EVERY-DAY SUBJECTS
SUNDAY SERMONSo
BY
ROBERT LAIRD COLLIER.
SECONDI EDITION.
BOSTON:
AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION.
1872.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by the
AMBERICAN  IUNITARIAN ASSOCIATION,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
CAMBRIDGE:
PRESS OF JOHIN WILSON AND SON.




TO
MY MOTHER, MY WIFE, AND MY DAUGHTER,
FROOM WHOM BLESSINGS COME TO ME DAILY.
ROBERT LAIRD COLLIER.








PREFACE.
FROM  time to time the secular press has published, on the following Mondays, my Sunday evening discourses, which are usually practical
discussions of religious or social subjects, addressed, for the most part, to the busy, enterprising
young men who constitute a large part of the
congregation of the Church of the Mlessiah.
I have been frequently requested to put some
of these discourses into a more permanent form,
which, with some hesitation, I have consented to
do, and give them to the public just as they were
preached and taken down by short-hand reporters
for the local papers, with the hope and prayer that
God's blessing may attend them, and that they
may do some measure of good.
ROBERT LAIRD COLLIER.
CHICAGIO, NOW. 10, 1869.








CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. SAVE THE ERRING....          11
II. THE THE THEATRE, THE OPERA, AND THE CHURCII  27
III. CHRIST ABROAD..........   53
IV. TIlE GATES SHUT......         71
V. THE FOLLY OF CONVERTING THE JEWS   91
VI. OCCUPATIONS FOR YOUNG MEN... o  1 11
VII. GETTING AND GIVING....               131
VIII. FATHEIR H-ECKER'S PROPHECY... o     o o   145
TX. OUR WRETCHED NEIGHBORS...O             167
X. THE ORTHODOX HELL..           o...   81
XI. LOVE OF THE TRUTH..... 203
XII. THINGS WHICH ENDURE..... 217








I.
SAVE THE ERIININGe








SAVE THE ERRING.
" JESUS SAID UNTO HER, NEITHIER DO I CONDEMIN THEE: GO AND
SIN NO MiORIE." -John viii. 11.
FRO]PI   the conventional stand-point of a modern
believer, there is something faulty in the insufficiency of this treatment of guilt.  It might be
taken as the utterance of an optimistic dreamer in
one of his most indifferent moods.  Certainly in
these words there is none of the pharisaic frigidity.
But this, after all, is very little to say; why not
give some good advice, -  some general principles
concerning the guilt of sin, which can always be
clone with little painstaking of heart or word?  It
would have been very like human nature to have
opened wide this fresh wound and applied remedial
caustic whilst yet the blood was oozing out.
Modern saints find it difficult to understand how
Jesus, though he gave her over to no penalty of




12            SAiVE THIE ERRING.
the law, could let this very Nwicked woman pass
along without a stinging reprimand.
These were men who broughlt this woman to
Jesus; her sisters would have dreaded her as a
pestilential air.  In our day Christian ladies put
such unfortunates, with very dainty hands, into
some Reforming Refuge.
This beautiful and divine narrative gives us a
picture of a band of cowards and one brave good
man.  Every man whose soul is the home of guilt
has in him a heart of cowardice; and there was
not one of these, save Jesus, " without sin."
They came to the Master to test his loyalty to
Moses, -" Moses commands that such women be
stoned' but what sayest thou? "  In reply to this
inquiry, Jesus stoops down and writes on the
ground, the context tells us -"as though he
heard them not," but if you look into your Bibles
you will see these words are in italics; that is, they
are not in the original nartrative.   Certainly they
do not belongl there.  This is monkish deception.
Jesus never did any thing " as though."  There
is no seeming in him.
There was no need of arraying, their prejudices




SAVE, THE ERRING.              13
against him.  Moses does say as they 1eport; and
Moses is not to be denied or his law  destroyed.
Jesus came to get at its spirit and so to fulfil it.
But he thinks if she deserves to be stoned,certainly it should be done by hands free from
like guilt.   So he replies: "he that is without
sin among you,.let him first cast a stone at her."
This is honest philosophy, and no double dealing1.  How  little stone-throwing there would be,
even in this our day, if each guardian of other
people's morals should first stop to inquire after
his  own.  Scribes and  Pharisees, were these
men: they  had had very little to do with a
religion of conscience; theirs was a religion of
creedl: one tenet of which was that such women
were to be stoned.  So they rush on to apply the
penalty; for it is all important that they be
religious according to the manner of men.  How
they are brought to a dead-lock in the presence of
real religion, - here it is: "Go ahead and throw
the stone; but see to it that yout are without sin."
Conscience is not dead even in these sordid
souls; and convicted, each leaves in the order of
his official rank, and Jesus and the woman are left




14             SA VE TEE _ERINt~~G.
alone.  No man has condemned her.  There was
but one there who had the moral right to censure,
and he gives love instead of condemnation, - he
only advises that she " sin no more."
I have always had a feeling -  hardly a faith —
that she took his advice.   How  could she sin
again? how can we crucify love!
She is uncondemned, -  that is negative, -  then
she can go and sin again; but she is loved.  She
says to  herself as she goes away from  Jesus,'There was pity, tenderness, love, in his words,
his ways.   He really feels for me; he is free
from sin, -  pure as an infant's sleep.  Oh that I
could be like him! I may, I can, I will! " Love
only can build the bridge over which guilt can
retrace its steps to purity!
"Kind hearts are here, yet would the tenderest one
Have limits to its mercy, - God has none;
But man's forgiveness may be true and sweet;
But yet he stoops to give it: more complete
Is love that lays forgiveness at thy feet
And pleads with thee to raise it. Only heaven
Means crowned, not vanquished, when it says' Forgiven.'"
These Pharisees were no more to Jesus than this
woman. This is not the way of the world, but it




SAVE TEE ERRING.              15
is God's way. Before you go into the jails and
prisons and police courts, I can tell you whom you
will find there. They are seldom the sons and
daughters of the rich and well-to-do. Is it so that
the sons and daughters of fortune are sinners less
than others?  Not at all.  Only we do not throw
stones at them.  Mloney and influence keep them
out of jails and prisons, - and worse places. I
am glad they do, but am the more sorry that our
charity and beneficence and Christian kindness cannot keep the poor and unfortunate out of so bad
places.
There are just two things from which we cannot save the sinner at all, — the consciousness of
it and the consequence of it.
The consciousness of it is the sting that never
loosens its hold of the man whilst he is a sinner.
No respectability of the world-sort can so intoxicate a sane conscience that it can sin without
suffering.
The consequence of sin, too, is beyond the
highest power to remove.  Sin is a violation of
law, and law has its penalty. Let no man dream




16            SA VE THE ERRING.
that he can sin without its consequences following
him.
But both the consciousness and consequence ot
sin have an atonement in forgiveness.   " Sin
no more" is the law of redemption,  When one
comes to this purpose to sin no more, he gains on
his old sinful self with rapid pace, and becomes a
new man in Christ Jesus.  But how to reach this
resolution is the question.
In its interests and solution governments have
been instituted, churches organized, reform and
punitive measures been founded and enforced.
Teachers have sprung up in all parts of the earth
to teach its lessons, and apostles to herald the
coming of this wonted kingdlom of God; and still
men sin and still suffer.
The spirit in all these is wrong. No government, church, school, priesthood, or asylum has
ever yet, in all the earth, been founded solely upon
the principle of Christian forecast and charity.
It costs the world two-thirds of its moral energies to remedy that which might be prevented at
one per cent. of this amount.
City police courts are a standing attestation of




SAVE THE E RRING.              17
the utter insufficiency of our civilization to deal
with human nature.  We license men by the
thousand who make inebriates of their brethren 
then pay judges to try them for crime; then build
jails in which to administer punishment, or, it
may be, support sheriffs to hang them.  NWTe
make paupers, and then spend millions of money
annually to support them.
No extraneous, arbitrary punishment ever yet
operated as a law of reform.  We all know that
capital punishment is a barbarism, an ignorant
superstition, as well as a cruel view of the police
function.  It will not be a great while before we
will come to realize that solitary confinement is
but little less than this.
Take it as a rule, that wherever punishment
exists, aside from the idea of positive, permanent,
merciful, helpful reform, it is heathenish, and not
Christian.  What is there in hanging or solitary
confinement to make the subject of it morally
better?
I never went into a prison without feeling, that,
if one had the opportunity of continuous conversation and intercourse with the criminal, he
2




18             SA VE THE ERRING.
might be reached and helped into a new way of
life.
More than this, the temper in all law should
find a symbol in these words of the peerless poet:
"Kneel not to me:
The power that I have on you is to spare you;
The malice towards you to forgive you; live,
And deal with others better."
In the garrison town of Woolwich, a few years
ago, a soldier was about to be brought before the
commanding officer of the regiment, for some
misdemeanor. The officer, entering the soldier's
name, said, "Here is ---- again.  What can
we do with him?  He has gone through almost
every  ordeal."   The  sergeant-major, M. B.,
apologized for intruding, and said, "There is one
thing that has never been done with him yet, sir."
-" What is that, sergeant-major? 9'-" Well, sir,
he has never been forgiven."-' Forgiven! " said
the colonel; "here is his case entered."-" Yes;
but the man is not before you yet, and you can
cancel it."  After the colonel had reflected a few
minutes, he ordered the man to be brought before
him; when he asked what he had to say relative




SAV E THE -ERRING.            19
to the charges brought- against him.    Nothing,
sir," was the reply;   only that I am sorry for
what I have done."  After snaking some suitable
remarks, the colonel said, "aWell, we are resolved
to forgive you."  The soldier was struck with astonishment; the tears started from his eyes; he
wept. The colonel, with the adjutant and others
present, felt deeply when they saw the man so
humbled.  The soldier thanked the colonel for his
kindness, and retired.  The narrator had the soldier under his eyes for two years and a half after
this; and never, during that time, was there a
charge brought against him, or fault found with
him.  Mercy triumphed; kindness conquered!
The man was won!
All hearts are like mag'ic roses: though withered
and dying, a warm  air breathed upon them will
suffice to renew their bloom.
In all this matter, our way of dealing has come
of our way of thinking.  We have been taught
that vengeance was in God, and so burned into
his very essence of being that only the blood of
his innocent Son could appease his wrath; and,
basing human laws upon what are deemed the iny




20            SAVE, TIHE ERRING.
fallible laws of the old moral code, we have gone
to work, and spared not in punishing our fellows.
But, verily, this is most ungodlike.  " God is
love."  Jesus never threatened the sinner w.lho
confessed his sin - only the hypocrites - the men
who were mere actors of religion, - Pharisees,
pretenders in spirituality~
When the inebriate husband comes to his
wretched home at night, it is not so much he
that makes it wretched as the woman who has
not, ere this won hinm foro  his shame.  Love will
conquer, or else nothing' can: forgive me for this
qualification.  I repeat, love will conquer   This
is God's only. method: Christ came to give pity,
pardon, purity.  These, in a little daughter, have
often broken the stout heart of a depraved father,
and won him back to virtue and manliness.  I
love the spirit that forgives most. No marvel that
the sinful woman gave her alabaster box of ointment as the symbol of her heart's sacrifice: forgiven much, she loved much.
There is a deceptive way of buying off God with
praises, prayers, and penances.  Men have taught
us that God is angered at us, and, to reconcile him,




SAVE TIE  ERRING.             21
we must offer excuses, and give the blood of innocency as a substitute.  How unlike the gospel
that came to us in love-tones of plaintive pleadings
to be reconciled to God!  It is we who are angered, not God.  It is like man, but unlike God,
to be bribed into kindly dealing.  God saves by
the persistent power and coming of his love, which
is as universal as the sun.  So must we go to our
brethren.
It may be that reform houses for inebriate
men and depraved women are helpful agencies;
but they can hardly be called the wisest and holiest
means of helpfulness.  A brother's tender, silent
pity, and a true woman's sympathy, given outright
from the heart, downright to the heart, is dearer to
God than a thousand such pieces of moral mnechanism.
If ever the sinner is saved, - and I have every
hope that the last one will be,- it must be after
we have given up all such proxy expedients, and
accepted this gospel of Paul, "Brethren, if a man
be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual.,
restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.  Bear




22              SAVE  THE ERRING.
ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of
Christ."
It must be a hand-to-hand work -  or rather a
heart-to-heart work. Let wife begin with husband, father with  son, mother with  daughter,
sister with brother, friend wit  friencld, employer
with employee, neighbor with neighbor; and remember that we begin as "brethren" to "restore
such  an one:" take  one  at a time, so that it
becomes not an institutional and professional work,
but the gushing love of a Christ-won and inspired
soul.  What the  stars  are to the heavens and
flowers are to earth, love is to man.  A  soul so
full of love that he can redeem  all men about him,
so full of all the pity and peace of God that he
can restore an erring brother, is God's living
poetry, -  his visible music.
" When on0 the fragrant sandal tree
The woodman's axe descends,
And she who bloomed so beauteously,
B13eneath the weapon bends,
E'en on the edge that wrought her death,
Dying, she breathes her sweetest breath,
As if to token in her fall
Peace to her foes, and love to all.




SAVE  THE ERRING.                  23
"How hardly man this lesson learns,
To smile, and bless the hand that spurns:
To see the blow, to feel the pain,
And render only love again!
ONE had it -but He came from heaven,
Reviled, rejected, and betrayed;
No curse he breathed, no plaint he made,
But when in death's dark pang He sighed
Prayed for his murderers and died."
It has been  beautifully  said, When one forgives, the man who has been forgiven stands to
him in the relation of the sea-worm  that perforates
the shell of the mussel, and straightway  closes
the wound with a pearl.








ILo
THE T'HI-EATRE, T'HE OPERtA, AND
THE CH-U1RCH.








THE THEATRE, THE OPERA, AND
TIIE  CHURCH.
6' USE THIS WORLD AS NOT ABUSING IT." -1 COFi?ntli(i2$S Vii. 31.
"LET EVERY ONE BE FULLY PERSUADED IN HlIS OWN MBIND. --
Romnans xiv. 5.
NY matter that concerns the moral welfare
of mankind is fit and proper for the discussion of the Christian pulpit.  Only an unserious
spirit and an unchristian temper can throw about
such topics a suspicion of unworthy motive, in
calling the public attention to theme I am fully
persuaded that the modern clergy deal not at all,
or indirectly at most, with many of the most vital
social subjects, only because they would shun the
appearance of the secular or sensational method.
Ministers hesitate to do their duty in this regard,
in the fear that their intentions will be misjudgcld,
and, by persons of conservative minds, censured.
The criticism of the pulpit, whatever may be said




28         THE TIHEATRE, TIlE OPERA,
of its teaching' or theology, should be of the freest
and frankest spirit, and never in the interest of
any set of traditions or ideas, party, or sect.
The pulpit should say, not only the thing it is
expected to say, but the thing' it honestly believes, and so the thing' it can say with confidence,
conviction, and earnestness.   The pulpit should
create a current of fresh and true ideas for the
people, and not lag behind their common sense
and common convictions.  Sophistry is unworthy
the methods of any public teacher, especially of
the minister.  Faulty logic may not in every case
be sophistry; for we are all liable to make arg'uments that may not prove free of flaws.   How
well I may succeed in steering, clear of the usual
appeals to human prejudices and passions, I cannot promise. I can only say that it is my wellconsidered purpose, this evening, to address myself'
to the good sense and calm  reason of those who
hear me.  I am always unaffectedly grieved when
my brethren  of the ministry so far forget the
sanctity of their calling1 as to manifest bitterness
of spirit, and are so negligent of the outward
proprieties of their office as to make insinuatinog




AND THE CHIUR CH.              29
allusions to the personal motives of those who
simply differ from  them.
All good causes can afford to.stand upon tllelr
own merit, and I hope not to stroll into the easy
world of catchwords and convenient formulas;
but, if I can, to speak plain and sober lwords in the
discussion of this living and vitally important
subject.
Probably no question of like importance has
received so superficial a treatment as this question
of amusements, and the present posture of the
matter demands a thorough statement of the position of the Church, and a logical and Christian
reason for that position.  If the drama, if the
opera, if dancing and gaming  are sinful, if they
are in any wise destructive of the religious sentiment and social order, let the clergy and the
Church show wherein and why. Let them do this,
not with mere wordy weapons, but with serious
spirit and unanswerable logic, and the religious
consciousness of the country will be on the side of
the clergy and the Church.  But as it is, all the
damage falls upon religion itself. Popular amusements are denounced - the legitimate and the




30         TIHE THIEA TRE, TIHE OPERA,
illegitimate drama, the legitimate and the illegitimate opera, all classed together, alike come under
the ban of the popular Church and the edict of
the clergy.  And yet not one in a hundred of
our American youth can see wherein the legiti.
mate drama and the legitimate opera are wicked
or tend to social disorder, or beget immorality of
spirit or unseriousness of living.  Here are the
Church and the clergy on the one side, and the
moral consciousness of our American youth on
the other, so that the damage falls to the religion
represented by the Church and its clergy.
There is no need in our time and land for greater
advocacy of work, for our American people are
overworked; literally, worked to death.   But
recreation does need intelligent champions.  Instead of attempting, in the name of relioion, to
drive out what little juice there is remaining in
our modern society, we should encourage its
activity in all proper and nowise profane directions.
No people, certainly no people in Christendom,
enjoy so little in view of their resources, as the
American people.




AND THE CHUR H.I             31
I take the text as stating the Christian theory
of life: this world for use; never for abuse. After
awhile I shall attempt a logical statement of where
right use ceases, and wrong use begins.  But I
find that every thing in its normal, healthy condition, has its use. We speak commonly of the
depravity of the race. Only the past week I
put this question to an intelligent, among the
most intelligent, of my friends amongthe ministers;
I said,' What do you mean by depravity? " I said,
"Do you mean natural appetites and passions
and instincts and inclinations?  Do you mean
my nature just as I am?" -" Why," he said, " you
know that your nature is depraved." I said, "I
know no such thing. If I know any thing about
it, I know it is not depraved; for I don't know of
a single thing about me that I would give up."  I
said, "Have you any passions, or any appetites, or
any instincts, or any inclinations, that are not right
in themselves?"'- "  Well7," he said,'" not in themselves; but there is a constant tendency to misuse."
What is your will for? What is your judgment for?
What is your moral sense for?  The crown of




532       THE, THEATRE, THE OPERA,
your manhood, is not your innocency, but the power
to keep every appetite and instinct and passion in
right use; to never permit it, by throwing the
reins upon its neck, to run off into viciousness or
misuse. Every thing that a man finds about him
in the world is just right and for use, and when
we apply this to popular amusements, as a standard of morals, why are we to make them an
exception to the rule? Mr. J. Stuart Mill speaks
of the indifference to enjoyment that characterizes
all countries over which the shade of Puritanism
has passed. This is accounted for by the fact
that there is among us a tradition that pleasure is
corrupting, and so we hurry over and are ashamed
of it. A few months ago, I went to a gentleman's
house; and, after the evening meal, he said to
two other gentlemen, "I have a billiard-table up
stairs; I don't care about excusing myself from
the minister; but, sir, I really feel that I need
something of the sort.  When I come home I am
tired, and sometimes if I sit down I get a little
drowsy, and feel that, that " —" Well," I said, "I
would not apologize any further. I don't think




AND THE CHUR CH.             33
there is any harm in your billiard-table.  I have
not very serious ministerial objections to going
with you. I don't know very much about it; wish
I did; but do not apologize any further.  I think
a billiard-table a capital thing to have in a house."
There is just this feeling: if we do enjoy ourselves, if we do have a little bit of pleasure, we
must apologize for it as something not in keeping
with our manhood. And so we hurry over it;
we treat it, not in a noble spirit, but in a stupid
one; we do not accept it as a part of life, as a
thing to be encouraged and used: but we have a
sneaking and contemptible spirit in the enjoyment
of many of our most valuable pleasures, as if there
was something fundamentally wrong in them, and
we were using them against our consciences, and
against our moral sense. Now a man has no right
to use any thing in this temper.  Either decide
once for all it is a good thing' to be used, or a bad
thing to be let alone; and whatever we do, in our
business or our amusements, let us do it manfully
and above board, and, above all, with the indorsement of our consciences and the approval of our
deepest moral sense.  When a man cannot do
3




84        THE THEATRE, TIHE OPERA.
that, he is in the way of error and in the path of
harm to himself.  No man has a riolht for a moment to go anywhere, or to stay anywhere, or to
do any thing that involves even the shadow of a
doubt in his own mind as to its moral propriety.
The theatre and opera were never held in so
high popular *favor as now, and never were so
generously and generally encouraged by cultivated
and religious people. This is an apparent fact;
and the inquiry starts itself, is this new order of
things a result of popular demoralization?  I aver
not.  We are just learning that life is not only a
duty, but a pleasure.  God has thrown into the
world, not only the implements of a work-shop,
but over the world the light colors of a festive
day.  This new order of things is brought about
in this country by two converging and mutually
assuring causes.  First, the theatre and drama
have been conspicuously elevated within  these
years.  The theatre is not to-day what it was
-twenty years ago.  It then had its pit; then it
had its third tier; and then it had the patronage,
for the most part, of only the middling or vulgar
classes of societyo




AND THIE CHUR CH.              35
The manager and proprietor of one of our
theatres recently said to me, "I never bring a
piece upon my stag'e without usin(g very freely my
pencil.  I am compelled to cut out and erase all
the vulgoar insinuations, for there never gathers in
my theatre an audience that would not hiss off
the stage a piece played as it was played befbre
the elite of London, fifty or sixty years ag'o."
But, secondly, within the past few years the
dramatic and musical taste of the masses has been
very markedly and widely cultivated, and whilst
it is true that there are certain evils connected
with these dominant fornms of popular amlusenments, not unfrequently, nevertlheless, they are
only incidental, and in no wise essential to them.
If I understand it, the legitimate function of the
drama and opera alike, is to teach truth, illustrate
noble passions, expose moral meanness; to illumine and malke lucid and more impressive by the
power of dramatic actio aand music, the creations
of the greatest dramiatic writers and composers.
Instead of having, in them the elements of moral
and social evil, they can be mlade the vehicle of
immediate and positive moral good.




