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SERMONS

PREACHED IN

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Rev. LEONARD BACON, D.D., LL.D.,

Rev. GEORGE LEON WALKER, D.D.,
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ON THE OCCASION OF THE ^SETTLEMENT OF THE LATTER IN THE
MINISTRY OVER THAT CHURCH.

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the Church in its locality.

A SERMON

At the Induction of the

REV. GEORGE LEON WALKER, D.D.

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INTO THE PASTORAL OFFICE
IN THE
First Church in Hartford,
February 27, 1879.

BY
LEONARD BACON,
Pastor-Emeritus of the First Church in New Haven.

HARTFORD, CONN.:
The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co. Print.
1879.

SERMON.

Rev. ii. 13. I know thy works and where thou dwellest.
It is among the most obvious inferences from these
epistles addressed to " the seven churches," that Christ,
in whose name the epistles are written, has an interest
in the welfare and prosperity of every local or partic
ular church. At that early period a church had been
instituted in each of the principal cities of procon
sular Asia, and to each of those churches, as to a
distinct community responsible for itself, a distinct
communication is sent, proceeding as from the lips of
the glorified Saviour, and conveying to that church his
special messages of censure and of commendation, of
warning and of encouragement.
To the church at Pergamos, the Saviour says, among
other things, " I know thy works, and where thou
dwellest, even where Satan's seat is, and thou holdest
fast my name, and hast not denied my faith." In this
it is implied that the church addressed — and therefore
every church — has local relations and responsibilities,
and that the character of the place in which it dwells
must be considered in the estimate of its works — that
is, of what it has done as compared with what it ought
to do.
Taking, then, the suggestion which the text gives
us, I propose to speak of the church as a local institu
tion. It is in local institutions of one kind and

another that civilization, and especially the civilization
of a free people, organizes itself. For example, our
civilization — the civilization which surrounds us here
— is organized in that way. Not only is the city itself,
with all its municipal rights and functions, a local
institution, but you have other institutions contrib
uting in various ways to the wealth or welfare of the
community — commercial institutions, such as banks
and other trading corporations — institutions of learn
ing and education, such as the schools, the college,
and the learned societies — institutions of charity, such
as hospitals and asylums. These are among the
institutions of the place that have their part as per
manent organizations — and each its own part — in
making the place what it is. In these epistles, intro
ductory to the Apocalypse, the gospel is regarded as
having established itself at Pergamos, and at each of
the cities named, in the form of a local institution —
the church. Just so Christianity, wherever it obtains
a foothold, organizes itself, and cannot but organize
itself, in the form of local or parochial churches.
Thus this church has its position among the local
institutions of your city. Nay, it was in fact the
earliest institution here — older than the town itself —
older than the name of Hartford. Even the soil on
which we stand to-day — the soil on which the more
than forty thousand people of this city have their
homes — was acquired from the wild natives for the
very purpose of planting here this church of Christ
as the center around which all other local institutions
were to rise in due succession — the nucleus of that
Christian civilization before which the wilderness was
to pass away.
Let us recollect, then, what the institution is which

5
we are to consider. What do we mean by " the
church " when we speak of it as a local institution ?
I answer: I. It is a worshiping congregation or society of
Christians and Christian families. It is an association
of families, and not a mere aggregation of individuals.
Christianity, considered as an organized power, having
its work and influence in human society, begins with
the Christian constitution of the family. It goes into
the household to consecrate all the relations of domes
tic duty and affection, to illuminate with the light of
devotion and of immortal hope, not only the vicissi
tudes of gladness and of grief, but all the quiet cur
rent of domestic life and love, and to appropriate for
its own divine uses all the gentle influences and all
the graceful and blessed sanctities that fill the sphere
of home. Thus, the local church, instead of being
made up of individuals isolated from each other like
the shareholders in a trading corporation, is made up,
like the State, of individuals grouped in natural rela
tions, bound together by all natural ties, and acting
upon each other by all the diversified influences of
natural affection. This constitution of the church —
if it be indeed a Christian church, alive with Chris
tian truth and love — is the first condition of its work
and influence as a local institution. Look at a church
in its actual coming together. Stand at the doors of
that assembly when the bright morning of the Chris
tian Sabbath summons from their homes the scattered
worshipers. How do they come? Not one by one,
in silent loneliness, but in cheerful, loving groups and
companies. Here are father and mother, arm in arm,
leading their little children to the house of prayer;
here are brothers and sisters, here the affectionate

greetings of kindred and friends, here a newly wedded
pair, here aged worshipers whose feeble steps keep
pace with the steps of children's children, old age and
infancy walking together to the holy place. See, then,
how much of human society in its mutual affections
and mutual duties — how much of human life in its
tenderest and most sacred sympathies — is incorporated
with the life and local influence of the local church.
2. Recollect now why these worshipers and wor
shiping households are thus associated. It is for com
munion in the worship of God, and for the enjoyment
of all Christian privileges and influences. It is for
their own religious edification and progress, so that
each family and each individual soul may have the
benefit of constant religious teaching and exhortation,
and may be aided in all the duties and conflicts of a
religious life ; it is for mutual defense against worldly
influences, so that they may all help each other to
withstand the pressure of those currents of ungodly
example and fashion that carry along as with resistless
force the children of disobedience; and finally it is
for aggressive action and influence, so that the light
of Christian truth set forth in all the forms of Chris
tian teaching, and commended not only to the con
science by the dignity of Christian example, but also
to the affections by the persuasive power of neighborly
kindness, may enter with its new-creating efficacy the
homes of all, whether rich or poor, whether elevated
and refined by knowledge or depressed by ignorance
and neglect.
3. Remember also, that, in the local institution
which we are considering, all the members, in propor
tion to their gifts and the measure of their influence,
are to cooperate for that common cause which is the bond

