6 1
No.
Division
Range
Shelf.
6fr0j.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
GIFT OF
DANIEL C. OILMAN.
AD FIDEM;
OR
PARISH EVIDENCES
OF THE BIBLE.
BY
REV. E. F. BURR, D. D.,
AUTHOR OF " ECCE CCELUM " AND " PATER MUNDI," AND LECTURER ON TUB
SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCES OF RELIGION IN AMHERST COLLEGE.
BOSTON:
NOYES, HOLMES, AND COMPANY,
No. 117 WASHINGTON STREET.
1871.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
NOYES, HOLMES, AND COMPANY,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY
H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
"TO CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH."
ECCE CCELUM;
PARISH ASTRONOMY.
ELEVENTH EDITION".
SUPPLEMENTARY EXTRACTS.
From the Theological Eclectic, [Edited by Professor Day, Schaff, etc.}
" The style is remarkably graphic and elastic, and the matter ia
BO skilfully grouped and lucidly stated as to be level to all classes
of readers. The writer has a rare gift at popularizing science,
and his book deserves the wide welcome it has received."
From the New York Observer.
" We have never yet seen a volume on Astronomy that seemed
to us to explain more intelligently, to ordinary minds, the visible
phenomena of the heavenly bodies."
From the Congregationalist.
" We advise all our readers who have not yet read the book
entitled * Ecce Coelum,' to embrace their earliest opportunity to
do so, a book which certainly has been surpassed by nothing
of this general line, for many years, if ever. There is a grandeur
of conception an easy grasp of great facts "a clear apprehen-
sion of deep and subtle relations a power to see, and make
others see, the nature and extent of the heavenly movements,
such as are altogether wonderful. Many works have been writ--
ten from time to time to popularize astronomy to bring its
great leading features within the compass of unscientific minds.
But we do not know of a work in which this has been so finely
done as in 'Ecce Coelum.* Six lectures of about an hour each,
tell the story, and the reader feels, all the while, as if he were
npon a triumphal march. He is upborne and sustained by hia
guide, so thai he has no sense of labor and weariness on OKA
journey. Tbe !nst chapter, on ' The Author of Nature,' is a
most worthy and fitting close to the book. We wish it could be
read by that great host of so-called scientific men, who are delv-
ing away in the mines of nature, with thoughts and purposes
materialistic and half atheistic. They need the tonic of such
Christian thinking as this."
From Hours at Home.
" This little book, from the pen of Rev. E. F. Burr, D.D., has
already been noticed extensively and pronounced a ' remarkable
book ' by our best critics. The author first delivered the sub-
stance of it to his own people in familiar lectures. It presents a
clear and succinct resume of the sublime teachings of astronomy,
especially as related to natural religion. The theme is an in-
spiring one, and the author is master of his subject, and handles
it with rare tact, and succeeds as few men have ever done in
giving an intelligent view of the wonders of astronomy, accord-
ing to the latest researches and discoveries. It is indeed an
eloquent and masterly production."
from Harper's Monthly.
" The title page of ' Ecce Ccelum ' is the poorest page in the
book. We have seen nothing since the days of Dr. Chaluier's
Astronomical Discourses equal in their kind to these six simple
lectures. By an imagination which is truly contagious the
writer lifts us above the earth and causes us to wander for a
time among the stars. The most abstruse truths he succeeds in
translating into popular forms. Science is with him less a study
than a poem, less a poem than a form of devotion. The writer
who can convert the Calculus into a fairy story, as Dr. Burr has
done, may fairly hope that no theme can thwart the solving
power of his imagination. An enthusiast in science, he is also
an earnest Christian at heart. He makes no attempt to recon-
cile science and religion, but writes as with a charming ignor-
ance that any one had ever been so absurdly irrational as to
imagine that they were ever at variance."
From the Evangelist.
u We have had many inquiries in regard to the authorship of
Ecce Coelum,' the volume noticed somewhat at length two
weeks since. To save writing a number of letters, \ve may say
here, that the Country Pastor, who is the author of these six
Lectures on ' Parish Astronomy/ is the Rev. E. F. Burr, D.D.,
of Lyrae, Ct. The book is a 16mo of about two hundred
pages, but in that small compass it com prises the results of long
study, and will be found as instructive as it is eloquent. The
grandest truths are made level to the plainest understanding.
We took it up, expecting little from its humble pretensions, but
soon found that it was all compact with scientific knowledge,
yet glowing with religious faith, and were not surprised that Dr.
Bushnell should say he * had not been so fascinated by any book
for a long time never by a book on that subject ' and that it
had given him ' a better-idea of astronomy than lie ever got be-
fore from all other sources.' We don't know if they have many
such ministers * lying around ' in the country parishes of Con-
necticut, but if so it must be a remarkable State.
" While the impression of this fascinating volume is fresh in
mind," etc.
From Rev, G. W. Andrews, D.D., President of Marietta College.
" The author has succeeded admirably in his attempt to pre-
sent the great facts of Astronomical Science in such form as to
be intelligible to those who have not gone through with a
thorough mathematical training, and to make them intensely in-
teresting to all classes of readers. I cannot express more strong-
ly the interest the volume excited than by saying that I read
through at once. I can hardly remember when I have done the
Bame with another work."
From Rev. Edwin Hall, D.D., Professor in Auburn Tlieological Seminary
"I received it last night, and have read it through with intense
interest and delight. It is a worthy book on a mighty theme.
I wish it might be in every household, and read by everybody.
And I am sure it will be read with admiration and wonder long
itfter the author shall have been gathered to his fathers."
From Rev. Prof. E. W. Hooker, D. D.
" The book is an admirable argument from the discoveries of
modern Astronomers, for the existence of God; and indirectly
for the truth of the Gospel. It is an honor to his kindred, to the
Church and the place of his birth, and, above all, to Him whose gos-
pel he preaches."
From an Obituary of Rev. S. L. Pomroy, D.D., late Secretary of the
A. B. C. F. M.
" He was a man of extensive information, a ripe scholar, and he
retained his scholarly habits and tastes to the last. A few weeks
since he read 'Ecce Ccelum' with great pleasure and satisfaction,
When he returned it he remarked, ' I have read it all twice, parts of
it three times, and have noted down certain passages.' He was spec-
ially delighted with the arrangement of the work the grouping of
the different system so as to give us sc/nething like a comprehensive
idea of the grand whole."
From the Congregational Quarterly.
That a Connecticut Pastor should be able in six lectures to his peo-
ble to shed more light on this profound subject to make it more
simple and yet more grand, amazing, and impressive than many
of the great masters who have written before him is a matter of sur-
prise. Yet this seems to be the generally conceded opinion of the
press. We hear but one testimony concerning Ecce Coelum. Any
intelligent reader of it can understand what before has been only a
mystery. It is worthy of the widest circulation.
From the Lawrence American.
There is not a dry page in these six lectures ; but the glories of the
skies are presented in a most enchanting manner, vivid, popular,
grand, and glowing. Young and old should read it.
From The Christian Union.
We can commend this book in the heartiest manner. It is one of the
noblest examples of the moral uses of astronomy that have appeared
since CHALMER'S astronomical sermons. Besides their intrinsic
merit, these lectures show what may be done by a quiet pastor of a
village church for the instruction of his people. Every preacher has
not the equipment required for a course of scientific lectures : but
" where there is a will there is a way," and much more might bo
done than is done in broadening a pastor's literary education and IE
raising the literary tastes of his people.
A REMARKABLE BOOK.
ECCE COELUM;
OB,
PARISH ASTRONOMY.
BY REV. E. F. BURR, D.D.
1 vol. 16mo, 198 pp. Price, $1.25. New Edition. Sen' prepaid by mail
on receipt of price.
NOYES, HOLMES & CO.
117 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON.
The Publishers request special attention to the following un-
solicited testimonials, which have been received from sources
worthy of regard.
From Rev. W. A. Stearns, D.D., LL.D., President of Amherst College.
" I have read it with great profit and admiration. It is a grand
production, very clear and satisfactory, scientifically considered;
very exalted and exalting in spirit and manner ; and exhibiting a
wealth of appropriate emotion and expression which surprises me.
May the life and health of the author be spared to show still
further that God is and that His works are great, sought out of
them that have pleasure therein."
From Rev. Horace Buslmell, D.D.
" I have not been so much fascinated by any book for a long
iiine never by a book on that particular subject. It is popu-
larised in the form, yet not evaporated in the substance, it
tingles with life all through, and the wonder is, that, casting off
eo much of the paraphernalia of science, and descending, for the
most pan, to common language, it brings out, not so much, but so
much more of the meaning. I have gotten a better idea of Astroo*
vi PREFACE.
with these views, large space has been given to the
earlier topics of the book.
The author by no means professes to give all that
he considers available arguments in favor of the Bible.
He only offers such specimens as he has happened
thus far to present to his own people. He knows that
these are only a few out of many equally sound. But
he also knows that these few are abundantly sufficient
to put every true inquirer in the way of a rational
faith.
The reader may expect to find throughout the work
an air of great confidence. He is invited to attribute
this, not to a professional habit, but to the sincere con-
viction of one who in a course of rational inquiry has
been " brought out into a wealthy place." Not only
was Diderot right when he said, " No better lessons
than those of the Bible can I teach my child ; " not
only was Franklin right when he said with dying lips,
" Young man, my advice to you is that you cultivate an
acquaintance with and a firm belief in the Holy Scrip-
tures this is your certain interest ; " but even Des-
oartes and Newton were right when they said, " No
sciences are better attested than is the Religion of the
Bible not even the mathematical." Nay, One still
more illustrious than these great scientists was right
when He said, "If they hear not Moses and the
Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one
PREFACE. vii
rose from the dead." Whoever will take the trouble
to go as far as the metaphysics of the senses or of
geometry, can find that even their ultimate principles
are assailed by no smaller objections and defended by
no greater proofs than attach to the Biblical Religion.
And yet he would not be the wisest of men who should
decline to believe in an external world, or should allow
himself to suspect that he is following "cunningly
devised fables " while following the triumphant dem-
onstrations of Newton and La Place.
Lyme, Connecticut.
CONTENTS.
I. VARIOUS OPINIONS i
II. GENERAL ASSENT TO FUNDAMENTALS . . 19
III. A SAD EXCEPTION 35
IV. A GREAT OFFER 55
V. WILL You ACCEPT? 71
VI. FIRST CONDITION A SINCERE WISH FOR LIGHT 87
VII. SECOND CONDITION USING PRESENT LIGHT . 107
VIII. THIRD CONDITION PATIENT DIRECT SEEKING 123
IX. PRESUMPTIONS 145
X. THREE PROPHECIES 187
XI. AN INCREDIBLE IMPOSTURE 205
XII. ANCIENT WONDERS 223
XIII. MODERN SIGNS 249
XIV. NEARING THE CURTAIN 267
XV. THE CURTAIN RISING .291
XVI. CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS 315
i.
VARIOUS OPINIONS.
I. VARIOUS OPINIONS.
1. THE FACT 3
2. THE STUMBLING 5
3. WHY NOT ? 7
VARIOUS OPINIONS.
attention is called to the great Conflict of
Religious Opinions.
I see it. I acknowledge and proclaim it It is
in the religious field very much as it is in all other
fields of thought. The views that prevail in this
place you will find refused in that other place to
which a few hours' travel will bring you ; and a
few hours more will bring you where discredit is
cast on the views of both. The views which you
hold you will find either not held at all, or held
witli variations by almost every person of your ac-
quaintance. You can hardly make an assertion so
trifling or so great but some one is ready to dispute
or qualify it. You can hardly start a question
which is not answered with some show of candor in
as many different ways as the nature of the case
allows. Have you found a position that seems as
impregnable as very mathematics ? Be sure some
one will make an attempt to dislodge you. Have
you fallen on a doctrine all of whose features seem
bright with intuitive certainty ? Be sure you will
not have far to go in order to find a man who will
4 VARIOUS OPINIONS.
question your axiom, and even pronounce oracularly
that what to you is intuitively true is to him intui-
tively false. Is the case plainly one of such vast
consequence to be decided rightly that it seems as
if all the passions and prejudices of inquirers would
be awed into a hearty desire to find the truth, and
all men come together in a blessed uniformity of
decision ? Do not flatter yourselves with such an
idea. Against any Scripture you quote an antag-
onist will quote another ; and what you feel it im-
portant for all the world to believe, he will claim it
important for all the world to disbelieve.
A wondrous confusion of tongues ! Languages
and dialects and provincialisms and personal brogues
of opinions almost as many as individual men
what a stupendous Babel ! Its summit is above the
clouds, and its base covers all the lands.
Some evils of this state of things are very ap-
parent. These conflicting opinions cannot all be
true. The doctrine or the contradiction of the
doctrine must be false. A large part of mankind
and indeed every person to some extent is holding
error on what is confessedly the most important of
all subjects ; and, so far as conduct agrees with
theory, is kicking against the pricks of the constitu-
tion and course of Nature. Of course, much hurt
and lameness follow. And then we have time-
consuming controversy. We have the disturbance
and alienation of feeling which dispute is apt to oc-
casion. Every good cause suffers much from that
THE STUMBLING. 5
want of union in effort which comes from the divis-
ion of good men into sects and schools. Could
these men see eye to eye, and at the same time
truly, it would give an unprecedented impulse to
the best interests of the world. A year would hold
up in its exultant hands such purple fruitage as
centuries of separate and too often conflicting action
have not been able to ripen. The compact army
marching as one man gains victories impossible to
many times its number of chaotic soldiers, whatever
their individual zeal and strength.
A sense of the many evils flowing from the huge
conflict of religious opinion has led, at times, to
great effort for its removal. The evils are great.
Their thorns are such as men can readily feel.
And so immense war has been made on religious
.dissent. The press and the pulpit and the rostrum
have been earnestly invoked. Eloquent pens have
labored day and night to scatter the persuasions
and demonstrations which should convince their
own and succeeding times. Eloquent voices have
busily journeyed about, for the purpose of charming
society into such oneness of faith as suited their own
particular views. In other times and countries men
were wont to seek the same end by the argument
of the sword. Until quite recently all parties have
deemed it right to use the civil power to enforce
religious unity; and, through painful ages, laws,
prisons, exiles, and even scaffolds, were every-
where invoked to side with argument in the effort
6 VARIOUS OPINIONS.
to secure the much coveted monotony of creed.
Our honored fathers fell into the fault of their
times. It was an act of uniformity which expelled
them from their English homes, and it was by an
act of uniformity that themselves expelled from
American homes their dissenting neighbors. But
discussion and violence, and what some have thought
still more effective, a persevering letting alone, have
alike failed of their end. Religious opinion takes
about as many forms as ever. If old differences are
continually dying out, new ones are continually
coming to life. If people think more alike in fun-
damentals than once, they are perhaps further apart
than ever on things of minor consequence, and the
points of divergence are more numerous. The
habit of speculation which the increased means of
information and intellectual culture have made quite
general, has increased many fold those nicer distinc-
tions between views which are so unnatural to a rude
and material age. So here we are, some crying
one thing and some another, like the people of
Ephesus ; society very much of a Babel of confused
and contradicting statements ; as much so, for aught
we can see, as if the learned had never disputed, the
powerful never persecuted, and the prudent never
allowed the bones of contention to rest.
But some one may ask, Why dwell on these dis-
agreeable and, to many, stumbling facts ? I answer,
For the purpose of showing that these many have
not the reason to be stumbled which they are apt
WHY NOT? 7
to suppose. Does it follow from the fact that there
are many different opinions in religion that you are
at liberty to content yourself with no opinion at all ?
Does it follow that because there are so many differ-
ent views plausibly supported you may adopt the
one most agreeable to your wishes ? The doubting,
the disputation, the contradiction, that entangle all
moral themes do these show that nothing can be
known with certainty on such matters, at least by
men of ordinary talents and opportunities ? Do they
show the Scriptures unworthy of their reputation as
the illuminators of mankind ; worse still that God is
unreal, or unmindful of the wants of men, or unjust,
or unlikely to hold us responsible for any views we
may hold ? Far from it. It is an evil, and, in some
respects, a perplexing fact that you see, doubtless ;
but it authorizes no such dreary conclusions. A
variety of things at once mortifying and salutary
may be inferred, but not one of those at once mor-
tifying and pernicious things which would set us
floating about on the dangerous sea of life without
the rudder and compass of any fixed principle.
Notice that many of the so-called opinions on re-
ligious subjects are unreal. In cases not a few, men
do not fairly believe what they affirm. This may
seem to some a harsh statement ; but not to most
of those who have had some experience in the ways
of the world, and have thought somewhat, on that
-'xperience. Love of dispute for its own sake will
u ad some to challenge the positions which they hear.
8 VARIOUS OPINIONS.
Personal ill-will often leads men to oppose the senti-
ments of their neighbors. Motives of interest bring
many to espouse a side which has no hold upon
their judgments. No one doubts that this justly de-
scribes the state of things in the political world ; its
truth there is matter of proverb. What is there to
prevent a like state of things in the religious world ?
Here, too, happen what, to say the least, is much
less common elsewhere ; namely, frequent mistakes
by the mind as to what itself actually pronounces.
It thinks itself to believe what it does not. By
wishing to have a certain opinion and by trying to
have it, we may finally come to think it a matter of
actual possession, when in fact our judgments are
still unconvinced. What is called conversion often
brings out strange confessions. It often confesses to
insincerities and self-impositions in former reason-
ings, of which at the time the man was all uncon-
scious. He now sees that he had no true faith in
the errors he thought himself to honestly espouse.
And like discoveries are often made by events other
than conversion. Dying, for example, detects to
many a conscience what it seems to have done to
that of Voltaire, beliefs in God and religion which
have remained latent to all but a Divine eye for
many years. No juggling is more wonderful than
that which the mind is prone to play upon itself. If
therefore any are stumbled by seeing so wide a vari-
ety of conflicting statements in matters of religion, let
them abate somewhat from their stumbling by con-
WHY NOT? 9
sidering that this variety is far from being as great
as it is apt to seem ; that a large part of the so-
called opinions of the day are too hollow and un-
substantial to deserve the name.
" But, after all the abatement on this account
which reason will allow, there must still remain a
very considerable honest conflict of opinion on the
subject of religion." I grant it : but turn your at-
tention to another fact of much consequence. It is
that by far the largest part of this honest remainder
relates to non-essentials. The things which must
be understood in order to salvation and high virtue
can scarcely exceed half a dozen particulars
though many other things would, in the believing,.
Contribute to the symmetry and completeness of
the character. There are many Christian sects,
each at issue on some points with every other ;
each sect has many members, nearly every one of
whom has shades and modifications of sentiment
peculiar to himself ; and yet the points in dispute
between Congregaticnalist and Congregationalist,
and between Congregationalist and Methodist or
Baptist or Episcopalian or others, are such that
each one of us may retain his own view and still
repent and believe and set forth a most exemplary
example. Through Christendom fundamental dif-
ferences of creed are the exception. They are an
almost inappreciable part of the whole sum of relig-
ious differences about us. What makes such out-
cry and strife of dispute is chiefly the mint, anise,
10 VARIOUS OPINIONS.
and cummin of theology rather than its paschal
lamb. That din of assertion and contradiction
which stumbles some is for the most part made
by skirmishing among the outposts of doctrine
rather than by battles around its very citadel.
Those outposts might all be lost and yet that citadel
remain safe, though not undisfigured. It is a great
satisfaction to feel this. It does much to lift from
our spirits the shadows cast by those clouds of
theological dispute which are always hurrying so
noisily across our sky. Who cannot now see be-
tween the clouds great permanent spaces of cheer-
ful blue vault ?
" But, after one has subtracted from conflicting
opinions on religious subjects all that are unreal,
and all that relate to minor matters, there still re-
main some that bear on the very heart and marrow
of religion." I grant it. If there is any important
doctrinal ground in the world, it has been torn by
the iron heel of controversy. Men can be found to
differ as to whether man is responsible to the
Supreme Being for his conduct. Some may be seen
asserting, and some denying the necessity of repent-
ance and faith to salvation. Here we find some to
affirm and there some to deny that we depend for
regeneration on the Holy Spirit. On the one hand
is a defender and on the other hand an opposer of
a Divine incarnation and atonement. In the view
of some God has opened for incorrigible sinners a
future world of supreme sorrow ; others maintain
WHY NOT? 11
the contrary. In the view of some the Bible and
all the Bible is the inspired Word of God ; others
maintain the contrary. In the view of some there
is a God ; others maintain the contrary of even
this. True is it that such differences are of no
secondary importance. There is nothing serious
and mighty in the whole universe if they are not
so. If there are any things on which it is useful
and essential to be rightly settled in judgment, we
undoubtedly have them here. Yet here there is
division. What shall be said to this ? To the man
who feels tempted to stumble at this most sad and
disastrous fact what shall be argued ? I cannot
deny that it is a fact in many points of view most
afflicting and appalling ; that famine, earthquake,
pestilence, and war are not half so grievous and
desolating. But still there is less to be made of
O
it, as a stone of stumbling and rock of offense in
certain directions, than some are apt to imagine.
Does the existence of these conflicts of opinion show
them to be necessary? Does the fact that some
people call in question the Newtonian system of
astronomy show that nothing can be certainly
known respecting its truth ? Men of sense in some
things have been known to dispute the fundamental
principles of Geometry ; does this show that un-
certainty inevitably rests on all the conclusions of
Euclid? Men of genius in some things have ques-
tioned the existence of matter ; does this show that
no one is entitled to speak with confidence of out-
12 VARIOUS OPINIONS.
standing forests, cities, mountains, stars ? Men
have advocated with appearance of sincerity an un-
mitigated despotism ; does this show that no one
knows liberty to be a good thing ? Men have
argued with apparent conviction that our society of
separate properties and homes were better resolved
into one unqualified communism ; does this show
that no one knows the doctrine to be an unqualified
abomination ? And when people come forward to
attack Theism and Christianity and the leading
Scripture doctrines, must I straightway conclude
that the whole subject is involved in such doubt as
ordinary men at least are unable to resolve ? Must
I qualify every doctrine of my creed with a Per-
haps, because somebody can be found uninstructed
enough or hardy enough to set battle in array against
it? Among men of character who have carefully
studied the subject of religion there is probably no
more conflict of opinion on its fundamental principles
than there is among those who have well studied
the natural and exact sciences on what is funda-
mentally true in them. More turn their attention to
the one subject than to the others, and so we are to
expect more instances of dissent in the first case as
well as more instances of agreement ; but lam in-
clined to think that in both cases the ratio of dissent
to agreement is substantially the same. As no man
allows himself to be troubled about his mathematics,
or other science, because he finds people to dispar-
age, to misunderstand, and to reject even its more
WHY NOT? 13
important features ; so let no one allow himself to
be troubled about his religion because men here
and there make light of, misconceive, and deny
even its gravest doctrines.
So far from showing it to be impossible to reach
any decisive knowledge of the truth of these doc-
trines, the conflict of opinion respecting them does
not even show that there is any difficulty in reaching
that knowledge. What is easier to be known than
that human bodies are before me, and that a hewed
and jointed framework of timber surrounds me ?
Yet intelligent men exist who would question even
that. Is it hard to perceive that the laws of nature
and the facts of physical science are something more
than the relations of ideas ? Yet able men will
contradict you even there. Are you puzzled to
pronounce upon the merits of agrarianism and tyr-
anny ? And yet you need not go half round the
world to find a plenty of logicians to advocate to
you these patent absurdities. That there is a God,
that Jesus Christ is His Divine Son, that the Scrip-
tures are His infallible word, that men are held to
awful account at His bar for all their conduct, that
there is no salvation for the sinner except on account
of an atoning Calvary and through an influential
faith wrought by a Divine Spirit all these may be
among the plainest truths in the world though they
are spoken against. There is nothing in ^the fact
that they are contradicted by some intelligent men
which shows that they are more than a single re-
14 VARIOUS OPINIONS.
move from the region of axioms. Some believe
that they are quite intuitions to an honest and re-
newed heart ; and there is nothing in the clashing
of opinion around them to show that they are not
intuitions to everybody.
^ But there is a consideration still more fitted to
relieve our minds in view of the various conflicting
opinions on the more important points of religion.
I have said that these differences do not show that
we are necessarily shut up on those points to uncer-
tainty. I have said that they do not even show
that clearness and even certainty are not easily
attainable. I now go still further and say that,
notwithstanding all the observed variance and dis-
putation, the most fundamental questions of religion
may be truly and satisfactorily decided by the
weaker class of minds. It is not for the few talented
who can pass by a glance to the depths of abstruse
subjects that I make this claim, but for the many
also who swell the ranks of mediocrity and inferior-
ity, down almost to where the light of reason alto-
gether vanishes. It is not for the man of leisure who
can devote all his time to investigation that I claim
it, but for those also who must get their daily bread
by the daily sweat of their faces. All such may, by
a certain way which the Bible points out, surely and
speedily answer for themselves all the grand ques-
tions of religion. See, I pray you, how all these
doubters and disputants may come to entire and
swift unanimity ! All they have to do is, after such
WHY NOT? 15
measure of ability as they have, to set themselves
honestly and carefully to break off all known sin,
and to seek and pray for light and goodness at the
hands of at least a possible God. This, according to
the Bible, will soon bring discovery of God, faith in
Jesus, a renewed character, and light on all main
religious questions. For the Bible plainly teaches,
profusely and throughout, 4 that God will be found
of those who seek Him ; that they who do His will
shall know of the doctrine of Jesus, whether it be
of God ; that He now commands all men every-
where to repent without postponement ; that divine
power has given to penitents all things that pertain
to life and godliness through the power of Him who
has called them to glory and virtue.' You see how
unreservedly the Bible puts itself in our hands.
The least such statements can mean is that all true
Christians have sufficient light on chief points of re-
ligious doctrine ; and that every man may become
a true Christian without any considerable delay.
Let men faithfully try the way. It engages to scat-
ter all their principal perplexities. It engages to
give them at least the beginning of a true faith. If
it does not, then they know that the Bible speaks
false ; that Jesus is no God manifest in the flesh,
made no atonement, is an impostor; even that a
good God does not exist to reward them who dili-
gently seek Him ; that men are entitled to withhold
faith from all the leading and peculiar Christian
doctrines. $o, in either case, the main questions are
16 VARIOUS OPINIONS.
settled according to the Bible in the one case,
against the Bible in the other. Behold the supreme
way of investigation ! Behold a way the humblest
and most hindered can take a way for any of
your friends, if unhappily they need it, out of the
painful tossings of unbelief into the repose of positive
faith! Do not fail to have them use this Calculus
of religion.
Am I somewhat timid in saying this lest some
one should take advice, and seek relief by this ex-
perimental method, and then decide against the
Bible and its fundamental teachings ? Do not think
it. I am just as brave in giving this method to you
as the Bible is in giving it to me. It boldly stakes
itself upon it. There is not a quaver of misgiving
in its stately voice as it deliberately faces all hori-
zons and says in all tongues, Try it ! It knows what
the result will be. And 1 know. Faithfully tried,
this method will not only answer the main religious
questions for doubters, but will answer them as the
Bible answers them. They will find a personal
God. They will find a written revelation from
Him. They will find in man an undone race, and
in Jesus of Nazareth a Divine Saviour. They will
find repentance and faith linking sinners to the re-
deeming cross a repentance and faith whose source
is divine as well as human. I promise you that
they will. I promise them speedy faith in all these
things ; not faith at its very ripest and royalist,
perhaps, especially at the beginning ; but genuine
WHY NOT? 17
faith, faith sufficient for practical guidance, a faith
so strong that one can reasonably base on it the
conduct of a lifetime and the destinies of an eternity.
And, generally, let none of you be stumbled at
the profuse religious dissent that you meet with in
the course of your hearing and reading. This dis-
sent is according to the way of the world. It does
not show that nothing can be known in religious
matters. It does not even show that one may not
know to perfect certainty and with profoundest ease.
Nay, it does not even show that such entire and
easy certainty is not within reach of the narrowest
and most hindered minds. Many of these so-called
opinions are unreal ; many relate to secondary
matters ; and those which relate to things primary
and essential are matched by an equal variety in-
regard to the surest and easiest matters of observa-
tion and science, and can demonstrably be reduced
to a unit by a plain practical method which the
Christian Scriptures furnish. So do not be dis-
turbed. You have no occasion. No man should
be stumbled at such things who believes in his
senses, in his consciousness, and in that glorious
round of the natural and exact sciences which
crowns so imperially the present age.
II.
GENERAL ASSENT
\
TO
FUNDAMENTALS.
II. GENERAL ASSENT TO FUNDAMENTALS.
1. THE FACT . 2I
2. EXPLAINED 2 3
3. NEGLECTED 26
4. ENFORCED 2 ^
5. RELATED TO OURSELVES 3 1
GENERAL ASSENT TO FUNDAMENTALS.
/CERTAIN religious doctrines command the gen-
eral assent of those to whom they have been
submitted ; especially of well-informed-, thoughtful,
moral men. Belief in a Supreme Being indefinitely
superior to man and worthy of worship, has been
substantially universal in all known nations and
ages. The same is true of a belief in the fallen
state of human nature, in its responsibleness, in the
Divine placability, and in a future state of rewards
and punishments. Further, the Scriptures of the
Old and New Testament are almost universally re-
ceived as a divine message wherever they can prop-
erly be said to be known ; especially among culti-
vated and well-living men who have gone into a
formal examination of their claims. And there is
also a substantial agreement among such men as to
what are the main teachings of the Scriptures. Not
one in ten thousand but will say that they teach an
intense sinfulness of men, the necessity of regener-
ation by a Divine power, an atonement for sin in
the sufferings of Jesus Christ, and one way of ap-
propriating that atonement by repentance and faith.
The unbelief on these points is a mere nothing com-
pared with the belief. The handful of objectors is
lost amid the crowds of affirming Christendom.
22 GENERAL ASSENT TO FUNDAMENTALS.
No such concord can be found on other moral
subjects. Ask for the history of human opinion on
main points of government. Inquire what has been
thought about health and the treatment of disease.
Follow, if you can, the course of speculation on the
subject of education its principles and practice.
Let the inquiry be extended to such matters as art
and literature and eloquence; and see what views
men have held as to what is beautiful and excellent
in these fields. You shall not find a main principle
in any of them, which, through all known nations
and ages, has commanded substantially unanimous
assent, even among scholarly and candid investiga-
tors of the first class. What is the best form of gov-
ernment, and how to best administer it ; what is
health and how to best maintain and recover it
take note how variously questions like these have
been, and still are, answered by the best and most
competent men ; and find, if you can, a single lead-
ing principle, not proved by direct sensation, on
which virtually the whole world, so far as the case
has been fairly submitted to them, are agreed. But
the moment we pass over to the religious field we find
ourselves breathing an essentially new air. It is one
general concord as to main underlying principles.
Is there a God ? Yes says a chorus that is es-
sentially and to all intents and purposes unbroken
from all sorts of times and countries and persons.
Are men responsible in a future state of rewards
and punishments ? No doubt answer all the
EXPLAINED. 23
points of the compass in such a flood of sound as quite
drowns out of account any few notes of dissent that
rise here and there. What about the Bible ; is it
God's infallible message ? Most certainly comes
swiftly back upon us for answer from Grecists and
Romanists and Protestants and Moslems even ; from
all the countries and times to which the Book has
been fully submitted ; from all civilized and en-
lightened lands ; from substantially all those men
of culture and character in these lands who have
given the subject anything that deserves to be called
an examination. So of the main doctrines which
the Bible adds to the religion of Nature. When
we ask, Was God manifest in the flesh, Is man
in a ruined state, Did Christ die for him, Must he be
renewed by a divine agency to repentance and faith
in order to be saved from sin and wretchedness be-
yond the grave ? then all the great Christian De-
nominations, and substantially all scholarly examiners
of the Bible, exclaim with one voice, Such most
certainly is the teaching of the Scriptures.
I am disposed to lay stress on this grand and un-
wonted consent of human nature, and especially of
well-ordered and cultured and examining human
nature, to the fundamental doctrines of religion. It
seems to me very suggestive. Are these cardinal
things so at one with the general reason of the
world and with the special reason of fair-minded
and actually investigating scholars or does some
Supreme so interest Himself to make them stand out
24 GENERAL ASSENT TO FUNDAMENTALS.
like huge sunlit promontories to the gaze of all who
\villopenfaithfuleyes upon them? Depend upon
it, there is something here worth attention. Depend
upon it, the unbeliever will do nothing unreason-
able if he opens widely his eyes. What means this
giant consent whose long arms so cleanly sweep into
its motherly bosom all sections of mankind, and the
rarest fruits of character and culture from all lands
and times ? Say that it is something to be pon-
dered. Even say that it is something fitted most
admirably to encourage belief and discourage disbe-
lief. Of course the verdict of a single man on any
topic is not worth as much as that of many men
equally dowered and empowered in every pertinent
direction. Much less is the verdict of the single
man worth as much as that of many men of great-
ly superior powers and opportunities ; say, if you
please, of all such men. Had we some secular
question to decide in view of such unequally com-
peting opinions we should make short work of it.
Suppose a man of only moderate faculty at lan-
guages, and who has been studying the Greek lan-
guage for only a few months, is puzzling out the
meaning of a Greek sentence. Whatever decision
he may reach will be of no weight compared with
that of the great body of ripe and accomplished
Greek scholars fully studying and at last agree-
ing in their judgment. And how much weight
should any common inquirer into religious doctrine
allow his own independent verdict as against such a
EXPLAINED. 25
combination of numbers, genius, knowledge, and
character as through the long ages sustain the
chief doctrines of religion ? Here is the safest
verdict for him to take, save that of his own per-
sonal experience. He may by actually embracing
the practice of religion subject these doctrines to
the supreme test of experience. He will reach
what has long been known under the name of ex-
perimental acquaintance with the truth. He will,
as it were, sensationize God, His written message,
and other main things ; will feel their truth by a
sort of delicate instinct a thing as much better
than dry logical inference as full day is better for
business than stumbling dawn. But he needs to be
put up to this high method of experience. He must
be crowded toward it by some fact that impressively
suggests the probability that the main facts assumed
in a religious course are all real. This is done by
the magnificent agreement that exists among men
in relation to them. It says, Are all these persons
mistaken ? How happens it that mankind agree so
unwontedly in accepting doctrines intrinsically dis-
agreeable ? How happens it that among competent,
cultured, and well-deported men really examining
these doctrines the verdict is substantially all one
wav ? And as it queries I see its eye light up with
a profound significance. I see its great hand beck-
oning toward the .Religion which comes so splen-
didly recommended. Never was there such quantity
and quality of certificate ! Never such a profusion
26 GENERAL ASSENT TO FUNDAMENTALS.
and glory of autographs on the back of any docu-
ment ! One sees endorsed and engrossed on some
of the chief religious doctrines the great name of
Mankind ; on others the proud glittering names of
all present and past civilized and enlightened na-
tions under whose notice they have fully come ;
on others still, and indeed on all, virtually the sum
total of the names that illuminate history, that grace
the annals of learning and science and genius, that
tell of extraordinary endowments or attainments or
worth just so far as they have submitted these
doctrines to any suitable examination.
I say suitable examination. For I have a secret
to tell you ; yet not altogether a secret. Is not
yon able and scholarly man an unbeliever ? So it
appears : but then you are to understand that this
able man has never examined the Christian Evi-
dences. I declare to you that he has never really
applied himself to find out the facts in this case. You
know that one may go through the form of inves-
tigation without having anything of the reality.
But really, ten to one, this man has not undertaken
even the form. A thousand to one, he has never
spent on this Bible an hour of honest probing in-
quiry. He has investigated other things the
botany, the astronomy, the politics, the finance
and is, undoubtedly, in these matters a sagacious
and well-informed man. But do not on this ac-
count think that he has well investigated religion
also. Nothing of the sort. His thoughts have floated
NEGLECTED. 27
about the subject, more or less ; he has, in a loose,
hap-hazard way, heard and read more or less about
it ; but as to his having examined it in the manner
of a candid scholar and with a care suited to its im-
portance, he has done no such thing. He knows
he has not. Put it to him he knows he has
not. The most he has done has been to casu-
ally touch the subject here and there ; become ac-
quainted with a few difficulties such as embarrass
every subject with which man has to do ; and, in
sympathy with them, make a few points after the
manner of an advocate. This is all. Witness a
not inconsiderable experience and observation of
my own. Witness, I think I may confidently
say, the experience and observation of as many
among you as have had any Experience and obser-
vation at all in such matters. And together we
will affirm that the great concord of which I have
spoken, and to which I have called attention as a
most suggestive and encouraging fact to the be-
liever, is not at all discredited nor impaired by the
cases of these able and scholarly unbelievers who
somehow never turn their ability and scholarship in
any reasonable and sufficient way toward religion.
Now these great principles to which men so tes-
tify as with one voice are evidently those which are
to be chiefly insisted on by those believing in them.
The ministers of religion should lay their chief
stress here. Here should chief stress be laid by re-
ligious authors, and by all in fact who talk or think
28 GENERAL ASSENT TO FUNDAMENTALS.
on religious subjects. It may be safely claimed in
behalf of the evangelical ministry, that, as a body,
they are in the habit of acting on this principle.
In their preaching, they do dwell longest, most fre-
quently, and most emphatically on these great and
comparatively unchallenged fundamentals. They
touch on almost all profitable topics. They have
their words and even sermons on secondary points.
But their strength is laid out on such main doctrines
as we have been considering. It is not so among
religious authors. There are probably many more
books on the secondary matters which are in dis-
pute between Christians than there are for the illus-
tration and enforcement of those primary matters in
which all agree. But it is in conversation and lec-
e>
tures and the transient literature of newspapers and
pamphlets that the true principle is most strikingly
violated. Here difference and contention rule the
day. It is the doctrines on which capable and good
men divide, rather than those on which they unite,
which attract attention. The air is filled with the
uproar of discordant sentiments, with the clash of
buffeting and rebuffeting words mostly on mat-
ters comparatively trifling. And when men, not
practical believers, turn their attention to religion,
they are very apt to follow this example and notice
the topics of dissension rather than the topics of
agreement. They call attention to how many creeds
and Denominations there are. They mention the
many disputing schools of theology. They instance.
ENFORCED. 29
perhaps, scores of points on which not only different
nations and times join issue, but also Christians.
And sometimes they tell you the whole matter is.
confusion confounded. Nothing but war, war of
breath and of types, listen and look where they
will ! So they infer severe things of religion ; as
if nothing can be certainly or probably known
about it, and as if the thin foam of the sea is the
sea itself. Is this as it should be ? Why do not
these men give most notice to those great primary
matters which command almost universal assent ?
Instead of noting exclusively or chiefly the turmoil
on the surface of the sea, is it not their duty to note
most the profound quiet that reigns everywhere
below in the clear gem-haunted depths ? Yes ; it
is here men should chiefly look. Here they will
find first things. These splendid, illustrious, deep-
lying affirmations, over which the general assent of
mankind is breathing its peaceful greetings, are
comparatively everything. Our stumbled men
should look through the contentious waves and
spume of the surface to where, at the bottom, in
clear water and unvexed repose, not sleep, but live
and glow and burn the foundation -pearl and ruby
and sapphire truths of religion. When they see
the world torn with conflicting opinions, and even
Christians differing and disputing, let them remem-
ber that this is only a partial view of the case ; that
there is a world of unity as well as of diversity, a
world of consent as well as of dissent ; and that
30 GENERAL ASSENT TO FUNDAMENTALS.
those particulars of religious faith in which examin-
ing mankind, and especially the cultured and vir-
tuous part of it, agree, are the cardinals and princes
and kings of them all. Here is the true Ecumenical.
Here is the real Concord of the Ages. Here is the
very Choir whose members are kings, whose cathe-
dral is the world, and whose anthem is the voice
of many waters.
I join my voice to the great Concert of Faith. It-
is the voice of my instinct, of my need, of my
heart, of my reason, as well as of my traditions. It
came to my childhood from the fathers. From
childhood onward it commended itself to my ear by
certain delicate cadences and idioms of truth, better
felt than expressed ; by certain nameless proprieties
and adaptations and verisimilitudes, which, like the
summer dews, will not bear exposure but are none
the less real for that ; by certain subtle myriad har-
monies with the Nature which I saw without me and
the Nature which I felt within me, and of which I
became aware as men become aware of a healthy
atmosphere before it has been analyzed, or as some
animals become aware of the presence of the food
that is suited to them before they have tasted it. At
a later period I tested it after the manner of the
scholar. And I am glad to tell you my result. That
voice of the fathers is a true voice. That voice of
the fathers is a grand true voice. I freely adopt it
as my own. I send it forth to you with full lungs.
I declare to vou that the ancient Jehovah is real. I
RELATED TO OURSELVES. 31
declare to you that Jesus is His messenger Son. I
declare to you that the Bible is His inspired Word ;
and that the system of belief known as the evangel-
ical is a true summary of that Word. It is but a
small contribution that I make to that sea of sound
that dashes up from so many ages and nations, but
it is a pleasure to make it. I make it with all my
heart. I round out my voice and send it forth upon
you to match the loudest of those choiring testimo-
nies. Would that I could orb it out to embrace the
whole world and 'distant ages !
I desire to believe that all of you who hear me
have similar views and feelings. I feel that some of
you have. In the great concert of faith you are pre-
pared to join with voices as decisive and superb as
any you can hear swelling forth from the lips of liv-
ing men, or from the tombs of the faithful dead.
Not that you have formally examined the Evidences
after the manner of the schools. You know by a
shorter argument. You know as men know the
food, by trying it ; as men know the sunlight, by
seeing and enjoying with it. You silently feel in
this Biblical Religion the natural counterpart to
human nature and need. You almost unconsciously
take into account the suggestive analogies that unite
it at almost every point with the general system of
the world, and divine what it would do for mankind
if cordially and universally embraced. And so you
firmly believe. Most warmly do I congratulate
you. You have the repose of settled convictions.
32 GENERAL ASSENT TO FUNDAMENTALS.
You have the inspiration of immortal hopes. And
your quiet present, with the rainbow on its horizon,
is held in common with a great and goodly com-
pany. You have with you the wisest and best of
mankind. With you are the conscientious livers.
With you are the praying people. With you are
the great examples of love and pity and helpful-
ness. With you are the lives heroic with self-
denial, and the deaths triumphant with hope. With
you are the exact students and scientists, just so far
as they can be moved to turn learning and science
in the direction of the Evidences. With you are
the purest pleasures, the most salutary restraints
and the best promptings. With you are all the
healthy ages, all the healthy peoples, and all the
healthy traditions. And with you are those who
have been anointed with sainthood a crystal
elixir, scented as spring, whose drops, as they fall
from golden cruse on transfigured heads, show in
their clear deeps the image of God, and cast a
rainbow of promise far away on the great To-
Come.
So much I can say of some of you. If there are
any of whom I cannot say it, or must say it with
abated and impoverished language ; if some of you
cannot be parties to this great consent, or are back-
ward in joining it, or cannot join it with that grace-
ful freeness and momentum which you could desire,
I am sorry for you. It is a great trouble. And
I know how the trouble began. The fathers taught
RELATED TO OURSELVES. 33
you as they did me. The same subtle ministries
which drew my childhood faith ward drew yours
also. But your natural tastes ran against the
Religion, you grew more and more reluctant to
practice it, and you gradually allowed yourselves to
hear many conflicting opinions without investigating
any. This brought up the fogs upon you like an
east wind. The things we do not like we are will-
ing to have become doubtful, and what we are
willing to have doubtful readily becomes so when
we resign ourselves with uncritical ears to all
manner of cavils and objections. You probably
have heard unbelieving speakers. You probably
have read unbelieving books and journals. You
have heard and read without examining. This is
how you gradually came to stand apart from the
great consent. Here is the secret of the no-faith,
or the weak faith, or the faith less pronounced than
you could desire ; and it gives a hint of the man-
ner in which you must, if ever, find your way back
to due faith. Among other things, you will have to
take heed what you hear ; and become slow to open
your ears to everything men can be bold enough to
speak to you, and your eyes to everything men can
be bold enough to print for you. You will have to
assure yourselves that it is not necessary for you to
taste poisons freely and always in order to know
them to be poisons, or to try on yourselves the points
of the various weapons of death in order to know
that they will kill. There is a better way.
III.
A SAD EXCEPTION.
III. A SAD EXCEPTION.
1. ILLUSTRATIONS 37
2. DOUBT ON FUNDAMENTALS 41
3. DOING NOTHING 42
4. DEPLORABLE ......... 44
A SAD EXCEPTION.
TA7HEN we see a ship that has just finished its
voyage lying all reposefully at anchor the
masts bare, the ropes and sails stored away, the
sailors reclining at their ease along the decks the
sight does not strike us unfavorably. That ship has
earned the right to rest. It has done its work ; it
has been for months battling with the winds and
waves of the ocean on its appointed route of voy-
ages ; it has fought its way faithfully through to
port with its cargo ; and now it is every way fit-
ting and graceful and honorable that the good ship
should lie for a while at its ease in the quiet and
sunny roadstead.
After the well-fought campaign, who blames the
tired army that has gone into winter-quarters ?
There, day after day, flap the banners idly against
the rooted flag-staffs ; there, day after day, the
white tents and the bronzed men lie along the same
droning fields eating, drinking, sleeping, talking,
basking, resting ; for weeks together those soldiers
perform not a drill and fire not a musket. I say,
who blames them ? In their circumstances repose
38 A SAD EXCEPTION.
is becoming. They have been marching and watch-
ing and fighting and conquering for many months ;
they have faithfully and gloriously done the work
they were set to do ; and now they have a right to
repose, and the country does not object to hear that
all is quiet on the Potomac.