36         THE THEA TE, THE, OPERA,
aiMr. Jefferson's R1?) Van  MViencle has more
religious power in it than most of the commonplace average sermons of the day.  Indeed, I
have heard but few that have so deeply moved
my soul and illustrated the power of love to conquer evil, and finally to win black the wanderer,
as this tender and remarkable play as acted by
one as exceptional in his profession as is Shakespeare in the realm of literature.
To say that the opera is corrupting in its influence is to say a most unwarrantable and irrational
thing. It is quite true that very many persons, not
only morally excellent, but intellectually  cultivated, do not enjoy operatic mlusic.  But if others
really do find infinite delig'hts, beyond the power
of tongue to express, in this style of music, then
they should not be deemed outcasts from  respectable society, or guilty  of some grave offence
ag'ainst the gospel of Christ.  It is the duty of
these souls, musically dull, to confess to their
mesthetic stupidity, and not claim  that they are
debarred the pleasures of the opera upon any
ground of saintliness.  This is a palpable folly,
and transparent cant.  It is, too, a sorry sort of




AND THE CHURCH.               37
religion that discountenances innocent amusements
upon the sour-grape principle.
I count it one of the singular felicities of my
life to have heard Capoul, in his great character
of Vlert- ert, whilst in Paris in the summer of
1869.  He has come into the world, as he was
sent from God, to add to the suam of the world's
happiness; and is in his way, and after his kind,
a great benefactor to the race.  He is so perfect
an artist that nothing could be added or taken
away without marring, in some sense, the realization of the soul's highest needs and longings of
art divine in singer and actor.
The voice of many a ranting peddler of religion
has in it, for the soul, only moral perturbation and
confusion, and it is spiritually ruinous to follow
that voice into the dismal depths of self-accusation
and introspection.  It is a religious delight to
give the soul up to the miracle-working power of
such a voice as Capoul's.  To very many serious
people, a well-rendered opera is a better smeanzs
of grace than an Orthodox conference meeting:
the one is real and helpful; the other false and
artificialo




38         THE THEATRE, THE, OPERiA,
But I am aware that these popular amnusements
are objected to by the self-sufficient and over-righteons on account of the immoral character of the
performers. I can say nothing very definite about
the truth of this charge.  Aly acquaintance with
artistic sing'ers and theatrical actors is limited.  I
can only say that those whom  I have the pleasure
of knowing' are, to say nothing more, respectable
persons.  It may, in some degree, lessen the dignity of my sermon, but will emphasize my meaning, if I allude by name to ~Mr. Davenport, Mr.
Booth, Ir.  urdloclk, and /Mrt. Wallack, as persons of high intellectual standing, and of equal
moral integrity.   These are the representative
men of the drama, and we are always to look to
these names for the expression of the moral character of the cause they represent.  On the other
hand, I have never heard a suspicion cast upon
the character of iMiss Phillips, Parepa, and many
other eminent artists.
I concede that there is a class of dramatic performers and operatic singers, whose every public
habit implies that they are persons of unvirtuous
character.  I trust no Christian pulpit will ever




AND TIE CGIIUR CH             39
apologize for these.  But, granting that many in
this profession are of questionable moral character,
I come to ask in the spirit of Christianity, and —
if I understand its fundamental genius at all - -
come to ask in the spirit and letter of the gospel,
how these persons can be saved to virtue and cured
of their immorality. Can it be done by violent
denunciation?  ~Was any one ever reformed by
such method?  Is this the spirit of the Master,
who, when we were enemies, reconciled us to
God?  Is this the proclamation of divine love —
God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son to save it?"  If there is any purpose
to reclaim these persons fiom immorality, if there
is any aim to purify the profession, certainly the
old-time spirit of the gospel and its methods of
love are the only ones that will ever win them
from error to purity and integrity.
Another evil complained of is the bringing out
by some theatre managements, the sensational and
illegitimate with the pure and legitimate drama
and opera.
This evil can be cured by two means.  First,
give no patronage to them, and no apology for




40         TIHE THEATRE, TIHE OPERA,
them.  I do not suppose that theatrical manaogers
are different from other men.   I take it for granted
they supply just what the community demands.
When our ministers and our godly folk will turn
out to hear the best operas and the best acting,
and will frown down personally, and by their influence, every thingo low, vulgar, and sensual, then
the manaeement of these theatres will furnish just
the acting and just the sing'ing we call for.  But
we are to bringu, before that time arrives, the pressure of public sentimlent to bear upon the proprietors and managers of these amusements, for their
abatement.  I regret, in all sincerity, that our
clergy and our churches have so little influence
just at this point. WVith deep seriousness of spirit,
I have looked upon a different picture from  that
presented.  If the united voice of the Christian
clergy and Church stood for innocent amusement
and against harmful recreation, - if manfully the
Christian pulpit sanctioned the pure drama and
pure opera, and with united voice denounced the
imnpure, nothing could stand against that united
voice.  The Christian clergy has this thing to-day
almost within its immediate grasp; but by illogi



AND THE,CIUlR CIH.             41
cal statement, by tradition and prejudices, and
by harmful, untempered denunciation, they touch
the world at this point with no momentum of influence whatever,
That these amusements are so expensive is no
objection to them.  The great expense attending
them, I think, is artificial and not intrinsic.  I do
not see how the legitimate expenses can be made
much less.  I tried to inform  myself, but failed,
as to the salaries usually given to actors and singers.  It must be comparatively small.  I take it
for granted that very few actors are as well paid
as our city pastors.  I think they work much
harder than most of these consent to do.  I know
of no life that must be more wearing than the lives
of our actors and singers, and yet this is not the
side of this question that touches us at all.  It is
our needless expenses in sustaining 8these popular
benefactors and educators.  I have always felt
that the highest taste would forbid conspicuous
dress in promiscuous assemblies.  I have always
thought thlat it was not the result of the best culture or taste to go to any promiscuous assembly
conspicuously attired.  And whilst many feel that




42         THE THEA TRE, THE OPERA,
this is part of the opera, I feel that it is so in
nowise; and furthermore, I am  convinced that
our sensible ladies mean to go sensibly dressed to
the opera.  I think the time will speedily come,
when sensible young men and ladies will consent
to walk or go in the street-cars, rather than uniformly make it a condition to ride in a carriage.
I think that the extravagance, for the most part,
is needless; and that what we get for our money
is about as good as what we get for our money
anywhere else.
But I insist that these or any other attendant
evils cannot be cured by indiscriminate and passionate denunciation.  I sincerely believe that the
wrong in these things has been fostered by injudicious and unwise treatment of this subject by
the pulpit.  Instead of doing good, it has excited
opposition on the paLrt of managers of these amuses
ments.  Indiscrihninate denunciation vitiates all
advice. With common sense and serious deliberation in this matter, we should separate the wheat
from the chaff, garner the one and throw away the
other.  We should then have measurable influence
in controlling the immorality of otherso  It is an




AND THlE CrURCH.               43
old trick of the "evil one" that insinuates looseness of moral purpose because there is liberality
of' intellectual view. I would not impugn the motives of any one class or set of men, but venture the
assertion, after a somewhat extended acquaintance,
that the people who, in their serious judgment,
commend the theatre and the opera, are as honest
in their dealings, as truthful in their word, and as
sincere in their livin7g, as those who oppose these
amusements.  Matthew Arnold quotes a beautiful
saying, that "force and right are the governors
of this world; force till the right is ready."  If
you wish to be governed by force, by the dictates
of any pulpit, by false and arbitrary standards of
moral rioht and wrong, it is your misfortune.
It will aid to cure these evils uniformly to condemn the hurtful, and manfully and loyally to
colmrend the helpful.  Dancing is beautiful and
recreative; and yet promiscuous ballroom  dancing' is a fearful abuse of a true and good thing.
Billiards are certainly innocent and  harmless;
and yet, billiards associated with colmmon drinking saloons, where the vicious and depraved are
all huddled and drawn  together, are an abuse




44         THE, THEA TRE, TIE OPERA,
of a harmless and cheerful amusement.  There is
certainly nothino harmful in cards; and yet, when
cards are used for gaming, for taking', without
return, that which does not belong to you, -for
this is the immorality of all gaming, taking without returning' a value, — then this is an abuse of an
innocent pleasure.  When the theatre stands forth
as the outward expression of the high genius of
Shakespeare and other dramatic authors, it is a
blessing'; but when it becomes the vehicle of vulgarity and depravity, it is a curse.  And, finally,
the radical cure of all the evils is, moral and
religious education.  Strip religion of superstition 
strip the Church of its unmeaning opposition to
innocent amusements;  infuse all life, secular,
social and pleasurable, with the spirit of religion;
give to every American youth a healthful Christian conscience; and then, and not till then, have
we discovered the royal road to virtue in  all
thin gs.
We can only abuse any of the good gifts of
God by unconsecration of heart, and perverseness
of will.  It is possible to infuse a spirit of evil
into the very texture of our lives.   If to you,




AND TIiHE Clf UR Cl-i.         45
theatre-going and opera-going is against virtue
and against morality, and against your serious
purpose of soul; if you feel that these things are
down draging instead of uplifting'; if the atmosphere of the theatre and the air of the play are
to you against virtue and honesty and integrity,
then to you it is a harm, and the indulgence of it
against conscience is a sin before God.  On the
other hand, if the rational and reasonable use of
these things, going to the theatre and going to
the opera, is healthful, refining, educating, and
spiritualizing; if the soul is wafted heavenward
upon the strains of the human voice as it expresses
passion and power; if the setting forth, in elocution and eloquence, and acting, the plays of
Shakespeare, is healthful and refining; if it lifts
and enlarges the intellect, -then God has sent
these precious gifts to be used by you just as you
would in His fear and to His glory sing a hymn
or say your prayers.
A Sister of Charity can go to the bedside of a
sick man, and dress his wounds with the spirit of
an angel or the passion of a, harlot.  This world
is beautiful to the man who brings a beautiful




46        THE THEATRE, THE OPERA,
spirit to the world.'To the pure all things are
pure."  To the childlike, simple spirit, there is a
trueness and pureness and childlikeness in our
fellow-men. To the soul of unbridled passions, to
the eye of lasciviousness and the heart of adultery
there is only lasciviousness and adultery in the
world.  When a man comles to me and scoffs at
society, when a man tells me of the universal
prevalence of domestic infidelity, when a man tells
me that our young women are not true, virtuous,
and pure, I say, "Sir, it is only the depravity of
your own soul that throws its shadows over our
modern society. Vice is exceptional, and virtue is the
rule." And so the theatre and opera - of course, I
mean the legitimate drama and opera - leave with
the pure heart pure' lessons. Furthermore, any
thing is abused where it tends to the abuse of one's
body, mind, or estate.  No pleasure is legitimate
when it interferes with the rights or the pleasures
of others. Taking these definitions, I think we
may discover just where use ends and  abuse
begins.  The liability to abuse is no argument for
the disuse of any thing. I know of nothing' that is
not liable to abuse, But just this is the logic of




AND THIE CHUR CH.            47
the popular churches: We are not to use cards,
because cards can be abused; we are not to use
dancing, because dancing is liable to abuse; we
are not to go to the opera, because the opera is
liable to abuse; we are not to see the drama,
because the drama is abused. We might say that
we are not to eat, because eating is abused; we
are not to go to church, because going to church
is abused; we are not to respect religion, because
religion is abused; we are not to wear clothes,
beeause wearing clothes is abused; we are not to
live in houses, because houses are abused by their
extravagance and flipperies and follies; and so
on to the end.  It is no logic with which to meet
a young man starting out in life, who has ideas of
his own, and wants reasons for every thing that he
does.  Let us meet him with reason, and say,'S Sir, you are to use the drama, you are to use
the opera, you are to use cards, you are to use
dancing, you are to use every thing; but you are
to abuse nothing.  Because you can go to the
legitimate drama, this gives you no license to feast
your eyes upon vulgarities anywhere; and because
you can play cards in the house, it is no reason




48         TIIE THEA TRE, THE OPERA
why you should go to the gaming table, and play
for other people's money without returning for
value received.  This is the lesson.  Let us teach
our youth that these things can be used, and when
abused the penalty of sin will just as surely follow
them as God has said, "' Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.  If he sow to the spirit,
of the spirit he shall reap life everlastingT: and if
he sow to the flesh, of the flesh he shall reap corruption."
The duty of the Church then, plainly, is to raise
no false standard of morality, for this begets two
evils: it makes religion irrational, and stultifies
the conscience of the young who crave amusement,
and will have such recreations though it be against
the  conventional conscience.  Let the Church
sanction pure and innocent and harmless amusements, and then she can speak with authority
when condemning the hurtful and vicious.  Turn
not the Church against her children, but gather
them to her arms, hold them to her bosom. and fellowship. Throw no irrational and needless limitations about their youthful pleasures, but let all
these be consecrated and sanctified by the spirit




AND THEE CHU CH.              49
and grace of Jesus Christ, and then we shall all
learn and know that there is no antagonism between
the world and the Church, except in so far as by
our own unholy spirits we make the world unholy.
"For the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereofo"  And all things are for our sake.








III.
CHRIST ABROAD.








CHRIST ABROAD.
66 CHRIST IATH BIADE US FREE.' - Galatics V. 1.
HEN  the eye of observation has fallen,
though only in rapid glances, upon various and dissimilar types of social civilization, this
observing eye becomes readily certain that there is
a power shaping these, not identical with the ostensible agencies seated upon thrones and in high
places.  The most fitting title to the book tellingo
the history of our century would be " Under-cirrents."  Outward tendencies and developments
are divergent and discordant; no eye of political
sagacity can foresee, and no prophetic tongue of
seership can tell, where the boundaries of future
states shall be drawn, and what the internal structure of their bondage or freedom.
In the midst of these unceasing upheavings, ins
woven with the very texture of all these tendencies,
is a kingdom which' cometh not by observations"




D54              ClHRIS T ABR OAD.
Religion minds its business well: its eye is cons
stant, and is as wakeful as its heart is watchful.
It toils on in season and out of season.  It sows
beside all waters: its harvests are in all fields.
It is the spring of life in the conscience of childhood, and the arbiter of moral action in all human
intercourse.
It is, in reality, this kincldom  that restless
humanity is in search of; and, pursuing it, we unwittingly mistake for it the harmony of outward
conditions.
"In place, Rest," is a military word of command, and it is Heaven's inflexible order.  He
who finds not rest in himself finds it not at allo
In the attempt to solve this problem of existence,
naturally enough men have busied themselves with
the social interests of our kind.  "Right these,
and all will be right."  This is the maxim  of
our profane philosophy.  Having this lesson well
learned, there is no blame if we all set about the
practice of this creditable gospel.
Certainly we should knock at the door of the
ages, if only their experience will open unto us
the wisest social conditions.




CUHRIST ABROAD.            55
We are not to cease assembling international
conventions, if these are only to provide us ilmproved standards of weights and measures, and a
uniform decimal coin.  We are not to be indifferent when it is known to us that other people have
sighings for wiser agencies of government and
more advanced types of social civilization. But
these are not the ultimate and final conditions of a
divine humanity, - these will not make gods of
men.  The divinest man was born of no such set
of perfect social circumstances.  The kingdom of
God does not move in parallels with any preconceived human types.
Among the golden hours which came richly
fieighted to me whilst beyond the sea, was one
spent in conversation with a young Chinese, a
member of the Burlingame Embassy.  It was on
the evening of the Napoleonic.Fete.  There were
sights and scenes all about me full of instruction.
I was on the balcony of the palace, the headquarters of the Embassy, and near me floated out
upon the night air the yellow flao of the flowery
Empire. All about me were distinguished persons
of different nationalities.  Upon the streets below




56              CGHRIST ABROAD.
were more than half a million of people, whilst the
whole city was in a blaze of illumination and
brilliance; but the great benediction of that day
came to me from the spirit of a man, whose spirit
had been touched by God's.
In all our spiritual life he was the child of Con
fucius, and I the offspring of Christ.  This youth,
in reply to a question by a young English gentle:
man, concerning a book in Chinese literature,
said, "I have never read it."  "You have never
read it!  WVhy?" repeated the young Englishlman.   Because, sir," replied Fung Yee, " it is
an impure book;'" and then, in a gentle, modc
est way, went on to say that he avoided reading
any thing, the tendency of which was against
virtue.
With evident sincerity he told me how he regretted that Jesus was of so little value in our
history, and said in these exact words: "Jesus
ought to be the Confucius of the Western civilization as Confucius is the Christ of China."  How
readily in his presence did I call up the sentence
of Confucius, -" All men by nature are pure"!
and how I was put to shame when I remembered




CERIS T ABR OAD.              5 7
that the starting point in all church theology is,
"All men by nature are depravedl!  But the
kingdom  of God has not stintedc  my land  by
emptying itself into his. It is only the real Christ
and real Confucius  that have helped  on the
world:  their broken images set up in temples
have fostered superstition, but have not hindered
virtue.
This spiritual self-poise is sometimes sought, not
in the perfection of human relations, but in localities and climates, seeking rest as thouogh it were
in the secret keepingl of cascades or great mountains.  These are heaven's landmarks to remind
us constantly of the way we journey.  But they
have no mag'ic way of putting' hearts at ease;
for one's heart mnay bleed in the very presence
of the great Alps.   The soul has its climate,
too.  It is the subject of' changes.  It has its
summer and its winter.  There are tinmes when it
is full of sprinog blossoms, and times when full of
the rustling of autumn leaves.
As the soul has heavenly wants, so it is the
subject of heavenly laws.
Freedom is the same for all men, and the same




58               CHIRIS T ABROAD.
in all men.  It cannot be, as it is not, restricted
by outward forms or limited by outward conditions.  Mlany things which we count the symbols
of a people's liberty are the merest toys, the tricks
of demagogues to keep us deceived, as a difficult
puzzle will keep a boy contented. For mere
liberty to act is no better than the restraint fiom
acting: power to act right is virtue.
John Milton held the post of Latin secretary
under Cromwell, and of course upon the Restoration was dismissed from  office; although poor
and blind, he was the subject of political persecutions; he was fined, and his writings burned. But,
nothino daunted in the midst of these sore afflictions, he evoked his genius, and wrote "Paradise
Lost."  Charles, finally feeling the need of his
matchless talents, invited him to resume his former
post, with all its honors, emoluments, and court
favors.  But -Milton knew that this honor must
be at the price of his spiritual liberty, and so did
not hesitate a moment. The bribe was splendid, the
temptation strong, but the truth was stronger:
he spurned the royal offer, and clung' to his
poverty and principles.




CHRIS T ABROAD.                59
This was the choice of a free soul, -a soul
macde free by the fellowship of Christ's suffer;ngs.
That real thinlg for which Christ stands is the
samue the world overo  Christ makes free.  There
is honey in the flower, there is peace in that
quiet lake, there is rest in that lone, ivy-clad
abbey; but there lay also be thorns, discord,
and agitation.  Only the Christ-spirit can beautify the world and mnake hallowed all its events.
The race, in its career of civilization, has left
along the road travelled unmistakable evidences
of positive and substantial progress.  The spirit
of Christ, the source of free action, is at work the
world over, breaking' the fetters, forged by the
ages, that have bound cruelly the hearts of men
to superstition and error.
Free action, the sequence of free thought and
virtuous purpose, is no longer in the caves and
dens of the earth, no mnore under sentence of fire
and fagot; but it sits in the white robes of Science
anld Philosophy, with no 1mnockery in its heart, with
no derision upon its lips, but with reverent spirit;
all culture is its temlple, all existence the fountain
of its inspiration.




60               CHRIST ABR OAD.
There is then this real church of the real Christ
in the earth, fulfilling the prophecy of a Golden
Age, and answering the hopes of all pure souls
for an invisible communion in " the liberty wherewith Christ bath set us firee."  This is a fellowship of free souls spreading through the earth: it
is an electric cord that binds together the redeemed
from  the old-time superstition.  The joy of our
souls is the unveiled inmage of the Christ of God.
This liberty of Christ begins its work in the soul
long before it reaches the conscience.  The conscience of a wise man is slow to break away from
its habits of action.  It is not chafing'  under
restraint.  The Master became free himself in
becoming absolutely subject to God.  Each man
is a slave, in so far as he is not in subjection to
the divine Father.  God is unity and liberty.
The coming of God into the heart of a man gives
to his whole being the sense of unity and freedomn.
There is no decay of religion.  Virtue is not
mnade to seem  superstitious, only we know that
superstition is not virtue.  God was never so real
to menl as now.  Never were his messengers filling




CHRIST AB R OAD.              61
the heavens as now. There are visions of ladders
between heaven and earth, and there are angels
ascendinfg and descending upon them.
There is no suspension of morality. The rights
of men are sacred in the eyes of their fellows, and
the thincs which are lovely and of good report are
thought upon.
The outward church is becoming more and more
an abstraction,   False to its Founder, it has ended
in being false to humanity.  Instead of unloosing,
it has bound, the souls of men.
In its relations to the progress of virtue, culture,
and philanthropy, it is the same in Protestant
England and Catholic Italy.
Whilst Christ is the very root of humanity, the
church that bears his name is almost a sheer obstruction to its progress.
The only curse upon that beautiful and poetic
land where the Pope lives is the Pope's Church.
Its whole system fosters the dreadfulest vices, and
these are betokened upon the countenances of its
priesthood, and in fact upon all in any wise undei
its control or associated in its hypocrisy.  The
real life of Italy, however, classifies the Church




62               CfRIS T ABR OAD.
with the Arch of Constantine or the Baths of
Caracalla.  It is one of the things Italy has on
exhibition.  The churches are not deserted, for still
the wretched poor flock to the m; and only the
tyranny of this hierarchy could make miserable this
fine race in whose veins flows the blood of giants~
The upper-class Italians love virtue and practise it,
just as we do, but throw up and deride all churchism and walk constantly upon the verge of positive infidelity.
Yet God is not without his witnesses here; and
here, too, the liberty of Christ hath made free
indeed.  Here, too, there is a serious culture that
holds fellowship with God, and with his Son Jesus
Christ. This culture hopes nothing whatever frorn
Protestantismao  The free Christian  thoulght of
Europe, especially of France, would of deliberate
choice prefer the Catholic to the Protestant worship.  For it is strikingly noticeable in Catholic
countries that the thinking votaries of the church
are  never shocked with  theological  crudities.
Theology," they say, "is to please ecclesiastics,
not to disturb the people."  For the people there
are grand  historic cathedrals, gorgeous symbol



CHRIS T ABROAD.             63
isms, the perfection of music - and mental stagnation.
The Protestant Church of Europe - or, to be
exact, that for which the Protestant Church stands --
is a system  of teaching, false in its conceptions of
God and man, founded  upon the most heinous
contradiction in morals, - that one can give one's
life in expiation of another's guilt. And so Protestantism makes of no substantial value that dcivin
est human life which was born in the world to
elevate all lives.
The poverty of Rome is not wanting to Glasgow.
Here the tide of church-goers, who worship with
puritanic vain-glory thrice on Sunday, sweeps by a
wretchedness which for grossness and indecency no
city of Catholic Europe can match. And only
London can produce a low down population so far
gone in all beastly and inhuman habits, that the
sight of it palsies the purposes of charity and the
hands of philanthropy.
Religion has gone from the Westminster to the
EParliament.  Lord bishops are concerned about
church  revenues and glebe houses; Gladstone
and Bright, about men and brothers.  When the




64 -             CHRIS T ABR OAD.
church had driven Christ from its bosom, he soug'ht
protection at the hands of Cesar.  For Christ is a
living, Christ. There is nothing, in the sweet gospels
so true as the picture and story of the resurrection.
Our'Saviour is abroad in the world, and claims
the earth as his inheritance.
~When we look with superstitious eyes through
the brilliant windows of churches, and are disappointed that the Christ is not there, be not dismayed 
do not conclude, because not there, nowhere.  He
has fled to the workshops and harvest fields of
humanity; he is sailingf the seas with its commerce, and moulding its nations with public opinion, He is building asylums and reformatories,
school-houses and fiee temples, for free souls everywhere.
He is workino out our salvation from the bondage of the letter, teaching' us that virtue only can
beautify all life.
Christ cannot condense himself into a revelation
or a rite. It is impossible not to find him, for he
is beautiful and holy and everywhere.
"Such is the word of the Apostles' message.
The stone was rolled away, the riddle of death was




CHRIS T ABR, OAD.            65
solved; and hearts unnumbered even unto our day
welcome the tidino's, and expand themselves to it,
as flowers, shut through some dreary night, unfold
themselves to the warmth and light of the returning day."
This living Christ cannot be contained in a dead
church.  As he was not found in Joseph's sepulchre, he cannot be found entombed in our tilme.
If we would be overtaken by this transfigured
Son of God, we must not be idling about the
place of his burial, for there he tarries not;
but journeying on to Em1maus, where, as in the
past, he talks with disciples by the way.
Political agitations and revolutions are impotent
to effect liberty for the souls of men: these have
more frequently disappointed than realized our
hopes.  These have their essence too often in
the unhallowed aspirations of selfish tricksters;
for even philanthropy, as well as religion, has its
priestcraft.
7Freedom  pertains to the substance, not the
form, of things. The old Venetian of to-day,
with tones almost tender, will lament the decline
of the Republic. Yet Liberty, wounded and bleed5




63              CHRIS T ABR OAD.
ing, was a daily sight, feasting the  eyes of
an  unrestrained, almost irresponsible  tyranny.
Names are not things; yet we are prone to this
confusion.  He is in no wise free whom  Christ
hath not made free.  Pride and passion claim
citizenship in the soul's commonwealth as well
as reason and conscience.  With which is the
victory?  He who is the slave of profit and lust
is the only slave in the eyes of God.  He only is
free in whom  all baseness is dead, and in whose
heart the Spirit of our blessed Father reigns
supreme.
The march towards this realization is progress.
And no century, since the first, has been wholly
idle.  We may decry the present, and sorrow
that the former times were better than these; but
this we can do only in our ignorance of the past and
inappreciation  of the present.  There are more
souls to-day baptized into the image of Christ
than ever before.  Government and society defer
more to subjects than to sovereigns.  For centuries there was only a small discipleship outside
the Visible Church:  to-day the Visible Church is
the merest fraction of Christ's invisible following.




