LECTURES AND  ESSAYS.
BY
HENRY  GILES.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOLUME II.
BOSTON:
TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS.
M DCCC LI.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by
TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court
of the District of Massachusetts.
CAMBRIDGE:
PRINTED BY BOLLES AND HOUGHTON.




CONTENTS.
IRELAND AND THE IRISH....1
THE WORTH OF LIBERTY..             51
TRUE MANHOOD..           80
THE PULPIT...                          111
PATRIOTISM...166
ECONOMIES..                            200
MUSIC........  2:
THE YOUNG MUSICIAN....245
A DAY IN SPRINGFIELD.                264
CHATTERTON...                   276
CARLYLE...2S6
SAVAGE AND DERMODY.... 300








LECTURIES AND ESSAYS.
IRELAND AND THE IRISH.
IN 1848.
THE three journals named below are in opposition
to the British government in Ireland, but with different
degrees of antagonism. " The Tablet" is a paper in
the interest of the Roman Catholic Church, and though
English in its spirit and editorship, it sympathizes with
the struggles going forward in Ireland. It denounces
the Union, it pleads for Repeal; but it does not commit
itself to any danger of legal prosecution.
"The Nation" is a journal pledged violently to
more than Repeal, - peaceably if possible, forcibly if
it must be. It contains much spirited writing, and reports of speeches, that defy the legal authorities, and
despise all compromise. This is the organ of "Young
VOL. II.       1




2             LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
Ireland," and of a portion of the physical-force party.
Still, though it hints at republicanism, it does not openly
avow it. It professes loyalty to the imperial crown,
but disowns the right of the imperial legislature to
make laws for Ireland. The real purport of its views
is, not simply repeal of the Union, but the absolute
nullity of the Union. Meagher is its leading genius.'" The Nation " was not strong enough for Mitchell,
or Mitchell was too strong for " The Nation," and so
he set up the "The United Irishman."  The' United
Irishman carries the doctrine of resistance out in its
most logical consistency, and to its utmost consequences.
It spits upon repeal, it cries for independence; it calls
not only for a national parliament, but for national sovereignty. It laughs at " the golden link of the crown,"
and- holds no terms with O'Connell, to whom this phrase,
we believe, is attributed. It scouts Victoria, and moqks
Conciliation Hall with as much scorn as it does conciliation.  It demands a republic at any cost, and with
fierce earnestness it preaches the gospel of the pike.
It tells the starving masses of Ireland that they cannot
be worse oTff,.and that, with courageous hearts and a
strong right hand, they have the power to be better off.
It goes even beyond a mere republic. It attacks the
present laws and distribution of property, reprobates
political economy and its theories, and insists on a re



IRELAND AND THE IRISH.              3
organization. The editor, John Mitchell, is the son of
a Unitarian minister, esteemed by all men who knew
him while he lived. He closed a good life, and a long
and useful ministry, a few years ago, in the town-of
Newry, in the north of Ireland. His son, John Mitchell,
is undoubtedly a young man of fine talents, ready to
do, and dare, and die; and, if we can judge, prepared
for either fortune, - for victory or death, the tribune or
the scaffold. His eloquence is brief, bold, fiery, and
condensed. If Meagher be the Cicero of the confederates, Mitchell is the Demosthenes of the democrats.
The Tablet calls him the "'Irish Danton," and so far
as strong and burning words, that neither modify nor
compromise, are concerned, the designation is not unsuitable; yet those who know him, speak of him as
singularly gentle in personal temper.
It is not our design to enter into either the politics or
the purposes of these journals; but they suggest some
remarks on the present condition of Ireland, physical
and social.' Ireland" and "Irish" seem very simple terms,
yet do they stand for very complicated things. Ireland,
to an American imagination, consists of space extremely limited; yet, from its earliest history, that space has
been, most minutely divided. It would not, in mere
space, form a leading State of this Union, yet it was




4            LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
once an empire, comprising kingdoms, princedoms,
chieftainries. These kingdoms, princedoms, chieftainries had their respective customs, laws, prejudices, with
the feuds and factions that spring from such a constitution. Even now, Ireland has her provinces, counties,
baronies, in the civil arrangement, with archdioceses,
dioceses, parishes, in the ecclesiastical. The English
invaders found Ireland a country of manifold partitions,
with a people as subdivided as its surface.
" Irish" is a word of most composite signification
also. We wonder at the ignorance of writers on this
country in their strictures on American character. But
surely the ignorance of our own writers on the character of other nations is scarcely less, and much less excusable. We wonder that authors of any intelligence
should confound, under one general idea, the reckless
men of the West with the orderly men of the East; the
ardent men of the South with the cool men of the
North; the men who hold slaves, with peculiar training
as well as peculiar institutions, with other men who
have no such training and no such institutions. Yet
we are, ourselves, in much grosser error in our popular
conception of the Irish. We have, in general, no notion
of them but as exiles and drudges.' Irish " means
with us a class of human beings, whose women do our
house-work, and whose men dig our railroads.




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.             5
Judging merely by the senses, we are not much to
blame, for these are the relations in which, from infancy, we are accustomed to know them. We have indeed
heard of Burke, and Grattan, and Curran, with many
other great names besides; we have a sort of persuasion that these were Irishmen; but when we try practically to consider them  as the compatriots of a mudcovered laborer in the bed of a canal, the contrast is too
violent, and by no force of imagination can we bring
such extremes together. We, as a people, are intolerant of ragged garments and empty paunches.  We
would replace the rags by decent raiment, and we
would fill the paunches with wholesome food; but we
have only small respect for those who come to us in
tatters, and who rush to us from famine. We are a
people who have had no experience in physical tribulation; and we do not understand the virtues or the vices
which such tribulation can produce. We do not know
the fearful selfishness which exceeding want may generate; but neither do we know the blessed charities
which it may exhibit, the holy self-denial which it may
manifest. As a consequence, the ill-clad and destitute
Irishman is repulsive to our habits and to our tastes.
We confound ill-clothing and destitution with ignorance
and vice, for thus they are associated among ourselves;
and that fancy is a rare one which can emancipate itself




6           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
from the power of habit and the impressions of experience. The crowds that cross the Atlantic to seek a
refuge here are, in general, a ragged contrast to our
own well covered masses; and, thus rude in external
appearance, many find it hard to reach the kindred and
immortal humanity which is so coarsely tabernacled.
Many of us look only at the outside; we do not enter
into the soul. We observe the crushed animal, but we
hold no converse with the hidden spirit; we have abundance of pity, but we fail in reverence.
It is a foolish thing to judge of a building by a brick;
but the folly is yet greater not to examine even the
brick. Irish society is but very partially represented
by the portions of it that we have the opportunity of
seeing. The structure of Irish society has been very
variously and gradually built up, and by materials from
a great many-quarries. First, there was the old Celtic
race; then the Milesian; then the Danes; then the
Anglo-Normans and Anglo-Saxons; then the Scottish
colonists sent by the first James; then the troopers of
Cromwell and the boors of the third William. Now
each of these successive invasions deposited a new element of discord, and stratum was laid upon stratum of
rebellion and confiscation. Out of rebellion and confiscation have proceeded perpetual strife and hatred.
But among the worst results, we must regard that con



IRELAND AND THE IRISH.              7
dition of things as the most unfortunate, which transferred the whole soil of the nation to the hands of strangers, and which placed over the people an alien and
unsympathizing aristocracy. We have some observations to make on this condition of things as we proceed.
The English in the beginning found the Irish broken up
among themselves into conflicting factions. This, too,
was unhappy. Had it been otherwise, had the Irish been
one, had they been concentrated into a national integrity, as the Saxons were when William the Conqueror
gained the battle of Hastings, then either the invaded
would have repelled the invader, or one would have
absorbed or exterminated the other. Neither of these
results followed; and the strange paradox is accordingly exhibited in the universe, of a progressive physical amalgamation of the bone and sinew of Ireland with
the bone and sinew of Britain, carrying along with it
an unceasing, an undying hatred of its government.
It is, therefore, very absurd to speak of the Irish as if
they were a single, simple, primitive, unmixed race.
The very contrary is the fact. Perhaps there is not a
country on the whole earth, so limited in its dimensions,
so complicated in its population; and this not only in
the elements that still continue separate, but also in
those that have mingled and coalesced.
It'has been common to ascribe the agitations and




8            LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
disorders which so frequently convulse Ireland, to the
impatient and turbulent passions of the Celt, to his inherent love of battle and disturbance, to his unruly and
rebellous disposition. No position was ever more false
than this; not only is it without proof, but against
proof. The Celts are not especial rebels; and, indeed,
they never have been. The districts in Ireland most
troublesome to Britain have always been those which
the British colonized; and thus it has been from the
days of Strongbow to those of Mitchell. The region in
which Cromwell found his hardest task, and that in
which he left the most atrocious memory, was that
which had its population from English blood. If England has done Ireland wrong, Providence has brought a
chastising retribution on her, by means of her own
children. The sins of English fathers are not merely
visited on their children, but through their children the
visitation comes. The most sanguinary page of Cromwell's campaign in Ireland, is that which'opens at
Drogheda and concludes in Wexford. Likewise in
1798, the counties which earliest entered the conflict,
and which longest sustained it, were those wherein the
descendants of the British chiefly resided. Wexford
fought with desperation, and fought to the last; and
Vinegar Hill, with its broken windmill, remains to this
hour a memento of courage and a monument of despair.




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.             9
Let us now take a rapid survey of the two broad divi,
sions of Irish society. We begin with the aristocracy.
And by the aristocracy we mean, principally, the owners of the soil; we mean, in general, the landlords,
and their immediate kindred. Most of those who have
fortunes sufficiently large live in England, or on the
Continent, deserting at the same time their country and
their duties. The greater number have inherited their
estates by conquest or confiscation; and they have
never become native to the land that gives them luxury,
but that denies life to the wretched men who till it.
Accident has made them Irish, and their life is a long
regret for being so. They scourge the unhappy nation
in which, they have had the misfortune to be born, and
which has had the still greater misfortune to bear them.
The members of this class, who have to stay at home
because they are not rich enough to go abroad, constitute the local magistrates, and fill most of the influential local offices. A large majority of the class is
utterly bankrupt, insolvent over and over. Most of
these men have but the name of property; for what are
called their estates lie under piles of mortgages and
incumbrances. Debt has been heaped upon debt, by
each generation in its turn, so that it would be as puzzling to a lawyer to discover the original possession, as
it would be to a geologist to describe the primitive con



10           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
dition of this planet. Entails, and other artificial contrivances, have long kept estates in families, and held
them from the last action of the law on the part of
creditors. But even if they could be sold, they would
afford only a miserable percentage on the sums for
which they have been, time after time, pawned. There
is a story of an Irishman who travelled over England
with a pig of peculiar sagacity and buoyancy. The
pig was lean, lank, and rough; but she had the vigor
of a race-horse, and the elasticity of a greyhound.
Walls she despised, and gates could not confine her.
Her master, each morning, was a little space on his
road, when she was after him, and each morning they
began a new day most lovingly together. Availing
himself of the animal's excellent qualities, the fellow
sold her at every stage of his journey, being certain, at
each successive sale, that he would have her to sell
again. The pig which was thus so often sold was,
probably, not honestly come by at first. This elastic
animal is no bad representative of landed- property in
Ireland; we leave it to the imagination of our readers
to find out the analogy and to apply it.
Nature has its laws in society, as irrefragable as
those it has in matter. Not in one case more than in
the other can there be any permanent violation of them.
Soor, or late, they vindicate themselves. A state of




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.            11
things like that which we have just described cannot
last. It must die of its own corruptions, or it must explode, by the force of a pressure that has reached the
limit of enduring capacity.  The ancestors of Irish
landlords bequeathed them broad domains, but with
them they bequeathed titles to them that were written
and sealed with blood, guarded by a system of legisla.
tion that was shocking to humanity. They bequeathed
memories of rankling irritation, which the descendants
of the injurers were as unable to forget as the descendants of the injured; which the descendants of the injurers were more unwilling to forgive, Wealth that is
acquired by violence is seldom spent with wisdom.
Economy is as much the offspring of virtue as of labor.
We manage that, and that alone, well, which we gain,
not simply by toil, but by honest toil. Let no body of
men imagine that they can grow rich by conquest. It
is not merely a crime, to assume such a position, it is a
folly, a delusion; it is a blunder. The most dearly
purchased treasure is that which is acquired by the
sword. The highest price for land or gold is blood.
Every nation which has gained either, on such conditions, has perished by them; and it deserved to perish.
The ancestors of the Irish aristocracy, from the Catholic
Normans to the Puritan Cromwellians, thus obtained
their property; they left it to their children, adding to




12           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
it the penal legacy of prodigal extravagance and profligate habits.
Our description is general. We know that among
the gentry of Ireland there are many and noble exceptions; and being exceptions, they have our greater admiration. The most common virtues become sublime,
when the opposite vices are all but universal. When
neglect and oppression of the poor spread over a land,
the spots on which they receive some degree of care
and kindness appear as little Edens; but they are
Edens in a desert. We speak of the Irish gentry as a
class; and as a class neither their origin nor training,
neither their temper nor circumstances, fit them to conciliate, to foster, or to improve the masses that surround
them. They never had power over the hearts of the
people; and that power of coercion which they once
possessed, they have not ceased to love, though they
have forever lost it. We mean, especially, their monopoly of political influence. Their power as proprietors they yet hold and love; they do not fail to use it
either, and to use it as badly as ever. Becoming, as
we have seen, deeper in debt with each generation,
one anticipating the income of the other, their tastes
and desires have, in the same order, been growing
more costly. They may have become more refined,
but they also have become more expensive.  The




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.            13
deadly competition for land in Ireland enables them to
raise rents to the highest sum that human labor can
produce, and to press down living to the lowest condition that human nature can endure. The tenant is
cast upon the ragged soil, to tear from its bosom payment for his master, and starvation for himself. In the
latter he-always succeeds; and when he fails in the
former, the master, by means of arrears, holds in his
hands the power to expel him. The owner spends no
capital on the soil; he builds no houses.or offices; he
furnishes no implements; he pursues no experiments
in agriculture; he does not instruct the tenant, either
by theory or example; and when some year worse than
others leaves the tenant at his mercy, the mercy that,
many a landlord shows is to turn him off, with neither
allowance nor compensation for such improvements as
he has struggled in his poverty to make.
We fancy some of our readers complaining about
the everlasting historical references, to account for the
state of Ireland. Why, we conceive them saying, why
this reiteration of matters that are gone to the grave of
centuries, to explain what our eyes see and our ears
hear? But they are not gone to the grave of centuries;
they were but sown in the living soil of centuries, and
now they are ripened into a heavy harvest of a most
black and bitter crop. We cannot understand present




14           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
events without understanding their historical connection,
and least of all can we understand those of Ireland;
and to us, especially, young among the nations, the
example of our elders is important. As it is, the lesson
that history teaches does not seem entirely needless to
us. Recent as is our independent existence, we have
gone far in the pathway of the Old World, and, instead
of looking to it as a beacon, we seem rather to follow it
as a star. It is more our model than our warning; we
study the lesson the wrong way; and it is well if we
do not in that wrong way outrun the instruction. We,
too, have our oppressions and our injustice. Under the
very shadow of our Capitol, while the welkin rings
with gratulations which are to stir with joy the heart of
France, a mob gathers to crush free thought, - thought
dedicated to the widest liberty and to the highest humanity; nay, at the very time that shouts of execration
were sent across the broad Atlantic, to blast a fallen
monarch in his exile, tyrants with hearts harder than
the hearts of tigers were tearing off their human
brothers and sisters from the region of their native
affections, consigning them to a slavery, compared with
which their former slavery seemed freedom, dead to
their agony of spirit, chaining them with iron, that did
not gall half so terribly as the iron that had entered
into their soul; and all because, prompted by instincts




IiRELAND AND THE IRISH.          15
which God and nature had implanted, they sought that
freedom for which God and nature had designed them.
What a mockery is this? What right have such men
to hoot at Louis Philippe, contrasted with whom Louis
Philippe is an angel of light? What title have such
men to vociferate acclamations for liberty? Liberty is
but insulted by their praise.  We too, seem in a fair
way to enthrone the soldier, and to idolize the sword;
to give strength the place of virtue, and victory the
place of right. But let us not be deceived. God is no
more mocked by nations with impunity than by individuals; and nations, as well as individuals, will reap
according to what they sow. We may despise the
lesson of history, but we cannot reverse its law; and
this law is made evident in the records of all ages.
Wrong and right make no account of time, they are
certain and eternal; their consequences may not be
instantly seen, but they are not lost; nay, they do not
even linger.
There is but one step from the aristocracy to the
peasantry in Ireland, and that step is over a fearful
4precipice into an abyss of indescribable, of unimaginable desolation. There are but few intermediate grades
to break the view, or to soften the contrast; it is' a
yawning gulf, exposed in all its horrors, from which
the gazer shrinks back aftrighted, with a reeling head




16           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
and with quivering nerves. Yet must we, however
loath, ask our readers to lean with us for a moment
over it.
The physical state of the Irish peasantry did not, in
past times, seem capable of being lower than it was.
Even then, it was the lowest which any region of the
civilized world could present. Their dwellings were
hovels; their clothing, rags; and their food, an almost
unseasoned root. But all this was paradise to what
their state has been since, - to what it is now. The
very root which was so despised, we have come to regard almost with reverence; and when we see how, by
the withering of this single root, hundreds of thousands
of human beings withered along with it, we can understand how the heathen Egyptians bowed down to leeks
in worship. The grave of the potato seed was the
grave of men, women, and children; but the potato
died knowing not its -own existence, while the men,
women, and children that perished with it expired in
ghastly and consuming torture, with blank despair of
this inhospitable world; yet, thank God! not untrustful
of a better. (Far off though it was, we heard the low
moaning of that despair, for at the extremities of earth
the heart of man can feel the pantings of another heart
that suffers, and, even where it cannot give relief, it
fails not to give pity.




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.             17
Who can faintly picture what even one family must
have endured in such circumstances?  Think of them
turning their weary eyes around on the arid fields, and
up to the sky, that seemed to grow sickly to them from
hour to hour; awaking in the morning, without a morsel to greet them; watching through the day, counting
minute after minute, awaiting the possible relief that
never came, or that came too late; clasping each other
on the filthy straw, or bare cold floor, through the miserable night; sleeping to dream of feasting, awaking to
die of famine. And yet we have not reached the worst
part of the case. The most fatal pain lies here, not in
the appetites, but in the affections. Look at the emaciated father, who comes in after vain search all day
for food, and has nothing to offer his wife and little
ones but a meal of unwholesome herbs, picked out of
the ditches; look at him when he can find even these
no longer, when competition has consumed them. Has
it entered into the heart to conceive of his affliction?
Yet is that of the wife and mother even greater, who
beholds the' manly form bent and wasted, of him, that
had been once her strength and her guide; who beholds
her chickens clustering about her, opening their craving
mouths for food, and drooping as they get none. This
picture is pale to what the reality must have been; and
of such realities there was no small number. It is to
VOL. II.       2




18           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
be feared that they have not yet passed; nay, it is to be
feared that some are now passing.
The Irish peasant in former days had a hut, such as
it was; but in these days his master hunts him out of
it, as if he were a rat, and the land refuses him a hole
for shelter. The workhouse is full; the jail would be
relief, and he breaks the law for refuge in a prison;
but by-and-by crime itself will be as fruitless as charity,
and the prisons will not bear the throngs that seek them.
In- former days the Irish peasant sat down to his potatoes, and while they laughed in his face, his partner and
his offspring laughed around him. His cabin was of
mud, covered with sods or straw; but it gave him a
home, and, in general, love and peace abode in it. Nor
was hospitality absent. No poor-laws existed, yet were
beggars fed; no work-houses were in being, yet were
beggars lodged; the pauper had his seat at the peasant's
meal, he had his covering under the peasant's roof.
If his condition even then was physically still below
that of the Russian serf or the negro slave, what shall
we say of his present condition? The Russian is a
filthy creature in all his habits; but his filth coexists
with comfort and abundance. His filth is of his own
creation, and he remains filthy because he chooses to
do so. His dwelling is rude, but it is warm; his food
is coarse, but it is plentiful. He is in no fear that any




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.             19
landlord will turn him out, for he has the right to con-..
tinue where he toils, and to die where he was born..
If he must serve the emperor when the emperor com —
mands, he knows what his lot is, and he does not.
complain of it. In general, he glories in it; for to be:
changed from being a serf into a soldier is to rise in hisown esteem. Without overlooking the degradation of.'
humanity and the sorrow which slavery inflicts uponm
the negro, in the mere matter of bodily well-being,
there is no comparison between his state and that of the
Irish peasant. It is the interest of his master that he
shall have at least so much care as shall render him a
salable article or a profitable laborer. His master is
induced to give him a healthy youth, and he is bound
to provide for him in age; it is his interest even that he
shall enjoy mental quiet and contentment, for the more
cheerful he is, the more useful. No doubt he is often
subjected to cruelty; but even to the slave Christianity
is a protection, for it infuses a sentiment into the moral
heart, and creates a power of social opinion, which is
stronger than law, stronger than tyranny; and these, if
they do not break the yoke, alleviate bondage. Unlike
the Russian serf, the Irish peasant's home is uncertain,
and it is his master's desire not to keep him, but to cast
him off; and while all the power is on one side, there
is no acknowledged claim on the other. Unlike the




20            LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
negro slave, the Irish peasant has no hold on the interest of his lord, as he certainly has no hold on his affections. He has no public opinion, in the class to which
his lord belongs, to shield him from oppression, and the
sympathy which he has among his own is such as
tempts him often to revenge himself by methods always
to be lamented. He may stand in manhood or sink in
age, there is none but God on whom he can cast the
burden of his care; for among men, those who feel for
him and with him are as helpless as himself.
We have already stated a sad case, but we know
from every week's report, that, at present, other terrible
elements are at work. The potato withered last year;
this year the pike is forged and whetted. Fierce and
dark passions are boiling in the breasts of men, and
threaten to burst out in the tempest of civil, bloody
strife, with all its hatreds and terrors. Despair has
ceased to be quiescent; it has started up in wildness
from its lair; and shakes its Gorgan locks in deadly
anger; it has ceased to wail, it thunders; and if it does
not strike, it grasps its weapon.
It were vain to enter specially into causes which have
produced effects, such as these we have been describing.
Whatever causes we might assign, remote or proximate,
there is still an actuality before us of a most appalling
character, —a whole people starving amidst fertility,




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.            21
and arising in madness to look for hope in the face of
death. Before this spectacle, abstract questions lose all
their interest; our gaze is fascinated by the misery
which is before us, which stares on us with horrid eye,
and from which we cannot turn away, though we look
on it with trembling. The plain, open wretchedness is
there; but it so appalls us, that we are unable to inquire
or to discuss how it came to be there; and the babble
of discussion on hypotheses to account for hunger and
revolt, by men who feed amply and feed at ease, is as
offensive to our taste as the affliction itself is painful to
our feelings. Whatever series of causes has issued in
the effects which we contemplate, we see evidently and
with alarm that it cannot stop, that it is not exhausted
in these effects. We hope and trust that all these
irritating elements may be lost in peaceful amelioration.
The British power has many and grave crimes to
answer for; but we should lament with no common
lamentation the wound that civilization must receive,
not merely in the disruption of the British empire, but
in any severe shock to it. The shower of lava that
buries a single city, the earthquake that shakes one to
pieces, history notes down in words of pathos and
sadness that move the heart for ever. But the disorder
which should tear to atoms, laws, letters, culture, customs, - which should crumble to dust beautiful struc



22           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
tures of public and private taste, - which should reduce
to chaos arts of fancy and utility, - all of which it has
taken centuries to rear, - would be a calamity to be
compared, not with a shower of lava, a torrent, a hurricane, an earthquake, but with a deluge which should
come down from the black wrath of heaven, and bury
in its flood, not millions only, but the works of millions
also for a thousand years. Yet we feel that in the
British islands affairs cannot continue as they are. In
no part of them are the people contented; in Ireland
they are mad. They are in the extremity of wretchedness; it is no wonder they should be in the extremity
of desperation. The Irish people are starving, and yet
the Irish soil is not barren.  With all the ill treatment
which it has to bear, it yet continues rich; the clouds
pour down fatness and the earth gives forth abundance,
yet multitudes do not so much live as wither. The soil
is vital, while the people die.
It seemed a mystery to the inhabitants of this country how thousands should expire of hunger at a time
when provisions were sent away from every port; and
why, while the war-ship went in with charity, the merchant-ship should go out for gain, both freighted with
the staff of life. The mystery is easily explained. The
manufacture and the commerce of Ireland consists
generally in the production of food and its exportation.




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.             23
The manufacturers are the tillers of the soil, who give
in their labor all the capital, and pay high rents besides
for that on which they toil. The landlords are the
owners of the soil, who expend no capital, and who
take even more than the profit.  The land cannot support these two classes, as they are at present related.
The landlord must have state and luxury, not expending time or labor or money, though the tenant, spending time and labor and money, has not subsistence.
The best of the produce, animal and vegetable, is exported to meet the landlord's demands; the worst is
retained to supply the cultivator's wants. The cultivator must pay or quit. He sells his wheat, his oats, his
stock, to pay; he reserves the potato, on which to exist.
The potato fails; the cultivator becomes a pauper or a
corpse. But all are not thus at once, and so, while
wheat is going out from Cork from some to pay the
landlord, maize is coming in for alms to others, who
have already paid him. A man will feed his pig with
potatoes, but he may never feed himself with pig.
The man feeds the pig but to sell it, and he sells it. to
pay one who had never had trouble in rearing it. R]ent
not only takes the surplus production of the tiller's
labor, but constantly anticipates even more than the
whole. It may, then, easily be seen how the mass of
a plentiful general productiveness may be going out




24           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
from a country, while the mass of its producers are
running to the workhouse or famishing in their cabins.
We write practically and prosaically. We should
more delight ourselves, in writing upon Ireland, to write
poetically; for Ireland has much, indeed, to stir the
spirit of poetry. Ireland is a land of poetry. The
power of the Past there over every imagination renders
it a land of romance. The past is yet an actuality in
Ireland; in all the other parts of the British islands it
is a song.  The tragedy of Flodden Field moves a
Scotchman's feelings, but it does not disturb his business; the battle of Bannockburn calls up his enthusiasm,
but, though it keeps him late at the bottle, it never keeps
him late from the counting-house. The imprisonment
of the poet-king Jemie softens his affections, but it
leaves, his judgment perfectly clear on bills of exchange
and the price of stocks. Even the battle of Culloden
is gone long ago to the calm impartiality of things that
were. The Welshmen take English money without
remorse, and say not a word about the assassin, King
Edward, and the murder of their bards.  Even the
English themselves have but faint remembrance of the
heptarchy, the revolt of the barons, the wars of the
roses, the death of the first Charles, and the abdication
of the second James. But events do not pass so rapidly
in Ireland. Ireland is a country of tradition, of medita



IRELAND AND THE IRISH.            25
tion, and of great idealism. It has much of the Eastern
feeling of passion added to fancy, with continuity of
habit, as in the East, connected with both passion and
fancy. Monuments of war, of princedom, and religion
cover the surface of the land. The meanest man lingers under the shadow of piles which tell him that his
fathers were not slaves. He toils in the field or he
walks on the highways with structures before him that
have stood the storms of time, through which' the wind
echoes with the voice of centuries, and that voice is to
his heart the voice of soldiers, of scholars, and of saints.
We would pen no chilling word respecting the impulse
of nationality that now seems astir in Ireland. We
honor everywhere the spirit of nationality. We honor
the glorious heroism which, for an idea and a conviction, if it cannot do, can always dare and die.
Much there is in Ireland that we most dearly love.
We love its music, sweet and sad, and low and lonely;
it comes with a pathos, a melancholy, a melody, on the
pulses of the heart, that no other music breathes, and
while it grieves, it soothes. It seems to flow with long
complaint over the course of ages, or to grasp with
broken sobs through the ruins and fragments of historic
thought. We are glad with the humor of Ireland, so
buoyant and yet so tender, quaint with smiles, quivering
with sentiment, pursing up the lips while it bedews the




26           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
eyelids. We admire the bravery of Ireland, which may
have been broken, but never has been bent, - which
has often been unfortunate, but which never has been
craven. We have much affection for the Irish character. We give unfeigned praise to that purity of feeling
which surrounds Irish women in the humblest class, and
amidst the coarsest occupations, with an atmosphere of
sanctity. We acknowledge-with heartfelt satisfaction
that kindred love in the Irish poor, that no distance can
weaken, and that no time can chill. We feel satisfied
with our humanity, when we see the' lowly servant girl
calling for her wages, or drawing on the savings' bank
for funds, to take tears from the eyes of a widowed
mother in Connaught, or fears from the soul of an aged
father in Munster. We behold a radiance of grandeur
around the head of the railroad laborer, as he bounds,
three thousand miles away, at the sound of repeal, at
the name of O'Connell, and yet more as his hand
shakes, as he takes a letter from the post-office, which,
rude as it may be in superscription, is a messenger
from the cot in which his childhood lay, is an angel
from the fields, the hills, the streams, the mountains,
and the moors wherein his boyhood sported.  We
remember with many memories of delight, too, the
beauties of Ireland's scenery. We recollect the fields
that are ever green; the hills that bloom to the sum



IRELAND AND THE IRISH.            27
mit; the streamlets that in sweetness seem to sing her
legends; the valleys where the fairies play; the voices
among her glens, that sound from her winds as with
the spirits of her bards; the shadows of her ruins
at moonlight, that in pale and melancholy splendor
appear like the ghosts of her ancient heroes.  We
would, could we choose our theme, rather linger on the
beautiful songs of Moore than on the prosecutions of
Meagher or of Mitchell; and if in this paper we have
dwelt more upon the physical and social want of Ireland than on her higher and more ideal qualities, it is
because the immediate pressure of present events has
left us neither soul nor strength to do otherwise.
But what is to come out of this pressure? We ask
the question with fear and doubt. Is Ireland to come
in conflict with England? We cannot always trust
rumor, but rumor is at present dark and ominous. The
event, we hope, may not come; but the very sound of
it is fearful. War, in any way, is a monstrous calamity; but civil war is a calamity that transcends imagination. War between England and Ireland would be
a civil war, - there is no disguising it, —and a civil
war of the worst description.  We ask not which
party would be right, but still we reiterate that this
would be among the greatest of calamities. We do
not inquire what title England has to govern Ireland,




28           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
but we do ask what means Ireland has to combat
England.
We think that in revolutions, as in all human movements, there are certain ethical conditions, as well as
prudential ones, which true men and wise will always
respect.  War has its morals as well as peace.  Moreover, as war is of all controversies the most afflicting,
as it is that which most involves innocent persons who
have had no part in bringing it about, who yet may
suffer the worst of its consequences, it should be the
last, as it should be the most solemn, of human resolves. And if war is not to be sustained by civilized
measures, if there is no guaranty that humanity even
in its last strife shall be respected, to originate it is to
assume a terrible responsibility. If citizen is to butcher
citizen, if the revolters are to exterminate the loyal,
and the loyal to show no mercy to the revolters, if one
has no power to compel the other even to military
moderation, alas, alas for him who sets on the strife!
Revolution may be an accident; but if it be a calculation, it should be a very sober calculation; at best, it
should be a very sad one. The simple fact, that a man
thinks little of his own life, gives him no title to our
respect; for the lowest of the human family have been
found in this predicament. We have seen culprits at
the bar stand up to receive the sentence of death, and




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.             29
even among the basest we have noticed those who
listened to the sentence perfectly calm, and the most
unmoved. When the lives of others are concerned,
the man who cares nothing for his own often the longest hesitates.  With the most determined conviction of
the right, it is the thing most sorrowful beneath the stars
to have brothers of the same soil making a red sea with
the life-streams of each other's hearts, in which, with
curses and detestation, both sink in despair together.
Then. in cases that involve vast consequences both
to masses and to individuals, the prudential does, in the
highest sense, become ethical; so that what is extremely dangerous is extremely wrong. What are the
means and resources of war, at present, in the warparty of Irelan'd against England? This is not an unwise question, for He who was best and wisest has said,
" What king, going to make war against another king,
sitteth not down first and consulteth whether he be able
with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him
with twenty thousand?"  They who would by force
deliberately revolutionize, must, if true, thoroughly
ponder this question, and in the great court of conscience
they must not only ponder, but decide. A physical
struggle with England, as a mere physical struggle,
would to a thoughtful man just now present a serious
case within this court, and outside of it the conse



30           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
quences would be most solemn. England is at peace.
England is, on the whole, prudent as to her colonies
and her foreign relations. England has fleets and armies compactly organized and thoroughly disciplined.
England impels all the organic machinery of the law
and of power.  Within Ireland she has a numerous
party, and the most consummate statesmanship, which
would oppose Irish nationality; the most veteran soldiership, which would fight against Irish independence,
would be of Irish production. The composite nature
of the British empire, which might appear to be a
weakness, is in reality a principle of strength. And
this, by a revolutionary thinker, should be considered
in relation to the materiel of the British army.
There is no army in the world in which the soldier
is so separated from the citizen as in the British. There
is no army in the world, which, from its compounded
character, the government can better wield. A man
from the north of Scotland may stand in the ranks beside a man from the south of England; both may be
opposed to an Irish insurgent, - be cordially willing to
shoot him, and, if cause demanded, to shoot each other.
The army is so mixed, from localities, religions, prejudices, that it has no unity of spiritual sentiment or of
social purpose; it fears not to rush against the deadliest
resistance, but it would not dare to disobey the most




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.            31
faintly whispered command. England can use this
gigantic instrument. It is for those who would lead
Ireland into war to think what Ireland can bring against
it. She has a tremendous artillery, both on the land
and on the sea. Nor is her strength in force alone.
She has on her side the fears of the timid, and the
hopes of the aspiring; the distinction that allures the
ambitious, and the riches that bribe the sordid.
If, however, there be ethical and prudential considerations to be taken into view on the side of resistance,
there are those of infinitely more solemn obligation on
the side of authority.  On the moral side of the question, it is for rulers to inquire whether the madness and
misery of the people are not traceable to the neglect
and misusage of the people. It is for rulers to ask
themselves whether the millions have had justice done
even to their bodies. Have men had leave to toil, and
when they have had that melancholy leave, have they
had by it the means to live? In what way have the
vanity or indulgencies of the few interfered with the
industry and comforts of the many? And when the
many at last make their sufferings felt, is complaint to
be silenced by force? If in the end the blood of thousands flow, upon whose head must that blood be
charged? The conduct of members in the British
House of Commons? on the evening of the day of the




32           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
Chartest meeting, strikes us with a painful surprise.
Bodies of gaunt men gathered within view of the metropolis, - a cloud of silent but of potent passions, that
hovered on its margin with dread foreboding. The metropolis itself was one vast garrison. Men were silent,
women feared; and neither breathed freely till the assurance came, with night, that danger had disappeared.
On the other side of the Channel, resistance was openly
and fearlessly preached, and it was not alone preached,
but prepared for. On that solemn night, - a night one
might suppose in which the most reckless would be serious, when, if men stood in England on solid ground,
the rest of Europe was heaving with a moral earthquake, - on that night, the assembled Commons of the
British empire met the complaints of infuriated masses
with peals of contemptuous laughter. This was assuredly as far from the grave decency which they owed
to the occasion, as it was from the dignity of senators
and the wisdom of statesmen. When heathen Nineveh
was threatened, her rulers decreed penance in sackcloth and ashes; when Christian London was threatened, her legislators laughed. Such laughter sounds
more like the rebound of cowardice freed from danger,
than the levity of tranquil courage; the laughter, not
of self-possession, but of trepidation. If thoughtless,
it was folly, and if intentional it was worse. Are pro



IRELAND AND THE IRISH.             33
perty, privilege, and power to have all attention and
respect, while want and labor are for mockery and
scorn?  Such conduct implies neither magnanimity
nor good sense.
It is for rulers to ask themselves whether the millions
have had justice done to their minds. Ireland has had
for centuries a church of monstrous inutility and enormous wealth forced on her, against her creed and her
consent, with revenues that would have instructed all
her people, and done much to feed her poor. England
lavishes funds with imperial prodigality over the whole
earth, as well as within her own borders, but is penurious with miser meanness in the support of popular instruction. The cost of Prince Albert's stables would
educate a province. The cost of the queen's nursery
would educate a kingdom. How are incongruities like
this, - and this is but one of a legion, - to be endured
in the nineteenth century, when the human mind has
awakened to its rights and to its power, when human
energies assume a might with which they never acted
before? The most ragged Chartist is a man, as well
as the best clad lord; and take the clothes away, God
and nature have not placed any immeasurable distance
between them, after all. Of the two, the Chartist may
be the better man, and the Chartist is beginning to feel
this. If the Chartist owes submission to the laws of
VOL. lI.             3




34           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
his country, his country owes obligations to him; and
all moralists concede that there is a boundary beyond
which submission ceases to be a virtue. It is the duty
of wise and good rulers never to let that boundary be
reached.  If authority demands obedience, authority
should be so used that the obedience may be willing as
well as rational. This is not only true humanity; it is
good policy.
Thus expediency teaches the same lesson to rulers
as morality. The victory over the Chartists, notwithstanding the boastings of the middle classes and the
nobles, was a doleful victory. If it showed the strength
of government, it equally displayed its danger. Masses
made the commencement of a demonstration, which
may be only the beginning of an end. The Chartists
were dispersed, but was Chartism annihilated?  Were
the grievances extinguished out of the depths of which
Chartism cries with its loud and strong appeal of agony?
It may, for the time, retreat to its cellar-and-garret concealment; moody and wordless it may sit brooding on
its wrongs, but, passive though it seems, it is but preparing for other efforts of greater vigor and of calmer
decision. In the tactics of society, as well as in the
tactics of war, it may be a fatal error to mistake retirement for defeat, or the possession of the field for victory. For the present, Chartism may be discouraged




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.              35
in England, insurrection may be put down in Ireland;
but English Chartism and Irish insurrection, come out
from sources which no outward force can reach.  The
agency that can reach the fountains from which they
spring, that can purify or change the direction of the
streams, must be inward, radical, and moral.  The
pikemen of Ireland, it is true, might be hewn to pieces.
but when bodies lay stiff upon the ground, and gibbets
tainted the air, when native blood darkened the stream
and sullied the field, nothing would result from triumph
but fresh calamities and increase of enmity. Even as
to physical security, the strongest government is liable
to err. Rulers may think themselves safe within their
battlements of bayonets, but their thoughts may be
delusive. Desperation may achieve what no discipline
could attempt; enthusiasm may be more than a match
for skill; passion may shatter calculation; and against
the uproused fury of excited millions, garrisons, artillery, the most solid columns of soldiery, might prove as
feeble as an Indian's tent upon the prairie in the midst
of a hurricane. The risk of collision is great on both'
sides; but rulers have their share in it as well as the
people. How great that is, recent events, the moneylenders of Europe, vagrant ministers, and kings out of
place, can plainly tell. It is better to conciliate than to
provoke: and surely that old saw," Prevention is easier




36           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
than cure," is a precept as worthy of observance by
doctors of the body politic, as by doctors of the body
corporal. What would seem grace at one time, becomes unworthy of acceptance at another; and to know
that point at which concession should anticipate compulsion, implies a degree of administrative sagacity,
and of legislative foresight, which it is rarely given to
politicians or to ministers to possess.
The politician is among the most common and the
most vulgar of characters; the statesman, among the
highest and the most infrequent. England, and other
countries which we shall not name, may start a politician from every hedge; but it requires a generation to
supply a statesman. There is a time when concession
may be grace; let that time pass, and the very offer
becomes insult. It is then too late. " Too late" is a
phrase, in its ordinary use, of harrowing significance.
When love becomes despised, vows are then too late.
When friendship, known often to be violated, implores
reconciliation from betrayed friendship, distrust has
entered, and the prayer is too late. When disease has
fixed its seat in central vitality, and the neglected physician is called to remove it, he looks only on the eye,
he touches only the pulse, and he says, it is too late.
That" too late" is despair to those who hear it; but
the fact is certain then, and they cannot remove it with




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.              37
many tears; no, if their tears should make a deluge.
"Too late" is the burden of all the tragedies of individual and of private life, and just now it is the burden
of desolated thrones. The individual heart that breaks
in its remorse groans out, " It is too late;" and so does
many a royal oneexclaim, that withers in its exile.
" Come, let us sit upon the ground," says one of Shakspeare's characters, to another, " and tell strange stories of the deaths of kings." The phrase, to suit our
present age, should be, "Come, let us sit upon the
ground, and tell strange stories of the flight of kings."
England's sovereign may feel secure amidst the crash
of dynasties; but those who would keep her safe, must
not despise the warning that booms around them. If
her throne would be secure, it must be founded in
righteousness; and if her sceptre would be honored, it
must be a sceptre of peace. Her throne must not have
beneath it the fear of any, but the love of all; and her
sceptre must be a wand that waves not amidst complaints, but amidst blessings.  England may seem
strong, Ireland may seem weak, but there is no strength
except in justice; and if Ireland, in this, has the advantage of England, she is stronger, though Ireland were
small as the Duchy of Baden, and England were large
as the empire of China.
After all, we are moralists, not politicians, and we




38           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
cannot forget our vocation. We may be accused of
repetition, but we shall not risk the charge of unfaithfulness.  England has been deeply guilty towards
Ireland, and Ireland has now become her punishment.
England, within late years, may have had kinder intentions towards Ireland, than the England of former ages;
but, notwithstanding her kind intentions, the Ireland
which she so long ill treated, has become her perplexity and her penalty.  The Ireland, which, by
neglect, by partial or adverse legislation, she has
impoverished or kept in poverty, deluges her cities,
swamps her labor-market, paralyzes her industrial energies, reduces the wages of her people, and continues
to pull them down rapidly to Irish hunger, Irish nakedness, and Irish despair. Wrong is indissolubly bound
to retribution. This we have before expressed, but it
can hardly be too often reasserted. Nations, as well
as individuals, may want that large foresight which sees
afar into the future, and which perceives, in all circumstances, that it is not merely the dictate of virtue, but
the wisdom of calculation, to deal justly, to do right.
They may be blinded by the present passion or the
present gain, but the law works on, though they do not,
or cannot, or will not see it, until the crash of its power
awakens them to doom.  Late repentance is better
than perpetual sin, but sin plants seeds of evil which




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.            39
produce their envenomed crop, despite of the most
penitent remorse.  That justice alone is safety, and
that unrighteousness is sure destruction, is written on
every page of life, on every page of history. It is a
lesson which all that run may read, and yet it is a
lesson which is as universally neglected as it is universally admitted.
Physically, socially, morally, the present state of
Ireland is most gloomy and most disastrous. Hunger
and hatred go hand in hand; hunger yearning for the
potato, while hatred prepares a pike. The cloud of
agitation gathers, and seems every hour to grow darker.
The bursting of the cloud threatens to be near; but as
yet, there appears among the people no man who could
"' ride upon the whirlwind, and direct the storm." The
people are not only divided into manifold and inveterate
parties, but parties are again divided among themselves.
Young men harangue the people against the troops, and
these troops preserve their lives from the passions of
the people.  What mind has yet shown itself so calm
in thought, so comprehensive in reflection, so decisive
in action, that it could reconcile all the contradictions of
popular Ireland, and bring them united and compacted
against the disciplined and regulated force of England?
Fervor tlhere is in abundance; enthusiasm, passion,
ready utterance, and daring speech, the most impulsive




40           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
eloquence. We doubt, indeed, whether in Ireland, in
the grandest day of her oratorical renown, there ever
shot forth a crop of finer words than comes out now
from the soil of her young and impassioned genius.
But though a great man said that" words are things,"
the agents who have created greatest things, were men
of fewest words. Washington could not have made an
oration to save his life, and Jefferson, who wrote the
Declaration of Independence, had but small power of
thinking on his feet. We do not,underrate the force of
grand and impassioned speech; we hold that utterance
is a sublime faculty, that it can set the brain on fire,
and the heart in flame; but to guide a nation, when
that nation has reached its climax of excitement, the
finest utterance will be feeble; It was Moses who led
the hosts of Israel out from Egypt, and to the borders
of the promised land, yet Moses was poor of speech.
Aaron, who was eloquent, was but the mouth of Moses,
and Aaron was always only secondary. At the present
hour we behold on the popular side in Ireland, no commanding mind, no mind of large capacity for counsel,
no mind of varied resources for command. There is
no great mind on the other side either, but the other
side controls all the machinery of government, and has
all the prestige of power.
*We sympathize with the sufferings of Ireland, and we.