of their union. In whatever church there is a free
development of the Christian spirit, there, whatever
the special form of organization, and whatever the titles
of officers or the distribution of duties among them,
something of zeal and activity in the common cause
must needs pervade the body. That member of the
church, who, instead of caring for the cause, cares
only for his own accommodation and that of his fam
ily, is a dead branch of the vine, or at best one that
bears leaves only, and not clusters. There is no living
Christ in that man whose religious zeal exhausts itself
in providing for him and his family a convenient pew
in some orthodox and respectable place of worship, and
who counts it no concern of his that there are multi
tudes around him living in a neglectful ignorance of
God's word, profaning the Sabbath, despising the
Saviour, and dying in their sins. A church made up
of such members may deem itself rich, but it is poor —
may have a name to live, but it is dead.
4. Nor may it be overlooked that the local church
is designed to be a permanent institution. Liable as it
may be to decay, and even to removal and extinction,
it is not to be regarded as if it were in its nature a tem
porary association — like a partnership in business, or
like any ordinary association of individuals for pleasure
or for mutual improvement — an association that takes
no hold on society at large, and that depends for its
continued existence on the convenience, the caprice,
or the unsteady zeal of those who, having formed it
for their own ends, relinquish it when those ends are'
either gained or defeated. The local church is not like
a tent pitched to-day for a temporary use, and removed
to-morrow ; it ought rather to be like some grand tem
ple, built not for the present only, but for distant ages,

and standing on its deep foundations while everything
around it suffers change. The local church, existing
for ends that are both permanent and sacred, taking
up and consecrating to those ends so much of human
thought and sympathy, incorporating with its own life
so much of the life of society, and intertwining its
influences with all the influences that tend to advance
or guard the welfare of civilized communities, has its
position, if it is rightfully constituted and conducted,
among the most permanent institutions of the place in
which it is established. A true seedling of the tree
of life, it strikes its roots deep into the soil prepared
for it; it draws its steady growth from all the elements ;
it gets strength out of the storms with which it battles ;
year after year it spreads out its branches in a broad
ening canopy ; from age to age the weary and fainting
sit under its shadow with delight ; and its leaves are
for the healing of the nations.
" I know thy works," said Christ to the church at
Pergamos, " and where thou dwellest." Let us think,
then, what the local church ought to do — what its
works should be in the place where it dwells.
I. The whole work of the church, in the place of
its abode, is not wrought by any merely incidental influ
ence, or by unconsidered and desultory efforts. To each
church, in its own parochial sphere, there is committed
a great trust under God's arrangement — a work to be
wrought on that spot for the welfare of the population
that, in successive generations, is there to live, there
to act, there to pass through the experiences of human
joy and grief, there to die, and thence to pass into
eternity. Amid that population it is to hold forth,
age after age, with steady radiance, the light of life.
It is to stand like a bulwark against ignorance, super-

stition, error, and all ungodliness. It is to be continu
ally gathered into its inclosure, and binding together in
its holy covenant, not only its own children, brought
up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but
strangers also, and the children of those who never
trained their households to Christian obedience or
Christian faith. It is to be a center of every salutary
influence in the community — a perennial fountain of
healing and refreshing waters spreading on every
side, — here in a broad and open current, there in un
noticed channels. Doubtless that which we may call
the incidental influence of a church, the undesigned
and in a sense unconscious influence, inseparable from
the keeping up of public worship and public religious
instruction, is of much more importance in the impres
sion made on the community at large than, many of us
are ready to conceive. But the work which a church
ought to do in its own domain can never be wrought by
merely undesigned and incidental influences. There
must be earnest thought, devout inquiry, plans, enter
prises, arrangements, the provision of all needed instru
ments and conveniences for the work. The question
how the church may best fulfill its mission must be
considered not only by church officers in their several
departments of duty, but by all the members, for it
concerns them all. How shall we, as a body of Chris
tian worshipers, best promote our own inward life
and spiritual growth? How shall we deal with the
youth and children of the congregation to secure their
attention and enlighten their minds, and commend the
truth to their consciences and affections? How shall
we most effectually invite the stranger to come and
worship with us? — how overcome the prejudices of the
bigoted sectarian or the ignorant unbeliever? And