If during all his youth and maturity a man has
exerted himself with spirit in some honorable and
useful calling, duly taxing body and mind to fill to
the best advantage the sphere in society assigned
him, and now that he is old unbraces himself some-
what from the strife of life and betakes himself to
the quiet arm-chair of rest and contemplation
are we disgusted, do we feel authorized to utter a
single word of remonstrance ? Far from it. It is
all right, suitable, graceful, necessary, to unbend
at the falling of the evening. From sunrise till
now he has fulfilled Nature's law, and strenuously
wrought; now that the shadows are settling on the
fields it is his privilege to lay aside his tools, and
enter his house, and sit down to rest. Let him
take a Sabbath, as the Scriptural God is said to
have done when He had finished His creating.
Repose after achievement when the thing to
be done is finished, or has been carried as far as the
jaded powers will permit will be justified on all
hands. But what shall I say of repose before
achievement before the work is half done, before
anything has been done, and while the laboring
powers are altogether vigorous and even fresh ?
ILLUSTRATIONS. 39
We do not apply fair-sounding terms to that. No
healthily constituted mind would think of calling
such inaction fitting, graceful, honorable. Men
wonder at the well-appointed ship that stays idly
rocking in the harbor, season after season, without
having made a single voyage. They wonder at the
well-appointed army that, season after season, hugs
the same quiet camp-ground without having seen a
dav of that actual service for the sake of which it
was mustered. They wonder at the able-bodied
and able-minded person who has yet his place to
make in the world, but who lounges out his youth
and lounges out his manhood without an attempt to
turn himself to some account. Is it far advanced
day ; and yet not a stroke of work done in the
needy field, for my needy family, for my needy
self; nothing but reclining, drowsing, basking in
the sun, while other men in my circumstances have
been hours abroad striving out a living; nothing
but resting before work as wearied men are honor-
ably wont to do after work ? If I am without
hands, if I am sick, if I am imprisoned, none
shall blame me. Otherwise, next to none will jus-
tify me. It is idle, it is discreditable, it is matter
for shame to rest before doing anything. For
rest after work none blush, nor have occasion to
blush. It is the law of Nature. It as much
belongs to the structure and scope of the scheme
under which we live as does the comincr of even in"
O ~
after day. But resting before working who will
40 A SAD EXCEPTION.
venture to stand up for that ? It shall be scouted.
Hard things shall be said of it. No man shall do
himself credit by practicing it or defending it.
Apply these illustrations to matters that most
nearly concern us. To settle the main religious
questions correctly and to act accordingly, is as much
our human business as it is the business of a ship to
ii);ike voyages, or of an army to fight battles. It
is what we are made for, if we are made for anything.
Nothing we do in this world is of any account in
comparison with this, and only as it bears on this.
It is an insult to the good sense of a man to suppose
that he does not see this as soon as it is stated to
him. It is an insult to the prudence of a man to
suppose that he allows such a fact to slip out of his
memory, or to remain uninfltiential on his conduct.
Some persons refuse to commit such an impru-
dence. Finding themselves, somehow, without set-
tled religious convictions on chief matters, they
refuse to content themselves in such a state. They
set themselves vigorously to work. They study to
know the " place where light dwelleth." They
inquire of all points of the compass. They labor
at honesty of heart, labor at correct life, labor at
prayer, labor along the lines of Nature, to see if ,
God and Christ and a Written Revelation can be
clearly and brightly known. Against natural slug-
gishness, against example, against the snares of
pleasure and business and habit, they put them-
selves into harness and fight. Thus the voyaging
DOUBT ON FUNDAMENTALS. 41
ship buffets, in the way of its mission, the waves
and winds of ocean : and thus, in the way of its
mission, the army goes marching and sieging and
battling. And, as the one after its voyaging is
done rides quietly in port without blame and even
with honor; and, as the other when its campaign-
ing is done settles down properly and creditably
in the profound repose of its winter-camp ; so,
if these men shall fairly win their way into clear
and influential faith in the Biblical Religion, then
it is a fitting and fair thing, to be censured by
nobody, that they should dismiss their cares and
struggles, and, as it were, ride peacefully in the
secure port they have gained. They have done
their work. The imperative examination is behind
them. It is beautiful and fitting that a Sa!>-
bath should follow their working days. All the
proprieties vote them a rest. The soul loosens
its girdle, smooths out the care-wrinkles from its
features, stretches itself at its ease in sheltered
nook and warm sunshine of hopes and comforts and
pleasant thoughts, perhaps quietly sings an accom-
paniment to its cheerful repose ; and it is all right,
suitable, just what was to have been expected and
desired, just the thing to pronounce benedictions
upon.
But then there is another class who insist on
resting before working. As yet the great questions
are unanswered by them. They are still in doubt
over the Bible, over a Saviour, over a God oven.
42 A SAD EXCEPTION.
In their minds one giant interrogation point stands
behind the whole Biblical theology. And yet they
are doing nothing never have been doing any-
thing. They are riding at anchor. Sails are all
laid away. Ship-forces are lying at their ease
about the decks. Holiday sounds of song and
light-hearted converse and conviviality occasionally
Hoat abroad from them. One would think they
have nothing to do. Where are the anxious looks ?
Where is the eye of grave and vigilant resolution ?
Where are the solitary meditations, the careful
readings, the anxious counsel-takings with wise and
good men, the fervent prayers to the possible Light ?
Where are the contests with sluggishness, with
trifles and affairs, with the strong example of a
trifling and delaying world? Nothing of the sort
is to be seen. Are they without the requisite fac-
ulties Jjbr thoroughly examining the Evidences? If
so, we cannot blame them we deplore them. Are
they irresistibly kept from the use of faculties in
themselves sufficient by the hamperings of circum-
stances ? If so, we cannot blame their guilt ; we
can only lament their misfortune. But neither
trouble exists. They have the same powers and
circumstances as multitudes who have striven their
way into great faith ; nay, into faith of the most
magnificent pattern. And yet here they are,
dreamily lying at anchor, reposing at random as if
in winter-quarters perhaps shaking the air with
holiday cheerfulness and merriment life's great
DOING NOTHING. 43
work still unbegun and all the powers for a sacred
investigation still fresh within them. They are
resting before they have done anything. They
are reposing before achievement, instead of after.
What shall we say to repose of this kind?
Let us say that it is unseasonable.
Repose is not to be objected to only it must not
be misplaced. Doing nothing when there is no
need of rest, but, on the contrary, great need of
prompt and vigorous labor, is vastly out of season.
It is a discord. It mars the situation. It is an
offense against symmetry and the essential nature
of things. Have you really struggled so hard at
the Evidences that there is no longer any struggling
faculty left in you ? You will hardly say this, my
friend ; for you will remember that your prayers,
if real, have always been of the briefest and feeblest,
your religious meditations only occasional and mo-
mentary, your actual efforts to test the Religion
whose shadow covers half the world, a mere noth-
ing. You and I both know it equally well you
have never taken any pains at this point at all pro-
portioned to its consequence. And the time is
urgent. Your great life-work is still entirely before
you ; and how much time you will have to do it in
no tongue can tell. The Scripture, which, to say
the least, has many looks of the true and divine
about it, insists on your pushing your inquiries
now. Men, experienced and enlightened in such
matters, call to you and insist upon now. What
44 A SAD EXCEPTION.
observation of others has taught you, what experi-
ence with your own heart has taught you, is all
against the plan of resting now and working by and
by: You confess to your own hearts how well
do I know it that, of all investigations, this of
the Evidences deserves the first place. Everything
seems to say, Attend at once to the great unsettled
business ; Up, weigh anchor and spread sails for the
science of Religion ; Up, break camp and march,
through conflicts, if need be, to the repose of settled
faith!
Let us say that it is dangerous.
It is, perhaps, as common for men to incur
worldly disasters by not acting at all as by acting
wrongly. Ignorance seems to have quite as many
victims as error. Many a battle has been lost
while commanders have doubted and hesitated
lost just as conclusively and fearfully as if by one
atrocious error they had confidently plunged their
armies into battle against all the principles of mili-
tary science. Many a fortune has been sunk while
the owner has leisurely hesitated over a safer in-
vestment sunk just as totally and ruinously as if
it had been embarked without misgiving in some
frantic speculation. See you this man in a flaming
building ! If he doubts the reality of the fire, and
makes no examination to test the truth of those
loud cries of alarm which are ringing without, and
keeps his seat, though with misgiving ; the raging
element will soon cut off all avenues of escape,
DEPLORABLE. 45
and consume him as mercilessly as if he had been
madman enough to believe most firmly that he was
in some gay banqueting hall, and that the fitful
light which glared in at the windows was but from
a hundred glancing festival lamps, and the din of
firemen and the flames but from the mazy tread and
music of the merry dancers. See you this ship
riding negligently in the outer circles of a mighty
whirlpool ! If the master doubts the Charybdis,
and will not examine, but goes on allowing his ship
to float about at its own idle will ; the grasping
vortex will soon fasten him in inexorable embrace,
and, hurrying him round and round in swifter and
swifter circles, will finally engulf him in its boiling
center as mercilessly as if he had been insane
enough to believe himself in safest waters, and the
roar of the whirling currents but the hoarse joy of
the kind sea-gods bearing him in their own fantastic
way into his wished-for haven. According to the
Scripture, you are this ship, O men of little or no
faith, and yet floating about at your careless ease as
if in some Golden Horn ! According to the widely
credited Scripture, all you have to do is to remain
for a little in your present doubting and inactive
state, and you will come to wreck as surely as if
you had sailed for it with all sails spread and with
aiming rudder.
Prudence does not object to repose as such ; but
it does object to repose on the brink of a precipice ;
does object to careless inaction while it is yet in
46 A SAD EXCEPTION.
doubt whether eternity is provided for. It may be
there, it may be here that astounding precipice
whicli has no bottom : we may reach it to-morrow,
we may reach it to-day ; who knows, the fog about
us is so thick, whether there is a single yard be-
tween us and it ! But this we know, that a plau-
sible Bible with a noble following, affirms that who-
ever goes plunging from that brink without a true
faith had better never have been born. That fall
shall take his life away. Is that a fate to be
lightly risked, O thou lover of thine ease ? Is Col
de Viso a summit to throw one's self carelessly
about upon in the dense fog, O madman of a
traveler? Look down that depth and shudder!
Look down that depth and beware! The situation
is too dangerous for a careless and comfortable stu-
pidity or light-headiness. Till you are safe be vigi-
lant and laborious. When the crisis is passed, when
you have no longer beneath you thousands of fathoms
of sheer descent into which a single misstep may
plunge you, then you may put yourself at your ease ;
but now I am surprised at you ! Was ever such
unaccountable behavior on such dizzy and dusky
brinks ! Yes, there is one behavior that matches
and surpasses it. It is that of the man who is care-
less and drowsy on possible Eternity-Brinks. By
diligent effort what may he not gain by a day's
inaction what may he not lose ! Who through
that thick haze can see a day, or even an hour, or
even a minute, in advance ? Now is the time for
DEPLORABLE. 47
anxiety, now is the time for careful stepping, now
is the time to send voice of prayer for an extri-
cating Arm among and across the eternities of
joy and sorrow, which, lie is told, are eagerly com-
peting at his feet for the possession of him. When
his efforts have proved successful, and light has
broken in on his doubt ; then let him praise and
obey the God whom he has discovered, and ride at
anchor ; then let him praise and follow the Saviour
whom he has reached, and spread out his tired
forces in the repose of their winter-quarters. Now
repose is safe. Till now it has been the higlit of
venturesome insanity.
Let us say that it is irrational.
Reason does not object to repose but it does
object to repose before anything has been done ;
does object to a careless sluggishness for which no
good reason can be assigned. If the man were
only able to say that he could not examine ; if he
were only able to say that the Biblical Religion is
not worth examining ; if he were only able to say
that some future day would be better for the ex-
amination than the present ; if he were only able to
say that success would be no more favored by care
and struggle than by careless inaction then, un-
doubtedly, reason would say, Remain at your ease,
Ride dreamily at your anchor still, Refuse to break
up the easy negligence and comfort of your winter-
quarters. But what man lacking faith can justify
his supineness on any such ground ? Not one, I
48 A SAD EXCEPTION.
verily believe ; not one, even to himself. Com-
pelled ! lie knows better. Not worth the pains!
he knows better. To-morrow better than to-
day ! he knows better. The chances no better
for energy than for indolence ! he knows better.
He knows more in such matters than he even gives
himself credit for. Profoundly in his heart he
knows that no good reason can possibly be given
for droning away what may be his probation and
chances for a happy immortality. No such reason
was ever supposed to exist. What says our better
judgment in such a case to the ship that sways idly
at its anchor when, it may be, the kingdom of
heaven is yet to be sailed for ; to the army that
sleeps and saunters and sings away the spring and
summer in perpetual camp when,' it may be, eternal
life is yet to be campaigned for? It darts the word
irrational at it like a javelin. It disowns all friendly
relationship to such an unreasonable and hazardous
repose. It rebukes it in the name of that Supreme
Reason of which it tremblingly conceives it re-
bukes it in the name of what men call science ; in
the name of that instinctive science which men call
common sense.
It seems doubly irrational for men to carelessly
allow themselves in dimness and uncertainty of
religious views while they are, to a man, paying
great attention to clear up other matters confessedly
far less important. Why, yonder is a farmer who
is taking vastly more pains to get a clear notion of
DEPLORABLE. 49
the state of the market than lie is to satisfy himself
whether he has any God. Why, there is a trades-
man who is putting forth more real effort to under-
stand well a small invoice of goods than he ever
used to understand whether Jesus was true Christ.
Why, here is a scholar who sets himself with more
faithfulness and heart to investigate a point of
grammar, which most men cannot see at all, than
he ever gave to inquiring whether the Bible is a
Divine Book. Not a man of all those who make
no effort to clear up these great matters to their
doubting minds but is often found making great
effort to enlighten his mind on subjects of far less
consequence. You cannot but feel that this con-
duct is exceedingly unreasonable. No intelligent
man can justify himself to his own judgment in
making such a distinction as this between things
secular and religious.
Let us say that it is unhappy.
We call it living at ease, but it is really living at
misery. The doing nothing is really suffering
much. Intelligent people cannot be in a state of
inactive indecision in regard to questions of such
enormous magnitude as the main religious, without
falling prey to a subtle and omnipresent anxiety.
They are haunted by fears of what may lurk behind
that un lifted veil. Behold that man at the junction
of two roads ! One is right and the other wrong,
but which is right he cannot tell. Sometimes he
thinks it this, sometimes that sometimes he pro-
50 A SAD EXCEPTION.
ceeds for a few moments in one direction, then he
retraces his steps and proceeds for a few moments
in the other. What shall he do ? His face is a
picture of indecision, of painful indecision for is
not the night coming on, and are there not alarm-
ing rumors abroad as to what that night contains ?
How can he be otherwise than anxious ? Even
were no element of danger supposed to exist in the
case, such an unsettled state of mind is itself no
small discomfort. To be like the ball beaten to
and fro between two battledoors, or like the vane
which trembles now to this point and now to that
as the uncertain wind chances to blow, is neces-
sarily a wearing uneasiness to natures built like
ours. But danger is announced. Great danger is
proclaimed. The Scriptures protest that faithless
men are ruined men. The air is thick both with
the signs of night and with rumors that the night
will be fatal to all but the believing followers of
Jesus. The man is conscious of never having done
his duty by the Evidences ; is conscious of not
doing it now. He is riding at anchor when he
should be sailing for light with all sails spread,
and with wheel most bravely and watchfully han-
dled. How can he feel quite safe ? He does
not. It is contrary to nature. It is contrary to
your experience, my hearers such of you as are
so unfortunate as to have little or no faith, and no
effort to have it. Do I not know your history just
as well as if you had risen in your place and told it
DEPLORABLE. 51
forth to me ? It is a perpetual chafing. You are
in a subtle ache and worry from morning to night.
Beneath your smiles, beneath your cheerful and
jocund words and port, lurks an apprehension,
sometimes weak and sometimes strong, as to what
the future may bring the neglectful unbeliever : and
when you are specially thoughtful that apprehension
swells into a great fear gnawing voraciously at the
seat of life. No matter who denies it, you know
that all these unbelievers so drowsily riding at
anchor when they should be sailing, sailing with
might and main toward the light, are like " the
troubled sea that cannot rest." Have I not seen
that sea wrinkling and wrinkling, waving and wav-
ing, tossing and tossing, as ever the night drew on
in growing sign of the great billows which the
storm is preparing to lift ?
Let us say that it is criminal.
If it be true that such conduct is unseasonable,
unhappy, irrational, and dangerous, then the man
who allows himself in it is a guilty man. What
is reason good for, if not to try such questions as
religion concerns itself with ? Have we a right
to expend all our inquisitiveness on least things ?
Are we at liberty to take our souls in our hands,
and saunter along with half-shut eyes, where, at
least, are glimmers of something like slippery ways
and abysses which cannot be sounded? Oh, can we
strain every faculty to solve the little riddles which
science and business and pleasure offer, and still
52 A SAD EXCEPTION.
remain innocent when we refuse to put our thoughts
faithfully to the mightiest problems of existence ?
It ought not to be hard to convict every man, with
little or no faith and yet making no worthy effort
for light, at the bar of his conscience of failing
greatly in his duty to himself, to truth, and to the
society which his example at once solicits and at-
tacks. It is not hard. He stands self-convicted
before a single word of reproof from without reaches
him. He rides at anchor in defiance of his own
conscience and of the sonorous proclamations of his
own better judgment. While men bearing the
names of prophets and apostles and Son of God are
protesting while a Christian land is raining objec-
tion from its whole sky while libraries of helps
to inquiry, the accumulation of ages and the legacy
of unquestioned wise and good, are beckoning and
saying, Up and inquire while the very sun shines
remonstrances with all his swarming rays as he
hastens from rising to setting to open myriad graves
and measure out our scanty days from inmost
self comes up a voice that refuses to be silenced, and
says Amen to all the crowding remonstrances from
without. Will he still wretchedly drowse ? Will
he allow day to melt into day, and year into year,
and the end to draw nigh ; and still do nothing ?
Will he still ride at anchor just so unseasonably,
unhappily, irrationally, dangerously, and contrary
to all the habit and wisdom of his secular life ? Ah,
guilty man ! How like to truth is the Christian
DEPLORABLE. 53
philosophy of unbelief, Every one that doeth evil
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light lest
his deeds should be reproved. Shall I translate ?
Want of faith is due to sinning. Our minds are
dark because they are guilty.
I know of no condition worse than that of the
man who has little or no light on the supreme
religious questions, and who at the same time is
making no effort to come to the light. Better be
without every outward possession. He is far more
an object for pity than those on whom the tender-
hearted are most apt to shed their tears and helps.
If you have any tears to spare, O friends, shed them
not on him who wants the daily bread and comforta-
ble clothing, nor on him whom cureless disease has
stretched in weakness and pain, nor on him who
has been stript of kindred and friends till he looks
the single forlorn tree of a desert plain. Rather
reserve them for him who knows not whether he
has a Revelation, or a Saviour, or a God whether
he has an immortal soul, a Divine Message to in-
struct it, a Divine Friend to redeem it, a Divine
Spirit to renew it, and a Divine Heaven of glorious
virtue and reward to be had after his brief day here
is set. I say, reserve your tears for him. Beneath
the heavens I know not so fit an object. He is such
a SAD EXCEPTION to believing Christendom ! -
IV.
A GREAT OFFER.
IV. A GREAT OFFER.
1. NATURE 57
2. APPLICATIONS 59
3. IMPLICATIONS 6l
4. CONDITIONS 69
A GREAT OFFER.
GOOD AND UPRIGHT IS THE LORD ; THEREFORE WILL HE TEACH
SINNERS IN THE WAY.
T3EHOLD a great offer made by the Scriptures
to all whom it may concern ! It at least
amounts to this if a man will only comply with
certain reasonable conditions, God, in virtue of His
goodness, will surely show him the course to be
taken on all the graver matters of religion.
One desires to know clearly whether there is an
Infinite God. The Scripture comes to that man and
says, u God is good; and He has made provision
to reveal Himself to you, if you will place yourself
in a certain light and attitude." Another desires to
know whether the Christian Religion is true. The
Scripture comes to that man and says, u God is
good; and He will surely show you that Jesus
brings a divine message, if you will only betake your-
self to a certain point of view." Still another desires
to know whether certain great doctrines are really
taught in the message ; whether, for example, it
teaches the desperate wickedness of all men in their
natural condition, their exposure to ruin on account
of that wickedness, a complete atonement freely
offered to all, that atonement made personal and
58 A GREAT OFFER.
reformatory by repentance and faith in Jesus
wrought in the heart by the Holy Ghost. The
Scripture comes to that man and says, " God is
good ; and He will doubtless show you whether such
great meanings as these are fairly written out in His
Word, if you will trouble yourself to get into the
state and circumstances suitable for such a disclos-
ure." Still another desires to know how to apply
the general maxims of duty furnished in the Bible
to the finding of his own peculiar duties, especially
of those great courses of duty which return with
every day and spread themselves over a lifetime.
The Scripture comes to that man and says, " God is
good ; and surely He will discover to you the sphere
of duty to which you properly belong, and set up
for you finger-posts of direction toward all its lead-
ing highways, if you will only fulfill certain reason-
able preliminaries." And another still desires a
knowledge even more distant and arduous, if pos-
sible, than either of these : desires to know how
to bring his perverse nature to do the duty which
he has discovered, how to keep the grace he has
attained, how to master temptations, how to guard
successfully against the main weaknesses and treach-
eries of his evil heart. The Scripture comes to that
man also and says, " God is good ; and He will
surely teach you how to do the main practice as well
as how to believe the main theory of religion ; how
to guide your bark according to compass and chart
and star, after you have learned from them what
APPLICATIONS. 59
course is desirable ; only do you put yourself in
communication with the teaching power after such
suitable modes as God may choose to appoint you."
In a word, whatever questions of the more impor-
tant class in religion press on our attention, we
are bidden to see in the goodness of God an assur-
ance that He will help us to a solution of them,
provided we are just to ourselves.
If any of you are perplexed and painfully tossed
by unsettled questions of this nature, let rne commend
to you the gospel which lies enfolded in this offer.
Here is comfort for you. Here is light ready to
shine in on your darkness from afar. Only draw
aside the heavy curtains, open the close-fitting
shutters, and look upward. Perhaps at first it
is only the silvery starlight which streams faintly
into your eyes ; but still wait and look. In time,
the moon, crescent or full, shall mount your horizon
and walk in brightness ; bathing the night in its
soft, pale flood ; and revealing in dusky outline the
mountain, the river, the forest, and all large features
of the landscape. Still wait and look ; and at last
the day shall dawn, and the sun rise, and all the
objects with which human life and labor are chiefly
concerned stand out so distinctly in the golden
beams that you can go forth to your duties among
them with assured and rapid step. So says the
offer. Good and upright is the Lord ; therefore will
He teach sinners in the way.
This offer implies several things. Let me inter-
pret them to you in the light of the whole Bible.
60 A GREAT OFFER.
First, it is very important that men understand
their main path in religion.
I mean that the Scriptures teach so. There is
abundant teaching to the contrary in the world ;
and you have only to open your ears, to hear from
many quarters and in many shapes the sentiment
that we need not perplex ourselves with religious
matters of any kind ; that neither our own private
interests nor those of society at large, are any the
more likely to suffer from our living along in care-
less neglect of all questions that may be started in
respect to our religious relations. It has even been
claimed that religious doubt is philosophy and the
highest dignity of man. No trace of such views
can be found in the Scriptures. With them our
course as moral and religious beings is the most
important, beyond comparison, of all the courses
we pursue. Everything, according to them, hinges
on our success in mainly finding and following a
certain path. Certainly it was not from the Bible
that men took the maxim that it matters not
what a man believes if his conduct is right. The
doctrine of the Bible is that the conduct cannot
be right while the belief is fundamentally wrong;
and that God insists on a leading soundness of re-
ligious opinions with as much firmness and pen-
alty as He does on anything. Not inattention
but inquiry, not ignorance but knowledge, not
doubt but faith, is demanded under stress of all
wondrous liabilities both of sorrow and of joy.
IMPLICATIONS. 61
We must believe in God ; we must believe in
Jesus Christ ; we must believe in the Bible as the
inspired record of His religion ; we must kriow the
Scripture way of salvation, with a variety of doc-
trines involved in it and essential to its practical
power ; we must know main points of duty and
the art of self-government so as to fulfill them, or
we perish. So the Scripture teaches, not once nor
twice, but throughout ; it is stated or assumed
everywhere : it is ingrained into warp and woof of
J fc"5 X
the Record, and we cannot by any skill pick out
the disagreeable pattern without resolving the whole
texture into shreds.
Their path in religion what they are to believe
and what they are to do in that field is something,
secondly, which men will never sufficiently learn of
themselves.
I mean that so the Scripture teaches. We may
set ourselves down to some worldly art or sci-
ence, and acquire as much knowledge about it as
will amply suffice for the wants of our position ;
and all, it may be, by the unassisted action of
our own intelligent powers. With skillful human
teachers at our side, we are able to do the same
thing with greater ease and rapidity. By these
merely human faculties, our own and those of other
men, we may learn the geography or the geology
or the astronomy to any extent which our post in
life may require at least we are not informed that
any supernatural assistance is necessarily involved
62 A GREAT OFFER.
in such an achievement. And we are not authorized
to say that there are not many tilings in religious
science and in the art of living righteously, to know
which only the common powers of men are re-
quired. But there is this peculiarity about the
sphere of religious knowledge if we are to credit
the Scriptures that no man will ever explore it
sufficiently for his necessity by mere force of such
powers as belong to men. He can and will know
very many things here as elsewhere by simply ask-
ing his o\vn thoughts and those of his fellows. But
he will never in this way come to know his path in
religion sufficiently well to secure the general safety
and success of his journey. He may possess a pro-
found understanding. He may be equipped with
the finest helps of culture and leisure. A written
Revelation may spread out its abiding pages side by
side with the parables of Nature for his unlimited
study. Books of the wise and good, living voices
eloquently and sagely discoursing their own sure
knowledge and experience, may gather about him
with their treasures and do their best to communi-
cate the abundant hoards. But it will be in vain.
He cannot be enriched in this way. After all he is
but a fairly chiseled and polished statue around
which its friends may twine a few flowers and hang
a few fruits, but which has no power to snuff the
sweetness of the vase of precious aromatics which
one beseechingly and patiently holds under its mar-
ble nostrils, or to taste the sweetness of the jew-
IMPLICATIONS. 63
eled goblet of milk and honey which another
presses to its marble lips. The stiff stone must
become flesh and blood. The classic form must
have a soul created under its ribs of death. Not
till this is done can it really appropriate and use the
luxuries offered it. And yet, perhaps, we ought not
to compare any man with perfectly helpless stone,
though hewn into the shape of an Apollo. Rather
let that strong and cultured mind, to which all
choice circumstances are endeavoring to minister
the various particulars of fundamental religious
knowledge, be the giant Patagonian, practiced in
the conflicts of the chase and battle, around whom
in his native wilds gather the missionaries of civili-
zation, with hands loaded with the best wares of the
best countries. They hold up to his acceptance
strong and rich textures, and tell him how they will
protect him from summer's heat and winter's cold.
They put under his eye the seeds and implements
of agriculture, and tell him how they may make his
fields smile with plenty. Here are epitomes of all
the useful arts ; here are handicrafts, sciences, ac-
complishments without number ; and they tell him
how with these to fill his wilderness with gardens
and palaces. And what comes of all these proffers
and explanations ? He takes a few nails to point
his arrows and* turns away. He has no patience,
if faculty, to master the strange ideas. He has no
taste for new modes of life. Nature and habit and
tradition, all conspire to blind him to the nature
64 A GREAT OFFER.
and value of the blessings pressed upon him, and to
send him back to the almost unmitigated wretched-
ness of his hovel and his desert. Just so, according
to the Bible, there is a native wildness in every
man, opposing the richest offers of religious truth ;
and as long as he has only men like himself to come
around him and recommend to him, however ear-
nestly and eloquently, the great fundamentals of
sacred doctrine, they are sure to be misappre-
hended and rejected. He will receive some things,
perhaps, but he will refuse more and greater. He
will fail to grasp the proffered solutions to life's
greatest questions. His true course as a moral and
religious being will fail to be substantially appre-
hended. If there is any man whose views on all
leading questions of religion are correct, it is surely
not his own depth of understanding and skill at
argument, nor the wise instructions of human
teachers, living or dead, to which he owes the
blessing. As says the Scripture, The natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for
they are foolishness to him ; neither can he know
them because they are spiritually discerned.
But, thirdly, what man certainly never will know
by any merely human teaching he can know by a
Divine.
I mean that so the Scripture teaches. The God
of the Bible is both omniscient and almighty. He
can reveal Himself to the man who has no God.
He can reveal Jesus Christ to the man who has no
IMPLICATIONS. 65
Saviour. He can so write His name on the Scrip-
tures before the* infidel that he can be infidel no
longer. The plan of salvation, and all its great
depending doctrines, He can make clear as noonday
to the dullest mind. The sphere of duty belonging
to each person, the great courses of religious prac-
tice into which our affections and energies should
pour themselves, are all known to the Infinite, and
He can easily place them before the mind in so
strong a light that ignorance shall not be possible.
How well can He who knows all things and made
all men bring truth home to error- stricken souls
through a hundred avenues ! How mightily could
He, should He once set himself to do it, argue
down all the difficulties of weakness, and all the
objections and cavils of unbelief ! What darkness
could abide such beams as He could rain into it in
whom is no darkness at all what heresy hold its
ground against the light of His countenance ! Men
born blind and living in blindness to old age ; men
with eyes swathed in hundred folds of traditional
prejudice, and immured in windowless dungeons
of error by sin and rniseducation no doubt the
Mighty One could find out some method of bring-
ing the bright day home to the most hapless of
them all. Man cannot do it for himself, man can-
not do it for .his fellow, but the God of the Bible
is one so grandly equipped with knowledge and
power that He can do it for all men and against all
hindrances.
66 A GREAT OFFER.
And, fourthly, it is equally true that the Grod who
can thus teach sinners the ivay, can consistently teach
it, under certain conditions.
I mean that so the Scripture teaches. We are
told that there are very many things which God
can do which He cannot do righteously. But we
are also told that the discovery to benighted men
of their main path in religion is not one of these
things. God is left at full liberty by the circum-
stances of His government to teach us what we so
much need to know ; only we must assume cer-
tain positions suitable for receiving the blessing.
Only we meet the condition, and the way is open
for God to pluck hand out of bosom in our be-
half, and put to flight the ruler of the darkness
of this world whether he dwell in us in the form
of atheism, or deism, or heresy, or ignorance of
leading duties and of the mode of compelling our
deceitful and resisting nature into a permanent
performance of them. He will be hampered by
no necessity of general laws. The nature of free
moral agents will not veto His activity. The con-
flict of the greater good with the less will not com-
pel Him to leave us to our darkness. It will
harmonize perfectly with all great interests of
His government to turn our doubts into faith, our
errors into truth our byways into highways that
lead straightly to the City. Fulfill certain reason-
able conditions, O ye who are perplexed with the
great problems of life and are beaten about by many
IMPLICATIONS. 67
a wind of doctrine and surely then the way of
the Lord is prepared so that He can come to you
through the night and over the water. O ye who
find the Gospel a sealed book, to whom all chapters
are parables and all doctrines mysteries only
be just to yourselves, and God can consistently
come to your help with the sun in His right hand.
And ye who see not the evil of sin, nor the pre-
ciousness of Christ, nor the danger of the impeni-
tent soul ; ye who see not the wisdom of the Gos-
pel, nor the justice of Providence; ye who know
not what manner of spirit ye are of, whether earthly
or heavenly ; ye who think yourselves inquiring
after duty and unable to find it ; ye whom the
craftiness of a heart mysteriously wicked is so
continually circumventing and assaulting into sin,
and to whom no methods of successful resistance
present themselves save in most doubtful outline
be of good courage and do your part, and there
will no longer be any incompatibility between your
relief and the interests of the Divine Kingdom.
Above all, O ye whose trouble is greatest of all
since ye are they who scarcely know what to be-
lieve, though it be a Bible or a Saviour or even a
God that asks for faith to you, most hapless of
all, I specially say in behalf of the Bible that spares
not its promises, Be of good courage, and do a cer-
tain reasonable part that belongs to you, and a
way shall be prepared for you through the deep ;
even though, in order to prepare it, the Omnipo-
68 A GREAT OFFER.
tent must smite the waters with His own purple
mantle.
If men are naturally ignorant of their path in
religion ; if it is of incalculable importance to them
to know it ; if they certainly never will know it
merely through themselves and human power ; if
nevertheless God can teach it to them, and do it
without violating the proprieties of His position,
provided they will supply certain reasonable cir-
cumstances under which the great instruction may
proceed ; then it follows from the goodness of
God I speak simply as an interpreter of the
Scriptures that when these circumstances are
supplied He will come forth from the hiding-places
of His bright strength, to quicken our dull under-
standings, resolve our problems, give us chart and
compass for a wise sailing over life's main. He is
more earnest for us to know the way than we can
be. He loves our safety, our peace of mind, our
usefulness, our abundant entrance into the everlast-
ing kingdom infinitely more than we can do. So,
as soon as we have cast up the highway and
gathered out the stones, He will begin to travel
toward us in the greatness of His strength
the dark growing whiter and whiter with every
dazzling though distant step of the King whose
twin names are Light and Love and at last, in
the time He sees best for us, He will arrive, bring-
ing with Him the day. Then the cloud will be
gone from the main theory and practice of religion.
CONDITIONS. 69
The dusky mantle which muffled the Evidences
so heavily will interpose its envious folds no
longer. The inspiration, the atonement, the pro-
bation, the plan of salvation all the facts and
doctrines with which our leading interests as moral
beings are bound up will uncover their faces and
fix upon us starry eyes. So I read the promise.
And I am sure that I read it correctly. It is stated
and implied too generously to allow of mistake.
But what *are the conditions of the Offer ? I
come to utter them. I utter them to you distinctly,
emphatically, and joyfully ; as being the full Scrip-
ture way to main light, whether on the theory or
the practice of religion.
1. We must sincerely desire the light.
2. We must use the lio-ht we already have.
J
3. We must patiently seek light in the double
way of prayer and rational inquiry.
These are the Biblical conditions of a plain path.
I will not now cite particular passages in proof. Let
me rather bring you the testimony of a long famil-
iarity with the Scriptures. Let me appeal to your
general sense of their scope and spirit. Let me
appeal to all you careless and doubting readers of
them when you have ceased to be careless, and
when God's ostensible message to men has been as
faithfully examined as its pretensions merit. Be
assured you have before you the great Bible secret
of How to believe.
Try it, and see whether it is good for anything
70 A GREAT OFFER.
all ye who in any degree or from any cause are
deficient in faith. Here is a decisive opportunity
for settling all the great questions that trouble you.
The Scriptures have committed themselves. See
whether they will be as good as their word. See
whether a God, a Jesus, and a Bible will brighten
on your sight as you honestly desire, and patiently
pray, and conscientiously do, and . faithfully exam-
ine. I am a seer. I take it upon me to predict
what the result will be. And I stand here, with
voice as steady and assured as ever went forth con-
vincingly over assembly, to foretell, not merely a
result to your inquiry, not merely settled convic-
tions one way or another, but a result and con-
victions on the side of the Biblical Religion a
result about as ample and brilliant as you may
choose to have. Make trial. I declare to you that
there never was a person who fulfilled those Three
Conditions but came at last to know all things per-
taining to life and godliness through the power of
Him who has called us to glory and virtue. I de-
clare to you that never, as long as the world stands,
will any religiously benighted soul thus patiently
desire and pray and labor for the break of day,
without at last seeing the eyelids of the morn un-
sealed, and the painfully dusky east gradually red-
den into the sun.
V.
WILL YOU ACCEPT?
V. WILL YOU ACCEPT?
1. RESUME 73
2. WILL YOU ACCEPT ? 78
3. PRAY DO 79
4. I WILL 85
WILL YOU ACCEPT?
TI^HAT is TRUTH ? We are told that Pilate put
this question to Jesus. It was the natural ex-
pression of doubt as to what could be considered true
in religion. " You speak of truth. And you say, To
this end was I born, and for this cause came I into
the world, that I should bear witness to the truth :
every one that is of the truth heareth ray voice.
What is truth ? I was born to the religious opin-
ions of Pagan Rome. I have been educated in the
O
schools of the Greeks, with their many conflicting
religious speculations. I now govern a people hav-
ing views on such subjects differing from all others.
You are a new teacher of religion, and tell of the
new system of truth which you came to unfold.
Among these many mutually conflicting systems
which is the true ? "
This inquiry has an air of investigation. It is
just such as a sincere man always proposes to him-
self when he sits down to the solution of some high
CT
problem. Pilate did well in making it. He would
have done still better if he had coupled with it the
candid investigation of which it was the fitting
herald, and that special plan of investigation of
which Jesus could have told him. I undertake to
say that this would have solved his doubts. He
74 WILL YOU ACCEPT?
would have come to see, in the Hebrew Jehovah,
the one living and true God. He would have come
to see, in the persecuted Jesus, God's messenger
and Son. He would have come to see, in the
sacred writings of the Jews, God's own message.
He would have come to see that diversity of relig-
ions no more proves, that there is no ascertainable
true religion than does diversity of bodily condition
that there is no attainable condition of health, or
diversity of character that there is no attainable
upright character, or diversity of coins that there
is no attainable genuine coin. His new convictions
might have issued in conduct to match. And then,
instead of becoming infamous for all time as the
executioner of Jesus, and dying in extreme anguish
the death of a suicide, he would have taken his
place among Christian Constan tines, and have died
in due course of nature with pale face beaming with
joyful expectations of possessing a government more
extensive than ever belonged to Roman Procurator,
and a throne more imperial than ever held Roman
Caesar.
We 'have great cause to think there are some in
our Christian congregations who hold somewhat the
attitude of Pilate. They have yet to settle what
truth is. They do not allow themselves to be
called atheists or infidels ; yet they are in doubt.
How else can we account for the fact that there are
so many among us, who, notwithstanding all the
pressure brought to bear upon them, neglect the
RESUME. 75
Biblical Religion as a practice ? It is hard to see
how they can venture to trifle with and disobey
that Religion as they do, if they have proper faith
in it. The fact seems to be that they are, per-
haps almost unconsciously, halting between two
opinions. They are not yet grounded in a clear
intellectual faith. Have I such before me to-day ?
I protest to them that it is of the utmost conse-
quence that they do what Pilate did ask what
is truth, and ask it of Christ. I protest to them
that it is of the utmost consequence that they
do what Pilate did not do couple this inquiry
with that Biblical Plan of Investigation which will
O
surely enable them to answer it. I have stated
what that Plan is. Is it understood and remem-
bered? Let me paraphrase it to you as follows.
Want of faith will not supply itself. If there is
a vacuum in the atmosphere the subtle air will at
once set itself in motion from all sides to fill the
vacancy. That element has a natural bent to go
wherever its presence is needed. It is so to some
extent with natural light. You have to take pains
to keep out of a room the light of a bright day.
You must close the doors, you must drop the cur-
tains, you must bring the carefully matched shut-
ters together. But faith does not rush in upon
vacant minds in this instinctive and assailing man-
ner. Whether it have respect to God, or Christ,
or the Scriptures you must not expect it to set
in upon you by a sort of natural gravitation ; as
76 WILL YOU ACCEPT?
stones fall to the ground, and as rivers run toward
the sea. Nor will God, in an independent way
and in the exercise of an almightiness that cares
not for your cooperation, put the blessing to which
you are indifferent within you ; as men freight the
deep holds of ships and vaults of banks with pre-
cious wares and metals the one party choosing
and struggling to make the deposit, and the other
passively receiving it. This is not God's way.
Great as is the blessing, vastly as He desires to
communicate it at once and universally, He cannot
be counted on to do it after this mode. He re-
quires of you a positive effort at seeking and obtain-
ing. You must set yourselves to work, in certain
specified ways, to get light. If a man wants the
treasures of the mine, let him explore and excavate
and wash and refine ; if he wants the harvests of
the soil, let him plough and plant and till and reap ;
if he wants the valuable things of the sea, let him
prepare his boats and his nets, and go watchfully
tossing and dragging along the wave. Once in a
great while God will send ravens to feed an Elijah ;
but were men to wait for that method of supply the
great majority of them would starve. So will the
men who wait to receive faith aside from their own
exertions. God will keep to the analogy of Nature.
He will keep to the declarations of His Word.
" My son, if thou apply thy heart to understanding,
yea, if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for
her as for hid treasures, then shalt thou understand
77
the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of
God." " Then shall ye find me when ye shall
seek me with all your heart." All defective
notions of the Supreme Being, all want or weak-
ness of faith toward any part of the Biblical Relig-
ion, must look for correction in this way. It is the
traveled road. It is the one used from the begin-
ning. It is the one that will be used to the ending.
All along and for all, it is the appointment of God
that men " seek after Him if haply they may find
Him : " by nourishing a sincere wish to know the
truth ; by prayer that God will reveal Himself and
His crying after knowledge, and lifting up the
voice for understanding by carefully following
conscience, so that the faithful steward of five tal-
ents may have ten, and the doer of the will know
of the doctrine ; by wakefully studying, as men do
other important subjects on which they wish to be
informed. Is a man sensibly or doubtfully without
faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures ? Let him
not wait for what will turn up, but let him put on the
harness of strenuous endeavor. Worse still, is a man
without faith in Christianity ? Let him not wait for
the clouds to clear away of themselves, but let him
besom them away with sincerity and prayer and
thought and good-living, well wrought at. And
worst of all, is a man without even an intellect-
ual faith in God ? Alas, alas, and thrice alas,
for this great misfortune and sin ! But let him not
expect to emerge from this dreary night by lying
78 WILL YOU ACCEPT?
indolently on the bosom of Providence and natural
law as men sleep through the dark hours into
day but let him inquire after God ; in the span-
gled heavens, along the verdant and peopled earth,
in the depths of his own wondrous soul and still
more wondrous Bible ; praying, observing, reflect-
ing, doing, with no stint of pains. For this is the
one Scripture Way, by which it offers to stand or
fall.
My hearers, who of you is qualified to say that
this Way is not reasonable? Is it plain that God
would not be entitled to choose His own way of
revealing Himself and His; especially if He only
proposes to hold men responsible according to the
light they do or may possess, and especially if He
guarantees that His way shall prove triumphantly
successful ? You have heard the strong promises
He that seeks shall find ; To him that knocketh it
shall be opened. Who does not know that these
are but samples of the clear-voiced and courageous
engagements that sound out from both Dispensa-
tions and from all parts of the Bible ? Do as the
Bible says, and then if there is any faith to be
put in grave and earnest assurances God and His
Son and His message shall come as near to you as
any miracle could bring them. I confess to think-
ing this offer most reasonable and even liberal. I
confess to feeling it a great favor that the Bible
does so courageously commit itself: enabling me to
tell you that on this its chosen line of investigation
PRAY DO. 79
success is altogether certain, as it is not in any
worldly inquiry to which man ever put thought. I
confess to feeling very joyful for that audacious
offer by which the Biblical Religion puts itself in
your power : enabling me to tell you of victory
mortgaged to you from the outset of your inquiries ;
of the prize you desire so securely anchored for you
at the end of the course appointed for your sailing
that no stormy violence can tear it away.
Bethink yourselves that it is no small thing that
there is a moral discipline in the use of this way of
getting light ! Your success is conditioned on and
proportioned to your honesty of heart, your love of
the truth, your conscientious living, your faithful-
ness and patience of seeking labor. You are being
fitted to make a good use of the light by the very
process you take to get it. You will value it more
highly for the pains laid out upon it. You will,
with your disciplined watchfulness and muscle,
grasp it all the more firmly and hold it against
attack all the more triumphantly. And will it
not nourish you as it could not do without the
healthy labor which precedes its acquisition, and
w r hich tones up the system to a preparation for the
marrow and fatness of this imperial diet? You
must work for your daily bread. This work gives
you an appetite ; it puts the body into a condition
to be nourished by the food it gathers ; by it the
whole system is strung to relish, retain, and assimi-
late the viands which it needs and with which it
80 WILL YOU ACCEPT?
cannot dispense. Who shall say that the Bible
plan of feeding the soul of man with religious
knowledge does not gather about it similar advan-
tages ? For one I believe in the supreme reason-
ableness and noble liberality of this plan. Better
than to be mere vessels passive recipients of ideas
and favors thrust into us by some miracle and al-
mighty force ! But why does not God so lighten
on my astonished vision, or at least so record Him-
self by sudden invisible influences on the tablets of
my understanding and heart, that I shall at once
know Him whom to know is life eternal ? Who
knows this to be consistently possible ? At all
events you are called on to try what may prove
a more excellent way a way in which you shall
surely reach your object, and reach it with a pre-
cious preparation for making the most of it.
Hear a Scripture narrative. Israel had fallen
asleep. They had ceased to take pains to retain and
improve their acquaintance with God. They for-
sook His synagogues, they read not His Word, they
restrained prayer before Him, they made no ac-
count of His commandments. The consequence was
that the idea of God faded from their minds. They
knew little of Him and cared less. And when their
attention was summoned to this state of facts, they
were indisposed to improve that state in God's way.
For aught I know they would have been willing to
see some wonderful fire-works of Divine manifesta-
tion, could such have been brought to their door
PRAY DO. 81
and paraded before them. For aught I know they
would have made no objection to God's putting
faith and reverence and piety into them, provided
it could have been done without any trouble to
themselves. But they were not willing to seek
and inquire after the God of their fathers. They
were not willing to pray after Him, and look after
Him through His wonderful works, and study Him
out in the hights and depths of the inspired Word,
and work out a powerful conception of Him by
conscientious living. They would not do so toil-
some a thing, even to reach so magnificent a thing
as the knowledge of God. For this God was in-
censed. For this He sent His judgments upon
them. Witness many an Old Testament writer !
