them to make one verse." 
 This argument of Cicero was reproduced in the time of 
 the French revolution. To put down the atheists, it 
 was said that no number of types, if shaken and thrown 
 down together, could so fall as to produce the Iliad of 
 Homer ; and to this, the shrewdest and profoundest 
 answer was made that ever was made in behalf of 
 Atheism. I refer to the celebrated retort of a French 
 Atheist, who repUed, " Give me types enough, and shakes 
 enough, and I will produce the Iliad of Homer." 
 Now, regarding simply the doctrine of chances, I do 
 not see how the correctness of this answer can be de- 
 nied. Suppose one had a font of types, each letter and 
 point of which should be so numerous, that it would fill 
 all that immense sweep of stellar spaces that can now 
 be seen by the largest telescope ; and suppose all these 
 types were put into an urn so vast that the very handles 
 of it would let the Milky Way pass through them un- 
 bent ; and suppose this urn were swung round and 
 round until all the types were shaken together as dice 
 are shaken in a dice-box, and then hurled out upon a 
 plane so vast, and with such a centrifugal force that they 
 would not lie but one deep ; and suppose these throws 
 could be repeated for great cycles of time, of which ages 
 should be the seconds, I do not see why, somewhere at 
 some time, -they should not turn up the Ihad of Homer, 
 — and Euclid's Elements to boot. 
 
 But this answer of the atheist, keen as it is, and pro- 
 found as it may seem to be, — does it meet the diffi- 
 
OF SPIEITUAL LIBERTY. 73 
 
 culty ? The problem is, with types enovigh, and shakes 
 enough, to produce an Ihad. Well, Mr. Atheist, fill 
 the void spaces of immensity with types, in order to 
 supply one of your conditions of success, and then can 
 your tiny arm lift, and rattle, and throw them ? And 
 if thrown, and you have waited your thousands of years 
 for them to fly off into space, and spread themselves 
 over your plane, then can your slow-footed steps trav- 
 erse the illimitable fields of space in search of the much 
 desired spot, where your Iliad of Homer might be? 
 And if this space were once traversed, then can -your 
 shallow hands scoop up this sky-full of types and 
 replace them in the box, preparatory to another throw ? 
 And if the lucky cast did not come until a j)eriod some- 
 what late in the flowing eternity, how much of the 
 work would the threescore-and-ten years of your mor- 
 tal life-time enable you to accomplish ? And how, on 
 your atheistic hypothesis, would you, Mr. Atheist, with 
 your tiny arm and your tinier causality ; with your 
 shallow hand, and your shallower logic ; with your short 
 life, and your shorter vision ; — how would you ever 
 have been in existence yourself to try your ridiculous 
 experiment ; and in what type foundry would your font 
 of types be cast ? Even if the conditions were granted, 
 none but a God could use them for the expected pur- 
 pose, and so you have supposed a God in order to 
 supply the conditions, — not of creating a universe, but 
 of getting at an Iliad only. Such is the sublime folly 
 of the grandest answer that Atheism ever made. 
 
 A profound writer has thus sarcastically presented 
 the atheistic side of this question. " Talk of Provi- 
 dence ! There is no such thing. I have been through 
 the universe, and there is no God. God is a whim 
 6* 
 
74 LAW THE FIEST PRINCIPLE 
 
 of man ; nature is a fortuitous concourse of atoms ; 
 man is a fortuitous concourse of atoms ; thought is a 
 fortuitous function of matter, a fortuitous result of a 
 fortuitous result, a chance-shot from the great wind-gun 
 of the universe, — which itself is also a chance-shot 
 from a chance-charge of a chance-gun, accidentally 
 loaded, pointed at random, and fired off by chance." 
 
 The last characteristic of God's laws, which I shall 
 mention, is the most wonderful of them all. It is that 
 they are accompanied by a sanction. By the word 
 sanction, I here mean the penalty that attends trans- 
 gression. No human law can execute itself. But 
 God's laws execute themselves. The human lawgiver 
 has to provide a train of officers. When the judge 
 passes sentence of death, the malefactor does not forth- 
 with find himself dead. The executioner must be called 
 in. If a criminal be condemned to imprisonment, the 
 air does not immediately begin to shape itself into the 
 four walls of a prison which draw together around him, 
 and close him in their strong embrace ; but a sheriff ' 
 must take him and lock him in the cell. Not so with 
 God's laws. They execute themselves, as hghtnino- 
 executes itself, even before you hear the thunder. By 
 creating a natural incompatibility between them, God 
 proliibits the stomach from taking arsenic, and when 
 the stomach does take arsenic, He has to send no 
 angel to afflict that organ with unspeakable and mor- 
 tal agony. God forbids intemperance, and what a 
 ghastly throng of woes comes to avenge it ! God com- 
 mands cleanliness ; and if people will wallow in filth 
 and imbibe foulness at every pore, what pestilences 
 stalk forth to avenge his violated law ! So when God 
 prohibits men from doing wrong, and they will do 
 
OF SPIKITUAL LIBERTY. 75 
 
 wrong, remorse comes of itself, — sometimes earlier, 
 sometimes later, but ahvaj's it will come, and with more 
 terrible avengings, the longer it delays. 
 
 From human penalties men sometimes escape ; — 
 they conceal the offence, they foil the prosecutor, they 
 flee the countiy ; but who can secrete anything from 
 the All-seeing Eye ; who can circumvent the All- 
 knowing Mind ; who can flee beyond the jurisdiction 
 of the Omnipotent ? For all conceivable, for all possi- 
 ble offences against God's laAvs, whether of the body or 
 of the mind ; whether committed in this life, or in the 
 next, there is an inexorable, an irrepealable, an adaman- 
 tine law, that the offenders must suffer until the offences 
 cease. 
 
 And now, my young friends, it is not without a spe- 
 cial purpose that I have labored thus long to give you 
 an idea of the word law, and of the resistlessness and 
 universality of the Divine law. There are two grand, 
 fundamental truths to be drawn from what' has been 
 said. Though I have not time \o enlarge upon them 
 now, I hope to do so hereafter. 
 
 The first truth is, that if the whole universe, — 
 nature and man, body and soul, — is pervaded by the 
 laws of God, then, in order to do the will of God, we 
 must know what His laws are. This is a universal 
 truth. The navigator cannot cross the ocean in safety, 
 unless he understands the laws of navigation ; and the 
 more perfectly he understands and obeys those laws, 
 the more safely and rapidly can he sail the seas. The 
 farmer must observe agricultural laws, and just in pro- 
 portion as he does so, will be the abundance and the 
 excellence of his harvests. The physician must under- 
 stand both Physiology and Pathology, — the laws both 
 
76 LAW THE FIEST PKINCIPLE 
 
 of health and disease, — or he will kill instead of curing. 
 Who would ever consult a lawyer, ignorant of the con- 
 stitution and laws of the land ? And so the perfect 
 Christian must understand the laws of God, as well as 
 resolve to obey them. He must supply his intellect 
 with knowledge as well as fill his heart with love. And 
 before all men in the world, the Christian Pastor, — the 
 Feeder, — for that is the meaning of the word, should 
 
 abound in knowledge. It is bad enough for our mar- 
 to o 
 
 ket-men to supply us with unhealthful food ; but that 
 injures our bodies only. It is bad enough for our law- 
 yer to give us false counsel, but that can only put our 
 worldly estate in peril. It is bad enough when our 
 surgeon amputates the limb he should save, but that 
 only mutilates our bodily frame. But when our spir- 
 itual provider feeds our souls with chaff and husks, 
 with the superstitions of the Dark Ages, or the dogmas 
 of men, instead of the bread of eternal life, he does a 
 wrong which the ages of eternity can never fully repair. 
 How can a man who is ignorant of God's laws be 
 God's ambassador or representative ? Get knowledge, 
 then, my young friends, get wisdom, and with all thy 
 gettings, get understanding. Get science (which is 
 nothing but a knowledge of God's laws) as a religious 
 duty. Before you can obey, you must Jcnow. Knowl- 
 edge, then, is essential to a rational piety. And by 
 this, I do not mean to lower one class of duties, but only 
 to elevate the other. 
 
 The other truth deducible from this Discourse, is, if 
 possible, still more important. It regards the quality 
 or nature of the obedience we render to any law. 
 When we obey from compulsion, from fear, from a 
 dread of evil ; that is, when we are frightened into 
 
OF SPIRITUAL LIBERTY. 77 
 
 obedience, or scolded into it, or scourged into it, such 
 compulsory obedience is always attended with a sense 
 of degradation, of shame, and of pain. It is a perver- 
 sion of this feeling that leads some half-grown men to 
 say, " I am willing to do it, but if commanded to, I 
 won't." But, on the other hand, when we see that a 
 law is useful, right, wise, beautiful ; when our whole 
 moral and intellectual nature approves it, and consents 
 to it, and rejoices in it, then, in such obedience, there 
 is a sense of dignity, of elevation, of everlasting joy, 
 which is indescribably pure and glorious. The drunk- 
 ard is a slave, — one of the meanest and miserablest of 
 slaves. If some master stands over him with whip or 
 bludgeon, and forbids his indulgence on pain of instant 
 beating, then he may abstain ; but how painful, how 
 mean and contemptible are all his feelings. A brutish 
 appetite contends with a brutish fear. Torture, rage, 
 malice, are all his feelings. Tophet is in his bosom. 
 He bums for the draught, and he cringes at the blow, 
 and each kind of pain aggravates and maddens the 
 other. But now, suppose that same intemperate man 
 to rise out of his brutish nature, and to become a man 
 in truth. Suppose him to stand erect, and say ; " I will 
 be a slave no longer ! " Then, in every struggle which 
 he wages with his accursed appetite, he goes into the 
 battle like a hero. In the fiercest contest, he has a 
 proud feeUng that he is the superior ; and so he bears 
 himself loftily through every struggle, and comes out 
 of it triumphantly, like a great conqueror, — like the 
 noblest of conquerors, for he has subdued flesh and devil 
 at once. Such a man, after such a contest, is trans- 
 figured. He has a new and nobler soul in him. He 
 ■ feels taller, and he is taller ; for, in the consciousness of 
 
78 LAW THE FIRST PEINCIPLE, ETC. 
 
 rectitude he stands more erect, and looks iipon men and 
 nature from a manlier brow and with a loftier glance. 
 All the faculties within him, hail him and say to him ; 
 " Now thou art a man." And they crown him with 
 conscious honor. It is so with him who dethrones any 
 vice, and enthrones the correlative virtue in its stead. 
 And what is the difference between this moral hero, 
 this valiant conqueror in the noblest fields of conflict ; 
 — what is the difference between this man, and the 
 craven, cringing, cowardly wretch, who abstained from 
 the same indulgence through the dastard, brutish mo- 
 tive of fear? The difference is simply tliis. One 
 obeyed from external and brute restraint ; the other 
 from an internal and voluntary one. Both alike ab- 
 stained, but one was a beast and a slave while he 
 abstained ; the other, a hero and a conqueror. Now 
 this, my young friends, is the hberty wherewith Christ 
 makes men free. This is the escape from bondage into 
 the glorious liberty of the children of God. What was 
 before an outward and an imposed law, is now an inward 
 and a spontaneous act. What was before a servitude, 
 is now a sovereignty. In the one case, the obedience 
 was slavish ; in the other, it was Christ-like. In the 
 one case it was torment, in the other it was bliss. 
 
 Study the laws of God, then, my young friends, in 
 regard to your whole nature, — Body, Mind, Heart. 
 Bring yourselves on the side of those laws which are 
 wise, good, and holy, and which you cannot resist ; 
 adapt yourselves to your position in the universe ; and 
 never forget that such are the irrepealable ordinances 
 of God, that the righteous martyr at his stake, enjoys 
 more, and suffers less, than the sinner on a throne. 
 
MEDITATION. 79 
 
 MEDITATION. 
 
 Our Father, Thou dost talk with us from heaven now 
 not less than with Thy servants in days of old. Thou 
 dost teach us in Thy providences and in the stupendous 
 order of nature, not less impressively, not less intelli- 
 gibly, than if Thy voice should peal into our natural 
 ear .from Sinai's awful Mount. Deep-piercing to our 
 intelligence are Thy warnings and Thy threatenings to- 
 day, as if they flashed visibly from mountain or cloud 
 into our natural eye. Thy righteous laws promising 
 reward ; Thy no less righteous laws menacing punish- 
 ment, are wrought into our very frames, into our organi- 
 zations, into whatever organ we have for physical life, 
 so that we have an ever-open book before us calling us 
 to Thee by the most powerftil of persuasions and en- 
 treaties, forbidding us to forsake and forget Thee, by 
 admonitions to which the adder's ear could not be deaf. 
 And in addition to all these appeals and expostulations 
 in favor of the right ; in addition to all these protests 
 and deprecations against the wrong, revealed to us in 
 the very constitution of our being, we have the words, 
 the precepts, the example, the life, the character, of 
 Jesus Christ, himself the glorious pattern of what we 
 ought to be. When his public ministry began, he 
 was first called to resist temptation, first beset, as all 
 youth in all times are bes.et, by the appetite for food ; 
 yet, though he had fasted for forty days and forty 
 
80 MEDITATION. 
 
 nights, lie would not yield to taste of what it was wrong 
 for him to eat ; then tempted by the inflations of pride 
 and self-sufficiency, that snare by which so many youth 
 are made an easy prey to ruin, the belief that they 
 are sufficient for themselves, that they may violate 
 law and duty, and still secure prosperity and honor ; 
 and then tempted by ambition, the love of power, of 
 dominion, that beguiling seduction that draws so many 
 away, that fills and crowds the broad road leading to 
 the chambers of death. Oh, may the youth of this age, 
 of all coming ages, first of all, strive to imitate his 
 example in withstanding the temptations which lie in 
 ambush along theii;' path. Our Father, look upoij us 
 as thy children. We have needs. Thou hast the in- 
 exhaustible fulness from which they can be supplied. 
 Thou who in Thy good providence dost give us our 
 daily bread, give us that for which our souls are lan- 
 guishing and perishing, the bread and the waters of 
 life. Thou who hast given us this mortal existence, 
 wilt Thou prepare us for that immortal existence which 
 lies beyond the grave. Thou by whom it has been 
 ordained for all men that they once shall die, save, oh 
 save us from that second death which consists in aliena- 
 tion from Thee, and voluntary disobedience to Thy 
 high will. Thou dost give us pleasures of sense, pleas- 
 ures of the body. Oh give us those purer and nobler 
 satisfactions of the soul by which we shall be able rap- 
 turously to exclaim, hke the Psalmist of old, " My 
 delight is in the law of the Lord." 
 
 Oh, our Father, may we seek more and more to 
 know Thy laws, that we may obey them better ; for 
 how can our weakness defy Thy Omnipotence, or our 
 ignorance take counsel to defeat Thy knowledge ? Oh 
 
MEDITATION. 81 
 
 God, Tliy laws are in the heavens above, and in the 
 earth beneath, in every ray that streams from every 
 star ; in every leaf that hangs on every tree ; in the 
 structure of every living thing ; in our bodies, and in 
 our souls. The laws of the universe are but the thoughts 
 of God. We live then in Thy presence, we are encom- 
 passed by Thy power. Thy knowledge shines like a 
 sun in the inmost recesses of our hearts, and our most 
 secret thoughts are known to Thee. In view of this, 
 may we have sincerity towards Thee, may we imitate 
 the example of Thy Son Jesus Christ. He came to a 
 world sunk in ignorance, to a world that had never 
 known, or that had forgotten Thy attributes, to a world 
 that lived in defiance of Thy commandments. But 
 he did not come as a conqueror, to subdue and enslave ; 
 he did not come as an avenger, to overwhelm or de- 
 stroy ; he did not come with lightnings and with 
 thunderings, to terrify and to blast, but he was heralded 
 by angels who proclaimed " Peace on Earth ; " — he 
 taught the doctrine of a Paternal Ruler of the Universe ; 
 and he went about doing good. May we imitate liis 
 example ! 
 
SIN-THE TRANSGRESSION 
 THE LAW. 
 
 OF 
 
IV. 
 
 SIN— THE TKANSGRESSION OF THE LAW. 
 
 In my last Discourse, I endeavored to illustrate the 
 great truth, that the relation between God and our- 
 selves is not merely that of Creator and created, but 
 that also of Lawgiver and the subjects of law. God 
 being om* rightful Lawgiver, we, as His subjects, owe 
 Him allegiance. 
 
 I then defined the meaning of the word law — that 
 it merely signifies the manner in which God acts — and 
 I illustrated the idea of law by copious examples, se- 
 lected from the different kingdoms of nature, — from 
 the inanimate not less than from the animate world ; 
 from body and from spirit. I showed also that even 
 within the narrow circumference of human knowledge, 
 there is an immense variety in the works of creation, 
 and that each order, each genus, each species, each in- 
 dividual and each organ and faculty of each individual, 
 has its appropriate law. Strictly speaking, there is no 
 such thing as chance. When the navigator says he is 
 beyond soundings, he does not mean to imply that there 
 is no bottom to the sea ; but only that it is so deep that 
 he cannot find it, &c. All classes of created existences 
 have their laws, though as yet we may not have dis- 
 covered them, the chemical, the botanical, the zoologi- 
 cal, and these laws are uniform ; that is, when you as- 
 certain how they operate in one case, you know how 
 7* [85] 
 
86 SIN THE TllANSGEESSION 
 
 they operate in all like cases. The astronomer, from 
 his knowledge of planetary motions, can not only cal- 
 culate the eclipses of this year, but, in his thoughts, he 
 can wheel the heavenly machinery backwards, and tell 
 the exact time of all the eclipses that have happened 
 for six thousand years, and he can also wheel it for- 
 wards, and tell the exact time of all the eclipses that 
 will happen while our present solar system lasts. This 
 seems a vast duration to be penetrated by the fore- 
 knowledge of the astronomer; but the moralist can 
 penetrate infinitely farther into fiiturity than tliis ; for 
 he can foretell, that, not only while the solar system 
 lasts, but while God hves, the wicked soul, should it 
 remain wicked, must be miserable : but the pious spirit, 
 so long as it remains pious, must be happy. Such is 
 the uniformity of God's laws, enabling us to predict 
 future histories, from known facts. 
 
 In the natural world, even when we find what ap- 
 pears to be an anomaly, we do not find it to be any 
 violation of law, but only the application of a new law 
 to new circumstances : and that the new law also is 
 uniform. It is the law of fluids, for instance, that they 
 shall contract, or be reduced in bulk, as they grow cold. 
 A gallon of water becomes less and less in size, as it 
 grows colder ; until just before it reaches the tempera- 
 ture of 32° of our common thermometer, — which is 
 the freezing point, — when it suddenly expands. It 
 expands just at the moment when it is to be turned 
 into ice. Now this sudden expansion is not a violation 
 of the law of contraction, but it is a new law applica- 
 ble to a new state of facts, and established for the wisest 
 of purposes. For, if a cubic foot of water should con- 
 tinue to grow more and more solid as it grows colder 
 
OF THE LAW. 87 
 
 up to the time when it hardens into ice, then the cubic 
 foot of ice would be heavier than the same bulk of 
 water, and would sink to the bottom, of course. And 
 thus, as soon as one layer of water should freeze and 
 sink, the water that came to the surface in its place, 
 would also freeze and sink, and so of the rest, layer 
 after .layer, until our ponds, our rivers, and even our 
 great lakes might all be turned into ice in a single 
 winter, and then a hmidred summers might not be suf- 
 ficient to thaw them. What a beautiful thins it would 
 be, if the heart of a miser, as it grows harder and 
 harder with avarice and griping, should, just before it 
 solidifies into the miser petrifaction, suddenly begin to 
 expand ; and afterwards restore its hoards, as the water 
 gives out its latent heat for the benefit of the world. 
 The new law of loving our neighbor as ourselves, ap- 
 plied to him, would work this marvel. 
 
 Again ; wMle any vegetable or animal organization 
 retains the principle of life, it grows, or moves, or acts, 
 in some way, according to the nature impressed upon 
 it ; but as soon as life departs, the chemical law takes 
 possession again, and the vegetable or animal body, 
 whatever it may be, decays, is decomposed, and returns 
 T;o its original elements. Indeed, if life departs from 
 any portion of our bodies, even for an hour, mortifica- 
 tion commences, and the vital organization is reduced 
 to insensate matter. Thus it is that the same materials 
 may pass successively mider the action of different laws ; 
 be mineral this year, vegetable next, and animal the 
 third, and then return to its original condition, to pass 
 through the same cycle again. 
 
 All the organs of our bodies, when we are in a state 
 of health, have their laws of health, and these laws, 
 
80 SIN THE TKANSGKESSION 
 
 when embodied in a science, we call Human Physio- 
 logy and Hygiene ; but if these laws are violated, so 
 that the organs pass out of a healthy condition into a 
 diseased one, then they become subject to a new set of 
 laws, — to the laws of Disease, — the science of which 
 is called Pathology. 
 
 So the moral nature of man has its laws, — laws by 
 which any one and every one who chooses the path of 
 duty and virtue and piety, and walks in it, will fuid 
 himself constantly ascending the Mount of Blessedness, 
 whose upper circles command all the benefits of this 
 world, and whose summit is crowned with all the glories 
 of Heaven. But any one and every one who chooses 
 the fiath of disobedience and foUows it, will find him- 
 self descending to misery and ruin. And the virtue 
 and the happiness on the one hand, and the vice and 
 the misery on the other, are not arbitrary or fortuitous 
 connections, but each necessitates the other ; neither 
 can exist without the other ; they are component parts 
 of the same thing, just as oxygen and hydrogen, in cer- 
 tain proportions, are component parts of a drop of 
 water, and you cannot have a drop of water without 
 them, or them in that combination, without water. 
 
 So, as the word law simply expresses the method in 
 which God acts, it follows that these laws, that is. His 
 method of action, are irresistible ; so that, if it be a 
 proof of intellectual idiocy or insanity for a man to 
 take red-hot iron in his hands, or to pour molten lava 
 down his throat, or to feed on hellebore, or make his 
 nightly couch in a furnace, it is a proof also of moral 
 idiocy or insanity, to bid defiance to the laws of God. 
 
 But how can we cay that God's laws are irresistible, 
 and, at the same time speak of our resisting or violat- 
 
OF THE LAW. 89 
 
 ing those laws? How can we resist, or violate a resist- 
 less and inviolable law ? A single word will explain 
 this. When we speak of violating one of God's laws, 
 we do not mean that we abolish, or annihilate it. Though 
 the law may have been broken ten thousand times, it 
 remains as binding and operative as before. It would 
 be simply absurd for a man to say, " I have broken the 
 commandment against theft, and therefore, there are 
 now only nine commandments left." Though one may 
 have broken every one of the commandments a hundred 
 times, the Decalogue is as whole and as imperishable as 
 before. While one obeys the laws of health, of virtue, 
 or of religion, he is under the laws of health, virtue 
 and rehgion ; but when he violates those laws, then he 
 comes under new sets of laws, — the laws of disease, 
 vice, and irreligion. To a man who never committed 
 murder, or robbery, the laws of murder and robbery do 
 not apply ; but the moment those crimes are committed, 
 then the laws and their penalties instantaneously attach 
 to the offender ; — just as when water is above the tem- 
 perature of 32°, the law of fluids applies to it ; but 
 when it sinks to 32°, then the law of congelation aj^phes 
 to it. This shows the propriety of our speaking of re- 
 sistance and violation, by tree agents, of irresistible and 
 inviolable laws. If, then, God acts by laws, and makes 
 us know, or enables us to know,, what those laws are, 
 we, as His subjects, are bound to obey them, by an alle- 
 giance which we cannot shake off. And, if bound to 
 obey, then any wilful or conscious violation of them is 
 guilt. Or, as John says in that part of his first Epistle 
 which I read to you this morning, " Sin is a ti'ansgres- 
 sion of the law ; " which, perhaps, might be more 
 pithily rendered into our language by inverting the 
 
90 SIN THE TEANSGKESSION 
 
 order of the words, and saying, " The transgression of 
 the law is sin." 
 
 I have spoken to you of the grandeur and amplitude 
 of the word Law, how it reaches to the heights, and 
 descends to the depths, and is commensurate with the 
 extent of all being. But this correlative word Sin, — 
 this wilful violation of law, — has a meaning too large 
 and terrible ever to be described or conceived by mortal 
 mind. Sin ! think of it, look at it, tremble and flee ! 
 On the one side, is there not a God of Infinite Power ; 
 for what but Infinite Power could have created the stars 
 and constellations above us ; or the exquisite mechan- 
 isms of the vegetable and animal worlds around us, or 
 our own frames so fearfully and wonderfally made, or 
 our souls, whose thoughts " wander through eternity? " 
 Is He not a Being, as wise as He is powerful, and as 
 benevolent as He is wise ? And was it not through 
 good-will that He created us, encompassed us with an 
 atmosphere of blessings, and made us capable of ascend- 
 ing forever along an infinite scale of excellence, of en- 
 larging our natures with new accessions of wisdom and 
 truth, of adorning ourselves with beauties which exist 
 only in the Paradise of God, and of rejoicing from age 
 to age with more intense and seraphic exultations ? 
 
 On the other hand, think ■what it imports, that a 
 creature of the dust, a -being of yesterday, with but a 
 hand's breadth of knowledge and the experience of an 
 hour, should attempt to make laws for himself, instead 
 of finding out and obeying the laws that God has made 
 for him ; that such a being should suppose that he has 
 found out a path, by which he can reach happiness 
 sooner, feel its thrills more deeply and enjoy it longer, 
 than by following the counsels and commands of his 
 
OF THE LAW. 91 
 
 infinitely wise and perfect Father ; is it not amazing, 
 and would it not be incredible, if our whole lives, fall 
 of observation and experience, did not make us see and 
 feel its truth ! 
 
 Milton has personified Sin, and described, her as a 
 hideous monster set to guard the gates of hell : 
 
 " Before the gates there sat, 
 On either side, a formidable shape, 
 The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair, 
 But ended foul in many a scaly fold, 
 Voluminous and vast, a serpent armed 
 With mortal sting. About her middle round 
 A cry of hell-hounds, never ceasing, bark'd, 
 With wide Cerberean mouths, full loud, and rung 
 A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep. 
 If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb. 
 And kennel there, yet there still bark'd and howl'd 
 Within unseen." 
 
 But no physical imagery, though gathering disgust 
 upon disgust, and accumulating horror upon horror, can 
 paint the dreadfal reality of sin itself. Sin is not a 
 fabled monster, but a real one. It is not an existence 
 outside and apart from man's bosom, but within it. It 
 is not a creature whom you must go to the gates of a 
 material hell to see, — it is not a caged beast or fiend 
 carried about in chains for a show, — but it is a resident 
 of every guilty man's heart. Would to God that sin 
 had no terrors worse than barking hell-hounds, fiercely 
 rushing out from their ambush to seize unwary victims, 
 and then dragging the prey to their loathsome kennel. 
 But sin is a voluntary exiling of one's self from commu- \ 
 nion with God and all good beings ; it is a forfeiture of i 
 all the heavenly peace.of virtue, of the bhssful harmo- ! 
 nies which flow in, like music, upon the soul, after 
 
92 SIN THE TRANSGRESSION 
 
 duties faithfully performed ; it is haggard fear, blanch- 
 ing the face ; it is convulsions of agony, crushing the 
 heart ; it is remorse, shrieking with intolerable tonnent, 
 " Oh, would to God I had never been born ; " and not 
 unfrequently it drives its victim to madness, to despair, 
 to suicide. 
 
 Do not look upon sin, then, as some frightful spectre 
 conjured up by another, but as something created by 
 yourself; not as a tormentor that will pursue your steps 
 wherever you Hee, but as a criminal force, which, wher- 
 ever you may flee, you carry in your own bosom ; not 
 as an enemy that you may outlive, or that will grow 
 weary in its besiegings or pursuit, and, at last, leave you 
 to rest ; but as a foe, which, if you do not exorcise and 
 expel, will remain a part of you forever, and when its 
 name is called, though in the presence of an assembled 
 universe, you will be forced to answer, " It is I." Sin 
 consists not in vultures tearing your heart with bloody 
 talon and beak ; not in wolves hounding your panting 
 steps, across lonely wastes, in midnight darkness ; not 
 in serpents coiling themselves round bosom and throat, 
 and strangling out your life ; not in pirates torturing 
 out the secret of your hidden wealth ; not in bigots 
 stretching you upon the limb-disjointing rack, or bind- 
 ing you to the fire-engirdled stake ; all this could be 
 borne, has been borne triumphantly, with shouts of ex- 
 ultation and joy ; but sin consists in a false state of the 
 mind and heart ; in dishonest contrivances ; in impure 
 desires ; in intemperance ; in concupiscence ; in pro- 
 fanity ; in blasphemy against the good God ; in those 
 acts of wrong, which, whatever they may be, register 
 themselves, as they are committed, upon the eternal 
 tablets of the heart ; and, unless repented of and forsa- 
 
OF THE LAW. 1)3 
 
 ken, will remain the blackening autobiography of eter- 
 nity. Sin is the weakness and disease of the moral 
 faculties. You know what is meant by a withered 
 limb, — an arm that you cannot raise up to your head, 
 a foot you cannot move forward in your path. Sin, 
 committed against our fellow-men, is such a paralysis , 
 of conscience or justice. You know what is meant by 
 an idiot, — a blank, stark, brainless moonling, — one 
 who dwells amid the beauties and glories of nature, yet 
 finds no charm or splendor in them all ; one who lives 
 amid its harmonies, yet hears no music ; one who walks 
 among all the grandeurs and varieties of creation, but 
 to whom they all seem tame and monotonous. Such is 
 the loathsome idiot, having only the outward form, be- 
 reft of the inward majesty of a man. The sinner is the 
 moral idiot. To his sightless eye, and liis tuneless ear, 
 all the brightness and joy of the moral world is blank 
 and inane. Of that summit and crown of all mortal 
 and immortal beauty, — the Beauty of Holiness, — he 
 sees not a feature nor a gleam. To this idiot sinner, or 
 sinner idiot, all the power and wisdom of this truth- 
 compacted universe, is empty and formless as chaos 
 itseF ; and, instead of dwelling in the beatific presence 
 of God, and in communion with all good spirits, he 
 roams a voluntary exile, fatherless,, motherless, friend- 
 less, and forlorn, through the unanswering void of im- 
 mensity. Such is sin ; such it is to be a sinner. 
 
 But instead of these general views, let us look at the 
 subject of sin with a Httle -more particularity and indi- 
 viduahzing, and make the domain of conscience and 
 religion larger. Moral and religious teachers have 
 confined their expositions, their rewards, and their pen- 
 alties, to too few things. 
 8 
 
9-4 SIN THE TRANSGRESSION 
 
 The transgression of the law is sin. Before, then, 
 there can be any sin, there must be a law. On this 
 point I have before spoken to you at sufficient length. 
 I have shown you that every created thing, animate, or 
 inanimate ; everything, organized, or unorganized, has 
 its law. All the organs of your bodies, and all the 
 faculties of your minds, have their law ; and when these 
 laws, or any one of them, is knowingly or wilfully trans- 
 gressed, there is sin. This shows us what transgression 
 is ; let us now see who is capable of being a transgressor. 
 The etymological meaning of the word transgress is, to 
 pass over or beyond a prescribed limit. A wilful trans- 
 gression, then, can be committed only by some one who 
 knows, or was bound to know, and had opportunity to 
 know, where the limit is. None but an intelligent and 
 moral being can know this. Hence, none but an intel- 
 ligent and moral being can be a transgressor, that is, a 
 sinner. When a railroad locomotive runs beyond its 
 station house, it has passed its limit or goal ; but it is 
 not a sinner. When fire escapes from furnace or chim- 
 ney top, and burns down a house, or a city, it overleaps 
 its boundary, but fire is not a sinner. When a stark 
 idiot destroys property, or takes human life, he is not a 
 sinner, for he knows no better. You might as well say 
 that the moon is a sinner, when, in passing between the 
 sun and the earth, it casts its shadow on the latter, and 
 causes an eclipse. One of the conditions of sin, then, 
 is tliat, there must be a law ; and another condition is, 
 that there must be a capacity for understanding the law. 
 Every duty is a law, and, hence, as I have often told 
 you, there are not only ten commandments, but ten 
 thousand ; and, therefore, transgression, or sin, may 
 manifest itself in ten thousand different ways. 
 
OF THE LAW. 95 
 
 As conditions of sin, then, there must not only be a 
 law, and a general ability in the subject, sufficient to 
 understand the law, but the means of knowing or un- 
 derstanding it must be suppHed. While a proposed 
 law still remains in the lawgiver's bosom, or is only 
 promulgated in an unknown tongue, the subject cannot 
 transgress it, in a moral sense. The Roman Emperor, 
 Caligula, is said to have caused his laws to be written 
 in a handwriting so fine, and to be posted up on col- 
 umns so high, that the people could not see to read 
 them, and then he punished those by whom they were 
 not obeyed. Who was the greater criminal in this case, 
 the alleged law-breaker, or the law-maker ? And when 
 a man assures us that God acts by this rule, what does 
 he make of God but another Caligula, only an infi- 
 nitely worse one ? 
 
 So an ex post facto law is always an iniquitous law. 
 What, in the language of jurisprudence, is called an 
 ex post facto law, is a law which looks backwards, in- 
 stead of forwards, which declares it to be criminal to 
 have performed an act, that was not criminal at the 
 time yhen it was done. For instance there may be 
 no lawy at the present time, against making gunpowder ; 
 if, then, the Legislature should pass a law, declaring 
 that every man who has made gunpowder during the 
 past year, should be subject to fine and imprisonment, 
 this would be an ex post facto law. I have heard theo- 
 logians say, that all men, except, perhaps, the ancient 
 Jews, who Uved before the advent of Jesus Christ, must 
 be forever lost ; simply because they had never heard 
 of, and therefore never believed on Him. Would such 
 persons, or would they not, be judged by an ex post 
 facto law ? 
 
90 SIN THE TRANSGRESSION 
 
 You see, also, that, as men pass througli the greatest 
 variety of relations and circumstances, they become 
 subject to the greatest variety of laws, and therefore 
 may commit the greatest variety of sins. Every new 
 relation, and eveiy new set of circumstances, presents an 
 occasion for the application of a new law. If one has 
 a father, he is bound to that father by the filial law. 
 If he should lose that father and have a guardian, then 
 he . is no longer bound by the law of the son to the 
 father, but by the modified law of the ward to the guar- 
 dian; and when he becomes twenty-one years of age, 
 then he is absolved from all legal obligations to his 
 guardian, but he takes on the responsibility of a citizen 
 to the State ; and if he should marry and have children, 
 then he comes under the parental obligation, and is 
 legally bound for the nurture, support, and education of 
 those children, until they arrive at the age of twenty- 
 one, at which time this new relation is modified, both 
 on his part, and on theirs. 
 
 Then, there are laws applicable to all our appetites 
 and propensities. There is a law which forbids our 
 indultrence in food or drink, to a degree that would be 
 injurious to health. We have no right to eat more 
 because our food tastes good. We should eat in refer- 
 ence to the stomach, and not to the palate. No matter 
 how sweet, and savory, and odorous, your food may be, 
 — the more so the better ; — it was intended that eat- 
 ing and drinking should give us pleasure. Btu what I 
 insist upon is, that health, and not immediate pleasui'e, 
 shoidd be our law at the table ; and whoever obeys this 
 law, A\ ill obtain not only more health, but more pleasure, 
 in the long run. 
 
 By applying this train of thought to other spheres of 
 
OF THE LAW. 97 
 
 action, you will readily perceive that tliere can be an 
 almost infinite number of offences ; and offences, too, of 
 every variety and degree of heinousness. Some are 
 peccadilloes, faults, defects, or blemishes in moral char- 
 acter. Others are of a graver nature, trespasses, mis- 
 demeanors, and crimes inferior to felonies ; while others 
 involve moral turpitude, belonging to what, in law, is 
 called the crimen falsi, such as conspiracy to injure, 
 perjury, subornation of perjury, &c. ; and others are 
 crimes against God himself, — profanity, blasphemy, 
 impiety, sacrilege. 
 
 If, then, there are various grades of offences, tliere 
 must be various degrees of guilt among offenders. Did 
 not Christ say, it should be more tolerable for Tyre and 
 Sidon, and even for Sodom and Gomorrah, than for the 
 offenders in his day ? Justice punishes according to the 
 ill-desert of the offender. For the same outward act, it 
 does not punish an ignorant, untutored child, as it 
 would an intelligent adult. It surely will not punish 
 the rulers of a nation who have been bred all their lives 
 long in thoughts and sentiments of oppression, for com- 
 mitting acts of oppression, as it will punish, for similar 
 acts of injustice and cruelty, those who have been bred 
 all their lives long to a knowledge and an appreciation 
 of the Rights of Man. " And that servant,' ' says Jesus 
 Christ, " who knew his Lord's will, and prepared not 
 himself, neither did according to his will, shall be 
 beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, 
 and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten 
 with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, 
 of himshall much be required ; and to whom men have 
 committed much, of him they will ask the more." 
 
 Hence we see that God will punish the clear-headed, 
 8* 
 
98 SIN THE TRANSGRESSIOX 
 
 strong-minded, far-seeing man ; that He will punish 
 those who have been illuminated by the glorious light 
 of the Gospel, by a different standard from that by 
 which He will punish weak and imbecile men, or the 
 barbarian and heathen. 
 
 The same year that Prof. Webster was executed in 
 Massachusetts, for the murder of Doctor Parkman, 
 another man, named Washington Goode, was hung for 
 another murder. The first was educated, learned, and, 
 from his birtli, had enjoyed all the advantages that re- 
 fined society, schools, churches, colleges, could bestow. 
 The latter was a colored man, born in obscurity, swad- 
 dled in ignorance, nursed by the griping of the iron 
 arms of poverty, left to fall into intemperance, and 
 besotted by vices, until he approached, at least, near the 
 line of moral unaccountability. Petitions for the par- 
 don of them both were signed and sent to the Governor. 
 Now, what would you have said of the Governor, had 
 he pardoned the man whom all the attendant circum- 
 stances of life had tended to rescue and to uphft ; but 
 had sent the man to the gallows, whose every faculty 
 from his birth, had been loaded with some immoral 
 gravitation that weighed Irim downward to ruin ? 
 What should we think of the Ruler of a State who could 
 do this ? What should we think of the Ruler of a Uni- 
 verse who could do this ? I know that it is said that 
 God, by right of His sovereignty, may do anything 
 with the creatures of His own creation. The God I 
 worship recognizes no right to be unjust ! And there 
 is no rule of reason or religion, which authorizes me to 
 judge of his good attributes, in order to love and adore 
 Him, which does not also authorize me to pronounce 
 upon any evil attributes that are imputed to Him. 
 
OF THE LAW. 99 
 
 God punishes, also, for the offence committed, and 
 not for any other offence. What should we think of 
 the father of a family, the teacher of a school, the faculty 
 of a college, or of the tribunals which administer the 
 criminal laws of a State, if they had but one and the 
 same punishment for all varieties of offenders ? Has 
 the Infinite God less justice, less discrimination, less 
 primitive appliances to fit different degrees of wrong, 
 than earthly father, teacher, faculty, or judge ? He 
 punishes physical sins, or transgressions of physical law, 
 physically ; and other sins according to their kind and 
 aggravation. Does a man expose himself to sudden 
 transitions from heat to cold? he is punished by rheu- 
 matism, inflammation, and consumption. High living 
 aggravated by indolence, is punished by gout. Licen- 
 tiousness rots men, until they become like rotten sheep. 
 Intemperance demonizes the heart, maddens, and, at 
 last, stultifies the brain, divides the hmbs, and joints, 
 and organs of the hody, into a thousand parts, and sets 
 a devil over each part to torment it. National crimes, 
 — slavery, or any form of legalized oppression ; forbid- 
 ding popular education, or even neglecting to promote 
 it, — ai-e punished by wide-spread poverty, by igno- 
 rance, by long baitings in the march of civilization, and, 
 in many cases, by pestilences, famine, and death. 
 Crimes ao-ainst the soul of man, — such as sectarianism, 
 bigotry, intolerance of free thought, — are punished by 
 a meanness, and narrowness, and cruelty of national 
 character, and by the extinction of all manly, noble, 
 and generous sentiments. Crimes against the moral 
 laws of God, — such as profanity, blasphemy, sacrilege, 
 &c., are punished by moral insensibility, or by remorse ; 
 and, until repented of and abandoned, — by exile from 
 
100 SIX THE THANSGRESSION 
 
 God's holy presence, that is from those aspirations and 
 communings, and exaltations of joy, which fill the life 
 of good men, wherever they may be, with unspeakable 
 ecstasy and rapture. We see by all this, that a man 
 may obey some of God's commandments while he breaks 
 others. Those wliich he obeys, he is rewarded for; 
 but for all those which he breaks, he is punished. 
 The civil magistrate punishes only for the crimes which 
 men commit. If a man be guilty of horse-steahng only, 
 he is not punished for bigamy. If he be guilty only of 
 theft, he is not punished for setting houses on fire. So 
 we may be sure that God will only punish men for the 
 offences which they commit. If the wickedest man 
 that ever lived makes a perfect steam-engine of five 
 hundred horse-power, it will work just as well as though 
 it had been made by the best of saints. Being an en- 
 gine of five hundred horse-power, it will not be cut 
 down to an engine of four hundred, or three hundred, 
 or one hundred horse-power, because its maker practised 
 one, two, or throe vices, or committed so many crimes 
 of a hideous dye. The vices or crimes will be pun- 
 ished, according to their respective qualities, but not 
 the steam-engine. For, wherever the man is guilty, 
 there he is sure to be punished by the adamantine law 
 of eternal rectitude, just as he is sure to be rewarded 
 wherever he is meritorious. Hence, if a man loves God 
 with all his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, 
 and his neighbor as himself; if he does justly, loves 
 mercy, and walks humbly with his God ; if he visits 
 the fatherless and the widows in their afifiction, and 
 keeps himself mispotted froia the world ; then, there is 
 only one sense in which it may be said that such a man 
 cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, — that is, because 
 
OF THE LAW. 101 
 
 he is in it already. So, if one's life and character are 
 the reverse of all this, then, there is only one sense in 
 which it can be said that such a man will not be 
 doomed to perdition ; — namely, that he was doomed 
 there long ago, and the sentence is already in process 
 of execution. Heaven and hell are not places, but 
 gtates^f mind ; not regions for the geographer to ex- 
 plore and set out by metes and bounds ; but conditions 
 of the soul which we call remorse, hatred, and torment, 
 or joy, beatitude, and ecstasy. For, as Milton says, 
 
 " The mind is its own place, and in itself, 
 
 Can make a heaven of heD, a hell of heaven." 
 
 I have time to set forth but one idea more on this 
 immensely important theme. It is an idea of modern 
 date, — first advanced by one of the most philosophic 
 and wisest men of the age. As we have a thousand 
 instances which show us how much pliilosojohy has been 
 aided by religion, this shows how much aid religion 
 may borrow from philosophy. 
 