IO

as for the poor, who, while they need so much — for
this life as well as for the life to come — the elevating
influences of the Sabbath and of the church, are so
tempted to withdraw themselves and their children
from all the light and comfort of religion, and thus to
form, in any compact population, a "lower class" ever
sinking toward an utterly wretched and utterly neg
lected degradation — how shall we operate to carry into
all their dwellings the illumination, the hopes and
motives, and the gracious invitations of Christ's gos
pel ? — how shall we teach their reluctant feet the way
to the house of God ? — how convert their unhallowed,
noisy, wretched Sundays into calm and blessed Sab
baths, refreshing the wearied body with cleanliness
and rest, and cheering the fretted mind not only with
lessons of contentment and hope, but with the loftiest
inspirations of duty and of love ? No church can
adequately perform its proper work as a local institu
tion divinely chartered for upholding and advancing
the Redeemer's cause, unless it is conversant with such
inquiries as these.
II. Let us think, then, of the church at work, and
working on from age to age. Let us think how a
church, aware of its dignity and importance as a local
institution, and intent on its proper work, will provide
for itself, according to its ability, all the conveniences
and helps which such a work, continued through suc
cessive generations, may be found to require. In the
weakness and poverty of its beginning, it may be con
tent to worship in some hired apartment, inconvenient,
uncomfortable, and perhaps continually desecrated by
uses that waken, in those who enter it for worship, the
most undesirable associations of thought. It may be
constrained to occupy a moving tent, or to make a

II

barn its refuge from wintry storms. It may be driven
by persecution to hide itself in lonely retreats among
the mountains, or in old quarries and excavations.
Or, having been led into the wilderness, it may hold
its assembly under some spreading tree, where the
woods and waters, as the wind moves over them, min
gle their murmurs with the voice of prayer and praise.
But as the institution outlives the weakness of its
beginning, or the perils of its age of persecution, it
acquires a settled habitation of its own. A society of
Christian men, if it can live where ordinary industry
receives its ordinary rewards, will become, after a
while, sufficiently increased in this world's goods to
build for itself its own house of worship. At first,
that house may be a lowly, and, to the scornful or
critical eye, an unsightly structure ; but in a few years
it is displaced by another, more comely, and better
suited to the wants of a more numerous assembly.
That also, in its turn, grows old and must pass away.
But even the ground on which the fathers worshiped
seems hallowed, and on that spot, perhaps, the chil
dren's children build a statelier and more enduring
temple. So of other conveniences. In process of
time, if the church prospers and is strengthened, and
if its usefulness becomes larger and more diversified,
it naturally provides apartments of its own for the
midweek evening lecture — for the Sunday-school —
for the conference in which awakened and inquiring
minds meet with their pastor to receive familiar instruc
tion and personal guidance — for friendly and social
meetings, devotional or charitable, as when the women
of the church, "full of good works and alms-deeds,"
provide garments for the poor, or combine in other
modes the contributions of their industry for the

12

service of Christ. The contrast, in this respect,
between the church-edifices which were built two gen
erations ago, and those which, in any of our larger
towns, have been built within the last thirty years, is
significant of progress. And as the work of a city
church extends — as its sons and daughters go out
into suburbs or into lanes haunted by ignorance and
poverty, to gather neglected children into Sunday-
schools, and to rescue them from degradation, the
church, recognizing its own importance as a local
institution, will see that no such effort is permitted to
fail for want of any material accommodation. Nor
are these things all. Libraries — the Sunday-school
library for the children, the parish library for all the
congregation, and (why not also ?) a pastor's library of
theological and Biblical learning, accumulating from
age to age, and stimulating and aiding the studies of
successive pastors through successive centuries —
become needful to the highest usefulness of the church
as a local institution, designed not only for permanence,
but for progress; and these also, when found to be
needful, are provided.
I may say, then, by way of summing up these
thoughts, that the church, duly conscious of its respon
sibilities as a local institution, will gather around itself,
or will institute within itself^ all the arrangements
necessary to its own permanency, its progress, and its
healthful and efficient activity. Such a church will
remember that the condition of society, under what
ever form of civilization, is always changing — that its
own relations to the surrounding population and to
all the influences that act upon society are never in
one age just what they were in the age preceding —
that if it becomes stiffly and blindly conservative of

13
all things as they were, refusing to adapt its arrange
ments and methods to the existing needs and habits
of the people — it cannot but lose its power, forfeit its
true dignity, and prove itself unfaithful to its Head
who sits upon His throne creating all things new.
Its methods of religious nurture for children and of
catechetical instruction for the young — its methods of
attracting the people from without into the house of
God, and of bringing them into habitual attendance
there, will always be open to reconsideration, and will
change with the changing -exigencies of the place
where it dwells. Above all, it will remember that
God's Holy Spirit is not wont to work in those meth
ods only which old tradition would prescribe; and
that therefore, while it prays " O Lord revive thy
work," it must be ready to work for God and with
him, whatever the method in which that prayer may
be answered. The strength, the life of every church
— its influence for God in the place of its abode —
must ever depend on the presence of the Holy Spirit,
convincing the world of sin, and righteousness, and
judgment ; and the church that fails through prejudice
and pride, or by mere sluggishness, to welcome, with
joy and with renewed activity, the indications of God's
reviving presence, has cause to repent, trembling lest
its candlestick be removed.
We are here for the purpose of introducing a
brother, already widely known and honored, into the
office of pastor and teacher in a church with a history
that antedates the history of the town and of the State.
The church itself is perhaps the best illustration of
the subject which has employed our thoughts. It has
almost completed its fifth half-century, and the blessed
light has been radiant from its golden candlestick

