======================================================================== WRITINGS OF E H CHAPIN by E.H. Chapin ======================================================================== A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by E.H. Chapin, compiled for study and devotional reading. Chapters: 19 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 00.00. Chapin, E. H. - Library 2. 01.00. Living Words 3. 01.01. Introductory Letter 4. 01.02. Preface 5. 01.03. Index 6. 01.04. Living Words 7. 02.00. The Crown of Thorns 8. 02.000. Preface 9. 02.01. The Three Tabernacles 10. 02.02. The Shadow of Disappointment 11. 02.03. Life a Tale 12. 02.04. The Christian View of Sorrow 13. 02.05. Christian Consolation in Loneliness 14. 02.06. Resignation 15. 02.07. The Mission of Little Children 16. 02.08. Our Relations to the Departed 17. 02.09. The Voices of the Dead 18. 02.10. Mystery and Faith 19. S. Nicodemus: The Seeker After Religion ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1: 00.00. CHAPIN, E. H. - LIBRARY ======================================================================== Chapin, E. H. - Library Chapin, E. H. - The Crown of Thorns Chapin, E. H. - Living Words ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2: 01.00. LIVING WORDS ======================================================================== Living Words. E.H. Chapin, D.D. with an introductory letter. BY REV. T. S. KINO. "Jewels five words long. That on the stretched fore-finger of all time Sparkle forerer." BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY A. TOMPKINS, 33 & 40 COBNHII.X,. CROSBY, NICHOLS, LEE & CO., 117 WASHINGTON ST. 1861. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by A. TOMPKINS, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts Stereotyped by Edward P. Foi and DUlfagham 4 Pinlert, 41 Congress St., Boston. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3: 01.01. INTRODUCTORY LETTER ======================================================================== SAN FRANCISCO, Oct, 1860. MY DEAR MR. TOMPKINS: I have just received your note, asking me to furnish a short preface to the volume of selections from the writings of Dr. Chapin, which you are about to publish. In order to fulfil your request, I must write a few lines without delay, and hurry them off by Pony Express to Boston; so that if these words reach you, and are accepted, you must give thanks, not to the plodding mail stage, nor to the circuitous steamers, but to the flying courier who, down snowy slopes of the Sierras, across desolate plains, at the risk of rifle-shot or deadly arrow from the Indians, and over passes of the Rocky Mountains, takes a direct line for the queen city of the Mississippi, and connects us by letter with the coast of Massachusetts, in fourteen days. A great distance to send for an introductory word! But our affections, thank Heaven, are not cooled by thousands of miles of space. You could easily have found some one nearer home who would have written a more fitting preface; but you could not, I am sure, find one who would prize more highly the privilege of connecting his name with a volume destined to such wide service; and I know that it would be difficult for you to find one who would write with heartier friendship for the publisher, or with more cordial admiration for the genius of Dr. Chapin. There are some men through whom the Spirit pours " a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind." I have been moved by Dr. Chapin, in recent years, as many thousands have been, in the midst of great assemblies,. when the cloven tongue of fire sat upon aia soul, and the divine afflatus moved through his nature, as a gust through an organ. All that his conscious thought did was to touch the keys. The volume, and swell, and sweep of the music were of the Holy Ghost, flowing now in a wild surge through his passionate imagination, and waking the noblest chords of the religious nature in his hearers to devout joy, now in a simple passage of melody from his heart, plaintive and tender, that persuaded tears from the sternest eye. He has seemed to me, then, to be not a single nature, but the substance of a hundred souls compacted into one, to be used as an inspiring instrument in the service of the loftiest truth. And yet it is not in recognition simply of his eloquent genius that I rejoice here to associate for a moment my name with these thoughts of his; nor is it to confess the delight of his friendship, through the years of my ministry; nor to pay tribute to his fidelity, through various lines of reading, in enriching and enlarging his powers for the service of Christ. I am glad, rather, to confess indebtedness to him as my earlier friend; to utter feelings warmer than admiration to my pastor in youth; and to acknowledge with gratitude that I have brought something substantial from him with me to this distant field; since the fervor, the splendor, the pathos, and the spiritual simplicity of his preaching, twenty years ago, are not memories merely, but influences, permanent lights and forces of the inner life, for which, granted through, him by Providence, I must stand responsible. Each new volume by Dr. Chapin has borne testimony to advancing and ripening power. This one, doubtless, will show more potently than any other which the public has seen the breadth and vigor of the intellectual gifts which he has so faithfully dedicated. Books of this character are peculiarly adapted to our American hurry and impatience of elaborate and artistic address. Very often the best thing in a sermon or speech the only original paragraph or passage is an illustration or an aphorism, or a sudden gleam of imagination, -which condenses the meaning of the discourse, or sets an old truth at an angle where it glows like a gem. Whoever masters this one passage holds the value of the whole effort. The richest minds of the pulpit are those which sprinkle their pages most freely with these seed-thoughts, or from whose extempore utterance can be caught the most of the sentences which are lenses for the rays of Christian truth. Diffuseness is especially the vice of pulpit-speech. The formula which Carlyle stated as to books is peculiarly true of sermons: "Given a cubic inch of respectable Castile soap, to lather it up in water, so as to fill one puncheon, wine-measure." Volumes like Mr. Beecher’s "Life Thoughts" save for us the solid matter, and give us what is vital in the preacher, disengaged from what is mechanical. There are comparatively few who can bear this test of husking off the accessories, and selecting only the original germpassages which are quickened by the preacher’s own insight and experience. The poverty of many a fair-looking discourse is patent when this process is tried upon it. The volume of selections from Dr. Chapin’s sermons and writings will show, I am sure, that his mind is one of the richest, as well as that his heart is one of the most fervent and simplest that is now in communion, as a preacher, with our American life. He is a thinker, as well as a prophet. The " word of wisdom " is granted to him by the same Spirit that has given him "faith;" and the volujaae will be of large usefulness, I am confident, in our country. It will be welcomed heartily and widely in this new State. In the mining regions, among the fort-hills of the Sierras, in huts amid the rocky grandeurs of the Yo-Semite, I have heard men speak in gratitude of sermons heard, years ago, in New York, from Dr. Chapin. They will be glad to be able to get so close to his mind and heart as the book for which I am writing these lines will conduct them; and it will help them and all of us that read it to appreciate the simplicity and strength of the Christian faith. For it will fulfil the purpose which Sir Thomas Browne desired, when he said, "Since instructions are so many, we should hold close unto those whereon the rest depend; so we may have all in a few, and the law and the prophets in a rule; the Sacred Writ in stenography, and the Scripture in a nutshell." With strong desire to see the volume, and the fervent wish that it may address as many readers as its merits will deserve, a wish which, if fulfilled, would satisfy any publisher, I remain Your distant friend, T. S. KING. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4: 01.02. PREFACE ======================================================================== PREFACE. WHILE listening to the thrilling utterances, or pausing over the inspiring pages of this celebrated divine, the compiler of this work has often felt that a collection of this kind would be to many an invaluable treasure. His own desire for it has led him to indulge the hope that many of Dr. Chapin’s numerous friends would cordially welcome it, and that it might prove a means, to some extent, of acquainting others with his genius. In connection with his brilliancy of intellect, poetic fancy, and rare eloquence of diction, will be found evidence of a catholic and genial spirit, a large and loving heart, which, after all, is the best title to our admiration, the golden key to our best sympathies and purest emotions, and the surest basis of a noble and enduring fame. These selections have been taken from Dr. Chapin’s published works, anniversary and other speeches, orations, lectures, and extemporaneous sermons. I would tender acknowledgments to the Rev. Henry Lyon, of New York, for the use he has permitted me to make of the volumes of which he is the publisher, one of which, "Select Sermons," I think the ablest of Dr. Chapin’s works, and perhaps, upon the whole, the noblest contribution to this kind of literature that has been published in America. I have not, in every instance, selected the most beautiful and brilliant passages; but what I thought would be most likely to interest, please, and profit the reader. Deeply conscious of my liability to err in judgment, I yet hope that in most instances my choice will be approved by those best qualified to render a just verdict. I cannot more appropriately bring this preface to a close than by saying, in the language of our gifted author, " May God pardon the evil which has mingled with my labor, and may he bless my work." November, 1860. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5: 01.03. INDEX ======================================================================== INDEX. "ABIDE will us," 204-5. Ability to do, how acquired, 193. Abraham (Isaac, Jacob), 159, 336. Abstractions move the world, 91. Action, moral, 208; and inaction, 350. Adversity, uses of, 148-9. Affection, office of, 63; power of. 77; chemistry of right, 116; in all, 134; of earth in heaven, 262; deathless, 327. Affliction, the right use of, 185; an agent, not an end, 327. Africa, bleeding, 268; plains of, 318. Age, the golden, 38; of lyrics, 221. Aged Christian, 26; and young, 249. Ages, striking for all, 28; touching all, 29; all in each, 182; Christ and the, 274. Alphabet, the, and the nebulse, 154. America, the work of, 125; our duty, 126; Christ speaks to people of, 273; young men of, 352. Amusement, 70; and religion, 216. Angelo, and the Christian ideal, 174. Angels, heralds of peace, 53; fallen, 66; wings, rush of, 168; and men landing-place of, 180; we may become, 195; of hope, 225; privilege of, 295. Annihilation, sorrow no proof of, 44, 121. Anthems of the church, old, 194. Aphelion, we can never touch our, 173. Apocalypse to nature’s genesis, 169. Appetite, how subdued, 98; unduly exalted, 115; fools of, 252. Art, Heathen and Christian, 174, 176; and nature representing spiritual substance, 191; expression of power in, 321. Ascetic, the, and the sensualist, 98. Astronomy, 72; and power of mind, 158; Christianity likened to, 353. Atheism not natural to man, 341. Atmosphere of different men, 183. Atoms, rebellion of anarchy, 131; none useless, 217; or insignificant, 350. Aurora, power shining in, 154. Autumn and old age, 76; phase of nature, 292 y of the year, of life, 330. Baca, valley of, how lighted, 192. Bacon, the influence of, 71, 332. Baptist, the, 38; -robe of immersion, 61. Barnacle, living like a, 246. Barnacles on ship or sect, 220. Beatitudes, the, not mottoes for war, 262. Beautiful, the, useful, 64; the ocean is, 93; the stars are, 163; truth, where most, 218; flowers, 340; music, 354. Beauty, our sease of, 86; why abundant, 340; like a flower, 351. Beggar, greatness of the, 88; akin to God, 194, 234. Being, a miserable, 70; and doing, 102; end of, how fulfilled, 172; the power of, 319; illimitable, 333. Belief in God, basis of, 111. Beneficent, order is, 211; the inevitable 12 INDEX. is, 292, 295; purpose in all change, 330. Bereavement, meaning of, 186. Bible, how to judge the, 33; a sufficiency in, 35; and ledger, 68; and science, 105; a mirror, chart, etc, 211; read backward, 218; like nature, 272; how to show respect for, 319; the greatest of books, 352. Bigots, knowing it and sorry for it, 125. Bigotry dwarfs the soul, 231. Bird, comfort for the, 58; ever the same, 167; an illustration of Providence, 277; the soul like a wandering, 291. Birth-right, the divine, 34. Blessed are they that mourn, why, 145. Blindness, physical and moral, 37, 254. Book of character, 84; of Ecclesiastes, 190. Books like wondrous mirrors, 329. Boston, council in and Hancock, 155. Boy, a, should be like a cat, 88. Brain, the, and the heart, 196. Bravery and cowardice, 124. Bread, by sweat or otherwise? 205. Brooklyn, the preacher of, 312. Brotherhood, the doctrine of, 105. Bruce, the heart of and of Christ, 99. Business, the helm of, 30; not all-important, 42; intercourse, condition of, 50; conscience and Sunday, 68; standards of, 103; and religion, 283. Butterfly, the simile of, 258; God near to the, 271. Byrotl and his imitators, 49. Czesar and Christianity, 109, 290. Caesars and Napoleons, fall back, 138. Call, every man has a, 197, 217. Calvary, going with Christ to, 166. Calvinism, objections to, 345. Campaign of God, conscripts in, 252. Cancer, compromising with a, 246. Capital, life true, 84; nature fixed, man speculative, 199. Carolina, breezes from Maine to, 146. Catholic, the, 51; Roman, complexity, 247; service, 318. Century, the man of the 19th, 87; the sky of the 19th, 343. Chance, made a servitor^ 76; or debt? 78. I Channing, Plato, etc, how to be, 259. Character, the book of, 84; weight of, 94; test of, 116; the true basis of, 177; greater than circumstances, 184. Charity, where shown, 169; by whom possessed, 286. Cheating and being cheated, 313. Child, in the grave, 81; laid to rest, 113; death of a, 186, mercy to the, 210; grief of the, 237; mission of death of, 300; the weak loved most, 311; face of in death, 353. Childhood and flowers, 342. Childlike, the Christian spirit is, 214. Child’s delight and grief, 237. Chivalry, a recognized, 230; lack of, 240; work of modern, 276. Christ, the confidence of, 48; the influence of, 49; life of end of all, 88; the cup his prayer, 96; the heart of, 99; and the miracles, 103; giving life, 108; no room for, 110; and Socrates, 122; what he requires, 123; rested upon the truths of nature, 133; the grandeur of, 138; the impulse of his life, 141; our example, 141; his personal action his agency, 142; what he has done, 143; a revelation his power, 144; and Christianity, 145; his birth, 146; his illustration of sorrow, 150; the cross and crown of, 162; the essence of all law, 164; Son of God of Man, 166; his work, 166; alone fills the demand for truth, 170; his mercy man’s selfishness, 171; his personality demonstrated, 176; love of the true basis of character, 177; not degraded by mockery, 184; what he saw in this world, 190; despised not the world, 192; found in us, 193; and the Christ-like soul, 199; his law the basis of a better state, 200; and woman, 201; " abide with us," 204-6; crowned with thorns, 212; what his cross was, is, 213; the weeping, 214; a revelation of the Father, 214; his spirit the spring of power, 217; loving him in the true sense, 224; need of communion with, 229; and geologist, ethnologist, 232; searching for the heart, 242; the source INDEX. 13 of opinion for the church, 247; real homage to, 248; in civilization, 249; walked death’s bridge, 257; likened to s spring day, 268; teachings of not gloomy, 269; his spirit and mission, 270; the only manifestation of Qod the Father, 271; riding through the ages in triumph, 274; honored by a loug retinue, 274; in the Jerusalem of toil and traffic, 275; the of our youth on the sea of death, 275; sank an artesian well, 275; his words surpass all others, 276-7; represented in the pulpit, 278; as a vision of glory, 279; and the church, 284; Polycarp’s testimony, 289; the priests, doctors, and Csesar, 290; his spirit the future state, 291; assurance of immortality, 294; gathering in one all things in, 307; example of in Qethsemane, 308; none can disfellowship from, 312; died for us, 314; expressed God’s love for the sinful, 315; the honors due to, 318; turned out of doors, 322; who are near to, 348; close to humanity, 356; how best honored, 357; his cross interprets nature, 359; how he comes again, 360. Christian, an aged, 26; in his spirit a spring-tide, 27; union, 50 y philanthropy, the tide of, 51; completion of life like October glory, 76; condition of being a life, prize of the, 134; view of life, 168; results in the soul, 172; and Heathen art, 174, 176; faith in old age, 204; disposition, the, childlike, 214; law, effect of the, 266; the, often appears anomalous, 2D7; qualities of a true, 320; stony fruit, 348; literature, the worst kind of, 354. Christianity the world’s hope, 40; the only basis of a rational life, 47; in every denomination, 50; is a life, 53; and reformers, 54; the life and power of, 62; fluent, eternal, 92; limitless, 97; its nature and results, 102; its influence, 105; progressive, 106; a farce, 107; and Ca;sar, 109; cottonbag, 123; the true conserving and developing powers, 127; effects of, 139; the prime object of, 140; its influence 2 on the ages, 141; illustrated for us, 142-3; a system of life, 144; without Christ, 145; test of its excellence, 149; how revealed, 150; how it regards evil, 153; apocalypse to nature’s genesis, 169; the change produced by, 170; Heathen need of, 174; like attraction, 175; a witness to, 176; has made martyrdom sublime, 192; the light and life, 194; the oracles of and of freedom, 227; to comfort the soul, 232; a golden ladder, 233; Christ’s, 235; leads to freedom, 245, the of our age, 287; how it meddles with institutions, and dims kings’ crowns, 290; the value of historical, 294; its transmuting power, 297; interprets^spiritual, 299; its glory, 310; a revelation not a revolution, 315; its platform and prospects, 341; stony fruit imitations of, 348; is a spirit, 349; the true idea of, 353; like astronomy, 353; its comprehensiveness, 356; planks not in its platform, 358; and nature, 359. Christmas, what right to celebrate? 117; Hymn, 118; Sabbath, 146. Church, the and ministers, 66; " the seed of the," 71; for the soul, 88; its bells chime-bells, 146; the true, a vital heart, 203; standard, the true, 284. Citizenship, the rights of, 165. City and country, 67, 287. Civilization, the agents of, 157; our, due to Christ, 249; follows labor, 285; a better from decay, 331. Clergyman, and Christ, respect for, 322. Coals on an enemy’s head, 205. College, the question concerning, 85. Cologne-water to quench Vesuvius, 88. Columbus finds a world, 26; of the skies, a, 87; enterprise of, 226; possible, 165. Come in, who, and when, 43. Comet, the, made an index, 158. Communion of the Eternal, 203; hours of, 221; with God, 238; the mount of, 288. Complexion, unsubstantial, 252. Condition, improvement of, 60; how tested, 126; changes of, crises, 267. Conqueror, the and the laborer, 137. 14 INDEX. Conscience and business, 6S; thunder of, 107; clipping, 119; and the Presidency, 122; dead as a atone, 161; regard to, 306. Conscripts in God’s campaign, 252. Conservative, the, and truth, 65, 91, 173. Constitution, danger to the, 126; a, not freedom, 131. Contentment, blessings of, 118. Convictions, loyalty to a duty, 61; test of genuine, 55. Copernicus without a telescope, 120. Courage, when greatest, 61; danger with Socrates Christ, 122. Court dress, 1’ranklin’s, 230. Cowardice, vs. bravery, 124; no yirtue, 253. Creed, the, of the true saint, 85. Crises of existence, the, 257. Criticism of Christianity, 142. Cross, the love of the, 72; an instrument of victory, 115; the central light, 162; no light shall eclipse the, 166; the love shown on the, 133; its significance and influence, 213; the Southern, 268; the interprets nature, 359. Crown, who wins the, 50; the brightest in heaven, 180; of thorns, 212. Crowns, kings’ dimmed in Christ’s light, 290; come, if God gives them, 291. Crystal Palace, nature’s, 191. Day, a, what it is, 25; evening of the, 334 -, the close of, 335. Deafness, what it is, 254. Death, physical and spiritual, 37; a revealer, 56; appeals to charity, 60; the condition of a higher life, 73; sense of life in, 151; of a community, 152; a transition, 164; between mother and child, 186; that shakes us so, 204; what it is, 254; a physical change, 257; Christ with us in, 275; baptism into life through the shadow of, 296; a sleep, 297-8; of a child, 300; a transitional process, 330; the shadow of fast coming, 338. Debt, not chance, 78. Decalogue, how to measure the, 218; written on a dime, 329. Declaration of Independence, 129, 180, 229, 290. Degeneracy the oldest of cries, 339. Delaware, Penn’s treaty and the, 265. Delirium tremens of patriotism, 126. Delusion, the, of all ages, 151. Democracy, the Idea at the core of, 227. Depravity, how seen, 30; the best type of, 248; why lament? 307; the worst manifestation of, 350. Desecration of God’s image, 328. Design, proof of, 159; a beneficent, 292; indications of, 325. Despair, 84; when not to, 226. Despotism, the elements of, 106. Destiny, wisdom weaves the cycle of, ,304; nature suggests a higher, 325. Devil, how the comes, 81; nature, 87; his allies, 87; the sin of the, 312. Diamond, one flash reveals the, 32. Die, we must alone, 40. Difficult things useful, 98; providential, 189. Dignity not compromised, 352. Disappointment, uses of, 148-9; drives us to God; 172; and achievement, 303. Discipline of life, the, 121; meaning of, 147; spiritual, solemn, 155. Discovery and the chain of order, 80. Disposition, blessings of a contented, 116; to do, more than power, 327. Distinctions, what they prove, 319. Doing and being, 102; as we like, 256. Dollar, a, and the disc of eternity, 45. Doubt and faith, 65, 84. Douglass and the heart of Bruce, 99. Drunkard, the, boasting of freedom, 36. Duty, the voice of disregarded, 29; the most important, 51; the most solemn, 155; every, great, 161, 164; the spirit of, 172; the true sphere of, 200; th post of, 201, 205. Earth, its tombs, 67; a cradle, 97; a minim, 174; one family, 234; affections of in heaven, 262; holds a record of beneficent law, 292; its generations like harvests, 330. Ease, the man of not so easy, 284. Easter morning, the bells of, 110. INDEX. Ecclesiastes, the Book of, 190. Economy of life of living, 74. Eden and the golden age, 38; condition of rest in, 269; the innocence of, 308. Education leads to larger life, 332. Eggs, hearers likened to, 358. Elijah clothed with celestial radiance, 159. Eloquence a kindling process, 302. Empires like forests, 330. End, nothing in itself an, 302. Endurance and achievement, 187; the power of, 321, 322; the soul possessed with like the moon, 324. England, the Bank of, 67; an influence, 71; the American idea in, 227. English tongue, the, 129; tistory, 296. Environments, nothing, 44. Error, nothing so fluent as, 91. Esau, the hands of, 312. Essence, a whiskered, 57. Eternal shore, the, 6V; the sublimest creation of the, 166; and temporal, 350. Eternity, a wave from the sea of, 40; disc of hid by a dollar, 45; the ages of and the morning stars; 15S; a ceaseless growth, 195; a symbol of, 335. Ethnology, 72, 232, 344. Europe, the balance of, 85; sown with gunpowder, 87; mind gone out in, 296. Evangelists, the leaves of the, 100. Evening of the day, the, 334; of life, 338. Events, the current of, 47; are governed, 60; the shells of ideas, 123. Evil, a shadow. 90; to overcome, 96; how seen aright, 112; the Christian must conquer, 134; a reality, 153; origin and use of, 168; no unmitigated, 188; not permanent, 198; degrees of, 258; God against all, 268; love around all, 304; speaking, effects of, 355; not final, 358. Evils, their limits point of cure, 62. Exchange, nature a system of, 70. Existence, wisely considered, 77; we cannot doubt, a spiritual, 123. Expediency, 210; danger of, 221. Eye, the insect’s, 83; they and the soul, 101, 187; useless in darkness, 159. Faculty, the inward reliable, 79. Failure, not always evidence of sin, 43; success grows out of, 303. Faith looking up, 30; and logic, 43; and action, 46; the telegraph of, 50; in defeat, 52; of development, 98; demand for, 154; and mystery, 156; and perception, 168; changes the cloud, 183; intelligent cheerful, 198; the glass of, 231; the privilege of, 295; suggested by nature, 325; everything rests upon, 326. Faithfulness, test of, 99. Falsehood, clattering locomotive, a, 177. Fame, the penalty of, 96. Family, the, a ship, 56; value of the, 59. Fanatic, the, and the disputant, 32. Fanaticism, religious and worldly, 246; proves religion real, 308. Fanueil Hall Plymouth Rock, 94. Fashion the science of appearances, 167. Fatalism not resignation, 197. Father, the love of the, 113; a permanent relation, 165; all can say " Our," 234, 235; One God the, 345. Fatherhood of God, the, 235, 271. Feeling and intellect, 196; and thought in religion, 222. Fellowship asked of no one, 312. Flowers always appropriate, 342. Fools of appetite, 252. Formality, danger of, 219. Fortune, the loss of, 104. Franklin’s patent of nobility, 230. Freedom, the charter of personal, 34; true, 36; God’s work, 93; and slavery, 131; effects of real, 173; limits of, 306. Free-will, the glory and danger of, 256. French Revolution, the old, 120. Fruit, stony Christians, 348. Future, the, and present, 170; and young men, 249; state, the glory of, 291. Gamester, a, 42; pictures of his life, 255. Gamesters are we all, 196. 16 INDEX. Gayety, a reckless ripple, 288. Genesis, andpreAdamite ages, 105; the Apocalypse to nature’s, 169. Genius, the inspirations of, 49; sympathetic, 55; the wealth of humanity, 94; its need, 99; its reward, 120; its dominion, 164; a setting for the diamond of, 278. Gentleman, a true not vicious, 42. Geology and Christianity, 72, 232. Germany, Hartz Mountains, 235. Gethsemane and the golden age, 38; hours, 94 -, Christ in, -122, 269, 308. Ghosts versus facts, 350. God, his word, 25; his reserve, 28; the charter of freedom from, 34; man’s nature proof of a, 35; song to, 38; immensities of, 42; similitude to, 46; glory to, 63; in nature, 73; of nature, of life, 77; holds the balance of justice, 85; majesty of displayed, 86; translation of, 89, paternity of, 90, 233; draws us through space his love efficient, 91; expressed in nature, 92; perception of, 93; sympathy of what he is, 100; idea of universal, 101; worship due to, 109; the father infinity, condesjjension of, 112; answer to prayer from, 114; voted out of the universe, 120; infinity of, 121; how known, 124, 134, 136, 172; love, of, 125; holds the world, 130; plenty shuts in from, 133; the thought of cload, fire, 138; spiritually seen, 139-40; sorrow leads to, 147; as a stranger, 151; presence of unfelt, 152; in the soul, 153; immortality, etc, 156; of the living, 159; nature of unchanging, 163; the desire of all ages, 165; illustrated in creation, 183; nature generalized in, 190; has no patience with laziness, 193; every man a call from, 197; unction from, 198; made the sea, stars, 199; goodness of seen in nature, 211; love of manifest word and works, 212; revealed as the Father, 214; opened a new world, 226; the image and superscription of, 227; communion with, 232; complimenting, 233; and the old sinner, 233; Our Father, 234-5; men project a, 235 > proof of a, 230; a symbol of his mercy, 236; glorified in all things, especially in man, 243; supreme, 246; is love, 251; the campaign of, 252; the privilege he gives, 256; surrender of the will to, 256; a child of, 257; against evil, 268; in nature and in Christ, 271, seeing with the vision of, 280; work of need of faith, 281; labor the chosen sphere of, 286; proof of his existence and unity, 301; life his plan, 302, 304, 306; at the helm of the universe our reliance, 307; given love help, 308; condescension of, 310; love, mercy of, 311; so loved the world, 314-15; power of his love, 321; careless of offending, 322; his tingdom sure, 326; what leads to, 327; image of desecrated, 328; autumn of year and of life from, 330; seen in nature near to man, 334-5; has a purpose in creation of beauty, 340; feeling after, 341; two gifts of, 342; looking to, 343; the Father of all humanity, 345; has made no mistake, 350; the explanation of things, 355; never alters his methods, 360. God’s truth, 35; work, 38, 93, 97; solicitude, 57; care for little things, 58; love and Providence, 91; plan, 95; sovereigntywill, praying doing, 108; love, comfort of, 113; harmony through works, 117; attributes our safety, 133; glory, lamps of, 164; throne, all things stream from, 71; light in Baca, 192; truth, right, 207; sympathy revealed in Christ, 248, 315; temple, truly, 276; love for the child, 2S2; mercy and gladness, 284; processes, 302, 333; love mated with knowledge, 346, eye upon you law, signal-flag of, 347. Gold, the fine fine forever, 182. Good, the shine in trial, 184; all things prophecy, 188; comes out of evil, 358. Goodness, what it is, 102; the rule in nature, 198; and knowledge inseparable, 349. Gospel, the, and woman, 33; breadth of the, 83; requirements of, 92; the uni- INDEX. 17 Verse and the, 166; satisfactory on the moral side, 16D; proof of its authenticity, 201; a peculiarity of, 214; a beautiful truth, 218; of a new order, 229; the central doctrine of the, 235; and war, 262; the essence of the, 264, 270, 310; the power and verification of the, 324. Grave, rest of the, 81; the curb-stones of, 90; the secret of, 98, Greenness tw. rottenness, 73. Grog-shops, how fed, 341. Growth, laws of, 70; means of, 86. Guilt, retributions of, 161; degrees of, 258. Gunpowder, Christ’s truth is, 290; Europe sown over with, 87. Habit, principle the difference, 177. Habits likened to a go-cart, 254. Hancock, 26; and the council, 155. Harmony in God’s works, 117; the keynote of universal, 234. Hartz Mountains, shadow in, 235. Harvest blasted reminds of God, 133. Head and heart, 150. Heart, proof of divine tenderness, 36; and intellect, 48 5 solitary, 100; no one -lued to its socket, 134; the lever of the soul, 140; and head, 150; the helm, 153; the pure reflects God, 172; and brain, 19S; disease, nations stricken with, 228; lives by love, 232; like a seashell, 235; Christ claims the, 242; a new as a chalice, 245; the world’s, how moved, 322; a strong never overcome, 323. Heathen and Christian art, 174, 176. Heathenism, sighs from, 143. Heaven, hindrances to, 26; who counts there, 67; grave idea of, 115; what it is, 134; no night in, 159; seen through tears, 185; nearness to, 200; cannot leap into, 246; cannot be where Bin is, 253; affections not changed in, 262; tiled with bliss, 267. Heroes, the noblest of, 61; true, 137; our Revolutionary, 227. Herschell, a Columbus, etc, 87. History, the flowering of all, 26; Christi- 2* anity and, 141, the providential ends of, 292; English, 296; opens the gates of the past, 332. Homage due to Christ, the, 274. Home, pre-vision of the world in, 28 5 influence of, 29; made an inn, 135 > consecrated or desecrated, 341; a seminary, 343. Honor, stars of the legion of, 173; the post of, 205; due to Christ, 275, 318. Hope, reason to, 48 5 born in sorrow, 52; its effects, 67; nothing to hang on, 234; who has it, 286. Hopes, baffled aid the soul, 291. Humanity, how known, 54; how it grows, 70; one, 72, 101; not lost, 83; moving, 92; something needed by, 143; not an earthly flower, 186; greater than any place, 250; or laws or institutions, 262; all in each, 314. Human nature, not all odious, 55; every body full of, 261 5 powers, highest, 322. Humility, 195; what it is, 314. Hymn, 118, 215, 306. Hypocrite, the fatality in the case of, 83 5 who is a, 312. Idea, the force of an, 160; the American, 227-8; of typical forms, 301. Ideas, the expression of divine, 33; wear crowns, 91; worth of, 102; events shells of, 123 5 potency of, 237; before action the world and, 244. Idealist, the work of honor to the, 244. Idiot, the voluntary, 37. Immortality, proof of, 71, 72, 101, 156, 238, 240 5 consciousness of, 236; evidence of, 239; assurance of, 289, 294, 327; inward blossoming of, 342. Incongruity, no hopeless, 188. Independence. (See Declaration). Indians, treaty with the, 265. Individual and the State, 172; and the race, moving, 190; responsibility, 219; influence, 224; worth and right, 228; and social all are, 229; conscience, claims of the, 261. Individualism and nationality, 228. Individuality, not enough of, 130. 18 INDEX. Induction, the ladder of, 32; the claim of, 190; what it is, 299. Inevitable, the, beneficent, 292, 295. Infidel, the came, 348. Insane, reasoning of the, 260. Integrity, only the path of safe, 355. Intemperance, how induced, 182; effects of, 256; issues of, 341. Intemperate, selling to the, 329. Intellect, religion transmutes the, 27; justifies faith, 39; and heart, 43, 190; and the moral nature, 79; the, cavils, 169; alone, icy, like lofty mountains, 220; lives by truth, 232; is a light neutral, 238; achievements of, 244; early found proofs of immortality, 258. Intellectual ability, admirable, 61; culture, conditions, use of, 249-50; progress, 343. Interest, twelvepercent, 68; obscnres the sight, 251. Irreligion, unnatural, 219. Island, stealing an, 217, 260. Jacob, the voice of, 312. Jerusalem, 150, 166, 247, 274, 275. Jesus, the crucified, 51; valued the widow’s mites, 55; his words, 89; no room for, 110; the thorn-crowned, 176, 212, 321; contrasted with professors, 218; the example of, 263; transfigured, 279; value of, 294; when he weeps, 297. Joy of life, the, not In licence, 41; the normal state, 42; translation of, 89; the flowering of existence, 96; of the blessed spirit, 351. Judas, Jonathan changed to, 229; the betrayal, 244, 317. Just, never degraded, 194. Justice, call of disregarded, 29; never dies, 35; the balance of, 85; and mercy harmonize, 210; nkture of true, 262; balked, 280, 336; the Bible in courts of, 319. Kindness, the fruit of, 116, 132. Kingdom, of heavep, there is a, 34; and the mustard-seed, 277; of God, the beginning of, 107; sure to come, 326; bow advanced, 356; its foundation in Hie soul, 358. Kings, cont: nental, 87; the Book of, 113; crowns and Christianity, 290. Kingliest Being ever born, the, 44. Knave, the and saint, reasoning of, 260. Knowing and thinking one knows, 147. Knowledge and piety, 45; and progress, 119; tendency of the highest, 192; source of the best, 199; useless, 230; defies gravitation, 243; use of, 250; mated with God’s love shine everywhere, 346; tends to goodness, 349; and to life, 356. Labor, its conqnests and glory, 178-9; developed energy of sou), 191 y our post in the field of, 269; the triumphs of, 285; God’s chosen sphere, 286. Land, love of native, 31; a happy, 69. Law, the physical, God’s, 59 y inconsistency of, 69; moral, and twelvepercent, 68; of love, 277; beneficent, 292; very bleak, 306; shad-net of, 336. Laws, purpose and use of, 262; of God must be obeyed, 360. Laziness, God no patience with, 193. Leaf, the, and Sirius, 174, 350; the foil of the vanishing of epochs, 292. Learning that is not genuine, 230. Leaves, none useless, 217. Legion of honor, the stars of, 173. Lexington, 227; the martyrs of, 22S. Liberty, 35; Democratic, 106; an old fact, 173; the charter of, where, 2SO; its limits, 306. Lie, a, but a lie, 31; small and large, 32 } a spark of fire, 132; black, 153. Life, a crucible, 20; the sum of attainments, 28; a problem, 40; enjoying, 41; computed by the dross, 56; of pleasure, a, 66; economy of, 74; greatness of, 108; spiritual, 116; a discipline, 121; on what its joy depends, 132, 133; meaning of, 147; who fitted for, 147; sense of death in, 151; there is a future, 167; Christian view of, 168; religious view of, 171; depends upon character, 181; conditions of, how determined, 187; the true cud of, 193, INDEX. 19 222; Underlying power of, 198; the deepest, 199; and death, conditions of, 218; the inner supreme, 222 -, another, 239; fulness of, 241; standards of, 250; degrees of, 259; of heaven, 261; suggestive of good, 270; no condition of satisfactory, 277; this not all, 291; how baptized into, 296; God’s plan, 302; the object of, 325; an immeasurable, 328; autumn-season of, 330; of education, 332; shadow evening of account of, 334-5; the spiritual, 338; becalmed on the sea of, 337; what we make it, 352; the great revealing of, 353; knowledge and, 356. Light, infinite, 90; for the eye, 159; the intellect a, 238; the inner, 206. Locke, the influence of, 71, 332. Logic and scolding, 40; and faith, 111. London, 130; journal, a century ago, 339. Louis and Massilon, 283. Love burning forever, 30; a mother’s, 55, 270; the spring of effort, 63; life of the best things, 67; of Qod, 72; creative, 74; secures its ends, 83; God’s efficient, 91; divine, 94; of the Father, 113; a permanent force, 115; the key of knowledge, 124; divine, how shown, 188; suffering, triumphant, 212; the universe steeped in, 214; a test, 217; thread of quivering down, 231; the synonyme of righteousness, 251; an instance of brotherly, 290; a minister of infinite, 272; around all forms of eril, 304; God-given, 308; exhaustless the essence of, 310, 311; in large natures, 313; God is the primary fact, 314, 315; of God like light of morning, 316; the central truth, 317; the essence of God, 321; how the largest acts, 331; God’s, 346. Loyalty to best convictions a duty, 51. Luther, 26; possible Lnthers, 165. Maine, breezes of to Carolina, 146. Majority, result of going with, 355. Wan, the true, how shown, 32; the divine birthright of, 34; a proof of a God, 35; not the head of all things, 42; a com- plete instrument no one hopeless, 48; the best and bravest, 52; like a telescope, 56; a solitary, 58; the vain, a sham, 58; to be a true, 61; physically spiritually, 63; each in an original position, 68; what made to be, 87; of the 19th century, 87; a true, 116; and other creatures, 167; a seeker, 170; of principle, 181; the glory of, 189; transcends nature, 191; needs a Redeemer, 191; diversity of his nature, 193; true end of, 193; kindred to God, 194; every, has a call from God, 197; an unlimited possibility, 199, 202; alone guilty, etc, 202; afraid of himself, 202; the most miserable, 205; likened to a tree in a storm, 207; the unmerciful suspicious mean, 209; none super fluous, 217; the worth of, 227; tho State exists for, 228; belongs to God, 228; of two-fold nature, 229; who is a man, 230; concentric, 236; God glorified in, 243; a sponge with brains, 243; as an instrument of ambition, 250; likened to an insect, 251; a caricature of a, 256; the greatest experience of, 257; the insane reasons, 260; like a star, 261; of ease not easy, 284; experience of confirms religion, 309; the true hopeful, 313; the sinful still a, 313; a charge to keep, 318; proof of a true, 319; of ability doing nothing, S22; who does not live, 329; from youth to age, 331; more than a chattel, 357. Manhood, grand feature of, 62; the strength of, 321. Mankind is one, 101. Manliness, true, 61, 262. Marriage a bond of service, 301; the true idea of, 337. Martyr, the, 201; the modern, 209; of Lexington, 228; his persecutors, 241. Martyrdom, peace by the shrines of, 53; made sublime, 192; true spirit of, 203. Mary, the character of, 34. Massilon and Louis, 283. Materialism, argument against, 196. Mayflower, Christianity in the, 290. Macaulay, death of, 296. 20 INDEX. Meditation, fruits of, 208; need of, 283, 337; fit seasons for, 338. Men, metalic and hollow, 46; defects of great, 49; the best, 76; constitute eras, 160; moving zones, 183; the noblest the dcvoutest, 194; likened to trees, 207; to pack-horses, 253; differences of, 259; few, 261; like a sponge or weed, 286; all in each, 314; and the Bible, 319. Mercy, Christ’s spirit of, 171; likened to the moon, 198; and justice harmonize, 210; symbol of God’s, 236; makes gladness in heaven, 284; the essence of the gospel, 310 5 how it regards the sinful, 311. Methodist, the, 38; singing hymns, 61. Methuselah, a condensed, 87. Milton, 49, 71, 254, 332. Mind, decisions of concerning itself, 79; the great, 120; is deathless, 158; a clearer reality than matter, 189; potency of, 237; suggests immortality, 238; superior to matter, 233 $ what its capacities signify, 296. Minister, how he should preach, 66, 165, 198. 272, 278, 283. Miracle, evidence of, 43; possible, 155, 210. Miracles, Christ proof of the, 103, Mirror, the pure heart a, 172; the Bible a, 211 y a breath upon the, 365. Mites, the widow’s rung in heaven, 56. Moon, the, and mercy, 108; patience, 324. Morality and religion, 89. Moral nature as utithentic as intellect, 107; sense and manliness, 262. Mother, bereaved, 186; old, 204; a symbol, 236 -, influence of, 242. Mother’s love, 55; 270, 311; prayer, 199. Mount Sinai, of Olives, 259, 274-5; Sermon on, 268, 277; of Transfiguration, 281; of communion, 238. Mourn, blessed they that, 145. Music in heaven, 38; and the soul, 163; on violin, 211; God’s gift divine, 342; nature and effects of, 354. Mystery and faith, 156; we are drifting into, 257; dark, 349. Napoleons, Caesars, fall back, 138. Nations, have an orbit, 83; for what they exist, 125. Neture, God working, 73; things excel in, 77; its rebuke and blessing, 92, 93, 122 5 symbolic, 99; parables of, 125; meaning and uses of, 161; its apocalypse, 169; the methods of, 174; and religion, 189; how to study, 190; her crystal palace, 191 5 fixed capital, 199; the student of, what like, 200; hiding human horrors, 264; and the Bible alike, 272; autumn-phase of, 292; what the light of shows, 293 y highest mood of, 320-21; suggestions of, 325; and Christianity how interpreted, 359. Nebulae, the philosopher’s alphabet, 164. New Testament, the, free from fanaticism, 45; like the stars, 89; the wonder of, 145; the sceptic and, 224; how to read the, 248; what it makes clear, 262; its own best commentary, 273 5 sense of faith, 326; on a dime, 329. Newton, 49, 87, 232, 259, 299. New York, 88, 130. Niagara, waters of, 60; the falls of, 106 y mists of and of superstition, 308. Night in heaven, no, 159; purpose and blessing of, 223; smitten by morning, 268; shadows of and of life, 335. Nobility, the true affirmed, 230. Ocean, the beautiful, 93. October glory, 76; like pomp of empires, 330. Office spoils men, 229. Old age in sin, 63; and autumn, 75; and death, 293) an evening, 338; and flow ers, 342. Oldest time the best, 241. Old Nick, 175; father, mother, 204. Olives, the Mount of, 269, 275. Opinion and sin, 176 } the source of for the church, 247. Opportunities, present, 64; of temptation, 181. Order, the chain of, 80; everywhere, 189; is beneficent, 211. Ostentation and hypocrisy, 312. } Over-ruler, the, is merciful, 308. INDEX. 21 Pain, hope and mercy in, 78. Palestine always a Holy Land, 93. Palm Sunday, 274, 318- Parables of nature and society, 125. Passion stains through, 28; how overcome, 316. Past, the, use of its elements, 54. Patience, 117; born of suffering, 169; God none with laziness, 193; a great thing, 333. Patriotism, dead, 52; indignant, 126. Peace and power, 38; to men, 53; Penn’s conquest of the glory of God’s nature, 267. Perception and faith, 168. Perfect, cannot be, that the glory, 195. Perfume, an organized, 57. Peter, 214, 279, 282, 317; on the ware, 343. Philanthropist, the hope of, 57; the life of, 241. Philosophy and religion, 45, 47; of prayer, 45; of utility, 74; rebuked, 340. Pic-nic, the best, 175. Pillar Saints, the sect of, 246. Plan, man caught into God’s, 197; in nature and life, 301; life not our, but God’a, 302; tribulation a part of, 304. Plants of righteousness, 208. Platform, the best, 200; Baltimore, not Sinai, 259; of Christianity, 341. Plato and others, 128, 139, 251, 259. Pleasure, the end of a life of, 66. Pleads, Orion, 57, 259. Plenty shuts us in from God, 133. Plymouth Rock, 94, 227. Poet, the themes of ever fresh, 101; the true his work, 175, 177, 213; his mission, 220-21. Poetry, what it is, 177, 219, 221. Politician, true register of, 84; a thimblerigger, 229; an unprincipled, 248. Politicians like owls, 30; slimy, 250. Politics, cotton-bag, 123; separated from religion, 229. Polycarp, his martyrdom, 289. ’Poverty and riches, 180; of soul, 333. Power, the highest, 26, 38; moral, 251; where is, 288; the ultimate, 319; true, 320. Prayer, objections to, 27; camp-fires of, 31; philosophy of, 45; without love, 67; reason for, 82, 109; direct answer to, 114; natural, 135; a mother’s, 199, 242; well-springs of, 283; the dew of, 322. Prayers, how brought to one’s, 172. Preaching, 66; we need, 165; its power and effects, 198, 272, 273, 278, 283; to whom, 358. Present and future and past, 170. Presbyterian, the, 38, 51, 247, 310, 355. Prescott, the history and heart of, 323. President’s chair and conscience, 122. Pride, the sin of the devil, 312. Principle, a good never dies, 48; reverence for, 50; and habit the difference, 177; the man of, 181; vs. passion, 209; the worth of, 355. Principles coined by us, 78; conquer, 91. Printing press, the, 73, 157. Profanity, brutal, 105; awful, 111. Profit, real, 46, 84. Progress, the law of, 36; foot-prints of, 76, 83; of man, 106; barriers to, 116; evidence of, 119; of the individual and the race, 190; hieroglyphics of, 191. Prophecy of a higher state, 102; witness to, 130. Providence, an omnipotent, 39; bow in the cloud, 60; like a clear night sky, 80; beam of God’s, 91; works with us, not for us, 197; tempts Columbus, 226; order of beneficent, 292. Providential, difficult things, 189; ends of history, 292. Psalms, the, live forever, 113, 353. Pulpit, the, its power, 278; place, 287. Purpose, a beneficent, 330; the Creator’s, 340. Railroad company, when to stop, 177. Raphael’s master-piece, 279. Reason, prophetical, 167. Reasoning, the fault of, 260. Redeemer, man needs a, 191; the Transfiguration, 279; Raphael’s picture, 279; walking by us, 302. 22 INDEX. Reform legitimate, 39; and Christianity, 40, 54; and the conservative, 173. Religion, the effect of true, 27; and all good, 37; justified, 39; like gravity, 41; and philosophy, 45, 47; favors fulness of nature, 61; the work of, 83; not arbitrary, 101; the effects of, 103; the glory of, 133; its elements in all, 135 y not exclusive, 136; the life of, 138; test of, 149; its nature and joy, 152; spontaneous, 157; the most substantial of all things, 162; what it is, 174; comes out of nature, 189; why BO little with us, 196; woman’s need of, 201; where it dwells, 216; and amusement, 216; its expression symbolic, 219; a revival of, 222; like light wood, 226; and politics, 229; a vital interest, 245; and business, 283; its work, 283; and superstition, 308; can never be upset, 309; a false respect for, 322; its power and use, 349. Religiousness, a crude, 115. Resignation, 197; not resistance, 206-7. Rest, ground of, 78; never to, 173. Restlessness a prophecy, 39, 284. Resurrection, 110, 259. Retribution, what it is, 78, 151. Revelation and science, 45; from God, 165; not to be damaged, 237; how authenticated, 309. Revolution, progress, 83; fathers of our, 230. Right, absolute, 34; fails not, 82, 247; with men and angels, ISO; holding to half way, 216. Righteous, the, turn ignoming to glory, 184; life of beautiful, 218. Righteousness, plants of, 208; for its own sake, 221. Sabbath, necessity for a, 345. Sages, ancient on immortality, 258. Saint, creed of true, 85; and scholar, 111; a sour old, 240; Pillar Saints, 246; and sinner, 254; the great, 288; death of the, 353. Salvation, the chariot-wheels of, 356. Satan, casting out by, 207. Savior, trial of Uie, 184. Scholar and saint, 111; privilege of the, 231; the true, 249. Science, the issues of, 117; leads up to God, 154; agrees with religion, 337. Scripture, how understood, 32; the letter of, 113. Sea of silence, a, 38; the, an organ, 199; shell, the heart like a, 235. Secret of the stars, the grave, 98. Self-conceit, danger of, 44, 116. Self-esteem, how limited, 303. Selfishness, to unlearn, 41; man’s vs. Christ’s mercy, 171. Self-respect, an honest, 314. Sensitiveness, what it indicates, 333. Sensualist, the worst, 65; an ascetic, 98. Shakspeare, 71, 259, 332. Sheep, the, how led, 304. Silence around the throne, 38. Silver, thirty pieces of, 29, 244. Sin, its effects, 37; the gates of, how shattered, 43; is voluntary, 107; evils of, 121, 142; the retributions of, 151; a cheat, 151; the death, 152; a reality, 153; of unused power, 202; is hell, 253. Sinai, 30; the platform of, 259. Sinner, an old, 63; old and God, 233; and saint, 240, 2o4; love for the, 270. Sirius and the leaf, 174. Sceptic, condition of the, 46; would love Christ if he knew him, 224. Scepticism founds no empires, 30; re futed, 39; rebuked, 189; the worst, 231; the tradition of, 2J6; rests on no basis at all, 239. Slavery and freedom, 131, 253. Slaves to fashion, 130; to possessions, 253. Sleep, the blessing of, 80; the wonder of, 225; death a, 297-8. Society, bad, 58; safety and happiness of, 54. Socraties and Christ, 122, 128, 139. Sorrow, meaning of, 44, 121; a veilH angel, 143; its uses, 148-9; illustnit.-d, 150; the majesty of, 176; relief for, 214, 302; suggestions of, 327. Soul, desting of the, 39; and the world, 42; a great. deep, 54; when strongest, INDEX. 23 61; the preacher’s all, 66; troubled, 100; most precious of all, 104; fulness of, 116; Christinas morning to the, 117; and stars, 122; like an imprisoned bird deathless, 152; proof of a, 158; quenchless, 163; cannot perish, 167; how it shows its grandeur, 185; apprehends spiritual realities, 187; the mysery of the, 194; down the mystic river, 202; how invigorated, - 208; the brave, 209; dwarfed by bigotry, 231; a reality, 232; reverences only goodness, 233; this its introductory state, 238; the charter of liberty in the, 250; a, to let, 250; wings growing in the, 253; sure of spiritual things, 299; mists of prove religion real, 308; privilege of sadness of the sinful, 316; like the moon, 324; perpetual youth of as a winged seed, 342; kingdom of God in, 358. Souls here as much as hereafter, 50; how strengthened, 185; lofty, 200; soaked into the flesh, 252. Spiritual existence, 121, 123; discipline a solemn duty, 155; attainment, 200; standards of life, 328; life, 336; the, and material, 350. Sponge with brains, 243; existing like a, 286. Standing fast, too fast, 44. Star, a true man like a, 261. Stars, sentinels of heaven, 98; and the soul, 122; chime of the morning, 158; beautiful, 163; of the legion of honor, 173; golden ladders, 199. State, purpose of the, 172; exists for man, 228; necessity for, 229; claims of grounds of stability, 261; the future, 291. Steamship, 157; once an idea, 244. Strength, how gained, 52; born of suffering, 185; condition of, 196. Success, conditions of, 195; grows out of failure, 303. Sun, a chronometer, 158; uses its power, 202; and the weed, 174. Superstition a witness to religion, 308. Suspicion fruitful of misery, 209, 313. Sympathy of God for man, 100, 248; the flowering ol life, 132; for sinners, 270, 315. Tabernacles, perishing, 277; abiding, 282. Te Deums of peace, 85. Telescope, man, 56; the Bible a, 211. Telegraph of faith, the, 50. Temper, blessings of a patient, 117. Temptation, where it is, 27; exposure to, 31; conditions of, 181. Test of character, 116; of position, 217. Theory vs. practice, 60. Thought, the worth of, 102; underrated, 196; the fruit of 208; and feeling in religion, 222; like the germ, 243. Throne, silence around the, 38. Thrones against a powder-mill, 87. Time, the utmost promontory of, 25; the snow of, 26; the oldest best, 241. To-day all the time we have, 25. Toil, the blessings of, 179. To-morrow not ours, 81; the dreaded changed, 82; the everlasting, 339. Tract societies and pine stumps, 130. Transfiguration, the Mount of, 281. Trial, the meaning of, 147. Tribulation, the furnace of, 180; when it hurts a man, 187; a part of God’s plan, 304. Truth fails not, 35, 82; should be bold, 40; progress of, 64; eternal, 65, 247; new and old, 88; the glory of spiritual, 90; immutable, 91; the organ-music of, 94; the pursuit of, 95; like light, 119 5 the root of practical life, 132; poetry ia, 177; primal, where found, 188; everlasting, 203; where most beaafiful, 218; is poetry, 219; its enduring nature, 231; lyrical, 234; its dark hemisphere, 347; and life, 356; the king of, 357; its own authority, 358. Truthfulness a rare virtue, 51. Trust, the power of, 26; in two things, 119; changes the darkness, 183. Turks, Douglass and the, 99. Unbelief, the mockery of, 84. 24 INDEX, Union, Christian, 50; national, 126. Unitarian freedom, 247; sling a dictionary at every, 311. Unity of the Christian world, 146 -, a bond of, 234; how created, 247; of the human race, 344. Universal, primal truth in the, 188. Universalist, 247, 310; sling a Bible at every, 311. Universe, reform a law of the, 39; a system of exchange, 70; the only permanent dominion in, 115; what enriches the, 116; God voted out of the, 120; a temple, 136; the harmonies of the, 164; and the gospel, 166; and a future life, 167; the highest power in the, 251; God at the helm of the, 307. University, a walking, 85. Unmerciful, the unblessed, 209. Utility, the of philosophy, 74. Vain man, the, suspects himself, 58. Valley Forge, soldiers of, 228. Vatican, Raphael’s picture in the, 279. Vellum, white or black, 34. Versailles, Franklin at, 230. Vesuvius, quenching, 88. Vice exhales its poison, 28; the evil of, 62; the worst characteristics of, 69; questions of, 88. Violin, a one-stringed, 211. Virtue, all conditions favor, 28; testimonies to, 36; inducements to, 59; what it is, 174; illustrated, 184; a onestringed, 211; and the State, 224. Visions vain without work, 279; needed, 280. Voice, the still, small, 216; of the inner life, 222; of a departed child, 300; Jacob’s, 312. War and the gospel, 262; the horrors of, 263-4. Washington, 160, 228; portrait of desecrated, 328. William the Conqueror, 230. Wisdom begets humility, 195; the noblest, 199; a nobler, 200; weaves the cycle of destiny, 304. Witches of old, men like, 218. Woman and the gospel, 33; elevated by adversity, 148; and Christ needs religion, 201; influence of, 242; discrowned, 313; the courage and constancy of, 317, 336. Wooing the material world, 31. Word of God, the, 25; and works war not, 212. Work, how crowned, 30; the spirit of, 49, 126; God’s, 79, 97; God’s without, Christ’s within, 166; the world a place for, 179; secondary to the spirit and results, 182; only the selfish irreligious, 205; the fruit of thought, 208; man without like a sponge, 286; of modern chivalry, 276. Working and waiting, 43; God’s, 121. World, the, astonished, 41; a golden drop, 42; who overcomes, 52; an artificial, 57; how moved, 91; carried onward, 95; a reflex of ourselves, 116; the ligatures of, 126; the master-speech of, 129; in eclipse, 143; the aspect of on Christinas, 146; a place for work, 179 } not as the sceptic thinks a racecourse, 192; the autumn-Seasons of this, 330; not dreary, 340; the whole kin, 344. Wrong, warfare against the, 317. Years, three-score and ten, 63, 239. Yellow-fever, negotiating with, 246. Young man enjoying life, 41; in danger, 44; the journal of, 84; an ill-natured, 359. Young men and progress, 62; their position and work, 249; of America, 352. Youth, the Christ of, still with us, 275; the friends of the old man’s, 339. Zones, men are moving, 183. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6: 01.04. LIVING WORDS ======================================================================== LIVING WORDS. A DAT! It has risen upon us from the great deep of eternity, girt round with wonder; emerging from the womb of darkness; a new creation of life and light spoken into being by the word of God. In itself one entire and perfect sphere of space and time, filled and emptied of the sun. Every past generation is represented in it; it is the flowering of all history. And in so much it is richer and better than -all other days which have preceded it. And we have been re-created to new opportunities, with new powers; called to this utmost promontory of actual time, this centre of all converging life. And it is for to-day’s work we have been endowed; it is for this that we are pressed and surrounded with these facilities. The sum of our entire being is concentrated here; and to-day is all the time we absolutely have. LIFE is a crucible. "We are thrown into it, and tried. The actual weight and value of a man are expressed in the spiritual substance of the man. All else is dross. MANY a man who might walk over burning ploughshares into heaven stumbles from the path because there is gravel in his shoes. AN aged Christian, with the snow of time on his head, may remind us that those points of earth are whitest which are nearest heaven. THE spring of all great endeavor is a great trust, pushing men forward to unseen ends, away from the fastenings of custom, out into struggle, and hazard, and mystery. So Luther tosses the Pope’s bull on the burning pile, and sets Christendom on fire. So Columbus goes in his little vessel far away from known land, and finds a fresh, green world behind the veil. So Hancock and Carroll, trusting in the everlasting right of freedom, and risking life, fortune, and sacred honor, strike the drum-beat that echoes round the globe. And, still rising in my statement, I say that the highest power is the highest trust, is " Trust in the Lord with all thine heart." THE best answer to all objections urged against prayer is the fact, that man cannot help praying; for we may be sure that that which is so spontaneous and ineradicable in human nature has its fitting objects and methods in the arrangements of a boundless Providence. IN the spirit of the Christian there is a perpetual spring-tide, and in the wintry valleys he hears the ripple of ever-flowing streams. WHAT is most characteristic in true religion what is most wonderful is the fact that it wells up right against a man’s desires, his inclinations, his preconceptions. It shatters his old mouldy crust of habits; it changes the currents of his thought; it makes his dumb, stupefied conscience speak right out, and speak to the purpose; it transfigures, it regenerates him. If it cannot make a small power large, it makes it good. If it cannot give a big brain in the place of a contracted one, it transmutes a man’s intellect all into a divine essence of purity and love, or freights it with the thunder and lightning of dauntless and effective energy. THE temptation is not here, where you are reading about it, or praying about it. It is down in your shop, among bales and boxes, ten-penny nails, and sand-paper. STAND at your post in the army, and obey your orders. You do not control the great movement of the battle. You cannot tell how God will rally the scattered wings, or call up his reserve. No condition is unfavorable to virtue, where virtue is. STRIKING for the occasion, for the immediate truth or duty of the hour, men have struck for all ages. WITH a vision sufficiently clear we might see in the germ the full circle of the flower; in the acorn the branching oak, with five hundred summers murmuring in its leaves. So in the ground and seed-plot of home we may have pre-vision of the best conditions of this world or the other. LIFE, whether in this world or any other, is the sum of our attainment, our experience, our character. The conditions are secondary. In what other world shall we be more surely than we are here? IN some way the secret vice exhales its poison; and the evil passion, however cunningly masked, stains through to the surface. Is not this a very melancholy spectacle? A man standing in some high place of intellect and honor, splendid as ever in the brain, but on one side of him the moral side stricken clear down with paralysis! A man saturated with the finest culture, with the most delicate sensibilities playing in his nature, with the escutcheon of pride in eye and forehead, flushed with the heraldry of genius, scorning the temptations of the flesh, beating upward like an eagle towards some lofty point; yet carrying a hard, cold, selfish heart, and marked as a deserter from the right. When some great occasion breaks, and imperilled justice calls to him from the ground, and far above all mean interests and clanging factions the voice of duty summons him like the very trump of God, he vacillates, he takes up the lance droopingly, he lets the ark of the righteous cause totter, he cowers before the dagon of the hour, he falls away from the good cause, he betrays it, nay, he becomes hot against it; and the words of the man, that might have been tones of regeneration and of victory, clatter upon our ears like "thirty pieces of silver." WE send out from the home incalculable influences for good or evil, into the world and into the future. At the altar and the hearth-stone we grasp the round earth, we touch all ages. How many men in business are there who steer by their ledgers, and who virtually act upon the principle of making money in any way that they can! How many politicians, eloquent in the cause of liberty, whose regard for freedom is the regard of an owl for the daylight! How many like these are there who really have any Sinai or any decalogue higher than some official chair, or more vivid than the stamp on a gold eagle? THE world is bad enough, but we see the depravity by light which streams from veins of goodness running through it; and around its lazar-houses and shambles, its giant selfishness and pointed deceits, there are martyrgraves and patriot battle-fields, Love burning forever like a vestal fire, and Faith looking calmly upward. IT is not the great occasion, but the great spirit, that crowns and glorifies our work. SCEPTICISM has never founded empires, established principles, or changed the world’s heart. The great doers in history have always been men of faith. GLOKIFY a lie, legalize a lie, arm and equip a lie, consecrate a lie with solemn forms and awful penalties, and after all it is nothing but a lie. It rots a land and corrupts a people like any other lie, and by and by the white light of God’s truth shines clear through it, and shows it to be a lie. MAN has wooed the material world as a lover woes his mate, detecting in every "no" a hesitating "yes." IT is a most fearful fact to think of, that in every heart there is some secret spring that would be weak at the touch of temptation, and that is liable to be assailed. Fearful, and yet salutary to think of; for the thought may serve to keep our moral nature braced. It warns us that we can never stand at ease, or lie down in this field of life, without sentinels of watchfulness and camp-fires of prayer. A MAN’S love for his native land lies deeper than any logical expression, among those pulses of the heart which vibrate to the sanctities of home, and|fo the thoughts which leap up from his fathers’ graves. THE downright fanatic is nearer to the heart of things than the cool and slippery disputant. WE read and hear many scriptural passages with indifference, until some personal experience elicits their meaning. A wave of the heart washes over them, and then we see all their depth and beauty. LET Newton ponder the fall of an apple, and he discerns the law by which a rain-drop descends to the ocean, and a planet swims round the sun. Thus rises the ladder of induction from the earth to the skies; and with one true principle the philosopher unlocks the wards of the universe. A SMALL lie, if it actually is a lie, condemns a man as much as a big and black falsehood. If a man will deliberately cheat to the amount of a single cent, give him opportunity and he would cheat to any amount. WE do not need martyr-stakes, nor battle-fields, nor any public scenery, to show us the good and true man. His little acts, his daily conduct, will furnish tests. One flash reveals the diamond. THAT sex which almost alone was friendly to the Savior, which anointed his feet with ointment, and followed him with tears to his cross, which prepared sweet spices for his burial, and was the first to hail his resurrection, has, in turn, been especially befriended by his Gospel. It has raised her from the degrading condition of a slave, or her still more degrading condition as a mere instrument of passion, to be a refined and purifying influence in society, and_to lend to home the dignity and the grace of the mother, wife, sister, and daughter. HILL and valley, seas and constellations, are but stereotypes of divine ideas appealing to and answered by the living soul of man. THE Bible is not to be judged in all respects like a history composed since history became a science; but take that old volume, which has survived the decay of ages and the shocks of revolution; whose every book is an epoch, whose every leaf almost turns over a century, and whose simple narratives open to us the experience and link us to the sympathies of our common nature four thousand years ago; take it, and apply to its records the same tests you apply to Polybius or Livy, and the sceptic, if his scepticism is honest, will find less room for his cavils and his sneers. MARY was evidently one of those characters who cause us to overlook what they do, in the consideration of what they are. Her heart was a censer of devout breathings, and her whole being vibrated to holy influences like a harp. It seems to be the mission of such natures not so much to act as to shine in their own calm brightness, liko planets, reflecting upon us a light which has been poured into them from unseen urns. But wherever they move their presence is felt; man’s heart grows better for the time, and his sins lie still; while through the rank and seething atmosphere of earth they impart glimpses and suggestions of heaven. THERE is a higher scale of value in God’s universe than dollars and cents. There is an absolute Right, and all conventional falsehoods must shrivel before it. There is a Kingdom of Heaven, and it shall yet come in the earth. Is it true that we are not looking for the divine birthright of man within, in the moulding of the heart and the capacities of the soul, but only in the color of the face and the shape of the skull; and virtually proclaiming that God has written the charter of personal freedom on white vellum, not on black? THERE is a sufficiency in the Bible, a meaning in its simple oracles such as the perplexed mariner finds in the compass; such as the pilgrim knows when amid the uncertainties of his journey he discovers a sign of guidance, and a spot of repose. IT is only to our limited and faithless eyesight that any righteous cause, falling into the ground, seems to perish. Scaffolds, despotisms, ruinous battle-fields; these are all conditions of the harvest." Truth, or justice, or liberty, swathe it in parchment cerements; dig its grave with bayonets; press it down with thrones, bastiles, slaveblocks; sprinkle it all over with the venerable dust of despotism, and in that dust trace the lines of its epitaph. It may be buried, but has it really perished? Can you bury the spirit of Christ? The earth rolls, the sun shines on, the spring-winds blow, God’s truth flows into the soul of man, and not a kernel of the righteous seed will fail to ripen at the last. MAN’S own moral nature his own free will is evidence of a moral intelligence and will above and behind the material universe; and his own-consciousness of limitation and defect is an intuitive recognition of that unbounded and perfect One who alone is the Origin, the Life, the Controller of all. WHAT a proof of the Divine tenderness is there in the human heart itself, which is the organ and receptacle of so many sympathies! When we consider how exquisite are those conditions by which it is even made capable of so much suffering, the capabilities of a child’s heart, of a mother’s heart, what must be the nature of Him who fashioned its depths, and strung its chords? THIS is the main point, not universal progress, but human progress: not progress everywhere, but progress somewhere. Grant but that, and all humanity becomes hopeful; grant but the capacity, and the doctrine is practicable; let the law be in operation only at one point, still it is a law, and as such is to be heeded and acted upon. EVERY deed of dishonor, every victim of vice, every ghastly spectacle of crime, is an eloquent testimony to the need and the worth of virtue. THE drunkard boasts of his freedom with a tongue that he cannot control, and with a thirst that drives him to his cups. But true freedom consists not merely in the ability to do, but in the power to refrain from doing; and the latter power the votary of vice does not possess. IF through the melancholy sunshine of idiocy there should break a gleam of true intelligence, the idiot would at least feel no self-rebuke for that simmering brain, that sad, pleased, worthless life. But what shall he say who has dissolved the priceless pearl of intellect in the winecup of debauch? who has sacrificed, yes, deliberately murdered every mental gift, and made himself an idiot? The blind man may feel at times that his privation is insupportable, and mourn the blank that has come between him and the beautiful earth and sky; yet within there may be "a light which no calamity can darken," the scenery of a happy memory, and the vernal freshness of an unviolated conscience. But what shall he say who has killed the optic nerve of his own soul, and quenched his moral eyesight? We lament the dear friend snatched from us by death, yet as we scatter blossoms above his grave our thoughts grow fragrant with the recollection of his virtues, and amidst the mystery of the dispensation religion springs up to strengthen and awe us. But what of him, the worn-out libertine, the soulsick epicure? the drunkard, who, while he might have acted nobly with the living, folds himself in the cerements of the grave, and walks by choice among the charnels of the dead? No good work is foreign to the interests of religion. IT will make sweet music enough in heaven up among the harps and the angels though the tide of song to God and the Lamb comes mingling from the lips of Presbyterian, and Methodist, and Baptist, and Universalist. PEACE is an attribute of the highest power. Silence reigns throughout those enormous spaces where worlds travel on their way. Silence wraps that electric life which animates nature, and which is thus more powerful than when.it is disclosed in thunder. A sea of silence lies around the throne of God, and the Almighty speaks not, and utters no sound. So in this peace of a religious soul, there is evidence of a hidden power that is greater than any outward force. THE golden age is not in the past, but in the future; not in the origin of human experience, but in its consummate flower; not opening in Eden, but out from Gethsemane. GOD’S work is carried on by oscillations: now the truth swings to this extreme, now to that; and between he weaves his steady and perfect plan. REFORM is legitimate. It is so in accordance -with the general law of improvement, and with the fact that there is a tendency in the course of time to corrupt principles and institutions; so that, previous to the period of reformation, their first estate is the best Reformation is a law of the universe, operating as irresistibly as gravitation or the tides. An Omnipotent Providence is implicated with its march; and so it works on, levelling and lifting up, grinding down opposition, changing the face of history, and unconsciously shifting the very ground beneath our feet. THE busy, inventive, achieving intellect, of itself refutes the doubt of the sceptic, and the dogma of the materialist; reveals the sanctions of the highest faith, and justifies the interest which religion takes in the soul of man. THERE is moral suggestion in this universal restlessness, this hum, and movement, and ceaseless toil. It proclaims a good yet to be attained, or else that the good which is attained is unsatisfactory. It is a testimony to the incompleteness of the earthly state, and the transcendent destinies of the soul. CERTAINLY, truth should be strenuous and bold; but the strongest things are not always the noisiest, as any one may see who compares scolding with logic. WE must die alone. To the very verge of the stream our friends may accompany us; they may bend over us, they may cling to us there; but that one long wave from the sea of eternity washes up to the lips, sweeps us from the shore, and we go forth alone! In that untried and utter solitude, then, what can there be for us but the pulsation of that assurance, " I am not alone, because the Father is with me! " LIFE is a problem. Not merely a premiss from which we start, but a goal towards which we proceed. It is an opportunity for us not merely to get, but to attain; not simply to have, but to be. Its standard of failure or success is not outward fortune, but inward possession. IF any one maintains reftrm as a substitute for Christianity, he attributes to the stream the virtues of the fountain; he ascribes to the arteries the central function of the heart. For from Christianity beats the great pulse of this world’s hope. I MUST pity that young man who, with a little finery of dress and recklessness of manner, with his coarse passions all daguerreotyped upon his face, goes whooping through these streets, driving an animal much nobler in its conduct than himself, or swaggers into some haunt of shame, and calls it " Enjoying life! " He thinks he is astonishing the world! and he is astonishing the thinking part of it, who are astonished that he is not astonished at himself. For look at that compound of flash and impudence, and say if on all this earth there is anything more pitiable! He know anything of the true joy of life? As well say that the beauty and immensity of the universe were all enclosed in the field where the prodigal lay among the husks and the swine! IF one wishes to unlearn selfishness let him go apart, and stand alone by himself. RELIGION, like the law of gravity, binds each element of our nature to its own orbit. It gives the peace of a harmonious character, where the moral and intellectual powers hold their lawful spheres, and the appetites fill their restricted place, and the law of purity and holiness reigns supreme. ANY scheme which makes man the head and centre of all things will fail in its applications. The mariner knows but little concerning the vast, unfathomable sea, who assumes that it was made and spread out solely for the advantage of his little ship. IT is difficult to believe that a true gentleman will ever become a gamester, a libertine, or a sot. THIS world, with all its wealth and splendor, hangs but a golden drop in the immensities of God, in the illimitable immensities that open before the soul. IN the market a man exposes himself to impositions and losses such as cannot be reckoned by dollars and cents. He is liable to be deluded into the idea that material good is the only good;... to make business not only essential, as it.is, but all-important, as it is not. THERE is joy in every normal state of being: there is joy in heaven. Everything that is contrary to this is evidently abnormal, transitional, or, in the instrumentality of discipline, working out to joy. A MAN’S failure to observe the highest standard of living is not always the effect of wilful disregard; but depends much upon the moral plane in which he moves. HOWEVER logical our induction, the end of the thread is fastened upon the assurance of faith. WHILE it is true that a miracle demands greater evidence than an ordinary occurrence, the united experience of the race cannot demonstrate the impossibility of such a thing. Do you expect with one stroke of the hammer, or with all the hammering you may make, to shatter the great gates of sin, and let in the millenial daylight at a single burst? It is none of your business whether that victory comes now or a hundred years ahead. Work and wait, that is your office. Do something for truth and righteousness. But fret not because all is not done at once. Come in when the sun goes down; come in when the arm grows weak; come in, old, bowed head, whitened with still unsuccessful toil, come in and gird yourself, and wait upon Divine Providence, now that you have toiled. The process will go on. The harvest is sure. SORROW does not predicate annihilation, but development. There is compensation in all things around us. There must be in this experience. The real counterstroke to the pulse of mortal anguish is not the full stop of death, but the vibration of immortality. Deep human sorrow; do you argue annihilation in that? or is there not a prophecy in it that with every beat of the heart shatters the theory that a troubled life has a dark end? NOTHING is so odious and so dangerous as the attitude of the young man who has grown, or rather lapsed, into self-confidence, and drops the curb of restraint while he runs away with the reins. As to environments, the Kingliest Being ever born in the flesh lay in a manger. What a miserable thing to see clay in brocade and velvet shrugging its shoulders at clay in coarse woollen and with black thumbs! SOME men who stand fast in a good cause stand too fast. They will not consent to carry out a part of their work unless they carry out the whole of it at the same time. The right thing must be done all at once, or nothing right must be done. KNOWLEDGE and piety burn and brighten with an undivided flame. Revelation and science are continually interpreting one another, while every day the material universe is unfolding a more spiritual significance, and indicating its subservience to a spiritual end. THERE is a close alliance between true philosophy and true religion. That the New Testament is eminently free from fanaticism, and makes no appeal to mere credulity, any one will see who examines. That it is rational and sober constitutes one of its great internal evidences. MUST a man get a correct philosophy of prayer before he prays? Must the child, ready to run into its father’s arms, stop and study mental processes before it yields to the impulses of its love? OBJECTS close to the eye shut out much larger objects on the horizon; and splendors born only of the earth eclipse the stars. So a man sometimes covers up the entire disc of eternity with a dollar, and quenches transcendent glories with a little shining dust. THROUGH transient conditions we work for permanent ends, and that only is profit which, adding to the substance of our immortal nature, becomes in us spiritual power and blessedness, and similitude to God. THERE are men so metallic and hollow themselves that all they touch rings as if it were metallic and hollow also. In passing through their hands it becomes for the time being electrotyped with their own baseness. IN the isolation of his clear, cold intellect, the sceptic abides in a glacial and spectral universe. No glow from the affections lights up the frost and shadow of the grave. He feels no prophecy in the thrill of the human heart, in the incompleteness of nature. He believes merely in things tangible, and sees only in the day-time. He will not confess the authenticity of that paler light of faith which was meant to shine when the sunshine of reason falls short, and the firmament of mystery is over our heads. WE believe that though this body shall drop to ashes, the soul shall go beaming upward like a star. But of what use is this belief without corresponding action? CHKISTIANITY furnishes the only foundation of a harmonious and rational life. While it pours upon this world the light of another, it also burns away those ghastly and distorting mists which evolve from the depths of unguided speculation, and is as unfavorable to superstition as it is to atheism. It urges a code of duty, strict yet simple; fitted to beings of earthly mould yet of immortal destiny. THE religion of philosophy consists of right views of things, and a prudential schooling of the passions. True religion consists in a right state of the affections, and a renunciation of self. In the one case religion may " play round the head, but come not near the heart;" in the other it breaks up the great deep of conscience, and pours an intense light upon the springs of motive. Philosophy contains the idea of intellectual rectitude; religion, of moral obedience. Philosophy speaks of virtue; religion, of holiness. Philosophy rests upon development; religion requires regeneration. THE grand current of events runs not downward or backward. The spirit within these rapid wheels of time, turning them this way and that, still moves them forward and to blessed ends. IT matters little to what pole of doctrine the intellect swings, if the heart hangs impenetrated and untouched. EVERY man in this world, be he boot-black or emperor, is a complete instrument. He may be of greater or less compass, but he has all the harmonies, the entire diatonic scale, every chord, every octave. In some way the eternal grandeurs strike him, sounding the deep tones of faith and conscience; in some way the world touches the meaner and flatter keys. The great thing to be considered is, what kind of music he habitually makes. THERE is always reason to hope and be strong when a good principle once gets a foothold in the world. A true principle never dies. A grain of seed, sown in truth and holiness, will spring up to fruition; though it may be long, long ere it shall flower in its beauty, or spread its green leaves to the sun. WHO says any man is hopeless, utterly degraded, fit only to be destroyed? He falters from the confidence of Christ. His revenge gets the better of his reason. He knows not what spirit he is of. MANY a stripling considers his excesses as the crackling of the ethereal flame, the dross of inspiration, and as essential to the part which he has assumed as the "eye in a fine frenzy rolling." It generally happens, however, that his achievements are limited to the darker hemisphere of genius. He exhibits little of Sheridan save his recklessness, and nothing of Byron except the gin and water. It has been said that "the defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces;" but they are also the sorrow of the truly wise, who in the very proportions of the achievement detect the greatness of the aberration. And it is idle to say that there is any necessary connection between the achievement and the aberration. While Milton sings to us from the gates of Paradise, we know that the essential inspiration of genius flows not from turbid fountains; and while Newton treads upward among the stars, it is evident that might and comprehensiveness of mind need not the feculent leaven of passion. No one can truly see Christ, and drink in the influence of his character, and not be a Christian at heart. IT will depend upon the spirit in which we work whether the agencies about us will become agents of good or of evil. IN every Christian denomination there is enough vital, kindling Christianity, to make good hearts. THIS is the union of Christians that I ask for: Not an identity of doctrine; not an indifference to articles of belief; not a worshipping in one place or one form; but a recognition of the great common humanity, of the right of opinion, of the oneness of the Christ-like Image seen through many human forms. HE who avoids the battle of life remains weak and unready; and only he who contends for the mastery wins the crown. THE radical condition of all business intercourse is reverence for principle, confidence in the sanction that gives credit to the note of hand, and that imparts potency to seal and signature. It is that extends a telegraph of mutual faith around the globe, maintains a bond of communion between men at opposite ends of the earth, and whitens the sea with commerce. WE have souls here as much as we shall have hereafter. No more important duty can be urged upon those who are entering the great theatre of life than simple loyalty to their best convictions. FAR through the opening vista of rent devices and broken symbols, like the heaving billows of a mighty sea, the tide of Christian philanthropy is rolling on. Men of all sects are there. The Catholic is there, with his crucifix pressed to his bosom. The Methodist comes on, singing the sweet hymns of Wesley. The Baptist brings his robe of immersion. The Presbyterian stands upright, as his iron fathers did of old, to pray in simple reverence and freedom. The Universalist chants his anthem of restoration and holiness. But they stand shoulder to shoulder. They all point upward, earnestly upward, to that great banner which waves over all, whose device is the Crucified Jesus, whose inscription, all over in letters of blessed light, is his last command: "Love one another;" is the spirit of his pure and undefiled religion: " Visit the fatherless and widows, in their affliction; keep yourselves unspotted from the world" THOROUGH truthfulness truthfulness to others and to ourselves is a rare virtue; and he who indeed acts upon it is the noblest of all heroes. THE weak sinews become strong by their conflict with difficulties. Hope is born in the long night of watching and tears. Faith visits us in defeat and disappointment, amid the consciousness of earthly frailty and the crumbling tombstones of mortality. THE best and the bravest man is the man who, amid all thronging realities of life, endeavors to conform to an ideal rectitude. Those who have accomplished great things, who have stood in advance of the age and dared to rebuke it, and who have overcome the world, have lived from sanctions that are above the world. PATRIOTISM! It is used to define so many diversities, to justify so many wrongs, to compass so many ends, that its life is killed out; it becomes a dead word in the vocabulary, a blank counter, to be moved to any part of the game; and that flag which, streaming from the mast-head of our ship of state, striped with martyr-blood, and glistening with the stars of lofty promise, should always indicate our world-wide mission, and the glorious destinies that we carry forward, is bandied about in every selfish skirmish, and held up as the symbol of every political privateer. I ASK, if that system which should come into the world, having for one of its objects the elevation of the soul to such a degree of goodness and moral strength as to destroy the will and the disposition to sin, I ask, if that system is not worthy of being heralded by angels, of being announced in a chorus of glory to God in the highest of peace and good-will to men? Yes, glory to God in the highest! Glory to him in the great design, and the triumphant means of accomplishing such a work! Glory to him that must result from the consummation of manhood purified from its sins, elevated above its sensuality, living the true and divine life! And on earth, peace to men! Peace after the stormy warfare of passion and guilt. Peace by the old shrines of martyrdom, and on the fields of ancient battle. Peace in the haunts of secret crime, and the homes of shameless transgression. Peace where clanked the prisoner’s chain, and where groaned the doomsman’s axe. Peace where rose the sobs of injured innocence, and the pleadings of trampled, bleeding humanity. Peace in the individual soul, where all is in harmony with God, and where the end of human laws and outward institutions is not destroyed, but fulfilled, fulfilled in the highest and the deepest sense. CHRISTIANITY is a life, and every devout and loving heart has felt it, no matter what its name or sect. THE plant that shall blossom unto an immortal flowering must assimilate to itself elements that have been -winnowed in the storms and changes of the past. IT is too late for reformers to sneer at Christianity; it is foolishness for them to reject it. In it are enshrined our faith in human progress, our confidence in reform. It is indissolubly connected with all that is hopeful, spiritual, capable in man. The past bears witness to it, in the blood of its martyrs and the ashes of its saints and heroes; the present is hopeful because of it; the future shall acknowledge