 The idea I am about to announce, takes the highest 
 religious platform, to begin with. It assumes, in the ) 
 first place, that man is bound, as far as it is possible for ' 
 such a finite being to do, to know the will of God, and 
 then he is bound to obey it. But I believe the opinion 
 has always prevailed, and, until the idea to which T 
 refer was first broached, the opinion was uni\ersal, 
 that our obligation to obey God's commandments or laws 
 was more sacred or less sacred, had more or less bind- 
 ing stringency, and was accompanied and enforced by 
 higher penal sanctions or by lower penal sanctions, 
 accordino' to the manner in which those laws were made 
 known to us. That is, that when an acknowledged 
 truth or duty has been made known to the world bj- a 
 
102 
 
 SIN THE TRANSGRESSION 
 
 man of a particular class or nation, or by a man not 
 believed to be divinely inspired, it has less efficacy, less 
 binding power upon our consciences and lives, than if 
 it had been communicated to us by a Hebrew prophet, 
 or by a man supposed to be divinely inspired. Accord- 
 ing to this theory, God's truths or commands are not 
 worthy our homage and observance because of their 
 intrinsic justice or hoHness, because they are God's 
 truths or commandments, but because of the channel 
 through which they came to us ; because of their acci- 
 dents. Now the new and advanced idea which I 
 wished to set forth is, that any duty, any obligation 
 whatever, as soon as we are convinced that it is God's 
 will, or God's law, has the same sovereign authority 
 over us, and its violation will be accompanied by the 
 same fearful penalties, as though the proclamation of 
 that same will, or law of God, had been made amid 
 the thunderings and lightnings of Sinai, or from the 
 burning bush of Horeb. 
 
 There are immense differences, it is true, in regard 
 to the importance of different truths or commandments, 
 — some referring to the body and some to the soul, 
 some pertaining to this life, and some to the next — and 
 there ar& different degrees of faith or of conviction, 
 according to which men believe duties or destinies to 
 have been divinely revealed or philosophically dis- 
 covered ; but, when any one of God's truths is de- 
 monstrably made known to us, that truth is equally 
 entitled to our homage and observance, and binds us by 
 the same awful sanctions, whether revealed from the 
 cloudy top of Sinai, or discovered by philosophic, re- 
 search, or«ven by accident. It is the duty, and not 
 the mode of demonstrating it ; it is the holy message, 
 
OF THE LAW. 103 
 
 and not the chance messenger ; it is the majesty and 
 sanctity of God's commands, and not the red or black 
 ink in which they may be printed ; it is the holiness of 
 the light dispensed, and not the direction from which 
 H shines, which thiuiders and flashes its appeals on the 
 soul, and says : Obey, for it is God's will. What 
 matters it to me whether the telegraphic wire which 
 brings me intelligence of my friend's death, or of his 
 marvellous rescue from death, be made of iron wire, 
 or of steel ? It is the death or the life of my friend, 
 and not the wire, that is vital to me. My young friends, 
 what a solemn thought is this ! How are all the common 
 duties of life elevated into a higher region, and illumi- 
 nated with a diviner light by the reflection, that the 
 truths of Physiology wliich you learn in your class- 
 rooms ; that the truths of mental and moral science 
 which you acquire in your course of college studies ; 
 that your duty through life to educate all people in all 
 landsj to the highest practicable extent ; that your duty 
 to oppose all unrighteous wars, all oppression, and all 
 slavery, whether it be of body or of mind ; that your 
 duty to suppress all sources of intemperance, and all evil 
 habits that have sprung up since the days of Moses or 
 of Christ ; that the offence of neglecting to perform these 
 duties is just as heinous, and that the punishment for 
 such neglect will be just as certain and severe, as though 
 the heavens had been visibly opened and God had au- 
 dibly spoken, commanding you to do the same right 
 things, or to abstain from the same wrong ones. This 
 does not bring down what you may have been accus- 
 tomed to consider the higher truth to a level with what 
 you thought to be the lower one ; it only elevates the 
 lower to that perfectness of obligation in which you 
 have held the higher. 
 
104 SIN — THE TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW. 
 
 Let these solemn considerations, my young friends, 
 abide with you through the week and through Hfe ; and 
 may we all remember that as God has promised us the 
 highest rewards which our natures are capable of re- 
 ceiving, if we obey His laws ; for he that doeth right- 
 eousness is righteous, even as God is righteous ; so He 
 has assured us that sin is the transgression of the law, 
 and made known to us by ten thousand burning, deso- 
 lating proofs, that the way of the transgressor is hard. 
 
MEDITATION. 105 
 
 MEDITATION. 
 
 Our Father who art in Heaven, we bow before 
 Thee in reverence and godly fear, and in humihty 
 and love we would adore the Infinite perfisctions of 
 Thy nature. Thou alone art the Creator, Preserver, 
 Ruler, and Final Disposer of all things. We adore 
 Thee for that Infinite Power by which Thou fillest the 
 regions of immensity with planets, and suns, and sys- 
 tems, all, as we believe, the abodes of beings capable of 
 knowing truth, of feehng love, of enjoying happiness — 
 all Thy children, and therefore all our brothers. When 
 we look upward to the stars, may we not look at them 
 as vast masses filled with shining but insensate material, 
 sparkhng for an idle show in the azure vault above, 
 but may we look upon them as realms where Thy moral 
 power is manifested even more gloriously than Thy 
 physical. We adore Thee that thou didst create the 
 universe, not only with Infinite power but with Infinite 
 skill, so that as Thy creatures advance in knowledge, 
 they can see more and more of Thy perfections of wis- 
 dom, of skill, of knowledge, of the adaptation of all 
 things to all things, creating, to the ear of contempla- 
 tion, a solemn harmony, an anthem of praise, through 
 all the limitless regions of space. To that grand an- 
 them may we add our hallelujahs. We adore Thee 
 that Thou didst create and dost govern Thy worlds by 
 immutable and uniform laws, so that we, Thy creatures, 
 when we know Thy will, for once, can know it al- 
 9 
 
106 MEDITATION. 
 
 ways ; so that we have no fear of the caprices, and 
 changeableness, and arbitrary impulses of a vacillating 
 governor. We adore Thee, that Thy laws are all bene- 
 volent and holy, made on the great principle that Thy 
 glory and our highest good are identical, so that all our 
 nature can respond to the glorious truth that the law 
 of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul ; the statutes 
 of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart ; the com- 
 mandment of the Lord is free, enlightening the eyes. 
 We thank Thee, Heavenly Father, that Thou hast 
 raised up from time to time, those great and glorious 
 men of intellect and genius, who sought out and dis- 
 covered the laws by which Thou dost govern the 
 material world, so that we can explain its wonderful 
 phenomena, not by follies and vagaries of superstition, 
 but by the unerring principles of wisdom and truth, so 
 that we can make those laws subservient to our wel- 
 fare in arts, in mechanics, in agriculture, in using the 
 great forces of nature to minister to our comfort and 
 prosperity. We thank Thee for the men whose genius 
 has developed and laid down those higher rules of social 
 life, of civil law, of equity, of government, of education, 
 by which the interests of great masses of men are pro- 
 moted and carried into welfare and grandeur. But 
 oh ! still more do we praise Thy name for those greater 
 and nobler spirits who have discovered our relations to 
 Thee. * * « * » 
 
TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL -A DUTY. 
 
V. 
 
 TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL — A DUTY. 
 
 My young friends, I have often spoken to you of the 
 great number and variety of human duties. Every 
 relation in life has its peculiar duties. If, therefore, we 
 consider how various, and how numerous, or rather how 
 numberless, are the relations of life, we can have a more 
 adequate idea of how various and how numberless are 
 the duties of life. 
 
 Every duty implies a command to fulfil it ; so that 
 the moment I become convinced of the existence of 
 any duty belonging to my position, that moment, I hear 
 the voice of God commanding me to perform it. Hence, 
 as I have often said to you before, there are not only 
 Ten Commandments, but ten thousand. 
 
 The subject on which I propose to discourse to you 
 at this time, is our duty to offenders, to criminals, and 
 to those who are exposed by any peculiar temptation, 
 internal or external, to become offenders or criminals. 
 Alas ! how numerous they are ! What distressful 
 throngs of men and women who come into life, not only 
 capable of happiness, but yearning for happiness, have 
 found only disease and sorrow, pain and ignominy, and 
 in sinking at last into an unhallowed grave, have reached 
 the only quiet spot the earth ever gave them ! The 
 hopes which nature implanted in their bosoms were 
 never nurtured into blossoming. The curse of unfaitli- 
 9* [109] 
 
110 TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL A DUTY. 
 
 fill parents, or of bad associates ; the pernicious customs 
 and practices of society, under which they were almost 
 like clay upon the potter's wheel, exasperated their in- 
 born capacities of evil, and plunged them into ruin. 
 The health, and strength, and physical joy of which 
 they were capable, were sacrificed by mismanagement. 
 The mental faculties, hungering and thirsting after 
 knowledge, were never brought into right relations to 
 those objects of knowledge of which the bountiful 
 Author of nature has prepared such a profusion. They 
 were never taught to feel the delights of exercising the 
 moral nature, delights of which a child can have no 
 more conception, without a presentation of opportuni- 
 ties, than he can have an idea of the deliciousness of 
 fruit that he never tasted. 
 
 Indeed, people often deny that children have a love 
 of knowledge, merely through their own mistakes in 
 offering knowledge to them. Suppose a mother should 
 buy a vase of the nicest honey for her children, and 
 should pour it on the top of their heads, or the nape 
 of their necks, or into their ears, or on the soles of their 
 feet, instead of putting it into their inouths ; and when 
 the children began to fret and cry, and to express the 
 strongest disgust , and strive to run away, she should 
 affirm that children hate honey ; she would only do what 
 many teachers do, when they affirm that children do 
 not love knowledge. 
 
 Consider, for a moment, what a deplorable perver- 
 sion of their powers bad men make. Capacitated to 
 do good, they do evil. With powers and faculties to 
 seek out and to perform the right, they seek out and 
 perform the wrong. With health and strength to earn 
 their own Hving and add to the common wealth, they 
 
TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL A DUTY. Ill 
 
 live by depredating on the property of others. With in- 
 genuity and inventive power to improve the machinery 
 of the useful arts, they pervert their gifts to prepare 
 implements and contrivances for fraud, and robbery, 
 and the coinage of false money. I have witnessed the 
 trials of several offenders, who had showed genius and 
 skill enough in their contrivances to commit crime, to 
 have invented some useful machine that would have 
 made their fortunes. What a different life, and what a 
 different end of life ! — to be an iuTentor and discov- 
 erer, like Fulton, or Whitney, or Arkwright, or Frank- 
 lin, and to bless the world by their talents and study, or 
 to expend talents and study in doing wrong, and end 
 life in the penitentiary ! Some of this class of crimi- 
 nals, instead of living by industry, live by blood. To 
 their perverted minds, a little money or an hour of 
 criminal indulgence, was more precious than the life of 
 a fellow-being. Look out upon the broad expanse of 
 society, as upon a map, and you may see the loathsome 
 and hideous vestiges of bad men, marked here and there 
 upon its surface. They go through the community as 
 a tornado cuts its way through a forest, leaving a path- 
 way of desolation, whose ravages it will take a genera- 
 tion to repair. Instead of founding hospitals, they have 
 filled prisons. Those who might have invented and 
 built life-boats which would have saved crews, have be- 
 come wreckers, waiting on dangerous coasts, to steal, 
 and rob the passengers of shipwrecked vessels. In 
 many cases, those have stood at the bar of criminal 
 tribunals and been sentenced to the jail or the gallows, 
 who, by their native talents and capacities, might have 
 adorned the bench itself, from which their condemnation 
 proceeded. Oh, what a perversion was this of powers 
 
112 TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL A DUTY. 
 
 and capabilities I What sacrilege committed upon tlie 
 holiest of God's gifts ! It would seem to be enough to 
 satiate the mahgnity of a fiend, to rob a man of his 
 powers of usefulness, to smite down the arm that would 
 dispense blessings, to stifle the aspiration for worthy 
 deeds. But in bad men the power of doing good is 
 changed into the fact of doing ill. The arm that should 
 dispense blessings showers injuries. The honors within 
 their reach are exchanged for ignominy and shame. 
 Such are bad men, — in eternal discord with all the 
 laws of the moral universe, warring against the divine 
 order of Providence, in a warfare that is certain to 
 bring defeat and destruction upon themselves. 
 
 More or less of this class, the thief, the forger, the 
 robber, the libertine, the destroyer of life, or the de- 
 stroyer of character, within the last month, within 
 the last week, having done their last and worst deeds 
 upon earth, have forcibly quitted the world they tor- 
 mented. A sad and mournful exit. Are their places 
 to be filled ? Are their deeds to be re-enacted ? Is 
 the deformity of their characters to be reproduced ? 
 Who stand ready to furnish the new recruits for the 
 new campaign of guilt ? Can the state afford this de- 
 sertion from its own numbers to swell the ranks of sin ? 
 Suppose the government to be a mere soulless entity, 
 without conscience and without heart, an arch-bailiff, 
 whose only function it is to keep the peace, and pro- 
 vided it does keep the peace, indifferent as to the moral 
 character of the means it uses, — suppose all this, and 
 yet how can the government be indifferent to crime and 
 criminals ? If crime were the greatest of earthly lux- 
 uries, it is so expensive that it cannot be afforded. The 
 frugality of a Republic protests against so costly an in- 
 
TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL — A DUTY. 113 
 
 dulgence. If government were intent only on getting 
 ticli, shrewdness and far-sighted pohcy would dictate 
 any expenditure to preserve the morals of the people. 
 If government were a mere jail-keeper and executioner, 
 it could adopt no means of help so effectual for Ugliten- 
 ing the labor of punishment as the diifiision of intelli- 
 gence and the cultivation of honesty. Hangman and 
 scourger though it be, it can make a brilliant pecuniary 
 speculation by educating its people aright, and thus 
 saving the expense of halters, chains, prisons. There 
 is no such false economy as in neglecting the proper 
 culture of youth, because of its cost. He is the great- 
 est prodigal and spendthrift who bequeaths money or 
 goods or lands to his children at the expense of their 
 heads and hearts. 
 
 But if the state is rich enough to spare a portion of 
 its citizens for the prison and the gallows, where is the 
 parent who stands ready to have the lot fall upon one 
 of his own offspring ? If the ranks of guilt are to be 
 replenished for the next generation, as they have been 
 for the last, then it inevitably follows that children and 
 infants, yet in a state of practical innocency, are to 
 imitate the deeds and receive the doom of the ignomin- 
 ious malefactors who have gone before them. An in- 
 tolerable imagination ! In whose arms is that infant 
 now folded, on whose throbbing breast is that babe now 
 reposing, who shall hereafter tenant the felon's cell and 
 fill the felon's grave ? One could not see an infant 
 driven to the projecting angle of an edifice by the 
 flames that were consuming it, and vainly stretching 
 out its hands and lifting its voice for succor, without 
 becoming frantic at the spectacle ; and yet this would 
 be a gala-scene compared with the sight of one account- 
 
114 TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL A DUTY. 
 
 able being writhing under those terrible fires of re- 
 morse which burn without consuming. What parent 
 has a child that he is willing to have apprenticed and 
 prepared for the terrible work of guilt ? Has any one 
 of you, my youthful friends, a little brother or sister 
 whom you are willing to surrender for such a sacrifice ? 
 But if crime be so terrible a calamity, if a criminal 
 be such an utter perversion of the purpose for which 
 man was created, how ought an intelligent and moral 
 community to regard both crime and criminal? When 
 a crime is committed, which party is suffering under 
 the greater misfortune, the party wronged or the wrong- 
 doer ? Suppose a man's watch, or coat, or horse to be 
 stolen, or a counterfeit bank-note to be passed upon 
 him, or his name to be forged to a receipt, or a parcel 
 of goods to be obtained from him under false pretences. 
 In either of the cases supposed, there is no actual de- 
 struction of property ; the aggregate amount of the 
 wealth in the state or country remains the same. There 
 has only been an attempted or a successful transfer of 
 money or of some article of value from one man to 
 another, against the rights of ownership. This is the 
 outward fact, and this is the extent of the wrong done 
 to the loser. Doubtless it is often a serious one. But 
 the individual defrauded or robbed may have, and in- 
 deed generally has, other watches, or coats, or horses, 
 or, at least, the means of procuring them. Even if re- 
 dress can never be had, it very seldom happens that the 
 sufferer is obliged to eat, or drink, or sleep the less, or to 
 forego any of the common comforts or conveniences of 
 life, on account of the loss. Tliis is the measure of 
 harm on the side of the loser. But who can measm-e 
 the magnitude of the evil suffered .by the offender him- 
 
Testimony against evil — a duty. 115 
 
 self? He lias outraged and profaned that part of liis 
 nature whicli should have been kept inviolate and 
 sacred. He has written a terrible chapter in his own 
 history that no detergent can ever efface, no alchemy 
 can ever transmute into whiteness — a page that wiU 
 endure forever as a part of his own hving consciousness 
 and memory. Pardon may save him from some of the 
 consequences of the deed, but not even pardon, how- 
 ever bounteous and overflowing, can ever annihilate the 
 fact that guilt was perpetrated, and that he was its au- 
 thor. The very idea of pardon, indeed, must always 
 suggest the idea of offence, and the idea of having of- 
 fended must forever make deductions from the happi- 
 ness of a pure nature. Perhaps the offender, previous 
 to his offence, was pressing forward in a course of virtue 
 and honor, which, so far, is always a course of inward 
 happiness ; but when he violated his allegiance to truth 
 and deserted her banner, he turned by a right angle 
 and entered the pathway to ruin. The offence, then, 
 was a violation of the great principles on which his 
 moral nature was constructed ; it was the sacrifice of 
 honor and duty ; it was the exchange of peace of mind 
 for anxiety and the goadings of remorse ; it was plac- 
 ing himself in opposition to heaven and in discordance 
 with the whole moral universe. When a man, before 
 innocent, commits crime, he passes, by a sudden transi- 
 tion, into a new world. The change in himself changes 
 the significance of all objects around him ; the laws of 
 association in his own mind are changed ; a viper is 
 born in his breast which stings and goads him ; somids- 
 that he never heard before ring in his ears ; a violated 
 conscience turns avenger and scourger, — the foe is 
 within him. Were it merely an external enemy that 
 
116 TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL A DUTY. 
 
 he had to contend with, he might be fled from, might 
 be resisted, bribed, or would at last remit his inflictions 
 through very weariness of tormenting. But not so 
 with one's own consciousness of wrong. While the 
 soul is ahve, that consciousness is ahve, for it is a func- 
 tion of the soul. It will not sleep, nor tire, nor relent. 
 Hear what the heathen poet, Juvenal, says : 
 
 " From virtue's ways when vicious men depart. 
 The first avenger is the culprit's heart." 
 
 Such is the awful measure of harm on the side of 
 the offender. Contrast, then, the losses of the respec- 
 tive parties, — the offender and the offended. Though 
 the injured party has been despoiled of the last cent of 
 his wealth, though the last morsel has been snatched 
 from his famishing lips, though his shelter has been 
 burned over his head, and himself sent forth naked and 
 penniless into the world, still, after all this, his loss is 
 infinitely less than that of the criminal who inflicted it. 
 Which of these parties, then, needs the greatest sym- 
 pathy, succor, and assistance ? Surely the fate of the 
 criminal is infinitely the most to be deplored. He is 
 the party most demanding sympathy. But what kind 
 of sympathy does he require ? Does he require that 
 kind of sympathy which pardons, or that kind of sym- 
 pathy which reforms ? Is he to be saved from the con- 
 sequences of having offended, or to be saved from the 
 disposition to offend ? Is he to be rescued from outward 
 and temporary evils, or from inward and indefinitely 
 long ones ? A wise sympathy seeks out the source of 
 the calamity and removes that ; a foolish sympathy cuts 
 off the twig or shoot of mischief, or pain, but leaves the 
 root in the ground. 
 
 There is another aspect of this case, When' a family 
 
TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL — A DUTY. 117 
 
 or a circle of friends is thrown into consternation by 
 the exposure of some oifence, committed by one of its 
 members, wliicli is it that a false public sentiment most 
 laments, the breach of the moral and divine law, or the 
 worldly disgrace that follows detection ? If the public 
 disgrace and scandal inflict a deeper wound, or cause 
 more regret than the guilty deed itself, it must be be- 
 cause there is a greater reverence for public opinion 
 than for the laws of God. If conscience had a higher 
 homage than the community, then we should lament 
 the wrong in and of itself, more than the shame attend- 
 ing it. A recognition of this truth would prevent men 
 from ever committing a second ofPence in order to con- 
 ceal a first. Indeed, if experience did not disprove it, 
 we should be ready to affirm that no man of common 
 sense could ever venture upon the fatal enterprise of 
 defending one offence by the commission of another. 
 For, if the first offence needs the protection of a second, 
 surely the first two will need twice as much the protec- 
 tion of a third, the first three, three times as much the 
 protection of a fourth, and so on, in progression. He 
 who commits a subsequent offence, in order to conceal 
 a preceding one, is striving to get a cover large enough 
 to cover itself. 
 
 If crime, then, is so terrible an evil, let us consider 
 how the criminal should be treated. His case should 
 always be treated with great solemnity. A depraved 
 custom prevails in some civilized communities ; and it 
 is patronized and rewarded by some educated people, — 
 of using the crimes and distresses of the poor and the 
 wicked as a fimd for ridicule and jocularity. In our 
 coiirts, there is often a body of professional reporters 
 who attend when criminals are arraigned for trial, and 
 
 10 
 
118 TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL A DUTY. 
 
 who find in tlieir depravity, their ignorance, their fears, 
 and their passions, materials for ridicule and merriment. 
 The degradation of the human sonl is tm-ned into sport. 
 Laughter grows wanton over the blighting of domestic 
 affections. Wit is pampered at the expense of all pa- 
 rental ties or filial enjoyments. A human being, fallen 
 from his high estate, eclipsed in all his shining faculties, 
 lost to himself, to his family, and the world, — the sad- 
 dest spectacle that the pitying eye of heaven ever looks 
 down upon, is made, by a profligate wit, the pastime of 
 beings calling: themselves rational and Christian. Men 
 of high intellectual endowments and education, — of a 
 certain sort, — weave romances from human crimes. 
 This mine of human misery and guilt, deep and terri- 
 ble as Tartarus, is entered and worked as men work 
 mines in California, for pecuniary profit, or worse than 
 this, for the diabolical pleasure of contemplating sin. 
 Did Christian sentiments pervade our hearts and con- 
 trol our actions, the precincts of a criminal court would 
 be besieged by troops of men and women, gathered there 
 to rescue or ransom these fallen brothers and sisters of 
 the race. Men would gather around the fatal spot, 
 where the guilty are brought to be tried and condemned, 
 as eagerly as they gather along the shore of the sea, 
 when a storm is dashing a brave ship on the rocks. 
 The shame and remorse of a criminal ought to send out 
 a cry more piercing than the shrieks of drowning mar- 
 iners. To be lost in the abysses of guilt, would be 
 regarded as a fate ten thousand times more dreadful 
 than to be sunk in the depths of the ocean. The loss 
 of character and of innocence would be deemed to be, 
 as it truly is, infinitely greater than the loss of all 
 worldly goods, ay, of life itself To die is but a small 
 
TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL A DUTY. 119 
 
 calamity ; to do wrong is a great one. By what efforts ) 
 then can we save ; by what kindness can we solace ; by 
 what generosity can we ransom and restore ? — these 
 things ought to task the wisdom and benevolence of 
 men and of society. 
 
 We have now seen how men ought to regard crime. 
 They ought to regard it as they regard a conflagration 
 that makes a city houseless. They ought to regard it 
 as they regard unjust war, which, without any recom- 
 pense, fills a nation with mourning, and lamentation, 
 and woe. They ought to regard it as they regard a pes- 
 tilence, that consigns youth, and beauty, and strength, to 
 a common grave. They ought to regard it as they 
 regard insanity, which leaves a being without mind, in 
 a world where every step and every act requires mind. 
 They ought to regard it with fear, and deprecation, and 
 horror, and with an undying resolve to exterminate it, 
 for it is a greater calamity than any I have named, or 
 than all put together. 
 
 But, more particularly, how ought men to regard 
 crime as it affects themselves ? All innocent men feel 
 a common interest to arrest the career of guilty men. 
 All guilty men feel a common interest that all should 
 be honest except themselves and their accomplices ; 
 nay, that even an accomplice should be honest, towards 
 themselves. Even those who combine together for the 
 defence and protection of any social vice, and for tramp- 
 ling under foot the law that forbids it, are nevertheless, 
 sturdy defenders of the good laws in which they have 
 an interest. The manufacturer or seller of ardent 
 spirits will go to the death against horse-thieves. Hear 
 the keeper of a gaming-house talk about the villany of 
 burglars, and you would think he was a saint. The 
 
120 TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL A DUTY. 
 
 trader wlio increases liis profits by adulterating liis 
 goods, will curse the man who sells to him by short 
 measure or weight. So that through all the relations 
 of society, even rogues are interested in having every 
 body else honest. Honest men are interested in having 
 the whole world honest, in suppressing all fraud, vio- 
 lence, and wrong. 
 
 But honesty cannot prevail, unless the guilty are 
 brought to justice. Hence it is alike the interest and- 
 the duty of all honest men to furnish whatever aid they 
 can in bringing the guilty to justice. The man who 
 strives to protect or screen a guilty j)arty, deserts the 
 cause of truth, and allies himself, so far, with the cause 
 of guilt. Who will bring the guilty to justice, if hon- 
 est men will not ? Will they volunteer to accuse them- 
 selves ? Will the murderer go and ask the sherifP to 
 execute him ? Will the robber go to the penitentiary 
 and ask the keeper to imprison him for life or for twenty 
 years ? No. Unless therefore, honest men bring rogues 
 to justice, villany will be triumphant and universal. 
 According to the old narrative, ten righteous men could 
 have saved Sodom, and that is true, not only of the 
 ancient Sodom, but of New Orleans or Glasgow. And 
 it is no less true, that if ten wicked men were to be 
 protected and screened from the retributions of justice, 
 because persons cognizant of their guilt would not ac- 
 cuse them, or because grand jurors would not indict 
 them, or because witnesses would perjure themselves by 
 withholding evidence or falsifying evidence on their 
 trial, — these ten wicked men could go over the world, 
 like ten demons of M^rath, and leave not a virtuous 
 thing, nor a beautiful thing, nor an innocent thing in 
 all its realms. Not only, then, is the guilty man a 
 
TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL A DUTY. 121 
 
 common enemy of mankind, but the man who strives 
 to protect, defend, or rescue the guilty man, is the com- 
 mon enemy of mankind. 
 
 Having considered the manner in which the guilty 
 ought to be treated, in reference to the good of man- 
 kind, let us consider the manner in which they ought 
 to be treated in reference to their own good. 
 
 Every one knows the tendency of all human propen- 
 sities or instincts to grow. The body of the child 
 grows, but not a thousandth part as fast as his habits 
 and dispositions. The good man grows in virtue, and 
 the bad man grows in sin. From the youthful benevo- 
 lence that rejoices to see an animal happy, one grows up 
 into a world-wide benefactor, into the healer of dis- 
 eases, the restorer of sight to the blind, the giver of a 
 tongue to the dumb, the founder of hospitals ; and his 
 life leaves a shining track along the realms of history, 
 which will not fade away to the end of time ; but when 
 the sun of time sets, will shine forth all the brighter, 
 as the stars, unseen before, come forth in their glory 
 when the day is done. Another grows from cruelty to 
 animals, to being a kidnapper, and enslaver, and seller 
 of men, women, and children ; from stealing an egg, 
 or robbing a garden or an orchard, to highway robbery 
 or piracy ; from using those contemptible vulgarisms in 
 language, sometimes called " baby oaths," to practising 
 all the dreadful dialects of profane language, to blas- 
 phemy, and at length to perjury. Through this force 
 of habit, the life of the good man becomes better and 
 better, brighter and brighter, until its glorious close is 
 splendid, and brilliant, and rich as an Oriental caravan 
 of white elephants, with housings inwrought with gems 
 and gold, with sacred banners flying, vocal with song 
 10* 
 
122 TESTIMOXY AGAINST EVIL — A DUTY. 
 
 and instrumental liarmonies, nearing the Holy City 
 with many worshippers and many offerings. The life 
 of a had man is like a company of East Indian Thugs, 
 setting forth on a horrid journey, not only to commit 
 plunder, rolihery, and assassination themselves, but to 
 teach and train children to commit them, and after mak- 
 ing their murderous circuit, returning to their dreary 
 home with bloody spoils only in their bloody hands, 
 with fiendish faces and more fiendish hearts — heralded 
 everywhere by the echoes of the death-groans they 
 have caused. 
 
 In view of this growth of all the sentiments and pas- 
 sions of men, the earher you can check any tendency 
 to wrong, the earlier you can arrest a career in wrong, 
 the greater good you do. He who crushes one poison- 
 ous seed, not only destroys the poisonous plant that 
 would have grown from it, but all the progeny of poi- 
 sonous plants which it would have produced forever. 
 He who crushes one viper's egg, not only destroys the 
 viper that was in it, but all the lineage of vipers to 
 which that one would have given birth. So he who 
 reforms one bad youth, has saved the world from all the 
 lengthening and deepening catalogue of crimes his 
 manhood was competent to commit. To arrest an of- 
 fender, then, at the earHest possible stage, is the highest 
 and the divinest benevolence, the most heavenly sym- 
 pathy, save only that which would take him at a still 
 earher period, and forestall the evil altogether. 
 
 I have sj)oken of the relations of the great world to 
 crime and to criminals. Every college is a miniature 
 world. Here are enacted on a small scale, the same 
 deeds which in the magnified reproduction of after hfe, 
 make histories immortal. He who will drink ai-dent 
 
TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL A DUTY. 123 
 
 spirits here has that in him, which, if not checked, will 
 make him the di-unken father of a family. He who 
 will play cards here, if not arrested, is likely to keep a 
 gaming-house in after hfe. The student who will tell 
 an untruth, if unrepentant, will, as a man, swear to 
 false invoices, and commit perjury in court. Do you 
 say there is a vast interval between these college of- 
 fences and the world's enormities ? I reply, there is 
 no greater difference than there is between a youth and 
 a man. The lower class of offences is as great for a 
 boy or a girl as the higher is for a man or a woman. 
 A rattlesnake is no less a rattlesnake because his 
 rattles have not yet grown. The rattlesnake nature 
 is in him, and in due time its deadly jaw and poison 
 will come out. 
 
 But how can the offences of fellow-students be pre- 
 vented ; how can their bad habits be reformed ? 
 
 I answer, in the first place, by the creation of a pub- 
 lic sentiment in favor of order and propriety and against 
 indecorum and misrule. There is a public sentiment 
 in every college as much as there is in New York or 
 Boston ; in Wall Street or in State Street. To that 
 public sentiment, students will conform, especially will 
 all new comers conform. Once established, whether 
 for good or evil, it will descend from class to class, that 
 is, fi-om generation to generation. Hence, at the open- 
 ing of a college, an especial duty is imposed upon all 
 lovers of good order to establish a public sentiment in 
 favor of good order. 
 
 Another way to prevent wrong-doing and to arrest 
 wrong-doers, is to remonstrate with them for their of- 
 fences, and if they will persist after due warning, to 
 expose them to some authority that can remonstrate 
 with them in a more energetic way. 
 
124 TESTIMOXY AGAINST EVIL A DUTY. 
 
 I am aware that I am here treading on what some 
 think very dehcate ground. But however delicate it 
 may be, I mean to put my foot down with emphasis, 
 and make you see that it is firm ground. I begin with 
 a concession. I acknowledge, at the outset, that a mere 
 tell-tale student, an eaves-dropper, a Paul Pry, who 
 goes around listening at key-holes or peeping through 
 door-cracks, to find some peccadillo that he may re- 
 port, is not only dishonorable himself, but must presume 
 upon a dishonorable government, if he supposes they 
 would reward him, or even listen to him with any com- 
 placency. What I am about to advocate as laudable 
 and honorable in a student is diametrically opposite to 
 this. Suppose one student sees another drinking or 
 card-playing, or engaging in any of that whole series 
 of nondescript and unaccountable nonsense called col- 
 lege-boy pranks, — engaging in anything which, if all 
 should engage in the same (for this is the test), 
 vrould lead to disorder or mutiny, — and should first 
 remonstrate with the offender, and if the remonstrance 
 were unavailing, should then fi-ankly but explicitly 
 announce to him that if he persisted in contemning 
 good ad\dce, he would present him in a quarter where 
 was kept something stronger than friendly remonstrance 
 — who dares to say that it would then be dishonorable, 
 if the offence were persevered in on the one side, for the 
 information to be persevered in on the other ? 
 
 No, my young friends, it is wholly a false code of 
 honor which prevents any one, student or citizen, from 
 preventing wrong-doing. It is false as the code of du- 
 elling at the South ; false as the code of revenge among 
 the Arabs or the North American Indians. It is 
 wholly a false idea of sympathy which would suffer a 
 
TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL A DUTY. 125 
 
 wrong to be done without interference, but would then 
 interfere to ward ofF the just consequences of the wrong. 
 True sympathy, by timely interference, would save, at 
 once, both wrong and consequences. It is the falsest 
 of sympathy that would permit the offence to be com- 
 mitted, then screen the offender, and by such screening, 
 encourage him and others to a repetition of the same 
 offence, and thereby to the perpetration of more aggra- 
 vated ones. 
 
 I ask you to notice this fact, and see if it does not 
 happen with a uniformity too complete to be the effect 
 of chance. Are not those students who are most re- 
 luctant to speak to the College Government against a 
 fellow-student, most prompt to speak to fellow-students, 
 and to the whole world, against the College Govern- 
 ment or any of its members ? As soon as the subject 
 is changed from student to teacher, then this lockjaw 
 silence ceases ; the tongue-tied become voluble, and 
 make atonement for screening guilt by arraigning in- 
 nocence. 
 
 Let us take a single instance in the melancholy cases 
 which have just happened. Ardent spirits were pro- 
 cured and brought into a student's room, and invitations 
 were given to other students to come and partake of 
 them. Suppose the first person invited, immediately on 
 entering the room, had said in a firm but kindly way, 
 " Do you not think this is wrong ? What will be the 
 effect upon the habits of the students, upon the repu- 
 tation of the college, upon yourself, even, in after hfe ? 
 What would be the consequence if we should all do so ? 
 if every room should become a bar-room ; and if one 
 may, surely all may ? Now destroy bottle and poison 
 together, or I will report to the President." He adds, 
 
126 TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL A DUTY. 
 
 " I say nothing of what has been done so far, but be- 
 ware of going further." 
 
 Would not that bottle and poison have been de- 
 stroyed ? Would not four young men have been saved 
 infinite mortification and sorrow ? Would not relatives, 
 the aged father and mother of one, the affectionate 
 brothers and sisters of others, have been saved bitter 
 tears, deep-piercing and long-enduring sorrow of heart ? 
 
 But suppose the guest so invited takes the other 
 course, — drinks, and when called upon, shuffles, evades, 
 squirms through all the slimy depths of prevarication, 
 adds the ofi^ence of falsehood to the offence of drinking, 
 and after all fails to rescue the offenders from punish- 
 ment. Now, according to this false code of honor, the 
 student whose course might have saved the whole ca- 
 lamity, the whole immediate wrong, and the whole 
 retinue of wrongs that must follow in its train, all 
 present and all future pain and mortification to offend- 
 er, parents and friends, — he is the one whose conduct 
 is to be denounced as mean and despicable ; who is to 
 be held up as the object of scoffs, jeers, and contempt ; 
 but by virtue of the same code, the student who would 
 countenance the offence, take part in it, and then sacri- 
 fice his frankness and his sincerity by holding up the 
 base shield of prevarication and shuffling in order to 
 screen the offence and encourage the commission of 
 future offences, he is the honorable man, the true and 
 brave man, to be caressed, honored, rewarded ! There 
 is only one reason why horse-thieves would not be 
 ashamed of such a code of honor as that : — It is be- 
 cause they are horse-thieves. 
 
 But who, in society and in colleges, are the authors 
 of such a code as this ? for you may sometimes judge 
 
TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL — A DUTY. 127 
 
 of the moral qualities of a system by knowing who 
 were its framers and its advocates. Do good men or 
 good students ever enact such laws ? Certainly not. 
 Good men have enacted the opposite for the protection 
 of society, and good students, having no use, no occa- 
 sion for any such laws, uniformly acknowledge the false- 
 ness of the code. Doing nothing wrong, they have 
 nothing to conceal. Deserving no punishment, they 
 fear none. They have the perpetual consciousness of 
 security and peace, and that consciousness, by force of 
 natural and moral, and not by arbitrary laws, gives joy. 
 No ! bad men and bad pupils alone have occasion for 
 any such rules of conduct. 
 
 Were you to see a fellow creature sinking in the flood, 
 would it be your duty to help him out or to thrust him 
 in? Infinitely more is it your duty, when you see 
 your fellow-being sinking into any vicious habit, or 
 wading into the stream that conceals its depths, ay, 
 even wetting the soles of his feet in its fatal waters, to 
 rescue him from his peril. 
 
 Let me present a consideration to confederates, to 
 accomphces themselves. Conspirators to do wrong can 
 never be faithfal to one another. They have no ground 
 of mutual confidence, and can have none. When they 
 make an agreement with each other to be false to man- 
 kind or false towards rightful authority, that very 
 agreement contains the germ of being false to each 
 other. Traitors to duty cannot be true to friendship. 
 How can that be a noble code whose very basis is false- 
 hood and prevarication ? When traitors to duty yield 
 to a temptation to betray the interests of society, they 
 virtually give notice to each other, on the spot, that if 
 the temptation changes they will betray one another. 
 
128 TESTIMONY AGAINST EVIL A DUTY. 
 
 Traitors to duty cannot be true to vows. Accomplices 
 may bind themselves by vovs^s and oaths ; there is no 
 strength in the vow, there is no strength in the oath, 
 the dry-rot of immorality has taken all validity out of 
 them. There is no aphorism more universally true, 
 there is no axiom in geometry more certain, than that 
 confederates to do Avrong can never safely put trust in 
 each other. Such obligations rest uj)on morality, and 
 in regard to morality, traitors to duty are dead men. 
 
 Christ's law of love covers this subject. " Do unto 
 others as ye would that others do unto you." In our 
 best moments, who would not wish to be saved from 
 sin or any of those subtle approaches to it which make 
 sin easy ? There is not one amongst you, my young 
 friends, who would not, in his best moments, be grateful 
 to the friend who would save him from his lowest 
 moments, and would not acknowledge him to'be his 
 best friend, if he knew it to be done in the spirit of 
 friendship. Each one of you would do it for his 
 younger brother whom he tenderly loves. Then re- 
 gard each one as your brother, as Christ bids you do. 
 He died to save sinners, not by substituting his suffer- 
 ing for theirs, he was too wise and far-seeing for such 
 folly as that, but by his example of fidelity to truth. 
 He drove the money-changers from the temple. The 
 voice of love is sometimes the voice of thunder. He 
 could warn and he could denounce. Imitate him in 
 this his noblest mission, to save sinners, for each one of 
 you can save sinners as truly as Christ did, and by the 
 same means. My children, love one another. That 
 is all the law and the prophets. 
 
MEDITATION. 120 
 
 MEDITATION. 
 
 Thou adorable and transcendent One, to whom be- 
 longs all power, from whom proceeds all blessedness, 
 and unto whom we must render account for all the 
 deeds done in the body ; M'e thank Thee for our ex- 
 istence in this favored land. As those who have gone 
 before us have improved it, and made it a better inher- 
 itance for us than it would otherwise have been, may 
 we see how clearly it is our duty to expand and multi- 
 ply and magnify those improvements for all who in 
 Thy Providence shall succeed us. We thank Thee 
 that we are not beclouded with that intellectual and 
 m.oral darkness, which rests ijpon so vast a portion ot 
 our fellow men in other parts of the world. May we 
 exei-t ourselves to the utmost to secure to all others the 
 social, political and religious privileges which we enjoy, 
 and may we never forget that higher advantages bind 
 us to the performance of higher duties ; that we must 
 give an account of our stewardship, according to the 
 talents committed to our hands. We thank Thee for 
 dear friends and relatives, and for all the endearments 
 of social and domestic relations. May our friendships 
 and sympathies be extended in an ever-enlarging circle, 
 so that our several joys may be mutually reflected from 
 each to each, thus increasing the number and intensity 
 of all. We thank Thee for this day of rest. May it 
 be a day of rest to the laborer wasted and worn by 
 the toils of the week ; may it be a day of rest to the 
 11 
 
130 MEDITATION. 
 
 bondman groanino; under his life of servitude and un- 
 requited toil, and a day of rest to the sinner suffering' 
 and weighed down by the heavier burden of sin. May 
 this be a day of anxious and solemn reflection to each 
 one of us, what we shall do to make the world wiser 
 and better than it is, what we shall do to make our- 
 selves wiser and better than we are, and a day also of 
 firm, invincible, undying determination that wrong and 
 misery shall cease where we can cause them to cease, 
 that right and truth and the joy of right and truth shall 
 prevail wherever we can cause them to prevail. May 
 we begin at home, in our own hearts and lives, and 
 reform there whatever is not in accordance with Thy 
 Holy Law. Gently and kindly if it can be, but sternly 
 if it must, may we reform those who are within the 
 sphere of our influence, or under our guardianship ; 
 and if we would save the life of a fellow-being sinking 
 into the engulfing waters, may we still more save him 
 when perishing in the more terrible perdition of sin. 
 
THE PRODIGAL SON. 
 
VI. 
 
 TUB PRODIGAL SON. 
 Luke xv : 11 et seq. 
 
 Cheist often taught by parables. For such a people 
 as inhabited the East, the parable was far more impres- 
 sive and instructive than plain, literal narrative. The 
 Orientals were imaginative rather than reflective. They 
 viewed things under concrete forms, rather than in the 
 abstract. With them, not only the creatures of the 
 irrational world conversed hke men, but trees and plants 
 had the power of speech. Hence they tended to poetic 
 ideas rather than philosophic ones ; and while their 
 poetry was very grand, their natural philosophy was 
 very contemptible. They endued everything with life 
 and consciousness ; they adorned it with gorgeous hues, 
 and inspired it with graceful motions ; but they had no 
 power to reject a beautiful association because it did not 
 belong to the subject, or to compass and comprehend 
 all the relations that gave to any subject completeness. 
 Hence their rhetoric was splendid, but their logic often 
 mean. 
 
 Jesus availed himself of this peculiarity in the Orien- 
 tal mind. He threw the technical and heartless dogmas 
 of the Rabbis to the winds. They made the question 
 of rehgion turn on rites and ceremonies ; — on the kinds 
 of pigeons they should sacrifice, on the shape of the pots 
 11* [133] 
 
134 THE PKODIGAL SON. 
 
 and utensils tliey should nse in tlieir -vrorsliip, and on 
 the cut and ornaments of the garments the priests should 
 wear. Christ went from form to substance, from the 
 external act to the internal motive, prompting it from 
 the outside of the body to the centre of the soul. He 
 spoke directly to the great heart of the people, and ad- 
 dressed all the good common sense the priests had left 
 in them. And often did he utter such brief, pertinent, 
 and pungent rebukes, that the Doctors of the Jewish 
 law came unanimously to the conclusion, that the world 
 would be much better off if he and his pestilent heresies 
 were out of it. 
 