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.            41
lament her evils; we look with a painful interest upon
her present crisis; but at this distance, were it even
within the province of our journal, it would be idle in
us to speculate on remedies. Whether a repeal of the
Union would remove the grievances of which Ireland
complains, it is not for us to say; it is clear, however,
that the enactment of the Union did not prevent them.
When the Union was first mooted in the British Parliament, Pitt presented the measure in a speech of
remarkable compass and power. Imposing as a rhetorician, quick as a debater, and possessing a fluency wonderfully correct, Pitt was seldom grandly eloquent, but
in this speech he became so. In picturing the future
which was to open upon Ireland under the sunshine of
an imperial parliament, he rose to a kind of millennial
grandeur. Sectarian strifes were to be allayed; political divisions would be assuaged; capital would flow
into the country; industry would be encouraged; commerce would advance; tranquillity and comfort would
abound. Large promises were given, and bright prophecies uttered; but where are the fruits of the
promises, and where are the things foretold in the
prophecies? After half a century,'there is not one
spot in Ireland which answers to the anticipations of
Pitt. The Union was no measure of the people; it
was a contrivance of intriguing ministers, effected by




42           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
acting on the base motives of men, who grasped at the
bribe and gave up their country.
Had the Union been honest, had it been the fair
choice of the whole people, and on terms approved by
their wisest counsellors, had it been cordial and reciprocal, it is not for us to conclude, from what we now
see, what might have been. Had imperial legislation
given emancipation at once to the Catholics, and given
it generously and graciously; had it relieved the country from the Church establishment, and left the care of
each form of religion to those who professed it; had it
introduced a bounteous system of national education;
had it treated the sacred feelings of the larger division
of Irishmen with kindness and respect; had it done justice to popular sentiment in the distribution of political
offices; had it separated the administration of law from
the spirit of faction, by showing the misguided that the
balance of justice never swerved except on the side of
mercy; had the Union been a bond of friendship and
an interchange of benefits, -it would have been a
reality. But none of these things took place, and as it
was, it was not a union, but a cheat. The delay to
grant Catholic emancipation doomed the people to
thirty years of struggle, and the manner in which it
came at last tended rather to irritate than to pacify.
The long struggle educated them in the consciousness




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.              43
of their strength, taught them how to use it, and emboldened them for continued resistance. The galling vexation of tithes and church-rates was long sustained, and
that huge anomaly, that monstrous blunder of folly and
injustice, still remains,-a Protestant Church supported
by a Catholic people; the Church the richest in the
world, and the people the poorest.
The Union has assuredly not produced social order.
If it has, where are we to look for it? Shall we seek
it in Conciliation Hall, or in that of the confederates?
Shall we hear its voice in the modulated complaint of
John O'Connell, or in the fierce defiance of Smith
O'Brien; in the florid imagination of Meagher, or the
concentrated passion of Mitchell? Shall we turn, for
its pleasant sounds, to the anvil on which the pike is
shaped? There is the " Song of the Bell," and the
" Forging of the Anchor;" shall we dedicate a lyric to
the social order of Ireland in the " Song of the Pike? "
Shall we take, as an evidence of its existence, the congregations of moody peasants that a word can bring
together, and that a motion can excite?  Or shall we
prefer to see it in fortifications, where death lies in wait
for thousands, should these thousands show signs of
fight? The truth is, the whole condition of Ireland is
disjointed, and whether Repeal could remedy it or not,
we do not aver, but, as we have observed, the Union




44           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
has, at least, not averted this monstrous, this appalling
wretchedness. The wealthy and the poor are in no
true relations to each other. Their relations are those
of coercion on the one side, and sullen discontent on
the other; a discontent that seems growing to the boldness of an open resistance. Complainings are in the
streets; disease is in the hovel and the cellar; the dying
go where the weary are at rest, and the surviving stay
behind, not knowing how to live. Cities have become
garrisons; palaces are turned into barracks; the land
is bare of bread; it is filled with soldiers. Come the
tourist into Ireland, whence he may, — from France,
England, Germany, Russia, Asia, or America, from
any region of civilized man between Cape Horn and
Gibraltar, from the Ganges to the Tiber,- the wonder
is alike in each, the testimony as uniform, the expression
of it as unvarying in phrase, as the sources from which
it is derived are diverse and independent, -each finds
in Ireland a singularity of wretchedness, an originality
of misery, which outruns not only his experience, but
his fancy. Well said Colonel Napier, while describing
the state of Europe at the commencement of the peninsular war, -" Of Ireland it is unnecessary to speak;
her wrongs and her misery, peculiar and unparalleled,
are too well known,.and too little regarded to call for
any remark." The author who wrote these words is




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.            45
at present commanding, we believe, in Ireland. What
would he say of Ireland, if he should undertake to
write another book?
These agitations in Ireland arise from no superficial
causes. It is short-sighted and vain, to ascribe them to
temporary influences, or to the agency of individuals.
As well might the fever which burns through the body
of a patient be ascribed to the quickness of the pulse,
which is the concomitant, but not the cause, of the
disease. No man, no class of men, no combination of
talents, no force of genius, no subtlety of scheming, can
widely agitate or long control millions of people who
are governed well and feel that they are. No such
power can disturb a nation permanently, when the
masses of it are content; and they will be content,
when they know by experience that in its prosperity
they have their due share, and in its adversity no
more. The potency, therefore, which leaders have
over multitudes, they gain not all from character, not
all from mental superiority; they gain it from the
uneasy elements which the multitudes themselves contain. Though the Irish leaders, therefore, were as
bad as their opponents paint them, the question as to
the real condition of the country would remain the
same; that is a settled fact, untouched entirely either
by the eulogium or the abuse of this man or the other.




46           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
These agitations cannot be subdued by force, for though
they may disappear for a period, it is only to come up
again with maturer strength. They arise from radical
causes, and they will cease only with radical changes.
Whether by an imperial or domestic legislature, Ireland
must be governed by her consent, not by coercion,
by the power of opinion, and not by the edge of the
sword. She must no longer be a military province.
She cannot continue to be as she has been and as she
is. The time has come for her to insist on a higher
place in the empire, - in the world, - and not insist
in vain. That she ought to have it is the decision of
that sentiment of justice, which acts strongly, and
more strongly with every successive change, in the
conscience of all Christendom.
In the opening part of this article, we suggested a
lesson of warning to be learned from the present state
of Europe. In this closing part of it, we would suggest
a lesson of encouragement. The youngest and the
oldest of us have heard little from the political writers
of Europe but prophecies on the instability of our
government, or on the certainty of its failure. We
were either so wise or so rash as to take no alarm from
these prophecies. That we were right to feel at peace,
most of them will now admit. These forebodings were
written under the shadows of thrones that have tumbled




IRELAND AND THE IRIS]H.           47
to pieces about the writers' ears, and the thrones, which
were to stand securely on their simple and sound
foundation, while our clumsy and unwieldy confederacy was to go to pieces, went in fragments to the earth,
before the ink was dry upon the printer's paper; yet
probably our institutions may be firm, when dynasties
that mocked us shall be forgotten. Our government,
it was said, was but an experiment; it proves now not
an experiment, but experience, — an experience from
which men of ancient states are wise enough to learn.
We have our mobs, and mobs often of the worst kind;
but they quickly dissolve, and leave no more impression
on the solidity of our social structure than a snowshower does upon the granite of Monadnock. We have
evils among us, we confess, that cry to heaven; we
have abuses of which we may well be ashamed; we
have sins that call for deep repentance; yet, not indulging in any idle trust, but active with individual
effort, we may hope that Providence will in time cause
much that we lament -that the good and true every
where lament - to be seen and known in our country
no more forever.  We may have unworthy men in the
administration of our affairs, and unworthy motives may
often dictate our measures. In this we are not singular
among nations; but we are thus far singular among
nations, that the substantial rights of the people cannot




48           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
be essentially injured even by the bad purposes of
scheming politicians, nor the framework of the govern.
ment overturned. We preserve unity with a diversity
of independent states, and with a widening and complicated suffrage.  With the greatest latitude of individual action and individual opinion, the administration of
affairs is conducted, upon the whole with order and
tranquillity.  We have, as have other countries, crimes
against life and property; but, except in some wild regions, life and property are as safe here as anywhere
upon earth.
One fatal mistake the rulers in Europe committed,
from which we were free. They supposed they kept
power from the people because they kept the franchise
from them. But people have power all the same,
whether they possess the franchise or not; and the
people will use it, too. The question is, In what way
will they use it best? By irregular demonstrations and
by external pressure, or by orderly arrangement and
organic representation? Each man here acts through
his vote, and, as all the people have votes, there is not
even the possibility of an external pressure. It is by
this external pressure, by this irregular agency of the
unfranchised mass, that revolutions are effected; and
no nation thus circumstanced is secure from revolution
otherwise than by force. But force has greatly lost its




IRELAND AND THE IRISH.            49
power, and will soon cease to be a protection. If men
are not fit for the franchise, then it is the duty of governments to qualify them. The duty in our country is
so to educate men, that they may use intelligently the
votes they hold of right; the duty of other countries is
so to educate men, that they may be prepared to use
the votes which, if not given by reform, they will take
by revolution.
The agitations which at present excite all Europe are
of solemn import. They indicate a progressive development of great ideas, a progressive recognition of
grand principles. The soul of humanity has been at
work in them, and that is a power which no armies can
conquer. From the soul, society has its existence and
has its glory. Give the soul freedom, and there is life;
straiten it, wrong it, and you prepare destruction. It
has a might which can sweep away the strongest ramparts, which can silence the loudest cannon, which can
blunt the sharpest spears. The point of the bayonet, it
was once thought, could quiet all popular remonstrance;
but the bayonet has ceased to be invincible. Sentiments have become stronger than weapons. Society
begins more and more to feel its humanity. A revelation has come to multitudes that they are men, and it is
this faith which works in them with most wondrous efficacy. It is in the strength of this that they burst their
VOL. II.       4




50           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
chains asunder, and dash their fetters at their keepers.
Beneath the outward events of the world - the battles
of parties, the schemings of factions, the plottings of
intriguers, the elevation of peoples, and the fall of kings,
the doings of the active, and the theories of the speculative,- the Providence of God is operating in the
depths of humanity, invigorating its capacities, guiding
its destiny, and preparing it to vindicate everywhere
that Divine likeness in which it was originally created.




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.
WHAT iS the worth of Liberty?
Within the limits of this inquiry, all that I propose to
say on the present occasion will be confined. Of course
I refer mainly to civil liberty, although I do not exclude
all reference to liberty in its more spiritual relations.
I do not attempt to define liberty, either civil or moral.
What civil liberty is, we all practically comprehend,
and if we do not, defining it would not enable us. I
will simply mention the following, as a few of the leading attributes that belong to it: Supremacy of law;
equality of all before the law; the interests of all embodied in the law, contemplated by the law, respected
by the law; the representation of all in the enactment
and changes of the law. To these we may add the
provisions which wisdom and experience suggest, by
which such conditions can be most thoroughly attained,
and most inviolably preserved.




52           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
What is liberty worth? Liberty is worth whatever
the best civilization is worth. The best civilization,
even if we confine our idea of it to physical advantages,
is not that in which these advantages are greatest in
specific accumulations, but that in which they are
greatest in general distribution; not that in which they
are monopolized by the few, but that in which they are
shared by the many; not that in which one man has
luxuries and ninety-nine men are wretched, but that in
which the hundred have adequate support, that in
which, if some have more than moderation, few have
less. But how is such a distribution to be secured?
Not by formal methods. The end will be most surely
obtained by interfering as little as can be with the laws
of nature; giving the individual confidence that he
shall have what he can produce, thus inspiring him at
the same time with a feeling of self-interest, as well as
self-restraint; giving him the experience that the community returns to him good immeasurably beyond the
value of any thing which it takes from him; thus associating in his conviction, the identity of personal security with social order. But it is not physical advantages,
merely, that liberty, wide, generous liberty, most creates, and most distributes; but whatever belongs to the
higher nature of man, and the truest greatness of a
state; whatever gives dignity to the one, whatever is




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.             53
fairest and noblest, whatever is most vital and most
exalting in the other.
That is not the best civilization, therefore, which regards men as masses, but that which regards them as
individuals. It is not that which can use them in multitudes to accomplish huge works, at which futurity
may wonder, but in which these multitudes have no
interest themselves; it is not that which can use them
as armies, without personal choice or civic need, to be
sacrificed by thousands in gigantic and grim idolatry to
the bloody vanity of empire and of conquest. This is
all consistent enough with despotism; it is not at all
consistent with freedom. There is nothing which is of
imposing magnitude, nothing of mere physical aggrandizement, which despotism may not achieve, nay, most
rapidly achieve. But this is not a genuine civilization.
Despotism may build up mighty cities, but it does not
build up a noble people; despotism may erect lofty
pillars and pyramids, but it does not erect a lofty manhood; it may cut roads across mountains and carry
water over valleys, but it does not make highways upon
which knowledge may run to and fro, nor send streams
of comfort and virtue to men's hearts and homes. Liberty, especially liberty with the gospel, does the latter
first; and in good time it does the former also. I repeat it, the best civilization is that which respects the




54           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
individual; that which shelters his home; that which
gives him a sphere for his industry, and secures to him
the fruits of it; that which protects him from bodily
want and mental degradation; that which provides for
him the means of intellectual and spiritual improvement, of intellectual and spiritual enjoyment.  For
what does it benefit me, that wealth and splendor are
around me while my days succeed each other in toil
without reward, and in wretchedness without hope?
What is the benefit to me, that men breathe the same
air as I do, whose names are emblazoned. by renown,
while I am denied even a chance of the most ordinary
human privileges? What is the benefit to me, that
the nation in which I have little but existence, is stupendous in its power, terrible in its grandeur, august in
the midst of the world, glorious in the triumphs of arms,
enriched by the spoils of empires, proud in the lore of
ages, in the discoveries of science, in the adornments
of art, - if I am lost in the blaze of this light, if I am
crushed under the weight of this glory, if I am reduced
merely to a thing of muscle and appetite, if from the
gross and dreary blackness of poverty and ignorance I
never can emerge, to know the dignity of thought, to
feel the joy of beauty?
Nor are the finest meanings in the life of man only
thus hidden from me, but the finest meanings, likewise,




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.              55
in the works of God. For me the flower springs in
vain; in vain the streams sing along in music; in vain
the garden or the forest blooms; to me the mountain
is merely a heap of earth, the cloud a senseless vapor,
the torrent an empty noise, the ocean a boundless
obstruction, the heavens a collection of glimmering
sparks'; blind in my intellect, vacant in my imagination, insensate in my feelings, my eyes have no true
sight, my ears have no true hearing, my heart has no
inspired emotions, the vastness or the fairness of the
universe is not mine; and in the midst of it all I crawl
imprisoned in slime and gloom.
Ask for the achievements of liberty, - some will
lead you to legislatures, and point you to its assembled
representatives.  Some will take you to its battlegrounds, tell you the story of its struggles, and show
you with pride the sublimity of its monuments. Some
will go with you to the arsenal and the fortress, direct
your attention to the' ship of war, silent in the harbor,
but in which thunder sleeps, which a touch can awake
at the stealthiest approach of danger. Some, not thus
warlike, will rather refer you to the dark forests of merchant vessels that lie before you, which are winged messengers for the exchange of riches with every climate
of earth. Some, actuated by vanity, will conduct you
through the finer parts of cities, where you are lost in




56           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
the majesty of private palaces, or dazzled amidst the
splendor of fashionable stores. Some, devoted to money,
will explain to you the beauty of the new Exchange;
enlarge on the architecture of the leading banks; from
solidity of structure pass on to solidity of capital; become eloquent on the price of stocks, and warm to
rapture in the ecstasy of cent. per cent.
Not, however, to the turmoil of cities, but to the quiet
of the country will I take my way to seek for the noblest
doings of liberty. From an elevated spot I will gaze
around on the serene landscape, watch the cattle that
cover the hills, follow the husbandman as he guides the
plough, and turns up the soil he owns. I will descend
into the mechanic's shop, and converse with the occupant, intelligent, industrious, and independent. I will
go here and there, into cleanly dwellings, each giving
signs of peace and comfort, none of squalor or starvation. I will linger through the village; I will stop on
the plot before the common school, and refresh the
spirit of fatigued maturity by watching for a while the
gambols of rosy and laughing childhood; I will venture,
as I pass, to enter the academy, and there survey the
studious diligence of brave boys and blushing girls. If
there be a town meeting, I will pause for a time; and
listen to homely, but unshackled legislation, which provides support for the poor, instruction for the young, and




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.               57
supply for such other matters as concern the general
welfare of the community. The church, new or old, as
I go by it, carries me back to other days; it transports
me also to the future and the skies; I feel the presence
of God in its silence, and around it an atmosphere of
holiness and of the Sabbath. In the greenwood shade
beyond, I find the colleges of an enlightened university,
where youth.that thirst for knowledge may have it abundantly and generously. Yes, industry, plenty, education, learning, religion; these are to me the holiest
triumphs of liberty; and for these I most hail it, and
most for these I love it.
Civilization such as this is the civilization of peace.
It is sown in peace, it grows in peace, and in peace
alone it can fully ripen.  War in its best, in its most
defensible existence, interrupts such civilization, and
obstructs it; war, in its noblest form, is not in the region
of the higher sentiments, or of true reason, but simply
in the region of the instincts. The bravest warriors
will admit this; they know that if men were guided by
pure sentiment and true reason, the occupation of the
warrior would be gone; and the most experienced of
soldiers will be readiest to make the confession.  Yet,
until men advance so far as to feel pure sentiment and
true reason as motives, and to subject and subordinate
instinct to their supremacy, we must still be just to the




58            LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
nobler instincts in man, even though they be but instincts. A despot may use the instinct of fight, which
man has in common with all other animals, for his
tyrannic will. His instinct may act in obedience to the
most servile cowardice, to the most brutalized habit.
Ignorance, poverty, despair, are the best of recruiting sergeants.  But, then, there are cases, when this
instinct, of itself, bounds to the battle, and when it is
not only free, but joyous in a generous fight. Like
the eagle sleeping with its young, it slumbers in a deep
repose; but, when the robbing hand comes near, it
awakes in its fiercest strength. The hen is valiant for
her brood, and for hers, too, the dove is warlike. The
patriotic instinct thus repels the invader, and battles for
its homes; and, until the Gospel raises us into its own
purity of sentiment and truth of reason, I see not how
we can be void of this instinct or be false to it, without
being ignoble. But, patriotism, even of the best kind,
has ever in it an element of self.
Another case occurs to me, in which this instinct
may be excited by an impulse, if not more pure,
at least, more disinterested; and that is, when it is
moved to aid the feeble in their right against the
powerful in their wrong; then the heart of an angel,
if placed in the body of a man, would make his
hand the hand of a soldier. Still war, itself, origin.




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.              59
ate how it may, and issue how it will, is, in its immediate action, the saddest manifestation of humanity.
War, if extended, and long continued, oppresses or
destroys industry, lessens comforts, paralyzes education, debases morals, undermines and corrupts religion.
The highest liberty is in harmony with the highest
laws. But war, for the time, suspends all the highest
laws; war gives force the place of right, and force
must hold that place, while war goes on; war gives
force the place of the Gospel, and it reverses nearly
every charity which the Gospel enjoins. The injunction of the Gospel is to do good to an enemy; but that
of war is to do him injury, and all the injury that is
possible.  Nay, the ethics of war maintain that this
is the most humane, because the more terrible the evil,
the sooner its conclusion. Nor is it to the direct and
fighting foe that the injury is done, but to the innocent who are associated with him; not to the strong
man only, who stands against his opponent, face to
face, and foot to foot, but to the woman sitting by the
cradle, and to the guileless child that sleeps in it.
War, bloody, cruel, and ruthless, lets fly unheeding its
missiles of destruction, cares not where the ball shall
kill, or where the bomb shall burst; and, whether they
tear to fragments the sunny boy, that last night was
dreaming of his sports, or mangle the beautiful girl




60           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
who was enchantment in her home, it is still the same
in its blind atrocity. Without imagination, without sensibility, it goes forth to butchery; and when it has made
a slaughter-house of some fair spot, rent to pieces
thousands of human bodies, temples of the Holy Ghost,
it yells forth its triumph for a work in which we might
suppose that only devils would rejoice; it puts forth
its hallelujah amidst such agonies and such crimes, that
we might conceive that only hell would give it an
amen! The fruits of the Gospel are love, forbearance, meekness, purity, joy; those of war are hatred,
vengeance, lust, carnage, and misery.
The best progress is analogous to the best civilization; the best progress does not consist in accumulation of wealth. That nation in the world which had
the earliest revelation of holy things, and which was,
for centuries, the treasury of divine ideas, was, upon
the whole, a poor nation. That nation, too, which has
been of all nations, the most perfect in human development, was never rich; that nation, which embodied
all conceptions of the beautiful, and so transcendently
embodied them, that mankind have done nothing ever
since, but admire them, and despair; that nation, which
carried intellect to the limits of thought, and exhausted
all philosophies; that nation, which gave to language
enchanting harmony, and enriched it in epic, lyric,




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.              61
drama, history, eloquence, with a literature that is
unrivalled and immortal; that nation, which gave to
virtue, examples of heroic worth which shame the
selfishness of every age, and to patriotism, names so
illustrious and inspiring, as still to set the coldest blood
on fire; that' nation was scattered among crags in
the Mediterranean, and had, probably, never so much
wealth as some mercantile associations of our own day.
But, lacking, as that nation was, in gold and silver,
it has bestowed imperishable wealth on all succeeding
generations; it has furnished to them all the types of
their mental existence, all the ideals of their artistic.
aspirations; it has entwined itself with all the fibres of
civilized life, animates its movements, and shapes its
forms. It is often when wealth accumulates, that men
decay. The decline of Rome began when it was
gorged with the riches of the provinces. The downfall
of Spain may be dated from the foundation of its
empire in the West. It is well if empire in the East
does not work the same ruin for England.  One thing
is plain, for it is before our eyes, that England, at the
present day, is at once a miracle of wealth, and a
miracle of wretchedness; that her treasures surpass
all that the world has ever seen, and so does the suffering of her millions. The lesson is true and terrible.
The best progress is not evinced by a rapidly ad



62           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
vancing population. Supposing even that people have
both room and plenty, still, for the security of national
happiness and national development, character is infinitely more important than numbers. Without character, without the guidance of morals and reason, they
are, after all, so much muscle, appetite, and passion.
With the utmost scope, and the most abundant subsistence, it strikes me that there is something in such a
state of things which is fearful and tremendous. Trust
nothing to mere brute man, for the very element of
reason, which nothing can wholly destroy, when not
united to his nobler aspirations, gives fiercer vigor to
his baser desires. He is not, therefore, a mere animal
in his grossest propensities; he is something more dangerous. Such propensities in the animal are bounded,
in him they are unlimited. And slavery, if we could
reduce multitudes to it, would deepen the risk, instead
of removing it. When we hold increasing masses of
men in bondage, the ultimate risk increases with the
masses.
No outward pressure can always keep down the
growth of human energy; and the more you enfeeble
the divine part of men's nature, the more you invigorate the bestial. Contrive as we may, humanity will
hold its power; shear its locks as we please, they will
grow again; blind the eyes of its soul as we can, it




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.             63
becomes only the more ruthless in the darkness of its
strength, and the hour which finds us in ease and pleasure, may be the one in which it will snap asunder the
manacles with which we have bound it; then laying its
emancipated hand on the pillars of the social temple,
shake to pieces, in madness and despair, the contrivance
of wisdom and the labor of ages. The birth of every
human being, then, brings, to society an incalculable responsibility; a responsibility, which society can
alone fulfil, by receiving it as human; by treating it
as human, by rendering it, to the degree that it is possible, fit to enjoy a human existence, and to complete,
here at least, a human destiny. Thus, and thus alone,
is the growth of society a growth of promise.
Nor does the true progress, or true greatness of a
nation consist in extent of territory, even though multitudes be added to space. If space and men rendered
a nation great, then would Russia, with its hordes of
savage serfs, be incomparably the greatest nation in
Europe.  If multitudes and space together rendered
a nation great, then China, with its centuries of monotony, and its millions of machines, is the greatest nation
in the world. If territory and population, of themselves,
constitute national greatness, then was the Greece of
Leonidas less glorious than the Greece of Alexander,
and the Rome of Nero more exalted than the Rome of




64            LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
Regulus. But this is not so. No nation advances
towards greatness, or in greatness, by the number of
its inhabitants or the extension of its sway. This is
equally within the power of the most barbarous as of
the most refined.  Nay, the advantage is on the side of
barbarism, as barbarism has the least obstruction from
social relations, or from moral restraint. Money, miles,
millions, do not render a nation great, not one alone, or
all of them together. A nation may have them in
united force, and have nothing besides which the world
can admire, or which the world will remember. Not
even by science, art, and literature does a nation merit
to be called great. Even these must have moral inspiration, or they are poor, mean, and lifeless. It is
only as they are significant of spiritual worth, that they
elevate a man, that they elevate society. LA nation is,
therefore, great only, as it originates great ideas, as
it nourishes great sentiments; as it trains great characters; as it venerates and follows great examples; as
it is loyal to great principles Jas it coordinates power
with justice, and as it identifies majesty with goodness.
What more is Liberty worth?  Liberty is worth
whatever country is worth. It is by liberty that a man
has a country; it is by liberty he has rights; it is by
rights that he has obligations; it is by rights and
obligations that his life is that of a citizen, and that




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.             65
of a patriot. The idea of country is a social idea,
is a moral idea; and the tie that binds one to his
nation is not sensual, but spiritual. Mere space does
not constitute country; it is not a boundary that lays
claim upon the soul, that fastens on the heart. Mere
physical support establishes no title to allegiance; it can
awaken no civic feelings nor impose any civic duty.
I owe the soil nothing for my simple'birth; I owe the
soil nothing in which I own nothing; I owe the soil
nothing in which I am owned; and whether, as in a
despotism, I am one of the whole population thus circumstanced, or, in other conditions, one only of a portion, the principle is the same.
Between these two states, there is, however, a
material difference in practice; for where slavery is
universal, it cannot be so complete as where it reaches
only a class; neither is the individual so degraded,
where all stand with him on a common level. I owe
the soil nothing which endures me only for my toil,
and, in return, gives me but feeding and a grave. That
is my country, on whose surface I am a man; within
whose embrace, I am secured in all the privileges of a
man; under the majesty of whose laws, I can put forth
the best energies of a man. That is my country, in
whose institutions my existence is respected, and in
whose greatness I have my portion. It is not my counVOL. II.       5




66           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
try, because it has the accident of my existence; because it gives me permission to live, but strips me of
every power, except the power to die. A slave, therefore, can have no patriotism; and the more he is above
his condition, the farther will he be removed from such
an emotion; the more there is in him of the man, and
the less there is in him of the slave, the less he can
love the nation where he can presume to no manhood,
and the more he must hate the institutions that fasten
him to bondage.
On a level with his condition he can have affectionate
instincts, but no moral reason; on a level with his condition, he may be a grateful animal, but not an enlightened intelligence; he may be a pet, he cannot be a
patriot. I speak not here of the patriotism of sentiment,
of principle, but of the simplest instinct. The savage,
in his uncouth freedom, claims ownership in the forest
and the plain; he is the citizen of unappropriated
nature, and with a wild affection loves the space over
which he roams; he is a patriot of the desert. The
clansman walks a lord upon the mountains; he bounds
elastic on the heather; he gives himself, it is true, to
his leader without reserve, but with that leader he claims
a kindred, and has his claim allowed. Even the serf,
though he labors for the enrichment of another, has a
prescriptive association with the land on which he




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.             67
toils; he has some security for family and a home;
where he was born, he will work, and where he spent
his youth, he will spend his age. Degraded as his situation is, it is not without motives to courage and even
to heroism; rising above his immediate circumstances,
he has ideals beyond them to give him dignity. If he
is the bondsman'of his lord, he is the child- so he
deems himself- of the emperor; if each claims an
ownership to his services, his spirit can have freedom
in the church, which comprehends them all. Of the
bravery with which such men could fight, we need not
call Napoleon from his grave to testify; it is written on
the most tragic pages of his story. The slave has not
the scope of the savage, the kindred of the clansman,
or the fixedness of the serf. I allude to the domestic
slave.
Political slavery may inflict crushing miseries; domestic slavery may coexist with many comforts; but
political slavery admits something to individual humanity, and is not inconsistent with the most intense and
stubborn nationality. Domestic slavery assumes for its
basis the denial of individual humanity, and, in connection with it, nationality is an utter impossibility. Domestic slavery is the final limit of subjection and of
power; beyond this it is impossible to advance them, in
fact, or in conception. The domestic slave is a thing,




68            LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
a chattel; unconditional property; a living anomaly; a
creature without a law, that. may yet be punished; a
creature without a will, that may yet be accountable.
He is in the nation, but in no sense of it. He has no
interest in the wealth by which it is enriched; he has
no part in the laws by which it is governed; he has no
dawnings from the genius by which it is enlightened;
he has no enjoyment from the arts by which it is
adorned; he has no connection with the power by
which it is sustained; he has no pride in the glory by
which it is exalted; he has no relationship with the history or names, by which its fame has been established.
Moral being he has scarcely any, and from religion
itself, the slightest monitions, the most dim revealings.
A slave can have no patriotism. He cannot know the
meaning of the word. He has nothing that inspires the
feeling; he has nothing that explains the term. In any
sacred, any consecrated sense, a slave can be neither
husband nor wife, but producers; neither parent nor
child, but offspring; neither brother nor sister. The
only legal, the only recognized relationship which the
condition of a slave implies, is that of property, that
of ownership. A slave cannot be a patriot he has no
country; a slave cannot be a patriot, he has no home.
Here, therefore, I may further add, that liberty is
worth whatever life is worth; and if so, as the opposite




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.              69
of partial and political subjection, how much more as
the contrast of entire and personal subjection.
That man has a poor and craven disposition, who
finds nothing better in life than the replenishment of its
sensations, the satisfaction of its appetites. Life is to a
man, as man, more than mere animal existence, and its
good more than mere physical health. It is in an especial
sense, reason, conscience, will, imagination, affection;
and its higher good, all that elevates these, exercises,
purifies and expands them. Let these be hindered from
coming forth, or let them not dare to show themselves,
and I am deprived of a human life, or I am forbidden
to enjoy one. Liberty, and liberty alone, gives me all
for which existence is greatly valuable; mind, speech,
education, law, security, social station, and social
claims; kindred, home, country Make me but once
the property of another; let me live by his will and
for his advantage; let me have nothing that in result I
can call mine; let him own my muscle and its toil; let
him own my intellect and its skill; let my home and all
that it contains be at his disposal; then every evil which
Heaven can rain down upon me, with which earth can
scourge me, is in comparison a trivial visitation. All
after this, that men esteem as good, has lost its savor.
Feed me with dainties, clothe me with splendor, let me
live in the midst of grandeur, look not on me but with




70           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
smiles, speak not to me but in praise; but let me be enslaved, my days will be sad, my nights will be heavy,
my imprisoned spirit will find no pleasure in them; it
will watch anxiously for the hour, as the sick look for
the morning, when the weary go to rest, and the servant is free from his master. Give me hardship, pain,
toil; but with them give me liberty, and I shall not complain; but sooner, a thousand times, than I should wear
the garment of a slave, let me be stiff in the shroud of a
freeman.
So native is this desire to the heart of man, that liberty is a dream which gilds the sleep of the most besotted slave; it rises as a beautiful vision in the nightly
silence of his lonely hut; it comes to him as a sad, fond
hope in the intervals of toil, and for a moment it cheats
him with the delusions of a man. The faintest chance
of liberty is often sufficient to charm him through every
danger; to sustain him through thousands of miles
unknown; to carry him across swamp and desert, and
forest; to support him under cold and hunger, nakedness and fatigue; to quell in his bosom the fear of the
hound and the fear of the rifle; sufficient to cheer him
along, all unaided and alone, with no guide outside him
but the northern star, and no prompting from within but
an indomitable instinct.
Some may say, that liberty is nothing but a sound,




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.            71
and slavery nothing but a name; yet, assuredly, that
sound must have a mighty power, which in every age
could stir men to enthusiasm, that never has died out;,
which in every age could quicken those emotions that.men have always esteemed generous and heroic.. I
cannot even conceive, how any man can see another,.
however low, struggling to be free, without feeling with.
him, without desiring from the bottom of his heart,.
God-speed, without admiring his effort, without pitying.
him in failure, without applauding him in success. And
if slavery is indeed only a name, it must be one that
carries along with it a terrible delusion; since no man
can be found, who ever knew liberty in its very worst
condition, who would volunteer to be a slave. Men go
dauntlessly to the field red with slaughter; they shrink
not from the stark bodies of their comrades; without a
tremor they rush to the cannon's mouth that vomits out
destruction; but not one can you discover, who would
knowingly enter into slavery. Despised and trampled
down, as the wretched often are in communities deemed
free, they have ever regarded slavery as still a lower
deep. Men have known life in its worst-calamities,
but they have never, in their wildest fancies, thought on
slavery for relief. Men have become sick of existence,
and poverty has driven many to despair; numbers have
rid themselves of life, but not one has ever sold it. It




72            LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
was then no burst of enthusiasm, it was no exaggeration of rhetoric, it was deliberate conviction, it was wellconsidered resolve, it was wise, it was sober choice,
which prompted the orator to exclaim, " Give me liberty,
or give me death! "
Nay, liberty is not only worth all that life is worth, it
is worth all that the soul is worth. All that belongs
truly to the soul, belongs to its freedom; all that comes
out truly from the soul, comes out from its freedom.
Thought, belief, affection, worship, these belong to the
soul, and they are free; they are beyond the reach of
purchase; they are beyond the reach of power. Word,
deed, suffering; these are great as they come out from
the soul, as they come out from its freedom. In every
word, in every deed, in every suffering, that is greatest,
wherein there is the spirit of a free soul. What word
of man, of highest and of boldest import, that does not
come out fearlessly from the soul, and go forth unchained, upon the air of liberty? Thus it is, that the
prophet issues from out his wilderness, seeking the
presence of people and of kings, to give them his message from above, and to pour forth the burden of his
awful inspiration.  Thus it is, that the true orator, secular or sacred, stands before his fellows with unfettered
intellect, with courageous heart, to speak what the occasion required, what honesty impels. His position may




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.             73
have danger, but his thought will not admit constraint;
his position may be that of Paul in the presence of
Felix; but though bonds were on the hands of Paul,
his spirit was unchained. It may be that of Emmett in
the presence of Norbury; but though the body of Emmett was confined, his soul was at large; it may be
that of Massillon in a royal chapel; it may be that of
Cameron in a highland glen. The true speaker allows
of nothing between his ideas and his utterance; acknowledges no dominion but the dominion of truth;
entertains no fear, but the fear of God. Thus, too, it
is, the poet sings, who sings with any grandeur; who
rises to any theme of majesty or power. Thus, likewise,
the philosopher speculates; free as the priest of the
universe, he muses; and free as the priest of humanity,
he teaches. Every great action, as well as every great
word, which has been ennobled to memory, has relation
to freedom, in the aspect of its nobleness. The same
is true of suffering. It is as associated with freedom,
freedom of soul, freedom of mind, freedom of decision,
that endurance has dignity.
A man becomes heroic when he dares to suffer, when
he chooses to suffer; a man becomes heroic when he
prefers an appalling risk to an ignoble safety; he becomes heroic, when we see that what he endures, he
endures, because he preferred the spiritual in him, to




74           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
the animal; or because he ventured to assert a natural
right, against an arbitrary law. No penalties, no contrivances can render such a man odious; he is superior to them all; he is hedged about with a kingliness,
which no ignominy can break down. His chastisers
may scourge, they may deride, they may cover him
with filthy rags, they may thrust him into shameful
places; our moral feelings do him justice, and he
contracts no disgrace from his circumstances. Even
slavery itself, has its truest path6s by its contrast with
liberty.  It is what the slave might be, that moves
us, more than what he is; it is over manhood in its
living tomb that we mourn. Suffering, I repeat, has
its greatness and its dignity by association with liberty.
Herein a story has its sadness; herein a tragedy has
its grandeur; herein a character in history has its
interest; herein the dungeon has light; herein the
scaffold has glory. Break up this association; take
suffering from will, and bind it to necessity; take suffering from a free soul, and unite it with a slavish
spirit, and no force of imagination can ennoble it; it is
sheer pain, from which we withhold our contemplation;
pain, which indeed we may pity and relieve, but which
has nothing in it that exalts us, and nothing beyond
passive fortitude, that we can admire.
But liberty has directly occasioned a vast amount of




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.             75
suffering; liberty of country, liberty of conscience, liberty of person. It has cost much endurance; it has
been bought with a great price. Trace it along the
line of centuries; mark the prisons where captives for
it pined; mark the graves to which victims for it went
down despairing; mark the fields whereon its heroes
battled; mark the seas whereon they fought; mark the
exile to which they fled; mark the burned spots where
those who would not resist evil, gave up the ghost, in
torture, to vindicate the integrity of their souls'; add
these open sufferings to others that have found no
record; imagine, if you can, the whole; then you have
the price, only in part, of liberty; for liberty has cost
more than all these. Is it value for the price? Consuit, if you are able, the purchasers who paid it;
awaken from the prisons those who perished in them;
arouse from.the graves the weary and broken-hearted
by oppression; call from the fields of blood, the myri.
ads who chose death rather than bonds; invoke from
the caverns of the deep, those whom the ocean swallowed in braving the invader; summon back from
exile those who sank unseen in savage wilds. Pray for
those to come once more to earth, who bore testimony
to the truth in agony; you will have a host of witnesses
which no man can number, who all, aforetime, and
through manifold affliction, maintained, even unto




76           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
death, the cause of liberty. Inquire if they repent;
ask them, if the boon which they have given us, was
worth the suffering with which they bought it; ask,
also, the speakers who proclaimed freedom, the thinkers who made laws for it, and the reformers who purified it, if the object for which they toiled was worth
the labor which they spent.  That it was, all will
exclaim with triumphant voice; that it was, will come
with one glad consent, with one sublime amen, from
this glorious company of apostles, this goodly fellowship of prophets, this noble army of martyrs.
But liberty for all men, many would call a vision and
a dream. Slavery for some, it may be said, is not only
a necessity, but a blessing. The necessity is plain, for
the state of slavery is, in its very nature, a state of
compulsion. The blessing of that condition, however,
is rather doubtful, which nothing but force can sustain,
and to which nothing but weakness would submit.
Some, it may be asserted, are not only not fit for
liberty, but can never be.
This, surely, is not the doctrine of a believing Christian. God has given to all men, affections, conscience,
reason, elements of improvement; we cannot suppose,
then, that he has excluded any from the most essential
claims of their social nature. All may obtain a fitness
for heaven; it cannot be. that any should be under an




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.             77
everlasting ban from the privileges of earth. I cannot
connect such a doctrine with a Christian spirit; I cannot connect it with a generous soul. Such a soul, from
its noble impulses, must wish that all men should be
partakers in every great blessing, and, wishing it, would
believe they could be fit.
It is only the selfish and the vain, that would limit
any thing which rejoices or which ennobles existence;
it is only those who are in themselves poor and mean of
spirit, who desire monopoly of indulgence, or exclusive'
ness of privilege. Moses desired that all the Lord's
people were prophets; and that desire contains the
essence of a great soul in every generation.  The
gratefully happy, would have all men happy; the really
virtuous, would have no man vicious; the genuine
philosopher would have all men enlightened; the genuine saint would have all men holy; the true freeman
would have no man, if he could, a slave.
The claim of man to liberty, founded on his creation
and his nature, may not be acknowledged, but it cannot
be cancelled. Human laws may outrage, but they cannot silence it. Human power may resist, but cannot
subvert it. It precedes the laws which wrong it. It
will outlive the power which disregards it. On whatever ground violated, on whatever ground withheld, it
is inherent and ineffaceable. Man's title is his nature;




78            LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
it is stamped upon his upward brow, it cannot be erased;
for God, who has lifted up the face of every man to
heaven, has indelibly impressed it.  It glows in the
moisture or the fire of his eye, and it cannot be extinguished; for the immortal soul within, which flashes or
which melts in the eye that burns, or that weeps, comes
from the eternal spirit of the living God.
The right is as old as humanity, and will be coexistent with it. Born with its birth, it will be extinguished
only with its soul. And the sentiment is as wide and
as enduring as the right. Liberty is an imperishable
desire. It is a desire that defies enactments, that scorns
penalties, that baffles every scheme to kill it; that goes
on from age to age, to mock the silly restrictions by
which men endeavor to stem the tide of an eternal
principle. The power of Deity within us, is its spirit;
the whole universe outside us, its boundless sacrament;
every object its type, and every voice its proclamation.
The congregation of all living things in earth, in air, in
sea; the very elements themselves, the chainless winds,
the irrepressible torrent, the open sky, the sovereign
ocean, the unbounded and the impartial sun. All these
are its preachers; preachers of a universal providence;
preachers of a universal God; preachers of a universal
Father; preachers of a universal brotherhood; preachers of a universal liberty. 0! we all long, I trust we




THE WORTH OF LIBERTY.              79
do, for the day, the blessed day, when freedom shall at
least be coextensive with Christendom; when a slave,
political or domestic, shall not tread on an atom, upon
which the cross of Calvary has ever cast its shadow;
when the baptism of the crucified shall be on every
brow, the seal of a heavenly sonship; when the fire of
a new pentecost shall melt asunder, by its divine heat
of charity, the bonds which wrong or prejudice has
fastened; when, to touch any spot over the wide sweep
of God's christianized earth, any spot which the Gospel of the Saviour has ever visited, which the name of
the Saviour has ever sanctified, shall be, in itself, the
spell of a complete deliverance, the magic of a perfect
franchise.




