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THE POWER

OF A

CHRISTIAN LITERATURE:

A SERMON

ON BKU.U1 0 1' T H H

ASSEMBLY'S BOARD OF PUBLICATION.

BY THE
Rev. S. J. P. ANDERSON, D.D.
Of ST. 10UIS, MISSOURI.

PHILADELPHIA:
PRESBYTERIAN BOA^D; OF PUBLICATION,
No. 821 Chestnut Street.
1858.

THE POWER

OF A

CHRISTIAN LITERATURE:

A SERMON

ON BEHALF 01 THE

ASSEMBLY'S BOAED OF PUBLICATION.

BY THE
Rev. S. J. P. ANDERSON, D.D.
OP ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI.

PHILADELPHIA:
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION,
No. 821 Chestnut Street.
1858.

PREACHED BY APPOINTMENT
BEFORE THE
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
OP the
presbyterian church in the united states of america,
At New Orleans, Louisiana, May 11, 1858,
AND PUBLISHED BY ORDER Off THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.

2 Cor. x. 10.
TOR HIS LETTERS, SAY THEY, ARE "WEIGHTY AND POWERFUL; BUT HIS BODILY PRESENCE
IS WEAK, AND HIS SPEECH CONTEMPTIBLE.
The traditional account of the appearance of Paul,
as it has been preserved in the productions of early
Christian art, represents him as "of diminutive"
stature, with a "body disfigured by some lameness or
distortion." This physical peculiarity often provoked
the contemptuous notice of his enemies. The pre
tended Lucian, who wrote towards the close of the
second century, calls him "a petty crooked shriveling
of four feet and a half." Though this description
was, doubtless, a caricature influenced by the caustic
satirical spirit of the author, and his unconcealed
hatred and contempt for the Christian faith, yet there
must have been a generally conceded foundation for
this allusion, or else the wit would have had no point
at all. Traces that lead to the same conclusion

4 THE POWER OE
occur in the sacred Scriptures. When the miracles
of Paul and Barnabas had led the men of Lycaonia
to think that the gods had come down to them in
the likeness of men, they gave the less honourable
name of the messenger of the gods to Paul, and that
which belongs to the father of gods and men to his
companion, thus intimating, as I suppose, the im
pression made on them by the outward appearance
of the two men.
Paul himself repeatedly alludes to some grievous
bodily infirmity as accompanying him, and giving
greater painfulness to his labours as an ambassador
of Christ. To the Galatians, he says: "Ye know
how, through infirmity of the flesh, I preached the
gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation
which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected."
He compliments them for their overlooking the dis
advantages under which he appeared to them, and
regarding the power of the message rather than the
weakness of the messenger. And perhaps we have
in the immediate context an intimation of the specific
form of this life-long trouble. "For I bear you
record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have
plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to
me." This declaration, with the well known fact,

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 5
that Paul did not write his own epistles, except in
very small part, and that even this was traced in
such large and rude characters, as would naturally
result from an unpractised hand and a dim sight,
has given great plausibility to the supposition, that
"the thorn in the flesh," which, as the messenger of
Satan, "buffeted him," was a disease of the eyes,
and was so painful, that he could not reconcile
himself to bear it, until he was told by his divine
Master of its benign object — lest he should be exalted
above measure. And then was added the special
promise, "My grace is sufficient for thee; for my
strength is made perfect in weakness." Then, but
not till then, did the long agony of this visitation —
which for fourteen years, at least, had kept his body
under — lose its sting, and the triumphant sufferer
was enabled to say: "Most gladly, therefore, will I
rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of
Christ may rest upon me."
With these indications before us all pointing in one
direction, do we transcend the limits of reverent
speculation, when we suggest that it may have been
that the foundation of this protracted agony was
laid in the time of Paul's journey from Jerusalem,
1*