 One of the most comprehensive and penetrating of aU 
 Christ's parables, is that of the Prodigal Son. No other 
 one, to my mind, has such force, such pathos, such 
 sweetness, such universality of application. I invite 
 your attention to day, while I attempt to expound some 
 f)ortions of its wisdom and its beauty. 
 
 Let me first, however, premise a word as to the Scrip- 
 tural distinction between a Parable and an Allegoiy. 
 A Parable is a supposed history ; an Allegory is a figu- 
 rative description of a real history. Christ chose the 
 Parable. This enabled him to invent his whole storj'. 
 He could put in any incident or circumstance, or leave 
 it out. Had he chosen the Allegory, and attempted to 
 describe real facts in a figurative way, the Scribes and 
 Pharisees might have attempted to parry his arguments, 
 by alleging that he had added something or omitted 
 something belonging to historic truth. But the Parable 
 was all his own, and if he gave it verisimilitude — a 
 likeness to truth — no one had a right to complain. 
 Not being hampered, therefore, by any historical details, 
 Christ put into this Parable of the Prodigal Son, just as 
 
THE PKODIGAL SON. 135 
 
 much as he chose, left out of it whatever he chose, and 
 so adapted it to represent universal and eternal truth. 
 
 " A certain man had two sons. And the younger of 
 them said to his father. Father, give me the portion of 
 goods that falleth to me. And the father divided unto 
 them his living." 
 
 What a rebuke to the Jews I Christ introduces this 
 earthly father as representative of the Heavenly Father. 
 The earthly father has children ; so has the Heavenly 
 Father. The earthly father has provided favors for each 
 of his children, and he distributes those favors to them. 
 " He divided unto them his living." On the contraiy, 
 the Jews held that though God had created many sons, 
 that is, many nations, yet, that he loved only one of 
 them ; and that He had arranged all the events of His 
 Providence to build up, aggrandize, and glorify that one 
 nation, whatever became of the rest. According to 
 their belief, God had not made the other nations for 
 their own sake, nor even for His sake, but for the Jews' 
 •sake. Such was their bigoted and supei'cilious theory 
 of Creation and Providence. They had been selected 
 to be God's favorites, foreordained from eternity to be 
 rulers and lawgivers upon the earth, to go where they 
 pleased, and take what they liked, to rob adjacent na- 
 tions of their lands for wealth, of their children for 
 slaves, of their vsdves for concubines. Through pride 
 they thought themselves better than other people, and 
 that very thought made them worse. They thought 
 God would disinherit the rest of the world, and make 
 them his only heirs. They counted upon His perpetual 
 favor and defence, as though such favor and defence 
 were a part of His eternal decrees, and that very arro- 
 gance forfeited the blessings they would otherwise have 
 
136 THE PRODIGAL SON. 
 
 received. Tlieir downfall was the outcome of tlieir 
 principles. False principles will jnst as certainly lead 
 a nation to ruin, as false steerage will dash a ship on 
 the rocks. They were conquered, they were scattered, 
 aud for eighteen hundred years they have been a scoff 
 and a by-word among the nations of the earth. San- 
 guine hopes are entertained of their restoration, of a 
 reinstatement of them in their pristine power and glory. 
 When their principles and motives are altered, this may 
 come to pass ; that it should come to pass before is im- 
 possible. Still another great principle lies folded in the 
 statement, " He divided unto them Ms living." 
 
 He assented to the young man's demand. If, as we 
 may readily suppose, the good father foresaw the ruin 
 which his son would bring upon himself, why did he 
 not deny his claim, and compulsorily withhold him from 
 temptation, by withholding the means to gratify it ? He 
 did not, and this illustrates the common order of Provi- 
 dence. To what purpose would God give us free 
 agency in the general, if he were perpetually restrain- ' 
 ing us in the particular use of it ? God gives us 
 strength, health, opportunities, means. He lets us use 
 them as we please. He gives us the talents. He suf- 
 fers us to get interest from them, or to fold them in 
 napkins. So the father, in the parable, left his son to 
 the consequences of his own rashness and folly. 
 
 The insolent manner of the young man towards his 
 father is not unworthy of notice. " Father, give me 
 the portion of goods that falleth to me." It was not a 
 petition, a request, but a command, — the language of 
 a superior to an inferior, — not of the most gentlemanly 
 superior either, for trae gentility rarely uses the im- 
 perative mood. 
 
THE I'KODIGAL SON. 137 
 
 " And not many clays after, the younger son gath- 
 ered all together, and took his journey into a far coun- 
 try, and there wasted his substance in riotous li\-ing." 
 
 What a spectacle ! A mere lad, a boy, exiling him- 
 self from the securities and guardianship of home, for 
 "the uncertaint^ies and perils of a " far country." Mis- 
 trusting father and mother, and elder brother and friends, 
 but trusting to the indifference of strangers, and to his 
 own rashness. " He gathered all together." This 
 occupied him for some time, perhaps for days. What 
 tliink you, were his manner and bearing while making 
 preparations for departure ? Self-satisfied, jjresumptu- 
 ous, insolent ! Did any one seek to deter him from the 
 commission of so great a folly ; he contemned the 
 friendly counsel, and sneered at the counsellor. " Do 
 not I know what I am about ? " he would say ; " when 
 you see me return in a chariot and four, clad in costly 
 apparel, you will know who is wisest." With play- 
 mates and neighbors who remonstrate at his recklessness, 
 he banters and jeers ; with his own family, who plead 
 with him by their disconsolate looks, and with the si- 
 lence of hearts too full of emotion for utterance, he 
 sulks. But the morning of his departure comes. He 
 bids the family a careless farewell ; their eyes stream, 
 but his are dry ; and with a defiant heart he crosses 
 the paternal threshold, and braves an inhospitable world. 
 Can you not see him, as he wends his way along the 
 road, stifling all natural emotions, putting on proud and 
 swelling airs, forcing up his courage by a swaggering 
 mien, and drawing upon that self-esteem and arrogance 
 which he has never known to fail him ? " Now I am my 
 own man. Who has so much money in his pocket as 
 I ? Now I am beginning to live. This is hfo ! " 
 
138 THE PEOraCAL SON. 
 
 Alas young man ! your plan is to enjoy life by in- 
 dulging your appetites, not by subduing them ! you 
 know not how soon your patrimony will be squandered ! 
 You have not learnt the immortal truth, that health lies 
 at the bottom of all physical enjoyment, and that mo- 
 rality and religious affections lie at the bottom of all 
 that is worthy to be called happiness even in this life. 
 There he goes, his form waning and lessening in the 
 distance ; every step out of light into darkness ; from 
 home, towards perdition ; he goes to shame, to. dishonor, 
 to ruin ; he goes to filth and nakedness ; to loneliness 
 and desertion ; to hunger, and even the intolerable 
 gnawings of famine, and to remorse sharper than famine. 
 On the top of that hill that bounds my vision, I see 
 him. Now, now, while the form of the hapless young 
 man is yet visible as a speck in the distant horizon, 
 who of you will volunteer to pursue him, and woo and 
 win him back to security, honor, peace ? Alas ! we 
 cannot overtake him. He is gone ! 
 
 Yes ! the young man has gone ! Sorrow settles down 
 in blackest cloud over the parental home. He is no 
 longer at the fire- side circle. His place at the table is 
 vacant. He is remembered, but not spoken of. The 
 mention of his name would strike the dart of pain too 
 deep into the heart. 
 
 But where now is he, the cause of all these sorrows ? 
 The text I have quoted, tells us where he is ; common 
 sense tells us where he is ; the laws of human nature 
 tell us where he is. He is ivasting his substance with 
 riotous living. 
 
 As he travelled on and on, he at last reached a " far 
 country," where the manners of the people were new 
 and their entertainments attractive. There he stops — 
 
THE PRODIGAL SON. 189 
 
 not to apply himself to any honorable business, but to 
 revel in what he calls enjoyment. Amongst addle- 
 headed young roysterers, it is called having a good time. 
 Now he dresses, he gormandizes, he plays, he drinks, 
 he revels, he associates with immoral men and with 
 impure women. I need not describe the course of his 
 rapid downfall. The forms of ruin are diflPerent in 
 different nations and ages ; but the substance is always 
 the same. It is the undue gratification of those appe- 
 tites and passions which God gave us for servants, not 
 for masters. It is suflFering them to govern us, instead 
 of our governing them. It is eating, drinking, gaming, 
 revelling, late nights, foul companions. In great cities, 
 these temptations put on all forms that can attract the 
 senses, arouse the imagination, whet the appetite, de- 
 bauch the conscience. The " gaming hells '' are fitted 
 up like palaces, with every adornment and luxury. 
 Drinking saloons charm you with the choicest music 
 and paintings, and flowers festoon the steps that lead 
 to the chambers of death. But all this gorgeousness 
 and splendor are unnecessary. The means of perdition 
 may be found in the vile drunkeries and subterranean 
 gaming holes of the meanest village. Nay, a student 
 in a college may make a trap-door out of his own sleep- 
 incr-room into hell. The worm that dieth not, and the 
 fire that is not quenched, are in our own hearts ; and 
 whether we go into palaces or dungeons, they go with 
 us. There is no grosser fallacy or folly, than to sup- 
 pose we could have resisted the temptation under which 
 another man fell, when we do not resist our own temp- 
 tations. 
 
 Contrast the conduct of this young rake, not with a 
 fabulous character, but with a real one ; — with that of 
 
140 THE PRODIGAL SON. 
 
 the American boy, Benjamin Franklin. When, at 
 seventeen years of age, he removed from Boston to 
 Philadelphia, did he put up at the most costly hotel, 
 equip himself at the most fashionable tailor's, and then 
 strut up the street with a filthy cigar in his mouth ? 
 No, he was hungry, and he bought a roll of bread, and, 
 while eating it, started off on the errand on which he 
 was bent. He began life at zero, and rose from that 
 point, to the lofty height, where he will be visible, con- 
 spicuous, refulgent, to all nations, and all times. There 
 is somewhere in Philadelphia, an instructive series of 
 four paintings illustrative of 'his ascending course. In 
 the first picture, he appears as the Boston tallow- 
 chandler's son, — a mere boy, working in his father's 
 shop, his shirt-sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his 
 hands and arms buried in the grease. In the next, he 
 is drawing down lightnings from the heaven, and making 
 his own name as radiant as the lightning he commanded. 
 In the third, he is signing the Declaration of American 
 Independence. In the fourth, he is standing among the 
 kings and mighty men of Europe, concluding tliat 
 treaty of peace which recognized the freedom and in- 
 dependence of the United States of America, and ful- 
 filling that saying of the Hebrew sage : " Seest thou 
 a man diligent in business ? he shall stand before kings ; 
 he shall not stand before mean men." 
 
 Young man ! young woman ! whom, of the two, do 
 you most resemble ? the youthful prodigal, or the 
 youthful sage ? Ask yourselves, whether on the one 
 hand, you obey your appetites and passions, or on the 
 other, your reason and conscience, and you have your 
 answer. The story of the young wanderer's descent 
 to ruin is quickly tohl. After a few days or weeks' 
 
THE rilODIGAL SON. 141 
 
 dissipation, his bottles and his pockets are empty, his 
 clothes are soiled or tattered, his credit is run out, his 
 witticisms and obscenities have become stale, his fair- 
 weather friends have deserted him, and he finds himself 
 houseless, homeless, penniless, friendless, naked and 
 hungry, in a strange land ; his means are wasted away, 
 just in proportion to his enjoyments, which were not the 
 needed recreations from honorable toil, and elevated 
 and exhausting studies, but the revels of a debauchee. 
 Virtuous resources never fail, vicious ones perish. He 
 flashed and exploded ; he swelled and collapsed. What 
 shall he now do ? He is naked, hungry, athirst, and 
 without a fiiend ; for those who would have been his 
 frieilds have seen his pride and folly, and now rather 
 rejoice than mourn over his shame. Perhaps he tries 
 begging, but there is now " a famine in the land," and 
 the benevolent have enough to do in providing for their 
 own families and helping the meritorious poor, whom, 
 perhaps, just such sons or brothers have impoverished. 
 All expedients fail, and, at last, the pangs of hunger 
 and cold force him to hire himself out to a citizen of 
 that country, who sends him into his fields to feed 
 swine. 
 
 Feeding swine in the East, was the most despised of 
 all vocations. It was so considered not only among 
 the Jews, but, as we learn fi-om Herodotus, among the 
 Egyptians also. The Roman poet. Martial, confirms 
 this. It was very diiferent from tending sheep. Jacob 
 and Moses and David tended sheep. That was an hon- 
 orable occupation, and a man's distinction -rt^as often 
 estimated by the numbers of his flocks. But the Orien- 
 tals had a proverb : " Cursed is he who feeds swine." 
 It was held in very different estimation from what it is 
 12 
 
142 THE PEODIGAL SON. 
 
 in Kentucky and Ohio. It was the meanest of all 
 employments ; and this young man, lately so gay and 
 flush of money, with his head bridled back in pride 
 before men, and before the women whom his flatteries 
 had insulted — fed swine ! 
 
 " And he would fain have filled himself with the 
 husks which the swine did eat." Botanically, these 
 " husks " were the fruit of the Ceratonia or carob tree, 
 common in the East, and still eaten by swine, and 
 by the poorer sort of people. It was not the husk (or 
 glume) of our Indian com, as some have supposed. 
 Indeed, that plant was not known in the East at that 
 time. 
 
 How long this errant youth bore his lot of shame 
 and humiliation ; how long he envied even the swine 
 he fed ; how long he wrestled with pride, and braved 
 the pangs of remorse, no intimations are given. But 
 at last the crisis came. His proud and rebellious heart 
 surrendered, or in the language of the narrative, so full 
 of pathos and sublimity, " He came to himself." My 
 yonng friends, in all the books I have ever read, sacred 
 or profane, poetry or prose ; in all the startling energies 
 of genius, or the inspirations of the tragic muse, I have 
 never seen any combination of words so potent, so 
 touching, as these ; " He came to himself." What a 
 glorious deed do these glorious words declare ! 
 
 The writer of the same gospel tells us of a man who 
 called his name " Legion," who, after the exorcism of 
 his evil spirit, was found " sitting and in his right mind." 
 But he was a maniac, not a criminal. He had a- dis- 
 tempered intellect only, not a distempered heart. It 
 was an occasion of rejoicing when he recovered posses- 
 sion of his reason ; but an infinitely greater occasion 
 
THE PRODIGAL SON. 143 
 
 for joy when the Prodigal recovered possession of his 
 conscience. Of the maniac, it is said tliat he had his 
 dweUing, not in any house, but among the tombs ; that 
 no man could bind him with fetters or with chains, for 
 he plucked asunder the chains and broke the fetters 
 in pieces ; in fine, that he was untamable, roaming by 
 night and by day among the mountains and tombs, 
 crying and cutting himself with stones. But the Pro- 
 digal Son had a fiercer and more terrible madness upon 
 him than this. His lunacy was worse than that of an 
 unsound mind ; it was a profligate heart. He had been 
 bound by the silken cords of a father's love, and he 
 plucked them asunder and cast them away ; the social 
 endeaiinents, the moral securities of home, should have 
 been fetters to prevent him from wandering, but he 
 broke them in pieces and fled to moral exile. He hied 
 himself to drearier spots than lone mountains or tombs 
 whose air is suffocated with the skeletons of the dead ; 
 for he sought foul and wicked companions wJio were 
 alive ; and instead of barren mountains, he dwelt in those 
 jungles of society where all' the vices grew and grew 
 luxm-iantly. He, too, was untamable, until length and 
 intensity of suffering overcame him, and brought liim 
 round his aphehon curve. 
 
 Out of the agony of his soul the outcast exclaimed, 
 " I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto 
 him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before 
 thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son ; 
 make me as one of thy hired servants." 
 
 The remainder of the story is short. " And he arose 
 and came to his father." Neglect not, I beseech you, 
 the all-important implication contained in these words 
 — " He came t6 his father." It was as far back as it 
 
144 THE PROniGAI, SON. 
 
 was out. He was not carried home in a balloon, or 
 wafted thither on the soft bosom of a cloud, or borne 
 there by any other agency, miraculous or non-miracu- 
 lous. He had to travel it. He had to travel it bare- 
 foot, in all his rags and squalor ; reeking with the odor 
 of his late companions, the swine ; which odor, pungent 
 as it was, was not strong enough to sheathe the viler 
 fetor of his late dissolute companions. I repeat ; neg- 
 lect not the implication contained in the words, " He 
 CAME TO his father." So much as a man consents to 
 descend, he has to struggle to ascend. The elevation 
 must be equal to the degradation, — else how can he 
 ever reach even the point where he began to fall ? Con- 
 version, or reformation, means that all the bad old 
 habits are overcome ; — that the intemperate has be- 
 come temperate ; the fraudulent man honest ; the self- 
 ish man benevolent. The further any one departs 
 from duty, therefore, so much the further he has to 
 travel back, — mile for mile, league for league, — be- 
 fore he is reformed or converted. 
 
 But there are two points in this Parable whose im- 
 portance stands forth in bold relief, pre-eminent and 
 bright-shining ; — like a mountain towering from a 
 plain, like the sun blazing in the sky. 
 
 As I said before, Christ selected the fonn of the 
 Parable instead of the Allegory, because it allowed him 
 to put in any circumstance, or to leave out any circum- 
 stance, without reference to historical exactness. He 
 framed the Parable just as he pleased, — to siiit his 
 case, — unembarrassed by extraneous facts. These two 
 main points are, the fall and the recovery of the Prodi- 
 gal. And how has he stated these points, upon which 
 the whole power and pathos of the Parable turns ? 
 
THE PRODIGAL SON. 145 
 
 " And the younger of them said to his father, Father, 
 give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. " Can 
 language make anything more positive and explicit 
 than this. " He said to Ms father, Father, give me." He 
 did this. No one else did it for him. It is not even 
 hinted that the devil tempted him to do it. We all of 
 lis have devils enough in our own hearts to make the 
 office of any other devil a sinecure. The Prodigal 
 could offer no such lying apology as that he was seduced 
 by an evil spirit. He was not overborne by persuasion, 
 by intimidation, or by force. He was conscious of the 
 truth of what James so emphatically says : " Let no 
 ^an say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, 
 for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth 
 He any man. But every man is tempted when he is 
 drawn away of his own lust and enticed." It was the 
 Prodigal himself, who abandoned his father, who com- 
 mitted self-exile from his parental home, and who spent 
 his substance in wicked indulgences and with infamous 
 associates. It was by yielding when he should have 
 resisted ; it was by giving the rein to his own inordi- 
 nate propensities that he did this thing, and he would 
 'have done the same had there been no devil in the uni- 
 verse. And as he committed the sin, so must he bear 
 the remorse ; for it is impossible for any but the sinner 
 to feel remorse for his sin. How does this Parable 
 smite with a force strong enough to destroy ten thou- 
 sand lives, that ethical and reUgious monstrosity, vica- 
 rious punishment ! 
 
 The other bold and radiant point of this Parable is 
 
 stated in the same precise and unmistakable language. 
 
 It was the Prodigal Son himself who sinned, and it was 
 
 he who turned from his sin. He said, " / will arise 
 
 12* 
 
146 THE PRODIGAL SON. 
 
 and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, 1 
 have sinned against heaven and before thee." In that 
 lone pasture ; in that forlorn and desolate condition ; 
 ■with swine for his only companions ; agonized with re- 
 morse ; the black cloud of the future shutting down 
 upon him and leaving no spot of light from horizon to 
 zenith, he came to himself. Prostrate upon the earth, 
 groaning, sobbing, he put forth the glorious and sover- 
 eign resolve that brought him erect upon his feet, and 
 with invincible force and tenfold emphasis, he ex- 
 claimed, I will go to my father. According to the 
 narrative, he fell without a tempter. According to the 
 same narrative, without friend, adviser, or counsellor, 
 he came to himself. He repented. He recovered. He 
 went home. He did it all. There was no machinery 
 of dreams or ghosts, of gods or demi-gods. There was 
 no un-Holy Ghost that made him sin ; there was no 
 Holy Ghost that made him repent. As his was all the 
 remorse of the sinning, so all the joy of the reforma- 
 tion was his. 
 
 What a glorious sun of hope arises from these facts 
 for every erring, wandering child of earth. If the 
 Prodigal Son could repent and reform, — and Christ 
 says he did repent and reform, then we too, all of us, 
 when we have strayed from the path of duty, can re- 
 turn to that path. In this Parable, one of the most 
 difficult of cases was presented, and yet virtue tri- 
 \imphed. It assures us, therefore, that however far we 
 have wandered, we may go back ; however low we 
 may have sunk, we may ascend ; however black we 
 may have stained ourselves with guilt, we may purify 
 ourselves into the whiteness of innocence. 
 
 See, too, what rewards follow repenting and returning. 
 
THE PEODIGAL SON. 147 
 
 See how the narrative is all aglow with proofs of pa- 
 rental love. " When he was yet a great way off, his 
 fatlier saw him, and had compassion, and ran (observe 
 the haste) and fell on his neck and kissed him." What 
 eagerness to welcome ! What tokens of endearment ! 
 The son began to make his confession and his promises. 
 But the father broke him short off in the midst. Know- 
 ing his sincerity, he did not wish to hear his wailings. 
 He did not wait for him to say, " Make me as one of 
 thy hired servants." And M-hat did the father do for 
 this reformed boy ? He came home in rags. The 
 father adorned him, not merely with a coat, but with a 
 robe, — the garment of princes, — the best robe that 
 the house afforded. He put a ring upon his finger. 
 Only opulent men wore rings. He came barefoot. 
 The father ordered shoes for his feet. He not only 
 " fed," but " feasted " him. 
 
 So it is with every one who abandons vice and re- 
 turns to duty. For rags, he gets comely garments ; 
 for husks, he gets healthful nourishment ; for the com- 
 panionship of swine, he is introduced to the society of 
 sages and saints. Sin is a mean idol, and her votaries 
 must fare meanly ; but Virtue is an adorable and puis- 
 sant goddess, and the only limit to her giving is our 
 capacity of receiving. 
 
 My young friends, let me ask you a few questions. 
 Do you not believe that God is the Creator and Father 
 of this universe ? Do you not beUeve that he so framed 
 every one of its laws, that obedience to them will yield 
 happiness, and disobedience, misery ? Choose ye, then, 
 to-day, whether you will live in obedience to those laws, 
 or in defiance of them. If you would avoid the shame 
 and pain of the Prodigal Son, follow not his example. 
 
148 THE PRODIGAL SON. 
 
 Remain in your father's house ; that is, remain in the 
 ways of duty. If, unhappily, you have deserted your 
 father's house, and wandered to a far country, and are 
 feeding any portion of the swine that sin forces its vota- 
 ries to feed, and are hving upon those husks with which 
 sin spreads the table of her followers ; now, this mo- 
 ment, before you leave these seats, put forth an ener- 
 getic and sovereign resolve, and say, " I will arise and 
 go to my Father." 
 
1IED1T\TI0N. 149 
 
 MEDITATION. 
 
 Our Father who art in Heaven, we thank Thee for 
 the blessings which surround us wherever we are. We 
 know that Thou hast given us power to enjoy these 
 blessings ; we know that Thou hast given us power to 
 abuse them ; and we would look to Thy law for guid- 
 ance, so that we may know how to use — as not abusing 
 them. We would look to Thy law to know how to 
 use the elements, and the mighty forces of nature, which 
 Thou hast stationed like sentinels in every part of the 
 earth, ready to do our bidding. The winds that sweep 
 over the sea, we may employ to bear the implements of 
 death and destruction around the globe, to ravage and 
 destroy, to rob property, or to steal men ; or we may 
 employ them to waft civilization, knowledge, science, 
 and the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the darkest heathen 
 lands. May we employ these agencies as means where- 
 with to do good, and not to work evil to our fellow- 
 men. The stone in the quarry, the clay in the pit, the 
 iron in the mine, the wood in the forests, we can con- 
 vert into prisons and dungeons, into the gibbet and the 
 gallows tree, and the flaming fagot, wherewith to perse- 
 cute, and torture, and exterminate our fellow-beings, 
 who do not think as we think, or believe as we believe ; 
 or we can use them to build edifices for science, or 
 altars and temples for Thy worship. Oh, may we use 
 all these inanimate forces and substances of nature for 
 Thy honor, and for the welfare and happiness of our 
 
L50 MEDITATION. 
 
 fellow-men. The very organs of our bodies may be 
 used like those of a bmte, or hke those proper to a 
 man ; as they would be used by a fiend, or as they 
 would be used by an angel. Our feet can make haste 
 to shed innocent blood, or they may run swiftly and 
 sweeten the earth as they go, to carry succor to the 
 distressed, to reclaim the wandering, to guide the igno- 
 rant. Our hands may wound, or they may heal. Our 
 lips may overflow with the honey of wisdom, of truth, 
 of consolation ; or with the poison of slander, of false- 
 hood, and of cruelty. Oh, may we never suffer these 
 organs to be enlisted in the service of sin ; may we keep 
 them as bright and holy armor wherewith to fight the 
 battles of truth and righteousness, wherewith to beat 
 back ignorance, to subdue error, to extinguish supersti- 
 tion, and to make men more and more like the Divine 
 Teacher, Jesus Christ. Thou hast given us mental 
 adaptations to this world in which we are placed, — 
 appetite for food and for drink, that we may meet the 
 wants of the body, and be invigorated for the duties of 
 life ; a desire for the goodwill of our fellow-men, that 
 the path of life may be strewn with the flowers of their 
 approval, and not with the thorns of their dislike ; Thou 
 hast given us a sense of self-respect, of self-worthiness, 
 which, if not forfeited by misconduct of our own, tends 
 to uphold us under trials. Oh, our Father, may these 
 and other propensities never rise to overmastering ex- 
 cess. May we control them by the higher law of 
 justice, of equity, of conscience, of benevolence, of ven- 
 eration of Thee, and admiration of the character of Thy 
 Son Jesus Christ, who was in all points tempted as we 
 are, yet was without sin. * * * 
 
THE PRODIGAL SON. 
 
 (continued.) 
 
VII. 
 
 THE PRODIGAL SON. 
 
 In this morning's Discourse, we considered the Para- 
 ble of the Prodigal Son, — a Parable so beautiful in its 
 conception, so pathetic in the tragic moumfulness of its 
 beginning, so inspiring to every repentant man in the 
 moral triumph and jubilee of its close ! Of all the 
 Parables spoken by the Saviour, this seems the most 
 impressive, the most touching to the universal heart of 
 mankind ; and could such an account be taken, I pre- 
 sume it would be found that more persons remember 
 this Parable than any other part of the New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 All the Parables of Christ are full of knowledgje and 
 wisdom, but this is full of genius. Had the idea of it 
 been elaborated by Shakspeare, he would have expanded 
 it into a drama of five acts ; if by Milton, he would 
 have spread it over an epic poem of twelve books ; while 
 in the simple conception of Christ, both story and 
 moral are contained in about twenty verses. 
 
 The two grand points which are brought out by the 
 Parable, are, 1st, the exceeding liability of men to fall 
 from virtue ; and, 2d, their power of returning to it. 
 The great object of the Saviour in devising and an- 
 nouncing it, seems to have been to impress mankind 
 with a sense of their awful exposure to sin, their power 
 of ceasing to sin whenever they will, and the rewards for 
 13 [153] 
 
154 THE PBODIGAL SON. 
 
 repentance and reformation. Christ says, as explicitly 
 and emphatically as he can say it, that it was the young 
 man who sinned, — he himself, and not any one else for 
 him ; — and he affirms, just as explicitly and emphati- 
 cally, that it was the young man, — he himself, and not 
 any one else for him, — who repented and retm-ned to 
 Ms father. Indeed, if he himself did not sin, why was 
 he punished with all that mournful and shameful series 
 of experiences ? and if he himself did not recover him- 
 self, why was he rewarded with all parental endear- 
 ments, — with the robe, and the ring, and the shoes, 
 and the feast ? On the supposition that he himself did 
 not both fall and rise, the swine themselves might, with 
 as much moral propriety as he, have been first starved, 
 and then feasted. 
 
 This parable is especially addressed to young persons. 
 Youth are exposed to pecuhar dangers. With them, 
 hope strews all the pit-falls in their pathway with flow- 
 ers, and throws a rain-bow of promise, not only over 
 the past, but over the coming storm. The young lack 
 experience also, and they are too prone to disregard the 
 instructions of those who have gone before them. How 
 can a traveller know the dangers of a road he has 
 never travelled, or a navigator the perils of a sea whose 
 reefs have never been laid down in a chart, nor whose 
 shallows have ever been sounded ? If traveller and 
 navigator will contemn the admonitions of wisdom 
 and experience, what other fate can they expect but 
 wreck and ruin ? 
 
 All innocent youth, therefore, should heed this para- 
 ble in order to escape the experiences of the Prodigal 
 Son, and all gtiilty youth should take it to heart, that, 
 like him, they may put foi'th the supreme and invincible 
 resolve : " I will arise, and go to my father." 
 
THE PRODIGAL SON. 155 
 
 Striking as tliis parable is, and generally as it lias 
 impressed itself upon the minds of men, I fear its full 
 significance is not ordinarily comprehended. Is it not 
 a fact that it is generally understood as applying to spend- 
 thrift vices ; to the squandering of patrimonies or es- 
 tates by reckless young heirs ; to rakes and profligates 
 in their hideous varieties, and to these only ? Any such 
 view bereaves the parable of much of its significance 
 and power. Not only houses, and lands, and moneys, 
 are gifts of God which can be squandered and lavished 
 upon appetite and passion, but all the rest of God's 
 blessings can be dissipated and lost in the same way, — 
 health, strength, length of days, ability to acquire knowl- 
 edge, honor, renown, capacities of doing good to our 
 fellow-men, the calm and peaceftd joy of loving to con- 
 template the character and perfections of God. All 
 these are to be numbered among the " goods " that 
 God divides between his children, and any one who 
 squanders or dissipates any of these, is, so far, a Prodi- 
 gal Son. 
 
 Hence, it is not at all necessary that a young man, or 
 a young woman, should spend their father's money at 
 the saloon for drink, or at the fancy stores for super- 
 fluous dress, or at the jeweller's for excessive ornament, 
 in order to be a Prodigal Son, or a Prodigal Daugh- 
 ter. Whether sons or daughters, they may be as great 
 prodigals of health, strength, and longevity ; of talent, 
 genius, and the power to acquire knowledge ; of purity, 
 benevolence, and religion, — I say they may be as great 
 prodigals of all these, as they could be of bank notes or 
 of California gold. 
 
 Look at a healthy, well-organized child ; what a 
 magazine of capabilities he is ! What incalculable 
 
156 THE PRODIGAL SON. 
 
 forces are folded up in him ! His steps are short, 
 but he can yet go round the world. The toys he plays 
 with are hght, but in him is the power of rending moun- 
 tains asunder for his pathway. He is not amphibious, 
 yet he can swim all the oceans. His outstretched arm 
 does not reach far, but he can seize the lightning the 
 moment it leaps from the cloud, and bring it harmless 
 to his feet. His vision is less sharp than the eagle's, 
 but he can see stars whose light has been myriads of 
 years in coming to our earth. Now, to be a prodigal 
 and spendthrift of all these powers, is as easy as for 
 water to run down hill. Drink whiskey, shatter the 
 nerves by opium or coffee, or that vilest, foulest, un- 
 healthiest of all weeds, — tobacco ; seal yourselves up 
 hermetically in a coffin or in a room, — it matters 
 not which, — from the fresh air ; at the command of 
 fashion, wear those thin shoes and dresses, for which 
 Consumption might have taken out a patent ; commit 
 all, or any considerable part of these enormities, 
 and the most vigorous and promising young man or 
 woman, can, in the course of a few short years, 
 spend the substance of all his glorious powers of body, 
 mind, and heart, and exhibit another instance of a 
 Prodigal cliild. Nay, by some single "act of indulgence, 
 — by gluttony, by lacerating the stomach with fierce 
 condiments, or with excessive quantities of even health- 
 ful food, any one can extemporize cholera or colic, and 
 extinguish himself in twenty-four hours, — with all the 
 appropriate and becoming agonies of a violent death. 
 Is he not a Prodigal Son, is she not a Prodigal Daugh- 
 ter, who is guilty of these things, or of such things ? 
 If any of us find ourselves to have been guilty of any of 
 these offences, let us say, to-day, " I will arise, and go 
 
THE PRODIGAL SON. 157 
 
 to my fatlier," that is, I will hereafter obey God's 
 laws. 
 
 Take the intemperate man ; he is the slave of an 
 appetite. The seat of that appetite is a httle spot in 
 the inside of his mouth not two inches square. Yet for 
 the gratification of that little spot, all out of sight as it 
 is, see what he sacrifices. He has glorious faculties, — 
 imagination, genius, wit. He can luiderstand art, science, 
 literature, — can, perhaps, make discoveries and originate 
 inventions. He has a moral nature by which he can 
 ascend to the upper realms of emotion, of sentiment, of 
 ecstatic joy. He has friends, kindred, family. He can 
 deserve and win the friendship, esteem, love of mankind. 
 All these he sacrifices, — all the sources of bliss within 
 and bliss without, — for the sake of a few titillations 
 on a spot, — not two inches square, — inside his mouth. 
 Nay, he sacrifices a^l the natural and legitimate pleasures 
 of that spot itself. Once all the productions of the earth, 
 — the sweets of the vegetable kingdom from the tem- 
 perate, or from the tropical zone ; the rich flavors of 
 all that the huntsman seeks in the forest, or the fisher- 
 man draws from the waters, were a zest and a joy to his 
 palate. These delicacies, these luxuries, are all squan- 
 dered. He has but one taste left, and that is a burn- 
 ing desire for burning alcohol. The problem which the 
 drunkard is trying to solve, may be thus stated ; he 
 drank hell-fire, and it burned him. He drank more to 
 put out the first fire, and it burned him worse. At first, 
 it burnt mouth, throat, and stomach only. To stop that 
 flame, he drank more, which burned liver, heart and 
 bi'ain ; and now blood, eyes, nose and face, are all on 
 fire. What he has done to extinguish the flame, has 
 made it rage more fiercely. What he did to quench 
 13* 
 
158 THE PRODIGAL SON. 
 
 it topically, in one spot, has caused a general combus- 
 tion. And now, the drunkard's problem I say, is this: 
 How long must he pour hell-fire into hell-fire, to put it 
 out ? The only solver of this problem is Death. Is 
 not the intemperate man, then, a Prodigal Son, — prodi- 
 gal of peace, health, happiness, renown ; of the love of 
 man, and the love of God ? Oh, young man, the first 
 draught of intoxicating beverage you take, because you 
 like it, is the first step /row your father's house. 
 
 The Parable says of the young man, " And when he 
 had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land." 
 And when he had spent all. That he would spend his 
 all, is spoken of here as a matter of course ; it is rather 
 assumed than asserted. And it is a matter of course. 
 Every prodigal, at sonie time, will have spent his all. 
 No matter in what his prodigality may consist ; no 
 matter how vast his possessions of aAy kind may be, — 
 that prodigality will find the end of that wealth. He 
 may be rich as Croesus, but not a dollar of that wealth 
 will remain. He may be strong as Samson, but that 
 strength will be wasted. He may have the endurance 
 and perseverance of Julius C«sar, and yet die ignobly 
 as Csesar did. He may have the cunning and craft of 
 Benedict Arnold, or any other traitor to his country ; 
 but his name shall become the synonyme of folly. The 
 prodigal spends all ; and then it always happens that of 
 that particular good of which he was a spendthrift, and 
 became a pauper, there arises a mighty famine in the 
 land, so that the sorest want of his appetites falls on the 
 hardest of times. 
 
 I might follow out this analogical reasoning In regard 
 to the miser, the libertine, or the political demagogue, 
 who would sacrifice the fame of a nation, or the happi- 
 ness of a race, for office. But this must suffice. 
 
THE PRODIGAL SON. 159 
 
 Tlie Parable, literally understood, refers to a young 
 man ; and I fear that those who read it, after having 
 passed the period of youth, think it has no relation to 
 themselves. But in its legitimate scope and spirit, it 
 applies to the man or woman of sixty not less than to 
 the youth of sixteen. Middle life and age have their 
 blessings, their prerogatives, their goods, not less than 
 childhood, and adolescence. Whenever, therefore, we 
 acquire a new power, by which we can encourage good, 
 or prevent evil ; whenever we are placed in a new 
 position, where our influence and our example can pro- 
 mote the right, or repress the wrong, — in every such 
 case God has divided amongst us another portion of 
 His goods, and we can use them for His glory, or His 
 dishonor ; for our own welfare, or our own ruin ; we can 
 use them as His obedient, or as His prodigal children. 
 
 Perhaps there is'no one of us, who is not, in some re- 
 spect, in some one thing, a prodigal. We spend some 
 possession, power, faculty, attainment, or opportunity, 
 less usefully tlian we might have done. Suppose, then, 
 we have been tempted, and have yielded, and have thus 
 gone, to a greater or less distance, into the "far coun- 
 try " of disobedience to God's laws. Suppose this, and 
 the all-important practical question arises, how long 
 shall we remain there ? Shall we make our resolve, 
 and start back on the homeward-bound journey to-day, 
 now ; or shall we wait till next month, or next year, 
 with all the chances that such waiting may prove to be 
 forever I However long we may wander in a devious 
 course, we are always sure of one thing : the longer we 
 wander, the farther we go astray, — the farther we have 
 to travel back before reaching our father's house. 
 Whatever vice we cherish, whatever wickedness we 
 
160 THE PRODIGAL SON. 
 
 practice, we are on the prodigal's down-liill course to- 
 wards privation, destitution, and ruin. Whatever vice 
 we indulge, whatever wickedness we practice, then, in 
 regard to that vice or that wickedness, first comes pov- 
 erty (literally or figuratively), then rags, then hunger, 
 then beggary, then the feeding of swine, with their 
 husks for our food, and their company for our recreation. 
 Such is the course, and such the end of every Prodigal 
 Son or Daughter, no matter in what respect they may 
 have been prodigal. All wrong-doing ends in misery, 
 and it comes inevitably to this at last ; husks for break- 
 fast, husks for dinner, husks for supper ; swine for our 
 companions in the morning, swine at noon, swine at 
 night. 
 
 I do not say that every prodigal child is in this con- 
 dition at the present time. Some may have just left 
 their father's house ; some may have just reached the 
 " far country," and may be now wasting their substance 
 there in feasting, drinking, and revelling ; but what I 
 mean to say is, that every vicious course, not repented 
 of, or abandoned, ends in the most painful of privations, 
 and the most shamefiil and meanest of conditions. 
 
 Do you smile incredulous at this abhorrent and dis- 
 gusting termination of the career of a Prodigal Son, or 
 a Prodigal Daughter — in whatever respect they may 
 play the prodigal ? If so, that incredulous smile is the 
 summit and sum of all folly. Do you think that God, 
 with His infinite ingenuity, and His infinite power, 
 made this universe such a miserable botch, such an ill- 
 contrived and misgoing machine, that it will reward 
 guilt, and punish innocence, so that any prodigal who 
 abandons his father's house and home, can come to any- 
 thing at last better than the companionship and husks 
 
THE PRODIGAL SON. 161 
 
 of swine ? Woe to Mm who yields to such delusion ! 
 But peace, and joy, and everlasting exultation to him 
 who has never wandered from his father's house ; to 
 him, also, who, though he has wandered, hastens back 
 to receive his father's benediction and bounties. 
 
 My young friends, will you hearken to a parting 
 thought ? The ship is governed by the helm. If the 
 ship is steering for the rocks, and the helmsman will not 
 change her course, all must be lost ! But if the helmsman 
 knows and does his duty, he avoids ledge and shallow, 
 and reaches his destined port in security and joy. 
 
 -Now, my young friends, our thoughts, our intents, 
 our desires, are the helm of our life. If our thoughts, 
 our intents, our desires, are wrong, and remain un- 
 changed, our wreck is inevitable ; a wreck complete and 
 overwhelming of our worldly interests, and our im- 
 mortal hopes. Towards what point of the moral 
 compass are our thoughts, intents, desires, now steering 
 the vessel of our lives ? — from or U]pon the rocks ? — 
 FROM OR UPON THE ROCKS ? Be entreated before you 
 leave this house, so to adjust the helm of life, that it 
 will conduct you to the haven of everlasting peace. 
 
1G2 MEDITATION. 
 
 MEDITATION. 
 
 Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy 
 name. On this day of rest from the toils of the body, 
 and those cares and anxieties of the mind with which 
 our pilgrimage here upon earth is encumbered, we would 
 go to that source of strength, without which life is weak- 
 ness ; we would go to that fountain of light, without 
 which this world is darkness ; and to that Author of all 
 goodness, without whom the universe would be a waste 
 and desolation. Our Father, we thank Thee for our 
 existence, and that that existence has not been made 
 necessarily wretched and miserable ; that with life thou 
 hast bestowed upon us the means of abundant enjoy- 
 ment. May we possess the power to use these means 
 diligently and wisely. Thou hast given us bodies, con- 
 structed throughout with wonderful skill and aptitude, 
 endowed with senses by which we can become acquainted 
 with objects near and remote, with the minuteness, 
 with the vastness, and with the splendors of Thy works. 
 But may we remember that these bodies are but for 
 temporary use ; that they have grown, and that they 
 will decay ; that dust they are, and to dust they shall 
 return. May we preserve them in health by avoiding 
 indolence and torpidity on the one hand, and all undue 
 labor, and exposure, and indulgence, on the other ; may 
 we secure the long life for which they are adapted, by 
 duly strengthening and never unduly exhausting their 
 powers ; and may we keep them a fit temple for Thy 
 
MEDITATION. 163 
 
 Spirit, by rejecting and putting far away every noxious, 
 and offensive, and impure thing. May we remember 
 that these bodies are soon to sleep in the grave, and may 
 we therefore hold them subordinate to the lofty and exalte 
 ed powers of the mind. Our Father, may we wisely 
 discriminate between these powers of the mind Thou 
 hast bestowed, some of them for the acquisition of knowl- 
 edge — a knowledge of nature and of Thyself some 
 for the enjoyment of society, some for personal pleasure, 
 and many for the good of others. May we think more 
 of that knowledge which is eternal, than of those en- 
 joyments which are temporary, and may we enlarge 
 and exalt these intellectual powers, by thinking of the 
 life which is to come, as well as the life that now is ; 
 by thinking of the millions of our fellow-mortals more 
 than of ourselves, and always subjecting all our en- 
 deavors to the Supreme and Perfect Law. But those 
 nobler and sublimer capacities which belong to the soul, 
 which never can decay, which must live near to Thy 
 presence, in light, or far from it, in darkness ; which 
 must enjoy Thee and all pure and holy spirits for- 
 ever, or feel the intolerable burden and discord of a 
 nature at war with truth, and duty, and goodness, 
 blind amid the splendors of holiness which none but 
 those whose eyes are pure can see, and dumb amid 
 the exulting hallelujahs, which none save those who 
 love Thee can utter — may we improve this day to 
 elevate, and adorn, and exalt. 
 
TEMPTATION- 
 
VIII. 
 
 TEMPTATION, 
 
 Matthew vi., part of 13th v. — " And lead us not into temptation, 
 but deliver us from evil." 
 
 " Lead us not into temptation," — the wisest prayer 
 ever made, for it is fall both of rehgion and philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 " Temptation " signifies allurement or enticement to 
 e\dl. Good men are tempted to become bad ; bad men 
 are tempted to become worse. 
 