CHRIS T ABR OAD.             67
The Jew  and barbarian do him  reverence, and
pure souls everywhere " crown hlim Lord of all."
We are not in isolation: we are in a noble and
holy fellowship.  Our brothers of the free faith
are in all climeso  You greet them as the citizens
of all soils. One knows them by the signs of' a
spiritual freemasonry;  for they love virtue, and
plan and labor for its enlargement.  This is to be
the constant, as it has been the recently added,
joy of my life,- to know that no land is without
its witnesses for God, each man in his own way
and after his own kindo
We, then, are members one of another, and
all of Christ.  The world belongs to us, and we
belong to the world.  Its history, its treasures of
art, its wealth of literature, its noble men and
women, its holy thoughts and working hands, its
human sighs and undried tears, its burdens and
griefs, —  all things are ours, we are Christ's, and
Christ is God's."








GIvo
THE GATES SHUT.








THE GATES SHUT.
"WOE UNTO YOU, SCRIBES AND PHARISEES, HYPOCRITES! FOR
YE SHUT UP THE KINGDOmI OF HEAVEN AGAINST IMEN."  _-l/_catthew xxiii. 13.
[N ascribing to Jesus that unqualified and absolute perfection of character which includes
charity as the essential foundation as well as keystone of all real religion, we not infrequently so
emphasize his tolerance, - by which, for the
most part, we mean a sort of genteel magnanimity, - that we can only think of the Master
as denouncing even sins and hypocrisies, by predicating  of him a certain moral inbarmony.
Miuch of our modern charity, of which this conception is born, is nothing more than a polite
indifference; for true charity can never be the
enemy of real sincerity.   Clear-eyed  men are
clear-tongued men; when the soul feels deeply,
the voice gives no uncertain sound.




72             THE GATES SHUT.
I think it is Lord Bacon who says something
like this   All virtues may be practised to excess
but charity."   But virtues practised to excess
cease to be virtues; so when charity is apathy,
it is a deadly sin. The whole succession of divine
prophets - Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jesus, Paul,
Savonarola, Luther, and the rest -  were men
whose holy indignation was set on fire, and flamed
out with discriminating denunciation of all sino
They hesitated not, — they waited not to see all
sides of all subjects, and give all sides the benefit
of doubts; but, seeing sin on any side or all
sides, they waited not for the slow dictates of
reason, but with a sense of its heinousness in the
eyes of God, and the cruel chains it forged for
the souls and powers of men, threatened it with
divine displeasure and retribution.  Soft-spoken
men, undecided and uncertain men, men without
keen sensibilities and quick perceptions, faltering
and hesitating men, have never been the chosen
leaders of great reforms or revolutions.  The
general must shout with firmest tones and in unqualified sentences his commands, would he have
them obeyed.  In great battles there is no time




THE GATES SIzUT.                73
to be lost in rhetoric or figures of speech.  Three
years of divine life and livino in Jesus Cllhrist were
enough to fill the earth with the glory of'his truth
and  the veneration of his name.   They  were
quick, terse, intense years.   They were years
which nmoved with military promptness and precision.   Free from  perturbation, they were not
given to weak shiftings of plan and doubting conceptions of procedure.  There is nothing' entangling  and  unravelling  in all the picture of the
ilaster's life.  The image of that life left upon
our souls is as peaceful as sleeping  innocence.
But there is no stagnation, nothing slugg',ish in
this career, -  it is the peace of motion; hands
busy, feet advancing, hearts burdenedl  a life entering into fullest vicariousness for all other lives.
How deeply and divinely moved was the blessed
Master at the civil bondag'e and priestly yokes,
the hollow pretences and sepulchral hypocrisies, of'
his generation! and men who were given to these,
as to a livelihood,'he spared not, but arrayed
thenm before the inner, deeper consciousness left in
all men, as moral vipers.
Sin, in the eyes of Jesus, was no eccentricity




74              Tl E Gi YTES   11 U T
of demeanor or unfortunate outcome of irreguilna
temperament5 but it was an arraio'nin'i the sensuous wiill of man against the holy will of God; it
was a violation of God's perfect law.  Sin, in the
understanding of Christ, was the first and direst
enemy of man, - that which broulght him into condemnation, and misery of body, soul, and estate.
The kingdom  of heaven was present to hin,
and surrounded him; it was within him, and lihe
was within it, and he came in God's own way and
time to open the new world of life and love to all
the sons of men.  He, in a sing'le-handed way,
approached  the g'ates of the kingdom, which
prejudice, tradition, ceremonials, ecclesiasticisnm,
caste, and pride had shut against men's souls, and
opened them  wide, that publicans and sinners,
leaving their filthy rags behind them, minght enter
in.  Why should he not? why should not all his
successors make straight the way and plain the
path to truth anld lrighteousness of life?   The
good:Father has opened his heavenly kingdoml
to all his sons, -  all the children of fesh are
born unto it.  " HIe is no respecter of persoins."'Even  unto our day men  continue to close that




THE GATES SHUT.                75
which God bath opened, and to withhold  that
which God bath freely given.
The Scribes and Pharisees of Jesus' time have
not been without a fittinug succession; for each
succeeding generation has brouglht to the surface
of life and authority men speakling in the name
of this same  Jesus, wearing' all the robes and
phylacteries of the ancient hypocrisy, putting upon
men's shoulders burdens intolerable, and upon
their necks yokes not easy to be borne.   And
this, too, in the old limiting and cramping spirit.
We are not to lose sight of a great and essential
truth in our easy criticism  of institutional religion.   We are not to despise forms and ceremonies simply because they are such; for, in
their essence, and always in  their origin, they
are meant to be symbols and types, agencies and
instruments, of substance and reality in religiono
The Church, the sacrament, the conregation, and
its ritualistic forims  do Kyet have a flulnction, and
when they sprang up in the Church were  a normnal evolution of the deep spirit of the people; but,
a11 along the career of the Church, the spirit has
died out, and the importance of the symbol has




76             THEI GATES S1iUT.
been magnified, and the type has been put nupon the
p-pedestal in the place of the thing typified.  The
spirit has fled, and the body has been embalmed;
and so baiptisms and coinmmnions, confirmations
and ordinations, have been deenmed  essential to
the righlht orderingo of the Cihristian Church.  HIow
absolutely foreign to the whole genius and conception of religion -  of all religion, especially
the Christly conception of all religion -  are these
silly yet  seriously  wicked  controversies  about
bandis and  ribbons, candles and  crosses, modes
and.amount of water in baptism   I-ieire we have
a great denomination of Christians, excludingl the
whole world friomn Jesus' communion, and sitting'
down together to remember the Ilaster in eating
bread and drinking' wine, and shuttling up the
kinogdom of heaven afgainst all bodies which have
not been, with priestly hands and charIm-like words,
immersed in water; and, furthllrlore, spending
thousands of dollars yearly in printing a new Bible,
all with the intent to get it to speak some other
rneaning into the old word "baptism," as if the
kingdom of heaven could in any sense be opened or
closedc by water, much or little.  Think of a body




TIHE GA TEJS SHIUT.            77
of Christians, in the person of a bishop, reproving
a young minister for preaching in a chapel unconsecrated by Episcopal phrases, on the ground that
there was in the samae town a true church which
nmumblinas words had madie hclly   Think ofy this
same sect arraigsning a man for ecclesiastical triatl
because some word slipped his conscience in giving
baptism to an infant!
You all know, as call men who know any thing'
of our blessed Lord know, that Jesus dwelt not
on these outward and symbolic forms, but, tim.e
and time ag'ain, denounced as the enemies of both
God and man all this pharisaical stuff, as oflensive to righteousness of life, and as resulting in
shuttinll  the gates to God's king'dom of truth, love,
and spiritual life.
Dear friends, these things are not religion: they
are opposed to all right conceptions of religoon
and it is hig'h time that some body of disciples,
whlo still have faith in Jesus Christ acnd his truth,
should, in his sweet and divine charity, with his
bold, positive, and telling terms, pronounce the
old-time woe upon Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites,
who do shut up the kingdom of God afgainst men 
"""''"' ^"" ~d~"^`"-D Ia        D




78             THIE GATES SHUT.
The whole tendency of dog'matic teaching has been
in the same exclusive direction. It is the very essence of Calvinism to maintain that God himself
has shut up his kingdom against many, if not
most, of his own children, and this to redound
to his own justice and glory; and every Calvinistic Church in the land stands a monument to this
partial and unchristian theory of religion.
The glory of Methodism to-day is not so much
in the number of its votaries as in th]e historic fact
that she silenced Calvinistic preaching in Calvinistic pulpits.  It was the old Aiethodist preachers
who in no rose-water words controverted the five
points of Calvinism, and denied to the whole partial scheme of theolog'y a Christian spirit and tendency.  The outward result of this holy crusade
against error in the name of Christ is that to-day,
on all hands, Calvinists have broken faith with
Calvinism.  So thorougthly have they done so,
that, should a man preach the teachings of the
VWestminster Confession in their historic sense, I
verily believe there is not a Presbyterian conigregation in this city that would not vote him  a
fit subject for an insane asylum.  The schemes of




THE GATES SHUTI.              79
special and miraculous conversion, by which instantaneously a man's whole character is changed
from a hardened sinner to a pious saint; the fearful theory of an endless hell, in which there is no
quality of mercy and no meaning of reformation;
the whole basis idea of substitutional religion as
taught by Orthodoxy, contravening our innate and
Christian ideas of morality itself, in that it teaches
that God could only be merciful by being revengeful, -  that what God could not do as a Father, he
did do as a Son; that God is both these, acting
one time one dramatic part and then another, —
these, with all correlative doctrines which have
been entailed upon the Church fiom the mediheval
ages and priestly spirit, are still so many added
bars, bolts, and locks to fasten the doors of God's
kingdomn   afgainst the sons of men.  If a new
Christ should come in the spirit of the old one,
he would shock our sense of conventional propriety and  charity, as Jesus did in his day,
by entering our modern ecclesiastical and doctrinal structures, and pronouncing, ~Avoe unto
you Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut
up  the kingdom  of  heaven against men; for




80             THII' GAlTES SHUT.
ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye
them that are entering to go in." AVe may, moreover, say as severe and as truthful things of our
church ways and methods.
Throughout the great State churches, and most
of the dominant dissenting sects, the priestly relaLion is official, and not personal and real.  A
Catholic, Greek, or Anglican priest is a mere
actor of religion, -  a performer of a part, a dispenser of fictitious grace.  This is the theory of
the priesthood borrowed firom heathen religions,
and prevalent in all the old churches of Christendolm.
To come nearer home, I am  persuaded that
all serious men and women, who think somewhat
upon the matter, are certain for themselves that
our own church  methods are wrong in theory,
and work m1rore and more to the separating the
Church from the sympathies and support of the
people.  I seldonm  converse with any one upon
these matters who does not deplore the absence of
the middle and lower classes from  all our Protestant Churches.  The SunCday congregation has
come to mean much the samne thing', in some sense,




THI7'E. GA TE~S SHEUT.          81
to many minds, as the week-night opera.  I was
condemning conspicuous dressingo at the opera,
when a lady friend said she thought it was the
best part of the opera to see the ladies' toiletteo.
When we speakl of making, our churchles firee to
all, in abolishing our whole pew and rental sys-,
tem, we are met with the practical difficulty of
maintaining public worship upon any other finan.
eial policy. Upon so materialistic a plane have we
put religion, that we treat it in the sense of a
marketable commodity, and pay for what we geot
AVe speak of pews in churches as we do grades of
Java coffee or lines of clarified. suars, -- good
pew, large price; poor pew, small price.  ~We
bringc in  our social standing' and  put it 1upon
exhibition in our churches, and religion itself is
fast becoming a matter of respectable custom.
The Nazarene, in seamless robes and with sandalled
feet, would hardly be given a middle-aisle pew in
any of our fashionable churches; and lis unlettered
apostles, with their tattered nets and fiery souls,
could have no hearino in our refined and rhetorical pulpits.  Our chmrch religion, if we mnean to
maintain it, should seek some other and more real




TIHE GATES SHUT.
and sincere surname, - Christian it is not!  We
do despite to the spirit of God's grace: ~we crucify
Christ afresh, and put him  to an open shame,
by calling the popular religion by his name.
][ dare not go so far as to say that it is the intent and purpose of any body of Christians to
hinder men froln enteringl into the kingdom  of
God.  It is charity -  and God knows how truly
and earnestly I seek to be in all things tolerantto concede the sincerity of the churches.  Let us
proceed with the admission that Romanists, Presbyterians, ilethodists, Baptists, and Unitarians
are all set upon opening wide the gates, and making plain'the road to heaven.  Yet there is a
wvide-spread conviction, and a growing one, that
the Churches are doing very little according to
their opportunities to stay the tide of wickedness,
lust, greed, and gain, unhallowed  and thieving
speculation in stocks, grain, and gold; that the
churches are places for Sunday entertainments in
rhetorical and pleasing essays and clisquisitions;
that when Dr. Hatfield has bombarded the Catholics, and Professor Swing has marshalled his forces
against the Liberals, that a sweet peace should




THE GATES SHUT.                83
settle upon the souls of the faithful5 and all shall
be reckoned satisfactory for the succeeding,  week;
that each Church in its turn should get up solme
lnew sensation in the way of a minister, or Fair,
that the concern may pay withoult bearing' down
too hard upon the rich and pretentious.  The outsite sinners read the items in the papers, and
caeltcl the idea,"' when a poor brother, shivering
in the cold, asks a policeman to take him to the
station-house, for he is without other shelter. Yes ~
in Chicago, with its hundred church edifices, costing' millions of money, a poor and sober man literally dies of starvation.  But this is a case that
happened to get into the newspapers' there are
hundreds who are starvin g rather for the bread
of life.  There are men, women, boys and girls,
widows and orphans, who, day by clay and night
after nigoht, feel that deepest and most dolefiul of
all desolations, "No man careth for my soul."
An old English painter put upon canvas the
deadly sin of hypocrisy when he painted a friar in
his canonicals.   View the painting' at a distance,
and you would think the friar to be in a praying'
attitude.  His hands are clasped together and




84              THE' GA TES SHI U T.
held horizontally to his breast; his eyes meekly
demissed like those of the publican in the gospel;
and the good man appealrs to be quite absorbed
in hullble adoration and devout recollection.  But
take a nearer survey, and the deception vanishes.
The book which seemed to be before himl is discovered to be a punch-bowl, into which the wretch
is all the while, in reality, only squeezing a lemon 
The Churches may assume a posture of devotedness, and play off upon the unsuspecting and credulous with by-tricks at mission schools, and barren
chapels for the free use of the poor; but while
they debar the common masses from  their own
churches, and the poor little alley children, to
whom  our parish Sunday-school rooms would be
a weekly paradise, from  the association of our
fastidious little hot-house plants of humanity, our
prayer-books will all turn out to be spiritual punchbowls.
O brethren! it is a terrible thing to keep one
soul out of the kinogdom of God! It is a terrible
thing tthat we are doing when, by our false Calvinistic doctrines, our unchristian theories of apostolic succession and clurch partialism, our water



THE, G:ATES SHUT.          5
baptism  pretences, our esoteric  and aristocratic
churches, we shut the gates of God's kingdom  in
the faces of God's own children.
Certainly, in the use of all these spiritual charms,
wve enter not in ourselves, and suffer not those who
are entering to go in. Let us, firs't of all, cling' to
the real Cllrist, that true Son of God, whose mother
and brother were those who did the will of' God.
Let us go forth to preach his simple, sweet, undognmatlic gospel.  Let us, in his name, and for
the sake of our own honesty and sincerity of soul,
throw aside and trample under foot the old musty
articles of religion, which are only "the traditions
of the Elders."'We must raise the standard of a
living, real gospel of humanity.  W e must throw
away the husks, that the people may get at the
very reality and life of relitgion.  All this is not a
swnork for priests, friars, and nuns.  Better strip
them of their false robes and badces, and make
them into honest men and women.
Prayer is communion with God; but it is, moreover, commiseration for men.  Relitgion bends its
knees, but it stretches out its hands; it turns its
eyes up to Heaven, but pours its sympathies out




86                TIHE  GATES SI-UI'.
upon the world.   The prayer said  is a mockery
unless it be a prayer done.
" A beggar-boy stopped at a rich man's door:' I am houseless, and friendless, and faint, and poor,'
Said the beggar-boy, as the tear-drop rolled
Down his thin cheek, blanched with want and cold.' Oh! give me a crumb from your bread to-day,
To help the beg'gar-boy on his way.''Not a crust, not a crumb,' the rich man said:'Be off, and work for your daily bread!'
" The rich man went to the parish church,
His face grew grave as lie trod the porch;
And the thronging poor, the untaught mass,
Drew back to let the rich man pass.
The service began; the choral hymn
Arose and swelled through the long aisles dim;
Then the rich man knelt, and the words lie said
Were,' Give us this day our daily bread!' 
Great Father! are we clean gone past the age
of religious reality and sincerity, or has it never
yet dawned upon the world?  Must we walk much
longer in this path  of pretence?  Is all relimgion
only  histrionic  and  dramatic?   Are   Christilan
prayer-books no  more than  superstitious  st rings
of beads, or hocus-pocus  praying-mach ines  and
soul-cheating fetiches?
The old  crusaders  gathered  from   palace and




TIHE GATES SHUT.              87
hut, mountain and valley; having forsaken all,
they marched toward Jerusalem, the holy city.
God's glory was before their eyes; the mosques
of infidelity were to be razed to the ground; the
churches of the true faith were to stand upon the
spots sacred to the hearts of the faithful by the
presence of Christ, and the memories of the first
glories of his gospel.  This is the enthusiasm
which must be begotten in our souls, if we, too,
would go up and possess the city.  1WAithout their
flaming superstition, we need their fiery earnestness.  Ae must open the gates that Scribes,
Pharisees, and hypocrites have closed, - that all,
high and low, rich and poor, - that all God's
children may enter the king'dom of righteousness,
peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.  Let it not be
said of us, as of church people in the times of the
M3aster, " Verily I say unto you, that the publicans
and harlots go into the kingldom  of God before
you.  For John came unto you in the way of
righteousness, and ye believed him not; but the
publicans and harlots believed him, and ye, when
ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye
might believe him."




88            TTHE GATES. SHUIT.
"?Now is the accepted time; this is the clay of
salvation  " Oh, for the speedy coming of Christ's
kingdom let us join hearts and hands, and cease
not day or niglht, till the gates are opened wide to
all seekers of Christ's truth and God's glory 




THE FOLLY OF COiNVERTING THE JEWYS.








THE FOLLY OF CONVERTING THE JEWS.
" IS HE TIHE GOD OF THIE JEWVS ONLY'? IS HE NOT ALSO OF THE
GENTIIES? YES, OF THE GENTIL]ES ALSO:
" SEING IT IS ONE GOD, WHICI-I SI-TALL JUSTIFY TI-IE CIRCUH[CiSION BY, FAITIH, AND UNCIRCUHMCISION TIIROUGH FAITHI."
RV,ctfns iii. 29-30.
Twas not the words of Jesus that made his
doctrine so  strikingly new, but his spirit.
IHe was the product of earth and heaven.  There
can  be  no  doubt but that, in  early  life, he
adopted the habits of the Essenes, a sect of the
Jews, who accepted tihe law  of Mooses, not in its
letter, but only in its spirit.  They were purle and
holy people, whose characteristic aspiration was
for absolute perfection of spiritual life.  Of these
people Jesus learned his gospel.  He attained in
himself their ideal perfection of divine consciousness and communion. The perfection of humanity
is only, however, the gift of God, and so he was
the child of Heaven -  the iS6oz of God.




2  THE FOLLY OF CONVER TING TItE JE TVS.
Paul was born of the orthodox sect of the
Jews -he was a Pharisee.  Wlhen he became
a follower of Jesus, he, too, gave up the letter
for the spirit.  With doubt, and at times with
difficulty, he swept beyond the creed of his childhood, as if carried forward by an inward inspiration, the force of which he could not arrest, to
the fiall vision of God's love of all his children.
FHe gives out the assurance that God is not only
tille God of the Jews, but of the Gentiles also.
I say, this he did, not without difficulty and a
lingering' degree of doubt, for just in this connection he still maintains that the Jews have the
advantag, e much in every way, "chiefly because
unto themn were committed the oracles of God,"
and so declares "there is profit in circumcision."
Paul, though  the most learned and catholic of all
the early followers of Jesus, never outgrew  the
conviction that Israel was the peculiar heritage
of God.  In the earliest Christian communities
there was a delgree of offence in the name Gentile. Pamul boasted the line of his descent:   "Hath
God cast away his people?  God forbid; for I
also am an Israeliteo"  The ~Messiabsbip of Jesus




THIE FOLLY OF CONiVERTTING THIE JETVS.  93
wgas not in ouetward sig'ns but in the purity of his
iife and the universality  of his doctrine.  IIe
passes speedily beyond the most daring libertyfof
his own school of religion to teach, and with an.
authority  given  fr'om  heaven, that God is no
respecter of persons; that God is a spirit, and
that wherever there is spiritual worship there is
acceptable religion; that the spirit of God  is
fieely given to all men —to Jew  and Gentile,
Greek and barblarian, Roman and pagan.
This was all agoainst the conservatism  of the
old Jewish sects.  This was heresy.  The few
fbllowed it; the n any  shunned it.  This is always
the case.  Brand any thing as heresy, and you can
excite prejudice and popular clamor against it.
But when the truth in the heresy has grown popular, then it is called orthodoxy, and the people
crowd to it.
In these early times the popular and dominant
sect of the Jews despised this new  school among
them who were called Christians - for new  sects
seldom name themselves; they usually have names
given in derision as this name was.  They were
first called Nazareneso  I7 am  sure Jesus was




94  THE FOLLY OF CONVERTING TIHE JE VS.'
wholly indifferent to the name this sect should
bear, and likely did not suppose they would be
known by his own.  Jesus was then the flower of
Judaism, born, as he was, of Jewish parents.
IHis biographers are as proud of his genealogy as
an English aristocrat who can trace his blood
back to feudal times and lords.  They certainly
mean to strengthen his claims to a hearing' by the
good Hebrew blood that flows in his veins. Jesus
outg'rew the letter of Judaism; broke down the
barriers, the walls of partition; proclaimed the
equality of all men; the love of God for all;
and that spiritual worship was the duty of all.
Since then this spiritual teaching of Jesus has
undergone many changes.  No form  of intolerance has been untried in the name of Jesus.
Sects have multiplied, and are multiplying, and
all in the interest of the bigotry he severely censured-  every one of them against the spirit of
Jesus, and not one of them holding to the simple
truth as he taught it; but each with cumbrous
schemes of theology, and all incrusted with direst
intolerance. All are convinced of their own infallibility, and each despises or pities the rest.