14
through all those ages. This First Church of Christ
in Hartford was gathered before there was any Hart
ford in New England; and its earliest officers were
elected and ordained, not here, but a hundred miles
away, where the academic city of Cambridge now is.
Its removal from the colony on the Bay, to begin a
new colony on the River, in the far west of 1636, was
what made Hartford. I think of that removal in the
leafy month of June — the caravan of a hundred trav
elers, men, women, and children, some on horseback,
many on foot, and one delicate lady carried on a litter,
making their way slowly through the tangled wilder
ness, their great herd of cattle feeding on the wild
herbage, and the kine yielding milk for the children.
Members of the church had already come hither to
prepare a place; but in that migration the church
itself came, led by its pastor and its colleague teacher,
keeping Sabbath in the woods, and crying in the wil
derness, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." As we
think of that Sabbath, or of their morning and even
ing worship on the way, we seem to hear " the sound
ing aisles of the dim wood ring" with the rude music
of their psalm. Faith sees the angel of the Lord
encamping round about them. Faith discerns the
invisible presence of God going with them — the pillar
of cloud by day along their march — the pillar of fire
by night guarding their repose. They are bringing
the ark of God's covenant, and when at last their feet
are planted on this side of the river, and the place
where we stand to-day has become the place of their
worship, Christ is here, and the place of his rest is
glorious. The men, the women, the children, who
came in that pilgrim caravan, were buried here behind
their humble sanctuary — they, and their children after

IS
them ; and to-day this temple, built with its massive
walls for generations yet unborn, protects their graves
and is their monument. Nay — not this temple only,
but the city itself, with all that is most to be honored
in its history, and all that is brightest in the prospect
of its future, is a memorial of the men who planted
here this church of Christ to be the center of a new
and more Christian civilization.
It is Christ's message to every church, and there
fore to this church, " I know thy works and where
thou dwellest." The record of all that this church
has done in ages past is with Christ. He never for
gets. The possibilities of work yet to be done — of
influence yet to flow out .from this church upon the
myriads of souls around it — are ever in his view.
Brethren, who have come into this ancient inheritance,
and upon whom these grand responsibilities are rest
ing, be faithful to Him, If there is inspiration from
Him in the memory of what this church has been and
has done, surely there is a higher inspiration in the
thought of present gifts and opportunities, and of
what results may come from your fidelity to Christ,
not only now but when you shall have been gathered
to your fathers. Let not this First Church of Christ
in Hartford become, through your negligence, forget
ful of its true dignity and duty as a local institution.
The gift which you receive to-day from Him who
walks among his golden candlesticks and holds the
stars in his right hand — the gift which adds another
honored name to the long line of your pastors — is not
the gift of a Sunday luxury for yourselves and your
families, but rather a gift that brings upon you an
added weight of responsibility for the moral and

i6
religious welfare of Hartford, now and in the years to
come. To you, my brother — let me rather say, my own
son, for as a son with a father you have labored with
me in the gospel — to you I offer here no words of
mere congratulation. There cannot but be more of
awe than of exultation or gladness in the feeling with
which you accept the office of pastor here. You
know, from your experience elsewhere, how great the
work is. You are to stand in an illustrious succession.
Of your living predecessors I may not speak. But I
may refer you to the long and faithful ministry of
Joel Hawes, so successful in the repeated revival of
religion. I may repeat the name of Nathan Strong,
of whose ministry here, though he died an old man
more than sixty years ago, some of us in this assembly
to-day have personal remembrance, and who was, in
his day, a leader of thought and of enterprise, not
only in this church, but among the pastors and
churches of this commonwealth. I might mention
one and another of your more distant predecessors, —
such as Wadsworth and Woodbridge — honored in
their day, and worthy to be honored now and in days
to come. But in all the catalogue there is no name
to be compared with that of Thomas Hooker, "the
light of the western churches," — the most eloquent
preacher, the wisest counsellor, the most discerning
and far-sighted statesman, the most beloved saint, of
all our New England fathers. Out of his devout
study of the Bible — out of his sermons preached to
the men whose graves are just behind you — came that
simple but unprecedented product of political wisdom
— so marvellous for the time in which it was produced —
the first constitution of Connecticut. He died before

i7
age could crown him with its honors, but his influence
is living still. More than any other man, he was the
father of Hartford. More than any other one man
he was the father of Connecticut. To stand in his
place is not an honor merely — it is a dread responsi
bility; and I know you feel it. This ancient church
will look to you for guidance and for excitement to
all good works. I know you too well to doubt that
whatever can be done by human ministration of the
word of God, you will do, in season, out of season, to
the limit of your strength, for the winning of souls to
Christ, and for the advancement of Christ's kingdom
in Hartford, in Connecticut, in all the breadth and
length of our great Union, and through the world.
May God give you grace according to your need,
and as your days so may your strength be !

THE CHURCH A HOME.

§V jljermcm

PREACHED IN THE

Ph[st Chop in Hafjtford

GEORGE LEON WALKER,
pastor of the church,

MARCH 2, 1879,

Being the Sunday following his Installation.