 The word " temptation " is never properly used in a 
 good sense. It implies an evil agency. It implies sus- 
 ceptibihty to evil. If a temptation prevails, it implies 
 descent, degradation, abasement ; it implies loss, fall, 
 ruin, perdition. Hence, one who is totally bad, who 
 cannot be worse than he is, cannot be tempted. He 
 has already touched bottom, reached his nethermost. 
 There is no more room for him to fall or grow down 
 wards. " Christ," says the Apostle, " was tempted in 
 all points, like as we are." Men are tempted. Hence, 
 if men could not be worse than they are, or less good 
 than they are, all the common forms of language on 
 this subject would be an absurdity. The devil is said 
 to tempt men. St. James says, God does Tiot tempt 
 them. Hence, temptation supplies a susceptibility in 
 nien, to evil, or an evil agency, operating within them, 
 
 [167] 
 
168 TEMPTATION. 
 
 or upon them, and tending or striving to make them 
 bad, or at least, less good than they now are. 
 
 On this occasion, I wish as far as I am able, to de- 
 velop the philosophy of temptation. All moral and 
 religious subjects have a philosophical as well as a spir- 
 itual side. No philosophical mind will ever be satisfied 
 with any view or treatment of a moral or religious sub- 
 ject, which does not satisfy his reason as well as his 
 conscience. None ever ought to be. God has reason, 
 intelhgence, in an infinite degree ; He has infinite hoh- 
 ness also. All His works were created, and His provi- 
 dence governs them under the supervision of both these 
 attributes. His holy affections could have prompted 
 nothing which His intelligence did not ratify, and His 
 intelligence could have devised or superintended noth- 
 ing whose results were not in harmony with His love. 
 Hence, everything in His creation and in His provi- 
 dence, must have the sanction, approval, benediction, of 
 both His reason and His affections. Our race was 
 created in His image. If we view things as He views 
 them, it is proof positive that we are right. If owx 
 view conflicts with His view, it is proof positive that 
 we are wrong. His works and His providence, there- 
 fore, must present themselves to us in such an aspect, 
 that our reason and our conscience, as far as we are 
 capable of understanding them, will pronoimce them 
 right, — that is, conformable to truth ; and good, — that 
 is, conformable to love. If we do not see them in this 
 double light, as commended to both reason and con- 
 science ; if our views do not coincide, but conflict with 
 God's views, the presumption is infinitely strong against 
 us. 
 
 Temptation is a fearful word. It indicates tlie be- 
 
TEMPTATION. 169 
 
 ginning of a possible series of Infinite evils. It is the 
 ringing of an alarm-bell, whose melancholy sounds 
 may reverberate through eternity. Like the sudden, 
 sharp cry of " Fire " under our windows by night, it- 
 should rouse us to instantaneous action, and brace 
 every muscle to its highest tension. Nay, it is like the 
 cry of " Fire " at sea, rather than by land, where, if 
 we suffer the flames to spread, our only alternative is 
 death by the fire, or death by the water. To escape 
 death, we must leap into the jaws of death. What 
 blindness, then, what fool-hardiness, what insanity, 
 voluntarily to expose yourselves to a seductive, incom- 
 putable peril, to defy certain temptation, and trust to 
 chance for escape, to walk unshod over burning plough- 
 shares, without antidote or remedy, to play with fire- 
 works over a magazine of gunpowder, in a madman's 
 hope that when your foUy meets the Laws of Nature, 
 on God's highway, they will turn aside, and make 
 obeisance, as you pass by. 
 
 Temptation is a word of horrid import. It is obvi- 
 ous that the word would lose all its force and be dropped 
 out of the language, if evil never resulted from it. But 
 while temptations exist ; while the word retains its sig- 
 nificancy, nothing is more fatally sure than that there 
 will be a certain per-centage of falls, of victims. We 
 cannot tell with certainty, where, or on whom the thun- 
 derbolt will strike ; but yet we do know that about so 
 many will strike every year, blasting and consuming 
 whatever or whoever stands in their way. 
 
 That is a wonderful law, and yet as certain as it is 
 
 wonderful, which is most uncertain if predicated of the 
 
 individual, but becomes most certain when predicated of 
 
 masses or communities. The French statistician will 
 
 14* 
 
170 TEMPTATION. 
 
 tell you within a few units how many men will commit 
 suicide in Paris, next year, and in what proportions 
 these suicides will be distributed among the months of 
 the year ; but he cannot select or designate the indi- 
 viduals who will do it. So the British statistician will 
 foretell, almost with the precision with which an astron- 
 omer predicts an eclipse, how many murders, robberies, 
 and burglaries will be committed in England next year, 
 though he cannot designate either perpetrator or victim. 
 While there is a felonious element in society, some- 
 where, at sometime, that element will work itself out 
 into felonious deeds ; and somebody, in his property, 
 his character or his life, will feel it. Until mankind, 
 then, are lifted out of the sphere of temptation, that is, 
 while temptations continue and exist, there will be a cer- 
 tain per-centage of acquiescences,* falls, and perditions. 
 
 Temptation, then, I say, as it necessarily imj)orts a 
 certain number or proportion of yieldings, falls, perdi- 
 tions, is a word of horrid import. As I hold it up and 
 gaze on it, it is transformed into a ghastly and terrible 
 spectre. Lurid fires shoot from its eyes. Demoniac 
 words burst from its lips, in volleys swift and fearful as 
 cannonading. Every muscle writhes in agony. Its 
 feet have waded through gore. And what a retinue of 
 sorrows and agonies, — of sounds that affright the ear, 
 and of spectacles that blast the eye, — stretch behind 
 it, beyond where the eye, beyond where the imagina- 
 tion can reach. 
 
 But by what means does this gigantic enemy of man 
 get interior possession of his victim? Under what 
 disguises does a monster so frightful in the end, beguile 
 
 * Hence, that saying of John P. Hale, — as philosophical as it was 
 ■witty, — that of all essences the devil likes acquiescence best. 
 
TEMPTATION. 171 
 
 US SO easily in the beginning ? Under what contrac- 
 tions of size does he insinuate himself at first, to grow 
 into such hugeness afterwards, by nutriment, too, sucked 
 from ourselves. It is, my young friends, by processes 
 as obvious as those by which the acorns, of which I 
 can hold twenty in one hand, become oaks, each one of 
 wliich could crush all of us by its fall. 
 
 We have senses, every one of which has its corre- 
 sponding objects in the natural world, and of these 
 objects we may take too much or too little ; we have 
 natural desires for food, for drink, for wealth, for self- 
 display, for pride, for power, each one of which we may 
 indulge to excess. Our moral, mental, and bodily 
 endowments, have an order of precedence, of authority, 
 of rank ; we may reverse that order ; we may enthrone 
 the subject appetite above the sovereign conscience. On 
 that which should have but a tithe or a hundredth part 
 of our care, we may squander the whole. Hence it is 
 easy to see that every one of our various appetites, pro- 
 pensities, and passions, is an avenue through which 
 temptation may enter. We are a citadel filled with the 
 richest of all God's treasures, but having gates which 
 open towards every point of the compass, through which 
 the beleaguering hordes of temptation may enter and 
 subdue us. 
 
 Men will never rescue themselves, nor be rescued 
 from temptation, until its nature and workings are bet- 
 ter understood, any more than a physician will cure his 
 patients, while ignorant of both disease and remedy. 
 
 Let us try, then, to understand what temptation is,„ 
 and how it overcomes us. 
 
 In all discussions on this subject, perpetual reference 
 is made to the heart. It is averred by the great ma- 
 
172 
 
 TEMPTATION. 
 
 jority in Christendom, that the natural heart of man is 
 always wrong, wicked, depraved, totally depraved. 
 Some, however, taking the opposite extreme, maintain, 
 or at least assert, that the heart of man is naturally 
 right, but that ignorance, evil example, custom, train- 
 ing, pervert it, debauch it, satanize it. There is an old 
 Latin and legal maxim, which says, '■'■Error versatur in 
 generalibus." Error lurks under generalities of expres- 
 sion. If we look at all the crimes which have made 
 earth an Aceldama for the innocent and virtuous, and 
 scattered Golgothas of youth and beauty over its sur- 
 face ; if we listen to those groans and shrieks that make 
 it re-echo with lamentation, and mourning, and woe, — 
 so fearfully loud and strong, that they must continue to 
 reverberate through the galleries of time for ages to 
 come ; and if we say that all these are but the out-birth 
 and out-growth of the natural heart of man, then the 
 phrase " total depravity " becomes stupidly inadequate, 
 and we want some word expressive of a hundred-Satan 
 power, — some fulminating word, which, when sent 
 into the human brain, will explode there, in the presence 
 of all the faculties, and make each one of them under- 
 stand it with all its might. 
 
 But if, on the other hand, you contemplate the Divine 
 sentiments, and the God-like deeds which have ema- 
 nated even from heathen, — from persons on whom no 
 ray of the Divine light of the Gospel ever fell, — the 
 piety of Socrates, the fidelity of Regulus, the continence 
 of Scipio, the sublime devotion of idolaters who sacrifice, 
 not Jewish beasts, nor even their own Pagan children, 
 but themselves, to their gods, — if you contemplate their 
 loyalty to their best ideas of truth, their fidelity to their 
 best knowledge, poor as that knowledge was, — for we 
 
TEMl'TATION. 173 
 
 must remember that being ti'ue to imperfect knowledge 
 demonstrates higher merit than being true to more per- 
 fect knowledge — the merit being in the inverse ratio 
 of the knowledge, and, if we say that these heathen 
 aspirations and elevations of soul came from a natural, 
 that is, a totally depraved heart, then we are sorely 
 tempted to wish that we might honestly exchange some 
 hearts amongst us, self-boastful of their second birth, for 
 some of the natural ones of the heathen, and that the 
 stream of missionaries might sometimes flow the other 
 way. 
 
 To see how easy it is to fall into error in using so 
 general and indefinite a term as the heart, reflect upon 
 an analogous case.. Suppose, in contemplating some act 
 of moral heroism, some Christ-like self-sacrifice, I should 
 exclaim, " Man is the noblest work of God," the idea 
 would be applauded to the echo. But suppose, on the 
 other hand, after the narration of some deed of ineffable 
 meanness, T should cry out, " Man is the meanest crea- 
 tm-e on the footstool ; " the same company would say 
 "Amen." So, imder different circumstances, I might 
 say, without being criticised, " Man is wise ; " or, " he is 
 a fool ; " or, " he is sophos-moros," that is, half and half. 
 Standing before the builder of the Leviathan steamship, 
 or the foreteller of eclipses, or the founder of a State, 
 who would contradict me, should I declare man is 
 great ? Seeing the Egyptians worship an ape, who 
 would contradict me should I say, man is little ? So 
 yon see that I may affirm man to be God-like, or Satan- 
 like, noble or mean, great, or contemptible, a Titan, or a 
 worm, and the people will shout Amen. And this is 
 equally time when we combine the gi-andest and the 
 meanest attributes, and assert them as the predicate of 
 
174 TEMPTATION. 
 
 our subject, as when Ralph Waldo Emerson called Na- 
 poleon the First, a Scamp- Jupiter. It is just so when 
 men talk about the heart, meaning thereby to include 
 the whole of our passional, emotional, and affectional, 
 nature. When, therefore, you hear a man begin to 
 talk about the heart, and to build an argument upon it, 
 watch him, and see if he does not use the word in one 
 sense in his premises, and in another sense in his con- 
 clusion. In the sense in which the word is commonly 
 used in religious writing or speech, all men have at 
 least half a dozen hearts, and it is essential to know 
 which of them is meant. 
 
 This is the case ; God has created men with various 
 and somewhat numerous organs and faculties, adapting 
 them to the external world, whether material or spir- 
 itual ; — our eye to light, our ear to sound, our senses 
 of taste and smell, to savors and odors, our nerves of 
 touch to diiferent degrees of density, — solids, fluids, 
 gases. So for self-preservation, we have a feeHng of 
 hunger and of thirst, which yield us a large amount, 
 though not the highest kind, of pleasure, which torment 
 and agonize us, when, through shipwreck or famine, 
 they are not obeyed. For the same pui-pose of self- 
 preservation, we have a sentiment of cautiousness, which 
 foretells danger, and bids us beware of it. When dan- 
 ger actually confronts us, and we must look it in the 
 eye, then we have a feeling or propensity called Com- 
 bativeness, which bids us to resist, repel, drive it away, 
 and if this is insufficient, we have another propensity 
 called Destructiveness, which aims, not only at the 
 removal of its object, but at its extermination, — a pro- 
 pensity whose whole logical power is confined to this 
 one syllogism ; If my enemy is dead, he can do me no 
 harm. 
 
TEMPTATION. 175 
 
 On a somewhat higher plane, but still indispensable 
 to the same purpose of self-preservation, is the desire of 
 property. If a fair day made no provision for a stormy 
 , one, nor summer for winter, nor youth for old age, nor 
 parents for children, then no second winter, no second 
 generation would come to mankind. The race would 
 die out, not leaving a historian. 
 
 And all these wonderful laws of nature, — the or- 
 ganic, the chemical, the vital, — these thoughts of God 
 materialized throughout universal nature, so count- 
 less, so wise, so sublime, what would they be to us if 
 we had not an intellect by which they can be discovered, 
 rousing a veneration by which their author is adored. 
 But with the adaptation between those laws and our 
 capacity to understand them, sweeter are they than honey 
 to the taste. Every one sustains more or less of the 
 domestic relations, parental, filial, fraternal, sororal, and 
 what a group of domestic affections are implanted in 
 the most sensitive parts of our nature, to meet the de- 
 mands and give us the joys of all these relationships. 
 How a father loves son or daugher, the mother still 
 more ; and what delights, endearments, ecstasies, hold 
 perpetual jubileee in a happy family ; whereas, if there 
 were no child, the fountain of parental love would never 
 be unsealed ; if there were no parental or household 
 love, infants, instead of being regarded as fresh visitants 
 from on high, would be classed under the head of ver- 
 min. So Conscience, which finds its expression in what 
 is degradingly called the Golden Rule, as if it was not 
 infinitely more precious than gold. Conscience gives 
 us, in a single sentence, more than is contained in 
 all statutes and law libraries; Do as you would be 
 done hy. 
 
176 TEMPTATION. 
 
 Benevolence is queen in the realm where Conscience 
 is king. Love is the bride of Duty. When Justice 
 must punish, Mercy follows him with healing and fra- 
 grant solaces, and by her divine art, abolishes the pun-, 
 ishment by taking away the evil disposition that merited 
 it. Benevolence must dwell forever at the right hand 
 of God. 
 
 Another sentiment of the soul is Reverence, venera- 
 tion for the Power which presides over the universe, 
 and yet folds an infant in the arms of love ; which 
 wheels the orbs of heaven, and yet watches the throb- 
 bings of the human breast, and cares for the lowliest of 
 mortals. Our conceptions of this Infinite Father may 
 be dim, or clouded, or deformed, but no race of men 
 has ever yet been discovered which had not some 
 faith, more or less shadowy or radiant, of this Infinite 
 One. In the Christian philosopher, or the philosophic 
 Christian (let temperament decide which), how these 
 attributes gather and glow into exhaustless power, and 
 unspeakable wisdom, and the adorable eifulgence of 
 holiness. 
 
 Now each one of these functional, passional, emotiona.1 
 attributes of our nature, may be and is called the heart. 
 What extent and variety, and amidst this extent and 
 variety, what danger both of misapprehension in our- 
 selves and of misleading others. Abstinence, or over- 
 indulgence in food and beverage, that is, temperance 
 on the one side, and gluttony and drunkenness on the 
 other ; continence or its suicidal opposite ; honesty or 
 dishonesty in the market place ; generosity or selfish- 
 ness in all social relationships ; morality or immorality 
 before men ; piety or impiety towards God ; — all those, 
 a hundred times every day, are said to proceed out of 
 the heart, and to manifest what it is. 
 
TEMPTATION. 177 
 
 As I said before, then, every man has a dozen liearts, 
 and though there is a strong natural tendency in all 
 these hearts to go together for the right or for the 
 wrong, yet instances of the contrary are not infrequent. 
 History relates instances of atheists who have braved 
 death in defence of their religious belief, so to call it. 
 
 In a case where generosity was to be appealed to in 
 behalf of suffering, I would far sooner go to the profli- 
 gate in morals than to the bigot in religion. In a life 
 of nearly forty years spent in trying to reform the com- 
 mon vices of men, some of the toughest cases I have 
 ever met with have been cases of generally honest, good, 
 pious, godly men, who had some sweet pet indulgence 
 they could not part with. They could renounce all other 
 sins easily enough, but not this darling one. They 
 could say, " Vain pomp and glory of the world, I hate 
 ye," but tobacco, or a night-cap of toddy, how could 
 they surrender ? " Sorrowing Jacobs, ye have taken 
 Joseph, and ye may have the other ten, but will ye 
 take Benjamui also ? Must you divide asunder the 
 joints and marrow in this way ? Leave me at least my 
 brandied coffee to assuage my gout, or the sceptre and 
 the thunder with which I make the menials of my 
 household tremble. Cannot the good God leave here 
 and there a loop-hole in His law through which we 
 can sometimes creep out for an hour and play truant ?" 
 No, no ; proclaim it with the voice of seven thunders, 
 there is no loop-hole in God's laws. Every one must 
 be obeyed, and at all times. All these hearts, be they 
 more or less, must be converted, must come, not into 
 enforced, but into loving, exulting conformity to God's 
 laws, — into such a state that if God had made no 
 15 
 
178 TEMPTATION. 
 
 such laws for our guidance as lie has, we shoukl make 
 them. 
 
 It is the same in our spirits as in our todies. As we 
 needed about two hundred and fifty bones in our frame- 
 work ; as we needed some five hundred and twenty- 
 seven muscles for the performance of necessary motions, 
 God has given us these numbers. So as we needed the 
 whole range and compass of our faculties, from the 
 lowest basilar to the highest coronal, God has given us 
 these, no more, no less, and to say that we have super- 
 numerary ones, to say that we are destitute of essential 
 ones, is to impeach our Creator. 
 
 Whence, then, comes the evil of the world, the 
 wrong in men; for that there is evil in the world and 
 terrible wrong in men, none can dispute. The groans 
 of sin-caused suffering assail us from every part of the 
 earth ; their echoes reach from every point in the long 
 track of time. There are many epochs when it seems 
 as though the whole human race had set itself in battle 
 array against Jehovah. 
 
 Now these terrible evils and wrongs which men com- 
 mit and suffer, come not from the possession of any one 
 of our powers and faculties, nor from the legitimate and 
 normal use of them, but from their abuse, from the too 
 much, or from the too little ; from using them at wrong 
 times, from not using them at right times. I am no 
 more responsible for the number of the faculties with 
 which God endued my spirit, be they more or less, 
 than I am for the number of bones or muscles which 
 He put into my body, be they more or less. Over 
 neither had I any control. Respecting neither was 
 opinion or consent of mine asked or given. I had no 
 free agency then and there ; for I did not pre-exist to 
 
TEMPTATION. 179 
 
 give direction or counsel how I should be originally 
 made. But now, respecting the manner in which I use 
 my powers, respecting the special uses to which I put 
 them ; whether they shall wane and perish throiigh my 
 neglect, or tyrannize and ruin through my indulgence ; 
 for these things I am accountable ; respecting these I 
 have free agency. These things do not happen without 
 my counsel and direction. 
 
 Here, then, temptation begins its terrible work. 
 Here it lies in ambush, steals upon us unawares, solicits, 
 fascinates, commands, enslaves, damns. 
 
 The imagination of man has led him to personify 
 temptation, to regard it as an evil agency external to 
 ourselves, to embody it, and call it a Devil. Gloomy 
 poets, and painters, and oftentimes religious teachers, 
 represent this devil as a huge, stalking monster, mar- 
 vellous in bulk, terrific in aspect, a roaring lion. How 
 ama2dngly untrue. The devil, when he first apiproaches 
 and besieges us, always comes in the guise of beauty 
 or pleasure. He shows us hope, and promises that 
 it shall be enjoyed. He shows us fear, and offers to 
 avert it. Instead of being an Anak whose shadow 
 darkens the sun, he dwarfs himself almost to invisibility, 
 spiritualizes himself so that the outward organ cannot 
 discern him. He may come in the form of some feel- 
 ing, improper in kind or in degree to be indulged, some 
 pleasure or advantage to be gained. In the little child, 
 hiding behind the door to do a forbidden thing ; in 
 childish games, cheating in the play or in the count, in 
 order to win ; in the student, taking one unlawful peep 
 into his text-book to make up for the ten minutes he 
 had unlawfully squandered at play ; at the table or else- 
 where, eating to gratify the taste, after the demands of 
 
180 
 
 TEMPTATION. 
 
 health are satisfied, or in drinking for the pleasure of a 
 spot in the inside of the mouth not two inches square, 
 after all the rest of the body, heart, stomach, lungs, 
 brain, has said " enough ; " in the privacy of our rooms, 
 doing what we know would disgrace us if door and 
 window were suddenly opened and the world should 
 look in ; in trade, the first, smallest fraud in weight, 
 or measure, or account ; in the young lawyer, espous- 
 ing a cause he knows to be unjust, because he cannot 
 wait for an honest fee ; in the young minister, subscribing 
 to a creed he does not believe, to get an elegible settle- 
 ment ; in politics, espousing an unrighteous cause, by 
 voice or vote, in hopes of preferment ; in society at 
 large, refusing to vindicate the cause of truth, because 
 it may make one unpopular, or, which is quite as bad, 
 refusing to expose offenders through the mean dread of 
 being called an informer, the very name of which we 
 ought to be emulous, when we look upon it as a means 
 of abating evil in the world. It is in these ways, and 
 in ten thousand ways like these, subtle, insinuating, 
 stealthy, under the guise of some form of delight, or 
 wealth, or fame, or power, that the devil first enters 
 into child or man. He never comes to us as a huge, 
 portentous, towering Colossus, vast as though he had ' 
 been carved from Mount Athos, but attenuated and 
 gay, rallying us upon our fears, piquing our pride, en- 
 tering the soul through the eye among the rays of 
 light, when we look upon forbidden objects to lust after 
 them ; entering it through the ear, with the vibrations 
 of the air, when we voluntarily listen to obscene song 
 or profane words. It is after we have allowed him en- 
 trance, and residence, and hospitality, it is after we 
 have warmed, and nourished, and cherished what seemed 
 
TEMPTATION. 181 
 
 at first so pleasant, or at least so harmless, that he starty 
 up into gigantic proportions and aggrandizes himself with 
 power, and usurps the throne of reason and conscience, 
 and puts on the gorgon head, and shakes terrors from 
 his snaky locks, and scourges every limb of the body 
 and every faculty of the mind to do his acciirsed bid- 
 ding. Then the affrighted soul shrieks out its alarms, 
 obtests heaven and earth for deliverance in a voice 
 betokening unspeakable agony, but Apollyon has van- 
 quished the angel, and in the victim's inner ear howls 
 out his triumph. 
 
 Do you think that when Temptation first came to 
 Herod, it came to liim in the proposal to kill aU the 
 children in Bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof, 
 under two years of age ; or that when Temptation first 
 came to Judas, it came in the shape of betraying his 
 master for thirty bits of money, an act as mean and 
 contemptible as it was wicked ; or when it first came 
 to the Church, it came in the form of the ten great 
 persecutions, or of wheels to wrench and tear the body 
 limb from hmb, or of fagot fires, or of St. Bartholemew 
 massacres ? I tell you nay. It came in the guise of 
 some pleasure, advantage, profit ; and here are the exact 
 words it said ; " Only this once ; you are a fool if you 
 can't try it this once ; " and the victim, instead of 
 scornfuUy replying; " I'm a fool if I do," tried it and 
 fell, and ages of ignominy and remorse may not yet 
 have atoned for the fall. 
 
 But when the devil or evil (for it makes not a pin's 
 practical difference whether we affix the d or omit it), 
 has once effected a lodgement in a man through his 
 appetites, propensities, or passions, then his next step is 
 to tamper with and debase his moral natm'c. We have 
 15* 
 
182 TEMPTATION. 
 
 reason which not only sees what is right, and just, and 
 true, in common cases, as it sees the truth of the Multi- 
 plication Table, but when trained and practised, it 
 dissolves the most refractory compounds of truth and 
 error, brings out the pure, crystalline truth, and sluices 
 away the foul, fetid error. We have conscience, which, 
 so far as its power goes, not only speaks with the voice 
 of God, but sees with the eye of God. 
 
 What a thought ! You carry a compass within you, 
 and you sail the ocean, you traverse the wilderness, in 
 storm, in darkness you descend to subterranean caves ; 
 you consult this organism in which God expresses one 
 of His perfections, and you know north, south, east, 
 west, home. Conscience is the magnet of the soul. It 
 has a Divine polarity. Amid the tempests of passion, 
 in dark hours of trial, that only lie just this side of de- 
 spair, when a host of fierce temptations beleaguer, then 
 consult this Divine monitor, and though its tiny needle 
 may tremble amid the attractions of earth, yet, if un- 
 corrupted, its pole-star will be the throne of God. 
 
 As I said before, temptation allures, in order to obtain 
 foothold within us ; having obtained it, it commands. 
 It says, omit this duty, though it be but the speaking of 
 a word ; invade this right, though it be but stealing an 
 apple from a rich man's orchard ; obtain that prize or 
 honor, it will cost you only a falsehood ; gratify that 
 animal passion, the victim is too feeble to call you to 
 account. And so, after the sensual and passional nature 
 is inflamed, the moral nature succumbs, abdicates, re- 
 tires, and sin is left sole monarch of the realm. 
 
 It may aid our conceptions of this siibject, to consider 
 the different degrees of guilt attaching to different per- 
 sons for yielding to the same temptation. It is obvious 
 
TEMPTATION. 183 
 
 that tlie same bodily act, or mental desire, may have 
 different degrees of culpability or blame-worthiness, 
 according to the differing conditions of the author. A 
 deed very venial in a child, may be very criminal in a 
 man. A deed which might be a mere peccadillo in a 
 heathen, may be heinously offensive in one living under 
 the light of the Gospel. To a man famishing with 
 hunger, and perishing with cold, the theft of food, or 
 of a garment, would be a very different thing from 
 what the same act would be if the thief were surrounded 
 with luxuries and wardrobes. Even in persons of the 
 same class, where the temptation is hght, and the knowl- 
 edge of duty plain, and the time for deliberation ample, 
 the offence bears a complexion of guilt immensely dif- 
 ferent from what it would if the Hght of knowledsre 
 were dim, and the assault of temptation vehement and 
 sudden. Hence this formula in expressing the magni- 
 tude of an offender's guilt ; that it is directly as the 
 knowledge of duty, and inversely as the strength of the 
 assault. Wicked as Sodom and Gromorrah were, it will 
 be more tolerable for them than for Jerusalem, in the 
 days of the Saviour ; and better for Jerusalem than for 
 us, if we repeat their deeds. That is, a man's guilt 
 rises in heinousness, with the enlargement of his oppor- 
 tunities to know more and do better. Hence nations 
 may be more wicked now, than they ever could be in 
 ancient times ; and our nation more wicked than any 
 other. Drunkenness, and the manufacturing and traf- 
 ficking in intoxicating drinks, are far greater crimes 
 now, than they were fifty years ago. The man to whom 
 the beautiful and benign laws of Human Physiology 
 have been taught, is an immensely greater offender 
 when he over-indulges his appetites, or takes what is 
 
184 TEMPTATION. 
 
 injurious either in quality or quantity, than if he had 
 always been taught that health is the result of chance, 
 or of arbitrary, though Divine appointment. Under 
 wise and Christian training, breathed upon by ele- 
 vating and spiritual influences, with avenues to honor 
 and duty opened on every side, the backslider and the 
 apostate may become terribly, gigantically criminal. 
 God knows our opportunities for light, and the stress 
 of the temptation that beset us, and He will judge us. 
 Even if He did not know it, our own nature is a self- 
 registering machine, and keeps the tally, and sooner or 
 later will be avenged. 
 
 The most formidable attribute of temptation, is its 
 increasing power, its accelerating ratio of velocity. 
 Every act of repetition increases power, diminishes re- 
 sistance. It is like the letting out of waters, — where 
 a drop can go, a river can go. Whoever yields to 
 temptation, subjects himself to the law of falling bodies. 
 Look at the drunkard, the gambler, the libertine. Do 
 you need any Atwood's machine to prove that in their 
 fall, the velocity is as the squares of the times ? Look 
 into the Police Courts of our great cities, and see the 
 young men ; alas, the young women, not going to per- 
 dition, but gone ! They all said they could yield once, 
 a few times, and then resist. That is, standing on the 
 brink of a precipice, they said they could plunge over, 
 and stop half-way. Incredible delusion ! Amazing 
 folly, idiocy ! No man who yields to temptation, comes 
 out as he went in. Here is his besotted delusion. He 
 says, I shall meet the second as I do the first. Impos- 
 sible ! When he meets the second, after having yielded 
 to the first, he is a clianged man. Desire is increased. 
 Power of resistance has decreased. With a force of 
 
TEMPTATIOX. 185 
 
 twenty he yielded to a force of ten ; flattering himself 
 that afterwards, with a force of ten, he can vanquish a 
 force of twenty. When a man crosses the river above 
 the Falls of Niagara, in a frail skiff, does not the first 
 dimple. of a whirlpool in the stream, or the tiniest bub- 
 ble on its surface, shout to him of the swifter flow, of 
 the rapids, the verge, the plunge, the watery Tartarus 
 beneath, whence living man never emerged ? Why, in 
 God's name, does not the tempted man see, behind, the 
 smiling, dallying, gay deceiver, that sports, and wan- 
 tons, and charms, with music's sweetest strains, another 
 of sterner mien, and behind them the whole retinue of 
 infernals, with Abaddon in the rear, and Gehenna at 
 his back. The young men before me, who have been, 
 week after week, to that rum-hole, — why is it that 
 they cannot see the bottomless pit beneath it, without 
 taking up the floor ? 
 
 The inquiry, " When is a crime complete ? " belongs 
 to this subject. In the progress of crime to its consum- 
 mation, there are three degrees. 
 
 1. Evil imaginations voluntarily entertained. I have 
 no right to hang licentious pictures around the cham- 
 bers of my brain. Not even in thought have I a right 
 to indulge in forbidden pleasures. All such indulgen- 
 ces debase the mind, pollute it, prepare us to realize in 
 our conduct, the wicked imagination or conception. For 
 are such pictures, such impressions upon the tablets of 
 the saul ever effaced ? Moral chemistry has no neutral- 
 izer that will wholly extract the stain. No graver's tool 
 can ever wholly abrade it ; for it is like the image 
 upon the shield of Phidias, graven so deep that whatever 
 would- remove it, would annihilate the soul itself. It 
 may be covered up, and thus hidden from the common 
 eye, but a reagent will detect and expose it. 
 
186 TEMPTATION. 
 
 In ancient times, when paper or parchment for 
 writing was in great demand, professional clerks or 
 scriveners used to take old volumes of classics or histo- 
 ries, and wash out or efface the writing upon them, and 
 then record, upon the same roll, what they considered 
 more valuable. The parchments so effaced and re- 
 written, are called " Palimpsests." Many of these pa- 
 limpsests have been discovered in modern times from 
 which the last writing has been chemically removed 
 and the old writing restored in full. The human soul 
 is a palimpsest. What has been written on it ever will 
 remain on it forever. That is its law. Hence all evil 
 imaginations are recorded crimes. 
 
 The sinner reaches the second stage of guilt when, 
 after having luxuriated in the fancied j)leasures of a 
 crime, or in the profits or honors of its commission, he 
 at first harbors his thoughts, and then ventures upon 
 the terrible resolution to commit it. This second stage 
 is the natural outgrowth of the first. The imagination 
 gloats over illicit joys. A law of repetition exists in 
 the mind, and every , repetition inflames the desire. 
 The temptation grows into form, compacts itself into 
 substance, assumes body, vitality, energy. It says, I 
 must, I can, I will ; then prepares its plans and watches 
 for its hour. This is the direful purpose, the resolve. 
 
 But dreadful as this is ; — this standing with the 
 body half bent over the precipice, below which blaze 
 the eternal fires ; this poising and balancing where one 
 inch of voluntary advance will change the centre of 
 gravity, and precipitate to Tartarean depths, even this 
 is not quite all. The consummation of guilt is in the 
 deed. Until this acme is reached, there is a place for 
 repentance, a chance for hope. Conscience may yet 
 
TEMPTATION. 187 
 
 shriek out a more terrible alarm. Reason may discern 
 some new and feaiM revelation of consequences. The 
 religious faculties, repulsed and driven from the field, 
 may rally and rush back to the rescue. Some mother's 
 words, dropped in the ear long years ago, — blessed 
 angel-words of sainted mother now sleeping in her 
 grave, — unheeded while she lived, but now by magic 
 association, bursting up through layers of impious for- 
 getfulness and wicked pleasures, may thrill and vibrate 
 through the soul, and rescue the almost victim from 
 perdition. 
 
 I know it is sometimes said that the guilt is complete 
 when the guilty act is resolved on. Is virtue complete 
 when a virtuous deed is resolved on ? Certainly not. 
 The fulness of virtue is not in the intention, but in the 
 execution. The same law governs both virtue and 
 vice. 
 
 But when the consummating deed is done ; when the 
 torch is touched to the magazine ; when the dagger is 
 struck to the heart ; when the orgasm of passion is 
 reached, then all the remonstrant faculties of the soul 
 have been subdued, then all the conspirator faculties 
 have triumphed. Then temptation has consummated 
 itself in crime. 
 
 I have spoken of temptation and fall. It may not 
 be amiss in closing to say a word about repentance, 
 about that which alone, so far as it can be done, rein- 
 states the offender. 
 
 Repentance is sorrow for wrong-doing, — sorrow, 
 sometimes rising to remorse. This feeling is toto coelo 
 different fi'om another kind of sorrow, — sorrow for 
 being found out. Yet how often is sorrow for being 
 discovered, mistaken for sorrow for being guilty. 
 
188 TEMPTATION. 
 
 A crime is committed, — no matter what. All good 
 men, for the common safety, seek to find out the offender. 
 Weeks, months pass, but no clue is discovered. The 
 shrewdest conjectures are baulked. Suspicions exist, 
 but confirmation of them fails. By and by, a sagacious 
 man, gathering all the, scattered rays of light into a focus, 
 throws its blaze into the very face of the offender, and 
 he stands exposed, revealed, proclaimed. Then see how 
 suddenly he begins to profess sorrow for what he has 
 done. Oh, he now says, how I lament the deed ! 
 What anxious days ! ' What sleepless nights ! Oh, 
 what would I not give, do, suffer, to recall the guilty 
 act ! Ah, self-deluded mortal ! If you felt any godly 
 sorrow for it, why did you not confess it, make repara- 
 tion for it, before ? Those weeks, those months, when 
 all good men were searching for the offender, and you 
 knew who he was, but acted all the time as though you 
 did not know who he was, carved and shaped your con- 
 tinuing life into a continuing lie, if you were truly 
 sorry for the wrong, why did you not then confess it, 
 express contrition for it, make reparation for it. Your 
 sorrow started up, not when the deed was done, but 
 when the discovery was made. 
 
 Would God that I could illuminate this truth with 
 such a strong light that moral blindness could not help 
 but see it. The very constitution of human nature is 
 such, that if a violator of law truly repents, he can find 
 no rest till he has acknowledged his guilt, and made 
 all the atonement for it in Ms power. If he has stolen 
 money or a watch, he will restore it. What should we 
 think of thief or robber who should protest to the person 
 robbed or despoiled, what agony of remorse he feels 
 for the crime, with the plunder all the time secreted in 
 
TEMPTATION. 189 
 
 his pocket. It is just so if one has stolen a man's good 
 name, or injured the family, or the company, or the 
 institution to wliich he belongs. Tnie repentance ne- 
 cessitates confession. The concealed crime is fire in 
 the offender's bosom. If he flees across the sea, it will 
 scourge him home. If he holds the fatal secret in his 
 heart during life, the death-bed will wrench it from 
 him. Wrung with torture, he is driven to suicide, and 
 " suicide," it has been well said, " is confession." Bad 
 as Judas was, he could not help the involuntary con- 
 fession of suicide. 
 
 And look upon -this other fact, and tremble. When 
 a man sins against God, and repents, he must confess 
 that sin to God before peace of mind becomes possible. 
 Why must he confess to God ? Does not the All- 
 knowing know it already? Can the offender's lips 
 inform the searcher of hearts ? No, not for God's sake, 
 but for his own sake he must avow the fact. He must 
 stand in the presence of the Omniscient, and in the 
 presence of his crime, and say, I did it, or peace cannot 
 visit his bosom. 
 
 What did the Prodigal Son say, " I will arise and 
 go to my father, and will say. Father, I have sinned 
 against heaven and before thee." And when he met , 
 his father, his first utterance was, " Father, 1 have 
 sinned against heaven and in thy sight." Did his 
 father need anything but inspection to inform him of 
 the Prodigal's career ? His tattered garments, but half 
 covering his diseased person ; his unshod feet, after that 
 dreadful journey home ; his ghastly face, emaciated by 
 famine ; his hollow eye, red with weeping ; his voice 
 choked with unutterable shame ; did the father need 
 any description of his condition, any history of his prof- 
 16 
 
190 TEMPTATION. 
 
 ligacy but these ? Yet lie could as well liave suppres- 
 sed the winds or the tides, as to have choked down this 
 articulate proclamation of his guilt. 
 
 This was true repentance. This was repentance not 
 needing to be repented of. This was sorrow for the 
 deed and not for the discove7'y. All other sorrow is 
 futile and vain ; and if men are silly enough to be 
 blinded by it, God is, never. 
 
MEDITATION. 191 
 
 MEDITATION. 
 
 OuE Father, Thou who art near to every one of us, 
 we would at this time draw near to Thee. We would 
 banish all selfish and worldly thoughts from our bosoms ; 
 we would contemplate Thee in the immaculate purity 
 and holiness of Thy nature, in the adorableness of Thy 
 attributes, in the immensity of Thy works, and in the 
 wisdom and love and mercy in which Thou hast made 
 them all. Oh our Father in Heaven, we would not 
 debase our natures before Thee. Ignorance and sin 
 alone can debase them. We would not exalt ourselves 
 above those who lived in former ages of the world, or 
 who are now our contemporaries in other quarters of 
 the globe. They had not the Blessed Gospel in their 
 hands ; they had not the clear inspiring of the Truth 
 into their souls. Of us, to whom much is given, shall 
 much be required. We would not boastingly thank 
 Thee that we are not as other men are ; but if others 
 in any respect are inferior to ourselves, we would strive 
 for the spirit and the benevolence that will not rest 
 until they are reformed, improved, and made partakers 
 with us in all Thy goodness. May" we think of the 
 noble men who have gone before us, prophets, saints, 
 martyrs, apostles, who encountered temptation and 
 resisted it ; whose souls rose to the glorious region of 
 magnanimity and self-sacrifice ; who, through tribula- 
 tion, fought the good fight and came off conquerors, 
 and have gone to their eternal reward. Let us ask our- 
 
192 MEDITATION. 
 
 selves, if we had been in their places, whether we 
 should have imitated their deeds ; if the toil and strug- 
 gle of an ascension to the heights of virtue had been 
 set before us, whether we should have scorned the ap- 
 petites of the flesh, and held down the wayward pro- 
 pensities of our nature, and preferred the honor of God 
 to the plaudits of men ; or borne imprisonment, and 
 scourging and death rather than prove treacherous or 
 neglectful in the holy cause of duty. Oh let us never 
 fall into the delusion and fallacy that we have done our 
 duty, at the time or in the place of any other man, 
 unless we can do it now, in our own time and in our 
 own place. And may we never delude ourselves with 
 the fallacious belief that we should not have done as 
 the wickedest of men have done in all parts and ages 
 of the world, that we should not have fallen as they 
 fell ; that we should not have become tyrants and op- 
 pressors and persecutors and wrong-doers in the innu- 
 merable relations of nfe, unless we can now refrain 
 from the offences, whatever they may be, which we are 
 tempted to commit ; unless we can imitate the example 
 :f Jesus Christ. 
 
RETRIBUTION. 
 
IX. 
 
 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 Galatians, Ch. vi. , part of 7th and 8th verses. " — for whatsoever a 
 man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that Boweth to the flesh, 
 shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the spirit, shall 
 of the spirit reap life everlasting." 
 
 II. Corinthians, ix., 6. " But this I say, he which soweth sparingly 
 shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap 
 also bountifully." 
 
 Hosea, viii., 7. " For they have sown the wind and they shall reap 
 the whirlwind." 
 
 In the beautifully planned and skilfully formed uni- 
 verse in which we are placed, great minds have always 
 observed an order in the arrangement of all its bodies, 
 and in the happening of all its events. 
 
 First, there is an order in the arrangement of all its 
 bodies. Things are not thrown together promiscuously 
 and at random, piled up in a heap chance-wise, and 
 without beginning, middle or end. That is our idea 
 of chaos. The planets are arranged in a certain order 
 in relation to the sun. The different layers of the crust 
 of the earth have a uniform arrangement which is the 
 same in both hemispheres and in all the continents. 
 Hence, in geology, the primary, secondary, and tertiary 
 formations have such a regularity and uniformity, that 
 when we see the plan of superposition in one part of 
 the world, we expect the same general plan in all other 
 parts. In the human body, why are the arteries which 
 
 " [195] 
 
196 KETRIBUTION. 
 
 convey the blood outward from the heart bedded deeper 
 down in the flesh than the veins which bring it back from 
 the extremities ? Simply because the blood-vessels are 
 Hable to be cut and ruptured, and as the arteries always 
 bleed more profusely than the veins, it is best that they 
 should be placed deeper down, where they will be more 
 out of harm's way. If you were to put iron and glass 
 into the same package for transportation, would you 
 not put the glass into the interior of the parcel, where 
 it would be less exposed to blows or any form of rough 
 usage ? That is the reason why the arteries are 
 placed nearer the bones, and the veins nearer the skin. 
 The human eye consists of above twenty different 
 parts. In every perfect eye, are not all these parts 
 arranged in the same order ? Examine the interior of 
 an egg. Are not the albumen and the yolk always 
 fashioned after the same model ? Nay, among animals 
 in other respects most dissimilar, there is still a secret 
 reference to the same general type. The wings of a 
 bird and the fins of a fish represent the arms of a man. 
 The fore-legs of a horse or an ox are only the arms 
 turned down. The mammalia have four limbs; birds 
 have four also, including their wings. 
 
 And, secondly, there is an order in events. Events 
 do not occur at hap-hazard. When the sun rises, light 
 is spread abroad. When the sun sets, light is with- 
 drawn. When the sun approaches the tropic of Cancer, 
 the temperature of the whole northern hemisphere rises, 
 and we have the heats of summer ; when it recedes to 
 the tropic of Capricorn, the temperature falls, and we 
 have the congelations of winter. You do not see boiling 
 water scald a man one day and freeze him the next. 
 You do not see fire one day burn more fiercely in a 
 
EETEIBUTION. 197 
 
 blast of oxygen, and do the same thing the next day in 
 a blast of carbonic acid gas. You do not see cork float 
 on water and lead sink at one time, and then see the 
 lead float and the cork sink at another. You never see 
 a man who observes all the laws of health- becoming 
 ill ; and another who violates all those laws remaining 
 well. The angler baits his hook with curious art for 
 catching fish, unless when he fishes for gudgeons, which 
 bite the naked hook ; because among fishes the gudgeons 
 are fools. The devil tempts men through their ambition, 
 their cupidity or their appetite, until he comes to the 
 profane swearer, whom he catches without any reward. 
 The profane swearer bites a hook unbaited even by any 
 seeming good ; because among the tempted, like gudg- 
 eons among fishes, the profane swearer is a fool. 
 