TRUE MANHOOD;
ITS SIMPLICITY AND DIGNITY.
MY course, on this occasion, will lead me into no
remote investigations. I will merely select a few qualities upon which,- I think, a wise and true life greatly
depends, and endeavor to show the connection of a
simple spirit with these qualities, either as cause or as
comitant. If in conducting this moral analysis, for
such it is, I shall speak with any positive distinctness, it
will be in no spirit of self-security; but in that allegiance to truth and principle, which demands uncompromising utterance, even if that utterance condemn the
speaker first. And when I refer to a simple spirit, I do
not mean a weak one; I do not even mean a lowly or
a gentle:one; I mean a direct temper, a single mind;
in a word, I refer to simplicity as opposed to complexity,
for I take complexity to be associated with many of the
most fatal errors, intellectual and moral, that enfeeble
our existence, and pervert our characters.




TRUE MANHOOD.                  81
In the beginning, then, I would mention the connection of a simple spirit with a sound judgment; and
above all, in the, judgment of one's self. An estimate
of self may be bold, and yet modest; it may, on the
contrary, be timid, and be yet aspiring. This modest
boldness, if opportunity be given, commonly justifies
itself by success; this aspiration, united with timidity,
which, in a single word, we may call presumption, upon
trial, mostly fails, and reaps the bitter fruits of mortification, and the heart-wearing wretchedness of obscurity
and neglect. A true estimate of ourselves, intellectually and morally, is not only of importance as conducive to our own usefulness and peace, but as extensively
conducive to the usefulness and peace of others. I do
not say that this estimate can be formally and methodically made; it is of a general inward prudence, that I
would speak. Some seem to have it as an instinct,
while others seem always to miss it, either by too great
rapidity, or too great slowness; yet the rapid mind can
do much to train it by patient self-discipline, and the
slow mind can do much to reach it by industrious selfexertion. But, whether minds be quick or dull, there
is a wisdom of design, which must precede any decisive
course of action, or it will give but broken resolutions
and disjointed purposes; often, at the last, it will leave
nothing complete, but ruin and despair. There is in
VOL. II.        6




82           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
society so much less prudence than aspiration, so much
more aspiration than power; there is, too, so much
mistake in the application of power; and at the root of
all, so much self-ignorance and self-delusion, that when
we consider matters, our wonder disappears at the madness and destruction that ravage through the habitable
places of the earth.
Before quitting this topic, there is yet another point
on which I will venture to remark. The errors of an
unsound judgment are often set down as the mistakes
of genius. The privilege of genius is so delightful, it
is no wonder that many should fancy it to be theirs; and
it is no wonder that numbers should mistake, and, in
their mistake, be ruined. Some, it is true, who had the
sacred fire perished; but it was not the fire from heaven
which consumed them. But when men who labor for
admiration fail to command it, and only draw upon
themselves misfortune, why should it be said, that the
world has no pity for their suffering? It was not pity
they demanded, but applause; and had the applause
been secured, the pity had not been needed. Failure,
from whatever cause, must needs bring sorrow. There
is either the want of power or the loss of power. The
power is not sufficient, or it is not appreciated; it is not
adequate, or it is misapplied. The candidate for fame
either over-estimates his ability, or he over-estimates




TRUE MANHOOD.                 83
the public; and though neglect be not always deserved,
neither is the public always to blame. If the public
have defective taste, that is a failing, but not a sin;
if great multitudes of the public prefer gross amusements to higher gratification, the man ambitious of
doing a noble work is aware of this beforehand, and
undertakes it with its risks.
Let us put the matter into an example. A man
throbbing in his own heart with lofty designs, burning with an enthusiasm that ennobles and gladdens
him, determines to embody these emotions in some
work of beauty. He sets himself to labor on a picture; he spends upon it years of toil; he gives the
last touches to that which has grown under his care
from  day to day; which has lived into his companionship; which has been the friend of his confidence;
the assuager of many a grief, the alleviator of many
a pain; now, complete in its perfected being, with
hope, with pride, with exultation he calls in strangers
to gaze upon the creature of his brain, the child of
his fancy, the object of his love; he calls them  in to
rejoice with him, that a new and beautiful existence
is born into the world; he calls them in, but he calls
in vain; the few that obey his invitation, look but
coldly on, and then disappear, never to return. He
has placed all his expectations here, and all is disap



84            LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
pointed; his treasure is turned to dross; his fine gold
has become dim; his head grows wild, and his heart
is broken. Another, with similar enthusiasm, composes
a poem, and with similar anticipations he publishes it.
It lies unbought on the bookseller's shelves, and the
author, unthought of and unseen, starves in a garret,
and dies there.
In the mean time, dwarfs, dancers, jugglers, gather
in a splendid harvest of riches, and whether they want
wealth or not, no person inquires, and how they spend
it, no person cares. But dwarfs, dancers, and jugglers
do perfectly what they undertake to do, and that is, to
amuse the many, and the many accordingly pay tliem
with enormous sums. Let dwarf, dancer, or juggler
fail to interest their patrons, he or she then must starve,
as surely as ever did painter or poet. Painter, poet,
and such, throw themselves on a perilous adventure;
but even if they miss the height they aimed at, their
labor is not entirely in vain. Their lives are not barren
to others or to themselves; to others they left instruction, and to themselves they gave an affluence of fine
imaginings, which, doubtless, they would not have
exchanged for the -riches of Golconda. Genius, it is
true, has often sunk from want of sympathy; but if it
has not gained much from society of hearty interest, it
often has given as little as it gained. Genius has




TRUE MANHOOD.                 85
suffered from neglect, but frequently it has been genius
misapplied; genius, in its best uses, has also suffered,
but it has not seldom been from causes with which the
public had nothing to do; which nothing in the public
originated, and which nothing in the public could remedy or remove. Many have been deluded by.brilliant
aspirations, which they possessed no artistic talent to
embody; many have been tortured by sensibilities,
which had more of disease than capacity; and not a
few have been led fatally astray by the exaggerations
of their own vanity. When, therefore, we consider
fairly what any or all of these have endured, when we
deduct from it, what belonged to individual error or
individual constitution, much will be taken from the
general amount, which it is common to charge the coldness or the ingratitude of the world.
The mistake is, upon the whole, a moral one; and
one which, with truth and simplicity of purpose, men
would not so readily commit. For want of this truth
and simplicity of purpose, men run into many other
errors than those which lie in the pursuit of fame;
errors which embarrass daily life, and which thicken
shadows around characters that otherwise would be
estimable and lovable. And, from the same want, we
make false estimates of others, as well as of ourselves.
Objects in the physical world appear correctly in dis



86           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
tance and dimensions, only to singleness and clearness
of vision. Let singleness of vision be disturbed, and
objects are not discerned in their true relations of magnitude or number. Let clearness of vision be obscured,
and we apprehend not their natural colors or their
proper outlines.
But there is a spiritual world around us, as real as the
physical, and to see it truly is not less important. The
lives of our fellow-men constitute this inward world,
and to discern it truly, there must be a rectitude of inward sight. If this be dark, all is dark; we can have
no certainty, either for caution or sympathy, and we
shall constantly be -wrong both in our avoidances and
companionships. The man of a simple spirit may,
indeed, be deceived; and in many ways, he may be
deceived more readily than any other man, yet not in
much that can be greatly to the injury of his peace,
and nothing that can be to the injury of his worth. He
is not, indeed, secure from mistaken judgment, but he is
always free from wrong intention. He may not in
every thing mark infallibly the ways of others, but he
does righteously take heed to his own; he walks straight
on the path of truth, and though persons may cross
him or thwart him, they cannot shove him from it. And
when we think how much there is in life of blinded
conflict; how much there is of short-sighted striving;




TRUE MANHOOD.               87
how much there is of evil temper; how much there is
of evil-doing; how much there is of pain caused and
pain borne, through these conflicts and strivings; we
see that a man who avoids them, avoids being the agent
and receiver of innumerable injuries, and in this alone
is at once the master of a noble wisdom. But while
he thus preserves the tranquillity of his soul, his calmness is not apathy; it is the condition of the best, and
of the highest action; it is the condition which leaves
him the most control of his faculties, and in which his
faculties can exert themselves to most advantage; it is
the condition in which he can best choose the work that
he can best do. For excitement and disturbance not
only rob a man of his strength; they rob him yet more
of his discernment.
The man of simple spirit discovers readily the friends
with whom he can honestly unite, and as he chooses
them upon solid grounds, he holds to them with a steady
loyalty. They who are unsteady in their judgments
are equally unsteady in their affections; for, as they
do not well know why they give their regard, they know
just as little why they should continue it. The superficial are always capricious; but they who are of simple spirit, are also of earnest spirit; they cannot lightly
bestow their esteem; they cannot lightly withdraw it;
and where they give at all, they give warmly, and they




88            LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
give fully. Their feelings are not weakened by diffusion; they are not sicklied by affectation; and when
they have not the reality of sentiment, they will not
assume its appearance. This earnestness and simplicity
of feeling add vigor and decision to their judgment;
and by a sort of rapid logic, akin almost to intuition,
they detect the principle of a character with as much
rectitude as facility.  They inspire a confidence as
strong as that which they bestow; and the worthy whom
they seek are those whom they are fitted to attract.
Another condition essential to a high moral existence,
to a true manhood, is rectitude of desire; and with this,
too, simplicity of spirit is intimately connected. Desire
is the parent of habit, and habit is the continuity of life.
If the spirit be artificial, complicate, factitious, so will
be the desires, so will be the habits, so will be the life.
If, on the contrary, the spirit be simple, the desires will
be natural, the habit will be pure, and the life will be
genuine. Examine what it is that constitutes falsehood
of life, and you will find that it is falsehood of habit;
examine whence originates this falsehood of habit, and
you will detect the cause in falsehood of desire; trace
to its source the falsehood of desire, and you will discover it in perversions of the spirit. Here we must be
content to stop.
But what, let me ask, is that which constitutes the




TRUE MANHOOD.                 89
falsehood of desire, that which lies at the very root of
all that convulses and disorganizes the moral nature?
It consists in placing good, not in the soul within a man,
but in objects outside him; and this is not only a falsehood of confusion, but of absolute reversal; it reverses
all just relations in the economy of man's being; it puts
the accidents of it for the substance, and to these transient and limited accidents it gives in imagination the
permanence and infinity which, in reality, belong only
to the substance itself. This is not a mistake of degree,
it is one of principle; it is not a mistake of detail, it is
radical and fundamental; and when once the mistake
is made, no strength of desire is inconsistent or irrational; for the stronger the desire, the more does the
soul make its own power manifest, though the manifest.
ation is made in a wrong direction. For, if I place
the good of my being in an outward object, and not in
my inward life, I am only acting in conformity with
the inherent force of my immortal nature, by pursuing
that object with an unquenchable intensity. If I place
the good of my being in riches, what yearning for them
can be absurb, what labor too constant, or what quantity
too great? If, again, I place my good in pleasures of
the senses, in the pride of the eye, or the pride of life,
what should hinder me from following after gratifica!
tion with the most eager thirst? what should stop me




90           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
from grasping at the means to enjoy, and what should
prevent my enjoying, when the means are mine?  Nothing. Grant the supposition, and the conclusion is just
and right. There is no error in the conclusion; but
there is a most fatal, a most deadly one, in granting the
supposition. But this is what no man will do in word;
scarcely even what any man ever did in thought; and
yet to how vast an extent do all men act upon it!
Looking at the error where it has more than common power, let us briefly examine some of its results.
Since a man can never have wealth enough to fill a
craving, which though resting on a limited object comes
out from an unlimited soul, he is kept always repeating
his efforts in the same direction. The object loses in
freshness, but gains in command; the craving becomes
less vital and more devouring; repetition retains no
longer the consciousness of sensation; and with the
apathetic necessity of habit, it has acquired, also, the
rapid facility of instinct. Now, it is of this and such
habits, that the lives of millions are made up, and being
so, they are made up of false relations. The souls
whose perverted action these habits express, are out of
harmony with the true ends of their own being, and are,
therefore, out of harmony with the just conditions of
other beings. They first put a false estimate on the
things they seek, and when in mere literal possession




TRUE MANHOOD.                 91
they have gained them, they miss their highest uses
and their truest good. With wealth they learn not the
joy of bounty or the blessedness of giving; it brings
no treasure to their hearts, nor always even plenty to
their dwellings. Their affluence is princely, but 4heir
spirits are sordid; if they spend, it is with prodigality
without grace; and if they give, it is with ostentation
without munificence.  When they must part at last
with what they can no longer hold, they endow where
they feel no benevolence, they bequeath where they inspired, and where they leave no affection; and whether
they serve the public or enrich individuals, the public
hold their examples in no reverence, and individuals
attach no sacredness to their memories. And this false
medium is but one out of many, in which men vainly
follow after good; and while busy in this " strenuous
idleness," they think not that real good can only dwell
within the living soul; that it can dwell there only as
that living soul aspires toward its highest destiny; that
these aspirations can only have sufficiency in the Perfect- in God, and in all things as they reveal him; in
his creation, in his providence; in pure minds, in great
minds; in every being through which he reflects the
divinity of wisdom, and the glow of beauty.
Men of just and simple spirits do not undervalue any
thing in life. They shrink not from the wealth, the




92           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
occupations, the struggles, the distinctions, the enjoyments of the world; and they are willing to risk all the
obligations, the vicissitudes, the mistakes, and the sufferings which attach to the pursuit of them. But they
never confound the accessories of fortune with the
essence of happiness, or take the scale of station for
the scale of dignity. They understand well how from
such things to extract the noblest uses; but they never
think of them as sources of lofty or lasting happiness.
The highest gratifications are not those which money
can procure, nor those which the want of it can hinder;
the highest gratifications are those of which the means
are given freely, and the means, so far as the dispene
sations of nature are concerned, are distributed with a
most bountiful equality. We need but health and a
moderate subsistence; then, with simple tastes, the
world is to us a resplendent dwelling, a richly furnished home; we have then a vast property in the
works of God, we are lords of a magnificent possession; and to the utmost capacity of our faculties, the
past, the present, the mighty universe, are our inheritance. The-stars give all their joy without a price to
those who look up to them in a wakeful spirit, and
when their beams meet in the clear eye a radiance
from the soul within, to that soul the whole arch of
heaven becomes a blaze of living glory. Can gold or




TRUE MANHOOD.                 93
gems present so rich a splendor?  Can art prepare so
fair a show as the solemn heavens, which God, himself,
stretcheth out as a curtain, which he spreadeth abroad
as a tent to dwell in?
These solemn heavens are for the poorest, who will
turn to them in faith and contentment from the lowliest
cottage-porch.  They are the same heavens which
patriarchs loved to watch when men yet walked with
their Creator; they are the same heavens, upon which
the prophets gazed with souls inspired, when they
waited for the Creator's visions; they are the same
heavens which David in his raptures sung. Not to
speak more fully of outward nature, there are other
riches, too, in which we need none of us be deficient;
the treasures of the affections, the bounties of friendship, the replenishment of all cordial emotions, the
wealth of all generous sentiments.
The circle which I have here described, is not a small
one; a life needs not go beyond it, and be a very noble
life, and yet it will be a very simple life. It calls for
no excessive culture; it requires no peculiar sensibilities; it implies no extraordinary circumstances; it does
not necessarily belong to this station or to that; a prince
may live it, or a peasant, and we hope that many a
prince and many a peasant does live it. There are
other means of pure enjoyment, that seem  only to be




94           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
within the compass of the wealthy - books, pictures,
statues, diversities of travel, and varieties of intercourse with mankind. These are not essentials to a
mind that has a vital being within itself, and that has a
vital relation to being outside it. They are often but
the toys that amuse indolence, and not the objects of
manly study; often but luxuries to the jaded senses,
and not the food of a healthy appetite. A living mind
has that within it and around, out of which books are
made, from which paintings are drawn, and from
which sculptures are shaped; thoughts and fancies,
numberless; landscapes of infinite outline, colorings,
and forms, with all the lights and shadows of the
changing year; men and women, with all the strength,
and grace, and loveliness, which art delights to copy.
It must be a barren region that will not be rich
to natural sensibility, though it should never traverse
others; and that must be a dull community which, to a
reflective spirit, will not be an epitome of his kind.
But these things, whatever be their worth, are fast coming within the grasp of all. A simple cast reveals to
us, however faintly, the serene sublimity which Phidias
chiselled; a print, not expensive, brings to our eyes,
though with imperfect vision, the sacred beauty of
which IRaffael dreamed; steam gives us journeyings,
and steam gives us books. He must be, indeed, an




TRUE MANHOOD.                 95
indigent man, who cannot place more wisdom and more
poetry upon his shelf, than all his years can fathom or
exhaust; and this he can easily do, though he should
place there no other volumes, than Defoe, Bunyan,
Shakspeare, and the Bible.  After the certainty of
shelter and subsistence, every man can be truly rich in
whatever constitutes the goodliest treasure of humanity.
There is no real destitution, but poverty of spirit, and
poverty of heart.
We think upon our subject in one aspect more, the
connection of a simple spirit with rectitude of principle.
A just man is always simple. He is a man of direct
aims and purposes. There is no complexity in his
motives, and, thence, there is no jarring or discordancy
in his character. He wishes to do right, and in most
cases he does it; he may err, but it is by mistake of
judgment, and not by perversity of intention. The
moment his judgment is enlightened, his action is corrected. Setting before himself always a clear and
worthy end, he will never pursue it by any concealed
or unworthy means. We may carry our remarks for
illustration, both into private and into public life. Observe such a man in his home; there is a charm about
him, which no artificial grace has ever had the power to
bestow; there is a sweetness, I had almost said, a music
in his manners, which no sentimental refinement has




96           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
ever given. His speech, ever fresh from purity and
rectitude of thought, controls all that are within its
hearing, with an unfelt, and yet a resistless sway.
Faithful to every domestic trust, as to his religion and
his God, he would no more prove recreant to any
loyalty of home, than he would blaspheme the Maker
in whom he believes, or than he would forswear the
heaven in which he hopes. Fidelity and truth to those
bound by love and nature to his heart, are to him most
sacred principles; they throb in the last recesses of his
moral being, they are imbedded in the life of his life;
and to violate them, or even think of violating them,
would seem to him as a spiritual extermination, the
suicide of his soul. Nor is such a man unrewarded,
for the goodness that he so largely gives is largely
paid back to him again; and though the current of
his life is transparent, it is not shallow; on the contrary,
it.is deep and strong. The river that fills its channel,
glides smoothly along in the power of its course; it is
the stream which scarcely covers the ruggedness of its
bed, that is turbulent and noisy. With all this gentleness, there is exceeding force; with all this meekness,
there is imperative command; but the force is the
force of wisdom, and the command is the command of
love. And, yet, the authority which rules so effectually, never gathers an angry or an irritable cloud over




TRUE MANHOOD.                 97
the brow of the ruler; and this sway which admits of,
no resistance, does not repress one honest impulse of
nature, one movement of the soul's high freedom, one
bound of joy from the heart's unbidden gladness, in the
spirits of the governed.
The spirit of the ruler, too, shares in this freedom..
Having faith in the relations of truth and nature, he
does not confine himself by a hedge of factitious ceremonials. He is, himself, often the most mirthful among
the gay, the most buoyant among the young; harmless.
jests play around his lips, and stainless hilarity dancesin his eyes, as in the eyes of childhood. But this
takes nothing from the impressiveness of his influence,
when he speaks the word of counsel to those who are
committed to his care; it takes nothing from the sub.
limity of his position, when he calls the domestic group
together to adore with him their common Father in the
heavens. His religion, though of the most exalted
reverence, is yet as warm as his affections; and his
piety, though longing after unblemished sanctity, is as
free from austerity as his wisdom. Let it not be supposed, that such a character can be long the result
of natural benignity in easy circumstances. Not so.
This man has solemn and great connections with the
outward world; he has not only cares to oppress him,
but difficulties to try both his integrity and his sagaVOL. II.             7




98           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
city; not only constant occupation, but awful responsi.
bility.
But it is never the complexity without, but the complexity within, which disturbs men. It is not in the
mazes of their external difficulties, that men become
lost, but in the mazes of inward and untruthful intricacies. Let the soul within a man be only lambent, and
then, there being nothing in him to obscure the candle
of the Lord, he will walk safely through the most
entangled labyrinth through which any human being
can pass in the pilgrimage of life.  Full of wisdom
and full of goodness in the domestic circle, he is mild
and unaffected in the social circle. Tender to the
unhappy and the poor, charity of word is made perfect
in charity of deed. Easy with his equals, his inferiors,
or his superiors in social rank, with his intimate friends
he is all openness, confidence, and generosity. He will
have with his friends neither reverse nor compromise;
he will have frankness tempered with delicacy; but
while he is candid without being rude, no false shame,
and no false indulgence, will allow him to conceal
from them the faults that may issue in their destruction.
In the rectitude of a manly regard, he gives admonition
when he thinks it needed; and in the humility of a
Christian temper, he receives it when it is given; neither in giving it nor in receiving, does vanity or asperity
leave for a moment a shadow on his charity.




TRUE MANHOOD.                 99
Take this character into public life. Place him
before the people as candidate for their legislative
suffrages; he is there for no selfish ambition, and
willing to be most loyal to his country, he will be no
traitor to his conscience. Place him in the representative assembly to which these willing suffrages send
him, he maintains inviolate the trust given to him;
with a brave eloquence, he maintains the rights of the
citizens; with a grave dignity, he maintains the privileges of the senator. Place him in the council of the
executive magistrate, and no favor can win him, and
no danger can appall; indifferent to office, and fear.
less of power, he will assert the highest right, and
he will stand by it, whatever be the cost. Place him
on the bench of justice, no prejudice can approach
him, no passion can move him. Nothing can ruffle
the august placidity of his soul, except it be the stirrings of a gracious pity.  Unmoved, he sits, while
all around him heaves; he listens not to popular clamor, he cares not for the scowl of power; and while he
is guardian, no corruption shall sully the fountain of
justice, and no obstruction shall impede its stream.
Place him in the presence of a tyrant; call upon him
for his opinion; let life or death hang on the result, he
will not speak rashly, but he will not speak falsely.
Let the tyrant cajole and fondle, it avails not; let the




100          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
tyrant rail and threaten, it is still as vain; let wife
entreat; let children hang upon his neck; let friends
beseech; let multitudes implore; he meets affection
with affection; he weeps, while others weep; but fixed
as the rock in the ocean, the tempest may crash about
his head, and the waves strike against his breast, his
foundation based unchangeably on the centre of eternal
right, his head majestically erect, gloriously lifted up to
heaven, bends not before the shock, and his breast
receives the tempest only to shiver it. Place him in
the dungeon; shut him in from the fair earth and the
open sky; wrench him from the delights of home; let
him be loaded with years; let him be enfeebled by
sickness'; let him be wearied with confinement; let
life hang by the finest thread that ever held a spirit
from its God; the unwavering faith of a true man upholds him, and his hope remains undimned, and his
peace remains unbroken. Call him from the dungeon
to his doom; he goes rejoicing to the scaffold; he looks
cheerfully on the axe; he face's death almost with
gayety; he'converses playfully with the executioner;
he blesses his friends; he forgives his enemies; he
pities his destroyers; he wishes good to all men; he
gives a moment to silent prayer; he meekly lays his
head upon the block; then, there is the echo of a blow
that sends a soul to heaven!




TRUE MANHOOD.                101
I have traced rectitude of spirit, and rectitude of life,
through the several gradations of a sublime example,
and found it, at every stage, connected with simplicity.
The example is not imaginary; it is real, it is practicable. I have had, all the time, an original before
my mind's eye; but I have faintly conceived the original, and I have yet more faintly embodied my conception. The original is, Sir Thomas More, one of England's greatest, as well as purest, chancellors; and to
bring out distinctly all the beauty of his character, would
require much more than a lecture, and powers far transcending mine. " Of all men nearly perfect," says Sir
James Mackintosh, " Sir Thomas More had, perhaps,
the clearest marks of individual character. His peculiarities, though distinguishing him from all others, were
yet withheld from growing into moral faults. It is not
enough to say of him, that he was unaffected, that he
was natural, that he was simple; so the larger part of
truly great men have been. But there is something
homespun in More, which is common to him with
scarcely any other, and which gives to all his faculties
and qualities the appearance of being the natural growth
of the soil. The homeliness of his pleasantry purifies
it from show. He walks on the scaffold clad in his
household goodness.  The unrefined benignity with
which he ruled his dwelling at Chelsea, enabled him to




102          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
look on the axe without being disturbed by hatred for
the tyrant. This quality bound together his genius and
learning, his eloquence and fame with his homely and
daily duties, bestowing a genuineness on all his good
qualities, a dignity on all the offices of life, and an accessible familiarity on the virtues of a martyr and a hero,
which silences every suspicion that his excellences were
magnified. He, thus, simply performed great acts, and
uttered great thoughts, because they were familiar to
his great soul. The charm of this inborn and homebred character, seems as if it would be taken off by
polish. It is this household character which relieves our
notion of him from vagueness, and divests perfection
of that generality and coldness, to which the attempt
to paint a perfect man is so liable."
If the aim of a life be right, it cannot in detail be
much amiss. It may indeed be imperfect, but it cannot
be wholly wrong, and it cannot even partially be false.
When the aim of a life is right, rules and precepts are
merely subordinate; when the aim of a life is otherwise, rules and precepts are utterly worthless. Lord
Bacon, the great master of modern wisdom, with that
incomparable union of practical philosophy and luxuriant poetry, which distinguished him amongst all the
teachers of mankind, instructs us on this point thus: for
he says, —" If these two things be supposed, that a




TRUE MANHOOD.               103
man set before him honest and good ends; and again,
that he be resolute and constant, and true unto them, it
will follow that he will mould himself into all virtue at
once; and this indeed is the work of nature.
For as when a carver makes an image, he shapes only
that part whereupon he worketh; (as if he be upon the
face, that part which shall be the body is but rude stone
still, till such time as he come to it;) but contrariwise
when nature makes a flower or a living creature, she
formeth rudiments of all the parts at once. So in obtaining virtue by habit, while a man practiseth temperance he doth not profit much to fortitude; but when
he dedicateth and applieth himself to good ends, to
what virtue soever the pursuit and passage toward those
ends doth command him, he is invested with a precedent disposition to conform himself thereunto."
The author of this fine passage presents in his own
practice, by contrast and negation, an illustration of its
truth. For if a man have not right and good ends, any
excellence in his nature is but poor and partial; if he
give himself to one evil end, basely and progressively,
deeply and more deeply, all the cognate vices follow.
Bacon, in his conduct, toiled for unworthy ends, and he,
accordingly shrunk not from the use of degrading and
dishonest means. His character stands in broad contrast, indeed, to that of Sir Thomas More; and the




104          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
moral contrast is rendered all the more glaring, from
some points between them of social similarity.
I do not mention intellectual analogy, because there
was none. Both, to be sure, were men of genius; but
the genius of Bacon, intellectually regarded, was to the
genius of More, as the expanse of meridian day is to
the radiance of the morning star. But the moral ele.
vation of More above Bacon is as transcendent as the
intellectual majesty of Bacon above the commonest of
men. Bacon was not loved in his home; and in friendship he was equally disloyal and ungrateful. The generous patron, who aided him on his way to power, he
not only forsook, but resisted, and that in the hour of
his calamity. He did not, as More, manfully stand up
for public rights in the face of danger; nor brave, as
More did, the anger of two hereditary tyrants. Bacon,
without any risk, gratuitously cringed to the sycophants
of Elizabeth and the parasites of James. It was not
even to the personalities of the despots themselves that
he made a willing sacrifice of his manhood, but to their
most contemptible subordinates; with an intellect fitted
for the priesthood of all nature, he paid submissive
homage to the shadows of a queenly termagant, and to
the favorites of a royal fool. Bacon sought office with
as much desire as More avoided it; Bacon used as much
solicitation to obtain it, as More endured to accept it,




TRUE MANHOOD.                105
and each, when in it, was equally true to his character.
More was as simple, as Bacon was ostentatious. More
was as incorruptible, as Bacon was venal. More spent
his private fortune in office, and Bacon spent the wages
of corruption there. Both left office poor in worldly
good; but while More was rich in honor and good deeds,
Bacon was poor in every thing; poor in the mammon
for which he bartered his integrity; poor in the gaud
for which he sacrificed his peace; poor in the presence
of the worthless; covered with shame in the midst of
the people; trusting his fame to posterity, of which
posterity is only able to say, that the wisest of men was
adviser to the silliest of kings, yet that such a king had
a sort of majesty when morally compared with the official director of his conscience. Both More and Bacon
served each a great purpose for the world. More illustrated the beauty of holiness; Bacon expounded the
infinitude of science. Bacon became the prophet of
intellect; More, the martyr of conscience. The one
pours over our understandings the light of knowledge;
but the other inflames our hearts with the love of virtue.
Contrasts besides these will suggest themselves to the
minds of my hearers. There is one, especially, which
they will not fail to recall; and that is, the complicated
policy and theatrical splendor of Napoleon, in connection with the simple patriotism and the massive wisdom




106          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
of Washington. The dazzling and impassioned career
of the one, at the end as barren as the rock on which
he died; the steady and disinterested course of the
other, finished amidst the tears and blessings of the millions to whom he gave a nation. The one standing out
to futurity only in the singleness of his own personality,
clad, in the might of his terrible genius, with slaughter,
and flames, and ruin proclaiming his conquests, while
the wail of nations called for his exile, and the fear of
mankind kept him in it; the other, retiring from individual greatness, and hiding, if possille, the glory of
renown in the benignity of his triumphs; arising upon
our grateful memories, not in the costume of sanguinary
warfare, but of philanthropic peace; not in the pomp of
an imperial dictator, but in the modesty of a simple
citizen; not in the fiery brilliancy of death-spreading
victories, but in the calmer-light of life-giving institutions
-the father of his country, the benefactor of the world.
I have dwelt on this longer than I intended. It had
been sufficient to merely hint it; for the contrast is so
obvious, and has been so often drawn, that more than
an allusion is scarcely graceful, and yet some allusion
could hardly be avoided; but all serve to illustrate my
general position, that simplicity is ever an element in
the highest manhood. Without this, greatness may indeed be stupendous, but it is not harmonious; its pres



TRUE MANHOOD.               107
ence may be resistless, but it does not attract to itself
willing, cordial, welcome memories. It signifies not,
how vast the intellect, how enriched the imagination,
how extraordinary the power, how immense the achievement; they fail in that unity and pleasure of impression,
which the greatness always leaves that men delight to
honor; the greatness, that by affection, gives life to
admiration, and that secures an immortal remembrance
by an immortal love.
The idea with which I would close, is inferred in
nearly all that I have said; the connection of a simple
spirit with solid independence and genuine dignity.
For, if it be connected with soundness of judgment,
with rectitude of desire, and rectitude of principle, then
it is connected with all that constitutes the very essence
of independence and of dignity. The man of a simple
spirit is saved from the mistakes of vanity, from mistakes of doubtful purpose; and these are the mistakes
that most embarrass a life, mistakes, the readiest to
deceive, and the hardest to be cured. The man of a
simple spirit is not misled by factitious or superfluous
desires, which wreck so much of peace, and which
spread so much of misery. How silently and fearfully
can such influences gather round a man, until, before
he knows that he is in captivity, he is corded and
chained in the most humiliating, the most debasing




108           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
slavery! They entangle his circumstances; they undermine his integrity; they enfeeble his moral sense;
they blunt his feelings of honor; they bow down the
erectness of his self-respect; until' his life is a hard
struggle for outward seeming, or the last contempt even
of appearances; a constant remorse without the power
to amend, or the final despair that has given up the
hope or the inclination to change.
The moral nature is that, which, in the highest sense,
constitutes the man. Faithful to this, the man is true;
unfaithful to it, he is false. Now this, I say, belongs,
not to the class, not to the profession, not to the office,
but distinctly to the man.
The moral feelings, then, are those in which a man
is greatest; not alone, because they are those in which
he is most spiritual, but because they are those in
which he is most independent. These are his without
hinderance or limitation; they are his absolutely and
supremely. The moral feelings need no external instrumentality; they are complete in themselves. The
command of conscience to the will, and the answer of
the will in obedience to it, constitute the perfection and
sufficiency of virtue. This nothing can limit or destroy.
A right will is right action; and though such a will be
the movement of a spirit imprisoned in a body all par.
alyzed and moveless, it is stronger than the universe.




TRUE MANHOOD.               109
Is not this a grand privilege of man, immortal man,
that though he may not be able to stir a finger; that
though a moth may crush him; that merely by a righteous will, he is raised above the stars; that by it he
originates a good in the universe, which the universe
could not annihilate; a good which can defy extinction,
though all created energies of intelligence or matter,
were combined against it? It is not thus with the
desires and appetites; they do need an outward instrumentality. Without the outward instrumentality,
they become occasions of uneasiness and pain, and
with it in the utmost fulness, they yet have nd perfection. But a man whose moral nature is ascendant,
commands these. He is not the subject, but the superior of circumstances. He is free; nay more, he is a
king; and though this sovereignty may have been won
by many desperate battles, once on the throne, and
holding the sceptre with a firm grasp, he has a royalty
of which neither time nor accident can strip him.
Years do not enfeeble, they ennoble it; they do not
dim, they brighten it; they surround it with the halo of
a purer atmosphere, and they draw men to do more
affectionate homage to its venerable beauty. Mutability
comes not near it; there is no power that it has cause
to fear; there is no enemy that can prevail against it.
It is the only royalty which revolutions cannot overturn.




110          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
Neither does earthly estate interfere with its dominion or its grandeur. In the dungeon or on the rack,
at the stake or on the scaffold, it contracts no infamy
from its situation; nay, it is the more resplendent in
its kingliness.  It is not often found in palaces, but
when within them, it is their finest presence. It does
not always rule in the breasts of monarchs; but when
it does, it marks them truly for the Lord's anointed.
It is the real inspiration of a princely nature; and
where it is absent, a star is but a dazzling blotch, and
a sceptre but a mischievous or a foolish bauble. It
has no sure promise of worldly goods; it is not always
attended with outward prosperity; it has not always
gay dwellings, and sometimes it has none; it needs
no show of outward pomp; it has no regal'costume,
no regal banquets; it does not, by any virtue of its
dignity, wear purple and fine linen, or fare sumptuously every day; but without whereon to lay its head,
it may yet be of that celestial eminence which angels
gaze on to admire; covered with rags and sickness, it
may be odious to the sight of mortals, and yet be precious in the sight of Heaven.




THE PULPIT.
OUR main object in this paper is to consider the
present position, influence, and difficulties of the pulpit.
We shall endeavor in our estimate to be impartial and
unbiased.
Let us then take, as a principal test, the pulpit's position and influence, the amount of attendance on its
ministry, and the extent to which it operates on the
moral condition of society. Apparently, the numerical
attendance of all popular sects is considerable. Extraordinary talents with an adaptation of them to some
dominant passion or opinion, command throngs -of eager
listeners, arrested by the coincidence of prejudice, or
fixed by the spell of eloquence. And these talents,
high for the popular purpose, need not always be high
by a positive standard; when men believe they are
easily pleased, and when the speaker reflects their own
sentiments, they are not disposed to be critical. Nor




112          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
does it require that order of eloquence, in which enthusiasm must be polished by fine taste, to move a
multitude, who seek more for earnestness of manner
and strength of utterance, than for ingenious thought
and elegant diction. But whether the talents or eloquence be or be not of the highest order, the men, who
can use them to collect and interest large numbers of
people, are comparatively few; and the audiences by
which they are attended, form no fair criterion whereby
to estimate the real influence of preaching.
Whom, then, are we to consider the regular and steady
adherents of' the pulpit? These may be resolved into
three distinct classes, as different as can be one from
the other; the sincerely devout, for whom the house of
prayer has in itself attractions; conventional attenders,
who go from habit, fashion, or interest; and zealots
who are drawn more by doctrines than devotion. We
add to these, the inhabitants of rural districts, who commonly attend worship, wherever there is a church
within any available distance; but in such cases, it is
as much a place of news as a place of prayer. When
we have counted all, however, who are regular and
permanent adherents to the pulpit, we doubt whether a
majority will not remain, on whom the pulpit has no
power, who habitually desert it, or are but very occasionally present. We count among these considerable




THE PULPIT.               113
numbers of young men of the working classes, studious
in their habits and anxious for knowledge, who,. after
six days' toil, employ the seventh in rest and readingWe are not giving our own opinion; we are stating
facts, facts which we know. We are aware that many
in the same grade of life are absent, but from very
different causes; they are away in idleness, ignorances
or the pursuit of pleasure. With such our subject has
no concern. But respecting those whom we have first
specified, the fact is plain, that they have become
readers, rather than hearers, and that in all these cases
the loss of the pulpit has been the gain of the press.
A vast portion there is besides of society, whom the
pulpit can neither attract nor hold; the ignorant that
cannot understand, and the intellectual that will not
listen. We have neither time nor space to verify our
statement by tabular statistics, but that such is fact will
appear to any one who compares, throughout Christendom, the number of worshippers with the number of
inhabitants. Masses there are in all populous districts,
masses dark and dense, amongst whom the voice of
the -pulpit is never heard; masses buried in a moral
wilderness of ignorance, crime, and destitution, whom
the public ministrations of religion never reach. Persons who have no means of knowing this by their own
observation, have only to consult the reports of those in
VOL. II.       8




114          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
our own country or Europe, who have paid attention to
the physical or spiritual condition of the poor. What
hordes of human beings in London, on whom the Sabbath sun never dawns with the gladness of religion, on
whose ears the church-going bell never sounds with the
music of peace! We know it to be asserted as a
certainty, and we have no reason to think it otherwise, that thousands in London have never crossed the
threshold of a church or chapel. Suppose, then, two
persons to take different directions in a great city during
the hours of divine service; one to the churches, the
other to the dwellings of the poor, and the retreats of
vice; on comparison of notes, which would be found
the most crowded? We fear the result. Yet all not at
worship would not be found in guilt. Many are dead
in the insensibility of ignorance, born to darkness, they
have fulfilled their destiny; many without provision for
the wants of nature, forget those wants which are latest
and deepest; many from shame-faced delicacy will not
go in raggedness to the congregation of their neighbors,
nor let those who oncd knew them otherwise see them
in their fall and wretchedness.
Turning then from those who are absent by extreme
ignorance or extreme indigence, let us refer for a moment to those, who are Aeither ignorant nor indigent;
who remain away from the mere want of inclination or




THE PULPIT.               115
inducement to attend. To the former class we shall
allude again, before we close this article; of the latter,
we may consider that no small portion of it is to be
found in the intelligent and independent working population. Thousands we believe of this class, both in our
own country and Europe, rarely go to church. And
how, it may be inquired, are they in the mean time
engaged? Variously. Some walk into the fields; some
instruct their families; some give themselves to private
study; and others attend philosophical debates. The
rapid and extensive progress of Owenism among the
operatives of Britain is an evidence to which nothing
stronger can be added. Shall we find the case otherwise among the higher classes? In America and England, where attendance on public worship is a matter of
decorum, where such attendance is commonly a sine
qua non of respectable station, few that desire to stand
fairly with society will entirely desert the house of
prayer.
But look to France, and other countries on the
European continent, and where conventional scruple
does not operate in the same manner, and you see
churches all but empty. Exceptions there are, such as
those we alluded to before, but literally they are exceptions. M. Coquerel, with his fine delivery and polished eloquence, is surrounded with the Protestant'elite




116          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
of Paris; and a few years ago, when M. Cordaire,
patronized by the young men, was the fashion, his
church was thronged with the aristocracy of Catholicism. So was it with Edward Irving in London; a
mob of nobility, senators, and statesmen pressed about
him to suffocation, but the time soon came, when the
magic could charm no more; and when, after a life
exhausted before its prime, he sought his mother-land
to die, he had been long forgotten by the courtly circles.
While his eloquent eccentricities had novelty they went
to hear him, as they would a new prima donna at the
opera; curiosity gratified and taste satiated, they had
nothing else to desire; deserted on all sides, he laid his
head among those who knew in private his manly and
Christian worth; who were not held merely by the lambency of his genius, and did not with the crowd depart,
when the lights began to fail. Numbers of professional
men are habitually indifferent to the pulpit, with whom,
however unjust it may be considered, a sermon is but
another name for an opiate. Rare talents may draw
them  forth, but rare talents, as implied in the very
epithet, are scattered over wide intervals both of time
and space. Looking, therefore, from one extreme of
society to the other, and taking any part of Christendom as our field of observation, we think the fact estab.
lished, that the pulpit, - not of this sect or that, - but




TIHE PULPIT.               l17
the general modern pulpit, to a large extent, has lost, or
is losing, its power. If such be the fact, what the cause
or causes? We shall, to the best of our power, endeavor to explain.
The first reason we shall assign is extrinsic to the
pulpit, and is founded in the growing influence which
progressive civilization has been giving to the press.
Previous to the reformation and the invention of printing, the priesthood was the depository of all knowledge
that existed, and the only medium for its utterance.
The pulpit was then the single and solitary source of
popular instruction, and around it was the submissive
throng of believing multitudes; uninquiring faith listened to its mandates, and princes, equally with the
people, bent before its authority. The instrument of
moral teaching, the peculiar dispenser of religious
thought, it was, moreover, the only means of civilization.
When we consider the gross ignorance of the lower
classes, as then existing; the equal ignorance of the
lay nobility, with ferocious and despotic passions super-.
added; if it were not for the impressive sanctions of religion, and the influence of preaching, we know not how
society could have been preserved from the most frightful and savage anarchy. Whatever raised men above
their grossest and their worst propensities; whatever
restrained them in their fiercest and most unlawful de