What does this mean ? It means that if men
decline His plan for giving religious knowledge,
they must expect that God will indignantly refuse
that knowledge to them. A sad refusal! Yet I
cannot see that it would be unreasonable. So let
the warning be taken. It shakes menacing finger
at these distant times where men are hunting the
world, and the worlds, through for all things rich
and strange and fair the lands of eternal ice, the
glowing equinoxes, the profundities of the seas and
the profundities of the skies and do it with the
zeal of enthusiasts. Why not explore for God and
a Saviour as well ? Is there a greater treasure ?
Is there a nobler and more rewarding acquisition ?
Shall men travel the great world around seeking
82 WILL YOU ACCEPT?
for gain, and not go a little way, or a great way,
seeking for God ? He that postpones his God to
all things else should hear the Scripture toll in his
ear like a bell : " I will also stretch out my hand on
Judab, and on them that have turned back from
the Lord, and those that have not sought the Lord
nor inquired for Him." Toll on, O tocsin Zepha-
niah, now for the Gentile as anciently for the Jew !
Perhaps these gold-hunters, these pleasure-hunters,
these reputation-hunters will take note of the retri-
butions that warn in that doleful music. He that
hath ears to hear, let him hear !
Will you not accept the Biblical Offer and Method
of investigation ye men of less faith than you
could desire, of weak faith, of no faith at all ! Will
you not test this Scripture way to faith to the ut-
most, and do it at once ? You cannot reasonably
complain of darkness if you refuse. Here is a
method offered you, having great aspects of reason-
ableness ; you can try it without risk ; you incur
great risk if you do not try it ; there are many un-
impeachable witnesses to assure you that they have
tried it successfully ; it is really this method or
none. Will you not then promptly and earnestly
make trial ? Consider what a sad thing it is to be
without settled religious convictions ; especially to
be riding at anchor with all the Great Religious
Questions unanswered. These are the questions of
the hour to you. How unreasonable, dangerous, un-
comfortable, irrational, and guilty to go into win-
PRAY DO. 83
ter-quarters with these all unconquered and even
unattempted ! Make one good, honest, sufficient
effort to get out of your darkness. Try the offered
way out a way which from the nature of the case
must be decisive. You will either settle that the
Biblical Religion is true, or you will settle that it is
untrue. And probably very soon. But if it were
necessary to exhaust years in the investigation if
it were necessary to toil at it till the eye is blear
and the cheek cadaverous if it were necessary to
grapple your intellects on the arduous theme till
they bow and tremble almost to dislocation under
the mighty strain, still it would te time and toil
wisely laid out.
You profess to want to know the truth. Then
take this safe, reasonable, and long-tested Scrip-
tural Method. By means of this theological calculus
give the theology a suitable examination. This is
the least that can be asked of you. And you know
profoundly that it is a most reasonable asking. I
ask it not for the sake of the great Biblical Religion
that has weathered so many storms and centuries.
She needs it not. She will flourish strong and fair
and immortal whatever you may do. I ask for her
a candid hearing, after her own way, for your
sakes. Your highest interests are involved. Do
not let indolence or business of this vanishing world
stand in the way of this First Thing being done.
Business it would seem as if men thought ther6
were infinite apologies for all manner of neglects in
84 WILL YOU ACCEPT?
the mere suggestion of that word ! Let me say in
your ear what you already know there is but one
business. It is that of getting light on the Great
Religious Questions, and acting accordingly. Like
rational beings, put everything second to that,
without demur. If you must reject the Religion,
let it be on the basis of a manly examination. This
Religion may be true. If true, it is of immense
importance that you positively believe it. All
doubt can be dispelled by a certain investigation.
You have no right to expect that it will be dispelled
in any other way. To neglect it under such cir-
cumstances is highly criminal. To neglect it is
contrary to all the prudential maxims which are
wont to govern you in all important secular affairs.
If the loss of a thousand dollars were possibly in-
volved in your failing to clear up some imperfectly
understood matter of business of no great difficulty,
with what promptness would you set yourselves to
the labor of elucidation ! If the loss of life or
health were very possibly involved in your failing
to clear up some obscure point in physiology of no
great difficulty, with what energetic promptness
would you set yourselves to the task of dissipating
that obscurity ! But the loss of an estate greater
than you ever imagined, the loss of a health and
life more precious than ever asked help at the gates
of medical science, is very possibly, to say the least,
involved in your neglecting to give the Evidences
of Religion that suitable examination to which I
/ WILL. 85
earnestly invite you. Why not be as judicious for
the soul as you are for the body ? Why not be as
prudent for eternity as you are for time ? Why
not do as Pilate did ask what is truth, and ask it
of Christ ? Why not do what Pilate unfortunately
did not do take to yourselves a sincere wish to
know the truth, break off obscuring and misleading
sin as far as known, ask for light at the hands of
the possible Great Supernatural, and seek that light
also in the use of the natural means of light which
abound on every hand ?
Methinks I hear you say "I will accept the
Scripture Offer. I will try this boldly promising
Bible Wav to faith."
VI.
FIRST CONDITION -
A SINCERE WISH FOR LIGHT.
VI. FIRST CONDITION A SINCERE WISH FOR
LIGHT.
1. LOGICAL VALUE 89
2. DOUBTFUL EXISTENCE 92
3- TESTS 94
4. WELL? IO5
FIRST CONDITION A SINCERE WISH FOR
LIGHT.
"VTOU are wanting in faith. You have concluded
to try the reasonable Bible Way of meeting
that want. Then ask, Do I meet the first condi-
tion of that Way hove_J a sincere desire to know
thetruthj
According to the Scriptures, our business with
religion as intellectual beings includes the following
particulars. First, we must perceive that there is a
God. Next, we must perceive that the Christian
Scriptures are His message to men. Then, we must
grasp the true meaning of this Divine Book its
various statements of facts, doctrines, and duties.
And lastly, all these particulars of knowledge
should be matters of clear, distinct, and vivid con-
ception ; lying in the mind, as nearly as possible, as
the facts themselves lie in nature with the same
hues, proportions, and bearings.
Now, from first to last in this intellectual dealing
with religion from the point occupied by the
atheist, to that occupied by the Christian who is
conscious that with all his faith and knowledge
there is a certain want of vividness and life-likeness
in his views of religious facts I say, from first to
last in this intellectual process, there is one thing
90 A SINCERE WISH FOR LIGHT.
more important to success than any and all things
else. This is A SIMPLE DESIRE TO KNOW THE
TRUTH. It is an excellent thing to have a mind
naturally sharp, comprehensive, and logical able
to make nice distinctions, to take in at a glance a
wide variety of facts, to march swiftly and in an
orderly way along the highways of thought. It is
an excellent thing to have the mind well trained in
the discipline and culture of the schools, and fur-
nished with the treasures of learning and science.
It is an excellent thing to have leisure for study,
copious libraries, and wise living companions and
counselors. Still, these things, the best of them
and all of them, are by no means sure to bring our
minds to the more important religious truths. With
great faculties, great education, and great circum-
stantial facilities nay, with the very greatest
it is possible for us to come to mistake the Scrip-
tures on main points, to disbelieve them, and even
to disbelieve a God. But, according to the Scrip-
tures, with a sincere desire to know the truth, such
a result cannot happen. All those humble, illiter-
ate, labor-pressed men, of whom the world is full,
need the great truths of religion as much as others ;
and so we are given to understand by the whole
spirit of Scripture that, as soon as we are honestly
disposed to see things as they are, our minds will
begin to gravitate and move toward the truth. At
last they will reach it. God will come to the help
of our honesty. The hidden mechanism of our
LOGICAL VALUE. >1
natures will all unconsciously work us along toward
the light, to which they have acquired a mysterious
affinity. Certain flowers point always their painted
petals at the sun, and move with him in his daily
arc from east to west they know not how, they
make no conscious effort ; but there is a certain
something, deep within the life of the plant, that
draws it with the force of a natural law toward the
pleasant light and warmth by which it must live
and grow. So instinctively do our minds bend
toward the great facts of religion, when once they
have become possessed of a truth-desiring spirit.
At the very least, we do assuredly gather from the
whole tenor of the Bible, that, between Nature and
the Supernatural, it is provided that all who want to
know the truth on leading religious matters shall
in some way come into possession of it not at once,
perhaps ; not without pains and perseverance, per-
haps ; but surely at some time and after some way,
ministered primarily by a sincere regard to the
truth. The unrealizing Christian shall have his
truth seem life-like to him ; the heretic shall lay
hold on orthodoxy ; the unbeliever shall gain faith ;
the atheist shall find a God. The best ground for
cheerful expectation has that man who, amid pres-
ent obscurity on religious points of great impor-
tance, can yet see that his heart has sincere aspira-
tions after light, and would honestly welcome its
coming.
But at this point a difficulty arises. It is not
92 A SINCERE WISH FOR LIGHT.
always an easy matter to see whether we have a
sincere wish to know the truth. The heart is des-
perately deceitful. Many a man has really hated
the truth when he thought he loved it ; and, on the
other hand, not a few have loved it very consider-
ably when they thought they did not love it at all.
The best heart that ever beat in bosom often prac-
tices strange deceptions on its owner. Willing
to be told his faults? Oh, certainly he is, and will
even be glad and thankful to be told. But,
when the telling is done, he is mortified to find he
has misunderstood himself. He really did not want
to know the truth. Willing to allow full weight to
the opposing argument desirous to be convinced
by it if sound ? Oh, to be sure he is : let him
not be suspected of so much unfairness of mind.
But the friend who stands by and watches the
process of the disputation knows better. The
good man has fallen into one of his bad states,
and is really unwilling to see truth on the side
of his opponent. Almost every turn in the argu-
ment shows it. And 3 et he maintains, and really
thinks, that he sincerely wishes to know things as
they are. Hence you see it is often no easy mat-
ter to decide what is our real feeling toward the
truth. You can tell at once and beyond dispute
whether you have a rose in your bosom, or a gold
eagle in your purse, or a harp in your house. You
look and are convinced. You grasp the instrument
and strike its strings and hold it up to your neigh-
DOUBTFUL EXISTENCE. 93
bor, and he is convinced. But as to the existence
of a small, weakly affection away clown at the bot-
tom of a heart deceitful above all things, here you
have a problem that will not get safely resolved
by a glance. If a man desires the truth to a pas-
sion, if the feeling has become fairly epic and heroic
in its measure, then of course there will be no
difficulty. But this is not often the case. The soil
is seldom so fat with gold that one simple delve of
the owner's spade shows him its riches : he has to
take the opinion of the geologist, and send off to
the laboratory specimens which after all may prove
to be without a single atom of the yellow metal.
In most bosoms where it exists, this desire for the
truth exists in such a mixed state and scanty meas-
ure that close inquiry must be made and searching
tests applied before the reality of the treasure can be
considered established. I propose to mention some
of the tests which must be resorted to in such cases.
At the outset let us note carefully the precise
matter to be tested. It is not the existence of an
honest desire on your part to know the truth at some
time between this and your last moment in the world.
All of you, probably, can settle that point very
promptly without any tests. But the true point is,
Do you honestly desire to have the truth now on
and from this very instant to see the facts of these
great religious questions in their true colors ?
Whatever the obscure and perplexing topics of your
religious thought may be, have you a wish for a
94 A SINCERE WISH FOR LIGHT.
present clearing up of the exact facts in the case,
however much it may disappoint your partialities
and convenience ? Further, the question to be an-
swered does not relate to the existence of an occa-
sional honest wish for the truth, as an immediate
possession even ; it points at what is habitual, and
a part of the standing furniture of the heart. Who
among you does not have his moments when he sin-
cerely would like to have all the dark matters in his
theology opened to him, just as they are, and at once !
But it is not such a desire I have been speaking
of as sure to bring in sooner or later a clear solu-
tion of all the fundamental questions of religion.
It is one of which the soul is the home not the
inn where it passes the night and is up and away
with the first blush of dawn as well as one whose
burden is to-day and not to-morrow ; to-morrow,
that is always coming and never arriving.
Now, what tests may you have of your possess-
ing this important state of mind ? I answer.
I. If you have it, you are not in the habit of re-
quiring demonstration as the condition of assent to
any religious doctrine.
Perhaps you think there may be persons for whom
this would be no fair test. Their attention has not
been properly called to the nature of moral argu-
ment. They have not reflected on the degree and
kind of evidence the}*- are obliged to act on and are
accustomed to act on uncomplainingly, in all secular
matters, even those of the highest importance. They
TESTS. 95
have not been awake to the fact that it is as absurd
to ask for mathematics i'n theology as it would be to
ask that matter and quantity should change their
natures. There may be something in this, though
I think not. But this I may unhesitatingly say,
that if, after their attention has been distinctly called
to the nature of moral evidence, these persons per-
sist in demanding that such points as the being of
a God, the Divine mission of Jesus, and the truth
of the Scriptures, shall be proved as men prove
that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two
right angles, or that two and three are five, it is
very certain they have no real desire to know the
truth, at least at present. Men who are not willing
to know the truth probably, at least until something
better can be reached, are not willing to know it at
all. Men who, with their eyes open, mark off a
given field of moral questions and arbitrarily declare
that within it they will accept no evidence save the
demonstrative, while on other fields of the same
nature they are accepting probabilities a hundred
times a day, and believing, and even knowing as it
seems to them, on the basis of these probabilities
such men, I say, cannot flatter themselves that they
really want to know the truth which they test by
such a singular and impossible standard. Is not
this fair reasoning ? Notice how men treat evi-
dence in matters other than religious. In these
matters what one wants to recognize as truth he sel-
dom finds any difficulty in taking probable evidence
96 A SINCERE WISH FOR LIGHT.
for, as incontestably reasonable. He does it in-
stinctively and unhesitatingly. But the moment he
falls in with a statement he is reluctant to accept,
then our logician becomes more difficult. The sort
of evidence that was good enough before suddenly be-
comes unsatisfactory. He must have something
better to convince him. He raises his standard.
And, if his aversion to the point to be proved is
considerable, you may see him push that standard
up so high among the clouds that nothing but
winged geometry can reach it. This is well under-
stood. Every one knows why it is that his neigh-
bors sometimes demand in worldly affairs such enor-
mous and impossible evidence. He knows that the
reason lies in their unwillingness to find the truth
lying in -certain directions. And this is really why
men are so unreasonably exacting of evidence on
questions of religion. They will have demonstra-
tion or nothing. And yet perhaps they think they
would be glad to know the truth, whatever it may
be. They are mistaken. Their wishes, instead of
being for knowledge, are against it, at least as a
present possession. They may desire it for to-mor-
row but not for to-day.
2. If you have an honest desire to know the truth,
you are willing to pray for the knowledge to Almighty
Grod with some degree of care and perseverance.
Here is another test equally applicable to all
minds perplexed on religious subjects, including such
as hesitate on the being of a God.
TESTS. 97
Take the strongest case that of the man who
doubts whether there is a God to pray to. This
man who fails to see that a God is, also fails to see
that He is not. He cannot deny that Almighty
God is possible. A reverent, sincere prayer to this
possible Being, simply as a grand possibility, cer-
tainly will do no harm and may be useful. For, if
He exists, this Sun can very easily do more to throw
light on our darkness than a whole firmament of
twinkling philosophers and philosophies. And how
much trouble is it to say, even several times a day,
" O God, the possible God, help me to light ! " A
few seconds of time, a few breaths of voice or
thought, absolutely no labor nor sacrifice who that
has any real desire at all to find his way to clear
views in religion but is willing to try this easy plan
of securing help ! Suppose he should do it for a
year or years, what would the labor and trouble
amount to ! To just nothing at all. Hence I say,
If, when this state of the case is properly laid
before him, he is not willing to go with some attent
and perseverance of prayer to possible Almighty
God for help, he cannot be considered as being
really desirous of help. He deceives himself if he
thinks he is. It may be that he desires to have
the truth at some time between now and never ; but
as to wishing to have it now, the thing is absurd.
Much more absurd is it to suppose that a man who
really believes in the prayer answering God of the
Scriptures, but who does not know what to believe
98 A SINCERE WISH FOR LIGHT.
on other important matters, and yet honestly desires
to know much more absurd is it to suppose that
such a man would, after the matter has been properly
laid before kim, stoutly refuse to breathe a brief
whisper or a series of brief whispers, vocal or men-
tal, uj) into a merciful heaven for light ; that heaven
which keeps the key of all mysteries, and, when it
chooses, can shoot back with supreme ease the an-
cient and massive bolts on which genius and in-
dustry might wrench for ages in vain. So, man of
doubt or dim views, will you not apply this test
to yourself ? Whatever your special darkness is, are
you willing to pray to God perseveringly for light ?
Has it been your practice to do so ; or, your atten-
tion having now been drawn specially to this method
of help, will you make it your practice hereafter ?
If you cannot answer affirmatively, consider that
in respect to honest desire to know the truth you
have been weighed in the balance and are found
wanting.
3. If you have an honest desire to know the truth,
you are not altogether without some direct, personal
effort to investigate that truth.
When a man has lost his way and desires to find
it at once, what does he ? For, certainly, he does
something. His mind takes on wakefulness. His
eye looks for guide-boards, and notes the bearing
of roads. Instinctively he watches for some famil-
iar object or phase of the landscape which shall
serve as a clew of guidance. If he meets a person
TESTS. 99
who may give him information he takes the trouble
to question him. Remembering that he has in his
pocket what professes to be a guide-book for that
part of the country, he takes the trouble to examine
it. Of course the thoroughness and eagerness with
which all this is done depends on the degree of con-
cern he feels at being lost ; but if he feels concern
iu any degree he shows it instinctively in some of
these active measures. Should he saunter smilingly
along without an effort to compare roads, or to
lift his eyes to spell out faded directions at cor-
ners, or to ask the persons he meets, or to study
the map within reach of his hand, men would say
that he either is insane, or has no real desire to re-
cover his way, at least just yet. So, whatever desire
a man has, it at once sets him to looking after
the appropriate natural means of gratifying it ;
and if he finds such means accessible and capable
of being used, with little or no expense of time
and labor, he is sure to be found working them ;
feebly, if the moving desire is feeble ; strongly,
if the desire is strong. Thus if a man sincerely
wants to have your interests promoted, and if
there are many opportunities and means of pro-
moting them open to him and continually occurring,
some of which can be used without any appreciable
trouble to himself, why, ho is certainly doing more
or less in your behalf. He does not content him-
self with praying for you. He does not refuse to
lift a finger or turn a corner in the natural way of
100 A SINCERE WISH FOR LIGHT.
helping you. Should a professed friend of yours do
so, you would turn your back on his professions of
regard as altogether hollow and worthless.
Now human nature necessarily acts just so under
the influence of a desire to know truth in religion.
There are natural means and opportunities, recog-
nized as such by us all, looking toward the clearing
up of religious problems. And some of these are
exceedingly simple and easy, so simple and easy
that their use would be no real tax on the time or
strength or patience of any. How many persons
within your reach who credibly profess to have
studied the points on which you are in the dark, and
to have come to clear views ! Would it be any
trouble worth mentioning to confer now and then
with such persons as they cross your path ? How
many books and essays, lying about on all sides, and
written expressly to throw light on these very points
of your perplexity how many tracts and sermons
which sincere men have penned and spoken with
the hope of helping such as you ! And who will
speak of the trouble of glancing over some of these
with an eye to getting the help proposed ! More-
over, there are always floating about in the com-
munity and starting up in your own experience
facts, suggestions^ gleams of explanation and truth,
which a little wakefulness of mind might turn to
great account in the way of resolving your diffi-
culties. And then there is study, properly so-
called, the bending of your own solitary investiga-
TESTS. 101
ting thought on your difficulties ; a thing to which
are all degrees, from those painful wrestlings that
exhaust the soul down to that gentle exercise of the
reason which hardly whispers of labor. This being
so, what I affirm is, that if you have a sincere desire
to know the truth it must be that you are making
more or less use of these natural means of knowl-
edge. All experience shows that the two things go
together. Do you read or study or inquire or watch
in any degree simply for the end of discovering what
is true ? Is your mind somewhat in an investigating
attitude ? The question is not whether you spend
time in thinking, reading, arguing on the dim sub-
ject ; but whether you do it as a means of bringing
out the facts in the case. Men talk, hunt up diffi-
culties, inquire, and dispute, often to show their
ingenuity or for a reason still worse. If there is no
real effort to properly use the means of investiga-
tion lying about you, you deceive yourself if you
suppose you have an honest desire to know the
truth.
4. If you have a sincere desire to know the truth,
you act according to the law of the truth you already
receive as such.
Grant that you wish to have all the great re-
ligions questions settled in your mind, not as it
would suit your taste or present convenience, but
according to truth. Why do you wish it ? Evi-
dently because you love truth for its own sake ; or
because your better judgment has convinced you
102 A SINCERE WISH FOR LIGHT.
that to know things as they are and to act accord-
ingly, will, in the long run, be your true wisdom.
If you love the truth for its own sake, you love the
laws of truth, and, of course, obedience to those
laws. That is to say, you govern your conduct by
the truth as far as you know it : for he who loves
virtue will practice virtue. If you choose the truth
because it is wise for your interests to do so, you
really intend to walk by it, if discovered : for you
know perfectly well that the knowing will be of no
service to you, but rather a disadvantage, without
the walking. For example, if you wish to know
that there is a God, in case there is, you seriously
propose to act suitably on the fact should it be dis-
covered. If you wish to know that the Scriptures
are His word, in case they are, you mean to treat
them as such in reverence and obedience should you
find them true. If you wish to know that the day
of Divine grace to men is limited, if indeed the
stern truth be so, you propose on making discovery
of the same to live as becomes a probationer for
eternity. Now, with these intentions of conforming
to undiscovered truth, it is very certain how you are
treating that already discovered. You are obeying
it. You are habitually governing your life and
heart by it. A true purpose to go by the unknown
when found is a true purpose to go by the known
now that it is found.
And now let us see what religious truth you
do recognize as such. You believe in natural
TESTS. 103
religion, in the law of conscience. Does your
conscience in the main govern you, and is it your
great question and struggle from day to day to
know and do your duty ? You believe that a God
and a Divine Christianity are possible, at least. And
if they may be, it is intuitively your wisdom to act
largely as though they certainly are. You surely
will come to no harm by acting suitably to the idea
of a holy God and a holy religion ; but by refusing
so to act you will destroy yourself, in case a God
and Divine Christianity are facts. The very possi-
bility of their proving to be facts lays you under
obligation to your own safety to shape your course
and character into forms of virtue. I take the
trouble to state this ; but you knew it and felt it
long ago. Everybody knows that it is perfectly
safe to govern himself by the general Christian rules
of living; and knows equally well that it is unsafe
not to do it. Do you govern yourself by these
rules ? This great fact of the possibility of a Holy
God and His written Word are you acting accord-
ing to it ? By making fair answer to these questions,
you will be able to decide whether there is really
within you an honest desire to know the truth, on
whichever side of your dark questions it may lie. If
you must confess that the tenor of your life treats
such truths as you do believe as if they were false,
and that you have no purpose of immediately doing
otherwise ; why, the faithful test is against you.
Your heart is yet vacant of that principle which,
104 A SINCERE WISH FOR LIGHT.
as a guide to truth in religion, is worth more than
any genius and learning that were ever sung and
crowned among men.
A man flatters himself that he has a mine of gold
on his farm. He goes to a geologist and begs him
to make an examination. As soon as the man of
science comes to the district where the mine is sup-
posed to lie he begins to inquire into the character
of the rocks. What are the strata that crop out to
view in the fields ? He knows that gold is not found
out of certain geologic connections ; and if he finds
that there is neither primary rock, nor transition,
nor the lowest sandstone on that farm, he is obliged
to tell the man that his hopes are vain. He need
not trouble himself to dig down some hundreds of
feet in order to decide whether he is proprietor of
a yellow mine. The fact is plain at the surface.
The precious metal is not found in connection with
that sort of rock. And when a man wants to know
whether he has within him that precious thing,
worth more than mines of gold, namely, an honest
desire to know the truth on dark questions of relig-
ion, a bare inspection of the surface will often provide
him with an answer. Does he insist on demonstra-
tions as a condition of faith ? Is he unwilling to
pray to Almighty God for light to God either as
actual or possible ? Is he altogether without effort
to use the natural means and opportunities of gain-
ing light which fall in his way ? Does he neglect
to act according to the truth he already receives ?
WELL? 105
If so, then I pronounce that the treasure he is look-
ing for is not in him. These are not the right
scientific connections for it. It goes with quite
opposite sorts of conduct. Let him give up all
hopes of finding it under such a kind of surface.
Still it is worth while for him to consider that in
one important respect his situation differs very ma-
terially from that of the disappointed gold-seeker.
Once satisfied that he has not a mine on his estate,
that proprietor knows that he never will have it till
his dying day. The soil beneath his feet will always
be dull, common earth, let him do what he can.
But the man who finds himself vacant of that pre-
cious moral element whose worth and tests I have
been describing, is under no necessity of having
that vacancy continue. There are ways of intro-
ducing the absent treasure into his heart. He can
have a new interior betokened by a new surface.
Will he have it ? It is indispensable.
Let me hope that the Tests show that you have
the indispensable treasure already.
VII.
SECOND CONDITION
USING PRESENT LIGHT.
VII. SECOND CONDITION USING PRESENT LIGHT.
1. GENERAL LAW 109
2. REASONABLE 1 13
3. EXAMPLE , Il6
4. APPLICATION Il8
SECOND CONDITION - USING PRESENT
LIGHT.
are wanting in faith. You have concluded
to try the reasonable Bible Way for meeting
that want ; and on examination it seems to you, I
will suppose, that you have its first condition of suc-
cess, namely, a sincere desire to know the truth.
Have you also the second condition are you using
the light you already have ?
Really, each of the three conditions belonging to
the Bible plan for getting light, hides in both the oth-
ers. You cannot truly fulfill one without fulfilling
all. But this does not make it undesirable to invite
separate attention and action on each condition. It
will give to each the benefit of a threefold attempt
in its favor. It will, we may hope, triple for each
the chances of being clearly understood, strongly
felt, and fairly tried.
Our knowledge always begins in a single grain
of light. The progress from the crude notion to
the wide and sharply defined knowledge is some-
times very rapid so rapid that the fact of a prog-
ress can only be detected by care but care will
generally discover the day to have been preceded
by the faintest dawn, and the full corn by the ear
and the blade and the single small seed.
110 USING PRESENT LIGHT.
The mustard seed gradually ripens, without hu-
man care, into the tree in which the birds can lodge.
Its growth is merely the result of its own nature and
natural circumstances. In the same way, some of
our first faint notions of religious truth pass forward
into satisfying knowledge. Many come to a firm
belief in the Divine existence without any conscious
effort of investigation, but by the insensible sway-
ings of the beautiful and skillfully wrought universe
which surrounds them from infancy. So at least
they think. The landscape must become brighter
as the morning wears on ; the child cannot help
improving in general knowledge as he becomes
older ; and so, in religious things, time and the in-
cessant shillings of Nature upon us necessarily clear
up by degrees many of our views. There is no
conscious effort of our own toward the result. The
growth of the truth within us is like that of the
seed ministered to by the dews and rains and sun-
shines with which it had nothing to do. But the
Bible gives us to understand that when a man has
fallen into religious darkness he cannot count on
any such way out. He must look to pass from a
little light to a greater, by voluntary effort to use
duly the light already possessed. He must do busi-
ness wisely with the first installment of knowledge
given him before he can receive another. Only
two talents are placed in his hands at first : it is by
judicious trading with his small capital that he must
come at last to find it doubled and the lordship of
GENERAL LAW. Ill
cities vested in him. When the son enters on busi-
ness, does his prudent father set him up at once with
the full patrimony ? He gives him a little to make
his first venture upon. If that little is used with
judgment more is intrusted. Thus by degrees the
young merchant may become fit to manage, and
worthy to receive, the great capital which can whiten
the sea with ships and fill stately warehouses with
goods.
Once in a while men pass abruptly from want to
affluence. An hour is sufficient to change their rags
into robes of honor, their crusts into dainties, their
cabins into palaces. But this is not the common
way of gaining riches. A few dollars are gained,
these are made the stepping-stone to others, the
double sum is made to roll up another, and so the
accumulation goes on at a constantly accelerated
pace, until, at the end of years, a fortune is found to
be made. Using the little judiciously has made the
poor man rich. I see a man eminent for his learn-
ing. Let me question him as to the way in which
he has succeeded in collecting such stores of knowl-
edge, and I shall not find that they were imported
into his mind in one overwhelming cargo. On the
contrary, I shall find that once the simple letters of
the alphabet made up the entire sum of his science ;
that he then traded with this small capital till he
had learned the art of reading ; that by the diligent
use of the art of reading he next helped himself to
a knowledge of the common branches; that by put-
112 USING PRESENT LIGHT.
ting these together he then slowly mounted into the
region of the difficult sciences ; and that thus by
making every acquisition minister to another he at
last reached the proud eminence of a famous phi-
losopher. Using the little diligently has made the
ignorant man learned. It is by precisely the same
process that virtue is expanded into its nobler de-
grees and forms. No one ever knew a good man
grow in his goodness save in one way. With the
one talent of repentance feebly shining in his heart
he goes a-trading and makes it two. He gains new
virtue only by using that already possessed. Jus-
tice grows by the practice of justice ; truthfulness
by the practice of truthfulness ; love by the prac-
tice of love ; meekness, temperance, purity, by the
practice of these virtues. " Do good and be better,
do better and be best," is the law of the spiritual life,
of which none are ignorant who have taken their
moral science from' the Bible or observation.
See the general style of that economy under
which we live ! Its way is to give a little, and if
that is rightly used, to give more. As the man of
business swells his estate, the politician his honor,
the scholar his science, the talented his various
mental faculties, the swift his alacrity, the strong
his strength, the good man his virtue, so must the
man of defective religious knowledge increase his
little into much. Especially the man who has
fallen into the leading and abysmal unbeliefs. As
he complains of the chill darkness let him heed the
REASONABLE. 113
Scriptures as they assure him that one of the most
important questions bearing on relief which he can
ask himself is, Am I diligently using the light that
I have ?
It seems but just that if men fail to improve a
little light more should be withheld, and that if
they make the most of their scanty information they
should be rewarded with larger instruction. Do
we blame the father who gauges his outlay upon
his son's education according to the disposition that
son manifests to improve the advantages already in
his possession ? Do we blame the father who de-
termines not to send to the university the son who
never shows any taste for the employments of the
common school ? It is likely that if we abuse hints
and gleams of religious truth, we would abuse also
ampler light. He who is unjust in that which is least
would be unjust also in much. The man who mis-
uses a hundred dollars would be likely to misuse a
thousand. The man who wastes the gleanings of a
field cannot be expected to do rightly by the entire
harvest. Hence, were God to grant more light on
religious subjects to him who does not improve the
little he has, it would probably only go to increase
the receiver's guilt. For to whomsoever much is
given, of him shall much be required, and to whom
men have committed much, of him they will ask the
more.
Suppose God to do something very strange to the
spirit of the Bible ; suppose Him to give a man
8
114 USING PRESENT LIGHT.
whose views of religious truth are very meager and
unsatisfactory to understand that his chances for
additional light will in no degree depend on the
manner in which he treats the light already in his
possession. " Wrap your one talent of truth in a
napkin if you will, I shall be just as ready to give
you another as if you had put my first gift out at
usury. Employ the one torch which I have given
to assist you in finding your way upward through
this dark world for the purpose of lighting your
path downward if you will, it will make no dif-
ference with your prospect of receiving from me
other torches." What would be the effect on that
man of such a word of God ? If he could believe
that such a message could come from the Author of
that Nature to whose whole spirit it is opposed,
would it not exert upon him an influence of unmin-
gled perniciousness ? But how different the ten-
dency were God to address him in another strain !
" See ! I have given you a few rays of sacred
knowledge. It is not much, but if you honestly try
to walk by this you shall have more. Observe that
I do not require you to walk according to the sun-
light which others have ; only according to the
starlight which you have. If you obey, other stars
shall in due time make their appearance ; and if you
continue to obey, at last you shall see the morning-
star and the sun. On the other hand, if your small
stewardship is turned to no account or a bad one,
do not expect anything further from me. Expect
REASONABLE. 115
rather that from him who hath not shall be taken
away even that which he hath." Would not such
words sound altogether reasonable to that hearer,
and would they have upon him one tendency other
than salutary ? The arrangement which it would be
well for God to make, the Bible tells us is made
actually that it is a standing condition of prog-
ress in religious knowledge that we try to walk in
the light of the knowledge we already have.
Grant that you are so unhappy as to have but dim
views of the truth of the Christian Religion. You wish
a clearer vision. You want to look on the creden-
tials of Christ and the Bible as some men have
looked on them with a faith firmer than the ever-
lasting hills and stronger than death. Is there no
way in which your wish can be fulfilled ? Says
the Bible, There is. A glorious full assurance of
faith is possible to you. There are some things
which you already clearly know. That the precepts
of the Scriptures in the main correctly express your
duty you are well satisfied. You have your one tal-
ent of light : with this you must trade. You have
your twilight : you must do your best to walk by it.
The duties of which your conscience assures you,
you must labor to fulfill. This will be doing what
the Magi are said to have done following a star
toward Jesus Christ. And, as those wise men of
the East are said to have done, you will at last come
in due course of your star-following into the
presence of the Sun.
116 USING PRESENT LIGHT.
Nor do I know of a better illustration of this
whole process of getting light in religion by using
light already gotten, than this same story of the Wise
Men as told in the New Testament and held in the
Christian traditions. O three kings, nestling in
oriental ease and pomp, serenely studying the se-
rener heavens in star-gazing Chaldasa, what is the
matter ! Why these flushed faces, these eager eyes,
these animated conferences ! Why this running to
and fro of retainers, this culling of treasures, this
lading of kneeling camels, this marshaling of the
caravan ! A strange star has shone in the west,
night after night. Plainly it is not a common star
these astronomers have read the sky too long and
well to be in doubt here. And then, perhaps, they
have had a dream ; or some vague tradition of the
star that should arise out of Jacob has floated down
to them from the times of the Captivity ; or some
faint echoes of the current Jewish expectation of
Messiah have travelled forth and died away in their
doubtful ears. They have put this and that to-
gether. This is all that they have for supposing
that the star they have seen points at the birth and
locality of One whom they will do well to find and
honor. It is but a mere hint : but then a hint from
the sky is not to be neglected. So they set for-
ward. In vain friends beseech, dangers menace,
various plans and affairs urge their claims they
say their adieus and set forward with eyes fixed
on the star. It is a very small light a mere
EXAMPLE. 117
grain of gold on the sky. But they soon notice
that it moves before them. Clouds sometimes hide
it from view ; sometimes mountains interpose their
opaque bulk ; in the day it is never visible. But
they gradually become aware that, visible or invisi-
ble, it is delicately adjusting its going to their going ;
and that the faint accents of the Messianic tradi-
tions are thickening and strengthening in the air as
they advance. So onward, brave kings and kingly
souls, with ever brave hearts, though distant Ja-
cob is to you as the ends of the earth are to us ! On
through parched sand-plains, over rugged steppes,
across broad rivers, among robber-hordes ; from city
to city, from province to province, from country to
country ! It is a long travel ; but as grows the
travel so grows the encouragement. At last Juda
is reached. They find everywhere among the peo-
ple a positive expectation of just such a Personage
as they are looking for. Here too they find the
still larger encouragement and light of the Old
Testament Scriptures with their gradually brighten-
ing lines of prophecies converging on this very
time and on this very land. Surely they are trad-
ing with the light to some purpose ! With firm
tread and eye elate with confidence, they move
swiftly along the beaten and storied highways of the
Holy Land. Omens of success, pregnant rumors
of a glorious sequel to their pilgrimage thicken on
every hand. And now the star rapidly expands.
It draws earthward. It hangs motionless. The
118 USING PRESENT LIGHT.
journey is ended. Lo, this is Bethlehem ! Lo,
here is a manger, and here the wonderful Child !
O infant King, O Star of Jacob, O Sun of right-
eousness into what a day has the original star-
light of these men opened ? The faint gleam ; the
gleam moving, the gleam moving in sympathy with
their progress ; the growing voices in the air ; the
written Scriptures, the climactic BABE I Sublime
progress ! By patiently using the little, it has be-
come much. By twilight duly improved, the pil-
grims have gradually come to the noon of knowledge.
Now they are sure of the actual arrival of the king
whose character and mission they can more fully
spell out at their leisure from the written Word
they have found. No wonder they rejoice with
exceeding great joy. How pour the costly gifts!
How swales that lowly shed with frankincense
and myrrh ! How lightens it with Orient gold !
Fit sign of the joyful light within these wise
and royal pilgrims all gained by steadily acting
on the mere glimmer with which their pilgrimage
began.
See how you are to do, you whose religious light
is now so weak a mere star shedding pale rays
through the wide darkness of your night! You are
to begin acting without delay on that starlight. You
are to set forward on that little. You are to try
going by that little as well as you can.' . Have you
not a conscience that says that certain things are
right and certain things wrong? Do those right
APPLICATION. 119
things and refuse to do those wrong things. Are
you not persuaded that the precepts of the Bible,
at least in the main, are reasonable and righteous ?
Reduce them to practice. This will be turning such
light as you have to account. It will be following
the star. It will be doing over in this nineteenth cen-
tury what the Magi are said to have done in the first.
Follow your star steadily, despite some difficulties.
You will find it moving before you. You will find it
gradually gaining diameter and suiting itself to your
motions. It will gradually attract about your path
hints of truth, prophecies, Mosaic economies, new
dispensations. At last it will stop over Bethlehem ;
and you shall go in by open door to find Jesus and
God, with the Bible in outstretched hands, offering
it to you. Your journey is ended. Thanks to your
star-following, with its implications, your journey
is ended most successfully. And I assure you, my
friends, you will then in the great joy of your hearts
keep Epiphany, the feast of the three kings. You will
open your treasures and give the goodliest of them
all in one great Act of Faith. Your trading with
the one talent will have made it ten talents. Had
you kept it laid up in a napkin you would have been
cast forth into the outer darkness. So greatly prom-
ise and threaten the Scriptures.
No one has a right to complain of a little light on
religious subjects, if, on duly using that little, he
can have more, and so on indefinitely. Men do
complain of it. It seems mysteriously hard that on
120 USING PRESENT LIGHT.
such momentous topics as belong to religion it should
be left possible for man to have such dim and par-
tial views as prevail. Say the Scriptures, What is
there hard in it ? It does not cut you off from any
degree of knowledge to which you may choose to
aspire. All it does is to condition success on exer-
tion and good behavior. Is there anything to com-
plain of in this ? Do not parents, employers,
rulers do the same thing every day without censure ?
It is best for you to eat spiritual bread by the sweat
of your faces. It is best that your theology be a
moral discipline in the getting as well as in the en-
joying. To succeed well in learning the lessons of
religion you must work, work with an honest pur-
pose to find the truth, work with the truth already
known as your instrument, work after such a mode
as is in itself fitted to discipline your degraded and
sinful nature back into the noble type which origi-
nally belonged to it. You ought to be thankful for
such a provision. It bears on its face plain marks
of the wisdom and benevolence of its Author.
So the Bible proposes and surely your reason
does as much that you follow the star. If you
embrace the proposal, you are like persons who
have lost their way in a cavern of great length.
After groping for a while in utter darkness they dis-
cover far away a faint gleam of light. They are
glad, for they know that there is the spot where their
prison opens up into glorious day. All they have to
do is to set and keep themselves in motion toward
APPLICATION. 121
it. It costs them trouble to advance among slippery
and broken rocks ; but they have it for their en-
couragement that their condition is improving with
every step they take. The light, as they use it,
steadily increases ; they are every moment acquiring
dexterity and hardihood in surmounting the diffi-
culties of their way. At last they stand at the en-
trance, and look abroad on sky and field and flood
all bathed, not indeed in perfect, but in smiling and
beautiful day.
Let me hope that you are faithfully trying to
walk according to the light you already have !
VIII.
THIRD CONDITION-
PATIENT DIRECT SEEKING.
VIII. THIRD CONDITION PATIENT DIRECT
SEEKING.
1. THE METHOD . .125
2. THE METHOD JUSTIFIED 13!
3. THE METHOD URGED 14!
4. THE METHOD ACCEPTED 143
THIRD CONDITION PATIENT DIRECT
SEEKING.
"\^OU are wanting in faith. You have concluded
-- to try the reasonable Bible Way for meeting
that want. On examination it seems to you, I will
suppose, that you have already met the first two
conditions of that Way ; that you have a sincere
wish to know the truth, and are actually using such
religious truth as you already have. Then ask
finally whether you will meet the remaining condi-
tion, whether you will patiently seek light in the
twofold way of prayer and rational inquiry.
Let me give you the Biblical idea in regard to
this whole matter of direct seeking for blessings, as
it stands related to the Divine government. I will
give it quite from the believer's point of view. This
is what one really needs who has it in contemplation
to give the pure Bible plan for getting light a fair
trial.
See the Idea.
The government of God is such that we are sure
to receive many blessings from it even if we do not
seek them. Just as the ground drinks in the sun-
beams and dews and rains, and yet stretches out
no hand to labor and lifts no voice to pray ; so do
126 PATIENT DIRECT SEEKING.
men constantly receive good things from God with-
out the slightest effort to win them. Were we to
have no gratitude, and even blaspheme heaven for
its gifts, still they would come. The Mysterious
One would treat us just as He does the desert.
Yonder expanse of sand yields not a blade of grass,
not a cup of water ; and sometimes its fevered
bosom breathes up pestilential airs into heaven.
But the dews settle on the thankless and hostile
waste even as on Hermon. God waters it abun-
dantly with His showers, even as He does the plain
of Sharon and the ridges of the corn-field. The
vitalizing sun darts on it the same genial light and
warmth which make green the pastures of Bethle-
hem and purple the vineyards of Engedi.
And what follows ? Are seekers and no-seekers
on equally good footing with the government of
God ? Shall we say, What is the Almighty that we
should serve Him, and what profit should we have
if w r e pray unto Him ? Far from it. Though we
shall have many blessings from God without seek-
ing, it is still best to seek. He who seeks not will
obtain much, he who seeks will obtain more. Kind
to all, the providence of God will be kindest to
those who go personally and knock at His treasury
for what they need. There are many Sauls to whom
it is given to reckon their prizes by thousands ; but
the Davids who reckon by tens of thousands are
those few, who, remembering that all their springs
are in God, direct their eyes and steps to the hills
whence cometh their help.
THE METHOD. 127
Look at the farmer in his field ! Do you see him
working toward harvest with one hand ? What
breadth and brawn and grasp are in that right hand;
how peacefully and steadily that single knot of com-
pact and straining muscles could apply itself to the
hoe or the plough or the scythe ! But still through
all the labors of the year the brawny right shall
have help from the brawny left ; and to both shall
be due the success of full barns after harvest.
Seeking blessings from God usually consists of two
parts prayer and direct effort to realize the bless-
ings in the line of second causes. These are the
two hands, the right and the left, with which the
search must be prosecuted. For example, you want
the blessing of clear knowledge on the main relig-
ious questions. What shall you do but both ask
the at least possible God for light, and study to
gather light by rational inquiry ! Though you can
pray powerfully, prayer alone will not answer.
Though you can study powerfully, study alone w r ill
not answer. The two strong hands must work to-
gether toward the desired result ; must combine in
that searching which issues in the finding.
Sometimes the blessing is reached after an ex-
ceedingly brief seeking. We have to lift but one
prayer and strike but one blow, and the work is
done. While we are yet speaking for the first time,
God hears ; and while we are yet doing for the first
time, lo, God's answer, like Peter, is knocking at
the gate ! Does the sinner wish to open his heart
128 PATIENT DIRECT SEEKING.
to Christ ? One honest struggle with himself and
one upward casting of the eye for help, may suffice
to roll back on its rusted hinges the iron gate which
for a lifetime Christ has rapped in vain. Does the
Christian wish the conversion of his friend ? One
faithful appeal to that friend's conscience and one
humble appeal upward, may suffice to change the
sinner into a Christian. Does the man troubled
with unbelief wish to have day let in on the Evi-
dences? One earnest cry heavenward and one com-
prehensive sweep of an alert eye around, may dis-
cover at once the magnificent total of God, His Son,
and His Word. So brief is that double-handed seek-
ing sometimes required for the finding. As the first
cast of the net sometimes fills it with the treasures of
the sea; as the first shaft sunk by the adventurous
miner sometimes brings him to crystal waters or yel-
low gold ; so the first effort made prayerfully for the
Fundamental Light may bring it to you, even before
the voice of the prayer has died away on the ear, and
the vibration of the stroke has ceased to tremble
along the muscle. " Hear me," said Elijah when
he had built his altar, " O Lord, hear me I " And,
quick as thought, the fire of the Lord flashed re-
sponse from a blue heaven and consumed the very
altar-stones on which the prophet would fain see
some sign of Divinity.
Though the seeking is sometimes thus promptly
successful, yet immediate success in full measure can
seldom or never be counted on with any confidence.
THE METHOD. 129
Though the object sought be altogether and mightily
desirable, and though it be sought after the most
unexceptionable manner with deep sincerity,
earnestness, and free outlay of labor in all appro-
priate directions yet we are never justified in con-
cluding that we shall reach it immediately on our
first effort. It is true we may ; but there is no
promise to that effect. We have many and great
promises to a proper seeking of proper objects ; but
as to the moment when success shall come, nothing
is said. On this point God holds himself in reserve.