its omnipotence. THE safety and happiness of society flow out from the recesses of private principle. IT wants not merely microscopic but telescopic power to know humanity in its essence; a power to discern its grandeur as well as its littleness, the infinity of its relations as well as the meanness of its pursuits. The human soul is a great deep. We must take into view the nebulous possibilities that are brooding and waiting there, and notice the buds and films of light that reveal themselves even in the darkest spaces. IN the most shallow nature there clings some shred of dignity which redeems it from utter contempt. And it is a mean performance, or else it is purblind sight, that selects the odious features, and parades them as the sumtotal of human nature. THE highest genius never flowers in satire, but culminates in sympathy with that which is best in human nature, and appeals to it. No man knows the genuineness of his convictions until he has sacrificed something for them. THOSE two mites of the poor widow! They were heavy with her labor, and her prayers, and her self-denial; and so, as they fell into the treasury, they rung in the ear of Heaven, and Jesus valued them. No language can express the power, and beauty, and heroism, and majesty of a mother’s love It shrinks not where man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, and over the wastes of worldly fortune sends the radiance of its quenchless fidelity like a star hi heaven. EVERY man who regards position more than principle the garment more than the heart computes life by the dross, and rates the substance by the shell. THE great fact to be considered is not our lot in life, but we who are in that lot, and what we make out of it. BECAUSE of existing evils, to break the strong bands of the marriage relation, and set the family group adrift in some vague conceit of social freedom, or some nonsense of " spiritual affinities," would be like knocking a ship in pieces because some of the passengers are sea-sick. This organism of the family is a ship that has carried human civilization over the waves of ages, an ark that has preserved the germs of the social state in many a deluge. Sunder theties that hold it together, and who can estimate the ruin, or from the shattered fragments reconstruct society? MAN in selfish solitude is like a telescope closed up. The qualities of his humanity may exist, but they are unknown. DEATH is a great revealer of what is in a man. and in its solemn shadow appear the naked lineaments of the soul. THOSE who draw around them the upholstery of an artificial world a world of frippery and gas-light shut out the true world of thought and life; shut out the true world of nature, where flowers bloom and sunbeams fall, and over which Orion sparkles and the Pleiades lead their flashing train The representative of this variety in its weaker aspect is a slick and harmless being, a kind of whiskered essence, or organized perfume, level to the minutest propriety of the drawing-room and the opera; his thoughts oppressed with ten thousand points of ceremony, or pondering grave problems as to the color of a glove or the shape of a boot. THE philanthropist’s hope may not appear in the coming future; yet the inspiration of that hope may make him a hero, and perhaps a martyr. GOD’S beneficence streams out from the morning sun, and his love looks down upon us from the starry eyes of midnight. It is his solicitude that wraps us in the air, and the pressure of his hand, so to speak, that keeps our pulses beating. Q! it is a great thing to realize that the Divine Power is always working; that nature, in every valve and every artery, is full of the presence of God. THE sublimities of God’s glory beam upon us in his care for the little, as well as in his adjustments of the great; in the comfort which surrounds the little woodbird, and blesses the denizen of a single leaf, as well as in the happiness that streams through the hierarchies of being that cluster and swarm in yon forests of the firmament; in the skill displayed in the spider’s eye, in the beauty that quivers upon the butterfly’s wing, as in the splendors that emboss the chariot-wheels of night, or glitter in the sandals of the morning. THE wild bird that flies so lone and far has somewhere its nest and brood: A little fluttering heart of love impels its wings, and points its course. There is nothing so solitary as a solitary man. A VAIN man is not one with a dignified consciousness of his own personality, but rather one with a nervous solicitude about himself, a fear that he shall not be noticed enough; with a half-suspicion that he may be a sham, a counterfeit, and, therefore, an extra endeavor that his chink and jingle shall be heard in the world. BUT little good is derived from the company of a highly intellectual wolf or a moral bear. BREAK up the institution of the family, deny the inviolability of its relations, and in a little while there would not be any humanity. THE physical law is also God’s law, the expression of his intention, the enactment of his will. It has had no set place of proclamation, no vocal utterance. But its administration is abroad on the pure air of heaven, and its decrees are in the light. It is not engraved on tables of stone, but its sanctions are in every part of your wonderful, throbbing organism: in the currents of the blood, the hand-writing of the nerves, and the tablets of the lungs. While you obey it its mystery works on, with serene unconsciousness, affording that pleasure which there is in bare existence itself; in the play of muscle and the equal pulse of health; in full, deep breathing, and sweet sleep, and the exhilaration of the sunshine and the air. But violate it, and the relentless consequences will tell you how sacred and how divine it is. IF we would induce others to act virtuously, it will prove more effectual to show them their capacities than to expose their weakness; to attract them by a fairer ideal than to terrify them by pictures of misery and shame. EVENTS, things, -world-movements, individual experiences, contemplated from a partial point of view, may seem chaotic, purposeless, disconnected, like the foamflakes, pitching, -whirling, turned into mist, bounding into white annihilation, at Niagara. But every atom of that dishevelled water is held in the curve of nature, and descends by law, and combines and sweeps onward to the broad lake. So with human events. They are governed; they accomplish a majestic course; and over their maddest plunging, their most terrible anarchy, there arches the superintending Providence a bow in the cloud. DEATH makes a beautiful appeal to charity. When we look upon the dead form so composed and still, the kindness and the love that are in us all come forth. WHATEVER may be our condition in life, it is better to lay hold of its advantages than to count its evils. ALTHOUGH the notions of many are so contrary to ours, we discover that in common life they are worthy people, and that their theories do not make such shocking havoc as we had inferred. HE is a true man who realizes the dignity of his nature; who is loyal to his best convictions; who controls his passions and appetites; who is guided by his reason; and who blends a noble mastery of himself with a filial dependence upon God, and who is greater than anything that he has or does. To be a man in the best sense of the term is a loftier object of ambition than anything that he may acquire as a man. IT is an error to suppose that religion is unfavorable to vigor and fulness of nature. COURAGE is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admirable "when it sparkles in the setting of a modest self-distrust; and never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury. THERE can be no true manliness without gentleness, mercy, love. There is only superficial strength in him who can do but not endure. OF all strength of character, of all spiritual force, Christianity is the main spring. A glance at facts is enough to show this. For where are human energies the most active and the best developed? Where has science achieved its grandest victories? Where have invention, art, and civilization unfolded their richest results? In Christian lands, and under Christian influences. A GENUINE loyalty to truth, that dares to speak it and to live it, is one of the grandest features of manhood. IN the history of man it has been very generally the case that when evils have grown insufferable they have touched the point of cure. THIS is the essential evil of vice: it debases a man. THE seeds of good resolve, progress, virtue, fly to young men winged with fresh hopes. Often the only remedy that we can descry for present evils is the substitution of another stock of men. In the coming of a new generation there always opens a better prospect for the world. WE are astonished at the sight of nerveless infamy and decrepit lust. It makes us sick at heart to see the limbs that stoop so near the earth shaking with the tremor of indulgence, and the eyes whose feeble vision should be lifted heavenward blinded with the filthy rheum of debauch. It appals us that one who for threescore years and ten has experienced the goodness of his Maker should use the accents of his faltering voice to defile that name with blasphemy; that he who knows how much purity there is, even yet, in life, should to the very last maintain such an example to infect its sanctities; and that, while it should seem most men would grow solemn at least when those great shadows are thickening upon their heads, he should mock them with his toothless laughter, and, gathering curses about him like a garment, stagger headlong into the gates of death. PHYSICALLY, man is but an atom in space, and a pulsation in time. Spiritually, the entire outward universe receives significance from him, and the scope of his existence stretches beyond the stars. A THOUSAND wheels of labor are turned by dear affections, and kept in motion by self-sacrificing endurance; and the crowds that pour forth in the morning and return at night are daily processions of love and duty. THE truly beautiful is useful. And no man needs this kind of help so much as he who ignores it; whose conception of utility is limited to the bounds of a coarse, material interest, and the service of the senses. Why, what does he think of this vast palace of industry all around him, with enamelled floor and its star-sprinkled dome, where the Divine Intelligence, working for illimitable ages, has mingled the materials of use with the expression of beauty? "What does he make of the contributions which summer brings to this great exhibition, of the upholstery of the sunset and thetent of midnight? Does he not wonder that the leaves should put on such pomp for the dying year, and that such useless things as flowers should line the traveller’s dusty way? You have opportunities for serving God that all the past had not. TRUTH and righteousness do not break forth in sharp and sudden shocks. Secretly they work down in the deep heart of things, leavening the lump. Gradually they proceed, like the issues of the morning, in which we detect no sudden crisis, in which we hardly observe the transition, until, bye-and-bye, in place of the shadows and the cold, gray mist, lo! a clear, transfiguring splendor rests on the mountains and the sea. THE strict conservative says that truth is in danger. It is the idlest fear in the world. It plainly indicates no intimacy with the truth. He who has communed with great principles knows that they are everlasting, and that nothing can shake them from their orbits. He is willing to trust truth in every encounter, knowing it to be eternal and omnipotent. THE man who strives to reach the core of things, who anxiously wrestles with doubt, and clasps his temporary conviction though it makes his very heart bleed, and yet who beats about in blinding mist, and cannot see, may be nearer the kingdom of heaven than he who mechanically wears the yoke of tradition, who worships in listless conformity, but who cares nothing for the truth in itself, and in whose soul that truth lies dead. OF all sensualists the worst is that moral sepulchre within whose gilded exterior the life of principle has crumbled darkly away, the man whose tiger propensities are disguised with a velvet tread and a silver tongue, whose real nature, into which has entered the curse of withered innocence and broken hearts, is hidden by the glitter of accomplishments, and each accomplishment a treacherous lie. IF angels stoop from visions of more than earthly beauty to spells of less than earthly worth, they are but fallen angels, mingling divine utterances with the babblings of madness, and the madness is not the divineness. A LIFE of mere pleasure! A little while, in the spring-time of the senses, in the sunshine of prosperity, in the jubilee of health, it may seem well enough. But how insufficient, how mean, how terrible when age comes, and sorrow, and death! A life of pleasure! What does it look like when these great changes beat against it, when the realities of eternity stream in? It looks like the fragments of a feast, when the sun shines upon the withered garlands, and the tinsel, and the overturned tables, and the dead lees of wine. THE minister should preach as if he felt that although the congregation own the church, and have bought the pews, they have not bought him. His soul is worth no more than any other man’s, but it is all he has, and he cannot be expected to sell it for a salary. The terms are by no means equal. If a parishioner does ^not like the preaching he can go elsewhere and get another pew, but the preacher cannot get another soul. EARTH has scarcely an acre that does not remind us of actions that have long preceded our own, and its clustering tomb-stones loom up like reefs of the eternal shore, to show us where so many human barks have struck and gone down. WHAT is prayer without love but the mockwy of lofty compliment, or the awe and agony of servile fear? Love is the very life of the best things, and without it they are mere bodies, dead and empty. THE city reveals the moral ends of being, and sets the awful problem of life. The country soothes us, refreshes us, lifts us up with religious suggestion. AN ague-fit in the Bank of England or in Wall-street sets the whole world a shaking; and if you would discover the most sensitive and powerful interest of the day consult the barometer of the stocks. 0, HOW those men are to be valued who, in the spirit with which the widow gave up her two mites, have given up themselves! How their names sparkto! How rich their very ashes are! How they will count up in heaven! IT is hard work to read the moral law straight through the double lens of twelve percent interest; and a man will find some way to hitch his conscience to the train of a profitable transaction, and keep it running in the grooves of a thriving business. THERE are many men, I fear, who make Sunday answer the purpose of a dull business spell or a raing day. They turn over the leaves of the ledger instead of the Bible; mourn not their sins, but their bad debts; and are so busy writing their own letters that they have no time to read the epistles of Paul. EACH man occupies an original position. Every great fact comes straight to him. Every appeal of duty must run through the alembic of his reason, his conscience, and his will. The cope of heaven bursts above him; the unfathomed depths open beneath him; the mysteries of God and immortality come streaming in, with their awful splendors; and truths that have confounded the loftiest intellects truths that in all ages have roused up the soul from its foundations, and baptized it with reverence, and kindled it with love environ him as intensely as if he were the first-born of men set face to face with fresh and unresolved problems. IT is a shameful inconsistency that the law should busy itself only with consequences, and neglect and even foster causes. It leaves uncared for the hot-beds of iniquity, and shuts up the vagrant and the thief. With one hand it licenses a dram-shop, and with the other builds a gallows. THIS is the most fearful characteristic of vice: its irresistible fascination; the ease with which it sweeps away resolution, and wins a man to forget his momentary outlook, his throb of penitence, in the embrace of indulgence. HAPPY is the land whose granite heart is warmed by sacred hearth-fires, and in whose homes are nourished venerable associations and local attachments. These intense sympathies are not less but more favorable to broader claims. These enrich the blood, and toughen the fibres of a noble patriotism. These impart that vitality which withstands oppression and clings to the right. These send some element of purity and honor into a nation’s life, lend it that identity of soul which stirs to this common suggestion of the altar and the home, and, hemming it around with the father’s ashes and the children’s hopes, make it a land worth living and worth dying for. HE is a miserable being who has no resources of enjoyment -within himself, but depends entirely upon foreign suggestion; who, in fact, must run away from himself, and pitch into the waves of superficial excitement, a perpetual whirl and glitter that drowns all personality, and sweeps away soul and sense. I DOUBT the validity of any amusement that is thought proper for the people but improper for the minister. THE universe is a vast system of exchange. Every artery of it is in motion, throbbing with reciprocity, from the planet to the rotting leaf. The vapor climbs the sunbeam, and comes back in blessings upon the exhausted herb. The exhalation of the plant is wafted to the ocean. And so goes on the beautiful commerce of nature. And all because of dissimilarity, because no one thing is sufficient in itself, but calls for the assistance of something else, and repays by a contribution in turn. EVERYTHING grows from the centre outward; and so humanity grows from moral and intellectual inspirations. A MARTYR’S blood may become not only "the seed of the Church," but of far-reaching revolutions; and the philosopher’s abstraction beats down feudal castles, and melts barriers of steel. One great principle will tell more upon the life of a people than all its discoveries and conquests. WHATEVER touches the nerves of motive whatever shifts man’s moral position is mightier than steam, or caloric, or lightning. IN the great sum of social destiny, England is not that empire whose right arm encircles the northern lakes, and whose left stretches far down into the Indian Sea; but an influence which is vascular with the genius of Bacon, and Locke, and Shakspeare, and Milton. IT is a proof of his immortality that while these material elements are united with his body, and hold the mortgage of his dust, they are obsequious to his purposes, and before the moral and intellectual man assume an attitude of inferiority. This is a new proof of his immortality, that flashes out in the wide diffusion of science at the present day, that man appears as a workman, nature but as an implement. ETHNOLOGY may break the concrete surface of. humanity into the mosaic of a thousand races; it cannot turn into diverse channels that common under-current, that deep gulf-stream, which heaves with the impulses and the yearnings of one nature and one blood. Geology may throw open its rocky catacombs, stamped with the hieroglyphics of incalculable time; it cannot divorce the conscious soul from that eternal Love which is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Astronomy may appal our fleshly eyesight with its sweep of boundless space. But only more impressive, more needed, more real seems that Bible truth uttered long ago: " Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me." As we see what the natural world is, we only feel more vividly what the spiritual truth of Jesus means; and the clouds of sense that to some may have seemed for the time to eclipse it, part open before the divine lustre that streams from the love of the Cross. THE bud withers, but no kindred bud takes its withering to heart, or yearns for its renewal. But the bud that drops from a mother’s bosom, overshadowed by the petals of her yearning love; tell us not that that has no renewal, no blossoming in more genial air; for then you mock a deathless instinct; then you would balk an inward spring that flows like the love of God himself. THE productions of the press, fast as steam can make and carry them, go abroad through all the land, silent as snow-flakes, but potent as thunder. It is an additional tongue of steam and lightning, by -which a man speaks his first thought, his instant argument or grievance, to millions in a day. NATURE is God perpetually working; and we need only look around us to see and to feel that truth of a Providence to which our deepest instincts turn. SETTING is preliminary to brighter rising; decay is a process of advancement; death is the condition of higher and more fruitful life. WHO has not been glad to plunge his individuality into this ocean of superintending goodness and wisdom, and feel, through the struggle and fever or his own little life, the Infinite Heart beating under all things? BE not so solicitous to rebut all suspicion of " greenness " as to come out in vice full blossom. Better live green and die green than to be thus rotten before your prime. WHEREVER we gaze, wherever we explore, we behold the features of creative skill steeped in the smile of creative love. IF that, philosophy which repudiates whatever is not useful had its way it would daub the oracles of song with plaster, it would break up the master-pieces of sculpture to macadamize roads, and send the poets to the lunatic asylum. LET us make a proper distinction between the economy of living and the economy of life. A man may find it necessary to scrimp his body, but it does not follow that therefore he should starve his soul. And sometimes when, as he thinks, he shrewdly saves a dollar, he may be doing a more- extravagant thing than the profligate who spends one. He is doing an extravagant thing if merely for the sake of saving his dollar he bars out some opportunity to become richer or better in his intellect or his heart. WHEN we save our money at the expense of our souls, then saving money is not economy; it is the worst kind of wastefulness Let us enrich our souls as we lawfully may with all beauty, with all truth and excellence; for this is the real economy of life. OLD age ought to be, and essentially is a manifestation of what is hidden in the depths of a man’s nature. It might be, it should be, not an exhibition of crackling impotence and gloomy decay, but the very crown and ripening of life, the symbol of maturity, not of dissolution. So rich in its resources, so bright in its memories, so calm in the fulness of its harmony, so lifted up by a grand faith, as to over-top all melancholy associations. It is so in the natural world In this luscious autumn, these days of marvellous beauty, the earth appears like a pallette set with gorgeous colors, and enriched with a haze of sifted gold It seems as though from every crypt and secret vein affluent nature had summoned all her riches for one full, glorious manifestation; and all her hidden beauty swims to the surface. The buried seed, the dew that came by night, the unregarded sweat of human labor, bursts out in purple grapes and yellow corn. The secret juices of plant and tree tingle in quivering gold and blush in crimson. And every lowly and lovely thing that came and perished long ago has, as it were, left its legacy, and is represented in this congress of yearly glories. The latter spring has bequeathed the color of its sky, the early summer the softness of its breath, and every little flower its peculiar tint, to be woven in this mantle of serial gauze, and to suffuse the woods with this unconsurning and prismatic flame. In the latest hours oMhe year come out the full glory and richness of the year. Why should it not be so with the latest hours of human life? Why should these bear merely a record of waste, and feebleness, and unfulfilled opportunities? Why only dark with regrets and forebodings? Why only wear the look of a ruin, with its broken casements and shattered walls?... Surely a genuine old age, a Christian completion of existence, will wear a kind of October glory, even when the body is broken and the flesh is weak. It will correspond with autumn not only as the last but as the richest of the cycle. Then, in clear points of mental flame, in glories of faith, in the beauty of love, every tint of the soul, every gentle and holy affection, all the juices of secret devotion, every process of silent, inner, faithful work, will come out to complete and adorn the life of a man, and the vestibule of death will be a gate- way of coronation. THE best men are not those who have waited for chances, but taken them, besieged the chance, conquered the chance, and made the chance their servitor. IT is not splendors, principalities and powers, that mark the grades of being, and determine the footprints of progress. It is the mind, the soul of man. SEE how things in the world of nature live up to their best, and in their sphere fulfil a perfect work. Now, as at the first, it may be said of these that they are "good." But how shall we gain such a benediction? Only as we, too, live up to our best, as we come into conscious harmony, not only with nature, but with the God of Nature, the God of Life. HE is best qualified to be and to act who apprehends this state as an integral part of his moral and perpetual existence, and who feels that each day, each hour, is precious in itself as belonging to the vast sweep of eternity. How often a new affection makes a new man. The sordid, cowering soul turns heroic. The frivolous girl becomes the steadfast martyr of patience and ministration, transfigured by deathless love. The career of bounding impulses turns into an anthem of sacred deeds. WHAT spiritual benefit in lopping away one or two bad habits, while the original virus remains in the constitution? One may lop away all bad habits, and yet, having no positive spiritual life, he is only like an old stump with the branches broken off. ’WE think too hardly, my friends, of positive pain. There is hope in that; there is mercy in that; but in loss, privation, deadness of faculty, there ’s retribution. There ’s retribution; not in what is suffered by the man, but in what is wasted of the man. PRINCIPLES of righteousness that are commended from lip to lip are for us worth nothing until they are coined in our own hearts, stamped with the image and superscription of our own personality, and poured into the world by our own positive endeavor. THERE is a substantial ground of rest for us when we actually feel that God knows our hearts clear through, and do not try to hide ourselves, or disguise anything that is within us from his eye, but in simple confession of our sinfulness rely upon his mercy and his help. How much in this world is charged to chance or fortune, or veiled under a more devout name, and accorded to Providence; while, when we come to look honestly into afiairs, we find it to be a debt of our own accumulation, and one which we must inevitably pay. THE faculty by which we convince ourselves of any veracity in the reports of our senses is an inward faculty. And if we rely upon this in its report of that which comes through the senses, shall we not rely upon it when it reports that which comes more immediately to itself? And if by the decisions of the mind we accept the facts of an external world, shall we not by its decisions also accept the existence of spiritual realities? If the reports of this inward witness are not veracious, what reports are veracious? If man does not know the lines of eternal rectitude, if he sees no real distinction between right and wrong by the help of conscience, then what does he know or perceive? If the soul turned towards the Infinite, in its quivering awe, in its joyful dependence, does not discern God, what power in all our complex being have we, and what objects are real? IT is God’s work we do whenever we perform the right thing let what will oppose itself; and who can limit the uses which God thus makes of his instruments? He does not require great things to effect his great ends; not always a battle or a treaty, a mission or a martyrdom. Your little act of faith and fortitude; he may take it up and weave it conspicuously among the splendors of his unfolding plan. WHAT a blessing man acknowledges in sleep, whose soft oblivion makes an island of every day, and breaks the hold of continuous care; that cools the hot brain, and bathes the weary eye-lids, and lets the buffeted and foundering heart cast anchor every night in some harbor of happy dreams. He feels the beneficence of that law which makes even misery halt, and besieging fortune strike its tents, and in the great democracy of nature levels the children of men in common helplessness and common need; finding no conditions so wretched, no spot so bleak that even the most desperate cannot recline nearer to the bosom of the common mother, and forget for a little while their sorrow and their shame. CHRIST’S revelation of the All-encompassing Providence over-arches us at times like the clear night-sky, when one halts on his march through the desert, breathing a blessed coolness over our parched and weary nature, and amidst the lonely waste, the drifting sand, and the fluttering tents, looking down upon us with a great and tender assurance of permanence and peace. THROUGH every rift of discovery some seeming anomaly drops out of the darkness, and falls as a golden link in the great chain of order. ALWAYS the idea of unbroken quiet broods around the grave. It is a port where the storms of life never beat, and the forms that have been tossed on its chafing waves lie quiet forevermore. There the child nestles as peacefully as ever it lay in its mother’s arms, and the workman’s hands lie still by his side, and the thinker’s brain is pillowed in silent mystery, and the poor girl’s broken heart is steeped in a balm that extracts its secret woe, and is in the keeping of a charity that covers all blame. TO-MORROW may never come to us. We do not live in to-morrow. We cannot find it in any of our titledeeds. The man who owns whole blocks of real estate, and great ships on the sea, does not own a single minute of to-morrow. To-morrow! It is a mysterious possibility, not yet born. It lies under the seal of midnight, behind the veil of glittering constellations. THE devil has been painted swarthy, cloven-footed, horned, and hideous. Do we expect to see him in that shape? 0, surely it would bo better for us, if he did come in that shape! The trouble is the devil never does come in that shape. He comes by chance, with unregistered signals, and in all sorts of counterfeit presentments. WHO shall say that prayer has no ground of reason because science cannot find any avenue for it? Who shall forbid this instinct that cleaves every cloud strait up to God, because visibly he does not reach down his hand? THE dreaded morrow, that has cast its gloom over so many yesterdays, and prevented our needed sleep; how often have we found its anticipated trials soften and dwindle, as we passed under their shadow! As we entered into the cloud some heavenly voice has saluted us, inspiring us with courage and with hope; some unexpected help has encountered us; we have seen something to mitigate our grief; some clue has led us through the perplexity, and the foreboding ill has broken and vanished as we drew near. Or, if the full tide of anticipated trouble has rolled over us, we have been enabled to bear it, and we are now enriched in life with so much additional experience. WHAT is it that so far has failed? Surely not your conviction that this is God’s right, God’s truth, which you have been striving to maintain. And for any cause there can be no absolutely fatal symptom, except a demonstration of its falsity. REVOLUTION does not insure progress. You may overturn thrones, but what proof that anything better will grow upon the soil? The deepest woes of humanity are not cured by universal fraternity and soup-kitchens. The social millennium is not based on barricades. THIS great gospel is not a cramped, feeble, narrow thing of times and seasons; but wherever God can be worshipped, or humanity be served, or the spirit of love manifested, there is the work of true religion. LOVE by its own hidden processes will secure the ends of love. Humanity, swept and winnowed, trampled down and thwarted, fading and vanishing away, is taken up and borne along in the scope of His great plan who doeth all things well. THE slender conduits of a flower or a leaf, the finest nerves in an insect’s eye, are regulated by unerring laws. Surely, then, the career of nations is not without an appointed orbit. THE fatal fact in the case of a hypocrite is that he is a hypocrite. IN every person’s character his inward, spiritual life is the true private account of stock and capital, of profit and loss. merchant or mechanic, so anxiously balancing your accounts for the year! there is stated the precise amount of your real wealth, the only scrip and substance you can carry with you when the years pass away. politician! man in office and in power! there is the register that enrolls your actual honors, and shows to what you are elected. The types of character stamp deeper than printing-presses, and will tell your story better than all the newspapers. mariner! there is the log-book of years, declaring what course you have held in your earthly voyage; there is the chart that indicates upon what shoals and breakers you may be driving now. Young man, young woman, there is the journal of your daily life; there is the remembrancer that records no compliments, no flatteries, only the plain, honest truth. WE do not compromise our own faith by admitting the honesty of another’s doubt. THERE is no mockery like the mockery of that spirit that looks around in the world and believes that all is emptiness. SAT, imperial diplomatists, who are now about setthng "the balance of Europe," will you settle the balance of crushed affections and sore bereavements? Can you piece together broken hearts, and tie up their shattered strings with your red tape? In the parchments which you will exchange with your courtesies and champagne, have you estimated the value of desolate homesteads, of bones and sinews made of stuff as good as your own now bleaching in the ruts of battle-fields? Have you settled that balance of everlasting justice and humanity which God finally holds in his hands, thinking perhaps that your crowns and sceptres in one scale will weigh down the heaps of slaughtered men in the other? forgetting, it may be, the unmoving shadows of widowhood and orphanage that will brood amid the festal lights, and that undertone of a vast sorrow which will mingle with the salvoes of artillery and the billowy Te Deums that shall proclaim that the nations are once more " at peace! " THE creed of the true saint is to make the best of life, and make the most of it. Do not ask if a man has been through college. Ask if a college has been through him; if he is a walking university. ONE day, walking over a barren and stony piece of ground, I came upon a little patch of verdure starred all over with yellow flowers of the later summer, and as it opened upon me so fresh and beautiful, as though it were spread out there simply to touch the sense of joy, and to add to the measure of boundless life, for the time it seemed to me as glorious as the firmament; and the majesty of God was as palpable there, in that little, unconsidered plot, as among the splendors of the morning, or in the sparklingtent of midnight. WE grow in artistic culture, we grow in ripeness and delicacy of taste, as we stand before the great masters, and drink in the fulness of their genius, rather than by perplexed efibrts to find out the processes of their work. So our sense of beauty and of grandeur grows as we lean upon the breast of nature, and let its moods and aspects pass into us, until morning, and midnight, and noontide splendor, and flushes of sunset, and rock, and woodland, and the vast, old sea, become tints and forces of our own being inwoven among the filaments of our innermost life. So, then, let our thoughts upon divine mysteries lead where they will, it is by looking upon the ideal of Jesus, and seeking to apply it in the practical results of righteousness that we add to our spiritual substance. GREAT intellect and selfish impulses; that is devil nature. MAN was sent into the world to be a growing and exhaustless force. The world was spread out around him to be seized and conquered. Realms of infinite truth burst open above him, inviting him to tread those shining coasts along which Newton dropped his plummet, and Herschel sailed, a Columbus of the skies. NEUTRAL men are the devil’s allies. EUROPE is all sown over with grains of gunpowder, while the emissaries of its kings are industriously at work blowing out everything that looks like light, and quenching everything that feels like fire. A comfortable time of it those continental kings must have, feeling as if their thrones were built against a powder-mill, with Guy Fawkes at the back door. THE man of the nineteenth century is a condensed Methuselah. A BOY ought to be like a cat, so that tumble him into the world any way he will strike upon his feet. WE cannot plaster over these questions of poverty, and vice, and crime with a Christian sentiment of charity, or solve the great social problems suggested by them by the decent proprieties of alms-giving. You might as well attempt to put out the flames of Vesuvius with a bottle of Cologne water. THE poorest beggar that walks the street is greater than colossal New York, with all its architectural grandeur, and its crowded marts, and its laden ships. So man is greater than the church. Not the soul for the church, but the church for the soul. And whenever the soul is brought into communion with Christ, and the divine life obtained, the end of all is reached. TRUTH is new, as well as old. It has new forms; and where you find a new statement, an earnest statement, you may conclude that by the law of progress it is more likely to be a correct statement than that which has been repeated for ages by the lips of tradition. Go to the man absorbed in this world of time and sense, and tell him of the peace of believing, of the satisfaction of love, of the beauty of holiness, and ydu talk to him of dreams and of shadows. He knows nothing of these things in himself, and therefore your words have no meaning for him. You talk to him, as it were, in a foreign dialect, and there are hardly any corresponding ideas in his experience which can furnish you with terms for the translation of joy, beauty, and God But when these earthly forms in which he trusted are stripped away and have crumbled down, the instincts within him are left free to awaken; and then it is that the truth which Jesus utters the blessed offer which he makes is comprehended as it cannot be before.! men come to the New Testament in a shady room, with the darkness of this world around them; and then it is that like the myriad stars, that are only seen by night, the great texts that fell from the lips of Jesus shine out, and they awaken suggestions we never saw before, and which burst from them, kindling and blazing along the old lines that have been written there for nineteen hundred years. Then men begin to understand what is the burden and the application of such passages as " Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." MORALITY is but the vestibule of religion. WHILE- with fevered and parched lips men lie around this old, mossy brink of worldly pleasure, these crumbling curb-stonSs of human graves, and again and again come to lap there of that which cannot fill, and which never can satisfy, it is the glory of spiritual truth of inward life, and peace, and righteousness that with ever-enlarging capacity there is an ever-enlarging abundance, and as we crave more the more comes to us. ALL evil, in fact the very existence of evil, is inexplicable until we refer to the paternity of God. It hangs a huge blot in the universe until the orb of divine love rises behind it. In that apposition we detect its meaning. It appears to us but a finite shadow as it passes across the disc of infinite lisiht. THE most feeble and degraded of our race is separated by a broad line from all other creatures. There is a moral deep in him, a spiritual power, which, obscured as it is, is not the possession of any other earthly being, and is a dim image of the Eternal. Under the cloud of sin and the corruptions of sensualism there is embosomed an essence which reflects the overshadowing of its Infinite Original, and sparkles in response to the uncreated Light. HE who to-day utters a bold truth that seems to shock some old institution with the premonition of destruction, and that scares men from their propriety, will a hundred years hence be regarded as a remarkably conservative man.. And yet the people who stand peculiarly upon what they call the foundations of conservatism, and hold to hard, practical facts, now stand upon that which one hundred years ago was rank heresy. So the world moves; a divine, living current flows under the stony pavement of daily custom; so God draws us through space; so the currents run; so the winds blow; while all the while we think that things stand still, because we ourselves are disposed to stand still. Not at all. Abstractions move the world; ideas wear crowns, sway sceptres, and draw swords; and principles conquer. There is nothing so immutable as truth, nothing so fluent as error, though error stands surrounded by bastions, and moats, and castles, and turrets, and towers, while truth is nothing but an humble cry in the wilderness, a solitary idea that finds its home in a good man’s heart. BEFORE the love which is in God all things are sure to come round to his standard; and the most giant iniquity of earth strikes its head at last against the beam of God’s Providence and goes down. WHATEVER theory we may entertain concerning primeval time, with whatever innocence it may have been peopled, with whatever glory adorned, it is not for us to sigh over its lost loveliness, or to cast back wistful glances upon its glimmering gates. The Gospel requires of us diligent hands, prayerful hearts, and & forward look. It urges self-sacrifice, but it holds out a glorious expectancy. Humanity is in neither a state of decay nor of stagnation. It is moving, and moving for the better. Continents of time and mountains of difficulty may stretch between us and the glad era, but a serene light streams down from heaven upon the destinies of the race, and an auroral promise tints the horizon of the future. WITH infinite depths of truth, and an incessant spring of spiritual life, Christianity cannot be limited to any time, or petrified in any shape. It is fluent and eternal. The reconciling element of the world, it goes forth into every age, and responds to the deepest tone of want in every posture of humanity. THE expression of God is in nature, and it never looks approvingly to the bad, nor inhospitable to the good. A FULL and steady perception of God would melt every heart in homage before him. THE ocean is beautiful, lulled to rest; The pictured stars that gem its breast Are epitaphs, written upon the deep, Over the places where loved ones sleep. Beautiful, where no mortal eye Looks in on its gorgeous heraldry, Is the vast, cjpep sea! And beautiful, too, Where it spreads to the gaze its expanded blue, Or reflects the clouds in their pomp unrolled, And moves in its glory of green and gold. NATURE takes a higher aspect from places where good and memorable deeds have been done, and it lends to them a deeper charm. It is enriched with rarer sanctity; it sheds more blessed dew upon the spot where the hero struggled, or the martyr perished, or the righteous sleep. Palestine will always be a "Holy Land." GOD’S work is freedom. Freedom is dear to his heart. He wishes to make man’s will free, and at the same time wishes it to be pure, majestic, and holy. GENIUS is the accumulated wealth of our humanity, its most intense development concentrated at one point, and then with clearer expression and with mysterious power shot back to us across the galvanic lines of thought and feeling. IT is a great thing, when our Gethsemane hours come, when the cup of bitterness is pressed to our lips, and when we pray that it may pass away, to feel that it is not fate, that it is not necessity, but divine love for good ends working upon us. WHEN a man would send out the organ-music of inspiring truth; when he would sweep the entire diapason of patriotic and Christian sentiment; when he would wake the land with some old passage of the past, or some jubilant strain of the future, let him set his foot upon the pedal of Plymouth Rock, and strike the keys of Fanueil Hall! * CHARACTER has more effect than anything else. Let a number of loud-talking men take up a particular question, and one man of character, of known integrity and beauty of soul, will outweigh them all in his influence. At a Festival in Fanueil Hall. IN calm, fine nights of the latter summer, when the woods are clothed with the luxuriance of maturity, and the corn stands fully ripe, in the clear midnight, when all else is still, there comes a manifestation as of the conscious earth communing with the conscious universe. There rises a low, deep murmur of the sea upon its shores, and the leaves shiver with a sudden ecstacy, and a light of answering gladness ripples along the firmament, and sparkles to the edge of the remotest constellations. It is as if nature herself knew the counsel that embosoms all things, and for a moment confessed the glorious purpose. This may be fancy, but surely it symbolizes a consoling fact. As in space, so in the immensity of God’s plan, and among the ministering influences of his Providence, our world is carried onward; with the graves of the saints and the martyrs on her breast, and the cresent good slowly spreading over her; and the seeds of truth and righteousness, planted with great pains and buried often in seeming defeat, are swelling with life and bursting into victory. THE excellence and inspiration of truth is in the pursuit, not in the mere having of it. The pursuit of all truth is a kind of gymnastics; a man swings from one truth with higher strenth to gain another. The continual glory and joy is the possibility opening before us. I BELIEVE all things lead to final joy; I believe that the brightest flowering of existence will be in joy; that the atmosphere of heaven will be in joy. But it is not true that our being’s end and aim, or rather that the object of this life, is merely to be happy and comforted. And therefore people make a great mistake who complain of religion because it does not remove all evils. THE way to overcome evil is to love something that is good. No man in this world ever conquered evil merely by butting against it with his will, but by getting into positive love for goodness, by which this evil becomes hateful. "LET it pass from me," said Christ, in the agony of / the garden, as the sweat fell like drops of blood upon the ground. Thank God that he prayed "Let this cup pass from me," and justified the trembling weakness of our humanity. If he had said " Let it come; I can meet it," he would not have been a Christ. IT is the penalty of fame that a man must ever keep rising. " Get a reputation and then go to bed," is the absurdest of all maxims. "Keep up a reputation or go to bed," would be nearer the truth. HE who has been wandering in the maze of false conceptions, and upon whom, at length, has burst the truth of God’s paternity, opens his Bible as a new book. Christianity spreads around him a firmament of sudden glory, and reveals to his eye unexpected riches. Knowing that he is our Father, through the storm and the night we may trustingly proceed; for the star of his compassion never sets, and he spans our voyage with a zodiac of promises.. STRIKE upon what path of moral attainment you may, that path intersects with and involves all others. WE speak of the works of God as though we meant merely this finished material universe thereby. Yet he has been continually working even there. The earth in its convulsions is nothing but a rocking-cradle for the various stages of progress and development And when each one has reached its full period of development, then the foundations of a new epoch are cradled upon them, they become the tomb-stones of the past, and new forms of life come forth. And so it is in spiritual and moral things; God is continually doing a work. And when we have reached the extreme of our effort, have gone as far as we can, it ia an indication that we are to stand still and see what God’s working will be. THE silent stars that stand sentinal at the gates of heaven keep a glorious secret; the dark, still curtains of the grave, that folds its heavy veil before me, hides a great secret. Those processes of mystery, that are so silent in human life and human affairs, are all full of a great secret, be patient, and wait. The faith that tells me to do this is the faith of development, of movement; the faith that enables me to be something higher and do something better. THE ascetic is often nothing more than the sensualist upon the obverse side. Each is engaged by the appetites, and each is spiritually hindered by them; although the one is doing his best to serve them, and the other his best to extirpate them. The true method is simply to let them alone, to leave them in the orbit God has ordained for them, guarding against them not by arbitrary restrictions or fixed embankments, but by positive life and pure afiections. IN proportion to the difficulty of the endeavor is the glory of the achievement. The rich man who complies with the terms of discipleship is a stronger man than he who glides into them almost by the sheer pressure of poverty. WHEN Douglas was carrying the heart of Bruce in the silver case, to bury it in the Holy Land, he was attacked by a body of Turks; and finding the result somewhat doubtful he took the silver case and flung it among the ranks of the enemy, saying, "0, brave heart of Bruce! go forward as ’you have ever done, and I will follow." fake the beating heart of Christ and throw it among your temptations, and follow where that leads, by its divine impulses, by its eternal recognition of that which alone is right, and good, and true. IT may not be an invariable test, but certainly there is ground of doubt as to the faithfulness of that man whose way in the world is always smooth and easy. ALL nature is a vast symbolism: Every material fact has sheathed within, it a spiritual truth. THE elements of genius need the controlling power of a still deeper life; else that which astonishes and dazzles the world often burns by making wreck and fuel of those finer sensibilities and more eloquent passions which separate the man of genius from the rest of his kind, and fit him to be their oracle. THE peculiar sympathy of God with human souls, over and above the sympathy that he has with the round globe that he has sent into space, with the little violet which he wets with dew, with the flower whose cup he fills with golden sunshine, with the cattle for whom he has spread a carpet on a thousand hills, the sympathy of God with the being that is like unto himself in deathless aspiration of faculties could only be expressed by a person. Nature does not express it; nature does not touch us as he did who came to consort with our weakness, to stoop to our lowliness, to pity us under the burden of our sins, and nr us home to God. SOLITARY heart! darkened, troubled soul! when you want to know who is dealing with you, do not take the telescope and try to find him by piercing the blank immensity of space; do not go to philosophy, spun from poor human conceits, that may bewilder and lead astray. Turn over the leaves of the Evangelists, old leaves, wet by a million tears, and consecrated by a million prayers, over which struggling hearts have breathed with hope and trust; come to these pages; take the delineation of Jesus there. They will tell you what God is, who is dealing with you in the strange, mysterious passages of life. And if you want to know what man should be, there it is. As the eye requires the light, and is incomplete without it, so does the human soul crave, so is it not only incomplete, but inexplicable, without God and immortality. THE themes which the poet consecrated ages since are just as dear to us now, are as fresh and beautiful as the water and the light. The strains with which he urged his own generation to freedom stir our pulses like a trumpet. His magic line touches the fountain of our tears, and we weep at the woes which he bewailed. His words of love, and truth, and gladness echo from heart to heart forever, because mankind is one. WHEREVER man thinks or acts broods the idea of God. It is the germ and meaning of every form of worship. No religion, however rude or gross its expression, is wholly arbitrary. It never originated with kings or priests. If any one thinks so let him explain how kings and priests came by the idea, and how it was so readily received by men, and how it is that in one form or another it appears all over the earth. Religion cannot be arbitrary, cannot be a fabrication. It is the breaking forth of a necessity of our nature. It is the human spiiit acknowledging and seeking its source. GOODNESS consists not in the outward things we do, but in the inward thing we are. To be is the great thing. THE very fact that great intellectual problems baffle us, that the realm of truth seems endless, that we stagger before the great problems of existence, and long to know them, is to me prophetic of a higher state, when I shall know them, and go on to know more and more. IT is not the man that gives me most of outward things that helps me to live; but the man who gives me thoughts, and ideas by which a wider sweep of beauty opens to my vision, and kindles in me holy affections, by which I rise nearer to God. CHRISTIANITY has no alliance with cowardice, or watery sentimentalism. It lies at the roots of all genuine manliness, and the results of its development are before the world. It has furnished the grandest examples of strength of purpose and practical power. It has been the animating impulse in the lives of the truly great, and has rolled through the veins of heroes. OUR faith in the miracles is in this: that we believe in them because of Christ, rather than in Christ because of them. Such a life as his was competent to perform such miracles. The great wonder of all, in this sinful world, is, that once there stood on the platform of actual life a being like that; that once that divine ideal rose like the sun in our horizon; that once that pure, self-sacrificing love made itself manifest. It was not in man’s heart to conceive it, nor in his mind to make it; but all that is beautiful in our ideal, all that is noble in our inspiration, has been caused by it. IN this business- world a good many set up a standard that slants a little from the divine perpendicular. RELIGION sows within us the seeds of an undying joy that fails not when outward means of happiness fail, and sorrows darken, and cares appall. It sheds abroad a holy serenity in the heart, and imparts a calm lustre to the brow. It is a principle of truth, and therefore it allows us nothing that is treacherous and wrong; but all that makes happy, and grateful, and good it opens for us in abundant measure. It reveals new sources of happiness. It makes the spire of grass and the star beautiful ministers of delight. THE loss of fortune to a true man is but the trumpetchallenge to renewed exertion, not the thunder-stroke of destruction. He is not a true man who is broken down by the loss of worldly fortune; he is not a true man who says, " Everything is lost: the decks are swept clean, the masts are swept overboard, and I am a poor, foundering wreck, without a hope of life." No such thing. You are a man; have a man’s heart in you. God is over you; you have health and a soul, and the world is wide. Shame on you, if for any transient loss of fortune, any darkening change in your worldly condition, you give everything up. THE glory of the visible creation is, or would be, a perfect man. There are beautiful creations all around us that manifest the wisdom and goodness of God. But the Father has given nothing so glorious and so precious as the human soul. The flower, and the ocean, and the sunbeam are the works of his hands: but this, the soul, is the representative of his very nature. The morning star shines with a perishable lustre; the sea with all its strength shall be rolled together as a vapor, and pass away; but a pure, righteous, and loving soul has in it the eternity and the likeness of God, and shall survive all outward and material things. WHAT if a boulder from the pro- Adamite world should crash against the first chapter of Genesis, can that quench your thirst for divine life, or cancel the fact that Christ satisfies that thirst? He has little faith in the Bible who turns his reason into a dark-lantern to read it by. Fear not that the freight of divine truth which that book carries sublimely over the waves of ages will ever be wrecked on any coast of scientific discovery. In no depth of strata shall we find anything older than the God it reveals. In no new system unfolding from the bright and awful mysteries of the sky will this yearning, struggling soul discover anything so needed as the salvation which that Bible brings, and the immortal bliss to which it leads the way. THE great doctrine of human brotherhood of the worth of a man, that he is not to be trod upon as a footstool, or dashed in pieces as a worthless vessel, and the doctrines that grow out of this the doctrines of popular liberty, education and reform; all these have become active and every-day truths only under the influence of Christianity. DESPITE all refinement, the light and habitual taking of God’s name betrays a coarse nature and a brutal will. THE very elements of democratic liberty are the elements of despotism, when they are monopolized and turned in for the behoof of a single man; and it is possible that they may prove to be nothing more than elements of despotism, multiplied by thousands, so long as they are exclusive, selfish, and greedy elements. If we quit the old heavy barge and take a steamboat, it will be better or worse as we use it. It will carry us quicker into port, but it will carry us quicker to destruction. It will carry us more rapidly through the Highlands of the Hudson, if we are inclined to go that way; it will carry us more rapidly over the Falls of Niagara, if we are inclined to go that way. And with these grand ideas, with these potent elements, we as a people arc just in that critical state whence we shall emerge into the noblest social form the world has ever yet seen, or give birth to the most hideous despotism it has ever borne upon its surface. IN studying the fact of human progress, as affected by Christianity, we must employ a standard equal to the magnitude of the movement. We must not consider merely the access or recess in isolated instances. "We must examine the tide-water marks of centuries, and then we shall find that the great deep, as a whole, has been heaved up to a higher level. THE moment Christianity struck the earth it was evident that a new and astonishing force was in the world, a force affecting the mass of humanity, and not merely a few individuals, a sect’, or a nation. Yes, a new force it was that burst as it were from the very core of the world, breaking the old order of things in pieces, dashing down its marble superstitions, injecting a distinct peculiarity among its granitic customs, and leaving a chasm between ancient and modern history. That dividing-line which no eye can miss is the threshold whence the Kingdom of God began its march through the earth. Since then it has been evident that a moral power is among men, accomplishing vast and blessed changes. No man, however logically he may have arrived at the conclusion that he sins by God’s adamantine decree, that he is fated to be wicked, fails to feel rebuked when he does sin. Conscience mutters its thunder against the wrong, and a sense of retribution opens in his soul. But why the indignant remonstrance, why the foreboding fear, if he has done only what he was obliged to do? Say what he will, his moral nature, as authentic and as infallible as his intellect, assures him by its rebuke that he had a power of choice, and that having freely chosen the.wrong he must pay the penalty of his election. LIFE is the greatest thing that could be given to us. It is the greatest thing which man can communicate to his fellow-man, when.he enlarges in any way his life, gives him a new faculty. When the artist finds new beauty; when a new fact is discovered; when Galileo turned his leaden tube to the skies, and saw the phases of Venus and the satellites of Jupiter; when Columbus returns with tattered sails to bring the glory of a new world; when Cuvier reads the earth in its mineralogy and its animal structure, passing from fibre to fibre, from organ to organ, until he reaches the highest truth; whenever human philanthropy gives new utterance to the divine love, it adds to the life of humanity, and contributes the greatest thing a man can give to the human race. Christ has enlarged it more than all. He has given the whole soul life. He has brought it into infinite communion with the Father. He has made the eternal world real to us. GOD’S sovereignty is his absolute control. His will is the disposition with which he wields that control. WE pray that God’s will may be done. But do we do it. Let each look into his own heart. How is that? Is there no moral dislocation, no resistance to God’s will there? TRUE, our religion -was cradled amid the despotisms of antiquity, It commanded allegiance to Caesar, and forbade political resistance by its disciples at that day. But he who imagines that therefore Christianity sanctions despotism, or absolute monarchy, or social inequality, or a privileged perpetual ruling order of men, must reason from most narrow premises. Christianity came prepared for a gradual work, to perform its labor among men as the sunshine and moisture do theirs; to bring its ideas to perfection among men as the reed is brought forth to harvest. Calm, serene, acquiescent, it laid down its principles, knowing that in process of ages their triumph was certain, knowing that by and by, as the sure results of natural law, the throne of the tyrant would crumble, the chains of the bondman be broken, and the sword of rapine and war sheathed forever. To Him who rolls yon spheres in their path of light, and pours out " sweet influences " from their golden urns; who holds the earth in His hand, and brings the seasons in their course; who regards the fall of the sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our head, to Him it is fitting that from the altar of each heart prayer and pious confidence should ascend for all the destinies of the future.* * Fast Day. THIS is the day on which the old Church celebrates with peculiar honor the resurrection of Jesus. As though it were a new truth, the hells of Easter morning have pealed round the world the glad announcement that he who had slept in the bosom of the earth, at early dawn withdrew the eclipse of death, and broke forth from the sepulchre the Lord of Life and Glory. And as the mighty declaration echoes in our ears, and our torpid worldliness is shaken by the rush of angels’ feet, is it not indeed like a new truth to realize by this resurrection that we too shall live forever? that the shadows which fled from the Savior’s tomb were as the veils of our own mortality vanishing in the light of God? If this be so, then let us live no more in shadows, but in realities. Let the prayer that Christ taught us, and which we so often need among the broken passages of life, foretoken the verities and lift us to the communion of heaven. EVEN yet Christ Jesus has to lie out in waste places very often, because there is no room for him in the inn, no room for him in our hearts, because of our worldliness. There is no room for him even in our politics and religion. There is no room in the inn, and we put him in the manger, and he lies outside of our faith, coldly and dimly conceived by us. WE are conscious of a will independent and personal. In this we find a strong demonstration of the existence of a God. For the experience of a will in ourselves renders us capable of detecting the indications of another and a divine will in the works of the universe. PROFANENESS is an awful vice. Whose name is* it you so lightly use? That name of GOD! Have you ever pondered its meaning? Have you ever thought what it is that you mingle thus with your passion and your wit? It is the name of him whom the angels worship, and whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain. THE scholar is more encumbered by the consciousness of what he lacks than by the wealth of his acquisitions y and the saint is so busy with what is yet required that he has little time to count what has been achieved. BELIEF in God does not rest upon a mere doctrine of logic, which some other statement of logic may come and upset. It is one of those primal facts in the human soul which no mere logic has established nor can refute. ONLY by the love of God, in whom all truth and righteousness are centered, do you get true light to see evil and to hate evil as you should. IN the revelation of the Father the majesty of God is brought down to us, his infinity personified, and his exhaustless love tenderly expressed. Without this, how awful, how overwhelming would be the act of devotion! Science is daily revealing to us a wider scope and a loftier grandeur in the universe. To the exploring eye it opens new vistas of creation, and pours upon its dazzled vision the brightness of innumerable suns. And among these dimly swings this atom of a world, and far beyond all reaches the infinity of God! How could we have confidence to look up to him, through all these countless myriads and this intolerable splendor? And again, when we consider his holiness and our impurity, the awfulness of God and the insignificance of man, were it not for his own help we should not dare to approach him. But this revelation of " The FATHER" has swept away all the barriers of distance; it has-streamed into our souls through a.ll the glories of the universe; it has touched us with the intimate nearness, the infinite condescension of God, and gathered into that one name all that is venerable with all that is lovely. IT is the great peculiarity of many of the Psalms that they speak from and they speak to the inward life. There is no stamp of external history upon them, no finger-mark of age or place. They are an artesian well of thought and sentiment, that has been sunk through the crust of all centuries, whence the human soul may draw and drink, and recognize the deep uuder-spring of its own experience. In one word, they are essentially of the soul, and so time and space are canceled by them. They are the language of a common humanity, whose emphasis is in every needy, or troubled, or rejoicing heart, and is fitted to all lives. If one wants expressions to convey what is deep in him he can find those expressions nowhere so fully and so readily as here. So the Psalms live forever, and are little affected by the criticism that may break off bits of Genesis or flaw the book of Kings. Touching God and the human soul, they glide over all things else in the great ground-swell of spiritual truth. THE letter of the Scripture may be questioned and argued, but you cannot question the love of the Father nor the gift of the Son. My heart felt this when I laid my loved child to rest, and your science on all its burning axles cannot grind from my heart all the comfort God’s love gave me then. A DIRECT answer to prayer from God does not imply any change in him nor in his ordinances; but simply that in prayer a certain instrumentality is used, upon the exercise of which certain results will follow, which would not ensue without the use of this instrumentality. It is an ordinance of God that the harvest shall depend upon the sowing of seed. If that instrumentality is not employed no result follows. But still, the possibilities all exist, whether the means are used or not; and should it have so happened that man had sowed the seed but once, contrary to all human experience, past and future, a harvest would have sprung up. But would this unusual fact have violated any law of nature? Certainly not. The strange result would have indicated simply a compliance with established terms, which compliance had not been previously rendered. So is it, as I conceive, with prayer. It is a spiritual instrumentality, upon the employment of which certain results are contingent. And that God should grant peculiar and direct blessings upon the touching of that one spring, which he will give in no other way, is no more miraculous than that he should give the harvest when the seed is sown. To say that he grants answers to prayer as well as to labor is only saying that man works with God and God with man in more ways than one. How he answers prayer is a mystery, but it is no more a mystery than the process which converts the kernel into the full corn in the ear, than the connection between thought and action, than the existence of God, and the methods of his communication with the human soul. THERE is no controlling force, there is no permanent dominion in the universe, but that of love; and every age more and more clearly indicates this truth. The Spirit which is to sink into the hearts of men, and subdue the evil that is there, the Spirit before which the desert shall blossom as the rose, and the world be transfigured with the glory of the millennial day, is that which was manifested when God gave his only-begotten Son. The greatest instrument of power and victory ever sent into the world is the cross. WE not only give an undue exaltation to the appetites when we yield them a blind service, but when we concentrate upon them a microscopic surveillance. It is a grave idea of heaven to conceive it as one set of external circumstances, which we attain by escaping from another set here below. It is a crude religiousness which seeks to glorify the future life by depreciating this, or that villifies the body in order to exalt the soul. It is a great mistake to confound extatic feelings and super-mundane moods with essential righteousness. SELF-CONCEIT and haughtiness, or fulness of soul, are barriers to progress. They are generally the landmarks of a shallow attainment. The true man never surfeits upon his attainments, but probes his deficiencies and summons his ideals. THE world is generally a reflex of ourselves. If you find a man disposed to compkin of the coldness of the world, you will find that he has never brought anything into the world to warm it, but is a personal lump of ice set in the midst of it. If you find a man who complains that the world is all base and hollow, tap him, and he will probably ring base and hollow. And so, in the other way, a kind man will probably find kindness everywhere about him. THAT which positively enriches the universe is spiritual life. IN a contented disposition there exists a magic power over circumstances which evokes a hidden beauty from unlikely things, finds marvellous sweetness in a crust of bread, and hangs bare walls with shapes of glory. And not only is such a disposition satisfied with little, but under the chemistry of right aifections that little becomes indefinitely expansive and fruitful. A PATIENT and humble temper gathers blessings that are marred by the peevish and overlooked by the aspiring. WHAT right have we to celebrate Christmas unless Christ has come to us? It is not a mere historical event, but a spiritual conception, to be celebrated. When he comes to the soul in spirit and power, -when we feel the truth of what he says to us, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly," then indeed over the dark soul there comes a brightness greater than that which floated in the night sky and lit up the lonely plains of Judea. Then indeed we get the meaning of that angelic chorus as never before: " Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will to men." Then ring out the chiming harmonies of life and nature. Then proclaim Christmas morning to the human soul. Then, then celebrate with double joy the advent of redemption. LET us not fear that the issues of natural science shall be scepticism or anarchy. Through all God’s works there runs a beautiful harmony. The remotest truth in his universe is linked to that which lies nearest the throne. HARK! hark! with harps of gold, What anthems do they sing? The radiant clouds have backward rolled, And angels smite the string. " Glory to God! " bright wings Spread glist’ning and afar, And on the hallowed rapture rings From circling star to star. "Glory to God!" repeat The glad earth and the sea; And every wind and billow fleet Bears on the jubilee. Where Hebrew bard hath sung, Or Hebrew seer hath trod, Each holy spot has found a tongue, " Let glory be to God." Soft swells the music now Along that shining choir, And every seraph bends his brow And breathes above his lyre. What words of heavenly birth Thrill deep our hearts again, And fall like dew-drops to the earth? " Peace and good- will to men! " Soft! yet the soul is bound With rapture, like a chain, Earth, vocal, -whispers them around, And heav’n repeats the strain. Sound, harps, and hail the morn With ev’ry golden string; For unto us this day is born A Savior and a King! I, FOR one, have trust in these two things: that men will grow better as they know more, and that nothing will ever come to wreck our confidence and our hope. LIKE the gush of the morning light, truth must go forward. EXACTITUDE in science and reliance upon reason are to be welcomed as evidences of human progress, whatever befalls. IT is as bad to clip conscience as to clip coin; it is as bad to give a counterfeit statement as a counterfeit bill. IT is a sublime thing to see Copernicus toiling without a telescope, with instruments of his own construction, with all the learned in Europe opposed to him in theory, drawing his threads of argument from the stars, and weaving in tissues of light his incontrovertible doctrine of the celestial motions. He did not live to hear the admiration that centuries have coupled with his name. But genius has its own reward; and he, doubtless, felt it, when the sun took its station, the earth moved on, and the array of planets marched before him around their common centre. THE great mind is ever humble and studious. IN the old French Revolution, they set up the goddess of reason, and voted God out of the universe; but God would not leave humanity, scoffing at him, forgetting him, but stood by his universe, and manifested himself in the midst of all their malignity; and all the ingenuity of man could not vote him out of it. Here is a sort of truth that nothing can reverse. There is a God Almighty; and although men may wish there was not a God, and try to get rid of one, here the idea comes welling up in the soul, in the depth of his primal instincts, and men believe in it because they cannot help it. THE worst effect of sin is within, and is manifest not in poverty, and pain, and bodily defacement, but in the discrowned faculties, the unworthy love, the low ideal, the brutalized and enslaved spirit. EVERY phase of this life shows that it is disciplinary. But for what is its discipline? For a mortal purpose? for the grave and annihilation? Is this the explanation of temptation and sin; the meaning of love and sorrow; the use of education; the worth of social affections; the end of virtue? Surely if spiritual existence is a falsehood life is a mystery. HUMAN life, with its strange mutations and experiences, its melancholy and extatic realities, its shame and its glory, its broken resolutions and its undying hopes, its close clinging to the things of earth, and its gravitation to an unseen sphere, what is it to the materialist but a satire and deceit? THE moment you see through all God’s working, that moment his infinity is lost and he becomes finite. The very conception of God implies that he is a mysterious worker. THE stars that roll in glory far above us, and that have stood out so long upon the firmament, like figures on the dial of eternity, shall fade and disappear. But we, who tremble at their greatness and thirst for their secrets, shall pass and live beyond them. Time has no mortgage on the human soul. WHEN one has performed a good act, made a noble sacrifice, resisted temptation, or broken up a bad habit, nature looks more pleasant and peaceful. It sheds, as it were, a benediction upon him in the sunshine, and whispers approval in the breeze. On the contrary, when he has committed any deed of shame he cannot look up unrebuked to the calm blue sky or the majestic hills. IT is a sublime thing danger with courage to see Socrates take the hemlock with that sublime philosophy of his. But what is that, compared with the words of Christ in the darkness of Gethsemane, that imploring cry, " If it be thy will, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done "? ANYTHING that is deep enough to touch the conscience is too deep to carry Presidents into the chair. To stand up and speak God’s truth, -whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, when it crashes like thunder and lightning into cotton-bag Christianity and politics, to be called fanatic, to be denounced as an agitator, when you speak God’s simple truth from your own conviction, that may cost a man something more than a decent acquiescence in mere morality. But that which Christ requires of us is to be, as well as to do, to have in our hearts the spring of love, self-sacrifice, devotion to the right, adherence to God’s will and God’s truth. EVENTS are only the shells of ideas; and often it is the fluent thought of ages that is crystalized in a moment by the stroke of a pen or the point of a bayonet. WE are conscious of something within ourselves which is not the body; something that is more essential than the limbs and organs which it controls. We are conscious of thought, of affections, of creative power that moulds and uses the elements about us, of a desire that reaches beyond the limits of this world: As to the fact of a spiritual existence, then, of a principle of being involved in and acting beyond the forms of sense, we cannot reasonably doubt. LOVE anything if you want to comprehend it. You will never know your neighbor or your dearest friend until you love him. You will never know the nature which lies behind the outward aspect of things the core of the great throbbing life of mystery covered up in every clover-bud and glistening in every star until you love nature. You will never know God until you possess some of the unselfish love which Christ exhibited, and which he has kindled within us. Not by searching can we find out God, but by becoming can we find him out. Not by intellectual probes which seek to penetrate the mystery of the universe, not by our starry ladders climbing through a million cycles, not by our plummets sounding the infinite depths, not by our microscopes scanning the minutest forms of being, not by all these can we find out God. They are only the vestibule of the great temple. They are only the threshold of the infinite residence. But by loving we pass beyond all nature and get behind all forms, go deeper than the life of the material world, and come into contact with the Infinite Mind and know him. AT the bottom of a’ good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion. THE moment we see that around all the darkness and uncertainty of this life, as around this dark, lowering, dim, misty morning arches the blue sky, so arches the love of God, and the brightness of his majesty breaks upon us, all becomes changed. It is the master-key to every riddle, the clue to every labyrinth, the one sure light to light us in our darkness. EVERY great fact of nature or society may be regarded as a parable, veiling yet suggesting spiritual realities, even as Jesus found the witnesses of his truth in the lilies that waved in the field, and in the fisherman casting his net into the sea. NATIONS, like individuals, exist for something beyond themselves. America is to do more than to develop its own magnificent resources, if it fulfils its legitimate destiny. It has a world’s work to do. It has to achieve the practical unity of the human race by the elements of freedom, truth, and love. I KNOW a good many people, I think, who are bigots, ancl who know they are bigots, and are sorry for it, but they dare not be anything else. WHATEVER demoralizes the man and the citizen whatever violates the dictates of conscience, or lowers the standard of rectitude in his soul inflicts a more dangerous wound upon the Constitution, and shakes the fabric of our nationality more than any open treason. Senators and statesmen do more damage to the public weal by moral disloyalty and depreciation of the eternal right than they do good by Buncome rhetoric and a delirium tremens of indignant patriotism. The basis of all public law is private virtue. The anchorage of our national Union is in personal rectitude and reverence. If it holds by anything more shallow than this it is unsafe; and they who flout individual conscience and the moral law in the soul do violence to the strongest guarantees of all order and all law. HE whose will flows serenely into history, and who gives the coral island time to grow, has spread out this vast continent in the waters, balancing the globe, for some great contribution to the general plan. If we are faithful to our principles, our intelligence, our freedom, our true development of humanity shall become the ligatures of the world. IT is not the thing we do, but the spirit that we work in, that tests our moral and spiritual condition. CHRISTIANITY is the true conserving and developing power of a nation. All time demonstrates this truth. What is the source of progress and safety to a people? Let " the vocal earth," let the graves of buried nations, answer. One after another they have arisen, they have built their towers of strength, and fortified their lofty walls, they have opened their sources of wealth, and hardened their sinews of power; and for what object? For perpetuity and success. Go linger around the desolate spot where stood Chaldea, go question the fallen columns of Tadmor, go seek the mystic pyramids of Egypt, go ask the Acropolis or the Capitol; go speak to one or all of these, and they will tell you that the hearts which have withered to ashes beneath their ruins, that the minds which were their pride and their glory, that the hands which strengthened their power, were all moved by the great idea of adding to their prosperity and greatness, and perpetuating their station in the earfrh. Surely, then, here in this pillared past we may ascertain the source of a nation’s prosperity and conservation; at least we may ascertain what it is not. Is it wealth? Where is Lydia? Its inhabitants " possessed a fertile territory and a profusion of silver." But its vast treasures were no walls of defence; the riches of Gyges and Croesus were not its safeguards. It was swept by the sword of Cyrus, trampled under foo| by the victorious hordes of Persia. Has intellectual excellence alone secured perpetuity and progress to empire? Where is Greece? Its very soil is animate with mind, and its every pillar, like ancient Memnon, breathes music to the sun. Its mouldering altars are garlanded with poetry, and eloquence and philosophy kindle amid its desolations. The home of Socrates and Plato, Demosthenes and Eschylus, Pericles and Homer, what is it? Did /its intellectual greatness, its glorious poetry, its lofty philosophy, its burning eloquence, its glowing canvas, its life-like marble save it from the dust? Did Spartan heroism gather around in the hour of peril? Did Attic genius flash up from its altars, like guardian flame? It went down at last; the wave of desolation rolls over it. Can paiver insure prosperity and safety to a nation? Where is ancient Rome? Where is the crowned and imperial city that sat upon her seven hills, and sent her armies through the earth? Her "eagle flag unrolled, and froze " by the icy streams of the north; the bones of her legions covered the burning sands like drifting snow; her triumphant shouts pealed up from the hills of Gaul and the chalky cliffs of Britain, and were answered by her hosts from far Jerusalem and Damascus. Over the face of the known world, you entered no walled city where stood not a Roman sentinel, you passed no crowd in which was not heard the Latin tongue. Where is the proud city of the Capitol? Where are the mailed hand and the kingly brow? Did her power start forth from the tomb of Julius, did her ancient renown appear in the person of Augustus, when the eager hordes of Goth and Hun rushed upon her palaces, quenched the light on hei altars, shattered her glorious marbles, and trampled with barbaric exultation on her purple pride? Her very tomb is crumbling beneath the breath of time. I know that these references are trite; yet would I urge you to seize upon the deep burden of their meaning, to feel their cogency. They demonstrate that wealth, knowledge, power, without a controling influence, without a right motive for their direction, are not the sources of conservation and true progress. THE language that is becoming the master-speech of the world; the language uttered by those new-born colonies that are blossoming around the globe; the language that peals through speaking-trumpets on distant seas, is the language of the Declaration of Independence; and wherever the keels of our commerce cut their way there go the intelligence, the freedom, the inherent justice of the English tongue. TAKE the first line of the Declaration of Independence, and drive it home to its logical conclusions with the beetleweight of its moral force, and how many institutions among us would it split into kindling-wood, annihilate old msty forms of order, and go through tract societies as if they were pine stumps. THAT desolate place* on yonder shore is not only an impressive witness to Prophecy; it is itself a prophet to other cities. Sitting there, with its head cowled by desolation, and its feet chafed by the sea, from its solemn lips there comes an appeal to London, Paris, New York, warning us that there is no stability in material greatness; that corruption and luxury, however fortified by power, however swathed in splendor, cannot elude the relentless law; but that now, as ever, God holds the world in his hands, and his eternal sanctions control it. WE move too much in platoons; we march by sections; we do not live in our vital individuality enough; we are slaves to fashion, in mind and in heart, if not to our passions and appetites. * Site of Tyre. FREEDOM does not radically consist in free maxims, in free institutions, but in free men. Those maxims, those institutions, may constitute conditions of freedom; they may exist as the frame- work of its expression and its development, but they derive their significance and their value from the freedom of human minds and human souls. Alas! we all know how, amid prevalent forms of democracy and sounding mottos of liberty, there may exist the veriest despotism and the most abject slavery, base standards of action, blind party spirit, and rampant demagogueism. When such is the case, of what avail are technicalities of freedom and theories on parchment? These are valuable only as they furnish conditions and inspirations of that liberty which consists in harmonious development and uplifting of personal sentiments and faculties. Without this all such forms and signs of freedom are but fossil symbols, in which the spirit of past achievement is petrified, and which lie around us in the strata of tradition. A declaration of independence is not freedom; a constitution is not freedom; universal suffrage is not freedom. The right to elect our rulers or legislators, the right to worship according to the dictates of our conscience, call you this freedom, when the elector smothers his conscience in his ballot, and the worshiper sacrifices his reason in his pew? THE rebellion of atoms would be universal anarchy. THE great consequences of life depend upon the little things of the moment. How do you know what the least thing you do is pregnant with, and how much it may produce? You tell a single lie, and how many lies that may set going. It may be the spark to explode a whole magazine of lies upon the community. Just that one lie you have told may set fire to a whole train of deceit, the evil consequences of which no single man and no community can limit. Speak one kind word, and you do not know how far it may reach in its influence. A man comes down town in the morning, and all seems dark to him, either because his mind or his body is diseased, or some temporary irritability has roused him, or some sad news has fallen upon him; he comes out, at any rate, with the conviction that all is dark with him, that everything is unfortunate and wrong. He meets a friend who speaks one kind word to him, and then passes on; and as the sun sends a ray of sunshine across the sky that was before dark and lowering, and changes the whole appearance of nature, that -one kind word sends a ray of sunshine into his heart, and changes the whole world, and he does his work better all the day long in consequence of it. TRUTH is the root, but human sympathy is the flower of practical life. WHETHER we truly enjoy any lot in life depends upon the disposition we carry into it. The kind of eyes with which we see, the kind of temper with which we act, will make much of little or little of much. EVEN plenty itself, the most profuse evidence of God, is often that which most shuts us in from him. In the blasted harvest and the unfruitful year, perhaps, we fall upon our knees, and think of his agency who retains the shower and veils the sun. But when the wheels of nature roll on their accustomed course, when our fields are covered with sheaves and our garners groan with abundance, we may lift a transient offering of gratitude; yet in the continuous flow of prosperity are we not apt to refer largely to our own enterprise, and bless our " luck?" No community is so safe as that where God’s attributes are sovereign in their essential unity, a community strong with that justice which is the pillar, that mercy which is the glory of his throne. THE glory of revealed religion is the fact that it confirms the grandest truths of nature. Christ rested upon them as admitted propositions. A MAN can no more be a Christian without facing evil and conquering it than he can be a soldier without going to battle, facing the cannon’s mouth, and encountering the enemy on the field. THE prize of the Christian life; what is it? Do you think it is a heavenly crown, a golden harp, a white robe, a comfortable place in heuven, and then a limitation? No; heaven is better than this, a higher field of action everywhere, broader vision, sweeter and more glorious conceptions of God, and more of the excellence of Jesus Christ. No heart is so glued into its socket that it does not swim in a little sea of affection. How can we be forgiven unless we forgive? How can we have our sin remitted, sent away, unless hatred, revenge, selfishness the root of all sin, be removed from us? Is not the one, by the inevitable nature of things, the measure of the other? TIIE more we become like God the more sure y do we recognize him, until, as the heart grows clear and calm, it reflects him like a mirror. PKATER is natural. Every man has in him the elements of religion; folded up it may be in secularity and sin, unheeded and forgotten; yet at times in some hour of silent thought, or some shock of Providence responding like a great deep to the highest realities of being; to the mysteries of God and immortality, of life and death. ! there is not one so hard, so reckless, drifted away so utterly from the current of humanity, as never to experience blessed desires and more than earthly influences. There is not one vfho has not, at some period, felt the impulse and the necessity of prayer, and lifted up his cry to God as his helper. But the wonder is that these seasons are not more common, more habitual; that, living as we do in contact with the infinite God, wrapped around by his almighty Spirit, we should not feel it more; that, considering the magnificence of the universe about us, the varying loveliness of the day, the rolling splendors of the night, we should not gladly seize our privilege to pass within the veil, and commune face to face with the Being who made it all; that, throbbing with the consciousness of filial dependence, we should not lean upon the arm of our everlasting Father; that, knowing our exposures, our follies, and our faults, we do not seek the succors of his Spirit and the shield of his protection; that, with no intervening meditation, no sense of the invisible God, we should sink to the embrace of slumber, and leap into the morning light; making our homes but inns of bodily refresbment, and all outside a mart of worldly care; as though life, embosomed as it is in wonder, breathing as it does with unseen influences, were but a flow of sensual interests, and " rounded with a sleep." No exclusive sphere bounds the highest privileges of religion. The qualifications for communion and intimacy with God do not inhere in those gifts which are the endowment, and too often the pride, of the few, but in the profound depths of that nature which is the inheritance of all. And when we see the proud philosopher denying the reality of religion, and cavilling at its truths, let not our faith be shaken; for his vision, after all, is dim. He only reasons from what he perceives, and perceives only with the head; while thousands, in the revelation of their own experience, know that which he repudiates. In the serenity of humble trust, in the transparent depths of sanctified affection, they see God. IN its highest significance the material universe is not a collection of dry facts and rigid laws, is not the unrolling of a gorgeous epic or artistic masterpiece; but it is a temple filled with God’s presence, and declaring its final cause to be his manifestation and his praise. IN" the course of history, those who have denied themselves for truth and righteousness, those who have shed out their love like balm, those who have stood in their lot and meekly endured, begin to touch the hearts of men, and sway their souls. As ages roll on, the mere splendor of achievement fades, and the nature of the deed is regarded. The tinsel of the conqueror drops off, and the grossness of his ambition, the blood-spots of violence, and the canker of selfishness appear. Yes, as ages roll on mankind begin to recognize their real benefactors and the true heroes. The sweat of productive toil comes to be esteemed more than princely blood; and they who have made grass and corn to grow than they whose harvests of honor have sprung in the furrows of battle, and been reaped with sickles of death. The world’s actual monarchs come up in the soiled garments of labor, with their hands on the printing-press and the plough. They draw near from the fields of exploration, whence they have plucked the trophies of discovery and touched the magnetic pulses of human thought. They issue from low lanes of suffering, followed by the blessings of the poor, and they control the affections of the race with the sceptre of a healing mercy. They riso from the red dust of the amphitheatre, they leap from the martyr’s fire, and go upward, with their unyielded truth, to shine as stars forever. So speaks the inevitable law of events, " Fall 12* back, ye glorified Caesars and Napoleons! ye possessors of a dead renown and of a material good! Give place in honor, in power, in permanent dominion, to the patient, the loving, the faithful, the meek, and let them thus ’inherit the earth.’ Above all, in the wreck of dynasties, of institutions of old violence and cruel wrong, come Thou who didst not strive nor cry, who didst not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax! Come, pierced and gentle One, stained not with the blood of others, but with thine own, and ascend to universal dominion!" SINCERE desire after God, and actual communion with him, constitute the real life of religion. THAT which evinces the personal grandeur of Christ is not so much the gospel he gave as the spirit of the times which have succeeded him. THE thought of God is as a chastening cloud, to qualify the dazzling temptations of prosperity; and in all the night-time of sorrow, and through the dark valley, his presence is a pillar of fire. GOD is spirit, and therefore can be discerned by our spiritual nature only. He is moral, and so can be known only by moral affinities. He is love, and is to be apprehended by deep and right affections. Therefore the pure in heart, and they alone, see him, of course, not with any outward, palpable vision, for thus is he apparent to none, but with that true seeing which consists in. intimate knowledge and interior apprehension. As he who haa something of genius in himself enters into the spirit of genius, and therefore most truly sees or apprehends it, as we see our friend, by intense sympathy, by a similarity or a correspondence of quality on our own part, so the pure in heart see God Sense alone, intellect alone, cannot discern him. We must exercise those affections, those religious faculties of our being, which, forever unfolding, will, throughout eternal ages, bring us nearer and nearer to him. We must cherish that love and that faith which will render this life sacred and blessed. Then, even here, we shall always stand in his presence. Then, everywhere within the scope of the sanctified earth and the condescending heavens we shall see God. WHEN Christianity appeared, the clouds which hovered over the spirit of Socrates and drifted before Plato’s vision broke into a constellation of sweet and awful truths. IT takes something of a poet to apprehend and get into the depth, the lusciousness, the spiritual life of a great poem. And so we must be in some way like God in order that we may see God as he is. THE prime object of Christianity was, not to gratify the curiosity of man, but to attract and sanctify his affections; not to exercise his mere reasoning faculties, and multiply the data of his scientific knowledge, but to enrich his soul with love and faith. It came not to solve problems in metaphysics, but mysteries in life; not to give sharply-defined revelations, but to clarify the interior vision and heave up the whole spiritual ground- work. It came not as a mere philosophy, to propound and instruct, but as a religion, to regenerate, to brood over the solemn depths and chaotic elements of our nature, until it should emerge in a new creation of harmony and joy, glowing with divine beauty and pregnant with holiness. And while it is in harmony with the grandest action of the intellect while in order to accomplish its result it makes use of the intellect, and by that result the intellect itself is quickened and enlarged the main point of its effort is this moral centre, this lever of the soul, this throne and gateway of the powers of life, thronged with motives, sentinelled by passions, and too often polluted by sensuality and sin the heart. REASON about it as we may, there stands the ineffaceable fact in the annals of the world, as distinctly marked upon the face of the earth as the geological epochs are marked beneath its surface, of a general shifting of thought and tendency, a starting forward of humanity by a sudden impulse, a setting in of a fresh current, a voice speaking far behind the oracle, a strange, glorious, shimmering fire above the statue, the crystalization of new ideas around the abutments of the old past; until at last, when the old inherent vestiges of antiquity crumbled away, there appeared a youthful civilization more glorious and more vigorous than the old ever was, even in its prime. That is simply the alphabet of history. It is a statement of mere facts, account for it as we will. As Christians, we explain this extraordinary revelation by the fact that precisely upon the boundary-line between that ancient and modern history we detect the advent of the Gospel. We maintain the correspondence of these results to the impulse which appears in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. CHRIST could not have been our exemplar by despising sorrow, by treating it with contempt; but only by shrinking from its pain, and becoming intimate with its anguish, only as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." As we can only account for the centrifugal force of our planet by referring it to the primitive impulse imparted direct from the hand of God, so can we account for the phenomena of Christian civilization, and Christian influence in the world, only by attributing the first movement to the personal action of Jesus Christ. WHAT we can do, now that Christianity has been illustrated for us, is not to be confounded with what we might have done had we never received that illustration. Criticism performs but a sorry task, when it overlooks the importance of Christ’s agency, and speculates upon the capacity of other light than his. It works in an ungenerous as well as an ungrateful spirit. It sees by the instruments which he furnished, and then boasts its own powers of vision. The great doctrines which Jesus exhibited those orbs of truth, and love, and holiness the philosophic critic reduces to their primal elements, and then boasts how he, too, could discover and construct. As well say that in the nebulous womb of matter you can find every bone and artery of a planet, and draw hence the structure of a harmonious and perfect world. IT is not simply retribution for sin, but the consequences of the nature of sin, that it separates us from God. BEFORE the advent of Jesus, something was needed by humanity, and sought for, which it could not obtain itsel It is this desire, this want, that sighs wistfully from the great heart of heathenism. It is this that heaves up in broken longings from among the symbols of a declining worship. It is this that clouds with dissatisfaction the glory of the oracle, and strips the veil from the beautiful deceits of mythology. It is this that breathes in snatches of fragmentary music, wandering as if in search of the full harmony. It was because of this that philosophy struggled but could not attain, and the wisest intellects groped omong strange splendors and awful shadows. It was this that made the world look, at the time Christ came, like a world in eclipse, an exhausted world, a world of orphanage. He filled a great want, which until then was unsatisfied. JETe realized an ideal, which until then was incomplete. He imparted a power to the soul, which until then it did not possess. And there is no reason for maintaining that the experience of the past would not be the experience of the present, if Christianity had not appeared. IT is the veiled angel of sorrow who plucks away one thing and another that bound us here in ease and security, and, in the vanishing of these dear objects, indicates the true home of our affections and our peace. THE power by which Christ wrought in the world is something more than the power of moral precepts. He uttered truth in such a way that it went into the souls of men. It flashed upon them with the sanction of eternity. It caused the great idea of duty to rise above the narrow and temporary sanctions of the hour, and to be connected with the idea of God and immortality. CHRISTIANITY was, Christianity is, a system of life communicated from God to the soul of man, embodied in Jesus Christ, who is himself the essential revelation, who inspires each truth, forces home each moral precept, and with his own personality affirms the miracles. This is the principle which, when poured into the hearts of men, caused them to feel that Jesus spake as never man spake. This shifted the very level of their nature, and opened heights of divine reality which they had never known before. This gave them sublime vision. This transfigured their personality so that peasants became apostles, weak ones heroes, and lowly ones stood up undaunted before priests and kings. It flashed upon atheistic senses a revelation of God, new thoughts and convictions burning into the soul. It tore away the veil from the grave. It reduced and diminished earthly things, and it expanded heaven. IT is the wonder of almost every word of the New Testament that it carries live truth, just as a live coal carries fire, and carries this truth through all ages and all times; that it is just as applicable to one man in his condition as to another man in a very different condition, to the man in the nineteenth century as to the man in the first century. TAKE away the personal Christ from the gospels, leaving the same precepts and doctrines, and the whole aspect of Christianity would change, as the aspect of the earth changes when the sun goes down. The same eternal mountains lift their heads to heaven; the same rivers flow onward. But their animation is gone; they are cold, and gray, and dark. Thus would Christianity be without that central personage, around which all its glories cluster, from which they stream. IT is not said " Blessed are they that mourn, because they mourn, but because they shall be comforted. Mourning is consecrated as leading to higher and profounder joy. And in the general spirit of true religion we find no encouragement for fixed melancholy or asceticism, but a disposition which throws over life and the universe a tempered yet serene and cheering light. TO-DAT the Christian world presents the spectacle of a grand and glorious unity. The most diverse forms of faith and ceremony, gliding in opposite spheres of thought, and moving in the most eccentric orbits of opinion, are illuminated with the glory of one great event, and gravitate to a common centre. The churchbells of innumerable sects are all chime-bells, to-day, ringing in sweet accordance throughout many lands, and awaking a great joy in the heart of our common humanity. The hard, cold winter season grows genial, as though the world in its frosty veins felt the warmer quickening of that ’glad mysterious hour when the infant Christ was borne upon its bosom. His advent reflects its gladness and its glory upon the hour. It is a time for the sympathies of a common faith, for the feeling of a common humanity; it is a time for sectarian differences to melt away in these grand fundamentals, upon which the broadest church confessedly stands. Nay, even international asperities may grow calm upon this beautiful Christmas Sabbath,* and this political storm, so harshly rising, may lull for the while, and give place to the sweet, soothing zephyrs playing alike through the forests of Maine and the pines of Carolina, and proclaiming a union stronger than constitutional compacts, and broader than national lines. * 1859. THERE is but a slight difference between the man who may be said to know nothing and him who thinks he knows everything. WHAT mean the discipline and trial of life? What mean the dark shocks of disappointment, the breaking of hopes, the sundering of humanties, the terrible baptism of suffering and of fire, if there is not something beyond? If in every bath of sweat and tears, every drop of sorrow, every falling wave, there is something by which I am led more near to God, by which my soul is made stronger and purified, then I can understand life. But if I am hurled in the chaos of life, battered by sorrow to-day, and kicked by misfortune to-morrow, stricken by my fondest hopes, deluded and deceived, and all is to end in nothingness, I must confess that you present a problem I cannot solve. HE who cannot retire within himself, and find his best resources there, is fitted, perhaps, for the smoother passages of life, but poorly prepared for all life. He who cannot and dare not turn away from outward engrossments, and be in spiritual solitude, who is afraid or sickens at the idea of being alone, has a brittle possession in all that happiness which comes from the whirl, and dance, and surface of things. One hour may scatter it forever. THERE is efficacy in disappointment or adversity, when it occurs as a foil to our plans; when it breaks in upon the tenor of our days as a counterexperience; when it darkens the summer sky of life with the suggestion of higher and profounder realities; when the soul is loosened from its fancied security in earthly good, and sent in search of substantial rest; and the glittering forms of things that seemed so compact and solid at the going down of the sun, as they stand up in relief amidst the infinite spaces of being and the night-like glories of eternity, fade and look empty. And it is in trial it is in poverty, pain, and persecution that the strength of the human spirit is tested, and its energies summoned forth, as all our physical power is challenged when thrown among the crests and hollows of the sea; and one strikes out with a bold vigor when thus overwhelmed who before could not swim a stroke. Often a great sorrow rushing over the soul like a freshet has swept away its upper-soil, and laid bare unsuspected treasures. Thus has adversity stung the sluggish man to enterprise. Thus has obloquy roused the timid to courage. Thus has the uncouth nature grown beautiful with sympathy and fidelity. Thus has woman risen from her drooping reliance to a heroic strength, and covered her breast with a mailed fortitude. The brilliant beauty that only kindled passion has been transcended by a loveliness shining out from her deeper nature in lineaments of patience, fidelity, and affection. That which flickered only as a coquettish light in the saloon and the boudoir steadies itself into a pure and holy flame, a taper for the sick-bed vigil, a lamp for the dungeon’s gloom. So in sorrow and in suffering are hidden the springs of a peace and a power that can be affected by no outward storms. It is a great thing, when one has grown strong through that trial which melts away the dross and proves the true gold; when, being driven to the handling of many expedients, he has been trained to detect all counterfeit comforts, and to discriminate between unsubstantial good and that which abides every test; when he has learned to dispense with all outward props, can let riches, honors, health drop away from him, and yet feel that all this does not touch his real life; while above these coils of uncertainty and mutation he lifts his naked personality erect in its own spiritual resources. Surely, prosperity has never generated such depths of power, such intrinsic and full consolation. THE great test which proves the excellence of the religion of Christ is its adaptation to man in solitude; because it is then that he is thrown upon the resources of his own soul, upon his inner and everlasting life. SORROW as illustrated in Christ’s life, and as interpreted in his scheme of religion, has assumed a new aspect, and yields a new meaning. Its garments of heaviness have become transfigured to robes of light, its crown of thorns to a diadem of glory; and often for some one whom the rich and joyful of this world pity, some suffering, struggling, overshadowed soul, comes there a voice from heaven, " This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." CHRISTIANITY is revealed to us in the form that walked the streets of Jerusalem and the shores of the Galilean lake; that bent over the sick couch and the bier; mingled in the festival of Cana, and reclined at the Last Supper; stood in serene dignity before the judgment-seat of Pilate, and bore a cross up the way of sorrow; and hung and prayed upon the accursed wood, and came forth radiant from the sleep of death and the broken chambers of the sepulchre. WHEN men, instead of being anchored by the head, drift by the heart, we may believe that they are moved by some deep current of religious feeling, which is better than a shallow surface of conformity or a dead calm of acquiescence. IF one’s conscience be dead as a stone it is as heavy too. In such a case there would be a consciousness of being unconscious, a sense of life in death. A PERJURED spirit continually feels its false oath hurled back upon it from heaven; fraud spoils the taste of luxury, and makes ill-gotten wealth a cankering chain;. murder always hears its brother’s blood crying from the ground, making the crowd more solitary than a wilderness, and the desert more populous than a city, while sometimes that pale face hangs in the sunniest prospects by day, and that awful memory breeds a fountain of stark and ghastly dreams by night. These men, all unwhipped of human justice as they may be, in the heavy consciousness of sin hear thunders more deep than the sentence of its judgment-seat, and are girt with a burning cincture more terrible than its punishment. THE great cheat and delusion set before every generation is simply this tradition, that there is anything like real substantial pleasure in sin. I DO not know a more dreadful thing than at a time of trouble going out and calling in God as a stranger. RELIGION is rich with glad influences; for it is a principle infinitely varied, it presides over the different phases of human life, and sanctions and hallows them all. Religion forbids folly, forbids excess, forbids an empty, frivolous living, and who wishes to live so? Religion bids us have a time for all things, and wisely live for a higher and purer desting than any of this earth. It bids us not be profane, or indolent, or licentious, or wasteful. Who wishes to be so? But it does not strip us of one, true joy; it forbids not one innocent amusement A COMMUNITY wrapped up in secularity and sin, with all its gay variety and all its bustle, regarded by a vision of spiritual discernment, seems dead and desolate. Yes, those diligent forms appear as lifeless as the embalmed nations who people the catacombs of Thebes; and the appeals of religion, the incentives to higher life, the moving presence of God, is as unfelt amid this waste of worldliness as the wind that sighs over the unconscious sands of the desert. THERE must be something beyond man in this world. Even on attaining to his highest possibilities, he is like a bird beating against his cage. There is something beyond, deathless soul, like a sea-shell, moaning for the bosom of the ocean to which you belong! WE have a moral authentication of God in our own souls, answering to the image that comes to us in Jesus Christ. CHRISTIANITY gives us no hint that evil is only ap- ’ parent, the reverse side of a fact the obverse of which is good, the unsubstantial shadow of a blessed purpose, hideous to our limited vision, but beautiful in the all-comprehending sight of God. This idea, therefore, at the strongest, is but a surmise, and, as I think, it is not a reasonable surmise. I cannot believe there is any such oblique puzzle in the universe as that sin is one thing to man, and another in the sight of God; that as it revolves through the depths of our consciousness it is wrong, but as it turns in the light of his omniscience it is right. TOUCH a man’s heart, and you lay hold of the helm that steers him; you reach a power that lies deeper than appearances, and behind reason. Thence proceed the shapings of circumstance, the interpretations of outward existence, and the interior scenery of the soul; for " out of the heart are the issues of life." A LIE is black, whiten it as you will. How and what is that power that works in the shooting of a crystal, and binds the obedience of a star; that shimmers in the northern aurora, and connects by its attractions the aggregated universe; that by its unseen forces holds the little compass to the north, blooms in the nebula and the flower, weaves the garment of earth and the veil of heaven, darts out in lightning, spins the calm motion of the planets, and presides mysteriously over all motion and all life? And what is life, and what is death, and what a thousand things that we touch, and experience, and think we know all about?! as science and nature open upon us, we find mystery after mystery, and the demand upon the human soul is for faith, faith in high, yea, in spiritual realities; and this materialism that would shut us in to death and sense, that denies all spirit and all miracle, is shattered like a crystal sphere, and the soul rushes out into wide orbits and infinite revolutions, into life, and light, and power, that are of eternity, that are of God! THE alphabet, to the little child, is as the nebula to the philosopher. They both answer the great end of stimulating curiosity; and when the soul penetrates one secret it passes with additional power to the solution of a higher, all the while receiving into itself a golden residuum, a permanent virtue, which is the best and final result. THE mere a priori assertion of impossibility, by a little creature who with all his philosophy cannot look much beyond the planet Jupiter, and who with all his sounding lines cannot reach the centre of the earth, that God Almighty, who spins these burning wheels at night, could not, with all his wisdom and power, heal the sick and raise the dead, would be simply ludicrous, if it did not in fact produce such serious scepticism. HE who will be serious in the work of spiritual discipline, who will act from a vital law of duty, must endure struggles and conflicts than which there is nothing more solemn under the sun. JOHN HANCOCK, when the Council met in Boston, in the stormy days of the Revolution, and talked of letting the British into the city, though he owned, probably, more property than any other man in Boston, said, "Burn Boston, and make John Hancock a beggar, if the public good requires it" We like to hear such things; but why don’t men say, " Burn the richest treasure I have got, if it corrupts my soul. Burn down the pinnacles of my pride, my worldly interest, if they stand in the way of my attainment, and fulfilment of the great pattern which has been shown me in the mount?" GOD, spirit, immortality, instead of being inconsistent with what we know, are what we might most legitimately deduce from it, what we might expect from the light that trembles behind that curtain of mystery which bounds all our sensuous knowledge. MYSTERIES are all about ns, but faith sees light beyond and around them all. Have you recently laid down the dead in their place of rest? Cold and crushing, then, is that feeling of vacancy, that dreary sense of loss, that rushes upon you, as you look through the desolate chambers without, through the desolate chambers of the heart within. But will not He who calls out from the very dust where your sleepers lie the flowers of summer, and who in the snows that enwrap their bed cherishes the germs of the glorious spring-time, will not He who works out this beautiful mystery in nature bring life from the tomb and light out of darkness? THERE is a spiritual region in and above the nature of every man, where belong the primal patterns of things, whence come the strongest inspirations, and which more or less completely casts the mould of our conduct and character. ALL natural results are spontaneous. The diamond sparkles without effort, and the flowers open impulsively beneath the summer rain. And true religion is a spontaneous thing, as natural as it is to weep, to love, or to rejoice. No stiff, cumbrous, artificial form can be substituted for it. The soul that possesses it breathes it out in good words and good deeds from a natural impulse. It rises to God in devotion, it flows out to man in kindness, as naturally as the dew-drop rises to the sun, or the river rushes to the sea. It acts not from mere interest or fear. It is seraphic exaltation of being, throbbing in harmony with the will of God, from which. right action follows as a matter of course. As God does good because he is good, so does the truly religious" soul. HE who trusts in the word of God knows that he will find nothing in the material universe but the will of God. THINK for a moment of the great agents and engines of our civilization, and then think what shadowy ideas they all once were. The wheels of the steamship turned as swiftly as they do now, but as silent and unsubstantial as the motions of the inventor’s thought; and in the noiseless loom of his meditation were woven the sinews of the printing-press, whose thunder shakes the world. WHAT a power has the mind evinced in astronomy! Its vision extends into future ages, before -which the years of the earth dwindle to nothing. Its calculations arc prophecies. It makes a chronometer of the sun, an index of the comet. It sets the long marches of eternity to the chime of the morning stars. What is this power? Does it perish with the body that engirts it?... It cannot be. Mind is deathless. Is it possible that man, who has been led forward from age to age through a splendid succession of achievements, until he has transformed this material world and made it an instrument of power, strung the lightning, and made it work for him, rode on wheels of thunder, with banners of flame; is it possible that man, working upward from this ideal, is simply a clod upon the earth? The moment you think of this power to control and master material things you fall back upon the consciousness that you have a soul, and that there is more evidence than you have supposed of its existence. In fact there is more proof of a soul than of a body. When a man asks me what proof I have of a soul, I reply by asking him, What proof have you of a body? You have more logical difficulty to prove an outward world than a soul. Spiritual consciousness, mounting aspiration, ideal influences have controlled you all through life. IF Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the worthies of old cluster on the heavenly hills; if Moses wears a glory more celestial than that which he bore from the awful mount; if Elijah is clothed with a radiance brighter than the wheels of his fiery chariot; if Stephen’s face still shines like an angel’s, but is mingled now with no hue of death; if all these are existent yet because God is not a God of the dead, but of the living let us feel that even the least find a home somewhere in the hospitable universe, and in the sustaining omnipresence of the Father. THE eye would be useless in total darkness, and the light would be insignificant if it struck upon a sightless world. There is more expressive evidence of design, then, in the reciprocal fitness than in the intrinsic arrangements of each. THERE is no night in heaven, shall endless night brood over any part of this great universe?! will it not be that in the end there shall be no night at all? no night for us, no night for those we love, the wandering and the lost? How bright is such an anticipation! From every world that rolls sweet music gushing out, on every crystal wall white robes and starry crowns; and over every radiant isle and every glassy sea over all the boundless universe no night! MEN constitute eras. Washington himself was the embodiment of the Revolution, and may fitly personate to other men and other ages the principles of that movement. But let not even the greatness of Washington overshadow the merits of the least of those who labored and sacrificed in that early struggle. They come up before us to-day from many a battle-ground, from many a post of duty; from the perilous enterprise and the lonely night-watch! The pageant of this hour sinks from my sight. This temple of industry,* with all its symbols of civilization, dissolves into thin air. These tokens of a great and prosperous people pass away. This magnificent city dwindles to a provincial town. I am standing now upon some villagegreen, on an early summer morning, when the dew is on the grass, and the sun just tips the hills. I see before me a little band clothed in the garb that is now so venerable. There are the cocked-hat, the continental coat, the wellworn musket. They have turned away from their homes; they have turned from the fields of their toil; they have heard the great call of freedom and of duty, and before God and man they are ready. Hark! it is the tap of a drum, and they move forward to the momentous issue. That drum-beat echoes around the world! That movement was the march of an irresistible idea, the idea of * Crystal Palace, July 4th. the spiritual worth and the inalienable rights of every man, out of which grow the stability of the nation and the unity of the world. WE cannot consider nature as meant merely for secular uses. It contains something that we cannot wholly employ in eating, or sleeping, or travelling, or making money. We can wield the sunbeam and harness the lightning; but there are powers, sights, and sounds in the glorious world about us which we cannot break into our daily work, or bend to our sensuous necessities. Nor is nature fully explained in scientific statements. All its expression is not exhausted upon the intellect. It fulfils a higher office than that of teaching us geometry, or astronomy, or geology. These truths themselves have an end higher than their scientific significance. Nature teaches us religious truth, it enriches us with larger spiritual life, it kindles in us the fire of devotion, it exalts us to the idea of immortality, it draws us into communion with God. I THINK it would be easier to toss a Pope’s bull into the fire, to face a whole diet, to steer a ship into wide solitudes, than it is to do the little work or duty which presses every moment upon the will, and the pressure of which no eye recognizes but that of God. THE cross of Christ! There centre our hopes, there die our fears, there fall our sins, there gushes our penitence, there beams the light of blessed assurance upon our tears. RELIGION is the most substantial thing in the world; it can take more hard knocks than anything else. Geology has jammed great boulders against it, and it is not even scratched; astronomy has assailed it, yet amid the bright spheres of heaven it lifts its glorious head. It has stood all the wear and tear of all sciences and all discussion; it is the most substantial thing you can think of; it is the most robust thing in existence. Do not think you can hurt it by taking it into your work-shop. Let it out of your close pocket; it will suffer there. The only thing that religion dreads is lack of room, lack of freedom, lack of breath. Take it out of your pocket and bring it into everything. Do not fear that it will desecrate religion to bring it in contact with the world. It will consecrate the world; it will consecrate every deed and every act, and make them glorious. CHRIST has triumphed over sin, and sorrow, and death. Crown him with thorns, then! they are the fittest emblems of those evils which he has made his trophies. Music, sculpture, poetry, painting, these are glorious works; but the soul that creates them is more glorious than they. The music shall die on the passing wind, the poem may be lost in the confusion of tongues, the marble will crumble and the canvas will fade, while the soul shall be quenchless and strong, filled with a nobler melody, kindling with loftier themes, projecting images of unearthly beauty, and drinking from springs of imperishable life. SHOULD the world be shattered upon its golden axle, we cannot get beyond the mercy and the compassion of God. Should this crystal habitation dissolve, God’s nature will remain the same. THE stars are beautiful; many and deep Are the wonderful mysteries that they keep. Through the out-spread space they shine and roll, Like solemn thoughts o’er a prophet’s soul. They speak of peace to heart-strings crushed; Faith looks to them and its doubts are hushed; They glide and they shine to the spirit’s eye As things untarnished, and bright, and high; And it yearneth and hopeth from them to soar When it looks through these fleshly bars no more. GENIUS holds its universal dominion because it touches the deepest suggestions and utters the multiform experiences of a common nature. CHRIST is the essence of all law, and -when we have his spirit there is no trouble about the penalties of the law. LET science extend the domain of actual knowledge, and lay bare as it may the secrets of the material world. It only exposes more and more the proportions of the great cathedral, and shows us the lamps of God’s glory, and the infinite recesses of his love. It only wafts us on through the ever-rolling harmonies of the universe, until we pause before that awful veil of mystery in which he hides the essence of his being and the counsels of his thought. is not an end, but a transition-crisis. All the forms of decay are but masks of regeneration, the secret alembics of vitality. EVERY duty is great; great, because it tries our principle; great, because for the time being it tries our loyalty to conscience, and our energy and will. THE sacred rights of citizenship belong to every man not because of the height of his station or the weight of his purse, but by virtue of his intrinsic manhood. WHAT is it we need to preach but this: that for you, afar off, cast away, alienated, bruised, scarred by your sins, God is a father? For it is an eternal fact, not a shifting relation, not a relationship created by your faith or obedience, but an eternal fact revealed through Jesus Christ. We are like passengers in a tempestuous gale. Every object we trusted is shifting before our eyes, and sometimes the waters surge over our souls. We need something to take hold of that shall be fixed and firm when the world reels and our hearts grow faint. What is that but the assurance of this truth declared by Him who came from the bosom of the Father to make it known? A GREAT many men some comparatively small men now if put in the right position, would be Luthers and Columbuses. THE desire of man in all ages for God the longing and seeking after God is proof of the reasonableness of some kind of revelation of God to man. WHEN I go with Christ to Calvary and hear his dying prayer, his mighty yielding up of the ghost, I am constrained to say, " Truly, this was the Son of God." And when I tread with him the rocky pavement of the sepulchre, and feel the thrill of his rising, and hear the rush of angels’ wings go by me, and he stands upon his graveclothes, not all the light that breaks through the unsealed tomb can dissipate my awe. But when I pause with him before Jerusalem, and see his full, fast tears, and hear him weep by the grave of Lazarus, I feel that he was a tender, loving being, sympathizing with humanity, and know it is the " Son of Man " whom I am called to love. COULD the universe be seen in its fulness, it would not contradict the perfect fabric of the gospel. No light from any reservoir of creation shall eclipse the radiance of the Cross, but will make it stand out in more glorious relief, and crown it with a diviner lustre. WELL will it be for us if, witnessing the greatness of the work that God has wrought without us, we realize the greatness of the work that Christ accomplishes within us, and feel that we carry in our own souls the sublimest creation of the Eternal, a universe more permanent and precious than worlds THE soul which fathoms every league of the celestial arc, knows, as a mariner the sea, the distant latitudes where comets flame, and worlds career, and constellations shake their awful clusters, wanders amid the spectral nebula, and makes suns and systems to be but glittering beads upon the aspiring thread of its induction, cannot perish. There is a future life. In a universe so spherical and whole as this, reason argues that its own incompleteness and capacity for more are suggestive, are prophetical. Under-shadows and cross-lights of mystery, these filmy depths of present being, shudder in sympathy with something beyond. FASHION is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be. THE beast is to-day as he was in the herds of the Chaldean and the Jew. The ant, though it teaches us with the same rebuke as in the days of Solomon, knows no more, does no more. The bird of the air beats the same trackless path, directed by the all-guiding hand. But to man God has appointed a different destiny, and made him peculiar by the gift of an inspiration, compared with which the glories of the outward universe are dim and perishable. THE fact which startles and contradicts the faith of one man will fall into beautiful harmony with the convictions of another, because of his wider and profounder perception. THE origin of evil may puzzle us: its use no Christian can deny When we take the Christian view of life we discover that not happiness merely, but virtue, holiness, is the great end of man; though happiness comes in as an inevitable consequence and accompaniment of this result. And in the light reflected from this view evil assumes a powerful, and I may say a most beautiful office. It is just as necessary for the attainment of virtue as prosperity or any blessing. Nay, in this aspect it is itself a great blessing, and, " Every cloud that spreads above, And veileth love, itself is love." It is evident that without the contact of sin and the pressure of temptation there might be innocence, but not virtue. Equally evident does it seem that without an acquaintance with grief there would be but little of that uplifting tendency, that softening of the heart, and sanctifying of the affections which fit us for the dissolution of our earthlyties, and for the communions of the spiritual world. IT is a striking truth that while the intellect has cavilled and rejected, no one ever approached the gospel from the moral side who did not find it satisfactory, and instantly, though increasingly, apprehend its impregnable evidences. FROM the background of pain and sorrow often break out the noblest and most winning manifestations of humanity. The depth of human sympathy, the wealth of its love, is displayed in scenes of tribulation and need. The robes of charity show their whiteness amid the gloom of poverty and distress. Christ-like patience is born of suffering, the soul shines out in its essential splendor through the medium of bodily anguish, and faith trims her lamp in the shadow of the grave. Shall we call this existence a trivial thing, whose very miseries are the occasions of the noblest triumphs, whose trials may be converted into divine strength, whose tears may change into celestial dew, and nourish flowers of immortal hope? NATURE is incomplete in its expression without Christianity. The revelations of the material universe melt into shadow, and a nebula of mystery hangs around them all. They suggest more than they can answer. Christianity fulfils that " elder Scripture." It is the Apocalypse to its Genesis. IT is not necessary to darken the present in order to enhance the excellence of the future; and a true spiritual diligence will best be quickened by considering the present as part of the future. THERE is no reason for maintaining that the experience of the past would not be the experience of the present if Christianity had not appeared If intellect and affection, if intuition and sentiment could have achieved this profound moral life, and this firm, transcendant faith, why did they not do so before Christ? Were there not then as noble hearts and as colossal intellects as now? Did not these intuitions work as curiously, did not reason seek as ardently for truth? Did not the moral nature gravitate as spontaneously towards an ideal virtue? Did not Love mourn as tenderly over the graves of the dead? If, then, this high faith, this spiritual life, are merely natural developments, why not known before? IN his lowest estate man is compelled to be a seeker; but then he easily finds what he seeks. In a higher condition he cuts loose from all his former trust, and demands truth so broad and deep that Christ alone can fill it. MIGHTY has been the antagonism in the world between Christ’s spirit of mercy and man’s spirit of selfishness. Where the one has gone abroad as an iron force, the other has proceeded as a moral power. Where the one has swept like the tempest, the other has followed like the summer dawn. Where the one has embattled armed legions, the other has sent teachers of truth, missionaries of peace, and sisters of charity. Where the one has bleached the earth with human bones, the other has clothed it with shining harvests. Where the one haa reared shambles of lust and marts of mammon, the other has built asylums and hospitals and opened countless channels of benevolence. Where the one has blotted heaven with the smoke of worldliness, and shut us in with walls of materialism, the other has revealed the starry prospect of immortality. Where the one has degraded man, nourished scepticism, and engendered despair, the other has kindled in the soul a consciousness of its destiny, and poured the great influences of redemption. IN the religious view, all things stream from God’s throne, and whatever sky hangs over them the infinite one is present; prosperity is the sunshine that he has sent, and Faith as she weeps, beholds a rainbow on the cloud. THE Christian result in the soul of man is, that he shall be enabled to do what he likes. It is so because the spirit of the Lord in the heart of a man makes him like to do God’s will A SHARP disappointment will suddenly drive us to God. The mariner of life sails unthinking over its prosperous seas, but a flaw of storm will bring him to his prayers. WHEN intellect attempts to define and grasp God it thereby gets confused. It darkens and does not reveal. It gives us riddles, not revelations. The pure heart alone lies like a mirror, and reflects God just as the still lake reflects the starry heavens. THE great end of being is not fulfilled in any new routine of obedience. The spirit of duty is greater than any form of duty, and there should be no limit to moral effort, as there is none to moral attainment THE mechanism of the state is not merely for classes, or for property, but for the great interests of the whole, and the true interests of the individual.- 0, IP there were a real freedom, that comes from the doing of God’s will in this land, how the dry bones would begin to shake, how corrupt institutions would begin to tremble, how the chains would snap, how the abominations that make us a hissing and a by- word would pass away! For where -the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, and not merely Fourth-of-July talk about it. LIBERTY is an old fact. It has had its heroes and its martyrs in almost every age. As I look back through the vista of centuries, I can see no end of the ranks of those who have toiled and suffered in its cause, and who wear upon their breasts its stars of the legion of honor. WE are never to rest. There is to be no point in our spiritual career where we can touch our aphelion, and henceforward revolve in a fixed circle. There is to be no time when we are to aspire no more, and to attempt nothing greater. THE conservative may clamor against reform, but he might as well clamor against the centrifugal force. He sighs for the " good old times," he might as well wish the oak back into the acorn. VIRTUE, morality, religion by -whatever term we may call it is not a set of regulations, but a constant growth and aspiration, an increasing assimilation to God, a harmonious condition of the soul, when it hangs self r balanced in holiness and love, and independent of all sanctions but such as inhere in these. MUNIFICENT nature follows the methods of the divine and true, and rounds all things to her perfect law. While nations are convulsed with blood and violence, how quietly the grass grows; and God now sees the earth tending constantly in one direction, growing truer and better, a minim in his universe, driving on its point of melody to swell the chorus of his majestic theme. THE enormous sun is adjusted to the weed by the wall, and the little leaf has sympathies with Sirius. As art is a true expression of the soul’s ideal, let us compare the loftiest exhibition of character that appears in a Grecian statue with the best that speaks from the marble of Angelo or the canvas of Raphael, and we shall see how striking is the demand which heathen virtue makes for Christianity. CHRISTIANITY is, in society, like that agency in the physical world which drives suns and systems on their tremendous track, yet binds them in glittering harmony, holds them to a central order, fills them with joyful life, and illuminates them with universal beauty. OPINION, so far as it is a matter of*the intellect, cannot justly be charged with the sins of the heart. THE poor shall love the poet, the blessed, pious poor, the sick heart shall feel a new pulse when he breathes, and the noble yet scorned mind shall know that there is a kindred spirit in the world; the universal soul is moved, the sensualist gives signs of life, the mourner dries his tears, the bowed serf takes courage and looks forward, the hoary sinner trembles or melts, old error appears bald and hideous, tyrants shake, thrones totter, fetters snap asunder, and the whole mass of humanity is stirred, as the waters are stirred by the rushing of a swift wind. THE best kind of a pic-nic is a pick at Old Nick, and if he sticks up his head in the shape of a rum-cask or slavery I go for a crack at it. THERE is one great distinction between the productions of Heathen and of Christian art. While the first exhibits the perfection of physical form and of intellectual beauty, the latter expresses also the majesty of sorrow, the grandcur of endurance, the idea of triumph refined from agony. In all those shapes of old there is nothing like the glory of the martyr, the sublimity of patience and resignation, the dignity of the thorn-crowned Jesus. It is easy to account for this. In that Heathen age the soul had received no higher inspiration. It was only after the advent of Christ that men realized the greatness of sorrow and endurance. It was not until the history of the Garden, the Judgment-hall, and the Cross had been developed, that genius caught nobler conceptions of the beautiful. This fact is, therefore, a powerful witness to the truth of Christianity. Christ’s personality, as delineated in the gospels, is not only demonstrated by a change of dynasties, an entire new movement in the world, a breaking up of its ancient order; but the moral ideal which now leads human action, which has wrought this enthusiasm, and propelled man thus strangely forward, has entered the subjective realities of the soul, breathed a new inspiration upon it, opened up to it a new conception; and lo! the statue dilates with a diviner expression, lo! the picture wears a more lustrous and spiritual beauty. Christ, then, has verily lived; for his image has been refleeted in the minds of men, and has fastened itself there among their most intimate and vivid conceptions. POETRY is the utterance of truth deep, heartfelt truth. The" true poet is very near the oracle. IF a railroad company is too poor to pay for engines and for iron let it stop. If it does not every consecutive bar of iron is a consecutive deceit, and every old, leaky, dilapidated, dislocated, asthmatic locomotive is a clattering falsehood. A MAN who is simply living by what we call a system of good habits, a habit of temberance, a habit of chastity, a habit of economy, a habit of prudence, has to steady them every time he goes down hill, for fear they will fall off, and push them every time he goes up hill. But when a man has a love of God, and Christ, and goodness, there is no more danger of these falling off and breaking, than of a man’s organism falling to pieces. It becomes a vital element of his being, a central spring, compact and consistent with the whole of his nature. And if occasionally such a man does break out, here and there, in a fault or in a folly, he has within him that which rallies him to act and overcome it. WE can imagine a world in which there is no work. A world bathed in incessant summer, whose seed-times and harvests are ever mingling, whose springing influences perpetually ascend, whose fruitage perpetually ripens through all the procession of its golden year. A world in which man would never feel the sting of want, and where the felicities of being would unfold without his effort. But we cannot conceive any such world, connected with human peculiarities and necessities, one half, one tithe so glorious as our old world of struggle and of labor. For wherever God has admitted man’s agency the noblest results, the achievements of real worth and splendor are the fruits of patient and sinewy toil. They have come from the suggestions of want and the problems of difficulty; they have been won in wresthng with the elements; they have been torn from the womb of nature. Labor, with its coarse raiment and its bare right arm, has gone forth in the earth, achieving the truest conquests and rearing the most durable monuments. It has opened the domain of matter and the empire of mind. The wild beast has fled before it, and the wilderness has fallen back. The rock at its touch has grown plastic, and the stream obsequious. It has tilled the soil and planted cities. Discovery accompanies it with its compass and telescope. Invention proclaims it with its press, and herald^ it through the earth with its flaming chariot. It is enriched with " the wealth of nations." It is crowned with the trophies of intellect. Its music rises in the shout of the mariner, the song of the husbandman, the hum of multitudes. It rings in the din of hammers and the roar of wheels. Its triumphal march is the progress of civilization. There are lands of luxurious climate and almost spontaneous production; yet who looks there for freedom and virtue, for the bravest hearts and the noblest souls? But the elements of liberty, the glories of intelligence, the sanctities of home, and the institutions of religion abide in sterner soil and beneath colder skies, where the fisherman feels his way through the mist that wraps the iron sea-coast, and the reaper snatches his harvest from the skirts of winter. And who would not pray, "Give us the manly nerve, the strenuous will, and the busy thought, rather than golden placers and diamond mines "? And instead of a realm sick with spontaneous plenty and desolate with riches, who would not prefer the granite fields that grudge their latent bounty, since they induce not only the exertions but the blessings of toil? THE world is the great place for us to work in, and there is work a plenty for us to do. Any man who does not believe this ought to be shut up in a glass jar, and made to suck God’s atmosphere through a straw. THE brightest crowns that are worn in heaven have been tried, and smelted, and polished, and glorified through the furnace of tribulation. IF the poor man’s earthly lot is hard, it makes more welcome the suggestions of heaven. The strictures of necessity, the sharp mockeries of disappointment fill him with a sense of dependence, and put his soul in a position to wait upon God. He has his peculiar temptations; yet so long as they do not pin him down and imprison him they do not cause him to become fascinate4 with the world. His upward escape from it is easier than for the rich man. Eternal splendors stream clearer through the rents in his earthly fortune, and divine visitants have a readier access to him. His wealthy brother is shut in with comfort, and forms of luxurious obeisance stand around his bed. But what though his couch be the bare earth, and his canopy the sky? the more immediately is he enfolded by the sanctities that environ our mortal lot. His stony pillow may become, like Jacob’s, the foot of a celestial ladder, the landing-place of angels. THE angels may have wider spheres of action, may have nobler forms of duty. But right with them and with us is one and the same thing. THE man of principle needs not the restrictions of seal sr signature, or any legal instrument. He deals in solitude as in public, at midnight as in the sunshine. His aeart is the throne of honor, and his brow the witness of manly integrity. His grasped hand is as good as a bond, and his promise as sterling gold. The complicated interests of men, which so often jar and conflict, are reconciled in him with a beautiful harmony. He is himself the embodiment of justice, the symbol of a perfect society His charities are not the droppings of a formal pity, but the ointment of a yearning love In his soul there is a fountain of humor, and, close by, a fountain of tears. His spirit is an instrument strung to every proper mood, touched by the light graces of the passing hour, or swept by "solemn thoughts that wander through eternity." TEMPTATION cannot exist without the concurrence of inclination and opportunity A man may spurn evil suggestions ninety-nine times, and yield upon the hundredth, because that jumps exactly with his inclination. WE make for ourselves the essential character of the conditions in which we are placed. All that is of real moment in our life, all that is enduring, we carry with us we carry in us. THAT pool of loathsome intemperance has been fed by rills trickling fromh eights of respectability and through marble aqueducts of fashion. Those faces, pale, distorted, furious, tossed about in that dark sea of slime and fire, look upward and catch a reflection that plays through the prism of cut-glass decanters and the colors of champagne and cogniac. THE place in which a man stands, and the work he is called upon to do, is secondary to the spirit in which he works, and the result that abides after it. These matters that are talked about so much in the world, these different sorts of position or occupation, what transparent wrappages, what cases of colored glass, what temporary frameworks are they all, inside which plays the essential mechanism of our manhood, involving the same responsibilities and working under the same relentless laws! This soot and blaze, this aristocratic splendor and vulgar grime, are but the varying processes and shifting tints of that great chemistry in which the common humanity is tried out and refined. God weighs the fine gold, and it will be fine gold forever, whether set in a coronet or hammered out in the coarsest drudgery of life. EACH age holds the contents of all other ages. THE atmosphere in which a man lives he inevitably imparts. There are some people who come upon you like a fog-bank driven by the east wind off from an iceberg, that chills you all through. There are others that make you happy in their presence always. They are like fruits and flowers, and they retain their fragrance and aroma, 0, how long! They send it out to us continually from their hearts and lives. Men are moving zones; the climate in some seems to be frigid; come very near them, and very likely it will make you shudder. Other men are like the tropical heats in the South, they always consume us. Others are calm and temperate, and like the still influences of our northern spring, or like the solemn midnight. THE Uncreated is illustrated in all his creation. That which makes the perpetual noon of heaven shines in every ray of earth. That which belongs to the infinite spirit is reflected in the soul of man. A TRANSCENDENT faith, a cheerful trust turns the darkness of night into a pillar of fire, and the cloud by day into a perpetual glory. They who thus march on are refreshed even in the wilderness, and hear streams of gladness trickling among the rocks. MOCKERY never degrades the just. The good cannot be shamed. The arrows of persecution, the sharp missiles of scorn glance from them harmless; more than this, they illustrate their virtue. Though it be not true that the man makes the circumstances, it is true that the man gives character to the circumstances. The strong level all obstacles to their purpose. In trial, the good shine with a refined lustre. Wealth, nor power, nor adulation can ennoble the mean. But the righteous turn ignoming into glory. They do not create, but they command. By a virtue that is in them they subdue all accidents into tone and keeping with themselves. Character is greater than circumstances, and may get the mastery over them. The trial of our Savior illustrates this truth. Never did malignant hatred and heartless cruelty accumulate upon their victim grosser insignia of punishment and scorn. They scourged him, they buffeted him, they spit upon him; but this was not enough. In order to connect the idea of his sovereignty with the meanest ridicule they tore off his garments, threw around his bleeding shoulders a purple robe, placed in his hand as a sceptre a miserable reed, and platting a crown of thorns crowded it, with its rankling points, upon his head, and then, with mock humility and spiteful grimace, did homage to him. But though all this was meant to deride him never did he seem more truly a king. We shudder, but it is at the sacrilegious spirit of his persecutors! We weep it is because that brow of love is lacerated by cruel thornes! But not for an instant does Jesus seem to us debased or contemptible. Vilely arrayed as he is, he stands there amid that brutal soldiery, amid the malignity that peers upon him, a serene and holy CHARACTER, and everything feels its influence... The more they seek to debase him the more majestic he appears. To those mock emblems of sovereignty his pure life imparts a royal lustre. They degrade not him, but he ennobles them. He comes forth wearing a crown of thorns. To us it is the same as if he wore a diadem. OUT of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation-robes glittering with fire, and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gates of heaven. ALL that affliction of the darkest kind ever can work to the true soul is to awaken it up to spiritual things, to open the clear eye, to make the spiritual reality the more real. If you rightly comprehend it it only strikes that which is round about you, it only removes that which is outward and physical, but it leaves you all the same a greater and a better man fur your trial. THE shadow of death is around you, bereaved mother! and its cold desolation has come between you and your child. You take the little hand, and it lies heavy in your own; you press the lips, and they quiver with no response; and you must put away in the grave the form that has nestled close to your heart, and the head that you have crowned with a thousand prayers and hopes. And you cannot see why we exist at all, why such tender relationships are y/oven to be shattered, and such deep wells of love opened in the human breast only to overflow with tears. Ah! it is because humanity is not an earthly flower, to unfold in bright air and then perish forever; but an undying germ, to struggle upward out of limitation, and find surer root as its props break away, and to be refined by tears, and to shed rich fragrance in the night-time of sorrow, and to glow with a’ more intense and fixed love as its objects vanish from sight. If life is but a form your affliction is inexplicable; but if it is substance if it is intrinsic and inalienable power, excellence, beauty then the bliss of the suffering and the peace of the poor, and the victory of martyrs, and all the fine gold of character that has been smelted in the furnace of trial, illustrate and vindicate the purpose of our being. There is something for man better than happiness, else he might have lived and perished as the lily of the field. There is spiritual strength for him, which is developed by struggling; there is faith whose telescope sweeps the immensities of eternity when the nearer earth is veiled in darkness; there is trust which springs up in the shattering o all earthly supports; and there is that completeness and harmony and divine assimilation of character which is wrought out only by discipline. NOT in the achievement, but in the endurance of the human soul, does it show its divine grandeur and its alliance with the infinite God. WE are in a condition of life or death not merely as we do or do not this or that good act, but according as we are or are not in ourselves, essentially good. TRIBULATION will not hurt you unless it does what, alas! it too often does unless it hardens you, and makes you sour, and narrow, and sceptical. As the eye is fitted to the light, as the ear to sound, so the human soul is fitted to the apprehension of spiritual realities; and it does apprehend these realities, through the veils of the visible detecting the things that are invisible. THE foundations of many a cause now strong and flourishing were laid in tears and blood. ALL things tell of the universal Father, all things prophecy ultimate good. As science withdraws the veils of nature, in every depth, in every recess, it discovers a ray of that love which was concentrated upon the cross. It sees no hopeless incongruity. It argues no endless suffering. The keenest analysis can detect no such thing as unmitigated evil. It falls not as a residuum into any crucible. The bright worlds above tell of peace and harmony; and at the farthest verge of creation, as at the centre, their sparkling glories speak of wisdom, beneficence, and design, the moving of a great purpose encompassed by infinite love as by universal space. Thus all nature seems weaving the tissues of a sublime work. Slowly yet surely, from the seeming evil, evolves the substantial good. The isolated fact which yesterday appeared so contradictory, to-day, as we open upon a higher series, exhibits a beautiful adaptation. The discords which pained us so, as we draw near them swell into a mighty harmony. WE must look for the primal truths, the authentic elements of things, in that which is spontaneous and universal. THE things that are the most providential in this life are the difficult things. Therein lies the glory of man and the goodness of God. IN the material and the spiritual worlds nothing is at loose ends; but everywhere there is a sacred order, an intelligible tendency, and a fixed result. WHAT comes out of nature now is religion. The front of sceptical investigation is passing away. The portentious genii issuing from the chemist’s crucible, the nebulous suggestions of the doubtful astronomer, and the like, are all merging into Christian truth, and faith, and knowledge; and we involuntarily cry out, "How marvellous are thy works, Lord! " FKOM the scientific discoveries of our day we may claim this result: that what we see of the material universe demands our faith in greater powers that we do not see, makes mind, spirit, a clearer reality than matter, and with innumerable voices from awful depths of mystery rebukes that arrogant scepticism that confines all power and being to the sensible world, and will believe only what it sees and comprehends. THE individual and the race are always moving, and as we drift into new latitudes new lights open in the heaven more immediately over us. WE must study nature not alone in the dry light of reason, but in the glow of religious sentiment. We must stand in that position where a moral light falls upon it, illuminating its hieroglyphic beauty with a clear, spiritual significance. We must see it,all generalized in God; then we may descend to intellectual formulas and definitions The chain of induction which we so painfully elaborate, link by link, must be charged with the magnetism of faith and love. Then will it be traversed by currents of spiritual life, rending the veil of materialism, and opening the mysteries of the universe. CHRIST saw much in this world to weep over, and much to pray over; but he saw nothing in it to look upon with contempt. THE book of Ecclesiastes would be the gospel if there were no God in whom our minds were stayed, and in whose wise and beneficent purposes, working beyond all human ends, we could trust. IN the mere farm of the work nature will always eclipse art, and take the premiums. There is nothing like her crystal palace out-doors, over whose inaugural beauty the morning-stars sang together, and whose dome is the immensity of light. She will show an insect’s eye to humble all our skill. She will flash her tints from the arc of the rainbow and the gates of the sunset, and make our richest dyes look pale By the side of our finest fabrics she will hang her oriental lilies; yes, her familiar summer flowers; and all their glory cannot be compared to one of these. But when we consider labor as the developed energy of the soul, when we look upon art as representing spiritual substance, then we perceive the real significance of their products. Then every utensil becomes a hieroglyphic of human progress. Then every fabric shows not only what man has wrought out of nature, but what is in him, and goes forth from him, transcending nature. IF this earth were turned into a physical paradise, and every man made an independent sovereign of the soil, there would still be the same unsatisfied capacities, the same deep moral wants. The great end of man is not to be adjusted to the world, but to be raised above it, and he needs a Redeemer more than a reformer. IN this old world, battle-scarred, sin-stained, brutalized as it is, there was something that Christ could not despise, even the pure Christ. There was something in it that he so loved that he gave his blood -for it. And I know, poor, sceptical, canting philosopher, that the world and humanity are not the mean things you say, because I measure them by the attitude and expression of Christ’s spirit toward them. PAUL, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, shows how this valley of Baca, bright with angels’ wings, surrounded with a great crowd of witnesses, is a great race-course and field of noble effort, in which men press forward to the highest attainment; not a ball of dust and ashes, not a theatre of sensual action, but a noble field, glorified, lifted up, and lighted with God’s light, full of glorious influences the moment the inward eyes are unsealed. IT is always the tendency of the highest knowledge to melt off into devotion, to be reverent and thankful, to find God at the end of its explorations. CHRISTIANITY has made martyrdom sublime, and sorrow triumphant. THE man who lies down and goes to sleep, instead of doing his work, is not patient, or, if he has patience, it is of the wrong kind, and nobody else has any with him. God has not any, nor anybody else, with the lazy man. IT would astonish a man sometimes to take the torch of introspection, and go down through his own heart, and see how many different faces will look out upon him from its chambers, each one himself, in some phase of possibility that lurks in his own nature. IN every step we take, that admonition of an unfinished work speaks to us. Whence comes this restlessness within us? What is the purpose of this unquenched desire within the soul? We secure one end, but still seek for another. We heap up so much wealth, but ask for more. We increase in knowledge, and yet there is a void. We rise in reputation, but we are not satisfied. No; we cannot be satisfied with anything short of the true end of our being. We cannot be satisfied until Christ is formed in us. THE best method of acquiring the ability to do what we would is to do what we can. THE noblest men of this day are the devoutest men. The greatest thinkers are men who pray, who meditate upon God, in whose hearts roll the old anthems of the church; that have swept up through the ages, with a gush of melody, for nineteen hundred years. They are devotional as well as logical; they feel, as well as think. THE mystery of this soul enshrined in flesh, even though it be sinful flesh, is, that there is in it that which enables it to claim kinship with God; there is in it a nature like to his nature. ye stars that light up the vestibules of heaven! ye glories of creation, with all your magnificence and power! how ye shrivel up and grow dim before the possibilities of the human soul! The poorest beggar has that kinship to God by which he may aspire to be perfect even as God is perfect. THE testimony to Christianity is the witness of human experience. We are made aware of its adaptedness because more and more driven to seek its aid. We discover, that it is the universal and permanent light because we are passing into a circle which that light alone can fill. We know it to be the word of eternal life, for nothing else answers our questions or confirms our best anticipations. WE may blossom into angels, for aught we know, angels who cast their crowns before God, praising him continually. But must we stop there? No; the requisition is, " Be ye perfect even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect." You never can.be that; and that is the glory of it. You will always be striving for it, always pressing forward, always moving upward; and all eternity becomes a development of effort, a ceaseless growth, a continual aspiration after perfection. HE who has climbed to Alpine heights of wisdom must be hi&able; for looking off he sees not the dead wall that seems to line our vision, but a universe in which break waves of being without an echo, and around which hangs the awful darkness that conceals the springs of nature and the mysteries of God. THE sails may be set from the proud ship’s masts, the compass may point duly to the north, and the chart be unrolled; but unless a strong hand rests upon the helm, and a master treads the deck, she rolls among the billows, and drifts where the four winds send her. So with every facility for success, and the light of promise in the soul, the man neglecting the lawful means of subsistence cannot expect to find those means working for him without his agency. How much stronger than the banded legions of the mighty, than the decrees of kings, is one free, earnest soul, as he utters those words which shall move a hundred generations: "Here stand I; I cannot otherwise; God help me." IF we are hazarding opportunities, and gifts, and faculties for mere earthly and sensual gain; if we are playing for wealth, or pleasure, or fame, instead of living for another life, instead of seeking that we may grow like Christ, what are we but gamesters all? IT is because we underrate thought because we do not see what a great element it is in religious life that there is so little of practical and consistent religion among us. COMPLEX as it may be in its operations, our spiritual being in itself is one indissoluble unity. The feelings do not move without some light from the intellect; and the brain feels the pulses of the heart. THE strongest argument against the philosophy of materialism is not dialectic. It leaps out from the very depths of human nature. THERE is one thing certain: every man has a call from God, and if he really throws himself with earnest heart into life, and asks with a deep sense of moral responsibility " What can I do? " he will find some little shred of power that will catch him to God’s great plan, and weave out results incalculable. FATALISM, whether it assume the form of torpid acquiescence or of inconsiderate reliance, is not resignation. It is right to recognize an overruling Providence, but it is a Providence that works with us, not for us. The impatience with which we beat the walls of difficulty, and heave against misfortune, is not an impious discontent, but a spring of noble enterprise, which God encourages, for which he has opened a wide sphere of action, and by which alone we can achieve success. To suppose that he prevents this effort is to suppose that he infringes his own ordinances, established for the wisest and most benevolent ends. To attribute calamity to him, without making this effort, is to confound faith with folly, and religion with laziness. Only by the diligent exertion of our own will can we realize the will of God mysteriously working with us. Only when we have reached the boundary of our extremest effort can we see the superior purpose which encircles us. I WOULD not give anything for the most eloquent preacher in the world who had not back of that the eloquence of a life of moral power, of a consistent character; and then it is not so much the words that are said as the unction streaming as it were from God himself that has the effect. THE further we penetrate the embankments of evil the thinner the strata appear, while the great underlying power of life is goodness. When we rise above the earthshadows which cover us, and which dwindle away in the universal space filled with God’s love, the further we pierce, and rise, and penetrate, the more do the exceptional facts fall away, and the general rule of goodness appears. The most intelligent faith is the most cheerful faith. Instead of being a mere sentimental conception of God, that he is good, it is a conception confirmed by the broadest knowledge, and by the most solid intelligence. MERCY among the virtues is like the moon among the stars, not so sparkling and vivid as many, but dispensing a calm radiance that hallows the whole. It is the bow that rests upon the bosom of the cloud when the storm has passed. It is the light that hovers above the judgment-seat. NATURE is fixed capital; but, if I may use the term, every man in God’s hands, or, as God has sent him into the world, is speculative capital, a possibility that you cannot limit. THE noblest wisdom, the best knowledge of all, is that of a pure, earnest, loving heart. There is a knowledge in which man grows as he truly grows in religion. The harmony without responds to a harmony within. The good man alone reads the wisdom printed on leaf and flower. God has made the sea a great organ, whose pedals and stops are in the heart of the earth; only the good man’s soul discerns its melody. He has made the rainbow beautiful to the eyes of a little child, but only faith and love can interpret its meaning. He has made the stars golden ladders through infinity; only the purified spirit shall tread them. He has given us, best of all, the divine life of Christ; only the Christ-like soul shall understand and live it. Here are sources of knowledge, here is a power, richer than any other, which the ignorant may possess, and the wise be ignorant of. THE deepest life of nature is silent and obscure; so, often, the elements that move and mould society are the results of the sister’s counsel and the mother’s prayer. WHEN banners have been furled, and swords sheathed, and cannons hushed, and men have learned a nobler wisdom than they have heretofore practised, the grandest foundations of society will be built upon Christ’s law of love. THE student of nature is like one who goes with a candle into some immense cavern. Presently a little circle becomes clear, the shadows vanish before him, and undefined forms grow distinct. He thinks he is near the end, when, lo! what seemed a solid boundary of rock dissolves and floats away into a depth of darkness, the path opens into an immense void, new shapes of mystery start out, and he learns this much that he did not know before, that instead of being near the end he is only upon the threshold. HE who finds the platform where best he can truly benefit others and himself need not feel that he is stepping down, or going apart from the divine presence and blessing as into some unsanctified sphere. THOSE lofty souls, far upward on the mountain-steeps of spiritual attainment, and whose garments glisten in their nearness to heaven, have trodden the ground that lies between inch by inch. IF the gospel does not explain all the mysteries of life, and solve the great enigma of evil, the irresistible proof of its authenticity, that which answers all questions and silences all cavils, is its efficacy in enabling us to bear our trials, to overcome them, to convert them into crowns of joy and springs of consolation. SHE who stood with Christ in his humiliation is called to accompany him in his triumph. She came with her affections to honor the shame of his cross. In the new age that is dawning upon us these affections shall be closely associated with the power of his spirit who hung there. WOMAN, of all beings, needs the life and the power of religion. When we consider what she is called upon to do, what interests come under her influence, what brave yet tender virtues she must cherish, where can she go but to him who alone has lived these virtues, and from whom alone their spirit emanates? ALL that can be said of the martyr or of the patriot is, that he diligently occupied the post of duty; and this may be said of you. And it is better to die at the post of duty than to live elsewhere. How do all other things shrivel in view of the immense possibility that is before every man! How do all things grow dim before this! how do brocade and velvet become like rags, and coronets become as tinsel, before the possession of this immortal nature, which God says, " Occupy, exercise, watch over, and take care of "! That which you will carry with you is the thing which you are to consider. That which you leave behind you, it makes comparatively little difference what is its rank or mark. When men lie with the hands folded and the eyes closed what matter if covered with the robes of a king or the rags of a beggar? Silently, invisibly, down the dark mystic river, is drifted the soul; and we carry with it all that is really worthy, all which should really be our object to acquire in the school of life. THERE must be something wrong in a man when he is afraid of himself, when he dreads the revelation of his own soul. THE sun uses its power of brightness to shine; the violet on the bank uses its power of fragrance to breathe it forth; and all things are using their powers up to their highest capacities. All but man; man alone is guilty of what may be called the great sin of unused power. THE true Church is not an institution to be kept apart from the world because the world "is common and unclean," but a vital heart of truth and love, beating with the life of Jesus, and sending abroad its sanctifying pulsations until nothing shall be common and unclean. WHEN all theories are set adrift, and all questions agitated, how necessary is it that we should be convinced that there is everlasting truth. When sceptred authority is broken, and the stability of all government is shaken by the eager rush of revolution, how much do we need to believe in an immutable moral control. And while science draws the veil from the primeval earth, and shows us the wrecks of successive epochs, and prophecies the funeral-pyre of suns and systems, how sublime is it to feel the beating pulses of illimitable love, to confide in Him to whose spirit we are allied, and who will maintain us in being through all material changes. And is it not the bliss and the miracle of prayer that it lifts us away from our sins, our little cares, our teasing wants, and all the mutations of earth, and embosoms us in the communion of the Eternal. THE true spirit of martyrdom forbids that selfishness which sometimes seeks martyrdom. " ABIDE with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent." This is peculiarly a prayer for old age. Already the long shadows fall before its tottering feet, and the sun sinks lower to the horizon. The pulses of desire beat more feebly. The plans of young ambition have been realized or broken. The relationships of life have been formed, and many of them have been severed. The contriving mind is growing weak, and the vigor that could second its enterprises has departed. The voices that the old man heard in his youth have one by one become still, or if a few speak yet it is with the discord of superannuation. The hands that grasped his so heartily in the days long past are now formless dust, except, it may be, a few, which, taking his with paralyzed tremor like his own, say plainer than words, " My brother, it is death that shakes us so! " The narrow valley declines before them. Old father, mother, thou must tread it! Thou canst not even carry with thee thy dust-worn sandals nor thy staff. Ah! if thou hast Christian faith we know thy answer now: " I am not alone! I have one affection in my bosom that cannot be disappointed. He whom I love has sustained me. when I knelt upon familiar graves. He has drawn nearer and nearer to me, as my aged eyes have become dim, and all else seemed vanishing before me. I know in whom I have trusted. His loving kindness will not fail me now. I see, I see, my sands are almost out, and my feet halt among unbroken shadows. I will cling to him the closer. "Abide with me, Christ! for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent." Upoij- him who has humbly sought his post of duty, and who bravely works in it, we may be sure God looks down with approbation, and often sees more worthy symbols in the coarse apron and the black thumbs than in stars and coronets. THERE is no mean work save that which is sordidly selfish; there is no irreligious work save that which is morally wrong; while in every sphere of life "the post of honor is the post of duty." "!N the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground." Some men shirk this, in one way or another, but in reality they sweat more than anybody else. He who has really stranded in such a position that he has no call to do anything is the most miserable man in the world. SOMETIMES men heap coals of fire on their enemy’s head in order to love him; but they are very much disappointed if the coals do not scorch. THERE is a time when the humblest disciple of Christ may weep as he also wept. But let him also strive as Christ strove. Let him not dash his grief in rebellious billows to the throne; let not his groans arise in angry, resentful murmurs; let the remembrance of what God is and why he does be with him, and let the filial, reverent trust steal in, "Not my will, but thine be done." That reference to God, that obedience to him, rising from the very depths of sorrow, and clung to without faltering, is RESIGNATION. It shall bestow peace and victory in the end.! how different from that sullen fatalism that lets things come as they will! To such a soul things do come as they will, and it hardens under them; they do come as they will, but it sees not, cares not, why they come. No thought goes up beyond the cloud to God, no strength is born that shall make life’s trials lighter, no love and faith that will seek the Father’s hand in the darkest hour, and shed a serene, enduring light over the thorny path of affliction and upon the bosom of the graye. Look at these two. Outwardly their calmness may be the same. Nay, the one may evince emotion and tears, while the other shall stand rigid in the hour of calamity, with a bitter smile or a frown of endurance. But in the one is strength, in the other rigidity; in the one is power to triumph over sorrow, in the other only nervous capacity to resist it. The one is hardened to indifference, sullen because of irreligion, upon whom some sorrow will one day fall that will peel him to the quick, and he will not know where to flee for healing. The other is man contending against evil, yet not against God; man with all the tenderness and strength of his nature, impressible, yet unconquerable, walking with feet that bleed among the wounding thorns, and a heart that shrinks from the heavy woe, yet, all lacerated as he is, able to walk through, because he holds by the hand of Omnipotence. The one is the unbending tree, peeled by the lightning and stripped by the north wind, lifting its gored and gnarled head in sullen defiance to the storm, which, when the storm does overcome it, shall be broken. The other also is rooted in strength, and meets the rushing blast with a lofty front. But as "it smiles in sunshine so it bends in storm," trustful and obedient, yet firm and brave, and nothing shall overwhelm it. LET a man be bold when he stands upon the ramparts of God’s truth, and proclaims God’s right, but let him be appalled when he descends from those ramparts and calls up carnal, abusive, bloody weapons; for he is liable, though he may inscribe the right upon his banner, and may be marching with God over his head, to be beaten down, because he is undertaking to cast out Satan by Satan. THE soul, like the body, acquires vigor by the exercise of all its faculties. In the midst of the world, in overcoming difficulties, in conquering selfishness, indolence, and fear, in all the occasions of duty, it employs, and reveals by employing, energies that render it efficient and robust, that broaden its scope, adjust its powers, and mature it with a rich experience. OUR moral action must issue from deep fountains within us, springing up in meditation and sanctified by prayer. Those plants of righteousness that will endure the scorching noon and the beating tempest must be silently nurtured by the dews of the night and the early breathings of the morning. There never yet was accomplished any great work that was not the fruit of long and patient thought. Men have first constructed in the resources of their own souls those great results which have astonished us. From lonely heights of meditation they have come down to change the destinies of the world, to revolutionize its ideas, to touch all its springs of action. So moral energy and endurance, and all that spiritual depth and symmetry which helps make a truly religious character, must be wrought out by self-discipline, by inward scrutiny, by frequent communion with great truths. ... Fresh streams of inspiration bear onward the soul that would climb to perfection. Do not baptize your passions with the name of principle, or confound your sharp, selfish persistence with the awful "I dare not" of the brave soul that fears God more than man, THE unmerciful man is most certainly an unblessed man. His sympathies are all dried up; he is afflicted with a chronic jaundice, and lives timidly and darkly in a little, narrow rat-hole of distrust. He has no free use of the world; he breathes no liberal and generous air; he walks in no genial sunshine. He loses all the bliss that comes from sympathy, from open-heartedness, from familiar and confiding associations. More than this, such a theory of humanity is an open self-condemnation. Whence has he derived this theory? Upon what premises has he built it up? Surely, from his own selfconsciousness, from his own personal experience. There is darkness within him, and so darkness falls upon everything. His own motives are sinister, and so all humanity squints. The suspicious man, the man who distrusts all other men, and so is unmerciful to all, reveals himself as a mean man. PUBLIC feeling now is apt to side with the persecuted, and our modern martyr is full as likely to be smothered with roses as with coals. MERCY is in complete harmony with justice There is no conflict between mercy and absolute right. ... Unmerciful justice is unjust, and unjust mercy unmerciful Mercy considers not merely temporary and isolated relief, but the general welfare; so does justice. For instance: in permitting an offender to go free from all rebuke and punishment we do not exercise genuine mercy. We are not merciful to society; for we let loose upon its interests unrestrained and encouraged crime. We are not merciful to, the offender; for we leave him to the sweep of "his own passions, and the deepening canker of his guilt. The father who never corrects his child may be a soft-hearted but he is not a merciful parent. There is no mercy in letting the child have its own will, plunging headlong with the bits in its mouth to destruction. WHILE the secret of a leaf is not known; while no man can penetrate the mystery of existence; while revelations of a higher truth continually break in upon us, shall we, in the poverty of our knowledge, say what cannot be? Shall we deny those great spiritual laws which throb in our own consciousness? Shall we reject those affirmations of miracle and of immortal life to which our best capacities and desires respond, because they contradict our pre-conceived theories, our systematic methods? DETAILS may perplex our faith, but the grand whole does not. It vindicates the doctrine of the essential goodness of God as seen in nature. For the harmonies of things appear as we explore. Order itself is beneficent, and that is the great feet that science discloses everywhere. Order in the calyx of the violet, and in the bosom of the sun; in the braided constellations of the heavens, and in the drops of the summer shower. Order everywhere, and law; and that law beneficence, securing harmony and peace, and working out steadily great ends. THE Bible is our mirror into which faith gazes and beholds reflected heavenly things, the celestial land, the palmy crowns, and the face of the Redeemer. " It is our chart. We consult it when heaven is darkened and the shadows fall, when winds rage and waves beat, and rocks and whirlpools are around us, and the cold peltings of the storm. It is our telescope; and we see from afar the gates of the New Jerusalem and its crystal walls. THERE have been men who could play delightful music on one string of the violin, but there never was a man who could produce the harmonies of heaven in his soul by a one-stringed virtue. " THEN came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe."- What brought him to this? What led him to endure the mockery and the blows? What is it that stands there crowned with thorns? LOVE! It is nothing else but LOVE.’ No other power in all the universe but love could thus endure. Only thus are its exhaustless riches and its divine glory manifested. Only in suffering and in sacrifice can it reveal its depths. When all else fails, then it begins to shine. When all else gives up, then it commences its work, its immortal, its triumphant work. Yes, that is love, God’s love, that beams out from the face of Christ, that anon will trickle in blood and be broken by nails. God’s love! It endures long, but it triumphs, and therefore in its greatest manifestation here upon earth was crowned with thorns. Christ crowned with thorns! Can anything else teach us so significantly the great truth of SUFFERING YET TRIUMPHANT LOVE? And love for whom? for whom was that sorrow borne?! reader, let us not be dull-eyed or hard-hearted; for you and me it was! THE Word of God wars not with his works. Every new revelation of nature but strengthens the chain which links earth and sky, adds to the battlements of that religion whose foundation is the eternal Rock, and whose pinnacle is bright with upper glories. THE true poet possesses something more than truth, or knowledge which is based upon truth. He must commune with that of which truth is the going forth or utterance, the spirit that lies behind all, which is love. THE cross of Christ! It stands there. The body of the Redeemer has been taken away. The crowd have dispersed to their homes. The setting sun gilds it; the stars shed over it their holy lustre; and through the silent night it stands there an instrument of ignominy, and torture, and death. And when the morning light falls upon it the people point to it as the wood on which the malefactor died. But it is an instrument of ignoming no more. From that hour when he drew his last breath it became a glorious emblem, a sign of victory. Through the ages it stands, the guide of the sinning, the hope of the doubting, the rest of the weary. Through the ages it stands. Many suns shine upon it; night-like epochs roll their starry lustre over it; changes go on around it; but there it stands, the great manifestation of truth and love, the point of atonement between man and God. The cross of Christ! The hcsts of steel, the powers of human wisdom, shall roll back and be broken; but here is a power that cannot be overcome, an influence that reaches the heart, that exalts while it binds the soul. Now when we sorrow we know who also sorrowed; we remember whose agony the still heavens looked upon with all their starry eyes, whose tears moistened the bosom of the b^are earth, whose utterance of anguish pierced the gloom of night. Now, too, when we sorrow we know where to find relief; we learn that spirit of resignation, and under what conditions it may be born. Thank God, then, for the lesson of the lonely garden and the weeping Christ; ive, too, may be "made perfect through suffering." THE tokens of the divine beneficence are strung everywhere, and the fundamental and comprehensive life of the universe shows the whole to be steeped in love; yet after all Jesus Christ is the only being that gives us a definite comprehension of God as the Father, in all his personality, in all the closeness of his relation. Childlike is precisely the definition of the Christian disposition. It takes its disciples from the bustle, and forms, and warfare of life, and sets them down at the feet of Jesus as little children. And of what other religion, of what philosophy, can this be said: that its great object is to make men gentle and childlike in their dispositions? We know of none. It is a peculiarity of the gospel. WHEN long the soul had slept in chains, And man to man -was stern and cold; When love and worship were but strains That swept the gifted chords of old, By shady mount and peaceful lake A meek and lowly stranger came. The weary drank the words he spake; The poor and feeble blessed his name. No shrine he reared in porch or grove; No vested priests around him stood; He went about to teach, and prove The lofty work of doing good. Said he to those who with him trod, "Would ye be my disciples? then Evince your ardent love for God By the kind deeds ye do for men.". He went where frenzy held its rule, Where sickness breathed its spell of pain; By famed Bethesda’s mystic pool, And by the darkened gate of Nain. He soothed the mourner’s troubled breast, He raised the contrite sinner’s head, And on the loved ones’ lowly rest The light of better life he shed. RELIGION dwells in the depths of the heart, and beams with an angel-radiance from the face of the poor man, and drops the widow’s mite into the treasury, and hallows the humble cottage, and lingers amid the rude arches of the forest; when it is perhaps afar from the robe of learning, and the hypocritical righteousness of the rigid professor, and the golden donation of the rich, and the gorgeous tapestry of the temple, and the glittering ornaments of the altar! Like the still femall voice on Horeb, it is not in the tumult and the show, but in the calm of devotion, visiting the lowly and the humble mind. Heard not in the long, loud prayer, nor in the ornate and eloquent discourse; but breathing through the broken language of the unlettered, and heard in the simple petition of the poor, bowed widow, who lifts her thanks by her scanty board or kneels on the lowest step of the altar. HOLDING on half-way, while trying to go the whole way with the right, is very different from going on walking with the wrong because it is expedient. IT is exceedingly deleterious to withdraw the sanction of religion from amusement. If we feel that it is all injurious we should strip the earth of its flowers and blot out its pleasant sunshine. A MAN that has the "spirit of Christ in him has the spring and energy of all positive power. OF all the myriad leaves in the forest, there is not one that has not its office and its use, nor is there an atom in the universe which has not some chink or cranny to fill. So, we may believe, there is not a superfluous man, one who, if he consults his aptitudes instead of his inclinations, will not find that he has a call. MEN will do things in public as a community, as a party, as a nation that they would not do as individuals, nor think of doing. No man would think of stealing an apple from a boy because he wants it; but men would Bteal a whole island because they want it, with a meanness just in proportion to the largeness of the theft. Why is this? Because men talk of an expediency in regard to public acts, concerning which they would not venture a liap in regard to private ones, and make that the rule, rather than the supreme, eternal right. THE great test by which one may know where he stands in God’s universe is to know what he loves and why he loves it. WHEN I contrast the loving ’Jesus, comprehending all things in his ample and tender charity, with those who profess to bear his name, marking their zeal by what they do not love, it seems to me as though men, like the witches of old, had read the Bible backward, and had taken incantations out of it for evil, rather than inspiration for good. IN measuring the decalogue we must take Christ’s golden rule rather than the golden eagle. THE truth beautiful! Where in this world so beautiful as in the walk and conversation of a righteous man, a righteous woman? There is beautiful truth in the sounding, sun-lit sea; there is beautiful truth in the undying stars; but nowhere such a beauty of truth as in that pure-hearted host which do God’s will; in those who live serving God and serving humanity. The gospel is a beautiful truth; but where can we apprehend its beauty as in the life of Jesus? ANYTHING truly lives when it fills up the capacities of its being; and anything is dead just in proportion as its faculties or functions are inoperative. POETRY, in its highest essence and expression, is truth; and just in proportion as it is genuine poetry it must b true; it is not mere fancy or-imagination. And, as the converse of this fact, of course it is to be admitted that truth is poetry; it is the grandest poetry. And men, when they are called upon to exercise the highest truth, the largest and sublimest conception they have of truth, either consciously or unconsciously, always hurst into poetry. In its religion the human mind finds ordinary language too stinted, and must seize upon symbols to express its conceptions. NEXT to the abolition of all religious ordinances there is nothing so ominous as a hollow and weary observance of them. Nay, this is even worse than violent irreligion, for that is too unnatural to last long, and its terrible earnestness will produce reaction. No movement is so exclusively public as to take away the force of individual responsibility; no multitude is so large as to absorb one’s moral personality; but in the public movement, in the huge crowd, he stands as if he were standing alone in the universe, spiritually naked, listening to the judgment of God and the beating of his own heart. - THERE never was a man all intellect; but just in proportion as men become so they become like lofty mountains, all ice and snow the higher they rise above the warm heart of the earth. FROM the mountain-top where he has sat in the kindlings of the morning; from the watch-tower where he has gazed into the serene, far heaven; from the forests where he has communed with nature and with God, the poet comes forth into the dusty, trampled highway of human life; he mingles with the rushing crowd, the various, anxious faces, the selfish striving, the hollow friendships, the dry-husk religion of the world. He is not made to be a hermit, committing snatches of verse to the air, and tuning his soul to wind-harps. From the lonely truth be comes to the many-faced reality, from the solitary communion to the eager, blended multitude. He comes and speaks in warm, sweet or trumpet tones, speaks to the desolate and mourning, to the clogged ear and the ’calloused heart, touches some chord that yet lives, and that none but the poet can reach. And the human heart recognizes him the universal heart. No religious ship or sect would like to be responsible for all the barnacles and sea- weed on its hull. THE utterance of truth in the spirit of love is the poet’s mission. This makes poetry. Our age is full of such lyrics, written on a grand scale, played upon all the strings of the human heart. Every noble reform around us is a procession, an outpealing of such sublime poetry. And the true poet of our age is he who sets the key-note, or becomes the voice or expression of this spirit of the times. The chains of sixty centuries are breaking; the veils of night-like ages are rent in sunder, and far through opening valleys rich with the nodding harvest, and far over lofty hill-tops glad with the rising morning, comes the great march of humanity set to triumphal music. And the true poet sees, and feels, and embodies this movement. He discerns below all superficialities; he overlooks all temporal and false landmarks; he speaks to the spiritual and the unseen in man, as one who chiefly values that and loves it; he speaks to the world- wide race as one who has hope for it, and says, "Rejoice! " THE " hours of communion " let in the air and light of heaven upon the soul. SEEKING Heaven through righteousness is not seeking righteousness, but something else; it is not loving goodness for goodness’ sake, but for its rewards. MANY people seem to think that is a revival of religion in which a great deal of feeling about religion appears. I think that is a revival of religion in which a great deal of thought about religion appears. And sometimes when men are outwardly very calm and very collected, and make no extravagant demonstrations, they may be really having an income of religious life, more than when they are simply occupied in expressing the sense of great spiritual realities by a display of feeling. We must have, as the basis of any noble, consistent and steady religious life, clear, profound, and steady thought. THE inner life, with its thoughts, its conscience, is supreme. Its voice is heard above all outward tumult, it projects its light or shadow upon the universe. The natural world is at once its instrument and its instructor. As we become true to our better nature loving and good so do we learn how to use the world aright; so do all the ordinances of life appear to be established for great and wise purposes. The day is not only for labor, and the night for rest, but every hour and every event is that we may learn to trust and adore God, and to love man better, may have faith in adversity, humility in success, penitence for sin, strength in weakness, and support in death. This is the great end of life. THE night comes for the purpose of checking our busy employment, and introducing an interval of repose between the links of our action and our aspiration. It draws its dim curtain around the field of toil. It buries the objects of our handiwork in darkness, and involves them with uncertainty. It comes to the relief of the exhausted body and the tired brain. Our powers, harmonizing with the diurnal revolution of the earth, fail with the failing light, and a merciful Providence casts around us this mantle of shadow, and snatches us from our occupation. The night comes and bestows its "beloved sleep " upon the bowed and the weary, replenishes the veins of health, imparts mysterious nourishment to the feeble, and wraps the sad in sweet forgetfulness, or bears them up for a time above the darkening realities of life into the bliss of dreams. It comes, however, not merely for slumber, but that there may be a change of action. It calls us in from those tasks that have kept in play all our selfish faculties, to the delights of social communion and the sanctities of home. It woos the body from its work that the mind may take up its implements. It conceals the earth, which all day long has absorbed our desires, and reveals the grandeur of the universe in which we float. It shows a field of activity for the spirit as well as for our material powers, a field whose capacity transcends any worldly occupation as far as thought outleaps the possibilities of the muscles. It bids the strained eye look up and perceive that there are objects of love and adoration above and beyond the circle of the morning purpose or the noonday effort. WE give such a theological sense to our words that even the holiest precepts ring like counterfeit coin. But if we really knew that to love Jesus Christ is like loving anything else, if theological or religious love would only mean natural love, as it ought to mean, how many would say, "I love Jesus Christ"! Infidels and sceptics, carping at miracles, and cutting out one half of the New Testament, if they could see such a character as that, exemplified in such a beautiful life, standing in the gloriousness of its meekness and the majesty of its holiness, would come to it as if drawn by the law of attraction. NOT nations;- not armies, have advanced the race; but here and there, in the course of ages, an individual has stood up and cast his shadow over the world. WHEN private virtue is hazarded upon the perilous cast of expediency, the pillars of the republic, however apparent their stability, are infected with decay at the very centre. WHAT marvel, what mystery, what tokens of the divine presence, in this familiar act of slumber! Consider into what regions of wonder it carries you, and how near it brings you’ to Gogl. While you lie there so unconscious you are enthralled by a power which you cannot resist; you have surrendered to it your dearest possessions; you have lost all control over them; your limbs are impotent; your faculties are disheveled, and death’s twin brother presses on your heart. Heroes, statesmen, and kings throw aside the implements of their pomp and power, as a child throws aside its toys, to lie down to rest as a child in its mother’s arms.! the wonderful truth is, that when we lie down to rest we all do lie, as it were, in a mother’s arms; for a love as tender as a mother’s, a vigilance far more tireless, a protection far more sure, during the dark and silent season, is at work for us, keeping the delicate life-springs in motion, and the chords of the mind in tune. There you sleep, and while you rest you and your sleeping-chamber are borne through great segments of space into the realms of the dawn, into the splendors of a new morning. You awake, and new, fresh life rushes through every artery; weariness arises, strengthened for its new labor; poverty is better prepared to meet its lot of toil; and sorrow perhaps lifts up its head with brighter tears, because while it slept angels of faith and hope whispered to it, and wellknown faces have beamed upon it from the gates of heaven. IN this age our religion is too much of the combustibk kind, a sort of light- wood dipped in turpentine, all glow, quick up, and quick down; and too many are confining their experience of religion to the experience of rapture and religious enjoyments. THE dreamer with his strange and splendid conceit, the weary pilgrim by the convent-gate, the untired supplicant at courts, at length attains his wish. The sails are hoisted, the prows are turned, the great adventure lies before. Speed on, speed on, bold Genoese! look straight forward! hold dauntlessly to your thought! The lights of the known land, sink behind you, but the heritage of your fame lies before. The deep is hoary with mystery, the compass turns from its point, but a divine current sweeps you on. Your heart grows faint at mutiny, delay, and solitude; but, lo! Providence tempts you with its tokens. New stars rise to light you; birds sing in your tattered sails; flowers of strange odor drift by your keel; and a new world is found. You sought it to complete the geography of the globe; God opened it to complete the desting of humanity! LET no one despair so long as he has power over his own soul. THE idea which wrought in the minds and hearts of our Revolutionary heroes in the deep current of those Revolutionary events had its sanction, and its first, clear, consistent utterance, as I believe, in the oracles of Christianity. It found a sanctuary in the breasts of its early saints and martyrs. It passed out into the world, and struck the chord of political action as it blended with the spirit of Teutonic independence. It flourished well in England, and found utterance in Parliament and from Tower-Hill. The cavalier bore it in his haughty consciousness to his new home in Virginia. The Hollander accepted it in his sturdy republicanism. The Puritan brought it in the Mayflower, and planted it on Plymouth rock. Indicated now and then by some isolated enterprise or sharp event, its influence was silently engendered in a people’s history, until at length its latent electricity broke out in one quick blaze from line to line, in one long roll of drums from Lexington to Yorktown. I find that idea at the core of all democracy; I find it at the heart of our national organism; and without it democracy would be only a name, and our nationality illegitimate. That idea, fellow-citizens, is the spiritual worth of every man! In the very personality of a man, it respects that "image and superscription" of God which distinguishes him from all other beings; respects his right unless convicted of aggression against the common right to free circulation in the currency of the universe, with hi? own limbs, mind and soul. 0, it was worth years of revolution, with all the suffering and the blood! worth your precious heart-drops, martyrs of Lexington! worth your cold and hunger, soldiers of Yalley Forge! worth your prayers, Washington! when gloomy clouds hung round the tents of our Israel. It was worth all this to vindicate and achieve the great fact that a man is priceless, and that, poised on the axis of personal responsibility limited by nothing but the curve of moral law he belongs only to God. It was worth all the cost and struggle to consummate a system in which, primarily, the man does not exist for the sake of the State, but the State for the sake of the man. THE idea of the worth and right of the individual man lies at the core of all our institutions. Therefore when this idea is dishonored upon any one point the entire organism of our national privileges is stricken with heart disease. A TRUE individualism is not adverse but favorable to a true nationality. In developing the springs of personal worth and dignity we develop the springs of all public greatness. EVERY man is two-fold in his nature. He is both individual and social. The necessity of a state is enfolded in and grows out of the very conditions of his being. PERILOUS is the course of the man who goes out amid the temptations of public life without prayerfulness, without a sense of duty caught from communion with Christ. If in his own heart he has separated his politics from his religion, I know not from what else he may divorce them. IN how many instances does it appear that high public office spoils a man! Put him in Jonathan, he comes out Judas. He enters as a respectable merchant, or lawyer, or farmer, and comes out a politician by profession, and a thimble-rigger by practice. IF the first line of the Declaration of Independence could have been read just after it was penned, in some old sanctuary of dead kings, and sculptured barons, and drooping heraldries, it would almost haye made the feudal dust and the aristocratic bones shake and rattle in the tombs, to hear this gospel of a new order, in which man was to be recognized apart from his accidents, and held his titles not by inheritance but by achievement. THE better part of our nature gravitates to him who preserves his courage and self-respect. There is a recognized chivalry about a man who is a man. Noble souls know each other, in some degree, as they will know when we no longer see as through a glass darkly. THE fathers of our Revolution abolished orders of nobility! No; they affirmed the true nobility; they rejected the outward patent, and took up the inward claim; they detected the right divine not in the coronet but in the brain, the heraldry of honor not in the crimson hand but the diligent palm, and rated a man by the quantity of his virtue and his greatness, not by his position on some old genealogical tree, stuck into the body of William the Conqueror, with blood at the roots, and gout in the fibres, and idiocy at the top, unless recuperated by plebian sap. Benjamin Franklin wore the most appropriate court-dress I ever heard of. At the Court of Versailles he appeared in the dress of an American farmer. What did he need of a court-dress whose patent of nobility was written for him by lightning on the clouds? THERE is but little true learning where nature and humanity have been neglected. Cumbrous and useless is that knowledge which is unbaptized by love and sympathy. THE worst scepticism of our age ’ is not that of expressed doubt or open denial, but that which, in the name of faith and zeal, would hush objection and check controversy, and is so fearful of the present as to distrust the future. THE thinker fears no more the failure of the truth than he fears the failure of God’s own cisterns from which the winds blow. It may do for the ignorant to be timid, whom a fallacy can tangle and a false statement blind; but it is for you, scholar! to see how in the intense heat of trial every film of falsehood melts away from truth, and the severe analysis leaves it alone, in all the beauty of its proportion, in all the harmony of its relations. THERE is no tariff so injurious as that with which sectarian bigotry guards its commodities. It dwarfs the soul by shutting out truths from other continents of thought, and checks the circulation of its own. WHEN the sky is obscured, the chart torn, the compass lost, man raises to his eyes the glass of faith, and sees through the mist the thread of love quivering down from the eternal orb and drawing him on. GEOLOGIST! chip away with your hammer, to the end of time; you cannot strike away one grain of the truth in Jesus Christ, as it comes to my soul. ethnologist! trace back the history of man as far as you can; you cannot’ seal up this spiritual want of mine which Christ satisfies. Each thing to its proper domain: science to interpret material things, to unlock the bonds ’of nature; Christianity to comfort the soul and lift it up. But if there does come a collision between the two, which I conceive impossible, of what have you the strongest evidence: that the world is six millions of years old, or that Jesus Christ comforts you in sorrow, lifts you up when you are bowed down, and brings you to an ideal that answers your wants and aspirations? The soul’s evidence is the highest, and must be heard. Let Newton and Le Verrier unfold the starry heavens, and let us hear the music of the spheres; but at the same time the soul stands up and says, " I, too, am a reality; I know that I have a Father, for I have felt him; I know that I have a Savior, for he has lifted me up and blessed me. Science is doubtless true; but if it is not I know that I am, for I know that I feel." EACH thing lives according to its kind: the heart by love, the intellect by truth, the higher nature of man by intimate communion wiih God. CHRISTIANITY reaches down from heaven this golden ladder, by which the loftiest soul and the lowliest intellect can begin to climb toward God the ladder of the truth of God’s paternity. How many prayers and forms of worship are merely paying compliments to God from the meanest and basest motives, hoping thereby to creep into the favor of God, complimenting him because we think it will be well for us to do so. THE human soul is so constituted that mere power or sovereignty, without regard to the moral qualities of such power and sovereignty, cannot be truly reverenced. We may fear it; we may cower in terror before it; we may defer to it with trembling and abated breath; but the whole sincere reverence of the heart we can give only to goodness, and, in the case of God, to infinite goodness, which by its very nature is infinite holiness, justice, and majesty. GOD will not forsake you, old sinner; he will not leave even you. You are cared for by him; and though you may be hidden under the rubbish of all your sins, though you may be cast away and scorned by men, he will hunt for you as for a hidden jewel. ALL men, however low, weak, and vile they may be, may utter the words, "Our Father;" and before this fact all outward distinctions shrivel away, and all sophistries yield to it. Your pompous ethnologists, who decide from the hue of the skin or the shape of the skull, do not go deep enough to mark out the limits between us. The dimmest asteroid of a soul, that here, in its far-away world, revolves in the narrowest orbit of human experience, receives some light from the Fountain of Light, and feels the throb of the same "infinite Sun. However rudely spoken by the child at his mother’s side, by the savage, by the poor, despised, and desolate it is the same. How great that spirit must be, and how surely immortal, that can say to God, "Our Father"! The nabob can say this, and he can say no more. The beggar in the street can say as much. It rises from the same plane of humanity. It has no further to travel, whether breathed in the luxurious chamber, or ascending from the lips of the outcast, up to the starry spaces of the sky. What a bond of unity, which takes the round earth, with all its seasons and climes, and condenses it into one family! when from the territories even of contending nationalities, slaves and freemen, rich and poor, all come together in this! It is the key-note of the prelude to universal harmony. TRUTH in its most original expression is always lyrical. IN the Hartz Mountains, in Germany, men sometimes see an awful, shadowy, colossal image walking over the heights like a majestic demon; but after all they find it is only the projection of themselves, only the shadow of the advancing man thrown upon the mist of the mountain. So men in their superstition, sensuality, and gross idolatry project a God who is only the shadow of themselves. THE doctrine of God the Father is the central doctrine of the gospel. Around it the entire system moves. Take it away and we should have another a different gospel. Take away the truth that- comes in the account of the prodigal son, and in other instances of that kind of God’s fatherhood, and you may have a Christianity to preach, but it would not be Christ’s Christianity. GOD is our Father; and yet this relation, comparatively, is as though it were not until we realize it. IF you should take the human heart and listen to it it would be like listening to a sea-shell: you would hear in it the hollow murmur of the infinite ocean to which it belongs, from which it draws its profoundest inspiration, and for which it yearns. MAN is concentric: you have to take fold after fold off of him before you get to the centre of his personality. You must get below his animal nature, habits, customs, affections, daily life, and sometimes go away down into the heart of the man, before you know what is really in him. But when you get into the last core of these concentric rings of personality you find a sense of the infinite, a consciousness of immortality linked to something higher and better. IF you could take away every other proof of y the existence of a God, if you. could blot out the universe with all its glorious elements of harmony, order, and wonder, yet, looking into the deep soul of man, and beholding there a sense of sin, a feeling of obligation, of duty, of responsibility, you would be compelled to say, This soul of man proves the existence of a moral, intelligent source, over and above the material world. THE nearest symbolism of God’s mercy is the relation that the mother bears to her child. It is a constant blessing, which flows over our lives, and is still strong even when we become gray, and the dust of the grave begins to settle upon us. DAMAGE Revelation! You might just as well suppose that a man could damage the throne of the Almighty as to damage the essential truth of Revelation. What difference does it make whether this world is six thousand or six million years old, to the wounded spirit that feels the balm of Christ’s comfort? to the tempest-tossed BOU! that Christ has lifted up? to the spiritual experience that sees in God its highest ideal, and mounts upward continually? There is no more connection between the two things than there is between duty and a stone, between goodness and a tree, between a thing utterly spiritual and utterly material. THE child’s grief throbs against the round of its little heart as heavily as the man’s sorrow; and the one finds as much delight in his kite or drum as the other in striking the springs of enterprise or soaring on the wings of fame. As mind is superior to matter, so are ideas more potent and enduring than prodigies of physical might. Archimedes’ thought is stronger than his lever. The mind that planned the pyramids was more powerful than the hands that piled them. The inventors of the mariner’s compass and the telescope have outdone the Macedonian, and won new worlds. IN the act of communion with God, in the realization of immortality, in the aspirations and the idea of perfection, there is a depth and scope of being from which all sensual estimates of time drop away. IN proportion to the essential value and the desting of anything it is slow in coming to maturity. The shining insect of the pools is born and perishes in a day. The -alchemy of sun and air, of wet and sunshine, is long in bringing the oak to its climax. Our mortal body this curious casement of the soul grows, decays, and dies while a star, the home of many souls, beats around its orbit, and fulfils but one of its stupendous years. If this be the law, then we must expect that mind will be long indeed in coming to maturity. In fact it has never reached perfection, even in the rarest individual instances. And its inexhausted capacities, its unsatisfied desires, suggest what Revelation has confirmed, that this is but its introductory state, and that it goes hence to the scope of immortal action. THE intellect is the most neutral of all our qualities It is a light; and no one will object to its being kindled except those who by that objection virtually confess that they fear the light. THREESCORE years and ten! Were all these adaptations created merely for a life of threescore years and ten? Are these heavens so garnished with beauty, is this earth so varied and fertile, merely to gratify that -which in a little while will die and return to dust? Is it all to pamper a body that presently becomes weak and diseased and crumbles back to its elements? Or does this beauty without speak to a capacity for beauty within? Do these wonderful works appeal to a power of knowing and progressing, that shall know and progress when its mortal tabernacle shall be lost in the processes of change? If this life is all, much is there in it thatTis incomprehensible. We cannot comprehend why we should desire to know, and never be satisfied with knowledge; why we should be tempted and suffer. But if there is another life we can discern a reason for these things. In the fact that we attain to no complete knowledge now, but only such as deepens the capacity and the thirst for more, there gleams out the deeper fact that we shall know more by and by. Powers are developed here until they are capable of higher development in other portions of God’s limitless universe; and suffering and temptation discipline the soul for a sphere where temptation shall no more be needed, and where the spirit shall go forward to practise upon what it has learned. Viewing this life, then, as the vestibule and preparation for another, we can account for many of its mysteries. But if not, why, then, does the body suffer from the wants of the mind? Why, if this world is merely a theatre for human fame or human pleasure, merely a mart for the heaping up of gold and silver, why do we think of immortality, or care for it? Why do the mountain-summits seem near to another world? Why from the depths of night, from worlds of unapproachable glory, come influences that kindle aspirations for something higher and purer? Why do we fancy the loved and the lost walking upon some glorious shore, with palms about their brows? Why do we truly honor an upright man more than a king, and see in patient endurance and forgiving love the highest dignity and the best victory? Why are prayer, and goodness, and faith so much more worthy in our eyes than mere bodily skill or beauty? Because we do not cease to be, at the grave, the outward things of this life are not our chief ends; but our true end is spiritual perfection and immortal life! I WOULD rather fall into the hands of a good-natured sinner than of a sour old saint. THE reason why men act in masses as they would not act in units, is, that they are not chivalric enough to stand by their own souls. " ONE self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas." It is true. There is more life in "one self-approving hour," one act of benevolence, one work of self-discipline, than in threescore years and ten of mere sensual existence. Go out among the homes of the poor, lift up the disconsolate, administer comfort to the forlorn; in some way, as it may come across your path, or lie in the sphere of your duty, do a deed of kindness; and in that one act you shall live more than in a year of selfish indulgence and indolent ease, yea, more than in a lifetime of such. The poet, with his burning, immortal lines, while doing his work, lives all the coming ages of his fame. From every marble feature that he chisels the sculptor draws an intensity of being that cannot be imparted by a mere extension of years. The philanthropist, in his walks of mercy and his ministrations of love, lives more comprehensively than another may in a century. His is the fathomless bliss of benevolence the experience of God. The martyr, in his dying hour, with his face shining like an angel’s, does not live longer, but he lives more than all his persecutors. THIS is not only the oldest but the best time. It contains tho best life and fruition of all the past. THE mother acts upon the world as surely as the boy develops into the man. She is not a public actor in the drama of human existence, but she appears in all its moving forms, and in all its history. Her influence is the electric life that plays unseen amid it all, and projects and shapes its phenomena. That devoted philanthropy is the embodiment of her spirit; that noble achievement is the crystalization of her thought. The patriotism you admire was kindled by her tradition and her song. The eloquence that thrills you caught its inspiration from her lips. The soul "that climbs the starry paths of science, or explores the crypts beneath, owes to her its direction and its enthusiasm; and the holy life that blesses man and glorifies God is the answer to her prayers. Unperceived, she acts in the bustle of the mart and the aspirations of the forum, from the magistrate’s chair, in the pulpit, and on the throne. And the ordinary mass of life, with its individual joys and sorrows, good and evil, so common, yet so important, is her result. ALL that Christ is after is the heart. Jesus went about as a man searching for a lost treasure. He went to the poor, downcast sinner, and tried to find his heart. If he could get that it was all he came from heaven to claim. GOD is glorious in everything he has made. His glory is revealed in the little blade of grass that begins to peep from underneath the winter ice; in the planet that flames with splendor in the heavens; but by ribthing so much, upon this earth, as in man, a creature of intelligence, of immortal capacity, of ever-growing affections and powers; and in the perfection of man in the full ’ unfolding harmony and transfiguration of his nature is God glorified. PHYSICAL force is sectional, and acts in defined methods. But knowledge defies gravitation, and is not thwarted by space Man gains wider dominion by his intellect than by his right arm. The mustard-seed of thought is a pregnant treasury of vast results. Like the germ in the Egyptian tombs, its vitality never perishes; and its fruit will spring up after it has been buried for long ages. THE man who lives merely for the purpose of pumping gratification out of all the world into himself, and appropriating God’s benefits without regard to others, is the meanest creature in the world, nothing but a sponge with brains, sucking in everything, and letting out nothing. To shed upon men an intellectual light to elevate them by force of thought is the noblest of all missions. Honor to the idealists, whether philosophers or poets. They-have improved us by mingling with our daily pursuits great and transcendant conceptions. They have thrown around our sensual life the grandeur of a better, and drawn us up from contacts with the temporal and the selfiahy to communion with beauty, truth, and goodness. ’ They do a great part of the work that is done. There must be ideas before action. The whole natural world is but the embodiment of ideas. The spade in the laborer’s hand, the plough-share in the furrow, was once an idea. Once tie steamship was only an airy, bodiless thing, sailing through seas of thought in Fulton’s mind. The idealist dies, but his conception lives in physical agencies that change the face of nature, in moral movements that bless and advance humanity. You think it was an awful thing for Judas to betray Jesus. How many betray him for less than thirty pieces of silver! You think it was a terrible thing for Peter to tell such a cowardly lie, and skulk from his master. How many do the same thing, when they deny their religious faith, when they go to places where it is unpopular, and shrink from avowing it, or perhaps disavow it altogether? ACROSS the sweep of ages come the prophet’s wWds, " Make you a new heart and a new spirit." There is nothing vague or mysterious about it. Change your affections if they are selfish; change your aim I it is low; lift up your eyes to that mark of the high calling to which Christ draws you, and let the spirit that was in him be in you. That is making a new heart. Take your heart with earnest purpose and fervent prayer to the cross of Christ, hold it up as a chalice, and let him fill it with his divine excellence and divine self-sacrifice, and then, in the possession of his quickening spirit, you will have a new heart. RELIGION is felt to be though often very vaguely, very fitfully a vital interest in the world, something that cannot be voted out of the universe; something that will push its way, and make its claim, no matter what other interests are crowded on the human heart. CHRISTIANITY is in the van of every movement marching for the deliverance of man. It rebukes and smitea in the very face every sophism that would hold human beings in slavery. It stands for the deliverance of man every body, and soul, and heart of man from all evil thought and evil deeds do not like fanaticism in anything; but if we must have it at all, let us have the fanaticism of religion rather than that of worldliness. For the most fanatical man of the two is he that buries his soul up in bullion, grovels in the earth, and lives like a barnacle on this planet, without recognizing anything higher or better. I would rather see a fanatic in religion than in worldliness. That old fanatic, Simeon, who founded a sect called "Pillar Saints," who stood ten years on the top of a pillar, in sun and storm, drenched and dried, weather-beaten and baked, who lived and died thera, was at least so much nearer heaven than the fanatic who was groping below. THERE are some who try to preserve a sort of balance between the spirit that makes this world supreme, which of course dissolves all moral distinction between right and wrong, and the spirit that makes God supreme, which claims as right the love of right only. There are some who wish to keep in with both these elements. They want the world and they want heaven. They try to live on both sides of the fence, and they hope to postpone the inevitable collision between the two forces. It is like compromising with a cancer, or holding negotiations with the yellow fever. You cannot cheat six days in the week, and get into heaven with a good, long leap on Sunday. JUST in proportion as we come near to Christ we do not create diversity, but unitj. For in coming not to opinions about Jesus, but to Jesus himself, we come together. And there is the only source of opinion for the Christian church. Let opinions be ventilated, and forms of examining and finding out the truth be discussed; but after all the church comes together around the bleeding heart of Jesus, as the first church did in the upper room at Jerusalem. It was not opinions about his character it was not schemes of salvation set forth in theological dogmas that boug^ those twelve together; but the central Christ himself. And the great church that streamed out from that little nucleus, through all ages, and in all lands, that great church, with its Roman Catholic complexity and its Quaker simplicity, its Unitarian freedom, its Universalist love, its Presbyterian assertions of the grand doctrine" of God’s sovereignty, whatever its peculiar form, the great church has its only principle of unity in that bleeding heart of Christ and our ability to come to him. } And when you bring each atom of that round world of Christendom to that central life of Christ, you have a unity which you can never have by your dogmas and creeds. THAT which survives, and never dies, and triumphs in the end, is the right, the true only. 0, HOW affecting is that truth God’s sympathy for us revealed in Jesus Christ! You look at the New Testament, perhaps, as an old, dry, hard book, with Paul’s epistles and John’s apocalypse at the end of it, and these beautiful sayings scattered here and there through the gospels, but all the meaning of them worn out and rubbed away, because you have read them with such an unsympathizing spirit. If you would only take up the New Testament as a declaration of God’s sympathy with man, if you would realize that where Christ touches the blind eye thqe God pities human infirmities, where he blesses the little child there God shows his love for those who are so dear to us, and where he looks mercifully upon the debased, sensual man, there God’s mercy is shown forth, it would be to you a living volume, full of regenerating power. THE most authentic type of human depravity is a thoroughly unprincipled politician. EEAL homage to Christ is not in the apprehension of his rank in the universe, but in the possession of his spirit Of what value are all your waving of palms, and high-sounding hosannas, if your hearts are not cast at his feet? MEN may attribute the advantages of our civilization to this thing and that thing; but the deep spirit of all the best movements of society comes from the life and teachoccupy a more prominent and interesting station than young men. They will immediately succeed our fathers in the scenes of active life, and they exert a powerful influence upon the country and the age. The aspect of the present takes much of its coloring from them; the hopes of the future cluster around them. Aged patriotism, philanthropy, piety, turn their dim eyes to them, and behold as in a mirror the promise of coming years. Their hands are already upon those golden chords of society which are its bonds of conservation; and in a little while it will depend upon them whether they shall be marred or brightened, whether they shall be preserved or torn asunder. HE cannot be the true scholar, the true thinker, who is not a moral, a spiritual man That which biases from goodness, violates conscience, and perverts the will cannot be favorable to true intellectual culture. Only by sympathy with truth and excellence can we climb to the knowledge of them. THE charter of man’s liberty is in his soul, not his estate No piled-up wealth, no social station, no throne reaches as high as that spiritual plane upon which every human being stands by virtue of his humanity. WHAT is intellectual culture worth without the moral? What to us the use of poetry, history, of all forms of knowledge, except through largeness of the intellectual vision to purify the heart, and to bring us to spiritual perfection? Without this, knowledge is worse than an abstraction, and in such a case we can conceive of a splendid intellect only as we can conceive of a star, drifting through space without adaptation, without an orbit, without a centripetal law. TAKING the material standard as the exclusive standard of life, a man becomes a mere instrument in pursuit of popularity, of office, or any other worldly advantage, with a soul to let, and a self- serviceable conscience thrown in, like diplomatists that play all manner of variations upon one selfish string, slimy politicians who have wriggled through every kennel, and left their zig-zag trail upon most opposite measures and most inconsistent platforms. IT does not require great intellect to see plain, palpable facts; but marshal before a man a truth that strikes at his interest, and you cannot make him see it with all the logic you can link from the morning stars to the earth, because he has a different standard of valuation from yours. THE highest power in the universe is moral power; for the Being who buoys up and sustains all things is a moral being. Once this great truth was revealed to men. They saw the highest power embodied in a sacred personality. It shamed the brawny grandeur of heathen Jove 5 and paled the intellectual glory of Plato. God, whose power is but symbolized in the material forces, the procession of whose thought is the order and beauty of the universe, is in himself love, which is the synonyme of all righteousness. And he who would climb to the highest knowledge, and share something of its absolute power, must ascend not by intellectual formulas, but by rectitude of heart and affinity of spirit. A MAN that simply loads himself down with possessions of which he has no actual need, when- he dies slips out of them as a little insect might slip out of some parasite shell into which it has ensconced itself into the grave, and is forgotten. COUNTLESS are the hosts who have yielded to the suggestion of evil lusts. Conscripts drawn by God to fight the battle of life, and to scale Alpine heights of duty, they either know not or heed not the summons, but leap without restraint to gratification, or lie basking in the sunshine of voluptuous ease. Fools of appetite! Floats on the stream of impulse! Deserters from the campaign to which God has called them! How often they drop by the way-side, bruised and torn, victims of their own passions, cast into the fire and the water by the devil within them! Spirits made a little lower than the angels, fallen much lower than the brute. Immortal souls soaked into the flesh, and sharing the corruption of the bones. Dying, it may be, in the streets; and, as the waves of death roll over them, lifting dim eyes to the starry immensity above them, unconscious that it is.more limited than their destiny, and that those lights are glimmering from eternal shores, towards which they drift. WE know how much is put on purposely for the public gaze, and has no other intention than to be seen. How hollow are many of the smiles, and gay looks, and smooth decencies! And even the complexion of some, with its red and white, is more unsubstantial than all the rest; for it is in danger of being washed away by the first shower. HOY} many men you see in this world who have become merely. the pack-horses of their own possessions; who go through life the veriest slaves to that which they toil for, wasting their health and strength, and, it may be, their higher powers, even their consciences and souls, in the mere effort to accumulate! How many men of this sort you see stumbling along in life like a camel with his load! In fact you do not see the man himself, only the pack of his possessions on his back. He finds it hard work to squeeze through the needle’s eye; and when he dies he is hardly missed; for that by which he was known that of which he was the slave, and not the master remains behind. SIN is the great element of hell, and where it exists heaven cannot be. Its triumphs are deeper than those of time, and more terrible than death. It has swept over the moral world, more glorious than the physical, and blighted the beautiful and desecrated the holy. It has scattered abroad and afar the seeds of envy, war, lust, intemperance, murder, and all abomination and iniquity. It has drawn man aside from innocence and rectitude, and he has gone forth from the joy of Eden with a bowed head and a burning heart; and, worse than all, it has spread a veil athwart his moral vision, and alienated him from his Maker. I HAVE no great faith in the man -who simply has a nest of habits without any guiding, settled principle; hut if he can build around him an inclosure of moral habits it will do him good. They may serve the same purpose as a go-cart for a little child to learn to walk by, supporting him while he is weak, until he is able to walk alone. IT is not death to have the body called back to the earth, and dissolved into its kindred elements, and mouldered to dust, and, it may be, turn to daisies, in the grave. But it is death to have the soul paralyzed, its inner life quenched, its faculties dissipated; that is death. What is blindness? Is it blindness merely not to see with the outer eye? Was Milton blind when he saw the angels of God and all the beautiful ones of the spiritual world in all their brightness before his soul’s inner vision? Is it deafness merely not to hear the outer world, when you can hear God’s voice of approval, cheering you, and the words, " Well done, good and faithful servant "? But it is deafness, and blindness, and ’death itself, to have all our moral nature utterly dissipated and wasted away. IN this world or any other, the same place cannot be the same place to the sinner as to the saint. WOULD the gamester unlock the springs of his heart that he has pressed down as with iron, would he suffer memory and reflection to do their work, what pictures of his domestic life might they paint for him! The first in the series should be one of calm bliss and joy. Not a cloud in the heaven, save those tinged and made beautiful by hope; the eyes of love looking out upon him, the dependence of a trustful heart casting upon him its all. Then the scene would change. A tearful and deserted wife, a sobbing, pitying child, keeping watch with the lone night-lamp, till the breaking of the morning. Again, and haggard misery would creep into the picture, adding the keenness of deprivation to the sting of grief, pressing heavily upon the bowed, crushed spirit of that wife, mingling the draught of slighted, abused affection with the tears of starved and shivering childhood, piercing her ear at once with the moans for bread and the curses of disappointed brutality. Once more, and there should be a GRAVE! a green and lowly grave where the faithful heart that loved him to the last should rest from all its pangs, and the child that he had slighted should sleep as cold and still as the bosom that once nourished it; a grave! where even the wide and distant heaven should be kinder than he, smiling in sunshine and weeping in rain over those for whom he, in his mad career, never smiled or wept, whom he in his reckless course, hurried thus early to their death. INTEMPERANCE is no respecter of classes. In parlors and hovels, in rags and broadcloth, its dupes stumble and die. It strikes manly strength and beauty with untimely rottenness; genius is drowned by it; the brain-links of logic are broken, and the tongue of eloquence utters a tuneless babble. Indeed it has the art to cheat men out of their very personality, and to change them into maniacs and fools Not only has it gained complete mastery over your moral sense, drowned your truest convictions, and perverted your best feelings; but see what a picture of humanity you present, snoring in the barroom, reeking in the gutter, grinning like an idiot, whooping like a savage, tumbled about like a foot-ball, the lines of intelligence chiseled from your face or daubed with blood and bruises, your lips black with blasphemy, "your brow fanned by licentious passion, your heart dry, your brain hot, your memory shattered, a bankrupt in your limbs, a caricature of a man! To every one of us God gives this terrible yet glorious privilege, of doing what we like. THAT is the sublimest condition into which a man can come when he perfectly surrenders to God his will, and does what he likes because he likes to do God’s will. THE great crises of man’s existence do not consist primarily in changes of place, or of external fortune, but in changes of state or inward condition. WE must not think too much of death, death’s narrow bridge, over which Christ walked in coronationrobes, over which martyrs passed in glorious procession. Death in itself is p, mere physical change, after all, and we must not make too much of it. Any experience that a man may have in this world or any other can hardly be greater than when over his dead soul there moves a divine influence, and in him are quickened holy aspirations; when he stirs in the grave-clothes of evil habit, and breaks the bands of wicked will; when he leaps from the sarcophagus of sensual indulgence, and comes into spiritual light. When the familiar earth shines in the brightness of immortal sanctions, and faith tears away the veil of the unseen, and he realizes that he is a denizen of eternity and a child of God, then is there indeed a resurrection from the dead. To me there is something thrilling and exalting in the thought that we are drifting forward into a splendid mystery, into something that no mortal eye has yet seen, no intelligence has yet declared. THE old simile of the butterfly and the chrysalis I never thought a very forcible one, so far as it is used as an argument in proof ’of another world; but take it in another view, and I think it is one of the most astonishing analogies, one of the most astonishing proofs of immortality you can furnish. The sages of the ancient world had about as many natural arguments for immortality as we have. The human intellect struck at an early period upon the great points of analogy. And when they took up this beautiful simile of the butterfly they taught a great truth; though, I repeat, they did not prove the existence of another world by it, but of another state. Look at it; the butterfly is in the same world as the worm from which the butterfly is evolved; but, 0, how changed, because of the new capacities unfolded in its own being! So the resurrection of man may be regarded as the unfolding of inner capacities, the development of his spiritual being, rather than a translation to some distant.sphere. The wings may be growing in his soul all the while, which shall spread when he bursts the chrysalis of his mortality; and when that chrysalis bursts he may find himself in no strange place, but moving with larger powers among familiar scenes. THE man who went as far as he dared to go is as bad as the man who dared to go further and did go. THE essential thing in the resurrection is not the scenery or the method, but the uplifting of the human spirit from sensuality and sin. CLOTHES, rank, social position, are rags and nonsense compared with the essential quality and quantity of man’s being. It is life, degrees of life, that makes the essential difference between men. Is not this the reward of all effort for truth and goodness, that we thus acquire new life? The more acquaintance man gets with facts the more he lives; he forms a vascular connection with them, and they become parts of him. He lives the past; he is Plato and Newton, Shakspeare and Channing; his mind sweeps the w,ide orbits of Saturn and Neptune, and the splendor of the Pleiades glitters in his thoughts. And the more he sympathizes with excellence the more he goes out from self; the more he loves the broader and the deeper is his own personality; until his life fills the compass of the world, and he is quickened by the very heart of God. IN politics men start not from the platform of ideal and spiritual realities, but from party. It is the Buffalo or the Baltimore platform, and not that of Mount Sinai or the Mount of Olives. THE great fault of man’s reasoning is not in the process, but in the premises. We say of a man that he cannot reason well because he is wrong in his process. That is not the fault: his mistake consists in his not starting well, in his premises rather than his process. The knave reasons as well as the saint, but he does not start from the same premises. The insane man often reasons most acutely, most wonderfully. If you get into the stream of his logic he tryps you up. So sharp, so subtle is he, and so ready to meet your objections, that you have to go back to the false premises and conceptions in the chinks and crannies of his brain, which weaken it and make it morbid. Starting from these he makes the mistake. The sane man differs from the insane man not in the process, but in the premises. And so it is with regard to the reasoning of men generally. They start from false premises, and, reasoning from them, at last come to the conclusion that anything they do is right. If they once can make themselves believe that it is right to uphold a certain traffic, then it is easy to come to the conclusion that anything by which they sustain it is right. If they believe they have a right to consult expediency, then it is but another step to believe in the right to pick a national pocket just as much as a private pocket, to steal an island as much as to commit a trespass upon private property. Start with wrong premises, and all manner of conclusions will follow. THE radical differences between men are comparatively few. If we classify them by temperaments, manners, degrees of culture, we may draw up quite a catalogue. But if we let them fall into rank, according to essential tendencies, people wide apart in external conditions will file into the same group. Indeed, in the last analysis, it is only a truism to say that everybody is full of human nature. THE essential life of heaven first breaks upon us when we rise from sense and sin and go forth with transcendent vision and unworldly aims. IN asserting the claims of the State against the protests of the individual conscience, it is absurd to strike away the ground on which rests the stability of the State itself, the ground of private moral principle. It is absurd to make the State unseat the very power to which it appeals. The best men in community are the men who feel that the final ligature in our nature is that which binds us to God. A TRUE man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star. TRUE justice has regard not merely to selfish ends and to literal right, but to the good of others and the great law of love. of which he is developed, that which constitutes the very sap and fibre of his manliness, is his moral sense. This alone, when upright and pure, makes him a compact stability in society as well as in his private relations. LAWS are nothing, institutions are nothing, national power and greatness are nothing, save as they assist the moral purpose of God in the development of humanity. THE gospel has but a forced alliance with war. Its doctrine of human brotherhood would ring strangely between the opposed ranks. The bellowing speech of cannon and the baptism of blood mock its liturgies and sacraments. Its gentle beatitudes would hardly serve as mottoes for defiant banners, nor its list of graces as names for ships-of-the-line. IF anything is made clear in the New Testament it is that the best affections of this earth are not changed when they are translated to heaven. STAND, in imagination, of a summer’s morning, upon a field of battle. Earth and sky melt together in light and harmony; the air is rich with fragrance, and sweet with the song of birds. But suddenly breaks in the sound of fiercer music, and the measured tramp of thousands. Eager squadrons shake the earth with thunder, and files of bristhng steel kindle in the sun; and, opposed to each other, line to line, face to face, are now arrayed men whom God has made in the same likeness, and whose nature he has touched to the same issues. The same heart beats in all. In the momentary hush, like a swift mist sweep before them images of home; voices of children prattle in their ears; memories of affection stir among their silent prayers. They cherish the same sanctities, too. They have read from the same Book. It is to them the same charter of life and salvation; they have been taught to observe its beautiful lessons of love; their hearts have been touched alike with the meek example of Jesus. But a moment, and all these affinities are broken, trampled under foot, swept away by the shock and the shouting. Confusion rends the air; the simmering bomb ploughs up the earth; the iron hail cuts the quivering flesh; the steel bites to the bone; the cannonshot crashes through serried ranks; and under a cloud of smoke that hides both earth and heaven the desperate struggle goes on. The day wanes, and the strife ceases. On the one side there is a victory, on the other a defeat. The triumphant city is lighted with jubilee, the streets roll out their tides of acclamation, and the organ heaves from its groaning breast the peal of thanksgiving. But under that tumultuous joy there are bleeding bosoms and inconsolable tears; and, whether in triumphant or defeated lands, a shudder of orphanage and widowhood a chill of woe and death runs far and wide through the world. The meek moon breaks the dissipating veil of the conflict, and rolls its calm splendor above the dead. And see now how much woe man has mingled with the inevitable evils of the universe! See now the fierceness of his passion, the folly of his wickedness, witnessed by the torn standards, the broken wheels, the pools of clotted blood, the charred earth, the festering heaps of slain. Nature did not make these horrors, and when those fattening bones shall have mouldered in the soil she will spread out luxuriant harvests to hide those horrors forever. THE essence of the gospel its great peculiarity is not in any statement of God’s nature, or of man’s nature, of the Trinity, of the unity, of human perfectibility, of total depravity. The essence of the gospel is in its spirit of restoring, of long-suffering, of inexhaustible love, claiming its objects, waiting for them, and welcoming them at the last. FANCY yourselves standing on the banks of the Delaware more than a century and a half ago. The "winds have stripped the leaves from the primeval forest, save where the pines lift their dark drapery to the sky. The river travels silently on its way. All around lies’ the solitude of nature, unbroken by the wheels of traffic or the triumphs of civilization. Apart from the roar and the conflict of nations, apart from the hurrying tides of interest and passion, this lone spot in the western wilderness, beside the calm river,’ is a spot for peace and love, a spot where the children of humanity may come, bury their war weapons, and embrace. Lo! it is that spot. An instance of brotherly love is displayed here, such as the world had not seen since the days of the Redeemer. From the recesses of the forest there glides a file of red and naked men, wild in their strength, and uncurbed in all the native impulses of humanity. As they cluster beneath the arching elm, or brood in dusky lines along the wooded back-ground, their eyes glisten with the fires of their fierce nature, and here and there a hand grasps more closely its weapon; yet in the grave silence and studied repose the old men bend forward their scarred faces, and the young incline their ears to hear. He who stands up to speak to them is a white man, unarmed, and almost companionless, yet in his mein there is neither hesitation nor fear, and his face, where mildness sweetly blends with dignity, banishes the suspicion of deceit. Consider him well; for in the true record of his life his name is enrolled higher than those of heroes. Bred up in all the amenities of life, he has come to try a "holy experiment" in the depths of the wilderness. Trained in various learning, he feels that love is the best knowledge and the best language. Unawed in sculptured minsters, unfettered by ordinances, he calls the great earth a temple, and finds in all the humanities forms of worship. Unbending before kings, he reverences the rudest savage as a man. Rejecting human creeds, his soul is full of the gospel. Guided by the "inner light," the law of conscience and of truth, the Indian’s rights are sacred as the white man’s, and he asks no force to aid him but the force of love. And as he utters those simple words of peace and justice, those savage bosoms grow warm with the Christian law, those glittering eyes melt with charity, around those dusky circles throbs the pulse of the one humanity, and the panther of the forest becomes as the lamb. The child of the red man clasps the hand of the white stranger, the belt of wampum is made a beautiful symbol, and the words of solemn promise go forth, the winds lift them higher than any shout of victory, the woods repeat them far inland, and the Delaware bears them rolling by, "We will live with William Penn and his children as long as the sun and the moon shall endure." It was an honest compact. It was a bloodless conquest. It was the triumph of peace and right. The historian records it with a glow. The philanthropist quotes it, and takes courage. The Christian remembers it, and clings with new faith to the religion that accomplished it. " FIRST pure, and then peaceable." That is the great order of things; for there is no peace without purity; and a man cannot effectually make peace in the world unless he is at peace in himself; and he cannot be at peace in himself unless he is pure and right within. CAN you conceive of anything that so represents the glory, and truth, and marvelousness of God’s nature as the idea of peace? When you come back to your best evidences, what would constitute the beatitudes of the divine nature but peace and harmony at the centre of all things, undisturbed fulness of life? As in the family circle the return of the wanderer his penitent and willing return is received with a burst of gladness, so the return of the sinful to truth, to holiness, to God, fills all heaven with bliss, and thrills with joy angelic hearts. As when one has been shut in some gloomy room, some tainted, sick chamber, some dark, narrow enclosure, and gets out into one of these glorious spring days of open "nature, and the broad arch of heaven spreads over him like a benediction, and the wind breathes upon him like a new life, and all the harmonies of nature multiply and gather around him, so one goes out from the narrowness of human conceit, and the perplexities of human discussion, and little mean bigotries of human conclusions, into the broad, free atmosphere of Jesus Christ. It always has that effect upon me. It comes upon me like a breath of nature, to turn away from the distracting discussion of men, the little pin-point differences, the mean, dark, gloomy bigotries that creep over religious discussion, and to come to Jesus Christ, who uttered the Sermon on the Mount, who gave me the beautiful parable of the sower going forth to sow, who teaches me by the suggestion of the vineyard, who points to the wild bird flying through the air, and the lily clothed in raiment more splendid than that of Solomon. THE trumpet of God is blown against evil, and it is only a question of time. The black night-hawks go swooping under the Southern cross to strike their beaks into bleeding Africa, but they will fail as surely as night is smitten by God’s morning. NEVER did any man, who comes to it rightly, go away from the New Testament with anything like a gloomy thought. With shame, penitence, and a solemn sense of life with a quickening of that which is deepest and brightest in us we go away; but never with anything like gloom from the teachings of Jesus Christ. JESUS CHRIST is the reflection of the divine love. There is nothing tender in him who blessed little children, there is nothing lovely in him who walked so kindly among the sorrows and wrongs of humanity, there is nothing that attracts us to the heart of him who sat at the marriage-feast in Cana, who mingled with the poor and suffering, who cleansed the leper and raised the dead, there is nothing in all that love that draws us to him that is not in the Father’s nature. If we only could see God’s love, and realize it as expressed in Jesus Christ, we could not help longing for it, and praying that such, according to the finite capacity of our nature, might be the essence of our spiritual being. OUR post is not the Mount of Vision, but the Field of Labor; and we can find no rest in Eden until we have passed through Gethsemane. IN a mother’s heart there is a love that cannot be altered and exhausted, and that will claim that abandoned sinner when he comes back. So in the Infinite bosom, and in the bosoms of all heavenly beings, there exists the same love. The spirit that sent Jesus Christ on earth ia that spirit. The purpose of Christ’s mission is to declare that spirit. That is the peculiarity of the gospel over and above everything else. Precisely where man’s faith falls and man’s hope falters is it that the gospel becomes clear and v strong. It is not the announcement of the doctrine of evil to the sinner, and good to the saint. That doctrine might stand upon any basis, even the basis of worldly morality. But it is the announcement of the doctrine of a good that will forgive the sinner, that will watch over its objects, wait upon them, and welcome them at last. That is the sublime originality, that is the practical power of the gospel. And this sympathy is a sympathy that prevails among the purest and best beings of the universe; that is the point. It is not in proportion as a man is a sinner that he sympathizes with -the sinner, but in proportion as a being is pure and unsullied is there a sympathy, not for the sin, but for the sinner, which is deep and lasting. LIFE itself suggests a higher good than life itself can yield. I SEE nowhere in nature the personal God. I see a God of law, a God of order, a God whose footsteps are marked in all the bright stars which sprinkle the heavens, whose work is seen in the characters of the long-finished ages beneath my feet, all moving orderly, calm, splendid, cold, austere. I recognize God in every grass-blade that springs up to-day, in every star that travels in glory; but it is the God of order, the God of law; a God who is as near to the butterfly that flits with embroidered wings as to you and me; a God who cares as much for the gilded wheels of Mars or Uranus as for the tribes of suffering, weak, wounded humanity. But when I come to Jesus Christ, I find a father; I find not only a God of law, but a God of love. I find not only an abstract, general God, but a personal God. I find not only a God who cares in general beneficence for the forms of outward nature, but who has a peculiar care for humanity, who looks to it as to his own image, and sees something in it to become more like him, to rise nearer and nearer to him, and wear more gloriously his likeness. I behold a Father who goes forth continually, striving to bring humanity to himself; seeking for the poor, lost sheep; searching for the lost piece of silver; yearning over each man, the poorest, the lowest, the vilest.! God’s love, God’s personal contact, God’s fatherhood, I find in Jesus Christ, and there alone! You know that the men who have uttered the subhinest strains of philosophy, who have given us the wisest codes of morals, have never stood in this position. It is Christ alone who has given us the truth of humanity and the truth of God, and who has given us an illustration of it. As it is in nature so it is in the Bible, the great truths are on the surface. They are not for scholars only. It would be preposterous, would it not, to suppose that God gave a revelation to man bearing upon his highest duty and destiny, and then made it so that only scholars and learned men could comprehend it, something we must shovel after with our dictionaries and lexicons, delving into ecclesiastical history to get at the great saving truths of the gospel? I WOULD not dare to preach if I did not have confidence in the Love that is watching over us, if I thought I was the minister of some awful power or mystery. If I thought that I must carry to dying beds and to scenes of mortal need only the great dark shadow of mystery, I could not preach. It is because I think I have to speak of infinite love, of love greater than we can fathom, broader than we can compass, more full than we can express; because I feel that there is a power back of the humble words which I speak to flow into the hearts of men and lift them up. THE best commentary upon the New Testament is the New Testament itself. The best way to understand it is to go right with your naked human heart and soul to it. Christ speaks the people’s language. He speaks not only to the people of Judea eighteen hundred years ago, but to the people of America now. And to every needy heart his language is plain and simple. While the Pharisees saw something to cavil at, and the Scribes to abuse, the common people heard him gladly, and the common heart felt him and owned him; and so spontaneous did it become at last so did their sense of the duty of recognition swell that at last it burst through all bounds, and they scattered their palms, and strewed their garments, and thundered their hosannas, in the acknowledgment of Christ’s authority and his truth. WHEN you can jam a man up against a great fact of life, and ask him, How now? what does this teach you? what does that say, man! to the deep heart within you? what does that speak to the aspiring, thirsty soul? When you can do that, there is power in preaching; and if it is only the leaf of the lily or the wing of the wild bird, it has infinite power the moment it presses home the great reality of the truth which it contains. As Christ passes before us as he rides through the ages as his glory -with every advancing year culminates in new operations of his spirit, and new demonstrations of his truth he compels from us such an acknowledgment as that which poured from the lips and waved from the palm-branches of the people on the road to Jerusalem. As he rides through the ages, a vaster throng far more vast than that which gathered around him upon the slope of the Mount of Olives gathers about him, a great multitude that no man can number: the morally blind, whose eyes have been opened; the spiritually deaf, who have been made to hear; the worse than physically dead, who have come into newness of life; tearful mourners, who have felt the greatness of his powers and the peace he has conferred; poor, crushed hearts, who have known the balm of his consolation; all who have been touched and have been blessed by Jesus Christ, swell the long retinue, and give homage and honor to his name. Wherever the church-bell rings out to-day wherever it touches the hearts of men with any suggestion or any meaning there is truly a Palm Sunday, not of outward offering, but of inward homage, just as men can appreciate the real greatness of.Christ, and know what he has clone for them, and what he has done for the World. WE do not need simply to think and feel about Christ upon the Mount of Olives, when the world lies beneath us, and the great Jerusalem of traffic, strife, and temptation, yonder. We want to honor Christ by our action down in the streets of Jerusalem, right down in the mire, toil, dust, and heat of daily traffic; in the midst of the selfish worldliness of life. We want something of that kind; not merely a swell over a congregation of the thought of his sorrows, suiferings, and agonies, that passes away like a gust of wind. We want to honor him, not as he rides in pomp, or as he is presented before us in a point of rhetorical attraction, but as he walks down in the Jerusalem of daily life. THE Christ of our youth, a personage standing mild and beautiful upon the gospel-page, a being to admire and love; how he develops to our later thought! how solemnly tender, how greatly real he becomes to us, when we cling to him in the agony of our sorrow, and he goes down to walk with us on the waters of the sea of death! DOWN below all the crust of human conceptions, of human ideas, Christ sank an artesian well into a source of happiness so pure and blessed that even yet the world does not believe in it. No such words as those of Christ have come from any other source in this world. No such words from any other creature have been wafted upon the stream of ages. There are no passages which mean so much, which open into such unfathomable depths. There are none whiclj, so expand in their nature, which so meet the most vital wants of man. There are none which shed such light upon the great problems of existence. There are none which are at once so divine and so human, presenting the exact balance of duty, and guiding