6 THE POWER OE
when a light above the brightness of the noonday
sun shone around him, and he saw Him whom he had
persecuted — a vision of glory which was followed by
three days of physical as well as spiritual darkness,
which brooded over him in Damascus — intimating a
derangement of the visual organs?
It is a fact strikingly confirmatory of this specula
tion, "that Paul was almost never alone, and never
appears, after the date indicated, to have taken the
shortest journey by himself." He seems to have
been unusually dependent on the kindly ministra
tions of Christian sympathy, and to have asked
and returned thanks for them, as if they were
not merely luxuries, but well nigh if not absolute
necessities. But whether we have been wise in concluding on
the specific complaint which burthened his days, we
may affirm with great confidence that he suffered
under some bodily infirmity, "which detracted from
the dignity of his personal appearance, exposed him
to humiliations and difficulties, and might seem calcu
lated to impede his usefulness." There was then a
historical foundation for the cruel taunt of his ene
mies, that though his letters were weighty and
powerful, his bodily presence was weak, and his

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 7
speech, to the cultivated and refined Corinthians,
contemptible. But that weak and worn body, which was but a
body of death to his earnest spirit, has long since
rested from its labours; the men who heard him
have passed away; but those weighty and powerful
letters, which even then his enemies dreaded, live still
as the light of the church — mighty still for reproof,
for instruction, for correction in righteousness, that
we as men of God may be thoroughly furnished for
every good word and work, and in the end be exalted
to that third heaven to which he has gone, not as
once a transient visitant, but a permanent dweller
there. In usefulness by the living voice he was probably
inferior to many of the earlier preachers of the gos
pel, certainly so to Peter, but by the pen he achieved
a preeminence unrivalled by them all. And so in
his own ministry the word written has outrun the
word spoken. And when he shall present himself
before his Lord in that great day with the seals of
his ministry, we doubt not at all, that in that con
stellation which shall be his crown of glory and
rejoicing, the stars that have been kindled by his
burning words, will bear no proportion to those which

8 THE POWER OE
have caught the light of hope and life from the lumi
nous page which he wrote for our learning, in
feebleness and pain.
The train of remarks into which we have fallen
will be accepted, we trust, as an allowable introduc
tion to the theme that at this time claims our notice,
which is,

THE POWER OP A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE AS AN
AUXILIARY TO THE WORK OP THE LIVING MINIS
TRY IN SAVING THE WORLD.
It should be distinctly perceived and kept in mind,
that we plead for our Board of Publication, and advo
cate its great work simply as an auxiliary to the
pulpit and the living ministry. It sustains not to
this heaven-appointed means of salvation the relation
of Ishmael or Jacob. It is neither rival nor sup-
planter. It humbly comes to prepare a way for him
who brings good news of great joy; it gives to his
work a wider extent, and a more universal applica
tion, and if in the mysterious providence of God, and
because of the unfaithfulness of men, the candlestick
be removed from its place, and deep darkness brood
over the people, it supplies as well as it may by its

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 9
reflected light the absence of the living luminary, and
by the transient tract or the permanent volume, keeps
in contact with the minds and hearts and consciences
of the shepherdless flock the counsels of those who
being dead yet speak. There is no one who welcomes
the productions of this Board of the church with a
cordiality so warm and confiding, as the laborious,
earnest, and successful pastor. They multiply his
points of contact with his people, and deepen the
impressions which have been made by his admonitions
in private, or from the pulpit. He knows well how to
send a suitable book into the family circle, to com
plement the work which he has been to able do by
his personal ministrations; and how often is his heart
cheered, and his hands strengthened, by seeing and
gathering into his bosom the ripe fruits of this seed-
sowing. We go forth then on this mission cheered
by the prayers and cooperation of those who watch
for souls.
A very superficial examination of the facts in the
case will discover elements of power in this auxiliary
agency of the printed page, which are invaluable to
the church, and with which she cannot afford to dis
pense. It readily occurs that we can choose out of
the vast storehouse (and museum often,) of religious