 Now in all these things. Nature, or God acting through 
 nature, is uniform. They never happen one way one 
 year, and another way another year, when the circum- 
 stances are the same. They give no sign of being pro- 
 duced by accident or caprice, or by the arbitrary, fitful 
 interference of a superior power ;> but they proceed 
 onward fi-om age to age, with a solemn, majestic 
 movement, an august procession, that strikes the con- 
 templative beholder with awe, and expands and lifts 
 his soul with indescribable emotions of sublimity and 
 grandeur. We call this the course of Providence ; 
 and in the wisdom that planned it, in the power that 
 sustains it, in the benevolence with which it overflows, 
 and in the omniscience which sees the end from the 
 beginning, it is- worthy of a God. 
 
 We admire the ingenuity of a timepiece-maker, who 
 can construct a chronometer so skilfully, that it can 
 go round the world and not lose or gain more than half 
 
198 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 a minute. What, tlien, shall be said of this great horo- 
 loge in the sides, of this sun and these planets, primary 
 and secondary, which have fulfilled their mighty cir- 
 cuits since their creation and have not lost or gained a 
 moment of time, nor fallen out of repair ? 
 
 Now, having looked outward, around us, let us for 
 a moment look inward, into our own consciousness. 
 Corresponding with this wonderful order of external 
 nature, this marvellous arrangement of bodies, and this 
 solemn progression of events in the outwEird world, we 
 have a faculty in our own souls, whose special function 
 it is to take cognizance of the external arrangement 
 and order, and to profit by it ; to profit by it in two 
 ways, first, by obtaining more benefits and advantages 
 than we could otherwise do ; and secondly, by avoiding 
 more evils. 
 
 What a miserable condition we should be in, if the 
 seasons should change places, winter for summer, and 
 spring for autumn, all at random ; if the zones should 
 dance about ; if the ocean should be sometimes fresh, 
 and the fountains sometimes salt ; if the plants which 
 had borne healthful and delicious fruits should produce 
 arid and poisonous ones ; if the specific gravity of 
 bodies should change, so that stones would sometimes 
 rise and vapor fall ; — in fine, abolish order and adap- 
 tation and periodicity from the universe, and the only 
 solace of our miserable lives would be, that they would 
 come speedily to an end. 
 
 But mark this : just as well might all these essen- 
 tials of happiness, and of existence, which are without 
 us, be abolished, as to abolish our power to recognize 
 their existence. It is immaterial whether the sun or 
 the eye be destroyed, vision equally ceases. It is the 
 
KETRIIJUTION. 199 
 
 same whether you destroy outward order, or the inward 
 power of profiting by order ; in both cases the advan- 
 tage is destroyed. Two things, then, are 'necessary ; 
 the order of the external world, and the power of avail- 
 ing ourselves of that order in the ipental world. 
 
 This sublime external order we call Cause and Effect. 
 It is something more than mere sequence, mere juxta- 
 position, in point of time. The night always follows 
 the day, and the day the night, but the day is not the 
 cause of the night, nor is the night the cause of the day. 
 But when I throw a rope to a drowning man, or fasten 
 a cable and a cannon ball together, and by means of. 
 gunpowder send that ball over a wrecked vessel, I am 
 convinced that there is a power in my arm, and in the 
 gunpowder which sent the rope or cable on its benevo- 
 lent errand. That power we denominate Causation ; 
 the faculty within us which recognizes the power we 
 call Causality. 
 
 Now the grand order of events in nature, in history, 
 in nations, and in individuals, is nothing but progres- 
 sive, and often alternating cause and effect. A prece- 
 dent event is the cause of one or more subsequent 
 events. The subsequent event or events, are the effect 
 of the precedent, and in their turn become the cause of 
 other events, later, in time." The first tree produced the 
 first seed, or, changing the priority^ the first seed pro- 
 duced the first ti-ee, that tree another seed, that seed 
 another tree, and so on, to all the seeds that exist, and 
 to all the trees that are growing to-day. And so, as- 
 suming the bird to have been first created, the first bird 
 pi-oduced the first egg, that egg another bird, that bird 
 another egg, and so on, from bird to egg, and from egg 
 to bird, to all the oggs and birds now in being. The 
 
200 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 direction and forces by which the planets were launched 
 into their orbits, has had a controlling influence on their 
 motions and orbits ever since ; and their course and 
 velocity are now so certain, that men can foretell day, 
 hour, and minute, when every eclipse will happen, for 
 a thousand years to come. Fire produces certain effects 
 on iron, and boiling water certain effects on flesh and 
 vegetables, and soft words turn away wrath, and we 
 are assured, through our faculty of causality, that these 
 effects will always be reproduced, whenever the objects 
 to be affected by them are subjected to the same con- 
 •ditions. 
 
 Nature, then, is like a vast piece of machinery, con- 
 trived by a Being of Omniscience, who could foresee all 
 consequences ; wrought out by a Being of Infinite Skill, 
 who could adapt means to ends ; worked by a Being of 
 exhaustless Power, who will never be destitute of ener- 
 gy to drive on the process ; and administered by a Being 
 of matchless Love, who constantly evolves from it the 
 means of the highest possible good. 
 
 In the midst of this wonderful machinery we are 
 placed. If we know its capabilities and their laws, we 
 can regulate their action, producing vast good, averting 
 vast evil. I can rear tares. or wheat in all my grounds. 
 I can make bread or alcohol of all my grains. I can 
 sow health or disease, virtue or vice, in all my influ- 
 ences upon men. If I wish to produce given quantities 
 or qualities of manufactured articles, I arrange certain 
 cranks, or wheels, or bands ; I arrange the power, 
 whether water or steam, and God turns the wheels, and 
 the result comes forth. I arrange some pieces of glass 
 or burnished metal in a certain order, for a telescope, 
 and lo, God's wonders in the deep firmament, marshalled, 
 
RETEllBUTION. 201 
 
 rank behind rank, burst upon my adoring vision. If I 
 wish to train up children J;o greatness of mind, and 
 purity of soul, then I supply the requisite moral and 
 intellectual aliment ; and if I have selected my subject 
 judiciously, and have followed principles faithfully in 
 all my course of training, then shall I be rewarded with 
 that most precious of all earthly rewards, a noble char- 
 acter. Causation, then, the operative power in Cause 
 and Effect, is a mighty agency, proceeding from God ; 
 and Causality, by which we recognize the law of causa- 
 tion, is a mighty faculty existing in man. It is the 
 mightiest intellectual power bestowed on man. No 
 such intellectual difference exists between men, as be- 
 tween the man who has it, and the man who has it not. 
 The extremes of its presence or its absence, mark the 
 extremes of greatness and of imbecility. Socrates, Lord 
 Bacon, Dr. Franklin, possessed it in a most conspicuous 
 degree. Idiots have but a germ or minimum of it, and 
 hence they are idiots. The great causality, which, on 
 "beholding any particular fact or event, can look back 
 and divine the cause that produced it, and look forward 
 and foresee the effects which itself will produce, that 
 makes the great man, — the great writer, the great 
 statesman, the great philosopher. The man who sees 
 events as mere facts, but cannot see in the events, either 
 the causes that led to them, or the effects which in 
 the order of nature, will flow from them, he is the im- 
 becile, the non-witted, the idiotic. He can neither 
 arrange things for the production of good results, nor 
 foresee bad results, and so modify causes as to escape 
 from them. He is a ship without a rudder on the ocean 
 of Time, tossed about at the mercy of every wind or tide 
 of circumstance and chance ; and, though there is a 
 17 
 
202 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 possibility tliat lie may be driven to the desired haven, 
 yet the chances are as infinity to one that he will be 
 wrecked. Even if he should be driven where he de- 
 sires to go, every one will know that it was by no skill 
 of his that he arrived there. But give a man this 
 Causality, and he has a rudder to his ship ; and no mat- 
 ter where in the broad ocean, no matter in which ocean 
 he may be ; no matter which way the winds may blow, 
 or the tides may sweep, he moves his helm so as to co- 
 operate with, or to antagonize them all ; and he doubles 
 capes, sheers from rocks, threads channels, and at last, 
 jubilant with success, he reaches his haven in safety and 
 triumph. 
 
 Astronomers saw that Uranus, then supposed to be 
 the outside planet in our solar system, had irregularities 
 in its motions which they could not account for. They 
 calculated the retarding and accelerating forces of all 
 the other bodies in the solar grouji, but the gravitation 
 of these other bodies did not explain the difficulty. At 
 last, Lev-errier, a French astronomer, conceived that 
 the irregularities of Uranus in its orbit might be occa- 
 sioned by the attracting force of some planet beyond it, 
 though no such planet was known to exist. He set 
 himself, therefore, to examine all the observations that 
 had been made upon Uranus, found that at such a time 
 it was so much in advance of its position, and at such 
 a time so much in the rear of it, and so from revolution 
 to revolution for years and years ; and then he calcula- 
 ted that if there were such a planet outside and beyond 
 Uranus, and at a certain supposed and probable distance 
 from it, whereabouts tliat planet must have been at dif- 
 ferent times ; that is, if Uranus, in making its revolution, 
 began at any point to go farther than it ought to, then 
 
RETRIBUTION. 203 
 
 tlie supposed planet must be ahead of it, and so draw- 
 ing it forward; but if Uranus began to slacken its 
 velocity, and to fall behind what would otherwise be 
 its true position, then the supposed planet must be be- 
 hind it, and so retarding its motions. At the very first 
 computation (though we can hardly conceive how la- 
 borious such a computation must be), he would simply 
 infer that the supposed planet must be in advance or 
 in the rear. At the second, perhaps he might conclude 
 that it was within so many degrees of some fixed point 
 in its orbit. And so, by computation after computation, 
 wrought out by a degree of labor and learning scarcely 
 imaginable by us, he would determine the place of the 
 supposed planet to be within narrower and narrower 
 limits, until he had at last exhausted all his data, or 
 means of information, and could only say, — the new 
 planet is to be looked for between two such points. 
 Leverrier immediately wrote to his friend, the astrono- 
 mer Gauss, at Berlin, who had charge of a very superior 
 telescope, telhng him at what point in the heavens to 
 look for the supposed new world. Gauss pointed his 
 telescope as directed, and the first night discovered the 
 new planet, thus adding another known member to the 
 solar system. Now if causes had not acted uniformly, 
 or if we had no faculty of Causality, how could this 
 discovery ever have been made ? 
 
 Some traveller has given an account of the troops of 
 monkeys tliat frequent Gibraltar. The soldiers often 
 go out of their camp to cook their food in the open air, 
 and during cold weather, after they have retired, the 
 monlieys come from their trees and hiding-places, and 
 gather round the fire for warmth. Bat the fire will 
 soon burn out, and though the monkeys have seen the 
 
204 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 soldiers, scores of times, go to the piles of wood near 
 by, to replenish the fire, yet they have never associated 
 the two things together, the wood and the fire, — and 
 therefore will remain cold or slink away into their hiding 
 places to suffer, for want of wit enough to know that 
 fuel is necessary to fire. 
 
 Now the greatest difference between these two cases, 
 between the discoveiy of an unknown planet from the 
 aberrations of a known one, and the relation between 
 fuel and fire when the two are placed close together, is 
 a difference in the Causality of the two parties. 
 
 This case of the astronomer, and this case of the 
 monkeys, may, perhaps, be regarded as the two ex- 
 tremes. Let me premise a remark or two, and then 
 refer to a few such cases as happen around us continu- 
 ally, and see whether such cases come nearer to the 
 pattern of the astronomer, or to the pattern of the 
 monkeys. 
 
 First, then, let me say, that tliroughout all that part 
 of the creation of God with which we are acquainted, 
 He works by Cause and Effect ; He works in such a 
 way that our Causality can understand from what He 
 has done, what He will do. His rules are so uniform 
 and Himself so reliable, that when we see any cause 
 put in operation, we know that cause can never be an- 
 nihilated. With a single exception, that cause will 
 certainly produce its effect. That exception is this ; 
 we may sometimes modify the effect by setting a new 
 cause or set of causes in operation. But it is only 
 through the agency of the new causes that we can es- 
 cape from the effects of the old ; and then, only because 
 God has connected the new causes with their effects, 
 indissolubly, just as He had the old ones with theirs. In 
 
EETKIBUTION. 205 
 
 one class of cases, after having set the cause in action, 
 wc can never prevent the effect, even by any new cause 
 that we may put in action ; because the cifect follows 
 so immediately, so instantaneously upon the cause, that 
 we have no time to get in between them with a new 
 cause ; we have no time to thrust a new cause in to 
 modify the effect of the old one. If I hurl a javelin, 
 or shoot an arrow, or fire a ball, at a fellow-being, I can 
 never withdraw the force I have imparted ; nor can I 
 leap in between javelin, arrow or ball, and their object. 
 On they go and take the life at which I aimed, and no 
 prayers, or tears, or agonies of mine can arrest them in 
 their course. There is, however, another class of cases, 
 where the interval is so long between the starting of the 
 cause and the consummation of the effect, where so 
 many processes are to be gone through with after the 
 beginning of the cause, and before the completion of 
 the effect, that we can step in between them and modi- 
 fy or intercept the effect. But, observe here, that this 
 must always be done, not by destroying the original 
 force which set the train in motion, but by instituting 
 a new cause or set of causes, which shall produce a 
 new set of effects, superseding the first. One man may 
 design to take the life of another, and may mingle some 
 deadly venom with his food to poison him, or he may 
 resolve to fire his house in the night to consume him'; 
 but before the food has been eaten, or the flames have 
 enveloped the sleeping-room, the offender may repent, 
 and remove the food, or give the life-saving alarm and 
 prevent the murder. But here you will observe the pre- 
 vention is the effect of a new cause ; the old cause was 
 not annihilated ; the old crime of designing to murder 
 will remain a fact forever, and its scar, at least, if not 
 17* 
 
206 RETRIBUTION. 
 
 its wound, will remain upon the offender's soul forever. 
 When, therefore, we set a cause in motion, it passes 
 out of our jurisdiction. It comes then within God's 
 jurisdiction. With regard to causes, God seems to 
 give us, within a certain Kmited sphere, a co-ordinate 
 jurisdiction with himself; but with regard to the effects 
 naturally resulting from those causes. He gives us no 
 jurisdiction. These He retains in His own sovereign 
 hand. 
 
 Now there is no more common and few more woful 
 errors than those which men commit when they neglect 
 to take care of causes, and then expend their energies 
 or their lamentations upon the effects of those causes. 
 We ought to expend our talents and our toils upon 
 causes, altogether, and then we are certain God wiU see 
 that the right effects flow from them. But men neglect 
 the causes, and then busy, or burden, or torment them- 
 selves about effects, which are no longer within their 
 control. 
 
 A merchant is careless about the building of his ship, 
 works defective materials into its structure, appoints a 
 captain who is imleamed or intemperate, and then sends 
 it to sea. A terrific storm arises, and now he can 
 neither eat nor sleep. He would gladly give half the 
 value of ship and cargo to insure the rest. Foolish 
 man ! When that vessel was on the stocks, why did 
 you not see that it was well built ? Why did you em- 
 ploy that captain when you knew him to be deficient 
 in sldll, or intemperate in habits ? Then you had the 
 causes all in your own hands. You determined then. 
 God's immutable laws of winds and weaves do but exe- 
 cute now what you predestined then, and down she 
 must go. Your ship shall be drift-wood upon the 
 
KETRIBUTION. 207 
 
 ocean's surface. Your cargo sliall lie upon its bot- 
 tom. 
 
 In a fiery drought in midsummer, the farmer becomes 
 most anxious about his crops, mourns, repines, arraigns 
 Providence, perhaps, because the heavens are as brass, 
 and yield no rain, the earth is like an oven, and the 
 corn is scorched as by a slow-consuming fire. But in 
 the spring, when the causes were at his control, why 
 did he not subsoil his land, so that the roots could pene- 
 trate down to the moisture and draw up the nourish- 
 ment which would have given him the luxuriant blade 
 and the full com in the ear ? 
 
 The railroad engineer is entrusted with the building 
 of a bridge, high-poised over deep waters. He fails to 
 excavate to the sohd foundation, and omits the neces- 
 sary clamping and bracing and trellis-work. By and 
 by, the newspapers announce that all is ready. The 
 Excursion Train takes up the choicest men, the digni- 
 taries of the land, — the skilful, the educated, the 
 worthy, those to whom it is an honor to pay honor. 
 0» the company speeds, jubilant, exultant. As the 
 fair-seeining structure comes into view, expectation is 
 too high for utterance, and silence holds every breath 
 for the restrained exclamation of triumph. A crash, 
 a plunge, a shriek ! Another plunge, a wilder shriek ! 
 And still another, as a third great chariot becomes a 
 coffin, and laden with humanity, entombs itself beneath 
 engulfing waters. Silence reigns again, save here and 
 
 there 
 
 " The bubbling cry 
 Of some strong swimmer in his agony." 
 
 So of him who builds a dwelling. If he builds upon 
 a sandy foundation, — if he constructs it of materials 
 
208 
 
 BETEIBUTION. 
 
 which have no strength or cohesion, then he has neg- 
 lected causes ; and he must expect that the flood will 
 undermine it, and'the winds overthrow it, and he has 
 no right, nay, it is impiety in him, to ask God to inter- 
 pose a miracle between his conduct and its natural coru- 
 sequences. 
 
 In the filthy and reeking suburbs of a city, from 
 which all cleanliness and decency have been banished, 
 where the earth exhales the miasma that scatters pesti- 
 lence, where, from holes which the disinfecting sunhght 
 has never shone upon, from crypts and corners which 
 the purifying breezes have never visited, grim Destruc- 
 tion breathes out its poisonous vapors, one lung-full of 
 which is a death-potion, the alarm of cholera is sounded. 
 Tlie residents die by scores. The contagion spreads on 
 all sides. The seeds of death are wafted upon every 
 breeze, and invade districts where purity and cleanli- 
 ness reside. Virtue and piety fall victims, and in some 
 cases, even the stoutest health succumbs. Now what 
 alarm and consternation, what summoning of councils, 
 municipal and medical, what expenditures, what num- 
 bers of men abandoning their business, for flight, with 
 mothers clasping their infants to their breasts, what 
 stupefying terror among those who remain. One twen- 
 tieth part of the pains and expenditure which it now 
 costs to drive out the plague after its invasion and its 
 work of havoc, would have sufiiced to purify the whole 
 region beforehand. But those who had power over 
 the causes neglected to exert that power. They suffered 
 the contagion to be incubated and hatched, and then to 
 rise and shake death from its dark wing over happy 
 and virtuous homes ; and the inexorable law of God 
 fulfilled the rest. 
 
EETRIBUTION. 209 
 
 A people who enjoy the unspeakably precious prerog- 
 ative of electing their own rulers, grow indifferent to 
 their high duty, absent themselves from the polls for 
 fHvolous reasons, vote from passion or caprice, or a base 
 party spirit, and thus suffer demagogues and profligates 
 to be returned to their legislative halls, there to guide 
 the ship of state, vrith aU its cargoes of happiness, upon 
 whatever courses they will. Soon a crisis comes, a mo- 
 mentous crisis, involving, perhaps, the inextinguishable 
 rights of a race, involving the happiness, prosperity 
 and character of the nation itself, and now those mis- 
 creants are treacherous to their duty ; the avaricious 
 see a chance for making money, and directly or indi- 
 rectly, they pocket bribes ; the ambitious clutch at 
 power, and thus they sacrifice the dearest interests of 
 millions, yea, of ages of the unconscious unborn, that 
 they may obtain wealth without labor, or possess the 
 insignia of office while conscious that they are destitute 
 of the merits that deserve them. The people, stripped 
 of their earnings, disgraced in character, overwhelmed 
 with shame, are left to mourn the folly and the fatuity 
 that promoted such men to power. But why did not 
 the people make it a matter of conscience to give a 
 vote, and to give that vote for a true man ? Then they 
 would have escaped loss and calamity and shame. But 
 they neglected the preparation of causes, and God's 
 laws visit them with the legitimate effects of their con- 
 duct. 
 
 How strong is the instinct of parental love. Parents 
 suffer no such agony in their own persons as they can 
 suffer through tha person of a child. Parents can bear 
 the palpitating heart, the convulsed muscle, the throb- 
 bing pulse in tliemselves ; but when the tender organs 
 
210 EETRIBUTION. 
 
 of a loved cliild are torn with these agonies, it becomes 
 intolerable. In the aggregate, parents suffer more 
 through the profligacies and criminahties of children 
 than through their own. They may repent of their 
 own and allaj' the suffering, but when a child's wicked- 
 ness runs on to ruin and death, then, while hfe lasts, 
 its torturing fires continue to burn in the parental 
 brfeast. As a general rule, — I do not deny that there 
 are exceptions, but as a general rule, — children turn 
 out as they might be expected to turn out from the 
 treatment received from parents. What untold agonies, 
 not only in the open day and in the thronged market- 
 place, but in solitude and at midnight, do parents suffer ; 
 what soreness of heart, even such that the tenderest 
 sympathy tortures it like fire, does the mother feel for a 
 profligate son, while he, as if urged along by some 
 demon, rushes on to darker shame and a deadlier 
 perdition. Yet the time was when that child's heart 
 was as soft as wax, when his feelings, like an aspen leaf, 
 could have been moved by a breath. Then the mother 
 could have supplied the very moral nutriment that 
 should have been embodied in the growth of its soul, 
 just as the milk from her own breast became a part of 
 its body. Then she sat upon a throne, and weal and 
 woe were ministers ready to do her bidding. Then she 
 was, like a goddess, decreeing the fiiture, originating 
 predestination, telling Fate himself what he should do. 
 But, for some vanity or frivolity of the hour, she for- 
 feited her queenly prerogatives ; she was an idiot in 
 Causality, and a lost child and a broken heart are her 
 reward. 
 
 But there is one illustration which embraces the 
 essence of all the illustrations I have given ; an illustra- 
 
t> 
 
 KETfilBUTION. 211 
 
 • 
 
 tion which shows more strikingly than any other, that 
 if we would make sure of the effects we desire, we must 
 give timely heed to the causes which, according to the 
 ordination of God's providence, will produce them. 
 
 Youth is a cause, the condition of manhood and old 
 age is an effect. Time is a seed-field ; in youth we 
 sow it with causes ; in after life we reap the harvest of 
 effects. God has established no relation more indissol- 
 uble than that between youth and age, between the 
 spring-time of causes, and the autumn and winter of 
 consequences. Cause, cause, cause, is stamped all along 
 upon the conduct of youth ; effect, effect, effect, is 
 moulded and chiselled in upon the results of that con- 
 duct, in age. In youth, the health may be preserved 
 or ruined, to be rejoiced or mourned over through all 
 the remainder of life. The ample, palace-like apart- 
 ments of the mind may be filled with the precious 
 treasures of knowledge, or they may be left vacant, so 
 that any foot-fall within them, or near them, ever after- 
 wards shall proclaim their emptiness by its hollow- 
 sounding vibrations ; or, again, those chambers of the 
 soul, fit for the garnering of grand, and lofty, and reful- 
 gent thoughts, and designed by their Maker for the 
 garnering of such thoughts, may be filled with errors 
 of doctrine, and with schemes of criminality, repulsive, 
 contaminating, monstrous, and monster-begetting. In 
 this youthful season of causation, too, the heart may 
 ■bud and blossom with moral amaranths, which, in after 
 life, will bear the fruits of paradise, of heaven ; or it 
 may become rank with noxious habits and impulses, 
 wliose very verdure and flower will exhale poison, and 
 whose fruit, in years to come, will be like the Dead Sea 
 apples, full of ashes, and bitterness to the taste. Look 
 
212 EETEIBUTION. 
 
 • 
 
 at the causes, on one side ; look at tlie effects on tlie 
 other ; look at the adamantme relation which God has 
 established between them ; — how one grows out of the 
 other, as the oak grows out of an acorn, or the bird out 
 of an egg. 
 
 My young friends, as it respects manhood and old 
 age, you are now in the season of youth, and the pre- 
 paration of these causes, is, to a great extent, committed 
 to your hands. As it respects another hfe, we are all 
 in the season of youth, and our destiny, to an incon- 
 ceivable extent, is in our own hands. God stands 
 ready by His laws, that is, by His providence, to affix 
 the appropriate effects to such causes as we shall put in 
 motion, good or evil. Let us, then, attend to the causes 
 on which our futurity of weal or woe, of greater weal, 
 or of less woe, shall depend. Take care of the causes. 
 He has predetermined the effectsof happiness or misery, 
 of honor or shame, which shall flow from them as the 
 stream flows from the fountain. 
 
MEDITATION. 
 
 MEDITATION. 
 
 OuK Father, we thank Thee for the security of the 
 past night ; that during the oblivion of ourselves in sleep, 
 Thou hast not forgotten us ; and that, refreshed and 
 reinvigorated by grateftd repose, we have risen from 
 our beds, so Hke a resurrection from the dead, to engage 
 in the duties and the services appropriate to this sacred 
 day. Here, bowing our hearts before Thee, in reve- 
 rent gratitude, may we present ourselves, in Thy holy 
 presence, as loving children would seek the presence of 
 an earthly father. Wilt Thou, Oh Heavenly Father, 
 stretch forth the hand of mercy towards us, and bid us 
 welcome. Wilt Thou touch our hps with praise ; wilt 
 Thou kindle the flame of gratitude in our hearts. May 
 they burn incense to Thee, richer than all the perfumes 
 of the east. By contemplating Thy Power, may we be 
 encouraged to obtain knowledge, by means of which 
 Thou dost invest us with power. By reflecting upon 
 Thy Justice, may we learn to do justice to all our fellow- 
 men ; — justice to their interests in all our deahngs 
 with them ; justice to their characters in all we say or 
 circulate respecting them ; justice to the possibihties of 
 good in their natures, in all the influences we exert upon 
 them. And in contemplating Thy Mercy, may we 
 learn to be merciful ; may we be merciftil to the poor, 
 by helping them, through industry, and sobriety, and 
 intelligence, to obtain a competency and comfort ; may 
 we be merciful to the ignorant, by giving them knowl- 
 18 
 
214 MEDITATION. 
 
 • 
 
 edge, and by devising such measures as shall refine that 
 knowledge into wisdom ; may we be merciful to those 
 who suffer, by succoring their physical distresses, or by 
 administering the balm of consolation to the deeper sor- 
 rows of the heart, and may we be merciful to those who 
 sit in the region and shadow of death, by sending civili- 
 zation and the Gospel to all the ends of the earth. Oh, 
 Father, may we rise to that highest of all human pre- 
 rogatives, to that noblest of all earthly dignities, — the 
 prerogative and the dignity of being co-workers with 
 Thee in Thy plans for the welfare, the happiness, the 
 holiness of man. Bless this people and this society, we 
 beseech Thee. May their light so shine before men, 
 that others, seeing their good works, may be led to 
 glorify our Father who is in heaven. Bless him who 
 ministers to them in sacred things. May he grow 
 mighty in the utterance of truth. May he fear God, 
 and not man. May he speak boldly for righteousness, 
 for temperance, for equity, and for the universal brother- 
 hood of the race ; and may his labors be blessed in the 
 gathering and strengthening of a noble people, whose 
 blessed influences for peace and for purity, shall reflect 
 the hght of heaven into all the paths of the children of 
 men, and whose lives shall be the visible seal that they 
 are true disciples of Thy Son, Jesus Christ. 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 
 
 Matthew six, 2i. — And again I say unto you, it is easier for a 
 camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to 
 enter into the kingdom of God. 
 
 Parallels. Mark x. 25; Luke xviii. 25; Luke xvii 21. — For behold, 
 the kingdom of God is within you. Rom. xiv. 17. — For the king- 
 dom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and 
 joy in the Holy Ghost. 1 Cor. iv. 20. — For the kingdom of God is 
 not in word, but in power. 
 
 1 Cor. XV. 50. — But this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot 
 inherit the kingdom of God. 
 
 Gal. V. 19. — Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: 
 Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 
 
 20. — Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, 
 seditions, heresies, 
 
 21. — Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of 
 the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, 
 that they who do such things, shall not inherit the kingdqm of 
 God. 
 
 22. — But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gen- 
 tleness, goodness, faith. 
 
 23. — Meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. 
 
 24. — And they that are Clirist's have crucified the flesh with the affec- 
 tions and lusts. 
 
 Ephesians v. 5. — For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean 
 person, nor covetous man (who is an idolater), hath any inherit- 
 ance in the kingdom of Christ or of God. 
 
 The Kingdom of God is tlie subject of this Dis- 
 course. 
 
 18* [917] 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 
 
 In considering it, let us first inquire what is meant 
 by the phrase, " The Kingdom of God." We ought 
 to have, not merely an exact theological, but an exact 
 geograplaical idea of God's kingdom. We must fix its 
 boundaries. We must draw a fine of demarcation be- 
 tween God's kingdom and all other kingdoms, so as to 
 include within it whatever does belong to it ; and so as 
 to exclude from it whatever does not belong to it. 
 
 But you ask ; Is not God's kingdom a universal one, 
 an all-comprehending one ? does it not, so to speak, 
 reach to the very circumference of infinitude? Can 
 there be anything sheer outside of it? Nay, if we 
 could, according to the bold imagination of the poet, 
 climb those walls 
 
 " Whose battlements look o'er into the vale 
 Of non-existence, JVoihing'B strange abode," 
 
 should we not, even in that solitude, and darkness, and 
 vacuity, still behold God's kingdom ? 
 
 Certainly, in a physical or dynamical sense, this is 
 true. There is no outside to God's power. If immen- 
 sity were any less, it would not contain all God's energy, 
 for want of room. If eternity were any shorter, some 
 part of the drama of God's providence must be omitted 
 in the performance, for want of time. 
 
 But there is another sense, in which these facts are 
 almost reversed. To make this more intelligible, let me 
 resort to etymology and definition. The word kingdom 
 is a compound word. Its first syllable, " king," means 
 leader, ruler, sovereign, lord, and the last syllable, 
 " dom," when used as a termination, denotes jurisdiction 
 or property, as in the words, earldom, wisdom, freedom, 
 &c. Earldom is the dominion of an earl ; wisdom is 
 the power of the wise ; and freedom is the hberty of the 
 free. 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 219 
 
 If, then, the kingdom of God means, intrinsically, 
 the moral supremacy, the undisputed sway of God's 
 holy law ; and, if it means, geographically, the place 
 where that law is supreme, unresisted, unquestioned, 
 then the difficulty will consist rather in finding where 
 God's kingdom is, than where it is not. We shall find 
 trouble in tracing out the circumference or boundary of 
 God's law, not because the included territory is so im- 
 mensely large, but because it is so microscopically small. 
 Where in the moral world, where in all the realms oi 
 mortal firee-agency, of human accountabihty, is God'b 
 kingdom, or the reign of God's law, absolute, perfect, 
 perpetual ? — not a sin to cloud its cerulean sky, or 
 curse its flowery earth ; not a tongue silent, and every 
 voice a concord ! Alas, my friends, to find such a 
 kingdom of God as this in our sin-stricken world, we 
 must have some new geographer, some more successfiil 
 explorer than Captain Parry or Sir John Frankhn ; we 
 must discover some new region not yet laid down in 
 any atlas, — in any terra cognita, or terra incognita of 
 human history. For myself, I would sooner undertake 
 to find the Northwest Passage in mid- winter, or to make 
 a Coast Survey aroimd the Antarctic Continent. 
 
 If the kingdom of God be " love, joy, peace, long- 
 sufifering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper- 
 ance ; " if it be to love the Lord our God with all 
 our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves ; if it be to 
 do unto others as we would have them do to us ; if, 
 in fine, it be to do all these things, and to feel all 
 these things habitually, systematically, spontaneously, to 
 practice them without the compulsion of fear, and to 
 enjoy them without the hope of other reward, then, in- 
 deed, there is not a petty prince in Europe, across 
 
220 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 
 
 whose kingdom a horse could leap or an unfledged bird 
 could fly, who has not a wider realm than He, the 
 Author of all. 
 
 Was the kingdom of God established in those belli- 
 gerent nations of Europe, so lately linked together in a 
 death-grapple at each other's throats, wielding not only 
 their own energies, but subsidizing- the mighty powers 
 of nature and the earnings of future generations, and 
 aiming their blows at each other's hearts ? Is the king- 
 dom of God established in those vast regions of central 
 Asia and Africa, whose deities are stocks and stones, — 
 some fetich, some reptile, some monster ; and whose 
 worship even of these base deities consists of baser 
 superstitions ? " When the monkey is a God, what 
 must the priest be ? What the people under the priest ? " 
 Is the kingdom of God established in those self-called 
 civilized nations, whose social condition necessitates 
 great organizations of legislatures, judicial tribunals, 
 executive ofScers, &c., for the punishment of crime ; 
 and even then hah" the criminals escape? The prison, 
 the gibbet, the gallows, what loud-voiced witnesses are 
 they respecting God's reign upon earth ! Where is the 
 community, the college, the academy, the school, in 
 which it is necessary to promulgate no law but the law 
 of God, and where that law is always obeyed ? Where 
 is the family in which there is not more or less of dis- 
 cord, of heart-burnings ; where there are not many 
 wills and many interests instead of one will and one 
 interest ? Oh, where is there an individual, — one 
 man or one woman, — whose heart always points to 
 God as the magnetic needle to its pole, and trembles, 
 ay, quakes with fear, whenever a base attraction warps 
 it, for a moment, from its true meridian ? 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, 221 
 
 Where war is, where slavery is, M'here licentiousness 
 is, where fraud, cruelty, treachery, overreaching are, is 
 the kingdom of God there? These thrust out that. 
 The two cannot co-exist. The earth endured Christ's 
 ministry only three years, — not three weeks after his 
 real character and purposes were generally known. 
 
 But salvation for man, in its fullest sense, is only to 
 be found in the kingdom of heaven ; that is, it is only 
 to be found in acts and feelings conformed to the will of 
 God. There may, indeed, be a partial salvation. Sal- 
 vation is not a unit from which nothing can be sub- 
 tracted, and to which nothing can be added. If I was 
 once a drunkard or a glutton, and afterwards, in view 
 of the calamities and losses of drunkenness and glut- 
 tony, I repented, and subjected my life to the laws of 
 sobriety and temperance, then I am so far saved. I am 
 saved from the continued accumulation of the evils of 
 inordinate indulgence ; and by a life of rigid abstemi- 
 ousness, I may from day to day mainly outgrow the 
 consequences of my former folly and sin. So if I were 
 once smitten with the insanity of gambling, and in view 
 of its mischiefs, I disenchanted myself fi-om its strange 
 fascinations, then I am saved from the evils of gambling. 
 
 Even the worst men may have a certain quantum of 
 salvation, although it falls far short of being a quantum 
 mficit. What else could Christ have meant when he 
 said it should be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, ay, 
 for Sodom and Gomorrah, than for those who had en- 
 joyed his teachings and had contemned them ? Salva- 
 tion, therefore, in the full comprehensiveness of the 
 word, can only be found in putting om-selves, — body, 
 mind and soul, — into entire haimony with the laws of 
 God. 
 
222 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 
 
 But there is always, in man, the intensest desire for 
 salvation. When the consequences of our wrong- 
 doing overtake us in this life, then we desire to anni- 
 hilate them ; and when we look forward with a fore- 
 boding sense of the consequences, in another life, of 
 our misconduct here, then we pray for some antidote, 
 some remedy, some refiige and escape. This grows out 
 of the very constitution of human nature. We are so 
 made that we instinctively desire happiness and dread 
 misery. I think we have an intuitive belief in immor- 
 tality ; that is, when the requisite ideas exist in the 
 mind, the belief springs up spontaneously. Each man 
 for himself says, I shall live forever. Education sup- 
 plies this intuition with arguments, and fortifies and 
 strengthens it into a firm, enduring conviction. Now, 
 that immortality of existence, as it first presents itself 
 to the mind, may be an immortality of happiness, or an 
 immortality of woe — of rapture or of agony. The 
 stronger desire doubtless is to avoid the pain. It is a 
 less strong desire to enjoy the happiness ; but both to- 
 gether constitute a motive of transcendent power ; and 
 every thoughtful human being means, in some way or 
 another, before leaving this world, to obtain a guaranty 
 of happiness in the next. With a very few anomalous 
 cases, which may perhaps be called cases of insanity, 
 no one means to cross the river of death without secur- 
 ing a blissful haven to land in on the other side. There 
 is the most unaccountable procrastination, there is the 
 grossest superstition in regard to the means ; but the 
 intention is unquestionable. 
 
 I propose to consider some of the different plans 
 which men lay in order to get into the kingdom of 
 God. 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 223 
 
 Heaven is commonly conceived of as a place, a lo- 
 cality, — as 'we conceive of the District of Colmnbia, 
 or London, or Switzerland. Somewhere in God's uni- 
 verse it is supposed there is a spot where elemental 
 storms never deform the sky ; where inward sorrow 
 never cankers the heart. There is rest after labor, 
 peace after conflict, smiles after tears, and such hap- 
 piness as quenches all fiery memories of former pain ; 
 and the common or popular notion ls_ that when good 
 men leave this world, they are "translated, that is, trans- 
 ported to heaven, as an aeronaut sails off in a bal- 
 loon. By what means, then, can men obtain assurance, 
 and insurance, that when they die they will be borne 
 away to the abodes of bliss, and not to the realms of 
 sorrow ? 
 
 I think there is one grand principle of human nature, 
 which underlies all others and co-operates with all others, 
 for securing a passport and an entrance to heaven. This 
 principle is a selfish one, and it is to get into heaven on 
 the cheapest terms practicable. As in common trans- 
 actions men wish to buy much by paying little ; as in 
 common journeyings or voyagings men desire to get a 
 railroad ticket or a steamboat ticket on the lowest terms ; 
 so the sinner, conscious that he deserves punishment and 
 fearing that he shall receive it in some place outside of 
 heaven, strives to obtain a safe passage to the realms of 
 bliss with the least possible sacrifice of what he loves 
 best here ; and as the traveller who is about to perform 
 a voyage across the Atlantic, selects the steamship or 
 packet which has the best accommodations, the richest 
 fare, the most comfortable and luxurious berths for his 
 nightly repose, so many of the self-called disciples of 
 Christ desire to worship in the most elegant and luxuri- 
 
224 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 
 
 ous churches, where they can sleep away the tedium of 
 their journey to heaven. * 
 
 The missionaries to the Caroline Islands found a 
 theology prevailing there, which exempted its believers 
 from all responsibility about their future condition. 
 The natives believed that their going to heaven or to 
 hell, after death, did not depend at all upon their con- 
 duct in this life, or upon the state of the soul at death ; 
 but they held that after the soul had separated from the 
 body, and while it was on its way to the spirit-land, it 
 was met by companies of good and evil divinities who 
 fought over it and for it, hke Greek and Trojan over the 
 dead body of Patroclus ; and as one or the other of the 
 combatants prevailed, the soul was borne away to Para- 
 dise or to Hades. So little idea had they of virtue, of 
 morality, of duty ; so little did they suppose their di- 
 vinities cared about virtue, morality, and duty, that the 
 soul's eternal destiny was to be decided by brute force, 
 in a hand to hand combat, in which the soul itself was 
 to be a mere looker on ; an interested, but a powerless 
 spectator. 
 
 So there have been sects in the Christian world, pro- 
 fessing to derive their faith from that most eminently 
 virtue-inculcating religion of Jesus Christ, who main- 
 tain that man's salvation depends exclusively upon what 
 God does for him, and not at all upon what he does for 
 himself. They believed that man is born in such a 
 state of sin and misery, as ensures his ultimate perdi- 
 tion ; that he can no more help himself out of that state, 
 than a lump of lead falHng through a vacuum, can un- 
 clench gravitation, and stop midway ; — nay, to put 
 his perdition beyond possibiHty of hope from himself, 
 they go back and affirm that he was conceived in sin, 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 225 
 
 and brouglit forth in iniquity ; — nay, to make his dam- 
 nation a thousand times inevitable, they construct ram- 
 parts of impossibiUty against his salvation six thousand 
 years off, by saying that he fell when Adam fell, and 
 has been falling ever since ; — nay, again, they affirm 
 that it was decreed by the Omnipotent and Unchange- 
 able God, from all eternity, that human souls should be 
 forever lost ; — so that, if such a man would be saved, 
 he has got this problem to work out literally. He 
 must go back to the time of his birth, and preside over 
 that event, and not be born in a state of sin and misery ; 
 he must go back and prevent his being conceived in 
 sin ; he must go back to the time when Adam fell, and 
 by main strength prevent his falling ; ay, pre-existently, 
 and pre-Adamitically, he must go back into those re- 
 cesses of eternity when God's decrees in relation to 
 him were made, and make the Unchangeable God 
 reconsider, and make those decrees the other way ; — 
 all these things he must do, as preliminaries, as condi- 
 tions precedent, before he can begin to do anything 
 about saving himself. After he has prevented the im- 
 mutable God from making His decrees ; after he has 
 refused successfully to have Adam for his great pro- 
 genitor, and been born of some outside lineage that 
 exists nowhere ; after he has been present at his own 
 formation, and birth, and compounded the moral 
 elements out of which he should begin to be, then, and 
 not till then, will the impossibilities be removed from 
 his path, so that he can begin to take some measures 
 towards effecting his own salvation. I am not now 
 impugning tliis faith ; I am only attempting to state it. 
 
 But these two cases, — the case of the Carohne 
 Islanders, whose chance of entering heaven depends 
 19 
 
226 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 
 
 upon the gladiatoriMl and pvigilistic skill of friendly or 
 adverse divinities ; and the case of those Christian sects 
 who believe they are saved without reference to their 
 voluntary actions and affections in this life ; — these 
 two cases, I say, are exceptional, and by no meang 
 represent the religious faith of the mass of mankind. I 
 know of no other heathen nation that leaves the moral 
 nature and the moral character of man wholly out of 
 account in their estimate of his future condition. All 
 other heathen, all Mohammedans, and most Christians, 
 set too high a value upon man's moral nature, and his 
 virtuous conduct, not to affix future rewards and pun- 
 ishments to his present observance or violation of duty. 
 It is only when some dogma of exclusive grace, or 
 exclusive fatality, or exclusive luck, comes in, that a 
 man's future destiny is supposed to be determined, with- 
 out reference to his earthly merits or demerits ; — that 
 is, wholly independently of his moral character. In- 
 deed, it is the general opinion, that if man's evil propen- 
 sities are subdued wholly by a foreign force, not only 
 without co-operation, but in spite of resistance from 
 himself, that he might as well have been made virtuous 
 by machinery, or gravitation, or steam-power. 
 
 If, then, we should for a moment recognize the popu- 
 lar belief that heaven and hell are places, geographical 
 localities, as much so as Ohio and Missouri, how the 
 one appeals to our hopes, how the other rouses our 
 fears. These present transcendent motives for the 
 practice of virtue, for abstinence from vice. 
 