118          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
sires; whatever softened or humanized their manners;
whatever nurtured or diffused the best charities of life,
were mainly or entirely in those ages gathered from the
pulpit. The pulpit was the people's protector, as well
as instructor; the only power which could make the
despot quail; a power, before which the mightiest monarch became weak in presence of the most lowly monk.
The priest may have often been a tyrant, but most
commonly he was the tyrant of the tyrant; and the
hand of the oppressor, filled with blood and plunder,
has not seldom been broken by the lightning of the
church. In such times, it was well to have a power
which feared neither knights nor kings; a power which,
in its very supremacy over worldly rank, could humiliate the great and protect the poor. When we fling
sarcasms at the priesthood unsparing and unjust, we do
not probably recollect, how much popular rights awe
such men as Becket and Langton. While slavery and
silence, except when speech was to flatter or to lie,
prevailed in courts and senates, the pulpit was the only
place where free and fearless utterance found a refuge;
where men, who almost claimed the reverence of gods,
were taught to feel they were but brothers of the worm,
made of the same earth with the meanest serf that
crouched before them in the dust. Preachers may have
abused their office and been false to their mission, may




THE PULPIT.              119
have been bigots, fanatics, persecutors; but their worst
enemy, if he has any candor, cannot say that as a body
they have feared to proclaim what they believed the
truth.  That many of them at all times have been
hypocrites, sycophants, there is no denying; but if
hypocrisy and sycophancy are to be taken as points of
comparison, the history of the church, bad as it is, need
but little fear the contrast with that of any other prominent social institution.
The art of printing introduced a new element into
society; but, for a long period, this was remote as the
stars from the people. The reformation itself, though
greatly aided among the learned by the press, was principally diffused among the people by the pulpit; books
were the sources in which the learned found knowledge;
but preaching was the stream on which it flowed down
to the vulgar; in books the seeds of new thoughts were
garnered, but oral discourse was the wind which carried
them far jAnd wide to germinate over an expansive soil.
There were two parts in this mighty work, as there
must always be in every great moral- revolution in
which documentary evidence is concerned; the analytic
and descriptive; the critical and the expositional; the
one the department of learning, the other of eloquence.
Luther, in his own person, gives us an instance of the
two offices combined; Luther, in his closet or his cas



120           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
tie, the translator of the Bible; Luther, in his pulpit or
his chair, the impetuous and irresistible expounder.
Preaching was therefore the main instrument by which
the Protestant Reformation was sent forth among the
people; its sermons, lectures, and disputes, from Geneva to Glasgow, and from Wirtemberg to Paul's cross,
aroused the popular mind to action and revolt; it gave
the sound which called the people to the battle, and
that which once had proclaimed the glory of Rome,
gathered the storm which shattered its throne. Religious freedom, as well as general civilization, has derived impulse from the pulpit, and the movement, which has
carried millions into moral independence, was born in
the thunder which a Luther or a Knox rolled forth upon
the world. As civil liberty is generally either the consequence or the companion of religious independence,
so far as the pulpit has advanced the latter, it has likewise advanced the former. Up to this point, then, we
see in the pulpit the principal source of instruction, of
social civilization, of moral revolution; but from this
point we observe another order of things gradually
taking place.
The press, as we before noticed, was at first only
the privilege of the educated, and the educated were
the wealthy. So it continued to be until a very recent
period. Mr. Foster, in his " Essay on Popular Igno



THE PULPIT.               121
rance," observes that even in the time of Addison there
could scarcely be said to be " a reading public." We
quote from memory, but we give the substance of his
remark. We think its truth will not be disputed by
those who compare that period with ours; for surely
the wits for whom wits wrote, the fine gentlemen and
fine ladies, the fops and dilettanti, who waited for their
daily portion of pungent gossip or graceful satire, in the
Tattler or Spectator, are not to be called " a public," if
we are to give the same designation to the earnest millions who, at the present day, devour such periodicals as
Chambers's Journal. Even politics -always topics of
popular interest - had not numerous readers and students in the laboring classes.  Swift, Junius, and
Wilkes, writers who in their time created more excitement than perhaps any other three that could be named
in the history of party, were not read, it is probable, by
the twentieth part of those with whom they were idols.
Multitudes of the people are now readers, not of morbid
or maudlin trash, but of many of the best productions
of our religious, philosophical, and general literature.
Time was, when it was considered an act of mighty
wisdom  and philanthropy, to place within the poor
man's reach some history of "'Jack and Tom," of
"The Two Apprentices," " The Infidel Cobbler," with
others of similar taste and elevation; and if the humble,




122          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
reader, or rather speller, had the grace to be pleased
with these, he was met on the other side only by the
spawnings of obscenity and indecency. That time, we
trust, is gone. We remember ourselves, when the
tracts of Hannah More were considered by the patrons
of the poor, as the very perfection of cottage reading.
We- mention this in no spirit of disrespect, for we think
that the effort to interest her -fellow-creatures in virtue
deserves well of posterity; we adduce it merely to
show that taste has been progressively rising. That it
was not higher was no fault of hers, while hers was all
the praise to lower her powers to its level.
The tendency, therefore, of circumstances has been
to give increasing influence to the press. Rich in present and past intellect, its. facilities of diffusion are
abundant beyond measure. Its cheap and rapid machinery transcends all that superstition had ever conceived of magic. The amount of production is in proportion to the facilities of diffusion, and both go forward
with an accelerating ratio. Every variety of work is
to be found in every variety of edition; periodicals for
every purpose and for every class; and resorts for reading, where, in other times, nothing had been but gross
ribaldry and savage ignorance.. Books are now to be
seen from the cellar to the garret, and knowledge has
made. its way, where the sun himself had scarcely




THE PULPIT.               123
pierced. Unseen and unsuspected, an under current of
inquiry has been flowing with steady course and increasing strength, and the seeds of thought have fructified before it was suspected they had been sown.
Knowledge, that was only the rich man's companion,
has become the poor man's friend; seeks him in the
factory and workshop, enlightens his home and dignifies
his occupations. She accompanies the peasant to his
lonely haunts, fills his solitude with thought, trains his
ear to the music of heaven, and his eye to the goodliness of nature. The voice of knowledge is gone forth
over the earth in every civilized language; her cry is
heard from the Alps to the Andes, and in -every space
between. The pulpit, accordingly, is no longer the exclusive instrument of popular instruction; books divide
the power, and to a certain extent all but monopolize it.
The progress of the press, as we have shown, divides
power with the pulpit as a moral teacher. We shall
state two causes incidental to the pulpit's own administration, which, more then any external circumstances,
limit its influence and usefulness, namely, sameness
and sectarianism.
First, we -say sameness, and we shall endeavor to
explain and justify our meaning. Preaching, as we
find it in popular pulpits, is monotonous almost beyond
endurance.  And that such intellectual uniformity




124          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
should coexist with much religious division, seems a
kind of moral paradox; but so it is. If we take that
form of religion, the most popular in these times,
termed evangelical, it will be sufficient for our purpose.
An evangelical discourse is not a sermon, but a system;
and this system, running along the whole line of theology, from the fall of man in Eden to his beatification in
heaven, or his perdition in hell, is jumbled into half an
hour's or an hour's declamation, repeated from Sunday
to Sunday, and church to church, without novelty of
argument or freshness of illustration, until the mind
droops in very weariness, and the ear grows tired of
the sound. From this, in most popular churches, there
is no retreat. The form of worship may be different;
ecclesiastical form or discipline may vary; the talents
of the preachers may vary, but the evangelical sermon
is identical in all; commonly a variegated series of
texts, held together by a thread of very common-place,
or very fanciful analogy. And many, we apprehend,
would think the minister unfaithful to his trust, and
that the Gospel was not savingly preached, was there
omitted an important article of their peculiar faith.
Thus the sphere of pulpit thought and action is circumscribed within the narrowest limits; Christian speech is
shackled by the bonds of system; and the wonderful
wealth of the Bible is reduced to a few disjointed texts.




THE PULPIT.               125
The pulpit thunders with boisterous tameness, but in its
noise the inward sighings of the natural conscience are
unheard, the deeper sorrows of the heart unsolaced,
and the trials of life overlooked, or but vaguely noticed.
When we complain of sameness in the ministrations
of the general pulpit, let it not be thought that we make
an unjust demand for variety. To expect from the
pulpit the same exciting novelty in preaching, as in
other species of literature, would be uncandid and
unfair. The temptations arising from gain and ambition, are more in the direction of any other profession
than the clerical, and therefore, to such professions,
a great portion of the most distinguished talent will, of
course, be attracted.  The clerical profession, also,
requires a numerous body of men to supply the moral
wants of the Christian community; naturally the majority must be but of average ability, and by the very
necessity of circumstances consist of men respectable,
rather than eminent in intellect. Besides, they labor
under many trials and disadvantages. The necessity
of periodical composition is, in itself alone, no' slight
aggravation of ministerial toil.  Who, that has ever
experienced the necessity of stated intellectual preparation, will not understand this? The head may be
heavy with bodily disease, or the heart sick with inward
grief; the pen may tremble in the hand, and the eye




126          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
grow dim with sorrow; but the shadow of the Sabbath
is already upon their imagination, and the weekly sermon must be ready. Alas! the tale of brick must be
forthcoming, and often there is not wherewith to make
it; yet hundreds of upturned faces will be upon the
pastor in the temple, to seek for direction and support
in their pilgrimage, when he who is expected to dispense, may be the being, of all present, who most needs
them. How often will the sense of this responsibility
scare ministers in their dreams, and break their sleep,
oppress them in society, and follow them into solitude!
The very difficulty of composition is itself a labor,
which those who have not tried can but feebly estimate;
and men of worldly business are not always aware at
what expense of anxious and painful meditation the
discourse was completed, which, in hearing, seemed so
simple and so fluent. Persons accustomed to one sort
of labor, are bad judges of those whose sphere of action
is:specifically different from their own; the man of
bodily energy is therefore little conscious of the toil of
him who spends his strength and wears out his life in
the solitude of the study.  Bustling about in the
thoroughfare of the world, jostling and jostled, the
study seems to him no more than a quiet and indolent retreat; but he forgets that in that retreat there is
an ever-flowing current of thought wearing away its




THE PULPIT.                127
embankments; and that' the soul, stimulated in all its
faculties, may be beating its tenement to atoms.
Ministers have to choose their own subjects;. and
although,rhetoricians reckon this as one of their privileges, those who know human nature well will class it
among their disadvantages.- They must-, therefore, to
interest strongly, have that sort of originality which
can unceasingly draw forth fresh subjects of thought,
or by illustration throw new -interest around the old;
the latter, probably, the more difficult.. Now, in the
other oratorical professions, the speaker has the subj'ect
ready at his hand; and commonly it is one with which
his hearers immediately sympathize. The lawyer has
his case prepared by the events that require his interference; and if he be at all a man of talent, from their
very circumstantiality, he can readily. invest them with
a dramatic interest. The senator's oration is suggested
by the bill which his party or the times devise. - The
actor has the character he is to personate sculptured
for him by the imagination of his author; but the
preacher must weekly propose his own case; and,.to
make deep impression on cultivated minds, he must
argue it with the logic of the lawyer or the legislator,
and deliver it with the grace and propriety of the actor.
Then comes the difference of remuneration.. This is
indeed the least consideration to an honorable man in




128          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
any liberal profession; although it is something to have
a life of arduous exertion crowned with an age of independent competency, instead of relying on willing or
unwilling subscription, which is the end of many a
clergyman's career.  But there is another kind of
reward dear to every man of honest zeal, and that is to
be certain that his labor has not been in vain. On this
point the preacher may be unassured to the very close
of life.  The lawyer is satisfied when his cause is
gained, the senator when his bill is passed, the actor
when his audience laughs or weeps; they have definite
purposes, and they have definite tests, by which to
know when these purposes are effected. With a minister it is not so; he must often cast his bread upon
the waters, and not find it until after many days
indeed; nay, with best intentions, he may-sink at last
under the weight of app'arent failure.
We can easily conceive a young man cast alone
into some distant and retired spot.  He enters on his
work with ardor, with talent, and with hope.  He
speaks from a true and loving heart, and endeavors,
with all sincerity, to realize his beautiful ideal of
ministerial devotedness.  With a growing family his
wants increase, and poverty at last besets him. Necessity drives him to the weekly drudgeries of a school;
cares and crosses gather round a perplexed intellect;




THE PULPIT.               129
his periods of composition are the hours stolen from:
his rest, the intervals of his slavery; his youth
departs; his heart dies within him; novelty of thoughtexpires in the dull monotony of his life; his energy
tames down to mediocrity; his eloquence dilutes to.
commonplace; his hearers gradually retire, except,
perhaps, a few who remain from pity or from habit;with little sympathy at hand, and no fame at a distance, with a worn spirit and shattered expectations,
he finds his position a solitude- a solitude, not of
apathy but of agony. The feelings of the gentleman
and the scholar are not dead; the spectres of his once
bright fancyings crowd about his tortured imagination;
his former generous ambition turns into moody disappointment; at last he occupies an unminded grave in
his own secluded churchyard, or he lives until another
generation knows him not, -knows nothing of the once
glowing preacher in the old and jaded schoolmaster.
And such is the true history of many a minister's
course. We make the admission, that failure may
attend, or seem to attend, the best exertions; but we
think that, in general, the cause will be found in some
faults of talent or of temper. The preacher must bring
to his work the spirit of love, as well as the spirit
of power. Associated with his hearers in the most
impressive eras of life, in Sabbath worship, in birth, in
VOL. II.           9




130          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
death, and in the consecration of wedded love, if he be
faithful to his trust, and unite the warmth of a friend to
the zeal of a minister, the circumstances must indeed
be peculiar, in which pastoral industry can lose its
just reward; but should there be no return from the
world, there is that within the soul itself in the consciousness of fulfilled duty, which, as the world does
not give, neither can it take away.
Setting aside, therefore, all undue craving for variety,
the human mind fairly demands a certain portion of it,
and for all that is necessary to sustain a religious and
moral interest, the pulpit affords abundant opportunities
and resources. The objects which are its topics are
the greatest in existence, before which the outward
world is lost in immensity; God, eternity, the human
soul; all that concerns duty here, and all that concerns
destiny hereafter. The preacher, like the prophet in
the mount, must behold the creatures and scenes around
him with unsealed vision; and when the eye of flesh
can only see the things of earth and time, his must
pierce the veil of matter and mortality. To him, the
world is full of undying souls, with endless consciousness and endless capacity; to him, all being has its
highest worth, as it stands related to the greatest goodness and the greatest happiness; to him, the sublimest
view of this mighty globe itself is, that it is the place




TIHE PULPIT.               131
where a deathless humanity is cradled for the skies,
the place where God unfolds his dispensations, and
where he is conducting an all-wise providence to everlasting purposes. Its topics are therefore exhaustless;
everlasting in their importance as they are everlasting
in their nature. For, what is the mission of the pulpit
but the mission of Christ continued? - a mission to the
human conscience, and the human soul, to win, to warn,
to instruct, to inspire men with love for the true, the
right, the pure, the beautiful, and the good; to draw
them from the corrupt influences of selfishness and
passion; to denounce iniquity in spirit and in action;
with the mercy of Jesus, to seek the outcast, to save
the lost, to labor for the worst; in the hour of private
calamity or public suffering to be a messenger of peace
to the hearts of the afflicted; to direct the downcast eye
to the bow of hope, spanning the dreary horizon with
the gleam of promise; to awaken in deepest sorrow
the spirit of faith, and banish the demon of despair,
even when earth is as iron, and heaven as brass.
The circumstances, too, which accompany the ministration of the pulpit, are as impressive as its purpose is
sublime. The day is sacred and tranquil, when cheerful.
ness and rest soften the harshness of toil, and thoughts
of a better destiny will flash across the most worldly
soul. Prayer is present with all its humanizing tender.




132           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
ness, and music also, with its holiest inspiration. The
audience around the pulpit, next to that which shall
stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, are in the
most solemn of all relations. Gathered from all ranks
and conditions, they are there equal as in the slumber
of the grave; their earthly destinations and differences,
the toys and titles, for which they value themselves or
are valued by others, are, or ought to be, nothing there;
there they are assembled, not as distinguished or obscure, but as children of God; as strangers and sojourners on earth, looking for their home and rest in heaven.
All the associations of the place are connected with
duty and immortality; and the truths to which it is
dedicated, however rudely or feebly uttered, are solemn beyond measure.  And man, within sight of the
pulpit, is always in a position to be revered, never to
be scorned; not as he sometimes is even in legislative
assemblies, where selfish and mean interests will often
assume the sacred name of wisdom; where intellectual splendor but too frequently throws a fiercer
glow around moral deformity, and where the conflict
of faction kindles all that is worst in the worst passions; not as in a court of justice, where every view
of man has something fearfil in it, whether we regard
it in the culprit covered with guilt, or the judge clothed
in terror.




THE PULPIT.                133
The orator-of the pulpit has a wide and varied sphere,
if he but use the materials it affords. He has'the conscience and the heart; he can enter their secret retirements. With a deep study of his own nature; with an
eye that has not perused in vain the history' of human
life, nor gazed vacantly on its myriad forms of character, he can pierce the bosom, depict its struggles,
describe its dangers, trace the sources of sin and suffering. And in this little world alone, what infinite
diversity, not only in the forms of virtue, but of temptation, guilt, remorse, misery; all that makes the moral
history of sin, all that makes the tragedy of life. The
preacher has human homes to which, as we have said
before, he is bound by most sacred bonds.  When
affliction has softened the spirit; when experience has
made the most common truths impressive, and translated with deep meaning to the heart, what before had
been lifeless to the ear; when the lights are quenched
in the hall, and tears are in the place of feasting, and
the death-bed with all its solemn scenery, is amidst the
surviving and the loved; yet, not these only, but also
whatever brightens or blesses the dwelling; smiling
infancy; sportive childhood; the joy and duty of
parents; the blessed charities of this life, and holy
hopes of the next; all these are his, and which simply
to feel is to be eloquent. From' the domestic circle, he




134          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
can extend his thoughts over the whole field of society;
going abroad into the living world, he can note its
changes, and the laws by which they are governed;
observing the throng of life, with the passions and
interests that move its complicated mechanism, he will
be able to unite comprehensive views with practical
detail.
The study of man, as well as the love of man on the
most ample scale, is a duty imposed on the preacher
by the necessity of his office; and the more he is
animated with the mind of Christ, the more faithful
will he be to this duty, and the results of it will appear
in his preaching, in the degree that he is earnest and
sedulous in his Master's mission. Whatever there is
in the love of universal man,. that interests the philanthropist, and makes the world a common field of labor;
whatever there is in love of country, that fans the fire
of the patriot's breast; whatever there is in history,
with all its grand and solemn exhibitions of the changeable, that feeds the meditations of senator or sage;
whatever there is in the tendency of events, that occupies the speculative on the progression of humanity,
are all tributary to the preacher, and in the highest,
noblest sense. Upon the " field " of the world he is
to sow imperishable seed; his patriotism must burn not
with the heat of passion, but the glow of heaven; in




THE PULPIT.                135
history he traces the path of Providence and the footsteps of God; and at the most distant limit to which
the reveries of earthly perfectionists extend, he stands
only on the margin of that infinite and immortal future,
which his faith discerns, and in which his faith confides.
The preacher has before him the whole range of nature; the visible and audible revelation of God, with
all the truth and piety which it contains and inspires.
The minister of the Creator ought surely to be familiar
with his'works; and if there be any heart which they
can kindle with a pure enthusiasm, that heart ought to
be his. The prophets, the great preachers of old, uplifted the soul through visible sublimity to the Eternal
Spirit; yet strange that religion, which in itself is highest poetry, should so soften, in our modern pulpit, be
turned to meanest and tamest prose.
Ministers cannot be poets or prophets, but it is always
desirable they should be men of sensibility, men of
" natural piety." An overloaded imagery, drawn from
external objects, we utterly denounce. We wish not
to hear incessantly of suns, stars, skies, oceans, mountains, with their lofty sublimity; but we would have
the impression of a soul that had sympathy with greatness in any of the forms stamped by the hand of the
Almighty; we eschew all poetico-sentimental disserta
tions in sermons upon fields and flowers, woods and




136          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
vales; yet with the simplicity of taste and freshness of
sentiment, which the love of such objects nourishes, we
would not willingly dispense. We would not have prosaic moralizings on the change of seasons, but we look
for that seriousness of thought and reflection, which
proves that years have not passed in vain or unobserved; and we cannot help thinking that, if such
tastes were more cultivated, sermons would have more
interest. But, above all, the preacher has the Bible,
the household and holy book, the book of the affections, of the conscience, of faith and hope; the book
of childhood and of age, the guide of life and the consolation of death; and from this treasury he can draw
forth things old and new, which need but a living utterance to give them living power. We dwell not on the
varied wisdom and sublimity of the Old Testament;
but in the New, not to enlarge on its boundless riches
of narrative and precept, what mind or minds, what
age or number of ages, will ever exhaust the moral
meanings contained in the character of Christ? and
when will any individual or community ever translate
into action the perfect lesson of his example?
Whatever, therefore, may be drawn from man's history or destiny:; from feeling or from faith; from imagination or memory; from the heart, from the home, from
the love of country or the love of man, from the universe




THE PULPIT.               137
or from the Bible, is fairly within the dominion of the
pulpit. When we say this, we are not so unreasonable
or so unjust as to imply that each single preacher
should fill up the outline we have traced. Such a man
would indeed be, what Charles the Second of England
called Doctor Isaac Barrow, a most unfair preacher, for
he would leave nobody else any thing to say. But if
the pulpit has such manifold resources in the heart and
conscience, in the domestic relations, in the outward
world, in all that concerns man, past and future, how
comes it then that our modern pulpit can possibly have
the sameness of which we- accuse it?  Simply, because it has not used its resources; it has deserted the
manifold revelations of God, and clung to the dogmas
of theologians and system makers; it has forsaken the
fountains of living waters, and hewn out for itself
broken cisterns, which can hold no water. Is it any
wonder, therefore, that the channels should be empty,
and, that, where there should be the rush of healthful
streams, there often are but echoes of hollow winds?
The second evil which we intimated in the modern
pulpit, is its sectarianism, and to that point we now turn
our attention. Looking at the question superficially, it
would seem strange that the characteristic we have
just discussed could possibly be joined with that which
we have here stated. What in appearance can be so




138          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
diverse, in many cases so opposed, as the Protestant
sects? How multifarious their names, and how fierce
their controversies! It might hence be concluded, that
their opinions and their modes of illustration would be
quite as diversified. It is possible, however, to have
monotony of thought without unity of heart, and to be
bound in the slavery of creeds, without being united in
the bonds of charity; it is, therefore, in no wise inconsistent, to hear parties rail at each other with all the
Babel tongues of anger, although essentially they may
be but little separated. Great differences make men
serious; it is commonly small differences that make
them angry. The fiercest wars of the Lilliputians were
about breaking the big end or the little end of the
egg. So it is that the sects fall out, not because they
are far asunder, but because they are so near. But as
the sober and thinking portions of mankind take no
interest in these polemics, or merely stand by as cool
spectators of the combat, to them the pulpit, while it
assumes this aspect, can have neither attraction nor
authority. We speak this not in scorn, but in sorrow;
for we know that fine minds and high talents are thus
lost to the best hopes and interests of humanity, in
beating the air and fighting with phantoms.
" Our theology," says Foster, the eloquent English
essayist, " is the theology of faction."  Few who have




THE PULPIT.                139
calmness and independence sufficient to judge the religious world as it is, will dispute the truth of this observation. In reference to the sectarian abuse of Christianity, it may indeed be truly said, that it " gives up to
party what was made for mankind." In our modern
pulpit there is little eloquence which speaks to the whole
man. Rarely do we find - with regret we say it - a
truthful, tranquil, loving administration of Christianity;
a going forth of great principles and great affections.
Not in the missiles of sectarian contest to be met by
sectarian bulwarks, is this to be found, but in the rays of
that blessed light which melt the very barriers of ice,
that would exclude them, into streams that spread life
and splendor over a withered soil.  Christianity is
preached too commonly in a spirit of contention. We
meet each other too often on those points at which we
are antagonist; as if the only prophecy of Jesus which
we desired to fulfil, was that one in which he says, " I
came not to send peace on earth, but a sword." We
press the dogma of our sect, and we forget or forsake
the spirit of our Master. Christian churches may lite.
rally use the saying of the great apostle, " Without are
fightings, within are fears." It ought not so to be.
Whether as individuals or as churches, we require
peace for our moral perfection, not the peace of apathy,
but that of charity and toleration. Though occasionally




140           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
conflict may be necessary to liberty, yet liberty itself
is but a means to higher ends, and we value it for the
happiness it promotes and secures. If all things great
are sown in liberty, they are ripened in peace. Struggle may be necessary as a preliminary state; as a permanence it would be misery. The convulsion of disease may renovate the frame, and make returning
health a rapture; but the rapture comes not until the
convulsion subsides. Tempests may purify our atmosphere, but it is not until the storm and thunder are silent, and the fiery bolt shoots by, and the calm and sunshine come again, that we breathe with freedom, and
look unfearing on the quiet face of nature. In the
political and moral world the case is similar. The hurricane of a people's passions, generated in a people's
wrongs, may shatter the thrones, that for a thousand
years were based upon the wretchedness of successive
millions, and supported by their tears and blood; yet
the very shock that lays them. in the dust, is for the
time a calamity'; and it is not until tranquillity returns,
that freedom is known in its blessedness, and felt to be
worth the sacrifice -it cost.  It is not until then its best
effects are witnessed; that civilization lifts' up a nation
to virtue and grandeur, that industry spreads culture on
its plains, and worships in safety under the vine and figtree it has planted. In religion, also, the ministries




THE PULPIT.                141
which expound its noblest sentiments, and carry out its
best apostleship, must work in peace.
If it be said that Christ's religion has yet accomplished little compared with what might have been expected, the defect has been not in the spirit, but the
forms with which it has been encumbered.  The result
of all is, that in this eternal attention to dogmatical distinctions, the intellect and heart of the minister are
dwarfed, and the disciples are in the measure of their
masters. While a few popular doctrines are continually
reiterated, or points of dispute are urged with a zeal
that often is but another name for bigotry, all that is serious in man's moral nature is left untouched; a spurious excitement is taken for conversion, bodily impulses
for sacred inspirations, and fierce denunciation of a different belief for holy ardor in the cause of Christ. The
lovers of peaceful and thoughtful religion grieve; the
unbeliever sneers; the intellectual retire to seek in their
studies more congenial aliment, and from habitual, proceed to entire absence. The devotees applaud, but the
great mass of society is left uninstructed in what they
most need instruction, and unimproved in what they
most need improvement. That a vast deal of our popular preaching is dogmatical or polemical, will not be
denied by any person who is in the habit of hearing or
reading our modern sermons; and often under the guise




142          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
of religious phraseology there is concealed a covert
uncharitableness, which the advocate for Christ should
blush to utter, which the disciples of Christ should weep
to hear. In this our own country of liberty, the most
perfect religious freedom has not entirely crushed religious asperity; but what is wanting in polemical rancor,
we make up in fanatical extravagance. But, bad as we
may be in the warfare of creeds, we thank Providence,
that we are free at least from the additional bitterness
and burden of a church establishment.
Yet we do not deprecate controversy, and we would
not banish argument from the pulpit; for while men
think differently, — and think differently they will to
the end of the world, -controversy and argument must
exist by a necessity of our nature; but, we would have
controversy tempered with charity, and argument conducted with justice. The polemical, however, in any
shape, is not that which should uniformly characterize
discourses from the Christian pulpit; for although there
is a time to pull down, as to all things under the sun,
there is a longer time and a more arduous labor required to build up. Let a thoughtful man but take the
New Testament in his hand; then contrast its spirit
with the battlings of Christendom, and he must lift up
his eyes in wonder or bend them down in shame. We
may not feel this, because from familiarity we have




THE PULPIT.               143
lost our sensibility to the moral beauty of the Gospel,
and habit has, rendered our inconsistency imperceptible.
But, as an example, suppose the case of a Mahommedan, who should feel aspirations after virtue higher than
he knew, and had never seen a Christian, to find, in
some stray leaf dropped from a traveller's Bible, " The
Sermon on the Mount," how  would his heart burn
within, him, how would he not say, " This is exactly the
teaching that I want - how good and happy must those
be who enjoy it!"  Imagine him  by circumstances
thrown into a Christian land amidst the din of sects,
where, instead of peace, and meekness, and purity of
heart, he heard only the clashing of dogma against
dogma, and the angry noise of mutual recrimination;
it is probable that, as Luther returned from Rome a
Protestant, he would leave Chistendom more a Mahommedan than ever.
What are the prominent difficulties of the pulpit, is
the'most striking consideration that is suggested by the
preceding observation. First, it has to meet the demands of a more diffused and a higher enlightenment.
While the pulpit has been engaged in dogmatism or
debate - a dogmatism, too, which was worn thread'bare
two centuries ago, and debate that ought long since to
have been at rest, - the press has been moulding the
times, or going with them, and applying itself with




144           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
hearty earnestness to whatever interests or raises man.
We speak, as we before observed, of the better influences of the press. But, how, it may be inquired, does
this concern the pulpit? Much every way; especially,
inasmuch as it has to confront cultivated intellect instead
of submissive faith. Education arouses anxieties unknown to the implicit devotee. In rendering men more
deliberative, it renders them less susceptible; and while
it weakens the powers of sense, it weakens also the
sympathies of passion.  Habitual thought restrains or
conceals emotion, which by long constraint approaches
to extinction.  Artificial and refined habits of mind
thus formed, often depress the devotional affections;
the intellectual faculties outrun the religious, and study
excludes faith.
Our times are those in which much is looked for
from the men who have influence in the church or in
the world. Much religious excitement prevails in our
day, but the intellectual excitement is not less; and
among those who are just awaking from the sleep of
ignorance to a new existence, it has its deepest hold
and most manifold dangers. The very eccentricities of
intellect, the vagaries and paradoxes of recent speculation, surround the pulpit with new and fresh difficulties.
The dangers that arise from intellect alone, the pulpit
but rarely or ineffectually meets. It has declaimed on




THE PULPIT.                145
the delusions of imagination and the wildness of pas..
sion; but it should now be prepared, not only to meet
the demands of reason, but to obviate its dangers. The
Christian ministry has given a disproportionate attention to the sins and sufferings of passion, but sins and
sufferings are also connected with intellect, and these
are equally within its scope of influence and sphere of
duty. The ministration therefore of the pulpit becomes
more arduous with the spread of reading; and though
the audience should consist merely of unwashed artificers, preachers must not calculate on uninquiring deference, nor imagine they need but a small amount of
mental exertion, to satisfy persons, whose grade of information they would judge by their grade in. life. In
such inference they will find themselves fatally mistaken.
The pulpit, in emulation with the good agency of the
press, must stand at enmity with the bad. We revere
the press as much as any lovers of freedom and knowledge can venerate that which is their great palladium.
We are aware that, even in its periodical form, it has
been the medium of giving to the world some of the
most beautiful productions of genius; but we are also
aware, that, in its inferior grades, it has been the panderto every bad and gross passion; to envy, hatred, malice, revenge, and licentiousness: for profit,. setting
VOL. II.              10




146          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
honor, truth, and conscience at defiance; praising or
blaming not according to justice, but according to faction; always ready to be bought or bribed; at all hours
prepared with a dagger and a masque, which may as
easily be had for hire as those of Italian bravoes.
That no pen worth using could be turned to such vile
purposes, it is sincerely to be hoped; for of all species
of degradation, this hiring of the mind to falsify for pelf
all its better sentiments, is the basest and the worst. If
a man, who had ever any thing nobler in his nature,
should by wretchedness be driven to such mean offices
as a refuge from starvation, then we say that poverty
has poured out upon his head her last and her most
bitter vial. That such publications exist here and in
Europe, publications which shrink from no species of
venal corruption, from no vileness of mental dishonesty;
whose very life is slander, whose breath is obscene and
contaminated, we lament to confess in a Christian and
a civilized country. And the circulation of these is
principally among the lower grades of the operative
classes. The injury they have done, in misleading
opinion and debasing morals, is one of the most awful
social evils, and of all abuses of the press the most to
be deplored. The difficulty, then, of the pulpit in this
respect is twofold; namely, to keep pace with the
intelligence of the higher press, and to subdue the
corruption of the lower.




THE PULPIT.               147
Secondly. Our age is one of vast materiality and
vast excitement; an age of mechanistn and agitation.
The powers that work around us are impressive and
gigantic. By the agency of steam alone, more is accomplished than was ever painted in the wildest fictions
which charmed our childhood. Oceans are made as
ferries; extremes of continents as places of immediate
neighborhood; one central force can keep thousands in
motion; a man with a dirty jacket, sitting on the engine
of a railway train, turns into contempt all our childish
imaginations of the giant with his seven-leagued boots.
What was fiction to our grandfathers, is commonplace
to us; what to them would have been a wild and airy
dream, is to us a real and substantial fact. The astonishing progress of material activity and mechanical
invention, has dispersed the visions of enthusiasm by
which we were once encompassed. The colored lamp
in which the light was placed, that gave a thousand
hues and figures to our sight, is broken; the hues and
figures have vanished with the broken lamp, and to
advanced experience the naked lustre alone remains.
The world's youth seems past. Hitherto, it has dreamed
and fancied, imagined and reflected; now it is to work;
philosophy and poetry are daily issuing into action, and
science is discarding soul.
When we speak of science thus, we mean that which




148           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
is now most prevalent, the science of things limited and
tangible. In these we have, no doubt, amazing agencies,
majestic to the senses, and even sublime to thought; but
still they are all material, and form a bottomless gulf,
in which the individualities of mind are buried by millions. Evidence there may be of profound intellect in
the originator, but it is intellect operating through material media, and using the men whom it employs, not so
much as thinking beings as the adjuncts of machinery.
The direct tendency is to reduce all skilled industry to
monotonous uniformity, and to render successive millions of human beings the automatons of mechanistic
despotism.  Habits generated  from  influences like
these, are the most remote from those which it is the
office of the pulpit to instil; a sense of inward existence, of a spirit superior to the outward and the perishable, and of a free and responsible will.
We have said that our age is one of excitement;
and such it is for religion, politics, and wealth. We
have in the religious world whole forests of societies,
with so many cross-paths and so much intricacy, that
simple piety and philanthropy become bewildered in
their mazes.  We have, also, so many preachers, at
least in our towns, so quick a succession of services,
and so continual an administration of religious stimulants, that the head grows giddy, and one sermon stifles




THE PULPIT.                 149
another. We stop not here to descant on excitement
in politics; for since the building of Babel, politics have
been clamorous with a many-tongued confusion; on
this point, we cannot single out one age from another.
The passion for power is universal and indestructible,
from the statesman, that by a magnificent genius rules
half a world, to the pot-house factionist, that by strength
of lungs drowns the vociferations of a club. But wealth
has never been pursued with a more absorbing desire,
than in the present age; yet the pursuit is not so much
in a hoarding spirit, as in a passionate enthusiasm. Ambition,, vanity, emulation; artificial wants, created by
artificial life; a false standard of competence, and an
idea of happiness still more false, urge men onward in
this career with an intensity that engrosses every faculty and fills the whole life with care.
Our age, moreover, so far as it is not fanatical, is
one of skepticism; and by skepticism, we do not mean
merely what is implied in conventional phraseology, -.
an outward disregard to religious institutions, nor even
professed disbelief in the doctrines of Christianity. It
is not the philosophical skepticism of Hume, which destroying all grounds of conviction, in its very extreme
carried its own cure. That which admits of no certainty
in any form of evidence leaves all evidence as it had
been. The reasonings of Hume had no force even to




150         LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
himself out of his closet; they could never have influence on the opinions of mankind, and to the philosophical they can be only subjects of metaphysical amusement. Nor is our skepticism like that of Voltaire, one
of wit and scorn, joining sarcasm with ridicule, and in
place of direct logic using the sting of insinuation.
Ours is a skepticism, that, though less defined, lies
deeper and is more dangerous; a skepticism, not so
much in opinion as in sentiment; not so much the skepticism  of criticism  as of indifference. The material
world so presses us on every side, and an immediate
utility is so interwoven with our actions and philosophy,
that all else appear nonentities. OWe are as the disciple
Thomas; we must see with our eyes and touch with
our hands, or we will not be convinced; and what we
see and touch must have some alliance with our interest, to be for us of any value or importance.
Our Saviour said, " Blessed are those who have not
seen and yet believe;" blessed, also, and blessed above
measure, are those who understand the full import of
that saying. The,faith of the heart has waxed cold,
the ears are dull of hearing; and a hard and rigid
matter-of-fact philosophy has grown upon us, in which
the divine and the ideal are never dreamt of. Thence,
the past, the distant, and the future, by apprehension of
which, as Doctor Johnson taught, we rise in the scale




THE PULPIT.                151
of intelligent beings, have lost their power on us; and
thence also disinterested actions, and a sense of right
which defies consequences come to be regarded as the
mere dreams of amiable enthusiasts. From such reasoners the progressive capacities of human nature meet
with equal mockery, and with its capacities depart its
claims. Incessant contact with the actual has blunted
our perception of the ideal; that moral imagination has
grown insensible, which reveals to our souls the pure
and beautiful, whether in the divine character or the
human; in the actions of men or in the works of the
Creator. The faith of sympathy, by which we realize
all that is not palpable, has weakened into feebleness,
and in the same proportion have our reverence and admiration.
It is not that the faculties are destroyed; but they
slumber. The faculties which bind man to the invisible
cannot be destroyed; they are stronger than those
which unite him to the visible; the one shall perish, the
others remain forever. And there is no man, however
low or brutish, who does not on occasions feel this in
his own experience; — occasions, when the strongest
shrink at the idea of death and judgment; when the
hero forgets his glory and the miser forgets his gain.
Sunk we may be in the very depths of materiality, yet
times there are, of sober reflections and visitings of




152         LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
thought, that make us sadder as they make us wiser,
when we cannot shut out unseen things, nor even subdue our desire for them; times when we feel that the
wishes which were as fire in our breast were but
delusions, the love of glory a splendid falsehood, and
outward advantages without inward peace but the
mockeries of our wretchedness; times when we learn
the emptiness of riches, the vanities of rank, the dependency of power, the burden of fame, the changes of
life - the uncertainty of all. Then we look for other
objects of desire; our ideas rise from sense to faith,
from the seen to the unseen, from the house of clay to
the temple of the Eternal. Feeling that passion sinks
as we wane in life; that the brilliancy of earth fades
the more we gaze upon it; that mutability attends all
with which we are here connected; we long at last for
something beyond the passions, time, and change;
something of which no vicissitude in this world can rob
us, which we can have or hope for, though the eye
should lose its sight and the ear its hearing, though
riches should be no more, and earthly expectations
blasted forever. Then we turn to God who cannot
alter, and to a filture world which cannot end. But,
although the tendencies that impel us thus to look
beyond the space we live in are inherent and indestructible, there are periods unfavorable to their exercise;




THE PULPIT.                153
and such a one is the present. There is a moral as
well as theological skepticism; our times are those of
moral skepticism. Popular odium is principally directed against the theological unbeliever, but the skeptic of
the heart is infinitely the worse. One may believe
theologically, even to superstition, yet be morally a
skeptic, - a skeptic to all that is good, fair, generous,
and great; one may doubt because he cannot help it,
yet have faith unconquerable in everlasting truth and
goodness.
To make our distinction a little more.clear, we will
adduce for each part of it a single illustration. Louis
the Fourteenth, it is well known, was, in the close of his
life, as stanch a devotee, as he had ever been an inveterate persecutor.  He was, it is true, not the rightminded believer, but he was no skeptic, and this is all
our argument requires.   Take then the following
anecdote of him.  "Marechal, his surgeon, observing
him unusually melancholy, ventured to hint some fears
of his health. The monarch acknowledged, in general
terms, that he suffered great uneasiness from  the
posture of his affairs. Eight or ten days after, having
recovered his ordinary tran.quillity, he sent for Marechal, and, taking him aside-' Now,' said he,'that I
feel myself at ease, I will relate to you the cause of
my anxiety, and by what means I got rid of it.' He




154          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
proceeded to inform him, that the necessity of his
affairs having compelled him to impose new taxes on
his people, his reluctance to make free with their property, and his compassion for their distress, had greatly
affected him.' At length,' said he,' I opened my mind
to Father Tellier, who required some days to consider
on the subject. He has now brought me a consultation
of the most subtle doctors of Sorbonne, who all agree,
that as the whole property of my subjects is personally
mine, I can take nothing from them but what is my
own. This decision has restored me to the tranquillity
I had lost."' We see here how far a man can be
credulous and cruel; or rather, we see how easily a
devout casuist can suit his faith to his practice and his
passions.  Contrast with this the case of Madame
Roland, unbeliever as she was, strong in the faith of
rectitude and humanity, maintaining that faith in the
midst of tyrants and on the bloody scaffold. Put, then,
the theological unbelief of the heroic woman against
the moral unbelief of the superstitious despot, and our
distinction will be at once apprehended. Skepticism
on great truths we deplore in any shape; but if we
had the power of choice we would say, " at all events,"
keep the moral nature trustful and pure, and the wanderings of judgment may be corrected by the experience of the heart, and, in time, right sentiment may
produce right belief.