10 THE POWER OP
literature the ripest thoughts, and the happiest ex
pressions of the best men, and give them at once a
species of omnipresence and immortality. The pen
of a ready writer is a rare and precious- gift. Thou
sands write, who after a season are heard of no more.
Their works float a while, and then sink by their own
weight. But we choose out those that have the seed
of life in themselves — the productions of the rare and
favoured few who have penned immortal thoughts and
feelings, in words that can never lose their power on
the mind and heart, and which men are not willing to
let die — such books as those described in Milton's
plea for "Unlicensed Printing."
"I deny not but that it is of greatest concernment
in the church and commonwealth, to have a vigilant
eye how books demean themselves, as well as men;
and therefore to confine, imprison, and do sharpest
justice on them as malefactors: for books are not
absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of
life in them, to be as active as that soul whose pro
geny they are : nay they do preserve as in a vial the
purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect
that bred- them. I know they are as lively and as
vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth,
and being sown up and down may chance to spring

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 11
up armed men. And yet on the other hand, unless
wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill
a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable
creature, God's image ; but he who destroys a good
book kills reason itself, kills the image of God as it
were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the
earth; but a good book is the precious life blood of a
master spirit, embalmed and treasured on purpose to
a life beyond life. It is true no age can restore a
life whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and re
volutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a
rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations
fare the worse. We should be wary, therefore, what
persecution we raise against the living labours of
public men — how we spill that seasoned life of man
preserved and stored up in books; since we see a
kind of homicide may thus be committed, sometimes
a martyrdom : and if it extend to the whole impres
sion, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends
not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at
the etherial and fifth essence, the breath of reason
itself; slays an immortality rather than a life."
And utterances such as those so eloquently
described are the outgrowth of the ministerial work.
They are not the productions of mere students —

12 THE POWER OP
recluses who shut themselves up in studies to think
and write for other and future times. That preach
ing or writing which is designed for posterity, with no
adaptation to the present, has seldom been so happy
as to reach its audience; while on the other hand,
that utterance that comes warm from the living
struggling mind and heart, and which meets the exi
gencies of the present, and its imminent and urgent
demands, has the seed of life in itself. And this
seed, like that which lay for thousands of years in a
mummy's hand, preserves its own vitality, and is
ready to take root, and grow, and bear fruit in any
age, when it is cast forth abroad to seek its congenial
soil. And its adaptation to all ages arises from its
suitableness to this age. That which meets our
wants now, is for all time and all men. And thus it
has fallen out that living books are those which are
most intensely personal and practical, and have
grown out of the present time. Not that which is
designed for that indefinite future, and which super
ciliously passes over the heads of the needy and hun
gering present living men, lives and works perma
nently for good, but it is that thought and truth that
has grown out of and met the wants of living, think
ing men, who pressed round its author.

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 13
Perhaps the two most widely useful and perma
nently valuable publications of our Board, are Alexan
der's "Religious Experience" and Henry's "Anxious
Inquirer," books which never could have existed but
for present and pressing demands, and derive their
permanent value and suitableness from the fact that
they met those demands then and there.
Such a precious achievement of the intellect and
heart of the church becomes its property in perpe
tuity. And that too without the weaknesses and
disabilities of its author. It is the Christian accom
plishment of the fable of the iron man, who went
unceasingly and unweariedly up and down the earth
doing the will of his master. It requires no train
ing for its work, but leaps full armed from the press,
wise to win souls, and strong, so that it can run and
not be weary, and walk and not faint. Needing no
salary, it asks for no sustentation fund to keep life
in it. It fears no epidemic, and is just as safe amid
the fever jungles of India, as in the clear sweet air of
the Allegheny mountains. Its preaching is not con
fined to appointments and set times. It bides its
time, and can afford to wait the leisure or even the
caprice of its owner. It lies at hand ready to be
taken up in the intervals of labour, or when pleasure
2

14 THE POWER OF
has palled. It does not grow discouraged by long
neglect. It is not capable of mortification from insult.
It may lie unread upon the shelf till covered with
dust, but it patiently waits the convenient season,
and the set time, and then, when the providence,
word, or Spirit of God has awakened the conscience,
and prepared the anxious soul to ask, What must I do
to be saved? its long silent voice is heard saying,
Behold, I show you the way of life. Thus the word
of salvation is often nigh him to whom the living
minister is a stranger.
A stray copy of Luther on the Galatians finds its
way to these ends of the earth, and teaches the way
of life to the Virginia planters, Morris, Hunt, and
their associates, so that the path of Christian expe
rience, trod in anguish and bitter tears by the monk
of Erfurt, is re-trod with wondering joy by these
persecuted dissenters from a tyrannical church estab
lishment. And an old torn, soiled, and unprized copy
of the Scotch Confession of Faith lies in the window
of a wayside inn, waiting till a storm of rain, in the
providence of God, shall drive in one of these very
men as he is on his way to answer for his delin
quency to the powers that be, there to find in its
neglected pages that they are Presbyterians, having