SERMON

Psalm xxvii. 4. — One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I
seek after ; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my
life to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.
The special point of significance in this passage is
the aspiration it breathes for a continuity of habitation
in God's house. The exiled psalmist looked, from his
place of wandering, backward with almost inexpressi
ble longing toward the temple and its worship. So
intense and eager is his desire that the thought of
merely visiting again, however frequently or freely,
those once familiar courts does by no means content
him. He wants to stay there. He remembers the
Levites and the priests who have, among what his
homesick-heart deems their privileges, the liberty of
living on the sacred precincts. He wishes to live
there also. He recollects that oftentimes in his peo
ple's history this franchise of a dwelling in the temple
courts was granted to some fervent and godly soul,
and he longs for it himself. He wishes to abide there
not transiently but continuously : to find in it not a
place of occasional visitation, but a home : " That I
may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my
life." This fervent expression of desire on the part of the
writer of this psalm — whoever he may have been —
very naturally suggests the topic to which your atten-

22

tion will be invited to-day. This topic is : The Church
considered as a Home.
It is not unusual on an occasion like this to present
some topic of a more elaborate and ambitious charac
ter. The first service of a new pastorate is often made
the opportunity for pointing out the relative duties of
minister and people, or of declaring the plan of some
evangelistic campaign, or of setting forth some doc
trinal manifesto. More consonant with my own feel
ings is a much less demonstrative service. I invite
you to the familiar contemplation of a simple and
practical subject very closely related to our common
welfare. One of the fullest-freighted words in all human
speech is " home." As it is uttered there rise to
nearly every mind suggestions more tender and wel
come than can be awakened by almost any other. It
is one of those sweet, short, Saxon words, native to
our blood, which hold volumes of meaning in a single
syllable. Recollections of childhood's happy days ;
recollections of parents and their love and care;
sweet memories of companionships and easy occupa
tions of the by-gone time ; of security and exemption
from harrassing fears ; — these come, to most of us cer
tainly, — however lowly the place may have been, when
we think of our childhood's home.
Or perhaps it is our present home of which we
think. And the remembrance of such a place is a
very refreshment to a toil driven man. There is such
a man's retreat from the bustling and wearying world.
There he goes, when, sick with life's perplexities and
competitions, he would find quietude and content. He
shuts the door and is at home. Here are wife and
child and rest and affection. They are here — if they

23
are anywhere on earth ! Sometimes, indeed, much or
most of what makes a home is taken away from us,
so that it seems only a wreck and ruin which is left
behind. But even so, the most desolate of our homes
holds more of good than all the world beside.
Or, perhaps, it is of a home to be made — having
none now — that we think. Well, everybody thinks of
it sometimes. For awhile, indeed, a man may toss
on the waves of change exhilarated by their very
changeableness ; and caring little for repose. A hotel
and a railroad may satisfy him awhile. But the time
comes when he wants rest. Nothing really to satisfy
can be found in this drift and struggle of affairs. A
center of affection, a hiding place from the turmoil of
life, is a need which sooner or later all feel. There are
few sadder sights than of homeless old age. Whether
that homelessness is the result of bereavement of a
possession once had, or of neglect' or inability to make
provision against a need which has at last arrived, there
is little but melancholy (certainly in the earthly aspect
of the case) of an infirm, uncompanioned, homeless
old age.
Now analogous, in many ways, to the necessity and
reality of a home for the social affections of men, is
the need and possibility of a spiritual home. It is not
man's body or man's heart only, which wants an
abiding place ; his soul wants it also. For it is not
the body and heart of man alone which finds this
world a place of disappointment and turmoil. The
soul finds it even more. A disquiet more perplexing
than any which tosses from change to change this
outward life of ours, gives to the homeless spirit of
man a still profounder unrest. The world around us
cannot lend the needed repose. The pleasant homes

24
which we make for our social natures cannot minister
to these deeper needs. Amid the most joyous circle
of loving companions the spirit may be houseless and
desolate. With everything to satisfy the yearning
heart the soul may be like the dove sent forth upon
the waters, without a place of a moment's rest.
Now it is this great inward want of man's spirit
that religion provides for. God has not left any need
of those natures which he has given us, unconsidered
or without means of supply. The Gospel of Jesus
Christ opens the door-way to a home for the soul. It
introduces, whoever accepts it, to the companionships
and the securities of a spiritual dwelling place. It
makes the recipient of its blessings a " fellow citizen
with the saints and of the household of God." Such
a man has a spiritual home. His body, indeed, may
be unsheltered. His heart may be bereaved and
lonely. But his soul has its place of refuge. He has
come unto Mount Zion ; to the general assembly and
church of the first born which are written in heaven ;
and, recorded there, he finds a rest which no earthly
abiding place ever gives.
But this home of the soul which, in the highest and
truest sense is indeed invisible, has its outward embod
iment. The same God who made the spiritual home
above, appointed a representative of that home below.
The home of the soul on high finds its needed like
ness in the church of God on earth.
Under the Mosaic dispensation this counterpart and
representation of the invisible home was the Jewish
Temple. It was that which stood the symbol, and by
standing the symbol became also, in a manner, the
reality. Every devout Hebrew thought of the Tem
ple as his soul's home. Three times a year, from the