THE FOLL Y OF CONlVER TING THIE JE VS.  95
A:Franconian Catholic of high rank, in thle true
spirit of religious intolerance, gave tliis caution to
his son when setting, out on Iis travels: " ly
0on,19 said the illustrious bigot,'" avoid the society
of the Protestant ecclesiastics, for they are all
adcicted to abominaab le crimieso"
To the Turks all infidels are dogs:  in return,
the Turks are accused of idolatry and sin.  The
1M lohanmlnedans are unjust toward the Christians,
and the Christians toward Mollhammledlans.  In
the reign of Abdallah the Third there was a great
drought at Bagdad; the Miohallmnedan doctors
issued a decree that the prayers of the faithful
should be offered up for rain; the drought continuedl.   The Jews were then permitted  to add
their prayers to those of the true believers; the
supplications of both were ineffectual. As fLmine
stared them in the face, those dogs, the Christians,
were at length enjoined also to pray~  it so happened that torrents of rain immediately followedo
The whole conclave, with the lMufti at their head,
were now  as indignant at the cessation  of the
drought as they were before alarmed at its continuance.  Some explanation was necessary to the




96   TiE FOLLY OF CONVERTING THEi JEWS.
people-, and holy  convocation  was held.  The
members of it canme to the unanimous determination that the God of their prophet was highly
gratified by the prayers of the faithfhil; that they
were as incense and sweet smelling savors unto
hlim; and that he refused their requests that he
might prolong the pleasure of listening to their
supplications; but that the prayers of these Christian infidels were an abomination to the Deity,
and that he granted their petitions to get rid of
their loathsome importunities.
This is the spirit and sophistry of bigotry wherever found, and it has had its most unrelenting
exemplification in the treatment of the Jews by
so-called Christians.  No sect of religionists has
maintained so incorruptibly its principles and precepts through  so many thousand years as the
Jews.  In every synagogue, scattered over the
face of the earth, the fundamental doctrines of
Judaism  are taught to-day in the same simple
purity as held by Israel through forty centuries.
On the other hand Christianity has become corrupt: scarcely a sing'le trace of the original spirit
and -consciousness of Jesus is to be found any



THE F OLL Y OF C ON VER TING TIHE JE TWS.  97
where in hls Church.  It early became leavened
by the idolatrous religions all about it, enthroned
in its heart Jesus instead of God, and then, in
turn, Mi[ary instead of Jesus.  It has been lost to
the heart and sight of men under the rubbish of
unbelievable creeds, and intolerable and ecclesiastical yokes, and counter persecutions.  5Wherever
it has controlled the power, it has raised its hand
against the race of which it was born, followed
this race with an unrelenting persecution, and
made a Jew, in the ear of a Christian child, a
by-word and reproach.
And yet I wish to affirm  here to-n1;ight, in the
full knowledge of what I say, that rationalistic
Judaism is nearer in its tenets to primitive Christianity  than the Christianity  of the  Orthodox
churches.
Think for one monment of the great illogical
and incredible mass of scholastic dogmatism  that
is held and preached in the Romuish and Orthodox
chlurches, as the essential truth of the Christian
systemL   The trinity, or t i-personality of God, 
that Jesus, who  vas born of a Hebrew woman,
who hungered and thirsted, suffered, and finally




98   THLE FOLLY OF CONiVERTING TIf' JETWVS,
died, was the one Jehovah God; that he left his
heavenly abode, and subjected hirnself to  this
ear-tha-life for tllrtmy-'wo or three years.  And all
this wonderful transformation of a nmodal existence
for what?  In some inexplicable way to appease
his own  wrath, which was burnifng in his bosom
toward  his Clildren, because of their ignorance
and sin t  That there is somewhere an unnendino
misery -risery beyond  our comprehension  or
imagination - for all who do not believe this astoundinug story of God's earthly sojourn, suffering,
and dleath.
Of  course,  we  seldom  have  these  tenets
preached in their boldness and full implort, but
they are in the creeds; they are at thle bottom  of,
all the ecclesiastical organization of Popish and
Orthodox Christianityo  The growth of popular
intelligence has done its work steadily and surely
in modifying' the utterances of the pulpit,  There
is great shading  off firom these demon-faced fiugures
of the Dark Ages, and the most bigoted can hardly
believe that such things are retained in the creeds,
but even "ethe judgment of charity" cannot get
round the historic facto  Now, I inquire, is there




THEIt  FOLLY OF CONiVETi TIATG TIlE JETVS.  99
remaining among' us one sincere and scholarly
man who will dare entertain the dalmaginog thougl'h,
that Jesus ever uttered any such sentiments concerning God and futurity as these?
On the other haand, our H ebrew brethren in all
lands and every zone, through all centuries and
every circumstance, in prosperity and persecution,
hunted down anid driven out of Christian States by
Christian sovereiguns, under pressure of Christiain
ecclesiastics, a wandering, unInationalized people,
have stood for the best. things for which Jesus
lived  and died.  Amid  heathen  and  Christian
idolatry alike, when the whole Christian world
has been worshipping f'etiches, and using sacraments as Charms, these persecuted Jews have
raised their voices and shouted aloud, " Hear, 0
Israel! the Lord our God is one Lord."  From
the Essenes Jesus learned to say with greater
meaning' than even they could feel, " Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy
neiglhbor as thyself."  Jesus came not to destroy
Judaismi,   but to fulfil it.  t-Ie uttered  no word
agalinst it, for he was of it.  -Ice was its bud and
flower.  He was in the line of iMJoses, David,




100 THE FOLLY OF CONVERTING THE JETVS.
Tsaiah,  and Daniel.  It was his hope to  lift
Juidaism  out of its mlre letter into the slpiit;
out of parLtialisin into  universality.  His  only
censure for tile Jews was that they were Jews of
the outward Circumimcision and not of the heato.
Iore i rapidly than Christianity itself, the Judaism  of our century is breaking  away froml  the
muerely  outtward  and formal.  The rationalistic
party is growing' daily.  The. best men  among'
theim  claim  Jesus as one of their brethren,  and
hold his name in veneration.  They elaim  our
own great and devout Channing, our oviwn scholarly and sincere Parker, as members of the true
Israel.
The   Israelite," the organ of the H-ebrews at
Cincinnati, advocates the changing of their day of
public worship from  Saturday to Sunday on the
following very sensible ground:   "In order that
we may have a day of rest, a ecal Sabbalth which
caz be observed by all Israel, wTe propose to adopt
that dcay whlich is set ap'art by hundreds of millions, nay, the whole civilized  world, fbr physical
rest and the worship of God.   Let our prayers
and thanksgiving with them  ascend to his throne




THEI FOLLY OFi CONV-f]?ERTINVG THE JETVS. 101
on the same day- Sunday~."  ~What can be more
beautiful in its charity than this?  If there-is any
divine sanction for keeping any dlay, it is Saturday;  and yet, that they may unite with the
Christians in offering prayers to God, they propose to give up the old fornmal Sabbath for a real
oneo
Rev. Dr.  N;athans, of Boston,.attended the
neeting's of the Unitarian Association in that
city, and entered with good heart into sympathy
with its works and methods9 and I wish to say,
in full assurance of faith, that no body of men orn
the face of this earth have any more intellgenlt
and devout love and appreciation of Jesus Christ
as the very Lord and Master of humanity than
Unitarian Christians.  They are infidels not to
Christ, but to the assumino' mere "who have talken
away our Lord " and buried himz in the cold sepulchre of a Middle-Ag.e theology.
Such Jewish ministers as Doctors Wise and
Lilienthal, and other eminenlt and devout menil of
their sect, are doing' much in a wise way to
brinog their church to the recoonition of all that
is true and lovely in Christiainity.  But we should




102 THIE FOLLY OF CONVERTING TIE JE WS.
not be surprised or impatient if this should be a
slow  process.  The Jecws know  very  little of
Christianity beyond its corruptions and persecutions.  They have been oppressed by emperors
and republics.  They were proscribed in Catholic
Spain, Protestant Norway, and Greek'Muscovy,
and this, too, wrhilst their persecutors sang, the
hymns of their psalmists, believed in their prophets, and held sacred their books.  In Enagland,
France, and Germany, in past tires, their condition was in the last degree deplorable.  "Circumscribed by civil and ecclesiastical laws alike;
excluded from every honorable occupation; driven
fronm  place  to place, compelled to subsist by
wandering mercantile traffic and usury; kept in
narrow  quarters in the cities; marked in their
dress with signs of contempt; plundered by lawless princes, butchered by mobs, chased by monks,
burned by crusaders, tormented by ridicule." This
all in the name of Christianity.  I say, do not be
surprised if our Chicago society for colverting
Jews should make haste slowly!  Our Tlebrew
brethren have not lost the sad memories of these
frightful pictures of horrors and gloolm.




THE FOLLY OF CONVERTING THE JEW'S. 103
I am  far from  saying that Judaism  is a sufcilent statement of divine truth.  I believe thlat
Jesus Christ swept infinitely beyond all his fathers,
and was the'reatest and last great prophet of his
race.  I believe, fufrthermore, that as God dwelt
in ~Moses and Isaialh, and inspired them  in great
measure, so  I[e dclelt in Jesus, and inspired
him without measure.  I an certain, for myself,
that no greater than Jesus has yet appeared
among' the sons of men.
But, believe me, it would be a progress backward to have the Jews converted from the Judaism
of Jesus to the Christianity of Calvin or Pius IX.
Were it never so desirable to convert all the Jews
to the churches, I am  quite sure the means ema
ployed and men set about the work, would fail
to accomplish it.
I have little faith in the Jew converts who turn
their conversion into a livelihood.  I have seldomn
known one of these outward converts that did not
at once turn Christian missionary, supported by
the superstitious pennies contributed by duped
Christians with the ostensible purpose of multiplying converts.  If we had no other use for our




104 THEf FOLLY OF CONVERTIVNG THE JEWS.
money it mioght be as well to use it this way as to
throw  it into the sea.  Our HIebrew  brethren
thrust no paupers upon us to support; leave upon
our hands few criminals to confine, try, and punish,
and set us most godly examples of peace and
quietness.
You cannot nmisunderstand rue:  I am not indifferent to the advancement of Judaism toward
Christianity; but I want it a real advancement,
and a real Christianity.  I do not want to be put
to shame by recent Jew  converts running about
with Hebrew -Bibles and finding proof texts of the
trinity in the certain fact that God said "Let
us mlake nman in our own ilmageo   I do not want
our Christian folly made to appear in spending
money in such fictitious adventures, when we
have thousands of Christian paupers, orphans,
and criminals to take care of.  We can only help
our Hebrew brethren alonfg in the good way of
spiritual life by knowing their virtues, and, without ostentation, letting them  see our good worlks
that they may glorify our Father who is in heaven.
Archbishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, published a
pastoral letter on the 20th or last January, in




TH~E FOLLY OF CONVERTING T1HE JEW3S. 105
which occur these words:  We live with people,
our earthly lot is cast armong themn, who do not
believe in Jesus Christ.  One class of our fellowcitizens, whose ancestors cried out H11is blood be
upon us and our children,' )maintain that he was
not God, but a vile impostor, and therefore justly
slain by their forefathers; and this they teach on
every Sabbath in their synagogue."
Doctor WYise, an eminently good and devout
Hebrew minister, replies to this in these words:
~ Could this passage be intended to inspire piety,
to ennoble the' heart, and to elevate the soul to
truth  and goodness?  We will simply declare
that it it is utterly false, absolutely untrue, that
any of the Jews maintain that Jesus was a vile
impostor, that he was justly slain, or that any
tling, of the kind, or any thing similar to it, is
taught at any time in any of our synagogueso
Brethren, some of you have heard me preach for
the last twenty-three years in this country; you
are my witnesses that we respect the religious convictions of our fellowrmoen. Y'ou are the living
witnesses, so are our hymin-books, our prayerbooks, that the Archbishop's statement is false,




106 THE FOLLY OF CONVERTING THEt JEWS.
and the Almigohty God above us is our everlasting
witness that we know and understand, and practise the divine law9, Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself.' We say, love every human beinglove the Catholic no less than any other brother.
A man is a man.  M any a manl is better than his
religion - better than its expounders.  We say
and pray,'May God bless all his childcren'"''Which of these nmen, in spirit and word, is the
real Christian, - the Romish Bishop or the Jewish Rabbi?   If Jesus, our Lord, should come
among us  to-dclay, which would  he condemn?
5VWhen on earth he did not censure the Jews: only
the Pharisees, the  bigoted  orthodox sect that
thought themselves were righteous and despised
others.  Too much of this spurious Christianity
have the Jews seen, and its frightful persecutions
endured, suddenly to fall in love with it.
God has never yet said to any one of his
children, as does ecclesiastical Cllristianity, "You
shall receive no water except' it pass through the
hydraulic maachinery wlich I have constructed."
Nay    ~ "The water of life is given to all freely."
In our attempts to escape from the Babel of




THE FOLLY OF CON~VERTING THIE JEWT~S. 107
warring  sects, we miglht sit at the feet of these
Jewish doctors and learn Christian charity~.  erthold Auerbach, the divinely inspired nman of this
century, is a Jew, and yet has in no one line ever
penned a word against pure  Christianity, but
seenms to know  its inner meaning -even  the
meaning of the Cross of Christ -as few Christians are  spiritually  capable  of receiving  and
holding' it.  Spinoza, Lessing, and  the  Alendelssohns were Jews.  They have always been
among  our most erndite scholars and thorough
thinkers.  No department of scientific or philosophic inquiry has been unadornecl by illustrious
Hebrew names.
I come to these brethren of Jesus, our i1iessiah,
to persuade them that popular Christianity - that
which has written ten centuries of their history in
their own blood and tears;'that which has fol
lowed thei  with fagots and fires - is not the
Christianity of that H-ebrew  Jesus who came to
seek and to save the lost sheep of Israel. I would
that I could bring the true knowledge of Jesus
Christ to the hearts o~f these children of our God
and their God, and that I could do something to




108  THE FOLLY OF CON VERTIrNG TIlE JE TWVS.
break down this middle wall of pIartition betweeln
us.  itA  greater than  Solomon  is hereo'"  The
New Testament is Jewish literature not less than
the Old.  Take the two together  they testify of
Christ, and contain the words of eternal lifeo
" So, by these western gates of Even,
WVe wait to see with thy forgiven
The opening, golden gate of heaven.
" Suffice it now. In time to be
Shall holier altars rise to thee,
Thy Church our broad humanity!
" WVhite flowers of love its walls shall climb,
Soft bells of peace shall ring its chime,
Its days shall all be holy-time.
"A sweeter song shall then be heard
The music of the world's accord
Confessing Christ, the ]iooard'WordY
"That song shall swell from shore to shore,
One hope, one faith, one love restore
The seamless robe that Jesus wore."




Vio
OCCUPATIONS FORI YOUNG MEN.








OCCUPATIONS FOR YOUNG MEN,
" OO00D IS IN TIIE TILLAGE." - P'OVel5bs Xiii. 23.
ItHE oriental conception of life is that which
Ilmakes labor the curse of the race, and
exemption from  labor its blessing,.  Our sacred
books -  ours not less than  the Hebrews' -
open with  this  picture  of repose.   Paradise
is where man is born to reverie, not to toil;
where he plucks from the vines the ripened clusters, and the birds make melody while he eatso
The law of this Eden is, that the fruit of the tree
of knowledge is denied; for knowledge brings
thought, and thought bergets care.  But this view
of life is that of infancy, - the infancy of our
race; for really this labor and sweat of our brows
is so far from being a curse, that without it our
very bread would not be so great a blessing.
Jeremy Taylor tells us it is " labor that makes




112      OCCUPATIONS FOR  YOUNG lfN11.o
the garlic and the pulse, the sycamore and the
cresses, the cheese of the goats and the butter of
the sheep, to be as savory and pleasant as the flesh
of the roebuck or the milk of the kine, the marrow
of oxen or the thiolbs of birds.  If it were not for
labor, men neither could eat so imuch nor relish so
pleasantly nor sleep so soundly, nor be so healthV
ful nor so useftil, so strong, nor so patient, so
noble nor so  untempted."   John  IRuskin  says,' The law of nature is, that a certain quantity of
work is necessary to produce a certain  quantity
of good of any  kind  whatever.   If you  want
knowledge, you must toil for it; if food, you mnust
toil for it; and if pleasure, youl  must toil for it."99
"That, like an emmet, thou must ever toil
Is the sad sentence of an ancient date.
And certes there is for it reason great;
i'or though it sometimles makes thlee weep and wail,
AniL cuse tlhy stars, ancld early Tise andL late,
Without e'en this wouldl come a heavier bale, -
Loose life, uniruly passions, land cdiseases pale."
These thinlgs all have been told in oar eals firom
the beginning, and frequently as if in 1apology for
the intolerable burdens that many are compelled
to bear,  lWe all concede the truth of these teach



OCCUPATIONS FOR YOUNG MEN.    ]13
ings, and but few  of us who would not escape
their practice.
There is gold for the dicgger, and food for the
sower.  There is life for him who produces life.
To him  who refuses, there is inevitable death;
and it may turn out, when the secrets of the future
are revealed, that this is the law of each man's
immortality, that he only is worthy of life who
gives back more than he received.
Thoughts of food and raiment are not more
constant in their recurrence than the problem  of
gettinog them.  This is the thought of the parents
that comes with the birth of the child.  It does
not come into the world all furnished and equipped
for life, but is to be clothed upon.  This is not a
case peculiar to humanity; for if it be a curse,
then the irresponsible nightingale is cursed,   But
she sings not as under Lthe law of condemnation,
but as justified by grace, which is the gift of God.
The niohtingoale provides food for its unfledged
offspring; and when the wing of the offspring is
strengthened, it provides food for itself.
The little flower lifts its head in the morning,
and asks the sun for food; anid without this labor




114     OCCUPATIONS FOR YOUNG M~EIN.
of getting' up in the morning', and reachino' out its
tiny hands toward heaven, it would remain unblest, -the flower would die.   So toilin(g man
is not out of gear with nature, -  not at enlltmity
with God; but is in the way of nature, and is the
point of atonement in the harmony of' the whlole.
Health and happiness by labor, not labor for
health and happiness, is the condition in which we
find ourselves; and so these are not the ends, but
the results, of toil.  A  livelihood, subsistence, is
the very first thing that calls out our energieso
We work to live.
Then where is the shame of labor?   It is
dignified by the ordination of God in the constitution alike of our bodies and souls; and be
who refuses to follow in this divine calling will
only bring upon himself the shame of a disobedient child of an all-beneficent heavenly Father.
In so many idle hands we find the answer to the
question, WThy so many hung'ry moutlhs?         e
who loiters, and refuses to work, should be under
the ban of respectable people as a social reprobate.
And yet there are, in every community, those
who turn wealth, which in itself is a blessing,




OCCUPATIONS FOR YOUN~G _MEN.    115
into a positive curse, by nmaking  it stand in the
stead of work.
In many of the old countries it is still fa disgrace  for a man  to have an occupation; but,
thanks to progress, we have come to that rectitude of feelingo in this land, that we deem  it a
disgrace for any man  to be without some emu
ployment for head or hands~  No people are more
troubled to know what to do with their sons 
for the present leaving the daughters out of view
- than wealthy parents.  The sons are reared in
the belief, that there is no need of their laboring
to acquire wealth, since they are to inherit it.
In England the law of primogeniture is based
on thle fact, that an estate divided amonug all the
children wozuld, in many or most cases, make each
one's sllare so so sall that such division would entail
work upon each.  So the oldest son inherits, as
the lawful heir; and the rest, if there are any,
must do the best they can, or the parents can do
for theml
But taking' the lmass of younQg men in our own
land, the question arises, ~What are the most natural
and remunerative occupations for theml?  This




116     OCCUPATIONS FOPR YOUNTG MIiEN.
question must be answered in the liOht of several
important considerations.   It is always wrong to
look at men simply as men, -- men in the mass, -
and then to divide up the industries in view of the
number of hands to grapple with them.
If Rosa Bonheur's parents and best friends had
been consulted, they would have chosen in the
realm of art some other specialty for her genius
than painting  oxen and horses; but the aptitude
was for oxen and horses and INewfoundland dogs,
and not for rivulets and daisies.
No greater folly is committed than the usual
one of the parents selecting an occupation for the
sonls.  Not only hard work, but imiaogination and
sympathy, are essential to positive success in any
department of industry or arLt   The first thing
of real importance is to fnd out the bent of this
ilanti nation and( the objects of this sympathy.'Iozart's fingers were so wedded to the piano
that absolutely he could not use them for any thing,
else: at tlable his wife carved for him; and in
every tihing relating to money or domestic affailrs
he was entirely under her tutelage~   A  discordancy in a note was simply a torture to himn. Sup



OCCUPATIONS FOP YOUNG MJVEN.            117
pose his father had drawn a veil between 1his heart
and this ang(el of harmony, his 1whole life would
have been a discordc and this penalty of tortulre
inevitable.   I-e  could compose before  hie could
comm11it to ptaperl   One day 1i9s  l father returned
hone, bringing withl him  a stranger, 1wh9 fTen. they
found  little:tozart with  a pen  in  his hand.
"  rhat are you writing?9" said he.  "A concerto
for the harpsichord,"    replied the child.  "Let us
see it," rejoined the faither  "no doubt it is a marvellous concerto."  h-1e then took the paper, and
saw nothing at first but a rmassi of not-es -mi-ngled
with blots of ink by the mal-address of the young
composer, who, unskilled in the management of
the pen, had dclipped it too freely in the ink.  He
had blotted and smeared the paper, and had endeavorecd to make out his ideas Awith his fingers.
On a closer examination, his father was lost in
wonder, and his eyes, d(elilh'ilte'd, and overlflowinlo
withl tears, becamte riveted on the notes.   "See,"
he exclaimed to the stranger, " how just and regu
lar it all is! but it is impossible to play it: it is
too difficult."  " It is a concerto," said the child,
"and must be practised till one can plavy it  Ihar!r




118     OCCUPATIONS FOR YOUNrG iMEN.
how this part goes;" and he sat down and executed the passageso
Iis " Don Giovanni" is to-day heard with enthusiastic adimiration and deli(ht wherever the attributes of fine composition are appreciated, for it
has not only music but poetry to distil to the
soul.  The overture to this opera, which is esteemed his very best e-ffort, was composed between
five and seven o'clock in the morning'.
You may remember that Handel's father had
destined him  to the study of the law, but when
under six years of age he evinced a propensity for
music which nothing  could restrain.  H-[e was
strictly forbidden to touch any musical instrument; but he found means to get a clarichord
privately conveyed to his room  at the top of the
house, to which  he constantly  stole when the
family were asleep.  At seven he played the
organ with  marvellous skill, and composed three
operas before he was fifteen.
Thiers, the brilliant Frenchl writer and orator-,
was the son of a blacksmith, but had, whell a
youthl, wvhat he called a presentiment of' a dis.
tinguished  career, and  early began to play the




OCCUPATIONS F1OR YOUNG Mli~N.    119
odle of party leader.  He clamored  and haran gued against the government of the Restolra
tion,  evoked  tihe recollections of the republic'
and empire, mande himself when a boy execrated
by the Commissary of police, but was adored
by his comrades, and always carried off the prize
of eloquence in spite of ev ery obstacle.
I would say, then, let the occupation chosen
not only have respect to a livelihood, but also
to the aptitude and happiness of the subject.
Speaking, of his hours of composition, Buffon
said:  MThese are te the most luxurious and delig'htful moments of life, -  moments which have
often enticed me to pass fourteen hours at my
desk in a state of transpot,.  This grcvauiTccation,
more than glory, is my reward."  Unless the
gratification  of work is the reward, no glory
can ever come of it.
Statistics show  that ninety-seven per cent of
the merchants fail where only three per cent succeed.  In the professions comparatively few ever
attain to any enviable distinction, yet these pursuits are the attractive ones for our American
youthso




120     OCCUPATIONS FOR YOUNG M1aEN.
No greater service could be rendered the generation of young men just entering upon spheres
of industry than  to induce thenm  to heed the
statistics of failures in each. There are thousands
and thousands scattered all abroad throuoghout our
domain who are only waiting the opportune moment to leave the quiet and charln  of moral homes
and  agricultural toil to  make venture in our
great cities.  Let us forewarn them  that where
ten succeed ninety fail.  It seems to be the purpose of all well-to-do families first of all to get the
sons well through college, and this often, if not
generally, against the inclination and interest of
the child.  Comparatively few stop to ascertain
the natural rights of the child in the premises.
Children have such inalienable rights, and these
should be respected.  The State should educate
her children, - say, till each child is friom fifteen to
seventeen years of age, -  and then let the child
follow the natural beat of his mind for a lhigher
education, or immediate trade or traffic.  There
is no shame attaching to any of the mechanical
arts, except the shame that so little progress has
been made in them.