THE PULPIT.               155
We have thus, briefly as we could, stated a few of
the difficulties with which, in the present day, the pulpit
has to contend. The pulpit is the great expositor of
religion, and as religion is an essential element in
human nature it can never be extinguished. The duty,
therefore, which it cannot desert, it must gird on
strength to accomplish.  The pulpit has a solemn
position and a solemn duty, a duty, not to sect, but to
society, and not alone to society but to the world, and
to the world in all its grandest relations. In what
spirit, then, must it go to this noble and glorious work?
It must take with it a human and kindly Christianity,
and peace and good will must be its message. It must
not have a creed in one hand and a thunderbolt in the
other; but it must rather take the hymn in which a
Saviour's birth was sung, and the cross on which a
Saviour's love was proved. It must have freedom, but
it must not have harshness and prejudice: it must be
as the mercy it proclaims, impartial and unconfined;
like the sun-lit dew by which that mercy is figured,
falling on the most retired and lowly spots, and coming
from a bright and all-embracing heaven. It must have
power, and power sanctified; a power great in its very
rest, which, like Elijah's prayer, cleaves the skies and
draws down fire from above.
We can easily discern what should be the spirit of




156          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
the pulpit; we cannot so easily specify what should be
its form. Young men, preparing for the ministry, used
once to be directed to the classic age of the French
church for models of pulpit oratory; but such a custom
is far better broken than observed. Many of the French
preachers were supreme in thought and utterance, for
their own times and for their own purposes.  Their
productions live in the literature of the world, and will
live while the world has a literature.
All oratory must be suited to its age and to its auditories. The eloquence of Bossuet, lofty and massive
as it was, would not have melted, as Whitefield's did,
the miners of Cornwall; nor would the sentiments of
Fenelon, with his silvery elocution, have fallen with
the same power on an English multitude as the shrill
declamation of Wesley. Though- we were able to call
from the dead Bourdaloue, serious, logical, cold, and
clear; or Massillon, full of fervor and pathos; we cannot bring back their age, their church, their ceremonies, and their congregations. The solemn mass, the
deep-toned choir, the courtly audience, the lofty pillars,
and the fretted aisles, were all proper concomitants of
their eloquence; but that is not the eloquence which
we most need. They discoursed before the satiated
and voluptuous on the sinfulness of worldly pleasures;
our ministers are more frequently called on to give a




THE PULPIT.               157
solace for worldly pains. They, speaking to those who
were gorged with all they could desire in life, threw an
awful terror around the bed of death; but our preachers
speak to numbers who have not had life in its fulness
but its wants, and for whom there is no brightness if it
rest not on the grave. They addressed an ambitious
aristocracy on the vanity of earthly glory; it is more
frequently the duty of our ministers to elevate men to
a sense of their heavenly and human dignity. They
discoursed on life and death; and though on both they
discoursed most eloquent music, much of their declamation was false in spirit and false in fact.
What then is the kind of preaching likely to suit the
times, to meet the wants and requirements of the age?
In a few words we shall say what it must not be. It
must not be a dull enunciation called "rational; " nor
cold disquisition denominated " ethical;" nor a textual
compound without connection or unity, dignified with
the epithet of " Scriptural." We cannot accept for a
Christian sermon a composition, wanting in all that a
Christian sermon ought to have, warmth, energy, tenderness, pathos, elevation of thought and spirituality of
sentiment.
We have already said sufficient to show the necessity of cultivated intellect in preaching; but more is
still needed, as may be seen by a glance at the diffi



158           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
culties we have enumerated. The pulpit must become
more adaptive. We use a new word, but we have no
other that so well defines our idea. It is the great
beauty of the Gospel, as it was of Christ's own personal
ministry, that it suits every age and every class. Christ
instructed all, and in every place; the priest, the scribe,
the fisherman, the sinful woman and the pure; in the
temple, in the market-place, in the dwelling, along the
highway, on the hill.side, by the well; and his preaching was always modified according to character and
circumstances. So should ever be the administration
of his religion. Christianity is not a set of hard and
dry propositions, but a vital and diffusive spirit, which
can mingle with the whole moral life, and sanctify it in
every action. In these days, preaching must diversify
its topics, and widen the field of its ministry. Instead
of dogmas, it must take principles; principles it must
apply to practice; and practice implies the whole
character and conduct of man in all his relations, personal, domestic, and public. Abstractions and theories
in religion do not touch the heart or reform the life.
We must, therefore, be made to feel that religion is
our highest interest, by intimate and vivid associations.
Active and thinking men seek in the pulpit what they
desire everywhere, simplicity and earnestness; but
exaggeration they despise and avoid.




THE PULPIT.               159
Now, it unfortunately happens, that exaggeration is
the great sin of our modern preachers. In most of
their declamatory descriptions, the world and all things
therein, are evil and accursed; a pall is on the heavens,
and darkness on the earth; and but a favored few are
saved from this present and prospective hell. States of
feeling, the most sickly and unsound, are given as religious sentiment, and appeals made to the pious, which
can only tend to nourish the most egregious self-conceit.
Persons, who know the world and human nature as they
are, grow disgusted with all this; and the men who
utter it, they cannot help thinking fools or hypocrites.
They are well aware that earth is not a Paradise, but
they are equally sure that it is not a Pandemonium;
they are conscious that humanity is not perfect, but
they will not believe the rhapsodies which would make
it appear Satanic. Truth, then, must be adhered to in
descriptions of experience, as well as in statements of
principles; in experience above all, for the hearer has
the test within himself, and if he finds that stated as a
certainty, which is false to his entire consciousness, and
remote from all his associations, he loses trust in the
speaker, and perhaps makes shipwreck of his faith.
If men are worldly, the more need to convince them
that religion has a substantial existence; if ardent, to
breathe a pure inspiration into their enthusiasm; if




160          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
skeptical, to display with more force the reality and
grandeur of Christ's character; and it is required that
these principles should be pressed on men in connection
with their habitual feelings and pursuits.
Morality, as commonly taught in the pulpit, is the
most vague of generalities; having neither distinctness
of analysis nor force of application. Preaching, without losing elevation or spirituality, should assume more
directness; meet the mechanic at his bench, the trader
at his desk, and all according to their several positions
and obligations. Preachers must not take for granted
that, because the principles of duty are uniform and
unchangeable, all men, therefore, view right and wrong
through the same medium, or judge them by the same
standard. There is a conventional morality, with which
most persons satisfy the world and their conscience;
they are not worse than others in their trade or profession, and they all have common cause not to be too
critical or uncharitable.  A  sophistry of this kind,
which eats away the very life of virtue, can never
be successfully combated in the pulpit, except by an
application to the details of life, that is as searching as
it is accurate; and while we would have preaching
become thus intelligibly practical, we neither secularize
nor degrade it. We do not desire from the pulpit
a lecture on metaphysics, a dissertation on political




THE PULPIT.               1.61
economy, or a harangue on daily politics; but we
would have that from it for which Christianity was
intended, - counsel in all our difficulties., and guidance
in all our duties. Preachers, as they arise, should be
trained for the age in which they are to labor. We
cannot frequently have genius, but we may hope for
zeal and nature; we may not look for a dazzling
eloquence, but we may, for what is better and more
effective, moral power flowing from moral sympathy,
which, if it does not create the classic oratory that is
immortalized on earth, trains the sainted virtue that
ascends to Heaven. We ask not for men to arouse a
world, but we despair not of those who can sanctify a
church. We hope for men to arise and multiply, who
shall come armed for the temper of the times; who
shall come moulded, but not corrupted, by the influences amidst which they live; imbued with the religion
they are to administer, - an earnest and awakening
Christianity; who shall come with that practical sagacity, which, joined with high sentiment, rises into wisdom; who shall come with right knowledge quickened
by right enthusiasm, with the fire which is enkindled
in the sanctuary, that warms and fertilizes while it
enlightens and beautifies.
But when the pulpit has done all it can do, and done
it in the best manner, there are still many in moral
VOL. II.          11




162          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
destitution whom it cannot reach. The energetic benevolence of modern times has made efforts to meet
this great spiritual want, in the establishment of city
missions and of the ministries at large. As to the need
of them, it is only to be wondered it was not sooner
felt; but even late, we hail this establishment. We
lament, in our common religious phraseology, the sin
and misery of past times and of distant nations; we
multiplied missionaries, and we accumulated funds to
carry the Gospel to the extremities of the earth, but we
seemed to forget that as great sin and misery were at
our doors; and while we wailed over the wretchedness
of the heathen, we thought not that only a brick wall,
perhaps, stood between us and crime, as deep as ever
the olden ages knew, and misery as great as lowest
savages endure. The secluded lane was morally as
unknown to the grand street behind which it stood,
as a nook in the interior of Africa; and a groan in the
one perished as unheard and as unnoticed as a groan in
the other. Without the' form, there existed in the dark
retreats of the civilized world all the abominations of
idolatry; and without the dedication of temples to vile
and evil demons, there was, in the hidden places of
poverty and crime, a multitude of victims to the worst
principles which their names embodied. The domestic
ministry has done much to break down these partitions,




THE PULPIT.                163
which kept one half the world ignorant about the condition of the other; it has entered the dens of neglected
vice and desolation, and made revelations on the state
of the poor and the forsaken, of which " good, easy"
people had never dreamt. Without crossing oceans to
Africa, Hindostan, or New Zealand, it has found in our
own cities a terra incognita of manifold ignorance,
crime, and sorrow; and while men's sympathies were
wafting to the poles, it has recalled them to their
thresholds. May it continue to go forward and increase,
for there is yet a mighty work to be accomplished, and
blessed indeed are the laborers, who shall be called to
it, and who shall be found worthy of it. Of all ministries, it is that which most resembles Christ's; which
goes to men's homes and to their hearts; which looks
for the wretched and the lost, and which not merely
calls, but seeks; of all ministries, it is that which requires most of Christ's spirit, and which, divested of all
declamatory pomp, must go at once to the soul in
the strong persuasiveness of a true and sympathizing
humanity.
Domestic missions are not yet as numerous as they
might be, and as they will be; but so far a's they have
gone, there is abundance of reason to look gratefully
on the origin of the institution, and to hope largely
for the future. Already they have done good beyond




164          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
calculation, and our hope is high, when we think of what
they are destined to fulfil. How many, in the last
wretchedness of despair, have been found out in their
sunless lairs; how many, in the pangs of unhoping
poverty, in the madness of forlorn ruin; how many, in
starving and houseless sin, outcast from the good, and
with no pity from those as bad as themselves; how
many, in the pangs of death, who long for consolation
as the hart for the water brooks; how many of the virtuous sitting low in uncomplaining resignation; how many
of all these have been discovered in the wilderness of
modern society by researches of domestic ministers,
who brought light to their dwellings, and salvation to
their souls; confidence to the weak in heart, and
strength to those who were ready to perish?  Christ's
spirit and Christ's peace be on their labors! To these
we may add a great mass of voluntary preachers, as
distinguished from the regular and settled ministry.
Both on this side and the other of the Atlantic, very
many congregations could not afford to support a pastor,
and therefore necessity, made more urgent by piety,
compels them to arrange the services among themselves; and those who are most competent, lead the
devotions of the others. Congregations we know, who
have thus grown up-strong in faith and virtue, and progressive in numbers and in power; men, humble men,




THE PULPIT.               165
but honest; men of lowly rank, but eloquent with the
force which truth and sincerity inspire, have become
hoary as their unpaid teachers; working with their
hands, and among their fellows during the week, but
standing first and most revered among them on the
Sabbath; and without either crosier or mitre, they have
never failed to receive that veneration, which is always
willingly given to the pure and single-hearted. And
what a noble honor is theirs! men, who, after their six
days' toil, can, on the seventh, disenthrall themselves
from earth, pass from the laborer to the pastor, minister
to their brethren the glories of an upper world, point
to brighter worlds, and lead the way; men, who in simplicity, fervor, and success, do an apostle's office with
an apostle's disinterestedness.
In conclusion, we look on to the future confidingly.
With a press free and diffusive; with a literature growing cheap as it becomes more elevated; with increasing
facilities in the fine arts, to habituate the sight of all
classes to forms of grace and beauty, and tune their
ears to the music of sweet sounds; with the spread of
a peaceful and moral civilization, and a widening community by means of science and commerce; with
education in Sunday and week schools, enlarging in
domain as it is improving its methods, we trust, also, to
see the pulpit honorably fill its own place in the grand
work of moral redemption and moral progression.




PATRIOTISM.
I WILL enter into no metaphysical inquiries on the
origin and nature of this sentiment. We have no time
for such preliminary disquisition. I will, in the first
place, consider it simply in itself. In the second place,
I will refer to some erroneous feelings often associated
with it. In conclusion, I will dwell on its positive and
undeniable obligations.
And, first, in itself; this indeed needs no recondite
examination. That an attachment exists in our nature
to the place of our birth, and by association to the
country which contains it, is a proposition which logic
cannot aid; for, if we do not feel it, it is a proposition
of which there is no reasoning to convince us.  It
admits of no contradiction, or being contradicted, there
is no process of thought, by which it can be proved.
It is not a sentiment that springs up with instruction;
on the contrary, it dates back before all training, and
centres in those affections, of which, even the individual




PATRIOTISM.                 167
memory holds no records of the beginning.  It is not
a local distinction. With degrees and differences, it is
found wherever man is found.!It is of no particular
age, and of no specific culture. There are no traditions without its inspiration; there are no traditions in
which it is not the most stirring story; there is no song,
however early, or however rude, of which it is not the
boldest poetry, in which it is not the most soul-enkindled
and the most soul-enkindling music. It lives in all
civilization, it lives before any; it begins before comparison, and it survives all calculation. A man does
not love the country of his birth, because it is more
beautiful than another; because it is more fertile;
because it is more prosperous; because it has more
knowledge and more power; because it gives him more
to enjoy and less to suffer. Men will hold, with the
almost tenacity of affection, to countries the most
unsightly, the most unpicturesque, and the most unlovely; they will cling to regions barren and inclement, ay, and love them just as fondly, as if they were
vales in Araby the blest, or the fairest spots in the
fairest districts of Italyf Who has not heard of northern savages returning to their lairs in the snow, and of
American Indians rushing again from all the luxuries
of civilization, to their wigwams in the wilderness?
Have not civilized men, too, from the midst of know



168          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
ledge, liberty, and peace, turned back the gaze of their
hearts over years and distance, resting with unspeakable delight upon regions which gave them nothing
but a hungry childhood and a neglected youth? And
such is the charm of imagination, that these regions,
seen through the dimness of time, are invested with a
mystic beauty, which nothing but the most hallowed
instincts could shed around them.
Is not this well?  Such facts give all the reply
which should ever be attempted, to mean or narrow
theories of our nature. They show that there is a
spirit within, whose workings are not the mere agency
of sense. There is nothing in mere sensation which
tells me, why I love a stunted shrub in one climate,
more than fragrant bowers in another. I give myself,
therefore, to the conviction, that it is something in me
which passeth sense. Nor shall I be persuaded in the
face of these facts, that whatever feeling in man becomes a motive, and whatever motive in him becomes
an action, can always be accounted for on the ground
of selfishness. Assertions so vague, and so indiscriminate, would include, under one broad generalization,
states of mind and forms of conduct the most abhorrent of each other, and the most opposed. If, merely,
the respect to self decided the human will, then
actions would be traced to the same principle, and




PATRIOTISM.               169
ascribed to the same spirit, however contradictory in
the doing; there would be no difference between them,
but that of sagacity or obtuseness, of rashness or of
prudence - in a word, of accurate or inaccurate calculation; moral distinctions would be at an end; and as
to the object, the aim, and purpose of the deed, we must
place within the same classification, the man who sells
his life for his country, and the man who sells his country for his life.
But, it is in this, as it is in every thing which pertains to our higher being, no theory can grasp or com.
prehend it.  Even the beauty of which the senses
take account, the senses cannot explain; how much
beyond them, then, is that beauty which the soul
creates to the soul, a beauty with which the senses
have no concern! There is emotion which brings to
self, profound enjoyment, in which the good of self had
never been contemplated.  There is reality which
evades all definitions; there is truth beyond the reach
of logic; there is a worth, which no standard of external utility can estimate or measure. That tendency in
our nature to idealize the country of our affections,
which clothes an uncouth edifice with glory; which
causes the sight of a treeless mountain to stir the heart
like the sound of a trumpet; which moves us to weeping by the hearing of a rustic tune; that tendency, I




170           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
say, has this utility, has this truth, has this worth; and
although the truth is beyond the record of logic; although the worth is no subject for arithmetical calculation; although the reality admits of no tangible
admeasurement, the tendency explains itself by all
that gives eloquence to history, and justifies itself by
all that gives heroism to action.
This sentiment, like every other, is subject, of course,
to great variety of modification, according to individual
character, general culture, religious systems, and political institutions.  The inhabitants of mountainous regions have been especially remarked for the force of
their attachment to their native districts. How is this
to. be explained? Is it by the nature of the outward
scenery, or by the influences of the social condition?
If we allude only to outward scenery, is it that the
bold distinctness, the picturesque relief of the landscape,
entwine themselves more with the feelings, and lay a
more tenacious hold upon the memory, than spaces of
orderly uniformity, or of quiet beauty?  Is it that the
pointed crag, the dizzy precipice, the chasms that seem
yawning to the centre, the summits that stretch above
the mid-air clouds, the valleys that sink into nether
darkness? Is it that such pungent, such strongly expressed forms of external phenomena, strike more deeply
into the life, and grapple on its thoughts with indestruct



PATRIOTISM.                171
ible recollections?  Is it that the gurgling murmur of
the torrent, the mighty harmony of the cataract, the
symphonies of winds among the glens, the stupendous
thunderings of storms amidst the mountains; the choruses of tempestuous echoes, rolling  through  the
caves, softening by distance into plaintive sweetness,
and coming to fancy as the still small voice of spirits
far away; voices that create, forever, sweet music in
the heart, and which only ceases, when the chords of
being are unstrung? Is it, likewise, that amidst the
loneliness of hills, there is more meditation, and that
there is more self-communion? Is it, that by these
means, there is a deeper experience of the individual
existence, and of the hidden life? And is it that, by
such association, there grows up a more intimate connection with the external objects linked to it? Is it,
too, that, in mountainous districts, there is a life of
buoyancy, of boldness, of adventure, of risks encountered and escaped, of perils never to be forgotten, of
achievements always to be proud of?  Is it that when
things are thus woven into feeling, men love them for
the dangers that are past?  Is it, moreover, that in
such districts, from paucity of inhabitants, the residents
become attached, not only by the power of the local
instinct, but still more strongly by the ties of kindred?
There is something, no doubt, in the character of




172          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
outward nature as thus developed, to bind the heart to
certain localities, and also, there is much in the social
conditions which they originate and sustain; but to
enter fully into these points, would lead us farther than
at present we can go. I think, as a mere fact, that
mountaineers have a more passionate local patriotism
than other men, and we will content ourselves with the
conviction, that the external scenery, and the social life
trained up amidst such regions, both contribute in
adding to the strength of the emotion,: As the same
influences render them healthy, hardy, elastic, impulsive, and impassioned, they render them, also, tenacious
of local habits and traditions, impatient of restraint, and
lovers of their own ways and their own will. Jealous
of their local privileges, they have always been the
most determined maintainers of national independence,
and the most courageous antagonists to foreign jurisdiction. Illustrations need not be adduced, because every..
child's memory is filled with them; for what child, that
has learned any thing does not know the ancient bravery
of hilly Greece, and the modern sturdiness of Alpine
Switzerland?
And above all, Palestine! Palestine of mountains!
What child does not remember Judea amongst the
hills? There it was the patriarchs mused; there it
was they tended their flocks; there it was that Abra



PATRIOTISM.                173
ham, Father of the faithful, sat in the door of his tent,
and called strangers to its shelter, entertaining angels
unawares; there it was, that Jacob died; from thence,
was Joseph sold; thither was Moses with his great
army commissioned to return. Upon those hills did
judges wander, whose laws have filled the world; upon
those hills kings were nurtured, whose glory will never
die; amidst those valleys, prophets slept, whose dreams,
visions, and utterance, transcend all the philosophy
that men have spoken. There sprung up mighty and
royal men, with quenchless national faith, and pure
national enthusiasms; having, in the line of its history,
Moses, who spoke with God, David who gave to earth
the music of heaven, and the Maccabees, who enriching the soil which they defended with their blood, consecrated its history everlastingly with their memories.
Thence it was that Jesus sprung, with that measureless
heart of his, that, clasping all the human family in its
generous regard, had yet tears of bitter sorrow to pour
over, the devoted towers of Jerusalem. And there it
was that Paul arose, the eloquent Apostle of the Gentiles, whose bosom filled with the most majestic Christian philanthropy, turned with a bleeding afflition to
seek for the sympathy of his countrymen.  And long
through the course of centuries, scattered over the world,
immersed in every gain-seeking employment, the child



174          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
ren of Abraham are dispersed; still, the hills and
valleys, where Abraham fed his flocks, are dearer to
them than the jewels which the richest of his posterity
have collected, than the gold which the proudest of
them  have gathered; and the most indigent would
rather dwell securely in the tabernacles of ancient
Israel, than in the most gorgeous and marble palaces
of modern kings.
Patriotism does not when strongest, as an instinct,
show itself in its largest nobility; in a rude time, it
does not display itself in its grandest characteristics.
In such circumstances it is wanting in compass of moral
aspiration; but then it makes up for this want, in the
intensity of its generous devotion, and of its individual
loyalty. Many, while I speak, will call to mind an eloquent passage in " The Fair Maid of Perth," in which
Sir Walter Scott describes a battle in the Scottish
highlands between two rival clans, where an old man
sacrifices the lives of his six sons and then his own, to
defend the person of his chieftain, and to conceal his
cowardice. This, it may be said, is fiction, still it is
nature. I will, then, give a passage from history which
I met in one of the reviews, concerning a wild tribe of
the highlands called the clan Chattan. " Two hundred
of them were, on a certain occasion, captured by the
Earl of Moray, and hanged. But their head, Hector




PATRIOTISM.                175
Macintosh, lay concealed, and there was the most
ardent desire, on the part of the captors, to apprehend
him. Not one of all the two hundred could be induced
to confess where Hector was, though life was severally
offered to them on this condition, as each was led to
the gallows. Their faith was so true, that they could
not be persuaded, either by fair means or by any terror
of death, to betray their captain."
Patriotism of a high order must grow out of a wider
culture, and be connected with a civilization in which
such a culture can be developed. This culture involves
some of the grandest moral principles and the purest
social aims;" and in very rude conditions, these moral
principles are not discerned, and these social aims are
not conceived. The original desire, that of loyalty to
our nation, is, to be sure, the essence of patriotism, and
to this, the patriotism of a New Zealand savage may be
as true as the patriotism of a Roman citizen. The love
of our country in the lowest state is a noble emotion, a
concentration of the most liberal and the most refined
affections, - the love of home, the love of kindred, the
love of the past, and the love of posterity.
But the love of our country, however strong as I have
said, as a rude instinct, is not great. Patriotism is great
only as an enlightened principle; and it becomes an
enlightened principle only by the advancement of social




176          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
and moral cultivation. By such cultivation alone, the
real greatness and happiness of a country are discerned;
for, in what do the real greatness and happiness of a
nation centre? Not in physical prosperity; not in the
arts, either, which embellish luxury; not even in the
richest literature or the loftiest science. These are not
unworthy of regard; but a nation may have them all,
and yet be unsound or dying.  The true greatness and
the true happiness of a. country consist in wisdom; in
that enlarged and comprehensive wisdom, which includes education, knowledge, religion, virtue, freedom;
with every influence which advances, and every institution which supports them. The idea of such happiness
and such greatness can have no adequate nourishment,
but in civilized society; and it is only the best even in
that society who are true to the idea. The man of
base or selfish passions, the man of narrow or bigoted
understanding, is not capable of a true patriot's expansion.
Not such were the men who live in the deathless
affections of their respective nations. They were men
of exalted moral' beauty; the prophets and the apostles
to millions; the sages who taught multitudes lessons of
immortal freedom; the exemplars, who set before them
models of heroic excellence; the martyr-confessors who
sealed those lessons by their death; or the triumphant




PATRIOTISM.               177
conquerors, who confirmed them by their victory; the
Andrew Marvells, the Franklins, the Hampdens, the
Sydneys, the Kosciuskoes, the Emmetts of the world.
The name -of Washington, I mention singly and alone.
It admits of no plural or parallel. The grand one who
bore it comes to our thoughts without comparison and
without companion. In his own majestic individuality,
he stands separate from the crowd of warriors, yet he is
close to the hearts of his species; they give him a love
which no other soldier has excited, and they approach
him with a homage which no other soldier has deserved.
Men, such as these, were not the men that could
have arisen on a savage age; they were not the minds
which gross or barbarous times could have educated;
they were not the minds which gross or barbarous objects could have excited. They were men consecrated
for a mighty work; and the states of society which
called them forth, they, in their turn, contributed to advance. They were men who could stand before any
tribunal by which the purest state of society could try
them. There was nothing in their lives that sought
disguise, or that feared an accusation; they had no
cunning which they would cover with the robe of wisdom; there were no dark spots upon their character,
which needed the bloody shroud of the scaffold or the
battle to conceal; no blotches lay upon their names,
VOL. II.     12




178          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
which could only be scorched out by the death-baptism
of a fiery persecution; independent for their essential
greatness of misfortune or success, those for whom they
died could add nothing to the goodness which gave their
dying lustre, or those to whom they imparted freedom
could shed no glory on the boldness which achieved it.
They were men of large discourse, of wide relations;
and though they were men of immovable convictions
and of dauntless zeal, they were men of many-sided
tolerance; men in whom the devotion to exalted prin.
ples, was so combined with energetic personality, that,
in respecting themselves, they respected others; admired the independence in others which for themselves
they claimed; demanded no liberty for themselves
which they did not demand for all; asserted that such
liberty belonged to inalienable rights, and held that
inalienable rights were the property of man. Inconsistencies, indeed, there may have been, doubtless
there were, between their conduct and their ideas; but
still, the direction of their conduct was ever, on the
whole, guided by their ideas, and if they did not always
reach the perfect right, they kept their faces towards it.
Great patriots, therefore, must be men of great excellence; and it is this alone that can secure to them a
lasting admiration. It is by this alone, that they become noble to our memories, and that we feel proud in




PATRIOTISM.               179
the privilege of doing reverence to their nobleness,
Great names stand not alone for great deeds; they
stand also for great virtues, and doing them worship, we
elevate ourselves. In our gratitude we simply evince
our sensibility to excellence, and show that we can be
affected by it. Great names.raise us from our own dead
level of worldliness by their generous aspirations; they
wrench us from the bondages of self into the open
scope of their own free souls, and we have to thank
them, not only for an improved social condition, but for
a more exalted inward existence. Such names are the
truest and the most genuine wealth any nation can possess, and the more she has of them, the more abundant
are her treasures. They are incomparably of higher
value, than richest argosies on the sea, or than mines of
the finest gems within the land; they are, too, the most
enduring wealth. Time, which deteriorates other possessions, adds preciousness to those; time, which defaces or obscures the fairest things, dissolves the mists
which, for a little, overshadow glorious names; gradually, the shadows pass away, and they come out with
undimmed effulgence to the clearest eye of distant generations. When cities decay; when commerce changes
its markets and its highways; when buildings, once of
proudest structure, are antiquated or in ruins; when
laws and institutions, customs and traditions, have un.




180          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
dergone all possible vicissitudes of reversal; the great
and the good names of a nation are still within it, a
priceless inheritance; and that inheritance it cannot
forfeit, except by an apostasy which renders it incapable
of holding it, or unworthy of the claim. They are living wealth. They constitute the vitality of the ages to
which they pertain, and they send vitality down to ages
which come along after. There is a power in their
sound, which, at times, can quicken the dust and the
clods; the dead in the graves of their slavery hear it,
and they come forth at its call to the resurrection of a
new existence.. >:2 ~...
There are periods in the experience of the freest
nations, when the bravest will grow timid, and the most
sanguine despond. They fancy, that civic worth has
departed; they fear that degeneracy has set in. It is
not, however, when men are anxious, but when they
are indifferent, that times are really evil; it is not
when many are complaining, but when all are careless, that degeneracy is present. There are seasons,
when it would seem as if ten righteous men could not
be found to save a city, yet, it is not that good men
and true are wanting; they are only silent. Let the
danger come, and not only ten, but ten thousand shall
be upon the ramparts; if the danger cries for more,
more and yet more appear, to prove that the spirit of




PATRIOTISM.               181
the fathers had not died, but only slept. Notwithstandl,
ing mistakes, prejudices, and perversions connected (i
often with it, the patriotic sentiment is among the loftiest of our sentiments. A brave sentiment is that
which so enthrones a disinterested conviction within
his soul, that a man can act and suffer for the good of
those whom he will never see. A brave sentiment is
that which causes an abstract principle to bie dearer to
the heart, than the most enchanting fascinations with
which the senses can tempt it. A brave sentiment is
that which can enable a man to go to the dungeon as
to a chamber of feasting, and to walk from the dungeon
to a scaffold, as if it were a stage on' which to receive
acclamations to his triumph and his renown. Brave is
that sentiment which makes light of life, compared
with oppression or dependence; yea, and not of life
merely, but whatever clings most fondly about it, even
home itself, ennobled with a wife's affections, and made
bright with the smiles of childhood. Brave is that sentiment which renders a gory bed to the hero on the field
where glory has been won, welcome as the bed of i
bridaL -and the blast of the trumpet which proclaims
the victory, as pleasant to his soul, as the gladness of a
nuptial song; brave is that sentiment which could so
calm the spirit of a mountain peasant, and so steady
his hand, as to hit with unerring aim the apple on his




182          LECTUJRES AND ESSAYS.
>wl j! infant's head; a calmness of spirit and a steadiness of
hand, imparted equally by love to his kindred, and
hatred to their oppressors; fixed also by the strong resolve, that if the arrow which he shot should reach the
heart of his child, he had another in his sleeve which
should reach the heart of his tyrant. A brave sentimnent is that which despots have never been able to
render odious; try to surround it as they might with
disgrace and infamy, it made the men who suffered for
it lovely even to those who trembled in the presence of
their masters; those who dared not to openly imitate
it, in silence did it homage; the victims met nothing
but honor, at the last, and the tyrants nothing but execration.
And if the sentiment of patriotism evinces the greatness of its strength in sustaining those whose circumstances gave them fame, it still more evinces the greatness of its strength in sustaining those whose circumstances gave them nothing but oblivion; whose breath
the dungeon drank, but whose existence has left no sign
above its everlasting silence; whose death upon the
scaffold was noted only to the bosoms which it pierced;
Whose bones lay unclaimed in the promiscuous carnage
of the field; or who, when all was over, went back
unheard of, to the quiet and the shadow of industrious
occupation, followed to their retirement by no premium




PATRIOTISM.                183
or no paean. Nor less great is the sentiment in the
high and honest souls, who by their usefulness and
virtue, guard for their country the good which they have
received, and who improve for their country the talents
with which they have been entrusted. L-To the individual it matters not much, whether his name be widely
sung, or whether it be little known; for the truth or
falsehood of the spirit in which he acts or suffers, must
to him have its most important result in his own solitary
consciousness; if there he feels it to be a lie, the loudest
vociferations of praise are but noise and babble; if he
knows it to be a reality, he has a joy which no obscurity can diminish, and no calumny can overcloud.
In speaking of obligations implied in the spirit of
patriotism, it is easier to say, what they are not, than
what they are. It is not one of these obligations to
think meanly of other countries. If this were a duty,
it would be a duty to be of most limited appreciation
both of Providence and man; it were a duty to resemble the savage, both in his stolidity and his vanity. If
it can be no duty, but a vice, to cultivate such a state of
mind or feeling, no consideration can dignify or warrant the expression of it. If I cannot but feel that my
country is the most desirable, and that I cannot but feel
so upon the most dispassionate consideration, I have but
little temptation to triumph over others, and having this




184          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
faith, it is all the better that i should have it to myself.
If I do not think so, there is no reason why I should
say so; there is nothing, indeed, which ought to compel
me to say so; and if refusing.to belie my conscience
and to do violence to my judgment, be treason, then let
me be a traitor. I would try to look at my own country
with calm discrimination, and others ought to expect
that I should not look on theirs with any ungenerous
prejudice; the evil that belongs to my own I would
confess; the good that belongs to others I would not
deny. In this I commit no offence against patriotism,
but, if I did, the matter would not still be altered. Loyalty I do owe to my country; but I owe a higher loyalty
to my own soul, to truth, to honesty, and to God. The
things, however, do not clash or interfere. I do not
dishonor my country by appreciating the excellence of
another. I do it honor; for I show that it has reared
in me a generous and a liberal man, and not a barbarian or a bigot.
Patriotism is not in all things to follow what the
government of my country dictates, - nay, the noblest
patriotism may call on me to denounce it, to denounce it boldly, and to oppose it bravely. If patriotism required more, patriotism would render me a
slave, and that would be a contradiction, for a slave
cannot be a patriot. Patriotism requires of me to obey




PATRIOTISM.               185
the laws of my country, but patriotism equally requires
of me to give my voice against such laws as I consider
to be wrong; and if my ability is sufficient, it requires
me to change them. In fact, patriotism requires me to
study the good of my country, and no true citizen can
ever suppose that moral iniquity can be national interest. A patriot " dares do all that may become a man;
who dares do more, is none." And even if I should
perceive that my country, in many poihts, compared
unfavorably with others, that need not hinder me from
loving it. No true, no natural attachment demands a
blinded judgment or false encomium; and that attachment is the most lasting as well as the most elevated,
which does not confuse the action of the intellect by
the exaggerations of mere impulse. It is the noblest
tribute which a man can offer; for in the cloudless
sanity of his reason, he gives it with enlightened and
unreserved devotion; he gives it with the truest promptings of his highest feelings, and he gives it with the
full consent of his highest nature.
And, besides, comparisons are not only odious, but
in general they are ungraceful. What can be more
ungraceful, than to glory in our wealth, power, dignity,
refinement?  What, also, is often more absurd than
claims founded on superiority of national genius, when
what constitutes genius, has not been yet defined, and




186           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
when, if it were, it would be so hard to apply the
definition? Who is to say which evinces the greatest
intellectual capacity, - the practical mind of England,
the speculative mind of Germany, the artistical mind
of Italy, the theoretical mind of France, or the versatile
mind of this country? These, however, are harmless
comparisons; others are more irritating. They are
such as lay claim to superior bravery, piety, and virtue.
Most nations worthy of any honor, are alike jealous of
these, and none can patiently bear to be especially
denied them. They are right; such qualities are the
life of character, and a country without character is
not a nation. If it can submit to be thus stigmatized,
it is dead; it is worse than dead, it breathes in contented infamy.  Nations will readily acknowledge that
they have not freedom; the want of wealth, they
regard as no disgrace; but at insinuations against their
courage, their religion, or their morals, most justly they
are indignant.  The truth is, that we and all men,
judge nations other than our own, very partially in
these things, and often very falsely. [Phyical courage,
I apprehend is not very unequally distributed; and the
influences which determine the relative positions of
nations, must be traced much farther than to mere
personal bravery. Many set down as no religion, or
worse, that which is contrary to their own; but these




PATRIOTISM.                187
are not the men to trust or to praise. God may be
worshipped in places where his worshippers do not;:'i!   9
pray as we do; the graces of heaven may descend as
plenteously on their souls as on ours, and the dew of    Y-/&':
its blessing may be as refreshing on their lives.
Many judge the moral character of other countries
than their own, it strikes me, with extreme injustice.
They examine the statistics of crime; they sojourn for
a time in leading cities; they roll along the highways;
as they run they read, and as they read they write;
they sum up the whole, they find that, from Dan to
Beersheba, all is vicious; they return home, bless God
that they have escaped out from lands of wickedness,
and maintain, with an enthusiastic patriotism, that, in
reaching their own, they have arrived in the only land
of virtue. Here again, there is need of modification.
Our country is a part of our self-love; and as we discern the vices of others more keenly than we do our
own, so we do those which are not the vices of our
country.  Countries have their peculiar vices; they
have also their peculiar virtues; but while the vices
may be seen of all men, the virtues are away from the
stranger's track. We shall not find a nation's virtues
standing upon its cross-roads; we will not find a nation's
virtues strown over the surface of its cities. To find
these in any country, we must pierce beyond the trod



188          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
den path and the crowded street, to places where the
hearts are yet unworn and untravelled, and where, if
we see them with their besetting sins, we see them also
with their native graces.
After all, if with the utmost candor, and the utmost
charity, we must believe other countries more vicious
than our own, it is a matter for sorrow, and not for
exultation. I cannot think the spirit of a certain olden
prayer changed, because it is uttered in the plural rather
than in the singular; I cannot think it more acceptable
to Heaven to say, " We thank God that we are not as
other men, or even as these publicans," than to say,
" I thank God, that I am not as other men, or even as
this publican;" for, judged by the catholic liberality
of the Gospel, the pharisaism of nationality is as odious
as any other kind of pharisaism. Regarding then, as
we ought, moral evils in countries as in individuals,
with sorrow, and not with pride, let us take this consolation along with us, that no nation ever stood, in
which the mass of excellence did not immeasurably
outweigh the mass of crime; and that no society can
hold together without the bonds of integrity and goodness, without honesty and confidence in its dealings,
without faith and purity in its households. The mere
existence, then, of civilized communities, is evidence
for worth; for, where these exist in such communities,




PATRIOTISM.               189
there are homes, and where there are homes, there
must be virtue.
Anglo-Saxons stand conspicuous among the nations
for their strength of patriotism; but Anglo-Saxon patriotism, it must be confessed, has ever had more in it of
the Roman than of the Christian spirit; and the cases
are not a few or trifling, in which it has evinced intolerance even more than Roman. The Anglo-Saxon is
a manly race, yet is it more given to boasting than quite
beseems its manliness; the Anglo-Saxon is a great race,
but somewhat less of self-sufficiency, and a little more
of general amenity, would not ill become its greatness;
the Anglo-Saxon is a powerful race, but a power tempered by respect for others, would have rendered it
more beneficent; and instead of being, as it is, feared
or hated through the world, it would have been trusted
and loved. To say nothing of that passion for territory,
and that lust of sway, which, since it first broke loose
from German forests, have marked its course and signalized its history, it has borne hardly and harshly on
every people who fell under its dominion; and where
it has not extinguished, it has enslaved them; it has
given currency to many ideas of unscrupulous ambition, but to none more characteristic, than to that embodied in the maxim, " Our country, right or wrong."
A saying more Anglo-Saxon, and yet more anti-Christian, was never uttered.