The st't'king must be patiently followed up. The
prayer must be repeated, the direct effort in the line
of second causes must be repeated, until such time
as infinite wisdom shall see fit to bestow the blessing.
That time may be to-day, or next week, or next year.
The law of the promise is, Seek till you find ; Knock
till it is opened ; Imitate the importunate widow ; Re-
member that God is the rewarder of them who dili-
gently seek him ; Search for wisdom as for silver and
dig for it as for hid treasures. In accordance with
this is the testimony of David : " I waited patiently for
the Lord and He inclined to me and heard my cry."
And in accordance with it has been a multitude of
more recent experiences. How many beseech and
struggle months and years for moral victories for
themselves or others ere gaining them ! So for
light on questions of doctrine the current expe-
rience is that it follows patient seeking, Even as the
husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the
130 PATIENT DIRECT SEEKING.
earth, and has long patience for it, till he receive
the early and latter rain ; so, very often, men must
wait on God in a long course of mingled prayer
and labor before they can fill their bosoms with the
ripened sheaves of the blessing they seek. Indeed,
time is found to be an important element in almost
all enterprises. Blessings coining as soon as we have
lifted hand and voice for them are the rare excep-
tions. They are uncovenanted. Beginners in re-
ligion are apt to take a different view. To their
slender knowledge of the Scripture, its promises to
prayer and seeking seem very unconditioned ; as if
we have nothing to do but to utter one fervent pe-
tition and give one hearty wrench on the powers of
Nature to put the truthfulness of God under obli-
gation to fulfill our desires. But advancing knowl-
edge shows them their mistake. They learn to take
account of the very reasonable and usual limitations
implied in the nature of the subject, in the connec-
tion, and in the general scope of the Scriptures.
They find that all the promises are given to perse-
vering seekers. Patient diligence is seen to be
the only sure key to Divine treasures. Would they
realize the being and government of God ? Would
they say with mighty conviction to Jesus, " Rabbi,
we know that thou art a teacher come from God ?"
Would they have a quick, bold faith in the Scrip-
tures as an infallible and complete Divine Message ?
Surely there is a promise and a way for them ; but
instead of finding it a way which a single step will
THE METHOD JUSTIFIED. 131
finish, they find it paved with days and weeks ; and
instead of unloosing into heaven one strong-winged
prayer and so prospering to the top of their bent,
they prosper only by dispatching through the sky
messenger after messenger in long procession, like
files of autumn-birds departing in search of summer.
You see at once that this way of granting bless-
ings will often make men prize them more highly.
It is not always true that what is cheaply gained is
little valued ; and that on the contrary what costs
us much comes to hold a high place in our estima-
tion. Yet it cannot be denied that it is often so.
In very many minds this is evidently the prevailing
law ; and in all minds, at times, it exerts a very im-
portant influence. Now this fact may sometimes be
sufficient to justify God in requiring patient seeking
as the condition of finding. The Searcher of hearts
sees that were He to grant the object sought on the
first application, or soon, the seeker would never
take it so closely to his heart as it deserves and
needs. He would look on it with a comparatively
indifferent eye. He would neglect and scatter it,
somewhat as the young man sometimes does the es-
tate which came to him through no care and toil of
his own. But should he reach the blessing on the
path of long and arduous prayer, by the strivings
of weeks and months with God and himself, then
it would be to him a pxejcious thing. He would
watch and rejoice over it as the miser does over the
jewel which he has traveled half round the world
132 PATIENT DIRECT SEEKING.
to find. Now, it is very necessary that a man
think much of the great and precious religious
light for which he asks ; very necessary that the
clear views of God, of His Son, and of His Word
for which he tries be greatly prized and care fill ly
kept ; and God, who knows the man and bis cir-
cumstances thoroughly, may see that there is no
way of securing this high esteem and careful cher-
ishing so good as that of making him look upward
for the blessing with a persevering eye, and labor
for it with a persevering hand. This may be one
reason why God puts him under the unpleasant
regimen of delay. It is not that the Father above
is fond of laying burdens on men. It is not that
He has a selfish vanity to gratify in seeing you come
humbly knocking at His gate day after day, and in
making you wait His good pleasure. But it is that
you may have the greater profit in the end that
you may so prize the blessing when it comes as to
make the most of it.
You also see at once that the way of patient seek-
ing may itself involve q, very valuable moral disci-
pline and culture. It learns one patient self-con-
trol ; it holds him to honesty of purpose and steadi-
ness of religious effort ; it keeps him in contact with
the idea of God, of His government, and of his own
dependence on it, as being at least so many gigan-
tic possibilities. There is w r holesome restraint here.
There is vast impulse here in wholesome directions.
Here are precious and elaborate cultures more
THE METHOD JUSTIFIED. 133
precious and elaborate than any ever insisted on in
the schools, than any that ever turned clown into
philosopher, than any that ever brought forward
tropical gardens of orange and palm in arctic lati-
tudes. For here is a daily exercise of sincerity of
heart, of religious sensibility, of industry in religious
directions, of a sense of the Biblical Religion as
being at least an august possible truth with its many
implied duties. So the whole character is stressed
toward virtue. So the roots of all goodness are
O
made healthy and strong. So by the continuous
waving of the slender sapling it gradually comes to
strike itself strongly into the soil, and thickens and
shoots greenly upward night and day into a stately
pillar propping the sky. Who shall say that such a
result may not often be cheaply purchased at the
expense of a little, or a great deal, of prayerful
waiting ! The very foundations for virtue are of
more consequence than time. We can afford to
wait when waiting is itself so great a blessing.
Very often no moral self-control whatever is re-
quired in asking God once to grant a certain wish,
and in smiting Horeb once with our rod in search
of water. The self-control would lie in not doing
it. But to keep smiting the flint and appealing to
heaven with unflagging diligence till success may be
pleased to come, however long it may tarry this
is really putting the bit into the wild horse's mouth,
and breaking him to systematic and useful service.
The world says to the new seeker, Give up your
134 PATIENT DIRECT SEEKING.
search ; it is burdensome, and after all will come to
nothing. Invisible tempters say to him at both
ears, Give it up ; it is burdensome, and after all will
come to nothing. His own indolent and perverted
and i;isilv discouraged heart is ever crying out to
him from within, Yes, give it up ; why will you have
this long disquiet and all to no purpose ? And now,
if through all he holds on his patient way of the
double-handed seeking, praying with his right hand
and working Nature with his left, he is a self-con-
queror, a self-conqueror in a sacred direction. He
is not only practicing victory, but practicing it to-
ward the right point of the compass. He is learn-
ing how holy fields are won. He is learning how
to triumph at Ascalons, and scale the walls of Jeru-
salems. And every day's contest enables him to
hold his will toward high and sacred ideas with a
firmer rein and a steadier step.
Of all prayer, that dictated by some specific and
great want takes us nearest to the idea of God. It
is the only sort of prayer which gives us what we
may call contact with that supreme idea. So the
difference between one prayer and patient prayer
for the great boon of light on the fundamentals of
religion and where in all the round of the pos-
sible is there a greater, save virtue itself is the
difference between a transient and a lasting con-
tact with the most reforming and exalting of all
human conceptions. To see God as He is, would
be, in tendency, to be changed into the same image.
THE METHOD JUSTIFIED. 135
To come into His immediate sphere and presence
would be to be penetrated by a thousand sweet and
exalting influences, overflowing from Him in all di-
rections, as do perfumes from a garden full of all
sweetest flowers and spices. And to touch the very
hem of His robe awful and yet blessed priv-
ilege would be to receive mightiest healing virtue
against sin ; and the oftener we could touch the
more we should receive. Patient prayer really takes
up abode in the audience chamber, say of this
Great Idea an audience chamber full to overflow-
ing with grace and light, a very tropical land to
bring rapidly forward all rich and graceful plants of
goodness. The mere transient seeker comes and
goes, gains and loses, and has only the privileges of
a sojourner where his brother dwells as a citizen.
Every time we wakefully press our petition as be-
fore God, we earnestly take for granted His possible
being and government ; and our long seeking is
really one long exercise of this potential assumption.
How potential it is ! What great and practical
implications it has ! What restraints from the
wrong does it impose ! What stimulus toward the
right does it give ! It plainly requires of us very
much the same sort of conduct as would complete
demonstration of the Divine existence ; a sense of
which is worth more than all other means put to-
gether for improving character. Whoever goes ear-
nestly to God as possible, only once, does by that
single going quicken his sense of the Mighty Possi-
136 PATIENT DIRECT SEEKING.
bility ; but he who goes a hundred times in patient
system gives the principle the benefit of a hundred
impulses and of a systematic cultivation. On ac-
count of these incidental disciplines and cultures
involved in a patient seeking, it may be, God would
be warranted in often making it the condition of our
finding* Do not be stumbled if it is made the con-
to
dition of your finding that blessing of blessings
light on the fundamental questions of religion.
Yon also see, almost at once, that a blessing may
often do more good by coming after some delay than
by coming immediately ; and that meanwhile to keep
up our desire and preparation for the blessing it
may be necessary to keep up the seeking. There
is a great choice often as to the time of bestowing a
given alms on a poor man. Circumstances may
make it much more for his advantage to receive the
sum to-morrow than to-day. The physicians know
many a sick man who had far better receive strength
to walk abroad a week hence than now. The
parent often delays a year giving his child the ad-
vantages of a certain school, and feels sure that the
delay will be all for the child's advantage. Many a
scholar has felt that the university would have been
of double the advantage to him that it has, had he
entered it a year later. Now there may be the
same choice of times for advantageously receiving
many religious blessings a choice depending more
on our circumstances than on our characters. Such
mav be our circumstances that we had 'better receive
THE METHOD JUSTIFIED. 137
even a spiritual blessing a month hence than now.
For example, you wish clear light on certain grav-
est religious questions say that mighty trinity of
them looking toward God, His Son, and His Word.
The clear light you wish may do you more good
by coming after some delay than by coming on the
instant. How do you know but that your case is
altogether like that of the young man whom it is
best to keep away from the university a year longer ?
That delayed privilege will prove a greater blessing
to him than if he were having it to-day. Not that
knowledge is not good ; not that the proposed edu-
cation is not of the best ; not that, if now possessed,
that education would not do most admirable service ;
not that if things were exactly as they should be, it
would not be better to have that education now
than at some future time ; but that, as things are, a
greater profit will come from it when circumstances
and character have been allowed to ripen somewhat.
Who can say that this is not exactly the case of
you doubters, seeking the removal of your doubts?
It is really an education that you are seeking the
very highest. And think it not strange to hear
that there may be a choice of times for graduating
this education at the greatest, though least visible,
of universities.
A teacher is asked for the answer to a certain
problem. He can give it at once. In exceptional
cases he will do so. But in most cases he thinks it
not best. He- gives the child a grain of light, and
138 PATIENT DIRECT SEEKING.
sends him back with it to his desk to pore over the
problem* From time to time he gives additional
light-grains, as they are applied for and as the solu-
tion advances ; until, at last, after many applications
and many helpings, mingled with constant effort of
his own, the child sees his way clear to the answer.
Do we blame the teacher because, as a rule, he
chooses to give the answer in this way of patient
seeking ? We commend him. We know the child
prizes the knowledge all the more ; it is more truly
and familiarly his own ; and in gaining it he has
gained a most valuable discipline and culture.
A college is asked for its crowning instructions
and honors. It can give them at once, and will do
so in special cases for cause shown. But its plan
for most is to bring them forward by a graduated
course in which the college shall spread out its
helps, and the student his applications and studies,
over years. For years he must renew his applica-
tion for instruction daily at a recitation room, where
he will work and where the teachers will assist. So
he will gradually mount by a succession of applica-
tions and helps and studies to the highest degrees
and privileges of the college. Is the college blamed
for having such a plan ? By no means. In this
way, say we, the seniorities and diplomas of the in-
stitution will commonly best come, will be the
most prized, will do the student most good and
the public most service. The gradual discipline and
culture of that long procession of mingled applica-
THE METHOD JUSTIFIED. 139
tions and aids and studies will be invaluable to him.
It is bis education.
A man wants tlie higher posts and honors of the
State. The State can grant them at once does
so in cases of extraordinary merit or public crisis.
But its rule is, Present yourself daily at this pol-
ytechnic school for aid, apply yourself faithfully
to such tasks as may there be given, and take pro-
motion step by step according to the zeal and faith-
fulness you show. Then do the same at this bureau
or in that camp. So by degrees the striving scholar,
in this way of daily application and daily help and
daily labor, mounts through cadetships and captain-
cies of many grades to the baton of a marshal or the
portfolio of a privy counselor. This prize was in
his thought from the first. From the first it was a
prize which the empire was willing he should have,
if worthy. But he must have it in this way of
patient seeking. Is the empire blamed? Not at
all. Only praise is heard. It is felt that this is the
natural way of bringing forward men to great posts.
By it the training keeps pace with the acquisition.
The individual is better improved while the country
is better served. The final success is all the more
highly prized and effectively used on account of its
tardy coming. And the nation and the press break
forth into eulogy over the liberal views and wise
prevision and large-thoughted policy that established
such a method. The youth are glad at their splen-
did opportunities and magnanimous emperor. What
140 PATIENT DIRECT SEEKING.
could they reasonably ask more ? Here are the
rungs of the ladder offered to every foot, and there
shall be a patient helping for every step of the pa-
tient climbing. They are more than satisfied. And
then it is possible that any given aspirant may,
through some special grace of events, suddenly rise
by one grand uplift from the bottom to the topmost
round of honor. Has no humble page been unex-
pectedly knighted on the field of battle ? Has no
Joseph, fresh from prison, gone forth viceroy of
Egypt? Has no Daniel, just out of mortal peril,
been made president of princes and ruler over the
whole province of Babylon ? I salute thee, Dupuy,
this morning plodding in the ranks, and still in
the uniform of a common soldier all red and sodden
with battle I salute thee marshal of France !
Who knows but such a bright exceptional case may
be yours, O young aspirant for glory ? But if not,
if you are shut up to the current method of ad-
vancement by patient seeking, you have only
thankful words to say. The emperor is most wise
and kind. It is an equal, far sighted, and generous
policy. Do we not begin to succeed at once, and
go on succeeding in proportion as we do justice to
our opportunities ? What more utterly reasonable ?
So ambitious parents feel, so feels all France, and
so the whole fair-minded world. Why, here is
England to-day soliciting praise and getting it, for
doing far less for having at last concluded to grant
her posts of honor, without respect of persons, on a
THE METHOD URGED. 141
plan of patient seeking without the patient helping.
And we begin to hear among ourselves the first out-
cries for a similar system. Could we learn to-day
that such a system has been fairly adopted, and that
henceforth no public post will go by mere patron-
age and party policy and demagogism, but by
courses of application and labor in the direction of
preparation for those posts, we should feel that a
new day has dawned on the land. The golden
age of politics has arrived. All sensible friends of
the country approve. All worthy aspirants to pub-
lic honors more than approve. And yet the State
provides no instruction, but leaves everyone to help
himself to qualifications as he best may. What if
it should step in with a long succession of positive
aids to match and reward your long succession of
honest endeavors !
So, men of dim views in religion, do not com-
plain of the Scripture way of turning your twilight
into full day. This way is as old as mankind. It
is befriended by ages of experience. It has its roots
in a profound knowledge of human nature. It is
the King's Own of judicious teachers, of the higher
education, and of the most advanced government.
It is the 'beau ideal of these times in matters secular.
Try it in matters religious. Here you are, with
little or no faith in God, in Jesus, in the Bible ;
and that Bible comes to you proposing to give any
amount of light in the way of patient praying and
inquiring. It guarantees success. The plan is
142 VA TIE XT DIRECT SEEKING.
utterly reasonable. It stands strong in the theory
and business and history of the world. It is com-
mercially sound. What if you have to persevere a
little or much at your labor on so great a matter?
The result will more than pay for the outlay, what-
ever that may be. But you are not to wait long
for some light. You may not have to wait at all for
even meridian splendors ; but the glory may come
to you in sudden outburst, as highest honor some-
times comes to lowly soldier or civilian. At the
very least, your case is to begin improving from the
time you begin the double-handed seeking. And
you are to reach a true faith in all fundamental
things just as soon as you become truly virtuous
persons. It is only the sublimer measures of faith
the assurance, the mountain standing strong, the
foundations of the everlasting hills that may call
for the long courses of seeking. But then these
sublimer measures are so precious that no price is too
great to be paid for them. Pay all the patient seek-
ing that may be necessary. Pay months and years
if need be. Chronic doubts may require chronic
relieving. But of this be assured you will not
have to go far toward the east before meeting at
least the dawn. Ascend to the hill-top and I ven-
ture to believe that you can see the morning even
now. And Oh, what a beautiful morning it is ! So
richly toned, so variously and exquisitely painted,
so pregnant with the glory of the coming sun I
What encouragement to go forward, every step
WELL? 143
treading in new brightness, every uplift of the face
detecting a new whiteness on the landscape ! What
prophetic eloquence, and almost song, in those mag-
ical and now fast-shifting colors ! See, the sun ap-
pears ! And a long time before that sun shall stand
directly over your heads, and flood with light every
nook and corner of your landscape, it will be plain
to you that everything is moving surely on to mid-
day. How steadily the morning grows ! How
steadily the great orb ascends ! The laws of
Nature are evidently drawing at that radiant car.
Evidently they are drawing along the arc that goes
straightest to the zenith. They will surely arrive.
And then, amid the glorious noon of faith, you shall
shine and rejoice and say with the supreme satisfac-
tion which many have felt before you, and are feel-
ing to-day, all over the world, We speak that we
do know and testify that we have seen.
May I not hope that you are ready for the
patient direct seeking ; and that, with cordial
prayer for light keeping pace with every step of the
intellectual effort, you will now join me in cordially
examining a few of the many Evidences of the
Biblical Religion ?
IX.
PRESUMPTIONS.
IX. PRESUMPTIONS.
t. FIRST ASPECT H7
2. AVOWED PURPOSE I 5
3. PROPOSED MEANS *5 l
4. PRECEPTS '5 1
5. FACTS AND DOCTRINES 153
6. LITERATURE l6o
7- ADAFFATIONS I&2
8. EFFECTS l68
9. FRIENDS 174
10. FAITH AND VIRTUE 1 75
11. OTHER RELIGIONS 177
12. ALTERNATIVE 179
PRESUMPTIONS.
TTUME confessed that he had never read the
-*-^- Bible with attention.
An eminent statesman and historian uses the fol-
lowing language. " The Christian Faith has been,
and is still, very fiercely and obstinately attacked.
How many efforts have been, and are still, made ;
how many books, serious or frivolous, able or silly,
have been, and are, spread incessantly in order to
destroy it in men's minds ! Where has this re-
doubtable struggle been supported with the greatest
energy and success, and where has the Christian
Faith been best defended ? There where the read-
ing of the Sacred Books is a general and assiduous
part of public worship ; there where it takes place
in the interior of families, and in solitary meditation.
It is the Bible, the Bible itself, which combats and
triumphs most efficaciously in the war between in-
credulity and belief."
These words of M. Guizot are time. The Bib-
lical Religion is the strongest among those who are
best acquainted with it. Accordingly, I think it
will greatly help you to judge of the claims of this
Religion if you will join me in a rapid survey of
some of its leading features.
148 PRESUMPTIONS.
1. The Biblical Religion is one.
The same God, the same way of living, the same
fundamental doctrines in all directions, are taught,
though with different degrees of clearness, in all
parts of the Bible. It is true it has different writers.
It is true it has an Old Testament and a New, a
Mosaic Economy and a Christian. But really these
are the same thing in different stages of develop-
ment. The one is the dawn, the other is the noon.
The one is the child, the other is the man. The
one is the sapling, the other is the ripe cedar of Leb-
anon out of which temples are made. This is the
Christian account of the matter ; and every toler-
able reader of the Bible knows it to be just. There
is no more appearance of conflict between its differ-
ent books than there is between the different chap-
ters of the same book. Besides, the New Testa-
ment vouches for all the Old. So that one cannot
be an intelligent believer in Christ without being
also a believer in the earlier records which He in-
dorses. Whatever is said in favor of Christianity
is really so much said in favor of the whole Biblical
Religion which Christianity professes to fulfill. The
two are practically one.
2. The one Biblical Religion is truthlike in its first
aspect.
As soon as you come into the presence of some
men, and look in their faces, and hear them speak,
y.ou feel drawn to them. By a subtle understand-
ing which you can hardly explain, but which is very
FIRST ASPECT. 149
satisfying, you are convinced that they are strong
and high and good. You need no laborious trial
of them. Their very way of carrying themselves
flashes to you a sudden sense of their worth. Well,
some of us know something of this feeling when we
come into the presence of the Bible. It is so truth-
like. It does not look and speak like an impostor.
Its face is so frank, its eye so genuine, its whole
carriage so ingenuous and sound-hearted. How
simple, direct, and circumstantial are its narra-
tives ! How full of coincidences which could not
have been designed near a hundred between the
epistles and history of Paul alone and yet how
careless of merely verbal and formal inconsistencies
which only try the fairness of an interpreter ! How
unsparingly they tell the weaknesses, sins, and mis-
fortunes of favorite characters, best friends, and
own countrymen; and who but honest Jews, to
whom truth was a sacred thing, would ever have
told such a story as we have in the Bible of the
checkered misbehavior and chastisements of the
Jewish people, of the patriarchs, of Moses and
David and Solomon and Peter ! How faithful is
the Book to the great and popular crimes bf its own
times and of all times sparing neither numbers,
nor riches, nor power, nor rank, nor antiquity, nor
friendship ! How clearly it sees that the heart is
the fountain of corruption ; and so, most unpopular-
ly and unprecedentedly, directs the brunt of its ef-
fort toward inward reform insisting on a renewal
150 PRESUMPTIONS.
of the heart as being the first step in personal relig-
ion ! How completely are all castes and classes,
save those based on moral differences, ignored by it
so that beggars and kings, sages and simple, pub-
licans and priests, are treated with equal favor, and
appear before it on one inexorable level as to the
exactions it makes, the rewards it offers, and the
penalties it denounces! And then see with what
a cordial air it invites examination into its claims
saying in many ways, Prove all things, Seek for
wisdom as for silver, O noble Bereans searching
daily whether these things are so ! See with what
easy confidence it gives crucial tests of itself in its
promises; especially in its promise of faith to all per-
sons conscientiously living, sincerely praying, and
patiently inquiring ; or, if you will have it at the
shortest, to all persons who will intelligently under-
take a thorough reform of heart and life. Then
light shall begin to stream in. Then the soul shall
begin consciously to move toward the mouth of its
cavern. And, if the process which begins to give
light is continued, it shall at last bring the lost one
out into clear day. Such is the engagement. Who
cannot test it ? The Bible frankly commits itself to
stand or fall by this plan of inquiry. Does not all
this look straightforward, honest, consciously truth-
ful ?
3. The Biblical Religion is noble in its avowed
purpose.
It declares man an undone being in character and
PURPOSE MEANS PRECEPTS. 151
prospects ; and declares it to be its mission to rescue
him, without respect of persons and over all the
earth, to pardon and virtue and eternal life. " I
came to save the world," said Jesus. u The Son
of man is come to seek and save that which was
lost," said Jesus. You see that the Religion is
not wanting in dignity of professed object. That
object, as related to man, could not be loftier.
There is nothing worse than sin to be saved from,
nothing better than eternal life to be saved to.
4. The Biblical Religion is suitable in its proposed
means.
It proposes to do its great work of saving men by
means of a written revelation whose matter and
form are both inspired by Divinity, by means of a
vast body of miracles in which Divinity Himself
powerfully attests His Word to the senses of men,
by means of an atonement in which Divinity Him-
self dies for human sin, by means of a Holy Spirit
in whom Divinity Himself steps forth to renew and
sanctify sinful human hearts. Certainly a great
system of instrumentalities ! Could a greater be
imagined, even ? It is altogether in keeping with
the greatness of the object which the Biblical Re-
ligion proposes for itself.
5. The Biblical Religion is holy in its practical
teachings.
Of course there are particular precepts to which
unbelievers sometimes take exception ; but I am
now speaking of the bearing of the Scriptural pre-
152" PRESUMPTIONS.
cepts as a whole. In regard to this there is no
question. Its holy character is admitted by even
the worst enemies of the Bible. Of course YOU
freely admit it. You know that were the biddings
of this Book fully reduced to practice by any person,
it would improve him beyond measure. You know
that were any community to obey them perfectly,
that community would be almost as fragrant and
beautiful as a Paradise. Prisons would be empty.
Courts would have nothing to do. Crime and the
O
very seeds of crime would perish. Selfishness and
all bosom - wickedness would disappear. Society
would be washed clean as by the turning through
it of a river. And instead of foulness, outward and
inward, would be the dainty whiteness of every
positive excellence. Where is the virtue that is
not enjoined somewhere in the Bible ? I have
never heard of it. Where is the amiable trait that
ever drew love, or sweetened the air of home, or
softened the ways of general society; where the
epic goodness that saves states, illustrates centuries,
and does honor to human nature, that is not bidden
in some form within its comprehensive decalogues ?
I have never heard of it. Of course I cannot go
into details. Nor is it necessary. I appeal to your
knowledge of a Book with which you have been
familiar from your infancy ; and confidently chal-
lenge you to point finger at a single vice or fault
which the Bible has forgotten to forbid, or at a
single virtue or amiability which it has forgotten to
FACTS AND DOCTRINES. 153
enjoin. It cannot be done. The spirit and drift
of the Scripture law are holy in the last degree.
The way of living it requires would picture with
mingled beauty and sublimity the face of the world.
The Christian code is the most promising landscape-
gardener that has yet offered service to the public.
Even unbelieving Bolingbroke confesses it. " No
religion," says he, u ever appeared in the world
whose natural tendency was so much directed to
promote the peace and happiness of mankind. It
makes right reason a law in every possible defini-
tion of the word. And therefore, even supposing
it to be a purely human invention, it had been the
most amiable and the most useful invention that
was ever imposed on mankind for their good."
6. The Biblical Religion, as to its doctrines and
facts, is in striking accord with Nature and Histor-
ical Antiquities.
During recent years much research has been
made in Bible lands. Ancient languages have been
compared, ancient manuscripts discovered, ancient
ruins unearthed, ancient inscriptions read. And,
altogether, much independent light has been cast
on places, customs, and events referred to in the
Bible. With what result ? At first, some trium-
phant outcries against the Book, especially against
its supposed chronology. Next, an incurable dis-
cord among the outcriers. Then, as search and dis-
cussion proceeded, trait after trait of verisimilitude
brightening out from the venerable pages, as some
154 PRESUMPTIONS.
old Roman buckler of Corinthian brass, dug up on
British moor, thickly embossed by artist and darkly
bronzed by time, gradually becomes studded with
bright points under the patient frictions of the anti-
quary. At last, thousands of agreements estab-
lished between the Record and the Antiquities, and
not one disagreement on which learned opposers of
the Bible can unite. Such has been the history.
No thorough scholar in these matters will venture to
deny it. One of the most eminent of such scholars,
after a careful survey of all the researches, says with
representative voice, " The monumental records of
past ages Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Per-
sian, Phoenician the writings of historians who
have based their histories on contemporary annals,
as Manetho, Berosus, Dius, Menander, Nicolas of
Damascus ; the descriptions given by eye-witnesses
of the Oriental manners and customs ; the proofs ob-
tained by modern research of the condition of art in
the time and country all combine to confirm, illus-
trate, and establish the veracity of the writers who
have delivered to us the history of the chosen peo-
ple." Even unbelieving Renan feels it necessary to
confess, " The striking accord between the texts and
the places, the marvelous harmony of the Bible
ideas with the country which serves them for a
frame, was to me like a revelation." Strong as is
such testimony it is not too strong. Nor Egypt,
nor Phoenicia, nor Judaea, nor the plains of Shinar ;
nor Young, nor Hamilton, nor Lewis, nor Layard,
FACTS AND DOCTRINES. 155
nor Rawlinson, nor Champollion, nor Botta, nor
Lepsius, nor Bunsen nor private explorers with
their freedom and numbers, nor public commissions
going forth with public resources at command
none nor all of these have furnished a sino;le \vell
o
established fact against the Bible history. On the
contrary they have furnished immense corroboration.
Startling corroboration in many instances. For ex-
ample, a comparison of the leading languages of the
world points to a common origin of mankind, and
that in the part of Asia where the Bible places it.
Scarcely a great fact which the Book affirms of the
race such as the original paradise, the sabbath,
the fall, the worship by sacrifices, the flood which
is not echoed all round the world in immemorial
traditions. The tombs of Egypt, the giant cities of
Bashan, the Moabite stone, great Nineveh again
brought to the surface after a burial of near three
O
thousand years, say Aye to the Scripture Record
with voice still more imposing. But all the intelli-
gible monuments and antiquities say it, so far as
they speak toward the Bible at all. Would you say
it for yourselves ? Read Thomson's u The Land
and the Book." Read Hengstenberg's " Egypt and
the Books of Moses." Read Rawlinson's " Histor-
ical Evidences."
So much for Scripture as harmonizing with His-
torical Antiquities. It also harmonizes quite as
well with the observed constitution and course of
Nature.
156 PRESUMPTIONS.
On the one hand we have the Book coming to us
through different channels and at different times ;
on the other hand we see all our arts and sciences
and civilizations corning to us in the same detached
way. On the one hand we have the Book becom-
ing more clear and high in its forms of truth as it
advances ; on the other hand we find the order of
Nature with its gradually advancing day, and grad-
ually advancing man whose narrow notions as a
child pass by degrees into the broad knowledge of
mature life. On the one hand is the Book, obscure
in parts and sometimes for the present impossible
to be understood ; on the other hand is the mysteri-
ous universe of matter and mind over whose para-
bles we are obliged to ponder long and often ponder
in vain. On the one hand is the Book, largely
capable of different interpretations and evidently
largely needing care and honesty to draw out its
true sense ; on the other hand is the book of Na-
ture with its seeming self-contradictions ; with its
variously interpreted laws of health, laws of hus-
bandry, laws of political economy ; even with its
variously interpreted laws of the most famous nat-
ural sciences, especially in the earlier stages of such
sciences. On the one hand is the Book in regard
to whose sense sad mistakes have actually been
made ; on the other hand is the book of Nature en-
cumbered worse than any attic with the rubbish of
exploded scientific theories, or of theories that ought
to be exploded astronomical, geological, mathe-
FACTS AND DOCTRINES. 157
matical even. On the one hand we have the Book
giving us what in certain places and at certain times
ought not to be read ; on the other hand we have
the book of Nature giving us what in certain places
and at certain times ought not to be spoken of. And
so on. I am confident that, however far you may
proceed, you will find that no objection can be
brought against the general aspects and implications
of the Bible which does not lie equally against the
known scheme of Nature. Still more confident, if
possible, am I that you will find no objections greater
than many which can be started against the exist-
ence of actual things.
Or look at the direct teaching of the Bible. We
find it teaching the boundless wisdom and power of
an Author of Nature : and, looking around, w r e find
a universe which, in the vastness of its extent and
in the variety and wonderfulness of its contents, ac-
cords with such an authorship. We find it teach-
ing a Divine Providence that condescends to the
smallest conceivable particulars ; and, looking about
through the microscope, we find a world whose
smallest details are wrought and adjusted with an
exquisiteness as wonderful as the economy of yonder
solar system. We find it teaching a God who at the
same time sustains and operates in all directions and
at all distances from His throne ; and, looking away
to the sky, we find it occupied by spheres of whose
shining majesty almost the same things can be said
spheres which not only act where they are not,
158 PRESUMPTIONS.
but which are able to fill every point of surrounding
space, as far as thought can travel, with unceasing
power and control. We find it teaching a God
who has a severe, as well as a tender, side to His
character ; and, casting about, we find dislocated
strata, destroyed races, and a current world fur-
rowed with famines, pestilences, and death. We
find it teaching a certain order in the appearance
of the various great forms of life on the globe ; and,
looking down into the bowels of the earth, we find
the stony records of just such a succession. We
find it teaching a profound depravity in all men,
and this depravity passing over from parent to
child ; and, looking about us, we find actual society
profoundly corrupt throughout, and the physical and
mental and even moral traits of children tending to
take shape after the parental pattern. We find it
teaching a God who in a sovereign way chooses
some individuals and nations to privileges and
honors not allowed to others ; and, looking up and
down the actual world, we find it checkered with
endless cases of the same unexplainable discrimina-
tion. We find it teaching a Divine Incarnation ;
and, looking about us, we find the world filled, not
only with seeming traditions and anticipations of it,
but with actual incarnated human beings. We find
O
it teaching the Atonement and Mediatorship of
Jesus Christ ; and, looking around, we find no end
to cases of successful and righteous mediation be-
o
tween contending parties, no end to cases of sue-
FACTS AND DOCTRINES. 159
cessful and righteous self-sacrifice for the good of
others. We find it teaching the fall, the probation,
the regeneration and sanctification by a Divine
power, the resurrection, the day of judgment, the
two after-worlds ; and, looking around, we find the
world with its visible ruin, visible probations, visible
moral revolutions and victories as in answer to
prayer, visible wonderful vegetable and animal
transformations, visible courts and prisons and pal-
aces wherever wise governments are strongly main-
tained. We find it teaching sorceries and demo-
niacal possessions ; and, looking about us, we find at
least strong suggestions of such things in many of
the phenomena of lunacy and spiritualism. We
find it teaching us to believe in miracles of great
number and variety ; and, looking about us, we
find the world stocked with wonders which no phi-
losophy can fathom, venerable with the miracles of
geology, and even proving to us great events in the
future which will be totally aside from all previous
human experience. And so the analogy proceeds.
I know of no point of Scripture-teaching which it
does not reach. From the day when it was dis-
covered that the Bible, contrary to all other books
of its time, hung the earth u upon nothing," down
to this day when we find it calling the Pleiades,
that center of revolution to our whole firmament of
stars, by a name which means the pivot, the light
has been growing ; and now the Bible with all its
difficulties is just as credible a work of God as is the
160 PRESUMPTIONS.
difficult Nature which it so strikingly resembles.
And as to God Himself, how powerfully does this
great resemblance between the Word and the Deed
suggest a common Divine Author !
7. The Biblical Religion is splendid in its litera-
ture.
Of course I do not pretend that some men do not
claim that the Bible is a very childish sort of book
in matter and manner. Ignorant men sometimes
say it. Men of culture sometimes say it, under the
impulse of a recklessly speaking dislike. But no
candid, well-informed man will say it, be he friend
or foe. You are able to see for yourselves that
there are many beautiful things, many sublime
things, many pathetic things in the Bible; that
somehow many of its narratives are wonderfully
fresh and effective, many of its poems very sweet
and rich, many of its doctrines and persuasions most
aptly and strongly put. Still, perhaps, you distrust
somewhat your own literary judgment. Then take
testimony. So you do on other matters. On math-
ematical matters you consult mathematicians ; on
matters of commerce, commercial men ; on matters
of fanning, farmers. So do in regard to the literary
merit of the Bible. Refer the question to literary
experts of the first class. Consult the great masters
of thought and expression the men who are liter-
ature ; the Miltons, Goethes, Scotts, Carlyles ; the
men whose characters or attitudes toward religion
guarantee their testimony to be honest as well as
LITERATURE. 161
competent. What say such men ? Sir Isaac New-
ton says, We account the Scriptures to be the
most sublime philosophy. Sir William Jones says,
I have regularly and attentively read the Holy
Scriptures, and am of the opinion that this volume,
independently of its Divine origin, contains more
true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, more impor-
tant history, and finer strains both of poetry and elo-
quence than could be collected from all other books.
Milton says, There are no songs comparable to the
songs of Zion, no orations equal to those of the
prophets, and no politics like those which the Scrip-
tures teach. Says Carlyle, speaking of the book of
Job, " I call that, apart from all theories about it,
one of the grandest things ever written by man. A
noble book ! All men's book! Such living like-
nesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow,
sublime reconciliation ; oldest choral melody, as of
the heart of mankind ; so soft and great, as the
summer midnight, as the world with its seas and
stars. There is nothing written, I think, of equal
literary merit."
So speak Scott, Goethe, Dickens, and others.
Surely such men, if any, are reliable critics. Who
are entitled to speak in the name of literature if not
these immortal authors ? By their mouths she ap-
proves and crowns the Bible as one of her greatest
monuments. As a mere book it will never die.
Such hight of thought, such breadth of expression,
such aptness in speaking to the great heart of the
li
162 PRESUMPTIONS.
race surely it will live and be read in the world's
latest afternoon ; and when the last ray is fading
out of the eye of humanity it will not be toward
Homer or Plato that the straining orb will be found
directing itself, but rather toward the various glory
of that one book which deserves to be called the
Book of Mankind.
8. The Biblical Religion is strikingly adapted to
the nature, condition, and leading wants of man.
In their silent libraries philosophers have set
themselves down to draw up systems of govern-
ment. In some instances they have succeeded in
producing what has reflected great credit on their
ingenuity. The paper constitution show's admir-
ably. Here is learning, here is skill, here are just
views, here is great judgment in selecting particular
laws in a word, a very fair looking theory. But,
on attempting to carry it out into the real world, it
is found to be nothing. It is infirm. It lacks
adaptation to actual life. Somehow it cannot work
among men, as men are. And so it is sent back
to the obscurity of the shelf perhaps to be again
drawn forth in distant years to show the talent of
its author, and to remind men that something more
is needed to give practical success to a theory than
great ingenuity in devising it.
Quite another character and fate belong to some
political systems. They have passed from paper to
practice. They have gone from the study into
actual sovereignty over men. Perhaps they never
ADAPTATIONS. 163
took paper or study in their way to sovereignty.
And yet what prodigious daily effects ! Here are
none of your philosophical essays, quietly reposing
in their embalmment for other ages ; but actual
engines working away most effectively on actual so-
ciety. Most effective are they but not much can
be said for the character of the effects. Like wild
beasts they are strong chiefly to devour. They lift
the few and lower the many. They swell the palace
of the ruler and narrow the cabins of the people.
And, if we turn from these effects to examine the
nature of the systems from which they come, we
find a medley of ancient customs and prejudices, of
ancient truths and errors, of ancient rights and
wrongs, of which the chief thing to be said is that
it is well adapted to give greatness to the imperial
families of Caliph and Grand Mogul.
Widely different from each of these is the Bib-
lical system. It is no mere paper constitution. As
said Napoleon, " The Gospel is more than a book ;
it is a living thing ; active, powerful, overcoming
every obstacle in its way." Nor is it a one-sided,
sectional force. It is both a plausible theory and a
great generic power. And the power is one that
looks and strives toward the needs and cravings of
A!! mankind. This might be suspected by one
Knowing only its history. In the early Christian
times it spread with immense rapidity. It came,
and saw, and conquered in many a land. Before
the first century was through it had overrun the
164 PRESUMPTIONS.
pvat Roman empire. No brute force was used.
Nay, the success was against force and prestige
and all influence and passions of an exceedingly
corrupt age. Ten general persecutions came up
against it and fell. Philosophies, acute and power-
ful, Grecian and Roman and Oriental, marched out
to give it battle and became its vassals. Institu-
tions and vices, strong in the ripeness of centuries,
frowned on its progress and were shattered. Over
learning and riches, over numbers and station, over
depravity and antiquity, over armies and emperors,
over the combination of the highest and all human
forces, that great Christian Force went forward in
steady triumph till the Roman world was covered
with its temples, till the masses were leavened with
its spirit, and till senators and Caesars acknowledged
it Divine.
What was the secret ? Nothing but poor and
despised men talking and preaching their system
what was the secret of its swift advance ? One
not prepared to admit that it was befriended by a
Divine power, will at least admit that it must have
had some strong points of adaptation to the people
of the age ; and, when he reflects on the great
variety of peoples included in the all-devouring Ro-
man empire of those days, strong points of adapta-
tion to the nature and condition of mankind. And
since those old times, what vitality it has always
shown under the attacks of open enemies, what
vitality even under the skillful stabs of false friends !
ADAPTATIONS. 165
What numbers of the worst of men in all the walks
of life has it suddenly revolutionized ! How it has
grown and triumphed in general revivals, often
changing permanently the whole face of large com-
munities in a few days ! Surely, I say again, there
must be large elements in this human soil adapted
to the Christian tree else it could not have grown
so fast ; nor have withstood the droughts and storms
and axes of the woodmen so well.
What are these elements ? On examining the
Biblical Religion you find that it is popular in form,
various in manner, profoundly in harmony with the
elementary conscience of the world, flexible in its
circumstantials while most inflexible in its essence ;
full of strength for the weak, of consolation for the
sorrowful, of hope for the discouraged, of stimulus
for the sluggish, of support for just authority, of de-
fense for the defenseless, of action for the practical,
of the seeds of philosophy for the speculative, of au-
thority for the many, of terror for the bad, of re-
ward for the good, of pardon for the penitent, of life
for the dying. These are great points. Most men
are not philosophers far from it. So a religion in
the form of a philosophy would not be suited to
them. It must express itself after the manner of
the common people ; it must put its ideas into living
forms, and connect them by the more plain and easy
principles of association. This the Biblical Relig-
ion does. It knows how to tell its story effectively
to the humblest classes. Men are very various in
166 PRESUMPTIONS.
their turns of mind. One takes most kindly to
narrative, another to proverb, another to poetry,
another to epistle, another to the lofty oration. The
same person in various moods is most apt, now to
this and now to that form of writing. The Bible
provides for this variety. Its histories describe, its
poems sing, its apothegms curtly speak, its argu-
ments enchain, its prophecies proclaim in mingled
prose and song. Man everywhere is profoundly
possessed by a sense of guilt and danger and insuffi-
ciency often covered up from view by occupation
and other causes, but on special occasions breaking
forth at the surface, like some subterranean river,
into wide lakes and streams; and always giving
sign of itself to careful observers in all the religions
of the world, and in all the leading civil economies
and traditions. The Bible echoes to these element-
ary convictions as no other book does, and goes fur-
ther with its offers of relief. Men are weak and
need strength ; the Bible offers strength to any ex-
tent. Men are ignorant toward religion and the
future after death ; the Bible offers to meet this
need more fully than any other teacher. Men are
timid of the Great Unknown before them and crave
a sense of absolute safety in regard to it ; the Bible
offers such a sense, and constrains poor Byron to
say, " Indisputably, the firm believers of the Gos-
pel have a great advantage over all others ; for this
simple reason, that if true they will have their re-
ward hereafter ; and if there be no hereafter, they
AD APT A TIONS. 167
can but be with the infidel in his eternal sleep, hav-
ing had the assistance of an exalted hope through
life, without subsequent disappointment ; since, at
the worst for them, out of nothing, nothing can
arise, not even sorrow." Men are everywhere
tempted, often very sorely, and need victory ; the
Bible offers protection and victory in the greatest
straits and against the greatest odds. Men are born
to trouble all, what fights of afflictions sometimes
and need comforting ; the Bible offers almost
any degree of comfort, and points to cases almost
without number in which it has made its offers good.
Men get dull and discouraged, and need stimulus
and hope ; the Bible offers the inspiration of un-
limited motive and royal expectations. Men are
guilty and need peace and reform ; the Bible offers
pardon, regeneration, and sanctifi cation. There
are bad men who can only be restrained by fears ;
there are good men to whom a heaven is appro-
priate and who long for heaven ; the Bible spares
neither threats nor promises, but holds up in one
hand the blackness of heavenly wrath and in the
other the whiteness of heavenly crowns. Men come
to be aged, sick, suffering, dying, and need a joyful
immortality to look forward to ; the Bible offers to
all an immortality ruddy and athlete with the glory
of perpetual youth.
I came to a young man who for some time had
been painfully nearing his grave. Yesterday he
was a skeptic. It seemed as if he would never be
168 PRESUMPTIONS.
otherwise ; his face was set like a flint. To-day I
found him a believer. How came the swift change ?
He explained. " I find," said he, " that the Chris-
tian Religion is adapted to the wants of man, espe-
cially at such a time as this." He had made a great
discovery.
9. The Biblical Religion is most salutary in its
observed effects.
I have called your attention already to the fact
that Christianity, unlike many beautiful specula-
tions, has a faculty for going into actual effect in
the world of men. Not all the effect one could
wish, most certainly ; but still effect of the most de-
lightful and suggestive character. What careful
observer will dispute Lord Bacon, when he says,
There never was found, in any age of the world,
either philosopher or sect or law or discipline which
did so highly exalt the public good as the Christian
Faith!
Yonder community smiling with order, thrifty
with industry, wise with culture, delightful with
amiable intercourse, and rich with Christian virtues
and institutions what was it once but the worst of
western hamlets ! Intemperance reeled. Profan-
ity buffeted the name of God. Daily and nightly
gambling shuffled its cards and bred its quarrels.
The orgies of the dram-shop made midnight hideous
with sounds that wrung the waking hearts of wives
and mothers and sisters. Children grew up with-
out instruction and without restraint, without prin-
EFFECTS. 169
ciple and without shame. In a word, the place was
Sodom a smoke in the nostrils of morality and de-'
cency. But a stranger came, bringing with him
the spoken Bible. He labored, now encouraged and
now discouraged, until a good measure of the funda-
mental Gospel had been put into firm contact with
the public mind. Then came a rushing, mighty
wind. Christianity fought with the abominations
of that abominable place, like some great Captain,
and conquered. Sodom was born again. And the
laborer, looking forth on the well-watered garden
where just now was the waste, howling wilderness,
sung in his heart the song of Miriam over a mightier
than Miriam's deliverance.
A great change has come over yonder household.