the doubtful feet. There are none which, so marked with the file of the ages, keep ahead of all human achievements and ideals. There are none which are so full for the thoughtful man, and yet so fitted to the little and the ignorant. There are none which so strike upon the deep malady of sin. There are none which so enter into, and lift up, and give rest to the sad, and heavy, and weary heart. THE work of modern chivalry is the work of humanity. Not a work such as called the old chivalry to battle for the Holy Sepulchre, but a work for the help and uplifting of those for whom He who triumphed over the sepulchre died; not taking the shape of that sentiment which "groined cathedral isles," but a work for that which is more truly God’s temple, and which his spirit fills. THERE is no condition in life of which we can say exclusively "It is good for us to be here." Our course is appointed through vicissitude, our discipline is in alternations; and we can build no abiding tabernacles along the way. THE multitude had been so long used to the dry, husky, technical teachings of the Scribes and Pharisees that when they heard the Sermon on the Mount they drew a long breath, and said, "Never man spake like this man;" and no one ever did. Why? Because he saw radical truth everywhere. He took a little lily, growing in the summer light, and what a missal of divine glory it became! what a lesson of God’s goodness! He saw the bird steering its way through the air, and it became at once an illustration of Divine Providence. He took nothing but a grain of mustard-seed, and the whole kingdom of God was involved in it. Wherever he turned his eye he found central and radical truth, and struck out of it something right before the people that they could take hold of. Now, my friends, this is the power of all effective preaching. It comes home to the heart from realities. THERE is an entire magazine of working forces in that one great law, " Love thy neighbor as thyself." I HAVE no fear of the power or of the influence of the pulpit so long as it applies God’s truth boldly and freely; so long as the old prophet utterances of past ages are borne from it or breathed through it; so long as the true apostolic descent which comes from the soul’s serving God and being baptized in the spirit of Christ is represented in it. I have no fear of the power, or efficacy, or standing of the pulpit. I have no fear of the true respect that will come to the preacher so long as the people are convinced that he is loyal to his own convictions. There are tens of thousands of people now, who rather dislike that the preacher should teach his own convictions, who would dislike him ten times more if he did not do it. If they thought he was truckling and squeezing down upon the pressure of public opinion, although they might approve his actions, and call him a judicious man, they would be disgusted with him. There is no power left to the preacher the moment you think he is not uttering his real convictions. When you think he is trimming his sails, has his eye upon the public, and cares more how the people receive his doctrine than what he shall say, there is no more respect for him. Those preachers, although they may be called conservative, wise, and prudent, never will move the public heart or do God’s work. MODEST expression is a beautiful setting to the diamond of talent and genius. ON the wall of the Vatican, untarnished by the passage of three hundred years, hangs the master-piece of Raphael, - his picture of the Transfiguration. In the centre, with the glistening raiment and the altered countenance, stands the Redeemer. On the right hand and on the left are his glorified visitants; while, underneath the bright cloud, lie the forms of Peter, and James, and John, gazing at the transfigured Jesus, shading their faces as they look. Something of the rapture and the awe that attracted the apostles to that shining spot seems to have seized the soul of the great artist, and filled him with his greatest inspiration. But he saw what the apostles at that moment did not see, and in another portion of his picture has represented the scene at the foot of the hill, the group that awaited the descent of Jesus. The poor possessed boy, writhing, and foaming, and gnashing his teeth, his eyes, as some say, in their wild, rolling agony, already catching a glimpse of the glorified Christ above; the baffled disciples, the cavilling scribes, the impotent physicians, the grief-worn father, seeking in vain for help. Suppose Jesus had stayed upon the mount, what would have become of that group of want, and helplessness, and agony? Suppose Christ had remained in the brightness of that vision forever, himself only a vision of glory, and not an example of toil, and sorrow, and suffering, and death, alas! for the great world at large, waiting at the foot of the hill; the groups of humanity in all ages; the sin-possessed sufferers; the cavilling sceptics; the philosophers, with their books and instruments; the bereaved and frantic mourners in their need! So, my hearers, wrapped in the higher moods of the soul, and wishing to abide among upper glories, we may not see the work that waits for us along our daily path; without doing which all our visions are vain. We must have the visions. We need them in our estimate of the" world around us, of the aspects and^destinies of humanity. There are times when justice is balked, and truth covered up, and freedom trampled down; when we may well be tempted to ask, " What is the use of trying to work? " when we may well inquire whether what we are doing is work at all. And in such a case, or in any other, one is lifted up, and inspired, and enabled to do and to endure all things, when in steady vision he beholds the ever-living God, when all around the injustice, and conflict, and suffering of the world, he detects the Divine Presence, like a bright cloud overshadowing. ! then doubt melts away, and wrong dwindles, and the jubilee of victorious falsehood is but a peal of drunken laughter, and the spittings of guilt and contempt no more than flakes of foam flung against a hero’s breast-plate. Then one sees, as it were, with the vision of God, who looked down upon the old cycles, when a sweltering waste covered the face of the globe, and huge, reptile natures held it in dominion; who beholds the pulpy worm, down in the sea, building the pillars of continents; so one sees the principalities of evil sliding from their thrones, and the deposits of humble faithfulness rising from the deep of ages. Our sympathy, our benevolent effort in the work of God and humanity, how much do they need not only the vision of intellectual foresight, but of the faith which, on bended knees, sees further than the telescope! .WE should not quit the world to build tabernacles in the Mount of Transfiguration, but come from out the celestial brightness, to shed light into the world, to make the whole earth a cathedral; to overarch it with Christian ideals, to transfigure its gross and guilty features, and fill it with redeeming truth and love Nay, even for the Redeemer, that was not to be an abiding vision; and he illustrates the purport of life as he descends from his transfiguration to toil, and goes forward to exchange that robe of heavenly brightness for the crown of thorns. What if Jesus had remained there, upon that Mount of Vision, and himself stood before us as only a transfigured form of glory? Where, then, would be the peculiarity of his work, and its effect upon the world? PETER and his fellow-disciples were called to follow Christ not that they might see visions, but were permitted to see visions that they might follow Christ. It was well that they should see their Master glorified, that they might be strengthened to see him crucified. It was well that Moses and Elias stood at the font when they were about to be baptized into their apostleship of suffering, and labor, and helping finish the work which these glorious elders helped begin. But that great work still lay before them, and to rest here would be to stop upon the threshold; to have kept the vision would have thwarted the purpose. Upon a far higher summit, and at a far distant time with fields of toil and tracts of blood between would that which was meant as an inspiration for their souls become fixed for their sight, and tabernacles that should never perish enclose a glory that should never pass away. No father’s love, no mother’s affection for a child, is greater than God’s love for it. And if in a moment of darkness of a succession of sad crushing calamities we are disposed to doubt God’s love, if we are disposed to murmur at his dispensations, interpret him by yourself, father! mother! interpret his love by your love; and remember that you, the stream, cannot care more for that child than he, the fountain and ocean of all love. IN order to see our business in its highest relations we must get above its level. If we would make it subservient to religious ends and to tke moral law we must descend into it with superior influences The man who makes his business the noble symbol of a true life at times goes apart from it. The divine refreshment which he carries with him into the heat and burden of the day, and with which he keeps his aim elevated and his vision clear, he imbibes not in the market or the street, but from mountain-heights of thought and well-spring, of prayer. Let him show his religion in business, but let him use the means that he may find a religion to show. THAT religion has done very little work that has merely made a man feel easier, happier, and better contented in life. It ought to arous’e a man up. You know the anecdote of Louis and Massilon. After Massilon had preached rather an agitating sermon, I suppose, Louis sent for him. "Massilon," said he, "you have offended me." "That is what I wished to do, sire," said the preacher. And I would not give a centfor a minister who did not offend two-thirds of his congregation, at times, arouse them up, smash against the conscience of the bigot, and balk party prejudices, and touch the secret sin, which, if they do not confess, they still feel. IF we might adapt God’s nature at all to our poor human conceptions, we should feel that even waves of gladness must go over the infinite sea of his nature at the exercise of mercy, and that even he, in his unapproachable greatness and infinity, feels something of that joy which runs through all heaven at the exercise and exhibition of mercy. PERHAPS the most restless being in the world is the man who need to do nothing but keep still. The old soldier fights all his battles over again, and the retired merchant spreads the sails of his thought upon new ventures, or comes uneasily down to snuff the air of traffic, and feel the jar of wheels. I suppose there is nobody whose condition is so deplorable, so ghastly, as his whose lot many may be disposed to envy, a man at the top of this world’s ease, crammed to repletion with what is called " enjoyment; " ministered to by every luxury, the entire surface of his life so smooth with completeness that there is not a jut to hang a hope on, so obsequiously gratified in every specific want that he feels miserable from the very lack of wanting. I DO not know of any other church standard than this, the life of Christ the spirit of Christ. "WHO can adequately describe the triumphs of Labor? It has extorted the secrets of the universe, and trained its powers into a myriad forms of use and beauty. From the bosom of the old creation it has developed anew the creation of industry and of art. It has been its task and its glory to overcome obstacles. Mountains have been levelled and vallies exalted before it. It has broken the rocky soil into fertile glebes, it has crowned the hill-tops with fruit and verdure, and bound around the very feet of ocean ridges of golden corn. Up from sunless and hoary deeps, up from the shapeless quarry, it drags its spotless marbles, and rears its palaces of pomp. It tears the stubborn metals from the bowels of the globe, and makes them ductile to its will. It marches steadily on, over the swelling flood and through the mountain clefts. It fans its way through the winds of ocean, tramples its hoarse surges, and mingles them with flakes of fire. Civilization follows in its path. It achieves grander victories, it weaves more durable trophies, it holds wider sway than the conqueror. His name, becomes tainted, and his monuments crumble; but Labor converts his red battle-fields into gardens, and erects monuments significant of better things. It writes with the lightning. It sits crowned as a queen in a thousand cities, and sends up its roar of triumph from a million wheels. It glistens in the fabrics of the loom, it rings and sparkles from the steely hammer, it glows in shapes of beauty, it speaks in words of power, it makes the sinewy arm strong with liberty, the poor man’s heart rich with content, and crowns the swarthy and sweaty brow with honor, and dignity, and peace. CONSIDERED in its broadest sense, Labor is the chosen sphere of God himself, through which he continually manifests his attributes, and which testifies to his glory. In the great field of the universe he has wrought from the beginning until now; and beneath his instant control creation is ever at work in all its parts, and in it’s great whole, from the ducts and valves of the human frame, to the motions of the solar system, and the mazy circles of the firmament. It is the price of all attainment, the appointed medium of all true power. Men may exist and not work, but without it they lack the essential vigor of life, they exist as the sponge on the rock, or the weed by the wall. Without the braced action of the brain or the muscles, ornament covers only emptiness, and wealth encircles only feebleness; while there is no sovereignty like that which is born of resistance and achievement, there is no sceptre like the strong and cunning right hand. THE purest people are the most charitable. All noble natures are hopeful. THE Christianity of our age is not merely the Christianity of the cathedral or the cloister, but of the machineshop and the sidewalk; it sets the pulpit over against the shrine of mammon, and, as it were, upon the deck of every vessel that goes steaming out to sea. It does not favor merely a little number, in exclusive sanctity and consecrated form; it sends out its messengers into the streets and lanes, the highways and hedges, and the poor, the lame, the dumb, the blind feel the breath of sympathy, and come creeping their way into its blessed light. Earnest men are actually finding their way to the Christian faith through the working of Christian utib’ty. They discover what Christianity is out in the broad life of practical action, when that life has long since ebbed away from the shells of creeds, and left only its wavemark on the strata of tradition. A CITY is, in one respect, like a high mountain; the latter is an epitome of the physical globe; for its sides are belted by products of every zone, from the tropical luxuriance that clusters around its base to its arctic summit, far up in the sky. So is the city an epitome of the social world. All the belts of civilization intersect along its avenues. It contains the products of every moral zone. I WILL tell you where there is power: "Where the dew lies upon the hills, and the rain has moistened the roots of the various plants; where the sunshine pours steadily; where the brook runs babbling along; there is a beneficent power. THE great saints the men whose names stand highest in the calendar of the church universal are not the ascetics, not the contemplators, not the men who walked apart in cloisters; but those who came down from the Mount of Communion and Glory, to take a part in the world; who have carried its burdens in their souls, and its scars upon their breasts; who have wrought for its deepest interests, and died for its highest good; whose garments have swept its common ways, and whose voices have thrilled in its low places of suffering and of need; men who have leaned lovingly against the world, until the motion of their great hearts jars in its pulses forever; men who have gone up from dust, and blood, and crackling fire; men with faces of serene endurance and lofty selfdenial, yet of broad, genial, human sympathies; these are the men who wear starry crowns, and walk in white robes, yonder. GATETY is often the reckless ripple over depths of despair. " SWEAR curse Christ," said the proconsul to Polycarp, " and I release you." " Six-and-eighty years have I served him," replied the venerable disciple, "and he has done me nothing but good; and how could I curse him, my Lord and Savior?" His was a vision that pierced the barriers-of the grave, and saw far beyond the principalities and powers of the earth. Above the martyr’s fire hovered a glory beneath which the splendors of this world grew dim, and his dripping garments turned to coronation robes. The dreadful amphitheatre swam away from before his sight, the ranged spectators faded, the pinnacles of the celestial city gleamed upon him; and he saw the angels casting down their crowns; he saw martyred Stephen with his beatific face, and the long line of prophets, who before him had gone up from the ordeal of blood; and amidst the taunts and the accusations, and before the open jaws of death, he was able to " rejoice," yea, to "be exceeding glad." Do you want proof of immortality? If you do not feel it; if your heart and consciousness do not tell you of it; if some great fact of life has not brought it to you, some great loss the open grave of some friend, or the consciousness of some limitation against which you chafe and beat, if that does not bring immortality home to you you will never be convinced of it. CHRISTIANITY is not a religion of details. It is not a religion of codes, precepts, maxims. It is a religion of great principles, all imbued with the self-sacrificing life of Christ Jesus. Away with your nonsensical sophistries, ’that Christianity did not meddle with the social institutions of its time, that it did not meddle with the wrongs of its time. It meddled with them just as the acorn meddles with the barren soil when it sends up the oak; just as the seed meddles with the superincumbent earth, as it quickens slowly and surely and sends up its harvest. No; Christ said nothing against the priests and doctors of the law. He did not challenge their authority. But, by and by, somehow, men who took from the life of Christ stood up before the priests and magistrates, and said, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge ye. Though Christ did not say a word about democracy; though Christ did not speak against Caesar, but says, Render ’ unto Caesar the thing^s that are Caesar’s; though he did not challenge the right of kings, yet somehow kings’ crowns have grown dim ever since Christianity came into the world. I have no doubt there were many tons of Christianity in the hull of the Mayflower, and its text was written large in the Declaration of Independence. Christ said nothing; but every text he uttered was a grain of gunpowder, to crack, and shatter, and establish the life; because it is life and not death; it is spiritual in form; and it works its way, slowly but surely accomplishing its ends. THE baffled hopes of our mortal state, what are they but vain strivings of the human soul, out of the path of its highest good? The wandering bird, driven against the branches, and beaten by the storm, flutters at last to the clear opening by which it mounts above the cloud, and finds its way to its home. This life is not ordained in vain; it is constituted for a grand purpose, if through its lessons of experience we become convinced that this life is not all. IF we look upon the future state merely for its outside garments of white, and its crowns of gold, its privilege of running from star to star, and being here and there, we degrade our conception of it. If we think of it as a nobler state of soul, a rising spirit, an inlet of moral light, of moral power, then we get the grandeur of the future state; for that is its essential element. Come crowns of glory, if God gives them, raiments of white, and grand palm-branches. I know not what the scenery of that state may be; but I know that the most blessed element of that state is a spirit like the spirit of Jesus Christ, who lived and died that we might live. WHATEVER is inevitable is beneficent. Whatever lies in the constitution of nature or the order of Providence, and not in the scope of human agency, we may believe is essentially wise and good. The law of growth and decay, in its comprehensive operation, unfolds.a benevolent design. The autumn-phase of nature is but. one form of an ever-streaming life, a preliminary of reproduction; and the falling leaf is not only a herald of winter, but a prophecy of spring. When we look at it aright we detect the same good power, the same beneficent agency at work, stripping the branches of the forest and blighting the grass, as that which scatters enamelled glories through the meadow, and unlocks the babbling brook. And though here the operation of this law comes more plainly into the scope of our vision, and more rapidly unfolds its intent, we see the benefit of its working even in wider circles and in grander forms. The earth on which we dwell holds a record of the same great law. Here, in these "sunless deeps," have been changes inconceivably vast, wrought out with flood and flame. Here lie effigies of being long since passed away; the medallions of successive dynasties set in solid stone. And as with the falling leaf, so with vanishing epochs, each buried form has been the seed of a higher life, each changing state the preliminary of nobler conditions. So with nations, with empires, the elements of human progress, the Providential ends of history, have~been served in their decline and fall, no less than in their rise. A richer growth of civilization has sprung up in their ruins, and their perished forms have made room for ampler institutions to embody nobler ideas. And no doubt in whatever shape we trace this process, could we detect its profoundest purposes, and grasp all its relations, we should still discover beneficence and beauty. The mere light of nature shows such glimpses, even in that stern fact which troubles us so much even in death. It is not without its natural explanations and comforts. When it comes in what appears its due season it seals up worn-out powers, and gives release from decrepitude and pain. The old man is as a withered leaf, and death gently removes a fixed incapacity, a worn-out usefulness, in which the juices of life are all stagnant, or mixed, it may be, with unfit prejudices, and gives room for the vigor, the new thought, the fresh and more timely action of another generation. And sweet and kindly are all the appliances of nature, kindly the film that gathers over the failing eyes, the touch that softly stops the weary heart; sweet the clods into which moulders the mortal dust, the sky that bends over it, the flowers that deck, the dews that consecrate it, as it mixes with the larger elements, and, may be, " turns to daisies in the grave." THE public sense is in advance of private practice. I WILL tell you -what to me is one of the strongest proofs of an immortal life. It is a true, good, blessed life, in this world. I see a man, a woman, a child, or a friend living a life of purity, of love, of holiness, aspiring continually to something higher and better, putting aside every weight of evil, overcoming temptation, rising above guilty passion, becoming pure and refined; and in such a person immortality becomes to me an assurance. Now, of all beings Jesus Christ stands before me as the emblem of purity of such excellence that immortality becomes to me a possibility and an assurance. And thus, in the personal resurrection of Jesus Christ, we get a strength of conviction that we could not derive from abstract reasonings. That is the value of historical Christianity. That is the value of a personal Jesus. NOTHING is more grand than man’s relation to spiritual beings, than the fact that the universe is filled up with blessed intelligences. I do not need to see them, or hear them, to be convinced of this fact. I know by surer sight than the eye, by more certain hearing than the ear, that they exist: I know it by my vital consciousness of a God and of a heaven. And Christianity interprets that fact. It shows man, poor, wretched, vile as he may be, linked with these innumerable relations. WHATEVER in the system of things is inevitable is beneficent. The dissolution of these bonds comes by the same law as that which ordains them; and we may be sure that the one, though it plays out of sight, and is swallowed up in mystery, is as wise and tender in its purpose as the other. It is very consoling to recognize the hand that gave in the hand that takes a friend, and to know that he is borne away in the bosom of Infinite Gentleness, as he was brought here. It is the privilege of angels, and of a faith that brings us near the angels, to always behold the face of our Father in Heaven; and so we shall not desire the abrogation of this law of dissolution and separation For who is prepared at any time to say that it was not better for the dear friend, and better for ourselves, that he should go, rather than stay; better for the infant to die with flowers upon its breast than to live and have thorns in his heart; better to kiss the innocent lips that are still and cold than to see the living lips that are scorched with guilty passion; better to take our last look of a face while it is pleasant to remember serene with thought, and faith, and many charities than to see it toss in prolonged agony, and grow hideous with the wreck of intellect? And as spiritual beings, placed here not to be gratified, but to be trained, surely we know that often it is the drawing up of these earthlyties that draws up our souls; that a great bereavement breaks the crust of our mere animal consciousness, and inaugurates a spiritual faith; and we are baptized into eternal life through the cloud and the shadow of death. WHAT do the grand capacities of our nature, always hungering and thirsting, and never satisfied,.signify? What does this conviction of man, that burns like a lamp in the darkness of the shadow -of death, and will not hear of such a fact as annihilation, signify? What does all that achievement of the human races, of ever higher attainment, its constant development of a higher ideal, signify? Such a mind as that just gone out in Europe,* casting a light upon so many other minds; who has kindled within us some of tfcfe grandest intellectual conceptions; who has written books which, however false in detail, yet, as a presentation of English history, as bringing before us, in the grand gallery of the past, the noble, wise, and beautiful forms, will live as long as the English tongue lives; what means a mind like that, soaring up out of time and sense, in the midst of a glorious work all unfinished, and standing, like some of those old cathedrals, with half the towers down; what means all this aspiring, unfinished capacity, if the tradition of scepticism is true? * Lord Macaulay. A GREAT peculiarity of the Christian religion is its transforming or transmuting power. I speak not now of the regeneration which it accomplishes in the individual soul, but of the change which it works upon things without. It applies the touchstone to every fact of existence, and exposes its real value. Looking through the lens of spiritual observation, it throws the realities of lifo into a reverse perspective from that which is seen by the sensual eye. Objects which the world calls great it renders insignificant, and makes near and prominent things which the frivolous put far off. Thus the Christian, among other men, often appears anomalous. Often, amidst the congratulations of the world, he detects reasons for mourning and is penetrated with sorrow. On the contrary, where others shrink he walks undaunted, and converts the scene of dread and suffering into an antechamber of heaven Jesus himself weeps amid triumphant palms and sounding hosannas, while on the cross he utters the prayer of forgiveness and the ejaculation of peace. No wonder, then, that the believer views the ghasthest fact of all in a consoling and even a beautiful aspect, and death itself becomes but sleep. Well was that trait of our religion which I have now suggested illustrated at the bed-side of Jairus’ daughter. Well did that noisy, lamenting group represent the worldly -who read only the material fact, or that flippant scepticism which laughs all supernatural truth to scorn. And well did Jesus represent the spirit of his doctrine and its transforming powei when he exclaimed, " She is not dead, but sleepeth." Yes, beautifully has Christianity transformed death To the eye of flesh it was the final direction of our fate, the consummate riddle in this mystery of being, tho wreck of all our hopes, " The simple senses crowned his head; Omega! thou art Lord, they said; We find no motion in the dead." Ever, though with higher desires and better gleamings, the mind has struggled and sunk before this fact of decay, and this awful silence of nature; while in the waning light of the soul, and among the ashes of the sepulchre, scepticism has built its dreary negation. And though no mother could lay down her child without taking hints which God gave her from every little flower that sprung on that grassy bed, though the inexhausted intellect has reasoned that we ought to live again, and the affections, more oracular, swelling with the nature of their great source, have prophesied that we shall, never, until the revelation of Christ descended into our souls, and illuminated all our spiritual vision, have we been able to say certainly of death, it is a sleep. This has made its outward semblance not that of cessation, but of progression, not an end, but a change; converting its rocky couch to a birth-chamber, over-casting its shadows with beams of eternal morning, while behind its cold unconsciousness the unseen spirit broods into higher life. I AM just as sure of spiritual things through the faculties of m y soul, as interpreted by. Christianity, as ever Newton or Humboldt were sure of material things through the faculties of the brain and senses, interpreted by science. Scepticism stands on no basis at all, only as it stands on that of the senses, and they themselves are verified in their last result by consciousness alone. EVERYTHING around us shows a plan and a purpose; outward nature is orderly and harmonious, moves steadily to certain ends; and we cannot suppose that humanity, and all the spiritual relations with which humanity is involved, that this is any more disorderly; we cannot suppose that in any department of God’s working there is an aimlessness of purpose, of end, of plan; and if not in the material world, much less in the moral world and the realm of human action. INDUCTION is simply confidence in the integrity of nature. THOUGH many powerful appeals, many solid arguments, cannot break our affections from this earth, the hand of a departed child can do it. The voice that calls us to unseen realities, that bids us prepare for the heavenly land, that says from heights of spiritual bliss and purity, " Come up hither," that voice is the voice that we loved so on earth, end gladly can we rise and follow it. Behold, then, what a little child can perform for us, through its death! It makes real and attractive to us that spiritual world to which it has gone, and it calls our affections from earth to that true life which is the great end of our being, which is the object of all our discipline, our mingled joy and suffering here upon earth. That little child, gone from its sufferings so early, gone, " Gentle and undefiled, with blessings on its head," - has it indeed become a very angel of God for us, and is it calling us to a more spiritual life, and does it win us to heaven Then shall we behold already the wisdom and benevolence of our Father breaking through the cloud that overshadows us. Already shall we see that the tie, which seemed to be dropped and broken, God has taken up to draw us closer to him, and that it is interwoven with his all-gracious plan for our spiritual profit and perfection. And we can anticipate how it will all be reconciled, when his own hand shall wipe off our tears, and the bliss of reunion shall extract the last drop of bitterness from " the cup that our Father hath given us." THE grand sweep of science, in this day, is all pressing toward the conviction that there is one central plan at the heart and core of the universe; and it is beautiful, out of these diverse operations in the various fields of human thought, to see the unity toward which men are tending. Take that one idea of typical forms, that a whole class of animals is constructed upon a single plan, so that you find in the paddles of the whale, the long fingers of the bat, and the hoof of the horse exactly the same bones and outhnes that you find in the arm of a developed man; showing that God has worked upon a great plan, and a beautiful proof not only of the unity but of the existence of God; for what complicated means man has to use to attain his ends, even in his highest mechanical achievements, while God takes one simple plan, and behold the diversified results that come out of that simplicity! IT is a mistake to consider marriage merely as a scheme of happiness. It is also a bond of service. It is the most ancient form of that social ministration which God has ordained for all human beings, and which is symbolized by all the relations of nature. You cannot put your hand on a plant or a stone, or upon anything, and say this is an end in itself. It is serving some other end. It is a great conduit in God’s processes. It is a medium through which God works. Dig down into the bowels of the earth, and there are instrumentalities which have done their work, which have served to bring about the present result. So everything now is a process, helping God’s work onward, an agent, an instrumentality, tending to some result we do not yet see. OUT of our joy and our acknowledged good the Supreme Disposer works his spiritual ends. But especially how often does he do this out of our trials, and sorrows, and so-called evils! Life is God’s plan; not ours. For often on the ruins of visionary hope rises the kingdom of our substantial possession and our true peace; and under the shadow of earthly disappointment, all unconsciously to ourselves, our Divine Redeemer is walking by our side. ELOQUENCE is a kindling process, and it is always difficult for a speaker to make an impression upon an audience who feel more than he does. "When the locomotive is fired up, and snorting for a start, it is useless to attempt to pump more steam into the boiler from a tea-kettle. THE greatest successes grow out of great failures. In numerous instances the result is better that comes after a series of abortive experiences than it would have been if it had come at once; for all these successive failures induce a skill which is so much additional power working into the final achievement The hand that evokes such perfect music from the instrument has often failed in its touch, and bungled among the keys Every disappointed effort fences in and indicates the only possible path of success, and makes it easier to find. We should thank past ages and other men, not only for what they have left us of great things done, but for the heritage of their failures. Every baffled effort for freedom contributes skill for the next attempt, and ensures the day of victory Disappointment is the school of achievement, and the balked efforts are the very agents that help us to our purpose. THE Apostle’s injunction, " Let no man think of himself more highly than he ought to think," implies that there is a certain lawful limit of self-esteem. In short, humility really contrasts with no great and good thing; only with a folly which is as transient as it is giddy; with a pride which forgets the Almighty; and with that liquid self-satisfaction which, in a universe of unlimited progress and possibility, affronts both God and man. THE sheep are not always led through green pastures. The path is sometimes bestrewn with craggy rocks; sometimes over precipices. Sometimes the storm hangs dark, the whirlwinds blow, the hail cuts, and the lightnings flash. But keep near to the Shepherd, keep on upward through the darkness. The storm will pass away, the rugged path will end, and the Lord who is our shepherd will lead us at last into the green pastures and beside the still waters. TKIBULATION does not come in as something that walks upon us " like a thief in the night." It is part of God’s plan. Nobody can read this universe in its comprehensiveness, or take up life in all its parts, without believing that trial of some kind is a part of the plan of God in the ordering of our lives. THAT shock * rent the surrounding air, and scattered death through that terror-smitten group, and startled a nation. But it did not rend the serene vault of heaven, nor shake the planets from their courses. Even thus around all forms of evil lie infinite depths of love, and infallible wisdom weaves the vast cycle of destiny. * The explosion on the steamer Princeton, 1844. AMID surrounding gloom and -waste, From nature’s face we flee; And in our fear and wonder haste nature’s Life! to thee. Thy ways are in the mighty deep; In tempests as they blow; In floods that o’er our treasures sweep; The lightning, and the snow. o Though earth upon its axis reels/ And heaven is veiled in wrath, Not one of nature’s million wheels Breaks its appointed path. Fixed in thy grasp, the sources meet Of beauty and of awe; In storm and calm all pulses beat True to the central law. Thou art that law, whose will thus done In seeming wreck and blight, Sends the calm planets round the sun, And pours the moon’s soft light. "We trust thy love; thou best dost know The universal peace; How long the stormy force should blow, And when the flood should cease. And though around our path some form Of mystery ever lies, And life is like the calm and storm That checker earth and skies, Through all its mingling joy and dread, Permit us, Holy One, By faith to see the golden thread Of thy great purpose run. IT would be a sad thing if, when we had arrived at the conclusion that the universe works by law, we should stop there. Law is a very bleak thing to us. Law has a very disconsolate relation to us. But what does law imply? A purpose; a lawgiver. And when by a law of this life calamity comes upon you, think that there is a Lawgiver above the law. Whatever may be to you a problem and a dilemma, there is One solving it out, and the very perplexity in the case is, that your eyesight is narrow, that you cannot see all God’s plans. LET every man be free to act from his own conscience; but let him remember that other people have consciences too; and let not his liberty be so expansive that in its indulgence it jars and crashes against the liberty of others. 0, SUBLIME, glorious faith for faltering, disappointed man to fall back upon! that Almighty God sits at the helm of the universe, and steers the mighty ship through all ages; that his will is sure to be done; that the ordinance that has gone from his mouth will not be balked; that Before the brightness of his glory all darkness will pass away that before the infinitude of his love and goodness all evil will come to an end, and in due time he will regulate the earth to his purpose, and gather together in one all things in Christ Jesus. Do we feel that we are unworthy because we are totally depraved, because there is no good in us? I don’t know why a man should feel bad about that. He can’t help himself any more than an insect can imprisoned in a stone. WHEN we undertake to embark in a great work it will not do to depend upon ourselves alone; we must feel that we are placed at our post but for a day, and that there is One who steers the ship, who guides the event, and will bring it out all right, though we may not behold it in our day or generation. Our duty is to be diligent at our post, but to trust to One who is over and above us, and who will accomplish his purpose in his own good time. To say that because of wild fanaticisms and absurdities the whole mechanism of religion is all superstition would be to say that the white mist at Niagara indicates only a mist, instead of bearing witness to the awful depth of the torrent-sweeps that are below. So out of the soul of man comes the mists of superstition; but, instead of proving that the whole is superstition, they prove the awful depth, the legitimate flow of the great God-given, God-kindled love that is in the heart of man. WE have not the innocence of Eden; but by God’a help and Christ’s example we may have the victory of Gethsemane. ON the burnt wall of one of those churches,* beaming distinct and clear through all their defacement and delapidation, stand these words: "THE LORD SEETH." It is a great truth which through all the convulsions of time and the revolutions of men has blazed athwart the everlasting heavens. It is a truth not only to rebuke but to encourage us with the thought that the great Overruler is merciful, weaving often his beneficent schemes under clouds of blackness and storm. * After the riot in Philadelphia, 1814. You never can upset religion. It is one of the grand, prominent faculties of human nature. That is demonstrated. It is one of the most foolish acts of folly in the world to talk of religion as some superstition that is going to pass away in time, and of a period that will arrive when all men shall depend merely on their brains for what human nature wants; and when all religion will be looked upon just as strangely, and with just as much ridicule, as we now look back upon the most groveling superstitions of the world But man’s everlasting, deep experience contradicts all that; for there are times when, out of something that is more profound and more radical than reason or intelligence, breaks forth the deep, earnest prayer, "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I! " IF there are sounds that we do not understand, sights that we cannot explain, how do we know that those sounds come from any superior spheres, or that those sights are spirit presentations? It is a mere adjudication and verdict of the senses. Man has something within him deeper than the senses, which demands in a revelation something that authenticates itself to that deeper faculty within him; and therefore strange sounds and sights would not bo a satisfactory form or process of revelation. THE glory of Christianity is not merely the lifting up of those who are low to that which is high, but the coming down of that which is high to that which is low; strength ministering to weakness, purity to impurity, holiness to sin, God to man. That is the great peculiarity of Christianity, the revelation of the condescension of God. Mercy; that is the gospel; the whole of it in one word. There are great truths gloriously beaming around the horizon of that revelation forever; mighty sanctions are there to i’nspire us and to lift us up; but the essence of the gospel ’is its mercy. It is a revelation of exhaustless love and power unto man; the brightest light in the darkest spot; the greatest condescension in the lowest estate; the holiest brought to the basest; the all-pure to the deeply sinful. How many look upon a Presbyterian, to-day, as a man who is all blue-fire and bitterness, and who looks upon the world and humanity at large just as Jonathan Edwards did! And on the other hand, how many people think that a Universalist believes that, " Live any way you please, you’ll land in glory the moment you die"! Now, is it not a shame indeed that one should not know better what the other believes? MERCY is the essence of all love. The mother of the little child at first feels strange instincts in her heart. Her love has taken no form other than that of mercy to a little helpless being cast upon the heaving billows of her own bosom. If you find a family where there is a poor, little, weak child, it is beloved more than all the rest. If you want to love your fellow-men have mercy on them. When even an enemy comes before you, and all power to hurt you is gone, you can forgive and love him. And so I suppose we may say that the love of God for poor, weak man is mercy for him. Guilty, sinful, degraded as he is, the infinite mercy throbs for him. Loving mercy is the spring of all right feeling, as doing justly is of all right being. SLING a lexicon and the Bible at the head of every Universalist and Unitarian you find, if you choose. But how dare you break open the sanctity of his heart? How dare you judge his soul, and say that because you think there is a veil between his reason and his right judgment, therefore God has no access to his heart, and he has never been baptized with the spirit of Jesus Christ? Is not this saying, " Because I am right in opinion, Universalist and Unitarian ft I am better than you. You are a poor, miserable, and morally depraved being, because you are intellectually wrong"? I DON’T ask a man to fellowship my opinions, nor to fellowship me personally. Perhaps such a fellowship would be as disagreeable to me as to him. I might find it as inconvenient and as unpleasant to be associated with him as with a lump of burning sulphur or a lump of ice. But no man has the right to disfellowship me or any other man from Christ Jesus our Lord, because of what he deems to be a falsity in my intellectual conceptions of Christ, imperfections in my verbal statements of Christ. There is no man, from the Pope down to the humblest Christian, that can make that assumption for any man that walks upon the face of the earth. OSTENTATION is the signal-flag of hypocrisy. The charlatan is verbose and assumptive; the Pharisee is ostentatious, because he is a hypocrite. Pride is the master-sin of the devil; and the devil is the father of lies. THERE is the large-souled brother, who preaches in Brooklyn, and who will permit every honest man to call him brother, however much he may differ in opinion from him; why, his great heart, at every pulsation, leaps sixty degrees beyond the logical Kmits of his creed. " The voice is Jacob’s voice," " though the hands are the hands of Esau." THE larger the nature the larger the love. Little, mean natures are uncharitable natures The man that always has a hopeless, sarcastic sneer for his fellowmen, who is in perpetual fear that he will be cheated by them; look out for that man. But the man that hopes or trusts, though none sees the evil more keenly than he; the man who sees something brighter than the sin, who sees the light shining around all; that man has a noble nature, a larger and more persistent love. THERE is less misery in being cheated than in that kind of wisdom which perceives, or thinks it perceives, that all mankind are cheats. THAT son of infamy is still a man, though his manhood is crushed and disfigured; he is still the offspring of God, not unwatched by him, not outside the circle of his help. Why, then, should you and I cast him off, and stand aloof? Daughter of shame! representative of discrowned womanhood! as that pure and pitying heaven stretching over thy alien head does mercy regard thee, with sorrow, yet with trust, as one in whom the sanctities of thy nature have not all perished; as one for whom, through the blackness and the fire, and through penitent tears, there is yet redemption. HUMANITY is so constituted that the basest criminal represents you and me, as well as the most glorious saint that walks on high. We are reflected in all other men; all other men are embodied in us. " WE have known and believed the love that God hag to us." What is it we know and believe? A fact that is unalterable; not a theological conclusion which would make God love for the saints, and not for all. Right or wrong, saint or sinner, here it stands, that God is love. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God so loved what? So loved the Jews? So loved the peculiar Christian? So loved this man or that? No; " God so loved the world." Hear it, narrow theologians, with your cramped notions of God Almighty’s grace: God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to die for us. The primary fact is love, and it is beyond all human recognition or acceptance of that love. HUMILITY is not a weak and timid quality. It must be carefully distinguished from a groveling spirit. There is such a thing as an honest pride and self-respect. We should think something of our humanity, and not cast it under men’s feet. Though we may be servants of all, we should be servile to none. CHRISTIANITY was a revelation, not a revolution. Christ came to show us what eternally was; not to make an alteration in God’s economy. He came to show us an eternal fact, which man did not comprehend; not to alter the nature of God’s government, or the aspect of God toward man God loves man, and loved him from the foundation of the world; and out of the springs of this love came forth all the phenomena of Christianity, and all the vehicles of his grace. WHAT is that announcement of love which shines in the gospel?! it is the expression of God’s love for the sinful, his care for the cast-a-way, his reaching out for the far-off, his pleading with the obdurate, his calling the prodigal to come to his arms. It is the proclamation of God’s sympathy with all that is human, his care and love for it, his searching for it through Christ Jesus, like the shepherd for his lost sheep, or the woman for the lost piece of silver; it is the consorting of Christ with the poor and depraved outcast, while he turned away from the formal, and self-righteous, and respectable, his going among those that were far away from the right and the truth; it is this which makes the peculiarity of the gospel. It is this which is its divine power. It is all confirmed and all explained in the Apostle’s declaration that God is love. MAN! when that Christian truth blazes in upon your mind, through the mists of the darkness of your sin, in the blind groping in your own evil -ways; when the love of God streams in upon you Irke the light of the morning; when your whole soul wakes up to it, and you surrender to that love, and know it, and by it are regenerated and brought into new relations to God; that is religious life. They may cram a creed upon you; they may try to bind you up in ceremonies and ligatures, to lead you to the true church. That consecrated cord binds you to the great living heart of God, and makes it vital to you. That is the passport to heaven, and the essence of religion. IT is the privilege of true souls to believe and know the love God has to them. It is the sadness of sinful, guilty souls that they do not know and do not believe the love God has to them. So long as you are conscious enough of evil propensities, of bad passions, to think of them even as an antagonist, so long as they loom up here and there, suggesting evil, so long have they some sort of victory over you. But when you rise into the pure impulse of moral affection, which sets you to gravitating and sweeping toward the right, evil has lost all power over you. WHO but woman when Judas^ betrayed, and Peter denied, and the weary slept, and the fearful fled could summon energy to linger around the cruel and despised spot, to mingle the tears of pity with the blood of suffering. Who but woman, when man turned coward, and his trust grew faint, could stand until the last by the dying Savior, and then go to trim the lamp of her devotion at the door of his sepulchre? IF we are not sure of God’s love we are sure of nothing. If this is not the central truth in God’s universe we know nothing of God or the immense realities which surround us. If this is not true, welcome any theory, any creed, any form of faith. But if it is true all things fall into their proper order, and nature has its interpretation, which we are encouraged to pursue to the utmost limits. History has its explanation; and in the darkest crisis, when the hearts of men fail for fear, when nationalities crack, when conflicts arise, when the earth rends and the heavens darken, we have no fear of him who sends over all the arching bow of promise, and guides the nations in the working of his unfailing love. THERE is often a way of warring with the wrong which is as unconsecrated and as bad as the wrong itself. CHRIST demands something more than public and formal honors. To-day he will be honored in I know not how many churches. There is a grandeur in the old Roman Catholic service that, when you take the mere poetry of it, heaves a man up almost above this world. And to-day, all round the globe, from the white-crowned Andes to the hot plains of Africa, millions and millions will be chanting the same great theme, and in spirit, as it were, casting palm-branches before Christ. There will be a great acknowledgment of his name and his dignity; but how much of him, after all, in the heart, how much real life-surrender and loyal service? He does not want merely public and formal honors, such as come from the rituals of churches, a traditional and ceremonial acknowledgment, but that of the heart. EVERY man has at least this gift, this one charge to keep: his own soul to take care of and look after. High or low, rich or poor, God endows him with that.! no coronet that in his providence he sets upon the brow of a king; no weapon that in the course of events is put into the hands of a conqueror; no gift of eloquence, or poetry, or philosophy, or science that moves the world, is to you so great, and in God’s sight so essential and so important, as your own soul, with its immortal destinies, with its limitless capacities, with its deathless affections. MEN show their respect for the Bible by bringing it into courts of justice, making a statute-book of it, and reading it before judge and jury. Why don’t you make it the oracle that will prevent such acts as lead to courts of justice? Why don’t you cherish it in the private sanctuary of the soul, adulterer and murderer! man in the evil hour of temptation! Why don’t you read it, and make it an oracle there? ALL the distinctions that are thrust upon you do not prove that you are living as a true man. They may prove quite the contrary. TERRIBLE is the electric force which thunders through space and blasts all opposition; but stronger still is that affectionate magnetism that unseen heart of nature whose pulses mix with all things, and that draws all things into beautiful obedience to its law. It is an overwhelming energy with which a comet sweeps along its track; but it is not so great as that which holds the planets to their centre, and binds them in glittering harmony forever. And this is the ultimate power, the power of being, rather than of doing. A majestic repose, a silent strength, is the highest mood of nature. IT seems to be thought that the essential quality which constitutes a Christian is a kind of phantom excellence, which keeps in the back-ground of life, or glides timidly among its realities; and that if a man is going to grapple with this tough, old, dusty world, and hammer his way through it, and get anything out of it, he must do it by dint of the earth-spirit that is in him. This is all a mistake. On the contrary, the fibres of all real manliness are in Christian discipline; and a good deal which passes for power in the world this blustering, passionate energy is essentially weakness There is always a greater mastery evinced in the control than in the exercise of power Chaos is a condition of unrestrained forces; order is a condition of forces held in obedience to law. And so it is with that world which every man carries within himself, his moral or spiritual nature. Tho angry man may evince more energy than he who keeps calm in the heat of provocation; but evidently the latter, who gives not way to passion who controls it is the man of most power. Again, we may call that man a masterspirit of his age who rides on the ^ whirlwind of popular sentiment, and even directs it; but he is stronger who resists the spirit of his time; who stands up and steadily bears against it; and who, firm in his conviction of principle, cannot be carried away by all the tides of faction. The one merely yields to pressing facilities; the other has to exert moral nerve and resist them. Indeed, all vehemence and impetuosity is a quality of crudeness, and a sign of imperfection. It belongs to anarchy rather than authority; to declamation instead of argument. As illustrated in individual life, it pertains to the period of the passions, and to the lower development of character. Boisterous activity is the fitting expression of childhood; the demand of predominating and unfolding nature; and the control of sensual impressions is evident in hot energy and emphatic gesticulation. But. the strength of true manhood, when deep springs of experience have opened within, when wisdom has bound its cincture about the forehead, and when the soul has the clear vision of faith and prayer, is indicated by a majestic repose. This is the idea of power expressed in the highest art, not the awful front of Jupiter, nor the exuberance of Apollo, nor in any salient virtue even; but the calm rapture of the martyr looking upward from the fire; the face of Jesus crowned with thorns. And when one has reached that degree of spiritual attainment in which appetite is chained and passion controlled; when love, which is the highest attribute, the very essence of God, has become transfused through one’s being, so that he can forbear, and forgive, yea, even pray for an enemy; when his vision has become so steady and clear as to God’s workings and his providence that he can meet all the stings and sorrows of life with submission, and overcome them with trust, it is only through labor, through long conflict and great spiritual energy; and there is no higher manifestation of human power. I DO riot want any of that kind of respect for the clergyman that Avill check a man from swearing in his presence: " Ah, I beg pardon; I see there is a minister present." Never beg my pardon for swearing. If you don’t care about offending God you need not trouble yourself about offending me. 0, this miserable, mean kind of respect that is felt for the mere formalities and decencies of religion, when Jesus Christ is turned out of doors! THOSE who have moved the world’s heart, and changed the aspects of humanity the apostles of truth and of love have acted strenuously; yet their real life was not in action, but endurance. They learned to overcome themselves, to endure as well as to hope all things; and thus were enabled to act powerfully upon others. Within themselves they nourished the still seeds of thought in the eunshine of reason and with the dew of prayer. Is there anything so wretched to look at as a man of fine abilities doing nothing? MEN differ in strength and capacity of heart; so that some men are distinguished by the fact that in all calamities, in all trials, they gather out of their hearts the resources of a new and better life It is just like a perpetual spring within them. If one form of contemplated good perishes, if one hope drops away, if one resource fails, down they go, down into their hearts again, and call up something else. A great, strong heart is never overcome. It finds its own resources, and falls back into its own possibilities. It is sad to find a man who says " I have no heart;" to see a forlorn creature who says "I have no power to struggle any more." But as long as there is no blight or taint the power, the possibility of the man. is left. There was our gifted historian,* who died so suddenly the other day. See how that physical calamity which occurred to him in his early years would have affected some men. They would have crouched literally by the way-side of life; and even if they had had that man’s powers they would have made their calamity an excuse for a life of idleness and waste. How was it with him? He fell back into his own great and noble heart, and out of it he brought up new life, which became to him a strength and power that perhaps he never would have exhibited had not that misfortune happened to him. But for that he might have been a scholar, or, much worse, a * Prescott. politician; but the twilight of almost total blindness having fallen on him, he called up those powers and concentrated them upon the great work of history; and when building up this historical structure just as an architect builds up a great cathedral, like that at Cologne, standing forth majestic and glorious he profited by the very calamity that excluded him. from other pursuits and aims. Yea, and with a still nobler spirit, when others lamented his calamity, and sought to condole with him in his misfortune, he sang songs in the night, and spoke noble words of cheer and encouragement. Now, I say it was not out of the intellect, but out of a noble and faithful heart streamed forth that beautiful life which made this man one of the stars in the constellation of our literature. THE soul possessed with endurance appears as we have seen the moon on a gusty night, gliding amidst rack and shadow, yet brightening the clouds through which it passes; and ever and anon sailing upward, with a calm sorrow on its face, into clear spaces of the sky. THE great power of the gospel to me is its immediate application to my wants, to my soul’s life, to my best desires, to my immortal prospects. That is the everlasting verification of it to me. THESE restless wheels of nature this toil and travail of humanity have an end beyond themselves. Were the working of things fitful and uncertain we might infer otherwise. But this vast machinery of change, bound about with eternal unchangeableness, this incessant moving to and fro, this steady swing of order, now and always, indicates design; reveals a power and a plan, by which and for which it moves Surely, all this movement this regular working is not aimless. The sun climbing and descending his daily path, the wind sailing in its circuit, the waters drawn up into the atmosphere and poured back into the sea, these valves and arteries of force do not confirm a dreary scepticism, but they suggest faith in the spiritual energy which moves them, and in the moral ends for which they move. If we would but clear our eyes, and gaze with fresh vision up into the night, this very routine of obedient, silent nature this incessant roll of worlds itself would suggest a high destiny, a great object in life, something far beyond the indulgence of the flesh or the limits of the grave. IT is better to sell to the intemperate than to the sober, to the degraded than to the respectable, for the same reason that it is better to burn up an old hulk than to set fire to a new and splendid ship. WHAT should we do in times of civil discord and political corruption, in hours when truth is shamed, when righteousness is balked, and rampant and violent wrong stalks in our midst, if we did not believe that the kingdom of God is yet to come through all changes and over all opposition? As sure as there is a God, it is to come. It is to manifest itself in a sweeter love, in a broader truth, and in a more radical righteousness. THERE is not a result in science which does not rest upon faith. There is not a trophy in the material w r orld, without faith in the New Testament sense confidence back of it Here are the ships which breast the ocean’s foam, and toss the Atlantic into diamonds of spray, freighted with commerce; and this is practical. It is not searching into an old, musty theology for visionary views. It is practical. Very well; what does it rest upon? Confidence, trust. If you do not trust the man yonder at the end of the world in China or Japan snap goes the thread of commerce. If you do not trust your neighbor in Broadway or Wall-street, away goes your intercommunication. If you believe every man you meet to be cheating you, what kind of a social life should you have? Everything rests upon faith the same as in tho New Testament confidence. SORROW itself suggests something better. Common experience will testify that affliction does not fall upon us as a final blow; not as an end but as an agent; oping for us new springs of consciousness and of power. Life assumed a greater meaning for yonder mother her soul became a more eloquent interpreter when that babe first rested in her arms, and reflected indefinable love and wonder into her eyes. But still more grand became the meaning of existence still more emphatic the oracle of her soul when that innocence and beauty were taken from her sight. For then she felt the deathlessness of affection; then she became assured of immortality. And for how many does sorrow break up the surface /of life, like a strong plough-share, and lay open those depths which are hidden by the calmness of prosperity!... Through its ministry there comes a profounder vision, more solemn but nobler thoughts, and the blossoming of better hopes. The exposure of finite weakness lets in the concption of the infinite. The sense of dependence leads us to God. In fact, the touch of affliction awakens a feeling of the supernatural. In its presence frivolity grows still, and the worst men think of prayer. IN this world the disposition to do things is of more consequence than the mere power. IF we give to this life of ours only a material interpretation, such an interpretation as thousands practically do give, then the entire mechanism of things.is an inexplicable monotony. IF we estimate things by a spiritual standard a man’s earthly being may contain more than all the cycles of the material world. From the best point of view, life is not merely a term of years and a span of action; it is a force, a current and depth of being Has not each one of us at times realized that he lived a year in a single day, in a moment, in an emotion or thought? Nay, could the experience be measured by any estimate of time? And if we should compute the length of any life by such experiences, and not by a succession of years, would it not be a long life? At least, would it not be a full and immeasurable life? I FIND in one of our papers a grievous complaint because some rum-seller has set up a portrait of Washington in his bar-room; and it is called a desecration. So it may. be; but is there not a greater desecration there? la there not a desecration of the image of God set up among those rum-casks and liquor-barrels? The image of God there becomes degraded, polluted, and cast down. BOOKS! the chosen depositories of the thoughts, the opinions, and the aspirations of mighty intellects; like wondrous mirrors that have caught and fixed bright images of souls that have passed away; like magic lyres, whose masters have bequeathed them to the world, and which yet, of themselves, ring with unforgotten music, while the hands that touched their chords have crumbled into dust. Books! they are the embodiments and manifestations of departed minds, the living organs through which those who are dead yet speak to us. Books! they are the garners in which are stored the wisdom bought by toil and study, the gorgeous dreams of the poet, the maxims of the philosopher, the skilful delineations of the true observer, the histories of mighty deeds, the wonders of distant lands, the records of precious facts, the messengers which the wise and the good send to us, laden with treasures for every mental want, and precepts for every duty. THE man we read of, whose personality is so hidden in dirt that the assessors rate him as real estate, the man who beats the feat of writing the Ten Commandments inside the circumference of a dime, and gets the Law and the Prophets, the Decalogue, New Testament and all, a great ways inside of a ten-cent piece, such men do not live. THE autumn-season of the year and of human life are alike from the hand of God; and a beneficent purpose unfolds itself through all these passages of change. "We know that the first, notwithstanding its melancholy and decay, discharges a beneficial office in the economy of things, presenting the fruits of the earth for ingathering, affording to nature a period of recovery, and in its work of desolation preparing for new life and beauty. And surely it is thus in our mortal lot. In the entire circle of being, death is an inevitable yet transitional process. Go forth now into the woods and the fields, where with a strange stillness nature is passing through glory to decay, and think of the autumn-seasons of this world, and all that pertains to it, from the cycles of the ancient earth to the perishing stubble and ’the dying leaf. Think of the forms of beauty, the expressions of love, the symbols of power, that have budded, and ripened, and gathered to themselves attractiveness and splendor, and sunk away. Think of the empires that have overshadowed the earth, as the forests overshadow the hills, but whose brilliance and refinement, like the pomps of October, were the symbols of a waning glory, and whose dead trunks and rotting foliage now lie scattered around the dim shores of Time. Think of the relentless process that has stopped the sap of enterprise, and shook down the clustered trophies of the great. Think of the generations of the earth gathered in like harvests. Think of the old inevilability pressing upon the tenderest relationships of life, snatching here a half-opened flower, and plucking there a ripened sheaf, until all went back to dust, and strangers occupied the forsaken hearth-stone. Think of the individual man slipping from the hey-day of youth into the sober fulness of maturity; and then the hope, and the enjoyment, and the intense hold of life, in a rusthng, crackling feebleness all whirled away. See how every sphere of earth has its autumn-seasons; but see, also, how these are merely transitional passages of decay leading to renovation. In the place of vanished splendor rise fresher glories; out from the mould of empires grows a better civilization; the heaped graves of generations are the furrows of a wider, grander life; and new affections, new sanctities come to bless the earth and take the place of the departed. THE largest love is that which probes tho very heart it loves, pierces the very depths of the soul to which it is attracted, and shows to it the evil within it. THERE are interests by the sacrifice of which peace is too dearly purchased. One should never be at peace to the shame of his own soul, to the violation of his integrity or of his allegiance to God. INTO what boundless life does education admit us, and the discoveries of every day, and the ordinary lessons of the world! Tell me, is this life to be called merely a brief and worthless fact, when by a little reading, for instance, I can make the experience of other men, and lands, and ages all mine? When in some favored hour I can climb the starry galaxy with Newton, and pace along the celestial coast to the great harmony of numbers, and unlock the mighty secret of the universe? When of a winter’s night I can pass through all the belts of climate, and all the grades of civilization on our globe; scan its motley races, learn its diverse customs, and hear the groaning of lonely ice-fields and the sigh of Indian palms? When with Bacon I can explore the laboratory of nature, or with Locke consult the mysteries of the soul? When Spencer can lead me into golden visions, or Shakspeare smite me with magic inspiration, or Milton bathe me in immortal song? When History opens for me all the gates of the past, Thebes and Palmyra, Corinth and Carthage, Athens with its peerless glory, and Rome with its majestic pomp? When kings and statesmen, authors and priests, with their public deeds and secret thoughts, are mine? When the plans of cabinets, and the debates of parliaments, and the course of revolutions, and the results of battle are all before my eyes, and in my mind? When I can enter the inner chamber of sainted souls, and conspire with the efforts of moral heroes, and understand the sufferings of martyrs? Say, when all these deep experiences these comprehensive truths ma,y be acquired through merely one privilege, is life but a dream, or a breath of air? Thus, too, do immeasurable experiences flow in to me from nature, from planet, flower, and ocean. Thus, too, does more life come to me from contacts in the common round of action. And I repeat, every truth thus gained expands a moment of time into illimitable being, positively enlarges my existence, and endows me with a quality which time cannot weaken or destroy. A PEEVISH sensitiveness to the sayings and doings of others indicates real poverty of soul or miserable timidity, or else a spirit which is mastered by the body, and lies at the mercy of diseased and jangling nerves. MEN sometimes, in their eagerness to act, act too far, act by wrong motives; and in their impatient fussiness overlook the processes of God, and the harmonious working of all things. It is a great thing, very often, to be patient; not to talk much about it, not to try to do much about it, but to wait and trust. And this is all, sometimes, that we can do. THE evening of the day possesses many advantages for meditation. The objects that are upon the earth are then growing dim and passing into shadow; and with them may well fall away all our secular images. The most familiar things assume strange aspects, and the darkness slowly swallows them up. How suggestive this of the unsubstantiality of those forms to which we cling, of the superficial acquaintanceship there is between us, of the isolation in which as spirits we really stand, and of the mystery all around and within us! And how vividly then can we realize that there is but One in whom we live, and move, and have our being! In the mean time the veil of day is "withdrawn from the firmament, and innumerable worlds break upon our vision. How does this revelation of immensity increase our conception of him who bounds and fills it all, who has sown abroad those worlds of light, and shown forth his handiwork in those glittering constellations! The objects which we see by day, to be sure the varied forms of earth declare him: the mountain, the ocean, the way-side weed. But with these we are more familiar. They do not illustrate his attributes, and shadow forth the majesty of his being so strikingly as this spectacle of the heavens. In that sublime architecture we can best discern his infinite wisdom and his divine skill. From that vast space, all peopled with being and blessed with light, we may guess how inexhaustible is his benevolence and how extensive his care. In those serene depths, those steady orbs, we have a symbol of his own calm eternity overhanging all our transient forms. In that procession of stars, that seeming irregularity of orbits, reconciled, however, by a higher law, and producing most beautiful results, we see r as it were, the stupendous march of his providence, and the sure though immense cycle of his purposes. And considering these glories as but the lamps of his throne, the upholstery of his pavilion, the material veils of his pure essence, how awful must be our sense of his holiness, how deep our feeling of humility, upon this little earthly atom of mortality and sin! But if, lost in this unfathomable vision, we think he is far from us, and heeds us not, the reflection of that ray of light from its far distant source into our uplifted eyes, the soft touch of the night-wind coming we know not whence, should convince us that he is closer to us than any outward thing, and numbers all the hairs of our head. THE shadow of the night also strikes a shadow upon, the dial of our life, and every evening falls upon the figure of a later hour. As the wise merchant, then, posts his books at night, and knows the state of his fortune, so will the wise man at the close of the day sum up the account of life, and scrutinize his doings and relations. As to the spiritual life of man, the real, substantial life which man is placed in this world to live, I suppose that Abraham on the plains of Mamre, and the old patriarchs who had no steamboats, and railroads, and balloons, nor any of our modern facilities which we glorify in such sparkling terms, got really as near to God, in the heart and essence of true life, as we do, and as men ever will in any age. IT would be very singular if this great elastic shad-net of the law did not enable men to catch at something balking for the time the eternal flood-tide of justice. THE brightest lineaments of woman’s character appear as the shadows of life grow darker. In hours of sickness, in homes of pain, in weary vigils she rises with a sublime fortitude. The spirit that shrinks with sensitiveness in calmer moments gives out rich music in the storm. When impending danger, pitiless calumny, or cruel persecution assails the object of her affection, she gathers her virtue around her for a shield, and with a power that makes the weak things of the earth stronger than the mighty, and lends to the timid a bravery that defies all peril, she goes forth to share his fortune to the last, exhibiting a constancy that is more eloquent than words, and a love that cannot die. ALAS for that man who keeps always in the bustle of life, who knows nothing of his own soul, and never stops to reflect upon the highest realities! Alas for him, also, in this world of infinite relations, who never looks upward, but confines his gaze to the earth; who, placed amid solemn mysteries, never questions about life, or death, or God, or eternity, but suffers the sheen of material interests to obscure the stars, and drowns the still, small voice of Heaven with the jingling of his harness and the clank of his labor! Alas for him who, launched upon this sea of life, lies becalmed upon its waters easy, selfcontent or drifts unreckoning before the wind, but who never changes his tack or adjusts his methods, because he takes no celestial observation, and knows not the science of his voyage! WE only attain the true idea of marriage when we consider it as a spiritual union, a union of immortal affections, of undying faculties, of an imperishable destiny. IT is one of the grand results of modern science that it not only reveals its own harmony with religion, but it also demonstrates the essential religiousness of the physical world. It shows us that every work which God has made is holy, and not to be despised. THE evening of life is peculiarly appropriate for meditation. There are those who are spared to an age that ia well expressed by this term. A shadow is upon their eyesight and upon their memory. A shadow is lengthening before them, the shadow of fast-coming death. The order of their thoughts indicates an evening position. The nearest things are but dimly seen and quickly vanish, while they behold in clear prominence their earliest and remotest years; like the departing sunshine, which shows last what it saluted first, and lingers upon the distant summit while the near valley lies in darkness. Old age is an evening. The day-time of life is passed, the hours of labor are over. And how beautiful that evening is when clothed with the serenity of virtue! To be sure, melancholy thoughts will naturally steal in, as they do in the evening of the day. When the old man reviews his conduct in the mellow light of experience he detects many an imperfection which he would now avoid. He mourns over many a downfall of which he thought too lightly in the hot pursuit of life. He wonders at the presumption with which he was once cheated in the name, of knowledge and bravery. In this rectifying hour, too, he discovers how his energies have been too much invigorated by selfishness, too little animated by love. Indeed none so clearly as he discerns how short a time we have to love in, as well as to hope and to labor. How swiftly, like shadows, in that evening hour, pass before his vision the friends of his youth! How vividly, though all else has grown dim, do those familiar faces gaze upon him! How distinctly stand up those gray and silent stones that mark the spots in his journey where they dropped and died! How impressively, in that evening hour, with its last murmurs falling upon his ear, does life appear like a tale that is told! And yet to that old man the evening of life brings the evening’s consolations rest and hope; rest from the toils of this world’s to-day, hope from the resources of the everlasting to-morrow. The most of his friends have fallen asleep around him, and he is willing to lie down with them. And though the things of earth are vanishing from him, and the noise of the world breaks solemnly at his feet, as at evening breaks the murmur of the gray and retreating sea, lo! above him "is outspread a celestial canopy; and all that was best in his lot, worthiest his love and his faith, is gathered up there in immortal constellations. THE cry of degeneracy is the oldest of cries. Take up any London journal of a hundred years ago, and you will find remonstrances and satires against the same follies and vices as those which are denounced to-day. Therefore these parallel cases in our time show us, not that we are going into the swamp, but that we have not yet got out of it. WHY is there such an abundance of beauty? We can conceive of a world destitute of it. We can argue no special need why the leaves before they die should take the hues of the rainbow. They might shrink at once into their yellow shrouds and fall. ’ We find no reason, in the necessity of things, why our atmosphere should be thronged with such gorgeous tints as those which gather at the gates of sunset. In all this there is nothing which we can convert into food, or clothing, or money. And yet something in us responds to it. We will rear flowers because they are beautiful, and gaze long upon a landscape because it thrills us with delight. Doubtless, then, God has a purpose, through these, to awaken in us pleasures that the dust and drudgery of life cannot yield, and to train us for regions where we shall never grow weary nor bow down to mourn; where there are treasures of joy not involved with earthly vicissitude, and manifestations of beauty which the soul can apprehend only when it has thrown off its mortal veils. And so, even now, the misanthrope’s philosophy and the fanatic’s creed are rebuked. The world is not dreary. There are bars of sunlight upon it; there are revelations of beauty in it; and through changeful phases and alternating seasons runs the Creator’s purpose, by these agencies, to win us to know and to love him better. CHRISTIANITY converses with the third heaven, and opens the great prospect of the immortal world, but makes earth the platform of its teachings, the theatre of ita efforts. FEELING after God, if haply they may find him. That is what all nations have been doing long before Christ, and what all nations in darkness and unbelief are forever doing. Every prayer put up, however blindly uttered, however superstitiously conceived, is a feeling after God; and every breath of altar-flame and every sacrifice has been a feeling after God and for him. Out of this primary conviction of God in our nature all the religions of the world have started; and therefore we realize, even in heathenism, this primary conviction of the reality of the truth of one God, and thus get rid of an atheism which is not natural to man. THERE is no happiness in life, there is no misery, like that growing out of the dispositions which consecrate or desecrate a home. THE sluices of the grog-shop are fed from the wineglasses in ftie parlor; and there is a lineal descent from the gentleman who hiccoughs at his elegant dinner-table to the sot who makes a bed of the gutter. Two gifts God has bestowed on us that have in themselves no guilty trait, and show an essential divineness. Music is one of them, which seems as though it were never born of earth, but lingers with us from the gates of heaven. Music which breathes over the gross, or sad, or doubting heart, to inspire it with a consciousness of its most mysterious affinities, and to touch the chords of its undeveloped, unsuspected life. And the other gift is that of flowers, which, though born of earth, we may well believe if anything of earthly soil grows in that higher realm, if any of its methods are continued, if any of its forms are identical there will live on the banks of the River of Life. Flowers, that in all our gladness, in all our sorrow, are never incongruous always appropriate. Appropriate in the church, as expressive of its purest and most social themes, and blending their sweetness with the incence of prayer. Appropriate in the joy of the marriage hour, in the loneliness of the sick-room, and crowning with prophecy the foreheads of the dead. They give completeness to the associations of childhood, and are appropriate even by the side of old age, strange as their freshness contrasts with the wrinkles and the gray hairs; for still they are suggestive, they are symbolical of the soul’s perpetual youth, the inward blossoming of immortality, the amaranthine crown. In their presence we feel that when the body shall drop as a withered calyx the soul shall go forth as a winged seed. HOME is the seminary of all other institutions. There are the roots of all public prosperity, the foundations of the State, the germs of the church. There is all that in the child makes the future man; all that in the man makes the good citizen. WE see the western sky, when the sun is up, sending up its clear reflections, and every building and steeple stands out clearly and distinct. And so the sky and the horizon of the nineteenth century has a clear reflection of intellectual light thrown upon it, and every ghastly wrong, every forbidden error, every formidable evil stands right up against it. Because we see more clearly now we say there is more wrong. But that is a very doubtful, if not a very erroneous conclusion. The conclusion should ratter be that the very intellectual progress and the diffused knowledge of which we speak have made the evil more apparent; and that is one step toward subduing and overcoming evil. LIKE Peter on the wave, we walk along in life very well so long as we look to God, or to Christ, the image of God; but the moment we begin to think of ourselves of our perils, and dangers, and sacrifices that moment we begin to sink. ETHNOLOGIES may break up mankind into a dozen tribes, each with distinct progenitors; and though the earth be striped all over with diversities of color, shape, capacity, condition, the conviction only deepens, till it becomes the tritest of doctrines, that this wide banyan-tree of ranks and races has one deep root, one central stream of life, one human heart. In this fact we feel more and more the claim of every man, in the fact that he possesses this capable and mysterious heart. We ask for no other sign. We care not what limitation of intellect, what degradation of morals may be found, what analogies may be detected between something lower than man and he. Here is the only question we ask: Does he love, and fear, and hope, and pray with the common ground-swell of humanity? Show us the poor Indian woman who lays down her child in the woods, and folds the little palms together, kisses the dumb lips that will never prattle more. Show us the slave mother, hounded, fang-torn, with revolvers cracking behind her, and the rolling flood before, holding in her lacerated hands her babe close to her breast, with a grasp that only death can loosen; and in this spectecle there is that which climbs over all castes and bulwarks, enters radiant and perfumed homes, transmutes all distinctions, and strikes straight into humanity, with that "one touch which makes the whole world kin." I THINK you may doubt the authority of any creed, of any faith, which requires you to be a philosopher before you can understand it; any creed which is so metaphysical that the common mind cannot receive it. That is the great objection to Calvinism. Before you can comprehend the scheme of salvation of that church you must become a man of considerable intellect. But the central truth of God the Father a child can take it in. Sometimes when I stand by the dying bed, the ear is growing deaf from the booming waves of eternity, so that but