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 15
been brought to that pure faith by the simple teach
ings of the German Reformer and the word of God.
And these insignificant books (as the world's wisdom
would say) prepared for the coming of William Rob
inson and Samuel Davies, and the long and illustri
ous succession of worthies that has blessed that
favoured part of our Zion, men of whom the world
was not worthy.
It is a pleasant and triumphant thought, that as
we pen those truths that have blessed our own hearts
and cheered our people, we may be preparing to
speak when we are dead more eloquently than when
we are living, and to a far wider circle of hearers.
Doddridge lays his worn body in the grave, and
rests from his labours. He speaks no more. The
men that heard him and witnessed his earnest faith
fulness, follow him to the silent house. Tradition
becomes more and more dim in its delineation of
his ambassadorship. And soon the wave gathers
smoothly over the spot stirred by his descending
form. The place that knew him knows him no more.
The time in which we act directly is short, and let
the proud remember that the work that any one can
do and rejoice in while he yet lives, is generally small.
But the " Rise and Progress of Religion" takes up

16 THE POWER OF
the line of this beneficent action, multiplies it into
myriads, and perpetuates each one. And the book
goes forth in some sense superior to its author. It
never hungers, is not weary or discouraged, and
never sickens or dies. Nothing earthly is so indes
tructible as a good book, broadly cast forth on the
current of men, and committed to their languages.
London may be sunk in an hour, but no destruction
that man knows can reach such a book as that of
which we speak. Bunyan's "Pilgrim" goes forth free
from its author's prison, and still walks the earth
with the light of heaven beaming from his counte
nance, and words of life upon his lips. These noble
men preached well then, they preach better now, and
will fill an ever widening field of usefulness till the
heavens be no more.
The religious press makes each age the inheritor
of the past. Its intellectual and spiritual wealth are
treasured to make us wiser and better. It makes us
pupils of the giants of old. The obscure peasant
may say, Milton sung, Butler reasoned, and Baxter
preached for me. And then it gives to every true
interpreter of God's ways to men the vast and teem
ing future for an audience chamber. It makes the
world a Northampton for Edwards and a Kidder-

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 17
minster for Baxter. Thus only is fulfilled the beauti
ful prediction in reference to the scattered ashes of
Wickliffe, The Avon to the Severn runs,
The Severn to the sea ;
And Wickliffe's dust shall spread abroad,
Wide as the waters be.
If we had looked in on the little audience of chil
dren and servants gathered in the chapel of Lord
Carberry, amid the mountains of Wales, to listen or
not as they might to the vast and rich variety of dis
course uttered by Jeremy Taylor, we would have
exclaimed, Why all this waste! and have wondered
at the mysterious providence of God. But the won
der ceases and admiration takes its place as we fol
low those almost unheard sermons to the press, and
see that mighty agent giving them to all time, and
calling unnumbered generations to listen with awe
struck attention to the Shakspeare of the pulpit.
Reasoning on general principles, then, we should
conclude that his favoured servants, to whom God
has given the pen of the ready writer, do more good
where they are not seen face to face, and where their
living voice is not heard. But the truth is presented
2*

18 THE POWER OF
far more strongly by actual experience in the
church's history than by the most enlightened specu
lation. Let us look at the bright chain of facts that
bind the dead writer to a living audience. Aside
from the well-known fact that the general diffusion of
books and tracts has in so many instances preceded
and prepared the way for great and extended revivals
of religion, and always, when judiciously used, acts
as an inestimable auxiliary in carrying on and crown
ing the work, there are many individual cases which
fill us with conceptions of the amazing power of the
printed page for promoting the conversion of souls,
and showing forth the glory of our Lord.
Hervey's "Theron and Aspasio" sent Thomas
Robinson to be to Leicester what Baxter was to Kid
derminster, and the " Whole Duty of Man" aided by
"Wilson on the Lord's Supper," kindled the light
that was borne aloft by Charles Simeon at Cambridge,
which, in that one of twin centres of learning and
thought for the British empire, enabled him to com
municate the impulse of his own pure and noble con
secration to Christ, to so many who have been its
statesmen, philosophers, and preachers of the gospel.
Who will venture to estimate the usefulness of
Richard Baxter, not only as the earnest and success-