 But, on the other hand, when we reflect upon the 
 tremendous energy and vehemence of men's passions 
 and appetites, how in the climax and madness of their 
 paroxysms, they rnsh to their gratification, forgetful of 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. Zi: ( 
 
 all restraints, defiant of all consequences, — peril, tor- 
 ture, or death, — the ever revolving wheel of Ixion, 
 the eternal thirst of Tantalus, the gory beak of the vul- 
 ture of Prometheus, forever plucking at the culprit's 
 heart ; — when, I say, we consider all this, how infinite 
 the good to be obtained, how horrible the woe to be 
 avoided, and how fierce and fiery the earthly lusts to 
 be gratified, what wonder is it, if men do try ten thou- 
 sand schemes, and exhaust all human ingenuity, to 
 obtain that future good, and to avoid that future evil, 
 both at the least possible sacrifice of this world's gratifi- 
 cations ? 
 
 The conqueror, to whom a city turned to ashes, and 
 strewn with the dead, seems more valuable if he can 
 say, " It is mine," than the same city, though vocal 
 with prosperity and joy, if not his own, says : " Can 
 I not indulge my rage for conquest on earth, and still 
 win admission to heaven at last ? " 
 
 The avaricious man says : " Can I not hoard treasures 
 in this world, and still, near the close of life " — (not too 
 early, because treasures laid up in heaven are unpro- 
 ductive capital) — " financier so shrewdly as to have 
 treasures laid up for me in heaven also ? " 
 
 The polygamist says ; " Can I not have my harem 
 here below, and still find Cyprian chambers among the 
 Houris above ? " 
 
 The intemperate man says : " Can I not revel in the 
 intoxicating draught while 1 live upon earth, and then 
 sit down with Jesus Christ to drink wine with the re- 
 deemed in the New Jerusalem above ? " 
 
 The kidnapper says : " Even though I do rob men of 
 the right to their own bodies and their own souls, and 
 women of the right to their children and their virtue. 
 
228 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 
 
 yet, if I repent on my death-bed, will not the Infinite 
 Redeemer give me, too, a passport to heaven ; nay, 
 have I not been told all my life long that Christ came 
 from heaven, and died on the Cross to meet just such 
 desperate cases as mine ? " 
 
 The veteran sinner, his heart concreted of guilt, and 
 his hands clotted with innocent blood, — the cosmopo- 
 Hte in the world of crime, at home everywhere, who 
 can speak all its wicked languages, and is dextrous, ambi- 
 dextrous, at all its infernal acts, cannot he, too, rely 
 on the mercies of the same Redeemer, and when about 
 to be launched from the gallows into eternity, use these 
 very -gallows as his pedestal, and so reach the realms 
 of gloiy by a shorter flight ? Does not much of the 
 doctrine we hear from the pulpit sanction all this ? 
 
 But selfishness and ignorance have invented even 
 cheaper ways than these of getting to heaven easy. 
 Some people expect to cajole St. Peter, and " run the 
 gate " which leads to everlasting bliss, by tricks and 
 shams, that would not deceive the meanest toll-collector 
 on the meanest bridge or ferry in this world, — the 
 Cathohcs, by saying prayers in an unknown tongue ; 
 the Orientals, by winding off written prayers from one 
 cylinder into another ; the Jews, among whom domestic 
 animals were plentiful, by offering sacrifices of lambs, 
 or doves, or bullocks ; the Chinese, among whom pro- 
 visions are scarce, by offering the less costly incense of 
 perfumed paper and contemptible toys ? A few years 
 ago, a violent feud sprung up, which split in two a re- 
 ligious sect in Pennsylvania, on the question whether 
 their garments should be fastened by hooks and eyes, or 
 by buttons and button-holes ; and in the State of Ten- 
 nessee, within the last two months, a question was 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 229 
 
 appealed to the Presbytery, wliether the bread of the 
 Lord's Supper should be cut or broken ! Kneeling or 
 standing in prayer ; marrying a deceased wife's sister, 
 (fee, &c., are also subjects of difference of opinion. And 
 how universal the practice of seeking heaven by the 
 persecution of others, instead of self-repentance and re- 
 formation ; of burning heresies out of other men, instead 
 of extinguishing evil passions in ourselves. 
 
 Now there is one deep and deplorable falsity, lying at 
 the bottom of all expectations of getting to heaven in 
 any of these ways. That falsity Christ exposes, when 
 he says, " For the kingdom of heaven is within you." 
 Yes, the kingdom of God is within us, or for us, my 
 friends, or it is nowhere. It is not afar off, in some 
 starry realm ; in some distant temple, floored with gold, 
 canopied with glittering gems, adorned with divine arts 
 beyond Phidias and Praxiteles, beyond Raphael, or 
 Wren, — the Vatican, or the Alhambra. The kingdom 
 of heaven is not in any externals of pomp or dominion, 
 of luxury, or of fame. It is in our own hearts, I say, 
 or, for us, it is non-existent. What, then, is this king- 
 dom of heaven, which must exist in our own conscious- 
 ness, or have no existence ? Let me answer in the very 
 words of Holy Writ. It is to fear God, and keep His 
 commandments. Is is to love the Lord our God with 
 all our hearts, and our neighbors as ourselves. It is to 
 do to others as we would be done by. It is righteous- 
 ness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. We are not, 
 then, to go abroad, exploring after the kingdom of 
 heaven. That kingdom must be inaugurated in our- 
 selves, — in our feelings, thoughts, lives, in all our 
 aspirations for fixture excellence, in all visions of future 
 bliss, — in what we do when alone, in what we do 
 19* 
 
230 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 
 
 before our families, our neighbors, the world. All else 
 is fable. One man cannot have this kingdom for 
 another ma"n, — husband for wife, nor wife for husband, 
 father for child, nor child for father, minister for people, 
 nor people for minister. Go round tlie world, then, 
 and shout it in the ears of all living men ; rouse Heathen, 
 Brahmin, Mohammedan, Christian ; make the dead 
 hear, — the dead in trespasses and sins, — command 
 them no longer to explore the realms of space, in quest 
 of the kingdom of heaven ; no longer to seek for water- 
 carriage, or air-carriage, — for canvas, or for wings bv 
 which to sail or soar to some lofty heaven, or seA'enth 
 heaven, high up in the zenith, or far away beyond Arc- 
 turus, or the Pleiades ; for know, that the first truth of 
 all truths, and the greatest truth of all truths, is this ; 
 that heaven must be in our own thoughts, affections, 
 and conduct, or, for us, there is no heaven anywhere. 
 
 " The mind is its own place, 
 And in itself can make a heaven of hell, 
 A hell of heaven." 
 
 Is not the argument that leads to this conclusion, 
 founded on the primitive rock ? 
 
 The ancient heathen, the neighbors and contempora- 
 ries of the Jews, believed they could propitiate their 
 gods by sacrifices, by human sacrifices, by sacrifices of 
 their own children, wliom they made pass through the 
 fire to Moloch. They were conscious of sinning against 
 their gods. They feared their avenging wrath. How 
 could they appease them ? By a sacrifice of something 
 they loved. They lo^'ed their childi-en, and so, on 
 bloody and on fiery altars the children were offered up. 
 The innocent babe, the noble bov, the beautiful girl : — 
 the priests thrust or hurled them, shrieking, into the 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 261 
 
 flames, as tliey would cast in billets of wood. See here 
 the iniquity of a wicked heart. They did not offer to 
 the gods that for which they cared nothing. They 
 were not so imbecile, or idiotic, as to suppose that the 
 gods would accept as an atonement, what to them had 
 no moral value in affection, nor any market value in 
 cash. Hence they sacrificed what was really dear to 
 them, their offspring. But they did not sacrifice what 
 to them was dearest of all, — the sin itself. They gave 
 up the child, but held fast to the sin, because the sin 
 was dearer than the child. When mariners find their 
 ship in peril of sinking, they lighten her by throwing 
 the least valuable part of the cargo overboard. So the 
 heathen hurled a darling child into the fire, hugged the 
 more darling sin to his breast. They could give father, 
 or mother, or wife, or child, to God, but could not give 
 Him their heart. 
 
 Moses thought he made a great advance, and he 
 did make a great advance, in that dispensation whicli 
 symbolized repentance and reformation by the sacrifice 
 of animals, — of doves, and pigeons, and goats, and 
 rams, and bullocks, — for the sacrifice of children. 
 There was no inhumanity in this ; nothing that makes 
 us shudder and recoil, as we should do, at seeing a 
 beautiful, innocent child tossed into the flames, or into 
 a den of wild and hungry beasts ; but the same false 
 idea was liable to be propagated by this dispensation, 
 as by the heathen rite, — the idea, namely, that there 
 is, or with a holy being, can be, any sacrifice or atone- 
 ment for sin, which can take the place of the repentance 
 and reformation of the sinner himself. Hence, with 
 what eloquent and vehement deimnciations did the 
 sages and prophets of the Hebrews inveigh against the 
 
2-j2 the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 substitution of an outward form for inward purity ; 
 until Christ came and swept away the old dispensation 
 altogether. Hear the Psalmist ; Ps. l. 9, &c., " I will 
 take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of 
 thy folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, and 
 the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls 
 of the mountains ; and the wild beasts of the field are 
 mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee ; for 
 the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. Will I eat 
 the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats ? " Here 
 the key-note changes from denunciation to promise, — 
 " Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver 
 thee." " Whoso ofFereth praise, glorifieth me ; and to 
 him that ordereih his conversation aright, will I show the 
 salvation of God." In what plaintive, yet indignant 
 tones does Isaiah repel the preposterous supposition that 
 there can be any sacrifice for a sin but the sacrifice of 
 tlie sin itself. " To what purpose is the multitude of 
 yovir sacrifices unto me ? saith the Lord ; I am full 
 of the burnt^off'erings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts ; 
 and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, 
 or of he-goats." " Bring; no more vain oblations. In- 
 cense is an abomination unto me. The new moons and 
 sabbaths, the calhng of assemblies, I cannot away with. 
 It is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new 
 moons and your appointed feasts my soitI hateth ; they 
 are a trouble unto me ; I am weary to bear them." 
 Here, again, the key-note changes. " Wash you, make 
 you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before 
 mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; learn to do well ; seek 
 judgment ; relieve the oppressed ; judge the fatherless ; 
 plead for the widow." * But Christ was greater than the 
 
 * Isiiiah i. 11. &o. 
 
THE KINGDOJI OF HEAVEN. 233 
 
 Psalmist, greater than the prophet, and he abolished aF 
 this subterfuge of substitution ; and the author of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews condenses the whole philosophy 
 of the thing into a single sentence, when he says ; " For 
 it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats 
 should take away sins." 
 
 What, then, must be done, not to secure us a travel- 
 ler's passport into some yonder kingdom of heaven, but 
 to introduce, to naturalize, to domesticate the kingdom 
 of heaven in our own hearts ? My friends, one thing 
 is certain ; — before we can get the kingdom of heaven 
 in, we must get the kingdom of Satan out. All arro- 
 gance, all haughtiness, all envy, all malice, all cruelty, 
 all evil concupiscence, of whatever kind, must be rooted 
 out of the soul. We must hunt evil passions out of our 
 bosom, as pioneers hunt out noxious animals from a 
 newly settled teixitory. 
 
 I pass by such gross offences as robbery, bribery, per- 
 jury, theft, embezzlement, peculation, &c. ; — these, 
 even the blear-eyed goddess of the law denounces, — 
 but if I have an account to settle with a man, and he 
 has forgotten an item of debit, or overstated an item of 
 credit ; if he should make an error in my favor in count- 
 ing money, or in any way is unintentionally about to 
 give me one cent, one mill, one infinitesimal, over and 
 above my honest due, I must swallow arsenic into my 
 stomach, or shoot lead into my brain, sooner than drop 
 that money into my purse. If I have a rival for public 
 honors, and see that the votes are passing over from my 
 side to his side ; if I have a neighboring farmer or mer- 
 chant, and he is making money faster than I ; if I have 
 a college mate, or a school mate, whose talent and 
 attainment are eclipsing mine, and their merits are 
 
234 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 
 
 brouglit into discussion in my presence, I must do them 
 justice, full justice, — such justice as brightens out of 
 justice into generosity, into magnanimity ; and then, 
 though I lose the earthly oifice for the next year, or 
 four, or six years, yet I obtain an office in the celestial 
 kingdom for eternity ; instead of California gold, I get 
 treasures that are incomputable, incorruptible, and for col- 
 lege honors, I get a moral diploma that admits me to the 
 society of angels. If I am well-born, as the phrase is, — 
 have parents of respectability, — wealth, education, social 
 standing, and my classmate, neighbor, fellow-citizen, 
 was bom of infamous progenitors, for ten generations 
 back, without a single break in the base lineage ; — was 
 taken from a Foundhng Hospital, or dropped in a sty ; 
 was born black, or red, or copper-colored, — all these 
 give me no sanction for one emotion of pride or vanity, 
 on account of my better fortune in these particulars. 
 If it could have been submitted to him and to me be- 
 forehand, under what circumstances we should be bom, 
 and he had chosen his fortune, and I had chosen mine, 
 then I might have some reason for self-gratulation or 
 complacency. But when such a man looks at me with 
 respect and appreciation, and I look at him with derision 
 and scorn, then it is that we do choose our circum- 
 stances ; then it is that our souls do determine whether 
 they will be high-born, or low-bom ; whether they will 
 be bred up in a palace, or in a sty ; whether they will 
 be clad in garments of beauty and purity, or in rags of 
 meanness and filth. If I exercise acts of cruelty, and 
 indulge feelings of contempt towards a good black man, 
 because his skin is black, and my skin is white, then 
 my heart is black, and his heart is white, and I carry 
 jny black heart about, and show it as a foul beggar 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 235 
 
 shows liis sores. It is of coniparati\'oly little conse- 
 quence where a man was born, but it is of infinite con- 
 sequence what sort of man he is, twenty years after 
 he is born. If my neighbor is unfortunate, and I do 
 not pity and succor his misfortune to the extent of my 
 ability, then it is I who have suffered the greatest mis- 
 fortune. My want of pity is a greater privation than 
 his want of prosperity. A man had better be burnt out 
 of house and home, than to have all the generosity and 
 nobleness of his nature consumed by pride or envy. 
 The one loss consists in money, stocks, goods. The 
 other loss consists in high thoughts, angelic emotions, 
 god-like deeds, and the everlasting peace of soul that 
 flows therefrom, like the river of life from the throne 
 of God. 
 
 But you say the loser does not know his loss, and 
 therefore it is no loss to him. But he will know it, and 
 when he does find out, he will then also find out that 
 his loss has been accumulating at compound interest all 
 the time while he was ignorant of it. It is not pleasant 
 for a man to discover, late in life, that through all his 
 previous years he has been a dunce ; that he has been a 
 pauper, when there was an inheritance of wealth he 
 might have had for the claiming. In God's moral uni- 
 verse, the selfish man is the miserablest of all dunces, 
 and all paupers. The selfish man lives on the most 
 nauseous food, when he might regale himself with 
 heavenly repasts. He lives in basement stories, instead 
 of in those chambers where he could look out upon all 
 the glories of nature, and where the purity and freshness 
 of nature could flow in upon him. The selfish man 
 dresses himself in rags, instead of in royal robes, and he 
 is the serf and slave of the hardest master, instead of 
 
2SG THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 
 
 investing liis capital in heavenly treasures, and being ad- 
 mitted as co-worker and co-partner with God. 
 
 Now our human passions and propensities are inex- 
 pressibly strong, and it is these which keep the selfish 
 man in chains. We have them in common with the 
 brutes, and with an intellect to enlarge their indulgence, 
 wliicli the brutes have not. These passions and pro- 
 pensities ai'e not only strong by nature, but they have 
 been hereditarily inflamed, for generations and centuries 
 past, by ancestral folly and ignorance. Their natural 
 force has been reinforced. They have accumulated 
 momentum in the descent. They are blind. They 
 are atheistic. They mutiny and rebel against all higher 
 law than their own ; and they wage the war not only 
 with their own but with ancestral rigor. Owing also 
 to the vicious customs of many households and of 
 society at large, even the hereditary force of passion 
 and propensity which we inherited from our progeni- 
 tors has been aggravated in our own persons. When, 
 then, at the age of discretion and self-consciousness, we 
 wake up to find the impetuosity and vehemence, the 
 recklessness and defiance of our passional nature, we 
 find that steeds of hell have been harnessed to the char- 
 iot of heaven. Conscience, then, must be a puissant 
 charioteer, or the team drives home to its own place, 
 and bears passengers with it. 
 
 My friends, I need not speak in metaphor. The 
 solemn and eternal truth is that our appetites and pas- 
 sions must be subjected to the sway of conscience, of 
 benevolence, of a holy reverence for our Creator. W^e 
 must do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with 
 God ; or, whatever we may say about conversion, or re- 
 generation, or redemption, or even salvation itself, is all 
 
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 287 
 
 fiction and a silly romance. Here comes the conflict. 
 Here the nether and the upper powers battle for their 
 throne in the heart ; — the love of God and the love of 
 man, on the one side, fleshly lusts, pride, avarice, ambi- 
 tion, on the other. Here in the moral realm, in the soul 
 itself, are victories to be won or defeats to be sustained, 
 infinitely more glorious or more disastrous than those of 
 Trafalgar or Waterloo. Here, if need be, right hands 
 are to be cut off to destroy the very instrument with 
 which we procure the indulgence of a darling sin ; and 
 right eyes plucked out, to close up the avenue by which 
 licentious images invade the soul. In these contests, 
 bloody sweat must flow, like that shed in the garden of 
 Gethsemane. Yes, here the sovereign soul may have 
 to stretch its body upon a cross to be racked with un- 
 utterable agonies within, and to bear scorn and mockery 
 from without, for days and for nights ; but if the con- 
 test be nobly maintained, if, in the language of that 
 beautiful Hebraism, we " unsin the sin that we have 
 sinned," then the kingdom of heaven, ay, heaven's 
 King Himself will be within it, and He will strengthen 
 it with the resources of omnipotence, and illumine it 
 with the splendors of celestial light, and clothe it with 
 that highest of all conceivable beauties, " the Beauty of 
 Holiness." 
 
 Listen to me, my young friends, one moment more, 
 while I ask the question : " Who has this kingdom of 
 heaven within him, and who has not ? What is the 
 test?" If there are infallible tests by which we dis- 
 tinguish the different races of men from each other — 
 the Caucasian from the African, or the North Ameri- 
 can Indian from the Malay ; if there are obvious tests 
 by- which we distinguish the different temperaments 
 20 
 
238 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 
 
 of men, — the sanguine from the nervous, &c ; if there 
 are tests by which we know the healthy and the dis- 
 eased, the consumptive and the dropsical, then there 
 must be tests, criteria, still more evident and decisive, 
 by which we can distinguish those in whose hearts 
 the kingdom of God bears its benignant sway from those 
 where the kingdom of Satan holds its direful reign. 
 From the metropolis of the soul, as the centre of these 
 opposite kingdoms, the celestial or the infernal light 
 shines beyond the frontiers. It gleams out through the 
 face, it proclaims itself in language, it demonstrates 
 itself in deeds, in the life. What are these tests? 
 Christ has given us one of them in these words : " The 
 tree is known by its fruit." He has given us another 
 in these words : " Herein is my father glorified, that 
 ye bear much fruit." Most impressively, most sublimely, 
 has he given another of them, — a universal one, — in 
 those immortal words which breathe the music of heaven, 
 — when he identifies himself with the hungry, with the 
 thirsty, with the stranger, with the naked, with the 
 sick, with the imprisoned, and declares that those who 
 have fed and clothed and visited and succored them, in 
 their poverty, their loneliness and their abandonment, 
 have fed and clothed and visited and succored him. 
 
 My young friends, who can doubt that the kingdom 
 of heaven was in Christ's bosom ? If then we would 
 have that kingdom in our bosoms, let us identify our- 
 selves in spirit and action with him. 
 
MEDITATION. 2i59 
 
 MEDITATION. 
 
 Our Father who art in Heaven, may Thy kingdom 
 come and Thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven. 
 And to effect this great and divine purpose, may all 
 governments be conformed to Thy attributes of justice, 
 and love, and mercy, from the governments of parents 
 in their families, and teachers in their schools, to the 
 governments of states and nations, and to those great 
 principles which govern communities of nations. May 
 parents so wisely administer their parental authority, 
 that they may rear their children in the nurture and ad- 
 monition of the Lord ; may they train them to such habits 
 of wisdom and goodness, that when emancipated from 
 parental control, they will not cease to walk therein. 
 May all teachers, while they instruct their scholars in 
 the elements of worldly knowledge and science, also 
 imbue their minds with that fear of the Lord which is 
 the beginning of wisdom ; may they lead them to cast 
 away all evil habits, to keep the tongue pure from pro- 
 fanity and falsehood, and all irreverence towards sacred 
 things ; to train them to true manliness of conduct, and 
 to all the virtues and graces of true womanhood. May 
 all governments be established upon the basis of equal 
 laws and equal rights, and'may no distinctions be known 
 in their administration but that of merit and demerit, 
 of a desire to do good or a disposition to do evil. 
 
 Our Father, we would thank Thoe for those events 
 in Thj' Providence which have led onward towards the 
 
240 MEDITATION. 
 
 education, the advancement, the freedom of the world ; 
 for those noble sentiments of ancient poets and moral- 
 ists, which still kindle the sacred flame of liberty when- 
 ever they fall upon the hearts of the young ; for those 
 events which roused the souls of men to demand from 
 their rulers the just and equal rights which Thou dost 
 bestow upon all. We thank Thee that when oppres- 
 sion covered the eastern hemisphere as the waters cover 
 the sea, the cloud which had hnng for ages over this 
 western hemisphere was removed, and this vast expanse 
 of lands, with its immense capabilities of supporting 
 human life and ministering to human happiness, was 
 revealed to the knowledge of men. We thank Thee 
 that the Pilgrim Fathers were inspired by a zeal that 
 led them to abandon their native land, to encounter the 
 perils of a wide ocean, and to fix their abode on a soil 
 so ungenial, under a climate so severe, and with surround- 
 ing perils of savage beasts and more savage men, so im- 
 minent, that ambition, and wealth, and luxury, and the 
 lovo of power, had no disposition to pursue the fugitives. 
 Oh, Heavenly Father, may we never repeat the 
 wrongs from which they fled. May we never light the 
 fires of persecution by which they were burned. While 
 the law of the land secures to every one the right to 
 worship Thee according to the dictates of his own con- 
 science, may we carry out that law in its spirit, and may 
 we never visit with revilings, with uncharitableness, or 
 with coldness, any one of all our brethren of the human 
 race, because he does not see Thy paternal love or Thy 
 rluiracter as we see it. We thank Thee for all our 
 means of moral, literary and religious instruction, for 
 the school, the college, and the church. Heavenly 
 Father, under Tliy providence, and imder the ausjjices 
 
JIEMTATION. 241 
 
 of good men, a college has been founded in this place, 
 and a great company of youth, the pride and the hope 
 of the land have been assembled, — the only depositaries 
 into whose hands the mighty interests of the earth for 
 the coming age can be devolved. They left the homes of 
 their childhood, — may they find here another and a 
 more instructive home. Oh, how many fathers, how 
 many mothers are looking hitherward to-day ! If any 
 sons, if any daughters of this flock are tempted to wander 
 from the path of duty, may they feel the motherly arm 
 stretched around their neck, may the strong paternal 
 hand be laid upon their breast, holding them back from 
 the way of evil. Oh, may they not wait for the ex- 
 ternal force, but may the inward law of right, written 
 upon their hearts, restrain them from wrong. And oh, 
 if any of these children are orphans, if father and 
 mother have gone to the better land, and they, left 
 without parental guidance, are tempted to sin, may they 
 see, as it were, a mother's ami stretching down from the 
 realms of bliss, may they feel her celestial cheek laid 
 upon their cheek, while her angel voice whispers into 
 their ears ; " My son, my daughter, if sin entice thee, 
 consent thou not ; " and may a father's sterner voice send 
 a thrill of horror through them, as he announces the 
 dreadful, the immortal truth ; " The way of the trans- 
 gressor is hard." And oh, Heavenly Father, if they 
 are not melted by a father's or a mother's love, may 
 they be melted by Thy Infinite Love. Heavenly 
 Father, Thy true disciples are already blessed more than 
 tongue of mortal can tell, but bless, we pray Tliee, our 
 enemies and those who would persecute us and despite- 
 fuUy use us, and let Thy kingdom come, and Thy will 
 be done on earth as it is in Heaven. 
 20* 
 
I M M R T A L IT Y 
 
xr. 
 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Psalm viii. 5. — " For Thou hast made him a, little lower than the 
 
 angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor " 
 6. " Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy 
 
 hands ; Thou hast put all things under his feet. " 
 2 Timothy i. 10. — " Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath 
 
 brought life and immortality to light, — ' ' 
 EcOLESi.isTES xii. 7. — " Then shall the dust return to earth as it was, 
 
 and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." 
 
 One of tlie grandest and most precious doctrines of 
 tlic Christian religion, is the doctrine of human Immor- 
 tality. The meaning of this doctrine is, that there is 
 something in us all, which fire cannot consume, nor 
 waters drown, nor death assail ; that each one of us has 
 an individuality, an identity, a personality, which is un- 
 susceptible of decay, impregnable to corruption, with- 
 out possibility of perishing. 
 
 Christ taught that we should live after the death of 
 the body ; and his disciples reiterated his teachings. 
 Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, promised " eternal 
 life " to all those who should patiently continue in well- 
 doing. In the 15th chapter of his First Epistle to tlie 
 Corinthians, he twice declares, in the most explicit 
 manner, that this mortal shall put on Immortality ; and, 
 in his Second Ejiistle toTimotliy, he afRrms that Christ 
 
 [216] 
 
246 
 
 IMMOKTALITY. 
 
 " abolished death," and " brouo-ht Hfe and Immortality 
 to light through the Gospel." 
 
 The idea of Immortality differs from that of Eter- 
 nity. We conceive of Immortality as having a begin- 
 ning, but no end ; but we conceive of Eternity as having 
 neither beginning nor end. Hence it is proper to speak 
 of eternity as the attribute of God ; but of immortahty 
 as the attribute of man. 
 
 This doctrine of Immortality, though under the most 
 various forms, has constituted a prominent item in the 
 faith of almost all religions. It seems, therefore, natu- 
 ral to man. We say that vegetation is natural to the 
 earth, because, vsrhenever the requisite conditions co- 
 exist, there vegetation springs up. So this idea of 
 Immortahty, with very few exceptions, seems to have 
 sprung up spontaneously in the human mind. The 
 ideas of the eternity of God, and the immortality of man, 
 go naturally together. As soon as the conception of a 
 Future Existence is once formed, then the sentiments of 
 Hope and Fear fortify and deepen it. Men, too, have 
 a natural expectation of reward for doing well ; they 
 have as natural a sentiment of Fear, of Retribution for 
 doing ill ; and if they are to be rewarded or punished, 
 this necessitates the idea of a time in which they are to 
 receive their deserts. 
 
 Most nations first conceived of the World of Spirits 
 as subterranean. Here we must recollect that in an- 
 cient times, and before the globular form of the earth 
 was known, the best geographers supposed the earth to 
 be an extended plane. The firmament was an indefi- 
 nitely vast space above it ; and, of course, there was an 
 indefinitely vast space below, or under it. Some of the 
 ancients supposed that tlie place of happiness was above, 
 
IMMOllTALITY. 247 
 
 and the place of retribution below. Others, as the 
 Romans, enlightened, or comparatively enlightened as 
 they were, placed both their Paradise and their Hades 
 below. Some nations have but one place, occupied in 
 common by all the dead, though with different fortunes 
 for the good and the evil. Most religions have, at least, 
 two such places. The Persians had seven different 
 regions, adapted, of course, to seven different grades of 
 moral character. The Hindoos had twenty-four, thus 
 making provision for still further discriminations in re- 
 gard to human deserts. I think the New Testament 
 teaches an indefinite number of degrees, or gradations, 
 in the future condition of mankind ; not seven only, 
 not twenty-four only, but just as many grades as there 
 are degrees of merit, or demerit. How else are we to 
 understand what Christ says of its being more tolerable 
 for Tyre and Sidon, and even for Sodom, in the day of 
 judgment, than for the cities where he had preached, 
 and which refused to hear ? How otherwise are we to 
 understand his words, " In my Father's house are many 
 mansions? " and the parable of the talents; that those 
 who had been faithful over a few things here on earth, 
 should be promoted to the command of many things 
 hereafter. The inevitable implication is, that our con- 
 dition hereafter is to have relation to our character 
 here. 
 
 Another doctrine which has gained almost universal 
 acceptance throughout Christendom, is closely allied to 
 this parent^doctrine of a Future Life, — namely, the 
 doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection, a belief that the 
 very body which dies, is decomposed, is restored to 
 its original chemical particles, and mingles its solid 
 parts with the solid material of the earth, its gases with 
 
-48 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 the winds, and its fluids with the waters, — shall come 
 together again, atom to atom, bone to bone, fibre to 
 fibre, and reconstruct the body which the spirit left. 
 
 The common idea of Christendom has been, that the 
 spirits of all the millions and millions of men who have 
 ever lived, would, at the Judgment Day, by some mys- 
 terious affinity, find out the particles of matter from 
 which they had been separated at death, gather them 
 into a body, and then re-enter that body, in order to 
 receive, in the very body which they had inhabited, 
 while upon earth, the rewards or punishments of the 
 Futm-e Life. In Cruden's Concordance, a work in 
 almost universal use as a book of reference, under the 
 word " Resurrection," we find the common belief of 
 the age thus stated : 
 
 " The Divine Laws are the rule of duty to the entire 
 man, and not to the soul only ; and they are obeyed or 
 violated by the soul and body in conjunction. The 
 soul designs, the body executes. The senses are the 
 open ports to admit temptations. Carnal affections de- 
 prave the soul, corrupt the mind, and mislead it. The 
 heart is the fountain of profaneness, and the tongue 
 expresses it. Thus the members are instruments of ini- 
 quity. And if the body is obedient to the holy soul in 
 doing, or suffering for God, and denies its sensual 
 appetites and satisfactions, in compliance with reason 
 and grace, the members are instruments of righteousness. 
 Hence it follows," says he, " that there will be a univer- 
 sal resurrection, that the rewarding goodness of God 
 may appear in making the bodies of his servants glori- 
 ously happy with their souls, and their soids completely 
 happy in union with their bodies, to which they have a 
 natural inclination ; and His revenging justice may be 
 
IMMORTALITY. 249 
 
 manifest in punishing tlie bodies of tlie wicked witli 
 eternal torments answerable to their suilt." 
 
 This idea continued to prevail even among learned 
 and philosophic divines, until recently ; and even now, 
 I suppose, it is held by a great majority of the Christian 
 Church.* 
 
 In modei'n times, however, science has asserted its 
 claims to be heard on this subject, in the same way that, 
 heretofore, it asserted its right to be heard on the ques- 
 tions of Geology, and Astronomy, and Psychology, &c. ; 
 and, at last, after almost incredible opposition and ob- 
 loquy, has made itself heard, and respected. 
 
 Science asks such questions as these : Suppose some 
 portions of the world to have been so populous, that, 
 already, some of the identical material which has been 
 incorporated into the bodies of one generation, has de- 
 cayed, passed into the great laboratory of nature, been 
 used again for the growth of fruit or vegetable, and 
 from these has been re-incorporated into the bodies, 
 
 * I have a very vivid recollection that in one of the school boolcs 
 most extensively used in the public schools of New England, when I 
 was a boy, there was a description of the Resurrection, in poetry, in 
 which the air was represented as filled, and the sun as almost dark- 
 ened, by the parts and fragments of men, — heads, arms, legs, &c., — 
 on their way across continents, and over oceans, to meet and join the 
 bodies to which they respectively belonged. And so deeply did that 
 affect my mind, that I remember distinctly the old school-house in 
 which I was sitting, and all tlie attendant circumstances, as clearly as 
 if it had been but yesterday. And though I accepted the general 
 statement as true, with childish trustfulness, yet it did puzzle me. even 
 at that tender age, to conceive, if one member had been lost in one 
 country, and another in another; if a soldier or sailor had lost an arm 
 in one battle, and a leg in anotlier, on another continent, or on a dis- 
 tant ocean, how the scattered fragments would Itnow which way to 
 steer to find their fellows! 
 21 
 
250 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 and made part of the living tissues of another genera^ 
 tion. Suppose the world should continue for such a 
 round of ages, that this should be true of all its hahita- 
 ble regions ? Or, take the case of the cannibal nations, 
 where neighboring tribes are constantly making war 
 upon each other, and where the universal custom is, 
 and we know not for how many ages, has been, for the 
 victors to banquet on the vanquished ; where, among 
 themselves, when a malefactor is put to death under the 
 law, it is a part of his sentence, not only that he shall 
 be executed, but that his body shall be given up to be 
 eaten, as some of our laws give up the body to be dis- 
 sected ; and where, as late British travellers tell us, in 
 regard to the Carohne Islands, female children have 
 been considered so great a delicacy for epicures, as seri- 
 ously to diminish the number of adult women, and 
 where, therefore, the only method to save them was to 
 pass laws for their protection, as we pass laws for the 
 protection of useful birds. In all these cases, and cases 
 like these, do not the plainest facts of Physiology and 
 growth assure us that the same particles of matter must 
 have successively formed the tissues, the heart, the 
 blood, and the brain, of many different persons ? To 
 whom, then, in the resurrection, shall the materials, 
 which constituted a part of so many different bodies, 
 belong ? Or, if a devoted missionary, full of that zeal 
 for the spread of Christianity, which bears him, like 
 wings, across continents and oceans, to preach the Gos- 
 pel to the heathen, shall himself be devoured by the 
 heathen he went to save ; and by the common law of 
 assimilation, shall find himself distributed in particles 
 through the substance of the bodies of a dozen man- 
 eaters, shall he, at the resurrection, according to the 
 
IMMOllTALITY. 251 
 
 quotation which I read, go with the cannibals to perdi- 
 tion, or they with him to glory ? 
 
 Suppose a man, like St. Paul before his conversion, 
 goes mad against Jesus Christ and his disciples, assists 
 in the martyrdom of Stephen, drags men and women 
 to prison, punishes them whenever he finds them in 
 the Synagogue, compels them to blaspheme, and per- 
 secutes them into strange cities ; suppose that while 
 in this rabid and tigerish state of mind, he loses the 
 very right arm with which he is wont to execute his 
 ferocious will ; and then, like St. Paul after his con- 
 version, concentrates all the enero-ies of his life for the 
 cause of Christianity, braves the dangers of the sea, and 
 the more formidable dangers of cities on the land ; sub- 
 mits to hunger, to imprisonment and stripes, and at last 
 to death, and never shrinks, under any circumstances, 
 from fidelity to truth ; in the resurrection shall that 
 sinful right arm be joined to that sainted body ; or, 
 according to the doctrine I cited, shall it suffer forever 
 in the future world, because it had been the " instru- 
 ment of evil " in this ? 
 
 Besides, if there is a foundation for the common no- 
 tion that all the particles of a man's 'body change once 
 in seven years, (and there is no doubt that the greater 
 part of them change much oftener than that), then 
 what is to prevent some of these particles, even in com- 
 munities not cannibal, from belonging successively to dif- 
 ferent persons ? And of all the sets of particles whicli 
 have successively belonged to the body of an aged man, 
 with which set shall he re-habilitate himself at the re- 
 surrection, ' — with those of which he was composed in 
 infancy, or in middle life, or in old age ? — if he were 
 seventy years old when he died, with which of the 
 
or.f 
 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 seventy sets of which he consisted in the seventy years 
 of his earthly sojourn ? If not with the whole, which 
 would be enormous, then there must be a selection ; and 
 if a selection, then which shall be taken and which re- 
 jected ? Is it answered that those particles only of 
 which a man consisted at the moment of death shall be 
 borne by his spirit into the next life ? Shall this be 
 literally true in regard to persons who have perished by 
 starvation at sea, or in deserts, or in besieged cities, or 
 by emaciating consumptions, or other wasting disease, 
 which has left nothing but skin as a vesture to nothing 
 but bones ? — or would the soul have a choice ; and 
 could it select those which had clothed it in its moments 
 of highest virtue ? 
 
 Shall the smallest infant that dies, in this world, be 
 only an infant in stature at the resurrection, and the 
 largest Anak an Anak by his side ? 
 
 To meet these and similar objections which will not 
 be silenced, that learned philosopher and divine. Dr. 
 Edward Hitchcock, the late President of Amherst 
 College, Massachusetts, suggested and maintained a per- 
 fectly revolutionary idea. He said that every human 
 body is composed of a certain quantity of carbon and 
 nitrogen, mingled with a certain quantity of water, and 
 that to constitute the identity of any individual, — to 
 constitute the same body of the same person, — it was 
 not necessary to have the same, but only so much of the 
 ingredients of which the body was composed ; that is, 
 if a mnn at the time of his death should weigh one 
 hundred and sixty pounds, and should, therefore, speak- 
 ing in the language of chemistry, consist of about " fifty 
 pounds of carbon and nitrogen diffused through six pail- 
 fuls of wafer," tlicn, at the resurrection, it would only 
 
IMMORTALITY. 253 
 
 be necessary to put the same amount of carbon, nitrogen 
 and water into an exactly similar form, no matter where 
 the ingredients came from, in order to make the same 
 man. According to this view, a man might die and 
 leave his body in North America, but at the resurrection, 
 the body of that man might be recreated out of chemical 
 ingredients taken from AustraUa or the Sandwich Is- 
 lands, and he would be the same man. 
 
 Such is the doctrine, not long since put forth by that 
 eminent evangelical divine and scholar, Dr. Hitchcock, 
 in order to reconcile the current interpretation of the 
 Bible with the present condition of science. 
 
 I have been led into this digression, because the idea 
 of the resurrection branched so natm'ally out of the 
 doctrine of a future life. 
 
 It is a curious and somewhat unaccountable fact that 
 the earher Jews had a less clear, definite and vivid con- 
 ception of a future state of existence, than other ancient 
 nations. It is the behef of many, perhaps of most 
 theologians, that the Pentateuch, — the five books of 
 Moses, — the first five books of the Old Testament, 
 contain no reference whatever to the doctrine of a Fu- 
 ture life. Even in the second commandment of the 
 Decalogue, as it is found in the 20th chapter of Exodus, 
 one of the threats denounced against the fathers for 
 their iniquities, is, that the consequence of those iniqui- 
 ties shall be visited upon their children unto the third 
 and fourth generation, that is, upon children, grand- 
 children and great-grandcliildren, at least ; but not that 
 those iniquities should be visited upon the offenders 
 themselves in a future life. 
 
 Afterwards, however, the idea cleared up, either into 
 a more positive denial, or a more positive affirmation of 
 21* 
 
2'>4 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 the docti-ine. The fact seems to be both affirmed and 
 denied m the Book of Job. What can be a stronger 
 negation than when Job says (xi\'. 7), " For there is 
 hope of a tree if it be cut down, that it will sprout 
 again, and that the tender branch thereof will not 
 cease. Thono-h the root therefore wax old in the earth, 
 and the stock die in the ground, yet through the scent 
 of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a 
 plant. But man dieth and wasteth away ; yea, man 
 giveth up the ghost and where is he ? As the waters 
 fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drietli up ; 
 so man lieth down and riseth not ; till the heavens be 
 no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of 
 their sleep." And again, a little further on ; " If a 
 ina^i die, shall he live again?" He may, however, 
 mean, shall he live again upon this earth ? while he 
 may still have held to the doctrine of a shadowy spirit- 
 land, somewhere outside of this world, or perhaps in- 
 side of it. How emphatic is the denial in Ecclesiastes 
 iii. 18 - 22 ! 
 
 " For I said in mine heart concernino- the estate of 
 the sons of nisn, that God might manifest them, and 
 tliat they might see that they themselves are beasts. 
 For that which befalleth the sons of men lK?falletli 
 beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one 
 dieth, so dieth the other ; yea, they all have one breath, 
 so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast ; for 
 all is vanity. All go into one place ; all are of the 
 dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the 
 spirit of a man that goeth upward, and the spirit of a 
 lieast that goeth downward to the earth ? Wherefore 
 I perceive that there is nothing better than that a man 
 siiould rejoice in his own works ; for that is his portion ; 
 
IMMORTALITY. 255 
 
 for who shall bring him to see what shall bo after 
 him ? " 
 
 In the Apocrypha, the idea of Immortality is set 
 forth with great clearness. It seems that the Jews, 
 during the Babylonish captivity, must have become fa- 
 miliar with the views on this subject then prevailing in 
 the East. 
 
 But in the New Testament, as was before intimated, 
 the doctrine of Immortality is stated with great empha- 
 sis, in the most explicit manner, and with an earnest- 
 ness and solemnity which shows it to have been one of 
 the principal facts in the consciousness of both speaker 
 and writer. When not expressly affirmed, it is con- 
 stantly assumed. Every tiling, — parable, narrative, 
 doctrine, exhortation, — becomes disproportionate and 
 preposterous, without this. The idea of Immortal life 
 is the grand reconciling idea of the New Testament. 
 
 Having now considered the meaning of the doctrine 
 of Immortality, — that it implies the existence of some- 
 thing within us which is indestructible, something that 
 not only may live, but must live, I proceed to the con- 
 sideration of the proofs of this doctrine which may be 
 derived from reason and conscience, — from what is 
 appropriately called Natural Religion. 
 
 And in the first place, it ceems to me that no little 
 weight should be attached to the almost universal in- 
 stinct, or conscious expectation of Immortality in the 
 human mind. ^ This is nearly or quite universal. Does 
 any one sav it is universal, because it has been univer- 
 sally taught ? But who taught the first teacher ? And 
 what gave this belief such amazing force tbat it has 
 been able to brave all the repulsive and abhorrent 
 doctrines which have been connected i\ith it, or en- 
 
256 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 grafted upon it, in different ages of the Cliristian 
 Church ? I suppose I should liave the concurrence of 
 all the sects in Christendom to the proposition, that 
 there have been times when the prevalent ideas ajiper- 
 taining to this doctrine were so dishonoring to the char- 
 acter of God and so repugnant to the reason of men. 
 that if any plausible pretence for denying it could have 
 been seized upon, it would have been denied. Nay, I 
 can conceive that at some periods of Christian history 
 good men might have been tempted to inculcate a belief 
 in annihilation and to preach annihilation, as a pious 
 fraud, in order to escape the remorseless views of a 
 future life which were then current. Why then has 
 the common instinct of mankind fastened with such 
 tenacity upon the idea of an interminable future for us 
 all, if that was not only an error, but such a repulsive 
 one? 
 