OCCUPATIONVS FOR YOUNVG iNEN1V.    121
Here is a youngl man whose mother would feel
the family comnpromised in its social standing if he
should choose to be a carpenter, and yet lhe is
only fitted for thils or solme like occupation.  Hte
can use tools with dlexterity, -  has done all the
mending and repairs with his box of little tools
since a dozen years old; sharpens his penknife,
and makes his little sister an exquisite little chair
for her dolly, and if encouraged might become an
artist of renown as a carver in hard woods; or,
if his mechanical ingenuity took another turn, he
might become a  famous  engineer or notable
bridge-builder~  But under this unnatural pressure he reads lav, and remains a drudge all his
life; or, maybe, as a last resort, goes into the
church, and becomes a droine, and  the foolishness
of preaching' becomes foolish preaching,.
Here is a picture painted by the pen of an
eminent writer.
Seventeen years ago there was a ftir girl, so
pure, so lovely, so refined, that she still rises to
my mind as almost akin to ancelso   She was
wooed and won by a handsome young man of
considerable wealth.  He sported a fine team,




1.22    OCCUPiATIONS FOR YOU.NG M~iEN.
delightecd in hunting, and kept a fine pack of
hounds.   He neither played  cards nor drank
wine.  He had no occupation, no calling, no
trade.  He lived on 1his money, the interest of
which would have supported a family handsomely.
I never saw the fair bride agcain until a few days
ago.   Seventeen years land passed away; and
with them  her beauty and her youth, her husband's fortune and his life, during, the latter part
of which they lived in a log-cabin on the banks of
the Ohio Iiver, near Blennerh asset's Island, a
whole family in one single room, subsisting on
water, fat bacon, and corn bread.  The husband
had cultivated in no wise his capacity for any
business.  He was a gentleman of education, of
refinemnent, of noble impulses; but when  his
money was gone, lhe could get no employment,
simply because le did not know how to do alny
thing. For a while he blundered about, first tryingl
one thing' and then another, but "failure" was
written  on  theml  all.   He, however, finally
obtained a situation: the labor was great, the
compensation small; it was that or starvation.  In
his heroic efforts to discharge' his duty acceptably,




OCCUPATIONS FOR YOUNG ME~N.    123
he over-worked himself and  died, leaving  his
widow and six girls in utter destitution.
In seventeen years the sweet and joyous and
beautiful girl had become a broken-hearted, careworn, poverty-stricken widow, with a housefiul of
helpless children.
Thlle number of young men employed as salesmen and clerks in our city stores and offices who
ever attain a competency is very small indeed~
You would scarcely believe that not ten in a
hundred do more than barely support themselves,
and make both ends of the year meet.  Bright,
hopeful, and promising youngl lmen are daily leaving' their fathers' faris and rushing into the cities,
pleading for situations.  This, too, when every
one of them mig'ht be the lord of his own estate
in five years from the day he reaches his manhood.
After the man has chosen independently his
occupation for life, he must know at once that the
law of success is persistent industry.
Carissimi, a famous composer of music, being
praised for the ease and grace of his melodies,
exclaimed, "Ah! with what difficulty is this ease
acquired!"




124     OCCUPATIONS FOR YOUNG IEN.lV
Mozart himself, of whose great genius I told
you, saidl   It is a very great error to suppose that
my art has been very easily acquired.  I assure
you, thlat thlere is scarcely any one who has so
worked at the study of composition as I have.
You could hardly mention any famous composer,
whose writings I have not dilioently and repeatedly
studied throughout."
It cost Lord Lyttleton twenty years to write the
"Life and History of Henry II[."  Gibbon was
twelve years in completing his " Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire;" and Adam Smith occupied
ten years in producing' his "Wealth of Nations."
Choose not a business because it is deemed
respectable, but because you are fitted to serve
your fellows in it; and follow it to make both
yourself and your pursuit honorable and respected
by all.
I have emphasized agriculture and the mechanical arts, in the serious belief that the vast majority
of persons are best adapted to these vocations.
They demand no more exactinug toil, and prob.ably not so great taxingo the wits and chafinga the
spirits of men with unnatural anxieties as those




OCCUPATIONS FOR YOUNG MlEEN.    125
pursuits which, with such singular fascination,
attract the multitudes to the great cities.  Only
the few in these centres of life become rich:  the
vast majority are on the strain constantly to keep
the wolf from the door.
There is no golden road to wealth.  Certainly
it is not alonog the path where- we overtake' tradesunions," " labor congresses," schemes of " co-operation," and gamblings in stocks, gold, or grain.
The ambition of accumulation is wisely 11planted in our natures, and every young man
entering upon business should hope to be better
off in the world with the reckonings of each year.
But this result is brought about by no grand
schemes of intrig'ue and speculation' these are
the millstones about the necks of so many who go
down in the vortex of bankruptcy, and bring'
their wives and children into poverty, acnd often
endure penury in old age, by their unsteady and
adventurous business habits.
Industry and economy underlie the permanent
prosperity of the individual andt the State.
YTaste and want are united in an unholy wedlock.  Could we spread out the wasting lands




126     OCCUPATIO~N~S FOR YOUiVG iEN-A.
of our Y7estern States upon the dolrain of the
whole continent of Europe, and invite the plodcling, low-down people to their occupation and
cultivation at the mere songl at which our g'overnnient sells them, their hearts would rejoice at the
sudden coiningO of their wonted millenniumn.  But
here we have idle men by the thousands, with
hung'ry teeth, imploring for tape-stringrs and yardsticks, -themselves wanting' and these lands wasting.   Furthermore, looking  facts  in the face,
granted that there are other thousands who have
no aptitude and training' for agriculture, no country or time ever presented  such opportunities and
possibilities in the mecllanical arts.  As an iilustration, look at one such branch of industry, -
architecture.  In our own city there is scarcely
one private or public building that has in it one
expression of ideality or artistic merit.  WVe began
with every advantage, -wide streets and ready
materials, forests of tinimber, and quarries of a
beautiful and workable stone; yet most of our
edifices are an offence to the eye of criticism  and
sentinmlent.
There are church building's on this avenue, cost



OCCUPATIONS FOR YOUXG rMEN.    127
ing an hundred thousand of money, and more, that
are almost caricatures in architecture.
Whilere is there a buildingl in tlhe city before
which, involuntarly, a man stands and adores?
The grandeur of the great hills comles not to the
eye of culture, but to the heart of sentiment. The
peasant of the Alps is inspired by the surrounding
glory.  The inaptest eye falls upon the natural
landscape with delight.  So any edifice of positive
and intrinsic artistic merit would be a joy for ever
to any, even the most unaccustomed eye.  I have
cited this one branch of industry, but it is in ne
wise more exceptional than many others.
So I am  almost ready to say, that we should
meet with words that would shame him any young,
man, with strong body and health, who comes
only to confess he has " nothingo to do."
If men would feed, they must furrow; if they
would be warml they must wveave.  There is no
commercial legerdemain by which one can either
abrogate or cheat this eternal law of labor.
" Who's born to sloth? To so-me we find
The plougllslare's annual toil assigned;
Some at the sounding anvil glow;
Some the swift-sliding shuttle throw;




128       OC CUPATI ONS F OR  YO NOVG JU'ILNE
Some, studious of the wind and tide,
From pole to pole our commerce guide;
While some, of genius more refined,
With heart- and tongue assist mlankhind.
In every work, or great or small,'Tis industryS supports us all."
The only flowers of life that never lose their
beauty and  brlghtness  are those that spring'up
anld  grow0   in the sunshine wvhlh  penetrates the
fields of occupation and the paths of duty.




vII.
GETTING AND GIVING.








GETTING AND GIVING.
" A MAN CAN RECEIVE NOTHIING, EXCEPT IT BE GIVEN I-MII FROM
HEAiVEN." - Joh7 iii. 27.
EA1RTH  is the counterpart of heaven.  The
types of earth are all in heaven.  The things
that are temporal are fashioned according to the
things that are eternal.  So heaven will not be
wholly unfamiliar to us when we all arrive there.
All things that are beautiful are always beautiful,
and beautiful everywhere.  The thing's that are
admirable here are admirable in the eyes of the
angels.  Charity is the same to men and gods.
Love is the crown of glory in all the universe.
Earth is not after one design and heaven framed
accordingo to another; for earth and heaven, and
every thing  that in them is, and all the glory of'
them, is of one spirit.  This one spirit is in every
thoug'ht, and the imag'e of this one spirit is eng'raved
on the shining jewel of the universe.  The sinole




132            GETTiATG AND  GIVING.
daisy and the multitude of forests alike show forth
the glory of God.
"A present Dei-ty in all,
It is his presence that diffuses charms
Unspeakable o'er mountain, wood, and stream.
To think that He who hears the heavenly choir
Hearkens complacent to the woodland song;
To think that He who rolls yon solar sphere
Uplifts the warbling singer to the sky;
To m1ark his presence in the mighty bow
That spans the clouds, or in the tints minute
Of tiniest flower; to hear his awfil voice
In thunders speak, and whisper in the gale;
To know and feel his care for all that lives, -'Tis this that makes the barren waste appear
A fruitful field, each grove a paradise."
Never for a single moment, friom  a single atom9
can H-Ie who made it withdraw  his presence.   It
is the breath of God that breathes in the lungs of
anoel and insect.  The wavinus of the sea and the
field of golden grain, the currents that flow through
earth  and air, the brig'ht thinogs and beautiful that
gladden all men's hearts, are only God's ways of
laking' his children happy; for "a man can receive
nothing, except it be given him  of H-eaven."
In certain climates of the world, the gales t-hat
spring from  the land carry a refreshing fragrance




GETTING AND GIVI~NG.            133
out to the sea, and assure the voyager that he is
approaching' a desirable and fruitful coast, when
as yet he cannot discern it with his eyes.  These
fleeting' glories of earth are the assurance of faith
that there is "a glory which excelleth."  O0t
upon the sea of life we breathe the odors of that
land which we are nearing day by day.
This beautiful heaven is nearer than we know.
It is only a' veil " that hides it firom  us all, - not
from  us all, for some have " entered beyond the
veil."  Jacob realized its presence, and Paul was
cauglht up amid its glories, and John revealed its
mysteries.  It is about us, surrounds us all.  1We
may ask for its gifts, without presuming upon its
beneficence~. We seek and find, we ask and receive.
But these gifts differ as " one star differeth from
another star in gloryo"
It is not far to heaven, not a sabbath day's
journey.  Angels make the passage from  that
world to this very swiftly.  Suddenly they came
to the Saviour's sepulchre.  They sang  at the
Saviour's birth. His spirit could command myriads
of these heavenly messengers from  their home to
his, with the quickness of his desire.




134          GETTING AND GIVING.
Heaven is not ultimate, but proximateo  It is
taken by force, by the violent.  It obeys our bidding'.  Its inspirations are at our command.
~When we breathe the odors of the Spice Islands,
we are assured we approach them.
Deeds of mercy done among men are the evidences that the gods are not far away.
It is the shining of Heaven upon the earth that
makes it so beautifull. There is no deformity in all
its domain.  Certainly there is no curse restingupon it. Its mountains are too heavenward tendc
ing and full of glory, and its valleys too green and
fertile, to be under Heaven's displeasure. Its rivers
are so full of refreshing and its fields so full of
blessing's for men, that the old story that God
cursed the land can not be true. This world is one
of God's own children, and a Father's wrath cannot
abide upon his own offspring.
The people, too, have always had thoughts of
truth and justice: the nearness of heaven has been
the inspiration of our goodness. Men have carried
the cares of others upon their hearts just as God
bears our sorrows.  The prophecy that we are to
have, in the good time coming', a new earth, must




GETTING AIND GIVING.             135
mean this, -  that earth is to be quite like heaven;
that as thle humnan andc the divine blended, like the
horizon line, in one man, the man  Christ Jesus, so
the earthly and the heavenly, the human and the
divine, will blend in some proportion in all men.
To men whose eyes are full of heaven, there is
now much of heaven in the world. These men gaze
up into heaven as upon the robes of the Eternal One,
and the stars as their embroidery.
" What throbbings of deep joy
Pulsate through all I see: from the full bud
Whose unctuous sheath is glittering in the moon,
Up through the system of created things,
Even to the flaming ranks of Seraplzim."
But it is not given to all men to have the same
eyes, or to see the same things.  Nature answers
to nature: what a man gives he receives.  He
who gives curses receives curses. Blessings given
return  blessings to  the giver.'To  him  who
hath shall be given."  This divine axiom  holds
everywhere. Every thing' multiplies in kind.  One
nature cannot beget a diverse or different one.
He who traffics in curses multiplies curses, and
he who  deals in blessings multiplies blessings.' To him  who gives it shall be given."




136           GETTINVG AN1D GIVING.
I-e who murmurs hears murmurs.  It is the
fitting lot of the sunny soul to dwell in the sunshine.
There is enough good in every man to dominate
the evil.  So God has ordered it, that we can
only become holy by the surrender of all unholiness.  Of this comes the sense of personal accountability.  No man ever yet -lhad an ideal of
moral purity without at the same time possessingZ
not only the moral strengoth, but sense of it, to
realize in himself that ideal,  M1fan cannot conceive of a virtue which he may not have.  Graces
are within the reach of all,   All men im-ay be
holy.
Gifts, as endowments from  God, are bestowed
in divers measures, as it seemeth best in the eyes
of our heavenly Father; but " a man can receive
nothing, except it be given him from Heaven,"
The world is beautiful, not in its uniformity,
but its diversity.   The stars are not in exact
squares, circles, or  triangl es.   The  seas are
abroad about tle dry land by no uniform measurement; and the continents are wonderful in the
unlikeness of their outlines and contents,,  When




GE TTING A ND GIVING.           137
the earth uplifts itself into great mountains, it is
that the lo0wlands may appear.  But to all the
earth and the sea our common }Father gives rain
and sunshine.  ill that nature receives is given1
friom  heaven.
One man has for his share great intellectual
genius, another man great moral genius. One man
is born to think, another to do.  God gives to each
man his own quality of nature.  RLaphael was
born to behold spirits of beauty on canvas; W-ordsworth, to colmune with nature; Goethe, to
create new ideals of humanity; Tennyson, to sing
the mysteries of man's love for man.  XJ;ilberforce came to experience in himself the singular
blessedness of living in the hearts and for the
interests of others,  Howard came to be touched
with the feeling of all men's infirmities, and to
heal all their sicknesses.  There can be no absolute isolation of influence:  every nman has a com~
munity of interest with every other man. Socrates
lives in the spirit of thinking, and the whole
worldl rests upon the universal truth and love of
Jesus.  YWhat one receives he gives, and receives
to give again.




138            GEITTING AND GJV[NG.
" te is dead whose hand is not opened wide
To help the need of a human brother;
He doubles tile life of ihis life-long ride
Whllo gives his fortunate place to another.
And a thousand million lives are his
Who carries the world in his sympathies.
To deny
Is to die."
The eye is not to envy the hand, nor the band
the eye; the eye to see, the hand to execute.
Seership is one gift, heroism  another;  the seer is
nothing without the hero, and the hero nothing
without the seer.
" He changeth the times and the seasons  he
remroveth klings and setteth up kings' he giveth
wisdom  unto the wise, and knowledge to them
that know  understanding.''    "He giveth to all
life and breath."
HIerein is the philosophy of the text.   John
was true to what lhe knew:  he went to work to
do what religion taught it was right to teach and
to do.  Jesus was true to his divine nature and
inspiration.  John was not that light, but came
to bear witness of that light.   The harbinfger
came, and  then  the prophet.   John  was not
envious of the  greater following of Jesus, but




GIJTTIJNG lAND GIVING.           139
rejoiced in his truth.  Only a true and inspired
nman can say concerning another and himself, " IHe
must increase, but I must decrease."  HI-e rejoiced
greatly because of the Bridegroom's voice, sayinmg, "ie that cometh from  above is above all."
H}eaven has given to each man somnething that
is the law of his personality; to no two men just
the same thing, else there would occur a confusion
of identity.  The sun gives one light, and the
moon another.   No two things in nature serve
the same end.  Every member has its o-fice, every
man his sphere.
The roses of June perish, but not until they
have gladdened the eyes and refrteshed the hearts
of God's children.  A7hen  all the flowers of summer are in  their glory, and  their perfume is
abroad, there are thousands of species, and each
individual and  sepjarate flower is different from
every other.  God was not straitened for multiplicity of types.  All the stars differ'  The trees
of the ten thou-sand forests differ.  TNo two birds
sinc the same song.  WVhen a child comes into
the world, God ordains for the child a mission.
Mlen waste their powers, and abuse their privi



140           GETTING AND GIVING.
leoes; instead of becoming  distributors, they
become depositorieso  laen. there are who seek to
live unto themnselves, - think first of their own 
but hle receives imost who distributes most.
On the very day of his death, in his eiohtieth
year, JEliot, " the apostle of the Indians," was
found teaching the alphabet to an Indian child at
his bedside.   W'Thy not rest from your labors
now? " said a friendc.    Because," the saintly
mai  replied, "I have prayed God to render me
useful in my  sphere, and  he has  heard  my
prayers; for now that I can no longer preach, lihe
leaves me strength  enough to teach  this poor
child his alphabet."
Alexander could conquer the legions of Persia,
but he could not conquer his passions; Csar
triumphed in a hundred  battles, but he fell a
victim  to the desire of being a king'; Bonaparte
vanquished nearly the whole of Europe, but he
could  not valuquish his own ambition.   Great
powers were given, and great powers were abused.
2iarcus Aurelius said hle could relish no happiness
wThich nobody shared with him,   Cato, at the
close of his life, declared to his friends, that the




GEiTTING AND GIVING.           141
goreatest comfort of his old age, and that which
gave him the highest satisfaction, was the pleasing'
remembrance of the many benefits and friendly
oSces he had done for others.  Common blessings
come to all, and all from  heaven.  YWhat shall
we give in return?  We cannot enrich God, but
we can benefit God's childreno  Be careful that we
envy not those who receive more than we, for
we have all we ought to have.  God knows what
we will use wisely.  Let every man stand in his
own lot and place.  A rational soul must pursue
its present duty, as the disciples of the Epicurean
philosophy pursue their passions.
WTe must do our duty in every circumstance of
life, be it sorrowful or joyful.  TWe should go to
duty as to a temple, and come fiom duty as friom
a temple.   Let us bless the heavenly powers,
when we have eyes to see duty.  AVe may come
to tllis knowledge in the deep vales where float
the tones of longing' and grief; but here it is that
the soul gains the deepest knowledge of itself as
well as of its duty, and breathes in the purest
sympathy of man, the universe, and God.*' We
can only come to this renunciation of inclination




142          GE TTING AND GIVItNG
and this acceptance of duty, by believing in it as
Christ our divine Lord did.  "H ]-Se endured the
cross, despising the sliame, for the joy that was set
before him."  It must be gained, conquered, and
earned, -  strunggled  to througlTh opposing diffi%
culties.  There is room  for us all, and work for
us all, and every man in his own order.
Our blame and our shame is this, that we do
not what is given us to do.  Let us up and be
doing.  See the field is white unto tle harvest.
Let each do something  for the common weal.
Let us open fountains by all waysides for earth's
weary pilg'rims.
The measure of our duty is the measure of our
ability.   She hath done what she could" was
the greatest of all praise.  Nothing more is required of any~
Let us begin this day, and make our vows this
hour, to live for others; and as we receive firom
Heaven day by day, let us give back to Heaven;
and so we shall enrich our own souls, and multiply
Heaven's blessings to uso




\VIITo
FATHIER HECIER'S PROPHIECY








FATHEER HIECKER'S PROPHECY.
W:IHATETER  may be said of the moral aspect of Christianity in America, certainly
the intellectual activity that characterizes it, gives
ground of great hope.  Nothingl is truer than that
the notable tendency of mlinds given at all to
thiingkino  is the tendency to think for themselves.
This is only a tendency.  It has as yet realized
comparatively scanty results in the religious realm.
The masses of our people are totally without any
rational and logical ground of faith.  There are
not ten sectarians in a thousand who can give
a lucid  statement of their faith, and the logical
process by which they have come to hold it.  It
is no nmatter of looic that a boy born at Mecca is
a Mohammeclan; this verges upon the boundaries
of the inevitahble:the result could be otlherwise
but there is not one probability in a million that
10




146      FA TIIEYR HE IC~ER'S PROPHIIJ CY"
it woald be. So a girl born in lRome, of Catholic
parentage, becomes a votary of the church of her
fathers.  A  child born and educated in Boston,
whatever the sect of his parents, early begirns to
think somewhat for limself.
But we are not to be discourageed that only the
ten in the thousand think, but be greatly hopefui
of the future, that in religious concerns there are
so many who are able to give a reason for the
hope that is within them.  No man is worthy of
a hearing in a mratter of such infinite import to
our civilization, who only enters the arena of theological controversy in the interest of sectarianlsim,
be he a Romanist or a Unitarian.  Truth will live
when the waning  sects of to-day shall have perished from the earth, and the dark record of their
outward persecutions and in\ward bigotry will only
be remembered  as proof of the frailty of the
huiman intellect and  depravity  of the human
heart.
The attention of our own community has recently been called to that aspect of religious
controversy which more and more will become
prominent until the theories and principles which




FATHER HECKiER'S PROPHECY.         147
underlie the controversy shall have become very
generally understood, if not until the controversy
itself is settled.
He who creates needless fear in a community
on any momentous subject does positive harm to
the nerves, if not the moral sense, of the people
who heed the cry of the alarmist.  I have no
sort of apprehension that our Catholic servants
are all going' to turn out assassins.  Certainly the
example of Protestant households should inspire
a better spirit in them than this.  I have in my
family an Irish Catholic and an American Protestant, and I trust they are both our good friends.
I am sure the unaffected good-nature of the Catholic girl would  never allow her to wish otherwise
than good health and long life to my childreno
On the other hand, the prophecy that America is
soon and suddenly, or ever at all, to become
Roman Catholic, has no support in statistics and
no encouragement in the spirit of our civilization.
If I were not seriously endeavoring to avoid all
sophistry, not only of fact, but appearance, I
should say that it sounded like irony, and we
were all expected to join in the laugho




t148     KATIlER HEIECKEMR' S PROPHIEC Ye
The R.olmish Church in America is a foreiognerand unnaturalized.  It can never learn our manners, and we can never learn its ways.  Between
the spirit of Roman Catholicism, and the spirit of
American civilization, there is a great gulf fixed,
and it is impassable.  WXhen a Romanist is fully
possessed of the -spirit of our liberties, he to all
intents and purposes throws up his church; and
lwhAen an American is fully possessed of the spiri;
of Romish churchism, he to all intents and ptrposes throwV  up his country.
Religion has just twro logical' grounds.  One
is outward authority.  This is the only ground
recognized by Pomanism.  The other is inward
authority, and this is the only ground recognized
by rationalisln.  There is no looical standingf
place between these. Protestantism should always
blush in the presence of logic: I do'not speak of
the doctrines it teaches; I aml makinog no criticism
upon its doogmas; these may be true or false.
But I do say, candor, common honesty compel me
to concede at once that the theory of Protestantismn
is wholly without logic; and it can ne ver, without
positive absurdity, lay any claim to its support.