25
farthest corners of the land, he journeyed to it. He
carried thither his spiritual burdens. He went there
for deliverance from his troubles. Fair and beautiful
the Temple stood on its majestic hill, inviting all to
enter with their miseries and their sins, and find expi
ation and rest. And reading them as utterances of a
longing toward the soul's home, the language of many
of the Psalms takes on an exceeding significance.
" O send out Thy light and Thy truth. Let them
lead me and bring me to Thy holy hill and to Thy
tabernacles." " How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O
Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth,
for the courts of the Lord. Blessed are they that
dwell in Thy house. I had rather be a door-keeper in
the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of
wickedness." It was with an even passionate yearn
ing — like that of an exile from his country, or a child
from his parent's house — that the devout Hebrew
turned toward that Temple which was to him, in a
symbolic, and yet a most truthful sense, the dwelling-
place of his soul.
Now what the temple was to the Israelite, that the
visible church of God is to us. The companionship
of believers in the gospel, associated in accordance
with the commands of Christ, held together by the
sacraments and ministrations of revealed truth, and
worshiping in some accustomed place, constitute for
us, in a subordinate, but nevertheless a substantial
meaning, a spiritual home. Nor am I, in regard to a
topic like this, very earnest that discriminations be
made. I do not care to run dividing lines through
the congregation, or to particularize precisely in what
or in what not the analogy holds. It meets all the
requirements of my present line of thought to say,
4

26
that any regularly organized Christian assembly — this
one for example — with its familiar house of worship,
its gathered congregation, its singers, its minister, its
ordinances, its services of praise and prayer and expli
cation of divine truth, becomes to those who bear
themselves rightly toward it, a spiritual home — a rest
ing-place and habitation for the soul. As the earthly
house one builds and wherein he shelters the dear
ones of his family, becomes the home of his affections,
— so the familiar Sabbath sanctuary comes to be cher
ished and loved as also a home : the home of interests
deep and sacred as the spiritual nature.
That this is the case in actual reality, I am sure I
have but to appeal to the experience of those who
hear me. With what warmth and earnestness of emo
tion do very many to whom I now speak turn to the
sanctuary in which they have been accustomed to
worship — this one or some other as the case may be —
'' taking," as the fervent phrase of the old psalm has
it, " taking pleasure in its stones and favoring the dust
thereof." The spot is a home. The heart yearns
toward it as to a place of rest. Wandering far away
from it, tossed to and fro in the world, still it dwells
in memory like the fireside of one's youth.
Nor need the spot be in itself very attractive to win
and fix this passionateness of regard. I fully believe
in the propriety and desirableness of making the place
of public worship pleasant with whatever beauty be
comes the grave and noble uses of the house of God ;
but there is something deeper than any external
attractiveness, in its power to charm the yearning soul.
The houses of New England worship have been, prev
alently, bare, unadorned, not to say even uncouth edi
fices. Perched often on some wind-swept hill-top;

27
destitute, frequently, of ornament or upholstery; some
times bare of carpet and of paint, with rattling win
dows and creaking doors, they have been about the
least winsome structures of all our raw American
architecture. And yet to how many such have New England
hearts reverted when counting up the dearest posses
sions they have had on earth. It has been in utter
truthfulness that such hearts in all our Puritan- history
have sung of such rude sanctuaries :
" My soul, how lovely is the place
To which thy God resorts :
Tis heaven to see his smiling face,
Though in his earthly courts." ,,
The devout and loving worshiper has felt no incon
gruity, even under leaky roof and frescoless ceiling,
while he has chanted <
" How pleasant, how Divinely fair,
O Lord of Hosts, thy dwellings are,
With strong desire my spirit faints
To meet the assembly of thy saints."
Especially has this reversion of the heart to a cher
ished sanctuary been realized when a house of worship
has stood long in the midst of a stable community;
gathering year by year an increasing volume of sacred
associations; becoming linked in with family history;
connecting itself with generations past; and growing
thus to be a part and parcel of the best and most sacred
in the social as well as the religious life. How vividly
does many a homely sanctuary recall to those who
have long worshiped there, not merely the great facts
of God's dealings with the soul, but the great facts of
family history also ! There sat the mother of one's
youth. Recollection can bring back her sweet, placid

28
face ; can even recall her garments, her attitude, her
expression in praise and prayer. Up these aisles
passed the father; memory can see him yet, going
slowly and reverently to his accustomed place. Here
was brought the child for baptism ; the child was long
since taken to a higher home ; but with every new
mother standing in this spot, presenting her little one,
that child seems to come back again. From that pul
pit, years ago, fell words, which to the gray old man
sitting in the pew, sound louder than the words utter
ing to-day. Here God met and blessed men long ago
as He meets and blesses us still. " Here I resolved.
Here I repented. Here I determined to begin a
better life. Here I registered my vow of service.
Here first I broke the sacramental bread." And the
gathered recollections of days gone by second and
reinforce the impressions of the passing hour.
And, my hearers, I need not say that there is power
and benefit in these commingled associations which
make up the home feeling with which we regard the
house of God. To develop and deepen this feeling is
an object, on every ground, worthy of earnest care.
Let me drop one or two passing hints in aid of this
object; and especially in aid of such an effort for it
as will make that home feeling which is developed, to
be of the highest and best kind.
I. One very obvious suggestion toward the creating
of a sense of home-likeness about the sanctuary,
relates, of course, to regularity and continuity of wor
ship. The feeling of which we speak is a feeling of
growth. It is the fruit of protracted and habituated
relationship to the house of God. And so much are
we creatures of association and of dependence on