Once its heads were children of Belial. Brutal
drunkenness consumed the avails and faculty of la-
bor. R'^se ever the shrill voices of strife, and not
seldom the din of blows and cursing. Through the
livelono- day were heard such words and seen such
*T> v
practices as made common respectability shut its
eyes and ears. The children bade fair to outdo
even the shocking example set them. It was igno-
rance and idleness, it was want and filth, it was in-
subordination and tumult, it was hatred of man and
defiance of God, it was lying and stealing and
worse. Heaven, if there be a heaven, have mercy
on the wretches ! Can anything be done for them ?
Even the good man, who knew by experience, some-
thing of the might hidden in the right arm of Chris-
170 PRESUMPTIONS.
tianity, asked himself, in momentary forge tfulness,
as he passed that vile tenement, whether aught
could cleanse the Augean stables. Yet the Gospel
of Jesus did that great feat. It came to those hard,
corrupt hearts, and melted and reformed them. It
turned that den into a cheerful home in which dwelt
order, peace, purity, thrift, happiness, usefulness,
and noblest virtues into a monument more royal
than sculptured pyramid, not only of its own won-
drous conquering faculty, but also of its faculty to
crown all families with the highest forms of blessing.
Such effects come from a great change in individ-
uals. Christianity swept the house and the village
because it had first swept the individual heart. I
summon up to my thought a man as unworthy as
ever trod the earth. I ask myself whether there is
any power abroad among men which is able to make
new that body of death. Rejoicingly, I find myself
bidden by a thousand facts to answer, Yes. Yes,
Heaven be praised, there is a power at work in the
world which can reach even such an encyclopedia
of sin ! It is the Word of Faith which we preach.
This can cleanse that cage of unclean birds. This
can sweep and garnish that house, after having cast
out of it seven devils. See, while I speak the work
is begun. See, while I speak the work is finished.
The wretch is already a new man in Christ Jesus.
The unprincipled heart is made conscientious, the
hating heart is made loving, the sensual heart is
made pure, the heart filled with low and groveling
EFFECTS. 171
aims and affections is made to dwell on high even
o
while living below. Surely, O Religion of Jesus,
thou are not a dead letter of books, but a thresher
of mountains with an iron flail, a breaker up of the
world's fallow with unequaled plow-share, a stalwart
sower and reaper of heavenly grain on earthly soil !
Has Christianity ever been known to lead a man
into bad courses ? Did anv intelligent father ever
*/ ?
imagine that his family was made less pure and up-
right by its means ? Was ever a community sus-
pected of being made more wicked by the faithful
preaching of the Gospel in it? Never. All the ef-
fects are in the opposite direction. Not in vain do
we gather millions of children into our Sabbath-
schools, and persuade them toward early virtue.
Statistics show that the ranks of criminals are not
fed from such children. Not in vain do we gather
millions of adults weekly before our pulpits, and
urge them to that " holiness without which no man
can see the Lord." Statistics show that gallows
and prisons are not fed by such men. Not in vain
do we send the vernacular Bible to search out every
mansion and cottage in the land. It is to-day visibly
consoling thousands of sorrowful hearts. Thousands
of weak and tempted men are to-day visibly re-
strained by it from evil. It is visibly reformino-
** v O
great numbers of the worst of men, and as visibly
sanctifying great numbers of the best. It is con-
verting multitudes of dens, most dreary and wicked,
into pure and delightful homes. Indeed, the Bible
172 PRESUMPTIONS.
is father and mother of homes. Every now and
then it gathers up its forces into a spring tide, or
overflowing Nile ; and entire communities that
were black witli foulness, are suddenly cleansed
and made green as the most emerald spring. So
many of these oases has it created from the world's
great desert, that one is strongly drawn to believe
that the whole dreadful Sahara may at last be re-
covered to verdure by the steady use of the same
means. Indeed, whole countries are already largely
recovered. Great Britain and the United States of
to-day have been made what they are out of such
unpromising stuff as the wild Norsemen of a thou-
sand years ago made by the Gospel. The Gospel
has filled these lands witli schools and colleges, witli
humane and charitable institutions, with public
economies and private good, to be found nowhere
else. Historically it is so. And what the Biblical
Religion has done for these countries it is visibly
doing for other nominal Christian countries, just in
proportion as the Bible has faith and currency
among them. Even heathen lands are beginning
to shine under the same transforming power. Chris-
tianity is evidently beginning to do over for them
what, ages agone, she did for the old Roman world.
She found that world a cancer. Its gods were per-
sonified vices, its temples were brothels, its women
^were almost slaves, its slaves were ill-used cattle,
and its very amusements were brutal cruelties.
The young Christianity came abroad and speedily
EFFECTS. 173
changed all this. She renewed to its center the
standard of morals. Woman rose. Slavery disap-
peared. Disappeared the vile deities and viler wor-
ship. Common people were discovered to have
souls. By degrees vice became the exceeding
shame that it is. Virtue ceased to be valor. The
weak and oppressed found a friend able and willing
to shield them from the rapacious and powerful.
Instead of gladiatorial shows and Eleusinian mys-
teries and temples polluted with Bacchus and
Venus, came pure sanctuaries and a society bot-
tomed on the Decalogue and the Sermon on the
Mount. And from that time to this, just in pro-
portion as the people have been kept in believing
contact with the Bible, have all vices faded and all
virtues freshened ; just in proportion as it has been
withheld from such contact has society grown cor-
rupt. I appeal to history. Such results are not
only to be presumed from the nature of the Biblical
Religion, but they are historical. It belongs to
such a religion to do such things, it is adequate to
do them, they are found to vary directly as it varies,
and there is no other assignable cause of which so
much can be said. What more in our philosophy
proves the relation of cause and effect? And if
less good has as yet been done than could be de-
sired, let it be remembered that men are very de-
praved, that the habits of an ancient apostasy are
terribly strong, that the Religion proposes to deal
with free moral agents, and that the world is on a
174 PRESUMPTIONS.
long path which may gradually brighten and ascend
till it becomes a Milky Way in the skies.
10. The Biblical Religion is widely accepted by
great and good men.
It has met with success in high quarters. It has
commended itself to men of the widest understand-
ings, the most accurate and extensive culture, the
most careful and exhaustive investigation, and,
withal, the most pure and exalted character. I see
Pascal sitting at its feet. I hear Newton and Locke
calling themselves after its name. I find Milton,
and Boyle, and Grotius, and Hale, and Brewster,
gladly enlisting in its service. Nay, I find an army
of poets, philosophers, orators, statesmen, men of
science, men of affairs men of the greatest fac-
ulties and attainments, and as good as great mov-
ing with elastic step behind its standards. A glori-
ous following ! Not of mere geniuses, you perceive
else it were a much smaller matter but of men
whose characters were unspeakably more lofty than
their intelligence. The body-guard is composed of
kings. They are the world's greatest and best.
Their brows are hidden with laurels. We uncover
before them. To their homes and haunts we go on
pilgrimage. Their very names are an inspiration.
From age to age, down to the latest, their words
and deeds shall drop sweetly from the lips of men.
Such are the men. Unlike Hume and many others
of his class, who confess that they have never read
the Bible with attention but yet presume to pro-
FRIENDS. 175
nounce against it, they thoroughly examined the
Book, and then accepted it with all their hearts.
And yet, forsooth, some affect to think scorn of the
Gospel. They venture to speak of its patent incon-
sistencies and absurdities. They venture to ridicule
it as fit only for dotards and children as I have
known men to do, whose narrow faculties and nar-
rower knowledge, if enlarged a thousand fold, could
have been insphered in the great soul of believing
Newton. What more unlikely ? The likelihood is,
that a religion which triumphantly carries the ver-
dict of such great and principled judges, has merit
of the highest order, and is able to show evidences
of the most solid and convincing aspect. When
your specimen has come back to you from the most
faithful and illustrious chemists of the age, with
their formal certificate that it is genuine gold who
shall blame you if you begin, at least, to take high
encouragement ?
11 . The Biblical Relic/Ion is acceptable everywhere,
just in proportion as men are well disposed to virtue.
Every believer will find that as his virtue varies
in degree, so varies the degree of his faith. Every
unbeliever will find that in his worst moods as a sin-
ner, he is always the most emphatic in his unbelief.
Perhaps you have not yet noticed this. But do you
watch yourselves. You will find I am right. I
have observed myself and others too narrowly to be
deceived in this matter. I am willing to carry my
assertion to your inmost consciousness and future ex-
176 PRESUMPTIONS.
perience, and there leave it. Not many weeks will
elapse before your watching thought will become
convinced of the close sympathy between your state-
as to virtue and your state as to faith. No delicate
barometer sympathizes more closely with the weight
of the air, no well-poised vane more closely with
the direction of the wind. Faith and goodness are
in the same scale of the balance. As one rises the
other rises ; as one sinks the other sinks. The ex-
perience is as uniform as the laws of Nature. So
uniform is it that one is bound to conclude, on prin-
ciples of experimental science, that were his charac-
ter to sink to the bottom, to the bottom also would
sink his faith ; that were his character to rise to
the summits of sainthood, his faith would rise to as
lofty assurance. And history accords. Think of
Rousseau, and Voltaire, and Paine, and Vogt, and
Stirner, and Heine, and La Mettrie, and Enfantin,
and many another those abandoned men on the
one hand, and those fire-spitting adversaries of
Christ on the other. tfc Crush the wretch," said
Voltaire ; and crept into the sty of the sensualist.
" Crush the wretch," said Paine ; and grew purple
with drunkenness and worse. " Crush the wretch,"
said Max Stirner; and wrote, "All which I can be
and have, entirely careless whether it be human or
inhuman, I will be and will have." " Crush the
wretch," said La Mettrie ; and wrote, " Virtue and
vice are empty words ; the chief care of a reason-
able man should be to satisfy his desires."
FAITH AND VIRTUE. 177
This on the one hand. On the other, if you find
a man of splendid and surpassing goodness, you are
sure to find a believer in that Christ whom all the
vices hate and persecute. Even if you find a de-
vout Theist, you are sure to find him as devout a
Christian. Even if you find an habitually praying
person, you are sure to find him kneeling by the
side of a Bible. All this is very suggestive.
12. The Biblical Religion, in main respects, is
vastly superior to the times from which it sprang, and
to all other religions.
We have a very tolerable account of the religious
condition of Gentile nations, from an early period
down to the time when the Bible was a completed
book. And this account show r s a wonderful contrast
between the Book and its contemporaries. It is plain,
not only that they were grossly corrupt in their liv-
ing, but that their religious theories were of a sort
to match their living. Turning from the general
run of them to the Book is like turning from night
to day. Even if one makes selections, and puts the
choicest of those old times and countries and schools
of philosophy, as to religious views and practice,
by the side of the Scriptures, the contrast is still
wonderful. It is still the difference between night
and day. I say only what is universally admitted
by scholars of respectable habits.
How came the Biblical Religion to stand so high
above the general level and all special levels of its
time ? How came so pure a system to grow out of
12
178 PRES UMPTIONS.
so corrupt a soil, a soil whose other products were
all so corrupt? How came so rational and correct
a system to issue from times so crude and. childish,
as well as abominable, in all their other religious
theories ! And yet the Bible rose from a nation
remarkably bare of literature. The most advanced
part of it is not from the hands of cultivated and
trained thinkers, but from those of illiterate peas-
ants ; for the most part, from the illiterate peasan-
try of one of the least speculative countries on the
globe. And yet scholars shall go hunting through
Vedas and Zendavestas and Hesiods, and even
through Platos and Senecas and Ciceros ; and, so
far from finding in any one book or school of books
a religious system at all comparable with the Bib-
lical, they shall not be able to cull such a system
from all others put together, much less from writ-
ings tolerably consistent with each other.
And to-day though eighteen centuries have
gone by since the last chapter was added to the
Bible, and though the world since then has made
great advances in some things there is not a
scheme of doctrine and practice, in any part of the
world, that would so well commend itself to your
common sense and common conscience as does that
of the Bible. Our own time has been largely leav-
ened with Biblical ideas. They are at large in the
common atmosphere, and are breathed by every-
body. So, when you take the teachings of some ex-
ceptionally correct infidel and compare them with
OTHER RELIGIONS. 179
the Bible, you really to a greater or less extent com-
pare the Bible with itself. That you may see what
the Book is in comparison with other systems, you
really need to go to countries or times that have
been wholly aside from its influence. But waiving
this, and allowing comparison to be made between
the old Bible and the fairest specimen of unbelieving
religious speculation now abroad in Christendom, I
know that your sober English judgment would say
that a great gulf yawns between them to the very
great advantage of the Bible. Take the very best
book of young Germany, and this would be your
feeling. I only assume that you hold fast common
sense and a tolerable system of morals. You would
feel that, if the Bible has difficulties, not a rival but
has greater. You would feel that, if there are vex-
atious differences among the interpreters of the Bi-
ble, they are less many and serious than those be-
tween the adherents of any known school of philos-
ophy. You would feel that the best of them all is
very far from being so noble in its purpose ; so great
in its means ; so holy in its practical teachings ; in
such striking accord, as to its doctrines and facts,
with Nature and history ; so strikingly adapted to
the nature, condition, and leading wants of man-
kind ; and so salutary in its observed effects, as the
old Biblical Religion under whose fruitful boughs our
fathers lived and died.
13. It is really the Biblical Religion or none ; and
no-religion is the overthrow of society.
180 PRESUMPTIONS.
Confessedly, no other of the so-called Revealed
Religions can compete with the Biblical in g neral
credibility. If we are shut up to choose between
this and the best of the others, current or classical
say the Brahminical, the Buddhist, the Moham-
medan, the Greek and Roman the choice is soon
made. In purity, in reasonableness, in sublimity,
in self-consistency, in superiority to its age, in in-
trinsic power, in conformity to facts and Nature, in
adaptation to the wants of mankind, in usefulness,
not one of them but falls wonderfully behind
Christianity. If this is not Divine, how much less
those ! So feels every intelligent infidel in Christen-
dom. Not a man among us would, on giving up
his Bible, for one moment think of supplying its
place with the Hindoo or Persian or Arabian or any
other Scriptures. But might he not supply it with
Natural Religion ? Might he not by mere light of
Nature hold fast to God, to His government, to our
responsibility to Him, and to the reality of moral
distinctions ? Nay. The same principles of crit-
icism and modes of reasoning which he has allowed
to destroy his confidence in the Bible are equally
good against the most elementary doctrines of the
religion of Nature. It has long been seen that the
leading objections against the Bible apply with equal
force against the constitution and course of Nature,
as the work of God. And it is easy to see that the
whole way of dealing that puts away the Bible is
just as pertinent against even the common princi-
AL TERN A TI VE. 181
pies of morality. With it one could as well disprove
to you the guilt of lying and stealing and murder.
That axe will cut down anything you please. Had
I space I could give you some convincing examples.
But they are unnecessary. None know better than
you, from the effect produced on your own minds,
whither that sort of objecting and caviling, with
which you are familiar as used against the Scrip-
tures, tends. It strikes at the roots of all religious
faith. And no one who allows it to destroy his
Christianity can logically save from its devouring
edge the simplest teaching of Natural Religion.
A subtle sense of this awakes in most minds as
soon as they have given up faith in the Bible. They
feel unsettled universally. And, after a while, they
are found drifting, drifting downward toward com-
plete religious skepticism. Of course men do not
often feel like giving up all faith at once. They are
terrified at the hugeness of such a lapse. So they
commonly feel their way very gradually to the bot-
tom. But the bottom is where, if spared, most of
them arrive sooner or later. The noted leaders are
there already, and the disciples will evidently all ar-
rive in due time. Their children in most cases move
faster than themselves but they are all moving.
The drift is as sensible as was ever that of any
straws to the heart of a whirlpool, or of western
stars to their setting. After a few years of infidelity
very few distinctly recognize to their own hearts
either a God or the reality of moral distinctions.
182 PRESUMPTIONS.
They may be unwilling to confess it. They may
hardly be aware of the state of their own minds. But
a critical observer will have little trouble in. discover-
ing, from many tokens, that they are really just as
unsettled on Theism and the whole theory of morals
as they are on Christianity. For now many years
I have stood and looked in at the clear windows of
such men's lives and language pressing searching
face against the panes and 1 think I know all about
the process going on within. Everything is steadily
drifting toward the complete annihilation of. faith.
And now I can boldly affirm to the inmost con-
sciousness of almost every reflecting man among
them, that he is just as far from the elementary
Natural Religion as he is from Christianity.
Neither in theory nor in fact, is there any stop-
ping-place for most persons between Christianity and
total religious skepticism. They will not and cannot
stop at Mohammedanism, or any such system. They
will not and cannot stop at Natural Religion. Ac-
cording to experience, and according to consistent
logic, they are bound to go on to total Night not
taking harbor with even the most simple elements of.
moral and religious truth. For even the doom of
these elements is spoken when Christianity dies.
From that moment they pale and weaken ; and at last
gaspingly ask to be buried by the side of the dear
dead Biblical Religion the mother whose bosom
nourished them and without whom they cannot live.
Come to the burial, ye Heavens and Earth put
THEIR IMPORT. 183
on all your sables and come to weep at the dreadful
funeral of the last of Religions ! Woe worth the
day ! It is the blackest yet seen by a world that has
seen many dark days.
Who does not know it ? The entire absence of
religious belief is repugnant to nature, at war with
all interests, and utterly dissolving to society. This
has been the feeling from time immemorial with
those who have governed mankind. And it has
even been the feeling of mankind itself. From the
beginning, men have shrunk from a faithless world
with the mighty instinct of self-preservation. And
such a world is the world's destruction. Any rea-
sonable man may know it sufficiently well from the
nature of things ; and any observing man may know-
it still more impressively from the course of human
experience. We do not need to see the world actu-
ally voided of the last atom of faith, and then in-
continently falling to pieces. Experience has a less
terrible way of teaching us. Do we not know what
would be the effect of losing all heat from our globe,
though such a disaster has never happened ? Our
experience of the effect of partial loss abundantly in-
forms us. It would be universal death. In the
same way experience informs us that the entire re-
moval of religious faith from the world would result
in mortal catastrophe. We have had countless par-
tial losses of faith. We have had countless persons,
families, communities, with as many different degrees
of it, and not a few with little or none. And, al-
184 PRES UMP TIONS.
together, the tendency of things is as clear as the
sun. We know what would be the effect of abating
faith to nothing among men, as clearly as we know
what would be the effect of taking away the sun
from the world. We know it by an induction as
broad and conclusive as ever underlaid a science.
It means disorder. It means wickedness. It means
the decay of homes and governments. It means the
French Revolution ; and such men as Robespierre,
and Mirabeau, and Proudhon, and Cabot, and Fou-
rier, and Comte". It means alternate revolutions and
iron-fisted despotisms in swift succession. It means
a horrible carnival of vice and violence and misery
all over the world. In short, it means the last ditch
for humanity, and immeasurable mire at that. The
earth would be a blot, and mankind a nuisance that
ought to be abated.
Ye who would lead secure lives ; who care to enjoy
the fruits of your labor ; who want your children to
do well ; who have not lost all regard to your coun-
try ; who are not yet become misanthropes, and
would be sorry to have the planet become an intol-
erable cess-pool fuming black clouds against the sun
till all light and sweetness disappear stand up for
some Religion. Nay, stand up for some revealed
Religion ; for the majority of men, to say the least,
must have an authoritative system with truths and
sanctions which do not need to be reasoned out after
the manner of philosophers. And this is the same
thing as saying, Stand up for the Biblical Religion.
It is this or none.
ALTERNA TI VE. 185
Thomas Paine sent the manuscript of his " Age of
Reason " to Benjamin Franklin for his judgment.
That sagacious philosopher returned it with these
words : " I advise you against attempting to unchain
the tiger. Burn your piece before it is seen by any
other person. If the world is so wicked with re-
ligion, what would it be without?"
X.
THREE PROPHECIES.
X. THREE PROPHECIES.
. 189
192
. 195
3. BAJtt LON
199
203
THREE PROPHECIES.
T PROPOSE to give an account of the fulfillment
of certain prophecies contained in the Scrip-
tures. The better to secure my object, I will begin
with a few words on the age of those parts of the
Scriptures to which I shall have occasion to ap-
peal.
Once in a while some one ventures to suggest
that the so-called prophecies were written after the
events which they describe took place. Of course
this is easily enough said. If my ignorance is suf-
ficiently great, or my conscience sufficiently small,
I can affirm very gravely that there is nothing re-
liable in the common and accepted histories of the
day ; that the American Revolution is a fable ; that
there never were such men as Napoleon and Charle-
magne ; that Julius Caesar flourished two centuries
ago instead of nineteen ; that Sallust and Virgil and
Horace, Xenophon and Thucydides and Herodotus
either were not real persons, or were Italian and
Greek monks of the time of the Crusades. 'Tistrue
men would lift their eyebrows in derision ; 'tis true
they might decline to waste argument on so un-
reasonable a person ; still I can say the absurd
things and even attempt to offer reasons in support
190 THREE PROPHECIES.
of them. So, if one chooses, he can say that the
Epistles of Paul and John were written after the
Papacy was matured ; that the books of Isaiah and
Daniel were composed after Christ's time ; that
Ezekiel and Zechariah were never known till after
the date of Alexander the Great. Nothing is easier
than such assertions nothing. The clumsiest man
can speak and print them to any extent. All he
needs in order to do it consistently is a readiness to
cast away the foundation on which all received his-
tory stands, and to admit that nothing whatever is
worthy of credit by a man save what some one or
more of his own five senses has tested.
There is no national history in the world that has
so many marks of literal and conscientious truthful-
ness about it as the Jewish. It is no flattering
eulogy, as we well know. On the contrary, it is a
grave account of a course of misconduct and dis-
aster on the part of the Jews, to read which must
have been to them mortifying in the extreme.
Nothing but honesty would have thought of con-
structing such records ; nothing but their indispu-
table truthfulness could have compelled so proud a
race as the Jews to acknowledge them as genuine
history. The man who needs to be told that nations
do not feign of themselves such histories as the Old
Testament contains, from Judges onward, is not
likely to receive any benefit from argument. Now,
these candid, severe, and searching annals inform
us not directly, but still more impressively by the
THEIR AGE. 191
manner in which events and persons are linked to-
gether that Isaiah wrote about one hundred years
before the first destruction of Tyre, one hundred
and sixty years before the destruction of Babylon,
and seven hundred years before Christ ; that Ezekiel,
Amos, and Zechariah wrote about three hundred
years before the second fall of Tyre, and all the
prophets at least four hundred years before Christ.
We are certified of these dates in precisely the same
manner in which we are certified that Hume wrote
a history about one century ago, Tacitus seventeen
centuries, Xenophon twenty-two centuries, Herod-
otus twenty-three centuries. And the works of
these Pagan authors we are confident we have now.
Why ? Because we have books bearing their names,
attributed to them by universal tradition, internally
consistent with such an authorship. This is the
sufficient reason. Just the reason, too, we are con-
fident that we have the writings of those ancient
Scriptural Jews. Certain books are inscribed with
the names of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel ; they are
such as those men would naturally write ; it is the
overwhelming and uncounteracted tradition that
they were the authors. Let the man to whom this
is not enough quit his hold of historical facts alto-
gether. The whole great Past is vanished dead.
The scenes which genius has pictured, schools have
studied, cabinets and senates walked by, and all
people quoted as incontestable verities, are a mere
novel ; which let him who has infinite leisure read.
192 THREE PROPHECIES.
Setting it down, then, as among the best estab-
lished of facts that the book of Isaiah was written
about one hundred years before the first destruction
of the city of Tyre, and the books of Ezekiel, Amos,
and Zechariah about three hundred years before
the second fall of that city, let us examine their
predictions of these events. These may be found
chiefly in the twenty-third chapter of Isaiah, the
twenty-sixth of Ezekiel, the first of Amos, and the
ninth of Zechariah. The following particulars are
given. Tyre would be destroyed by the Chaldeans ;
the citizens would extensively escape ; they would
have no rest in their places of sojourn ; the city
would be restored after the lapse of a period equal
to the life of the king who should destroy it ; this
period would be seventy years ; after a while the
city would oe destroyed the second time ; it would
be burned ; its remains would be cast into the sea ;
it would never again recover its original impor-
tance ; still there would be a time when it would be
devoted to the service of the true God ; at last it
would become a mere fisher's rock.
Such were the predictions. How have they
agreed with facts ? About one hundred years after
Isaiah wrote, Tyre was destroyed by the Chaldaeans.
The citizens did largely escape ; history informing
us that they and most of their effects were removed
by sea before Nebuchadnezzar entered the city.
They literally had no rest in the places of their
sojourn ; history informing us that the conqueror
TYRE. 193
marched immediately to the sack of Egypt, and
spread the terror of his name through all the coasts
and islands of the Mediterranean where they had
taken refuge, keeping them in constant fear and un-
certainty. The city was restored in seventy years,
and this was the age to which Nebuchadnezzar
lived ; history informing us that he reigned forty-
four years, and was mature enough to take charge
of an army when he began to reign. Rebuilt Tyre
was destroyed the second time by Alexander the
Great, who cast the remains of the old city into
the sea to form a causeway for his troops to assail
and burn the new. It has never recovered its old
consequence ; was however at one time the seat of
flourishing Christian churches ; but is now a mere
fisher's rock, and every day becoming more bare
and scraped. For a long course of years the har-
bor has been becoming shallow, and now only small
boats can enter it ; so that an engineer would say
that Tyre must remain a perpetual desolation. Not
a ruin, nor fragment of a ruin, can be found to
mark the site of her ancient greatness as says the
Scripture, Though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou
never be found again.
At the time when Isaiah wrote, Tyre was in all
her strength and glory, and for the thousand years
of her history had never once been subject to a
foreign state. At the same time, too, the Ohal-
daeans were a weak and obscure people, little likely
in human judgment to perform the feat predicted of
1.3
194 THREE PROPHECIES.
them. Observe how clear and circumstantial are the
predictions ! What a number of particulars specified !
Were these merely fortunate conjectures, these
merely accidental coincidences ? Of the hundreds
of cities which have fallen, what one besides Tyre
would all these predictions suit the Chaldiean
conqueror, the escape, the restoration, the seventy
years, the age of the conqueror, the second fall, the
burning, the casting of all the ruins into the sea,
the partial restoration, the Christianizing, the per-
petual desolation ? Even the single particular that
every trace of the city should vanish, has never been
realized in the case of any other historical city.
Tadmor, Palmyra, Baalbec, Babylon, Thebes,
Nineveh all have their mounds of rubbish, their
broken columns, or their quuuried foundations.
But not a fragment of Tyre remains. The few
wretched hovels in the vicinity of its site, and to
which its name has been given, have not a stone of
the famous city in them ; and the few fishermen who
now dry their nets on the scraped rock of new Tyre,
with the Bedouins who pitch their tents for a night
on the opposite sands of the earlier city, see nothing
whatever to remind them that here once shone the
mother and queen of the world's commerce.
Outside of the religious field I do not think men
ever ascribe such coincidences as these to hap-haz-
ard contingency. At least I do not remember to
have seen it done. But I do remember that it has
been suggested that predictions may sometimes work
BABYLON. 195
their own fulfillment. So I ask myself whether the
enemies of Tyre, hearing of the predictions against
her, might not have been prompted by them to assail
her and shape events into the predicted forms. Did
Nebuchadnezzar, after besieging the city for thirteen
years, allow the citizens to escape with their prop-
erty in order to save the credit of a Jewish prophecy,
or, for the same reason, live till he was seventy years
old ? Did the Medes and Persians break down the
Babylonian empire just at the end of seventy years
in order to give Tyre a chance to be rebuilt and
fulfill Isaiah ? Did Alexander the Great build his
causeway that the words of Ezekiel might stand
good, They shall lay thy stones and thy timber and
thy dust in the midst of the waters, and though
thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found
again ? There is but one explanation : Those Jews
were real prophets. They spake by inspiration of
Him who sees the end from the beginning, and from
ancient times the things that are not yet done.
Again, setting it down as among the best estab-
lished of facts that the book of Isaiah was written at
least one hundred and sixty years before the fall of
Babylon, and the book of Jeremiah at least sixty
years before that event, let us examine their predic-
tions in relation to it. These predictions may be
found in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and forty-fourth
chapters of the first-named prophet ; and in the
fiftieth and fifty-first of the second. The following
particulars are given. Babylon should be shut up by
196 THREE PROPHECIES.
the Mecles and Persians; their leader should bear the
name of Cyrus; the river Euphrates should be dried
up ; two gates should be left open ; the city should
be taken during a feast when all her rulers and
mighty men were drunken ; the king and his family
should be slain ; the sacked city should cease to bo
inhabited ; the shepherd should not even make his
fold, nor the Arabian pitch tent there ; it should even
become pools of water, a possession for bitterns, a
den of wild beasts and dragons and other doleful
creatures.
Such were the predictions. How do they com-
pare with facts ? Years pass away and the Medes
and Persians are actually blockading Babylon ; and,
strange to say, their chief is Cyrus. After the siege
has lasted two years, he changes the course of the
river that flows through the city, enters by the diy
bed at dead of night, finds the gates that guard the
passage up from the river neglected in the disorder
of a feast, marches direct to the palace where he
finds all the principal men already overcome with
wine and Babylon is fallen. Still the city, unlike
Tyre, is preserved. In a short time, however, Ctesi-
phon and Seleucia are built, and the citizens grad-
ually forsake their old dwellings for the new cities.
The obstructed Euphrates overflows, and makes
pools along the forsaken streets and markets. The
irrigation of the plain is neglected, and the fervid
sun parches it into a desert where no shepherd can
feed his sheep nor Arab his camels. At last a Per-
BABYLON. 197
sian king turns the spot into a hunting ground, stock-
ing it with \vild beasts. Lions roar to lions in
deserted temples, dragons hiss to dragons in vacant
palaces, the bitterns from their pools cry to owls and
cormorants in ceiled houses. Nothing but ruin to
this day one wide scene of unrelieved and affect-
ing desolation, where sat for nearly two thousand
years the Lady of kingdoms and Beauty of the
Chaldees' excellency!
Here again observe how circumstantial are the
predictions. Of course it is safe enough to predict
that any given city will fall at some time : but to
tell by what nations, by what prince, whether by
day or night, by assault or stratagem, in time of
sobriety or of revel in short, with some fifteen or
twenty specifications of circumstances such as should
never be connected with the fall of any other his-
torical city this would be a very different matter.
Suppose it were predicted that the city of New York
should fall ; fall by a coalition of Mexicans and Bo-
livians led on by Montezuma XIV. ; fall in the
course of a blockade ; fa-11 in the night when the
mayor and aldermen were at a feast ; fall by being
entered on Broadway, where the usual sentinels and
guards had not been set ; fall with the accompani-
ment of the death of the mayor and all his family :
further, that after a while the city, though left stand-
ing, should cease to be inhabited ; become marshy ;
have its mansions become the lairs of fierce and loath-
some animals, and never recover from its desolation
198 THREE PROPHECIES.
to the end of time ; I say, suppose all this were
predicted of our commercial metropolis, and you
could by some wonderful clairvoyance look down
the stream of the next thousand years and find facts
answering to the prophecy in every particular,
would you hesitate to say, This is a real prophecy.
The men who make it are counseled by Him who
dwells in the remote Future as in the Present?
What would it signify though some should shrug
their shoulders, and say that it is indeed a very
happy conjecture, one of the most remarkable of
accidental coincidences? Would you not know
better ? What would it signify though some one
should begin to descant to you on the power of a
clear prediction to verify itself? Do you not know
that such a thing would be likely to do quite as
much to defend the city as to destroy it ; that where
it would lead assailants to make special attack it
would lead defenders to post special vigilance : that
the same hint which would fix an attack on the
night of a feast would prevent any such feast from
being held, the same hint that would lead men to
take advantage of a certain neglected post would
prevent that post from being neglected ? This
argument has special force in the case of the Baby-
lonians. They were more likely than their assailants
to have been aware of the Jewish prophecies respect-
ing the fall of their capital. The Jews, with Daniel
at their head, had been living among them for many
years. Certainly the fall of Babylon and its subse-
. MESSIAH. 199
quent condition are a monument to the reality of a
Divine inspiration hard to be gainsayed ! Put the
book by the facts Isaiah and Jeremiah by Xen-
ophon and Siculus and Strabo and Pliny and the
mind says solemn amen to all civilized ages and na-
tions who have well heard the facts, as with one
voice they say, Holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost.
Setting it down as among the best established of
facts that the Old Testament prophecies were writ-
ten several centuries before the time of Jesus, let
us examine what they say respecting the Messiah.
The following particulars are given. Shiloh, always
understood by the Jews to be the Messiah, should
come before the scepter should depart from Judah ;
should come while the temple was yet standing ;
should come at the end of four hundred and eighty-
three years from the issue of an edict to rebuild
Jerusalem ; should have a forerunner strongly re-
sembling Elijah ; should be of the tribe of Judah,
the family of David, and city of Bethlehem ; should
do His first preaching in Galilee ; should announce
Himself the Messiah ; should be a man of sorrows,
despised, rejected, put to death, put to death with
the wicked and entombed with the rich.
Now look at the fulfillment. Twelve years after
the birth of Jesus, Judaea was reduced to a Roman
province, and has never since had a ruler of her
own. The temple was yet standing, though had He
appeared a few years later it would not have been.
200 THREE PROPHECIES.
From the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, who gave
the edict to rebuild Jerusalem, to the crucifixion,
are, in round numbers, threescore and nine weeks
four hundred and eighty-three years. John the
Baptist prepared the way of Jesus in the spirit and
power, the rough strength and energy of Elijah ;
His lineage and place of birth were according to pre-
diction ; according to prediction the first preaching,
the scorn, the persecution, the rejection, the death,
the burial facts which were never denied by the
early Jews.
No room here for the supposition of happy conjec-
tures and accidental coincidences ! Save Jesus, there
was no person who claimed to be the Messiah, or
suffered as such, till long after the departure of the
scepter from Judah, the destruction of the temple,
and the threescore and nine weeks of Daniel. Of
all mankind Jesus is the only person whom all these
predictions suit. Even less than the cases of Tyre
and Babylon can this of Jesus be explained on the
basis of fortunate guessing and chance agreement.
But Thomas Paine rises in his place and says,
" This is no solution of ours ; we have a better
one, most natural and satisfactory. How easy for
some Jew who happened to find himself a native of
Bethlehem, and a descendant of David, and living
about the time to which the Old Testament had
ventured to point, to conceive the idea of passing
himself off as the person predicted and get put to
death for his pains ! " But will Paine tell us whether
MESSIAH. 201
an impostor is likely to set out to personate such a
spiritual and sorrowful Messiah as the prophets pre-
dicted ? Will he tell us whether the Jews would
have despised and rejected Him had He come in
the guise of a secular and conquering prince ? He
knows history; he knows the Jews; he knows also
that Jesus of Nazareth always claimed to be only
the meek and suffering Head of a kingdom not
of this world. Let him answer these questions
to the Reason whose Age he celebrates and whose
honor he drowns in his cups. And when he is
about it, will he not tell us further, how it hap-
pened that the passing away of the scepter, and
the destruction of the temple, and the comple-
tion of the four hundred and eighty-three years
managed to occur in the life of one man ? Will he
tell us how many ambitious impostors have lived and
died like Jesus Christ ? Will he tell us what Jesus
would have gained, that a wicked man cares for,
had he gained all He asked? Ah, let this man
Paine stand up and protest by Collins and Voltaire,
that, of all pretenders he ever met with, this same
Jesus is the most anomalous and unaccountable !
Let him go further. In a sudden flash of clear
honest conviction let him declare that Jesus was no
pretender, that the laws of human nature and the
teachings of history and the instincts of conscience all
pronounce the thing incredible. I declare it in his
stead. Jesus was the veritable Christ. Those were
real prophecies which spake of him so circumstan-
202 THREE PROPHECIES.
tially centuries before His birth. Isaiah, Daniel,
Malachi, and one far more ancient than these,
patriarchal Jacob, were the inspired men that all
learned and civilized nations that ever fairly consid-
ered them have always supposed them to be. From
Tyre, from Babylon, from the Son of Mary, we
accept the testimony. The one plunges headlong
from her sea-throne into nihility ; and her last word
is, Thus spake the prophets. Another lies putres-
cent and vulture-flapped and outcast of all nations;
and the giant corpse ceases not to repeat from age
to age, in mute thunder, Thus spake the prophets.
And Thou, Son of man, as born, living, dying
passing beautiful in thy human relationships and
heavenly works, in thy crowns of goodness and
crosses of trial Thou readiest our ears with a yet
more majestic volume of sound, while still repeating,
Thus spake the prophets ! Even so, for the holy
men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
There are other prophecies nearly or quite as
striking as those which have been examined par-
ticularly those relating to the Jews, to Egypt, and
to Papal Rome. I have given three as specimens
of the whole. Examine the whole at your leisure,
and see how worthy of faith is that great Biblical
Religion, which, compacted into a unit, offers in be-
half of itself such a broad seal of authentication in
fulfilled prophecy. Such a seal validates at once
both Theism and Christianity. . It affirms in the
same breath a God, a written message from Him,
SUMMING UP. 203
and that message centering in Jesus Christ. I
hope there are none here who need this witness
in order to faith ; but I know there are some here
whose faith needs to be pushed by it into affecting
vividness and busy practice. And full surely do
I know that in view of the one argument from
prophecy, when carefully weighed, all present in
this assembly ought to be able to lay their hands on
their hearts and devoutly say with me this Apos-
tles' Creed :
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of
heaven and earth : and in Jesus Christ His only son
our Lord ; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius
Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; the third
day He rose from the dead ; He ascended into
Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the
Father Almighty ; from thence He shall come to
judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost ; the Holy General
Church ; the Communion of saints ; the forgiveness
of sins ; the resurrection of the body ; and the life
everlasting. Amen.
XL
AN
INCREDIBLE IMPOSTURE.
XI. AN INCREDIBLE IMPOSTURE.
1. THE MEN 2O7
2. WHAT TO CHOOSE 2OQ
3. THE MOST IRKSOME? 2IO
4. THE MOST DANGEROUS? 212
5. THE LEAST LIKELY TO SUCCEED? 215
6. THE LEAST GAINFUL IF SUCCESSFUL? . . . 217
7- WELL? 219
AN INCREDIBLE IMPOSTURE.
TF the Christian Religion is a mere fable, it cer-
-*- tainly is a very cunningly devised one. There
is so much coherence about the system, it includes
so many great moral discoveries, it is so incompar-
ably superior both as a theory and as a practice to
everything else of the kind that has come down to
us from antiquity, that no reasonable person can for
a moment suppose it to have had its origin in a
shallow mind, or even one of average capacity and
intelligence. The contrivers of the Christian Relig-
ion, whatever else they may -have lacked, certainly
did not lack great sense and genius. Theirs is no
ordinary fable, but one of the world's masterpieces.
Further, if the Christian Religion is a fable, its
contrivers were not only very intelligent men but
also very wicked men. Having laboriously fabri-
cated the system themselves, from beginning to end,
they were perfectly sure it was not Divine. Having
never wrought a single miracle in support of it, they
knew perfectly that they had never wrought any.
And yet these men passed their lives in pretending
to work miracles, and in trying to persuade men
that the man-devised religion was God's own. They
called God to witness that it was so. They staked
208 AN INCREDIBLE IMPOSTURE.
their souls on it. Still worse, they called their
leader in the imposture God, and paid him Divine
honor, and required all others to do the same.
They lived and died and went to possible judgment,
still clinging to these crimes. Not satisfied with
this wholesale attempt to swindle their own times
into falsehood and idolatry, they committed their
story and system to writing, and sent it down to do
what it might toward cheating all times to come.
All this they did while' having great religious light,
and while denouncing damnation against whom-
soever loveth and maketh a lie. That they did all
this is proved by uniform tradition, and by the New
Testament a book which they as plainly indorsed,
prompted, or wrote, as Tacitus did his history, and
which confessedly gives with substantial correctness
the teachings and claims of the founders of Chris-
tianity. Scarcely any language is too severe to
characterize such men. They were unblushing and
unrelenting hypocrites ; they were gross, system-
atic, life-long liars ; they were deliberate, daily per-
jurers ; they were conscious, heaven-daring idola-
ters. Their lives and deaths were one enormous
falsehood and blasphemy. If it is true that Chris-
tianity is a fable, then we are sure that its contriv-
ers must be classed, not only among the craftiest,
but also among the worst of men.
Now I have a question to ask. I would like to
know what sort of a religious system such persons
would be likelv to frame. Thev have concluded,
WHAT TO CHOOSE. 209
say, to turn religious impostors. They are now
sitting down to determine what particular shape
their imposture shall take ; what particular system
they shall try to put off on the world as Divine.
They can think of a great many systems hun-
dreds of them. Now, of these conceivable systems,
which will they be most likely to take ? Remember
they are crafty and bad men , very crafty and very
bad men governed wholly by passion and policy.
I ask, What sort of a religious scheme will persons
of this stamp choose for their imposture ? Will it be
the one most of all opposed to their governing prin-
ciples ? Will it be the system which is at once the
most irksome to their feelings ; the most dangerous
to their persons ; the least likely to succeed ; and
the least rewarding, if successful, in such things as
bad men desire ? Your quick reply is, Of course
not. You do not wish a moment to consider what
answer to give. You know at once that for them
to make such a choice as that would be as much
against the laws of Nature, would be as much of a
miracle, as it would be for a stone to move up in-
stead of down when left free in the air. Instead of
such a system they would certainly choose just the
reverse the one that seemed to them likely to
minister most largely to their passions and selfish
policy with the least risk, delay, and inconvenience
to themselves the one whose propagation prom-
ised to be the least irksome to their feelings, the
least threatening to their safety, the most likely to
It
210 AN INCREDIBLE IMPOSTURE.
succeed, and the most rewarding if successful in
such things as unprincipled men desire most. There
have been several scores of religious impostors,
among them some twenty false Christs ; and in the
whole number there cannot be found one whose
scheme of imposture plainly took no counsel of his
passions or his policy, but was at the outset, evi-
dently to himself, the most opposed of all possible
schemes to his gratifications and selfish interests.
And now, my hearers, with the aid of these
premises am I not able to construct for you an un-
answerable argument for the truth of the Christian
Religion ? It is altogether incredible that shrewd
and wicked men, setting out to propagate a religion,
and having an indefinite number of religious systems
to choose from, should have chosen that given in
the New Testament. It is impossible, as human
nature is, that such men should have chosen such a
system to propagate. For, it must have been plain
to them at the outset that of all conceivable relig-
ious systems this was the least fitted to meet the
demands of their policy or their passions : from the
outset it must have been as plain to them as day
that of all schemes of religious imposture possible to
them this would be the most irksome and dangerous
to them in the propagation, the least likely to suc-
ceed, and the least rewarding to them if success-
ful. Let me now proceed to show this.
1. It must have been perfectly plain to those men,
from the beginning, that they could not adopt a
THE MOST IRKSOME f 211
religious scheme whose propagation would be so
irksome to their feelings as Christianity.
The Christian Religion gives no countenance to
sin in any shape or in any person. It curbs all pas-
sions and denounces all vices. A life regulated
strictly according to its rules would be gloriously
pure and bright. This cannot be denied. Now the
propagators of such a system would of course be
under the necessity of appearing to conform to it
very rigidly themselves. They must seem models
of pure and noble conduct. Otherwise men would
be sure to discredit them, and could plead as
authority for doing so the teachings of the system
itself. All their lives long, with the watchful eyes
of multitudes on them, they must walk with the
most shining outward propriety. They must seem
pure and meek and disinterested ; temperate, unre-
vengeful, unambitious, uncovetous, devout ; must
seem to be what Jesus and His apostles are claimed
to have been. Now, to lead such lives would not,
indeed, be very irksome to really righteous men
men whose hearts are rich as any placer with
holy principles. But far otherwise with grossly
wicked men, such as the founders of Christianity
were, if they were impostors. To such it would
be a perpetual crucifixion. To such it would be
constant vigilance, constant self-restraint, constant
spurring up of themselves to what is essentially and
intensely disagreeable. And these Jews must have
plainly seen at the outset that it would be so ; and
212 AN INCREDIBLE IMPOSTURE.
that among all the schemes they could devise not
one would place them under such galling restraints,
as long as they should live, as this same Christianity.
A system like that of the Pagans around would
allow their lives to match freely with their wicked
hearts ; one like that of Mohammed would leave
their passions and their policy large liberty ; one
such as the Jews had framed out of Moses by
glosses and Rabbinical traditions would allow at
least their pride and ambition and avarice and re-
venge to walk abroad in open day ; but this strict
Christianity would grant them no license whatever,
and even refuse to be propagated unless they would
cut off all spotted indulgences and live the lives of
saints.
2. It must also have been perfectly plain to these
men, from the beginning, that they could not adopt
a religious scheme whose propagation would be so
dangerous to them as that of Christianity.