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 19
ful preacher, but as the writer of such books as " The
Call to the Unconverted," and "The Saint's Everlast
ing Rest?" The calculus of heaven is necessary for
the mighty computation. Young Baxter picked up in
his father's house an old tattered volume which a poor
cottager had lent him, and which awakened in him
strong convictions of the evil of sin. It was Bunny's
"Book of Christian Exercises appertaining to Reso
lution," whose great object is to press on all the duty
of "resolving to become Christians indeed." Thus
awakened, the young inquirer found peace and hope
in thepersualof Sibbs's "Bruised Reed," now a publi
cation of our own Board. No wonder then, that when
he came to the knowledge of the truth as it is in
Jesus, he was so diligent in the use of the press for
the conversion of souls, and forgot the protests of a
feeble and suffering body, in the anxiety to preach
Christ through the ministry of the printed page;
and that not satisfied with the slower and more
stately march of the bound volume, he used also
the ephemeral broad sheet. These are his own words :
"Another furtherance of my work was the writings
which I wrote and gave among them. Some small
books I gave each family, one of which went to about
eight hundred. . . And I had found myself the

20 THE POWER OF
benefit of reading to be so great, that I could not but
think it would be profitable to others  When
the grievous plague visited London, I printed a half-
sheet to stick on a wall, for the use of the ignorant
and ungodly who were sick, or in danger of the sick
ness." These isolated facts, and they could be multiplied
indefinitely, shine like gems in the church's crown of
rejoicing. And were these and those like them, all,
this department of labour could vindicate its claim to
a commanding position amid the agencies of salvation.
But not unfrequently these gems are linked together
in golden bonds, and thus form a bright chain, to be
worn as a beautiful ornament by the rejoicing bride
of the Lamb. Then that agency for good, which was
before seen to be so noble, transcends our powers of
expression. Let me call your attention to one speci
men of this long protracted agency of an impulse
originally given by a good book. "Baxter's Call"
awakened and saved Philip Doddridge ; and in 1745
Doddridge, moved by the advice of Dr. Watts, wrote
and gave to the press his "Rise and Progress of Reli
gion," a work he could never have produced but for
his familiarity with his favourite authors, Howe,
Baxter, and Tillotson. That work has been trans-

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 21
lated into German, Dutch, Danish, and French, and
has thus sent its saving influences among the millions
who speak those tongues. It has followed also wher
ever the well-nigh universal English language has
gone. We shall not attempt to estimate the ten
thousand instances in which it has silently and secretly
blessed its myriad readers. These must be left to
the revelations of the great day. But in some
instances its beneficent work has come out from
obscurity, claimed attention, and called on us to give
glory to God that he has given its author to the
church and the world.
During the year 1783, a talented, educated, and in
fluential British statesman was travelling on the shores
of the Mediterranean. Pleasure was his object in this
interval of parliamentary labour. He was thoroughly
devoted to the world, and ignorant of religion, and
he pursued the pleasures of time with a keenness to
which youth, health, rank, and wealth gave zest. He
one day carelessly picked up a volume from the table,
and running his eye over its pages, asked its character.
His friend Milner replied, "it is one of the best books
ever written, let us take it with us and read it on our
journey." The advice was taken, and thus William
Wilberforce was led to Christ by Doddridge's "Rise