FATHEYR HIE CKER'S PROPHECYY.        149
Unwise and untenmpered things have been said
on both sides of this matter.  Especially is this
true of those who espouse the Protestant side of
the controversy.  I arm not quite certain but that
our Catholic brethren are the Aiser in this, that
they are less passionate. Certainly Father iHecker
cannot be acquitted of sophistry, for I never heard
so graceful a speaker so uniformly skip the hard
places.  His adroitness in ignorig, as unrealities,
the only real points in dispute, deserves some new
and brilliant name for a new  and brilliant art.
l3ut he has the great merit of good nature, and the
greater merit of a Christian spirit.  In order that
our minds may be uninfluenced by what are only
trivial and almost accidental circumstances and results of these lgreat tendencies in  the religious
world, I wish to ask your attention at once to
the fundanmental basis of Romanism~, Protestant.
ism, and lI Rationalismo
1. 0/omanism2 starts in the person of Christ,
and claims historic continuity in the Church to the
present day.  This is its first claim, and I am
persuadedl that there is some show of truth in this
assumption.  I do not think it affects the argPU




O150       FATHER IIECKER'S PROPHECY.
ment one way or other to concede there has
been outward continuity and succession in the
papacy or bishops of Rome.  I think the strength
of the historic argument is against this claim, but
I thinlk it of no account either way.
But the next claim is that of authority over the
consciences of men by reason of this apostolic
succession.  And herein is the sophistry and folly
of the whole matter.
Historic continuity is one thing, spiritual continuity is another.  Jesus Christ never founded
such an institution as the Roman Catholic Church.
No two things in their spirit and methods could
possibly be more dissimilar that aimed to be alike,
than the simple gospel of our Lord and the cumbrous pomp and tyrannical rule of the Romish
hierarchy.  The RLomish Church is a growth, -
simply a series of palpable and positive corruptions of Christianity.  As it exists to-day it has
no warrant in Scripture and no support in reason.
2. _Protestcutismz was no new thing' with Martin Luther.  IHe gave it form and shape; but no
century was without its heroic spirits, who denied
the outward authority and  infallibility  of the




FATHER HIECKER'S PROPHECY.           151
Church, and proclaimed the corruptions and imnorality of its doctrines. They asked," Yhat logic
can compel us to accept infallibility, if that infallibility leads to downright immorality of life and
positive corruption of the teachings of that ALtaster
wvhose gospel i' is set to manintain its purityO?"
But their protests were very unlike the organized Protestantismii of the sectarian churches.   it
was based on human reason, and derived all its
sanction  from  the human conscience.  Luther's
starting-point was this, in his own terse words~
-But it must come to this at last, -  every man
mnust be allowed to believe according to his con
science, and answer for his belief to his iMakeri"'But from  time to time Protestantism  gathered
strength,  and  gradually came to put forth the
Bible as the  grould  of authority  in  religion.
But, of course, this could not bear the test of
intellectual inquiry   for the Bible is what we
make it mean; and had this been the only ground
of authority, then every man could have been, as
hle oughlt to be, a law unto himself.
To go back a little, we must inquire what the
autlhority of tlle Bible isO  The Bible is a collection




152      FA TllTjR I;TI CAIRT' S PR OPIHE C Y.
of books very full of religious inspiration  and
truth, but books written at different periods, by
different persons, with different contents, and written with specific reference to the times in which
these authors lived. The languacges of these books
are deczd, that is, unspoken  tongues; and we
cannot get at their meaning with any degree of
certainty.
zNo educated Protestant can escape this conclusion; for I have only, in support of it, to remind
you, that thousands upon thousands of commentaries have been written, essaying to discover its
meaning, and hundreds of sects have arisen claiming to have found it.  They have all of them been
driven in time from this postulate, and have set up
their own authorities in confessions of faith. You
are excommunicated from  the Protestant sects,
never upon the ground that you do not believe the
Bible, but because you do not believe whlat certain
convocations of ecclesiastics say cthle Bible teaches.
So  the outward authority  of Protestantism  is
simply and only a rope of sand.  The Episcopal
Church is the creation of a body of ministers.  The
)MIethodist, so far as its doctrinal basis Ooes, is the




FIA TIIIR TIE CKERJ' S PR OPHE CY.  153
work of one great, good nman-, Mr. John  W esley,
who had no more divine rig'ht to tell what the
Bible teaches than any other man~  A+nd so on to
the end of these sects.
30 Rattionalism' has unnfortunately come to stand
for a set of opinions which are clained to be
the result of the critical exercise of the reason in
religion.   So here I must insist upon a clear
definition and  understanding-.   Now, with the
mzost of these  teachings  of  rationalisln -its
denial of the divine and exceptional origin and
authority of Christianity, its denial of the supernatural elements in Christianity, which, in short,
dethrones God, and wrests from  him  the poiwer
to do the best thing' to be done -  I have nothin g
in conmmlon.  ] have arrived at not one of these
conclusions.
But the office and function of reason in religion
are wholly a different matter.  God, who of his
infinite goodness endowed his creatures with the
DpowNer~ of thouglht and reflection, could never have
intended that, on the very matter in which every
soul is most profoundly and eternally interested,
this faculty of reason should be silenced.  This




154      FATHIER TECICKER'S PR OPL HECY.
responsibility God has never transferred from the
individual to any ecclesiasticism.  And this is just
what the Ilomanists and  the Protest ants, with
equal bigotry, claim and proclaim; namely, tllat
reason is not the authority in religion.  The first
say the Church is; the others say the creed is.
The inhabitants of the United Provinces were
informed, when the teachinog of Protestants began
to spread, that they were to believe the doctrines
of the Holy Roman' Catholic Church, in these
terms of the edict  "M Men and women who disobey
this command shall be punished as disturbers of
public order. Women who have fallen into heresy
shall be buried alive.  MIen, if they recant, shall
lose their heads.  If they continue obstinate, they
shall be burnt at the stake.  The inquisition shall
inquire into the private opinions of every person,
of whatever degree; and all officers of all kinds
shall assist the inquisition at their peril."  Under
this edict, in the Netherlands alone, more than
fifty thousand  human  beinghs were  deliberately
murdered.
With this horrid picture of the inquisition before
us, it is profane mockery for a man of Father




FIA T IHER IHE CKER'S PR OPIHE CY.    155
HIecker's intellio'ence  to t'ake  the  platform  in
America to notify the people that the Catholic
Church is the friend of freedom, of intellig'ence,
and of enterprise.  Rolloanism has been the deadly
foe of all these; anud until it ceases to be Romanism, always will be.
it will be a sorry cIay for IRomish propagandists
when they beoin to proclaim  the love that Rome
has fox freedom    I foenwarn them, that deeds of
horror and inhumlan crime done by the Church in
the nalme of religion, of which our little 9Protestant
children in Romish schools, some of them, never
heard, will be told in their ears, and published
from  the house-tops.  They may silence reason,
but memory can be refreshed by ten centuries of
history.
H-lad Romanism  no singole intent and element of
good in it, it would have perished froml  the face
of the earth long ere 4this, but certainly its virtue
is not love of intelligence and fieedoum.
I aml  not ignorant of the merit of the Catholic
Church, and I trust tlhat no spirit of bigotry Aould
induce ime to conceal it.  Ally deepest desire is to
be impartial and sincere.  The practical charities




156       FA TiE  IIf ICER' S PR OPHECtY
of Rolnanism; her long list of saintly names; tlhe
selBLablnegatons of ho~sts of her nt-ell'ent votaries
the scholarship of imaily of her ecelesiastics   tlhe
simple piety of nilmers of her priesthood   the
spirit grace, and heavenly doevotion of not a few
of her separated women, -  separated unto God
and good works, -  must not be counted as nothing, but reckoned as the very law  by which God
gives to this decrepit institution a longer lease of
life.
Rornanismr is not o'aining', but daily and hourly
losing strength the Christian world over.    Rome,
the seat of her power, is almost in desolation.
The city is vile; her many houses and streets are
falling into ruin.  RomlLe is a city of ecclesiastical
people and beggars.  The streets that remain to
this glorious city of the past are filled with filth
and goats, that make therm  rank with foul odors.
Does Father Hecker mean to call our attention to
Rome as the product of her Church, and to Boston. as the type of rational civilization?
Bostoni is in every moral sense the most splendid city of the world    There are in her no sions
of decayo   Her improvements nlre constant.  Her




T.A TIiER  iE CI~ ER' S PR, OPTIJE C Y.  1 6 7
great schools anmd libraries, her intelligent and firee
people, her refined culture, the custom of her integrity, and the hioh morality of her population,
present a picture of civilization such as the world
had scarcely dared to hope for.  Protestantism is
probably not without its divine mission.  Its basis
is illogical, and, theoretically, she is an ally )withl
Romanisml  against freedom of speculative inquiry;
for she, too, claims outward as against inwvard
authority in religion, but practically  she forgets
her theories and her votaries begin to thllink.
Neither   om:ianism nor sectarianism can possibly
be the ultimate form  of Christianity.   Christianity,
to survive, mlust become as free as Chrlllist made it.
It must be a religion founded on reason and supported by conscience.
This is not the Christianity of Romanismo'  RoI
inanism  has always  denied the right of private
judg'ment in religion, and forbidden and punished
its exercise wherever she controlled the power to
do so.  And this is not incidental to her policy,
but the very  texture., the very  quality, of her
orfganic life.  She has never encouraged thinking,
but, by terrors of fire at the stake and endless fires




158      FATHER HIE CIKER' S PR OPII C Yo
in eternity, endeavored always and everywhere to
suppress it.   She  wholly  dethrones reason  in
relig'ious  matters,  and denies that it has any
fuinction in theological inquiry.  Neither is sectarian Protestantism  the friend  of rationalistic
inquiry.  Practically, Protestantism  in lAmerici
does not deny the right; theoretically, she coes.
But I ask, in all honesty, when did you ever hear
a minister of one of the popular Protestant sects
say to his people, " Think each man among you
for himself, and go where your thinking  leads
you"?   Whllen did you ever, in one of these
pulpits, hear the free, frank exercise of private
judTgment cormmended? It is the shame of Protestantism, born of reason, having' won its first and
greatest victories with  this single and  sufficient
weapon in  its  hands, that we  find it to-day
with its creed-barriers dove-tailed together, reachinog to the very heavens, against the free exercise
of this divinest faculty in man 
iWhat means this loncg andc unrelenting, warfare
of the  IProtestant Church  of Englandc against
Bishop Colenso, but the effort of Protestant ecclesiasticism  against the exercise of human reason




FA THEl H6ECKIER'S PROPHEI CY.       1     9
and conscience.  I am  no convert to Colenso's
mathematics, or the results of his criticism, but I
elm a friend to free thouoht, and the largest possible liberty of all thinkingl
I need  scarcely  occupy your time in simply
denying the mlistaken statements of Mir. Heckero
Concerning  iRomanism  in Asmerica, he tells us
that it is rapidly mnaking numerical increase.  To
the ignorant and uninformed, there is in this cause
of alarm; but in spite of the sentimental conversion of a Protestant now and then, and the almost
criminal short-sigthtedness of the few Protestant
parents who risk, not only the intellectual, but
moral, character of their  children in  Catholic
schools, Roimanism  is not keeping pace with the
growth of population in our States.  Our common schools, the free atmosphere and liberal institutions of our civilization, the enlarged basis of
our general intelligence, the potency of our untrammelled press, are more than a match for all
the  multifarious  and  Jesuitical mnachinery  of
Rom0e.
Father Hecker knows better than he said.  I
am  informed by intelligent and devout Romanhists




160      FA TTHER l E cK~ER''s PR OPIE EC Y
that the majority of their imale youths drop away
from the confessional and, finally, the Chullrc
altogether.  The  4,000,000  Catholics  in the
United States are scarcely more than the emSi
g'ration to this country from  Catholic Europe
since  the beoginning  of this century.   On the
other hand, the reverend father does not lay the
flattering' unction to his soul that Protestantismn
is dying' out.
The  evangelical sects  have  steadily gained
upon the increase of our population    WVithin
a  century, the MIethodists  have  grown  from
15,000 to 2,000,000 communicants; the Baptists,
from  35,000 to 1,700,000; the Presbyterians,
from 40,000 to 700,000; the Congreg'ationalists,
from 75,000 to 275,000; and the Episcopalians
to about 170,000.  The population has increased
sixfold, and the Church communicants more than
tenfold.  In 1800 there was one communicant to
every fifteen of the population, and now in these
same sects there is about one to every eiolht of the
population.
Furthermore, these statistics only indicate a
partialn view of the growth of Christian faith and




FATHER IHECK~ER'S PROPHECY.          161
sentiment, for technical infidelity is not spreading, but everywhere waning.o.
It is not true, moreover, that Universalism and
Unitarianism  and  Spiritualism  are so  rapidly
gaining upon the evangelical sectso   The better
class am1on11   the Spiritualists all over the country
are dropping away from  their societies, and becomling assimilated to the liberal Christian views
and fellowshlip    The Universalists are makinff
commendable efforts in Christia.nizing the people,
and are having steady increase.  The Unitarians
have never been in any proper sense sectarian.
They are without the spirit of intense denonmina'
tionalism that is essential to rapid outward growtho
The work  that Unitarianismn  has done, aside
from   great practical  philanthropies, has been
intellectual.  Unitarianism  has.leavened all the
sects; and  its  girandest achievements are not
counted by the numiber of her churches, but in
the prevalence of her ideas in all the sects.  To
sum  it all up, it does seem as if our good F'ather
Hecker is illustrating  the old  Italian proverb~
"When the cause is lost there is enough  of:ii




. 62     FA THER HE CKER' S PR OPHE C Y.
These different and differingo sects of Christians
are not without their respective intrinsic worth,
and so they remnain.  Theology is one thing,
religion is another.  Our religion, thank God,
is better than our theology.  This for the most part
is scholastic, born of the Dark Ages, and entailed
upon our times by the power of tradition, which
is always a chain about the efforts of progress,
and usually the last to be broken.  It is a false
process when we determine a man's religion by
his speculative opinion, - this has little to do with
it.  Religion is of the heart and the spiritual perceptions.
Finally, there can scarcely be said to be even a
problernatic element in this inquiry as to the future
of religion in America.  It is the very genius of
our civilization, -it is the very spirit of the age
in which we live, to say " what is not of reason is
not of God."  The world is going wherever reason
leads it.  For God can only lead men by this
power in them, which is the highest expression of
hinmself and the surest evidence of his sovereignty.   Outward authorities of church and creed,
venerable traditions whose only commendation is




FATHER HECKER'S PROPHECY.               163
their agedness, must give way before the inquiring
intellect and devout heart, as darkness gives way
at the coming of the sun.
And when all speculative theories and priestly
do matizings, that have  so  lonfg threatened  to
paralyze the practical energies of Christianity, are
thrown aside as unsavory salt to be trodden under
foot of men, -  then the divine religion of Jesus,
with its silmple thesis of love to God, and love to
mran, will come to be the ultimate religion for all
peoples and all time~
"Wherever the shackles of tyranny bind
In silence and darkness the God-given mind
There, Lord, speed it onward! the truth shall be felt,
The bonds will be loosened, the iron will melt.
"Help us turn from the cavil of creeds, to unnite
Once again for the poor, in defence for the right,
Unmoved by the danger, the shame or the pain,
And counting each trial for truth as our gain."








OURt WRETC-lHED NEIGHBOIRS.








O"1UR WIRETCHED NEIGHBORS.
"6 As WE, HAVE THEREFORE OPPORTUNITY, LET US DO GOOD UNTO
ALL rIEN." - Galatians vi. 10.
IrlHE  most absolutely perplexing and puzzling
of all questions is the cure of crime.
Moralists are very fiee of exhortations about
doing, good, and righteous people look upon thle
clergy as a sort of police who are paid to see to
it that vice ceases; but vice continues to grow
along side of virtue, and social misery will stare
the well-to-do in the face, and throw  shadows
upon all our social luxuries.  We could all managoe to dress in purple and fine linen, and fare
sumptuously every day, with much better grace
if we could close our eyes to the nakedness of
our neighbors, and our ears to the cries of their
hunger.  When, of a cold winter's night, we
gather with newspapers and picture-books and
bright-eyed children around our open fireplaces9




168       OU1  WRETCHED NEIGIIB ORS
there are certain hauntings of soul that we cannot
altogether dismiss if we would.  These, sometimes with our eyes wide open, are like dreams,
it may be open visions, of dark and dinoy rooms,
gar'rets, and cellars, where there are little children
who have briglht eyes too: but no picture-papers
and brightly burning fires.  If everybody had a
satisfying dinner, our sumptuous one would have
a better relish.
M3r. Charles Dickens has often enough stirred
up our sentimnent-s of philanthropy by pictures of
squalor and want, sin and misery; but then he
has almost driven us to nmoral madness by skippingo the very thing that in our impulses of
generosity we have longed to know; nalnely,
how to relieve all this, that the suffering may turn
from  their wickedness and live.  Victor HugCo is
jwise enouTh to know, and bold enouglh to declare,
the cause of want the world over.  Sutpposinga
there are one hundred men: usually, one of' these
has his share and that of ninety-nine others beside,
for it can be shown that there is enoug'h expended
in the city of New York every day for food and
rainlent to feed and clothe sufficiently and cons



OUR WRETCfHED NrEIGIBORS.        169
fortably every man, woman, and child in that
great Sodom.  But some have too much, some
too little, and some none at all.  People starve,
sometimes steal, to prevent it: to catch and punish the thief costs more than to feed the hungry,
and so prevent the crime; only there is no law,
and cannot be, to compel one man to feed another, whilst there is a law which compels the
State to arrest the thief, and another that collects
taxes which go to pay the charges.  Then the
money is forthconming, so there is money enough.
The only trouble a certain man had, a few Cweeks
agoo, was to know what to do with the quarter
of a million money which was idle in his coffers.
And this is a serious source of care that very
many of our Christian brethren are vexed with.
The money, worse than wasted in taking care of
money, would take care of' all the poor about us.
But these things are not yetyet adjusted according to
the heavenly patterns. Because a few have too
mnuch, a great many bhave nothing.  A man recently died worth four million dollars, and never
so much as bought off public opinion by leaving
ten thousand dollars of it to some heathen-con



1 70       OU/R WTIRETCHI/ ED i-E~1 IGII O0'1S.
verting, society.   Even  our secular press condemned this way of dying', and totally ignoring
our conventional pieties~  I am qluite sure it is as
well to die this way as to live this way.  The
man withheld in death what hle had withheld in
life.  Mifen always die as they live.
Three things are everywhelre prevalent~ ig'no.
rance, sin, and misery; and I believe this is the
order of their actuality and development,  Alien
are miserable because they are sinners, and sinners
because they are ignorant.  So prevalent are these
misfortunes to our race, a(nd so -famtiliarl have we
all becOme with their exi:semscne ani( continuance.
that we accept them as parts of an inevitable order
of thing's   Concerning all this, some propositions
are universally accepted: among others, that it is
desirable to save from  the sin and get rid of the
misery; another is, that it is the duty of those
who have the ability to help in this religious and
humane work.
But there are more pressing  aspects of the
matter that even morality and political economy
hold in abeyance.  Waie have not yet settled it at
all to the satisfaction of the poor and wretehed




OUR TWRETCHED NEIGHBORS.           171
just what power and authority the State has over
their personal liberty and that of their children.
Nor yet what the duty of the rich is in their voluntary contributions for the relief of the poor.
There are, besides, certain philosophical or unphilosophieal queries, more or less, at work in the
minds of many people.
Some say there have always been the high and
the low, the rich and the poor, and there always
will be.  Some are born to rule and some to
serve; some are born with the faculty of getting
on, and some with the faceulty of getting dow-n.
And it is true, furthermore, that if an equal
distribution of the ready wealth of a given hundred men should be made one year, in less than
ten years a few of these hundreds would be very
rich, others would have something, and still others
would be in filth and rag's.  Jesus recognized this
fact when, he said, " The poor ye have always with
v OUo~
iMany  shrink from personal contact with  the
world's misery, and thus strive to convince themselves there is none or little; while others again
know of its existence, but say to themselves the




172       0 UR  IVRE T CTIED NEIGHIB ORS.
pious priests and Christian parishioners, the "Aid
and Relief Society" and "Boot-Black's Home"
will reoulate and console poverty.  When dunned
for contributions to build chapels and asylums
they have that most contemptuous of all ways, -
give a trifle witlh the expressed motive of " getting
rid of the bore."
There are numerous others who have conventional consciences about this matter.  Whilst they
have "enoughl and to spare,"' they cast about to
relieve those who have nothing or next to it,
"The ceaseless penny drops:
A penny to a beggar to bribe God;
To let us keep in comfort our stuff'd chair,
To stave the feeling off of too mnuch ease."
Better motives than any of these actuate most
people who give of their abundance to public
charities.
African travellers and Chinese merchants write
back to us that the missionaries had better remain
among' the two hundred and fifty thousand thieves
and beggars of London, or labor among  the
haunts of W~ells Street, Chicaygo.  Peaceful but
fpag'an Chinamen  begin work  on our far-TWest




OUR TWRETCUIED NEIGHBORS.         173
railroads, and a gang of our GChristian Americans
rush upon them, murder some, and drive all from
the labor which they willingly do to procure their
bread and clothes.  Yet the Sunday-school clildren who give their pennies, and the rich pewholders who give their thousands, have.the merit
of faith that they are doing good.
Some of our domestic beneficenses are no more
fruitfull of rig hteous results than our foreign enterpr'ises.  Almost every week, boys and girls raised
in the work-houses of England, after having, tried
the outside world, return to these public institutions to be taken care of, admitting they are
unable to take care of themselves~
Failure is always the most telling adverse criticism upon any enterprise, and this is written upon
most of our undertaking's to lift up, by wholesale
means, our low-down population.  We lift them
up, and they stay up while we hold them up, and
so soon as we take the props of support from
under them down they fall. Charity winters them,
and Providence summers them.
It is a very great task this that lies before us
of bringing' about the millennium. The -nineteenth




174       OUIR WRETCHE]D NELIGIIBOlRS.
century has " sought out many inventions,9  but
has discovered no patent and labor-saving, machine
for curing  sin and misery~.  Whatever of ill-success stares us in the face, - although much remains
yet to be done; though certain it is that it will
take a long time to make all the people intelligyent
and virtuous, -the  vital question comes to us
stamped with divine emphasis, what is there else
for us in this world to do?  This is the meaningo
of life, - the strong  are to bear the burdens of
the weak, the wise the follies of the ignoranto
Nor yet are we without success.  One now and
then gets up, and stays up.  One out of ten of
these miserable little creatures in ral's about our
streets is inspired  by kind  worlds and  loving
hearts; strikes out on a new course; mounts up
upon good resolutions; becomes noble and useful;
takes away fronm the strenogth of vice; and adds
himself, his influence, Candl his offsprin   to the
strenoth of virtue.  And then, what?  One soul
redeemed'!There is joy in heaven over one
sinner that repenteth."  God and angels and tlhe
souls of the saints join the shouts of salvation.
Religion is strong'er than philosophy  these people




OUR TRETCHED NEIGHBORSo.            175
are our people, our brothers and sisters.  We
must not talk about theml as if they were somebody else's, and not ours.   are we going to let
our old fathers and mothers starve in the streets
because we have phlilosophized ourselves into the
notion, that, if they do not starve this day, they
certainly will some future day?   No! religion
meets this philosophy with the answer, " Sufficient
unto the day is the evil thereof."
Give a poor drunken sot and sinner one day of
virtuous sunshine and cheer; give his body ablution and his soul hope, and that is a great thing
to do.  He who does this, " lays up in store against
the time to come."   Bolts and  locks may be
wrenchecd and picked, and  bonds and coins be
stolen and destroyedl; but a virtuous deed never.
Papers engraved with promises to pay may seem,
in eternity, only blinding specks in men's eyes;
but redeemed souls will be immortal realities to
cheer the spirits of all men and women who have
turned aside for one day to care for brothers and
sisters.
Begin  in  the order of crime's developmentO
Provide against the ignorance of the people; com



176      OUR WTRET CHED NEIGHBORS.
pel the given education of every child. Let the
State become a protecting father and nursing
mother; keep pace with the increase of population everywhere in church accommodations and
influences; bring all the people, rich and poor,
under the divine power of the gospel of Jesus
Christ.  And then what of misery?  If still it
remains, relieve it.
Millennarians hold and teach that the world
will become worse and worse, the days grow darker
and darker, until the coming of the Son of m;an
when Satan shall literally be chained for a thousand
years, and Christ the King shall reign on the
earth.  This crude and foolish theology is not
only weak in the logic that supports it, but in the
facts that contravene it.  There is less sin and
misery in our time - thank God! - than of the
old  time.  "The  morning  comleth."   Wiser
methods of government and civilization are astir
in the earth.'The old things are passing away,
and, behold! all things are fast becoming new."
Philanthropy is no cheat, and religion no deception.  A All the works of nature, grace, and providence present us with boundless illustrations of




OU.R WR'ETCHED NEIGHB ORS.            177
the fulness, constancy, wisdom, and magnificence
of the well-doing of our heavenly Father." -' The
sun is ever pouring his golden light upon nunmbers of worlds which beg and borrow at his hands.
He is ever shedding his genial rays upon mountain summits and wide-spread plains; he is ever
sending his influences into the palace of the rich
and  cottage of the poor."   It was a heathen
moralist who said, " Wish well to all, and do
good only to our friends." But the clear light of
nature, which is the gospel, chargeth us to "do
good unto all men."
"'Tis not enough that we with sorrow sigh;
That we the wants of pleading man supply;
That we a sympathy with sufferers feel;
Nor hear a grief without a wish to heal.
Not these suffice: to sickness, pain, and woe,
The Christian spirit loves with aid to go;
Will not be sought, waits not for want to plead;
But seeks the duy, - nay, prevents the need."
12








TH;E ORT -_HODOX HELL.