The Jews have always been intolerant, exclusive,
and expectant of a political Messiah. At the time
when Christianity came, it was their cherished idea
that the predicted Christ would reign in outward
glory as their king, defeat all their enemies, and
raise them to a preeminence among the nations more
proud than they had ever attained in their palmiest
days. They were wedded to the traditions which
contradicted and suppressed Moses more than they
were to Moses himself. But Christianity set itself
stoutly against all these cherished faiths and preju-
THE MOST DANGEROUS ? 21 3
dices. It gave no quarter to the unscriptural tra-
ditions. It acknowledged in the Messiah only a
spiritual and suffering Deliverer. It offered its
blessings as freely to Gentile as to Jew, and called
on the children of Abraham to recognize the sub-
stantial equality of the circumcision and of the un-
circumcision before God. Such a scheme as this,
it was easy to see, would awaken intense opposition
in the Jewish mind, especially as it included no
bait of worldly advantage whatever. And as to the
Gentile world, still worse was to be anticipated
from it. The nations were broken up into castes ;
those who held the power and the riches and the
honor would naturally shrink from the Christian
doctrine of the universal brotherhood-of men. The
nations were filled with the lust and habit of re-
venge, rapine, and war ; they would loathe the
Christian precepts of meekness, contentment, jus-
tice, and peace. The nations were idolaters ; they
would find in Christianity an unsparing breaker of
all their choice and worshipped images a grinder
to powder of the whole mythology that carne down
from the fathers, and sung in poets, and reigned in
priesthoods, and breathed grateful perfume from al-
tars, and shone in the marbles and gold of temples,
and satisfied every man with a god after his own
heart. The nations were formalists and ritualists ;
devoted to the external ; men of processions, and
robes, and sacrifices, and postures ; they would find
in Christianity the severe simplicity of a spiritual
214 AN INCREDIBLE IMPOSTURE.
worship, very bare of forms, and barer still of per-
missions to trust in them. The nations were gross
and sensual, steeped to the lips in all manner of vice,
wallowing like swine in the worst forms of corruption
and debauchery ; they would find in Christianity the
stern censor, the unsparing denouncer, the bitter and
tormenting threatener of their indulgences. u Filled
with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, murder,
deceit, malignity ; whisperers, backbiters, despiteful,
proud, covenant-breakers, without natural affection,
implacable, unmerciful," as they were such a
religious system as that of the New Testament would
chafe and smite them at every turn, would be as
distasteful to them as gall and wormwood. In a
word, no scheme which could be devised would run
so strongly counter to the spirit, wishes, and habits
of the age as this. An attempt to propagate it
would be really an attempt to tear down all that
men most clung to in the views and practices and
institutions of the times. Such an attempt was
certain to rouse against those who should make it
a storm of feeling and persecution of the severest
kind. It required no extraordinary sagacity to fore-
see for them exiles, dungeons, stakes, scaffolds,
crucifixions. What actually occurred might have
been anticipated by any sensible man an Israel
howling around their tribunals, Crucify him, crucify
him ; a Gentiledom reeking with ten general perse-
cutions, and with the life of almost every Christian
THE LEAST LIKELY TO SUCCEED. 215
leader. One could not contrive a system better
suited to rasp and exasperate both the besotted
many and the arrogant, powerful few than this very
Christianity. One could not put forth a scheme of
religion which all classes of those scandalous times
o
would be so unwilling to have prevail as this same
rigid, humbling Christianity. And, I repeat it, in-
telligent impostors must have seen this ; must have
foreseen the intense danger to which they would
expose themselves by trying to establish such a sys-
tem in an intolerant age ; while at the same time
they were conscious of being able to contrive a hun-
dred systems less repugnant to the spirit of the age,
and therefore more safe.
3. It must also have been plain to these men, at
the outset, that of all systems of religion which they
could devise, Christianity was the one least likely to
succeed in getting establishment.
It had nothing whatever of a worldly nature to
tempt people to its acceptance. We have seen
that it was fiercely at war with the prevailing tastes,
opinions, and practice of the age when it appeared.
Specially distasteful must it have been to the more
influential classes ; for their interests and privileges
were most intimately wrought into the old order of
things, and must suffer the most from its disturbance.
The rich and noble fattened on the general corrup-
tion, and rose the higher the lower the people sunk.
All the passions and policies of the time went to
fortify it against such a religion ; and what had the
216 AN INCREDIBLE IMPOSTURE.
time besides passions and policy ? There was no
element of power which Christianity could press
into its service for proselyting, save the' poor, beg-
gared, stupid remains of a Pharisaic conscience.
And if, perchance, a few under its feeble prompt-
ings should be disposed to accept the new and
purer system, what had they to expect but the
sternest treatment from the host of their less im-
pressible companions ? The first converts to the
imposture, like the impostors themselves, must lay
their account with disgrace and troubles of all
kinds nay, with fire and sword. With no miracles
to indorse it, with no sword to enforce it, with hu-
man nature against it, with society and institutions
against it, with interest and education and passion
against it, the imposture could not reasonably be
expected to make any progress. If the ship were
launched it could not sail. There was no wind from
any point of the compass, and no canvas to catch
it if there was. Some form of polytheism, with a
plenty of shows and a plenty of indulgences, might
win its way ; a Mohammedanism, with a naked scim-
eter in one hand and a sensual Paradise in the other,
might come to flourish ; even a modified Judaism,
appealing to the pride of one people and accommo-
dating somewhat the prejudices and passions of
others, might stand a chance of considerable success ;
but this Christianity, without prestige, without robes,
without force, without indulgences, without miracles,
and even without truth as a revelation what sue-
THE LEAST REWARDING. 217
cess could be hoped for it ? A system less likely to
succeed could not have been contrived. It was
doomed, to begin with. And, to begin with, saga-
cious impostors must have seen it so. In thinking
over the various schemes of deceit they might adopt,
it must at once have occurred to them that, of them
all, not one had so un prosperous and impracticable
an air as this same prickly Christianity.
4. It must also have been plain to the founders of
Christianity, from the beginning, that, of all possible
religious systems which they might try to establish,
the Christian, if established, would prove the least
rewarding in such things as bad men most desire.
What is the controlling desire of such men ? Is
it to see truth triumphant ? Is it to do good? On
the contrary it is to promote selfish ends, to gratify
evil passion in some form. Could they succeed in
establishing Christianity, how much would it do for
them in this direction ? Would it give them any
facilities for sinful pleasures ? Would it gratify their
avarice with silver and gold? Would it give them
outward pomp and political power ? A successful
Mohammedanism would do this: not so a success-
ful Christianity. This system gives a virtual pro-
hibition of selfish ambition, of carnal indulgences,
of secular rule, to its founders. They could not be
Epicureans or generals or princes, without defying
their own teachings. " But they might have great
notoriety, great respect, and great influence : and
undoubtedly bad men are often fond of these."
218 AN INCREDIBLE IMPOSTURE.
Yes, but these they would have as the successful
founders of any religion. What bad men most de-
sire is not notoriety and influence, but notoriety
and influence which they can turn to a selfish and
carnal account. And here such a religion as the
Christian would hamper and thwart its successful
propagators as no other would. It would compel
them to use their fame and influence apparently for
pure and benevolent ends: the moment they did
otherwise their own teachings would proclaim them
impostors. Shrewd, capable men as they were,
they must have foreseen this. No thunders out of
heaven were needed to tell them. As worldly, self-
ish, unprincipled men, they must instinctively have
felt that they could not establish any scheme of re-
ligion which would prove so unprofitable to them as
this as yet hypothetical Christianity. In consider-
ing what delusion, among the many delusions con-
ceivable, they should select to propagate for their
selfish and wicked ends, a single glance would settle
that no system if successfully carried out was likely
to net them so little that they cared for as the sys-
tem that now bears the name of Christ.
My argument is now complete. I have shown that
the founders of the Christian religion, if impostors,
were exceedingly bad as well as capable men. I have
shown that to such men no religious system would
be at once so irksome in the working, so dangerous
in the propagation, so little likely to succeed, and so
little rewarding if successful, as that which is found
WELL 219
in the New Testament. It is plain also that they
must have abundantly known this from the very
commencement of their enterprise. Did those men
act, not only without motive, but against all motive ?
Did they laboriously palm off upon the world a sys-
tem which they knew to be false, and as clearly knew
to be more squarely opposed than any other both to
the tastes of the age and to the objects they had in
view in undertaking it ? Let those believe this who
can. Of incredible things what is more incredible?
Believe me, there would have been no Christian Re-
ligion in the world had it been left with impostors
to announce and establish it. They would never
have taken the trouble to do it. With so many
more easy, congenial, popular, and profitable sys-
tems at hand, they would have cast this aside, after
a single glance, as out of the question. Christianity,
therefore?, is no contrivance of man. It is no cun-
ningly devised fable. Its God is real, and it is
really from God. He framed and established it ;
and we on these Sabbath days speak and hear a
Gospel that was born in heaven, and brought to us
by heavenly hands.
My hearers, you have now listened to an argu-
ment in behalf of as important a statement as has
ever been made in your hearing. No matter how
many years you have lived, nor where you have
been, nor how carefully you have sought to catch
wise and weighty words. Never did you hear a
sentence that was heavier with importance than this
220 AN INCREDIBLE IMPOSTURE.
brief one, The CHRISTIAN RELIGION is TRUE.
These few words outweigh all the arts and sciences.
In one breath they affirm both Theism and Chris-
tianity. If we deny them and keep to the denial,
if we doubt them and keep to the doubt, we shall
be castaways from God. If we accept them with
a working faith we shall inherit an eternal kingdom.
Is such faith involuntary ? Nay, it comes surely to
every one who will candidly and patiently inquire
after the truth : not in full stature at first, not at
once in all cases, not all at once often, but after a
while and by degrees, according to the honesty and
earnestness of the search. On this fact rests the
justice of making such great issues depend on an
intellectual reception of Christianity.
The Christian Religion is true. Then it de-
serves to be enthroned as a king in this community.
Every person should be willing to take the law from
it ; nay, more than willing. It should preside over
all business and over all pleasure. It should nullify
all faiths, customs, and laws which conflict with it.
Old and young should ponder it diligently and
reverently. It should be everybody's text-book.
Every home should be its sanctuary, and every heart
its royal pavilion. After its words none should
speak again, and its speech should drop upon us.
Ah, how far is it from being so ! In how many
of our families does it bear no rule ! How many
enterprises make no account of it how many
hearts are careless or averse to it ! And vet, if there
WELL ? 221
is anything great, valuable, and authoritative in the
world, it is this same system of faith and practice
which reveals Infinite God and which Infinite God
has revealed to us. None will trifle with it or neg-
lect it with impunity. None will forsake it and dis-
obey it without seeing cause to regret their miscon-
duct ere long. None will love it and cleave to it
without soon seeing reason to rejoice in their discre-
tion. God will stand by His religion. In due time
He will make demonstration of His regard for it in
every man's experience. The communities, the in-
dividuals, who honor it He will honor. They who
submit to it shall rule ; they who enthrone it shall
be enthroned. The patient hearers of the Word,
and brave doers of it, shall find that Christianity is
not cast upon the world by its Father as a found-
ling. He will acknowledge His paternity. His eye
watches, His hand guards His child; and blessed
the man who shelters and nourishes in his home on
earth this true child of Heaven !
XII.
ANCIENT WONDERS.
XII. ANCIENT WONDERS.
1. CREDIBLE 225
2. MOSAIC 229
3. CHRISTIAN 233
4. JOINT IMPORT 247
ANCIENT WONDERS.
A MONG natural events some rise greatly above
^^
others in intrinsic greatness and in the great-
O
ness of the causes producing them. Are there not
some events much greater still ?
I think so. The air of all times and countries is
filled with rumors of supernatural occurrences. We
meet everywhere echoes which might well have
been born of the most wonderful voices ; every-
where odors which might well have come from the
distant swaying of the most royal and perfumed of
queenly robes.
Nay, there are events taking place even now,
which, to say the least, it is very hard to bring
clearly within the class of the purely natural. Is
no one of you ever at a loss to see how mere animal
parentage can account for the bodies and souls that
are constantly being born ; to see how it is possible
for anything in a way of mere Nature to produce its
equal, much more its superior ? Nay, do we not
know of a science which, at the lips of the great
majority of its most gifted and trusted students,
declares that the long stretch of organic life on this
globe has been many times totally broken and as
many times renewed by that greatest of all marvels,
a sudden creation ?
15
226 ANCIENT WONDERS.
And then what a fitting preface would miracles be
to such a system of religion as the Biblical ! A grand
palace should have a grand vestibule. . A great
monarch should be preceded by no common herald.
Whatever else may be denied of the religion of the
Bible it cannot be denied that it is great. It seeks
the greatest objects, works by the greatest means,
and claims some of the greatest ideas and literature
and effects the world ever saw. Its purpose is the
virtue and salvation of mankind. It offers to secure
this purpose by a Divine atonement, and by a con-
stant miracle of renewal and sanctification in the
hearts of men through the Holy Spirit. Yes, it
would be a fitness such a fitness as we see that
Nature loves, and such as we intuitively recognize
as belonging to truth were this great temple
fronted by a porch of signs and wonders. Yes, it
would be but a graceful harmony like the accords
in music, or the symmetries of physical beauty
were this pure and lofty faith of Christendom found
poising itself, in part at least, on such a foundation
of elect and precious stones as the marvels which
transcend Nature.
But some are disposed to object. They tell me
that miracles have never been needed and so have
never occurred ; that an Infinite Being could have
so made Nature as to secure all His ends by natural
laws alone ; that He who actually secured by these
means the greater part of His ends, could, with
omniscience and omnipotence to help Him, have
CREDIBLE. 227
managed to secure by them the small remainder.
"I happen, however, to know that not even an In-
finite Being can work impossibilities in the nature
of things ; and that among these impossibles may
well be that of securing from mere Nature as com-
plete results as from Nature and the Supernatural,
together.
They tell me that miracles, in their very nature,
are amendments mere supplements and patches
to eke out a faulty system attempts to correct
what is too long or too short, too fast or too slow,
too weak or too strong ; in short, such a thing as
could never have come from a perfect Being. I
happen, however, to know that great deeds are not
necessarily after-thoughts. They may enter into the
original plan of their author, with all smallest mat-
ters. And why may not miracles have entered into
a great primal plan of creation which was never for
a moment supposed to be complete without them ?
In their nature, they are no more amendments
than a pendulum is an amendment to a clock, or a
roof to a house, or the Winter Palace to St. Peters-
burg. Did not the builder from the first propose
the whole ?
Above all, they tell me that miracles are contrary
to experience. I happen, however, to know some
things in the way of science that make light of such
an objection. Grant that miracles are contrary,
not only to our personal experience, but also to that
of all our predecessors for some thousands of years.
228 ANCIENT WONDERS.
What then ? Does it follow that they have never
occurred, or even that they cannot be known with
scientific snreness to have occurred? Nothing of
the sort. We certainly know of real geological
wonders which have never once been observed
actually occurring during the entire history of our
race, thus far ; we certainly know of real astronom-
ical wonders, sure to occur after many ages, but of
which all previous human history will not have seen
a solitary instance, but rather constant facts of di-
rectly the opposite bearing. For example. Many
ages hence the moon will begin to recede from the
earth. That will be an event totally unprecedented
in the history of mankind. Nay, it will be an event
directly the opposite of what has always been oc-
curring. From long before man, down to that re-
mote future, the moon, instead of retreating from
the earth, will have been steadily approaching it ;
and were the race on that distant day to reason
merely from what has been within its time to what
will be on the morrow, it would confidently say
that the satellite will be still approaching. But
it would be a mistake. On that very morrow the
lunar orbit will begin to expand, will do a thing
which it has never yet done in all the human an-
nals. And, what is more, it will be a thing which,
with the help of a little astronomy, might have been
known with supreme certainty. We know it with
supreme certainty to-day thanks to the great ob-
servations of Halley, and the greater mathematics
MOSAIC. 229
of La Place. And many other things of the same
sort we know geological arid astronomical ab-
solutely sure to occur, though contrary to the whole
previous human experience.
When, then, I find the Scriptures telling profusely
of great events which owed their origin directly to
Divine will and power, I am by no means stumbled.
If there is a God, I see no reason why He, any
more than myself, should confine Himself to indi-
rect action. And I think I do see how He might
draw Himself far nearer to the thoughts and sensi-
O
bilities of mankind were He to insert His own hand
occasionally in the scheme of Nature and visibly
overrule its ordinary goings, even as we ourselves
do in our small way for our small occasions. In
view of the traditions of the world, in view of the
marvels of science and of daily experience, and in
view of the essential fitness of things, I see no
reason why a broad highway is not open on which
faith in miracles may call about it abundant evidence,
and freely travel into all the high places of reason
in this -reasoning age.
The Bible miracles chiefly belong to two great
groups : the Mosaic and the Christian. Let us con-
sider these groups separately.
I. The Mosaic Miracles.
It is granted by all save the most fantastic of
skeptics, whom your English common sense would
not tolerate for a moment that the Hebrews were
once slaves in Egypt ; that they came out under
230 ANCIENT WONDERS.
the leadership of one Moses ; that this Moses
established what is known as the Mosaic Economy,
and of course was believed in as to his sayings and
writings by the Hebrews of his time ; that the Pen-
tateuch with its account of the exodus is in the
main his sayings and writings. I say, this is univer-
sally conceded by those whom vou would consider
V J /
sane men. The monuments and traditions require
it. The grounds on which our best history rests
require it. We have no history at all if the par-
ticulars I have mentioned are not history. Your
Washington maybe a fable. Your Mayflower may
be a dream. Your Columbus may be a legend.
Why not?
Now the books of Moses give us the following
account. They say that the Hebrews witnessed
ten general plagues sent on Egypt by means of
Moses. They say that, at the stretching forth of
his rod, a way was opened through the Red Sea ;
and that a whole nation actually marched by that
strange way, till, from the further bank, they saw
the crystal walls fall and drown the pursuing army
of the Egyptians. They say that a pillar of cloud
by day and a pillar of fire by night visibly led the
pilgrim host for forty years. They say that, during
this long period, their clothing waxed not old and
their daily bread came daily from heaven. They say
that, on their coming to Sinai, God came down on
the mount in foretold majesty of lightnings and
thunders and earthquakes, and spake His law in
MOSAIC. 231
awful proclamation that sounded through all the
marshaled millions and carried dismay to all their
hearts. They say many other things of a like
character.
What I would have you notice is that the en-
tire Israel of that day must have known whether
this account was true or not. They could not have
passed forty years in such a wonderful experience
without knowing it. And they could not have been
without such a forty years' experience without
knowing that too, to a perfect certainty. If no
such plagues were ever wrought for their deliver-
ance, they knew they were never wrought. If
they never went through the Red Sea as on dry
land, every soul of them knew that they never did.
If they had not been led by that intelligent Pillar
for nearly half a century, they all to a man knew
that they had not been. If they had never bowed
and quaked before a quaking and bowing and
speaking Sinai, not a Hebrew of them all but knew
it like noonday. Do you suppose the Governor of
Connecticut could persuade us that by raising his
hand he had made a dry way for us across Long
Island Sound, had actually led all our citizens by
that way, and had afterward fed us all by miracle
for many years, if he had not done so ? The events
alleged by Moses were of such a nature that the
senses of every man, woman, and child among the
Hebrews could infallibly judge of them. A com-
mon man could judge of them just as well as a phi-
232 ANCIENT WONDERS.
losopher the least among the thousands of Israel
as well as he who was learned in all the wisdom of
the Egyptians. So it is a clear case: Nothing
could be clearer. No single Hebrew could have
been deceived, much less the whole nation. No
single one of those events could have happened
without their knowing it, much less such a long
course and great system of such events. If no such
constellation of miracles ever rained its glories
about them, the Hebrew public of the time could
never by any possibility have been convinced that
it did. None but a madman would have tried to
convince them. In claiming such an astounding
history for them Moses would have made faith in
himself forever impossible ; and have convicted him-
self in face of heaven and earth as being equally un-
supplied witli principle and with common sense.
But Moses did claim such a history for them.
What is more, he told them to their faces that they
all believed his story. He made this bold assertion
over and over again. He everywhere averred
their full knowledge of its truth. He staked his
whole credit with them on the correctness of these
assertions and assumptions. He averred that the
people had accepted at his hands a religious system
because they believed in him and his miracles. Of
course it was so. It would be irrational in the last
degree to suppose the contrary. All the monu-
ments and traditions are against it. All the history
we have is against it. As sure as there is any
CHRISTIAN. 233
reliable history in the world, Israel profoundly be-
lieved in their leader and in his miraculous narra-
tive. As a sane man, he never would have dared
to put such a narrative before them had he not al-
ready known them to believe the substance of it.
So all sane critics believers and unbelievers feel
and always have felt. What more could we have ?
' Hence it is plain that the Mosaic miracles were
genuine. They were fully believed in by millions,
every one of whom must have known whether they
were real or not. And if they were real, it is cer-
tain that the righteous and beneficent religion to
which they testify, with its God and revelation, is
true. No one at the present day who admits the
reality of such events as the cleaving of the Red
Sea into a national highway by the rod of Moses,
but will also admit that those events carry with
them the entire religion of the Old Testament.
O
II. The Christian Miracles.
We find in the New Testament a cluster of mirac-
ulous accounts not inferior to the Mosaic in the
greatness of their claims.
Notice at the outset that it is granted by all
save the most fantastic and impracticable of skeptics
whom you and I would not for a moment think of
heeding that there was such a person as Jesus of
Nazareth ; that He had twelve special disciples
called apostles ; and that these apostles either wrote
or indorsed the various books of the New Testa-
ment. These are historic facts. Otherwise we
234 ANCIENT WONDERS.
have no history at all. We may throw away our
Bancrofts, and Macaulays, and all other famous and
much trusted books which offer to return the Past
for the instruction , of mankind. "I find," says
Sir Isaac Newton, " more sure marks of authen-
ticity in the Bible than in any profane history
whatever."
Now see the account of miracles given by this
apostolic New Testament. It tells us that a host
of angels appeared to the shepherds of Bethlehem
and sang in their hearing of the Nativity ; that a
star, moving as if instinct with intelligence, guided
a caravan from the distant east to the infant Jesus ;
that as Jesus was being baptized a voice fell from
heaven on the ears of thousands gathered from all
parts of the country, saying, This is my Beloved
Son. It tells us that, promptly at the speaking of
a word or the lifting of a finger or some other sign
equally insufficient as cause, the blind received
sight, the lame walked, the deaf heard, the dumb
spake, the leapers were cleansed, the paralytics
took up their beds and walked, the madmen became
sane, the sick were cured of whatever disease they
had, the very dead were raised. It tells us that at
the crucifixion the whole land was darkened and
shaken ; that a terrible angel flashed down from
heaven in sight of the Roman guard about the sep-
ulcher ; that Jesus rose from the dead, and was
seen forty days among the apostles, and, on one
occasion, by 'more than five hundred brethren; that
CHRISTIAN. 235
He rose to heaven through broad day in view of
the Twelve ; that these men themselves received
the gift of tongues and the power of working mir-
acles, and wrought them for a great many years in
a great number of specified cases, over a wide ex-
tent of country.
Many scores of such wonders are distinctly
recorded ; and we are told that these are mere sam-
ples of a much larger number. See what breadth
of statement ! " And His fame went throughout
all Syria ; and they brought to Him all sick people
that were taken with divers diseases and torments,
and those that were possessed with devils, and those
that were lunatic, and those that had the palsy;
and He healed them." Similar statements are sev-
eral times made in regard to the miracles of both
Jesus and His apostles. The representation is that
the whole land was filled with marvels. They over-
flowed into surrounding countries. They lasted for
the best part of a century. They counted by thou-
sands and tens of thousands. They lightened in city
and on country-side. They flashed on the eyes of no-
bles and commoners, of learned and simple. Scarcely
a hamlet into which they did not go. Scarcely a man
who did not have opportunity, over and over again,
of examining them personally with all his senses.
Their heavy footfall was heard near every door ;
the family had but to open and look and listen. It
would, of course, have paid a Jew to push a pil-
grimage to Gaul and Britain to come into the pres-
236 ANCIENT WONDERS.
ence of such superb events ; but they came to greet
him in his own streets, and he had but to follow
the crowd or to climb the sycamore or to ask the
eye-witness of yonder dwelling in order to have evi-
dence of them as triumphant as the mathematics.
Such is the representation/ And we are assured
that these wonderful things were far from being
done in a corner. In general Jesus allowed the
whole world to look on while He wrought. He
challenged the broadest day to help them. Shine
your brightest, O Sun ! Gather the wise and the
learned ; gather the men of theory and the men of
affairs ; gather the unsophisticated and the preju-
diced, the devout and the worldly, the populace
and the counselors ; let them all come and sift this
whole matter to the bottom ! So they came the
scholarly Rabbi in all the pride of learning ; the
honorable ruler in all the pride of place ; the bitter
enemy with his sharp outlook for imposture ; the
proud Pharisee drawing his robes more closely
about him lest they should touch the shamefaced
publican at his side ; the Sadducee with his free-
thinking ; the Essene with his dreamy intuitions ;
in a word, the great public in all its grades and
opinions and habits. And there on the thronged
thoroughfare they looked and listened as blind Bar-
timeus regained his sight. There at the city-gate
they looked and listened as the dead man sat up
and began to speak. There at the crowded city-
house they looked and listened while the roof was
CHRISTIAN. 237
broken up and the palsied man was let down before
Jesus and cured. And there at Calvary, with its
martyrdom and surging sea of people, they looked
and listened and felt as night came up at midday,
and the ground shook beneath them at the majestic
tread of the earthquake.
We are so familiar with this story that we are
apt to miss the sense of its exceeding greatness. It
is easy for you to read without emotion the oft-read
account of the Nain widow's child, or of Lazarus
bewailed of sisters ; but could you actually stand
by the bier which a word is shaking with the throes
of resurrection, or by a cave whence swaddled
death comes promptly forth at the word of com-
mand, you would hardly be able to keep back your
exclamations of wonder and awe. Depend upon
it, these are wondrous accounts. You must try to
transfer yourself to those distant times. You should
gather about you in idea the living circumstances
under which almightiness is said to have stepped
forth to its work. You should, as it were, hear
with your own ears the inadequate utterance and
the hot tramp of the mighty result. Then would
your dull conceptions be roused and empowered as
was that ancient Lake of Gennesaret by the descent
of the storm upon it. Looking as through your
own eyes, you would better take in the huge pre-
tensions of the Scripture narrative as it tells of
lame men leaping as the hart ; dumb tongues sing-
ing ; deaf ears waking up to a gospel of sweet
238 ANCIENT WONDERS.
sounds and the voices of kindred ; blind eyes that
had rolled sightless from birth drinking in with
passionate joy the bright aspects of Nature and the
loving looks of parents and children ; dead bodies
in which decay had already proclaimed itself, quick-
ened anew with the mystery of life and soul, and
going forth among men with the old potential step
of manhood in its prime as it tells of such events
forthspringing with glorious promptitude at the
feeblest natural signal, and with a profusion and
overtness that spoke to the whole land and age.
Now what I have to say is and I say it with
supreme confidence that such an account of such
events as these could not by any possibility have
been believed, either by the Jewish public of that
day or by the apostles, much less by both, had it
been altogether false.
Just think of it. A boat holding Jesus and his
twelve disciples was crossing the Sea of Galilee.
The sky darkened, the winds rushed, the waters
were lashed into great billows and raged about
the little" company with terrible outcry. The skiff
reeled. It sprang madly aloft, and plunged as if
never to rise again. The water came pouring in.
The reverence of the disciples for their sleeping
master could hold them back no longer. They
O t
awoke Him with, Lord, save us, we perish. Then
stood up Jesus and looked calmly forth. At His
feet clung the quaking disciples, around Him sky
and sea were mingling in stunning uproar, beneath
CHRISTIAN. 239
Him the boat was gradually settling under the
wave. Then rose His voice clear and imperative
above the storm, Peace, be still. At once all was
quiet. The shouting voices of the elements ceased.
Ceased the perilous uplift of the sea ; ceased the
swift march of the tornado. But a murmur, a rip-
ple, a zephyr, survived the utterance of that mas-
tering sentence. The saved boat again moved
serenely on its way ; while the saved disciples
whispered to each other in amazement and awe.
What manner of man is this that even the wind
and sea obey him ?
Such is the account given by these disciples. Are
the facts alleged such as it was possible for them
to be deceived in ? Could they help knowing
whether they were out in a violent storm on the
Sea of Galilee ? Could they help knowing whether
Jesus used the words attributed to Him ; and
whether, immediately on their being spoken, all em-
broiled Nature sunk into complete hush ? Might a
single man of them, by any possibility, mistake in
such matters as these, with at least three senses
brought to bear on them ? If not a single man, how
much less the whole Twelve ? Let a sailor tell you
that lately he met a terrible storm and came near
being wrecked, but was saved by a sudden lull of the
gale just as he had given himself up for lost would
you ever think of suspecting that his senses had de-
ceived him ? And should a friend hint, This is an
honest man ; he doubtless thinks he was tossed by
240 ANCIENT WONDERS.
a storm, and that the storm suddenly lulled ; but he
may be mistaken after all, and have had nothing
but a bright sky all his voyage through would you
not think him very unreasonable ? And should the
entire crew come forward to confirm the story,
would it even occur to you that the senses of the
whole number had played them false? " No," you
would say, " if these statements are not true, these
men are flagrant impostors. The things they al-
lege are of such a nature that no one sound man
could mistake in respect to their reality. Much
less could such mistake happen to a whole crew."
I say as much of the facts alleged in that apostolic
story. Those many apostles could not have been
deceived by some jugglery of their senses into a
belief that a furious tempest instantaneously slept
at the command of Jesus when it did not.
So of other cases even more striking. Did not
the Twelve know by at least three senses whether
midnights and earthquakes poured their testifying
pomp about the noon of the crucifixion ? Did they
not know by every sense they had whether a living
Jesus was among them for forty days after He had
been pronounced dead by the Grand Coroners of
Judaea and Rome ? Did they not know whether
they saw Jesus rising through the day into heaven,
and whether thereupon they saw an angel standing
among them in white robes to tell of His Second
Coming ? Especially did they not know whether
they themselves possessed the power of working
CHRISTIAN. 241
miracles, and whether they actually wrought them
in great number and splendor for many years ? Do
not be so unreasonable as to think, No. You and
I understand very well that some things are per-
fectly incredible, and that this is one of them.
Those twelve men could not possibly have been
mistaken as to the reality of any one of these mira-
cles : much less as to the reality of thousands of
them occurring under every variety of form and
illuminating a whole lifetime. The idea that many
able-minded men could lead such a marvelous life
through so long a period and yet not know whether
it was real, is not to be considered for a moment.
Just as ancient Israel must have known, to a dead
certainty and at the merest glance, that no such
forty years of miraculous experience as Moses wrote
of had happened to them in case it had not ; so
those twelve apostles knew perfectly that no such
gorgeous caravan of miraculous years as they wrote
of had borne them along in triumphal march, in
case it had not. It is a sure matter. I would like
to see a surer. Yes, the apostles never could have
believed such a story had it been altogether false.
But they did believe it. Do not they write like
believers ? Do they not act like believers ? What
charming directness, simplicity, and general air of
good faith in their narratives ! What faithfulness
in recording their own crudities, mistakes, and sins !
Truly they were consummate performers if they
were merely feigning faith. Never did stage-player,
16
242 ANCIENT WONDERS.
though his name be Roscius or Garrick, so admi-
rably personate reality. And then see how they
lived and died ! It is agreed on all hands by the
traditions and histories that the primitive Twelve
who lost their Master by crucifixion passed their own
lives in labors, dangers,- and Bufferings in attestation
of the same miraculous story ; and at last endured,
most of them, martyrdom for the same ; and all with
no possibility of any such result to themselves (such
was the spiritual and pure nature of the system of
religion which they taught) as alone eould beckon
on selfish and unprincipled men to undertake such
sacrifices. They had been with Jesus through all
His troublous career. They had seen Him cruci-
fied. He had predicted just such a general life and
fate for themselves ; and they tell us that from the
beginning of their separate mission they had ex-
pected the fulfillment of that prediction. Indeed, the
very circumstances and temper of the time only
too well shown in that howling intolerance that be-
O
set like wild beasts the tribunal of Pilate, crying,
Away with him! Away with him! must have
given to the dullest observer assurance of the utmost
trouble to all missionaries of the new faith. And
yet the apostles went forward. They went forward
with steady foot, and unsparing tongue, and hands
bearing aloft a blazon of miracles which themselves
had seen and had done and were still doing, and
which were known to almost everybody to meet
the scowling populace ; the infuriated rulers ; the
CHRISTIAN. 243
bigotry of the Jew, the scorn of the Greek ; want,
stonings, scourgings, chains, prisons, wild beasts,
crucifixions, infamy ; in short to receive in their
faces the fiercest wind and sleet and volleys of ill-
will, outrage, and death. And when they actually
met and were enveloped by the storm, did their
courage fail them ? Did they shrink and retreat and
finally disappear from the too stormy scene ? Nay,
nay. Nothing overcame those witnesses. Nothing
seemed to daunt them. They went on witnessing
to the end. Their wonderful testimony was reso-
lutely held up before all faces ; until at last they
freely anointed and sealed it with their blood.
Would you or I have done that for a known impos-
ture ? Would any man we ever knew have done
it for the merest chance of a success so unreward-
ing to a wicked man, if attained ? Say anything
you please of these men ; only do not say that they
did not believe their own story. That is too incred-
ible. By all the laws of evidence, and by all the
light of experience and history, they must have be-
lieved it full cordially. Give up all faith in appear-
ances and history, unless, with hand on heart, you
are prepared to say, These men were fully persuaded
of the miracles for which they so resolutely suffered
and died.
But this is not all. The Christian story of mira-
cles was believed by the whole land as well as by
the apostles. It was the universal confession, This
man doeth many miracles. It was the universal
244 ANCIENT WONDERS.
confession, That a notable miracle has been done by
them is manifest to all that dwell at Jerusalem and
we cannot deny it. After the Christian age was
fairly begun, it does not seem to have occurred to
the Jews to question the reality of the miracles of
Jesus and His disciples. They only questioned
their proceeding from God. They ascribed them
to Beelzebub, the prince of devils. They said it
was magic that did them. So say, not only our
Scriptures, but the Talmud and all the literature
assailing Christianity that has come down to us from
the earlier centuries. No assailant in those times
neither Celsus, nor Porphyry, nor Hierocles, nor
Julian ever denied the miracles ; they only denied
the Divine origin of them. No defender of Chris-
tianity in the earlier times ever tried to prove the
miracles; he always took them for granted and de-
voted himself to showing that they were the finger
of God. The belief in their reality was universal.
This is conceded by all save the most fantastic of
objectors whose principles would annihilate all his-
tory.
What then ? Why, this general belief was the
belief of a public which from the circumstances of
the case must have known whether the Christian
miracles were genuine or not. The nature of these
alleged miracles was such, they were so openly done,
they were done in such prodigious numbers all over
the land and for so many years, that everybody
had easy opportunity of surely judging them, either
CHRISTIAN. 245
by personal observation or by myriad-ton gued testi-
mony. City and country shone with them. The
whole air was quick with their sublime electricity.
It rained miracles. As magnificent princes on some
high festival stand and scatter gold among the peo-
ple from a full hand, so Jesus and His apostles
magnificently stood and sowed their shining largess
on the land as out of the fullness of a heavenly
treasury. It was a nebula that fell, compacted al-
most beyond counting, till star touched star in one
blaze of white mystery. Such is the representation.
44 And there are also many other things which Jesus
did, the which, if they should be written every one,
I suppose that the world could not contain (endure)
the books that should be written." See what
strength of statement ! The imposture, if impos-
ture it was, was on so huge and audacious a scale
that almost everybody had repeated opportunity of
bringing all his senses to bear leisurely upon it.
And the alleged miracles were in general events of
such a nature that common people could judge of
them quite as well as philosophers I think a little
better. Pray, could Gamaliel himself have judged
better as to the reality of that quaking earth and
darkened heaven which are said to have waited on
the crucifixion of Jesus than almost any elbowed
man of that great crowd which then went surging
through the streets of Jerusalem ? And so of many
another marvel. It is incredible that a single sound
man, however plain, should mistake in regard to
246 ANCIENT WONDERS.
such cases; still more incredible that twelve such
men should do it ; more incredible still that the gen-
eral population of the land, including millions on
millions of bitter enemies well conditioned for de-
tecting an imposture, should join them in the mis-
take, and fully admit the Christian miracles when
really not a single one of them was genuine. If the
whole thing had been a fabrication, the apostles
would never have been madmen enough to publish
it; if it had been a fabrication, the whole people
would have known it to be so. Just as the Hebrews
of the Exodus must have known that they never
journeyed for forty years under such a heavenly
canopy of miracles as Moses describes, if they did
not ; so the Jews of the Christian epoch must have
known that their time for more than forty years did
not blaze with such an outpour of the supernatural
upon it as the New Testament tells of, in case it
did not. There are some things that we know.
And among them is this, that a hostile nation, a na-
tion fiercely bitter against Christianity and seeking
every possible weapon against it, would never have
confessed the Christian miracles genuine, as they
did, unless they had been compelled by the astound-
ing majesty and abundance of the evidence.
And now, to sum up, this is just the state of the
case. In regard to the Christian miracles it is in-
credible that a single sound sense fairly brought to
bear on them should be deceived ; much more sev-
eral sound senses ; much more still several sound
JOINT IMPORT. 247
senses of twelve daily companions of Jesus ; most of
all, the senses and judgments of millions of hostile
persons and virtually the whole national popula-
tion. That apostolic consensus, joined by the mag-
nificent levy en masse of auxiliary testimony from
all Jewry and contiguous countries, lifts us to the
very climax of moral evidence. It is fairly sublime.
Never believe more unless you believe now. Say
final adieu to all history and to all the accepted
rules for conducting the business of life : and let
one broad pall of Doubt drop on all the facts of the
Past and on most of the facts of the Present on
everything not directly testified to by your own
personal senses. Nay, even your own senses are
logically untrustworthy, if such is your logic.
So the miracles are real. Not only does the
elder world of Geology glitter with them, but glitters
with them the Old Testament world ; glitters with
them the New Testament world as well. ' Tis true
that at the stretching forth of a human hand a way
was divided for Israel through the Red Sea ; and
that at the touch of human feet the river Jordan
became a wall to the marching host on the right
hand and on the left. 'Tis true that a storm sud-
denly slept at the bidding of Jesus ; and that at His
death Nature mourned with the voice of earthquakes
and with the sables of night ; and that He rose from
the dead and dwindled away into heaven like " some
retreating star." Many such things are true, whole
hosts of them.
248 ANCIENT WONDERS,
" What ailed thee, O thou mighty sea,
And rolled thy waves with dread
What bade thy waves, Jordan, flee,
And bare their deepest bed ? "
What mean the hosts of such events ? I need not
perplex you with learned inquiries into the nature
of miracles. I need not insist on your losing your-
selves in the dry mysteries of intricate definitions.
All I have to do is to ask of your common sense
what is the significance of such events as we have
been considering, if really wrought to attest such
a thing as the Biblical Religion. There is but
one answer. You and I know there is but one
answer. They mean a great invincible Personal
Power in sympathy with a righteous religion ; and,
of course, itself righteous and truth-telling. What
it attests is therefore true : and lo ! by a mighty voice
which no human being ought to suffer to speak in
vain, we are called on to believe in God ; in His
only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord ; and in the Scrip-
tures of -the Old and New Testament as His in-
spired message. I say unto you, Have faith. I say
unto you, Have faith, broad, ponderous, and sub-
lime as the everlasting hills. It is but fitting.
Nothing short of such a faith will duly match the
evidence of miracles.
XIII.
MODERN SIGNS.
XIII. MODERN SIGNS.
1. ANSWERS TO PRAYER 251
2. ANSWERS TO BLASPHEMIES 256
3. IMPORT 260
MODERN SIGNS.
TTTE tell unbelievers of miracles that took place
ages ago. There, far back in the past, are the
miracles of Moses, of Christ, of Christ's Apostles
the ten plagues of Egypt, the passage of the Red Sea,
the manna, the water-pouring rock, the fiery and
cloudy pillar that guided Israel for forty years ; and
then angelic songs and sights in the midnight sky ;
a voice falling from heaven to say, " This is my Be-
loved Son; " the healing of the sick, and hushing of
the storm, and raising of the dead by a mere word
or touch ; the earth-shaking death and not less mar-
velous resurrection and ascension of Jesus ; besides
like great events through an entire generation af-
terward. We point to all these as evidences of a
God, and a Divine Christianity ; and offer to show
against all gainsayers that these prodigies rest on
better authority than do the universally admitted
histories of Alexander the Great and Julius Cfesar.
Perhaps the unbeliever feels it but fair to confess
that he can offer no good reply against such an ar-
gument. Yet he is not satisfied. He wishes those
prodigies were not so ancient and distant. It seems
to him that if something of the kind could only take
place within the range of his own observation it
252 MODERN SIGNS.
would be far more satisfactory ; in fact, would put
prompt and final end to his doubts. " O that
some such Divine interpositions could take place
within my time and sphere ; that I had not to
plant myself behind a telescope in order to receive
a faded image of their distant glory ; but that
my own senses and power of judging, or at least
those of my contemporaries in whom I have confi-
dence, could be brought to bear directly upon them,
shining among our own homes, and lighting up with
their fresh splendor our own streets and markets
and rivers and fields ! Then faith would be easy
to me. My whole heart should say, never to re-
cant, " Lo, there is a God and He governs among
men ! " " Lo, Jesus is His messenger and the Bible
is His book ! "
Say you so! Then make ready at once to bid
final adieu to your unbelief, your half-faith, your
occasional misgivings and debilities on the subject
of Theism and Christianity. I am able to present
to you substantially just such examples of the per-
sonal intervention of God among men as you ask.
You shall have examples belonging to your own
time and sphere. You shall see God putting out
His hand among your contemporaries and neighbors,
and working close upon your right hand and your
left things which the received principles of science
forbid us to ascribe to any other cause. For the
present I will cease to insist on things antiquarian
and telescopic ; and allow you to stand solely on
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 253
what seems to you the solid ground of the world's
current observation and experience. All around us
are great Divine actions, as truly such as any which
under the great name of miracles are attributed to
the world's early ages. We do not choose to call
them miracles. The title is unfashionable for such
modern and common events. But, for all that, they
are direct Divine interpositions ; always proving a
God, and often so circumstanced as to prove in ad-
dition both His Son and His Word ; and can no
more, in accordance with the scientific principles of
evidence, be ascribed to any natural source than
could a sundering of the Red Sea under the out-
stretched arm of Moses.
Let me give some examples.
I. ANSWERS TO PRAYER.
A young man of Indiana left home and settled in
business in a city of Ohio. After some time a gen-
tleman from his native place, being in that city,
took the opportunity to call upon him. The visitor
was shocked to find that he had become a profane
swearer.
On returning home the gentleman thought it his
duty to tell the sad news to the pious parents.
They made little or no reply to his statements ; and
after leaving them he was somewhat doubtful
whether they had fairly understood him. So he
returned the next day and repeated his statement.
Said the father, " We did not misunderstand you
254 MODERN SIGNS.
last evening. My wife and myself took no rest dur-
ing the night, but spent it on our knees pleading
with God in behalf of our son, and about day-break
He graciously listened to our prayer and granted
an answer. James will never swear again."
Two weeks from that time James made his ap-
pearance at his parents' house a changed man.
" How long since this change happened ? " they
asked. He replied that just a fortnight ago he was
struck with such an overwhelming sense of guilt
that he could not sleep, and spent the night in tears
and prayers for forgiveness. The prayers were ful-
filling at the very time they were being offered in
the name of Christ.
A merchant of Bristol, England, was nearly
ruined in property by a sudden disaster at sea. His
wife was overwhelmed by the shock, became in-
sane, and had to be confined in order to prevent her
doing herself and others harm. Her condition was
at once reported to her father, an eminent Christian
living a hundred miles distant in Birmingham. This
man had great faith in prayer. So one evening he
gathered a number of Christians at his house to ask
Divine interposition. They prayed with great ap-
parent unanimity and fervor. A few days after, a
letter came stating that, at such a time, the lady
was suddenly restored to reason and her usual
health. That time was found to be the same day,
the same evening, and the same hour of the even-
ing when those Christians were praying to God for
her in the name of Christ.
ANSWERS TO PRAYER. 255
In a certain town lived an aged Christian black-
smith. One day while at work in his shop he began
thinking of the sad moral state of the population
around him. There had been no revival for many
years ; the young people were all irreligious, the
church was almost extinct ; in short, all around was
desolation. As he mused, his distress became so
great that he threw up work, locked his shop, and
betook himself to prayer. The next Sabbath he
asked his minister to appoint a conference meeting.
The minister would do so, but who would attend ?
The evening for the meeting came, and with it more
persons than could be accommodated at the large
house to which they had been invited. All was
silence for a time. Then a man burst into tears and
begged that, if anybody could pray, he would pray
for him. Another followed in the same strain, and
another, and still another. It proved that persons
from all parts of the town were in great religious
distress. And the most wonderful thing of all was
that all these persons dated their distress back to
the very hour when the aged blacksmith was pray-
ing for them in Christ's name, in the secrecy of his
locked shop.
These instances will answer for illustration.
They are well attested. They are three out of
multitudes equally striking and well witnessed. If
any one will consult religious journals, Sprague's
" Annals of the Pulpit," the Works of Sir Henry
More, the " Scots Worthies," The Life of Francke,
256 MODERN SIGNS.
Professor Gibson's " Year of Grace," and the rec-
ords of the Fulton Street prayer-meeting, he will
get some idea how full the world is of such wonder-
ful answers to prayer. Now and then a great and
complex system of answers, as elaborately jointed
and proportioned as was ever palace of prince or
cathedral of God, rises grandly heavenward to awe
reflecting men. Read Miiller's " Life of Trust,"
and judge for yourselves.
II. ANSWERS TO BLASPHEMIES.
A few years ago some followers of Fanny Wright
were in the habit of meeting in Concert Hall in the
city of New York. One of their most intelligent
and frequent speakers at this place was a certain
deformed man. On a certain occasion, while ad-
dressing the meeting, this man took occasion, dis-
tinctly and formally, to defy Almighty God and
dare Him in the most blasphemous manner to seal
his lips. Suddenly the blasphemer became confused,
his tongue faltered, his language lost its coherency,
and he sat down amid a sho\ver of hisses. Shortly
after he died a maniac ; and his wife renounced the
principles which had brought her husband to so ter-
rible an end.