22 THE POWER OF
and Progress." But not satisfied with his eminent
services as a Christian statesman and philanthropist,
Wilberforce wrote his "Practical View." A few
months after its publication, a young Cambridge
graduate undertook the curacies of Brading and
Yaverland in the Isle of Wight. Orthodox and moral,
and to a good degree zealous, he was still a stranger
to the life and power of the gospel he preached. A
friend loaned him Wilberforce's "Practical View."
Its effects are best recorded in his own words : " The
soul of the reader was penetrated to its utmost
recesses. A change was effected in his views of
divine truth, as decided as it was influential. He
was no longer satisfied with the creed of the specu-
latist ; he felt a conviction of his own state as a guilty,
condemned sinner, and under that conviction he sought
mercy at the cross of the Saviour." That young
curate was Legh Richmond. And to speak of nothing
else he did, he wrote "The Dairyman's Daughter,"
which has carried the words of life into uncounted
hamlets and cottages, where the humble and obscure
have found the love of Him who especially sends the
gospel to such. And thus the pulsations of the pious
heart of a British Senator are felt in homes of poverty,
ignorance and crime, whose thresholds his foot never

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 23
crossed. But this is not all, for this stream of saving
knowledge, like that which came forth from Eden,
divides itself into many heads and sends life and
healing along many channels.
About fourteen years after the publication of the
"Practical View," there was a young Scottish clergy
man, of vast grasp of mind, and magnificent elo
quence of tongue. Nature and art combined to put
him forth as a giant — a son of Anak. And he, too,
is preaching an unknown Christ. He has the form
without the power of godliness. But now the com
mandment, which is exceeding broad, had come to
him. His self-righteousness was slain. Sin revived
and he died. But his own words best embody his
thoughts. "He attempted, in an agony of soul, to
scale the heights of perfection, to quell the remon
strances of a challenging and not yet appeased com
mandment." But it was "like the laborious ascent
of him who, having so wasted his strength that he
can do no more, finds that some precipice still
remains to be overcome, some mountain brow that
scorns his enterprise, and threatens to overwhelm
him." His very soul was troubled. He sought rest
and found none. But in this time of sore need,
God's providence opened before him a little book,

24 THE POWER OF
from which he would have turned with loathing and
scorn in the day of his intellectual and spiritual
pride. That book preached Jesus unto him, and
Thomas Chalmers became the spiritual son of William
Wilberforce. And it was the "Practical View" that
sent forth the great Scotch divine to write, and teach,
and preach as he did. Now take in these wonderful
facts as fruits of Baxter's labours, and then glance
at the far more numerous cases that are unrecorded,
exceptun the book of God's knowledge, and also at
those cases which, though parts of the church's his
tory, are of a less illustrious degree, such as that of
the Boston merchant, who says, "Doddridge's Rise
and Progress was the bar which God threw across my
pathway to perdition; and all that I am, and hope to
be, I owe to the Divine blessing on that precious
book" — words that are echoed by thousands of the
best members of the American churches. Sum up
all these influences, known and unknown, try to do
justice to the mighty result, and tell me the value to
the cause of God and the good of man of one good
book. What would have been the feelings of Baxter,
or Doddridge, if he could have traced the onward
course, and the issues of that stream of blessing
whose fountains he opened.

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 25
James Bruce has left on record his emotions on
discovering the source of the Nile. When his guide
pointed it out to him, as a hillock of green sod about
two hundred yards in the distance, and he remem
bered that his was the first European eye that had
ever rested on it, he lost self-control in the exultant
enthusiasm of the moment. But his own affecting
words are the only fitting expression of his feelings.
" Half undressed as I was by the loss of my sash,
and throwing off my shoes, (a necessary preliminary
to satisfy the pagan feelings of the people,) I ran
down the hill towards the hillock of green sod. The
whole side of the hill was thick grown with flowers,
the large bulbous roots of which appearing above the
ground, and their skins coming off on my treading
upon them, occasioned me two very severe falls before
I reached the brink of the marsh. I after this came
to the altar of green turf, which was apparently the
work of art, and I stood in rapture above the princi
pal fountain, which rises in the middle of it. It is
easier to guess than to describe the state of my
mind at that moment, standing on that spot which
had baffled the genius, industry, and inquiry of both
ancients and moderns for the course of near three
thousand years. Kings- had attempted this discovery
3