 It is an idea now almost universally prevalent among 
 thinking men, that the world without us and the world 
 within us, have, by divine wisdom and skill, been so 
 adapted to each other, that each of them means, signi- 
 fies, implies, prefigures the other ; — that our perceptive 
 faculties import or suggest, so to speak, all their related 
 objects in the properties and qualities of the external 
 world ; that our reflective faculties in the same Avay 
 imply the wonderful laws and adaptations of nature ; 
 and that our relations to our fellow-men and to God 
 might be inferred from our moral and religious nature 
 by a being of a sufficiently penetrating and comprehen- 
 sive intellect, in the same way that a man, who shoulil 
 see from day to day and from year to year how a chro- 
 nometer works, would at length come to the conclusion 
 that it was made to measure time. All wise systems of 
 
IMMOKTALITY.. 257 
 
 education are founded upon tliis principle. For one 
 who fuUj comprehends the human lungs to deny the 
 existence of air, or who fully comprehends the structure 
 of the human eye to deny the existence of light, is as if 
 a man should deny that he ever had a mother. Now, 
 why should there not be a related object, namely. Im- 
 mortality, as the correlative, or correspondent, of this 
 general instinct or expectation of Immortality ? ■ 
 
 It is objected that, though the belief in Immortality 
 is general, yet that this belief has assumed and still ad- 
 vocates the most contradictory forms ; and that these 
 forms have been nothing more than an embellishment 
 or exaggeration of the good or ill learned from experi- 
 ence ; and therefore, that heaven or hell is nothing more 
 than a Camera Obscura reflection of this world, without 
 any independent existence, and therefore perishing or 
 ceasing to be, as soon as the objects are removed which 
 produced it ; — I reply that the Form of the belief, the 
 Concrete of it, is of no consequence. We should ex- 
 pect beforehand that this belief would contain error, 
 more or less. Perhaps all error has not yet been elim- 
 inated from any one science ; but this does not destroy 
 our faith in the sciences. So neither should the ab- 
 surdity, preposterousness, or monstrosity of the notions 
 associated with the belief in a futurity impair our faith 
 in the doctrine ; nay, the historical argument becomes 
 stronger, when we consider how msn have clung to it, 
 in spite of all the enormities associated with it. 
 
 Without the Love of Life, or Vitativeness, as Phre- 
 nologists call it, man would not be fitted for a world 
 like this. The accumulation, at certain points, in per- 
 sonal experience, of disappointments, pains, or calamities, 
 would be too strong for us (for the link once broken 
 
258 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 could not be restored), and therefore the world would 
 be depopulated by suicide, were we not fastened to it 
 by a special instinct. And this Love of Life was given 
 to us to carry us over those dangerous places where 
 neither present nor prospective enjoyment coidd coun- 
 terbalance the pressure and vehemence of present ills. 
 Now, as this Love of Life implies the fact of Old Age, 
 (unless some foreign force intervenes), and as Old Age, 
 when it comes, quietly relaxes and unclasps this Love 
 of Life, while it increases the hope of future existence, 
 (if the life has been worthily spent), why, I say, by 
 parity of reasoning, does not this instinct of Immortality 
 imply, nay, why, in logic, does it not necessitate Im- 
 mortality ? I do not see how those who understand 
 and adopt this doctrine of complete and systematic 
 adaptation of one thing to all,, and of all to each one, 
 throughout the universe, can bore a hole through the 
 bottom of this argument without scuttling his own 
 ship. 
 
 If the theory of several modern ethnologists should 
 prove to be true ; of whom, perhaps, Agassiz is the 
 principal, who is earnestly supported by the traveller, 
 Bayard Taylor, — namely, that the races of men have 
 had a various origin ; it seems to me that such a con- 
 clusion will add not a little force to the argument in 
 favor of Immortality, which is derived from the common 
 belief of mankind. How did peoples springing from 
 various stocks, all come to concur in this faith ? If it 
 might have sprung up by accident in one race, could 
 accident have originated it in all ? On what other hy- 
 pothesis then, than that the sentiment is a natural one, 
 can the existence of it, so nearly, or quite universal, be 
 explained ? And if the sentiment be a natural one, and 
 
IMMORTALITY. 259 
 
 a natural one in all tlie races of men, how forcible the 
 inference that it will have its corresponding fact in the 
 history of man. 
 
 But I proceed to other considerations, which seem to 
 me even more conclusive than this. 
 
 We have learned so much of the order of Providence, 
 both in the natural and moral world, that where there 
 are strong analogies in the circumstances, we expect to 
 find analogies in results. 
 
 Think, then, for instance, of all the incomputable 
 number of seeds that have ever come to maturity ; of 
 the specific principle of life which each contained ; of 
 the salient point where that hfe would begin its work of 
 organization, just as soon as it should be subjected to 
 the requisite conditions of moisture, and warmth, and 
 air ; and when the seed is subjected to those conditions, 
 think of the radicle and plumule drawing their nourish- 
 ment, first from the seed, and then pressing against its 
 rind, or bark, or shell, and ready to burst from its con- 
 finement, — the radicle to penetrate into the earth in 
 the form of roots, the plumule to ascend into the air in 
 the form of stalk or trunk ; and now what should we 
 suppose if a man should rise up and tell us that every 
 seed which had ever been subjected to these conditions, 
 and had been brought to this point in the processes of 
 o-ermination a,nd growth, should be forthwith annihi- 
 lated ? — that the radicle should never strike into the 
 earth, that the plumule should never ascend into the 
 air ; that all should, at this expectant, prophetic point, 
 be obliterated from existence. What should we think 
 of the Contriver of such an order of nature, if he were 
 the Destroyer also ? 
 
 Think of all the eggs that have been formed by all 
 
260 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 the oviparous races, — bird, reptile, or insect, — each 
 egg supphed with the ingredients necessary to the for- 
 mation of another individual of the same race. Take 
 the egg of a bird ; see, after one or two, or two or three 
 days' incubation, according to its kind, a little spot 
 where a heart begins feebly to beat. From this vital 
 centre, see tissues beginning to radiate in all directions. 
 The bones begin to appear. A ganglion of nerves indi- 
 cates the future brain. The great system of blood- 
 vessels is formed. A dot shows the place of the future 
 eye ; a point the place of the future ear. Phosphorus 
 has been deposited in the yolk to yield phosphoric acid, 
 from which to form the bones. Legs and wings at last 
 spring out, supported by the complement of bones, and 
 strung with the requisite muscles, and made sensitive 
 with ten thousand nerves. The embryo bird has now 
 exhausted its supply of food ; it has outgrown its nar- 
 row limits ; its legs are cramped by restraint ; its wings 
 struggle for expansion ; and now, using its sharp bill 
 as a pick, it begins to make a breach in the walls of its 
 prison ; and now it is ready for egress, fitted and 
 equipped to walk on the ground, to swim the water, 
 or to waft itself through the air, according to its kind. 
 In an hour it shall be enlarged, and the horizon and the 
 zenith shall be the only boundaries to its freedom. No, 
 it shall never be enlarged ; it shall be annihilated. That 
 curious mechanism, those hollowed bones, fitted to take 
 in the air, and buoy it aloft, that harp-like throat, in- 
 stinct with song, which the greatest musician that ever 
 lived would give all his fortune if he could call his 
 own ; those webbed feet, perhaps all ready, without an 
 hour's apprenticeship, for perfect navigation ; or that 
 subtle instinct, by which, through a presentiment of 
 
IMMORTALITY. 261 
 
 unseen dangers, it can hang its nest away from harm ; 
 — all these are only a ridiculous toy, not made to ex- 
 emplify wisdom and skill, or to confer happiness, but 
 only to gratify whim and caprice, and back to nothing- 
 ness they must go ! 
 
 But what seems, to my causality, conclusive uj)on 
 the subject, is a consideration which I need not enlarge 
 upon before reflecting men. Such men must have 
 thought out the relations of things so fully, that I need 
 do but little more than to place premises and conclu- 
 sions side by side, and they will see the logical relations 
 between them. 
 
 If a human embryo, — the infant before its birth, — 
 could know and comprehend its structure and functions ; 
 if it could ask such questions as these : Why have I two 
 hundred and fifty bones (or the beginnings of bones) 
 all articulated and jointed in so curious a way, with 
 bands for strength, with braces against antagonistic 
 force ; with hinge-joints in one place, and ball-and- 
 socket-joints in another, &c., &c. ; why have I four 
 hundred and fifty muscles, all fastened to these bones, 
 all prospective of motion ? why am I fitted with an eye, 
 and so wonderfully arranged as to be caj)able of pro- 
 ducing all the graces of motion, in this darkness where 
 no light comes, or with lungs where there is no air ? 
 why have I the rudiments of social organs and loving 
 faculties, when I am here all alone ? why have I the 
 faculty of calculation, able, if developed, to weigh 
 planets, and measure the distances of the stars, when I 
 shall never see planet or stars ? why have I the senti- 
 ment of ideality, where there are no elements of form 
 or color to be combined into beauty ? &c., &c., tlu-ougli 
 tlie whole gamut of physical, intellectual, and moral 
 22 
 
262 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 endowments ; — I say, if such questions could be put 
 by an emijryo-child, could any other answer be given 
 than that they were all created in mere wanton waste- 
 fulness and nonsensicality, or, on the other hand, that 
 the being who had been endowed with them was yet to 
 be ushered into a sphere of light, and air, and motion, 
 and beauty ; of friends to be loved, and of a God to be 
 worshipped ? 
 
 Or suppose the embryo-child were submitted autop- 
 sically to a being of so high an order of intelligence, 
 that, at a glance, he could comprehend all its adapta- 
 tions and significations, to what conclusions must such 
 a beholder come in regard to the aim and purpose, — 
 the final cause, as the logicians say, of existence ? 
 Would he, or could he conclude that its then present 
 condition of darkness and circumscription was its final 
 and ultimate condition also ; that when its period of 
 gestation should have passed, this being itself, with all 
 its powers and faculties, should perish from animate 
 existence ? 
 
 On the other hand, would not such a sagacious and 
 far-seeing beholder as I have supposed, look on all these 
 powers and faculties in their ante-natal state, as a 
 prophecy and a promise, yea, a covenant, not made 
 with sign-manual and seal only, but with an oath, that 
 such a being, in some sphere of valleys and hills, of 
 winds and streams, of colors and songs, of natural law, 
 and of moral law, of kindred and friends, of love to 
 man, and love to God, should find " ample room and 
 verge enough " for the ascending struggle, the expan- 
 sion, the glorification of all its wonderful endowments? 
 And after arriving at sucli a conclusion, on principles 
 of unmistakable logic, and having his whole emotional 
 
IMMORTALITY. 263 
 
 and devotional nature set aglow towards the Contriver 
 and Perfecter of such a beautiful work, were he then to 
 be summoned into the august presence of that Contriver 
 and Perfecter, and to be told by Him that the work 
 which had so Idiidled his admiration, and stimulated his 
 homage, was designed only for a nine months' toy in a 
 prison ; that there was an atmosphere, but those lungs 
 should never respire it ; that there was a world of pearls 
 and shells, of flowers and fruits, of rainbows and auroras, 
 and a firmament strewed with suns, but those eyes 
 should never see them ; that there was a sphere for sa- 
 cred affections, for holy sympathies and loves, for virtu- 
 ous ascension along an upward path-way that had no 
 culminating point, but forever rose higher and higher 
 into the zenith of excellence ; but that this being, so 
 qualified and equipped for that ascending career, and 
 with its wings already outspread for the flight, should 
 never soar one inch into that upper realm ; — suppose, 
 I say, that all this were announced to the before de- 
 lighted, but now astonished beholder, would he not look 
 upon the wonderful workmanship with pity, but upon 
 its Author with contempt ? 
 
 Now the display of such wisdom, and skill, and power 
 as were necessary to create the senses, hmbs, and facul- 
 ties of the unborn child, viewed in connection with the 
 extinction of that child's life at the very moment when 
 prepared to enter upon its higher and ampler sphere, 
 seems to me but faintly and remotely to typify the 
 fatuity, the dementia, of creating such a universe of 
 splendors, and loves, and beatitudes, as we suppose this 
 to be, and of creating human beings capable of *ijoying 
 it forever and ever, with more and more adequate com- 
 prehension, and with more and more extatic bliss, and 
 
264 IMMOKTALITY. 
 
 then, after an average life of only about tlilrty years, — 
 and such a life too,, — to sweep the whole away into 
 nonentity and oblivion ; — I say the folly of the first is 
 but finite, compared with the infinite folly of the last. 
 Indeed, if the aimlessness of the nine months ante-natal 
 life, without the average thirty years' life to redeem it, 
 would be justly stigmatized as folly, the contemptible- 
 ness of man's achievements, and the horribleness of his 
 crimes and sins, during his average thirty years' life, 
 without a subsequent Immortality to justify it, — ay, 
 not merely to justiiy, but to glorify, and to beatify it, — 
 might justly be stigmatized and derided as idiotic. Is 
 the great God a mere blower of soap-bubbles, that He 
 creates the universe to which we belong,- which is sup- 
 posed to consist of forty millions of visible stars, and 
 has created, as is believed by astronomers, five thousand 
 other universes within the bounds of our imperfect 
 vision, each as large as this, and creates man more won- 
 derful, and more jTecious, because he can think and 
 feel, than all these universes put together, and gives 
 him a life of but thirty years duration, and then extin- 
 guishes him altogether ? No ! the argument that such 
 a being as man shall live forever, is as much stronger 
 than the argument that the embryo shall live its thirty 
 years, as eternity is grander than our life-time. 
 
 To me, the negative facts that the human race, with 
 all their capabilities of achievement, have as yet achieved 
 so little, and with all their susceptibilities of enjoyment, 
 have as yet enjoyed so little, and suffered so much, is a 
 proof that the orbit of our being is not yet filled, that it 
 has not'yet reached the goal of its destiny. I should 
 demand, at least, a few centillions of constantly improv- 
 ing ages, to make the plan of our existence reputable to 
 
IMMORTALITY. 265 
 
 its Author ; and after this grant had heen meted out 
 and filled up, I think the argument for Immortality 
 would then become so strong, as to preclude all scep- 
 ticism. 
 
 Is there not something almost ludicrously incongru- 
 ous in this Sadducean creed of the soul's non-existence 
 after death, when we reflect that, if it be true, the works 
 of man live so much longer than the spirit of man, that 
 Moses goes on to this day, not only directing the cut of 
 beards, and the style of cookery, but holding Jesus 
 Christ himself in abeyance, in regard to a numerous 
 body of men scattered over all the earth ; that John the 
 Baptist should still go on plunging the converts to the 
 church into deep water, or, more economically, sprink- 
 ling them with a few drops ; that the names of Leoni- 
 das, and Wallace, and Tell, should still ring through 
 the hearts of men, as a clarion rings in their ears ; that 
 Alfred and Washington should inspire millions of souls 
 with great ideas of social organisms and ameliorations ; 
 that the written words of ancient orator and poet should 
 be re-written upon the minds of each new generation, 
 as new foliage clothes the forest with each retuminir 
 spring; — that all these things should be done, through 
 such a course of ages, after the authors of them all have 
 passed into non-existence ? And is there not a sardonic 
 horribleness in the idea that the magnificent scoundrels 
 of olden or of modern times, the scamp-Jupiters of man- 
 kind, who have organized polygamy, or extended 
 slavery, or made intemperance and debauchery fashiona- 
 ble, — that these, I say, should be sufFered to skulk and 
 sneak away into nonentity, without either being made 
 better by repentance and reformation, or punished for 
 being so bad ? 
 22* 
 
266 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Let us examine this subject in another of its various 
 aspects. Should I see a man building and filling the 
 most capacious storehouses with food that never was to 
 be consumed, and he knew it ; or wardrobes with myr- 
 iads of nicely wrought garments that were never to be 
 put on, and he knew it ; or constructing a city of splen- 
 did edifices, fitted with all the comforts and adornments 
 that philosophy or art could prepare, which he all the 
 time predestined that no mortal should ever inhabit ; or 
 preparing the most splendid ship, whose keel he had 
 predetermined should never touch water ; still, I could 
 call such a man economic, I could call him frugal of 
 resources, I could call him wise and benevolent in his 
 expenditures, compared with a Being who, after having 
 made all these geologic, telluric, pneumatic, astronomic, 
 preparations, which we see about us, and then — after 
 having also made such an intellectual and moral race 
 as we are, and put it in possession of the whole - — could 
 then destroy the race, but yet preserve the machinery ; 
 could demolish the edifice while he let the staging 
 remain ; could annihilate the jewels, but save the casket. 
 Oh ! is not the man sordid and material, is he not ab- 
 sorbed and smothered in matter, who can imagine that 
 the heavens will stand, while the souls that inhabit them 
 will die ? 
 
 Why do we apprentice a child to a trade, but that he 
 may follow it when he becomes a man ? Why do we 
 send a child to school, or to college, but that he may be 
 fitted to act in the wider sphere, and to perform the 
 nobler duties of manhood ; and why has God placed us 
 in this world of pre])aration, of probation, if there be no 
 higher life for whieli we are to be prepared and proved ? 
 If the doctrine of Immortalitv be not true, then, con- 
 
IMSIORTALITY. 267 
 
 sidering tlie size of the mountain, no mouse so small 
 ever derided a birtli-pang. 
 
 I can understand why our Heavenly Father should 
 cover the earth with flowers, and then suffer them to 
 wither and decay ; why he should strew the bottom of 
 the ocean with pearl and many-colored shells and per- 
 mit them to radiate all their beauty away in the deep ; 
 why He should span the dark cloud with double or 
 triple rainbow, and in an hour melt them into air ; why 
 He should shoot up the northern auroras and quench 
 their ghttering flames ; why all the glories of the sun- 
 rise and of the sunset should hold their perpetual circuit 
 around the earth from east to west, all of which are to 
 be swallowed up in the brightening morning or in the 
 darkening night ; why, with the annual ascension and 
 declination of the sun a vast wave of beauty and lux- 
 lu-iance should perpetually vibrate between the summer 
 and the winter solstice, between the temperate zones of 
 the north and of the south, to be followed at each ex- 
 treme by wintry frosts and desolation ; — I say, I can 
 understand all this, for these hues and foi'ms of beauty, 
 these grandeurs and splendors of nature, have no con- 
 scious existence ; they did not know they lived, they 
 do not know they • die ; no song of exultation ushered 
 them into being, no hopes died when they departed 
 from it ; and God is so rich that He can afford to cover 
 the firmament from horizon to zenith with the most 
 gorgeous tapestry, and tear it down and replace it with 
 new, every minute while we gaze ; He can afford to 
 load every tree in the forest and every tiniest spire in the 
 field with his icy regalia — such as all the monarchs in 
 the world cannot buy — during the night, and then 
 melt them down in the morning, and then produce new 
 
268 IMMO&TALITY. 
 
 charms and wonders from the old. But I cannot un- 
 derstand why oiu: conscious being just awakened here 
 into life, and capable of such keen and unending grati- 
 fication ; why our virtues purchased by heroic struggle 
 or endurance, yielding such intense subjective enjoy- 
 ment and longing for a career of immortality ; — I can- 
 not understand why these should be dissipated like the 
 morning cloud, or expire like a vernal flower, by some 
 inherent law of limitation. I cannot explain or con- 
 ceive why it should be, when, perchance, I have in- 
 herited excessive and exorbitant propensities from my 
 ancestors ; or find myself, when first awaking to self- 
 consciousness and self-comprehension, already in the 
 grasp of demoniac passions, by reason of some crime in 
 my progenitors or mischance in my organization, or 
 mal-adjustment of my powers ; and when, after making 
 myself folly acquainted with the full compass of my 
 heritage of woe, or the foil calamity of my unhappy 
 constitution, I address myself, in a life-long struggle to 
 the work of self-recuperation, and one after another I 
 do battle with these fiends of evil dispositions that have 
 been incarnated in my person ; I cut off, one after an- 
 other, the hundred hydra-heads of each monster appe- 
 tite and passion and lust, and like the hero in the old 
 Grecian myth, I apply a cautery of red-hot iron to the 
 quivering flesh of every wound, though that wound is 
 in my own soul, and hold it there through wildest and 
 fiercest agonies, until the living fibre is crisped and 
 charred too deep to allow life ever to spring from it or 
 visit it again ; and when, at last, I have achieved the 
 mighty victory, and stand in majestic and glorious 
 proportions, hero and conqueror over that late domain 
 of sorrow and of sin, and am now ready to enter upon 
 
IMMORTALITY. 269 
 
 those sublime realms of splendor and beatitude and to 
 wing my celestial course upward, through cycles of 
 time and spirals of ascension all the more vigorously 
 because of the strength wherewith I endued my soul in 
 the aforetime contest with my satanic foes ; that there, 
 at the very apex and crown of all my past endeavors 
 and achievements, with my soul purified and rejuve- 
 nated, with my heart panting to run the new career, 
 with my aspiring eye fixed upon the zenith, and feeling 
 the grand momentum of progression lifting in every 
 atom of my being ; that then, I say, instead of the vic- 
 tor's palm and the triumphal entrance, and the " Well 
 done, good and faithful servant," I must be struck into 
 annihilation, changed into a vacuum, reduced to that 
 idealess, conceptionless state, if such a state ever was 
 or ever could be, anterior to Nothing. Let us exclaim 
 not only " O, what a lame and impotent," but what a 
 contemptible and blasphemous conclusion ! The Crea- 
 tor of such a world has made a systematic business of 
 fatuity, and given an eternal organization to infinite 
 folly ! 
 
 How strong that desire of improvement in the hu- 
 man mind, which is the companion, if it be not the con- 
 dition of Genius ! — that Ideality, I mean, that always 
 runs ahead of Actuality. Achievement is only the 
 eminence whence we survey something better to be 
 achieved. Ideality is only the Avant- Courier of the 
 mind, and where that, in a healthy and normal state, 
 goes, I hold it to be a prophecy that realization can 
 follow. 
 
 How strong, too, the desire of perfection in the heart 
 of a good man ; what grief over error ; what delightful 
 anticipations of improvement ! These, too, I hold to 
 
270 Ijmmoutality. 
 
 be prophecy ; just as the embiyo lungs prophecied the 
 air, and the embryo eye, the light. Without Immor- 
 tality, well did Lord Bacon say, 
 
 " The world's a bubble, and the life of man 
 
 Less than a span ; 
 In his conception wretched, from the womb. 
 
 So to the tomb, 
 Curst from the cradle, and brought up to years, 
 
 With care and fears ; — 
 Who, then, to frail mortality shall trust. 
 But limns the water, or but writes in dust." 
 
 How pertinently it may be asked 
 
 " Shall Spring the faded world revive ? 
 Shall waning moons their light renew ? 
 Again shall setting suns ascend. 
 And chase the dailmess from our view ? " 
 
 But 
 
 " In those lone, silent realms of night 
 Shall peace and hope no more arise ? 
 No future morning shed its light. 
 No dav-star orild the darksome skies '. " 
 
MIRACLES 
 
XII. 
 
 Bl I R A C L E S . 
 
 Matthew y'n. 21. — " Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, 
 
 shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of 
 
 my Father who is in heaven." 
 Matth. ii. 28, "i'J, 30, and part of the 31st. — "A certain man had 
 
 two sons, and he cauie to the iiist and said. Son, go, work to-day in 
 
 my vineyard. 
 " He answered and said, I will not : but afterwards repented and 
 
 went. 
 ' ' And he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and 
 
 said, I go, Sir, and went not. 
 " Whether of the twain did the will of his Fatlier ? " 
 
 The texts selected unavoidably suggest tlie liigliest 
 ideas of liuman duty. The highest human duty con- 
 sists in an intelligent obedience to God's will. I say in 
 an intelligent obedience to God's will ; for a blind obedi- 
 ence worships God only with a part of our nature, — 
 an intelligent obedience, with the whole of it. All the 
 intimations anywhere or in any manner revealed, assure 
 us that God likes works better than professions, prac- 
 tice better than theory, deeds better than creeds. Christ 
 did not go about throwing written or printed tracts 
 into people's houses which inculcated the Calvinistic 
 Five Points, or the Episcopalian Thirty-nine Articles, 
 or the Universalists' Universahsm, or even the brief 
 platform on which we of the Christian Connection pra- 
 23 [273] 
 
274 MIRACLES. 
 
 fess to stand. Jie went about ^'' doing- good ; " and all 
 eloquence, and all poetry, may expend themselves forever 
 on eulogy, and all tliey can do is to unfold and blaze, 
 one after another, upon human eyes, the infinite reful- 
 gencies of those two simple words. 
 
 Just in proportion as a man becomes good, divine, 
 Christ-like, he passes out of the region of theorizing, 
 of system-building, and hireling service, into the region 
 of beneficent activities. It is well to think well ; — it 
 is divine to do well. 
 
 How far then can man, — this frail, feeble child of 
 clay, as he is so often called, this worm of the dust, this 
 shadow, tliis vapor, or by whatever other contemptuous 
 appellations any one may choose to malign or belittle 
 him, — obey God, imitate God ; obey and imitate the 
 Divine Christ. 
 
 And here, my young friends, I am not aboiit to dis- 
 cuss the softer and tenderer parts of this subject. I 
 shall venture at once upon the toughest, the most indi- 
 gestible, insoluble portions of it ; for I feel like the brave 
 old knight of the tournament, who had such confidence 
 in the justness of his cause, that he gave his adversary 
 the advantage of sun and wind. 
 
 How far can we obey God and imitate Christ ? which, 
 indeed, is the same thing, for if we imitate Christ, we 
 are sure we shall obey God. We can imitate Christ 
 so far as those outward acts are concerned, by which he 
 ministered to his own personal necessities. He ate, he 
 drank, he slept, as other men. " For John came, 
 neither eating nor drinking, and they say, he hath a 
 devil. The Son of Man came, eating and drinking, and 
 they say. Behold a man, gluttonous and a wine-bib- 
 ber ! " So far, the imitation is not without danger of 
 
MIKACLES. 275 
 
 running into excess. But can we imitate him in liis 
 self-denials I In the midst of Oriental luxuries, sur- 
 rounded by royal magnificence, which he might have 
 made his own hy flattery, or even by acquiescence ; 
 can we imitate the moral heroism and intrepidity witli 
 which he denounced the iniquities of those who had 
 power over him of life and death ? Can we imitate, 
 and by some close degree of approximation, too, the 
 miracles he is recorded to have wrought ? I say, we 
 can. It has been done, and it can be done again. 
 
 Not that I think the excellence and preciousness of 
 Christ's mission are half so well proved by the recorded 
 miracles, as by the spirit of purity and beneficence that 
 governed his whole life ; yet I desire, if possible, to 
 suggest a new use to be made of these narratives, and 
 to turn them to practical account in the amelioration of 
 human calamities, and the elevation of men. The mere 
 mechanical power of interrupting the course of nature, 
 — of hushing the rage of storms, of stopping the sun in 
 his course, of turning water into wine (though I think 
 if he were on earth now, the miracle would be the other 
 way, and he would turn wine and all alcoholic drinks 
 back into water), — this dynamical or chemical power, 
 may exist altogether independent of any moral attribute. 
 But to subdue a passion or propensity that my natural 
 organization, or early education, may have planted in 
 my bosom ; to subject myself to toil, and privation, and 
 self-sacrifice, for the well-being of others, even of my 
 enemies ; and to comit it as so much gain to myself, if 
 I can avert calamity from them, — this is divine. To 
 woo a wandering brother back to the path of rectitude, 
 to remove one obstacle that obstructs his return to vir- 
 tue, I should regard as an infinitely greater achieve- 
 
276 MIRACLES. 
 
 ment than if I could arrest the motive power that 
 wheels the solar system. 
 
 Can we not, then, make some better use, or, at least, 
 some further use of Christ's miracles, than has hitherto 
 been made of them ? They have been supposed to be 
 inimitable ; things to be wondered at, and almost wor- 
 shipped, but not copied ; challenging our admiration as 
 marvels, but not encouraging or stimulating our efforts 
 as examples ; — in fine, occupying a sphere of active 
 beneficence inaccessible to man. 
 
 But are the recorded miracles of Jesus Christ, these 
 lofty, unapproachable achievements, standing not only 
 far above present actuality, but future possibihty, with 
 which, indeed, man's powers are incommensurable ? 
 In a word, if Christ did possess miraculous power, and 
 did work his recorded miracles by virtue of that power 
 alone, cannot we, without any miraculous power, pro- 
 duce results partaking of the same divine, beneficent 
 character ? 
 
 Every one understands what is sometimes called the 
 Doctrine of Compensations. In Mechanics, for instance, 
 in order to produce momentum, velocity may be sub- 
 stituted for weight. That is, a small body moving 
 swiftly, will strike as forcible a blow as a large body 
 moving slowly. One man, by means of tackle and ma- 
 chinery, will exert the equivalent of a hundred men- 
 power. So in the mental realm, mediocre abihty, with 
 perseverance, often overtakes and outstrips the most 
 splendid talent ; and even our nursery-books told us 
 how the slow-moving snail reached his journey's end 
 before the swift-moving hare with his loitering. Inten- 
 sity and concentration of thought often effect wliat 
 neither genius nor intuition can do, as the strokes of the 
 
MIRACLES. 277 
 
 feeble but long-repeating mattock dig deeper than the 
 thunderbolt. Give us time, say the water-drops, and 
 we will bore a hole through your thickest strata of 
 granite. Give us time, say the coral insects, and we 
 will build up another Australasia. 
 
 Christ's miracles are sometimes spoken of in a gen- 
 eral way, as that he healed all nianner of diseases ; but 
 the specific instances, the most remarkable illustrations 
 of his recorded power, consist in his enabling the dumb 
 to speak, and the bhnd to see, and in casting evil spirits 
 out of demoniacs. Here were cases of terrible infliction, 
 or of terrible privation ; — the privation of some bodily 
 sense, whose loss subtracts so much from the enjoyments 
 of life, and whose restoration would affect beholders 
 with such wonder and awe. Let us examine, then, 
 some of those narratives, and see how far forth wise 
 and good men may go in imitating them. The desire 
 to do so is the first step, and this is kindled by the 
 example. 
 
 One of the earliest accounts describes his quieting the 
 storm on the sea of Galilee. Here he asserted his power 
 over the elements of Nature. 
 
 But what was the scene of this demonstration ? It 
 was the Sea of Galilee, — sometimes called the Sea of 
 Tiberias, or the Sea of Gennesareth. This body of 
 water was but fourteen miles long, and only seven 
 broad in its widest part. Situated between what were 
 then called moimtains, both on the east and the west, 
 it was Hable to gusts and squalls ; yet it could never 
 experience anything of the elemental violence or com- 
 motion which rage in the Atlantic or Indian Oceans. 
 Twice the quantity of water it contained would not be 
 enough to make one respectable, heaving, mid-sea wave 
 23* 
 
278 MIRACLES. 
 
 of tlie Atlantic. Whence, then, came their cLauger ? 
 It came from the frailty and insignificant size of the 
 boats which they dignified by the name of ships. The 
 cry was, " Lord, save us, we perish." The peril threat- 
 ened life. 
 
 It is easy to see that the danger is as certainly warded 
 off by increasing the power of the craft to defy or en- 
 dure the storm, as by parrying the blows of the storm 
 itself. Life is equally saved, the sense of security is 
 equally enjoyed, whether God enables me to sing a lul- 
 laby to the tempest, or to fasten my cradle with such 
 :noorings that tempests shall only rock, but cannot over- 
 turn it. 
 
 Would it not at that time have appeared in every- 
 way as great a miracle, if, when the sky was overspread 
 with blackness, Christ had looked up into it, and 
 watched it till the moment when a iiolt of lightning 
 leaped from its cloudy throne, straight at that boat 
 whose freight was the Christianity of the world, and in 
 an instant, in a thousandth part of an instant, had 
 waved it aside harmless ? Yet this is only what every 
 one can do now. 
 
 Another instance of man's power over the elements, 
 is exhibited in the Miner's Lamp, the invention of Sir 
 Humphrey Davy. In the mines whence Englishmen 
 draw the fuel which preserves their personal existence, 
 and through wMch come all those wonders of mechani- 
 cal production, said to be equal to the 'labors of six 
 hundred millions of men, — in those mines an explosive 
 gas is exuded, invisible, unremovable, and when ignited, 
 unquenchable, and destructive of all life within its 
 compass. The miners must carry down lights ; for how, 
 otherwise, in that solid darkness, could thev work? 
 
MIRACLES. 279 
 
 Here, then, the two laws confront eacli other, face to 
 face, — the law which necessitates light, and the law 
 by which the flame begets earthquakes. Sir Humphrey 
 Davy, — not by any fiat of power, it is true, but by 
 toilsome stud}', by sagacious and persevering experi- 
 ment, found that this explosive gas would not permeate 
 a gauze-wire network, whose meshes were reduced to a 
 certain fineness. He therefore fabricated a gauze cov- 
 ering, lantern shaped, in which to enclose the lamp. 
 This lamp the miners carry into the mines, and destruc- 
 tion, awed and abashed, retires before it. Particles 
 of the gas, it is true, do flow in through the meshes ot 
 the network, but so few, that they only feed the flame, 
 and increase its light. Thus Genius and Power make 
 the very breath of the monster, that stands ready to 
 devour them, contribute to their welfare. 
 
 Here, then, are cases where the skill and perseve- 
 rance of man, working rejoicingly by noble means to 
 noble ends, imitates — I do not say equals — the gran- 
 deur and the sublimity of Christ's power, when he laid 
 his hand upon the stormy air, and upon the tempestuous 
 sea, and bade them be still. 
 
 Another of Christ's wonderful works is alleged to 
 have consisted in his feeding and satisfying multitudes, 
 — on one occasion five thousand, on another four thou- 
 sand, besides women and children, with a quantity of 
 food amazingly disproportioned to the company. How 
 beautifully this is paralleled, in a moral sense, by those 
 missionaries who take a few Bibles and books of relig- 
 ious hterature and science, and carry them across oceans 
 to heathen lands, where a moral dearth prevails, where 
 the people perish for lack of knowledge ; and with these 
 few books, what multitudes do they feed with Divine 
 
280 MIRACLES. 
 
 knowledge ; and the greater the numbers they feed, the 
 more overflowing baskets they have left ; out of which, 
 not only contemporary multitudes — ay, contemporary 
 nations — may be fed, but of which the teeming millions 
 of posterity may eat and live. 
 
 Is it a poor or unworthy imitation of the Saviour, 
 when famine sinites a whole people, when among thou- 
 sands, and tens of thousands, pallor unhumanizes the 
 face ; when the fever of famine burns away the body, 
 atom by atom, with its inward fires, and atrophy de- 
 nudes the frame ; when famishing infants perish upon 
 famishing mothers' breasts ; when hope dies, and the 
 grave opens ; then, to see a sail, a fleet, now on the 
 horizon, now in the ofiing, at the wharf — and sud- 
 denly, as if by some mysterious attraction, food leaps 
 from the crowded hold to the perishing victim ; the 
 pulses swell with returning strength, and the reviving 
 heart shouts its hosannas of joy ; oh, is not this a splen- 
 did imitation of the feeding of the multitudes ? 
 
 Who shall contradict the saying of Adam Smith, 
 that " he is a public benefactor who makes two blades 
 of grass grow where but one grew before ? " This the 
 scientific man does. Wherever the intelligent and in- 
 dustrious man goes, though it be to barren waste, or 
 pestilential morass, health and abundance follow, if any 
 regard for the common weal sanctifies the civilization. 
 Those divinities whom the ancients worshipped, — 
 Ceres, Pomona, and Flora, who strewed and beautified 
 the earth with grain, and fruit, and flower, have in 
 modern times domiciled themselves among men, and 
 have exchanged their Divine titles for plain Professors 
 of Chemistry, and we now call them Agriculturists and 
 Horticulturists. 
 
MIRACLES. 281 
 
 Another class of Christ's miracles consisted in enablhig 
 the dumb to speak. To give the power of speech to 
 one who never had it, or to restore it to one who has 
 lost it, is, indeed, a wonderful work. Can this work of 
 Christ be imitated by common men ? We all know 
 that it can. Many of our States, especially the Free 
 States, are beautified and ennobled by Institutions, where 
 the power of communication, of free, large, learned com- 
 munication, is bestowed upon the victims of such pri- 
 vation. 
 
 There are two modes in which this beneficent work 
 is effected. One of them originated in Paris about a 
 century ago, in 1755, under the auspices of the Abbe 
 de I'Epee, one of Christ's true followers. It was copied 
 from France into England, not long after, and into this 
 country in the year 1817, by the Rev. Thomas H. 
 Gallaudet, of Hartford, Connecticut. The method of 
 communicating, almost exclusively used in France and' 
 England and in the United States, is by Dactyology, or 
 Finger-speaking, by which certain positions of the fingers 
 become signs of certain letters or words, so that one 
 might say the pupil hears with his eyes. 
 
 But in Germany and some other countries of Europe, 
 where language is more phonetic than in France or 
 England, the dumb are really taught to speak, to articu- 
 late, to utter words themselves, — perfectly intelligible 
 words too, and they understand those who speak to 
 them by the motions of their lips. Wonderful as is the 
 thought, it is nevertheless proved that there is a lan- 
 guage of muscles as truly as of voice. 
 
 Peter Ponce, a Spaniard, in the 16th century ; 
 Wallis, an Englishman, in about 1660 ; the Swiss 
 physician, Amman, in 1692 and 1700; The German 
 
282 MIEACLES. 
 
 clergyman, Raphael, in 1715 ; the Jew, Paveira, in 
 France, in 1780 ; and the German Cantor (singing- 
 master) Heinicke, at Eppendorf, near Hamburg, the 
 father of all the German deaf and dumb institutions, 
 in 1770, have each and all taught their mute pupils to 
 speak, each of them inhis native tongue. 
 
 The emotions never will grow old in my heart which 
 M'ere called into vivid consciousness, when, for the first 
 time, in Magdeburg, in Prussia, I visited a school where 
 deaf-mute children were taught to speak, — to speak as 
 other children speak. I had heard of this method be- 
 fore ; it was a thing outside of me ; but here I heard 
 itself, and it became a part of me. 
 
 The very phrase "A school for the Deaf and Dumb " 
 awakens in the mind the ideas of a silent, soundless 
 life, of a world voiceless as the grave. In this respect, 
 death has nothing to deprive them of. But here, these 
 privations were supplied. Human benevolence, Christ- 
 like, divine, had achieved the triumph. Friendship, sym- 
 pathy, and those cooperative joys which so multiply each 
 other by their thousand reflections from heart to heart, 
 — all these lost delights, by this divine art, had been 
 restored. It wa;s a spectacle of the moral sublime. I 
 thought of him, the Saviour, who had raised the dumb out 
 of the grave of silence. I walked forth with those won- 
 dering multitudes who followed him into the mountain, 
 " nigh unto the sea of Galilee," to have their sick 
 healed, their dumb made to speak, their deaf to hear. 
 I heard the promises made to his disciples, that if they 
 would cherish his spirit and obey his commands, they 
 too should lay hold on these miraculous gifts. I under- 
 stood not the law of his power, but I blessed God that 
 it was also in other men, to be developed in more intel- 
 
MIRACLES. 'IS-i 
 
 ligible forms. Tlie spirit of Christ luid, for some rea- 
 son, evaporated from his disciples ; the power of succor 
 had been lost for centuries. But, here was it not re- 
 newed ? or, at least, was there not the closest imitation 
 of it, and in a form to benefit all the sons and daugh- 
 ters of Silence ? The dumb spake as in the time of 
 Jesus, but, by this means, not a few in Judea only, but 
 all the deaf and dumb in all the world could be enabled 
 to speak. Thus the delights of social converse, the in- 
 structions and the consecrations of private and of public 
 teaching are poured upon 
 
 " The ear sequestrate and the tuneless tongue." 
 
 In Germany alone, there are now not less than 
 seventy-five of these deaf and dumb schools where chil- 
 dren are taught to speah. I commend others to the 
 enjoyment of the thrilling happiness with which I 
 witnessed the wonderful spectacle. 
 
 If we are bound to suppose that Christ regarded with 
 joy the few opportunities he had of supplying these 
 privations, with what delight, with what approval he 
 must now look upon all his followers and imitators in 
 this blessed work 1 
 
 The Gospels describe anbther field for the display of 
 divine power acting in man, — the restoration of sight 
 to the blind. What Almighty power it was, when all 
 the universe was solid darkness, to call the sun and 
 stars into existence ! But the effect is the same on our 
 sources of comfort and of joy, to call into being the human 
 eye without which we could see neither sun nor stars. 
 A sun without an eye, and an eye without a sun, for 
 all human purposes, are the same. The privations of 
 the blind are as different from those of the deaf-mutes 
 
28-i MIRACLES. 
 
 in substance as in form. Though the blind are gener- 
 ally objects of greater compassion, from their peculiar 
 dependence, yet the deaf-mute is by far the greater 
 sufferer. A blind person is more immediately depen- 
 dent upon others for his siibsistence, but the deaf-mute 
 is farther removed from knowledge and sympathy. 
 The sight of all objects within the circle of vision is 
 lost to the blind ; but how narrow that circle is. By 
 the loss of eyes he loses the sight of all objects within 
 the visible horizon only ; but by the possession of hear- 
 ing, he can become acquainted with all events not only 
 within but without that circle. The ear has no horizon 
 to bound it. And this is true, not only in regard to 
 contemporary matters, but in regard to all history. So 
 that, although the blind man cannot see things immedi- 
 ately around him, yet he can hear things from all lands 
 and times. On the other hand, though the deaf-mute 
 can see the things immediately around him, he cannot 
 hear of things anywhere. The blind can profit by 
 all the wisdom he can hear, the deaf-mute only by the 
 objects he can see. Hence the sight is more necessaiy 
 to the comfort of the body, hearing is vastly more so to 
 tlie growth of the soul. The consequence is, that the 
 number of distinguished and learned men among the 
 blind, as compared with those among the deaf and 
 dumb, is fifty to one. The ear has been happily called 
 the " vestibule of the soul." 
 
 The systematic instruction of the blind is of very 
 modern date. The author of this noble, I might almost 
 say this divine art, was Valentine Haiiy, of Paris. 
 Haijy had become acquainted with the baroness Von 
 Paradis, a blind Gennan lady, who visited Paris as an 
 organist, and pcrfoimed with great applause. About 
 
MIRACLES. 205 
 
 this time an event took place at tlie annual fair of St. 
 Ovide, which fully roused his commiseration. An inn- 
 keeper there had collected ten poor blind persons, at- 
 tired them in the most ridiculous manner, o-arnishine; 
 them with asses' ears, peacock's feathers, and spectacles 
 without glasses, to perform a burlesque concert. 
 
 What therefore was designed for the thoughtless or 
 wanton amusement of others, only kindled Haiiy's be- 
 nevolence. He resolved to do for the blind, through 
 the sense of touch, what the Abbe de I'Epee had done 
 for the deaf-mute through the medium of sight. Ac- 
 cordingly he founded an Institution for their instruction 
 in Paris, in 1784 ; and in 1786, public exercises were 
 performed by his pupils, at Versailles, in the presence 
 of the king. This gave the school great eclat. 
 
 Next to France, institutions were established for the 
 blind in Great Britain ; in Liverpool, in 1790 ; in Edin- 
 burgh, in 1791 ; in London, in 1800 ; and afterwards in 
 Bristol, Norwich, Dublin, &c. But all these were 
 private institutions, maintained by private endowments 
 and contributions. 
 
 After establishing his school in Paris, Haiiy was 
 invited to St. Petersburg, and established one there in 
 1806 ; and, in the same year, another in Berlin, in 
 Prussia. 
 
 The first Institution for the Blind ever established on 
 this Continent, or, indeed, in this Western hemisphere, 
 was the New England Asylum, in Boston, Mass., in 
 1829. This, now, for twenty-seven years, has been 
 under the care of that distinguished man, Dr. Samuel 
 G. Howe, even then known as the Philhellene, or 
 Lover of Greece ; but now, by the broader title of Phil- 
 anthropist, or Lover of Mankind. Under the superin- 
 24 'v 
 
286 MIRACLES. 
 
 tendence of Dr. Howe, this Institution 1ms made more 
 improvements in the methods and instraments of teach- 
 ing the Mind, than all the other schools in the world 
 added together; and its efforts have heen atttended 
 with a proportionate success. 
 