a few words here and there can reach it; but I can shove out one plank to the dying man, " One God, the Father;" and with that he can take the sweep of the sea of eternity. It is a great truth to be embosomed in the heart of man. Some men believe this for themselves. That is not the Christian doctrine. You must go further than that. It is one God, the Father of all. When you pray, "Our Father," remember it does not mean your Father especially, but our Father, the Father of all humanity. THERE is a necessity for setting apart one day in seven for religious thought, meditation, and religious action generally, in order that we may have a reservoir, so to speak, by which to water and sprinkle the other six days in the week. No, not less knowledge, but more knowledge, to expose the evil, to condemn the shame and abominations of the time. More knowledge, mated in its essence with God’s everlasting love, exalting in its revealing splendors the immutable law, until men shall learn the fatal incompatibility of sin with any good, until the golden scales shall be shivered from their eyes, until their hands shall be unmanacled from all mean policy, and to know and to do shall be as the arterial unity of brain-throb and heartbeat. Silent is the force which controls the material world, sure and relentless as its burning wheels. And so flow on, flow wide, unfolding truth and knowledge of the times! Shine, genial as the sunlight, terrible as the lightning, until wrong shall shrivel, and selfishness be put to open shame! Shine into the crannies of this strange old world, into its mould, and rust, and rot! Shine, until indifierence grows warm, and prejudices burn away, and for our pity and indignation we shall see all fetters and tear-stains, and sorrows! Shine straight through our brother’s rags, our brother’s uncouthness, our brother’s nationality, until we discern the same natures, the same heart, the same red blood as our own! Shine, bright and beautiful, in toleration and comprehensiveness, giving hope to the future and significance to the past, like the sunlight, which, streaming through cathedral windows, kindles up the features of heroes and martyrs, and reflects their expression upon the living crowds below! Warmly shine, until liberty shall grow as every man’s vine and fig-tree, and the tendrils of sympathy, running by every creek, and carried by every ship, shall be rolled around the globe! And then if, with all this, man proves worse, we shall be sure that knowledge will not make him so, but show him so. You would feel that it was a great thing to stand upon the walls of a lonely fort, with your country’s flag floating over you, knowing, perhaps, that your country’s freedom depended upon your vigilant eye and quick ear. You would think it a great thing to stand upon the deck of a ship, keeping watch at night, knowing that the safety of all those on board depended upon your alertness and activity. Stand at the portals of your own soul, with the signal-flag of God’s law floating over you, and feel what important results depend upon your care and watchfulness; stand upon the deck of the great social ship, watching the interests committed to you, and feel how much depends upon you. Drive every nail you drive, do everything you do, however small and insignificant, as though God’s eye was flashing upon you. No great truth bursts upon man without having its hemisphere of darkness and sorrow. WE hear people talk of correct notions of Christianity. What do their notions amount to? What is their Christianity, with those notions they hold? It is like an imitation of fruit that we see carved in stone: it is an exact imitation to the eye, but it is impossible to bite it, and it is without juice. It is made to look at, to arrange in a cabinet, to set on a mantlepiece; but beyond that, of no manner of use. And how many believers there are who are only stony fruit, imitations of Christianity, without any juice in them. They have very correct notions of Christianity: they are very sound, just as sound as a stone apple or peach, and just as hard. They set their stern, flinty faces against lax sentiment, and all those infidel notions that they tell us are rife and prevalent at the present time. You find no class of men so rampant against what they call heresy as this class of stony, hard believers, whose whole power of Christianity consists in correct notions. Every man who does not come up to the line of their creed is an infidel. The name has almost become honorable in this way; for a great many who are called infidels are simply men who are searching for the spirit and truth of religion, and they believe in Christ as that spirit and truth; and if you can make the essence of Christianity consist in spirit and truth, rather than in fact, they are nearer to Christ than a great many of those who hurl anathemas against them. THE philosopher can never convince us that our little earth is the only home of affection and intelligence like our own, and that the systems which burn and roll around us are only sparkling Saharas of incompleteness and desolation. No more can the historical sceptic make us believe that the largest measure of knowledge is unfavorable to the noblest types of excellence, that the richest virtues wilt in the brightest civilization. Argue as we will, our moral instincts, our faith in Providence assure us that knowledge tends to goodness. They are not identical, yet in their highest realization they are inseparable. CHRISTIANITY is a spirit flowing through every channel of action, consecrating all we do, making every day holy and every spot sacred. THERE are mysteries which, if they are not solved by the truths of Christianity, darken the universe. There are griefs which, if we do not receive them as divine chastisements, are too much for our humanity. There areties sundered here below which, if we do not hold immortal relations, are inexplipable. And nothing but the power of religion enables us to use our afflictions as the instruments of our spiritual advancement, to convert the crown of thorns into a diadem of victory. IT is a very singular fallacy, it seems to me, that takes the present condition of the world as the rectification of a mistake on the part of God, instead of being a development of his steadfast intention from the very first until now. WE live in an order of circumstances where not an atom is insignificant. A pebble shakes the huge fabric of the universe. A leaf shudders in sympathy with the remotest constellations. If we act we touch the spring of an endless consequence; if we refuse to do anything our negation circulates itself. If we move we quicken the pulses of the common being; if we stand still we poison the air or enrich the soil. THE worst manifestation of a bad spirit is joy in the fall of another, joy when sin prevails, joy when a brother trips and stumbles into ruin. THE material and the spiritual are not in the here and the hereafter, but in the senses and the soul. When Christ made the distinction between the temporal and the eternal it was not between what is now and to be hereafter, but the distinction of quality. THERE is an upward joy that blessed spirits feel when another spirit becomes blessed. It is the joy of redeemed souls when others have become redeemed. It is the joy of those who have fought the good fight and achieved tho victory when others come drenched, as it may be, with the blood of their wounds, but saved and delivered. It is a joy that flows from earth to heaven. As there ia light in the morning that goes shimmering up the clear upper sky, so there is a light that goes shimmering up to the white robes of the blessed, making their crowns brighter, when the faces of the penitent are upturned in prayer. As when the breath of the summer air begins to stir the leaves of the forest they all shiver and lift themselves with rejoicing, so when the soul of the penitent begins to move, when the guilty heart turns from sin to Christ, there goes forth a breath, an impulse, higher and higher, deeper and deeper, stronger and stronger, until it becomes a sweet hallelujah sweeping all round the courts of heaven. Do not make personal beauty a boast or an idol. Do not set your heart upon it. Would you treasure up all your regards in a flower? That frail plant! the next rude hand may snap it, to-morrow’s burning ray may scorch it, the first frost may blight it, and leave you desolate. THERE is one Volume which is greater than all other books; which contains precepts that are to knowlege thi base of the pyramid, the flame of the altar; a Volume that is the sun in the system of truth, around which glide all the bright and beautiful orbs of human wisdom; while those that stray from its light wander darkly abroad, or glimmer and fade in the distance. No one can rank so high in the scale of mental excellence that it will be a letting down of his dignity to guido and inform any of his fellow-creatures. IF Napoleon pointing to the tall and mystic pyramids could say to his army, "Lo! fifty centuries look down upon your deeds," young men of America, of you it may be said that fifty unborn generations abide the issue of your works. " OUR life is what we make it!" an insignificant game or a noble trial; a dream or a reality; a play of the senses worn out in selfish use, and flying "swifter than a weaver’s shuttle," or an assension of the soul, by daily duties and unfaltering faith, to more spiritual relations and to loftier toils, to the company of the immortal, to the presence of God and the fellowship of Christ. THE Psalms of David are the thought of to-day and forever. They are the hymns, the prayers, the confessions, the sublime meditations of men in the nineteenth century, and right here in the city of New York, as of the men in Judea three thousand years ago. THE true idea of Christianity is help from God, freely given; the sympathy of God, flowing out even unto the death on the cross, trickling in the blood-drops from the thorn-torn brow and the pierced side of Jesus Christ. CHRISTIAN! the great revealing of life does not make life meaner, but grander, It does not make your work, your familiar home duties, of little consideration, but of great consideration. That is its beauty. It is like our modern astronomy, which, while it reveals the littleness of the earth, reveals its grand connections, and showa it linked together in a grand chain of being. THERE is a sweet anguish springing up in our bosoms when a child’s face brightens under the shadow of the waiting angel. There is an autumnal fitness when age gives up the ghost; and when the saint dies there is a tearful victory. NOT only is music a beautiful and sublime science, the study of which ennobles and purifies the mind of its votary, but how many and excellent are its ministries to others! It occupies hours that else, perhaps, they would employ sinfully. It wins them from low and sensual pursuits. It fills the home with melody, and helps recreation and social intercourse. It breaks into the monotony of life with a kindling enthusiasm, and interrupts the weary periods of anxiety and toil. It soothes the dull pauses of disease; it twines its magic spell around the fevered heart; it steals into the troubled spirit with uplifting and with peace. Its harmonies drop through the gloom of confinement like links of sunshine, and draw us up to the canopy of the free and unbounded heaven. It is the key of memory and the messenger of hope, awaking us to all that is dear in the past, and all that is worthy in the future. For in its sweetest and loftiest moods music is eminently a moral and religious agent. It touches our best feelings, rebukes o\tf sins, and confirms our virtues. It is the natural advocate of freedom, peace, and every sacred work. It is the best expression of faith and prayer. It moves like a magnetic current over our souls, and suggests our mysterious kindred with higher realities. THE worst kind of Christian literature is the morbid analysis of Christian consciousness. A BREATH upon the mirror, a stone in the brook, and the fair and seemly appearance that made them comely in the eyes of men is destroyed; nay, there is not a star that walks in heaven but the least particle of cloud shall render it rayless and hide its beauty. Breathe not even an idle word, then, much less a contrived aspersion, against that which to all honorable men is dearer than gems or gold. GOD is the explanation of things, and nothing but God, the infinite God, the good God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. THE fire-brand which you unthinkingly wield may burn but a single stubble, but it is capable of enwrapping a city in flames. Therefore meddle with it not at all. So it is in regard to the principle that leads you from the strict path of integrity. THE moment a man says, " I will not believe so and so, for I must go with the majority," then he would be, not a Presbyterian or a Roman Catholic, but a Buddhist; for I believe they have a majority among the religious believers in the world; and in the track of the majority he will go to any extreme, and believe in any error. THE truth of Christianity a man can carry in the palm of his hand, or close to his heart; and yet it spreads out broad enough to cover all the necessities of this life, and opens a prospect wide as eternity. MOST men are less afraid of ghosts than of facts; but out of the truth of things - truth of character and vision grows true life. We need not deplore the naturalistic spirit of our time. The development of the great natural agents gives the good man more to do. The fires of steam-ships that rise and dip far out on lonely seas herald a new era of faith and love. Increased knowledge is a conduit of fuller life. CHRIST stands close to all the hearts of poor, suffering, bleeding, tempted, dying humanity. Put no church, no creed, no symbol, between any man and Christ Jesus. He alone, filled with human experience, can fill all souls with his divine love. PEACEFULLY and silently roll the chariot-wheels of salvation, and by the beat of every consecrated pulse, by the breath of every noble voice, by the strength of every brave, honest, heroic effort, the kingdom of God is advanced. THE popular sympathies are very apt to strike at the core of truth. The people were right to spread their garments and cast their branches in the way of Jesus. Although a temporal form, it symbolized an eternal fact, that he was the king of the truth; and the broad church sanctions it to-day and in all time. Come, men of science, bring your implements and cast them at his feet, and say. Thou art the centre of all that is beautiful and glorious in nature, and in the spiritual significance that comes from the Bible. Come, worker in the field of humanity, and confess that your inspiration is in the truth of Jesus. Come, strong, thinking, brave, heroic races come glorious hearts of all ages down the mountain of time. Scatter the branches; strew the garments at his feet. But, 0, yon lowly heart! feeling the need of his truth, feeling the penitence which his utterance against sin awakens, feeling the comfort which his soothing words bestow, you honor him better than all when you bring your heart and cast it at his feet. THE creature you term a chattel, and affect to treat as an ape or a monkey, you do not treat as an ape or a monkey. When guilty of an immoral act you denounce him as guilty; you hold him morally responsible; and the very punishments you inflict refute your mean theories of his being nothing more than a brute. THE foundation of the kingdom of God is in the human soul; and if the deep instincts of our nature reluct at any plank in the platform, you may be sure that that plank does not belong to Christianity. WHEN evil comes to us, sorrows occur, calamities break in, they never come, or occur, or break in as the root and substance of things. Evil never stands before us as that which we discovered as seeming good; but good often comes to us from that which we discovered as seeming evil. What seems to be exceptional, dark, and cruel, when further explained and placed in its true relations is brought into harmony with the great whole, and is transfigured into a blessing. The dark fact, when we go deeper sends out veins of light. I SHOULD not like to preach to a congregation who all believed as I believe. I would as lief preach to a basket of eggs, in their smooth compactness and oval formality. WHEN truth comes it must speak by its own authority. There is no outside evidence greater than it. There is nothing that can more convince of its truthfulness than the truth itself. NATURE satisfies my thirst; it feeds my hunger; it finds me clothing; it affords me shelter; it wraps me around when I sleep with beneficent and watchful care; and it takes me at last to its great bosom, where my ashes mingle with their kindred dust. These are not all of human wants: not in nightly sleep, in daily action, in the arms of death. There are deeper wants than these. There are capacities for endless progress, love which nothing can quench, a desire which ’mounts beyond the stars. Now, where nature fails to supply, Christianity comes in and takes up my higher wants and ministers to them, just as physical nature ministers to my lower order of wants. It is the other hemisphere to nature. Does not that indicate its origin that both are from one source? THERE is nothing more disproportioned in humanity than a hard-hearted and ill-natured young man. NATURE becomes interpreted when you set the cross of Christ in the centre of it. That divine, self-sacrificing love lights it all up, illuminates it, makes it something new. Every star that shings in heaven receives a brighter significance in that, and every quivering of dim life that lies under the lenses of the microscope illustrates the great law of love and self-sacrifice. GOD never alters his methods. We may hurry ourselves, but we cannot hurry him. After all, the grass takfes just as long to grow, and the oak-tree to develop, and the great processes of nature to unfold themselves. And we may be sure that just so much effort must go to just so much result. The great laws of God must be obeyed, or the rewards which follow the obedience of those laws will not come. " IN like manner will he come again." How? Calmly, serenely, gradually as he rose into heaven so, calmly, serenely, gradually will Christ come again; come in the slow progress of ages in the world; come in the triumph of every truth; come in the victory over every falsehood; come in every right that shall lift up its long-scarred and abused head; so will he come to the world. And to you he comes in every influence that leads you to him; in everything that makes you more like him; in everything that causes you to exalt his law in your heart, and to surrender your lives to his will. Serenely, calmly, within, Christ comes to each of us, and gradually, even as he went up into heaven. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7: 02.00. THE CROWN OF THORNS ======================================================================== The Crown of Thorns By E. H. Chapin In this 10 chapter work, Chapin examines the suffering that Christ went through. He basically has one verse at the beginning of each chapter to introduce the thought. He speaks of Peters desire for glory in building three tabernacles, the disappointment that this is not how God does things, the Christian view of sorrow, loneliness, resignation, our relations to the departed, voices of the dead, mystery and faith. CONTENTS Preface. 1. The Three Tabernacles 2. The Shadow of Disappointment. 3. Life a Tale 4. The Christian View of Sorrow 5. Christian Consolation in Loneliness 6. Resignation 7. The Mission of Little Children 8. Our Relations to the Departed 9. The Voices of the Dead 10. Mystery and Faith ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8: 02.000. PREFACE ======================================================================== The Crown of Thorns A token for the sorrowing PREFACE. One of the discourses in this volume-"The Mission of Little Children"—was written just after the death of a dear son, and was published in pamphlet form. The edition having become exhausted sooner than the demand, it was deemed advisable to reprint it; and accordingly it is now presented to the reader, accompanied by others of a similar cast, most of them growing out of the same experience. This fact will account for any repetition of sentiment which may appear in these discourses, especially as they were written without any reference to one another. To the sorrowing, then, this little volume is tendered, with the author’s sympathy and affection. Upon its pages he has poured out some of the sentiments of his own heartfelt experience, knowing that they will find a response in theirs, and hoping that the book may do a work of consolation and of healing. If it impresses upon any the general sentiment which it contains, —the sentiment of religious resignation and triumph in affliction; if it shall cause any tearful vision to take the Christian view of sorrow; if it shall teach any troubled soul to endure and hope; if it shall lead any weary spirit to the Fountain of consolation; in one word, if it shall help any, by Christ’s strength, to weave the thorns that wound them into a crown, I shall be richly rewarded, and, I trust, grateful to that God to whose service I dedicate this book, invoking his blessing upon it. E. H. C. May, 1860 ======================================================================== CHAPTER 9: 02.01. THE THREE TABERNACLES ======================================================================== THE THREE TABERNACLES And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles , one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. Mark 4:5. Caught up in glory and in rapture, the Apostle seems to have forgotten the world from which he had ascended, and to which he still belonged, and to have craved permanent shelter and extatic communion within the mystic splendors that brightened the Mount of Transfiguration. But it was true, not only as to the confusion of his faculties, but the purport of his desire, that "he knew not what he said." For even "while he yet spake," the cloud overshadowed them, the heavenly forms vanished, they found themselves with Jesus alone, and an awful Voice summoned them from contemplation to duty, —from vision to work. Peter knew not what he said. He would have converted the means into an end. He and his fellow-disciples had been called to follow Christ not that they might see visions, but had been permitted to see visions that they might follow Christ. Just previous to that celestial interview, Jesus had announced to them his own painful doom, and had swept away their conceit of Messianic glories involved with earthly pomp and dominion, by his declaration of the self-denial, the shame, and the suffering, which lay in the path of those who really espoused his cause and entered into his kingdom. They needed such a revelation as this, then, upon the Mount of Transfiguration, to support them under the stroke which had shaken their earthly delusion, and let in glimpses of the sadder truth. It was well that they should behold the leaders of the old dispensation confirming and ministering to the greatness of the new, and the religion which was to go down into the dark places of the earth made manifest in its authority and its source from Heaven. It was well that they should see their Master glorified, that they might be strengthened to see him crucified. It was well that Moses and Elias stood at the font, when they were about to be. baptized into their apostleship of suffering, and labor, and helping finish the work which these glorious elders helped begin. But that great work still lay before them, and to rest here would be to stop upon the threshold;—to have kept the vision would have thwarted the purpose. Upon a far higher summit, and at a far distant time—with fields of toil and tracts of blood between—would that which was meant as an inspiration for their souls become fixed for their sight, and tabernacles that should never perish enclose a glory that should never pass away. You may have anticipated the lessons for ourselves which I propose to draw from this unconsidered request of Peter. At least, you will readily perceive that it does contain suggestions applicable to our daily life. For I proceed, at once, to ask you if it is not a fact that often we would like to remain where, and to have what, is not best for us? Do not illustrations of this simple thought occur easily to your minds? Does not man often desire, as it were, to build his tabernacles here or there, when due consideration, and after- experience will convince him that it was not the place to abide; that it was better that the good be craved, or the class of relations to which he clung, should not be permanent? In order to give effect to this train of reflection, let me direct you to some specific instances in which this desire is manifested. Perhaps I may say, without any over-refinement upon my topic, that there are three things in life to which the desires of men especially cling, —three tabernacles which upon the slope of this world they would like to build. I speak now, it is to be remembered, of desires of impulse, not of deliberation, —of desires often felt, if not expressed. And I say, in the first place, that there are certain conditions in life itself that it sometimes appears desirable to retain. Sometimes, from the heart of a man, there breaks forth a sigh for perpetual youth. In the perplexities of mature years, — in the experience of selfishness, and hollowness, and bitter disappointment; in the surfeit of pleasure; in utter weariness of the world, —he exclaims, "O! give me back that sweet morning of my days, when all my feelings were fresh, and the heart was wet with a perpetual dew. Give me the untried strength; the undeceived trust; the credulous imagination, that bathed all things in molten glory, and filled the unknown world with infinite possibilities." Sad with skepticism, and tired with speculation, he cries out for that faith that needed no other confirmation than the tones of a mother’s voice, and found God everywhere in the soft pressure of her love; and when his steps begin to hesitate, and he finds himself among the long shadows, and the frailty and fear of the body overcome the prophecies of the soul, and no religious assurance lights and lifts up his mind, how he wishes for some fountain of restoration that shall bring back his bloom and his strength, and make him always young! "Why have such experiences as decline, and decay, and death ?" he asks. "Is it not good for us to be ever young,? Why should not the body be a tabernacle of constant youth, and life be always thus fresh, and buoyant, and innocent, and confiding ? Or, if we must, at last, die, why all this sad experience, — this incoming of weakness, —this slipping away of life and power?" But this is a feeling which no wise or good man ever cherishes long,. For he knows that the richest experiences, and the best achievements of life, come after the period of youth; spring out of this very sadness, and suffering, and rough struggle in the world, which an unthinking sentimentality deplores. Ah, my friends, in spite of our trials, our weariness, our sad knowledge of men and things; in spite of the declining years among which so many of us are standing, and the tokens of decay that are coming upon us; nay, in spite even of our very sins; who would go back to the hours of his youthful experience, and have the shadow stand still at that point upon the dial of his life? Who, for the sake of its innocence and its freshness, would empty the treasury of his broader knowledge, and surrender the strength that he has gathered in effort and endurance? Who, for its careless joy, would exchange the heart-warm friendships that have been annealed in the vicissitudes of years, —the love that sheds a richer light upon our path, as its vista lengthens, or has drawn our thoughts into the glory that is beyond the veil? Nay, even if his being, has been most frivolous and aimless, or vile, —in the penitent throb with which this is felt to be so, there is a. spring of active power which exists not in the dreams of the youth; and the sense of guilt and of misery is the stirring, of a life infinitely deeper than that early flow of vitality and - consciousness which sparkles as it runs. Build a tabernacle for perpetual youth, and say, "It is good to be here"? It cannot be so; and it is well that it cannot. Our post is not the Mount of Vision, but the Field of Labor; and we can find no rest in Eden until we have passed through, Gethsemane. Equally vain is the desire for some condition in life which shall be free from care, and want, and the burden of toil. I suppose most people do, at times, wish for such a lot, and secretly or openly repine at the terms upon which they are compelled to live. The deepest fancy in the heart of the most busy men is repose - retirement-command of time and means, untrammeled by any imperative claim. And yet who is there that, thrown into such a position, would find it for his real welfare, and would be truly happy? Perhaps the most restless being in the world is the man who need do nothing, but keep still. The old soldier fights all his battles over again, and the retired merchant spreads the sails of his thought upon new ventures, or comes uneasily down to snuff the air of traffic, and feel the jar of wheels. I suppose there is nobody whose condition is so deplorable, so ghastly, as his whose lot many may be disposed to envy,—a man at the top of this world’s ease, crammed to repletion with what is called "enjoyment;" ministered to by every luxury, —the entire surface of his life so smooth with completeness that there is not a jut to hang, a hope on, —so obsequiously gratified in every specific want that he feels miserable from the very lack of wanting. As in such a case there, can be no religious life—which never permits us to rest in a feeling of completeness; which seldom abides with fulness(sic) of possession, and never stops with self, but always inspires to some great work of love and sacrifice —as in such a case there can be no religious life, he fully realizes the poet’s description of the splendor and the wretchedness of him who " * * built his soul a costly pleasure-house Wherein at ease for aye to dwell;" and who said " * * O soul, make merry and carouse Dear soul, for all is well. * * * * * * * Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth, Joying to feel herself alive, Lord over nature, lord of the visible earth, Lord of the ’senses five "Communing with herself: , ’All these are mine, And let the world have peace or wars, ’T is one to me,’ * * * * * * * * * * So three years She throve, but on the fourth she fell, Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears, Struck through with pangs of hell." The truth is, there is no one place, however we may envy it, which would be indisputably good for us to occupy; much less for us to remain in. The zest of life, like the pleasure which we receive from a work of art, or from nature, comes from undulations —from inequalities; not from any monotony, even though it be the monotony of seeming perfection. The beauty of the landscape depends upon contrasts, and would be lost in one common surface of splendor. The grandeur of the waves is in the deep hollows, as well as the culminating crests; and the bars of the sunset glow on the background of the twilight. The very condition of a great thing is that it must be comparatively a rare thing. We speak of summer glories, and yet who would wish it to be always summer? — who does not see how admirably the varied seasons are fitted to our appetite for change? It may seem as if it would be pleasant to have it always sunshine; and yet when fruit and plant are dying from lack of moisture, and the earth sleeps exhausted in the torrid air, who ever saw a summer morning more beautiful than that when the clouds muster their legions to the sound of the thunder, and pour upon us the blessing of the rain? We repine at toil, and yet how gladly do we turn in from the lapse of recreation to the harness of effort! We sigh for the freedom and glory of the country; but, in due time, just as fresh and beautiful seem to us the brick walls and the busy streets where our lot is cast, and our interests run. There is no condition in life of which we can say exclusively "It is good for us to be here." Our course is appointed through vicissitude,—our discipline is in alternations; and we can build no abiding tabernacles along the way. But, I observe, in the second place, that there are those who may discard the notion of retaining any particular condition of life and yet they would preserve unbroken some of its relations. They may not keep the freshness of youth, or prevent the intrusion of trouble, or shut out the claims of responsibility, or the demands for effort; —they may not achieve anything of this kind; and they do not wish to achieve it; but they would build a tabernacle to LOVE, and keep the objects of dear affection safe within its enclosure. "Joy, sorrow, poverty, riches, youth, decay, let these come as they must," say they, "in the flow of Providence; but let the heart’s sanctuaries remain unbroken, and let us in all this chance find the presence and the ministration of those we love." And, common as the sight is, we must always contemplate with a fresh sadness this sundering of family bonds; this cancelling(sic) of the dear realities of home; this stealing in of the inevitable gloom; this vacating of the chair, the table, and the bed; this vanishing of the familiar face into darkness; this passage from communion to memory; this diminishing of love’s orb into narrower phases, —into a crescent, —into a shadow. Surely, however broad the view we take of the universe, a real woe, a veritable experience of suffering, amidst this boundless benificence, reaching as deep as the heart’s core, is this old and common sorrow; — the sorrow of woman for her babes, and of man for his helpmate, and of age for its prop, and of the son for the mother that bore him, and of the heart for the hearts that once beat in sympathy, and of the eyes that hide vacancies with tears. When these old stakes are wrenched from their sockets, and these intimate cords are snapped, one begins to feel his own tent shake and flap in the wind that comes from eternity, and to realize that there is no abiding tabernacle here. But ought we really to wish that these relations might remain unbroken, and to murmur because it is not so? We shall be able to answer this question in the negative, I think, — however hard it may be to do so, — when we consider, in the first place, that this breaking up and separation are inevitable. For we may be assured that whatever in the system of things is inevitable is beneficent. The dissolution of these bonds comes by the same law as that which ordains them; and we may be sure that the one —though it plays out of sight, and is swallowed up in mystery —is as wise and tender in its purpose as the other. It is very consoling to recognize the Hand that gave in the Hand that takes a friend, and to know that he is borne away in the bosom of Infinite Gentleness, as he was brought here. It is the privilege of angels, and of a faith that brings us near the angels, to always behold the face of our Father in Heaven; and so we shall not desire the abrogation of this law of dissolution and separation. We shall strengthen ourselves to contemplate the fact that the countenances we love must change, and the ties that are closest to our hearts will break; and we shall feel that it ought to be, because it must be, — because it is an inevitability in that grand and bounteous scheme in which stars rise and set, and life and death play into each other. But, even within the circle of our own knowledge, there is that which may reconcile us to these separations,. and prevent the vain wish of building perpetual tabernacles for our human love. For who is prepared, at any time, to say that it was not better for the dear friend, and better for ourselves, that he should go, rather than stay; —better for the infant to die with flowers upon its breast, than to live and have thorns in its heart; —better to kiss the innocent lips that are still and cold, than to see the living lips that are scorched with guilty passion; —better to take our last look of a face while it is pleasant to remember—serene with thought, and faith, and many charities —than to see it toss in prolonged agony, and grow hideous with the wreck of intellect? And, as spiritual beings, placed here not to be gratified, but to be trained, surely we know that often it is the drawing up of these earthly ties that draws up our souls; that a great bereavement breaks the crust of our mere animal consciousness, and inaugurates a spiritual faith; and we are baptized into eternal life through the cloud and the shadow of death. But, once more, I remark, that there are those who may say, "We do not ask for any permanence in the conditions of life; we do not ask that even its dearest relationships should be retained; but give, 0! give us ever those highest brightest moods of faith and of truth, which constitute the glory of religion, and lift us above the conflict and the sin of the world! No truly religious mind can fail to perceive the gravitation of its thoughts and desires, and the contrast between its usual level and its best moments of contemplation and prayer. And it . may indeed seem well to desire the prolongation of these experiences; to desire to live ever in that unworldly radiance, close to the canopy of God, —in company with the great and the holy, —in company with the apostles and with Jesus, —on some Mount of Transfiguration, in garments whiter than snow, and with faces bright as the sun; and the hard, bad, trying world far distant and far below. Does not the man of spiritual sensitiveness envy those sainted ones who have grown apart, in pure clusters, away above the sinful world, blossoming and breathing fragrance on the very slopes of heaven? And yet, is this the complete ideal of life? and is this the way in which we are to accomplish its true end? I think we may safely say that even the brightest realizations of religion should be comparatively rare, otherwise we forget the work and lose the discipline of our mortal lot. The great saints—the men whose names stand highest in the calendar of the church universal—are not the ascetics, not the contemplators, not the men who walked apart in cloisters; but those who came down from the Mount of Communion and Glory, to take a part in the world; who have carried its burdens in their souls, and its scars upon their breasts; who have wrought for its deepest. interests, and died for its highest good; whose garments have swept its common ways, and whose voices have thrilled in its low places of suffering and of need; -men who have leaned lovingly against the world, until the motion of their great hearts jars in its pulses forever; men who have gone up from dust, and blood, and crackling fire; men with faces of serene endurance and lofty denial, yet of broad, genial, human sympathies; —these are the men who wear starry crowns, and walk in white robes, yonder. We need our visions for inspiration, but we must work in comparative shadow; otherwise, the very highest revelations would become monotonous, and we should long for still higher. And yet, are there not some whose desire is for constant revelation? Who would see supernatural sights, and hear supernatural sounds, and know all the realities towards which they are drifting, as well as those in which they must work? They would make this world a mount of perpetual vision; overlooking the fact that it has its own purposes, to be wrought out by its own light, and within its own limits. For my part, I must confess that I do not share in this desire to know all about the next world, and to see beforehand everything that is going to be. I have no solicitude about the mere scenery and modes of the future state. But this desire to be in the midst of perpetual revelations argues that there is not enough to fill our minds and excite our wonder here; when all things around us are pregnant with suggestion, and invite us, and offer unfathomed depths for our curious seeking. There is so much here, too, for our love and our discipline; so much for us to do, that we hardly need more revelations just now; -they might overwhelm and disturb us in the pursuit of these appointed ends. Moreover, the gratification of this desire would foreclose that glorious anticipation, that trembling expectancy, which is so fraught with inspiration and delight, —the joy of the unknown, the bliss of the thought that there is a great deal yet to be revealed. We do need some revelation; just such as has been given; —a glimpse of the immortal splendors; an articulate Voice from heaven —a view of the glorified Jesus; a revelation in a point of time, just as that on the mount was in point of space. We need some; but not too much, —not all revelation; not revelation as a customary fact. If so, I repeat, we should neglect this ordained field of thought and action. We should live in a sphere of supernaturalism, —in an atmosphere of wonder, —amid a planetary roll of miracles; still unsatisfied; still needing the suggestion of higher points to break the stupendous monotony. And I insist that work, not vision, is to be the ordinary method of our being here, against the position of those who shut themselves in to a contemplative and extatic piety. They would escape from the age, and its anxieties; they would recall past conditions; they would get into the shadow of cloisters, and build cathedrals for an exclusive sanctity. And, indeed, we would do well to consider those tendencies of our time which lead us away from the inner life of faith and prayer. But this we should cherish, not by withdrawing all sanctity from life, but by pouring sanctity into life. We should not quit the world, to build tabernacles in the Mount of Transfiguration, but come from out the celestial brightness, to shed light into the world, —to make the whole earth a cathedral; to overarch it with Christian ideals, to transfigure its gross and guilty features, and fill it with redeeming truth and love. Surely, the lesson of the incident connected with the text is clear, so far as the apostles were concerned, who beheld that dazzling, brightness, and that heavenly companionship, apart on the mount. They were not permitted to remain apart; but were dismissed to their appointed work. Peter went to denial and repentance, —to toil and martyrdom; James to utter his practical truth; John to send the fervor of his spirit among the splendors of the Apocalypse, and, in its calmer flow through his Gospel, to give us the clearest mirror of the Saviour’s face. Nay, even for the Redeemer that was not to be an abiding vision; and he illustrates the purport of life as he descends from his transfiguration to toil, and goes forward to exchange that robe of heavenly, brightness for the crown of thorns. What if Jesus had remained there, upon that Mount of Vision, and himself stood before us as only a transfigured form of glory? Where then would be the peculiarity of his work, and its effect upon the world? On the wall of the Vatican, untarnished by the passage of three hundred years, hangs the masterpiece of Raphael, —his picture of the Transfiguration. In the centre, with the glistening raiment and the altered countenance, stands Jesus, the Redeemer. On the right hand and on the left are his glorified visitants; while, underneath the bright cloud, lie the forms of Peter, and James, and John, gazing at the transfigured Jesus, shading their faces as they look. Something of the rapture and the awe that attracted the apostles to that shining spot seems to have seized the soul of the great artist, and filled him with his greatest inspiration. But he saw what the apostles, at that moment, did not see, and, in another portion of his picture, has represented the scene at the foot of the hill, - the group that awaited the descent of Jesus. . The poor possessed boy, writhing, and foaming, and gnashing his teeth, — his eyes, as some say, in their wild rolling agony, already catching a glimpse of the glorified Christ above; the baffled disciples, the caviling scribes, the impotent physicians, the grief-worn father, seeking in vain for help. Suppose Jesus had stayed upon the mount, what would have become of that group of want, and helplessness, and agony? Suppose Christ had remained in the brightness of that vision forever, — himself only a vision of glory, and not an example of toil, and sorrow, and suffering, and death, —alas! For the great world at large, waiting at the foot of the hill -the groups of humanity in all ages; — the sin-possessed sufferers — the caviling skeptics; the philosophers, with their books and instruments; the bereaved and frantic mourners in their need! So, my hearers, wrapped in the higher moods of the soul, and wishing to abide among upper glories, we may not see the work that waits for us along our daily path; without doing which all our visions are vain. We must have the visions., We need them in our estimate of the world around us, —of the aspects and destinies of humanity. There are times when justice is balked, and truth covered up, and freedom trampled down; — when we may well be tempted to ask, "What is the use of trying to work?" —when we may well inquire whether what-we are doing is work at all. And in such a case, or in any other, one is lifted up, and inspired, and enabled to do and to endure all things, when in steady vision he beholds the everliving God, —when all around the injustice, and conflict, and suffering of the world, he detects the Divine Presence, like a bright cloud overshadowing. O! then doubt melts away, and wrong dwindles, and the jubilee of victorious falsehood is but a peal of drunken laughter, and the spittings of guilt and contempt no more than flakes of foam flung against a hero’s breast-plate. Then one sees, as it were, with the vision of God, who looked down upon the old cycles, when a sweltering waste covered the face of the globe, and huge, reptile natures held it in dominion; — who beholds the pulpy worm, down in the sea, building the pillars of continents; —so one sees the principalities of evil sliding from their thrones, and the deposits of humble faithfulness rising from the deep of ages. Our sympathy, our benevolent effort in the work of God and humanity, how much do they need not only the vision of intellectual foresight, but of the faith which, on bended knees, sees further than the telescope! And alas! for him who, in his personal need and effort, has no margin of holier inspiration —no rim of divine splendor - -around his daily life! Without the vision of life’s great realities we cannot see what our work is, or know how to do it. But such visions must be necessarily rare and transient, or we shall miss their genuine efficacy. We must work in comparative shadow, without the immediate sight of these realities; and only in the place of our rest, — rest for higher efforts and a new career, —only there may we have their constant companionship, and build their perpetual tabernacles. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 10: 02.02. THE SHADOW OF DISAPPOINTMENT ======================================================================== THE SHADOW OF DISAPPOINTMENT. But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel. Luke 24:21. In the accounts of the disciples, contained in the New Testament, there is no attempt to glorify them, or to conceal any weakness. From the first to the last, they think and act precisely as men would think and act in their circumstances; -they are affected just as others of like culture would be affected by such events as those set forth in the record. And the genuineness of their conduct argues the genuineness of the incidents which excited it. The divine, wonderworking, risen Jesus, is the necessary counterpart of the amazed, believing, erring hoping, desponding, rejoicing fishermen and publicans. This stamp of reality is very evident in the instance before us. The conduct and the feelings of the disciples are those of men who have been involved in a succession of strange experiences. For a little while they have been in communion with One who has spoken as never man spoke, and who has touched the deepest springs of their being. He has lifted them out of the narrow limits of their previous lives. From the Receipt of Customs, and the Galilean lake, he has summoned them to the interests and awards, the thought and the work, of a spiritual and divine kingdom. At first following him, perhaps they hardly knew why,. conscious only that he had the Words of Eternal Life, the terms of this discipleship have grown into bonds of the dearest intimacy. Their Master has become their Companion and their Friend, and their faith has deepened into tender and confiding love. But still, theirs has been the belief of the trusting soul, rather than the enlightened intellect. From the fitness of the teaching, and the wonder of the miracle, they have felt that he was the very Christ; and yet, from this conviction of the heart they have not been able to separate their Jewish conceits. Sometimes, it may be, the language of the Saviour has carried them up into a broader and more spiritual region; but then, they have subsided into their symbols and shadows; —only, notwithstanding the errors that have hindered, and the hints that have awed them, they have steadily felt the inspiration of a great hope, the expectation of something glorious to be revealed in the speedy coming of the Messiah’s kingdom. And now, does not the account immediately connected with the text picture for us exactly the state of men whose conceptions have been broken up by a great shock, and yet in whose hearts the central hope still remains and vibrates with mysterious tenacity? —men who have had the form of their expectation utterly refuted and scattered into darkness, but who still cherish its spirit? Christ the crowned King,— Christ the armed Deliverer, —Christ the Avenger, sweeping away his foes with one burst of miracle,—is to them, no more. They saw the multitude seize him, and no legions came to rescue;- -they saw him condemned, abused, crucified, buried; and so, in no sense of which they could conceive, was this he who should have redeemed Israel. And yet the suggestion of something still to come, —something connected with three days, — lingered in their minds. And, in the midst of their despondency, striking upon this very chord, the startling rumor reached them that Christ had risen from the dead. It was in this mood that Jesus found the two disciples whose words I have selected for my text; — faith and doubt, disappointment and hope, alternating in their minds; their Jewish conceit laid prostrate in the dust, and yet the expectation of something, they knew not what, now strangely confirmed. See how these feelings mingle in the passage before us. "What manner of communications," said the undiscerned Saviour, "are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?"-"Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem," says one of them, "and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?" What things? "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth," replied they, "which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to-day is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; and when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not." My hearers, I think we see, in this instance the minds of these disciples working as the minds of men might be expected to work under like conditions. And to me this casts a complexion of genuineness upon the transactions which, as stated in the record, account for these mental alternations. The entire passage is alive with reality. The genuine emotions of humanity play and thrill together, there, in the shadow of the cross and the glory of the resurrection. But, if these feelings are thus natural, the experience itself indicated in that portion of this verse which constitutes the text is not entirely removed from our ordinary life. The incident which occasioned these sad words was an extraordinary one; but its moral significance, as it now comes before us, illustrates many a passage in man’s daily course. The language, as we read it, appears to be the language of disappointment; —-it was under the shadow of disappointment, though alternating with hope, that these disciples spoke; and it is to the lessons afforded by disappointment in the course of life that I now especially invite your attention. And the precise point in the text, bearing upon this subject, is the fact, that while the disciples seemed to feel as though all redemption for Israel was now hopeless, that process of redemption for Israel, and for the world, was going on through the agency of those very events which had filled them with dismay. Even as they were speaking, in tones of sadness, about the crucified Christ, the living Christ, made perfect for his work by that crucifixion, was walking by their side. Looking far this side of that shadow of disappointment which then brooded over them, we see all this, that then they did not see; but now is it with ourselves, under the frequent shadows cast by more ordinary events? This suggestion may afford us some profitable thoughts. I need hardly say, in the first place, that man is continually inspired by expectation. Every effort he makes is made in the conviction of possibility and the light of hope. This is the heart of ambition and the spring of toil. It is the balm which he applies to the wounds of misfortune. It is the key with which he tries the wards of nature. And from the morning of life to its last twilight he is always looking. forward. The saddest spectacle of all—sadder even than pain, and bereavement, and death —is a man void of hope. The most abject people is a hopeless people, in whose hearts the memories of the past, and the pulses of endeavor, and the courage of faith are dead, and who crouch by their own thresholds and the crumbling tombstones of their fathers, and take the tyrant’s will, without an incentive, and without even a dream. The most intense form in which misery can express itself is in the phrase, "I have nothing to live for." And he who can actually say, and who really feels this, is dead, and covered with the very pall and darkness of calamity. But few, indeed, are they who can, with truth, say this. But if hope or expectation is such a vital element of human experience, so does disappointment have its part in the mechanism of things, and, as we shall presently see, its wise and beneficial part. For, after all, how few things correspond with the forecast of expectation! To be sure, some results transcend our hope; but how many fall below it, —balk it, — turn out exactly opposite to it.! Among those who meet with disappointments in life, there are those who are expecting impossibilities, — whose expectations are inordinate, — are more than the nature of things will admit; or who are looking for a harvest where they have planted no seed. They carry the dreams of youth in among the realities of the world, and its vanishing visions leave them naked and discouraged. The light of romance, that glorified all things in the future, recedes as they advance, and they come upon rugged paths of fact —upon plain toil and daily care, —upon the market and the field, and upon men as they are in their weakness, and their selfishness, and their mutual distrust. Or they belong, it may be, to that class who are too highly charged with hope; whose sanguine notions never go by induction, but by leaps; who never calculate the difficulties, but only see the thing complete and rounded in imagination; —men with plenty of poetry, and no arithmetic; whose theories work miracles, but whose attempts are failures. It is pleasant, sometimes, to meet with people like these, who, clothed in the scantiest garments, and with only a crust upon their tables, at the least touch of suggestion, mount into a region of splendor. Their poverty all fades away; — the bare walls, the tokens of stern want, the dusty world, are all transfigured with infinite possibilities. Achievement is only a word, and fortune comes in at a stride. The palace of beauty rises, fruits bloom in waste places, gold drops from the rocks, and the entire movement of life becomes a march of jubilee. And they are so certain this time, —the plan they now have is so sure to succeed! I repeat, it is pleasant, sometimes, to have intercourse with such men, who throw bloom and marvelousness upon the actualities of the world, from the reservoirs of their sanguine invention. At least, it is pleasant to think how this faculty of unfailing enthusiasm enables them to bear defeat, and to look away from the cold face of necessity; — to think that, while so many are trudging after the sounding wheels and the monotonous jar of life, and lying down by the way to die, these men are marching buoyantly to a tune inside. And yet this is pleasant only from a hasty point of view. These people meet with disappointment, of course; and it is sad to think how many lives have come to absolutely nothing, and are all strewn over, from boyhood to the grave, with the fragments of splendid schemes. It is sad to think how all their visionary Balbecs and Palmyras have been reared in a real desert, — the desert of an existence producing no substantial thing. And among these vanishing dreams, and on that melancholy waste, they learn, at last, the meaning of their disappointment. And. from their experience, we too may learn, that we are placed here to be not merely ideal artists, but actual toilers; not cadets of hope, but soldiers of endeavor. But there are disappointments in life that succeed reasonable expectation; and these are the hardest of all to bear. I say the expectation is reasonable; and yet, very possibly, the bitterness of the disappointment comes from neglecting to consider the infirmity of all earthly things. It is hard when, not dreaming, but trying our best, we fail. It is hard to bear the burden and heat of the day, through all life’s prime, and yet, with all our toil, to earn no repose for its evening hours. It is hard to accumulate a little gain, baptizing every dollar with our honest sweat, and then have it stricken from our grasp by the band of calamity or of fraud. It is hard, when we have placed our confidence in man’s honor, or his friendship, to find that we are fools, and that we have been led in among rocks and serpents. And hard indeed is it to see those who were worthy our love and our faith drop by our side, and leave us alone. This dear child, the blossom of so many hopes, — hard is it to see him die — to fold all our expectation in his little shroud, and lay it away forever. We thought it had been he who should have comforted and blessed us, —in whose life we could have retraced the cycle of our own happiest experience, —whose unfolding faculties would have been a renewal of our knowledge, and his manhood not merely the prop but the refreshing of our age. This companion of our lot, — this wedded wife of our heart, - why taken away now? She has shared our early struggles, and tempered our anxiety with cheerful assurance. She has tasted the bitterness; we thought she would have been a partner of the joy. She has borne our fretfulness, and helped our perplexity, and shed a serene light into our gloom; We thought she would have been with us when we could pay the debt of faithfulness; when the cares of business did not press and disturb us so. We thought it was she whose voice, sweet with the music of old, deep memories, would have consoled us far along; and that, in some calm evening of life, when all the tumult of the world was still, and we were ready to go, we should go — not far apart — gently to our graves. Such are the plans that we lay out, saying of this thing and of that thing, "We trusted that it would have been so." But the answer has been disappointment. The old, ay, perhaps the most common lesson of life, is disappointment. And now I ask, is it not an intended lesson? Evidently it comes in as an element in the Providential plan in which we are involved. For we see its disciplinary nature, —its wise and beneficial results in harmony with that Plan. Consider whether it is not the fact, that the entire discipline of life grows out of a succession of disappointments. That youthful dream, in which life has stretched out like a sunny landscape with purple mountain-chains —is it not well that it is broken up, and we strike upon rugged realities? Does not all the strength of manhood, and the power of achievement, and the glory of existence, depend upon these things which are not included in the young boy’s vision of a happy world. Welcome, O! disappointment of our hope that life would prove a perpetual holiday. Welcome experience of the fact that blessing comes not from pleasure, but from labor! For in that experience alone was there ever anything truly great or good accomplished. We can conceive no possible way by which one can be made personally strong without his own effort; —no possible way by which the mind can be enriched and strengthened where it is lifted up, instead of climbing for itself; —no way, therefore, in which life could be at all a worthy achievement, if it were merely a plain of ease, instead of holding every ward of knowledge and of power under the guard of difficulty and the requisition of endeavor. And it is equally true that the greatest successes grow out of great failures. In numerous instances the result is better that comes after a series of abortive experiences than it would have been if it had come at once. For all these successive failures induce a skill, which is so much additional power working into the final achievement. Nobody passes at once to the mastery, in any branch of science or of industry; and when he does become a master in his work it is evident, not only in the positive excellence of his performance, but in the sureness with which he avoids defects; and these defects he has learned by experimental failures. The hand that evokes such perfect music from the instrument has often failed in its touch, and bungled among the keys. And if a man derives skill from his own failures, so does he from the failures of other men. Every unsuccessful attempt is, for him, so much work done; for he will not go over that ground again, but seek some new way. Every disappointed effort fences in and indicates the only possible path of success, and makes it easier to find. We should thank past ages and other men, not only for what they have left us of great things done, but for the heritage of their failures. Every baffled effort for freedom contributes skill for the next attempt, and ensures the day of victory. Nations stripped and bound, and waiting for liberty under the shadow of thrones, cherish in memory not only the achievements of their heroes, but the defeats of their martyrs; and when the trumpet-voice shall summon them once more, as surely it will, —when they shall draw for the venture of freedom, and unroll its glittering standard to the winds, — they will avoid the stumbling blocks which have sacrificed the brave, and the errors which have postponed former hopes. In public and in private action, it is true that disappointment is the school of achievement, and the balked efforts are the very agents that help us to our purpose. And, if life itself —life as a whole —seems to us but a series of disappointments, is not this the very conviction we need to work out from it, through our own experience? Do we not need to learn that this life itself is not sufficient, and holds no blessing that will fill us completely, and with which we may forever rest? The baffled hopes of our mortal state; —what are they but vain strivings of the human soul, out of the path of its highest good? The wandering bird, driven against the branches, and beaten by the storm, flutters at last to the clear opening, by which it mounts above the cloud, and finds its way to its home. This life is not ordained in vain; —it is constituted for a grand purpose, if through its lessons of experience we become convinced that this life is not all. In the outset of our existence here, and merely from the teaching of others, we cannot comprehend the great realities of existence. How the things that have grown familiar to our eyes, and the lessons that have sounded trite upon our ears, become fresh and wonderful, as life turns into experience! How this very lesson of disappointment lets us in to the deep meanings of Scripture, for instance! The Christ of our youth, — a personage standing mild and beautiful upon the Gospel-page, - - a being to admire and love; how be develops to our later thought! how solemnly tender, how greatly real, he becomes to us, when we cling to him in the agony of our sorrow, and he goes down to walk with us on the waters of the sea of death! As traditional sentiment, —as a wholesome subject for school-composition, —we have spoken and written of the weariness of the world-worn heart, and the frailty of earthly things. But, O! when our hearts have actually become worn, and tried; when we begin to learn that the things of this life are evanescent, —are dropping away from us, and we slipping from them, — what inspiration of reality comes to us in the oft-heard invitation, " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest"! What a depth of meaning flowing from the eternal world, in the precept we have read so carelessly, — "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal"! Thus the best results of life come from the defeats and the limitations that are involved with it. And, in all this, observe how disappointment is the instrument of higher blessings. See how thus life itself suggests a higher good than life itself can yield. And so the attitude of the disciples, after the crucifixion, illustrates many experiences of our earthly lot. Those incidents which perplexed and grieved them were securing the very results they seemed to prevent. So, in our ordinary life, the things that appear most adverse to. us are often the most favorable. I may say, indeed, that to any man who is rightly exercised by it, disappointment always brings a better result. But this statement requires that I should say, likewise, that the result of disappointment depends upon the level and quality of a man’s spirit. "One thing happens alike to the wise man and the fool." But how different in texture and substance is the final result of the event! Disappointment breaks down a feeble and shallow man. There are those, again, whom it does not make better, — in fact, whom nothing, as we can see, makes better. Everything glides easily off from them. Now, it is a noble thing to see a man rise above misfortune, - a moral Prometheus, submissive to the actual will of God, but defying fate. But there are men whose very elasticity indicates the superficiality of their nature. For it is good sometimes to be sad, — good to have depth of being sufficient for misfortune to sink into, and, accomplish its proper work. But the man who rightly receives the lesson of disappointment, and improves by its discipline, bent as he is on some great or good work, is impelled by it only to a change of method, — never to a change of purpose; and the disappointment effectually serves the purpose. But the fact before us is most clearly seen when we contemplate the results of disappointment upon a religious and un-religious spirit. A man is not made better by disappointment to whom this world is virtually everything;—to whom spiritual things are not realities. To him life is a narrow stream between jutting crags, and its substance flows away with the objects before his eyes. Nay, some men of this sort are made worse by the failure of earthly hopes, and their natures are compressed and hammered by misfortune into a sullen and granitic defiance. But he who sees beyond these material limits, looking to the great end and final relations of our being, always extracts from mortal disappointment a better result. In the wreck of external things he gathers that spiritual good which is the substance of all life; — that faith, and patience, and holy love, which, when all that is mortal and incidental in our humanity passes away, constitute the residuum of personality. Our hopes disappointed, —our plans thwarted and overthrown; but out of that disappointment a richer good evolving than we had conceived; something that tends more than all our effort to produce the real object of life. My friends, what do we make out of this fact? Why, surely this, that life is not our plan, but God’s. Consider what we, often, would have made out of life, and compare this with what Providence has made out of it. Contrast the man’s achievement with the boy’s scheme; the dream of care with the moral glory that has sprung from toil and trouble. Contrast the idea of the Saviour in the minds of those disciples with the actual Saviour rising victorious from the conditions of shame and death. Life is God’s plan; not ours. We may find this out only by effort; but we do find it out. We are responsible for the use of our materials, but the materials themselves, and the great movement of things, are furnished for us. Let us fall into no ascetic view of life. Out of our joy and our acknowledged good the Supreme Disposer works his spiritual ends. But, especially, how often does he do this out of our trials, and sorrows, and so-called evils! Once more I say life is God’s plan; not ours. For often on the ruins of visionary hope rises the kingdom of our substantial possession and our true peace; and under the shadow of earthly disappointment, all unconsciously to ourselves, our Divine Redeemer is walking by our side. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11: 02.03. LIFE A TALE ======================================================================== LIFE A TALE We spend our years as a tale that is told. Psalms 90:9. We bring our years to an end like a thought, is the proper rendering of these words, according, to an eminent translator. But as the essential idea of the Psalmist is preserved in the common version, I employ it as peculiarly illustrative and forcible. It will be my object, in the present discourse, to show the fitness of the comparison in the text; —to suggest the points of resemblance between human life and a passing narrative. I observe, then, in the first place, that the propriety of this simile is seen in the brevity of life. What more rapid and momentary than a story? It is heard, and passes. Though it beguiles us for the time, it dies away in sound, or melts from before, the eye. And this I say, strikingly illustrates the brevity of life. The brevity of life! It is a trite truth, and yet how little realized! Probably there is nothing, more common, and yet there is nothing, more pernicious, than the habit of virtual dependence upon length of days. Thus the best ends of our mortal being are lost sight of; the solemn circumstances, the suggestive mysteries of life, are misconstrued. The heavens, which give a myriad hints of worlds beyond the grave, are, to many, impenetrable walls, shutting them in to mere pursuits of sense, — the upholstery of a workshop or bazaar; and this earth, which is but a step, —a filmy platform of our immortal course, —is to them the solid abiding place of all interest, and of all hope. It is well, then, to break in upon this worldly reliance, — to consider how fleeting and uncertain are the things in which we garner up so much. Therefore, in order that we may more vividly realize the brevity of life,—how like it is to a passing tale,—let us consider the rapidity of its changes, even in a few short years. We are, to some degree, made aware how fast the current of time bears us on, when we pause and remark the shores; when we observe how our position to- day has shifted from what it was yesterday; how the sunny slopes of youth have been changed for the teeming uplands of maturity; yea, perhaps, how already the stream is narrowing, and rushing more swiftly as it narrows, towards those high hills that bound our present vision, upon whose summits lingers the departing light, and around whose base thickens the solemn shadow. This rapidity of change is most strikingly illustrated when, after a few years’ absence, we return to the scenes of our youth. We plunged into the current of the world, buoyant and vigorous; our thoughts have been occupied every hour, and we have not noticed the stealthy shadow of time. But we come back to that early spot, and look around. Lo! The companions of our youth have grown into dignified men,—the active and influential citizens of the place. Care has set "Busy wrinkles round their eyes." They meet us with formal deportment, or with an ill-concealed restlessness, as though we hindered them in their work,— work! Which, when we parted with them, would have been flung to the winds for any idle sport. How quickly they have changed into this gravity and anxiety! On the other hand, those who stood where they stand now,—whose names occupied the signs and the records which theirs now fill,—have passed away, or, here and there, come tottering along, bent and gray-headed men. Those, too, who were mere infants-those whom we never saw-take up our old stations, and inspire them with the gladness of childhood. And exactly thus have we changed to others. We are a mirror to them and they to us. From this familiar experience, then, let us realize that the stream of life does not stop, nor are we left stationary, but carried with it; though our condition may appear unchanged, until we lift up our eyes, and look for the old landmarks. The brevity of our life! my friends. Amid our daily business,—in the sounding tumult of the great mart, and the absorption of our thoughts,—do we think of it? Do we perceive how nearly we approach a goal which a little while ago seemed far before us? Do we observe how quickly we shoot by it? Do we mark with what increasing swiftness the line of our life seems reeling off, and how close we are coming to the end? Time never stops! Each tick of the clock echoes our advancing footsteps. The shadow of the dial falls upon it a shorter and shorter tract, which we have yet to pass over. Even if a long life lies before us, let us consider that thirty-five years is high noon with us,—the meridian of that arc which comprehends but threescore years and ten! But we may be more vividly impressed with the fact of the brevity of life, if we adopt some criterion wider than these familiar measurements. The narrative, the story, engages our ears, in the pauses of care and labor. We listen to it in the noonday rest, and around the evening fire. It is a slight break in the monotony of our business,—an interlude in the solemn march of life. And thus, in some respects, is life itself. It is so, if we take into view a long series of existence, such as the succession of human generations, or, still more, the periods of creative development, and the computations of time as applied to the forms and changes of the material universe. In this vast train of being, our individual existence, however important to ourselves, is but an interlude-a tale. Let us, then, for a while, lay aside any conventional method of estimating our life,—a method in which that life fills a large space, simply because it is brought near to the eye, —and let us endeavor to take a view of it, as it were, from the fixed stars, or from the elevation of the immortal state. Compare, then, if you will, this life of yours or mine, not with the personal standard of threescore years and ten, but with the whole course of human history; and instantly we appear but as bubbles in the stream of ages. But, again, consider how history itself is as "a tale that is told;" and then, indeed, what a mere incident in it all is your life and mine! If we stand off at the distance of a few centuries, so that we have no present interest in them, it is strange how the proudest empires assume an empty and spectral aspect. Their growth and decline occupied ages; but what a brief achievement it appears now! Why puzzle ourselves about their origin, or seek to disengage the true from the fabulous in their history? Why strain laboriously to settle names, and dates, and dynasties? What mere point they have occupied in the processes of the great universe! Their hieroglyphic pillars, their gray old pyramids;—what are they to the age of Uranus, or the new planet? Each of these empires fulfilled its mission, and relatively that mission was a great one; but in the long sweep of God’s providence, and among the phenomena of absolute being, what a brief link, a subordinate climax, it was! The huge ribs of the earth, and the coral islands of the sea were longer in building; and even these are transitory manifestations of God’s purposes, which stream around us through constant change and succession. And what, then, are these nations-these epochs of humanity-but waves rising and breaking on the great sea of eternity? Mysterious Egypt, haughty Assyria, glorious Greece, kingly Rome;—how spectral they have become. They stand out in no relief. As we recede from them, they sink back, flat and inanimate on the horizon. Each is a tale that has been told. Surely, then, if such is the life of nations, I need not labor to impress upon you a sense of the brevity of our individual existence. But, for a moment, turn your thoughts to estimates that far exceed the periods of history, and confound all our ordinary measurements. What is our mortal existence, into which we crowd so much interest,—over the anticipated length of which we slumber,—into whose uncertain future we project our lithe plans so confidently,—compared to the age of the heavens,— the lifetime of worlds?—compared to their march, from the moment when they obeyed the creative fiat to that when they shall complete their great cycle? It takes three years for light to travel from the nearest fixed star to the earth; from another it takes twelve years; while, on its journey from a star of the twelfth magnitude, twenty four billions of miles away, it consumes four thousand years. And yet we speak of long life! Why, when the light that wraps us now shall be changed for the light that is just leaping from that distant star, where in the gray bosom of the past shall we be? Sunken, forgotten, crumbled to imperceptible atoms; the ashes of generations-the dust of empires-heaped over us! And when we compare those wide estimates to that divine eternity that evolves and limits all things, how does our individual existence on the earth dwindle and vanish!—a heart-throb in the pulses of the universal life,—a quivering leaf in the forest of being,—"a tale that is told"! And yet, my friends, our realization of existence is so intense,—the horizon of the present shuts us in so completely,—that it really requires an effort for us to pause and remember that we are such transitory beings. It cannot be (we may unconsciously reason), that we to whom this earth is bound with ligaments so intimate and strong; whose breathing and motion-whose contact and action here-are such realities; whose ears hear these varying sounds of life; whose eyes drink in this perpetual and changing beauty; to whom business, study, friendship, pleasure, domestic relations, are such fresh and constant facts; to whom the dawn and the twilight, the nightly slumber and the daily meal, are such regular experiences; to whom our possessions, our houses, lands, goods, money, are such substantial things;—it cannot be that we are not fixed permanently here,—that the years like a swift river, sweep us nearer and nearer to a point where we must sink and leave it all,—that the corridors of the earth echo our footsteps only as the footsteps of a successive march-myriads going before, and myriads coming after us-and soon they will catch no more murmurs of our individual life; for that will be as "a tale that is told." The whole train of thought I am now pursuing strikes us with peculiar force, in reading the biographies of men who have lived intensely, who have realized the fulness of life, who have mingled intimately with its varied experiences, and occupied a large place in it. We see how to them life was, as it is to us, an absorbing fact,—how they have planned, and thought, and acted, as though they were to live forever; and yet we have noticed the premonitions of change, the dropping away of friends, the failing of vigor, the deepening of melancholy shadows, and the coming of the end; the business closed, the active curiosity and intermeddling ceased, the familiar haunts abandoned, the home made desolate, the lights put out, the cup fallen beneath the festal board, and all the earnest existence stopped forever. And this, too, so quick,—filling so small a space in absolute time! From their illustration let us, then, realize that our life, too, amid all these real conditions, is unfolding rapidly to an end, and is "as a tale that is told." But life is like a tale that is told, because of its comprehensiveness. It is a common characteristic of a narrative that it contains a great deal in a small compass. It includes many years, and expresses many results. Sometimes it sweeps over different lands, and exhibits the peculiarities of various personages. In one word, it is characterized by comprehensiveness. And this, I repeat, is also a characteristic of human life. When the consideration of the brevity of our mortal existence excites us to diligence it is well; but when we make it an argument for indolence, disgust, and despair, we should be reminded of the fact I am now endeavoring to illustrate,—the fact that even the briefest life contains a great deal, and means a great deal; and that, if we estimate things by a spiritual standard, a man’s earthly being may contain more than all the cycles of the material world. From the best point of view, life is not merely a term of years and a span of action; it is a force, a current and depth of being. Indeed, considered in its most literal sense, as the vital spark of our animal organism, it is something more than a measurement of time;— it is a mysterious, informing essence. No man has yet been able to tell us what it is, where it resides, or how it acts. We only know that when we gaze upon the features of the dead we see there the same organs that pertained to the living; but something has gone,—something of light, power, motion; and that something we call life. But it is chiefly in a moral sense that I make the remark that life is something more than a term of years or a span of action. In fact, life is a sum of spiritual experiences; and thus one act, or result, often contains more than a century of time. Who does not understand the fact to which I now refer? Who has not felt something of it? Has not each one of us, at times, realized that he lived a year in a single day,—in a moment,—in an emotion or thought? Nay, could that experience be measured by any estimate of time? And if we should compute the length of any life by such experiences, and not by a succession of years, would it not be a long life? At least, would it not be a full and immeasurable life? But, while every man’s history will furnish instances of what I mean, let us, for the sake of clearer illustration, consider some of the experiences which are common to all. Defining life to be depth and intensity of being, then,—a current of spiritual power, and not a mere succession of incidents,—how much we live when we acquire the knowledge of a single truth! What an inexhaustible power!—what an immeasurable experience it is! We are made absolutely stronger by it; we receive more life with it,—a new and imperishable fibre of being. Fortune cannot pluck it from us, age cannot weaken it, death cannot set limits to it. And now, with the fulness of this one experience as a test, just consider our whole mortal experience as filled up with such revelations of truth. Suppose we improve all our opportunities; into what boundless life does education admit us, and the discoveries of every day, and the ordinary lessons of the world! Tell me, is this life to be called merely a brief and worthless fact, when by a little reading, for instance, I can make the experience of other men, and lands, and ages, all mine? When in some favored hour, I can climb the starry galaxy with Newton, and pace along the celestial coast to the great harmony of numbers and unlock the mighty secret of the universe? When of a winter’s night, I can pass through all the belts of climate, and all the grades of civilization on our globe; scan its motley races, learn its diverse customs, and hear the groaning of lonely ice-fields and the sigh of Indian palms? When, with Bacon, I can explore the laboratory of nature, or with Locke, consult the mysteries of the soul? When Spenser can lead me into golden visions, or Shakespeare smite me with magic inspiration, or Milton bathe me in immortal song? When History opens for me all the gates of the past,—Thebes and Palmyra, Corinth and Carthage, Athens with its peerless glory, and Rome with its majestic pomp?