29
external objects, that it is not a mere relationship to
the house of God in general, which will develop the
sense of home-likeness about the soul's worshiping
place; but it is a relationship to some house of God
in particular.
I know well that there are some, who, from various
causes, withhold themselves from this particularity of
connection with a single sanctuary. Some do so from
a kind of affectation of liberality ; worshiping by
turns with one congregation or another, one denomi
nation or another, as a fanciful notion of independence
of sectarian limitation leads them. Others do so,
from unwillingness to bear the burdens and take the
responsibilities belonging to identification with any
particular company of worshipers. Others still, are
of the nomadic type from mere curiosity and fickle
ness of character; wandering hither and thither in
search of the latest sensation. But the careful obser
vation of results does not favor action on any of these
principles. They are sources of spiritual weakness,
even the most plausible of them. The persons who
illustrate them are not those, certainly, to whom we
turn for examples of power and fruitfulness in Christian
life. That power and fruitfulness are the result of a
more continuous, a more habituated, a more locally
indentified culture of the spiritual nature. The condi
tion of best growth is fixity, not unrest. The apple-
tree transplanted every summer must not be wondered
at for barrenness. For any man, it matters not how
cosmopolitan he may regard the scale on which he is
made, the situation in which he can get and give most
spiritual blessing is in association with some single
body of Christian worshipers ; in participation of their
interests ; in sharing their responsibilities and in hold
ing their spiritual habitation as his religious home.

3o
And there is no unreasonable restrictedness in a
course like this. Every man is free to choose his
spiritual home. And in every considerable community
there is ample opportunity for choice. Tastes in this
or that direction can be gratified. Needs felt in one
or another way, can be supplied. A somewhat definite
and dissimilar quality belongs to every different Chris
tian organization. Here one element preponderates,
there another. Here feeling is mainly cultivated, there
principle. In one congregation music is a preeminent
attraction, in another preaching. The traditions of
one society are all in favor of warmth and activity;
those of another are for slower and more deliberate
endeavor. This one's worship is plain, cold, intellec
tual; that one's is fervent or even spectacular. And
well it is, on the whole, that it is so. It affords oppor
tunity for choice, and for the meeting of conscious
want ; not to say, also, for the mere gratification of
individual fancy.
But when choice is made it ought to carry with it
some substantial permanency. It ought to be suffi
ciently strong to build something on. It should take
enough of the man with it to make him worth some
thing to those he joins ; and to give him, in return, a
sense of relatedness to the complex and participated
interest of an established Christian fellowship. This
is a fact especially worthy of thoughtful remembrance
' by parents in reference to their children. The relig
ious home is likely to be especially delightsome if it is
the household's religious home. Community of relig
ious memories, participation of spiritual training, unity
of ideas and feelings — these are great results to secure
in family life, and childhood gains them as well as man
hood, by fixity, continuity, identification It is so,

3i
only, that a home-like feeling can be developed. So
only can that rich fruitage of sacred recollections and
associations, which constitute so large a portion of the
best influences which work upon us, be harvested by
the soul.
II. Another hint toward making the church a
home may be found in the cultivation of a sense of
fraternity. Our household homes are companionships of breth
ren and sisters, of parents and children. A feeling of
community in interests, of quick-responding relation
ship to one another, is the very atmosphere in which
they exist. To a very considerable extent such a feel
ing of relationship ought to characterize the associated
members of every Christian congregation. A connec
tion with such a congregation should in itself be a
bond of recognized strength in joining its separate
individuals and in bringing them into some practical
degree, at least, of mutual understanding and acquain
tance. Of course I am not advocating a merging of all
companionships into a religious companionship. I
know we have, and always shall have, special tastes in
society as well as in food or attire. But the results of
organized religious companionship are, my hearers,
however we regard them, very real results, and it would
be wise in us to recognize them as such. There is
such a thing as corporate church-character, as there is-
individual character. There grows up in a long-estab
lished society a peculiar quality of disposition which is
at once the product of all its membership, and the
source of influence upon them. What it is, they
unitedly make it. But what it is, in its turn, affects
them. It ramifies its results through all their house-

32
holds. The question whether good or ill is to come
to any of their homes, is not a private question only.
It will not receive its decision merely as the result of
individual efforts alone. It will very largely be decided
by the corporate character of that religious body to
which they belong, and to whose character they con
tribute their mite of influence, and which in its turn
reacts on them and theirs. We are related to each
other, and we ought to feel that we are. The ques
tion of .spiritual benefit to us and ours personally, is
affected by the general quality of that religious organ
ization with which we are associated, and we should
recognize the fact. It ought to become a reason for
acknowledging fraternity, for all the great results of
fraternity do actually flow from it.
This persistency of corporate character in a relig
ious organization is one of the most curious and one
of the most solemn of facts. Side by side upon New
Haven Green stand two churches of the same denom
ination. Their edifices are similar ; their order of
worship identical ; their members to a considerable
extent associate in all common ways of business and
society. Those two churches, so similar, have thus
stood neighbors for a hundred and twenty years. And
yet there is to-day recognizable a distinct corporate
difference ; not as sharp indeed as it was when the
one with great throes and struggles came out from the
other; but a difference, nevertheless, which has sur
vived more than four generations of men ; and which
makes the North church and the Center church as
unlike as are sometimes, in a family group, parent
and scarce-resembling child. You, too, in this church,
to-day, are much what you have been made to be by
the power of this near two-hundred-and-fifty-years-old