THE ORTHODOX HELL.
T is the opinion of many well-disposed persons
that error in the form  of religious superstition has served useful ends. But this opinion, if
universally prevalent, would instantly destroy the
foundations of morality itself. Under no circumstances can error be useful.  There are sincere
persons who, themselves, count as ridiculous the
old doctrine of endless misery, but, nevertheless,
silently hold that it does good to a less intelligent sort of folks than they.  But, my friends,
silence will not do. Silence is a power. Speech
is a reformer.  The universal silence of the educated Christian pulpit upon this matter of future
hell torments is the most palpable illustration of the
moral cowardice of the modern pulpit. The pulpit is not for silence, but for speech.  If it have a
conviction, that conviction is not to be concealed,




182           THE ORTIHODOX iHELL.
but expressed.  The time was when this horrible
doctrine of endless misery was sincerely held and
sincerely taught by the Church, althoughl it never
could have been in the very nature of its own
essence a matter of consciousness. Bat in our orwn
day only the most ignorant hold it in the language
of the old formula, yet it still stands in all its
frightful proportions in the church creeds, and is
constantly, to the educated mind, damaging   the
Christianity that these creeds assume to define and
teachO
WVhat is the Orthodox statement of future punishment?  You who have heard  this series of
Sabbath evening' doctrinal lectures, I trust, will
bcar witness to my attempt to be just, sincere,
honest; and I have not a shadow of suspicion this
evening that I can misrepresent the horrors of this
old-time dogma.  Lest, however, the putting of
it into my own words, and lest the reading fiom
the old  creed wherein infants and heathen, as
well as unchristian adults, are eternally damned,
might be a misstatement to any here, I shall read
from  a recent sermon delivered by the Revo.  r.
Davidson, a Presbyterian minister, before  the
Theological School at Xenia, Ohio:




THIE OR THODOX HE1LL.            183
It is an unspeakable, terrible thing' for any
one -- Lor even a youth or a heathen -  to be lost; 
and after some poetry, which I will not read, he
says, "Nor is this al] to those who suffer least.
It is not only the loss of all, and a horrible lake
of ever-burning fire, but there are hori6ble objects,
filling  every sense and every faculty; and there are
horrible engines cand itstruments of torture. There
are the'chains of darkness,' thick, heavy, hard,
and smothering   as the gloom  of blank and black
despair, - chains strong' as the cords of Omnnipotence, indestructible and eternal as justice. WN/ith
chains like these, every link  burning  into  the
throbbing  heart, is bound each doomled, damned
soul, on a bed of burning marl, under an iron
roof, riven with tempests, and dripping with torrents of unquenchable fire."
This is not my blasphemy, but orthodoxy.  He
proceeds, " Nor is this all. Unmortified appetites,
hungry as death, insatiable as the grave, torture
it.  Every passion burning,  an unsealed volcano
in the heart.  Every base lust, a tiger unchained,
— a worm  undying, let loose to prey on soul and
body.  Pride, vanity, envy, shame, treachery,




184          THE ORTHODOX HfELL.
deceit, falsehood, fell revenge, and black despair,
malice, and every unholy emotion, are so many
springs of excruciating and ever-increasing agonies; are so many hot and stifling winds, tossing'
the swooning, sweltering soul on waves of fire.
And there will be deadly hunger, but no food;
parching thirst, but no water;  eternal fatigue,
but no rest; eternal lust of sensuous and intellectual pleasures, but no gratification.  And there
will be terrible conmpanions, or ratherfoes, there.
Eternal longings after society, but no companion,
no love and no sympathy there.  Every one
utterly selfish, hateful, and hating.  Every one
cunning, false, malignant,  fierce, fell and devilish," and so on and so on, almost too horrible to
read in the Christian pulpit.  Who believes this?
It is not extravagant.  It is in your ears to-night,
if you have heard nothing of the sort from your
infancy till now. But if it be trute in any conception; if it be true in any statement; if it be true
as the most refined Christian pulpit in Christendomn can put it; if it be true in langluage of figure
or of flower, this does not intimate its horrorso
But it is no use for us to attempt to refine, or




THEI ORTHODOX HELL.            185
smooth, or to tone it down with language.  Any
Christian pulpit that stands for an eternal misery,
stands for that, and more than words call express.
Any man who subscribes to a creed that intimates
endless misery, stands for that, and more than
that can say.  And it is no use to begin with intimating' that such a dogmna as that can be maintained.  It is simply a statement, without the
horrors of rhetoric, like this: That the momnent of
death decides, and decides for ever, the moral
destiny of man; that those who die unconverted
(this is a technical term, of course) are lost for
ever, without the possibility of restoration; that
those lost are to suffer the most grievous torment
of soul and body; that those who do not go into a
positive heaven of unending joy, do go into this
hell of positive endless misery, so that one soul in
hell suffers more than all the suffering ever endured in this world by all the people who have
ever lived in it.  Now, this question: Who are
to endure this misery?
To this there are a great many conflicting answers.  The Romanist says, - not the individual
Roomanist, not our goodly bishop, or our goodly




186          THE ORTHODOX HELL.
priest, not your Catholic neighbor, who is as bland
and courteous as you dare be - but your R-.omanist
creed says, "Every man unbaptized by priestly
Lands." The High Chlurch Episcopalian, - not our
scholarly bishop, not your intelligcent suave priest,
but'the creed of the M1igh Church Episcopalian,
says, E- ve~ery man unbaptized by priestly hands
in the historic apostolic succession."  Now  and
then some Southern bishop, comin  amlong us with
the ig'norance and superstition of a century ago, to
dedicate some new church, may be unwise enough
to put it in all its boldness, but few of us believe
that he means it.  Our Bal)tist friend (and I have
less excuse for him than any other, for le ought to
know better) says, - I do not mnean my brother
minister, who is just as good a man as I dare clain
to be, and just as wise, but the creed and the practice of the Church  from  the begiinning, — says,
~ Every man who is not baptized by immersion is
to suTer this misery."  Mfy iMethodist brother
(aind he does'nt mean it at all -I know lihe
doesn't) says that' every nian who is not converted — converted  according to his formula of
conversion - suffers this endless maisery.9




TIE OR THOD OX HFELL.           18$ 7
Now, bear witness to my charity.  I have not
accused any individiual Romanist, HTighol  Churchman, Baltist, or JAethodist of lholdinog anyr such
horrible dogm a. I simnply say that there it stands
in the creed. Last of all, my Presbyterian brother
says, - says it boldly, says it more boldly than
any one else dare say it,-   Our human responsibility has nothing to do with it.  God, from  all
eternity, selected out of the great mass of mankind a certain number to be saved, and because of
this positive selection, a certain number is passed
by."  When I was a boy, I asked my mother,
who is a good, blessed Old School Presbyterian,
why they put that in -   passed  by."  If they
elected the righteous to salvation, why didn't they
say right out, " the others to daumnation?"  BLut
it said " passed by." If Tyou can see any difference,
I] never could. It was in some way to relieve God
of the responsibility of so horrible a deed.  Now I
do not believe there is a sinlCe Presbyterian min.ister in this city that believes any such thinog.  A
thin(g I want to say is, that it is high time that
they were all honest.  If they don't believe it,
say so, and relieve Christianity of this suspicion of




188          THE ORTHODOX IHELL.
the horror that can only attach itself to a denmlon,
and not to a fatherly G-od.
Who are to suffer this misery?  There are just
two honest replies.  The first is, that nobody in
particular; and the second is, that a great many
in general.  I say nobody in particular.  You
never saw a man in all your life who was going
there himself.  You never saw a man who had
any friends on their way.  You never heard a
minister in a funeral discourse, — bear me witness, - inform his audience that the subject of it
had gone there; and you never will.  But it is a
sure thing to say that heathens, atheists, infidels,
and heretics are non-elected, and non-converted,
and going, there, for that means nobody in particular.
Now, what is an honest criticism of this dogma?
First of all, I reply that it begets atheism. What
does the scientific mind of this age mean by its
silence with regard to Christianity? Does it mean
that science has abjured God?  Does it mean
that science has no eye to see the beauty of Jesus
Christ and his doctrine?  No.  It simply means
that science has no heart to believe the mediheval




TIIE ORTIODOX IIELL.            189
superstitious dogmas that stand' for Christianity.
It means that Lyell, Huxley, and all the brilliant
names in science stand against trinity, and hell,
and substitutional commercial atonement. It does
not mean that science stands against pure, Ulndog,matic Christianity, as we find it in these beautiful
Gospels.
Only upon the hypothesis that evil is finite
and temporary, can we account for its existence
at all.  That God.could allow the eternal duration  of evil is to deny the being of God altog'ether, and  so the scientific mind prefers to
discredit a God.  The old-time re;)lv  is that
God had a right to affix conditions and penalties.  True, and he did. No man can sin without suffering;  but God had( no  rig:ht to affix
such  penalties.  It limits the sovereignty of
God. Take this proposition: If God has power
to save all men, God has the will to save all men;
and if God has the power and will to save all men,
God has the knowled ge and the method to save all
vnelcl. if we girant to God knowlecdge, beneficence,
and power, we must find some way out of this
moral difficulty, and say that all men will be




190           THE ORTHIODOX IIELL.
saved, or else we deny one of these attributes
of God.  Eithler he hasn't the power, he hasn't
the beneficence, or he hasn't the intellilgenlee   If'
he have the intelligence, if he have the benehfi
cence, if he have the power, then the result is as
certain as God is, and no rhetoric or logic under
the heavens, with or without a Bible, can suceessfully reply to this proposition.   But if evil is
et-ernal, if men are always to sin, then there is a
rival power in the universe. There is not only one
God, but two gods.  There is one God claiming, a
portion  for  his worship, and  another claiming
another for his.  But, finally, it contradicts the
fatherly love of God.  See in exact languaoe how
it stands.  1Tbhen  man is born, according to the
old theology, he is prone to evil and under sentence of wrath; that God created man with this
tendency to evil and eternal misery. But the God
of Christianity is a father. What say you to such
a father as this?  Fathers punish their children,
but they do it that the  punishment imay restult
in good to the child.  Now, I inquire, how can
eternal  punishment result in  the good of the
subject of it?  Answer me.  If God's governl




THE OR THIOD OX HEILL.            1 91
ment is for reformation, if God's government is
for salvation, how  can endless punishment save
tile subject of it?
But the arllgument which wvill weigh most with
those who have accepted the other side of this doctrine, is the scriptural argument.  The question
coines to your minds, how can you get rid of the
scriptural doctrine of endless misery?  Let us see.
It is our habit to associate the words of Scripture with the mleaning we have heard put into
themi.  So there are many passages of Scripture
that do seem in very definite and precise lang'uage
to teach this mediLval dOOngma.  "These shall go
awvtny into'cvcrlastiig- punisihment, but the rigllteous into life eternal."  The word here translated
et erlastiino'" is the very same word that is translated " eternal,' and so an honest translation  rould
have been this  e"These shall go away into eternal
punishment, but the righteous into eternal lie.I  --'lThis is eternal life to know God and Jesus Cli, isr
um.i(   lie h'ath sento"  You see by its ruse i  tllis
passage1   tllatl it has no reference wlhatever to duration, bu  to quallity.  It'is not endlessness, but
quality, of' lifeo   This is the language.'This is




192           THE ORTHODOX HELL.
life eternal,'" not that it shall be eternal life; but
it " is life eternal to know God."  The knowledge
of God is eternal life; the ignorance of God is
eternal punishment, if you please.  But eternal
is not duration.  Accept, then, the freest translation that we have, "everlasting punishment."  So
it is used all through the Scriptures.  By everlasting hills does it mean the hills are to last for ever?
For the Scripture tells us that  all things earthly
shall perish." It is a figure of speech, representing quality of strength, not duration as to time.'The fire is not quenched," is another passage.
Now, what does this mean, -  an  unquenchable
fire?  Any one who has any biblical knowledge
whatever, or pretends to it, must know that this is
a proverb quoted from Isaiah, -  a familiar proverb
amnong the Jewish people. Here used, it had reference to simple police arrangements of Jerusalem.  The offal and filth of the city were carried
away to the Valley of Gehenna, and, as a sanitary
measure, it was kept in continuous fire.  The fire
never went out, and the allusion here is simply to
that police measure of Jerusalem.  The fire is un
quenched.  It never goes out.  Then the passage




THE ORTHIODOX BELL.           193
of Lazarus and tilhe rich man simply means that
there is a fixed, impassable gulf between virtue
and vice.  You cannot confound them; you cannot confuse them. Virtue has its positive quality,
and vice has its positive quality. The man who is
in vice is in suffering; the man who is in virtue
is in happiness.
There is not a passage in the New Testament
which, when rigidly and scholarly interpreted and
translated, intimates unending misery. Now, if
the old Orthodox view is false, is there any future
misery?  Certainly.  But on the very ground
that a man believes in future misery he cannot
believe in endless misery.  I say, upon the very
logical ground that a man can believe in future
misery, he cannot believe in endless misery.
What is the rational view? That man's character is his heaven and his hell.  It is not a thing
that we can adjourn to the future.  It is a thingo
here present with us.  Here it is in our hearts.
Here is heaven; here is hell.  Both sit in the
same pew together.  It is wholly a misconception
when we can say that we are neither in heaven
nor in hell here, but will be hereafter.  What




194         THEE ORTHODOX HELL.
is there extraneous to a man's self that can make
him  miserable or happy?  Tell me. Hasn't it
been the philosophy of Christianity froml the
beginning that palaces and huts, health and sickness, have nothing to do intrinsically with a
man's happiness or misery? WVhen a man has
a good heart he is in heaven; when a man has a
vile heart he is in hell. What is there in the
mere fact of death to change a man's moral cons
dition?  Does death affect a man's moral character or simply his body?  The teaching not only
of physiology or of psychology, but the teaching
of all experience, is, that death does not affect
moral quality, but simply the body.  What is
there in death to change a man's moral quality?
Nothing whatever.  Just what he is here he will
be there. If a man takes hell into eternity with
him he will be in hell; if he takes heaven with
him he will be in heaven.  Then why may not
these conditions eternally remain fixed?  Now, I
want to quote two or three passages of Scripture
to show that that is impossible'"That in the dispensation of the fulness of times
he might gather together in one all things in Christ.."




THE ORTHOD OX HELL.          195
This is the optimism of Christiainty, - the devil
will be defeated, sin will be conquered, Christ
will reign, God will'be triumphant, and every
child shall finally come home.
" At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow,
of things in heaven, and things on earth, and
things under the earth;" and Dr. Haven, a Methodist clergyman, President of the ~Michigan State
University, in this week's " Independent," adds,
"' and every creature in God's universe " — " every
tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to
the glory of God the Father."  Here, under the
earth is, in the original, "hades,'- the word
translated hell.
And I read, " At the name of Jesus every knee
shall bow, all things in heaven, in the earth, and
things under the earth," -not hell, &c.  "And
having made peace by the blood of the cross, by
him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him
whether they are things on earth or things in
heaven.  As in Adam all died, even so in Christ
shall all be made alive."
What means, if it has any meaning, the beautiful parable of the prodigal' He was lost and




196. THE OR THODOX HEILL.
is found, was dead and is alive"?  Go you and find
one piece of silver that is lost; be careless about
the ninety and nine. Go you and find one sheep;
be careless of the ninety and nine who are at
pasture or in the fold.
Brethren, friends, - If I had in my heart any
honest suspicion that there were endless ages of
eternal punishment, and that the God whom I
have called upon in your presence to-night could
have a heart so cold and indifferent to any of his
children.; if I had a suspicion that God could
live and know that one child was still in sin,
without sending out that blessed spirit which
comes down to us to-night to win and woo our
love, I should turn atheist in your presence; I
would have no God; I could worship no God.
Why is God limited by this brief life-tine of
ours? We live and we live in ignorance; we live
and we live under this terrible cloud of superstition that has been handed down by the Church
from the medieval auges.
My argument for the restoration of all men is
not only in these scriptural passages, not only in
this optimism of'the New Testament, but it is ill




THE ORTHODOX HELL.            197
the yery nature of revealed God and Christianity.
Either this is so, or atheism is true.  Now, does
this view lower the standard of God's righteousness?  No.  The other view robs it of righteousness; this exalts it.  Does this view move men's
consciences, and make them pure?  Yes, let me
answer.  I read this very day (probably you
did), that the wife of an honorable member of our
National Congress, from1 the State of New York
(Lockport, I think), had recently gone madsuddenly - I think, last Monday - through the
preaching of the Rev. Mr. Hlammond, an orthodox minister.  When I was a pastor of a Methodist Church, in this city, I attended two or three
of his meetings.  He had hundreds of little children before him.  I never so shuddered, I never
so felt that Christianity was misrepresented.  I
heard this man tell little children that they were
condemned; that they were under the wrath of
God; that, unless they were converted, they were
hell-boundc   I saw little children shudder and
weep and cry and tremble.   I saw  little children almost crazed by this horrible heathenish
preaching.  No wonder that an intelligent woman




198          TME ORTHODOX HELL.
if she accepted it at all, has been crazed.  And I
simply say, that this doctrine of an endless hell
has never yet terrified man's heart; it simply terrifies his nerves.  If it has saved men at all, it has
been througuh terror, and not through purification.
I wish to say, and to say just as boldly as I can,
that if truth cannot save a man, terror and error
never will.
Dear friends, in the name of God, whose character I love, whose character I dare not misrepresent, I call you to.His love and His service, not
because I threaten you with endless misery - I
have no name, not even one on earth, in which
I can threaten, certainly not God's; but, in the
name of His infinite mercy, in the name of His
unceasing tender love, in the name of His infinite
goodness revealed in Jesus Christ, I ask you to
virtue.  I assure you that if a man lives in virtue,
and has the favor of God, he lives in heaven and
lives in peace. I forewarn every man in this congregation, I forewarn every young man to whoml
I have spoken these plain, earnest, candid words
of truth, as I hold them, that you cannot trifle
with sin, you cannot trifle with God.  There have




THE OR THODOX HELL.           199
been times in yuur life when hell was nothing to
you whatever, whether it were true or false; but
there have been times when hell has "got hold
on you," as the psalmist says.  That secret day of
evil; that night of licentiousness and debauchery;
that night when you seemed to feel, fresh upon
your hot cheeks, your mother's warm  lips, the
memory of your mother's interest and your mother's
counsel that comes of love, -when you have
said, as you turned away from your debauchery
and your disobedience and your sin, " I am undone, I am wretched.  I have steeled my heart
against the counsel of my mother and the prayers
of my father."  This is what I want you to do,
-to open your heart to all purity and gentleness
aLnd kindness, to steel it against all unrighteousness, sin, and depravity; and may God Alnmighty
be unceasing in his tendcerness, unceasing in his
mercy, unceasing in his watchfulness, and let his
benediction and blessing come upon you.








XIo
LOVE OF THE TRUTH.








LOVE OF THE TRUTH.
6 THEY RECEIVED NOT THE LOVE OF THE TRIUTH, THAT THEY
MBIGHT BE SAVED." - 2 Thessalonians ii. 10.
HE  priests of  Mercury, in eating of their
holy things, were wont to cry out, " Sweet
is the truth."  And no tongue in all time has
dared to gainsay this maxim.  With such reverence has the truth been held, no man has even
ventured to concede that he spake against its
interest, or otherwise than in its behalf.  Every
apostle from  the beginning has claimed to be its
teacher, and this has been alike his inspiration and
his credential. There may have been times when
philosophic atheism  has called good evil and evil
good; there mlay come times again when scientific
materialism  lmay confuse and confound all virtue
and vice, and make of morality only a convenient
utilitarianism~.  But there never has been a time,




204          LOVE OF THE TRUTHT
and never can be a time, when it will be claimed
that error is better than truth; and should it ever
come to pass that all moral distinctions are thrown
aside as priestly delusions, this too will be upon
the pretext that it is in the service of human
progress, and so of a higher truth.
This term, truth, has often been subject to
shifting  scales of measurement, and a matter of
scenic effects, for it has more frequently been a
thing of semblance than substance. Men familiar
with the history of speculative opinions, and themselves of reverent spirit, are in the ever-present
danger of removing absolute truth at so great a
distance from  the realm  of practical realities, as
to make unreal the thing' itself.  Probably this is
the explanation of the fact that eminent thinkers
are so seldom earnest workerso
Error has had more martyrs than truth, but
this was because  the terms were convertibleo
There was a sense in which error was truth.
Each man receives impressions through the medium  of his own personality;  and this is the
sum  total of his temperament,  his intellect, his
prejudices, loves, and hopes.  The light is ab



LOVE OF THE TRUTH.             205
solute, but it falls upon the congregation of wor-shippers through the medium  of colored glass.
The worshippers see it not as it is, but as it seems.
In this state of things we are not to be content,
certainly, but pursue the attempt to get rid of the
reflecting mediums.  The very first step to be
talien is to open our minds to the knowledge that
we are in these little temples surrounded by these
many-colored windows through which the absolute
truth of God is made the relative truth or relative error of man.  It does no good to declaim.
We are certain it would be all darkness, even in
our temples, if the light were not shining without.
It is better to have this red light and blue light
by which to read the pages of our prayer books
than to have no light at all.  Only we are not to
contend that this is the light just as it streams
clown from God's throne. Sincerity demands that
we shall tell it abroad that these various colorings
are the handicraft and contrivance of man.  Because error is called truth it is no reason we
should make short work of our logic, and say
"There is no truth."  For some things have been
settled and are not in controversy. It is a mathe



206           LOVE, OF THE TRUTH.
mnatical truth that two and two are four; it is a
chemical truth that alkali and acid will effervesce;
it is a scientific truth that the earth is spherical; it
is a moral truth that right is best. But this statemaent does not exhaust the whole category of
truths.  Nature never makes a full revelation of
herself all at once.  Truth  imitates her elder
sister, is herself prudent and veiled.  Nor does
the light ever go entirely out.  Moses, Christ,
and Spinoza are the priests whose duty it is to
keep alive the fire upon the altar.  Lord Bacon
tells us, "Men create oppositions which are real;
and put them into new terms so fixed, as whereas
the meaning ought to govern the term, the term
in effect governeth the meaning."  This inference
is well taken and wisely put:'Certainly, it is
heaven upon earth, to have a muan's mind move
in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the
poles of truth."  Nothing is more lamentable than
the evident fact that so few really rest in this
kingdcom  which is always "at hand."
Perhaps it is in some sense inevitable that all
men should enter this divine temple through certain doors of prejudice, even if they ente' it at all.