190          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
Let us look at the point involved. We have here
no concern with disputes about the lawfulness of war.
Assume at once, that it is right to defend, by force of
arms, the honor, the claims, the independence, the existence of our country. Here we have covered, by our
position, ground as extended as the most warlike patriot
could desire; and even within these ample limits, the
maxim has no application. For either our country is
in the right, and we fight for the justice of her cause,
or she is in danger of dishonor or destruction, and we
fight for her salvation; we fight because we ought, or
because we must; we fight from duty or necessity.
In no case will men even suppose that they are fighting in the wrong. If it be answered, that the expression implies no more, than that the crisis of difficulty
is not the time for inquiry, and that, when our country
has need of our help, we should not wait to scrutinize
when we should be prompt to act.  Granted; we
should give our country help, when danger calls for it,
and we should give her all the help we can; but this
civic duty cannot be aided by a doubtful maxim, which
has either no meaning, or a meaning the most pernicious. For, will any man with a partial candor, assert
that, independently of truth or justice, he may lawfully
fight, if he fights only for his country? If, for instance, he only fight to enrich his country; if he only




PATRIOTISM.                191
fight to enlarge his country; if he only fight, to gain
for his country, not freedom, and safety, and independence, against tyranny and despotism, but a name to be
a terror, a supremacy to be hated, a glory reeking in
the fumes of carnage, and a history written in the blood
of battles; no man will assert this; no man, whose
moral being lives, will assert it; for such a doctrine
would lay civilization in the dust; and the assertion,
therefore, carries with it its own refutation.
The maxim was not, I admit, intended for strict
analysis or strict acceptation; but every such saying,
by its brevity and point, obtains rapidly to popular
currency-; and if it involve a violation of eternal
rectitude, is calculated to work interminably for mischief; the maxim, I acknowledge, was used but as a
watchword for enthusiasm, in the hour of struggle.
But, herein is its danger: a maxim like this, has all
its danger from brilliant association, for it is such a
one as deliberate reason, or sober common sense, or
unclouded conscience, could have never suggested or
adopted. If such a saying perished with the occasion,
it would not much signify; but to confine it to that,
either in its existence or application, is seldom possible; it may come from worthy struggle with the
halo of success; it may come emblazoned with the
glory of victory; it may come with loud rejoicings




192          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
upon the trumpets of fame;it may come sad with the
memory of departed heroes, or consecrated with the
sanction of the surviving brave; it may pass from the
sailor to the citizen, from the soldier to the civilian;
from the commander to the magistrate; from the
military camp to the legislative assembly; it may
originate in the self-devotion of patriotism, but be
appropriated by the artfulness of ambition, or by the
cruelty of fanaticism. Then it admits of scarcely
limit or corrective.   There is no act, however
wicked, if it can plead intention of benefit to the
nation, which the maxim may not be used to justify;
and there is no wickedness, however gigantic, which,
according to this perversion, it has not comprehensiveness to grasp; it would acquit the tiger-monkey Robes.
pierre, and it would canonize the ogre-demon Marat.
Patriotism, separated from justice and philanthropy, would not be a civilized virtue, but a savage
vice; patriotism, inconsistent with our large relations
to humanity, would be a patriotism inconsistent with
the Gospel. If then, we cannot have the patriot, except on the ruin of the philanthropist and Christian;
give us the philanthropist and Christian, and we can
spare the patriot. If we cannot have the hero without disobedience to God, and denial of Christ, let God
and Christ be glorified as true, though every hero that




PATRIOTISM.                193
has lived should be found a liar. Patriotism as a duty
obliges no man to commit a wrong. On the contrary,
the duty of patriotism is the most respected in the respect of every other duty; and he is the greatest friend
to his country, who is the greatest friend to virtue. It
is thus that he can constantly befriend it, and ever give
it his best support.  "The times come but rarely, that
try men's souls;" but the times are always, when the
virtuous citizen, in the humblest situation, is the best
supporter of his country.
The virtuous citizen is a patriot, in the feeling of
love that binds him to his country; but, yet more seriously, in the obligations which he owes to his country.
He is not often called on to pay these with his property
or his blood; but it is a debt which he pays not the
less effectually, that he pays it peacefully and daily.
He pays it by the industry with which he contributes,
to prevailing comfort, and general prosperity. He pays
it by whatever encouragement his talents, or his opportunities, enable him to give to works and undertakings
of utility or embellishment. He pays it by adding his
portion to the aggregate of nobleness and honor, that
forms the national ideal, in which the heart of the
patriot rejoices, which it is his glory to exalt, which
he would have unstained as the cloudless sun, and of
which he is more jealous than of life. He pays it by
VOL. II.        13




194          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
the encouragement of liberal arts; by the encouragement of literature and science, not as things of mere
utility alone, but as supplies also to higher wants, as
means of uncorrupting pleasure, as attractions to draw
men from grossness and selfishness, and as impulses
to raise them in the scale of intelligent existence. He
pays it by whatever he does to extend the sentiments of
truth,.good&will, and justice; by whatever he does to
make them clearer by his word or more impressive by
his example. He pays it by any aid which he can
give towards the formation of a wise and sound public
opinion; by any efforts that he applies to the rectification of popular errors; by every sincere exertion to
mitigate, if we cannot extinguish, the rancors of faction;
by every assuaging influence which he lets fall upon
the strifes of passion. He pays it by any part which
he takes in the agency that ameliorates laws, that
removes the useless and the bad, and that strengthens
the authority of the good. He pays it by reverence for
law, and by obedience to it. He is not merely an enemy to his country, he is the enemy of civilization, he
is the enemy of mankind, who sanctions outrage and
anarchy in a community. He sets all order at defiance; he spreads abroad alarm and dismay; he tears
down all civil rule, and tramples it in contempt; and
inasmuch as his actions are not simply a falling short




PATRIOTISM.                195
of social harmony, but a direct resistance to it, he is
worse than a savage.
The patriot-citizen pays his obligation to his country, by regarding, as among the most sacred of human
pledges, any trust which his country commits to his
keeping; by feeling that he holds it for millions,
present, and to come; by feeling that, although he
use it with the purest intention, his duty is neglected
if he has not also labored to understand how it may
be used to the most general advantage.  Faithful
to his trust, he is a noble spirit, whether it be small
or large.  To one it may be given to sustain the
executive majesty of a nation; to another, " the applause of listening senates to command;" to another,
to sit on the solemn tribunal of the magistrate, to hold
the balance and to wield the sword of justice; to
another, nothing may be given except his elective suffrage, but in that he has the kingship of a freeman.
Unnoticed, but with an honest heart, he casts it in, and
is satisfied with the reward that comes in secret; his
heart is pure, and his hand is as clean as his heart;
there is no memory of a bribe, no consciousness of
party passion, or of interested expectation, to sully the
lustre of his spirit, or to disturb its calmness. Without
distinction, or importance in the crowd, his mite goes
into the treasury of his country; and it is the mass




196          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
which such unstained offerings form, that constitutes
the genuine wealth which makes her truly rich, -the
wealth of honor and of truth, without which there is not
only no dignity, but no safety. The individual contributor may be lowly, but even for himself his offering is
not lost. The eye which saw the widow in the throng
near the temple of Jerusalem sees him too; and as the
simple grandeur of an upright soul conferred a value
on her farthing beyond the gifts of princes, lofty
integrity adds also a worth to his humble tribute, for
which sword, sceptre, and ermine put together, would
be no equivalents.
The patriotism which is worthy of this country,
worthy of its advantages, worthy of its duties to the
world, is a high and enlightened patriotism, a patriotism
of loyal devotion, but also of enlarged philanthropy.
If man be only true, all here besides is full of inspiration and full of promise; if man will be but faithful to
his opportunities, all around him here is strong in noble
energies. Every thing here tends to dilate the heart, to
send it upward in gratitude to a'fatherly God; to send it
outward in kindness to the brotherhood of man.  The
sky itself takes dimensions of grandeur, fitted to the
glorious scope of empire which it overhangs. It is
high, deep, broad, lofty, and should upraise the freeman's soul, whose step is on the freeman's earth. No



PATRIOTISM.               197
where is the calm more divinely fair; nowhere is the
storm more awfully sublime; nowhere does the sun shine
forth with a more peerless majesty; nowhere do the
stars beam down with a more holy lustre. The atmosphere engenders no deadly plagues; health lives in the
breeze, and plenty comes teeming from the soil. Broad
dominions, to be measured in leagues only by a scale
of hundreds, snatch imagination from every belittling
influence, and carry it out from narrow thoughts to an
ennobling excursiveness. Then there are ocean lakes,
in which kingdoms might be buried, and leave on the
surface no ripple of their grave; rivers, that sweep
over half a world; cataracts, eternal and resistless, that
hymn forever the omnipotence which they resemble;
mountains that stretch into the upper light, and mock,
from their snow-crowned pinnacles, the clouds and the
thunders that crash below them.
All these are your country's, but your country is
God's. It is God who has given you this country; it
is God who has enriched it with these grand objects,
acd through these grand objects it is God who speaks.
He speaks in the chorus of your woods; in the tempests
of your valleys; in the ceaseless sobbings of your lakes
and oceans; in the vague, low murmurs of forest and
of prairie; in the mighty bass of water-falls, in the
silver melody of streams; and the voice that He sends




198         LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
out from them is a voice for patriotism; but it is also
a voice for equity and a voice for goodness. Who can
look through the huge firmament; who can gaze upon
the golden fires with which it is studded; who can float
away on the wings of the spirit through the infinity of
stars; who can watch the roll of the torrent, pouring
out a sea in every gush, a sea of awful beauty; who
can thus put his soul into communion with the universe,
and not be enlarged by the communion? who can
really put his soul into communion with the universe,
and not be delivered from the slavery of prejudice into
the glorious liberty of humanity and of God?
The measure of your duty is the greatness of your
advantages, and the greatness of your advantages is the
standard to which you will be subjected in the judgment
of Heaven and the judgment of history. You are set
for the hope or for the disappointment of the world.
With such a mighty country, with such inestimable
privileges; with such means of intelligence, virtue,
and happiness; with such means of increasing and
dispensing them; so young, and yet so strong; so late,
and yet so rich among the nations; there is room to
look for good interminably to future generations, which
the one departing shall leave more abundant for the
one that comes. In order that such anticipations be not
empty dreams, in order that they be not promises to




PATRIOTISM.                199
change into mockery, vanity, and grief, it should be the
labor of a genuine and noble patriotism to raise the life
of the nation to the level of its privileges; to harmonize
its general practice with its abstract principles; to reduce to actual facts the ideals of its institutions; to;elevate instruction into knowledge; to deepen knowledge into wisdom; to render knowledge and wisdom
complete in righteousness; and to make the love of
country perfect in the love of man.




ECONOMIES.
To begin, there is an economy of the individual. A
true economy of the individual, implies a coordination of
life with physical laws, not only because the body is
the garment of an immortal soul, and should not be
soiled or rudely torn; not only because it is the soul's
earthly house, and should not be undermined; not
merely because it is the soul's temple, consecrated by
divine illumination, and should have no idols in its shrine
and no strange fire upon its altar; for it is more than
all these to the soul, more than vesture to a wearer, than
a dwelling to a tenant, than a temple to a worshipper;
it is an inseparable element in that composite unity
which now, in time, constitutes the living man. And
to this whole living man, a life in coordination with
these laws is that only which brings health and
strength and power. Yet, not for mere health and
strength and power, not even for their continuance,




ECONOMIES.               201
has coordination with these laws its most impressive
value; not by length of days is this value to be
measured.  Length of days has no worth in itself.
Length of days may be but a higher sort of vegetation; or it may be a long struggle with the stubborn
wants of existence; or it may be a protracted succession of transmigrations from vanity to vanity; or it
may be an enduring sentence to hard labor, self-pronounced and self-inflicted, from which death alone
can give release, who will come at last to tell the
convict that his term has expired, that he has collected
gold enough, and may quit the prison. It is harmony
with these laws that gives fitness for the highest labor,
and susceptibility to the purest things.  Without it,
there can be no purpose in the will, no power in the
act, no dignity in the being. Men become as walking
shadows to the darkened eye and the disordered head;
the heavens a pestilent collection of vapors, and earth
a sterile promontory. The heart, made faint, trembles amidst scenes in which purer and braver hearts
exult. The brain, enfeebled or bewildered, " in wandering mazes lost," dwells often in a region between
the idiot and the madman, hovers, it may be, over
him for a while, and then drops into the blackness of
darkness forever. What; to an untuned frame, in
which remorse keeps company with discord, are the




202           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
sweetness of prayer, the calls of duty, the electric
tones of eloquence, the charms of art? To such a
one, the whole of existence is unstrung, and all is hard,
and not only unmusical, but also hopeless.  Daily
society loses to him its vitality and its freshness, and
opportunity after opportunity passes from the sphere of
the possible to that of the impossible. Was it to one
becoming thus insensate that the poet spoke?
" 0, how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms which Nature to her votary yields, -
The warbling woodlands, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields, -
All that the genial ray of morning yields,
All that answers to the song of even,
All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven, -
0, how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven!"
A true economy of the individual, implies a coordination of the life with spiritual laws, with the law of
thought, the law of conscience, and the law of goodness. How rich the life is, in which this is found;
how poor, where it is not! Give a certain amount of
capacity, and there is scarcely a limit to what may be
accomplished by diligence, industry, and vital meditation. It is not knowledge alone that will be gained, but




ECONOMIES.                2 0:3
plastic command over it, -the heat that melts, and
the talent that moulds it to the mind's command. The
thing that appeared impossible, contemplated for a
while, merely seems difficult, and after more intense
regard the difficulty itself is gone; that which was
dark and crude, as the mind broods upon it, emerges
into light, and coming to the light, grows into order.
And it may be, down below the whole there lies a
lyric sweetness, to which only earnest and repeated
struggles for articulation can afford a worthy utterance.
Give the same amount of capacity, but with it connect
indolence, listlessness, self-seeking, and self-indulgence,
and years leave nothing but the ghosts of promises
without performance, the remembrance of unsuccessful
attempts, the consciousness of being beaten in the race,
and despair of gaining the goal at any odds or in any
way. When to this we add the vague ideas coming
ever to the mind to mock it, telling it, like so many
dim, but tormenting fiends, of all that it has lost; what
treasures of memory, what stores of thought, what
facility of execution, what abundance of fancy and
emotion; all of which it might have had, but sought
not rightly, —we have a case which it might, seem
hard to make more painful.  Yet so it is not. Let
the law of conscience be disregarded also, let the law
of goodness have been habitually violated, and then




204          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
the case is far more desperate. The moral faculties
give interest to all the others; they give them their
depth and significance. Untrue to these, we not only
waste the life, we kill it. It is not that the best affections languish, but they die. Even the faculties that
are purely intellectual suffer. To obtain the largest
possible result from our minds, we must be able to call
all their powers into action, into continuous action,
into concentrated action; and we must be able to do
this without compromise and without fear. Now, in
violating the moral laws of the spirit, we, in the first
place, corrupt the sources of culture, and circumscribe
its sphere, and lessen its means; we, in the second,
put the faculties themselves into hostility against it.
For how shall we dare to go to memory, if she can
open her book only to judge us; or to imagination, if
she has only demons with which to scare us; or to the
affections, if weepings and wounds are all that they
can show us? How shall we go to reason, even, if a
great portion of our ingenuity has been used in contrivances to binid or to deceive her, to silence her
voice, or to belie her counsel? And thus one part
of our spiritual existence must be smothered before
its birth, and another part must be stunted or strangled
in its growth. But connected with the moral laws, in
faithful and living union, there is no need of minute




ECONOMIES.                205
detail to exhibit the wide range of being, and the
glorious spheres of bliss and usefulness to which this
capacity would attain.
No result can be obtained, if the laws of thought are
disregarded. If they be fully and profoundly carried
out, despite of disloyalty to conscience and to goodness,
it is not to be denied that very imposing results may
be had, of a certain kind. But imposing as they may
be, do they subserve the true economy of an individual
life? Connect thought with any of those strong passions which despise every law but their own —is it, in
its utmost success, the best order of an individual man?
Suppose it aspires to become great, great by whatever
distinction you please, but leaving out conscience and
goodness, the inward heart of a man must be blank
and poor, even when it has every thing else to fulness.
Let a man have missed of no pleasure that he could
enjoy, what of it all remains? Let a man have secured
the most ample fortune, what has heiin it, if he will
pause but for one moment, and occupyt;hat pause rightly, if conscience or goodness can have no place in it?
The greatest soldier that ever lived is poorly engaged,
if he be engaged only about his battles when his battles
are over. The lives of such men are, for themselves,
as little consistent with the best order of life, as those
lives are which are wasted in the lower senses; while,




206          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
for others, they are incalculably more injurious. What
is the violence of a drunken clown to the ravages of
a temperate Mahomet?  "The ideal of morality,"
says Novalis, as quoted by Carlyle, "has no more
dangerous rival than the ideal of highest strength, of
most powerful life; which also has been named —
very falsely, as it was here meant —the ideal of
poetic greatness. It is the maximum of the savage.
By this ideal, a man becomes a beast-spirit, a
mixture; whose brutal wit has for weaklings a brutal
power of attraction."
In the harmony of body, spirit, and estate would
consist the completeness of the individual. Economy
of the individual includes not the man alone, but his
adjuncts also. Economy, as merely applied to thrift
and foresight, has a solemn meaning; and the possession of it, or the want of it, has most important bearings
on individual power and individual destiny. Qualities
are these which, even As thus practically understood,
often spring from the best faculties of our nature, and
enable us to exercise these best faculties in their divinest spheres.  "It is better to give than to receive;"
and it is economy, in its humblest meaning, yet its
highest, which enables many a lowly soul to translate this precept into practice. Many a story of god.
like beauty might be written under this title, and many




ECONOMIES.                207
a tragedy. The tragedy would not be confined to the:
griefs which want of economy has brought home to
individual hearts, but would include wide-spread woes,
which it has brought on cycles of generations and
realms of nations. The same tragedy is still omnipresent,-in hearts, in homes, in states, in sorrows, in
suicides, in struggles, - working with the sadness that.
cannot speak, with the misery that can but despair, with
the convulsions that only a benignant Power above us
can assuage.
The harmony, we have said, of body,.spirit,. and
estate, forms the completeness of the individual man.
The derangement of this harmony, by the sacrifice of
the spirit to the body, can never be otherwise than
guilty and degrading. It is not so with regard to the
sacrifice of the body to the spirit. Sometimes, it.is
true, this may be fanaticism; sometimes it may be
folly; but never is it gross. It may be the highest
right, and the highest right it is, to consign the body to.
hunger, to nakedness, to peril, to torture, to prison, and
to death, when the higher life demands the lower.
And this, we suppose is the meaning of that great
saying which declares, that when a man " loses his
life " in obedience to a holy faith, he " gains " it. Sa.
crifices thus made, are truly grand. Sublime was that
immolation which Milton made to the honor of his.




208           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
country, when he laid his sight upon the altar of its
defence; and yet more sublime was that offering of
life which the immortal Howard made to the good of
his race, of a life which he spent in the depths of
European prisons, which he lost in an Asiatic wilderness. Neither can we help admiring the intellectual
enthusiasm which, even without result, may consume
the body before its time. Though the body perish, we
cannot mourn, while the soul can live, should it live but
in one choice memory; but when it lives in memories
without number, then we have reason only to rejoice.
it is not permitted us to lament, while the soul abides
in the thinker or the writer, whose visible presence,
indeed, disappears, but whose being continues in immortal words or in immortal facts. And that rapture,
that rapture unto death, which flashes glory on the
painter's canvas, which cries with wildness in the poet's
song, wretched would it be for cold prudence to condemn, rejoicing as we do in its light, and charmed as
we are by its sound. When the spell has left us, sorrow, and not judgment, comes back with the thought,
that the hand is stiff which illumined the canvas, that
the heart is quenched which fired the song.
Much less genius is lost to the world than the world
fancies; still, there is genius lost. Every generous
man who has risen to fame, has some one to speak of




ECONOMIES.                209
as one who deserved fame, but missed it. He will telli
us of his rare intellect, of his deep philosophy, of his
soul-filled eloquence, and all this he will say of his
friend with an impassioned faith in what he might have
been, and what he could have done. If this friend has
left among men any fragments of his power, he traces
out for us the design, of which these fragments were
but parts; and haply he completes the plan.  Yet,
ever comes lament along with admiration, and ever, as.
he praises, he will confess that somewhat was wanted
to carry promise to fulfilment. Incompleteness, in any
form, is distressing. Structures in ruin sadden the
heart, structures unfinished chill it. The walls which
had once a roof, that gave living men a shelter, are not
so desolate as those which never were covered; and
the hearth whereon fire has burned, is not so lonely as
that which bears no mark at all of flame or of smoke.
The aisles and cloisters that have ere now, however,
long ago, been quickened by meditation and by prayer,
wake up the soul, yet calm  it; the temple nobly
planned, advanced half way, then abandoned, excites
nothing but disturbing thought. Incompleteness in the
humblest life is painful; how affecting, then, in any
life which opened with the prophecy of being a great
one! But is not a complete life, a thing as yet to be
looked for, whatever the kind or the degree of power?
VOL. II.             14




210         LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
The world has had many a great man; but that man
who would peacefully and proportionately fill, in all its
roundness, the circle of his being, must be formed in
some age different from ours; and to the utmost faith in
progress, such a one must long be the " coming man."
No finite individuality is absolute. The individual
human being exists no more separately than the individual atom. The laws which govern his nature bind
him to others, and others to him, with enlarged and
multiplied relations. There are, therefore, economies
wider than that of the individual; and next beyond, we
say, there is the economy of home.
Home is a genuine Saxon word; a word kindred to
Saxon speech, but with an import common to the race
of man. Perhaps there is no other word in language
that clusters within it so many and so stirring meanings; that calls into play, and powerfully excites,
so many feelings, so many faculties of our being.
"' Home," - say but the word, and the child that was
your merry guest begins to weep. "Home," - play
but its tunes, and the bearded soldier, that blenched not
in the breach, droops, and sickens, and dies. " Home,"
- murmur but its name, and memories start around it
that put fire into the brain, and affections that almost
suffocate or break the heart, and pictures that bewilder
fancy with scenes in which joy and sorrow wrestle with




ECONOMIES.                 211
delirious strife for possession of the spirit. "Home,"
— what does it not stand for, of strongest, of most
moving associations! - for childhood's grief and gladness, -for youth's sports, and hopes, and sufferings,
and passions, and sins, - for all that brightened or
dimmed the eyes, -for all that convulsed or tranquillized the breast; for a father's embrace, or for his
death-bed, - for a mother's kiss, or for her grave,for a sister's love, or a brother's friendship, - for hours
wasted, or hours blest,- for peace in the light of life,
or fears in the shadows of perdition. Home, when it is
all that nature and grace can make it, has a blessedness
and beauty of reality that imagination, in its fairest
pictures, would find nothing to excel. But in many a
spot called home, neither nature nor grace is found.
A collection of home histories, honestly set down,
would be a rich contribution to materials for the philosophy of character.  Not gay, not pleasant, not innocent, would all of these home histories be. Not a few
of them would be sad, dreary, wretched, and within
the earliest dwelling of man would be discovered the
appropriate opening of many a tragic life.
And yet nothing can humanity worse spare than
pleasing and gracious memories of home. So fervently does humanity cling to what nature owes it, that
those who have no home will make one for themselves




212          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
in vision. Those who have an evil one will soften
down its many vices, and out of the scantiest affections
bring forth rays of the heart to brighten their retrospect.
It is the miracle of the five loaves performed spiritually
for the soul, lest the instincts of our humanity should
faint and perish by the way. The visitings of early
home thoughts are the last to quit us. Feeble age has
them, when it has nothing else in memory; and when
all the furniture which imagination put together has
gone to pieces and to dust, these, not constructed, but
planted, planted down in the living soil of primal consciousness, flourish to the last; when the treasures
which experience has been many years collecting a
few months may seem to take away, some diamonds
are left behind, which even the thief, Time, has spared
reminiscences that glimmer through bare and blank
obscurity from the crevices of youth. As every thing
human has an element of good in it, that which is good
in a vicious home is what the past gives back to feeling; it is also that which is good in an evil man that
the remembrance of a virtuous home acts on.
There is no mist of guilt so thick that it can always
exclude the light of such remembrance; no tempest of
passion so furious as always to silence its voices. During a lull in the hurricane of revelry, the peal of the
Sabbath bell may come along the track of wasted years,




ECONOMIES.                213
and, though loaded heavily, will be not unkindly in its
tones.  Through the reekings of luxury, faces that
beamed on the prodigal in youth may seem to start in
trouble from the tomb, and, though marred with grief,
though pallid with affliction, turn mildly towards him,
not in anger, but in sorrow.  Amidst the chorus of
bacchanals and the refrains of lewdness, the satiated
libertine may fancy, at moments, that he hears the calls
of loved ones gone to heaven, startling him from the
trance of death. Under the loud carousals that rage
above the brain, deep down and lonely in his heart,
there may come to him the whisper of parental exhortation, the murmur of household prayer, and the music
of domestic hymns. The very criminal in his cell will
often have these visitations; ministers to exhort, not
enemies to accuse; angels to beseech, not demons to
scoff. The sentenced culprit, during even his last night
on earth, must sleep, and perchance may dream, and
seldom will that dream be all in the present and in the
prison; not all of it, if any, will be of chains and blood,
of shapeless terrors and pale-faced avengers, of the
scaffold and the shroud. Far other things will be in
the dream. He once was honest, and spent his childhood, it may be, in a rustic home, and grew to youth
amidst laborious men and with simple nature. Out of
imagery thus derived.will his dream be formed. In




214          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
such dreams will be the green field and the wooded
lane; the boat sleeping on the stream; the rock mirrored in the lake; the shadow, watched expectingly
from the school-room window, as it shortens to the
noontide hour. Then there will be parents, blessed in
their unbroken circle; there will be young companions,
laughing in their play; there will be bright harvest
evenings, after days of healthful toil; there will be
family greetings, thanksgiving feasts; there will be the
grasp of friendship, there will be the kiss of love. The
dream will not be entirely, if at all, a dream of crime,
disgrace, and death; it will be one that reproduces, on
the brink of eternity, the freshness of emotion, hope,
and desire with which existence on earth began. What
is put into the first of life is put into the whole of life.
This should never be forgotten.
The true economy of the home is not mechanical,
but moral. The household is not a machine, not a collection of pulleys and springs, which it needs but skill
in directing force to manage. The household is an
assemblage of kindred spiritualities, a system of gradations; an association, in various stages of human intelligences and human wills; and these can as little be
harmonized by the command of authority as by the
use of power. To control, and yet not enslave, —to
leave free, and yet not abandon,- is a great problem




ECONOMIES.                215
in government, whether its sphere be a household or an
empire. In the household, control and freedom can be
reconciled only by wisdom and the affections. Love is
the mediator between power and dependence; that which
meekens authority, that which ennobles submission.
Love is the holy and living bond, both of the equal and
the unequal; that which changes the rigor of mutual
claims into the grace of mutual kindness; that which
brings courtesy into agreement with sincerity, and harmonizes deference with independence. Only love can
subdue the selfish will in either doing or forbearing;
only this can give sweetness to command, cheerfulness
to obedience, and unity to companionship.
Wider still than the economy of home, there is an
economy of the State.
The state, as well as the family, is an organic unity
and a social necessity. It is no more a thing of chance
or a thing of choice, that men dwell together in nations,
than that they dwell together in families. The idea of
the state is, therefore, as permanent as that of the
household. The origin of neither can be found in the
dictates of prudence or the principles of calculation.
They exist irrespectively of the pleasurable or painful
experience of the individuals who compose them. The
individual may be Wretched as the member of a family,
he may be miserable as the member of a state, and the




216           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
influences which make him so may be found within the
family and within the state. The order of humanity,
however, necessitates both the family and the state,
though it does not necessitate the wretchedness and
misery. But man is not a member of the state in the
same way in which he is a member of the family; not
by the same class of instincts, not by the same class of
sentiments. To rule the state, therefore, by the methods of the family, would be quite as mischievous as to
rule the family by the methods of the state.
Though the state, when most excellent in its actual
form, cannot but be imperfect, its worst constitution is
better than barbarism or anarchy. But the idea of it
rises above all forms, dimly glimmers through the
basest, clearly shines through the noblest, and, whether
in the one or the other, stands for grand conceptions of
the social nature; for order, for security, for freedom,
justice, activity, and culture. Scarcely ever has any
tyrant been so brutal, as not, in some pretence of zeal
for these, to find excuse for shedding the blood of his
victims.  There is mnch that is impressive, almost
sacred, in this idea; not to the superstitious alone, but
to the most sober; not by tradition only, but by its
intrinsic essence. Who does not feel the truth of our
position, when in the presence of any human being in
whom the majesty of a nation is impersonated? It is




ECONOMIES.                 217
not merely the man that awes him, or the office, but the
idea, - the idea in his own soul, which transcends the
man, which transcends the office. Parliament or congress, statute, decree, or ukase, has from this its living
life, and without it they were but as blotted paper, or
as the leaf that shivers idly in the wind. King, president, or kaiser has from this his greatness; and though
sceptres be broken, and thrones be fuel for garret fires,
though monarchs drop one after another into beggars'
graves, still the idea remains; nay, as time advances
and virtue grows, it will spread more and more of its
luminous beauty over the world.
Loyalty, then, is something more than devotion to a
person, it is more than reverence for an office; it is an
appreciation of the idea, of which the person is only
the minister, and the office a type. Patriotism is something more than zeal for the material interests of our
country; it is zeal for its elevation in all that elevates
man. This cannot fail of admiration, whether it support certain modes of government, or oppose..them.
History celebrates with equal glory numbers of great
souls, of whom some did the one, and some did the
other. The monarch Alfred was a patriot as well as
the republican Washington; and the patriotism of
Hampden or Sir Harry Vane is as little to be doubted
as that of Leonidas or Socrates. All these lived or




218         LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
died in true devotion to their supreme idea; and
many, we may hope, as noble there have been, whom
no history has been found to celebrate. A Grecian
mariner once entered the temple of Neptune, to place
his portrait inf it as a votive offering, expressive of gratitude for his escape from shipwreck. The priest,
pointing to the many pictures given by individuals in
circumstances like his own, urged the fact as a rebuke
to neglect, and as an argument against skepticism.
" But where," inquired the sailor, " are the pictures
of those who were drowned? " So, when we walk
through the majestic temple of the past, and the Genius
of history, as the priest of that temple, points to the
portraits of the godly and the great which every age
has contributed, may not we, too, ask, " Where are the
pictures of those who were drowned? Where are the
pictures of thousands who, in their day, did not only
vow, but strive, who yet were swallowed in the stormy
surges that roll above eternal and deep oblivion? "
Whatever be the form of government, the state in its
true purpose is for all. Every violation of this principle is an evil; and the measure of the evil is the degree
of the violation. The state is not for the magistrate,
but the magistrate for the state; and magistrate and
state are, both of them, for man. The character of a
genuine freedom is, to give every individual a living




ECONOMIES.                 219
position in the state; and the essence of a sound civic
morality is, to cause the individual to feel that he does
not act for himself or for a part, but for the whole. In
this sense, he who wields the sceptre is not more for all
than he who plies the shuttle.  Where, indeed, the
mechanism  of government is well constructed, less
depends on the individual than where it is not, and
certain coarse results cannot fail to be obtained.  Yet
if no positive evils were consequent on dearth of thought
and dearth -of principle, if no force of selfishness and
no prevalence of corruption could injure or impede the
working of the machine, still all the finer, grander,
purer influences of the state upon society are lost.
Politics are, therefore, social morals in their widest
range; not, indeed, politics as meant in the party
battles of the hour, but as the application of immutable
principles to civic conduct.
The best condition of the state is that which stimulates individual energy, and yet combines all social
forces into tranquil harmony. That is the best condition of the state, in which the state so regulates its own
activities, as to prevent convulsion in itself and confusion in its members; which, having organic stability,
yet capacity for expansion, has security for order and
vitality for progress. That is the best condition of the
state, in which the man is never lost in the institutions




220          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
but in which the institutions, by inward and by outward
culture, tend to strengthen and build up the man. The
power of the state is wisely and well used, when it
fosters, not the works alone that enrich the person, but
those also which enrich the public. The wealth of the
state, or the wealth of the person, is wisely used, and
well, in giving grandeur to these works, in adding ornament to utility, in shedding splendor on the profitable,
and in rendering every structure connected with national activity a monument of national magnificence.
Art, even for its own sake, is not extravagance, but
surest thrift. Add literature to art, and the saving is
increased. Art and literature adorn the memory of a
people when their dominion is no more. The fragments of the beautiful, that lie scattered over a nation's
grave, win from eras that follow affection and admiration. After-times rake the ashes for these broken
relies, and they strive to imitate when they can neither
rival nor restore.
Deeper, broader than all states, there is an economy
of the universe; and this is an economy that includes
and embraces an economy of our race.
Not mere bulk of bodies, not mere vastness of space,
constitutes this economy of the universe; but power,
power boundless, ceaseless, intelligent, whose agencies
we term laws, for want of language more exact. Laws,




ECONOMIES.                221
thus regarded, stand for supreme action and supreme
intellect, as we apprehend them in the universe. Answering to forms in our own spirits, they reveal to us
that we live in the midst of thought and care. We
recognize the law of order, or power directed by pure
intellect. The results of power, as thus discerned, are
simply dimensional and dynamical, results true to the
utmost rigor of geometry and mechanics. Strip the
earth of its foliage, reduce it to a naked sphere; shear
the sun of his beams, sweep the stars of their light;
yet these blank orbs, desolate and dead, would contain
all the data that abstract science requires. Mysterious,
however, does this nature of ours appear, when we
reflect that this science, which unites the mind with the
universe, determines the order and character of remot.
est facts by conditions of a present reason, and that
the phenomena which realize the thought, are independent of the thinker. He cannot say, " Let them
be; " but he does say, " They are," and " Thus they
are," -" They will be," and " In such or such a
manner will they be." So, accordingly, they are, or
so they are to be. The assertion and the prophecy are
absolute. A man dogmatically propounds that the constitution of our system requires another planet.  He
bases his position upon pure calculation. "This planet," he says, " must be;" and this planet is.
Discernible in the universe, likewise, is the law of




222          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
wisdom, or power directed by the practical intellect.
The connection and continuity of means and ends,
infinitely extended, and everlastingly sustained, is in
harmony with human thought, in fact, is a necessity of
human being.  Experience, which is the life of the
practical intellect, within the limits of man's faculties,
depends on this connection and continuity.  In the
same manner we discern supreme wisdom through the
universe, in the multitude and suitableness of its provisions, and particularly in relation to ourselves. Every
thing within discovered regions has its use; every such
thing is sufficient for its use. Nothing is below this,
and nothing beyond it. There is as much light as we
can bear; as much motion, too; and so much as we
require of each, so much we have. From the tint of
a flower to the lustre of a star, from the structure of a
pebble to the orbit of a comet, all are balanced and
adjusted, all answer the conditions of their existence.
While thus the quantities of things accord exactly in
measure to the want of them, and their qualities are in
strict relation of fitness to supply it, there is at the
same time, a plenitude, an abundance, that is endless
and exhaustless. Energy, omnipotent energy, is audible everywhere in music, is visible everywhere in
beauty; and the very arrangement that reveals its
grandeur, puts a veil upon its terrors.
Especially does the universe manifest the law of




ECONOMIES.                 223
goodness, or power directed by the loving intellect.
This, indeed it is, that gives God reality to the soul,
and, void of it, all nature would be but an infinite and
dismal sepulchre. I)iscern, through existence, divine
love as the perfect spirit acting on your consciousness,
all agencies in creation, and all excellence in man,
become then as ministers of God; life in the motion
of a worm; happiness in the song of a bird; beauty
in the flash of a gem, as in the glow of noon; charity
in the widow's mite, as in an angel's gift; religion
sublime in the rustic's prayer, not less than ih the
martyr's hymn. Life has no number for its gradations, for its extent there is no measure; and according
to the order and compass of every animated being, the
prevailing condition of life is happiness.  According to
the scale of natue, God gives it to the fly whose buzz
is on the sunny air, as he does to the loftiest soul that
rejoices in the light of thought, and glories in the
strength of action.  Beauty in the universe, is yet as
wide as life, and beauty is all for man.  Beauty,
indeed, is divine life, in form, in hue, in sound, in
consciousness; spread over the earth, spread over the
sea, filling the great dome of heaven; painted on the
brain, panting in the heart; kingly in the might of man,
celestial in the purity of woman; everywhere, in all
things, sacred and undying; the language and the sign




224          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
of the fit and fair, the utterance that breathes, and the
glow that blooms from the eternal Mind.
Does not this supreme economy enter directly into
the concerns of our species?   Surely it does, in a
universal and constant Providence. Here it works,
mostly, through the ministry of man; and every man,
be he conscious of it or not, is its agent, and fulfils
some purpose for it, whether he hold a plough or found
an empire, whether he be a malefactor or a martyr.
That which is stupendous in the visible world, has
grown by means that are unseen. The spring that
feeds the stream, and the stream  that feeds the river,
are remote and unnoticed in silence and in shadow.
Similarly placed, are the sources and tributaries which
swell those currents that rush through courses of
mighty destinies, and gather to the forces of stupendous power. The sword, terrible instrument as it is,
of human passion, is made to work for good. Even
by this, the wrath of man is compelled to serve the
purposes of God. But, happily, the lyre is more
effective than the sword, and more enduring. The
living thought in the living word, and the living word
in music; this it was that first charmed men out of
barbarism; nor has it lost its power yet, and its power
cannot yet be spared. Much of humanity's education
has been lyrical.  History, at one time, was song; so




ECONO.MIES.                225
were laws; so was worship; so was prophecy; so was;
philosophy; and though annals, decrees, prayers, predictions, wisdom, have become independent of verse or
chant, yet that which was truth in them, comes down
even to our own time, and still mingles in the everlasting harmony of life.
To assume that we understand the plan of Providence, were daring presumption; but to rest in a plan
is a necessity of reason, a necessity of faith. The
origin, growth, decay, and death of nations coexist with
the life, the integrity, and the progress of our race.
This is no fortuity. Certainty and simplicity of result
come out from the caprices and contrarieties of human
freedom. This is no fortuity. The army of our species is, indeed, endless, and we who speculate on its
destination, are closed up in a division of its ranks.
We cannot quit our place to take a stand out of this
army and above it, to see whence it has come and
whither it is going. Yet, onward as we march, we
catch views of Calvary and of other elevations along
the path of time; and from these we can take note
that we are under guidance, and not without a goal.
Thus wonderful and numberless are the relations of
our being. In alluding to past ages, it is common to
speak of them as dead, to speak as if we were standing
on a grave. This is not true of humanity in the aspects
VOL. II,        15




226          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
in which we have been contemplating it. The ages
are all vital, and over life, and not on death we tread.
Humanity is as an inverted pyramid, and every stratum
of it, from the point below to its upward surface, is
bound each to each by links of living mind. Over this
wide surface, and down into the darkest depths, man
understands man, wherever he travels or explores.
The philosopher, rich in all the lore of wisdomi, is yet
a brother, and can feel his fraternal relation to the savage of Australia. The man of this century is not cut
off from the man whose existence can be traced in the
profoundest abyss of time.  Bring up from that abyss
the darkest hieroglyphic, the man of this day pierces
into its meaning and finds out its interpretation; bring
up the smallest remnant of moulded clay, bring up the
most rugged fragment of sculptured brass, at once he
says, -" The image and superscription are here of a
spirit like my own; and though forty centuries lie
between us, we are united by our souls." More properly, perhaps, should we find the diversity of our
nature, in capacity and condition, symbolized by the
creature in the first vision of Ezekiel. With feet to
pace the earth, with wings to mount to heaven, with
hands beneath the wings to work, fourfold in face was
this creature; and so is humanity. Backward it looks,
and forward also, to the actual and the possible. Each




JCONOMIES.                227
face, too, was different, and each we may take to indicate some elevated mental or moral quality: the face
of a man, conscience and intelligence; that of a lion,
courage; that of an ox, patience; that of an eagle,
aspiration. The creature of the prophet's trance was
in the centre of wheel within wheel, glistening all
around with eyes. So it is with humanity: it is in the
centre of circle within circle of eternity and mystery;
and though the compass of its own light be only as a
speck, it is embosomed in the watchfulness that comprehends immensity and that never sleeps.
The individual, then, is not mechanically, but vitally,
related to the whole empire of existence. The farthest
star that a man can see is a part of his life; nor is this
life of his severed from stars that never will be seen.
Day and darkness, the seasons, the elements, vegetation, animal beings, are not mere adjuncts of his existence; they are portions of it. The sentiment of kindred
binds the individual man to his family; the social sentiment binds him to the community; the patriotic, to his
country; the human, to his race. The moral senti.
ment binds him to men by duty, and the religious binds
him to God by faith. The life of a man is not, like
that of a brute, in his blood, but in his spirit, and all is
the life of a man that he can embrace within the consciousness of his spirit. If a man's spirit had the range




228           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
of the outward creation by sense, if human history
were its memory, if its reason comprehended all known
and possible truth, if its imagination were adorned with
all that is lovely, if its character had all goodness,
this, then, would be the range of its life. Though far
from such perfection, yet the actual life of the most
bounded consciousness spreads in its relations into
unbounded being.
Is the time ever to come, when humanity shall be in
full completeness and harmony? Is the time ever to
come, when humanity in the individual shall be strong
and independent, - in the family, wise and gracious,in the state, just and disinterested, - in the church,
believing, charitable, tolerant,- when the savage shall
be raised, when the heathen shall be converted, when
the grossest shall be civilized, and the worst restored,
- when every man, being true to his position, shall be
one with his race, and his race, being accordant with
its origin and its end, shall be one with God? This
may always be but an idea; yet, even as an idea, it has
deep and living power. It is a sublime thought.
Wherever it is strong, it kills the narrow self, and is
at the bottom of all continued and admirable action.
" Worlds," says Fichte, " speaking out of this faith in
the infinite, produce worlds. Ages produce ages, which
stand in meditation over those that have gone before,




ECONOMIES.                229
and reveal the secret bond of connection which unites
causes and consequences within them. Then the grave
opens, -not that which men heap together in earth,
but the grave of impenetrable darkness, wherewith the
first life has surrounded us, and from out of it arises
the mighty power of ideas, which sees in a new light
the end in the beginning, the perfect in the partial;
every wonderful work which springs from faith in the
Eternal appears, and the hidden aspirations which are
here imprisoned and bound down to earth soar upward
on unfettered pinions into a new and purer ether."
As the individual is vitally related to the universe,
so is the universe to the individual. All the powers of
nature contribute to his wants.  They are ministers to
the requirements of his body, and to the faculties of his
soul. The earth gives him of hex fulness; the winds
are his servants; the mines are his treasure-places; the
mountains are his watch-towers; the clouds refresh
him with shade and showers; the sun covers him with
splendor-; above his head are the heights of air, and
beneath his eye the depths of ocean. All energies are
working to support, to educate, to bless him; and not
those only, but whatever men have done or suffered,
whatever has made the life of ages, whatever has made
the life of nations. The whole has been acting for the
individual soul. For that, patriarchs had visions sent




230          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
them  from the opened heavens.  For that, prophets
beheld a glory to be revealed in distant times. For
that, Jesus himself appeared in the world, was wounded
with many griefs, and bled upon the cruel cross. For
that, Evangelists have written and Apostles preached.
For that, philanthropists have worked and lived. For
that, martyrs have endured and died. For that, philosophers have meditated, and poets have sung, and wisdom
and melody have been born. For that, earth is robed
in fairness, and heaven is hung with lamps of gladness.
For that all governments, all dynasties, all hierarchies,
have existed; and that shall be when they shall be no
more. When monarchy, with its gorgeous pomp and
haughty sway, its solemn power and its towered palaces, shall have melted as a dream, - when democracy,
with its din of tongues and turbulence, shall be silent as
an infant's sleep,-nay, when this huge globe itself
shall shake to atoms all that rest upon its surface, as a
lion arousing from slumber throws from his mane the
dews of the forest, - when the sun shall be dark, and
even the mighty hosts of stars shall die, - that soul,
that sacred soul, shall live. That spirit, kindled in the
breath of Deity, has a light to burn over the ashes and
the graves of worlds, - a light of joy and thought forever, in the consciousness of its immortal being, in the
consciousness of its eternal Lord.




ECONOMIES.                231
Yet glory not, thou proud man! for, in the midst of
these sublime realities, thy pride belittles thee. Thou
hast not the faith to which things invisible are open;
thou hast not the humility to which greatness is revealed.  And, thou timid and desponding man, cheer up
thy hope, and let thy confidence not fail thee. Think
not the distant stars are cold; say not the forces of the
universe are against thee; believe not that the course
of things below is a relentless fate; for thou canst see
the stars, thou canst use the forces; in right, thy will
is unconquerable, and by it thou art the maker and the
lord of destiny. In thy living consciousness the universe
itself has living being, and thou in that art greater than
the universe. Anoint thine eyes with holy thought,
that the gross and fleshly scales may fall from off them.
Then, like Gehazi in the mountain at the prayer of
Elijah, thou shalt behold that Power for thy good is
round about thee; thou shalt discern that thou art embosomed in Protection, - that thou art compassed by
the fiery energies of Heaven, —that thou art girded
and guarded by the Presence and Majesty of God.




MUSIC.
I WANT to express to you some vague notions that lie
crudely in my mind on the subject of music. You
need fear no technicalities; for of music, as a science,
I know nothing. I merely intend to consider it in relation to our general humanity, and in relation to those
impressions which it is its object to make on universal
-sensibility.  Writing freely, as I do, I am not ambitious
of unity or of order; and therefore, whatever feelings
or incidents, suggested by the present topic, come to
my mind, shall also come to my pen.
Memory is the faculty with which music has the most
endeared and the most inspiring connection; for memory it is that revives experience, and experience it is
feeds emotion.  We soon begin to live in memory,
either by discovery or delusion. What we have been
is soon more pleasant to us than what we are likely to
be; and ever and anon our truant thoughts retrace




MUSIC.                   233
their ways, and feel the hours too short, that once had
seemed too long. The slightest and most unexpected
analogies call before us the scenes of other days; the
finest thread of association has a strength to pull us
back to the Eden or the wilderness of departed hours.
The odor of a flower will make the field bloom with
ethereal softness to our fancy, and in fancy we have
in them again our childhood's gambols; the whistle of
a bird will give to us the sunny groves, where we read
and mused, where we slept and dreamed; a river, like
one that flowed near the dwelling of our youth, in which
we angled and in which we bathed, will annihilate half
a century; it is the same bright sun that gilds its surface; it is the same clear sky that beams from its
cloudless waters; and we are not awakened to reality
until we catch the shadow of a wrinkled face mocking
at our fantasy. A countenance, passed rapidly in the
street, by the force of affectionate remembrance, will
cause us to forget that one we loved has long been
formless in the dust. And so, the vapors of a summer's morning, hanging sleepily on meadow or on
mountain, or the chase of brilliant clouds in the gorgeous heaven of an autumn evening, will reanimate the
past within us, in musings that we cannot shape, and in
recollections that we cannot define. I was about to
compare their influence to that of music, but I am going
to speak of music itself.