26 THE POWER OF
at the head of armie3, apd each expedition was dis
tinguished from the last, only by the difference of
numbers which had perished, and agreed alone in the
disappointment which had uniformly followed them
all. Fame, riches, and honour, had been held out
for a series of ages to every individual of those
myriads these princes had commanded, without having
produced one man capable of gratifying the curiosity
of his sovereign, or wiping off this stain on the enter
prise and abilities of mankind, or adding this desider
atum for the encouragement of geography. Though
a mere private Briton, I triumphed here in my own
mind over kings and their armies."
And this was a proud achievement for the great
Scottish traveller, and well might he glory in his
success. But profounder feelings become him who
stands by the fountain head of the stream of which I
have spoken; and still sublimer awe must swell
the bosom of him who consciously unseals its springs,
digs out its channels, and starts its never ending
flowings. For this is a nobler stream than that.
That does come forth from the mysterious and
almost inaccessible depths of the desert, spreading its
fructifying waves over the great granary of the
ancients, and millions are fed by it: and it moves

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 27
with the air of a beneficent conqueror, as it passes
towers and temples, and places famous in story, to
lose itself in the blue waves of the Mediterranean. But
this comes forth from a higher and purer source, bears
a richer freight of blessings, and never ceases to flow.
In this vale of tears its banks are green and blooming
with the hopes of immortal life, and antepasts of
heaven are plucked from the tree of life which
flourishes by its side; and when time shall end,
and earthly streams are all dried up, its flowings will
go on immortally. Baxter could not have borne a
full revelation of all that he had done for God and
man, when he had penned the last sentence of
the "Call to the Unconverted." It would have
been overwhelming as Paul's exaltation to the third
heaven. It is not wonderful then that our noblest preachers
have coveted the honour and blessedness of preaching
by the press, which has more tongues than were
heard at Pentecost. It was natural that Nevins,
able and successful as he was in the pulpit, should
have for years longed and prayed for the privilege of
writing one good tract, and that his soul swelled with
gratitude and praise to God, when he found that this
grace had been vouchsafed to him.

28 THE POWER OF
A still more striking expression of the same truth
is found in the recorded words of a man who com
bined in an eminent degree the power of the pulpit
and the press, and whose teachings did more to shape
the theology, and form the ministry of the American
church, than any man that has ever lived in it. He
says, " The man who is enabled to write a truly use
ful and evangelical book, or even a single tract of
first rate excellence, may convey the saving truth of
the gospel to a thousand times more persons than the
living preacher can ever instruct by his voice. And
hundreds of years after the death of the writer, the
production of his pen may be but just commencing
its career of usefulness, only to be terminated with
the end of the world. Those men, therefore, who
are blessed with the ability of producing one work of
evangelical excellence, may be considered among the
most highly favoured of our race, and must enjoy a
rich reward hereafter." These words, written by
Archibald Alexander, in the ripeness of his judgment,
while yet his eye was not dim, nor his natural force
abated, prepare us to hear him say, "I am so con
vinced of the efficacy of this mode of diffusing the
knowledge of the truth, that if I thought myself
capable of writing good tracts, I should be willing

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 29
to spend the remainder of my days in that ser
vice." These remarks of this eminent servant of God have
peculiar interest, when we learn his own indebtedness
to the religious press in the earlier stages of his expe
rience. Soame Jenyns' "Internal Evidences" cleared
from his mind all the doubts as to the truth of our
holy religion that had gathered there. Flavel's
"Method of Grace" awakened him to a sense of his
sins in the sight of God, and Jenks on "Justification
by Faith" showed him how God can be just, and yet
justify the sinner that believeth in Jesus, and thus
introduced him to the peace that passeth all under
standing. Truly he was a debtor to the religious
press, and well did he repay it. For our own Board
alone, to say nothing of other agencies, has set in cir
culation forty millions of pages of his works, and the
demand is still increasing.
If these remarks apply to a single book or tract,
how much grander the office of controlling the religi
ous literature of a people. And yet this is what our
church has essayed to do in the establishment of the
Board of Publication. It is manifest from the enact
ments of the Assembly in organizing this Board, and
pointing out its field of labour, that it was designed
3*