At a general muster in the town of Lebanon,
Ohio, a wicked man was spoken to on the subject
of religion. He was filled with rage. He declared
that if Jesus of Nazareth were there he would wring
his neck. Suddenly a violent spasm seized his own
ANSWERS TO BLASPHEMIES. 257
neck, twisted it round, rolled his eyes nearly out of
their sockets, and left him in this frightful condition.
At one time Newburg, in the State of New York,
was remarkable for its infidelity. A society, called
the Druidical Society, was formed for the purpose
of opposing and suppressing the Christian Religion.
Its members went great lengths. For example, at
one of their meetings they burned a Bible, baptized
a cat, partook of the Sacrament of the Supper, and
finally administered it to a dog. That very day the
man who had administered this mock sacrament
was attacked by a violent inflammatory disease, his
tongue swelled, his eyeballs protruded from their
sockets, and he died before the next morning in
great agony, bodily and mental. Another of the
party was found dead in his bed the next morning.
Three days after, still another fell in a fit and died
immediately. In short, within five years from the
organization of the society, every one of its original
thirty-six members died in some unnatural manner.
Two were starved to death, seven were drowned,
eight were shot, five committed suicide, seven died
on the gallows, one was frozen to death, and three
died (as people say) accidentally.
A gentleman near Hitchin in the county of Hert-
ford, England, received summons to appear before
a magistrate and answer to a charge of attempted
robbery. He went. On arriving he found himself
confronted with a man who claimed that he had
been knocked down and searched by the person at
17
258 MODERN SIGNS.
that present standing before him. Considering the
relative social positions of the two parties, the magis-
trate felt justified in hinting to the accuser that he
feared the charge was only made for the purpose of
extorting money ; and bade him take care how he
proceeded and incurred the dreadful consequences
of perjury. The man however stood to his charge
firmly. He insisting on proceeding to the oath.
The oath was accordingly administered, and the af-
fair fully investigated. The result was that the in-
nocence of the gentleman was established by the
best evidence. The rogue retired much cast down
at the failure of his plot ; and, meeting one of his
neighbors, he desperately renewed the charge, and
declared he had not sworn to anything but the truth
calling in the most solemn manner God to wit-
ness, and wishing, if it was not as he had said, his
jaws might be locked and. his flesh rot on his
bones. Suddenly his jaws were fixed, and he be-
came unable to speak. After lingering a fortnight
he died in the greatest agonies ; his flesh literally
rotting on his bones.
The following inscription is to be seen in the
market-place at Devizes, England. " The mayor
and corporation of Devizes avail themselves of the
stability of this building to transmit to future times
the record of an awful event that occurred in this
market-place in the year 1753 ; hoping that such a
record may serve as a salutary warning against the
danger of impiously invoking the Divine vengeance,
ANSWERS TO BLASPHEMIES. 259
or of calling on the holy name of God to conceal the
devices of falsehood and fraud. On Thursday, the
25th of January, 1753, Ruth Pierce, of Pottern in
this county, agreed with three other women to buy
a sack of wheat in the market, each paying her due
proportion toward the same. One of these women,
in collecting the several quotas of money, discovered
a deficiency, and demanded of Ruth Pierce the sum
which was wanting to make good the amount. Ruth
Pierce protested that she had paid her share, and
said she wished she might drop down dead if she
had not. She rashly repeated this awful wish ;
when, to the astonishment of the surrounding mul-
titude, she instantly fell down and expired, having
the money concealed in her hand."
Now these facts are mere samples. They are
only a few out of multitudes equally striking and
well attested. The like may be found by thousands
in our libraries, and are reported not seldom in
our newspapers. They are recorded on grave-
stones, inscribed on buildings, treasured in printed
histories ; they traverse the country in oral tradi-
tions. And almost evefy person, if he has had no
complete personal knowledge of such facts, has had
dim suggestions and experiences looking in their
direction which assure him of their credibility and
even probability.
What shall we say to them to these answers
to blasphemies and to those answers to prayer ! I
repeat, the reality of both is indisputable. They
260 MODERN SIGNS.
are too many and well attested to be called in ques-
tion by reasonable men. Beyond question, multi-
tudes on multitudes of them are as good as any
history that ever was penned. And what is the
explanation ? Here, an individual or a prayer-
rneeting offers a prayer through Christ for a per-
son hundreds of miles away ; and in due time news
comes that on the very day and hour when that
prayer was being offered it was fulfilled. There,
a person blasphemes God, or Christ, and dares
Him to strike him speechless and putrescent ; and
instantly speechless and putrescent he becomes. I
ask again, What is the explanation of such incon-
trovertible facts ? There is but one answer GOD
AND HIS MESSENGER. The principles of science
the principles on which all experience shows us
human life must be conducted, and on which all rea-
sonable human life is actually conducted require
us to say that such coincidences are not by chance,
are not by a tangled skein of blind forces and laws ;
they are by the active will and power of the really
existent God to whom the pious or the impious ap-
peal is made ; thus testifying to Himself, to His Son,
and to His Bible. This is the only solution which
science, experience, and consistency permit any man
to entertain.
But might not such coincidences occasionally hap-
pen in due course of mere Nature ? I answer, It is
of no consequence to say whether they could or not.
It is enough to be able to say that the chances are
THEIR IMPORT. 261
a million to one against any given coincidence of
the sort occurring otherwise than by a Divine
agency. And this we can say. Suppose you should
hear that in the city of London there is a bookseller
of the name of John Murray. You know nothing
positively about the matter, but people say that
there is such a man, in such a city, and that he
sends on application such and such books. You
act on what you hear, and post a letter to Albemarle
Street, London, asking to have a number of speci-
fied books sent you. By return of steamer you get
just the parcel you sent for. Now, though it is not
in the nature of things impossible that the parcel
should have come from some other quarter say,
from some friend who has just happened to think
that those volumes would be acceptable to you and
so sent them yet you would not for a single mo-
ment have any idea of resorting to such an expla-
nation. You would have no manner of doubt that
the parcel came from Mr. Murray ; that there is
such a man, and that he sent the books in answer
to your application. You would take the coming
of the books as a decisive proof of as much. Why ?
Because your experience in life would assure you
that there is not one chance in a million of the
books reaching you by any other means. Every-
body would consider you a lunatic or an imbecile
were you to judge differently.
I receive a letter purporting to be from an inti-
mate acquaintance. It is possibly not from him, may
262 MODERN SIGNS.
be a forgery. But still I am confident it is genuine.
The post-mark is that of the place where he lives,
the handwriting is like his, the style and subject-
matter agree with the supposition that he wrote it ;
there is no positive reason that can be assigned for
believing that anybody else wrote it ; and, alto-
gether, I do not doubt, that he was the author, de-
spite the bare possibility of the contrary. Perhaps
one in a million of letters with similar marks may
be a forgery, and there is a possibility that this let-
ter may be the ugly millionth ; but the chances are
a million to one against it literally overwhelming.
I should be considered insane were I in practice to
make any account of that one chance. People
never do such a thing. How many millions of let-
ters are every day received under similar circum-
stances, and not a single one of them but is accepted
as authentic wjth unhesitating confidence !
A merchant receives in course of business what
purports to be a five pound note of the Bank of
England. Now he will not affirm that a spurious
note of this Bank is impossible ; or that one such
note among a million is even improbable ; or that the
particular note which he holds in his hands cannot
be that not improbable millionth. Still he is abun-
dantly easy in the faith that the note is good. He
ought to be. Why? Because, its whole appearance
agrees with the supposition that it is genuine, and
all experience shows that the chances are a million
to one against such appearing paper proving coun-
terfeit.
THEIR IMPORT. 263
It is precisely on the principle of these examples
that we are bound to proceed in explaining such
wonderful answers to prayers and blasphemies as I
have described to you. There is no occasion to
prove that these cannot be mere casual coincidences
chance parcels, forged letters, spurious bills; it
is sufficient that the chances are a million to one
against any given instance proving such. Grant the
possibility of casual coincidences of this sort ; grant
that one such coincidence among a million of
prayers and blasphemies is even not improbable ;
grant that any particular answer to prayer or im-
precation may be that not improbable millionth
casualty; still we ought to be abundantly easy in
the faith that actually it is nothing of the kind, but
a direct personal intervention of the God to whom
appeal has been made. Its whole appearance
agrees strikingly with the idea that it is such an in-
tervention ; and our knowledge of life assures us
that as a matter of fact such a coincidence between
the appeal to God and the event would not occur
casually once in a host of such appeals ; in which
case science teaches that the probabilities are a host
to one that any given instance of such a coinci-
dence did not occur casually in mere course of Na-
ture. This is vastly better evidence than most of
the most important business of the world is unhesi-
tatingly carried on upon. It is literally overwhelm-
ing ; and the man who in secular life should reject
such would be considered irrational to the last
degree.
264 MODERN SIGNS.
But why are not these wonderful coincidences
more numerous ? Why do not more prayers receive
such wonderful answers, more blasphemies receive
prompt judgments, if it be true that there is a
God ? In regard to prayers, I answer first, Many
prayers are not fit as regards matter or manner to
receive such glorious answers ; second, not improb-
ably many which are fit cannot in the nature of
things be answered, or cannot be answered con-
sistently ; third, not improbably many which are fit
in themselves, possible, and consistent to be an-
swered, can be best answered after more or less
delay, like many of the requests which children
make to their parents. In regard to blasphemies,
I answer that human sovereigns find it best in
general to punish crimes, not the moment after
they are committed, but after a while. Once in
a while it is not amiss on the contrary exceed-
ingly useful that the sword should flash down in
the very act of crime. But generally some delay
is better. It may be so under God's government.
Be encouraged, all praying persons ! Behind
the curtain there is One to hear and answer in
Christ's great name. He has done it of old, He
does it to-day ; in many a land, in many a home
and history as narrow and obscure as your own.
So pray on. There is a God to pray to, and a
Mediator to pray by so pray on. You are not
throwing yourselves away ; nor could your breath
be put to better account. Go on to pray ; go on
THEIR IMPORT. 26o
to pray. You will get answers. If you do not get
answers equal to miracles, you will at least get such
as are worth the having answers that will ever
sweeten and invigorate your faith until you can joy-
fully say with the voice of a monarch, Lo, I have
found God!
Be warned, ye who sometimes venture toward
the verge where stand the impious and scoffing pro-
fane ! God is not a mere notion of priests. He is
not a bit of ancient statecraft fast getting obsolete.
The curtain has something besides unbounded va-
cancy behind it. There is an unbounded Person
there ; One who has often and terribly come out in
vindication of Himself, His Son, and His Word
on venturesome and tempestuous sinners. That
curtain is shaking yet. I see its great folds throb-
bing and swaying as if freshly let down behind
returning God ; I see it edged and fringed with
gold as if from a Sun within. And the Sun is really
there to-day and the Son. So look reverently in
that direction. Put off your shoes as you approach.
Bare brow of body and of soul as you begin to deal
directly with that palpitating screen. When you
have lifted it you will stand face to face with God.
XIV.
NEARING THE CURTAIN.
XIV. NEARING THE CURTAIN.
1. FITTED TO REVEAL 269
2. WHAT IT REVEALS 277
3. ILLUSTRATION 286
4. VERDICT 288
NEARING THE CURTAIN.
T^HE traveler often becomes aware of his approach
to the sea, or to healthy upland, or to sickly
marsh, some time before any such object can be seen.
His sensations inform him of new scenes at hand,
and of their general character ; though perhaps he
would find it hard to state on what his impressions
are based. You know how it is with blind men.
In a way often mysterious to themselves they are in
the habit of divining their approach to strongly
marked objects, and, to a very considerable extent,
the nature of those objects. They are vaguely
sensible of the presence of the house, the forest, the
mountain, or the man which they cannot see. There
seem to be certain characteristic influences flowing
out from every object, and which gradually weaken
with the distance from it like the light from a
lamp, the heat from a fire, and the odor from a
flower tending to announce and manifest it.
Now it may be so with a world just beyond the
grave. A gradually weakening outflow of influ-
ences from it into all the neighboring region may
tend to manifest its true character to those approach-
ing. Is that future world a scene of waste and si-
lent nothingness ? Then it may happen to the man
270 NEARING THE CURTAIN.
treading the border-land of death to receive some
chilling impressions of the great Nothing just before
him, as the blind man does of the bare desert which
he is about to enter. Is that world a scene such as
the spiritualist is taught to expect? Then it may
happen to the man treading the border-land of death
to find his mind filling with faint sensations of
spheres and modes of life as commonplace and dis-
jointed and frivolous as any belonging to the present
state. Is that world a scene such as the Bible de-
scribes? Then it may happen to the man treading
the border-land of death to become subtly aware of
nearing a land where a personal God is throned,
where Jesus shines and mediates, and where men
are treated according to the deeds done in the
body. No one can reasonably deny the possibility
of this shall I not say the presumption?
In health it is easy to forget the importance of
just views in religion. We can occupy our minds
with business and pleasure. We can flatter our-
selves that religious things will bear some postpone-
ment. So that when our attention is called to
them what with our cares and confidence in
future opportunities it is too often but a dull and
listless gaze, little fitted to result in satisfactory
knowledge, that we give. But when death visibly
makes its appearance at our door it is not so easy to
forget, or feel listless to, the importance of just an-
swers to the main religious questions. Business is
forever done. Pleasures have said their final adieu.
FITTED TO REVEAL. 271
The mind is driven in upon itself, and then forward
to explore the dim profound into \vhich it is about
to. launch. There is no mere forgetting the great
problems of religion. There is no more viewing of
them with a drowsy eye. They have become mat-
ters of immediate and pressing concern. Without
any effort the soul at once becomes open-eyed and
penetrating as never before even as the body in-
stinctively expands and projects and brightens the
material eye in the presence of unexpected danger.
At such time you have seen the dull orb suddenly
light up as if the soul herself had really mounted to
the window of her turret and were looking forth.
You have seen that orb swell, and draw back its
fringed curtains, and poise itself wakefully and
steadily on the axis of its motion, as if it would pene-
trate every mystery and anticipate every stroke. So
the eyo of the soul tends to do as it finds itself near-
ing the grave and the curtain and the mighty possi-
bilities just beyond perhaps on the eve of settling
by a conscious personal experience all the great
problems of religion.
Then, too, the soul may be expected to be the
most honest and fair-minded, as well as the most
wakeful and zealous, in its dealings with the great
religious questions. Who of you does not know it?
It is here I touch what is by far the most fruitful
source of error in all human inquiries, Too often
men look at questions with no hearty wish to know
the truth ; allow their reasonings to be warped by
272 N EARING THE CURTAIN.
their pride, their prejudices, their passions, their
transient interests ; really look not so much to find
the truth as to find the means of defending the side
which their own prejudices have already taken and
determined if possible to prove true. The case is
really prejudged in the heart before it is brought to
the bar of the reason. With such unfairness of
mind, and so little honest wish to know facts as they
are, men could hardly be in a worse condition for
arriving at truth. And it must be confessed that,
while they are in the full blast of life and worldly
influences, the best and most careful of men are apt
to suffer their views to be shaped somewhat by their
feelings and convenience, instead of bending them
with an iron hand to the sole authority of evidence
impartially sought and impartially weighed. But
when men are consciously approaching the end of
life, the great curtain which hides the great Here-
after, their passions and prejudices are naturally
awed into silence, their consciences and all fair and
just principles within them receive new liberty,
and they are concerned to rightly answer the main
questions of religion as they never were before.
They are, or may be, about to appear in the pres-
ence of God ; and in anticipation of that possible
interview the mind instinctively puts its thoughts
into an attitude of comparative uprightness. It
feels that the point has been reached where it will
be useless to impose on its reason any longer for
any earthly purpose whatever. In a few days all
FITTED TO REVEAL. 273
these questions will be questions no longer. Now,
if ever, it wants to see things as they are. If God
is real, it really wants to know it. If Jesus is His
Son, it really wants to know that. If the Bible is
His message, it really wants to know that. It is
afraid, as it never was before, to shut its eyes on
evidence, to twist and strain and mutilate facts and
principles into a preferred shape as it did once.
Standing face to face with the grave and the solemn
possibilities of a future state, it never before was so
fully disposed to see the truth just as it is, never be-
fore so radically honest with itself and ready to give
every consideration its due weight. How im-
mensely favorable this state of mind to just conclu-
sions ! Better than all the logics of the schools,
with all the philosophers back of them, is this sim-
ple, honest, earnest wish to know the truth which
is so natural to one consciously approaching the
curtain.
It is true that at such a time the mental powers,
or at least the manifestations of them, often sym-
pathize with the enfeebled body. But very often,
also, they seem stronger than ever. Friends gath-
ered about the sick man are surprised at the prompt
clearness and precision with which that plain mind
now thinks and judges. Sometimes the feats of
memory and intuition are wonderful to see, and al-
most seem to belong to a new order of being ; and
astonish the subject of them quite as much as others.
A clairvoyance that almost defies the bounds of hu-
18
274 NEAR1NG THE CURTAIN.
man nature shows itself. His whole life flashes up
in one thought. Cast a man into the water and let
him pass through all but the last stage of drowning,
and, ten to one, his thought will show a power of per-
ception and review and self-judgment awful to see.
The known facts of this kind are so many, and oc-
cur under such a wide range of circumstances, that
it is open to serious question whether there is not
in every case of dying, however dull and unrespon-
sive the outward organs of manifestation may be, a
special rallying of the mental forces as if for some
great crisis. However this may be, we know that
in almost all cases the earlier stages of fatal disease
show no appreciable abatement in even the outward
signs of mental vigor. The man can perceive and
remember and judge and reason as well as ever.
And he is then at the hight of his knowledge on
religious subjects. Up to that time, whether he has
been aiming at it or not, he has constantly been
coming into possession of new items of information
on all the leading topics of human thought. It is
impossible to live in the midst of this teeming and
instructive Nature, and on the shore of the seething
sea of human discussion, without having constantly
cast up at one's feet something valuable out of the
endless treasures hidden in that vasty deep. And
it is fast coming to be a doctrine of philosophy that
the mind seldom or never loses the impression of
any knowledge which it has once possessed ; at least
its life and ethereal essence remaining with the mind
FITTED TO REVEAL. 275
firmly, though its form may vanish. So there must
be, up to the last or as long as the powers retain
any tolerable vigor, a gradual accumulation of facts
and principles in the mind which will aid in all re-
ligious inquiries. It is true that prejudices and
errors may accumulate also as fast as truth, and
perhaps faster but then, as we have seen, there
is something about the conscious death-hours, es-
pecially of thoughtful and cultured men, that goes
strongly to nullify the influence and even the es-
sence of all views that are hollow and unreal. Bub-
bles are very apt to be burst by that pressure.
Disguises are very apt to be penetrated by the light
that sifts through that curtain. One honest hour
before its dusky outspread, gazing at it and waiting
for its throbbing breadth to rise, is a greater de-
stroyer of shams than all the spears like weavers'
beams that ever logic and eloquence wielded.
Now, these various considerations, taken together,
mean a great deal. They mean that at the time
when men are consciously approaching death, and
especially when there is no appreciable decline but
perhaps even a great increase of mental vigor, they
are in their best state for judging of the claims of
the Biblical Religion with its Theism, its Chris-
tianity, and its written Revelation. I do not say for
a learned investigation of those claims. That is quite
another thing. The collecting of materials for an
argument after the manner of professional scholars
might, in those painful and confining hours, proceed
276 NEAKING THE CURTAIN.
at serious disadvantage. Not so the use of mate-
rials already collected, which is really the only work
absolutely necessary to be done by most dying men.
Christianity professes to be for all men. According
to it, the means of a just answer to the main relig-
ious questions are placed as fully within the reach of
the humbler class of minds as of the loftier. No
laborious and learned researches, such as only men
of leisure and talent can make, are necessary, how-
ever useful they may be in their place. Honest
looking and simple praying are all that is wanted.
And for this there is no time like that when one,
with all his faculties about him, perhaps in extraor-
dinary force, is consciously nearing the curtain
which hangs before his Hereafter. Then the mind
is most retired upon itself, its ear specially with-
drawn from the distracting din of the world, its eye
most wakeful to religion, its interest in it most pro-
found, its sum of information concerning it most
large, its honesty and fairness and wish to know the
truth most decided ; and then too, perhaps, sensa-
tion itself comes to the aid of the intellect, and mys-
teriously spells out the character of that near cur-
tained land whose subtle influences fill all the air.
Then, if ever, we should expect a vision of the
truth.
In view of this fact I ask your particular atten-
tion to the following proposition, to the proof and
illustration of which the rest of this hour will be
devoted. The proposition is this. At the con-
WHAT IT REVEALS. 277
scious approach of death, faith in the Biblical Re-
ligion, witli its God and Christ and written Rev-
elation, never weakens but almost or quite always
strengthens, and very often advances to a splen-
did assurance ; while unbelief under the same cir-
cumstances never strengthens, but almost or quite
always weakens and falters, and very often falls
utterly.
T have seen many persons, both believers and un-
believers, consciously approaching death. I have
heard and read the experience of multitudes more in
the same condition. And I have yet to learn of the
first case where belief in the Biblical Religion has
grown weaker, or unbelief in it grown stronger, as
the last hour came near. On the contrary, wherever
I have been able to compare the views taken at death
with earlier ones, I have found that the believer has
always become more unquestioning and unembar-
rassed in his faith, and the unbeliever more hesi-
tating and tremulous in his unbelief. On the one
hand difficulties and hesitations' have always shown
tendency to melt away ; on the other they have al-
ways gathered new firmness. It is said that Hume
professed to die as faithless as he lived ; the con-
trary is also said. But how many have I heard of,
who, like Hume's mother and Paine and Voltaire,
have been known to die arnid a furious upbreak of
their unbelief. Of how many have I heard, who,
like Altamont and Rochester, have in their last
hours renounced their atheism and infidelity with
278 NEARING THE CURTAIN.
horror, and from before the quaking Curtain warned
others against such errors with terrible eloquence !
But when have I heard of a believer renouncing his
God and Bible in view of a dying bed, and calling
out loud alarms to all whom it may concern to avoid
his egregious faith and folly ? Never. On the
contrary, I have heard of great numbers who under
such circumstances have suddenly expanded into
such rejoicing giants of faith as were most marvel-
ous to see 1 , and a marvel to themselves.
Take a single example. Let it be that of one of
the greatest and most successful philosophers of
modern times, one who in his day reaped all the
highest academic and other distinctions, both do-
mestic and foreign, which a British subject could
possibly win ; and who has ineffaceably written his
name in capitals in the history of science I mean
Sir David Brewster. This famous man recently
passed away. He had been a Christian believer for
many years. For many years his profound study
of Nature had walked side by side with an equally
profound faith in God and Jesus and the Bible.
But when he came to his last days his faith took on
unwonted majesty of port and mien. The curtain
before which he was standing seemed to shimmer
upon him with potent and mysterious day. Hear
what was said at a meeting of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh by his physician, Sir James Simpson, the
Queen's physician for Scotland, and a man of Euro-
pean celebrity for science.
WHAT IT REVEALS. 279
" To Mr. Phinn and other clerical friends lie
freely expressed in these his last days the un-
bounded and undonbting faith of a very humble and
a very happy Christian. No shadow of dubiety ever
once seemed to cloud his mind. In his march for-
ward into and through the river of death, it seemed
as if Christ were ever whispering in his ear, Fear
thou not, for I am with thee ; Be of good cheer, for
it is I. Like my former dear friend, Prof. John
Reid, he seemed to be impressed with the idea that
one of the great joys and glories of heaven would
consist in the revelation of the marvels and mys-
teries of creation and science by Him by whom all
things were made, and who, as Prof. George Wil-
son held it, was not only the Head of the Church
but the head and source of all science. 4 1 have,'
he remarked to me, 4 been very happy here, but I
shall soon be infinitely happier with my Saviour and
Creator.' As death drew more and more nigh, the
one idea of his Saviour and of his being speedily
and eternally with Him, grew stronger and more
absorbing. On one occasion, when he had been
speaking of the different members of his family
whom he would meet in heaven, he paused and
seemed to gather up his strength to say with a won-
derful power and emphasis, 4 1 will see Jesus ;
Jesus who created all things, Jesus who made the
worlds, I shall see Him as He is ! ' I said, You
will understand everything then ; and it seemed to
me as if the 4 O Yes ' of his answer came out of
280 NEARING THE CURTAIN.
the very fullness of content. Once I said to him,
4 1 wish all learned men had your simple faith. 1
Again there was a pause, and each word was
dropped out with a never-to-be-forgotten weight of
meaning, ' I have had the light for many years,
and oh, how bright it is. I feel so safe, so perfectly
safe, so perfectly happy.'
" As a physician I have often watched by the dy-
ing, but I have never seen a death-bed more full of
pure love and faith than was that of our late Presi-
dent. It was indeed a sermon of unapproachable
eloquence and pathos. For there lay this grand
and gifted old philosopher, this hoary, loving votary
and arch-priest of science, passing fearlessly through
the valley of death, sustained and gladdened with
the all-simple and all-sufficient faith of a very child,
and looking forward with unclouded intellect and
bright and happy prospects to the mighty change
that was about to carry him from time to eternity.
4 1 feel,' said another witness of the scene, ' I feel
that words express very little of that death-bed ; for
the marvelous triumph of mind over matter, of
grace over nature, was shown not so much in words
as in the whole spirit of the scene. I never saw a
soul actually pass away before, but I thank God I
have been present when his passed away. The
sight was a cordial from heaven to me. I believed
before, but now have I seen that Christ has abol-
ished death."
These words of a scientific witness of the end of
WHAT IT REVEALS. 281
one of the first of scientific men show a glorious
culmination of faith in front of the Curtain. Lofty
as was the faith of the life, the faith of the death
was loftier.
A single example out of many which have fallen
under my notice ! It is by no means an extreme
experience. I have known others still more strik-
ing and brilliant in themselves, though not in the
illustriousness of the subjects of them. And I am
sure, my hearers, that my entire observation in this
matter of nearing the Curtain thoroughly accords
with your own. You have all had some personal
acquaintance with last sicknesses. You have all
heard free accounts of many which you did not wit-
ness with your eyes. You have read in the course
of your lives very many biographies and obituaries
telling how men have viewed things in expectation
of death. And I confidently appeal to you, to the
oldest and most observant among you, whether my
observation has not been confirmed by your own.
Did any of you ever know of a person renouncing
Theism or Christianity as he came to look into the
grave ? Did you ever know of one who had less
faith in the Bible under those circumstances than
he had while in health? On the contrary, have
you not met with many well-attested cases of be-
lievers whose faith seemed almost turned to sight
as the outward man perished day by day ? And
when, I ask, have you met with a case, seen or
heard or read, in which unbelief has gathered
282 NEARING THE CURTAIN.
strength after the same magnificent manner, and
swept down into the grave like an eastern con-
queror returning to his capital ? Your memory
answers firmly, Never.
What does this prove ? It may seem as if it
proved but mere outposts of the broad proposition
which I have laid down, leaving unsupported the
whole main camp of allegations. But is it so?
Not if the principles of that inductive philosophy on
which most modern science rests are sound. For
the striking facts just mentioned carry with them
an immense induction of particulars, all firmly look-
ing one way, that is, toward an invariable increase
of truthful aspect on the part of the Biblical Relig-
ion at the approach of death. The fact that faith,
within our field of observation, is often at that time
pushed forward into even triumphant assurance,
shows that in a vastly greater number of cases within
that field it must be pushed into the various easier
stages of increase. The fact that under the same
circumstances disbelief of the strongest kind, within
our field of observation, is sometimes pushed back-
ward into even energetic self-renunciation, shows
that in a multitude of cases within the same field
the weaker disbeliefs and unbeliefs must be pushed
to the same point ; and that in a still greater num-
ber of cases, disbeliefs and unbeliefs of all degrees
must be pushed into the easier stages of weakness
and decrease. Take the sum of these multitudes
and multiply it by the number of persons whose
WHAT IT REVEALS. 283
fields of observation have been equally extensive
with our own and independent of ours ; and what
an immense number of instances have we of dying
men helped in the direction of faith ? On the
other hand we know of absolutely no instances of
such men drawn in the direction of unbelief. We
have an induction of millions on millions of instances
to the effect that the credibility of Religion in main
doctrines improves to the view of the mind on the
approach of death ; and not one instance in which
that credibility has seemed to decrease. And so, on
the same principle which leads the astronomer to
believe that the principle of gravitation extends to
all the stars that shine in the profound of space,
which leads the farmer to believe that autumn is a
season in which certain seeds will surely be sown in
vain, which leads the fisherman to believe that in
winter certain nets will be drawn to no purpose in
short, the principle on which all practical life and all
science not mathematical is founded on this prin-
ciple we are to conclude that the season of death is
one which never weakens faith in the Religion of
the Bible and never strengthens unbelief, but on
the contrary almost if not quite always does just
the striking reverse.
Every adult whom I address has had some times
in which he was attacked by dangerous sickness, or
feared he was, or feared he was about to be. He
can remember that, at such times, Religion with
its Theism, its Christianity, and its Bible, always
284 NEARING THE CURTAIN.
began to look increasingly worthy, truthful, divine ,
that somehow objections and difficulties in respect
to it seemed to become faint- voiced, and draw back,
and melt away of their own accord : that he was
never so little disposed to treat them scornfully or
neglectfully, never so much disposed to have about
him their friends and ordinances. And he has also
noticed many signs of its being just so with others.
He has seen that the scoffer is apt to be more cau-
tious in what he says, as soon as some sickness shuts
him up at home and he begins to suspect that the
enemy is groping for his heart. Suddenly the man
becomes less ready with his sneers and bravadoes
and arguments. It is easy to see that he is less
inclined to quote Thomas Paine, less inclined to
like the society of Bible-opposers, more accessible
to the counsels and prayers and Bible-readings of
Christian friends. And similarly with others. You
have discovered that almost every person is more
respectful and accessible to the Bible under a sense
of danger, and that almost every believer then real-
izes its truth and importance as never before. I
say, almost. But when you consider how often a
pride of consistency would tend to hide real changes
of views, and how often you have no fair opportunity
of closely watching the behavior of the sick, and
what have ever been the workings and tendencies
of your own mind under apprehensions of death,
you must feel prepared to strike out that limiting
word and believe that the experience of all around
WHAT IT REVEALS. 285
you accords with your own that to all your friends
and neighbors and acquaintances, as to yourself, the
Biblical Religion begins to look increasingly truth-
ful and divine as soon as it is viewed as from the
confines of another world. And what is there pe-
culiar in the sphere to which we belong to make
this experience local with us? Beyond question it
is so in all spheres and parishes in Christendom.
There is everywhere and in every person to whom
belongs that acquaintance with Christianity which
is the common patrimony of those brought up in
Christian lands, a quickening of the mind in its be-
half as ever the grave seems to be drawing nigh.
Only let a man fear himself hard by the Curtain,
and then with faculties still sound fasten open eyes
on the Religion, and he surely finds his atheism
more tremulous, his infidelity less firm, his Chris-
tian faith more unquestioning. And this shows how
it will always be under the same conditions if the
approach to death is actual as well as suspected.
Then the believer will go from strength to strength,
and the unbeliever retreat from weakness to weak-
ness. Then faith will uniformly brighten and some-
times pass into splendid assurance, as if vision ; and
then unbelief will as uniformly grow dim and often
become totally extinguished. The whole course of
experience goes to show that the dying firmness of
Hume covered a sinking heart ; and that his case
was really one of the many in which men attempt
to prop up a fainting courage by giving the external
appearance of it.
286 NEARING THE CURTAIN.
I have now endeavored to establish two points.
The first is, that, as men consciously approach death,
and while as yet there is no considerable abatement
in the strength of their faculties, they are in their
best state for judging of the claims of our main
Biblical Religion, considered as a Theism, a Chris-
tianity, and a written Revelation. The second is,
that, at this best time for just views, the credibility
of this religion never abates but almost if not quite
always seems greater than ever before faith in it
substantially always brightening and often passing
into a splendid assurance, while unbelief and disbe-
lief never strengthen, but on the contrary substan-
tially always grow weaker and sometimes fail alto-
gether. Putting these two facts together, have we
not a commanding testimony ? That when the
mind is most withdrawn from disturbing influences,
most wakeful to religion, most full of information
about it, most honest and earnest in its inquiries, and
most subject to whatever of revealing power may
gather about the threshold and curtain of the future
world ; that then its judgment of the whole Biblical
Religion should be almost or quite uniformly more
favorable than ever before, is a most significant fact.
Is it possible to explain it on any supposition short
of the truth o/ that Religion ?
Place yourselves back two centuries. It has just
been declared that the planet Saturn is a glorious
be -ringed and satellited world. Some believe, some
doubt, and some disbelieve. To settle the question,
ILLUSTRATION. 287
your best situation is in a clear night and before the
polished mirror of a telescope. And what is that
you see yonder, surrounded by a crowd, if not just
such an instrument stretching its dusky column up
through the starry evening toward the planet ! You
cannot for yet awhile have close access to the
beaming speculum, but you can approach and pass
before it at a little distance, and as you pass snatch
a glimpse over the shoulders and between the forms
of intervening men. You do it. Lo, sure enou; h,
the glimpse you catch does seem to be that ot a
radiant orb singularly beset with something which
may be all that the astronomers say it is. But there
are others who are having that perfect access which
as yet you have not. You watch them. Here come
up first the believers and defenders of the new as-
tronomy and gaze upon the mirror. In a multitude
of cases you hear them assert with supremer confi-
dence than ever that the questioned orb is gloriously
zoned, and waited upon by several moons ; while
from none of them comes a retraction of their old
assertions, or even any the less firmness of mien and
tone. Next come the doubters to gaze. And in a
multitude of cases you hear them declare that they
have been too skeptical, hear them renounce their
doubts, and say with those who have preceded them
that it is true that the planet shines fairly with its
cincture of light and cortege of satellites ; while
the others, almost to a unit, pass away either dumb
and uninterpre table, or with a less doubting air than
288 NEARING THE CURTAIN.
they came. The disbelievers, too, come and look ;
and in many cases you hear even those whose voices
have been loudest and longest in the expression of
disbelief affirm that at last they are convinced ; that,
dark and zoneless and moonless as they had thought
royal Saturn, the sight of their eyes is too strong
for them as they see his blazing image swimming in
the mirror, belted like a knight and jeweled like
a king : while the rest, almost to a unit, pass away
either mute and uninterpre table, or with mien per-
ceptibly downcast. And in absolutely no one of all
that crowd, as they successively look, whether be-
lievers or doubters or disbelievers, can you see a
sign that the cause of astronomical unbelief has
gained the least aid and comfort from that telescopic
view. What remains but to believe ?
And now the approach of death is our highly
magnifying reflector, stretching upward through the
night. We living men have caught from it distant
glimpses of a starry, crowned, beauteous Christian-
ity many a time when we thought the supreme
twilight might be gathering about us. And, in the
actual night of the last sickness, all men look fairly
on it, and, almost or quite without exception, think
they find this Christianity looking more and more
like the fair arid starry queen she is said to be.
What remains but to believe the Religion even as
we believe the astronomy ! We will believe it ; and
count apostolic Galileos and Newtons to speak high
truth as they declare God to be real, the Bible His
VERDICT. 289
own message, and the Religion of Jesus sacred and
divine. We will believe it; satisfied from the uni-
form course of experience that unbelief would be
found fainting and failing us at the approach of
death, and upbraiding us with its dying breath that
we did not believe earlier. We will believe it ; con-
fident that when we come in our several turns to
near the great Curtain, we shall feel as did Patrick
Henry when he wrote in his last will and testament
these words : " I have now disposed of all my prop-
erty to my family. There is one thing more I wish
I could give them and that is the Christian Religion.
If they had that and I had not given them one shil-
ling, they would have been rich ; and if they had
*not that, and I had given all the world, they would
be poor."
XV.
THE CURTAIN RISING.
XV. THE CURTAIN RISING.
1. EXAMPLES 293
2. CREDIBLE TESTIMONY . * 298
3- HONEST WITNESSES 3<DI
4. COMPETENT WITNESSES 302
5- VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS 305
6. ASTRONOMICAL VISION 308
7. VERDICT 311
THE CURTAIN RISING.
following account- is given of Stephen, the
first Christian martyr. He was standing before
the Jewish Council as the prisoner of Jesus Christ.
He had just made his brave confession, had rebuked
the wickedness of his proud and bloody judges with
the boldness and authority of an apostle, had seen
them so cut to the heart by his upbraidings that
they gnashed on him with their teeth like so many
wild beasts. At this moment he looked upward.
Perhaps it was to ask of his God the grace of
strength and comfort for the crisis which he saw to
be just at hand. But, instead of his gaze stopping
at the white ceiling of that council chamber, lo, it
seemed to penetrate the stone and mortar as if a can-
opy of crystal ; and, passing upward through thick
clouds, upward still through fathomless azure, to rest
at last on a bright and beautiful land where shone
the central throne of God, and by it, in the place of
highest honor, the form of Jesus Christ. The man
could not contain himself. He felt that it was no
optical illusion, no fantasy of unstrung nerves and
a disordered imagination, but a solid and glorious
reality the real heaven, which had long b'jen to
him an object of faith, now graciously given to his
294 THE CURTAIN RISING.
sight. There were none but scoffers about him ;
telling what he saw would only bring them upon
him in a new storm of exasperation and hatred ;
still he must speak. " Behold," he cried, " I see
the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing
on the right hand of God."
On just this day of the week and of the month,
Sunday, December 12, in the year 1697, a Chris-
tian minister lay dying in the city of Boston. Says
his biographer, " He seemed to have some such views
as the first Christian martyr had of the glory of his
enthroned Saviour. He strove to speak to his wife,
and at length exclaimed, 4 Oh, what shall I say ?
He is altogether lovely. Oh, all our praises of Him
are poor low things ! His glorious angels are come
for me.' On this he closed his eyes and never
opened them again."
John Holland was on his death-bed. He wished to
have the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans
read to him. While the reading w r as going on he
suddenly spoke, " Oh, stay your reading ! What
brightness is this I see ? " " It is the sunshine," sug-
gested some one. "Sunshine ! " said he, " no, it is
my Saviour's shine. Now, farewell world, welcome
heaven. Oh, speak it when I am gone, and preach it
at my funeral : God dealeth familiarty with man. I
feel His mercy, I see His majesty ; whether in the
body or out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth,
but I see things that are unutterable." So he passed
away with bright looks and a soft sweet voice.
EXAMPLES. 295
Another well-known minister of the Gospel, two
days before his death, requested his daughter to
come to his bedside ; when he thus exclaimed :
" What wonderful views I have had this day ! I
have been brought to the borders of the grave. Oh,
what views ! Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful !
I have heard singing. Oh, how wonderful ! Glory
ineffable ! " On the last day of his life, when his
final conflict seemed actually to have begun, he sud-
denly revived and exclaimed with an air of trans-
port, " Oh, what beauties I have seen ! Glories of
another world ! What joys do I feel ! I have seen
the Saviour." In this state of ecstasy he continued
till the last.
The manner in which Payson, of Portland, died
is familiar to many of you ; still it may be well to
remind you of some particulars. " My God is in
this room," he said. "I see Him, and oh, how
lovely is the sight, how glorious does He appear,
worthy of ten thousand hearts had I so many to
give ! " At another time he exclaimed, " The Ce-
lestial City is full in view ; its glories beam upon me ;
its breezes fan me ; its odors are wafted to me, its
music strikes upon my ear, and its spirit breathes
into my heart ; nothing separates me from it but the
river of death, which now appears as a narrow rill
which may be crossed at a single step whenever
God shall give permission. The Sun of righteous-
ness has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer,
appearing larger and larger as He approached, and
296 THE CURTAIN RISING.
now He fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a
flood of glory in which I seem to float like an insect
in the beams of the sun ; exulting yet almost trem-
bling while I gaze on this excessive brightness, and
wondering with unutterable wonder why God should
deign thus to shine upon a sinful worm."
Another and final instance. Let it be the expe-
rience of Adams, a missionary on the Gaboon River,
Africa.
By temperament he was very unimaginative and
practical. Those who were with him in his last
sickness saw that feature still ; there was no ap-
pearance of wandering of mind, no excitement of
the imagination. They refused to believe him misled
e t
by a fevered brain ; and declared that the full reality
of the scene could only be felt by those who were
present ; who heard with their ears and saw with
their eyes seeing his face as it had been the face
of an angel.
" About eleven o'clock, Tuesday morning, he
sunk into another paroxysm, and we again thought
him dying ; but after about an hour he revived and
lay for some time in a quiet state, during which he
seemed to be engaged in silent prayer. Then sud-
denly starting up, with great animation, he ex-
claimed, c I hear music, beautiful music, the sweet-
est melodies ! I see glorious sights ; I see Heaven.
Yes, the gates are open ; let me go. I want no more
of earth ; detain me no longer: let me go. Oh, how
beautiful ! Oh, wonderful, wonderful views I have !
EXAMPLES. 297
Who would have thought that I should have had
these glorious views ? Wonderful, wonderful, won-
derful tilings I see ! Surely God would not show
me all this glory and then send me back to earth
again. Oh, wonderful that such a sinner as I have
been should be brought to this, and with tongue
unloosed and the bonds of sin broken, see and de-
scribe such scenes as these ! But I am going. Re-
member what I have told you. I am going. My
speech on earth is finished.' Then with both hands
raised and gazing upward he became insensible to
earth."
Sucli are a few examples of a class of facts which
no doubt might be numbered by hundreds and
thousands. I could myself recite to you scores
of them as good as any history that ever com-
manded the homage of mankind. And I know
that I have heard or read of very many others, the
particulars of which have quite faded from my mem-
ory. Some of you can say as much. Doubtless,
every year, through the wide extent of evangelical
Christendom, a very great number of these speaking
visions occur. From the nature of the case, only a
few of them find their way into print. Few de-
voted Christians have biographies, or even obitua-
ries, to preserve their experiences. Could we col-
lect all the published accounts of such trances as
those of Stephen and Paul and Bailly and Holland
and Payson and Adams and Welch and Boyd and
Fulton and Tennent, and then multiply them by
298 THE CURTAIN RISING.
thousands, we probably should still fall short of the
actual total.
Now let us ask a very interesting question. In
this large class of facts, are there any cases of an
actual uncovering of another world to the personal
knowledge of living men ? Do any of these strangely
dying men actually see what they profess to see,
and hear what they profess to hear ?
In endeavoring to answer this question, let us
notice the following particulars.
1. There is nothing intrinsically incredible in an
affirmative answer.
Many do say, confidently, that we have in such
dying experiences, cases of an actual insight into
the world of the future life ; and certainly no well-
informed man can deny that it may be so. There
is nothing in the nature of the statement itself which
ought to prevent our receiving it as true. It is not
self-contradictory. I am sure it cannot be shown
to contradict, in any particular, the known constitu-
tion and course of Nature. On the contrary, it can
be shown to be consistent perfectly with the known
laws and order of the world. That there may be a
world other than that which strikes our present bod-
ily senses, no intelligent person will deny ; for the
very good reason, that multitudes of worlds are
known to exist which once lay entirely outside of
human observation. The worlds the microscope
reveals, the worlds the telescope reveals glori-
ously real and many as they are were once as
CREDIBLE TESTIMONY. 299
much covered up from the personal knowledge of
living men as heaven now is. We know there is a
universe of light and color which the man born blind
has no personal acquaintance with ; a universe of
sound with which the man born deaf has no per-
sonal acquaintance. The things exist exist in un-
speakable magnitude, variety, and beauty though
these men have never directly known them, nor in-
deed have been able to form any conception of them.
So there may be such a thing as the Christian
Heaven, though our present senses are altogether
silent concerning it.
Further, it may be that the intelligent principle
in us has powers, at present generally sealed up, of
seeing and hearing this heavenly world without help
of bodily organs. There is nothing intrinsically
incredible in this. On the contrary, there are facts
of the same general nature frequently occurring.
Such are those many instances, in which the powers
of the mind for inward action, are found independ-
ent of the condition of the body ; the mind think-
ing, comparing, judging, reasoning, remembering,
all the more powerfully often, the more weak and
decayed and broken the body becomes. How the
trampled and dying flower-bed will billow forth its
perfume ! To find that the mind's power of out-
ward action of knowing the world external to it-
self is also independent of the condition of the
body, would be to find a fact of quite the same sort
with the other. If the one is real the other is cred-
300 THE CURTAIN RISING.
ible. Think again of the man born blind. He has
never seen ; lie has never known that he possesses
the faculty of seeing. Yet some day an expert
oculist succeeds in convincing him that he has the
faculty, has had it all his life long; only there was
wanting some one skillful enough to unlock it for his
use. The operator cuts some restraining cord or
draws aside some envious film ; and lo, the man is
in a new world ! Now who can venture to say that
we are not in just the same position in respect to
the world of a future life, as this blind man was in
respect to the world of light and color ; in possession
of a perfect faculty for observing it, and only need-
ing to have the seals taken off from the faculty in
order to bring it into full use? Is it any more in-
credible that there should be some imprisoned fac-
ulty of the mind which the touch of God can set at
liberty, than that there should be some imprisoned
faculty of the body which the instruments of the
surgeon can liberate ?
Further, there is nothing incredible in the idea of
a bound soul-sense beginning to feel itself at liberty
at the moment when the bodily ties begin to break.
That is just the time when we should naturally
look for some signs of beginning activity and free-
dom in the powers which are so soon to be in full
play. That is just the time when, one would
think, God would be likely to allow His servants a
glimpse of the corning inheritance ; for it is then
they most need it for their solace on their beds of
HONEST WITNESSES. 301
pain, with all worldly comforts receding, and the
shades of the sepnlcher settling around. When
then it is asserted that such death-bed visions as I
have spoken of include within their great and shin-
ing orbit cases of an actual uncovering of another
world to the personal knowledge of living men, I
feel bound to grant that it may be so. And I ask
you to grant, without reserve, that the t linn is not
intrinsically incredible.