234          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
The music which touches our primitive emotions, we
feel at once; complicated and high-wrought harmony
we must hear often before we can appreciate. But
harmony is not, on this account, the less exalted or
the less excellent. A song which sweetly expressed
a single sentiment would delight a thousand, and ten
of the thousand would but faintly appreciate the choral
verse of Dryden's "Alexander's Feast."  A pathetic
ballad can move a multitude, but few in this multitude
would read the " Paradise Lost," and fewer still would
enjoy it. And so in music; compared with those whom
a pleasing melody can charm, the number is small
whom the might of Handel, or the magic of Beethoven,
can profoundly ingratiate; while those who have no
sympathy with loftier music depreciate what they do
not comprehend, as-many also affect an admiration
which they do not feel. From indiscreet enthusiasts,
or from ignorant pretenders, a cant has begun to
prevail in musical criticism, which, if not the most
tormenting of all cants of criticism, is the most unintelligible. Men, who thus rave, will talk to you as if
musical sounds had the definite significance which
arbitrary usage gives to words. But it is not so; and,
in the nature of things, cannot be.
The direct relation of music is not to ideas, but
emotions; suggestive, certainly it is, but suggestive to




MUSIC.                   235
each mind, with an indefinite variety of association.
Test this position.  Take, for example, any given
combination of sounds, and let the effect be startling
and sublime; ask, then, two men, whose imaginations
have been trained in different modes of life, each to
offer an interpretation; each will explain it in his own
way, and each, though contrary to the other, may not
be inconsistent with the original. Suppose these two
men to be a sailor and a soldier. The sailor will call
it a thunder.storm, and the soldier will maintain it as a
battle.  By what''peculiarity of sound can the specific
difference be determined? By what rapid shrillness
may a flash of lightning be implied, which will not,
with as correct analogy, imply a flash of powder? and
what heavy movements of deep bass will call to
mind the rolling of thunder, that may not as naturally
represent the rolling of cannon?  If any zealot for the
precision of musical expression should tell me, -that
military airs could easily be so interspersed as to distinguish a battle from a tempest, I say it is little to the
purpose, if the sounds which should directly suggest the
conflict, do not, without mistake, suggest it. To criticize music, as if it had the qualities which belong to
articulate speech, is to put it in positions as ludicrous
as some characters were wont to hold in the ancient
drama, in which one man represented a wall, and




236          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
another a grove, and in which each was obliged to
indicate his part by saying, " I am the wall," "I am
the grove." Every art has its own limit; and to
endeavor to convey it beyond that, tends to degrade it
from genius to quackery.
From the very fact that music is not bound to
a rigid and arbitrary articulation, it is the most spiritual, the most impressive, and the most universal of
all arts; it is, thence, the voice of humanity, for it
is the voice of the heart. Poetry and music act on
the same elements of our nature, but in a diverse
method.   Poetry awakens emotion  by means of
thought, but music awakens thought by means of
emotion.  The effect of music is more immediate
and intense than that of poetry, but the impression of
poetry is more indwelling and more lasting. Poetry,
also, has the great advantage, that its power can be
carried to the heart at once, and does not need, as
music, an agency, which, even in moderate skill,
cannot always be commanded, and that in perfect skill
can rarely be found. Music, however, in the works
of its greatest masters, is to me more marvellous and
more mysterious than poetry; of all that proceeds from
creative genius, I regard it as the most wonderful
emanation.  The spirit of a sublime poet, however
remote from me, is not beyond my conception; but




MUSIC.                  237
that of a sublime musician, is enshrouded from my
ken within a sanctuary which my imagination has
never been able to pierce.
Listen, for instance, to a complete orchestra, in the
performance of any noble musical composition, be it
opera or oratorio, mass or symphony, and you will
apprehend what I am unable to explain. Now a strain,
almost rudely simple, comes upon your ear, then there
rolls a swell of harmony hugely onward, as the waves
of ocean; now there are tones of sorrow, then a burst
of choral gladness; now groanings from the depths of
a wounded spirit, then gushings of praise, such as
angels might have shouted when earth was born into
sunshine; now, the wrangling discords of anger, then,
the wild incoherencies of madness; then, the breathings of holy thoughts, the purity of saintly feelings, so
chastened that they seem not for the coarse air of our
hard world, so celestial that they seem fit only for the
harps of seraphs. What imaginations must they have
been, in which all these were conceived aforethought!
what a combination of reckless enthusiasm with consummate art! what a union of the spontaneous and the
reflective, of the instinctive and the mesthetical!
Marvellous as the variety is in all the most glorious
music, the unity of it is yet more marvellous; unity of
spirit, unity of purpose, and unity of effect. Consider




238          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
the mechanism by which this unity is to be produced,
the arrangements and adjustments of so many sounds,
with so many modes of producing and combining them,
in song, hymn, anthem, symphony - in all harmonies
of dramatic fancy, sacred and secular; these things,
then, considered, tell me whether an inventive and a
creative musical genius is not, in the known works of
God, among the rarest and the most surprising.
The desire for popular effect has injured music, as
in these days it has injured every other art. And the
mischief, as in the case of all permanent mischief, has
come from the abuse of genius. Paganini, who had
the capacity of a wizard, to rule human passion as he
listed, either from the vulgar inclination for notoriety
or gain, chose to wed empiricism  to power. Not
content with the high sovereignty of a mighty artist,
to hold a perfect sway over emotion, by cutting antics
on a single string, he entered into competition with a
dancer on the tight-rope. Men of genius, on other
instruments than the. violin, have unfortunately been
tempted to make that the rule which Paganini made
the exception, and to take that for their system, which,
with him was only sport. These men of a true inspiration, capable, if just to that inspiration, of moving
souls in their profoundest consciousness, have preferred
the wages of ingenuity to the immortality of fame.




MUSIC.                  239
The noblest art is thus turned into elegant jugglery;
and the musician that so degrades it, is, to a cultivated
audience, precisely what a conjuror, who can eat fire,
or balance a poker on his nose, is to country clowns.
True art, to be sure, delights in overcoming difficulties;
but it overcomes them for a purpose; and the conquest
it uses as a means, but never stops in it as an end.
Within the last two winters I have heard, in common
with enraptured crowds, two musicians, who, in the
spirit of right enthusiasm, have subdued the obstinacy
of a most obstinate instrument. The men I allude to
are Knoop and Bohrer, and the instrument is the
violoncello. Most'glorious sounds have they flung
upon the winds of Yankee-land, and most devotedly
have such of our free and enlightened citizens, as the
grace of God has blessed with taste, gone to hear.
Both these'men are masters, and both are different.
Knoop is a zealot, and you cannot but observe his
zeal. He is a dogged adorer of his instrument, and
he clings to it with ungainly gesture, but with fe'rvid
love; onward he careers, in zephyr and in tempest,
and rising-into ecstasy himself, seems unconscious of
the ecstasy he has created. Bohrer is earnest as well
as Knoop; but he is earnest with more external grace.
He is perfectly at his ease; looks blandly towards the
audience, from time to time; evinces his consciousness




240           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
of their sympathy; throws out his floods of rapture
with a facility that almost appears indolent; in sprightly
sallies seems to cheer his instrument with smiles; and
in pensive passages, hangs over it with a languid and
indulgent fondness. I constantly see things in the way
of analogy; and after this fashion, regarding the instruments of these men as their wives, I will show in what
aspect each artist was presented to my vagrant imagination.  Knoop was an inspired rustic, that clasped
his bride, and kissed her, and cared not who was
present. Bohrer was a polished and well-bred gentleman, whose affection was evident, but comme il faut;
in fact, Bohrer, with his loved one, " behaved himsel afore folk." Yet, with all this apparent ease and
self-possession, his soul was concentred in his work;
every touch, every movement, contributed to increase
the excitement, or to deepen the impression, until the
brain was giddy to sickness; until the heart was full
to suffocation.
Glorious, however, as such music is, its effect is
by no means universal. It is too highly artistical for
instinctive appreciation. The tones to which the common heart responds are never elaborate or involved.
The tones to which our most touching associations are
linked, it does not require training to feel. Thence it
is, that the music which longest holds its power over




MUSIC.                   241
us; which earliest begins its influence, and loses its
influence the latest; the music which delights our
childhood and cheers our age; which the popular
memory preserves, and which the popular affections
cherish; - this music is always simple. Thus it is
with the music of love. Love, being the simplest of
sentiments, rejects all but the simplest expression, be
this expression in word or tone. The love-lyrics of
Burns are among the finest that were ever written, and
they are all adapted to old popular tunes, not only
familiar, but even homely. Burns, with the instinct of
a true poet, saw that whatever a nation preserves for
successive generations, is not conventional, but human.
Guided by such an instinct, he took up the old airs of
his country, and wed them to immortal verse. Carolan, the last of the Irish bards, a man of rare genius
and of noble heart, was in melody what Burns was in
verse, a production of nature's finest moulding. Moore
has given words to many of these airs; but there is
small congruity between the words and the airs; the
words seem written with the oil of roses, but the airs
are as the echoes in lonely caves, or as the breezes
over mountain heather.
The music of patriotism is simple. All national airs
are simple. The power of such airs you do not need
to be told. In father-land, these airs, as you know, can
VOL. II.      16




242          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
endow the heart with the bravery of a lion; in exile
they subdue it to an infant's weakness. The Swiss, in
foreign armies, you are aware, cannot bear the" Ranz
de Vaches."   The Swiss are not in this peculiar.
What Briton does not feel his heart beat more quickly,
as the swell of his national anthem comes upon his ear?
I have seen Irishmen aroused almost to madness by a
local melody. I knew a blind harper, who, after years,
recognized an early friend by the manner in which he
danced to a certain tune. I have heard of a poor Irish
girl, running into a parlor convulsed in tears, when a
lady was playing one of her native ballads: "0
ma'am!" she exclaimed, "dear, dear ma'am! play
that again! play that again! O, dear lady, play that!
I love to hear it!" These sounds transported, over
distance and years, the spirit of the poor homesick girl.
She was again in the scenes of her infancy, of her
youth; the hut where she was born was before her;
the parents that reared and blessed her started to her
view; her kindred, her playmates, her passages of
girl's love and romance, the tragedy and comedy of her
unsophisticated woman's life, were all summoned in
those pregnant tones.
The music of piety, too, is simple. Simple were
those strains which the early Christians murmuredsin
dens and caves of the earth; simple are those Grego



MUSIC.                  243
rian chants, which the churoh has since poured out in
her triumph and glory; simple is that Miserere, which,
if all Christendom could hear, all Christendom would
weep; simple is that Stabat Mater, which describes the
divinest of women,. in the holiest of sorrows; simple
were those psalms, and hymns, and godly songs, by
which the Scotch raised, among their glens and mountains, in the hard days of persecution, the voice of an
honest testimony. This allusion to Scotland calls to
mind a very remarkable effect of simple devotional
music, to which I once was witness. The church in
which I heard it was not in connection with the Kirk,
for it had the advantage of an organ. A young student
of the university, on this occasion, played this organ.
The first verses of the hymn were hopeful and aspiring, and the youthful artist adapted his modulation to
the sentiment with admirable skill. The last stanza
was deeply plaintive; without changing the tune, by a
rapid turn he altered the manner. The minister and
his audience suddenly burst into tears. How many
histories of the invisible spirit, how many secret annals
of the heart, how many thoughts of affection, of grief,
of penitence, sad recallings of the past, melancholy
bodings of the future, did these few touches awaken!
Alas! the minstrel who called them up is now himself
but a memory. He has passed from earth; like the




244          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
sounds which his genius awakened, his life was a transient sweetness, that soon melted into silence. The
hand which once had such enchantment in its touch, is
now rigid in the palsied grave; the heart, so accordantly strung, has had its living chords dissolved; a lute
broken to fragments in the dust, it will no more, to the
ear of mankind, discourse most eloquent music.




THE YOUNG MUSICIAN.
I MENTIONED in my last a young musician. I introduce him again, not only from partiality of recollection,
but also because he is connected in my thoughts with
some loiterings and strollings, —a few reminiscences
of which I mean at present to give you.
When my acquaintance commenced with this young
friend, he was a student in the University of Glasgow.
About eighteen years of age, handsome and of goodly
presence, he was withal a youth of most excellent spirit.
To the refinement of mind, which springs from liberal
studies and good society, he joined the courtesy of an
affectionate nature, and the frankness of an honest
heart.  More a musical enthusiast than a scholastic
reader, he loved the divine art with his entire soul; and
whatever hours he could abstract from his academic
exercises, and whatever money he could spare from,
his necessary expenses, he devoted to its cultivation.




246          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
My residence for a time was in Greenock; and
Greenock, which now by railroad is within an hour's
travel of Glasgow, was then about two hours sail by
steamboat. By means of this facility, my young friend
had frequent opportunities of pleasant relaxation, and I
the privilege of agreeable society. My dwelling was
outside the town; and the waves of the beautiful Clyde
washed almost the steps of my door. Beyond its ample
waters, we could see from my windows the towers of
Rosneath, crowning the noble woods which the highborn Campbells had long called theirs; farther in the
view arose the Ayrshire mountains, and sublimely over
all was spread the many-colored and the many-clouded
sky of Scotland. Often were the occasions, and pleasant, when we watched this landscape together,-a
landscape that had endless changes, and in every
change was glorious. Morning, evening, noon, there
was novelty, and when grief was absent, novelty was
rapture. Sometimes the sun arose in clearness, and
forest, and glen, and mountain, and lake, met the eye
in splendor, and filled the heart with joy. But this sun
which came out so fair, often went down in blood-red
flame, leaving the tempest and the seas to rage in
darkness. We gazed and we admired; but also we
felt, that while we gazed and admired, others trembled
and wept. The shore had mourning, and the deep




THE YOUNG MUSICIAN.             247
destruction; through the starless arch of heaven were
borne the wailings of despair, while death, walking in
terror, gave his victims to a fathomless sepulchre, with
the shrieking winds above them for a dirge, and the
eternal waters around them for a shroud. Sometimes
the morning dawned in gloom, with the river merely
visible through the sleepy vapors, and the highlands
hidden within depths of clouds. But as the day advanced, this curtain of mist would be folded up; gradually the panorama expanded; first the plain came out
freshly to the light; the hill-side next appeared, with
every hue playing along its heather; finally, the bare
and rocky peaks boldly raised their lofty foreheads in
the open azure.
Numerous, also, were the wanderings which we have
hadin company; and he who has roamed in Scotland
with a congenial friend, has few greater luxuries to
regret, and none greater to envy. With most moderate
funds, and no ceremony, we had enjoyments which
prompted us to pity kings. The hills and the valleys at
our threshold were in themselves exhaustless; and
taking a wide circuit, staff in hand and wallet on shoulder, satisfied with coarse fare and rest where we could
find it, after a short sojourn we returned to the point
whence we set out, not much poorer in purse, and
vastly richer in happiness.




248          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
Let me sketch a few of these vagrancies for you, as
illustrations of humble tourists in search of the picturesque, - no, not in search, but in enjoyment of it.
Once we set out from Greenock, on a summer evening, to walk to Largs. Largs is a village on the border
of the Clyde, nearer to its mouth than Greenock, by, I
believe, about sixteen miles.  Our way lay along the
river, widening at every step, until it mingles with the
ocean. The atmosphere was so balmy, that it was
luxury to live; the horizon was serenely clear, and,
except the evening star, there was no speck in the
canopy of blue. On our left were the thick-leaved
woods, on our right the drowsy river, and, between
them both, we jogged on merrily, as to a bridal. In the
twinkling of an eye the weather changed, the air darkened, the winds grew loud, the rain fell in torrents, the
waters roared to madness, night came, no shelter was
at hand, and we were yet some miles from our resting
place. We reached the town at last, drenched to the
bone, and found a warm shelter in a hospitable inn.
We were soon laughing lustily in cosy blankets, extracting pleasure from our pains, with a table between our
beds, smoking with hot cakes, hot coffee, and hot cutlets. Willingly, I would take at any time again the
same endurance with the same enjoyment.
Sailings on the lakes, we have had also. We have




THE YOUNG MUSICIAN.            249
seen the Trosachs, Lock Katrine, and mused through
the groves of Inverary. We knew nothing of common.
place and systematic travelling, and all to us was the
freshness of nature, and the romance of tradition.
Inverary, — seat of the great Campbells, -shrouded
in the magic of story, and girded by flood and mountain, was exciting to us, as if a steamboat had never
darkened its waters. Just as we were entering the,
gate, a gentleman went in at the same time, of the
ducal family, who was then on an electioneering expedition in the neighborhood. I had long desired to see
a Highland gentleman in native costume, and as I went
into the hall of Inverary Castle, I was fully gratified.
Campbell of Islay was standing there in full array,
with kilt and dirk, bonnet and plume, and the tartan of
his clan. He was all that a chieftain should be - of
manly appearance, of chivalric courtesy, and of hospitable speech. Changed as society has been by modern
revolution - and in much changed for the better - the
costume which this gentleman assumed, when his desire
was to ingratiate sympathy, evinced how long old-world
notions dwell in the popular affection, even when they
have vanished from the popular theory. Fact it is, that
nations, as they grow in age, exist like individuals in
the past; and though the advance- of years be often in
both an advance towards idiocy and decay, the mere




250          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
instinct of life renders the past proportionately more
precious. Fact it also is, that whatever be our logic,
our feelings are conservative, and our logic has no
power, until a goading pressure has entirely reversed
our feelings.
Bodily, you were never, I apprehend, in Scotland;
much, doubtless, you have been there in spirit; for you
have read, - as who have not? - Scott and Burns. I
will show you, however, what in reality may be done
in the way of touring in no great number of hours.
After an early breakfast one day, my young friend and
myself departed from Greenock: we sailed up Loch
Gair to Arrochar; from Arrochar we crossed a few
miles to Tarbolton; passed from that point to the head
of Loch Lomond; sailed down on the other side to
Roadinnan, where we stopped for the night at the foot
of Ben Lomond. Rising at dawn, we climbed the
mountain, and met the sun upon his summit. Descend.
ing from the celestial to the earthly, we did ample
justice to a Scottish breakfast - and, even at this distance of time and space, I can honestly testify that Dr.
Johnson has not overpraised it.
The scenery, as we again embarked on the lake,
appeared lovelier than before; for it is indeed wonderful, how a hearty meal brightens the face of creation.
Never, if you can possibly avoid it, let hunger beset you




THE YOUNG MUSICIAN.             251
in an excursion amidst the beautiful. It is worse than,
fog, cloud, rain- either separately or all together. It
is a foul fiend, which sun, stars, hills or glades can.
sooth into no complacency. It banishes the smile of
pleasure, and it silences the laugh of mirth. I have
noticed a company grow dull and sullen amidst scenery
fair as Eden. This insidious demon was amongst them;
and it was not until the wretch was banished, by the
powerful charm of a massive loaf, that the scales fell
from the eyes of his victims.
To return, however, to our tour. Quitting the foot
of Ben Lomond, the steamer carried us to Balloch, the
extremity of the lake on the low land side. Our travel
then lay by Leven Water, until we reached Dumbarton,
from which another steamer took us on to Greenock.
Within a circle, which may thus be traversed in a day,
we passed through a succession of scenes, glorious to
the sight, but more glorious to the fancy — inspiring
from variety of objects, but more inspiring from wealth
of association. When from the pinnacle of Ben Lomond I looked down on the islet-speckled lake that lay
at his base in sunny sleep, or around on the wild wilderness of hills and waters, my imagination began to work,
and it was solitude no longer, for it became peopled by
the witcheries of Scott. The poetry of Smollett came
with the evening breeze that played on Leven Water;




252           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
and the memory of his genius, by his native streams,
made that' stream sacred in pensive thought, as we
gazed on the shadow' of his monument in its placid
brightness. And, while leaning over the precipice of
Dumbarton, the moral sublimity of the patriot and
martyr-hero, Wallace, to whom its castle gave a dungeon, was more exciting to us than the material sublimity of the sombre rock on which the castle stands.
Will you allow me to intrude on you the recollection
of one ramble? I had decided on a visit to Edinburgh,
and take in my way a loiter through the vale of Clyde.
My friend wished to bear me company as far as Lanark.
I reached Glasgow in the afternoon, and found him
ready to join me; but, unfortunately, the stage-coach,
which was the last for the day, had only one vacant
place, and as I had an engagement next morning on the
way, that I was obliged to secure. I went on, therefore, without him. It was a fine autumn evening; the
sun glanced gayly along the river, which here is within
narrow banks, and dashes on sportively in rustic buoyancy. The hard smooth road, upon which previous
rains had laid the dust, was gemmed on each border
with cheerful cottages; luxuriant orchards, burdened
with fruit, hung over its sides; the horses pranced away
proudly and speedily; the driver gossipped by turns
with his passengers and with his steeds; nameless jest




THE YOUNG MUSICIAN.            253
and hearty laughter hastened the time and shortened the
journey, until I found myself at the place where I was
to quit the coach. From this I was to take a by-way
to a village on the hills. Lovely are these by-ways of
Britain; lovely their hawthorn hedges, trellised with
ivy and honey-suckle; lovely their shade and solitude,
their wild flowers and their birds, their perfumed
banks for the traveller's repose, and their warbling concerts for his solace. The twilight was on the verge of
darkness, when I entered the hamlet at which I was to
rest. I had fixed myself in the parlor of its quiet inn,
and was musing over a stiff cup of tea, when, to my
surprise and pleasure, my friend bolted into the room.
He had crossed the country on foot, and enthusiasm
bore him on without fatigue, charmed by the new phases
of beauty which opened to his view at every step. An
hour's chat, and then to sleep, with the stillness of nature
around us, deep enough to keep a Cockney awake.
When an early hour the next morning found us again
upon the road, we proposed to breakfast with a farmer,
to whom I had an introduction, and whose residence
was a few miles distant on our way. The head-man
of the place, whose acquaintance I had the privilege to
make, came to escort us beyond the borders, and to do
the honors of his village. This head-man was the
shopkeeper of the place, a dispenser of most compli



254          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
cated merchandise, from pins to reaping-hooks, from
thimbles to ploughshares, with a goodly assortment of
hams and harrows, of gimcracks and gingerbread, of
hogs' lard and primers, of soap and psalm books. He
was the grandee of the neighborhood, the speculator, the
capitalist, the man of wealth and wisdom, a combined
epitome of Rothschild and Solomon. He put on his
hat with dignity, buttoned his coat with satisfaction,
walked with measured pace, shook his head with profound sagacity, and intimated the possession of a marvellous knowledge by his pauses. When we had
attained the summit of some rising ground that overlooked the village, he turned round, folded his arms,
and remained some moments in eloquent silence. A
fine contemplative serenity marked the expression of
his features, as he surveyed the sphere of his mercantile activity, and his -social consequence. There it was,
flooded with the lustre of the morning sun, about half a
mile beneath us, and no corner of it concealed: a score
of low thatched cabins on one side, "all in a row,"
and a score to match them,'" all in a row," on the other.
This architectural uniformity was elegantly relieved by
two houses, which had each a second story - one the
tavern, and the other belonging to our venerable friend.
After a while he addressed himself to me, with
most imposing gravity: " Wonderful times these, sir."




THlE YOUNG MUSICIAN.           255
"Yes, verily," answered I. "Wonderful times, sir.
All things going by steam, sir. Even babies grow
faster now than when I was a bairn. Great times for
knowledge and improvement. We've come on a bit
here, I can tell you, sir. Would you believe it, sir, but
thirty years ago there was not a dozen houses in that
town, and see, sir, what it is now! " He seemed quite
elated in pointing to this remarkable illustration of
rapid progress. " But we know how to do things here,
sir; we're an enterprising people, sir, that we are.
We don't get on I ken, so quick as the Glasgow
folks; but in our own way, sir, we manage matters to
please ourselves; we're steady and sure, that we are."
" Though,"' said I, "you have no foreign commerce, I
suppose you've an extensive domestic business? "
"  We've our share, sir," and he shook his noddle.
"' You don't happen to sell," I inquired, " any Killarnock night-caps? " " No, sir, no, sir; they're a drug
here; we can knit night-caps ourselves, sir - it's a
branch of native trade. We're concerned a bit in the
egg business, and we're about to form a joint live
chicken company; it'll be a handsome speck, sir.
We've a building company, and we hope by and by to
have an assurance office: I've a small investment in
the building, and I'11 give them a decent penny towards
the insurance affair.  Sound to the bone here, sir.




256          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
Capital well invested, sir - good return, sir. Nothing
like spirit, sir. What's a man, what's a community
without spirit? Nothing, sir, nothing; you could'nt
do better, sir, than settle among us -a growing place,
on the high road to prosperity. We intend soon to light
our town with gas — finest coal for gas here in the
world, and we're talking of having a gas company."
This was too much -it was not in humanity to keep
down cachinnation; so, pleading haste, I bade him a
rapid good morning, and saved my reputation.
Having reposed a few hours with our farmer host,
and partaken of his hospitable fare, a leisurely stroll
brought us in the afternoon to Lanark. The farmer
came with us, and did not leave us until he consigned
us. to a brother of his for the night. Though in the
humble occupation of a carrier, this brother had a
house that was the perfection of neatness, and his wife
and himself were the perfection of good-nature. Our
supper was from a board covered with homely plenty.
We slept in compact little chambers, with beds and
windows curtained in the purest white; and we arose
to a breakfast, at which we had trout, which were that
morning caught in a contiguous stream. The scenery
around Lanark is inexpressibly lovely, and the falls of
Clyde, with more beauty than sublimity, to any one who
has seen Niagara, yet, like all cataracts, defy description.




THE YOUNG MUSICIAN.             257
But, though I cannot describe to you the torrent,. or
the woodland paradise in which it is embosomed, I can
tell you something of a young blacksmith, who was my
voluntary and unpaid guide. At the upper fall, we sat
in a rustic bower; we listened to the roar of waters,
and watched the tumbling flood, which seemed, as its
broken gushings mingled with the sun-beams, a shower
of gems and'rainbows.  Romance is in all conditions;
and in every condition the poetry of the heart has purity
and exaltation. While I was admiring this summer
aspect of the fall, the blacksmith dwelt on some of its
winter appearances. He used to see it, when the frost
congealed its brilliant driblets on the rocks, and when
the moon poured her splendor upon the forest and the
fall. And one used to see it with him; and here was the
charm. In this bower he came to meet his ladye-love;
and here they mingled the outpourings of affection with
the voice of song; and she, who was then a gladsome
lassie, was now a youthful matron. Very oddly, had they
heard Rossini's music, or read Bulwer's novels, they
could not have courted with more romance, or been
fonder of sylvan shades for their whisperings.  But
nature, after all, is the greatest teacher. Young man
and maiden, royal or rustic, may differ in expression,
but in little else; for nature, which is no monopolist, is
not in the texture of the garment, but in the living pulse
VOL, II.              17




258          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
that throbs beneath it. This young pair, as well as the
most refined of aristocrats, would woo in silence and
alone; they sought the moonlight and the grove, and
here they had a trysting place, which Queen Mab herself might choose, if she had an elfin lover; but no doubt
the anthem of the eternal cataract, that rushed beside
and beneath them, was a faint sound, while they breathed
their mutual vows; and the vista between hills to the
far-off sky, and the gleaming of stars upon the dancing
waters, were little heeded in the reflection of love in
meeting eyes. Wherever nature can act in freedom,
life in its essential has much of equality; the worst
anomalies of life arise from the paralysis of nature by
sordid destitution, or the perversion of nature by artificial desires.
The truth of these remarks had practical illustration
in another, but very opposite kind of person, whom I
came across in this neighborhood, and on this evening.
A few nights previously, I had been in the theatre in
Glasgow, and was profoundly affected by the pathos
which a young performer threw into his acting. He
was, as I found upon inquiry, a person of some genius,
but of no discretion. He once had highest prospects on
the London boards - was admired by the elder Kean,
and at his recommendation procured an excellent engagement, but drinking and dissipation ruined all. In




THE YOUNG MUSICIAN.            259
the foam of the goblet all high aspiration was drowned,
ambition quenched, and hope forever darkened. He not
only neglected his studies, but forgot his appointments,
and when he ought to have been in the green-room,
was insensible in the tavern. The result is clear: con.
fidence was taken from him, and he was cast upon the
world with pitiless contempt. Now and then a provincial manager would have him in a favorite part, and on
such occasions needed all precautions to keep him sober.
On the evening that I was in Lanark, I saw, by bills
through the town, that he was to give recitations, and I
went to hear them. The place, I think, was an old
market-house. The elocutionist came from behind a
sort of screen.  His face was pale and pimpled, his
eyes heavy, his graceful person clad in vesture that
was as worn as himself. His boots were patched, his
trousers brushed to thin elemental threads, and his coat
buttoned closely to the chin. He was accompanied by
a female, already passee in age and beauty; her dress
was tawdry, rouge was stuck upon her pallid and
withered features. She took part in some dialogue
pieces, and was affectation, vanity, and poverty, personified. The gentleman, although he seemed to have
taken some strong drink, recited with exceeding truthfulness and force, and with a simplicity that combined
fine perception with high culture. But to whom did he




260          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
recite? Besides my young friend and myself, there
were two factory girls - three men, in soiled fustian
jackets - half a dozen young scamps, that yelled like
wolves or jackalls - a dandy, that kept his hat on, and
sucked the head of his cane, and an old crimson-nosed
toper, that snored after the first five minutes, to the
close of the' performance. The weary and wretched
speaker retired from this beggarly bundle of auditors
without enough to pay for the dirty tallow candles,
which dropped their grease upon the floor, and made
the darkness both dismal and visible. And thus, while
this man of genius was a ruined outcast, without friendship or funds, by means of inordinate passions and disordered will, a humble mechanic, by moderate wants
and unsophisticated affection, had secured all the pleasures which wisdom can seek, or which earth can bestow - the blessings of health, competence, love, and
home.
At Lanark, my young friend and I separated; he
returned to Glasgow, and I went on to Edinburgh.
Once again I saw him. He was going home to England to spend the vacation. He was in the heyday
of life and hope; already the gladness that awaited his
return, was before him in anticipation; the clasp of his
father's hand, and the pressure of his mother's bosom;
the merry welcome of his brothers and sisters, and the




THE YOUNG MUSICIAN.            261
hearty greetings of his school-day companions. He
arrived to enjoy all that he had anticipated, but he did
not enjoy it long. From an evening circle of mirth
and gayety, he came away loaded with fever, and died,
after an illness of two days. As his image often comes
to me in the recollections that people the summer
twilight or the winter interval, between the closing of
the shutters and the lighting of the candles, I could
not omit a reminiscence of him, from the individual
musings which these scribblings are intended to record.
Edinburgh, the beautiful and the far-famed, I mention only for the sake of a little incident. Lions, I like
well to see, and I saw them; but they have been described to the extremity of a hair and the point of
a claw. I have nothing to add to these zoological
researches; and truth to say, if I had the ability, I
want the inclination. The most agreeable hour I spent
was with Mr. Steele, then a young sculptor of eminent
promise;- promise which he has since fulfilled. The
stamp of an artist was on his pale and thoughtful countenance; his mere gestures and expression had a grace
which evinced an innate perception of the fair and the
fit. Like every man of a true inspiration, he was
modest and courteous. He led me through his studio;
showed me works in different stages, from embryo
thoughts, rudely fashioned into clay, to those which




262           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
stood completely embodied in the full maturity of chiselled marble. Sculpture, I ventured to observe, was
the most perfect manifestation of ideal beauty through
material form. He seemed pleased with the remark;
merely, I suppose, because it implied a desire to judge
of his art with a rational appreciation. I went from his
door, confident of his progress. I had no critical skill;
I could give no reason for the faith that was in me; but
the faith was there, and it has been since justified. A
few minutes after quitting his door, I was seated in a
canal packet boat, making all speed back to Glasgow.
One other passenger was in it, and that was a young
lady. The circumstance justified conversation without
an introduction, and ere long we were deep in gossip
about things in general, and Edinburgh in particular. I
mentioned my visit to Mr. Steele, and gave hearty utterance to the feelings which it inspired.  "I, sir,'4 said
she, " am  Mr. Steel's sister."  Pleasant it was to me,
that my words were not words of censure; pleasant to
me afterwards, was the memory of this praise; and
flowing honestly and warmly as it did from a stranger's
lips to a sister's ear, I would fain hope that to the lady
herself it was also pleasant. I would not for the critical powers of Longinus, and the opulent wit of Rabelais, have wounded that young girl's feelings; and yet,
unconsciously, I might have stung them to the quick.




THE YOUNG MUSICIAN.             263
Mr. Steel has recently been selected by Sir Robert Peel
to execute one of three great national works.
Thus the stream of years flows on, sweeping some to
oblivion, and carrying others to the open day of fame.
But, after all, this course is only comparative. The
most noted will sink at last with the most obscure. My
young friend awakened a few tones of emotion within
the circle of a span, and then came silence. The Scottish sculptor has made for his conceptions lasting habitations in solid forms. Yet had my young friend an
imagination as mighty in harmony as Handel's, he
would, notwithstanding, be forgotten; and had the Scottish sculptor the plastic chisel of Phidias, a like destiny
would also be his.  The statues of Greece are in
ashes, and the music of Zion has not left an echo.
Time not only wears out arts, but ultimately it will alter
nature. Not only the sound of the lute and the lyre
die, but so will the sound of the wind and the wave;
the colors of the pencil fade, so will the glory of the
sun; the sculptured marble moulders, so will the mountain from which it was hewn. The only immortality is
Thought, and that which thought inhabits - Spirit.




A DAY IN SPRINGFIELD.
0 —FoR the first time in my life, I have been to-day in
an American cotton mill. I went through it, and surveyed both its living, and its inanimate machinery. I
have been through mills of most huge dimensions in
England, of which this one seemed to me a bright and
elegant miniature edition. The gigantic vastness of an
EnglIsh mill is more imposing, but the superior cleanness of an American mill is more pleasing. Hordes of
children pant wearily in an English mill; in an American one, but few children are employed. Fewer men,
also, are engaged in American cotton factories. The
principal operatives, therefore, in American cotton factories, are young girls. They come to these factories
from all parts of the country in New England; are
daughters of farmers; many of them well educated,
and most of them of excellent character. After a few
years of hard work, they return, and marry on the




A DAY IN SPRINGFIELD.            265
strength of their earnings.  In the mills they are
decently dressed, and on holidays, they are the gayest
of the gay. In looks, they are generally pretty; in
appearance, healthy; in demeanor, modest and retiring. One evil in American factories corresponds to a
like one in those of England; and that is, long hours
of labor.  Here I find that work commences with the
light, and closes, at the present season, at six. In summer time, it commences at five in the morning, and
closes only at seven in the evening. An hour and a
half each day, I believe, is allowed for meals. I have,
myself, a theory against factories, in their most mitigated operations; but as, with our civilization, so many
fellow-creatures are likely to be engaged in them, I
trust that facts may prove my theory false. That
much may be effected to render such labor consistent
with all that is best in the development of human
nature, the literary productions of the Lowell factory
girls evince; and where much has been done, there
may be more.  Girls from  England and Canada, I
found, had been enlisted into work in the mills here;
and although the managers discovered that some of
them were rather rebellious creatures, others were
highly appreciated, for peaceful and docile industry.
Factories, I know, must be, and as they must, let them
be as consistent with the happiness of their laborious




266          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
workers, as every human effort can make them. But,
as it is, there are few modes of occupation that give me
less pleasurable emotions, than these immense combinations of throbbing engines and throbbing hearts. Our
civilization has its foundation in terrific sacrifices; for
all our material enjoyments, our systematic comforts,
there are piles and piles of victims, one grade treading
down another, and standing on it, - from the pinnacle
of privilege and pleasure, down to the depths of hopeless ignorance and ceaseless toil.
"Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still slavery thou art
a bitter draught;" and, in my opinion, slavery to
machinery is not the least bitter draught in the cup of
servitude.
While waiting in the sitting parlor of the hotel,
previous to supper, an elderly man of very marked
appearance was my only companion.  His face was
oval, of beautiful contour; his white hair combed back
from a forehead of noble height, his eye benignant, but
piercing.  His conversation - for we had conversation- was calm, intelligent, singularly correct, and
elegant in phraseology. I am not given to the superstition, that you may know a remarkable man by his
forehead or his nose; and yet I was impressed by this
man. I had, one way or the other, an idea that he was
somebody.  We went together to the supper-room.




A DAY IN SPRINGFIELD.           267
He ate very slightly, and then left the table. A gentleman, who remained after him, asked me, " Do you
know who that is? "  " No," I replied; " but I have
been peculiarly struck by him." " That," said my
fellow-guest, " is Mr. Audubon."  "What! Mr.
Audubon, the celebrated American ornithologist? "
"' The same." I spoke most sincerely, when I replied,' There is no man in the United States, whom I am
more pleased to see than Mr. Audubon." On our return
to the parlor, Mr. Audubon gratified us by showing
some magnificent prints of a grand new work he is
about to publish, on the Quadrupeds of America. It
would be vain for me to try to give you, by description,
an idea of the vigor and the life which appear in these
drawings; the grace of their positions, and in many
instances, the exquisite comicry of their looks. When
Mr. Audubon had kindly done all this, he set out to
travel in the stage-coach for hours in the night, through
a deluge of rain, and roads compounded of mud and
ice. Mr. Audubon is one of the most distinctive
instances of the union of enthusiasm with patience, of
genius with labor. His devotion to his favorite pursuit
has been as unremitting as it has been fervid; through
travel, fatigue, danger, he has still preserved the glow
of his soul and the tenor of his way. Years ago in
England, Professor Wilson and other men of poetic




268          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
fire, admired the enthusiast of the woods, with his
black hair, and his bold front- such was the character; it has not since changed; true, his locks have
grown hoary, and wrinkles have crept into his face;
but his eye has not become dim, nor his natural force
abated. With other attributes of genius he has its
disinterestedness. By his first great work, he lost
twenty-five thousand dollars; there is a smaller edition,
by which his friends hope this loss may be refunded.
Yet, although pecuniary loss ought not, in this case as
others, to be the fate of genius, to say nothing of toil
and trouble, still, what noble compensation in high
thoughts and a living name! Such compensation, at
least, Mr. Audubon has; but the world should not
make that his all. Have you ever read Professor
Wilson's eloquent article on him in Blackwood? If
not, read it.
The next morning, being considerably fatigued, I
was late for the common breakfast; and with whom
think you did I get mine? Why, with three Judges
of the Supreme Court, and a bar of the most eminent
lawyers in the State,* and among the most eminent in
the nation. They were here in special session on an
exciting case of murder. I went with them into court;
remained there all the forenoon; came out, dined, and
t Massachusetts.




A DAY IN SPRINGFIELD.           269
then again returned. The matter, of course, will be
to you scarcely worth relation, except that it was my
first time of being present at a capital trial in America,
and there may be some small interest in the vividness
of new and contrasted impressions. Although in a
country town, the court-room was more neat, more
clean, and more comfortable, than any that I have ever
seen in Ireland or England. The judges went from
their lodgings in the order of age, preceded by the
sheriff, and took their seats gravely on the bench. Let
me tell you, that, notwithstanding all my early associations, I did not miss the parade or the robings. Indeed,
I think my feelings were more solemn without them.
There was something, indeed, that almost awed me in
the spectacle of three plainly dressed men, having a
controlling influence on the life of a fellow creature,
sustained in their authority by the free opinion of those
around them, and the sense of justice; having no other
grandeur than that which lies in learning, wisdom,
integrity, and years. Nor was the audience less impressive to me in its decorum, silence, and submission;
obedient to the predominant sentiment of law, by which
alone a community can have either civilization or security. The progress of evidence developed complications of crime. A man was killed who had made one
of a gang to tear down a house. The house had been




270          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
subject to some odium; the inmates had fled; a lawless
band, it would seem, was made a ruffian the less, by
one who was as great a ruffian as himself. Having
continued through the day, the scene appeared to me
specially dramatic by candlelight. The three judges,
with their serious faces, seemed yet more solemn in the
dim gleam of the tapers. The members of the bar, not
engaged in examination, are listening with fixed attention, or musing in concentrative abstraction. The
prisoner sits within a railing exactly opposite to the
bench. He is a man respectable in station, and fifty
years of age. As the candles faintly glimmer over his
features, they seem sad, thoughtful, worn, and not
ungentle. I could not avoid thinking what a contrast
that face now presented in the hour of retribution, to
its hour of passion; how different that despondent eye,
from that which had been shot with glaring vengeance;
how different that arm, relaxed in weariness, from that
which was nerved to plunge the murderous dagger in a
human heart. And this man, who unsluiced the fountain of his brother's life, had home and kindred, and,
doubtless, all the affections that belong to such relations; and these were at this moment around him with
most devoted anxiety. Three brothers sat outside the
bar. The prisoner was the eldest; and the arrangement was an ascending progression from a fine young




A DAY IN SPRINGFIELD.            271
man in the bloom of life, to the individual whose fate
they awaited. His son-in-law, a beginner, as I understood, in the legal profession, was indefatigable in aiding the counsel for his defence. Scarcely is there any
evil, which leaves us solitary in this earth of kindred
humanities; and scarcely is there any sin so dark,
as to rob us of sympathy, from some heart that has
bonds with ours.
There is no place in which human passions are so
revealed, as in a court of justice. In political assemblies they are but partial; in those of worship, they are
suppressed; on the stage they are only feigned; in the
court alone, they are various, and they are real. I
must except the lawyers, for they have the simulation
of actors without their art.  But for the rest; observe
the audience. Take your place near the bench, and
look up towards the opposite gallery.  Contemplate
that dense mass of countenances, of every age, and
each with characteristic and earnestexpression. There
is one man about the middle of the group; he is so
crushed by those behind, that he has to lean his elbows
on the front rail, and place his face between his hands.
His coat is a rusty drab and patched, his cuffs are
greasy, and the face between them, is a study for
Cruikshank! See when he closes his lips, how the
wrinkles converge towards his mouth; each wrinkle




272          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
contains a grin, but no one of the grins has a streak of
humor or of light. See him, now, when he opens his
mouth —in the fore part of it, two upper teeth are
wanting; his widened face is grotesque, but not funny;
it is odd, but you cannot laugh at it; it is one of those
countenances in a thousand, which fixes your attention,
not by attraction, but compulsion; which you do not
exactly fear, which you do not exactly hate; which
does not command your esteem, nor yet move your
contempt; which, beholding once, you can never forget; but which you never desire to behold again.
Then where, as well as in a court of justice, will you
observe suspense, grief, terror, despair, so truly, so
tragically, depicted? this scene of all the passions in
their consummation and retribution, the winding up of
those doings, whose ways are misery, and whose end
is death.
Scenes similar to this, and yet different from it, in
other lands, passed across my memory. One especially
occurred to me, of a trial, at which I was present, in
the south of Ireland. It was a trial for murder. This
was now the night of the third day. Even the bench
and the bar were but feebly lighted, and the body of
the court had only such a glimmer, as a wretched
tallow candle here and there afforded. The jury have
retired. The judge, a venerable old man, has folded




A DAY IN SPRINGFIELD.           273
his crimson robe around his breast, and reclines back
exhausted. The lawyers are some engaged in low
whispers, others are in postures of listlessness and
fatigue. The prisoner - what of him? There he is,
unhappy creature! behind an inner railing. A policeman stands on each side of his barrier, and from each
side the rays of a flickering candle pass athwart his
features - and what features!  Look at them - his
low forehead, with no stamp of thought; his eye, with
no dawn of speculation; his hard, weather-tanned
cheek; his mouth large,- coarse, thick, which bespeaks nothing but the animal. And there he stands,
stolid, unmoved, impassive; now, his poor unmeaning
face turns towards the audience, now to the judge;
then toward the jury box; never with any concern,
except, that it had occasionally a look of stupid and
puzzled wonder, which appeared to say, what's all this
about? Then, the audience. The old man, whose
son was, perhaps, next day for trial, and the stalwart
peasant from the fields, waiting to be a witness for his
brother or his neighbor. The elder matron to leave
the town, it may be, childless, and be dragged down
with her gray hairs in sorrow to the grave. The young
maiden - a few weeks since, blooming as summer's
freshest rose, now pale in apprehension for her brother
or her betrothed. These, surrounded by a mass of
VOL. II.       18




274          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
faces stamped with want, with suffering, or with vice;
all intent, fixed, eager - formed a spectacle as wild
and gaunt, as the gloomy and sublime Salvator ever
fancied or ever painted. An hour passes away; eyes
wander from the accused to the door that conceals the
weighers of his destiny. It stirs - the heart leaps - it
opens, and they come forth in solemn order. This
dense silent crowd have all now but one soul, that soul
but one thought, and that thought an awful suspense.
The question is put: Guilty or not guilty?  The
answer is, Guilty! Had the prisoner changed color,
had he shed tears, had he evinced any intelligent
heroism, I would have been relieved! But no! the
poor, forlorn, mindless victim, did not seem to think
that these matters had any relation to him. The judge
placed the black cap on his head, addressed him in
gentle and moving tones, and then pronounced the
sentence, that made every heart quake, and every
knee tremble. Exhortation and sentence were alike in
vain; they found no response of either compunction
or dread; they did not enkindle or moisten the leaden
eye which still stared unheeding. Seldom is the terrible doom of the law pronounced in an Irish court,
without the echo of breaking hearts, to whom the
victim of the law is dear. But about this unfriended
and outcast man, there seemed no shelter of kindred




A DAY IN SPRINGFIELD.           275
affections. Had I heard the sobs of a father, the
shrieks of a mother, the mad lamentations of a wife,
my pity had been softened by a touch of comfort;
but this uncheered, unbroken desolation upon the lot
of a brother, in my humanity, did not so much move
me as oppress me. Miserable, unimpressed, dogged,
he retired with the officials to his prison, and in a few
days that miserable creature was hanged; the life was
taken which he had been never taught to use; and the
gallows became the sovereign remedy for the ills of an
unprotected infancy, a neglected youth, and a guilty
manhood.
Thus I have given you the incidents and impressions
of a day, which forms somewhat of a rambling medley,
but if the record affords you the least pleasure, it will
not have been made in vain.