 Dr. Howe has also introduced into this country, of 
 late years, the still more difficult instruction of Idiots. 
 The success of this last and most astounding work of 
 benevolence, proves incontestably, that in every human 
 being exists the germs of faculties, and that the divine 
 spirit of Christian love will find the means of discover- 
 ing and fertilizing them, even when they have been so 
 covered up by the sins of disobedience to God's laws, 
 that the very semblance of humanity is lost. Here, 
 indeed, is the literal fulfilment of Scripture. The sins 
 of the fathers are visited upon the third and the fourth 
 generation. But the blessed law of recuperative force 
 is visible even here. 
 
 As Dr. Howe now does, and always will occupy a 
 conspicuous place in the Annals of Benevolence, it will 
 not be inappropriate to give a brief sketch of his life. 
 
 There is a large number of men, who, on account of 
 his differences from them in religious views, thrust him 
 out of the pale of Christianity. Passing by his belief, 
 let us see if, in his life, he has not imitated the Sa- 
 viour as much as they. I have known him long. Per- 
 haps few have known him as intimately. We were in 
 college together, and for twenty years I was officially 
 associated with him in the administration of that Insti- 
 tution witli which his name is now imperishably con- 
 nected. For a great deal of that time, there was 
 scarcely a day in which a personal interview did not 
 give me some new proof of his wisdom and goodness. 
 
MIRACLES. 287 
 
 At the time when the Greek war of Independence 
 broke out, Dr.. Howe was a student of medicine in Bos- 
 ton. Even then, his youthful heart was an altar already 
 loaded with incense. The sight of a brave people 
 struggling for liberty, kindled that incense into a flame ; 
 — a flame which has burned uninterruptedly, for 
 Greece, for Poland, for Hungary, for Italy, and for 
 those in this country who are under direr oppression 
 than Greek, or Pole, or Himgarian, or Italian. He 
 flew to Greece, and for six years, a part of the time as 
 a surgeon in the army, or on board the fleet, a part of 
 the time as a volunteer, like Lafayette and Kosciusko, 
 in our Revolutionary war, — he devoted himself to the 
 hberation of that people. He adhered to their cause 
 until he left them free. Then he taught them some- 
 thing of the arts of peace. The first cart made in 
 Greece was made under his superintendence. The old 
 ancestors of that people had made chariots for battle, 
 but not carts for agriculture, and their descendants in- 
 herit a sufiicient degree of the old organization to shape 
 a graceful boat with a jack-knife, while so little were 
 the useful arts cultivated, that they needed instruc- 
 tion in fabricating the most common utensils of life. 
 The Egyptians had overrun the Peloponnesus, ravaging 
 and destroying all fruit and harvest, and the people 
 were reduced almost to starvation. - At that critical 
 moment. Dr. Howe returned to this country, preached 
 a crusade through all New England and New York, 
 raised some sixty thousand dollars in money, and an 
 immense quantity of clothing, with which he relieved 
 the mortal necessities of the Greeks, and sustained thfm 
 until the final hour of triumph. Twent)^ years after, 
 when he rode alone into Greece on horseback, one d;iy, 
 
288 MIKACLBS- 
 
 an accidental travelling companion was astonished to 
 see him recognized by a peasant woman, who spread the 
 glad intelligence, and he was immediately surrounded 
 and borne into the neighboring city, nolens volens, on 
 the shoulders of the people. Such joy was manifested 
 at the sight of him who had founded a village on that 
 spot in the days of stormy trial, that his accidental com- 
 panion was moved to tears at the spectacle of the enthu- 
 siasm, even before he knew the details of the history. 
 At that point of time, the, Greeks were just again tri- 
 umphant over oppression, and his friends ruled the 
 ascendant, and were glad to do him honor. They also 
 sent a Greek newspaper to his friend Charles Sumner, 
 in which the incident was related, or probably we should 
 never have had the pleasure of learning it, for Dr. 
 Howe is never the hero of his own story. 
 
 To return to his early history. At the time of his 
 return from his Grecian expedition to Boston, Dr. John 
 D. Fisher, who had just completed his medical studies 
 in Paris, came home to Boston, also, with his great 
 heart filled, brimming, with the project of establishing 
 an Institution for the Blind, like that of the Abbe 
 Haiiy, with which he had become familiar in Paris. 
 
 In a city so renowned for its charities as Boston, the 
 bricks and mortar for such an establishment could 
 easily be obtained. But where could one find the great, 
 organizing, executi\'e mind to be put at its head, and 
 to be its sensorium ? 
 
 The most sagacious turned to Dr. Howe as the man 
 above all men for the place, and he was appointed. He 
 accepted, and immediately embarked for Europe, to 
 visit the institutions at Paris and elsewhere. 
 
 It was while in Paris, on this mission, that his chiv- 
 
MIEACLES. 289 
 
 alrous spirit prompted him to accept a tmst which well 
 nigh proved fatal, not only to the enterprise in which 
 he was embarked, but to his life. This visit to Paris 
 was during the Pohsh insurrection of 1830-31. A 
 thrill of enthusiasm in behalf of the Poles, as a few 
 years before in behalf of the Greeks, ran through this 
 countrj-, and large contributions of money and clothing 
 were made in their behalf. These donations were for- 
 warded to General Lafayette in Paris, to be remitted 
 by him to their suffering objects. General Lafayette 
 despatched two agents, a French and a German officer, 
 with the succors. One of them was taken prisoner by 
 the enemy ; the other was baulked in his purpose and 
 returned. Who now had the bravery and the skill to 
 carry the needed relief to the perishing army ? 
 
 It should be stated here that a large, perhaps the 
 largest body of the Polish insurgents, had just been 
 driven across their frontiers into Prussia. Prussia stip- 
 ulated that if they would surrender their arms and dis- 
 miss their officers, she would afford them a refuge. But 
 having, for some reasons of state, changed her policy, 
 and become more friendly to Russia, she surrounded 
 the Poles with a cordon of soldiers, and attempted by 
 starvation on her side of the line, to drive them into 
 the jaws of the Russian bear on the other side. It was 
 at this perilous juncture, when, guarded by Prussian 
 soldiers on one side, and watched by Russian victors on 
 the other, and perishing -from want within themselves, 
 that Dr. Howe undertook to carry the needed assistance 
 to this hunted band of patriots. He was then on the 
 point of starting for Berlin, to visit the Blind Institu- 
 tion, established there by the Abbe Huay, a quarter 
 of a century before, and he accepted this perilous com- 
 24* 
 
290 MIRACLES. 
 
 mission as an episode. As soon as wheels could carry 
 him, he stood within the Polish cantonments, ground 
 consecrated by the presence of patriots, desecrated by 
 the rule of tyrants. The Poles had been quartered 
 among the peasants, and they were scattered over a 
 space a dozen miles in extent. By the terms of capitu- 
 lation, their officers had been removed. One officer, 
 however, having determined to abide the fortunes of 
 his companions, remained; and the more securely to 
 cover his concealment, feigned illness ; and from his sick 
 quarters, unknown except by a few trusted ones, all 
 necessary orders were issued. Over this extended 
 space, and among this large number. Dr. Howe began, 
 personally, the distribution of his alms, by travelling 
 from hut to hut, scattering gladness wherever he went. 
 Soon he came to a peasant's rude hut, where, he "was 
 told there lay, in an upper loft, a dying I^ole. He as- 
 cended to the apartment, which bore all the evidences 
 of a sick man's chamber, — the attendants, the silence, 
 the medical paraphernalia ; and by the dim light from a 
 darkened window, the form of a man was seen pros- 
 trate upon a pallet of straw. Dr. Howe explained his 
 errand, assured him that he came as a friend to help, 
 and not as an enemy to betray. Convinced of this, 
 the feigning sick man sprang upon his feet, and stood 
 before him a tall, gigantic grenadier, ready, as chance 
 might offer, for friendship or for battle, — ready for any 
 thing but to live a slave. It was their commander. 
 
 The supplies came at a moment when the Polish 
 army was at the point of despair. They were promptly 
 delivered and joyfully received ; and Dr. Howe, having 
 fed the hungry and clothed the naked, started immedi- 
 ately for Berlin, to learn how to give eyes to tlie blind. 
 
MIRACLES. 291 
 
 Immediately after arriving at Berlin, he accidently 
 met an American citizen with whom he exchanced 
 cards, giving, most fortunately, the name of the hotel 
 where he lodged. The next morning that citizen called 
 at the hotel and inquired for Dr. Howe, but was told 
 that no such person was, or had been there. Appear- 
 ances, however, excited suspicion, and by adroit and 
 persevering inquiries, this gentleman found_ that a 
 body of the police had visited the house during the 
 night ; but Dr. Howe, for six weeks, was nowhere to 
 be found by any friendly inquirer ; nowhere to be seen 
 by any friendly eye. The facts were, that no sooner 
 had Dr. Howe distributed his succors among the Poles, 
 than they were changed as from dead men to live ones. 
 A new soul had been created within them, and all in- 
 dications pointed to him as to the Creator. Now let 
 us see what has been the fortune of the moral hero. 
 
 In Prussia, every traveller must go fi-om place to 
 place by public conveyance. All public stages are there 
 truly public ones, for they are owned and driven by the 
 government. However urgent one's business may be, 
 whatever emergency may arise, no private man with 
 private horses or private carriage is allowed to help 
 one on one's way. The government, for police pur- 
 poses, transacts all this business. They register the 
 name of every passenger, note where they take him up, 
 and where they set him down, so that they can tell the 
 outgoing and incoming of every traveller who passes 
 through the kingdom or moves from place to place in 
 it. Hence the blood hounds easily tracked Dr. Howe 
 from the camp of the Poles to his hotel in Berlin ; 
 and at midnight, on the first night of iiis arrival in the 
 city, they knocked at his chamber door. On opening 
 
292 MIKACLES. 
 
 it lie saw three men. They were clad in citizen's dress, 
 and at first only asked him the news from the camp, 
 and requested his a;ttendance before some civil commis- 
 sioners. On his declining to go, he was told he must 
 go ; and on his demanding by what authority, the cap- 
 tain of the band unbuttoned and laid open his citizen's 
 coat, and showed the uniform and the badge that has 
 all the tihunders of the government at its back. He 
 parleyed ; and finally, by promising to attend them in 
 the morning, he gained a respite for a few hours during 
 the residue of the night. Availing himself of this 
 critical period, he selected what valueless and insignifi- 
 cant papers he had which he tore into shreds, shuffled 
 and threw into a basin of water, but all his valuable 
 ones and such as might connect him with the trans- 
 action, he hid in the hollow of a bust of the king of 
 Prussia, which is almost universally found in all pubhc 
 rooms and places of resort throughout the realm. 
 
 With early dawn reappeared the police, who had 
 watched all night at his door, to conduct him, as they 
 had intimated, to some tribunal or company anxious to 
 hear the news. 
 
 Whoever has been in Berlin will remember a vast 
 stone building in one of the most conspicuous streets, 
 nearly in the heart of the city, obtruding its silent hor- 
 rors upon the sight, and striking with fiercer horrors 
 all the recollections and associations of men. It is the 
 government prison, the Bastile of Prussia. There, in 
 a stone room eight feet by six, without fresh air, with- 
 out light, Dr. Howe was thrust, and there began a 
 night of darkness, equally impervious to the light of 
 day and the light of hope, and which lasted six weeks. 
 Of all men and their confederates in the underworld. 
 
MIRACLES. 293 
 
 none but the princes of police, and the prince of dark- 
 ness, knew where he was. No communication by letter 
 or speech was allowed, none save that unseen commu- 
 nication with the great Father of us all, which all good 
 men have, and of which no earthly or infernal foe can 
 i"ob them. 
 
 At the end of two days he was taken before a kind 
 of commission (somewhat, perhaps, like a certain kind 
 of commission in this country, only in that mere des- 
 potism, I believe, the base hirelings did not have double 
 the fee for convicting, which they did for acquitting, as 
 is the case in this land of boasted freedom). That tri- 
 bunal conducted his examination on some atomic or 
 infinitesimal theory ; for they read to him not less than 
 three hundred written questions, beginning with the 
 names of liis father and mother, and evincing the most 
 extraordinary interest in every event that had happened 
 from the day of his birth, and taking down all his an- 
 swers in writing. At the end of two days more, he 
 was taken before the same officers again, and the three 
 hundred and more questions were all put to him again, 
 and again were all his answers taken down in writing. 
 At the close of the second examination, he was re- 
 manded to his dungeon, too small to welcome friend or 
 comforter, but large enough to hold all the spectres of 
 horror or despair, that can ever visit a good man's heart. 
 There, in utter solitude, within stone walls, hard as 
 though each granule in their structure were a tyrant's 
 heart, as though they had been constructed of tyrant's 
 hearts as coral insects build coral reefs, he remained six 
 weeks, having no expectation .of any other linme or 
 tomb but that, unless, indeed, he might be surrendered 
 to Russia, and doomed to Siberian minus. 
 
294 MTEACLES. 
 
 One circumstance wliich transpired, marks tlie un- 
 tiring industry of the Prussian police. At his first 
 examination, he saw that the whole mass of papers 
 which he had torn up and thrown into the water, had 
 been taken out, dried, and readjusted, part to part, as 
 one readjusts the dislocated pieces of a Chinese puzzle. 
 But they did not discover the important papers in the 
 old king's head, — not being Yankees. 
 
 At his arrival in Berlin from the Polish camp, as I 
 before mentioned, he met an American gentleman, who 
 made a call of civility vipon him at his hotel the next 
 morning. The denial that any such person had been 
 there, and the fact that the police had visited the house 
 during the night, aroused suspicions of foul play. This 
 gentleman, therefore, immediately wrote to Mr. Rives, 
 then American Minister at Paris, communicating his 
 apprehensions. Mr. Rives made inquiry of the Prus- 
 sian government concerning the matter, and was offi- 
 cially informed that no American had been there, only 
 a Frenchman, a confederate of the Poles, who pretended 
 to be an American. But he persisted, and finally, after 
 six weeks of negotiation, and to avoid a threatened col- 
 hsion with the United States, the Prussian govern- 
 ment witlidrew its retractile fangs from the flesh of its 
 victim. At night his prison door was opened ; he was 
 put into a carriage, and supposed he was doomed to 
 Siberia ; but the rising sun reassured him, for he rode 
 in an opposite direction. He was driven six hundred 
 miles without stopjjing, and tossed across the Prussian 
 frontier with an admonition never to set foot within it 
 again. His trunk and effects were there all restored 
 to him, except forty-two dollars, retained for prison 
 charges, after the manner of South Carolina, when she 
 imprisons northern colored seamen. 
 
MIRACLES. 295 
 
 When I went to Europe with Dr. Howe, in 1843, 
 his name was found still standing on the proscribed hst 
 in all Prussian frontiers, and he was still forbidden to 
 enter the kingdom. 
 
 The King of Prussia has since relented, for he sent 
 Dr. Howe a gold medal for his wonderful achievement 
 in educating Laura Bridgman, — the medal being of a 
 class bestowed only upon those who have performed the 
 most distinguished philanthropic services. It is a curi- 
 ous fact that this medal was of precisely the value of the 
 prison fees above mentioned ! 
 
 I presume you have all heard something of Laura 
 Bridgman. She was a child, blind, deaf, dumb, and 
 almost utterly destitute of the senses of taste and smell. 
 Here was this glorious world, — Nature, Beauty, Love, 
 Humanity, without ; there, within, brooded, and slept, 
 and moaned, an immortal soul. What North-west 
 passage, or any other passage, shall be opened to that 
 hidden, spiritual continent, more valuable than any 
 new-discovered continent upon the earth, or any new- 
 discovered star in the heavens ? Who shall enter and 
 gather the fruits of this new garden of the Hesperides ? 
 What angel shall convey a spark to kindle the incense 
 already laid upon that lovely, but lonely, sequestered 
 altar ? 
 
 There was but one man who knew how to open that 
 sarcophagus, and bring to life the immortal spirit within 
 it, — and that man was Dr. Howe. 
 
 With what deep emotions do we look back to the 
 moments when great events were preparing for their 
 birth, — to Christopher Columbus wooing from Nature 
 the secret of another continent ; to Sir Isaac Newton, 
 recosnizins the invisible bond of attraction that holds 
 
296 MIRACLES. 
 
 the Uuivei-se in its beautiful order, or to Dr. Howe, 
 ■with Laura Bridgman upon his knee, opening an 
 avenue to her soul, and bringing out the captive into 
 the light of day, and the more precious light of knowl- 
 edge, — into the truths that pertain to time and to eter- 
 nity. Then she was a blank, — voiceless, thoughtless, 
 seemingly inaccessible. Now she is learned, sensible, 
 beautiful, and far more intelligent than the average of 
 young ladies, who have had more than her advantages, 
 without suffering any of her privations. 
 
 Now, I suppose. Dr. Howe has given an equivalent 
 for the sense of sight to more persons, ten to one, than 
 all the Apostles put together. How nobly has he imita- 
 ted the miracles ! 
 
 Although, as Tacitus said of Seneca, " he would 
 make a fit tutor for a prince," yet for more than a quar- 
 ter of a century he has spent his noble and beneficent 
 life among the blind. His last Annual Report was 
 nitmbered the twenty-fifth. 
 
 Dr. Howe is now in his fifty-fifth year. Naturally of 
 a fibrous, most enduring, and resilient temperament, his 
 health was broken down by exposures while in the 
 army of Greece. He is the best specimen extant, of all 
 that was noble and valiant in the old chevalier, and in 
 their day he would have been as terrible and as gener- 
 ous a warrior as Godfrey, or Amadis de Gaul. He is 
 a man capable of all moods of mind, from the stormiest 
 to the gentlest ; with a voice that could shout on a 
 charge of cavalry, or lull a sick infant to sleep. When 
 that ocean of feeling he carries in his breast is calm, the 
 halcyon bird might there build her nest, and brood her 
 young ; but when the tempest of a holy indignation 
 rouses it, navies could not survive its fury. 
 
MIRACLES. 297 
 
 Though devoting himself primarily, and mainly, to 
 his speciahty of benevolence, yet, when that vrorii is 
 done, he engages in other philanthropies. To whom is 
 education indebted more than to him ? He and Charles 
 Sumner did more than all other men to correct public 
 sentiment on the subject of solitary confinement in pris- 
 ons. And the same hand that carried succors to the 
 Greeks in 1826, and to the Poles in 1831, carried them 
 to Kansas also, last year. 
 
 When any benevolent enterprise is undertaken in 
 Massachusetts, his leadership or counsel is always in- 
 voked ; and if he be absent in any critical juncture, or 
 desperate emergency, men cry out as the host of Clan 
 Alpine at the battle of Beal an Duine, 
 
 " One blast upon liis bugle lorn 
 Were worth a thousand men! " 
 
 One of the most striking traits in my hero's character, 
 is its simplicity ; — not merely an absence of pretension, 
 but a negation of it. Unlike many truly great men, he 
 has no particle of self-show, or self-demonstration ; and 
 a stranger might ride with him a thousand miles with- 
 out being informed that he had ever been anywhere 
 that every body else had not been, or seen anything 
 that every body else had not seen. Like an unpolished 
 diamond, the surface is the only unbrilliant part of 
 him ; though dim without, all luminous within. When 
 he writes, or when he fights, the beholder is not dazzled 
 by the sheen of the battle-axe, but the antag'onist dies 
 under the weight of the metal, or by the precision of 
 the blow. Like the Arab's sword which had shivered 
 every sword it had ever struck, 
 
 " Ornament it carried none. 
 
 Save the notches on the blade." 
 25 
 
298 MIRACLES. 
 
 Another leading class of cases respecting whicli the 
 Gospels record displays of miraculous power, refers to 
 demoniacs. I do not propose here to discuss what was 
 the nature or character of this alleged demoniacal pos- 
 session. One class, and a large class of commentators 
 on the Bible, believe that many of the demoniacs were 
 cases of actual diabolic possession ; that a real spirit of 
 evil or devil, one or more, had power to get inside of 
 a man's brain, and take the reins of thought and feeling 
 out of that man's hands into his own hands ; dispossess 
 the true owner, and enter into possession himself. 
 They believe that, in some way, the foul spirit got hold 
 of the cerebral ends of the man's nerves, and through 
 them worked the muscles of his arms, legs, tongue, and 
 the rest of his physical machinery, so as to make the 
 body and the organs of the victim obey the spirit of the 
 fiend. 
 
 Another class of commentators maintains that all 
 these cases were simple cases of what we call lunacy, 
 insanity, or madness, like those we have now amongst 
 us, so many of which are successfully treated at the 
 hospitals ; and experienced physicians say that if you 
 wish to see a case of madness, worse even than that of 
 the man who had his dwelling in the mountains and in 
 the tombs, and whom no man could bind with fetters 
 and chains, — they say if you wish to see a man worse 
 than this man, — you have only to give a drunkard a 
 quart of whiskey, and the devils will need no further 
 invitation, or license, to act " for the public good." 
 
 Now what could be more natural for such a tender 
 and compassionate nature as Christ's, than to take pity 
 on these demoniacs, and to exert his highest power for 
 their relief? But from his time, down to a very recent 
 
MIRACLKS. 299 
 
 period, tliis deplorable class of our fellow-beings lias been 
 abandoned to their terrible fate. Their case has not 
 been understood by the doctors pathologically, nor by 
 the ministers psychologically, and the almost universal 
 public sentiment has been, that insanity was a direct 
 visitation from heaven, and that he alone who had 
 stricken, could heal. The insane endangered the prop- 
 erty and life of others, and, therefore, they must be con- 
 fined. Those who confined them, regarding their own 
 safety alone, and not the welfare of the victims, have 
 shut them up in garrets -and in cellars, in outhouses, or 
 in pits, excavated from the hill side ; have disposed of 
 them anywhere, and in any manner, except by outright 
 murder, which would have been merciful when compared 
 to the slow tortures to which heart and brain were 
 doomed by man's selfishness or superstition. In the 
 most exposed places, they have been kept, winter after 
 winter, without fire, and in nakedness ; and even those 
 who called themselves physicians, have prescribed 
 scourging, and starvation, and suffocation in water, up 
 to the nearest point this side of drowning, and frights, 
 and pretended -sasitations of evil spirits ! Oh, it is in- 
 credible what men have done under the selfish impulse 
 of self-protection, unhumanized by any touch of sympa- 
 thy for the welfare of others. And this was the univer- 
 sal treatment of the insane, throughout all Christendom, 
 until a very recent period. Three or four sporadic 
 cases are all that can be found, in the history of this 
 wretched class of beings throughout all Europe, where 
 such abhorrent treatment as I have described was not 
 their common lot, until the close of the last centuiy. 
 Human love, God-bke by its intensity, has sometimes 
 dared to act from its own impulse to save a beloved 
 
300 MIKACLES. 
 
 friend from the common fate, and if knowledge had 
 come to its aid, a deeper insight into the power Jesus 
 Christ exercised for good might have ameliorated their 
 condition earlier ; but how superstition chains the souls 
 of men ! What is Christ as an exemplar to man, if his 
 power is regarded as superhuman, rather than as di- 
 vinely human ? Would God require man to do that 
 which man cannot do ? — not the God whom I wor- 
 ship ! 
 
 Esquirol was the first man who made any impres- 
 sion upon the public in favor of better treatment of the 
 Insane. In one place he found some twenty of these 
 supposed demoniacs manacled, caged like wild beasts, 
 furiously mad, nestling in their own filth, deserted 
 by relatives, and by all human kind, agonized by the 
 tortures of a malady whose very nature excluded con- 
 solation, and so goaded into hostihty to the human race, 
 that the sight of a keeper threw them into paroxysms 
 of rage. Into these dens of despair Esquirol entered. 
 He unfettered their limbs. He led them out into the 
 pure air and light of heaven. He spoke to them such 
 divine words of sympathy as melt ferocity as fire melts 
 iron. His soul transmigrated, as it were, into their 
 bodies, and he proved that if the devil can get posses- 
 sion of a human organism to torture it, an angel also 
 can take possession to bless it. 
 
 In this country. Dr. Todd, of Hartford, Connecticut, 
 was the first man who ever treated the insane, on a large 
 scale, on humane principles. He was a channing man, 
 — a man to love at sight, — genial, warm, sunny, the 
 benevolence of his heart shone out through his face, as 
 the hght shines through a vase of alabaster. 
 
 But the man who made the deepest impression upon 
 
MIRACLES. 301 
 
 tlie American mind, in tliis sphere of benevolence, was 
 his pujwl, Dr. Woodward, who, for thirteen years, had 
 the superintendence of the Lunatic Hospital at Wor- 
 cester, Massachusetts, which was opened in January, 
 1833. 
 
 On this subject, Dr. Woodward gave a new direction 
 to the whole public mind of America ; and wherever you 
 now go, the best hospitals, in their organization and man- 
 agement, are but little more than a reproduction of him. 
 
 He was a noble man, with an Herculean frame, — a 
 great soul in a great body. I have seen that sinewy 
 hand of his, which could break an iron bar an inch 
 square, wipe the tear from the eye of a hypochondriac, 
 tenderly as a mother caresses an infant. While others 
 would take a company of sane men and turn them into 
 maniacs, he, in the same time, would take a company 
 of maniacs and restore them to sanity. His gigantic 
 frame and his gentle bearing inspired at once both awe 
 and affection. His tremendous physical strength, with 
 his affectionate demeanor, was like an iron hand in a 
 velvet glove. He walked the halls of his asylum like 
 a god. In his presence the most ferocious relented, the 
 most melancholic smiled. As if the all-clasping zone 
 of attraction that binds the stars in their places were 
 broken, and suns and planets should " shoot madly from 
 their spheres," and fly careering through the skies, and 
 some god should emerge upon the scene, and with all- 
 potent voice should arrest their centrifugal flight, and 
 reduce them to their rightful orbits, and send them 
 round again upon their appointed circuits, so he, when 
 reason was dethroned, and each faculty was a maniac, 
 and anarchy raged through the soul, could speak peace 
 25* 
 
302 MIKACLES. 
 
 to all its troubled elements, and bring tlie chaotic 
 realm to order. 
 
 Dr. Woodward had a right to his loftiness and 
 breadth of stature, and to a body that weighed nearly 
 two hundred pounds, without an ounce of adipose bag- 
 ging down anywhere; for he was born of healthy 
 parents, and from his birth had been treated and had 
 treated himself physiologically. He ate according to 
 liis exercise ; he had never tasted ardent spirits ; in 
 wine he was a Nazarene, and he hated tobacco with all 
 his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. 
 
 But in this special form of " good will to man," the 
 greatest ornament of human nature the world has yet 
 known, is a woman, — Miss Dorothea L. Dix, who be- 
 gan her career of benevolence about twenty years ago. 
 She was a young lady of Boston, who taught a private 
 school for a hvelihood. Being very successful, she ac- 
 cumulated a little competence, which was augmented by 
 the legacy of a relative ; and was meditating some en- 
 larged sphere of usefulness. As she was walking home 
 from meeting, one Sunday, after having heard Dr. 
 Channing preach one of those sermons that made the 
 vicious envy the beauty of virtue, and sent men and 
 women into the various spheres where suffering hu- 
 manity needs aid, whether it be to the prisoner shut 
 up in solitude by his own crimes, or to the destitute 
 Avho suffer from the crimes of others (and Boston can 
 show many such men and women, so sent and heaven- 
 recorded), she accidentally heard some one describing 
 the suffering condition of some insane people at the jail 
 in the adjoining town of Cambridge. It was a wind- 
 wafted seed, but into -what celestial soil did it fall ! 
 Her resolve was instantaneously made, in pursuance of 
 
MIRACLES. 303 
 
 which, the next morning she visited the insane in the 
 . Cambridge jail, fovind their condition deplorable, and 
 forthwith began a system of measures for their imme- 
 diate relief, and, if possible, their ultimate cure. But 
 before this work could be accomplished, she heard of 
 others in a distant part of the same county, in a similar 
 condition. These also she visited and succored. As 
 her thoughts were now flowing in this channel, her ear 
 was quick to hear what otherwise would have passed 
 unnoticed ; for we hear and see the things we care 
 about, and but little else. Then her visits extended to 
 a neighboring county ; then to another and another, 
 until she had examined every prison, jail, house of cor- 
 rection, poor house, suspicious-looking barn or outhouse 
 in the State, where an insane person was confined. In- 
 deed she penetrated farther ; she descended into cellars, 
 knocked at closed arch-ways, opened trap-doors ; but 
 when she stood on the borders of the State, here was a 
 limit. She had done what she could for her native 
 State ; let others take care of theirs. Not so did she 
 conclude. Her benevolence poured out, like God's, 
 wherever sorrow held out its supplicating hands to re- 
 ceive it. In her heart, the map of the world had no 
 state or national lines. Soon she was accidentally in 
 Newport, R. I., where a lady of her acquaintance took 
 her out shopping. While abroad, she heard the cry of 
 an insane person. She rushed ftfrth to find the victim, 
 and having found him, she never stopped until she had 
 found all the insane in the State. Then she was really 
 abroad on a voyage of discovery, with the whole world 
 before her. She visited State after State as swiftly as 
 the wines of a strong compassion could carry her. She 
 learned the number and inspected the condition of all 
 
SOI MIRACLES. 
 
 tlie insane in their jails, prisons, and other receptacles. 
 She prepared, printed, and circulated memorials at her 
 own expense. She besieged governors and legislatures. 
 She caused committees to be appointed, and wrote the 
 eloquent reports which they read. She kindled sym- 
 pathy in human hearts ; even misers gave of their 
 stores to her importunity. She changed, at least for the 
 hour, politicians into men. She obtained grants for 
 hospitals, selected sites for their location, prepared 
 plans for their structure, found superintendents for 
 them, and set them in motion. Not content with this, 
 she caused them to be embellished with libraries, music 
 fooms, and means of varied employment, so that sane 
 faculties might be worthily employed to disarm the ac- 
 tivity of insane faculties. She travelled from one end 
 of the country to the other, taking journeys of a thou- 
 sand miles alone, supplying knowledge to meet new 
 emergencies, and subduing sinister opposition, until, in 
 the States this side the Mississippi, including one in 
 Canada, she established nineieen hospitals for the insane. 
 1 say she did it. She did it just as much as God made 
 the stars, or Christ worked miracles. 
 
 After she had founded all these hospitals, she con- 
 ceived the grand idea of obtaining a grant of public 
 lands from the government, sufficient to endow them. 
 
 Accordingly she took up her residence in Washing- 
 ton, and attempted the great missionary work of con- 
 verting the members of Congress to humanity and duty. 
 She presented a Memorial, embracing the whole statis- 
 tics of insanity for the United States, mostly collected 
 by her own indefatigable labors. Then, with infi- 
 nite perseverance, she began the aggressive, creative 
 work of enlightening the members, especially those of 
 
MIRACLES. 805 
 
 the south, south-west and west, one hy one, — transfer- 
 ring her thoughts into their minds, and infusing her 
 benevolence into their bosoms. Almost always she 
 could convert the man ; oftentimes the politician was 
 intractable, — insoluble by any intensity of heat, un- 
 malleable by any weight of blow. I said she began 
 the creative work. It was more. Creation is one, 
 single, sovereign operation. She had an equal prepara- 
 tory labor to perform in removing old prejudices, po- 
 litical fossil bones, petrifactions of old dogmas with an 
 enamel. Hence, in her case, annihilation of the bad 
 had to precede creation of the good, — a double 
 miracle. 
 
 The first session after presenting her Memorial and 
 preparing her Bill, she carried the House of Represen- 
 tatives in its favor, but the Bill failed in the Senate for 
 want of time. The next session, with almost equal 
 labor, she carried the Senate, bnt failed in the House, 
 for alleged want of time. At the first session of 1853- 
 4, she carried both Senate and House, but the bill was 
 vetoed by the President. 
 
 When one considers the moral charm and beauty of 
 the work proposed, the heavenly disinterestedness with 
 which it had been prosecuted, and the ever-renewing 
 fruits of blessedness which would attend its consumma- 
 tion, one could not believe, one would feel authorized 
 to deny, that if the momentous alternative of perfecting 
 or destroying this enterprise could be brought home to 
 any one individual ; if any one person could be made 
 to see, what a hell of agonies he could close up, what a 
 heaven of joy he could open, by ratifying that measure, 
 no mortal could be found who would not shut that 
 door of agony, who would not open that door of joy. 
 
30') MIRACLES. 
 
 The di-unkard would set down his intoxicating cup to 
 seize the pen for approval ; the miser would stop 
 counting his hoards to give his assent ; ay, the pirate 
 would have dropped his tiller in a storm, to give his 
 signature to so blessed a law. But one man was found 
 who could nullify, veto that Bill, — and that man was 
 President of the United States. 
 
 Failing thus, Miss Dix felt the hopelessness of her 
 case for the remainder of that Presidential term. 
 She therefore went to Europe, and has been travel- 
 ling in Great Britain and on the Continent, where 
 she has found access to all Institutions of the same 
 nature, pouring out the blessing of her counsel and 
 her consolations on those that were ready to perish. 
 I must not tell her beneficent plans for foreign lands, 
 nor what high places she has beseiged, 7ior left till 
 they surrendered in favor of their own suffering sub- 
 jects, who were left in groans and bondage till she 
 passed by to succor and to save, — for I might stand 
 in the- way of the accomplishment of that for which 
 she labors. When asked in those sad days of trial 
 and disappointment what she should do next about her 
 American Bill, she quietly answered, " try it again 
 every session while I live," — but she was soon con- 
 vinced that this would be useless. If a beneficent 
 change ever takes place in the administration of our 
 government, from which the very soul of humanity 
 seems to have departed, we will hope, that, whether 
 she li^'es or dies, the change will be sanctified by the 
 law that she in her Christian love conceived. 
 
 What can I say to you, my young friends, to deepen 
 the impression I would leave upon your minds of the 
 character of Miss Dix? Her life is her lono;, long 
 
MIRACLES. . 307 
 
 eulogiiim. Out of the abuntknce of the heart not 
 only does tlie mouth speak, but the hands act. To 
 those who have never seen her, however, I may remark 
 that she is a person of singularly modest and reserved 
 demeanor. ,It seems to require as great an efturt in her 
 to appear before committees, or assemblies of men, as 
 for a soldier to volunteer in a forlorn hope. Again and 
 again have companies of distinguished ladies, her co- 
 operators and admirers, requested her to sit for her 
 picture, or at least for a daguerreotype, but she always 
 declines. Her voice is womanly and low, with deep 
 tones, but never loud ones. An instinct teaches her 
 that a loud-laughing, shouting, screaming lady is as 
 gross a contradiction in terms as a white blackbird, a 
 square circle, or a six-sided triangle. No person has as 
 yet been able to obtain from her any memoranda for a, 
 biography, or sketch of her life. So wholly is she de- 
 voted to doing, she has no time for displaying. Yet 
 with all this retiring sensitiveness, which recoils from 
 public assemblies, she always addresses prisoners when 
 she can, and she will speak to hundreds of them till the 
 sun goes down, and show them how they can transform 
 the Hades of a penitentiary into a mere stopping-place 
 on their way to glory. In such a time-destroying man- 
 ner is she importuned with confessions and requests 
 from prisons for advice, that she once wrote and caused 
 to be printed a circular letter which she sent to all the 
 prisons where she had taught and counselled. 
 
 In her peregrinations she has always travelled alone, 
 carried often by rude drivers in the night time over 
 unfrequented roads, to reach some special destination 
 at an appointed time. Once in passing through the 
 wards of a prison in Michigan, a young man caught 
 
308 MIRACLES. 
 
 sight of her through the bars of his grate, and made 
 known his wish to speak with her. He asked if she 
 did not remember being taken from such a place to 
 such a place, quite a distance, in an open wagon, by- 
 night. On her replying in the affirmative, he said, " I 
 was your driver." " But why are you here ? " slie 
 asked. " I robbed a man of his money," he replied, 
 " when driving him shortly after." " But I had money 
 at that time," she said, " and a gold watch ; why did 
 not you rob me ?" " Oh," said he, fetching a deep 
 breath, " I wasn't devil enough for that." 
 
 I said she had travelled her tens and her hundreds 
 of thousands of miles without accident and without in- 
 jury. I might have added, — without insult. In the 
 perfect virtue of woman there is a defensive armor 
 which is villain-proof. It is doubtless a harsh judg- 
 ment to say that no woman is ever dishonorably ap- 
 proached who has not first signified her permission ; 
 that no man ever dares to invade her sanctuary unless 
 he first finds the enclosures down and sees a beckon- 
 ing hand across the line. Sometimes a heart that 
 knows no guile, an innocence that knows no evil is so 
 far betrayed as to be insulted ; but there is plausi- 
 bility and verisimilitude even in the former postu- 
 late. For there is always a battle of spirits fought in 
 the air before a foot approaches or a hand is raised. 
 It is in this preliminary battle of soul with soul, of eye 
 with eye, of the celestial aura and effluvium radiated 
 by virtue against the Tartarian exhalations of vice ; 
 — it is this preliminary battle that prophecies the fate 
 of the other. Hence there is a female purity that no 
 villainy can invade, for though its weapons are an 
 etherial essence onlv, vet thev arc swift as lishtnina 
 
MIRACLES. 309 
 
 and solid as porphyry ; and whoever dares encounter 
 them, perishes Hke the Israehte who trod upon the 
 foot of Sinai when Jehovah thundered on its summit. 
 Her sanctity was her shield. She demonstrates how 
 moral beauty eclipses all other beauty. The charms 
 of nature and of art become wearisome and tedious 
 in the presence of such moral glory. 
 
 The benedictions of thousands whom she has re- 
 deemed from misery descend upon her, like perpetual 
 hymns of joy. Oh, the sin of envy and coveting, if 
 her consciousness were its object, would be transmuted 
 into a virtue. Though her body yet dwells upon 
 earth, yet the soul of such a being must forever walk 
 up and down the streets of the New Jei'usalem ; and 
 though she declines all worldly honors, however bril- 
 liant, yet the light of the seven golden candlesticks 
 forever shines in her face. 
 
 Who then shall say that man cannot imitate Christ in 
 his grandest works ? All acts of truly disinterested 
 benevolence, however lowly the sphere in which they are 
 exercised, be they but truly self-sacrificing, irrespec- 
 tive of reward, born of the love implanted by the 
 Creator in the soul of man, are real imitations of the 
 miracles of Christ, awakening human sympathies to 
 apprehension of the Infinite. The wild Indian, when 
 made thoroughly to understand that Jesus Christ was 
 willing to suffer that all men might believe his in- 
 culcations of duty, lays down his weapons of revenge 
 and ceases to kill except in self-defence. The apostle 
 Eliot made them understand this, for he acted it 
 out ; many a devoted Catholic priest who has re- 
 nounced the world for their benefit, has made them 
 believe it. But it is difficult to make an Indian a 
 27 
 
312 MIRACLES. 
 
 evil propensities. Drop tliat stone you were about to 
 throw in retaliation for insult ; unclench that fist with 
 which you were about to redress some supposed, per- 
 haps some real wrong ; silence that tongue about to 
 utter words which would poison hke the venom of asps ; 
 expel that wicked imagination that comes into your 
 thoughts, as Satan came into the Garden of Eden, for 
 if you do not drive that out of your Paradise, it will 
 drive you out. 
 
 While you are passing these years of study in college 
 halls, you cannot go forth, seeking the maimed, the 
 blind, or the insane, in distant cities, or on the moun- 
 tain tops. While I am here, I cannot, like Howard, 
 visit all the prisons of the world ; or, like Oberlin, 
 plunge into Alpine fastnesses, where the Gospel and 
 the schoolmaster never were heard of, and, beginning 
 with the spade and mattock, as he did, introduce com- 
 fort and purity, and set the people forth on their way to 
 everlasting life. But you can watch over yourselves, 
 and over one another ; if you see a companion indulg- 
 ing some vicious habit, you can check him, and lead 
 him by the light of your better example ; nay, you can 
 spend a week or a month in winning his regards and 
 good will, and then, through friendship and affection, 
 find an avenue to his heart, otherwise never opened. 
 And I, in my sphere, if years have given me any ad- 
 vantage over inexperience, I can watch and warn, and 
 counsel, ay, if need be, reprove, though every word 
 draws a drop of life's-blood fi-om my heart, and thus pre- 
 pare you for the inevitable trials, the glorious duties, of 
 life. We can thus do as much good in our respective 
 spheres, as if we crossed lands and seas in search of 
 the suffering and ignorant. We have only to follow 
 
MIRACLES. 313 
 
 Clirist's law of life, " Love one another." "Do unto 
 others as you would that others should do unto you." 
 Here is the whole duty of man. 
 
 Probably there is not one of the generous, high-souled 
 youth before me, who would not plunge into the water, 
 or rush into the flames, to save his friend, — to save a 
 child, — not necessarily his own, but somebody's child. 
 We feel within ourselves the power to die for others as 
 Christ did. But can we live for others as he did ? It 
 is far more difficult, I assure you, to live for the truth 
 than to die for it. I have seen the time when, if that 
 would have answered as well, I could have died for a 
 cause as easily as a babe falls asleep ; but to live for it 
 — that is the cutting off of the right hand, that is the 
 plucking out of the right eye. Patient perseverance in 
 well-doing is infinitely harder than a sudden and im- 
 pulsive self-sacrifice. And hence this "patient con- 
 tinuance" is tbe brightest jewel in the diadem of 
 Christian virtues. 
 
 How infinitely better then, it is, to imitate Christ's 
 miracles than to wrangle about their nature, or the 
 means by which they were wrought. They are not 
 inimitable. He has sympathy for us, and looks upon 
 our humblest efforts approvingly. He was " touched 
 with the feeling of our infirmities." He was " in all 
 points tempted like as we are." He was virtuous, and 
 virtue implies a struggle, a choice between the evil and 
 the good. We are moved to a noble emulation of him 
 by his exercise of moral power, not of supernatural 
 power, for there we cannot follow him. We have seen 
 him taken up of the devil into a high mountain, and 
 we have seen him prostrate in the Garden of Geth- 
 semane. It was Christ himself who said, the " spirit 
 27* 
 
314 MIRACLES. 
 
 indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak," and it may be 
 that he said it of himself too. 
 
 My children, begin early this imitation of Christ. 
 Lose no time. Habit has tremendous power. Good 
 and evil grow in us with animating, with terrifying 
 rapidity. Those tottering feet of infancy shall soon 
 traverse continents, its lisping tongue command senates. 
 The resolve to be virtuous, therefore, to be Christ-like, 
 which your heart makes now and here, — oh, what 
 grandeur and glory may it quickly reach ; though fee- 
 ble now as the wing of unfledged bird, yet from day 
 to day it will gather strength, will learn to wheel in 
 wider and wider circuits, and to essay loftier and loftier 
 flights ; — it soars, it soars, — it shoots beyond the 
 stars ; — swift and strong as an angel's pinion, I see it 
 cleave the etherial realms ; — it passes mid heaven ; — 
 it has blessed man, and thereby been sanctified ; it has 
 alighted at the throne of God. 
 
 THE EMI). 
 
AnKK