33
organization with which you are associated. You get
what has been put into it by those gone before you.
You, too, are putting into it what will live after you.
You are bound together, and children yet unborn will
feel the effect of that combination of influences to
which each contributes his share.
Knowledge of one another; solicitude for one
another; desire for each soul's welfare, is urged on
you, therefore, not merely by benevolence but by self-
interest. Bound to one another by influences which
affect deeper than you know, your own and your
household's weal, that bond of association should be
recognized; should be made the reason in itself for
united watch, for mutual service, for mutual love.
III. One further suggestion remains. It will con
tribute very much to the securing of that kind of
home-like feeling which it is desirable to cultivate in
regard to our sanctuary relationships, to keep very
carefully in view for what objects and in reference to
what interests the church is a home.
I have called the church a home. I have said that
deep Christian experience in all times has found it so.
But in what sense a home ? Not primarily in reference
to earthly and social interests. Those are provided
for elsewhere. But a home for the soul. A place of
spiritual refuge and communion. A spot continually,
and above all else, suggestive of divine relationship, of
eternal interests, of the privileges and accountability
of the inward man. " One thing have I desired," says
the Psalmist, " That I may dwell in the house of the
Lord all the days of my life." But why desire it ?
For what object seek thus a home in God's house ?
He answers plainly : " To behold the beauty of the
Lord, and to enquire in His temple." The beauty of
5

34
the Lord ! Not the beauty of architecture ! Not the
beauty of artistic music ! Not the beauty of fine
oratory ! Not the beauty of handsome clothes ! Not
the beauty of graceful posturing, and scenic grouping,
and skillfully arranged tableaux. " But the beauty of
the Lord." To behold that, and to " enquire in His
temple." That is to say, the dominant and all-mould
ing idea is that of adoration and worship. The place
is sacred to God and to spiritual uses. The part of
man's nature it is meant to provide for, is the spiritual
part. The interests it should be held sacred to are
not those of society but the soul.
In other words, the functions of our religious home
are, and ought carefully to be held to be, religious. It
is not the business of the church to furnish the amuse
ments of society. Other agencies can do that quite
as well, and at far less cost to higher interests. The
power and value of those influences which come from
the spiritual home will very much depend on the sin
gleness with which this supreme interest is kept before
the mind of all associated with it. The efficiency of
those influences will very much depend on the purity
of those influences. And in the long run I cannot
but regard it as a mistake to think that men's inclina
tions need to be solicited by any such secular and
extraneous method.
The Gospel of Christ has its own attractiveness.
The sanctuary of God has its own legitimate and
mighty strength to win and hold. Standing in the
midst of this perplexed and suffering world ; holding
out invitations more tender than any other ; minister
ing to the deepest of man's wants, and casting a bea
con light out over the darkness of the future, it can
never be destitute of its winsome and constraining

35
charm to sinful and weary men. And that charm will,
in the long run, be prevailing just in proportion to the
simplicity with which it presents God's house as a
place where the " beauty of the Lord " is enquired for,
and that alone. Religion, my friends, is not outdated
yet. The gospel of God is not a worn-out tale. It
does not need to be buttressed and supported by
external helps. It has not yet come to the necessity
of wiling man to its embrace by methods foreign to
its own majestic aims. Nor, rightly presented, will it
ever come.
My hearers, God has kindly given you the privilege
of establishing somewhere a religious home. In this
house or in some other house, with this band of wor
shipers or with some other band, you have the oppor
tunity of abiding. Wherever it be, make the most of
it ! Think highly of the privilege ; get all the good
out of it you can ; for among the possibilities of ben
efit you possess, this is one of the very chief. Wher
ever rises your spiritual temple, God bless it to you
and you to it!
But speaking now, as is meet, especially to those to
whom this house is the religious home, this congrega
tion, mainly, its accustomed inmates, let me say :
Cherish your Home and its dwellers ! Prize the spir
itual habitation which God has given you! Value
aright the privileges and recollections of your own
religious abode. You have, dear friends, taken the
risk upon you, and that risk is not a light one, of invit
ing me to share this spiritual home with you. You
have adopted, as it were, another member into your
religious family ; and a member, too, who by the vir
tues of the duties you lay upon him will be inevitably
somewhat potential for the promotion or the hindrance

36
to the family welfare. Let me assure you the new
member comes to you proud of the household name ;
glad to -share with you the traditions of the family
history : and hopeful to cooperate with you for the
common good. Let us seek distinctly to keep that
good in mind. Let us not be diverted from it into
any lower purpose. God forbid that this, pulpit ever
become a place for personal display ; for the display
of anything but truth profitable to the soul. God for
bid that these pews ever become the place of critical
and fastidious repose ; the place for mere enjoyment
dissociated from service. Let us labor here together
to grow strong unto every good work.
This church doubtless has it faults ; many of them.
This organization, through many of its departments,
social, ministerial, spiritual, might be far better than it
is. But nevertheless I make bold to say to you who
are connected with it, that it is the best thing that you
have. You could easier afford to have any other thing
you possess, drop out of your lives and that of your
household, than to have the hopes, the memories, and
the influences of which this house stands the represen
tee, drop out of them. In what it has been to others
before you, in what it can be to you, bearing your
selves rightly toward it, this spiritual dwelling place is
your choicest possession. Feel rightly toward it. Get
the good it was designed to give. Hold youselves
loyally toward it, as to the mother who cherished your
youth. Do for it what you can to perfect and
strengthen it now, and to transmit with it a legacy of
blessing to those who will find in it a Home after you
are gone.

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