CHATTERTON.
WHY is it, can you tell me, why so many poets
should be from the poor?   Most poets have arisen
from conditions of life, which were not burdened with
wealth. Many things, from time to time, as I reflect
on the fact, suggest themselves to me, as the cause of
it; but I cannot say that I have ever satisfied myself
about it, nor am I much concerned. It might be said
poetry is the language of fancy; and genius, which is
not made gross by the riches of the world, can use this
language best. Poetry is also the language of struggle;
and genius, beset with sordid embarrassments, utters it
with all the depth of its tragedy. Poetry is the language of passion; the opulent exhaust passion, but
indigent genius idealizes it. Poetry is the language
of aspiration; and genius, stimulated by its own wants,
and moved by sympathy for those of others, constantly
sighs for a condition of existence more perfect than




CHATTERTON.               277
that in which it lives. But it is vain to theorize; for,
if one wrote a folio volume of speculation on the point,
— which he might easily do —the fact would be all
the same. From the ranks of lowly life, some of the
greatest poets, who have adorned ancient or modern
literature, have come forth — not alone to sing the
simple songs of the poor, but to tell the tales of heroes
and of gods. Tradition - whether true or fabulous -
represents Homer, the father of bards, as not over-.
burdened with the world's goods. Hesiod was a
peasant. Virgil was a small farmer; and he thought it
no profanation to defy an emperor, who did not drive
him from his poor inheritance. Horace was the son of
a Roman freedman and tax-gatherer. Terence had
been a slave. Vulgar report represented Shakspeare as
a poacher. Ben Johnson was a bricklayer. Taylor, a
famous fellow in his day, was a waterman. Allan
Ramsay, spent a portion of his life in wig-making; and
I am not sure but he also did something at shaving.
Burns held the plough. Hogg tended sheep. And
poor Chatterton was the son of a schoolmaster.
The name of Chatterton is well known, and is likely
to be long remembered, both for his misfortunes and his
genius. He was born in November, 1752. His birth
was in orphanage; and his death, like his birth, was
desolate. Educated at a charity-school, that wonderful




278          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
boy became a puzzle to hoary scholars. His first years
were spent in the drudgeries of an attorney's office.
One of his earliest efforts was on the opening of a new
bridge in Bristol, when he produced an account of the
friars in former times passing over the olden bridge.
The fabrication evinced astonishing invention; and this
was by a boy of sixteen years of age. The professed
discovery of certain old English poems by Chatterton,
occurred in this wise: In the church of St. Mary
Radcliffe, Bristol, were some six or seven chests of old
parchment. Chatterton asserted that among these he
found poems by an ancient priest, named Thomas Rowley, and printed a few of his pretended discoveries in
the periodicals of the day; but with no pecuniary result.
He had left Bristol in the mean time, given up his legal
apprenticeship, and was pacing the streets of London,
helpless and unfriended, but full of hopes and youth.
He transmitted some MSS. to Horace Walpole. The
Epicurean cynic took no notice of them. The poet redemanded them: the great man returned them with
contempt. The great man's contempt was retorted by
the poet's indignation. The great man did not dine the
worse: unhappily, the poor poet did not dine at all.
Mr. Gray and Mr. Mason at once knew Chatterton's
MSS. to be forgeries; the wretched youth went on
obstinately maintaining the authenticity of Rowley's




CHATTERTON.                279
poems, and was all the while dying of hunger. He
labored incessantly; he filled the magazines with
noble and heart-burning poetry; but the charmer
found none that would keep alive that voice of glorious
enchantment- and, in a moment of despair, it was
quenched forever.  Chatterton destroyed himself in
passionate destitution, and earned for himself the grave
of the Excommunicated. Yet such, to the last, was
his kindness for his friends, that, while a gleam of
expectation remained, his letters were encouraging,
and he sustained a cheerful tone, when his soul had
become dark as " Erebus." I do not think a more
affecting incident occurs in the history of English
literature, than that of poor Chatterton writing excellent letters to his friends, when he was starving in London. There were times when he wanted a dinner
occasions, when he had not tasted food for twenty-four
hours; yet, as if to assure his sister, he would send
her a cheap but delicate present. Such, also, was the
proud sensibility of his nature, that, when walking the
streets of London, with famine tearing at his vitals, he
was in the habit of refusing invitations to dinner, which
he well knew were given from compassion. Once,
and once only, he was prevailed on to await supper -
and then his enjoyment of it evinced the instinctive
voracity which accompanies the last degree of starva



280;          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
tion. With a horrid despair thus gathering over him,
partly, it must be admitted, brought on by his own
proud dishonesty, he became his own self-avenger.
The cup of life had become bitter to his taste, and, to
end the draught, he mingled arsenic with its ingredients. Coleridge exclaims:
" O Chatterton, that thou wast still alive,
Sure thou wouldst spread thy canvas to the gale,
And love with us the tinkling team to drive
O'er peaceful freedom's undivided dale -
And we at sober eve would round thee throng,
Hanging enraptured on thy stately song -
And greet with smiles the young-eyed poesy,
All deftly masked as hoar antiquity."
The arguments for and against the authenticity of
Rowley's poems are now of little interest.  Such as
they are, however, they may be simply and very
briefly stated.  Against the authenticity, it is said,
that Chatterton produced but few verses of pretended
original MSS. - whereas, if he had many such treasures, he would have been proud to show them; the
likelihood that, from an early love of antiquarian lore,
his genius would have taken this course; the confession of poor Chatterton himself, that he had written
one piece, at least, which appeared in the counterfeit




CHATTERTON.               281
style; the probability that he, who could write one,
could write more; the knowledge of an intimate
acquaintance, who was aware that he had blackened
and disfigured parchments, that he had sent to the
printer's for old MSS.; the evidence of another friend,
who traced in Chatterton's conversation, and in the
pretended poems of Rowley, the same tone and the
same ideas; the variation of the handwriting of the
pieces; the absence of any allusion to Rowley in contemporaneous documents; the want of faults in the
poems themselves, which belong to the times in which
they profess to have been written; the anachronisms
of incident or reference; the inconsistencies of measure
and of language; the imitations of subsequent writers;- all these are alleged as sufficient to convict
Chatterton of fabrication and imposition.
On the other side are urged: Chatterton's love of
fame, which, if he had written such poems, would
impel him to claim the glory; his own repeated assertions, and his adherence to such assertions; the short
time which he had to produce such a quantity of MSS.;
the allusion to facts and customs; the use of ancient
words, in no dictionaries at Chatterton's command: —
these, with most abortive attempts to answer positive
arguments, make the sum of all that can be said in
favor of IRowley's authenticity and Chatterton's honesty.




282          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
We thus find Chatterton in the paradoxical position
of giving up his honesty to lose that personal fame,
which so many barter honesty to acquire.
I am not about to enter on a specific criticism of
his works, but merely to revert to such memories, as
half-forgotten reading may suggest. "Ella, a tragical
Interlude," is a stately drama, of English thought and
phraseology, wanting in passion and incident, but having uncommon poetic beauty. In the " Parliament of
Sprites," we have a wild and luxurious fertility of
antique and descriptive poetry; that which revels in
the past of Britain - that in which Shakspeare found
scenery for his " Midsummer Night's Dream'- that
in which Memory and Imagination meet and rejoice
together. I do not know any other land, where the
rural sentiment is so strong as it is in England. The
habits of the people seem from the first to-have wedded
them to nature; and the nature to which they were
familiar was of that middle order between the gentle
and the gigantic, which best nurtures the rural sentiment. We find accordingly, this sentiment to be the
ruling one in their sports; the sentiment which trained
them to archery, which placed their amusements on the
green-sward, or amidst the woodlands - which made
the wild free forest the very paradise of their desire.
The sentiment is immortalized in Robin Hood, in his




CHATTERTON.                283
man John, and such other green-wood outlaws. This
sentiment overflows, therefore, in every grade of Eng.
lish poetry, - in ballad, song, drama, ode, and epic.
Chatterton evinces that sympathy with the luxuriance
of rural imagery, which belongs to the poetry, native
to his country, and especially to the best of its earlier
verses. " Wharncliff?" is one of his finest antique
counterfeits. It is wild and romantic in the highest degree; it displays immense force and imagination, and
a great range of poetical expression. " Bothwell " is
a story, dark, dismal, and pitiful. Both parties of disputants as to Mary of Scotland's guilt or innocence,
may quarrel until Doomsday; but none of them could
turn from this affecting story, without being charmed
by its interest and pathos. We have the savage warrior, after years of captivity and madness, dismayed, at
intervals of sanity, by terrible glancings of memory,
which reveal his beautiful " ladye-love," as she was
seen in the pride of her loveliness, and then bring his
intellect back to the present, to survey the cold Norwegian dungeon, where he bears the chains of a wild
beast. We see the giant both of courage and of sin,
brought down to childlike meekness, and weeping away
his hours in sorrow and in darkness. We see the strong
and wicked soul borne to the naked ground, prostrate
on the bare bosom of our common mother, sobbing in




284         LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
broken tones of grief. We see the strong and wicked
soul, which had feared no crime, of blood, or guilt, or
wrong, melted and humbled by thoughts of hours to be
his no more; by recollections of his Mary, exceedingly lovely, and exceedingly loved -guilty, it may
be, but whom all wish to believe innocent; guilty, it
may be, but yet having such grace and sweetness, that
her errors are forgotten, and a civilized humanity
remains always her advocate. Chatterton has developed the moving and romantic elements both of character and situation, in this poem, with a force of emotion,
and a felicity of diction, that made me sad, as I closed
the book, to think what our literature had lost in
the glorious and inspired boy. Chatterton evinced
how mighty his genius was, by the distance at which
it anticipated experience. Why, when most of our
boys are but blubbering over their books, this superhuman youth was pouring out the thoughts, that swell
and shake the breast of manhood. Still, there is no
means by which genius can altogether anticipate experience. The faculties most powerful, therefore, in
the youth of genius, are those which distinguish the
writings of Chatterton. These are luxuriance of fancy,
and opulence of expression. The fancy of Chatterton is not only rich but strong; it has not only a
plumage of dazzling splendor, but a pinion of daring




CHATTERTON.                 285
flight; and his language reflects, perfectly, the brilliancy offhis fancy, and sustains him amidst the bravest
of its soarings. In the genius of Chatterton there are
equal precocity and power, a supernatural wildness and
a fearful grandeur. In some respects, Chatterton resembled Shelley; in others, he was as dissimilar as
possible. Shelley lavished his genius on the future,
and Chatterton spent his upon the past. Both of them
were zealots; Shelley for phantoms, and Chatterton
for forgeries; Shelley, for visions, which he believed
were some time to be; Chatterton, for a fable, which he
was conscious never had been. A solitary peculiarity
attaches to unhappy Chatterton, which leaves him distinct and singular. He was martyr for a lie; a lie,
too, which, by any supposition, must inflict a fatal and
certain penalty; for, if discovered, it must blacken his
moral character, and if successfully concealed, it must
be the death of his fame.




CARLYLE.
I HAVE just finished Thomas Carlyle's last book, entitled, " Past and Present," and it has so filled my mind,
that I must try to give my impressions of it. My admiration of this book is disinterested, for I am not of
those who make Carlyle the god of their idolatry; yet,
I trust, I am not insensible to the merits of so original a
thinker and so profound a critic. I have read all his
productions;' many of them with unmingled delight;
and none of them, without appreciation of his extraordinary powers. To make allusion only to a few; his
biography of Schiller; his comments on the life and
writings of Richter; his analysis of Goethe, are so
fraught themselves with inventive genius, as to be
creations, rather than criticisms, such as almost place
the writer on a level with the great authors whom he
reviews.  With these I need hardly specify his most
pathetic and eloquent " Essay on Burns;" a genuine




CARLYLE.                 287
and manly estimate of a most genuine and most
manly poet. A position of Carlyle's own is, that to
judge truly of faults, you must have entered fully
into the excellence of your author; and this position he
has nobly himself exemplified in his estimate of bighearted Burns, the bard that " walked the mountain
side in glory and in joy." But Carlyle has peculiarities, which no admiration can render pleasing to me.
If some will call me conventional for such repugnance,
I cannot help it. So it is in me, and I only show my
improvement from Carlyle's lessons, by honest expression. It seems to me that Carlyle defies sheer force,
and that he is intolerant, not merely to pretension, but
to weakness. His views of man often appear to me
exceedingly limited, and so also his ideas of good and
evil. With most eloquent eulogies on genuineness, he
does not much respect individual independence. The
genuineness that he approves, is one which makes
impression by some strong peculiarity; one which can
maintain its right by power. Other than this he does
not praise; nay, on humble men, who do the best they
can in common ways, he pours out most scalding sarcasm and most bitter ridicule.  Carlyle would have
the lower minds not merely subjects, but worshippers,
and heroes should be their gods. To this worship I
never can bend; I admire great souls, but I will not




288          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
forsake my own; in my adoration I would fain aspire
directly to the Creator of great souls. From a great
many points in Carlyle's philosophy I sincerely dissent,
but, within limits, desire to be a learner from Carlyle's
teaching. That he is a man of a vigorous and earnest
mind, I believe; that he is a man of a tranquil and
catholic one, I doubt. His later style is not to be
praised; enough, if it be borne; and nothing can more
evince the value which is set on Carlyle's thoughts,
than the endurance of his style. It is not English, and
I know  not what else it is. His terms, singly, to
be sure, are Anglo-Saxon; but to what dialect his
sentences belong, let philosophers determine.  Still,
let no one turn away from his odd and grotesque
expression; let no one, on this account, cast aside a
book of Carlyle's, or he will throw away a husk, which
contains a very precious kernel. I have mastered his
vocabulary, and find a wisdom in his words, which
would repay twenty times the labor. These exceptions
are made in perfectly cordial temper; and now I will
proceed to tell you all I can in a short space about the
work I have already mentioned. As a literary composition, it has Carlyle's power and his defects; but
its aim is directly practical, and its tone is impressively
serious.
It is divided into four books. The first is entitled




CARLYLE.                289
the " Proem." It is a picture of English society in its
present ominous condition, and is the deepest voice of
advice and warning, which has come forth from the
groaning heart of that sick and struggling country.
There is a prophet-like depth in its tone of complaint,
and a prophet-like energy in its indignant denunciation;
withal, it has modulations of sweetness and pity.
Book the second, is designated " The Ancient Monk."
It resuscitates a fragment of the middle ages, with that
picturesque vitality, in which Carlyle has no equal and
no rival. This book is founded on an old MS., some
time since discovered in England by the " Camden Society," containing a memoir of one Samson, abbot
of the monastery of St. Edmundsbury in the twelfth
century; Edmund was a generous Saxon Englishman,
who, beloved by his people, and murdered by the Danes,
became a saint. Three centuries after his death, his
shrine was hung with riches, and a monastery existed
under his patronage, with one of the broadest estates
in the nation. Carlyle, in an eloquent character of St.
Edmund, draws a beautiful picture of a good landlord.
A certain indolent abbot, Hugo, not averse to prayer,
but very much to work, gets the estate of the community into a sad embarrassment; but happily Abbot Hugo
took into his head to make a pilgrimage to Canterbury;
and more happily Abbot Hugo died on the way. A
VOL. II.       19




290          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
certain stout-souled monk, Samson, a man after Carlyle's
own heart, is elected abbot; and, fortunately, a certain
minute observer, Jocelin, wrote a chronicle. This Jocelin is also beloved of Carlyle, and in his endearment he
calls him Bozzy - that is in a small way - for a Boswell is very gracious in the eyes of Carlyle, when there
is a Dr. Johnson behind him. Abbot Samson sets to
work like a man; reforms with radical energy, clears the
house of drones, clears the estates of debts, and clears
the vicinity of Jews. Abbot Samson has manifold occupations; he is governor, steward, judge, priest, and legislator; but Abbot Samson is equal to them all. Abbot
Samson has troubles with his monks, which he subdues
by a wise and gentle courage; and that courage does
not blench even in contest with the dauntless Cceur de
Lion. The abbot had a wealthy ward, whom the king
would marry otherwise than the abbot deemed for her
good. The king, by letter, requests that Abbot Samson
will give her as he directs. Abbot Samson replies
with deep humility, that she is already given.
New letters from Richard of severer tenor, were
answered with new humilities, with gifts and entreaties, with no promise of obedience. Richard's ire is
kindled; messengers arrive at St. Edmundsbury, with
emphatic message to obey or tremble! Abbot Samson, wisely silent as to the king's threats, makes an



CARLYLE.                 291
swer: " The king can send, if he will, and seize the
ward; force and power he has to do his pleasure, and
abolish the whole abbey; I. never can be bent to wish
this that he seeks, nor shall it by me be ever done; for
there is danger lest such things be made a precedent
of, to the prejudice of my successors.  Videat Altissimus, Let the Most High look on it. Whatsoever
things shall befall, I will patiently endure." Richard
swore tornado oaths, worse than our army in Flanders,
to be revenged on that proud priest. But, in the end,
he discovered, that the priest was right, and forgave
him, and even loved him. The chronicle breaks off
abruptly, and Carlyle closes the book with a fine chapter on the rise and progress of art and literature.
Then  comes book the third, on "The Modern
Worker." In this we have the philosophy of modern
England; and the philosophy is as grand as the subject. This is somewhat different from Jack-a-dandy:
Lester's, and his bottled pop and small beer declamations on the "Glory and the Shame of England."
Carlyle does not conceal the shame of the age, but
denounces it with a thunder voice; its atheism, its
mammonism, its dilettanteism, its pretensions, its quackeries, its cants, its want of high and noble soul, its
selfishness, its vain and idle aristocracies, its devouring
monopolies, its naked and starving toilsmen, its plea



292          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
sure-seeking and pleasure-loving lords. The topics
here simply indicated, are rung out in Carlyle's huge
diction, as if on the booming of St. Paul's great bell.
But he gives the glory, as well as the shame. He
notes the force of principle and of purpose, that lies
in the silent depths of English character, and the
evidence it leaves in the world; not in speech, but
deeds, not in theories, but things. " The English," he
says, " are a dumb people. They can do great acts, but
not describe them. Like the old Romans, and some few
others, their epic is written on the earth's surface: England her mark! It is complained, that they have no
artists: one Shakspeare indeed; but for Raphael, only
a Reynolds,; for Mozart, nothing but a Mr. Bishop:
not a picture, not a song. And yet they did produce
one Shakspeare. Consider how the element of Shakspearean melody does lie imprisoned in their nature;
reduced to unfold itself in mere cotton mills, constitutional governments, and such like; all the more interesting, when it does become visible, as even in such
unexpected shapes it succeeds in doing! " -.. Again:
"Of all nations in the world at present, we English are
the stupidest in speech, the wisest in action. As good
as a' dumb' nation, I say, who cannot speak, and have
never yet spoken - spite of the Shakspeares and Miltons, who show us what possibilities there are. 0 Mr.




CARLYLE.                 293
Bull, I look into that surly face of thine with a mixture of
pity and laughter, yet also with wonder and veneration.
Thou complainest not, my illustrious friend; and yet I
believe the heart of thee is full of sorrow, of unspoken
sadness, seriousness, profound melancholy, (as some
have said) the basis of thy being. Unconsciously, for
thou speakest of nothing, this great universe is great to
thee. Not by levity of floating, but by stubborn force
of swimming, shalt thou make thy way. The Fates
sing of thee, that thou shalt many times be thought an
ass and a dull ox, and shalt, with a godlike indifference,
believe it. My friend, - and it is all untrue, nothing
ever falser in point of fact! Thou art of those great
ones whose greatness the small passer-by does not discern. Thy very stupidity is wiser than their wisdom.
A grand vis inertia& is in thee; how many grand qualities unknown to small men! Nature alone knows thee,
acknowledges the bulk and strength of thee; thy epic,
unsung in words, is written in huge characters on the
face of this planet, - sea-moles, cotton-trades, railways,
fleets and cities, Indian empires, Americas, New Hollands, legible throughout the solar system."
Carlyle enlarges, with soul-stirring exultation, on the
glory of labor, on the blessedness of work. " Blessed,"
he says, " is he who has found his work; let him ask no
other blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose; he




294           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
has found it, and will follow lit." And here is a grand
picture of what work can do: " And again hast thou
valued patience, coura'ge, perseverance, openness to
light, readiness to own thyself mistaken, to do better
the next time? All these, all virtues - in wrestling
with the dim brute powers of Fact, in ordering of the
fellows in such wrestle, there and elsewhere not at all,
thou wilt continually learn. Set down a brave Sir
Christopher in the middle of black ruined stoneheaps -
of foolish, unarchitectural bishops- red tape officialsidle Nell-Gwin Defenders of the Faith - and see
whether he will ever raise a St. Paul's Cathedral out
of all that, yea or no! Rough, rude, contradictory
are all things and persons, from mutinous masons, and
Irish hodmen, up to the idle Nell-Gwin Defenders, to
blustering red tape officials, foolish, unarchitectural
bishops. All these things and persons are there, not for
Christopher's sake and his cathedrals; they are there
for their own sake mainly! Christopher will have to
conquer and constrain all these, - if he be able. All
these are against him. Equitable Nature herself, who
carries her mathematics and architectonics, not on
the face of her, but deep in the hidden heart of her.
Nature herself is but partially for him; will be wholly
against him, if he constrain her not. His very money,
where is it to come from?  The pious munificence of




CARLYLE.                 295
England lies far scattered, distant, unable to speak, and
say'I am here' — must be spoken to before it can
speak. Pious munificence, and all help, is so silent,
invisible, like the gods; impediment, contradictions
manifold are so loud and near! 0, brave Sir Christopher, trust thou in those, notwithstanding, and front all
these; understand all these, by valiant patience, noble
effort, insight, by man's-strength, vanquish and compel
all these, - and, on the whole, strike down victoriously
the last top-stone of that Paul's edifice; thy monument
for certain centuries; the stamp' Great Man' impressed
very legibly on Portland-stone there! "
The afflictive evils, that cry in England for remedy,
are again and again referred to, in all the chapters of
this impressive section of the work, and warning repeated upon warning to apply the remedy, and to apply
it directly.
The nature of the remedy in the author's mind is
more clearly indicated in the fourth and last book,
which he names the "Horoscope."  First, the Corn
Laws must go. That is now not a conjecture, but a
certainty; not a prophecy, but a fact. Supposing the
Corn Laws abolished, and the nation ensured on a
course of prosperity, that possibly might continue for
twenty years. At the close of that period, if nothing
else be done in the mean time, the miseries, which now




296          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
oppress the millions, would be found again with aggravated malignity. To avert this terrible result, what
must be done, that the future, not only be safe, but progressive? The whole people must be educated. That
is the radical amelioration, the basis of every other improvement. Systematic emigration must be established.
This will relieve the labor-market at home, and extend
the consuming market abroad. Labor needs in some
way a better organization, and the results of labor a
more equitable distribution. And withal, higher sentiments must govern every class of society, not the Utilitarian, but one of more faith, and more ideality. The
wisest must rule; industry must have dignity; the relations of life must have more elements of performance;
both the landed and the gifted must recognize the
sacredness of their trusts, and be faithful to them. These
things being accomplished, England will be renovated
for a new race of glory; if neglected, England's days
are numbered. But the author is full of hope; he
believes that the moral strength of England will come
resistlessly to the task, and that his country will vindicate her might in this hour of fierce trial. Having an
earnest hope in himself, he breathes it into others, and
in this lyric-like strain he closes the work: " Unstained
by wasteful deformities, by wasted tears or hearts'
blood of men, or any defacement of the pit, noble




CARLYLE.                 297
fruitful labor, growing ever nobler, will come forth, -
the grand sole miracle of man; whereby man has
risen from the low places of this earth, very literally,
into divine heavens. Ploughers, Spinners, Builders;
Prophets, Poets, Kings; Brindleys and Goithes, Odins
and Arkwrights, all martyrs and noble men, and gods
are of one grand host: immeasurable; marching ever
forward since the beginnings of the world. The enor.
mous, all-conquering, flame-crowned host; noble every
soldier in it; sacred and alone noble. Let him who
is not of it hide himself; let him tremble for himself.
Stars at every button cannot make him noble; sheaves
of Bath-garters, nor bushels of Georges; nor any
other contrivance, but manfully enlisting in it, valiantly
taking place and step in it. O Heavens, will he not
bethink himself; he too is so needed in the Host!
it were so blessed, thrice blessed, for himself, and for
us all! In hope of the last Partridge, and some Duke
of Weimar, among our English Dukes, we will be
patient yet awhile.
The future hides in it
Good hap and sorrow;
We press still thorow,
Naught thatwabides in it
Daunting us, - Onward."
The several topics of this work, in name, seem very
distinct and separate from each other, but in spirit they




298          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
have a vital connection with each other, and form a
complete unity in the whole. No period in the life of
a nation is independent, no period stands by itself and
alone; every period reproduces history, and is modified by influences which history carries onward. Thus,
to understand the present complex nature of English
society, we must trace how many elements have entered into its formation; and how these elements have
been combined and developed in the progress of events.
Not the least important elements in the constitution of
English civilization, as of European civilization generally, were the feudal and the ecclesiastical. The
Baron and the Monk for some centuries gave the
law, and shared dominion. Their persons may have
disappeared from our modern forms, but the spirit
of the Past never entirely dies; nor is that of Baron
and of Monk extinct even in an age of cotton mills.
To understand, therefore, even an age of cotton
mills, in a country where the Baron and the Monk had
lived, we must not exclude them from our consideration, or else, we shall have but an imperfect estimate.
Carlyle, therefore, with that sagacious insight, which
distinguishes his genius, passes in review before us, The
Ancient Monk, to prepare us for The Modern Worker.
The civilization of chivalry and church has not departed even externally from England, before the
civilization of manufactures and commerce had attained




CARLYLE.                 299
no mean degree of power. Now, that arms are sinking beneath tools, and the breviary behind the LedgerBook, there is yet the result of a social condition, in
which heterogeneous principles have been at work,
that have never coalesced with the disorder and disease, which are the inevitable consequences of such a
state. But the crisis is come; and now the problem
is to get through it, to avoid a fatal termination, and
to start anew  with increased and recovered health.
The difficulty is, to reconcile interests without destroying them: to lose nothing which may be a means
of true elevation; to harmonize all the social elements
into unity and strength. Two points, however, press
with dire necessity; and whatever else be thought
of in later speculation, these must- be attended to
instanter.  First, the people must be fed; secondly,
they must be taught; and these things can brook no
delay. Much may be done, if men will think seriously; much may be done by eariest purpose; by.friendly combination, by honest compromise; and
there is one hope in a tendency, which is growing
either from increase of principle, or the pressure of
the times; and that is, men incline less to faction and
more to truth-and hope the clouds will pass and
leave all fertility behind them; and if England is
never again to be merrie, let her at least be prosperous.




SAVAGE AND DERMODY.
SAVAGE is commonly connected with Chatterton, but
except in the accident of their poverty, I could never,
for my own part, find out any resemblance. As a man,
Chatterton was of austere demeanor, and as a poet he
was of the highest powers; but Savage as a man was
extremely social, and as a poet was not greatly beyond
mediocrity.  Chatterton died rather than ask relief:
Savage did not, indeed, solicit relief, he commanded it.
All beings, however, have their -use in God's creation.
Savage has had his. He has been made an occasion
for a piece of most beautiful and eloquent composition.
Some men owe their fame to being the subject of a
great biographer; and others to being the biographers
of great subjects. Boswell has become famous in his
Life of Johnson; and Savage has gained celebrity by the
finely written record which has been left of him by
Johnson. Nothing is more evident in this composition




SAVAGE AND DERMODY.              301
than the fact, that the feelings of private friendship and a
remembrance of common misfortune broke the scourge
of criticism. The poems of Savage may have merit;
but they assuredly have not that merit which could propitiate the maligner of Milton, and the depreciator of
Gray. Savage was the outcast of society, and Johnson,
with the rough benignity of his nature, took him to his
heart; precisely on a principle similar to that which
caused him to carry a sick and unfortunate girl, through
Fleet Street, to a refuge.
" The Wanderer " of Savage is a very remarkable
production; the more remarkable when we consider the
circumstances in which it was composed. Stanzas of
it were often written upon cobblers' stalls, and sometimes whole passages were indited in a pauper-lodging.
One special quality of the poem is the extreme purity,
and moral elevation of sentiment, contrasted with his
own practical conduct. The following lines are worthy
of notice because Dr. Johnson quotes them:
"To fly all public care, all venal strife,
To try the still compared with active life;
To prove by these, the sons of men may owe
The fruits of bliss to bursting clouds of woe;
That even calamity, by thought refined,
Inspirits and adorns the thinking mind."




302           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
And again:
"By woe, the soul to daring action swells,
By woe, in plaintless patience it excels;
From patience, prudent, clear experience springs,
And traces knowledge through the course of things;
Thence hope is formed; thence, fortitude, success,
Renown; whate'er men covet or possess.".'" The Bastard," another poem of his, is eulogized
by the same stern critic.  On the first publication it
created a mighty rout.  His unnatural mother, who
published her own shame, and detested with a kind of
hellish madness the poor wretch who sprung from that
shame, was scared by it wherever she went; it was
before her every where, as a sentence of terror and
damnation. It was quoted in her hearing, it was left
open for her reading; and the young man whom she
first rejected, and then tried to hang, became her own
moral executioner. The following lines have always
affected me; they touch a chord of sorrow, most musical and most melancholy:
"No mother's care
Shielded my infant innocence with prayer;
No father's guardian hand my youth maintained,
Called forth my virtues, or from vice restrained."




SAVAGE AND DERMODY.              303
If Johnson's estimate of Sa'vage is an error, it is an
error on the right side. It may be indulgent, but the
unfortunate require indulgence. It may be merciful,
but it is the criminal who have need of mercy. In
some of his criticisms, Johnson has been nefariously
unjust; but his charity, in the " Life of Savage," covers
a multitude of sins. "For his life. or his writings," he
says, " none who consider his fortune will think an
apology either necessary or difficult. If he was not
always sufficiently instructed in his subject, his knowledge was at least greater than could have been obtained
by others in the same state. If his works were sometimes unfinished, accuracy cannot reasonably be expected from a man oppressed with want, which he has
no hope of relieving, but by speedy publication. The
insolence and resentment of which he is accused, were
not easily to be avoided by a great mind irritated by
perpetual hardships, and constrained hourly to return
the spurns of contempt, and repress the insolence of
prosperity; and vanity may surely be readily pardoned
in him to whom life afforded no other comfort than barren praises and the consciousness of deserving them."
One of his latest and greatest faults, was that of keeping the Bristol merchants out of their comfortable beds
with most eloquent and glorious talking; but the sin
was surely not so grave, that for a mere trifle he should
be left to die in a Bristol gaol.




304          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
Similar to Savage in some respects, different in
others, was the Irish versifier, Dermody. He was one
of those precocious spirits that at first excite astonishment, that are praised and puffed and glorified, that
disappoint those who patronize them, that are idoliz ed
by those who bring them forward to forsake them, that
are wondered at for a while and deserted forever.
Dermody as a boy was marvellous: Dermody as a
man was nothing. His life is written by a good-natured
person of the name of Raymond, who, with a benevolent generosity that does him honor, often relieved his
sufferings and allayed his hunger. I speak now of
general recollections and impressions, which the reading of that life has left upon, my mind. Dermody was
an Irishman, and, as well as I can remember, he was
the son of a drunken schoolmaster in Clare or Kerry.
This schoolmaster did not treat his son well, but if he
gave him. scanty food, he crammed him plentifully
with Greek and Latin. He was put into the Latin
Accidence when he was but four years of age, and he
raa away from his father when he was scarcely eleven.
He accompanied a carrier to Dublin, and in the city's
mass, he lost his conductor.' He was found at a bookstall, reading Greek authors with a fixed interest, a
queer' compound of the careless boy and the welltrained scholar. He was first employed by an old man
who sold second-hand books in a cellar, to indoctrinate




SAVAGE AND DERMODY.            305.
his son in Latin. Dermody was then promoted to a
shop above ground, to sell books to the students of the
University, and to criticize them as he sold. From this
he was taken by the pedantic and the wealthy; handed
about from party to party, as the newest prodigy;
taught to drink much and to sit long, and when at last
incorrigible in the vices into which his patrons had initiated him, he was turned adrift upon the world. Merit
sometimes droops and dies for the want of encouragement, but this was not the case with Dermody. Lady
Moira when he was utterly deserted, held out to him a
most generous attention. She placed him with an able
man to complete his education. Dermody, instead of
minding his studies, dwindled his time away in the
village tavern — and in writing verses on the village
tailor and the village barber. The Lady Patroness at
last disgusted, dismissed him, with a small sum of
donation and a great deal of advice. Subsequently, he
procured an Ensign's commission, and, to his honor it
must be said, that in war he conducted himself with the
bravery of a soldier, and in peace with the propriety of
a gentleman. Having sold his commission, he was
again thrown on the world, and after some alternations
of poverty and extravagance, he closed his career in a
solitary hut in England. Two friends found him here
in a dying state. " He had scarce power left," his
voL. II.        20




806          LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
biographer says, " to express the grateful sentiments
which their visit inspired. The words faltered on his
parched lips; his eyes became filled with tears, and
being unable to utter the strong feelings which labored
in his breast, he sunk again into the melancholy position
in which they had discovered him, and continued silent
for a considerable time."
The deserted appearance of the house, better calculated, indeed, for the retreat of robbers than the abode
of a dying person, gave his situation the last touches of
tragic misery.  " Thank God," he exclaimed, " for
this friendly visit; I thought I had given the whole
world, and you in particular, cause to forget me." The
caution was needless; his past sins were buried in the
recollection of present wretchedness, and he had little
to dread from the chidings of those who had now to
perform only the few last offices of friendship. When
his disorder allowed him to enter for a moment into
conversation, he assumed a spirit, which, though faint,
was yet mingled with the eccentricity that had on
almost every occasion marked his character, and which
was equally observable on trivial as on important
matters.  A violent fit of coughing having attacked
him -" That hollow cough," said he, " rings out my
knell." The comforts which his situation required and
admitted, were procured for him.  His two friends




SAVAGE AND DERMODY.             307
had arranged for him a pleasant lodging on the most
delightful part of Sydenham Common; whither, with a
careful nurse, he was to be removed on the following
day. Money was given for all his immediate wants,
and his benefactors, intending to call the next morning,
had hoped for him some declining hours of calm transition to the grave. That same evening, however, Dermody expired, when he was twenty-seven years and
six months of age.
Anecdotes are told of Dermody which possess considerable interest. Many of these are wonderful, and
some of them are truly affecting. While a mere lad
he translated a great part of Anacreon, with a fidelity
that satisfied the austerest scholars, and with a fervor
that might have been responded to by the warmest
poet. Yet this youth of brilliant abilities by a thoughtless extravagance, subjected himself to the necessity of
begging subscriptions for his poems, and to the humilia.
tion of being dismissed from the doors of those from
whom he supplicated assistance. He has been found,
at times, exhausted in a garret, weary from hopeless excursions, and his bleeding feet lacerated to the bone. A
story is recorded of him which merits repetition for its
extreme beauty. The first night on which he had left
his father, he walked until he was weary. He then cast
his eye around him for some hut, where he might have




308            LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
a chance of rest.  Seeing a light a little distance off, he
made for it.  On entering a miserable dwelling he
beheld a corpse on some shapeless boards, with a lone
and haggard woman leaning over it.  He had but two
shillings in his pocket, he gave the poor woman one;
he went a small distance onward, repented, returned
and gave her the other. Stopping for a while at an
old church, as he continued his journey, he composed
a poem, of which the following verses are a portion:
" Here, where the pale grass struggles with each wind,
Pregnant with forms, the turf, unheeded lies;
Here the fat abbot sleeps, in ease reclined,
And here the meek monk folds his modest eyes.
The nun more chaste than bolted snow
Mingles with the dust below,
Nor capricious turns away;
Lo! to the taper's tremulous ray,
White veiled shades their frames disclose,
Vests of lily; cheeks of rose;
In dim fancy's vision seen
Alive, awake, they rush between."
The poem closes with such sweet and solemn verses
as these:
"Near pebbled beds, where rivulets play,
And linger in the beams of day;




SAVAGE AND DERMODY.                  309'Mid sods by kneeling martyr's worn,
Embrowned with many a horrid thorn:
Wont the solemn bell to flow
In silver notes, prolonging slow,
Tides of matchless melody.
Yes, let them slumber here at last,
Their tyrannies -their sufferings past,
And lend a venerable dread
To the lone abbey's rocking head."
The manner in which he sometimes describes his
condition, is at once amusing and affecting. Here is
an instance:
" In a cold empty garret, contented I sit,
With no sparks to warm me, but sparks of old wit:
On a crazy black stool, doleful ditties I sing,
And, poor as a beggar, am blest as a king.
Then why should I envy the great folks and proud,
Since God has given me what he took from the crowd?
My pen is my sceptre, my night-cap my crown,
All circled with laurels, so comely and brown.
Nor am I so powerless as people may think,
For lo! like all kings, I can spill floods of-ink;
Fight armies of mice, tear huge spiders at will,
And murder whole fleets with the point of my quill! "




310           LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
A reference to Otway, Chatterton, and Savage, is not
ungraceful:
"Sweet as the shepherd's pipe, my Otway sung,
And pity melted on his soothing tongue,
Yet, mark his need, too dreadful to be told,
Death clad in scorn, in penury, and cold,.
His meek, imploring eyes, forever close,
The Muse alone, poor partner of his woes.
Sweet Chatterton, preferred in early prime,
The steepest paths of noblest verse to climb,
By felons spurned, illustriously died,
And viewed this curst epitome of pride.
Ill-fated Savage! what could manhood bear
Of cruel want, of agony severe —
Of patient care, that springs a silent mine,
What could it suffer- what that was not thine 0"
And thus, he most pathetically speaks of himself:
"Me, hapless youth, the fury-troubles tear,
Me from the Muses' rosy bosom wean:
Dim streams my glance o'er sorrow's dreary scene -
Dark to my sight Parnassian charms appear!
Damp each bold ardor, each enthusiast fire,
Sad-weeping o'er my song all-pensive laid,
Or, haply roused from lethargies of woe;
Still, by new forms more terrible, dismayed,
Harsh-featured penury and cares combined,
Tearing with tiger-fang my tortured mind."




SAVAGE AND DERMODY.                 311
I close these desultory scraps from one who longed
for fame but lived for folly, with a short poem entitled
an " Ode to Frenzy;"
" Stabbed by the murderous arts of men,
My heart still op'd with many a wound,
I pour the agonizing strain,
And view thee with deliriums round:
Thy choicest tortures now prepare;
O Frenzy! free me from despair!
Thy visionary darkness shrouds
The tender brain in rayless clouds;
Thy slow and subtle poison steals
Till abdicated Reason reels
Then rising wild in moody trance
Quick, thy pale-visaged fiends advance.
I burn, I throb, my pulses beat,
I feel thy rankling arrows now,
They tremble in my bleeding browAnd pierce reflection in his filmy seat;
In heights of pain my heart is tost
And all the meaner sorrows lost.
Who now will fear the puny sting of woe?
Who start, disordered, at the phantom Death?
I mock the childish tears that trickling flow,
I smile at pangs, my softest pang beneath;
The canker grief, that silent eats, be thine -
The noble ecstasy - be mine.




312             LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
The hurried step - the pregnant pause severe -
The spectred flash of sense -the hideous smile -
The frozen stare- Revenge's thrilling tear -
The awful start, sharp look, and mischief's secret wile;
These are the proud demoniac marks I claim,
Since grief and feeling are the same;
Then all thy racks sublime prepare,
And free me- Frenzy, from Despair!"