—when kings and statesmen, authors and priests, with their public deeds and secret thoughts are mine? When the plans of cabinets, and the debates of parliaments, and the course of revolutions, and the results of battle, are all before my eyes and in my mind? When I can enter the inner chamber of sainted souls, and conspire with the efforts of moral heroes, and understand the sufferings of martyrs? Say, when all these deep experiences-these comprehensive truths-may be acquired through merely one privilege, is life but a dream, or a breath of air? Thus, too, do immeasurable experiences flow in to me from nature,—from planet, flower, and ocean. Thus, too, does more life come to me from contacts in the common round of action. And, I repeat, every truth thus gained expands a moment of time into illimitable being,—positively enlarges my existence, and endows me with a quality which time cannot weaken or destroy. Consider, again, how much we really live in cherishing good affections, and in performing noble deeds. We have the familiar lines of the poet, to this point: "One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas." It is true. There is more life in one "self-approving hour,"-one act of benevolence,— one work of self- discipline,—than in threescore years and ten of mere sensual existence. Go out among the homes of the poor, lift up the disconsolate, administer comfort to the forlorn; in some way, as it may come across your path, or lie in the sphere of your duty, do a deed of kindness; and in that one act you shall live more than in a year of selfish indulgence and indolent ease,—yea, more than in a lifetime of such. The poet, with his burning, immortal lines, while doing his work, lives all the coming ages of his fame. From every marble feature he chisels, the sculptor draws an intensity of being that cannot be imparted by a mere extension of years. The philanthropist, in his walks of mercy and his ministrations of love, lives more comprehensively than another may in a century. His is the fathomless bliss of benevolence,—the experience of God. The martyr, in his dying hour, with his face shining like an angel’s, does not live longer, but he lives more than all his persecutors. Consider, too, the experiences of religion, of worship, of prayer. In the act of communion with God, in the realization of immortality, in the aspirations and the idea of perfection, there is a depth and scope of being from which all sensual estimates of time drop away. Our mortal life, then, is very comprehensive. If we measure it, not by its length of years, but by its spiritual results, be they good or evil, it is a full and large life. It then appears, like the immortal state, not as a fact of succession, but of experience. Christ has defined eternal life as such a fact. "Eternal life," he says, "is to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." The life of the blessed in heaven is not marked by years and cycles; it is not so much protracted being, as a power of knowledge,—a depth of glad and holy consciousness,- -a constant pulsation of harmony with God. Again, every life may be compared to "a tale that is told," because it has a plot. In the narrative there is a combination of agencies working to a crisis. There is a main-point with which all the action is involved. And so every human life has its main-point.. I will not now take up time to carry out this illustration minutely. The mere suggestion that each one is working out a peculiar destiny invests even the meanest life with a solemn dignity, and counteracts any disparaging argument drawn from its brevity. But still I would urge, that the propriety of this comparison between the peculiar tendency of an individual life and the plot of a story, is seen in the fact that every man is accomplishing a certain moral result in and for himself. This is inevitable. We may be inactive, but that result is forming; the mould of habit is growing, and the inward life is unfolding itself, after its kind. We may think our career is aimless, but all things give a shape to our character. And does not this consideration make our mortal life of deep consequence to us? All circumstances and experiences are chiefly important as affecting this result. One of the highest views we can take of the universe is that of a theatre for the soul’s education. We are placed upon this earth not to be absorbed by it, but to use it for the highest spiritual occasions. We are placed among the joys and sorrows of our daily lives to be trained for immortal issues. Our business, our domestic duties, and all our various relations, constitute a school for our souls. Here our affections and our powers are acted upon for good or for evil. Grief strengthens our faith and elevates our thoughts; joy quickens our gratitude, our obedience, and our trust; temptation forms in us an exalted and spontaneous virtue, or enfeebles and enslaves us. Chiefly, then, should we be solicitous about character, the plot of our life; and in this solicitude our earthly existence rises to the highest importance. Let us, then, feel that our mortal career is not vague and aimless. Let us realize that each life is a special history. The poorest, the most obscure, has such a history; and although it may be unnoticed by men, angels regard it with interest. The merchant, every day, in the dust, and heat, and busy maze of traffic, unfolds a history. The beggar by the way-side, it may be, outrivals kings in the grandeur and magnitude of his history. In sainted homes,—in narrow nooks of life,—in the secret heart of love, and prayer, and patience,—many a tale is told which God alone sees, and which he approves. The needy tell a tale, in their unrelieved wants and unpitied sufferings. The oppressed tell a tale, that goes up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. The vicious tell a tale of wo, and misspent opportunity, and wasted power. Let us think of it, I beseech you! Each one of us in his sphere of action is developing a plot which surely tells in character,—which is fast running into a great fixed fact. Once more, we may compare every life to "a tale that is told," because it has a moral. Any story, good or bad,—the most pernicious work of fiction, the most flimsy narrative, as the grandest history,—has its significance. So it is with the life of a man. As all his conduct he is building up the intrinsic results of character for himself,—establishing in his own soul a fabric of welfare or of wo,—so is he furnishing a lesson for others, and accomplishing an end by which they are affected. The purpose for which any one has lived, the point which he has attained, the personal history which he has unfolded, constitute the moral of his life. For instance, here is a man whose life is frivolous,—divided between aimless cares and superficial enjoyments. He has no resources in himself, no fountain of inward peace and joy. His spirit leaps like new wine in the whirl of exciting pleasure, but in the hour of solitude and of golden opportunity, it is "flat, stale, and unprofitable." He marks off the year by its festivals, and distributes the day into hours of food, rest, and folly. In short, he holds no serious conception of life, and he is untouched by lofty sentiment. The great drama of existence, with its solemn shifts of scenery and its impending grandeur, is but a pantomime to him; and he a thoughtless epicurean, a grinning courtier, a scented fop, a dancing puppet, on the mighty stage. And surely, such a life, a life of superficiality and heartlessness, a life of silken niceties and conventional masquerade, a life of sparkling effervescence, has a moral. It shows us how vain is human existence when empty of serious thought, of moral purpose, and of devout emotion. Another is a skeptic. He has no genuine faith in immortality, in virtue, or in God. To him, life is a sensual opportunity closing up with annihilation and to be enjoyed as it may. It is a mere game, and he who plays the most skilful(sic) hand will win. Virtue is a smooth decency, which it is well to assume in order to cover and artful selfishness; and it is a noteworthy fact, too, that, in the long run, those who have trusted to virtue have made by it. At least, vice is inexpedient, and it will not do to make a public profession of it. Religion, too, he says, is well enough; it does for the weak and the ignorant; though shrewd men, like our skeptic know that it is all a sham, and, of course, scarce give it a serious thought. What is religion to a keen- minded, hard-headed, sagacious man of the world? What has it to do with business, and politics, and such practical matters? Pack it away for Sunday, and then put it on with clean clothes, out of respect for the world; but if it lifts any remonstrance in the caucus or the counting-room, why, like a shrewd man, laugh it out of countenance. What has our skeptic to do with the future world or with spiritual relations? Keep bugbears to frighten more timid and credulous persons. But only see how he uses the world, and plays his scheme, and foils his adversary and twists and bends his plastic morality, all because he is not troubled with scruples, and has no faith in God or duty! And yet, to the serious eye, that scans his spiritual mood, and looks all around his shrewd, self-confident position, there is a great moral in the skeptic’s life. It teaches us, more than ever, the value of faith, and the glory of religion. That flat negation only makes the rejected truth more positive. The specimen of what existence is without God in the world, causes us to yearn more earnestly for the shelter of His presence, and the blessedness of His control. From the dark perspective of the skeptic’s sensual view, the bleak annihilation that bounds all his hopes, we turn more gladly to the auroral promise of immortality, to the consolations and influences of a life beyond the grave. Yes, in that tale that is told, in that skeptic history, there is indeed a great moral. It shows how meaningless and how mean, how treacherous and false, is that man’s life who hangs upon the balance of a cunning egotism, and moves only from the impulses of selfish desire-without religion, without virtue, repudiating the idea of morality, and practically living without God. Or, on the other hand, suppose we call up the image of one who has well kept the trusts of family, and kindred, and friendship;—one who has made home a pleasant place; who has filled it with the sanctities of affection, and adorned it with a graceful and generous hospitality;—before whose cheerful temper the perplexities of business have been smoothed, and whose genial disposition has melted even the stern and selfish;—who, thus rendering life around her happier and better, attracting more closely the hearts of relatives, and making every acquaintance a friend, has, chief of all, beautifully discharged the sacred offices of wife and mother; encountering the day of adversity with a noble self- devotion, enriching the hour of prosperity with wise counsel and faithful love; unwearied in the time of sickness, patient and trustful beneath the dispensation of affliction; in short, by her many virtues and graces evidently the bright centre of a happy household. And now suppose that, with all these associations clinging to her, in the bloom of life, with opportunities for usefulness and enjoyment opening all around her, death interferes, and suddenly quenches that light! Is there not left a moral which abides a sweet and lasting consolation? That moral is-the power of a kind heart; the worth of domestic virtues; the living freshness of a memory in which these qualities are combined. Thus, then, in its brevity and its comprehensiveness, with its plot and its moral, we see that each human life is like "a tale that is told." To you, my friends, I leave the personal application of these truths. Surely they suggest to each of us the most vital and solemn considerations. Surely they call us to diligence and repentance,—to introspection and prayer. What we are in ourselves,—what use we shall make of life;—is not this an all important subject? What lesson we shall furnish for others,—what influence for good or evil;—can we be indifferent to that? God give us grace and strength to ponder and to act upon these suggestions! Finally, remember under whose dominion all the sorrows and changes of earth take place. Let your faith in Him be firm and clear. To Him address your grief;—to Him lift up your prayer. Of Him seek strength and consolation;—of Him ask that a holy influence may attend every experience. And while all the trials of life should quicken us to a loftier diligence, and inspire us with a keener sense of personal responsibility, surely when our hearts are sore and bleeding,—when our hopes lie prostrate, and we are faint and troubled, it is good to rise to the contemplation of the Infinite Controller,—to lean back upon the Almighty Goodness that upholds the universe; to realize that He does verily watch over us, and care for us; to feel that around and above all things else He moves the vast circle of his purpose, and carries within it all our joys and sorrows; and that this mysterious tale of human life-this tangled plot of our earthly being-is unfolded beneath His all-beholding eye, and by His omnipotent and paternal hand. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 12: 02.04. THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SORROW ======================================================================== THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SORROW "A man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief" Isaiah 53:3. There is one great distinction between the productions of Heathen and of Christian art. While the first exhibits the perfection of physical form and of intellectual beauty, the latter expresses, also, the majesty of sorrow, the grandeur of endurance, the idea of triumph refined from agony. In all those shapes of old there is nothing like the glory of the martyr; the sublimity of patience and resignation; the dignity of the thorn-crowned Jesus. It is easy to account for this. In that heathen age the soul had received no higher inspiration. It was only after the advent of Christ that men realized the greatness of sorrow and endurance. It was not until the history of the Garden, the Judgment-Hall, and the Cross had been developed, that genius caught nobler conceptions of the beautiful. This fact is, therefore, a powerful witness to the prophecy in the text, and to the truth of Christianity. Christ’s personality, as delineated in the Gospels, is not only demonstrated by a change of dynasties,—an entire new movement in the world,—a breaking up of the its ancient order; but the moral ideal which now leads human action,— which has wrought this enthusiasm, and propelled man thus strangely forward,—has entered the subjective realities of the soul,—breathed new inspiration upon it,—opened up to it a new conception; and, lo! The statue dilates with a diviner expression;—lo! The picture wears a more lustrous and spiritual beauty. The Christ of the text, then,—"A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,"-has verily lived, for his image has been reflected in the minds of men, and has fastened itself there among their most intimate and vivid conceptions. Sorrow, as illustrated in Christ’s life, and as interpreted in his scheme of religion, has assumed a new aspect and yields a new meaning. Its garments of heaviness have become transfigured to robes of light, its crown of thorns to a diadem of glory; and often, for some one whom the rich and joyful of this world pity,—some suffering, struggling, over- shadowed soul,—there comes a voice from heaven, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." I remark, however, that Christianity does not accomplish this result by denying the character of sorrow. It does not refuse to render homage to grief. The stoic is as far from its ideal of virtue as the epicurean. The heart of the true saint quivers at pain, and his eyes are filled with tears. Whatever mortifications he may deem necessary as to the passions of this poor flesh, if he imitates the example of Christ he cannot deny those better affections which link us even to God; he cannot harden those sensitive fibres which are the springs of our best action,—which if callus we become inhuman. He realizes pain; he recognises sorrow as sorrow. Its cup is bitter, and to be resisted with prayer. There is nothing more wonderful in the history of Jesus than his keen sense of sorrow, and the scope which he allows it. In the tenderness of his compassion he soothed the overflowing spirit, but he never rebuked its tears. On the contrary, in a most memorable instance, he recognized its right to grieve. It was on the way to his own crucifixion, when crowned with insult, and lacerated with his own sorrows. "Daughters of Jerusalem," said he, to the sympathizing women, "weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children." As though he had said, "You have a right to weep; weep, then, in that great catastrophe which is coming, when barbed affliction shall pierce your hearts, and the dearest ties shall be cut in sunder. Those ties are tender; those hearts are sacred. Therefore, weep!" But Christ did more than sanction tears in others. He wept himself. Closest in our consciousness, because they will be most vivid to us in our darkest and our last hours, are those incidents by the grave of Lazarus, and over against Jerusalem; the sadness of Gethsemane, and the divine pathos of the last supper. Never can we fully realize what a tribute to sorrow is rendered by the tears of Jesus, and the dignity which has descended upon those who mourn, because he had not where to lay his head, was despised and rejected of men, and cried out in bitter agony from the cross. He could not have been our exemplar by despising sorrow-by treating it with contempt; but only by shrinking from its pain, and becoming intimate with its anguish,—only as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." But, on the other hand, Christianity does not over-estimate sorrow. While it pronounces a benediction upon the mourner, it does not declare it best that man should always mourn. It would not have us deny the good that is in the universe. Nay, I apprehend that sorrow itself is a testimony to that good,—is the anguish and shrinking of the severed ties that have bound us to it; that it clings closest in hearts of the widest and most various sympathies; that only souls which have loved much and enjoyed much can feel its intensity or know its discipline. In the language of another, "Sorrow is not an independent state of mind, standing unconnected with all others...It is the effect, and, under the present conditions of our being, the inevitable effect, of strong affections. Nay, it is not so much their result, as a certain attitude of those affections themselves. It not simply flows from the love of excellence, of wisdom, of sympathy, but it is that very love, when conscious that excellence, that wisdom, that sympathy have departed." They, then, who deem it necessary for man’s spiritual welfare that he should constantly feel the pressure of chastisement, and be engirt with the mist of tears, do not reason well. Jeremy Taylor reasons thus, when he says in allusion to certain lamps which burned for many ages in a tomb, but which expired when brought into open day: "So long as we are in the retirements of sorrow, of want, of fear, of sickness, we are burning and shining lamps; but when God lifts us up from the gates of death and carries us abroad into the open air, to converse with prosperity and temptations, we go out in darkness; and we cannot be preserved in light and heat but by still dwelling in the regions of sorrow." "There is beauty, and, to a certain extent, truth in this figure," says a writer, in reply; "but it by no means follows that continuous suffering would be good for man; on the contrary, it would be as remote from producing the perfection of our moral nature as unmitigated prosperity. It would be apt to produce a morbid and ghastly piety; the ’bright lamps’ of which Taylor speaks would still be irradiating only a tomb." (Edinburgh Review No 141 The article on Pascal) We may doubt whether there is more essential religiousness in this seeking of sorrow as a mortification,—in this monastic self-laceration and exclusion,—than in the morbid misery of the hypochondriac. Neither comprehends the whole of life, nor is adapted to its realities. Christ was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;" but he was also full of sympathy with all good, and enjoyed the charm of friendship, and the light of existence. Around that great Life gather many amenities. Below that face of agony beats a heart familiar with the best affections of human nature; otherwise, we may believe, the agony would not appear. The sadness of that last supper indicates the breaking up of many joyful communions and the history which closes in the shadow of the cross mingles with the festival of Cana, and lingers around the home at Bethany. But I remark, once more, that while Christianity neither despises nor affects to desire sorrow, it clearly recognizes its great and beneficial mission. In one word, it shows its disciplinary character, and thus practically interprets the mystery of evil. It regards man as a spiritual being, thrown upon the theatre of this mortal life not merely for enjoyment, but for training,—for the development of spiritual affinities, and the attainment of spiritual ends. It thus reveals a weaning, subduing, elevating power, in sorrow. The origin of evil may puzzle us;—its use no Christian can deny. A sensual philosophy may shrink from it, in all its aspects, and retreat into a morbid skepticism or a timid submission. If we predicate mere happiness as "our being’s end and aim," there is no explanation of evil. From this point of view, there is an ambiguity in nature,—a duality in every object, which we cannot solve. The throne of infinite light and love casts over the face of creation an inexplicable shadow. If we were made merely to be happy, why this hostility all around us? Why these sharp oppositions of pain and difficulty? Why these writhing nerves, these aching hearts, and over-laden eyes? Why the chill of disappointment, the shudder of remorse, the crush and blight of hope? Why athwart the horizon flicker so many shapes of misery and sin? Why appear these sad spectacles of painful dying chambers, and weary sick-beds?—these countless tomb- stones, too-ghastly witness to death and tears? Explain for me those abrupt inequalities,—the long train of necessities, poverty and its kindred woes, those fearful realities that lie in the abysses of every city,—that hideous, compressed mass which welters in the awful baptism of sensuality and ignorance,—the groans of inarticulate woe, the spectacle of oppression, the shameless cruelty of war, the pestilence that shakes its comet-sword over nations, and famine that peers with skeleton face through the corn-sheaves of plenty. Upon this theory of mere happiness no metaphysical subtlety can solve the fact of evil;—the coiled enigma constantly returns upon itself, inexplicable as ever. But when we take the Christian view of life, we discover that not happiness merely, but virtue, holiness, is the great end of man; though happiness comes in as an inevitable consequence and accompaniment of this result. And in the light reflected from this view, evil assumes a powerful, and, I may say, a most beautiful office. It is just as necessary for the attainment of virtue as prosperity, or any blessing. Nay, in this aspect, it is itself a great blessing, and "Every cloud that spreads above And veileth love, itself is love." It is evident that, without the contact of sin and the pressure of temptation, there might be innocence, but not virtue. Equally evident does it seem that, without an acquaintance with grief, there would soon be but little of that uplifting tendency-that softening of the heart, and sanctifying of the affections-which fit us for the dissolution of our earthly ties, and for the communions of the spirit world. Beautiful is this weaning efficacy of sorrow. By the ordinance of God, youth is made to be content with this outward and palpable life. The sunshine and the air-the flow of animal pleasures, encircled mysteriously with the guardianship of parents, and the love of friends-are sufficient for the child. But as we grow in years, there springs up a dissatisfaction, a restlessness, of which we may be only half conscious, and still less know how to cure. With some, this may subside into merely a fearful and worldly discontent; others may heed the prophecy and lay hold on a celestial hope, an immortal possession as the only remedy. In this secret sense of want, which neither nature nor man can fill they will hear already that low, divine voice,— "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." But generally another and more emphatic missionary is necessary. It is the veiled angel of sorrow, who plucks away one thing and another that bound us here in ease and security, and in the vanishing of these dear objects indicates the true home of our affections and our peace. Thus, by rupture and loss we become weaned from earth, and the dissatisfaction and discontent which sorrow thus induces are as kind and providential as the carelessness of youth. Who does not see that it is so,—that as we journey on in life there are made in our behalf preparations for another state of being,—unmistakable premonitions of that fact which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews so eloquently states, that "here have we no continuing city"? The gloss of objects in which we delighted is worn off by attrition,—is sicklied o’er by care; the vanity of earthly things startles us suddenly, like a new truth; the friends we love drop away from our side into silence; desire fails; the grasshopper becomes a burden; until, at length, we feel that our only love is not here below,—until these tendrils of earth aspire to a better climate, and the weight that has been laid upon us makes us stoop wearily to the grave as a rest and a deliverance. We have, even through our tears, admired that discipline which sometimes prepares the young to die; which, by sharp trials of anguish, and long days of weariness, weans them from that keen sense of mortal enjoyment which is so naturally theirs; which, through the attenuation of the body, illuminates the soul, and, as it steals the bloom from the cheek, kindles the lustre of faith in the eye, and makes even that young spirit look, unfaltering, across the dark river, and, putting aside its earthly loves and its reasonable expectations, exclaim, "Now I am ready!" But it would appear that equal preparation, though in different forms, is provided for most of us, in the various experiences of sorrow which we are called upon to know, and which, if we would but heed them, have a celestial mission, seeking to draw us up from this lower state, to induce us to lay up our treasure where neither moth nor rust corrupts. And in the Christian view of man as an heir of the spiritual word, does not sorrow, in this its weaning tendency, receive a most beautiful explanation? And, because it accomplishes this work, may be the reason why sorrow always wears a kind of supernatural character. It is true that blessings, equally with afflictions, come from Heaven; but this truth is not so generally felt. A sharp disappointment will suddenly drive us to God. The mariner of life sails, unthinking, over its prosperous seas, but a flaw of storm will bring him to his prayers. And religion, reason as we will, is peculiarly associated with affliction. And does not sorrow possess this supernatural air, not merely because it interrupts the usual order of things, but because, more than joy, it has a weaning and spiritual tendency,—is sent, as it were, more directly from God for this specific purpose? At least, after the sanctifying experience of sorrow, we hold our joys more religiously. There are other tendencies of sorrow akin to this, upon which I might dwell, and which show the explanation that it receives in the Christian light. The humbling effect that it has upon the proud and hard-hearted; the equalizing result which it works, making the rich and poor, the obscure and the great, stand upon the level of the common humanity,—the common liability and dependence. I might, expanding the topic already touched upon, speak of the influence which sorrow sheds abroad, chastening the light, at tempering the draught of joy, and thus keeping our hearts better balanced than otherwise. But I have sufficiently illustrated its mission. I have shown its use, even its beauty, in the Christian view. I have shown why Christianity, as the universal religion, is rightly styled the "religion of sorrow," and why Christ, as the perfect teacher and example, was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." Let us all, then, recognize the fact that life itself is a discipline. That for each of us sorrow is mingled with joy in order that this discipline may be accomplished. No one reaches the noon of life without some grief, some disappointment, some sharp trial, which assures him, if he will but heed it, that life is already declining, and that his spirit should train itself for a higher and more permanent state. In the failure of mortal excellence let him recognize the proof of an immortal good, and from the bitterness that mingles with these earthly waters, turn to drink of the celestial fountain. Of all things, let us not receive sorrow indifferently, or without reflection. Its mission is for discipline, but we feel it to be discipline only by recognizing its source and its meaning; "it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness" only "to them that are exercised thereby." Otherwise, it may come and go as the storm that rends the oak, or the drenching tempest that glides off as it falls. It may startle us for a moment,—it may hurt us with a sense of pain and loss,—it may awe us with its mystery; but unless it rouses us to solemn thought upon the meaning of life, to self-communion and prayer, to higher and holier action, it availeth little. It should not smite the heart’s chords to wring from them a mere shriek of distress, but to inspire it with a deeper and more elevated tone, and by the element of sadness which it infuses make a more liquid and exquisite melody. But while we are thus taught to chasten our views of life, and to hold even our joys with seriousness, and with wise forethought, let us not look upon things with any morbid vision, or cast over them a monotonous hue. Let us not live in gloom and bitterness. The Christian, of all others, is the best fitted for a cheerful and proper enjoyment of life, because he wisely recognizes the use of things, understands their evanescent nature, and sees the infinite goodness that has so ordained it. He is not surprised by sudden terrors. He is prepared for sorrow, and thus can rest in peace with the good that he has; while those who bury heart and soul in the present enjoyment, and know nothing but sensual good, are broken down by calamity. The sudden change, like a thunder- gust, puts out their light, and darkens all their life; and it is they who are apt to fall from the summit of delight into a morbid gloom; while the Christian, with his balanced soul, inhabits neither extreme. Finally, let us remember that it is not the object of sorrow to overcome, but to elevate; not to conquer us, but that we, by it, should conquer. It converts the thorns that wound us into a crown. It makes us strong by the baptism of tears. The saint is always a hero. This explains that grand distinction between Heathen and Christian art, of which I spoke in the commencement; that expression of power blended with agony,—of celestial beatitude refining itself upon the face of grief. Christianity has made martyrdom sublime, and sorrow triumphant. Christ is "the Captain of our salvation,"-the leader of "many sons unto glory;" for he was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 13: 02.05. CHRISTIAN CONSOLATION IN LONELINESS ======================================================================== CHRISTIAN CONSOLATION IN LONELINESS "And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me." John 16:32. These words are found in the farewell address of Jesus to his disciples. They were uttered in the dark hour of coming agony, and in the face of ignominious death. Because Christ was divinely empowered, and possessed the spirit without measure, let us not suppose that to him there was no pain or sorrow, in that great crisis. With all his supernatural dignity, he appears to us far more attractive when we consider him as impressible by circumstances,—as moved by human sympathies. He is thus not merely a teacher, but a pattern for us. In all our trials he not only enables us to endure and to triumph, but draws us close to himself by the affinity of his own experience. We see, too, how the best men, men of the clearest faith, may still look upon death with a shudder, and shrink from the dark and narrow valley; not because they fear death as such, but because of the agony of dissolution, the rupture of all familiar ties, and the solemn mystery of the last change. But death and suffering, as Jesus was now to meet them, appeared in no ordinary forms. He was to bear affliction with no friendly consolations around him; but alone!—alone in the wrestling of the garden, and amid the cruel mockery. Not upon the peaceful death-bed, but upon the bare and rugged cross, torn by nails, pierced with the spear, crowned with thorns, taunted by the revilings of the multitude, the vinegar and the gall. He must be deserted, and encounter these trials alone. He must be rejected, betrayed, crucified alone. And as he spoke to his disciples those words of affection and holiness-those words so full of counsel and sublime consolation-he remembered all this; he remembered that they who now clung to him, and listened in sorrow to his parting accents, would soon be scattered as sheep without a shepherd, and leave him to himself in all that shame and agony. But even as he foretold it there gleamed upon his spirit the sunshine of an inner consciousness,—a comfort that no cloud could darken; and instantly he added, "And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me." Having thus considered the circumstances in which these words were spoken, I now proceed to draw from them a few reflections. I would say, then, in the first place, that the great test which proves the excellence of the religion of Christ is its adaptation to man in solitude,—to man as a solitary being; because it is then that he is thrown upon the resources of his own soul,—upon his inner and everlasting life. In society he finds innumerable objects to attract his attention and to absorb his affections. The ordinary cares of every day, the pursuit of his favorite scheme, the converse of friends, the exciting topics of the season, the hours of recreation, all fill up his time, and occupy his mind with matters external to himself. And looking upon him merely in these relations, if we could forget its great social bearings, and the harmonies which flow from its all-pervading spirit out into every condition of life, we might, perhaps, say that man could get along well enough without religion. If this world were made up merely of business and pleasure, perhaps the atheist’s theory would suffice, and we might feel indifferent whether controlled by plastic matter or intelligent mind. We will admit that happiness, in one sense of the term, does not essentially depend upon religion. Nay, we must admit this proposition. A man may be happy without being religious. Good health, good spirits;—how many, possessing these really enjoy life, without being devout, or religious according to any legitimate meaning of that term. But change the order of circumstances. Remove these external helps,—substitute therefor sorrow, duty, the revelations of our own inner being,—and all this gayety vanishes like the sparkles from a stream when a storm comes up. The soul that has depended upon outward congenialities for its happiness has no permanent principle of happiness; for that is the distinction which religion bestows. He who cannot retire within himself, and find his best resources there, is fitted, perhaps, for the smoother passages of life, but poorly prepared for all life. He who cannot and dare not turn away from these outward engrossments, and be in spiritual solitude,—who is afraid or sickens at the idea of being alone,—has a brittle possession in all that happiness which comes from the whirl and surface of things. One hour may scatter it forever. And poorly, I repeat, is he prepared for all life,—for some of the most serious and important moments of life. These, as I shall proceed to show, we must meet alone, and from within; and therefore, it constitutes the blessedness of the Christian religion that it enables man when in solitude to have communion, consolation, and guidance. In fact, it makes him, when alone, to be not alone,—to say, with glad consciousness, "I am not alone, because the Father is with me." To illustrate this truth, then, I say, that so far as the communion and help of this outward world and of human society are concerned, there are many and important seasons when man must be alone. In the first place, in his most interior and essential nature, man is a solitary being. He is an individual, a unit, amid all the souls around him, and all other things,—a being distinct and peculiar as a star. God, in all the variety of his works, has made no man exactly like another. There is an individual isolation, a conscious personality, which he can share with no other; which resists the idea of absorption; which claims its own distinct immortality; which has its own wants and woes, its own sense of duty, its own spiritual experiences. Christianity insists upon nothing more strongly than this. Piercing below all conventionalisms, it recognizes man as an individual soul, and, as such, addresses him with its truths and its sanctions. Indeed, it bases its grand doctrine of human brotherhood and equality upon the essential individuality of each man, because each represents all,—each has in himself the nature of every other. It demands individual repentance, individual holiness, individual faith. One cannot believe for another. One cannot decide questions of conscience for another. One cannot bear the sins or appropriate the virtues of another. It is true, we have relations to the great whole, to the world of mankind, and to the material universe. We are linked to these by subtle affinities. We are interwoven with them all,—bound up with them in arterial unity and life. They have all poured their results into our souls, and helped to form us, and do now support us; and we, in like manner, react upon them, and upon others. This truth is a vital one, not to be neglected. But a deeper truth than this and one upon which this depends, is the individual peculiarity of each,—his integral distinctiveness, without which there would be no such thing as union, or relationship; nothing but monotony and inertia. The great fact, then, which I would impress upon you is, that, essentially as spiritual beings, we are alone. And I remark that there are experiences in life when we are made to feel this deep fact; when each must deal with his reason, his heart, his conscience, for himself; when each is to act as if the sole-existent in the universe, realizing that he is a spirit breathed from God, complete in himself, subject to all spiritual laws, interested in all spiritual welfare; when no stranger soul, though it be that of his dearest friend, can intermeddle with all that occupies him, or share it. Such experiences we have when reflection binds us to the past. Memory then opens for us a volume that no eye but God’s and ours can read;—memories of neglect, of sin, of deep secrets that our hearts have hidden in their innermost folds. Such experiences sometimes there are when we muse upon the external universe; when we reflect upon the vastness of creation, the littleness of human effort, the transciency of human relations; when our souls are drawn away from all ordinary communions, and we feel that we are drifting before an almighty will, bound to an inevitable destiny, hemmed in by irresistible forces. Then, with every tie of association shrinking from us; then, keeping the solitary vigil; then with cold, vast nature all around us, we are alone. Or, there is a solitude which oppresses us even in the heart of the great city;—a solitude more intense even than that of naked nature; when all faces are strange to us; when no pulse of sympathy throbs from our heart to the hearts of others when each passes us by, engaged with his own destiny, and leaving us to fulfil ours. In this tantalizing solitude of the crowd, in this sense of isolation from our fellows, if never before, do we feel, with sickness of heart, that we are alone. There is a solitude of sickness,—the solitude of the watcher or of the patient,—a solitude to which, at times, duty and Providence call us all. There are, in brief, countless circumstances of life when we shall realize that we are indeed alone, and sad enough will be that solitude if we have no inner resource,—no Celestial companionship;—if we cannot say and feel as we say it, that we are not alone, for the Father is with us. But, while I cannot specify all these forms of solitude, let me dwell upon two or three of the experiences of life in which we are peculiarly alone. First, then, I would say, that we must be alone in the pursuit of Truth and the work of Duty. Others may aid me in these, but I must decide and act for myself. I must believe for myself. I must do right for myself; or if I do wrong, it is also for myself, and in myself I realize the retribution. By my own sense of right and wrong-by my own standard of truth and falsehood-I must stand or fall. There is in this world nothing so great and solemn as the struggles of the solitary soul in its researches after the truth,—in its endeavors to obey the right. We may be indifferent to these vital questions,—it is to be feared that many are; we may glide along in the suppleness of habit, and the ease of conventionalism; we may never trouble ourselves with any pungent scruples; we may never pursue the task of introspection, or bring to bear upon the fibres of motive and desire within us the intense focus of God’s moral law; we may never vex our souls with tests of faith, but rest contented with the common or hereditary standard;—but he who will be serious in the work of spiritual discipline, who will act from a vital law of duty, must endure struggles and conflicts than which, I repeat, there is nothing more solemn under the sun. He will often find himself opposed to the general current of human faith and action. His position will be singular. His principle will be tried. Interest will direct him another way; his strictness will be ridiculed, his motives questioned, his sincerity misunderstood and aspersed. Alone must he endure all this,—along cling to the majestic ideal of right as it rises to his own soul. And thus he must wage a bitter conflict with fear and with seduction,—with sophistries of the heart, and reluctance of the will. Often, too, must he question his own motives with a severer judgment than that of the world, as his scrutiny is more close, and his self-knowledge more minute. He knows the secret sin, the mental act, the spiritual aberration. He knows the distance between his highest effort and that lofty standard of perfection to which he has pledged his purposes. Alone, alone does the great conflict go on within him. The struggle, the self-denial, the pain, and the victory, are of the very essence of martyrdom,—are the chief peculiarities in the martyr’s lot. His, too, must be the solitude of prayer, when, by throwing by all entanglements,—in his naked individuality,—he wrestles at the Mercy Seat, or soars to the bliss of Divine communion. In such hours,—in every hour of self-communion,—when we ask ourselves the highest questions respecting faith and duty, it is the deepest comfort to the religious soul to feel and to say, "I am not alone, for the Father is with me." Again; there are experiences of Sorrow in which we are peculiarly alone. How often does the soul feel this when it is suffering from the loss of friends! Then we find no comfort in external things. Pleasure charms not; business cannot cheat us of our grief; wealth supplies not the void; and though the voice of friendship falls in consolation upon the ear, yet with all these, we are alone,—alone! No other spirit can fully comprehend our woe, or enter into our desolation. No human eye can pierce to our sorrows; no sympathy can share them. Alone we must realize their sharp suggestions, their painful memories, their brood of sad and solemn thoughts. The mother bending over her dead child;—O! what solitude is like that?—where such absolute loneliness as that which possesses her soul, when she takes the final look of that little pale face crowned with flowers and sleeping in its last chamber, with the silent voice of the dead uttering its last good night? What more solitary than the spirit of one who, like the widow of Nain, follows to the grave her only son?—of one from whom the wife, the mother, has been taken? The mourner is in solitude,—alone, in this peopled world;—O, how utterly alone! Through the silent valley of tears wanders that stricken spirit, seeing only memorials of that loss. Indeed, sorrow of any kind is solitary. Its deepest pangs, its most solemn visitations, are in the secrecy of the individual soul. We labor to conceal it from others. We wear a face of unconcern or gayety amid the multitude. Society is thronged with masked faces. Unseen burdens of woe are carried about in its busy haunts. The man of firm step in the mart, and of vigorous arm in the workshop, has communions in his chamber that make him weak as a child. Nothing is more deceitful than a happy countenance. Haggard spirits laugh over the wine-cup, and the blooming garland of pleasure crowns an aching head. For sorrow is secret and solitary. Each "heart knoweth its own bitterness." How precious, then, in the loneliness of sorrow, is that faith which bids us look up and see how near is God, and feel what divine companionship is ours, and know what infinite sympathy engirds us,—what concern for our good is, even in this darkness, shaping out blessings for us, and distilling from this secret agony everlasting peace for the soul. How precious that faith in the clear vision of which we can say, "I am not alone, for the Father is with me." Finally, we must experience Death alone. As I said in the commencement, the best, the most pious soul, may naturally shrink from this great event. We may learn to anticipate it with resignation, to look upon it with trust; but indifference respecting it is no proof of religion. It would be, rather, a bad sign for one to approach it without emotion; for however his faith may penetrate beyond, the religious spirit will, with deep awe, lift that curtain of mystery which hangs before the untried future. That is a fact which we must encounter alone. Friends may gather around us; their ministrations may aid, their consolations soothe us. They may be with us to the very last; they may cling to us as though they would pluck us back to the shores of time; their voices may fall, the last of earthly sounds, upon our ears; their kiss awaken the last throb of consciousness; but they cannot go with us, they cannot die in our stead; the last time must come,—they must loosen their hold from us, and fade from our vision, and we become wrapt in the solemn experience of death, alone! Alone must we tread the dark valley,—alone embark for the unseen land. No, Christian! not alone. To your soul, thus separated in blank amazement from all familiar things, still is that vision of faith granted that so often lighted your earthly perplexities; to you is it given, in this most solitary hour, to say, "I am not alone for the Father is with me!" I repeat, then, in closing, that the test which proves the excellence of the religion of Christ is the fact that it fits us for those solemn hours of life when we must be alone. Mere happiness we may derive from other sources; but this consolation not all the world can give,—the world cannot take it away. Let us remember, then, that though we seldom look within- though our affections may be absorbed in external things- these solitary seasons will come. It behoves us, therefore, as we value true peace of mind, genuine happiness, which connects us to the throne of God with golden links of prayer,—it behoves each to ask himself, "Dare I be alone? Am I ready to be alone? And what report will my soul make in that hour of solitude? If I do wrong, if I cleave to evil rather than the good, what shall I do when I am alone, and yet not alone, but with the Father? But if I do right, if I trust in Him, and daily walk with Him, what crown of human honor, what store of wealth, what residuum of earthly pleasure, can compare with the glad consciousness that wherever I rest or wander, in every season and circumstance, in the solitary hours of life, and the loneliness of death, God is verily with me?" Surely no attainment is equal to that strength of Christ, by which, when approaching the cross, he was able to say, "I am not alone, for the Father is with me." By this strength, he was able to do more than to say and feel thus. He was able to strengthen others,—to exclaim, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." So we, by spiritual discipline, having learned of Christ to be thus strong, not only possess a spring of unfailing consolation for ourselves, but there shall go out from us a benediction and a power that shall gladden the weary and fortify the weak,—that shall fill the solitude of many a lonely spirit with the consolations of the Father’s love, and the bliss of the Father’s presence. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 14: 02.06. RESIGNATION ======================================================================== RESIGNATION "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" John 17:11. The circumstances in which these words were uttered have, doubtless, often arrested your attention,—have often been delineated for you by others. Yet it is always profitable for us to recur to them. They transpired immediately after our Saviour’s farewell with his disciples. The entire transaction in that "upper room" had been hallowed and softened by the fact of his coming death. He saw that fact distinctly before him, and to his eye everything was associated with it. As he took the bread and broke it, it seemed to him an emblem of himself, pierced and dying; and from the fulness of his spirit he spoke, "Take, eat, this is my body, broken for you." As he took the cup and set it before them, it reminded him of his blood, that must flow ere his mission was fulfilled, and he could say, "It is finished." And then, when the traitor rose from that table to go out and consummate the very purpose that should lead to that event, as one who had arrayed himself in robes of death, and was about to declare his legacy, he broke forth in that sublime strain commencing, "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him;"-that strain of mingled precept, and promise, and warning, and prayer, from which the weary and the sick-hearted of all ages shall gather strength and consolation, and which shall be read in dying chambers and houses of mourning until death and sorrow shall reign no more. Laden, then, with the thought of his death, he had gone with his disciples into the garden of Gethsemane. There, in the darkness and loneliness of night, the full anguish of his situation rushed upon his spirit. He shrank from the rude scenes that opened before him,—from the mocker’s sneer and the ruler’s scourge; from the glare of impatient revenge, and the weeping eyes of helpless friendship; from the insignia of imposture and of shame; and from the protracted, thirsty, torturing death. He shrank from these,—he shrank from the rupture of tender ties,—he shrank from the parting with deeply-loved friends,—his soul was overburdened, his spirit was swollen to agony, and he rushed to his knees, and prayed, "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me." Yet even then, in the intensity of his grief, the sentiment that lay deep and serene below suggested the conditions, and he added, "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done." But still the painful thought oppressed him, and, though more subdued now, he knelt and prayed again, "O, my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, thy will be done." And once more, as he returned from his weary, sleeping disciples, and found himself alone, the wish broke forth-yet tempered by the same obedient compliance. And here I pause to ask, if, in all that scene of agony, anything is developed inconsistent with the character of Christ? If we would have it otherwise? If these tears and groans of anguish are tokens of a weakness that we would conceal from our convictions,—that we would overlook, as marring the dignity and the divinity of the Saviour? For one, I would not have it otherwise. I would not have the consoling strength, the sympathizing tenderness, the holy victory that may be drawn from thence,—I would not have these left out from the Life that was given us as a pattern. Jesus, we are told, "was made perfect through suffering." This struggle took place that victory might be won;—this discipline of sorrow fell upon him that perfection and beauty might be developed. By this we see that Christ’s was a spirit liable to trial,—impressible by suffering; and from this fact does the victory appear greater and more real. In this we see one striving with man’s sorrow,—seeking, like man, to be delivered from pain and grief, yet rising to a calm obedience,—a lofty resignation. Had Jesus passed through life always serene, always unshrinking, we should not have seen a man, but something that man is not, something that man cannot be in this world; and that calm question, "The cup that my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" would lose its force and significance. Otherwise, why should not Jesus be as resigned as before? He had betrayed no sense of suffering, no impressibility by pain; why should he not be willing, seeing he was always able to meet the end? But O! when that deep, holy calmness has fallen upon a soul that has been tossed by sorrow, and that has shrunk from death,—when the brow has come up smooth and radiant from the shadow of mourning,—when that soul is ready for the issue, not because it has always felt around it the girdle of Omnipotence, but because, through weakness and suffering, it has risen and worked out an unfaltering trust, and taken hold of the hand of God by the effort of faith,—then it is, I say, that resignation if beautiful and holy,—then do we wonder and admire. So it was with Jesus. A little while ago we saw him bowed with sorrow, his eyes lifted with tears to heaven. We saw that he keenly felt the approaching pain, and shame, and death. A little while ago, the still night air was laden with his cry, "Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me." And now, as one who is strong and ready, he says calmly to Peter, "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Truly, a battle has been fought, and a victory won, here; but we should not be the better for it, were it not for that very process of suffering in which that battle was waged, and from which that victory was wrung. Now, when we sorrow, we know who also sorrowed; we remember whose agony the still heavens looked upon with all their starry eyes,—whose tears moistened the bosom of the bare earth,—whose cry of anguish pierced the gloom of night. Now, too, when we sorrow, we know where to find relief; we learn the spirit of resignation, and under what conditions it may be born. Thank God, then, for the lesson of the lonely garden and the weeping Christ-we, too, may be "made perfect through suffering." Such, then, were the circumstances that illustrate the words of the text. Scarcely had Jesus risen from his knees, and wakened the drowsy disciples, when the light of lanterns flashed upon him, and Judas came with a multitude to bear him to that death from which, but now, he shrunk with agony. But he shrank no more. The trial was over,—the darkness had vanished,—an angel had strengthened him; and when the impetuous Peter drew his sword and smote off the servant’s ear, his master turned to him, with the calm rebuke, "Put up thy sword into his sheath; the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Yes, cold and bitter as that cup was, pressed next to his very lips, he had learned to drink it. God had given him strength, and no more did he falter, no more did he groan-save once, for a moment, when, upon the cross, drooping, and racked with intense pain, he cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" But that passed away in the triumphant ejaculation, "It is finished!" Such was the resignation of Jesus; a trait in his character which, like all the rest, is not only to be admired, but imitated;—not an abstract virtue, manifested by a being so perfect and so enshrined in the sanctity of a divine nature that we cannot approach it, and in our mortal, work-day trials can never feel it; but a virtue which should be throned in every heart, the strength and consolation of which every suffering soul may experience. Nay, if there is one virtue which is more often needed than any other, which lies at the base of true happiness, and than which there is no surer seal of piety, it is this virtue of resignation. And let me proceed to say, that by resignation I mean not cold and sullen apathy, or reckless hardihood, but a sweet trust and humble acquiescence, which show that the soul has submitted itself to the Father who knows and does best, and that it meets his dispensations with obedience and his mysteries with faith. The apathy and hardihood to which I have alluded are very far from the trust and piety of a religious spirit. The fatalist acquiesces in the course of things because he cannot help it. He has reasoned to the conclusion that his murmuring and weeping will not alter matters and he has resolved to take things as they come. But here is no resignation to the will of God, but to the necessity of things. Here is no faith that all things are wisely ordered, and that sorrow is but the shadow of the Father’s hand. No; here is the simple belief that things are as they are, and cannot be altered,-that an arbitrary law is the eternal rule, not a benevolent and holy purpose; and the philosopher would be just as resigned if he believed all things to be under the guidance of a blind fate, whose iron machinery drives on to level or exalt, unintelligent and remorseless, whether in its course it brings about good or evil,-whether it gladdens human hearts or crushes them. Such resignation as this may be quite common in the world, manifested in various phases, and by men of different religious opinions. Do we not often hear the expression, "Well, things are as they are,-we do best to take them as they come;" and here the matter ends? No higher reference is made. The things alluded to may issue from the bosom of material nature, may be sent into the world by chance, or may come from the good Father of all; but the minds of these reasoners reach not so far. Now I repeat, there is no religion and no true philosophy in this method; certainly it is not such resignation as Jesus manifested. In fact, it indicates total carelessness as to the discipline of life, and will generally be found with men in whose thoughts God is not, or to whose conceptions he is the distant, inactive Deity, not the near and ever-working Controller. I cannot admire the conduct of that man who when the bolt of sorrow falls, receives it upon the armor of a rigid fatalism, who wipes scarcely a tear from his hard, dry face, and says, "Well, it cannot be helped; things are so ordered." Below all this there is often a sulky, half-angry sentiment, as though the victim felt the blow, but was determined not to wince,-as though there was an acknowledgment of weakness, but also a display of pride,-a feeling that we cannot resist sorrow, yet that sorrow has no business to come, and now that it has come the sufferer will not yield to it. This, evidently, is not resignation, religious resignation, but only sullen acquiescence, or reckless hardihood. In a certain sense it is true that we do well to take things as they come,-that we cannot help the eternal laws that control events. But we must go behind this truth. Whence do events come, and for what purpose do they come? What is life, and for what end are all its varied dispensations? Religion points us up beyond the cloud of materialism, and behind the mechanism of nature, to an Infinite Spirit, to a God, to a Father. All things are moved by infinite Love. Life is not merely a phenomenon, it is a Lesson. Its events do not come and go, in a causeless, arbitrary manner; they are meant for our discipline and our good. In whatever aspect they come, then, let their appropriate lesson be heeded. This is the religious view of life, and is wide apart from the philosophy that lets events happen as they will, as though we were in the setting of a heady current, and were borne along among other matters that now help us, now jar and wound us,-that happen without order and without object; all, like ourselves, driven along and taking things as they come. In the religious view, all things stream from God’s throne, and whatever sky hangs over them, the infinite One is present; prosperity is the sunshine that he has sent, and Faith, as she weeps, beholds a bow in the clouds. The religious man takes things as they come, but how? In a reverent and filial spirit, a spirit that obeys and trusts because God has ordained. He refers, behind the event, to the will that declares it. And yet, this will be no formal lifeless resignation. He will not be stripped of his manhood, or become unnatural in his religion. His resignation will not be the cold assent of reason, or the mere rote and repetition of the lips. No, it will be born in struggling and in sorrow. Religion is not a process that makes our nature callous to all fierce heats or drenching storms. Neither is he the most religious man who is calmest in the keen crisis of trouble. I say in the crisis of trouble-for to human vision there always is a crisis. We cannot penetrate to the secret determinations of God, and in the season of care and affliction there is a time when the issue is uncertain,-when we cannot say it is sealed. What shall we do then? Is human agency nothing? Grant that we are driving down a stream,-can we use no effort? Is there not a time when deeds, struggles, prayers, are of some avail?-when the spirit, in its intense agony, with swollen strength and surging tears, heaves against the catastrophe, if yet, perchance, it may ward it off? Truly, there is such a time, and the humblest disciple of Christ may weep as he also wept. But let him also strive as Christ strove. Let him not dash his grief in rebellious billows to the throne; let not his groans arise in resentful murmurs; let the remembrance of what God is and why he does, be with him, and let the filial, reverent trust steal in,-"Not my will, but thine be done." That reference to God, that obedience to him, rising from the very depths of sorrow, and clung to without faltering, is RESIGNATION. It shall bestow peace and victory in the end. O! how different from that sullen fatalism that lets things come as they will. To such a soul things do come as they will, and it hardens under them,-they do come as they will, but it sees not, cares not, why they come. No thought goes up beyond the cloud to God,-no strength is born that shall make life’s trials lighter,-no love and faith that will seek the Father’s hand in the darkest hour, and shed an enduring light over the thorny path of affliction, and upon the bosom of the grave. Look at these two. Outwardly, their calmness may be the same. Nay, the one may evince emotion and tears, while the other shall stand rigid in the hour of calamity, with a bitter smile, or a frown of endurance. But in the one is strength, in the other rigidity; in the one is power to triumph over sorrow, in the other only nervous capacity to resist it. The one is man hardened to indifference, sullen because of irreligion, upon whom some sorrow will one day fall that will peel him to the quick, and he will not know where to flee for healing. The other is man contending against evil, yet not against God,-man with all the tenderness and strength of his nature, impressible yet unconquerable, walking with feet that bleed among the wounding thorns, and a heart that shrinks from the heavy woe, yet, all lacerated as he is, able to walk through, because he holds by the hand of Omnipotence. The one is the unbending tree, peeled by the lightning and stripped by the North wind, lifting its gnarled head in sullen defiance to the storm, which, when the storm does overcome it, shall be broken. The other also is rooted in strength, and meets the rushing blast with a lofty front. But as "it smiles in sunshine, so it bends in storm," trustful and obedient, yet firm and brave, and nothing shall overwhelm it. I trust I have succeeded in impressing upon you the difference between Christian resignation and mere hardihood, or indifference. Resignation is born of discipline, and lives only in a truly religious soul. We have seen that it is not incompatible with tenderness; nay, it is more valuable, because it springs up in natures that have thus suffered and wept. To see them become calm and pass with unfaltering step through the valley of affliction, when, but now, they shrunk from it, is a proof that God indeed has strengthened them, and that they have had communion with him. The unbeliever’s stubbornness may endure to the end, but no human power could inspire this sudden and triumphant calmness. And even when the crisis is past, when the sorrow is sealed, it is not rebellion to sigh and weep. Our Father has made us so. He has opened the springs of love that well up within us, and can we help mourning when they turn to tears and blood? He has made very tender the ties that bind us to happiness, and can we fail to shrink and suffer when they are cut asunder? When we have labored long in the light of hope, and lo! It goes out in darkness, and the blast of disappointment rushes upon us, can we help being sad? Can the mother prevent weeping when she kisses the lips of her infant that shall prattle to her no more; when she presses its tiny hand, so cold and still,-the little hand that has rested upon her bosom and twined in her hair; and even when it is so sweet and beautiful that she could strain it to her heart forever, it is laid away in the envious concealment of the grave? Can the wife, or the husband, help mourning, when the partner and counsellor is gone,-when home is made very desolate because the familiar voice sounds not there, and the cast-off garment of the departed is strangely vacant, and the familiar face has vanished, never more to return? Can the child fail to lament, when the father, the mother,-the being who nurtured him in infancy, who pillowed his head in sickness, who prayed for him with tears on his sinful wandering, who ever rejoiced in his joy and wept in his sorrows,-can he fail to weep when that venerable form lies all enshrouded, and the door closes upon it, and the homestead is vacant, and the link that bound him to childhood is in the grave? Say, can we check the gush of sorrow at any of life’s sharp trials and losses? No; nor are we forbidden to weep, nor would we be human if we did not weep,-if, at least, the spirit did not quiver when the keen scathing goes over it. But how shall we weep? O! Thou, who didst suffer in Gethsemane, thou hast taught us how. By thy sacred sorrow and thy pious obedience thou has taught us; by thy great agony and thy sublime victory thou has taught us. We must refer all to God. We must earnestly, sincerely say, "Thy will be done." Then our prayers will be the source of our strength. Then our sorrowing will bring us comfort. "They will be done;" repeat this, feel this, realize its meaning and its relations, and you shall be able to say, with a rooted calmness, "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Who shall be able to say this as Jesus said it? They who struggle as he struggled,-who obey as he obeyed,-who trust as he trusted. There are those upon earth who have been able to say it. It has made them stronger and happier. There are those in heaven who have been able to say it. They have gone up from earthly communions to the communion on high. Do you not see them there, walking so serenely by the still waters, with palms about their brows? Serenely-for in their faces nothing is left of their conflict but its triumph; nothing of their swollen agony but the massy enduring strength it has imparted. They have ceased from their trials, but first they learned how to endure them. They submitted, but they were not overwhelmed. When sorrow came, each pious soul struggled, but trusted; and so was able to meet the last struggle,-was able to say as the shadow of death fell upon it, "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" They were resigned. Behold-theirs is the victory! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 15: 02.07. THE MISSION OF LITTLE CHILDREN ======================================================================== THE MISSION OF LITTLE CHILDREN "And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them." Matthew 18:2. Everything has its mission. I speak not now of the office which each part of the great universe discharges. I speak not of the relation between these parts,—that beautiful ordinance by which the whole is linked together in one common life, by which the greatest is dependent upon the least, and the least shares in the benefactions of the greatest. In this sense, everything has, strictly, its mission. But I speak of the influence, the instruction, which everything has, or may have, for the soul of man. The flower, and the star, the grass of the field, the outspread ocean, are full of lessons; they perform a mission to our spiritual nature, if we will receive it. We may pass them by as simply material forms, the decorations or conveniencies(sic) of this our natural life. But if we will come to them in a religious spirit, and study all their meaning, they will be to us ministers of God, impressive and eloquent as human lips, and filled with truths instructive as any that man can utter. Jesus illustrated his teachings by these objects. He made everything that was at hand perform a mission for the human soul. The lilies of the field were clothed with spiritual suggestion, and the fowls of the air, as they flew through the trackless firmament, bore a lesson of truth and consolation. As if to show that there is nothing, however small, that is insignificant, and that has not its mission, he selected the falling sparrow to be a minister of wisdom, and dignified the wayside well as a clear and living oracle of the divinest truth. In the instance before us, the object selected was a little child. In reply to the question, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Jesus set this little one in the midst of his disciples and said, "Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Thus did he rebuke their sensuous ideas of greatness by a spiritual truth, and make a little child the teacher of profound and beautiful wisdom. I do not propose, however, at this time, to dwell upon the precise doctrines which Christ taught in the instance, but having, as it were, the little child set in our midst, to draw from it further lessons that may do us good. In one word, I propose to speak of the mission of little children. In using this term "mission," I wish to have no obscurity about my meaning. I refer, by it, to the influence which little children may exert upon us,—to the effects which they may produce,—rather than to any direct object which they can have in view, or for which they set themselves to work. They may be unconscious missionaries; indeed, to a great extent, they are so. But so are the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. Yet if we believe that God is the ordainer of all wisdom and of all good, that he uses an object or event in numberless ways, and makes it the unconscious instrument of many of his plans, then we may say that children are sent by him for the express purpose of producing these effects, and in that sense have a mission. I pass to consider some of the modes in which that mission is accomplished. I. Little children give us a sincere and affectionate manifestation of human nature. I know that even a child will soon become artful, and imbibe the spirit of dealing and of policy. But in a strongly comparative sense, the child is artless. The thoughts of the heart leap spontaneously from the lips. The bubbling impulse is closely followed by the action. Its desire, its aversion, its love, its curiosity, are expressed without modification. The broken prattle, those half-pronounced words, are uttered with clear, ringing tones of sincerity. There is no coil of deceit about the heart. There are no secrets chambered in the brain. The countenance has put on no disguise. There is no manoeuvring with lips or actions, no suspicion or plotting in the eyes. It is simple human nature fresh from the hands of God, with all its young springs in motion, trying themselves in their simplicity and their newness. The eyes open upon the world, not with speculation, but with wonder. To them, the ancient hills and the morning stars are just created, new phenomena burst upon them every moment, and nature in a thousand channels pours itself into the young soul. And how soon it learns the meaning of a mother’s smile, and the protection of a father’s hand! How soon the fountains of affection are unsealed and the mystery of human love takes possession of the hear! But the tides of that love are controlled by no calculation, are fettered by no proprieties, but flow artlessly and freely. Humanity soon runs into deceit, and the sincerest man wears a mask. We cannot trust our most familiar friends, to the whole extent. We all retain something in our inmost hearts that nobody knows but we and God. The world bids us be shrewd and politic. We walk in a mart of selfishness. Eyes stare upon us, and we are afraid of them. We meet as traders, as partisans, as citizens, as worshippers, as friends-brothers, if you will-but we must not express all we think, we must school ourselves in some respects,—must adopt some conventionalities. There is some degree of isolation between ourselves and every other one. But from the world’s strife and sordidness, its wearisome forms and cold suspicions, we may turn to the sanctity of home, and if we have a child there, we shall find affection without alloy, a welcome that leaps from the heart in sunshine to the face, and speaks right from the soul;—a companion who is not afraid or ashamed of us, who makes no calculation about our friendship, who has faith in it, and requires of us perfect faith in return, and whose sincerity rebukes our worldliness, and makes us wonder at the world. And if all this makes us better and happier, if it keeps our hearts from hardness and attrition, if it begets in us something of the same sincerity, and hallows us with something of the same affection, if it softens and purifies us at all, then do not children, in this respect perform a mission for us? And shall we not learn from them more confidence in human nature, seeing that "the child is father to the man," and that much that seems cold and hard in men may conceal the remains of childhood’s better feeling? And, also, shall it not make us deplore and guard against those influences which can change the sincere and loving child into the deceitful and selfish man-that cover the spring of genuine feeling with the thick rime of worldliness, and petrify the tender chords of the heart into rough, unfeeling sinews? The man should not be, in all respects, as the child. The child cannot have the glory of the man. If it is not polluted by his vices, it is not ennobled by his virtues. But in so much as the child awakens in us tenderness, and teaches us sincerity, and counteracts our coarser and harder tendencies, and cheers us in our isolation from human hearts, by binding us close with a warm affection, and sheds ever around our path the mirrored sunshine of our youth and our simplicity, in so much the child accomplishes for us a blessed mission. II. Children teach us faith and confidence. Man soon becomes proud with reason, and impatient of restraint. He thinks he knows, or ought to know, the whole mystery of the universe. It is not easy for him to take anything upon trust, or to lie low in the hand of God. But the child is full of faith. He is not old enough to speculate, and the things he sees are to him so strange and wonderful that he can easily believe in "the things that are unseen." He propounds many questions, but entertains no doubts as to God and heaven. And what confidence has he in his father’s government and his mother’s providence! I do not say, here, that a man’s faith should be as a child’s faith. Man must examine and reason, contend with doubt, and wander through mystery. But I would have him cherish the feeling that he too is a child, the denizen of a Father’s house, and have sufficient confidence in that Father to trust his goodness; and to remember, if things look perplexed and discordant to him, that his vision is but a child’s vision-he cannot see all. Indeed, there is a beautiful analogy between a child in its father’s house and man in the universe, and much there is in the filial sentiment that belongs to both conditions. Beautifully has it been shown by a recent writer how the natural operation of this sentiment in the child’s heart, and in the sphere of home, stands somewhat in the place of that religion which man needs in his maturer conditions. "God has given it, in its very lot," says he, "a religion of its own, the sufficiency of which it were impiety to doubt. The child’s veneration can scarcely climb to any loftier height than the soul of a wise and good parent...How can there be for him diviner truth than his father’s knowledge, a more wonderous world than his father’s experience, a better providence than his mother’s vigilance, a securer fidelity than in their united promise? Encompassed round by these, he rests as in the embrace of the only omniscience he can comprehend." (Martineau) But O! my friends, when our childhood has passed by, and we go out to drink the mingled cup of life, and cares come crowding upon us, and hopes are crushed, and doubts wrestle with us, and sorrow burdens our spirits, then we need a deeper faith, and look up for a stronger Father. A kind word will not stifle our grief then. We cannot go to sleep upon our mother’s arms, and forget it all. There is no charm to hold our spirits within the walls of this home, the earth. Our thoughts crave more than this. Our souls reach out over the grave, and cry for something after! No bauble will assuage this bitterness. It is spiritual and stern, and we must have a word from heaven-a promise from one who is able to fulfill. We look around us, and find that Father, and his vary nature contains the promise that we need. And as the child in his ignorance has faith, not because he can demonstrate, but because it is his father, so let us, in our ignorance, feel that in this great universe of many mansions, of solemn mysteries, of homes beyond the earth, of relationships that reach through eternity, of plans only a portion of which is seen here; so let us look up as to a Father’s fare, take hold of his hand, go in and out and lie down securely in his presence, and cherish faith. If children only teach us to do this, how beautiful and how great is their mission! III. Children waken in us new and powerful affections. Nobody but a parent can realize what these affections are, can tell what a fountain of emotion the newborn child unseals, what chords of strange love are drawn out from the heart, that before lay there concealed. One may have all powers of intellect, a refined moral culture, a noble and wide-reaching philanthropy, and yet a child born to him shall awaken within him a depth of tenderness, a sentiment of love, a yearning affection, that shall surprise him as to the capacity and the mystery of his nature. And the relation of a mother to her child; what other is like it? Without it, how undeveloped is the great element of affection, how small a horn of its orb is filled and lighted! What was she until that new love woke up within her, and her heart and soul thrilled with it, and first truly lived in it? Of all the degrees of human love, how amply is this the highest! In all the depths of human love, how surely is this the nethermost! When illustrations fail us, how confidently do we seize upon this! The mother nurturing her child in tenderness, watching over it with untiring love! O! that is affection stronger than any of this earth. It has a power, a beauty, a holiness like no other sentiment. When that child has grown to maturity, and has gone out from her in profligacy and in scorn; when the world has denounced him, and justice sets its price upon his head, and lovers and companions fall off from him in utter loathing-we do not ask, we know, there is one heart that cannot reject him. No sin of his can paralyze the chord that vibrates there for him. No alienation can cancel the affection that was born at his birth, that pillowed him in his infancy, centred in him its life, clasped him with its strength, and shed upon him its blessings, its hopes, and its prayers. And no one feels the death of a child as a mother feels it. Even the father cannot realize it thus. There is a vacancy in his home, and a heaviness in his heart. There is a chain of association that at set times comes round with its broken link; there are memories of endearment, a keen sense of loss, a weeping over crushed hopes, and a pain of wounded affliction. But the mother feels that one has been taken away who was still closer to her heart. Hers has been the office of constant ministration. Every gradation of feature has developed before her eyes. She has detected every new gleam of intelligence. She heard the first utterance of every new word. She has been the refuge of his fears; the supply of his wants. And every task of affection has woven a new link, and made dear to her its object. And when he dies, a portion of her own life, as it were, dies. How can she give him up, with all these memories, these associations? The timid hands that have so often taken hers in trust and love, how can she fold them on his breast, and surrender them to the cold clasp of death? The feet whose wanderings she has watched so narrowly, how can she see them straitened to go down into the dark valley? The head that she has pressed to her lips and her bosom, that she has watched in burning sickness and in peaceful slumber, a hair of which she could not see harmed, O! how can she consign it to the chamber of the grave? The form that not for one night has been beyond her vision or her knowledge, how can she put it away for the long night of the sepulchre, to see it no more? Man has cares and toils that draw away his thoughts and employ them; she sits in loneliness, and all these memories, all these suggestions, crowd upon her. How can she bear all this? She could not, were it not that her faith is as her affection; and if the one is more deep and tender than in man, the other is more simple and spontaneous, and takes confidently hold of the hand of God. Thus, then, do children awaken within us deep and mighty affections; and is it not their mission to do so? Do we not see many beautiful offices created and discharged by these affections—tender and far-reaching relationships into which they run? Do we not see how they win the heart from frivolity and selfishness, and make it aware of duties, and quick with sympathies? I shall not enter into detailed considerations of the results of this affection thus awakened in us by children. A little reflection will render them obvious to you. Let me simply say, that in awakening these affections children discharge an important and beautiful mission. IV. I might speak of other offices discharged by little children; of the influence upon us of their purity and their innocence; their importance in the social state; of the benefits conferred upon us by the very duties which we exercise toward them. But merely suggesting these, I will speak at this time of but one more mission which they perform for us. and this, my friends, is performed through sadness and through tears. The little child performs it by its death. It has been with us a little while. We have enjoyed its bright and innocent companionship by the dusty highway of life, in the midst of its toils, its cares, and its sin. It has been a gleam of sunshine and a voice of perpetual gladness in our homes. We have learned from it blessed lessons of simplicity, sincerity, purity, faith. It has unsealed within us this gushing, never-ebbing tide of affection. Suddenly, it is taken away. We miss the gleam of sunshine. We miss the voice of gladness. Our homes are dark and silent. We ask, "Shall it not come again?" And the answer breaks upon us through the cold gray silence, "Nevermore!" We say to ourselves again and again, "Can it be possible?" "Do we not dream?" "Will not that life and affection return to us?" "Nevermore!" O! nevermore! The heart is like an empty mansion, and that word goes echoing through its desolate chambers. We are stricken and afflicted. But must this, should this, be always and only so? Are we not looking merely at the earthly aspect of the event? Has it not a spiritual phase for us? Nay, do we not begin to consider how through our temporal affection an eternal good is wrought out for us? Do we begin to realize that in our souls we have derived profit from it already? Do we not begin to learn that life is not a holiday or a workday only, but a discipline,—that God conducts that discipline in infinite wisdom and benevolence,—mingles the draught, and, when he sees fit, infuses bitterness? Not that constant sweet would not please us better, but that our discipline, which is of more importance than our indulgence, will be more effectual thereby. This is often talked about; I ask, do not we who are called upon to mourn the loss of children realize it,—actually realize that that loss is for our spiritual gain? If we do not, we are merely looking upon the earthly phase of our loss. If we do not realize this spiritual good, we may. Yes, in death the little child has a mission for us. Through that very departure he accomplishes for us, perhaps, what he could not accomplish by his life. These affections which he has awakened, we have considered how strong they are. They are stronger, are they not, than any attachment to mere things of this earth? But that child has gone from us,—gone into the unseen, the spiritual world. What then? Do our affections sink back into our hearts,—become absorbed and forgotten? O, no! They reach out after that little one; they follow him into the unseen and spiritual world,—thus is it made a great and vivid reality to us,—perhaps for the first time. We have talked of it, we have believed in it; but now that our dead have gone into it, we have, as it were, entered it ourselves. Its atmosphere is around us, chords of affection draw us toward it, the faces of our departed ones look out from it—and it is a reality. And is it not worth something to make it such a reality? We are wedded to this world. It is beautiful, it is attractive, it is real. Immortality is a pleasant thought. The spiritual land is an object of faith. But the separation between this and that is cold to think of, and hard to bear. It needs something stronger than this earth to draw us toward that spiritual world; to break some of the thousand tendrils that bind us here. My friends, though many powerful appeals, many solid arguments, cannot break our affections from this earth, the hand of a departed child can do it. The voice that calls us to unseen realities, that bids us prepare for the heavenly land, that says from heights of spiritual bliss and purity, "Come up hither;"—that voice that we loved so on earth, and gladly can we rise and follow it. Behold, then, what a little child can perform for us through its death! It makes real and attractive to us that spiritual world to which it has gone, and calls our affections from earth to that true life which is the great end of our being, which is the object of all our discipline, our mingled joy and suffering, here upon this earth. That little child, gone from its sufferings of early,—gone "Gentle and undefiled, with blessings on its head,"— has it indeed become a very angel of God for us, and is it calling us to a more spiritual life, and does it win us to heaven? Is its memory around us like a pure presence into which no thought of sin can readily enter? Or is it with us, even yet, a spiritual companion of our ways? From being the guarded and the guided, has it risen in infant innocence, yet in the knowledge and majesty of the immortal life, to be the guard and the guide? Does it, indeed, make our hearts softer and purer, and cause us to think more of duty, and live more holy, thus clothing ourselves to go and dwell with it? Does it, by its death, accomplish all this? O! most important, most glorious mission of all, if we only heed it, if we only accept it. Then shall we behold already the wisdom and benevolence of our Father breaking through the cloud that overshadows us. Already shall we see that the tie, which seemed to be dropped and broken, God has taken up to draw us closer to himself, and that it is interwoven with his all-gracious plan for our spiritual profit and perfection. And we can anticipate how it will all be reconciled, when his own hand shall wipe away our tears, and the bliss of reunion shall extract the last drop of bitterness from "the cup that our Father had given us." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 16: 02.08. OUR RELATIONS TO THE DEPARTED ======================================================================== OUR RELATIONS TO THE DEPARTED "She is not dead, but sleepeth." Luke 8:52 A Great peculiarity of the Christian religion is its transforming or transmuting power. I speak not now of the regeneration which accomplishes in the individual soul, but of the change it works upon things without. It applies the touchstone to every fact of existence, and exposes its real value. Looking through the lens of spiritual observation, it throws the realities of life into a reverse perspective from that which is seen by the sensual eye. Objects which the world calls great it renders insignificant, and makes near and prominent things which the frivolous put off. Thus the Christian, among other men, often appears anomalous. Often, amidst the congratulations of the world, he detects reason for mourning, and is penetrated with sorrow. On the contrary, where others shrink, he walks undaunted, and converts the scene of dread and suffering into an ante-chamber of heaven. In this light, the Apostle Paul speaks of himself and others, "As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." Indeed, all the beatitudes are based upon this peculiarity; for the true blessing, the inward, everlasting riches, are for those who, in the world’s eye, are poor, and mourning, and persecuted. Jesus himself weeps amid triumphant psalms and sounding hosannas, while on the cross he utters the prayer of forgiveness, and the ejaculation of peace. No wonder, then, that the believer views the ghastliest fact of all in a consoling and even a beautiful aspect; and death itself becomes but sleep. Well was that trait of our religion which I have now suggested illustrated at the bed-side of Jairus’ daughter. Well did that noisy, lamenting group represent the worldly who read only the material fact, or that flippant skepticism which laughs all supernatural truth to scorn. And well did Jesus represent the spirit of his doctrine, and its transforming power, when he exclaimed, "She is not dead, but sleepeth." Yes! beautifully has Christianity transformed death. To the eye of flesh it was the final direction of our fate,—the consummate riddle in this mystery of being,—the wreck of all our hopes,— "The simple senses crowned his head, Omega! thou art Lord, they said; We find no motion in the dead." Ever, though with higher desires and better gleamings, the mind has struggled and sunk before this fact of decay, and this awful silence of nature; while in the waning light of the soul, and among the ashes of the sepulchre, skepticism has built its dreary negation. And though the mother could lay down her child without taking hints which God gave her from every little flower that sprung on that grassy bed,—though the unexhausted intellect has reasoned that we ought to live again, and the affections, more oracular, swelling with the nature of their great source, have prophesied that we shall,—never, until the revelation of Christ descended into our souls, and illuminated all our spiritual vision, have we been able to say certainly of death, it is a sleep. This has made its outward semblance not that of cessation, but of progression—not an end, but a change—converting its rocky couch to a birth-chamber, over-casting its shadows with beams of eternal morning, while behind its cold unconsciousness the unseen spirit broods into higher life. "He fell asleep," says the sacred chronicler, speaking of bloody Stephen. "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth," said Christ to his disciples; and yet again, as here in the text, the beautiful synonyme is repeated, "She is not dead, but sleepeth." But I proceed to remark, if the Christian religion thus transforms death, or, in other words, abolishes the idea of its being annihilation, or an end, then it gives us a new view of our relations to the departed. What are these relations? The answers to this question will form the burden of the present discourse. I. There is the relation of memory. It is true, we may argue that this relation exists whether the Christian view of death be correct or not;—so long have those who are now gone actually lived with us,—so vivid are their images among the realities of the soul,—though the grave should forever shut them from our communion. But this relation of memory has peculiar propriety and efficacy when associated with a Christian faith. If the dead live no more, what would memory be to us but a spectre and a sting? Should we not then seek to repress those tender recollections,—to close our eyes to those pale, sad visions of departed love? Should we not invoke the glare and tumult of the world to distract or absorb our thoughts? Would we not say, "Let it come, the pleasure, the occupation of the hour, that we may think no more of the dead, plucked from us forever,—let us drive thoughtlessly down this swift current of life, since thought only harrows us,—let us drive thoughtlessly down, enjoying all we can, until we too lie by the side of those departed ones, like them to moulder in everlasting unconsciousness." I don not say that this would always be the case without religious hope, but it is a very natural condition of the feelings in such circumstances,—it is the most humane alternative that would then be left. At least, no one so well as the Christian can go into the inner chambers of memory, feel the strength of its sad yet blissful associations, and calmly invoke the communion of the dead. I speak not now of what occurs in those first bitter days of grief, when the heart’s wound bleeds afresh at every touch,—when we are continually surprised by the bleak fact that the loved one is actually dead. But I speak of those after seasons, those Indian summers of the soul, in which all the present desolation is blended with the bloom and enjoyment of the past. Then do we find that the tie which binds us so tenderly to the departed is a strong and fruitful one. We love, in those still retired seasons, to call up the images of the dead, to let them hover around us, as real, for the hour, as any living forms. We linger in that communion, with a pleasing melancholy. We call up all that was lovely in their character, all that was delightful in their earthly intercourse. They live again for us, and we for them. In this relation of memory, moreover, we realize the fact, that while the departed were upon earth we enjoyed much with them. This is a truth which in any estimate of our loss we should not overlook. do we mourn that the dead have been taken from us so soon? Are we not also thankful that they were ours so long? In our grief over unfulfilled expectation, do we cherish no gratitude for actual good? So much bliss has God mingled in our cup of existence that the might have withheld. He lent it to us thus far; why complain, rather, that he did not intrust us with it longer? O! these fond recollections, this concentrated happiness of past hours which we call up with tears, remind us that so much good we have actually experienced. In close connection with this thought is the fact, that, by some delicate process of refinement, we remember of the dead only what was good. In the relation of memory we see them in their best manifestation, we live over the hours of our past intercourse. Though in extraordinary instances it may be true that "the evil which men do lives after them," yet even in regard to the illustrious dead, their imperfections are overlooked, and more justice is done to their virtues than in their own time. Much more is this the case with those around whom our affections cling more closely. The communion of memory, far more than that of life, is unalloyed by sharp interruptions, or by any stain. That communion now, though saddened, is tender, and without reproach. And even if we remember that while they lived our relations with them were all beautiful, shall we not believe that when they were taken away their earthly mission for us was fulfilled? Was not their departure as essential a work of the divine beneficence as their bestowal? Who knows but if they had overstayed the appointed hour, our relations with them might have changed?—some new element of discontent and unhappiness been introduced, which would have entirely altered the character of our recollections? At least, to repeat what I have just suggested, what Christian doubts that their taking away—this change from living communion to the communion of memory—was for an end as wise and kind as were all the love and intercourse so long vouchsafed to us? Vital, the, for the Christian, is this relation which we have with the dead by memory. We linger upon it, and find in it a strange and sweet attraction. and is not much of this because, though we may be unconscious of it, the current of faith subtilely intermingles with our grief, and gives its tone to our communion? We cannot consider the departed as lost to us forever. The suggestion of rupture holds a latent suggestion of reunion. The hues of memory are colored by the reflection of hope. Religion transforms the condition of the departed for us, and we consider them not as dead, but sleeping. II. There is another relation which we have with the dead,—the relation of spiritual existence. We live with them, not only by communion with the past, by images of memory, but by that fine, mysterious bond which links us to all souls, and in which we live with them now and forever. The faith that has converted death into a sleep has also transformed the whole idea of life. If the one is but a halt in the eternal march,—a slumbrous rest preceeding a new morning,—the other is but the flow of one continuous stream, mated awhile with the flesh, but far more intimately connected with all intelligences in the universe of God. What are the conditions of our communion with the living—those with whom we come in material contact? The eye, the lip, the hand, are but symbols, interpretations;—behind these it is only spirit that communes with spirit, even in the market or the street. But not to enter into so subtle a discussion, of what kind are some of the best communions which we have on earth? We take up some wise and virtuous book, and enter into the author’s mind. Seas separate us from him,—he knows us not; he never hears our names. But have we not a close relation to him? Is there not a strong bond of spiritual communion between us? Nay, may not the intercourse we thus have with him be better and truer than any which we could have from actual contact,—from local acquaintance? Then, some icy barrier of etiquette might separate us,—some coldness of temperament upon his part,—some spleen or disease; we might be shocked by some temporary deformity; some little imperfection might betray itself. But here, in his book, which we read three thousand miles away from him, we receive his noblest thoughts,—his best spiritual revelations; and we know him, and commune with him most intimately, not through local but through spiritual affinities. And how pleasing is the though that not even death interrupts this relation. Years, as well as miles—ages may separate us from the great and good man; but we hold with him still that living communion of the spirit. Our best life may flow to us from this communion. Some of our richest spiritual treasures have been deposited in this intercourse of thought. Some of our noblest hopes and resolutions have been animated by those whose lips have long since been sealed,—whose very monuments have crumbled. A dear friend goes away from us to a foreign land. We watch the receeding sail, and feel that that is a bond between us, until it fades away in the far blue horizon. Then it is a consolation to walk by the shore of that sea, and to realize that the same waters lave the other shore, where he dwells,—to watch some star, and know that at such an hour his eye and thought are also directed to it. Thus the soul will not entertain the idea of absolute separation, but makes all those material objects agents for its affinities. But how much nearer does that absent one come to us, when we know that at such an hour we both are kneeling in prayer, and that our spirits meet, as it were, around the footstool of God! Thus we see that even in life there are spiritual relations which bind us to our fellows, and that often these are dearer and stronger than those of local contact. Why should we suppose that death cuts off all such affinities? It does not cut them off. It only removes the loved from our converse and our sight; but if, when absent in some distant land of this earth, we are conscious of still holding relations to them, do we not retain the same though they have vanished into that mysterious and unseen land which lies beyond the grave? "She is not dead, but sleepeth." Christianity has taught us to look away from the ghastly secrets of the sepulchre, and not consider that changing clay as the friend we mourn, but as only the cast-off and mouldering garment. It has kindled within us a lively appreciation of the continued existence of those who have gone from us; taught us to feel that the thoughts, the love, the real life of the departed, all, in fact, that communed with us here below, still lives and acts. And our relations to them are relations which we bear, not to abstractions of memory, to phantoms of by-gone joy, but to spiritual intelligences, whose current of being flows on uninterrupted, with whose current of being our own mingles. I know not how it is with others, but to me there is inexpressible consolation in this thought. But I would suggest that, as spiritual beings, we bear even a closer relation to the departed. I said that Christianity has transformed the whole idea of life. It has shown that we are essentially spirits, and that our highest relations are spiritual. If so, it seems an arrogant assumption to deny that any intercourse may exist between ourselves and the spiritual world. Possessing as we do this mysterious nature, throbbing with the attraction of the eternal sphere, who shall say that it touches no spiritual confines,—that it has communion only with the beings that we see? It is a dull atheism which repudiates all such intimations as superstitious or absurd. To speak more distinctly, I allude to the consoling thought which springs up almost intuitively, that the departed may, at times, see us, and be present with us, though we do not recognize them. For wise and good reasons, our senses may so constrain us that we cannot perceive these spiritual beings. But the same reasons do not exist to shut them from beholding and visiting us. The most essential idea of the immortal state is that it yields certain prerogatives which we cannot possess in our mortal condition. may it not be, therefore, that while it is our lot to be restricted to sensuous vision, and to behold only material forms, it is their privilege, having received the spiritual sight, to see both spiritual and material things? Nor need we imagine that immortality implies distance from us,—that change of state requires any great change of place. Looking through this earthly glass, we see but darkly; but when death shatters it we may behold close around us the friends we have loved, and find their spiritual peculiarity is not incompatible with such near residence. The homes of departed spirits may be all around us,—these spirits themselves may be ever hovering near, unseen in our blindness of the senses. At all events, we deem it one of the grand distinctions of spirit that it is not confined to one region of space, but may pass, quick as its own intelligence, from sphere to sphere. And while I would rebuke rash speculation, I would also rebuke the cold materialism which unhesitatingly rejects an idea like this which I have now suggested. I maintain, moreover, that such speculation is not all idle. It serves to quicken within us the thought of how near the dead may be to us, to purify that thought, and to breathe upon our fevered hearts a consoling hope. And when I combine its intrinsic reasonableness with the spirit and spiritualism of Christianity, and that intuitive suggestion which springs up in so many souls, I can urge but faint objection to those who entertain it, and would, if possible, share and diffuse the comfort which it gives. Nearer, than, than we imagine—close as in mortal contact, and more intimately—may be those whom we, with earthly vision behold no more; visiting us in hours of loneliness, and affording unseen companionship; watching us in the stillness of slumber, and reflecting themselves in our dreams. But, whether we indulge this notion or not, let us realize the relation which we have with the departed by the ties of mutual spirituality. Let us not coldly restrict or weaken this relation. If the material world is full of inexplicable things,—if we cannot explain the secret affinities of the star and the flower,—let us feel how full of mystery and how full of promise is this spiritual universe of which we are parts, and whose conditions we so little know. Let us cherish that transcendent faith, that quick, spiritual sympathy, which says of the departed, "They are not dead, but sleeping." III. Finally, we have with the dead the relation of discipline. Though we should see them only in the abstractions of memory,—though it should be true that they have no spiritual intercourse with us,—yet their agency in our behalf has not ceased. They still accomplish a work for us. That work is in the moral efficacy of bereavement and sorrow. In their going away they lead our thoughts out beyond the limits of the world. They quicken us to an interest in the spiritual land. as one who looks upon a map, and listlessly reads the name of some foreign shore, so, often, do we open this blessed revelation not heeding its recital of the immortal state. But as, when some friend goes to that distant coast, that spot on the map becomes, of all places, most vivid and prominent, so when our loved ones die, the spiritual country largely occupies our thoughts and attracts our affections. They depart that we may be weaned from earth. They ascend that we may "look steadfastly towards heaven." If this is not our everlasting home, why should they all remain here to cheat us with that thought? If we must seek a better country, should there not be premonitions for us, breaking up, and farewells, and the hurried departure of friends who are ready before us? I need not dwell on this suggestion. We are too much of the earth, earthy, and bound up in sensual interests. It is often needful that some shock of disappointment should shake our idea of terrestrial stability—should awake us to a sense of our spiritual relations—should strike open some chasm in this dead, material wall, and let in the light of the unlimited and immortal state to which we go. We need the discipline of bereavement in temporal things, to win us to things eternal. And so, in their departure, the loved accomplish for us a blessed and spiritual result, and instead of being wholly lost to us, become bound to us by a new and vital relation. But these loved ones depart, no merely to bind our affections to another state, but to fit us better for the obligations of this. Perhaps, in the indulgence of full communion, in the liquid ease of prosperity, we have scantily discharged our social duties. We have not appreciated love, because we have never felt its absence. We have shocked the tenderest ties, because we were ignorant of their tenderness. We have withheld good offices, because we knew not how rare is the opportunity to fulfil them. But when one whom we love passes away, then, realizing a great loss, we learn how vital was that relation, how inestimable the privilege which is withdrawn forever. How quick then is our regret for every harsh word which we have spoken to the departed, or for any momentary alienation which we have indulged! This, however, should not reduce us to a morbid sensitiveness, or an unavailing sorrow, seeing that it is blended with so many pleasant memories; but it should teach us our duty to the living. It should make our affections more diligent and dutiful. It should check our hasty words, and assuage our passions. It should cause us, day and night, to meet in kindness and part in peace. Our social ties are golden links of uncertain tenure, and, one by one, they drop away. Let us cherish a more constant love for those who make up our family circle, for "not long may we stay." The allotments of duty, perhaps, will soon distribute us into different spheres of action; our lines, which now fall together in a pleasant place, will be wide apart as the zones, or death will cast his shadow upon these familiar faces, and interrupt our long communion. Let us, indeed, preserve this temper with all men—those who meet us in the street, in the mart, in the most casual or selfish concerns of life. We cannot remain together a great while, at the longest. Let us meet, then, with kindness, that when we part no pang may remain. Let not a single day bear witness to the neglect or violation of any duty which shall lie hard in the heart when it is excited to tender and solemn recollections. Let only good-will beam from faces that so soon shall be changed. Let no root of bitterness spring up in one man’s bosom against another, when, ere long, nature will plant flowers upon their common grave. "Let not the sun go down upon our wrath," when his morning beams may search our accustomed places for one or both of us, in vain. Thus, if the dead teach us to regard more dutifully the living, they will accomplish for us a most beautiful discipline. Their departure may also serve another end. It may teach us the great lessons of patience and resignation. We have been surrounded by many blessings, and yet perhaps, have indulged in fretfulness. A slight loss has irritated us. We have chafed at ordinary disappointments, at little interruptions in the current of our prosperity. We have been in the habit of murmuring. And now this great grief has overtaken us, that we may see at what little things we have complained,—that we may learn that there is a meaning in trouble which should make us calm,—that we had no right to these gifts, the privation of which has offended us, but that all have flowed from that mercy which we have slightly acknowledged, and peevishly accused. This great sorrow has stricken us, piercing through bone and marrow, in order to reach our hearts, and touch the springs of spiritual life within us, that henceforth, we may look upon all sorrow in a new light. Little troubles have only disturbed the surface of our nature, making it uneasy, and tossing it into fretful eddies; this heavy calamity, like a mighty wind, has plunged into the very depths, and turned up the foundations, leaving us, at length, purified and serene. I believe we shall find it to be the general testimony that those who have the least trouble are the loudest complainers; while, often, the souls that have been fairly swept and winnowed by sorrow are the most patient and Christ-like. The pressure of their woe has broken down all ordinary reliances, and driven them directly to God, where they rest in sweet submission and in calm assurance. Such is the discipline which may be wrought out for us by the departure of those we love. Such, and other spiritual results, their vanishing may secure for us, which we never could have gained by their presence; and so it may be said by some departing friend,—some one most dear to our hearts,—in a reverent sense, as the Master said to his disciples, "It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you." As I have already touched upon the region of speculation, I hardly dare drop a hint which belongs here, though it grows out of a remark made under the last head. But I will say that it is not unreasonable to suppose that the departed may perform a more close and personal agency than this which I have just dwelt upon. Often, it may be, they are permitted messengers for our welfare; guardians, whose invisible wings shield us; teachers, whose unfelt instructions mysteriously sway us. The child may thus discharge an office of more than filial love for the bereaved parents. The mother may watch and minister to her child. The father, by unseen influences, win to virtue the heart of his poor prodigal. But whether this be so or not, certain are we that the departed do discharge such an agency, if not by spiritual contact with us, or direct labor in our behalf, by the chastening influence that their memory sheds upon us, by uplifting our thoughts, by spiritualizing our affections, by drawing our souls to communion with things celestial and with God. Let us see to it, then, that we improve this discipline; that we quench not the holy aspiration which springs up in our sorrow; that we neglect not the opportunity when our hearts are softened; that we continue the prayer which first escaped our lips as a sigh and a call of distress; that the baptism of tears lets us into the new life of reconciliation, and love, and holiness. Otherwise, the discipline is of no avail, and, it may be, we harden under it. And, finally, let me say, that the faith by which we regard our relations to the departed in the light that has been exhibited in this discourse, is a faith that must be assimilated with our entire spiritual nature. It must be illustrated in our daily conduct, and sanctify every thought and motive of our hearts. We should not seek religion merely for its consolations, and take it up as an occasional remedy. In this way religion is injured. It is associated only with sorrow, and clothed, to the eyes of men, in perpetual sadness. It is sought as the last resort, the heart’s extreme unction, when it has tried the world’s nostrums in vain. It is dissociated from things healthy and active,—from all ordinary experiences,—from the great whole of life. It is consigned to the darkened chamber of mourning, and the weary and disappointed spirit. Besides, to seek religion only in sorrow,—to fly to it as the last refuge,—argues an extreme selfishness. We have served the world and our own wills, we have lived the life of the senses, and obeyed the dictates of our passions so long as they could satisfy us, and now we turn to God because we find that he only can avail us! We seek religion for the good it can do us, not for the service we can render God. We lay hold of it selfishly, as something instituted merely for our help, and lavish our demands upon it for consolation, turning away sullen and skeptical, it may be, if these demands are not immediately answered. Many come to religion for consolation who never apply to it for instruction, for sanctification, for obedience. Let us learn that we can claim its privileges only by performing its duties. We can see with the eye of its clear, consoling faith, only when it has spiritualized our entire being, and been developed in our daily conduct. Affliction may open religious ideas in the soul, but only by the soul’s discipline will those ideas expand until they become our most intimate life, and we habitually enjoy celestial companionship, and that supersensual vision of faith by which we learn our relations to the departed. That faith let us receive and cherish. If we live it we shall believe it. No sophistry can steal it from us, no calamity make us surrender it. But the keener the trial the closer will be our confidence. Standing by the open sepulchre in which we see our friends, "not dead, but sleeping," we shall say to insidious skepticism and gloomy doubt, in the earnest words of the poet, "O! steal not thou my faith away, Nor tempt to doubt a lowly mind. Make all that earth can yield thy prey, But leave this heavenly gift behind. Our hope is but the seaboy’s dream, When loud winds rise in wrath and gloom; Our life, a faint and fitful beam, That lights us to the cold, dark tomb; Yet, since, as one from heaven has said, There lies beyond that dreary bourn A region where the faithful dead Eternally forget to mourn, Welcome the scoff, the sword, the chain, The burning waste, the black abyss:— I shrink not from the path of pain, Which leads me to that world of bliss. Then hush, thou troubled heart! be still;— Renounce thy vain philosophy;— Seek thou to work thy Maker’s will, And light from heaven shall break on thee. ’Twill glad thee in the weary strife, Where strong men sink with falling breath;— ’Twill cheer thee in the noon of life, And bless thee in the night of death." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 17: 02.09. THE VOICES OF THE DEAD ======================================================================== THE VOICES OF THE DEAD "And by it he being dead yet speaketh." Hebrews 11:4. Much of the communion of this earth is not by speech or actual contact, and the holiest influences fall upon us in silence. A monument or symbol shall convey a meaning which cannot be expressed; and a token of some departed one is more eloquent than words. The mere presence of a good and holy personage will move us to reverence and admiration, though he may say and do but little. So is there an impersonal presence of such an one; and, though far away, he converses with us, teaches and incites us. The organs of speech are only one method of the soul’s expression; and the best information which it receives comes without voice or sound. We hear no vocal utterance from God, yet he speaks to us through all the forms of nature. In the blue, ever-arching heaven he tells us of his comprehensive care and tender pity, and "the unwearied sun" proclaims his constant and universal benevolence. The air that wraps us close breathes of his intimate and all-pervading spirit; and the illimitable space, and the stars that sparkle abroad without number, show forth his majesty and suggest infinitude. The gush of silent prayer—the sublimest mood of the spirit—is when we are so near to him that words cannot come between; and the power of his presence is felt the most, felt in the profoundest deep of our nature, when the curtains of his pavilion hang motionless around us. And it is so, I repeat, with all our best communions. The holiest lessons are not in the word, but the life. The virtues that attract us most are silent. The most beautiful charities go noiseless on their mission. The two mites reveal the spiritual wealth beneath the poor widow’s weeds; the alabaster box of ointment is fragrant with Mary’s gratitude; the look of Christ rebukes Peter into penitence; and by his faith Abel, being dead, yet speaketh. Yes, even the dead, long gone from us, returning no more, their places left vacant, their lineaments dimly remembered, their bodies mouldering back to dust, even these have communion with us; and to speak of "the voices of the dead" is no mere fancy. And it is to that subject that I would call your attention, in the remainder of a brief discourse. "He being dead yet speaketh." The departed have voices for us. In order to illustrate this, I remark, in the first place, that the dead speak to us, and commune with us, through the works which they have left behind them. As the islands of the sea are the built-up casements of myriads of departed lives,—as the earth itself is a great catacomb,—so we who live and move upon its surface inherit the productions and enjoy the fruits of the dead. They have bequeathed to us by far the larger portion of all that influences our thoughts, or mingles with the circumstances of our daily life. We walk through the streets they laid out. We inhabit the houses they built. We practise the customs they established. We gather wisdom from books they wrote. We pluck the ripe clusters of their experience. We boast in their achievements. And by these they speak to us. Every device and influence they have left behind tells their story, and is a voice of the dead. We feel this more impressively when we enter the customary place of one recently departed, and look around upon his work. The half-finished labor, the utensils hastily thrown aside, the material that exercised his care and received his last touch, all express him, and seem alive with his presence. By them, though dead, he speaketh to us, with a freshness and tone like his words of yesterday. How touching are those sketched forms, those unfilled outlines in that picture which employed so fully the time and genius of the great artist—Belshazzar’s feast! In the incomplete process, the transition-state of an idea from its conception to its realization, we are brought closer to the mind of the artist; we detect its springs and hidden workings, and therefore feel its reality more than in the finished effort. And this is one reason why we are impressed at beholding the work just left than in gazing upon one that has been for a long time abandoned. Having had actual communion with the contriving mind, we recognize its presence more readily in its production; or else the recency of the departure heightens the expressiveness with which everything speaks of the departed. The dead child’s cast-off garment, the toy just tossed aside, startles us as though with his renewed presence. A year hence, they will suggest him to us, but with a different effect. But though not with such an impressive tone, yet just as much, in fact, do the productions of those long gone speak to us. Their minds are expressed there, and a living voice can do little more. Nay, we are admitted to a more intimate knowledge of them than was possessed by their contemporaries. The work they leave behind them is the sum-total of their lives—expresses their ruling passion—reveals, perhaps, their real sentiment. To the eyes of those placed on the stage with them, they walked as in a show, and each life was a narrative gradually unfolding itself. We discover the moral. We see the results of that completed history. We judge the quality and value of that life by the residuum. As "a prophet has no honor in his own country," so one may be misconceived in his own time, both to his undue disparagement, and his undue exaltation; therefore can another age better write his biography than his own. His work, his permanent result, speaks for him better—at least truer—than he spoke for himself. The rich man’s wealth,—the sumptuous property, the golden pile that he has left behind him;—by it, being dead, does he not yet speak to us? Have we not, in that gorgeous result of toiling days and anxious nights,—of brain-sweat and soul-rack,—the man himself, the cardinal purpose, the very life of his soul? which we might have surmised while he lived and wrought, but which, now that it remains the whole sum and substance of his mortal being, speaks far more emphatically than could any other voice he might have used. The expressive lineaments of the marble, the pictured canvas, the immortal poem;—by it, Genius, being dead, yet speaketh. To us, and not to its own time, are unhoarded the wealth of its thought and the glory of its inspiration. When it is gone,—when its lips are silent, and its heart still,—then is revealed the cherished secret over which it toiled, which was elaborated from the living alembic of the soul, through painful days and weary nights,—the sentiment which could not find expression to contemporaries,—the gift, the greatness, the lyric power, which was disguised and unknown so long. Who, that has communed with the work of such a spirit, has not felt in every line that thrilled his soul, in every wondrous lineament that stamped itself upon his memory forever, that the dead can speak, yes, that they have voices which speak most truly, most emphatically when they are dead? So does Industry speak, in its noble monuments, its precious fruits! So does Maternal Affection speak, in a chord that vibrates in the hardest heart, in the pure and better sentiment of after-years. So does Patriotism speak, in the soil liberated and enriched by its sufferings. So does the martyr speak, in the truth which triumphs by his sacrifice. So does the great man speak, in his life and deeds, glowing on the storied page. so does the good man speak, in the character and influence which he leaves behind him. The voices of the dead come to us from their works, from their results and these are all around us. But I remark, in the second place, that the dead speak to us in memory and association. If their voices may be constantly heard in their works, we do not always heed them; neither have we that care and attachment for the great congregation of the departed which will at any time call them up vividly before us. But in that congregation there are those whom we have known intimately and fondly, whom we cherished with our best love, who lay close to our bosoms. And these speak to us in a more private and peculiar manner,—in mementos that flash upon us the whole person of the departed, every physical and spiritual lineament—in consecrated hours of recollection that upon up all the train of the past, and re-twine its broken ties around our hearts, and make its endearments present still. Then, then, though dead, they speak to us. It needs not the vocal utterance, nor the living presence, but the mood that transforms the scene and the hour supplies these. That face that has slept so long in the grave, now bending upon us, pale and silent, but affectionate still,—that more vivid recollection of every feature, tone, and movement, that brings before us the departed just as we knew them in the full flush of life and health,—that soft and consecrating spell which falls upon us, drawing in all our thoughts from the present, arresting, as it were, the current of our being, and turning it back and holding it still as the flood of actual life rushes by us,—while in that trance of soul the beings of the past are shadowed—old friends, old days, old scenes recur, familiar looks beam close upon us, familiar words reecho in our ears, and we are closed up and absorbed with the by-gone, until tears dissolve the film from our eyes, and some shock of the actual wakes us from our reverie;—all these, I say make the dead to commune with us as really as though in bodily form they should come out from the chambers of their mysterious silence, and speak to us. And if life consists in experiences, and not mere physical relations,—and if love and communion belong to that experience, though they take place in meditation, or in dreams, or by actual contact,—then, in that hour of remembrance, have we really lived with the departed, and the departed have come back and lived with us. Though dead, they have spoken to us. And though memory sometimes induces the spirit of heaviness,—though it is often the agent of conscience, and wakens u to chastise,—yet, it is wonderful how, from events that were deeply mingled with pain, it will extract an element of sweetness. a writer, in relating one of the experiences of her sick-room, has illustrated this. In an hour of suffering, when no one was near here, she went out from her bed and her room to another apartment, and looked out upon a glorious landscape of sunrise and spring-time. "I was suffering too much to enjoy this picture at the moment," she says, "but how was it at the end of the year? The pains of all those hours were annihilated,—as completely vanished as if they had never been; while the momentary peep behind the window-curtain made me possessor of this radiant picture for evermore." "Whence came this wide difference," she asks, "between the good and the evil? Because good is indissolubly connected with ideas,—with the unseen realities which are indestructible." And though the illustration which she thus gives may bear the impression of an individual personality, instead of a universal truth, still, in the instance to which I apply it, I believe it will very generally hold true, that memory leaves a pleasant rather than a painful impression. At least, there is so much that is pleasant mingled with it that we would not willingly lose the faculty of memory,—the consciousness that we can thus call back the dead, and hear their voices,—that we have the power of softening the rugged realities which only suggest our loss and disappointment, by transferring the scene and the hour to the past and the departed. And, as our conceptions become more and more spiritual, we shall find the real to be less dependent upon the outward and the visible,—we shall learn how much life there is in a thought,—how veritable are the communions of spirit; and the hour in which memory gives us the vision of the dead will be prized by us as an hour of actual experience and such opportunities will grow more precious to us. No, we would not willingly lose this power of memory. One would not say, "Let the dead never come back to me in a thought, or a dream; let them never glide before me in the still watch of meditation; let me see, let me hear them no more, even in fancy;"—not one of us would say this; and, therefore, it is evident, that whatever painful circumstance memory or association may recall,—even though it cause us to go out and weep bitterly,—there is a sacred pleasure, a tender melancholy, that speaks to us in these voices of the dead, which we are willing to cherish and repeat. It makes our tears soft and sanctifying as they fall; it makes our hearts purer and better,—makes them stronger for the conflict of life. I remark, finally, that the dead speak to us in those religious suggestions—those consolations, invitations, and hopes—which the bereaved spirit indulges. Our meditations, concerning them naturally draw us more closely to these spiritual realities which lie beyond the grave, and beget in us those holier sentiments which we need. That such is the tendency of these recollections experience assures us. They open for us a new order of thought; they bring us in contact with the loftiest but most neglected truths. Even the hardest heart feels this influence. It is softened by the stroke of bereavement and, for the time being, a chastening influence falls upon it, and it always thinks of the dead with tenderness and awe. They speak to our affections with an irresistible influence; they soothe our turbulent passions with their mild and holy calmness; they rebuke us in their spiritual majesty for our sensuality and our sin. They have departed, but they are not silent. Though dead, they speak to us. Sweet and sanctifying is their communion with us. They utter words of warning, too, and speak to us by the silent eloquence of example. By this they bid us imitate all that was good in their lives, all that is dear to remember. By this, too, they tell us that we are passing swiftly from the earth, and hastening to join their number. A little while ago, and they were as we are;—a little while hence, and we shall be as they. Our work, like theirs, will be left behind to speak for us. How important, then, that we consider what work we do! They assure us that nothing is perpetual here. They bid us not fasten our affections upon earth. In long procession they pass us by, with solemn voices telling of their love and hatred, their interests and cares, their work and device;—all abandoned now and passed away, as little worth as the dust that blows across their graves. Upon all that was theirs, upon every memorial of them, broods a melancholy dimness and silence. They recede more and more from the associations of the living. New tides of life roll through the cities of their habitation, and upon the foot-worn pavements of their traffic other feet are busy. Their lovely labor, or their stately pomp, is forgotten. No one weeps or cares for them. Their solicitous monuments are unheeded. The companions of their youth have rejoined them. The young, who scarcely remembered them, are giving way to another generation. The places that knew them know them no longer. "This, this," their solemn voices preach to us, "is the changeableness of earth, and the emptiness of its pursuits!" They urge us to seek the noblest end, the unfailing treasure. They bid us to find our hope and our rest, our only constant joy in Him, who alone, amid this mutability and decay, is permanent,—in God! Well, then, is it for us to listen to the voices of the dead. By so doing, we are better fitted for life, and for death. From that audience we go purified and strengthened into the varied discipline of our mortal state. We are willing to stay, knowing that the dead are so near us, and that our communion with them may be so intimate. We are willing to go, seeing that we shall not be widely separated from those we leave behind. We will toil in our lot while God pleases, and when he summons us we will calmly depart. When the silver cord becomes untwined, and the golden bond broken,—when the wheel of action stands still in the exhausted cistern of our life,—may we lie down in the light of that faith which makes so beautiful the face of the dying Christian, and has converted death’s ghastly silence to a peaceful sleep; may we rise to a holier and more visible communion, in the land without a sin and without a tear; where the dead shall be closer to us than in this life; where not the partition of a shadow, or a doubt, shall come between. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 18: 02.10. MYSTERY AND FAITH ======================================================================== MYSTERY AND FAITH "For we walk by faith, not by sight." 2 Corinthians 5:7. It needs only common experience, and but little of that, to convince us that this life is full of mystery, and at every step we take demands of us faith. For at every step we take we literally walk by faith; in every work we do we must have confidence in something which is not by sight, in something which is not yet demonstrated. Skepticism carried to its ultimate consequences is the negation of everything. It closes up the issues of all knowledge, and sunders every ligament that binds us to practical life. We must have faith in something or we stand on no promises; we can predicate nothing. It may be said that in the experience of the past we have a guide for the future; but then, must we not have faith in experience? Do we not trust something which is not yet demonstrated when we say "This cause which produced that effect yesterday will produce a similar effect today or tomorrow?" How do we know—positively know, that it will produce that effect, and what are the grounds of our knowledge? This boasted "cause and effect," this "experience," what right have we to rely upon it for one moment of the future? Not for that moment has it demonstrated anything;—it demonstrated for the time being, and the time being only; and our confidence that it will do so again is faith, not sight—faith in cause and effect, faith in experience, but faith after all. Hume, the philosopher, has illustrated the positions which have now been taken. "As to past experience," says he, "it can be allowed to give direct and certain information of those precise objects only, and that precise period of time which fell under its cognizance; but why this experience should be extended to future times, and to other objects, which for aught we know may be only in appearance similar; this is the main question on which I would insist. The bread which I formerly ate nourished me; that is, a body of such sensible qualities was, at that time, endued with such secret powers; but does it follow that other bread must also nourish me at another time, and that like sensible qualities must also be attended with like secret powers? The consequence seems nowise necessary." And yet we eat our bread, day by day, without a doubt or a fear. We sow the grain and we reap the wheat, but for all the work is done in faith, and the whole process is steeped in mystery. In that scattering of the golden seed, what confidence is expressed in elements that we cannot see, in beneficent agencies that we cannot control, in results that are beyond our power, and that in their growth and development are full of wonder exceeding our wisdom. Give up faith; say that we will act only upon that which is demonstrated and known, say that we will walk only so far as sight reaches, and we completely separate the present from the future, and stop all the mechanism of practical life. But if we take a wider view of things, and consider this material universe in which we live, the great fact of mystery and the need of faith will be urged upon us by a larger and more impressive teaching. The more we learn of nature the more clearly is revealed to us this fact—that we know less than we thought we did; positively, we know more, but relatively we know less, because as we have advanced nature has stretched out into wider and wider relations. The department that was unknown to us yesterday is explored to-day. Yesterday, we thought it was all that remained to be explored, but the torch of investigation that guided us through it now flares out upon new regions we did not see before. Like one who goes with a candle into some immense cavern, presently a little circle becomes clear, the shadows vanish before him, and undefined forms grow distinct. he thinks he is near the end, when lo! what seemed a solid boundary of rock dissolves and floats away into a depth of darkness, the path opens into an immense void, new shapes of mystery start out, and he learns this much that he did not know before, that instead of being near the end, he is only upon the threshold. We do not mean to imply by this that we have no positive knowledge, or that we do not increase in knowledge. With every new discovery we positively know more and more. But the new discovery reveals the fact that more is yet to be known; it lays open new regions, it unfolds new relations that we had not before suspected. We follow some tiny thread a little way, and hold it secure, but it is connected with another ligament, and this branches out into a third; and instead of exhausting the matter, we find ourselves at the root of an infinite series, of an immense relationship, upon which we have only just opened; and yet what we have is positive knowledge, is something more added to our stock. The circle of the known has positively widened, but the horizon of the unknown has widened also, and, instead of being to us now, as it seemed some time ago, a solid and ultimate limit, it is only an ethereal wall, only to us a relative boundary, and behind are infinite depths and mystery. Our scientific knowledge at the present day reaches this grand result—it clears up the deception that the system of nature is mere flat, dead materiality, a few mechanical laws, a few rigid forms. It shows that these are only the husks, the outer garments of mighty forces of subtile, far-reaching agencies; and the most common, every-day truths, that seemed stale and exhausted, become illuminated with infinite meaning, and are the blossoms of an infinite life. The wider our circle of discovery, the wider our wonder; the more startling our conclusions, the more perplexing our questions. We have not exhausted the universe;—we have just begun to see its harmony of proportion and of relations, without penetrating a fathom into its real life. How and what is that power that works in the shooting of a crystal, and binds the obedience of a star; that shimmers in the northern Aurora, and connects by its attraction the aggregated universe; that by its unseen forces, its all-prevalent jurisdiction, holds the little compass to the north, blooms in the nebula and the flower, weaves the garment of earth and the veil of heaven, darts out in lightning, spins the calm motion of the planets, and presides mysteriously over all motion and all life? And what is life, and what is death, and what a thousand things that we touch, and experience, and think we know all about? O! as science, as nature opens upon us, we find mystery after mystery, and the demand upon the human soul if for faith, faith in high, yes, in spiritual realities; and this materialism that would shut us in to death and sense, that denies all spirit and all miracle, is shattered like a crystal sphere, and the soul rushes out into wide orbits and infinite revolutions, into life, and light, and power, that are of eternity,—that are of God! Thus the scale is prepared for us to rise from things of sense to things of spirit, to rise from faith in nature to faith in Revelation, from the faith of LaPlace to the faith of Paul. No one who has studied nature will reject Christianity because it reveals truths that he cannot see with his naked eye,—because it speaks of things that he cannot comprehend. No one who has considered the shooting of a green blade will dogmatically deny its miracles. No one who has found in the natural world the intelligent wisdom that pervades all things, will wonder that he discovers a revelation of perfect love in Jesus Christ. "We walk by faith, not by sight," said Paul. So says every Christian; and it is of all things the most rational. Faith in something higher and greater than we can see, faith in something above this narrow scene, faith in something beyond this present life, faith in realities that are not of time or sense; from all that we have now considered we claim such faith to be most rational, most natural. God, spirit, immortality, instead of being inconsistent with what we know, are what we most legitimately deduce from it,—what we might expect from the light that trembles behind the curtain of mystery which bounds all our sensuous knowledge. We do believe, the veriest skeptic believes in something behind that curtain of mystery; nor can he withhold his faith because it attaches to that which is unseen and incomprehensible, without, as has already been shown, cutting every nerve that binds us to practical life, and smothering every suggestion that speaks from outward nature. If he do not believe in a God, then, or in Christ, or in immortality, let him not sneer at others because they walk by faith and not by sight; for he also must do so, though his faith be not in such high truths, such spiritual realities. The Christian’s faith is an Infinite Father and an immortal life, and though he cannot see them, cannot come in material contact with them, he believes them to be the greatest of all realities, and he sees them by faith, a medium as legitimate as that of sight. They are mysteries, but everything contains a mystery; they demand of him what every day’s, every hour’s events demand of him—faith. Let us understand, however, that faith is not the surrendering of our minds to that which is irrational and inconsistent. These terms should not be confounded with the mysterious and the incomprehensible. That the earth moves and yet stands still is not a proposition that demands faith. It is in the province of reason to say that it cannot move and stand still at the same time. It is an inconsistency. But how the earth moves on its axis, what is that law that makes it move, is an incomprehensibility. An incomprehensibility is one thing, an inconsistency is another thing. The one conflicts with our reason, the other is beyond it. In that which conflicts with our reason we cannot have faith, but as to that which is beyond it we exercise faith every day; for we literally walk by faith and not by sight. Who shall say, then, that God, immortality, and those high truths revealed by Jesus, are inconsistent? Do they not conform to the highest reason? Do not our deepest intuitions demand that these revelations should be true? Consult your nature, examine your own heart, consider what you are, what you want, what you feel, deeply want, keenly feel, and then say whether the Revelation of a God, a Father, and an immortal life, satisfies you as nothing else can. Take them away, and would there not be a dreary and overwhelming void? And because you have not seen God, because you have not realized immortality, because they reach beyond your present vision, because the grave shuts you in, because they are high and transcendent truths, will you reject them? Do so, and try to walk by sight alone. With that nature of yours, so full of love, with that intellect of yours so limitless in capacity, you are apparently a child of the elements, a thing of physical nature, born of the dust, and returning to it. With desires that reach out beyond the stars, with faculties that in this life just begin to bud, with affections whose bleeding tendrils cling around the departed, wrestle with death, and say to the grave, "Give up the dead! they are not thine, but mine; I feel they must be mine forever," with all these desires, capacities, affections, you walk—so far as mere sight helps you—among graves and decay, with nothing more enduring, nothing better, than three-score years and ten, the clods of the valley, the crumbling bone, and the dissolving dust! Because God and immortality are mysterious, incomprehensible, reject them, and walk only by sight? The humblest outpouring of human affection rebukes thy skepticism; the most narrow degree of human intellect prophesies beyond all this; the darkest heart, with that spark of eternal life, the yearning that moves beneath all its sensualities, and speaks for better, for more enduring things,—that rebukes thee; and in man’s moral nature, in his heart and his mind, there is that which only can be satisfied, only can be explained by God and immortality. They alone, then, are rational, they alone have comprehensive vision, who walk by faith, and not by sight. Mystery and faith, then; let what we have said concerning these be not alone for the skeptic, but for the Christian who has faith but cannot fully justify and confirm it, or who feels it faltering under some heavy burden, or who is overwhelmed by the magnitude of the truths to which it attaches, or who wishes, with a kind of half-doubt, that these things might be seen and felt. They are great, they are incomprehensibly great; but are they therefore untrue? Does not your heart of hearts tell you they are true? Does not that Revelation of Christ steal into your soul and feed it, satisfy it, as nothing else can, with a warm, benignant power, that makes you know its truth? Mysteries are all about us, but faith sees light beyond and around them all. Have you recently laid down the dead in their place of rest? Cold and crushing, then, is that feeling of vacancy, that dreary sense of loss, that rushes upon you, as you look through the desolate chambers without,—through the desolate chambers of the heart within. But will not He who calls out from the very dust where yon sleepers lie the flowers of summer, and who, in the snows that enwrap their bed, cherishes the germs of the glorious springtime, will not He who works out this beautiful mystery in nature bring life back from the tomb, and light out of darkness? It is truly a great mystery; but everything within us responds to it as reasonable; and though it demands our faith, who, who, in this limited and changing world, can walk by sight alone? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 19: S. NICODEMUS: THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION ======================================================================== Nicodemus: The Seeker After Religion There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night.—John 3:1-2. Although we have but few glimpses of Nicodemus in the gospels, he is a personage of peculiar interest. A Pharisee, and a member of the great Jewish senate, or Sanhedrin, he shows us that the influence of Christ was not limited to the poor and the obscure; but that, while His words and works awoke enmity and fear among the higher classes, they struck, in the breasts of some of these, a holier chord. It may not be certain that Nicodemus ever openly confest Christ; yet, in this chapter, he appears in the attitude of a disciple, and we find him defending Jesus before the Sanhedrin, and assisting at His burial. Still, unless the last-mentioned act be considered as such, we do not discover, in his conduct, that public and decisive acknowledgment which the Savior required; we do not behold the frank avowal of Peter, or the intrepidity of Paul. There is an air of caution and of timidity about him. He carefully feels the ground of innovation, before he lets go the establishment; and, indeed, he appears to have taken no step by which he forfeited his caste or his office. It is difficult, too, to discover the precise purpose of this visit to Jesus. Perhaps he sought the interview from mixed motives. A religious earnestness, kindled by the teachings and the character of Christ, may have blended with speculative curiosity, and even with the throbbings of political ambition. His coming by night, too, may have indicated timidity, or he may have chosen that season as the best time for quiet and uninterrupted discourse. But, whatever may have been his motives, the position in which we find him shows, I repeat, that the power of Christ’s ministry was felt, not only by the excitable multitude, but by the more thoughtful and devout of the Jewish people. Nicodemus, however, presents a peculiar interest, not only because he exhibits the influence of Jesus upon the higher orders of his nation, but because he appears as a seeker after religion, and as one personally interested in its vital truths. His interview with the Savior gives occasion for one of the most important passages in the New Testament. The conversation of Christ, in this instance, is not uttered in general principles and accommodated to the multitude, but it is directed to an intelligent and inquiring spirit, in the calm privacy of the night-time laying bare its very depths, and craving the application of religion to its own peculiar wants. To be sure, Nicodemus did not profess this want, but commenced the conversation with the language of respect, and with suggestion of more general inquiry. But He who “knew what was in man,” had already penetrated the folds of the ruler’s breast, and saw the real need that had sent him; so, putting by all compliments, and all secondary issues, He struck at once the conscious chord that throbbed there, and exclaimed: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God!” These words must have filled Nicodemus with surprize, both from their sudden heart-searchingness, and as addressing to him a term which was usually applied to men of very different condition. For the phrase, “new birth,” was a customary one to express the change through which the Gentile passed in becoming a Jew. But it was indeed a strange doctrine that he, a son of Abraham, a Pharisee, a ruler, must be born again, before he could be fit for the Messiah’s kingdom. Therefore, really or affectedly, he misunderstood the Savior’s words, and gave to a phrase, plain enough when applied to a heathen, the most gross and literal interpretation. But Christ reiterated the solemn truth assuring him that an inward change, and an outward profession, a regeneration of the affections and the will, and a renunciation of pride and fear, by the symbol of baptism—a new birth of water and of the Spirit—was essential to true discipleship. And thus, stripping away all the reliances of formal righteousness, and all the supports of birth and position, in reply to the earnest question of Nicodemus: “How can these things be?” the great Teacher proceeded to utter some of the sublimest doctrines of the gospel. As I have already said, whether Nicodemus became an avowed follower of Jesus, or not, is uncertain; but we know that the truths which he then heard are of everlasting importance, have a personal application to every man, and appeal to wants in our own souls, which are as real and as deep as those of the ruler of old. But while thus Nicodemus exhibits a need of our common humanity, he especially represents a class who may be called “seekers after religion,” either as being unsettled and inquiring in their spirits, or as resting upon something which is not religion, but only, perhaps, a tendency toward it—they are seekers after it, as not having actually found it. In other words, for this class, religion has its meaning and its pressure; they think about it, and they feel its claims, yet they do not thoroughly and mentally know it; or, like Nicodemus, they rest upon some substitute. Some of these positions I propose now to illustrate. I observe, then, in the first place, that some seek religion in rituals and sacraments. The tendency of the human mind, as to matters of faith and devotion, has always been to complicate rather than to simplify, and to associate these with set forms and symbols. In all ages, men have shrunk from naked communion with God, from the solitude of an intense spirituality, and have conducted transactions with the Invisible, through the mediation of ceremony. But that which, at first, was an expression of the individual soul, has grown into a fixed and consecrated rite. Gestures and modes of worship, suggested by the occasion, have been repeated in usage, and grown venerable with age, until they have become identified with religion itself. They have been exalted into mystic vehicles of grace, have been considered as possessing virtue in themselves, and as constituting an awful paraphernalia, through which, alone, God will deign to communicate with man, and through which man may even propitiate and move God. Christianity has not escaped this tendency; and, even now, there are many with whom the sacraments are something more than expressive signs and holy suggestions, and with whom the position of an altar, the shape of a vestment, and the form of a church are among the essentials of religion. With such, baptism, speaks, not merely to the eye of an inward washing, but it is of itself a regenerative process. In their view, the communion bread is not simply a representation of the broken body of the Redeemer; but is itself so sacred, so identical with that body, that they must receive it by a special posture, and upon a particular part of the hand. As a matter of course, to such, religion must appear eminently conservative and retrospective; the genius of the established and the past, rather than of the reformatory and the future. Cherishing the minutest fibers of these ancient rites, they chiefly venerate the men who authenticate them, and the soil out of which they grow. With them, the fluent spirit of religion became organized and fixt into a form, with fast-days and feast-days, with miter and cassock, and a lineal priesthood, ages ago. It cannot be said that this method is entirely unfounded. It has its justification in human nature, if not elsewhere. There are those who can find peace only in the arms of an hereditary faith: who can feel the inspiration of worship only among forms that have kindled worship in others for a thousand years: with whose earliest thoughts and dearest memories is entwined a ritual and an established church, so that personal affection and household sanctity, as well as religious feeling, demand that every great act of life—of joy or sorrow—should be consecrated, by the familiar sacrament. For that church, too, their fathers have died in darker times, and beneath its chancels, sainted mothers molder into dust. All, too, that can exalt the ideal, or wake the pulses of eloquent emotion, is connected with such a church. To them it opens a traditional perspective, the grandest in all history. Behind its altars, sweep the vestments of centuries of priests, and rises the incense of centuries of prayer. In its stony niches, stand rows of saints, who have made human life sublime, and who, through all the passing ages, look down upon the turmoil of that life with the calm beatitude of heaven; while its flushed windows still keep the bloodstain of its own martyrs, plashed against it ere yet it had become an anchored fact, and while it tossed upon the stormy waves of persecution. I can understand, then, how an imaginative and reverential mind can find the truest religious life only in connection with ritual and sacrament. I can understand, moreover, the reaction in this direction, which is taking place at the present day. It is the retreat of the religious sentiments from the despotism of an imperious reason. It is the counter-protest of loyal affections against what is deemed an anarchical tendency. It is the clinging of men’s sympathies to the concrete, alarmed by the irreverent and analytic methods of science. It is the retirement of faith and devotion to those cloistered sanctities that shut out the noise of the populace, and the diversions of the street. It is the reluctance of taste and imagination at our new and varnished Protestantism, with its bare walls, its cold services, and its angular churches, of which one wing, perchance, rests upon a market, and the other upon a dramshop. Especially would I not deny the profound spiritual life, the self-sacrifice, and the beautiful charities which have consisted at all times, and which consist in the present time, with this ritual and sacramental form of religion. But when men claim that this alone is the genuine form—that these are essentials of the only true Church—then I deny that claim. If it fills some wants of our nature, it repudiates others equally authentic. If one class of minds find peace only under its consecrated shadows, others find no satisfaction but in the discipline of a spontaneous devotion, and the exercise of an individual reason. If it suffices for men like Borromeo or Newman, it does not suffice for men like George Fox or Channing; and the religion of these is as evident, in their simple spirituality, as those in their mystic symbolism. When it sneers at the Puritan, then I must vindicate that rugged independence of soul, that faithfulness of the individual conscience, that sense of the divine sovereignty, which could kneel at no man’s altar, and to God alone; which sacrificed all things for the right, but yielded not a hair to the wrong; which could find no medicine for the spirit in sacraments, but only in the solitude of the inner life; and which has, under God, wrought out this noble consummation of modern times, whereby others may plant their vine of ritual under the broad heaven of toleration, and have liberty to sneer. When the ritualist deprecates the ultraism and irreverence of the anti-formalist, I must urge the tendency of his own principles to mummery and absolutism. And, finally, when he falls back upon tradition, I must fall back upon the Bible. The spirit of the New Testament is not that of rituals or sacraments; and the universal sentiments of the Old are not. The prophet Isaiah, who exclaims: “Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; your new moons, and your appointed feasts, my soul hateth.... Wash you, make you clean... cease to do evil, learn to do well!” joins with the apostle, who says that Christ “blotted out the handwriting of ordinances... nailing it to his cross,” and that no man should judge us in meat or drink, or times, or seasons. And surely, there is no argument for forms or places in those Divine Words, which declare that “God is a Spirit, and they who worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth.” We cannot deny, then, that pure religion may consist with rituals and sacraments; we cannot deny that it may exist without these. But I insist upon this point: that the sacrament, the ritual, is not, itself, religion. It may be a beautiful sign—it may be a quick suggestion—it may be a medium of spiritual influence; but, alone, it cannot take the place of inward, personal piety, of right affections and an obedient will. No punctilious form can stand substitute for a vigilant conscience; no posture of devotion can supply the place of living deeds; no ascetic mortification can atone for guilt; no auricular confession can speak, instead of the breathings of repentance, in the ear of God, and out from the depths of the solitary soul. He who relies upon these forms, and finds sanctity only in them, may be sincere, may be serious about religion, but as yet he is only a seeker; and, speaking to his heart with all-penetrating meaning, comes to him the decree: “Ye must be born again.” Again; there is a class who seek religion in philosophy. They believe in God by a course of reasoning. They believe in immortality, because it is a conclusion riveted in their minds by the iron links of induction. They pray, or not, according as it seems logical to do so. They would be good, because goodness is useful. But every proposition upon which they act, must first be strained through the alembic of the intellect, and must stand out in the clear definition of science. They verify and build up their religion with callipers and dissecting-knife. It is a system of digestion and pneumatology. They find an organ for veneration, and another for conscientiousness, and therefore conclude that religion has a legitimate place in the harmony of human character. But all must be calm and balanced. They dare not trust the feelings and give but little scope to enthusiasm. Sometimes, indeed, they rise to eloquence in expatiating upon the truths of natural theology, and of “the elder Scripture”; though they believe in Christ also, because He seems well authenticated as an historical fact. In short, such men are religious like Cicero, or Seneca, with some modification from modern science and from the Sermon on the Mount. Now there is a close alliance between true philosophy and true religion. That the New Testament is eminently free from fanaticism, and makes no appeal to mere credulity, any one will see who examines. That it is rational and sober, constitutes one of its great internal evidences. A Christian philosopher is no anomaly, but a beautiful expression of the essential harmony of all truth. Knowledge and piety burn and brighten with an undivided flame. Revelation and science are continually interpreting one another, while every day the material universe is unfolding a more spiritual significance, and indicating its subservience to a spiritual end. But, after all, in order to be religious, it is not necessary that a man should be a philosopher, and it is certain that often he is a philosopher without being religious. Religion and philosophy may coalesce, but they are two different spheres. Philosophy is out-looking and speculative; religion is inner and vital. In the scheme of philosophy, religion is reasoned out as a consequence, and adopted as an appendage to character. In the true scheme, it is the central germ of our being, the controlling force of life. The religion of philosophy consists of right views of things, and a prudential schooling of the passions. True religion consists in a right state of the affections, and a renunciation of self. In the one case, religion may “play round the head, but come not near the heart”; in the other, it breaks up the great deep of conscience, and pours an intense light upon the springs of motive. Philosophy contains the idea of intellectual rectitude; religion, of moral obedience. Philosophy speaks of virtue; religion, of holiness. Philosophy rests upon development; religion requires regeneration. In short, we make an everyday distinction between the two which is far more significant than any verbal contrast. It is the one, rather than the other, that we apply, in the profounder experiences of our moral nature, in the consciousness of sin and in the overwhelming calamities of life. The one pours a purifying, healing, uplifting power into the homes of human suffering, and into the hearts of the ignorant and the poor, that the other has not to bestow. Philosophy is well under all circumstances; but it is not the most inner element of our humanity. Religion, in its humility, penitence, and faith—at the foot of the cross, and by the open sepulcher—rejoices in a direct and practical vision, to which philosophy, with its encyclopedia and telescope, cannot attain. Under this head, too, may be ranked a class of men who, though they may not be exactly philosophers, fall into the same conception of religion, as a matter of the intellect—as the possession of correct views—rather than a profound moral life. They estimate men according to what they believe, and attribute the same sanctity to the creed that others attribute to the ritual. And as religion, in their conception of it, consists in a series of correct opinions, the great work should be an endeavor to make men think right. So the pulpit should be an arsenal of controversial forces, incessantly playing upon the ramparts of dogmatic error, with the artillery of dogmatic truth, and forever hammering the same doctrinal monotony upon the anvils of logic and of textual interpretation. They are satisfied if some favorite tenet is proved to a demonstration, and go forth rejoicing in the superiority of their “views,” without asking if saving love has melted and transfigured their own hearts, or whether personal sin may not canker in their souls, if hereditary guilt is not there. Now, it is true that great principles lie at the foundation of all practical life, and the more elevated and clear our views, the more effectual are the motives to holiness and love. But it matters little to what pole of doctrine the intellect swings, if the heart hangs impenetrated and untouched. It matters little to what opinions in theology the pulpit has made converts, if all its mighty truths have not heaved the moral nature of the hearer—if it has not shot into the individual soul, like an arrow, the keen conviction: “I must be born again!” Once again: there are those who seek religion in a routine of outward and commendable deeds—in mere morality. With such, the great sum of life is to be sober, chaste, humane; laying particular stress upon the business virtues, honesty, industry, and prudence. In their idea, that man is a religious man who is an upright dealer, an orderly citizen, a good neighbor, and a charitable giver. To be religious, means to do good, to keep your promises, and mind your own business. They tell us that benevolence is the richest offering, and that the truest worship is in the workshop and the field—that a man prays when he drives a nail or plows a furrow, and that he expresses the best thanksgiving when he enjoys what he has got, and is content if he gets no more. Now, the world is not so bad that there is not a good deal of this kind of religion in it. It would be unjust to deny that many golden threads of integrity wind through the fabric of labor; that there is a strong nerve of rectitude holding together the transactions of daily life, and a wealth of spontaneous kindness enriching its darker and more terrible scenes. But, after all, these easy sympathies, and these prudential virtues, lack the radicalness of true religion. Religion cannot exist without morality; but there is a formal morality which exists without religion. I say, a formal morality; for essential morality and essential religion are as inseparable as the sap and the fruit. Nor is morality a mere segment of religion. It is one-half of it. Nay, when we get at absolute definitions, the two terms may be used interchangeably; for then we consider religion presenting its earthly and social phase, and we consider morality with its axis turned heavenward. But, in the case of these outside virtues, which are so common, we behold only one-half of religion, and that is its earthly and social form; and even this lacks the root and sanction of true morality. For the difference between the morality of a religious man and that of another, consists in this: with the one, morality bears the sanction of an absolute law, and God is at its center. It is wrought out by discipline, and maintained at all cost. With the other, it is an affair of temperament, and education, and social position. He has received it as a custom, and adopted it as a policy; or he acts upon it as an impulse. With the one, it is a matter of profit and loss, or a fitful whim of sentiment. With the other, it is the voice of a divine oracle within, that must be obeyed; it is the consecrated method of duty, and the inspiration of prayer. Now, to say that it makes no difference about the motive of an act, so long as the act itself is good, indicates that very lack of right feeling and right perception, which confounds the formal morality of the world with religion. For, in the distinctions of the Christian system, the motive makes the deed good or bad; makes the two mites richer than all the rest of the money in the treasury; makes the man who hates his brother a murderer. The good action may bless others, but if I do not perform it from a right motive, it does not bless me; and the essential peculiarity of religion is, that it regards inward development, individual purity, personal holiness—so that one essential excellence of the good deed consists in its effect upon the agent—consists in the sinews which it lends to his moral power, and the quantity it adds to his spiritual life. When, from a right motive, with effort and sacrifice, I help a weak and poor man, I enrich my individual and spiritual being. If I bestow from a mere gush of feeling, I receive no permanent spiritual benefit; if from a bad motive, I impoverish my own heart. Acts, then, which appear the same thing in form, differ widely, considered in the religious bearings. There is the morality of impulse, the morality of selfishness, and the morality of principle, or religious morality. The motive of the first-named, we obey instantaneously, and it may do good, just as we draw our hands from the flame, and thereby obey a law of our physical nature, though we act without any consideration of that law. A great deal of the morality in the world is of this kind. It may do good, but has no reference to the law of rectitude. It is impulsive, and, therefore, does not indicate a steadfast virtue, or a deep religious life. For the very impulsiveness that leads to the gratification of the sympathies, leads to the gratification of the appetites, and thus we often find generous and benevolent characteristics mixed with vicious conduct. Then, as I have said, there is the morality of selfishness. In this instance, I may perform many good actions from sheer calculation of material profit. I may be benevolent, because it will increase my reputation for philanthropy. I may be honest, because “honesty is the best policy.” But is this the highest, the religious sanction of morality? No; the morality of the religious man is the morality of principle. The motive in his case is not “I will,” or “I had better,” but “I ought.” He recognizes morality as a law, impersonal, overmastering the dictates of mere self, and holding all impulses in subservience to the highest good. The morality of impulse is uncertain. The morality of policy is mean and selfish. The morality of religion is loyal, disinterested, self-sacrificing. It acts from faith in God, and with reference to God. But another trait separates the religious from the merely formal moralist. It consists in the fact that with him, “morality,” as we commonly employ the term, is not all. Piety has its place. His affections not only flow earthward, but turn heavenward. He not only loves his neighbor as himself, but he loves the Lord, his God. He not only visits the widows and the fatherless in their affliction, but he keeps himself unspotted from the world. With him, toil is prayer, and contentment is thanksgiving, because he infuses into them a spirit of devotion, which he has cultivated by more solitary and special acts. With him it is a good thing to live honestly, industriously, soberly; but all life is not outward, is not in traffic and labor, and meat and drink. There is an inward world, to which his eyes are often introverted—a world of spiritual experience, of great realities, and everlasting sanctions—a world behind the veil—a holy of holies in his soul, where rests the Shekinah of God’s more immediate presence; yea, where he meets God face to face. And it is this that directs his public conduct. The orderly and beautiful method of his life is not the huddled chance-work of good impulses, is not the arithmetic of selfishness; but it is a serene and steady plan of being projected from the communion of the oratory, and the meditation of the closet. Again, I say, let us not depreciate morality. Let us condemn that ostentatious piety which lifts up holy hands to God, but never stretches them out to help man; which anoints its head with the oil of sanctity, but will not defile its robes with the blood of the abused, or the contact of the guilty; which is loud in profession and poor in performance; which makes long prayers, but devours widow’s houses. Let us condemn this, but remember that this is not real religion, only its form; as often, the kind deed, the honest method, is not true morality, only its form. Of both these departments of action let it be said: that these we have done, and not left the other undone. Let us recognize the perfect harmony, nay, the identity of religion and morality, in that One who came from the solitary conflict of the desert, to go about doing good, and who descended, from the night prayer on the mountain, to walk and calm the troubled waves of the sea. But those who rest in a mere routine of kind and prudential deeds need the deeper life and the inner perception which detects the meaning and gives the sanction to those deeds. Such need the vital germ of morality—the changed heart, the new birth. And as I have spoken of a subordinate yet somewhat distinct class who may be ranked under the general head of seekers after religion in philosophy, let me here briefly allude to some with whom religion is a matter of mere sentiment and good feeling. Such are easily moved by the great doctrines of the New Testament. They are affected by the sermon; they have gushes of devout emotion during the prayer. But with them, religion is not a deep and steady pulse of divine life. Prayer is not a protracted aspiration—is not a habit. They feel well towards God, because they consider Him a good-natured, complacent being; but they do not meditate upon the majesty of His nature, upon His justice, and His holiness. From the doctrine of immortality they draw consolation, but not sanctity. They regard it as a good time coming, but it furnishes them with no personal and stringent applications for the present. They need a more solemn and penetrating vision; a profounder experience in the soul. They need to be born again. Then, again, there are those who may be called amateurs in religion. That is they are curious about religious things. They like to speculate about it, to argue upon its doctrines and to broach or examine new theories. They go about from sect to sect, and from church to church, tasting what is novel in the reasoning, or pleasing in the manner of the preacher; in one place to-day to hear an orator; in another tomorrow to hear a latter-day saint; it is all the same thing to them. All they want with religion is entertainment and excitement. They are Athenians, ever seeking some new thing. They smack at a fresh heresy as if they were opening a box of figs, and are as delighted with a controversy, as a boy with a sham-fight. They have no fixt place in the Church universal. They are liberalists, without any serious convictions, and cosmopolites without any home affections. In fact, to them religion is a sham-fight—a matter of spectacle and zest—not a personal interest, or an inward life. They would seek Jesus by night, because they hope to learn something wonderful or new, and would be started to hear His solemn words tingling in their hearts: “Ye must be born again!” Nay, my friends, would not these solemn words startle many of us? It may be, we have never made any inquiry concerning religion—have never even come to Jesus, as it were, by night. Such, with their barks of being drifting down the stream of time, have never guessed the meaning of their voyage, or reckoned their course; nay, perhaps they live as though religion were a fable, as though earth were our permanent abiding-place, and heaven a dream. If such there are, they have not even listened to the Savior’s words. But there are others among us perhaps, who are interested in the subject of religion, who are in some way or another engaged in it; but who are restless seekers after it, rather than actual possessors of it; who are resting upon insufficient substitutes for it. And I ask, would not these words breaking forth from the lips of Jesus, startle us in our ritualism, our philosophy, our outside morality, our sentimentalism, or our mere curiosity? And do they not speak to us? Are they not as true now as when they struck upon the shivering ear of Nicodemus? Do they not make us feel as intensely our obligation and our religious wants, as he might have felt there, with the wind flitting by him as though the Holy Spirit were touching him with its appeal, and with the calm gaze of the Savior looking into his heart? Do they not demand of us, resting here awhile from the cares and labors of the world, something more than mere conformity, or intellectual belief, or formal deeds? Do they not demand a new and better spirit, a personal apprehension of the religious life, a breaking up and regeneration of our moral nature, a change of heart? ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/writings-of-e-h-chapin/ ========================================================================