30 THE POWER OP
to put a choice selection of the religious literature of
our own and other ages in close contact with the
minds and hearts of our people ; that these publica
tions, which it is no boast to say have never been
rivalled by any similar attempt, should be found in
our Sabbath-schools, in our families, and in our con
gregational and pastors' libraries, and that thus the
thought, feeling, and action of our entire church
should be largely and powerfully influenced by this
literature which the church was willing to endorse
and send forth to the world, as the exponent of doc
trines, order, and government.
But it is manifest that the scheme as thus far
developed reaches only those who are already within
the pale of our schools and churches, and those in
whom a taste for the best religious authors had been
so far cultivated as that they would seek out and pur
chase these books. There would then be a large, im
portant, and most needy class of our population, who
would be practically unbenefited by its operation. The
aggressive character of the church would be left out
of view. The vast "outfield" population, so far as
our church is concerned, would be left to ignorance
and spiritual death. And this destitute class, whose
very destitution would make them insensible of their

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 31
need of the light of life, and thus prevent their seek
ing it, has for many reasons special claims on
our church.
It is a fact that forces itself on the attention, and
which has often been lamented by the lovers of our
Zion, that we as a church have not more completely
reached and leavened the lower strata of society.
There is an actual want of church and ministerial
accommodation for the vast masses that are perishing
around us in ignorance and sin. We have not room
for them if they were to come. But the difficulty is,
that they do not come. Look over any of our Pres
byterian congregations, in town or country, and you
see the well dressed, orderly, and intelligent. The
middle and upper classes are well represented. But
where are they who crowd the highways, and shelter
under the hedges, and spend their time in little else
than "fighting the wolf from the door" of humble
cottages, alike in the crowded city, and the sparsely
settled country. You meet them in your daily walks.
They work for you. They beset your doors with all
a beggar's importunity, asking for work and bread.
While you minister to their temporal wants, do you
give them the bread of life as well? Is the gospel
preached to them through your agency ? I grieve to

32 THE POWER OF
say that they are not found in your churches. Minis
terial visitation to the amount needed is physically
impossible. Our elders and deacons are generally
business men, and therefore find great difficulty in
reaching this wide-spread legion of the ignorant and
untended ; and thus the sad fact is that their cases
are not met.
We cannot say that we are doing our duty to this
intellectually and spiritually destitute class, and which
for the very darkness that is in them is rapidly swelling
what is well called the dangerous class of our popula
tion. I am aware that a part of this deficiency is com
monly attributed to our pew system, that attendance
on our ministrations is rendered too costly. But it is
a noteworthy fact, that where special and most gene
rous efforts have been made to remove this obstruc
tion, and the price of sittings has been made little
more than nominal, the proportions of the several
classes have not been very materially changed. In
deed the same general condition of things in this
respect remains true in our country and village
churches, where the pew system is unknown, and the
sittings are entirely free.
It seems to be true, therefore, that the difficulty

A CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 33
lies deeper than a mere question of expense, and is to
be found in a want of taste among the uneducated
for our ministrations, and that the way to remove the
difficulty is to elevate those we seek to reach in intel
ligence. And where can we find better mental and
spiritual stimulants than are afforded by the publica
tions of our Board? And by what agency can we
reach those at whom we aim but by a well organized
and vigorously prosecuted system of colportage —
scattering these seeds of life by all waters, and car
rying to the homes of the people those doctrines and
discussions that are calculated to bring them to our
churches, and make them intelligent and profited
hearers of our ministry.
We cannot afford to give up the poor. The
preaching the gospel to those in whose rank of life
our Redeemer was born, and with whom he lived, and
from whom he took the great mass of his disciples
and apostles, cannot be foregone by any church
which wishes to preserve the succession of the apos
tolic spirit. And they may be reached. Send forth
the humble, earnest colporteur into the valleys and
prairies. Let the "man in the blouse" forerun the
ordained minister of Christ. Our church has done

34 CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.
well, therefore, in adding the Colportage work to that
of the publishing department of this Board.
If these observations are true, then with our pure
faith, educated ministry, and scriptural order, aided
by the auxiliaries afforded by this Board, our Church
goes forth fully equipped for the work of preaching
the gospel of salvation to the world.

THE END.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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