L O,,% 01' o111,'  T1R UUT.    207
The graceful author of Gentle Life repeats
the venerable Joe Miller's story, of an old lady
who "once heard her son discourse of flyingfish.'Now, Jack,' cried she,'I am1  an old
woman; but I. am not an old fool.  Don't tell
me any lies.  Flying fish, indeed! how can fish
fly?' Her son, noting the obstinacy of the old
lady, immediately winked at his companions, and
commenced in another vein, which was to the
effect that in passing up the Red Sea they let
down the anchor, which, when they weighed
it, had hooked up a large wheel that turned out
to be one of the wheels of Pharaoh's chariot.'Ah,' said his m1other,'there is some sense in
that, Jack; Pharaoh was drowned there, and I'll
believe that.  Stick to the truth, Jack, there's a
good boy.' To the tongues of most men the
morsel of an old error is better than the flavor
of a new truth; for only few of us have learned,
with John Foster, that truth is a sphere and not a
line.  Prejudice is a child of the heart, and few
parents are indifferent in their care of this offspring, - any thing that comes between the heart
and this object of love is suspected as a domestic




208          LO VE OF THE TR U TI
enemy. A certain American bishop was educated
at Andover, and was requested whilst there to
deliver lectures against the episcopacy. He began
his investigations for the lectures, and, lo and behold i he turned out an Episcopalian; but this was
not the great thing that resulted, for he landed
finally in being a tolerant ecclesiastic, and to-day
commands our respect as the only learned broad
Churchman in the College of Bishops.
It is not blamlable that we are the votaries of
given opinions, but wrong that we set ourselves
to maintain these as against the truth.  5M[ontaigne says, in one of his weigohty essays, "I cannot easily persuade myself that Epicurus, Plato,
and Pythagoras have given us their stoms, Ideas,
and Numbers for articles of our faith. They were
too wise to establish things so uncertain and so
disputable for their credenda."
But the greatest enemies of truth are not the
army of bigots, for these wage an open warfare.
These we can meet with the steel of logic. eBut
it is painful to know  that error is held in the
name of truth.  Men plume themselves upon consistency, upon believing to-day what they have




LOVE OF THE TRUTH.            209
always believed. This is a burden which science,
as well as religion, has to bear. God's universe
is the field, and all its stories of the past would
soon be told, if only the workers in this field were
toiling' for the truth.  Some old theory put into
print decades ago is to be supported, and as the
Pope attends well to what the manuscripts of the
Vatican speak aloud, so these priests of Nature
conceal as well as reveal God's handwriting in rocks
and fossils.
Truth is better than consistency.  It is no
virtue in any man to be consistent; it is usually
the sure sign of intellectual or moral vanity.
Each should feel it put upon him by the common law of human fidelity to do something to
put a new meaning into this word vacillation;
he does not vacillate who changes, but grows.
It is not vacillation in a tree that its branches are
wider spreading this year than last, nor yet in an
architect that his designs are more florid for the
new building than the old one he planned.
In the Academy of Beautiful Arts at Venice is
a painting by one of its pupils, of Titian meeting
Paul Veronese in St. Mark's Square.  The old
14




210          LOVE OF THlE TRUTH.
master is leisurely walking with members of his
family, and is attracted by the beautiful form and
divine features of the youth who afterward became
his most renowned disciple. Titian asks to see
the portfolio of drawings the modest and unconscious boy carries under his arm, and Lona puts
with marvellous spirit and coloring this historic
jewel upon canvas, just at the point where Tin
tian's face is full of pride at the great genius of
Veronese, and the countenance of the beautiful
youth is fiull of the gloiy of hope.  Other boys
and companions are in the ecstasy of pride that
Paul is noticed by the great painter, and gather
close about him: the young ladies of the family
look with ming'led surprise and delight upon the
drawing's.  Titian says, "Be true to yourself and
fame will be true to you."  After looking with
inexpressible pleasure and emotion upon this, to
to me, one of the greatest modern works of art, I
returned to the saloon of the same gallery where
were hung, side by side, the first and last paintl
ings of Titian, - the visit of Filizabetl to  coary,
painted when he was fourteen years of age, and the.Entombmnzet, with which he was still engaged at




LOVE OF THE TRUTH.             211
the time of his death in his ninety-ninth year.
Two things were at once stamped upon my mind.
Of course the first was Titian's growth.  This I
marked in all his pictures wherever I saw them.
But the second and greatest thing was his fidelity
to himself: what inspiration put in him he faithfully put upon canvas.  He was true to himself
and fame has been true to him. But Titian never
did so grand a thing as when he inspired Veronese
with the same spirit of truth.  For I am almost
certain that when the worldcl comes to reckon truth
as the divinest thing, in all art, Veronese, in this
quality, will rank only second to laphael.  And
the one thing that lifts Raphael into a higher realm
of art than other spirits ever essayed to gaze into,
is the fact that he was always absolutely consumed of the truth.
The transJfiyut ation is true to the most adranced criticism of the nineteenth century.  The
Jesus of Raphael is not a God, is not a demi-gocd,
but is still the human friend of Peter, James, and
John.  He is a man  in whomn dwelleth the fulness of the godhead bodily."  Never was Jesus
so real to me before.  Renan is put to shalme




212          LOVE OF THE TRiUTH.
by this old master of the sixteenth century; and
Mark and John knew Jesus no better than he.
The greatest benefactors of the race are the
men who add most to the sumn of absolute truth.
I know of nothing more paralyzing to the finest
life in each man than indifference to truth.  To
know and speak the truth puts upon us a great
sense of responsibility, and there is no more paralyzinog feeling than the one that prompts us to say,
" I can do but little to hinder it or help it."
The truth is not a toy balloon which, with an
elastic cord, one can throw up and pull down at
pleasure, and yet in just this unserious spirit it is
sported with.  To me Romish ecclesiasticism has
brought forth only fruits of death.  I have seen
with my own eyes virtue scoffed at by its priesthood, truth made into a lie by its interpretations,
and filth lurking in the skirts of its friars.  I
claim  to love my children, but how can I prove
it, if, with these convictions, I should put their
education in its keeping,?
I cannot put up virtue by practising vice; I
cannot stop the spirit of superstition by carnal
weapons, or even by uncharitable tirades; I have




L     o rOF 0o THE T RUTH.      213
no warrant in the example of Jesus, or the spirit
of religion, to call in question the sincerity of
others; but I can do nothing less than act upon
the sense of my own sincerity.  Salvation begins
here, —when a man is unreal to himself he is
unreal to the world.
"This, above all, to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the clay,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
The complaint of the text is not that these
Thessalonian disciples did not receive the truth,
but they did not receive the love of the truth.  It
may be the misfortune of a man to be in error
and yet love the truth, but it is the crime of a
man to be in error and not love the truth.  It
is the love of the truth that brings salvation to
the soul.  Indifference to truth  is atheism  to
God. Love of the truth was the inspiration and
miracle-working power in the life of our Iaster,
and this is the first condition of our fellowship
with him.
It will dominate in the end when the time




214         LOVE OF THE TRUTH.
comes.  We may not enter the millennium of its
reign, but like old crusaders, or pilgrims, we may
turn our faces toward the holy city, and its glory,
if we seek it, will shine unto us.




THINGS WHICH ENDURE.








THINGS WHICH ENDURE.
TIHE THINGS WHI-ICH ARE NOT SEEN ARE ETERNAL." -— 2 0'2liZ
thians iv. 18.
-pHILOSOPHY and science are not yet agreed
that all things are not eternal.  Philosophy
can give no good reason for doubting the eternity
of all essence; and science can give no data going
to prove that matter was ever created.  But this
doubt flies in the face of the Mosaic account; and,
as this is assertive and positive, it holds its way in
the acceptance of the people over the negative
doubt and tentative theory.
Neither philosophy nor science is any nearer a
satisfactory theory of the origin of things than
they were when they commanded less attention
and respect than now. We cannot prophesy what
the issue of all things will be; and we cannot
know what the beginning of all things was.




218         THIINGS WTIII CH END UREo.
We have only presumptive grounds for saying
that the essence of all things is eternal; that is,
without beginnino and without end.  We are on
this island of time, -the present:  for us the
past and future of eternity are uncharted oceans.
AWe know what is, not what was and what is to
to be.
That there are perishable forms we know; that
there is perishable essence we do not believe.
The forms are the things that, are seen, which are
temporal; the essence is the one thing that is
unseen, which is eternal.  The palpable is perishable; the unpalpable is enduring.
In history, one can seldom trace with any great
degree of satisfaction the fundamental causes of
great results; the causes are unseen, but are eternally operative; the outward results take to themselves forms for the time: these forms give way
before the coming of others, -   the things which
are seen are temporal."  The essence is unclothed
from generation to generation, but the thing which
is not seen is eternal.
The earth may change its form, has changed its
form, therefore will change its form; but the es



THINGS WHICH ENDURE.           219
sence is still in the earth an unchangeable, imperl
ishable quality.
Pyramids may finally decay; the spirit that
builded them lives on. Groves, temples, mosques,
churches, may perish; religion, that inspired the
building these, never.
No eye hath ever seen the influence of the sun
upon the earth, the influence of the sun upon the
moon, the influence of the planets upon one
another.  The surface of the earth. and the very
depths of nature are constantly changing', but no
eye hath seen the influences as they operate to
brineg about this change.  The'results of influence
we see, the thing itself is unseen.  Herein the
wisdom of God is the foolishness of man.  Man
is for evermore casting about for great and ostentatious causes, but great causes are not ostentatious.  The universe is as peaceful as an infant's
sleep.  The snow melts, and the earth relaxes;
the grass grows, and flowers bloom; the perfume
of the orange is abroad, and no sounding of trumpets is heard in all the land.
The seasons come and go; the years roll on;
man is born and man dies; societies are fostered,




220         THINGS TVHEI CI IA-D URE.
and communities decay; nations rise up, and
thrones pass away. ~ The ceaseless years are God's,
and the people are the sheep of his care.  God
breathes in the lungs of the insect, and is abroad
on the wing of the sparrow.
Our eyes are affected by undulations occurring
four hundred and -eighty-two millions of times in
a second, as we fix them upon the scarlet of the
geranium or the violet of the daisy.
Development goes on when no eye is awake to
see.  The spark becomes the conflag'ration, and
the springt of the mountain-side hurries on and
widens into the ogreat comlmeice-bearingl river.
The seeds of change are sown in silence; night
dews water them, but they bear fruit in the hearts
of millions.
When Bonaparte was an unpatronized, needy
adventurer, the generosity of Talma cheered him,
aided him, and held him back from suicide; and
then what had been the history of the nineteenth
century?  But following the money loan, thrones
were emptied, kingdoms redistributed, millions
slain, Wellington a duke, and the third Napoleon
an emperor.




THINGS TVIzICH E NDURE.        221
Cromwell was actually once on board a ship in
the Thames, one of a company set upon emaig'rating from the country which he afterwards ruled.
But an "Order in Council" came down forbidding them to sail.  Cromwell turned back to his
foes, to become thereafter the victor of Marston
Moor and Worcester figThts.
D'Israeli says, " While Britain retains her awful
situation among the nations of Europe, the Sylva
of Evelyn will endure with her triumphant oaks.
In the third edition of that work, the heart of the
patriot exults at its result.  He tells Charles I.
how many millions of timber-trees, besides infinite
others, have been propagated and planted at the
instigation, cnd by the sole direction, of this
work.
"It was an author in his studious retreat who,
casting a prophetic eye on the age we live in,
secured the victories of our naval sovereignty.
"Inquire at the admiralty how the fleets of Nelson were constructed, and they can tell you that
it was with the oaks which the genius of Evelyn
planted."
Martin Luther was the reformer of Germany,




222        THIN'GS TWHICfH ENDURE.
throug'h the writings of John Ituss the reformer
of Bohemia.
The great revolutions in the history of man
have been carried on by that secret creation of
minds invisibly operating on human affairs.
When Charles II. was importuned to communicate something of a private nature, the subtle
monarch said, " Can you keep a secret?" — "Most
faithfully," returned the nobleman.  "So can I,"
was the severe answer of the king.  This is the
reply Nature is constantly making to our inquiries
concerning her eternal secrets.  Nature will not
tell us whence she came and whither she goes.
We know not what the influences are that have
brought about the great historic results.
Wesley was already wrapped in the flames of
Epworth rectory, that fearful night it was burned
to the ground.  One bold, strong' man mounted
to the shoulders of another, and reached to the
window where the child, just awakened stood in
fright and agony, and lifted him from his peril.
The name of Wesley is known wherever Christianity has had its votaries; the name of the man




THINGS WTHICH ENDUlRE.        223
who saved his life and gave him to the world is
unheard and unknown.
The influence which each man exerts is eternal,
yet it is unseen; it feeds itself like a spring and
increases like a river in a vale.
WVhatever a mani is, that sum total of his beliefs,
affections, and habits, is ever reflecting itself upon
the spirits and character of others, and through
these upon others, and so on for ever from generation to generation.
Nero is repeating his life in a thousand other
lives' it speaks, it moves, and walks abroad.  To
one man it is a warning, to another an example.
Can William  Wilberforce ever cease to be?
Think not only of the great results he achieved,
but the unknown things that he did. No poor
man remnained needy when he knew it, and before
he died, he said, in the words of a great Christian
faith, "I doubt not my children will fare better
even in this world for real happiness, than if I
had been saving ~20,000 or ~30,000 of what has
been given away."
The great practical charities of Colston are all
abroad in Eng]land, and in these and through these




224        THINGS WIICH END RE.
his unseen spirit will live for ever. Upon one
occasion one of his richly laden vessels had been
long time missing, and the violent winds which
had prevailed gave good reason for supposing
she had perished, and Colston gave her up for
lost.  But he did not lament his misfortune.
It is told of him that he resigned himself to
God, and went forthwith and enlarged his gifts
to charity.  Only a little while and one came
and informed him that his ship had come safely
to port, he quietly and quaintly remarked, "She
does not belong to me, but to God; I had given
her up."  He sold cargo, ship, and all, and distributed to the poor; and through his children's
children he will live on for ever.
Most of us pass our days in this great masquerade of events, and yet these never cease to
interrogate us, "Why look ye on us?"-  "We
are but things seen and temporal."  Why should
we be compelled in the deep consciousness of our
souls so often to cry out and aloud, "Oh what
shadows are we, and what shadows we pursue "
There are myriads of better angels coming to
us daily, and beckoning our souls to  higher




TIIN~G S WHICH E ND URE.         225
thoughts; enticing their voices are, as they tell of
the things that are unseen and eternal.
Men are not certain of the eternal identity of
the soul, which is theological immortality; but no
man can deny the eternal influence of the soul,
which is practical immortality.
The hard, cold, heartless man lives in the heartlessness which his spirit begets: he cannot die,
he cannot cease to be, he enters into the texture
of all malignant natures.  You cannot arrest evil
influence, sooner could you stay the fires of the
volcano.
iiss Carpenter, single-handed, lands at Calcutta, and presents herself before the wisest men
of that great city to plead for the education of the
native women. Prejudice, caste, custom, religion,
are all in the way, but all true progress is of slow -
growth, like the coming of the sun on the mountain-sides; and, to-day, there are already organized
schools for girls in many of the cities of far-away
India.  Thousand of little girls speak her name
as martyrs speak the name of Jesus.  The names
of those who are leaders of fashion and caterers to
selfishness will perish, but their follies will follow
15




22 6        THINGXS WHI CH END URE.
them; while this noble woman without means, but
only a woman's heart, clamoring not for power,
but wisely using that meed of inward authority
with which every true woman is born, sails the
seas, and touches withthemagic wand of truth a
nation's civilization.  Virtue goes out from  her:
it heals the bloody issues of forty centuries; it
makes women of slaves; it melts the chains
forged by sin and prejudice; and gives new hope
to this old nation.   So long as India contains
a woman, will this influence be felt.
This is the story of a womian's love for woman.
Love never dies.
An English writer says, " That night I was out
late; I returned by the Lee cabin about eleven
o'clock. As I approached, I saw a strange looking
object cowering under the low eaves.  A cold rain
was falling; it was autumn. I drew near, and
there was Millie wet to the skin.  Her father had
driven her out some hours before; she had lain
down to listen for the heavy snoring of his drunken
slumbers, so that she might creep back to her bed.
Before she heard it, nature seemed exhausted, and
she fell into a troubled sleep, with rain-drops pats




THlINGS WHICH END URE.         227
tering upon her.  I tried to take her home with
me, but no; true as a martyr to his faith, she
struggled from me, and returned to the now dark
and silent cabin.  Things went on for weeks and
months, but at length Lee grew less violent, even
in his drunken fits, to his self-denying child; and
one day, when he awoke from a slumber after a
debauch, and found her preparing breakfast for
him, and singing a childish song, he turned to
her, and, with a tone almost tender, said,'N1illie,
what makes you stay with me?'
"'Because you are my father, and I love you.'
"'You love me,' repeated the wretched man;'you love mze!' He looked at his bloated limbs,
his soiled and ragged clothes:' Love me,' he still
murmured::'Millie, what makes you love me? I
am a poor drunkard: everybody else despises me;
why don't you?' —'Dear father,' said the girl,
with swimming eyes,'my mother taught me to
love you, and every night she comes from heaven
and stands by my little bed, and says,'Millie,
don't leave your father; he will get away from
that rum fiend some of these days, and then how
happy you will be."'




228          TITINGS WHIIIC  END URE.
The quiet, persistent love of this child was the
redemption of this man.  "He that dwelleth in
God, ciwelleth in love."
" Mightier far
Than strength of nerve and sinew, or the sway
Of magic potent over sun and star,
Is love, though oft to agony- distrest,
And though its favorite seat be gentle woman's breast."
This unseen power of love is eternal; the unseen forces are the imperishable ones; the unseen
elements in the growth of every thing are the vital
ones; the roots that strike down into the warm
and winsome earth, the hidden juices of these roots
that flow into the body of the great oak, the sunshine that sports among its branches, and in a
secret way touches and warms the inner life of
this forest monarch, - these unseen forces, and not
the far-spreading boughs and rich foliage of the
tree, are the eternal ones.
Spirit, influence, love, - these, like the brook,
flow on for ever; yet they are not always, but seldom, the ostensible agencies in the world.
Religion takes to itself different names and different meanings in different lands, and different
centuries; but the vital thing of allegiance to God




TRINGS WHIICH E:ND URE.         229
and trust in himl is the same in all: its outward
forms and symbols may perish, but its essence
never!
A  mother's blood and influence pass into the
blood and character of the child; we may not
trace his greatness and his deeds back to her, but
she, though unseen, is in them  all; she lives on
througlh children's children.  About all we know
of the mother of Nero is that she murdered her
husband, the Emperor Claudius, forty years after
marriagc.  kNero was a cruel emperor, but his
mother was a murderess. Poor, poor Byron; but
his mother was a woman of hasty, violent, and
unrestrained temper.
Thinkl of the career of Wesley, and then, hear
wlhat he says of' his mother: " God never blessed
a human creature with a more cheerful disposition,
a more generous spirit, a sweeter temper, or a
tenderer heart.  I remember that when I first understood what death was, and beg'an to think of it,
the most fearful thouught it induced was that of
losingr my mother; it seemed to me more than I
could bear, and I used to hope that I might die
before her."




230         THINGS WHICH  _END URE.
The heart of Washington never ceased to turn
toward his mother for inspiration even as prophets
look to God,.
In the great religious reformation of England,
and political revolution of America we trace these
important events to the unseen spirits and influences
of the mothers of W7esley and Washington.
So in the growth of nations there are vital instrumentalities perpetually but silently operating" the
outward and ostentatious ones soonest perish, but
the unseen ones are eternal.  We do not know
what life is or whence it came; we cannot say
whether it is extraneous to matter or inherent in
matter. We cannot say whether life is function,
the creation of organism, or absolutely independent of these.  We only know that life is.  That
this life has relations with two distinct and ever
separating worlds  the one of flesh, the other of
spirit; the one is temporal, and the other eternal.
The undertone of humanity's cry always has
been, and still is, for the revelation of those things
that are not seen.  We sigh for these, because
being immortal, we claim kinship in something that
shall not pass away but endure.




THINGS WHCnI Ch ENDURE.        231
Our poor aching hearts have been disappointed
and chilled by fleeting friendships and vanishing
hopes; they have been clothed upon in darkness,
as death has invaded the homle where our love
rei gned, and we have cried out in anguish, but in
hope, "is there nothing enduring; is every thing
like the grass and the fashion of it; is the morning dew at the coming of the sun the type of the
evanescence of all beauty, peace, and joy; or are
there things that we see not, that God has in
reserve for us?"
Yes, oh yes! monitions of heaven come to us
here.  There is a divine love running through
all the centuries of human life, and no soul is
lost firom  this silken  cord; our eyes cannot
behold them, for we have eyes of flesh, but they
sparkle like diamonds in the eyes of angels and
God.
"My chief conception of heaven," said Robert
Hall to Wilberforce, " is rest."'-" Mine," replied
Wilberforce, "is love."
We know not where heaven is; we know not
where the sainted souls are.




232           THINGS WEIICH ENDURE.
"We that have found some fledged bird's nest may know
At first sight if the bird be flown;
But what fair field or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown."
But somewhere in this life of God, the life that wm
once saw and see no more is eternal.
"Oh! bring us home at last,
Thou who didst guide us when our morn was bright;
Darkness is falling fast,
Gather thy children home before the night.
"Oh! bring us home at last,The evening mists steal o'er us, damp and chill,
While autumn's moaning blast
Sweeps in sad music over vale and hill.
"Oh! bring us home at last!
Have we much further through the night to go?
Have we not almost passed
The wilderness? Thou wilt not leave us so.
"Oh! bring us home at last,
Our Father! bid our weary wanderings cease,
Uplift the veil o'ercast
Between our spirits and the home of peace."
Cambridge: Printed by John Wilson and Son.