2. The subjects of these visions firmly declare them
to be instances of actual insight into another world.
These dying men give us a testimony. Not one
of them is willing to admit that his wonderful expe-
rience is a dream, a fantasy, an hallucination of the
senses. They all declare, with all possible directness
and explicitness, that they have had revealed to
them the wonders of another world and life ; that
by an interior sense they have perceived actual mu-
sic, landscapes, and beings not open to the bodily
senses.
3. These men are witnesses of perfect honesty.
Beyond all question, they profoundly believe what
they say. They mean to tell nothing but sacred
truth. They have all lived upright lives, and many
of them have furnished some of the purest and no-
blest examples of virtuous living the world has ever
seen. And now they are dying ; they have reached
that most honest of all honest hours ; they are, as
they suppose, just going to God and judgment.
This is the time for a sincere, careful testimony, if
302 THE CURTAIN RISING.
ever. We are sure to get from them the facts just
as they conceive them to be ; without exaggeration,
without coloring, without fanciful embellishment of
any kind. Whatever else can be said of these dy-
ing Christians, with their upturned eyes and radiant
faces, as they declare themselves gazing on an-
gels and Jesus Christ and indescribable glories
of heavenly landscapes, no one can for a moment
think of denying that they believe every word they
say, down to the very bottom of their hearts. And
that bottom is very deep in many cases ; deeper and
richer by far than that which deep-sea soundings
have just found so rich in healthy life.
4. These men are competent witnesses.
Thev are not ignorant men, men of feeble and
narrow minds, men without mental discipline and
culture. In the instances I have mentioned, and
doubtless in multitudes of others, they are men of
unusual natural abilities, educated, and enlightened
by extensive information. They are not always
men of nervous and enthusiastic temperament. In
such cases as that of Adams, we have the phe-
nomena in their most striking forms in connection
with a turn of mind cool and equable and unimagi-
native in a remarkable degree. Nor do they al-
ways appear at a time when the mind is enfeebled
and unsettled by disease. You shall find these
dying seers talking as calmly and rationally on
other subjects as they ever did ; as practically, ju-
diciously, and full of common sense as the most
COMPETENT WITNESSES. 303
sober-minded of us could desire. And in some
cases their minds appear even more sound and com-
prehensive and penetrating, more full of quick-
ness and order and healthful strength and vitality,
than thev ever were in what were called their best
days. The visions, too, occur in all sorts of dis-
eases ; are not confined to such as are thought
more especially liable to give rise to distempered
views of things. Whether the end come by gout,
or gangrene, or consumption, or fever, apparently
makes no difference. The men I have spoken of
all died of different disorders, and all died like
prophets. And there can be no doubt that the sev-
eral safeguards now instanced have often been
united in the same person ; the great talents, the
liberal culture, the extensive knowledge, the phil-
osophic temperament, the disease unapt to disorder
the mental action, and every appearance of sobriety
and healthful vigor in that action as directed to-
ward other topics, side by side with these wonderful
visions, introducing them, following them, envelop-
ing them, permeating them, as perfume does the
flower.
What shall we say? Are not these competent
witnesses ? Were there ever any more so ? Un-
less one chooses to deny that men are ever qualified
to judge of supernatural facts, he must admit that
these persons have qualifications of the very high-
est order. If such men are not able to judge
whether they see angels and a Divine glory and
304 THE CURTAIN RISING.
heavenly scenes, there is no such thing among
men as being able to do it. And if so, it would be
impossible for God to reveal anything to an indi-
vidual without revealing it to others. And further,
no man is able to judge, on the basis of his sin-
gle personal observation, whether he sees anything
a tree, a house, a man. You say that you see a
tree. What proof have you of it ? Only this it
seems to you that you see it; and the faculties,
bodily and mental, which must be concerned in the
act, appear to be in a sound and healthy condition.
This is all the proof you can have, apart from com-
paring your observation with that of other men ;
and you are accustomed to think it sufficient. Of
course you can judge whether you see the object,
when you can judge whether the two parts of this
proof are realized in your case ; that is, whether
you seem to yourself to see the tree, and whether
the faculties which must be concerned in the seeing,
in case it occurs, are sound. And at last it comes
to this, that you are a competent judge when these
faculties are in a sound condition. This is the
qualification; the only one the case admits of;
a good and sufficient one ; and yet not good and
sufficient unless such dying men as Holland and
Bailly and Haynes and Adams are qualified to
judj;e whether they see the scenes of another
world. For if the soundness of all their faculties
concerned does not qualify them to judge whether
thev see Heaven, neither does the soundness of
VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. 305
all your faculties concerned qualify you to judge
whether you see earth.
A thing not intrinsically incredible, when testified
to by witnesses of indisputable honesty and thorough
competency, is to be believed. Deny this and you
deny that two thirds of the world's knowledge is of
any value : for so much of it depends on just this
principle in regard to testimony.
5. Though these witnesses were not competent, no
other hypothesis than that of the truth of their testi-
mony would be consistent with indisputable facts.
We can suppose those dying visions to be the
illusions of disease, or the phantasms of highly ner-
vous and enthusiastic temperaments under very
exciting circumstances, or the creed and hopes of
men vivified into pictures and almost into realities
by a strong faith spurred up by approaching death,
or the result of all these causes together. Will
any of these explanations agree with such facts as
the following ?
First, these dying visions of angels and Christ
and God and Heaven, are confined to credibly good
men. Why do not bad men have such visions ?
They die of all sorts of diseases ; they have nervous
and enthusiastic temperaments ; they even have
creeds and hopes about the future which they cling
to with very great tenacity : why do not they rejoice
in some such glorious illusions when they go out of
the world ?
Second, zealous opposers of Christianity never
306 THE CURTAIN RISING.
have dying visions contradicting those of Christians.
Why does not disease, or nervousness, or imagina-
tion, or violent disbelief of the Bible, set these
characters, when dying, to seeing visions of annihi-
lation, or of a paradise without a God and Christ in
it ? Certainly we have a right to look for such things
if the visions described are due to causes which act
equally on the friends of Christ and His enemies.
We certainly have a right to expect that the fevers
and imaginations which so delude the Baillys and
Adamses will play off like tricks, only varied to
suit the difference of faith, on the Collinses and
Herberts, the Bolingbrokes and Owens.
Third, no dying visions, under like circumstances,
occur in respect to any other object than the world
of the future state. This is very singular, on the
supposition that they are mere delusions produced
by causes acting with equal force on all classes of
persons. Why, here are misers, thinking of gold,
gold, gold, all their lives, and with gold still upper-
most in their thoughts now that they are dying (for,
alas, they are not aware that it is the last sickness)
why does not the cheating distemper, while allow-
ing them to perceive and talk as sensibly as ever on
all other subjects, sometimes make them see mines
of gold and caskets of precious jewels, and hear
the clink of coin to the amount of a king's revenue,
and all so clear and life-like that no persuading can
convince them that they are deluded? Here are
ambitious men, thinking of offices, honors, reputa-
VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. 807
tions all their lives, and with these things still up-
permost in their thoughts now that they are dying
(for, alas, they are not aware that it is the last sick-
ness) why does not the distempered brain, while
allowing them to observe and reason as soundly as
ever on all other subjects, make them see themselves
seated on presidential chairs and loftier thrones,
and hear the vivats of admiring throngs, and all so
clear and life-like that to convince them of the mis-
take would be quite impossible ? Here are the vo-
taries of pleasure and fashion, thinking of drives,
dances, plays, feasts all their lives, and with such
things still the ruling passion now that they are dy-
ing (for, alas, they do not know that it is the last
sickness, and they hope in a few days to be as busy
at their pleasures as ever) why do not the excited
nerves and irregular fancy, while allowing them to
view and speak of all other things after the old
manner, make them see wardrobes n't for royalty,
and gay festive-scenes through which they move
in triumphant beauty and delight, and all so clear
and life-like that no argument can persuade them
that they do not actually see what they seem to
see ? Such questions cannot be answered. Un-
intelligent causes do not discriminate between the
various classes of men after this wonderful fash-
ion. Altogether, the facts cited can only agree
with the idea that dying visions of good men are
often cases of actual insight into another world.
As its hold on the body loosens, the soul begins
308 THE CURTAIN RISING.
to acquire the use of faculties hitherto locked up.
A real God permits it to look in upon the realities
of a future life ; among which are a real enthroned
Jesus and a real Scriptural Heaven.
Certain men come to us with a scientific testi-
mony. They tell us that they found their way
into a temple glorious as a dream of enchantment,
where twin altars blazed and twin pontiffs minis-
tered. Each gave a flaming brand. They bore
them forth and flared them up under the familiar
sky. Lo, miracle of miracles I That silver seg-
ment which hangs so sweetly in the west expands
into a revolving world. Those islets of light which
roam so mazily in the dark deeps resolve themselves
into a system of worlds moving in inexorable order
about a blazing sun still greater than they all. And
those points that twinkle from their eternal stations
AMAZEMENT can it be that such great reali-
ties hide beneath such slender seemings? What
seem so near, depart away by incomprehensible ages
of travel. What seem so fixed, take on motion and
rush along the expanse as if inspired by a thousand
whirlwinds. What seem so frail that the wing of
the soaring bird might put them in jeopardy, sur-
round themselves with multiple cycles, of which, to
our breathless imaginations, eternity itself is but an
elder brother. What seem so confused, turn out to
be an economy of systems on whose bright circles
embracing beauty and order move in perpetual ju-
bilee. What seem so few to our untaught counting,
ASTRONOMICAL VISION. 309
become the outposts of multitudinous armies, up and
down whose shining squadrons darts with air of huge
bewilderment our human arithmetic. What seem
so small, gather to themselves solar stature, and
at times a sphered girth within which the system
of the world might hide all its membership, welcome
to its side ten thousand fellow systems, and still go
forth on revolutions of planetary grandeur. Such
marshalings of beauty, such confederacies of sub-
limity, such hegiras of thrones and principalities
and powers of heavenly glory never before met
even their thought. It was as if new faculties had
been born to them. The hearts of some grew faint.
Had they not seen the skirt of GOD the holding
lack of the face of His throne !
Astronomers come to other intelligent men with
this great testimony. Do these intelligent men pre-
sume to question it ? They have never studied the
higher mathematics. They have never even looked
through a telescope most of them. As they now
are, they cannot begin to verify for themselves that
sublime astronomical vision. And yet they receive
it as science, and ask to have it taught, to their chil-
dren. Do they act unreasonably? If one of them
should say in self-justification, " There is no coun-
ter-testimony ; the positive witnesses are many ; I
have no reason to suspect them of dishonesty ; they
show themselves quite sound-minded in other things ;
what they testify to, though sublime and far beyond
anything I am able to discover for myself, is not in-
310 THE CURTAIN RISING.
trinsically unreasonable but is in the line of the
general knowledge and faculty of the race," I say,
if a man should justify himself in accepting the as-
tronomy on such grounds, would any of you hesitate
to allow that they are sufficient? Not a single soul.
And just such are the grounds we have for accept-
ing the testimony of those other witnesses who tes-
tify to glimpses of the Next World. They are honest
witnesses as honest as death. They are capable
witnesses capable as ever wrought at the prose of
daily affairs, or stood before juries. They are many
concurrent witnesses reckon them by thousands
and tens of thousands. What they tell is indeed
beyond our present power to discover for ourselves
something very wonderful and sublime ; but
wonderful and sublime things, and things that must
be taken on trust by most men, are by no means
unknown in this age. All the sciences are full of
them. Signals of strange and startling faculties, as
yet generally latent, abound in the psychological
phenomena of the times. From earliest date, a
certain weird border-land of experience has ever
perplexed and awed both people and philosophers.
And, then, there is absolutely no counter-testimony.
The witnesses are all on one side. Why should
not the jury agree ? Why should the judge hesi-
tate to decide in favor of the sublime vision ? Es-
pecially when he has just decided in favor of that
sublime astronomy which no more candid and capa-
ble men testify to, and which is quite as much out
VERDICT. 311
of the line and above the direct personal knowledge
of most people as are the great visions of Paul and
Stephen and Adams ? Yes let him be consist-
ent, and say that there has really been a rising of
the Curtain to give living men glimpses of a world
beyond the grave whose whole economy recognizes
a Divine Bible.
Men often wish they could have something like
a sensible demonstration of the truth or falsity of
Theism and Christianity. If an angel could only
come and tell them to believe ; if they could only
for a moment have the invisible world uncovered
to them so that they could see that it is all as the
Bible represents see the glorious Heaven the
Christian hopes for, the glory of God, and Jesus
standing on the right hand of God they would ask
no more. They would embrace the Gospel zeal-
ously without any further delay. But, my friends,
you have almost the sort of demonstration that you
ask in the facts to which your attention has now
been called. You have the demonstration only at
second hand. Persons whom you have known, or
what really amounts to the same thing, persons of
your own times as to whose existence and experi-
ence as recorded you should have not the least
atom of doubt, have actually looked into the in-
visible for you ; have seen the angels, the en-
throned Christ, the Scriptural Heaven. Stephen
and Holland and Bailly and Payson and Adams,
and uncounted more of the same stamp, have looked
312 THE CURTAIN RISING.
under the Curtain, and have been permitted to
tell you what they have seen. Were you to
go the world around, you could not find more
credible witnesses than these ; honest men, hon-
est as eternity ; capable men ; cultivated men ; men
who, though dying, have all their mental faculties
in sound, vigorous play. They come and bid you
believe on the strength of their sight. " Believe in
Heaven," they say, " for we have seen it ; we know
we have, know it as surely as we know that we are
living men." " Believe in Jesus the Messiah," say
they, u for we have seen Him arrayed in Divine
glories hard by the throne of God ; we know we
have, know it as surely as we know that we are now
speaking." And really, this seems to me about the
same thing as seeing these things for myself. If
this seeing of theirs goes for nothing with me, doubt-
less seeing of my own would go for nothing too.
There is no reason to suppose I should be per-
suaded, though one rose from the dead. I protest
to you, my hearers each such death-bed scene
as that of the missionary Adams is an independent-
demonstration of the truth of that Religion which
is preached to you ; of God, of the Son, of the
Bible. You have ten thousand most irrefragible
evidences ; for unquestionably there have been that
number of such gorgeous Christian deaths. They
are occurring every year, all over evangelical
Christendom. They probably have been occur-
ring ever since the world of men began ; more
VERDICT. 313
especially since that time when the martyr Stephen
looked up rapturously into Heaven from amid the
gnashing wild beasts 'of the Jewish Sanhedrim.
This may well suffice for your faith till such time
as God shall be lifting before your own death-beds
the Curtain that conceals the world of spirits. Only
a few are permitted to tell of eternity, seen while
yet in the body : but it is by no means unlikely that
every person, either before or after speech has de-
parted, while the soul is breaking away from the
body, gets real glimpses of the spirit-land which he
is about entering. Perhaps the Curtain will soon
begin to rise for some of us. Let us see to it that
our glimpses shall be glimpses of Heaven. And
while our friends are watching our attent, though
silent, faces, as if seeing things unutterable, let us
be renewing Stephen's vision of a Heaven opened,
and a Jesus standing on the right hand of God
Paul's vision of a Paradise in the third Heaven,
with its unspeakable things.
XVI.
CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
XVI. CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
1. EXPERIENCE 319
2. NATURE OF THE SYSTEM 332
3. TOTAL STRENGTH 345
4. IMPERIAL ROME 349
5- A GREATER EMPIRE 352
CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
course many objections can be brought against
the Biblical Religion. They can be brought
against anything. The business of fault-finding is
proverbially easy. Almost any expert advocate will
boldly undertake to befog to common minds the
clearest sunshine of law or of fact. There is noth-
ing so pure, nothing so fair, nothing so true abso-
lutely nothing but that an ingenious mind can
manage to bring some specious accusations against
it.
I have already noticed the leading infidel objec-
tions ; also given briefly what I regard as a conclu-
sive answer to them all. They lie as much against
known facts as they do against the Divine origin of
the Bible. That whole way of objecting which is
commonly used against the Bible is equally good
against every principle of morals, against every his-
torical fact, and even against every mathematical
demonstration. I have spent years in study of the
abstruser mathematics. I have done my best at ex-
amining their principles ; and I offer to bring quite
as plausible objections against their every particular
axiom as any Voltaire can bring against the Religion
of Jesus.
318 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
This is my general answer. In addition, how-
ever, almost every leading objection to this Religion
can be met with some valuable answers peculiar to
itself. Of course it would carry me too far were I
to attempt to deal fully with each such objection.
The best I can do is to give you an example of such
dealing ; and to take for my example one of the
most specious charges ever made in the interest of
unbelief. This I now propose to do. And I do it
the more readily from seeing that the discussion to
be undertaken is fitted .to throw special light on the
nature of the Gospel, and on its claims to reverence
from the many reverers of splendid power and
triumphant success.
It has long been the practice of infidels to assert
the inherent weakness of Christianity. A century
ago it was given out at Ferney that the System
could be put down by a single vigorous arm. A
little later, the author of the k4 Decline and Fall "
penned a stately sneer which meant that the relig-
ion of Mohammed possessed more tough stability
than the Religion of Jesus. To-day, a brilliant
Quarterly comes into our reading rooms and argues
that Christianity is both feeble to conquer and fee-
ble to endure ; that it has little influence with its
friends, less force against its enemies, and no ability
whatever to bide the light of science.
Why these charges ? Plainly from the idea that
if Christianity is shown intrinsically weak it is
thereby shown substantially false. And the idea is
EXPERIENCE. 319
correct. A weak system of religion is not suited
to human wants, is not suited to, the end it proposes
to itself, and so cannot be from a wise and almighty
God. I therefore proceed to show that the Chris-
tian Religion is not weak, that it is really an exceed-
ingly strong system, really a magnificent self-estab-
lishing and self-perpetuating Force, not to say the
joint wisdom and power of God.
I appeal, first, to the experience of the world.
" Appeal to the experience of the world ! " ex-
claims the objector; " why, it is just here lies my
great strength. How slow have been the advances
of Christianity in certain quarters, and how quick
its retreats in others ! What little influence has
it had on most of its professed friends ; on the
measures of Christian governments, on the masses of
Christian nations, on even the membership of Chris-
tian churches ! Into how many mutually contend-
ing sects have its followers been divided, from the
earliest times ! How is it possible to construct an
argument for a mighty Christianity out of an ex-
perience that bristles with such facts as these ! "
It really is of no consequence to dispute the real-
ity of any of these stumbling experiences. Admit
them, and it does not follow that Christianity is weak
unless, indeed, it is true that there is no system
on earth which is strong. For a like experience
belongs to every other historical system, whether of
religion or science or government. Perhaps the ob-
jector is a deist. Has Deism any more than Ro-
320 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
manism, Mohammedanism, or Polytheism never
had times of gaining slowly and losing swiftly ;
times when the actual practice of its friends was
but a poor exponent of its theories and rules ; times
when its different schools were many and mutually
hostile ? Perhaps the objector is a politician. Has
the democracy or the monarchy or the aristocracy
ever been without its parties, without its courts and
prisons in full play, without times when friends in-
creased slowly or enemies rapidly? Perhaps the
objector is a man of science. Is there any leading
science which has not had its slow as well as rapid
spread, its local defeats, a large practice among its
nominal friends inconsistent with its principles, vari-
ous schools shaking argumentative spears at each
other? In short, no system with a history can be
mentioned which has not had just such an experi-
ence in these respects as is charged on Christianity.
Even sin has had it. Is sin, as it exists among
men, a feeble thing ? Is there really nothing strong
in the world ?
It is, however, not true that Christianity exerts
small influence on its professed friends. Hereafter
I mean to show its influence to be vastly great,
though much less than a Christian could wish. But
it is a fact, which there is no denying, that the Sys-
tem has had its times of slow advances and quick
recessions. The primitive church was soon cor-
rupted. The Reformation of the sixteenth century
ebbed very rapidly in Germany. Our missionaries
EXPERIENCE. 321
have often labored long with apparently small re-
sults. But, before weakness can properly be in-
ferred from these facts, two things must be shown ;
first, that substantially the whole strength of the Sys-
tem was enlisted in the contest, and second, that the
strength of opposing influence was not great. - Until
both of these points are proved nothing is proved.
But it may credibly be claimed that what Christian-
ity had to contend against was human wickedness,
one of the strongest things known to history, and in-
deed able from its very nature to resist successfully
any degree of force that may be brought against it.
And further, it may be claimed that never yet have
the full energies of the System been brought into
play ; that its power is partly that of an instrument
committed to human hands, which are always in
some degree unskillful and unfaithful, arid often
vastly so. The strongest lever, the keenest sword,
may accomplish but little through the fault of those
into whose hands it falls. Friends of Christianity
may plausibly enough affirm that, had it always
been diligently used according to the laws of its
nature, it would long since have subdued the world.
It is also true that nominal Christians have in all
ages been divided into many mutually contending
sects. So far as this division has given rise to bit-
terness and strife between true believers it has of
course hindered the success of Christianity. But
what is this admitting? Merely that its success
is capable of being abated in some degree by the
21
322 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
mighty weakness and wickedness of human nature ;
a thing surely consistent with the possession on the
part of the System of any amount of power. Di-
vision in Christianity is one thing ; division among
its followers is another. The one would indeed
mean weakness in the system ; the other may spring
merely from the weakness, natural and moral, of
man. I claim that it does spring entirely from this
source ; that so far from being produced or in any
way countenanced by Christianity, it is opposed by
it at all points ; and that so the System is no more
responsible for it and its results than is the eagle for
the head wind through which, with powerful and
overcoming stroke, he forces a somewhat retarded
way.
Yonder planet, to a careless examination, is a
mere speck, with very inconsiderable and often re-
trograde motion, and wholly uninfluential on its
neighbors and ourselves ; but if you look into the
case more carefully you will find that Jupiter is a
huge world, doubtless filled like our own with an al-
most incomprehensible sum of chemical and me-
chanical forces, firmly holding four reluctant worlds
in eternal fealty to itself, ever advancing on its path
at more than the pace of winds, and so related to
us that were itself blotted from the system we our-
selves must disappear. Yonder star seems, to a care-
less examination, less than the planet, equally un-
influential, always quite stationary, and sometimes
altogether occulted; and yet if you look more
EXPERIENCE. 323
carefully into the case you will find that Alcyone
is equal to twelve thousand suns like ours, is po-
tent with solar forces, is the center of our firma-
ment, and is wheeling about itself with supreme
ease, not only our own world and solar system, but
also the whole glorious Milky Way. Who, with
such examples of Great Powers that look like mere
nothings to a superficial view, but must admit that
the Christianity which at first, perhaps, seems very
slow, very weak, and often almost suppressed by its
neighbors, may yet, on more careful inquiry, be
found instinct with enormous force, even with the
Wisdom and Power of God !
So much for objections. On the positive side of
the argument I ask attention to the following par-
ticulars the single handed successes of Christian-
ity against prodigious opposition ; its greatly supe-
rior rapidity and frequency of success as compared
with opposing moral forces when all have equal
field ; and, finally, the fact that on such field it al-
ways conquers all these enemies as long as it remains
pure and entire, while it maintains its purity and en-
tireness in a remarkable manner. All this in view
of features in the System adapted to such effects.
Without help from any quarter, this Religion of
Christ has achieved a thousand triumphs over pro-
digious power. As examples of successes under
such conditions, I may instance the many radical
conversions it has effected among the most difficult
of men. Men of iron will, men scaled in all varie-
324 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
ties of wickedness, men who to strength of sin and
strength of nature added the strength of hoary
habits ; how often have such, by some simple tract,
some Scripture sentence, some common sermon,
been subdued into new men ! The Etliiops whit-
ened, the dappled leopards parted with their spots ;
and beyond a doubt it was the Gospel, pure and
simple, that wrought the wonder.
Look also at the great restraints which the Sys-
tem exerts on the masses in Christian lands. Of
all lands the Pagan are most corrupt. Next come
the Mohammedan, which have some grains of Chris-
tianity in their creed. Still better are the countries
holding to the Greek and Roman Churches, which
include still more of the true Gospel. And best of
all, as formal statistics show, is Protestantdom with
its still greater leaven of the Religion of Christ. It
is here we find, as nowhere else, the kingdom of the
ten commandments. Our legislation, the manners
of our people to say nothing of the practice of
our churches dark as they are when projected
on a perfect law, shine like Chaldean stars on the
inky background of heathen countries. Further, on
comparing together different communities of the
same Protestant land, we find those mpst exem-
plary in every moral respect which are brought
most regularly and closely into contact with Chris-
tian principles and institutions. The places among
ourselves where the Bible is most read and the
sanctuary most frequented, are the places where
EXPERIENCE. 325
vices and disorders, and all that wise parents would
dislike in a home, least flourish. Now what is the
explanation of this ? I answer, the mighty restrain-
ing power of Christianity. The strict, pure Sys-
tem, with its popular cast and grand sanctions, is
evidently just fitted to produce such results. It is
a plain cause, a sufficient cause, a cause whose vari-
ations correspond with the observed variations in the
phenomena to be explained. And what other can be
assigned? " Liberty," says an objector, u Liberty !
The moral differences you speak of are owing to
the different degrees of civil freedom enjoyed ; for
freedom gives industry, enterprise, education, and
comfort to the masses ; all of which things favor
public virtue." But this explanation does not pro-
fess to touch the case of communities belonging to
the same country. Also, it does not appear that
freedom, apart from some measure of Christianity,
or under the same low measure of it, has been wont
to stand connected with any better state of public
morals than absolutism. Were the ancient heathen
republics any more correct in their manners than
the average of ancient heathen monarchies ? Are
the papal republics of South America any fairer to
look at than the papal kingdoms of Brazil and
Spain ? The aristocracies of absolute monarchies, al-
ways freer than the other classes, have they as a rule
been noticeably less loose in morals than the masses
under the same religious influences ? Indeed,
who would suppose that merely diminishing the
326 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
restraints on corrupt human nature would be likely
to improve its behavior ? But does not self-govern-
ment in the people tend to general industry, enter-
prise, intelligence, thrift ; and so to an orderly and
decorous social condition ? Far from it. Superior
liberty alone is never peculiarly connected with
these things. There must be at least liberty and
order ; which latter is one of the things to be ac-
counted for. Mexico has long had as free a consti-
tution as could be desired ; but, as there have been
but little order and security among the people, they
have had little heart for any but the most make-
shift mode of living. And so in several neighbor-
ing states. Indeed hardly anything is plainer from
the course of experience than that order in liberty
cannot be maintained except on the basis of a gen-
eral intelligence, laborious vigor, and sound princi-
ple in the people.
As examples of great historic successes pertinent
to my purpose, 1 may instance the triumphs of
Christianity in the Primitive Age and at the Ref-
ormation. At both these times she entered the
field substantially alone. On her side were none
of the gods and demigods of worldly circumstance.
On the contrary, every power of this kind was
bitterly against her. Antiquity was against her ;
wealth was against her ; art, literature, and philos-
ophy were against her ; pontiffs and Cesars, old and
new, were against her all bitterly zealous in giv-
ing aid and comfort to her enemy. And that enemy,
EXPERIENCE. 327
the central enemy itself what a very monster for
intense vitality and power! They err exceedingly
who suppose this foe to have been merely the de-
cayed Paganism, the hollow Judaism, or Romanism
with its extensive abuses. It was none of these so
much as the giant wickedness of the times, only
partly expressed in these forms. Never in the his-
tory of the Papacy was Europe more corrupt, both
in doctrine and practice, than the monk of Erfurt
found it. Never, probably, was the core of society,
Gentile and Jewish, more eaten out by vice than
when Jesus appeared. Of course this great cor-
ruption struggled with all its might against the
spread of a religion so strict and pure as the Chris-
tian. And yet Christianity conquered. In a brief
space it steadily forced its way into ascendency
throughout that old Roman world. In a few years
it won to the Reformation principalities, cantons,
kingdoms ; and all, despite that unparalleled enemy
with its paladin miters, crowns, diets, conscript-
fathers, persecutions, prestiges of all sorts. Do such
achievements as these come of strength less than
gigantic ?
Another fact. Christianity has never declined
before other moral forces anything like as fast and
often as they have before it, when all have been left
to their own intrinsic energies. And so they have
been left in the United States and Great Britain.
In these countries the law and doctrine of Christ
have always recovered in months the ground which
328 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
they were years in losing. Compare the reactions
under the Wesleys, under Edwards, under Chalmers,
with the corresponding declines. The infidelity, the
formalism, the indifferentism, the legal wickedness
of all kinds, came in on foot and went away on
wings. And those late religious changes in Ireland
how surprisingly many and rapid have they been !
Who ever heard of Protestant parishes, under
merely moral influences, changing to Romanist so
fast or so often ? With us it is no uncommon thing
for a revival, in the course of a few weeks or even
days, to completely break the staff of wickedness in
a community and quite abolish prevalent infidelities
and heresies. And, pray, where is the instance of
these things, one or all, reciprocating conquests on
the Gospel after the same magnificent manner?
Of all men, Americans, who hear so often the rush-
ing mighty wind of awakenings and see all things
in its path abruptly bending and breaking, should
be least troubled with misgivings as to the powe*r
of Christianity. This superior rapidity of success
shows that, at least in its best states, the System
has greatly more conquering power than any other
opposing moral force whatever, not excepting sin
itself; while the superior frequency of its successes
shows that it maintains the conquering state greatly
better than any opponent.
Consider also a still stronger fact. It is that, on
open and equal field, the Gospel always conquers
whatever moral forces appear against it so long as
EXPERIENCE. 329
it remains pure and entire, while it maintains its
purity and completeness much better than any of
them. No one presumes to judge unfavorably of
the energy of a chemical agent from what it does in
an impure state. What does it when it is itself and
by itself? this is the test question. If, when
treed from all impurities and keeping every element
that properly enters into its composition, the pile of
Volta makes the dead man leap, decomposes the
firmest substances, fires the least inflammable, bursts
rocks asunder, and triumphs over space and time in
the instantaneous utterance of our thought a thou-
sand miles away, these effects are the proper meas-
ures of the battery's power, and not what it doos
when the acid is absent or the zinc impure. And
so, what Christianity does when pure and entire is
the only proper expression of its force. Strictly
speaking, it is then only that it is Christianity. Now
what does it in this state? I answer, Conquer
nothing but Conquer. The world may safely be
challenged to show an instance in which the strict
System, substantially nothing more and nothing less,
has failed to gain ground on its enemies when equal
field has been allowed. The Primitive Church, as
long as it continued itself, went on spreading. So
did the Church of the Reformation, save where the
civil power interfered. Never yet was a real Chris-
tian mission planted that did not gain perceptibly, as
soon as it was fairly at work without molestation.
It is true that sometimes missions have been given
330 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
up on account of civil interference, want of support
from home, a change of circumstances apparently
making another field more eligible; but never on
account of total want of progress after the Gospel
had come to walk about familiarly in the vernacular.
And look at home. You will see that, there being
given in a place a pure Christian doctrine, a living
Christian church, and a faithful Christian ministry
that is, real Christianity with all its institutions in
a normal state it is sure to make progress on all
opposing influences. None of us ever heard of a
place where it was not so.
But what power has the System to maintain its
purity and entireness? Eighteen centuries have
passed since the Bible was finished. They have
been centuries of great -changes. In their course
the world has been wrought over into newness at
C5
almost every point. But, to-day, the text of the
Scriptures, after copyings almost innumerable and
after having been tossed about through ages of
ignorance and tumult, is found by exhaustive criti-
cism to be unaltered in every important particu-
lar there being not a single doctrine, nor duty,
nor fact, of any grade, that is brought into ques-
tion by variations of readings a fact that stands
alone in the history of such ancient literature. And
to-day, also, as in all the past, there is not a single
great Christian Sect that does not hold as firmly to
the most fundamental elements of Christianity as
did the Primitive Age itself. God, a divine Christ,
EXPERIENCE. 331
an inspired Bible, the immortality of men, their
responsibleness in a future state of rewards and
punishments, their actual lost estate, their possible
recovery by repentance and faith on their part and
by an atonement and Holy Ghost on the part of
God, an honest walk of the believer according to
the rules of Christ where is there a large De-
nomination, bearing Christ's name, that does not
lift both hands in favor of these Christian First
Principles ? They stand better than the hills.
Time, the great dissolve!', makes no impression on
them. We confess to sore corruptions in certain
quarters ; yet it is true that the Christian World
as such, in its creeds and actual belief, still main-
tains the whole gist of the original Christianity.
There is not a main timber in the great ship as
it was launched which is not in it to-day, and as
sound as ever. On parts barnacles have been al-
lowed to gather. At times men have hindered
the sailing and the safety by various outlandish
equipments. At times they have made our tri-
reme fantastic with ill-judged paint, and even odious
with unfit lading. But, despite this, it is the same
ship, as to those great skeleton beams whose heart
of oak holds all together, that once plowed the blue
waves of Galilee and the ^Egean with the fisher-
men apostles for crew and undoubted Jesus for
Master.
So much for what is observed outside of the Sys-
tem. Now notice some strong features of the Sys-
332 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
tern itself, from which such effects might naturally
be expected. I think one has only to look at these
in their combination in order to feel that the Relig-
ion to which they belong must be powerful in a very
high degree.
I appeal to the nature of the System itself.
Look, first, at the great store of clear and impor-
tant truth which Christianity confessedly contains.
To say nothing of what it tells us about God, it
gives us very many just and important views of the
history, character, and proper culture of man. Its
practical code is of the best very sound, very com-
plete, very valuable and the Scriptures are starred
with thousands of excellent precepts, each of which
is based on a truth as valuable as itself. This is
confessed by persons of all creeds. Even bitter
infidels say it. Of course truths so widely received,
and yet so largely distasteful, must be exceedingly
clear. They call for no unusual faculty or learning.
They ask for no happy moments of even common
minds. As soon as fair statement of them is made,
they stand forth to view in sharp and pictorial def-
inition, and commend themselves to the public con-
science so eloquently as to compel in their favor
promptest and unqualified verdict. Is such an ele-
ment as this without great force ? To suppose it
is to suppose that there are no strong adaptations
in our constitution to leading facts in Nature. It
is to suppose that conscience is no power in the
world ; the instinct of self-interest and self-preserva-
NATURE OF THE SYSTEM. 333
tion no power. We have been told from earliest
years that truth is mighty ; and surely such truth
as we find included in Christianity so important,
so voluminous, so easily and vividly recognized by
men at large surely this is not likely to put the
proverb to blush. It does not. It is a great unwast-
ing water-head in the mountains unwasting be-
cause having direct communication with the highest
O C5
Divine and deepest human nature, with the waters
above the firmament and the waters beneath and
if one asks why it is that the vale below smiles with
plenty, and swift-paced engines fill its warehouses
with useful and beautiful fabrics, I point in part-
answer to the rivulets that stream down upon it
from every quarter, and to the races whose fuller
currents shoot steeply down from their perch among
the eternal snows and clouds through all the
droughty year.
Next, look at the great simplicity of Christianity.
There are things attached to the System, and prop-
erly attached to it, which are very far from having
this quality witness the folios of Christian phi-
losophies which hardly any besides scholars are ex-
pected to understand. There are things often called
Christianity which, if possible, still less deserve to
be considered simple witness the trappings of that
great Church which covers the best of Europe. See
Fathers, Popes, Councils, and Scriptures brought
together in one discordant motley as rule of faith
and this passes for Christianity in its foundation.
334 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
See dreams, traditions, and Aristotles, dovetailed
arid patterned into each other with the most intricate
ingenuity and this passes for Christianity in its
doctrine. See a vast ecclesiasticism with its thrones,
principalities, and powers ; with its croziers, rniters,
vestments, censers, saint-days, ceremonies, in almost
endless patterns of tinsel or magnificence and this
passes for Christianity in its order and worship.
Heathendom itself could hardly turn out to us a
more intricate and ostentatious system than this for
which is claimed so lofty a name. And even in the
purest form of the Christian System, there are some
things hard to be understood let us not fear to
say it parables and riddles hard as any of Delphos
or Theban Sphinx. Yet, after all, it is permitted
me to speak of the great simplicity of Christianity.
Though its adjuncts are not always simple, though
particular features of it are not simple, yet, as a
whole, this Religion is the simplest the world lias
ever seen. Nothing but Scripture enters into its
rule of faith and practice. Nothing but honest ef-
fort to do all known duty is made necessary to
secure faith in this rule. Its fundamentals of doc-
trine are few and easily understood : its principles
of practice still fewer and almost universally ap-
proved. It has but one sacred day ; but one or-
der of religious ; but two ceremonies, and those
in merest outline and of the most unpretending
kind. There is nothing that can be called machin-
ery no diplomacy of manner ; no sacred etiquette ;
NATURE OF THE SYSTEM. 835
no dramatic gild, scenery, costume, upholstery, illu-
minations, judicious dispositions of lights and shad-
ows. Whether such things may, to a certain extent,
be lawfully connected with the System in the re-
sponsibility of human liberty, is a point on which
Christian people may differ : but it ought to be plain
to all, that they are no part of the prescribed System
itself. Here the tenor of things is severely simple.
We everywhere recognize the manner of one who,
strong in birth and position and unmatched beauty,
can consciously afford to appear in the simplest
drapery, and to leave to less fortunate dames the
sheen of jewels and the triumphs of millinery.
Now, to persons not a few, such a severely simple
system is every way more attractive than any other.
And, to such as form the bulk of mankind, it is one
which can be more thoroughly understood, vividly
conceived, promptly recollected, and easily worked :
and so one more influential with believers and in
their hands. A system whose essentials are so few
and plain, can be mastered very early in life as well
as by the humblest classes ; a system so capable of
being thoroughly, generally, and easily understood,
has special security against corruption ; a system
so sparing of sacred days and trappings and cer-
emonials, commends itself to the necessities of the
masses ; is cheaply received, cheaply supported,
cheaply propagated.
Mark, also, the intense centralization of Chris-
tianity. It not only vests, absolute authority in re-
336 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
ligious matters in single Scripture, but sends every
one to it dirtctly and personally for direction. And
not only so ; but the system of general government
which it represents God as maintaining, is of the
same concentrated and direct character. He is
shown to us as, in right and fact, the one absolute
monarch in the world of events ; supervising and
managing them all, whether inward or outward, re-
ligious or secular, great or small, with irresponsible
and infinite power. Further, He does not govern
by the spontaneity of accountable deputies, as other
absolute monarchs are always compelled to do
largely; but with a personal thought and decision,
and, where the case demands it, determining action
in relation to everything that happens, down fo the
motion of the lifeless microscopic mote. And as to
leading human affairs, what closer personal dealing
could there be between subjects and sovereign !
We are individually held responsible for all conduct
directly to Him. He hears our prayers in person,
pardons our offenses in person, renews and sancti-
fies us in person, will finally judge us in person.
Depart from that confessional, O monk Luther !
Rise from before that picture of the Virgin, O Bo-
hemian Huss. as yet unread in Wickliff! Ye poor
men of Lyons and kingdoms silent with interdicts,
tremble not while vicar-Rome refuses viaticums
and clanks in your ears the power of the keys !
The duties of Deity are not done by curate. None
of the great functions of His government are trusted
NATURE OF THE SYSTEM. 337
to the discretion, even the accountable discretion,
of pontiff or council, laic or cleric, saint or angel.
He is His own parliament and judiciary and ex-
ecutive His own prime minister and cabinet
and constituency. Himself is the State. Every-
where He worketh all in all. Never was there cen-
tralization to match this.
Such is the Christian theory of the Divine Gov-
ernment. It is evidently well fitted- to take strong
hold of the human mind. Naturalism, crowding
God almost over the horizon by a thousand inter-
posed second-causes ; Paganism doing the same by
its acolyth gods, greater and less what are such
proxy systems, in respect to impressiveness, com-
pared with one which keeps ever glittering in its
foreground and background and everywhere the
majesty and terribleness of an infinite Personal
Ruler ! The idea of being always in direct contact
with an almighty and irresponsible sovereignty, with
not so much as a gossamer-web between to deaden
its heavy pulsations upon us, is fitted to appeal
bravely to our imaginations, venerations, and fears.
It at once translates all the doctrines of Christ into
the imperative all the laws of Christ into the
awfulness of life and death.
This intense centralization of the Christian Sys-
tem makes it to us a system of great liberty, in the
direction of our fellow-men. By vesting the sole
authority in religious matters in the Bible, and by
sending each man directly and personally to it to
22
338 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
gather its meaning in the exercise of his own pri-
vate judgment, it denies to all his fellows, individ-
ually and collectively, the right to dictate to him in
religion, either as original authority or as expound-
ers of Scripture. If they choose to advise him it is
well. If tliey choose to argue with him it is better.
If they are able in any way to give him light, it is
their duty to do it and his duty to allow it to be
done. And in case their opportunities are great,
their talents commanding, and their probity unques-
tionable, their bare opinions may be entitled to great
weight. But as to any right to dictate religious
sentiments, to bind the conscience by mere asser-
tion and authority this right is given by the
Christian scheme to no man or body of men, far or
near, speaking or writing, living or dead, outside of
Scripture. We are not bound to take their mere
word for the smallest item of creed or duty, whether
they are popes, councils, or fathers ; whether Lu-
thers, Calvins, or bluff Henrys ; whether Dort
Synods, Westminster Assemblies, or ecumenical
commentators. All the right the best of them have
is merely that of contributing materials for the use
of our free and independent judgments. So says the
Christianity that puts an open Bible in the sole seat
of authority. If a man with* a triple crown on his
head comes to me and says, " Believe in the im-
maculate conception," it is my Christian privilege
to say to him, " Prove that this is Scripture ; else,
though supported by the whole world, it can never
NATURE OF THE SYSTEM. 339
enter into my creed." If conservative journals
and jurisconsults come to me and say, u Use not
your pulpit against sins which have become po-
litical institutions," it is my Christian privilege to
say to them, " Gentlemen, with all due respect, it
will be necessary for you to prove that the course
you require is Scriptural ; else, I must continue to
preach against violent perverting of justice in a
province." Such responses are indeed bad mediae-
valism, but they are good Christianity. I am al-
lowed the largest religious liberty in respect to
man : though in respect to the Bible I am under an
absolute monarchy.
Now this large liberty is very attractive to most
persons. But the chief thing about it is its influ-
ence in forming the public to an intellectual habit
to that habit of self-poised and enterprising
thought which goes to promote all sorts of freedom
and advancement, and thus to place Christianity in
command of the most powerful and prosperous na-
tions, whose prestige and wealth and science and
power shall preach for her. See what has actually
happened. What nations are like the Protestant in
popular prosperity ? What Protestants can vie in
this with the English-speaking race which has long
been the best stronghold of the right of private
judgment? At this moment there is probably
more wealth, valuable intelligence, stamina, durable
working power among the people of this country
and Great Britain, than among many times their
340 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
number of other men taken together in any part of
the world. It is a proverb this wonderful Anglo-
Saxon energy. And the secret of it is the Christian
doctrine of the right of private judgment. This is
the subtle electricity which vitalizes all parts of our
thrift and ascendency, this the strong heart which,
from deep within, silently projects the generous
blood to the extremities of the system.
The Christian System consists of two parts. One
is matter of rigorous prescription, and remains the
same for all countries and times. To this belong
the doctrines of Scripture, its moral laws, its sacra-
ments, and its ministry. It proposes that these
shall be to us just what they were to the apostles*
and to the last generation that shall walk the earth
what they are to us. This is the constant part of
that great formula which we call Christianity. But
there is another part made up of variable quanti-
ties quantities fairly belonging to the System and
prescribed by it in a general way, but to which no
particular values are assigned within the System
itself. Some of its general maxims of duty have
elements in them which vary with the circum-
stances and characters of men. It implicitly re-
quires some machinery of evangelization, but gives
no direction as to what ; leaving the missionary,
tract, Bible interests to be cared for by such organi-
zations and methods as the state of the times may
seem to make most efficient. Moreover, the System
as a whole is not cast into one unalterable shape.
NATURE OF THE SYSTEM. 341
Now it appears as a busy biography, then as an au-
thoritative lesson, next as a logic and philosophy,
again as a parable or a proverb, still again as a
many colored poem. It is like an angel who at one
time stops at the tent of Abraham under the dusty
form of a traveler, at another encounters Joshua as
a war-captain with a drawn sword in his hand, at
another as a man's hand writes startling laconics on
the wall, at another shines and sings as a plumed
glory in the air over Bethlehem. So flexible is
Christianity and, I may add, so powerful. Instead
of being some stiff machine such as man makes, and
to which yielding is the same thing as breaking, it is
a solar system such as God makes, where, within the
embrace of certain great constants, every orbit is
continually changing in many ways, and yet all the
changes are so summed and adjusted as in them-
selves to furnish the conditions of a stable and
mighty equilibrium. On the tacit condition that
the main simplicity of the System shall not be out-
raged, each man is left to consult his own sense of
fitness and beauty as to its equipage, its dress, and
largely all that is mere body in it ; and thus, the
esthetic partialities of each nature being enlisted on
the side of the System, it can be embraced more
readily, held more firmly, felt more deeply, and
propagated more zealously. As to style of worship,
each may adopt that which he finds most apt at im-
pressing and spiritualizing his own mind. Whether
he can achieve most devotion standing or kneeling ;
342 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
with liturgy or without ; before surplice and bands
or a black coat ; under Gothic, Grecian, or Sara-
cenic angles and curves let him judge and suit
himself. He can be governed by a church democ-
racy, or a ministerial conference, or a general as-
sembly, or a bishop, as he shall find most pleasant
and profitable to his peculiarity. I feel most at
home in the modes to which I have been bred ; but
if any one has a different taste I will not forbid him
to follow it, for Christianity has not forbidden him.
He may fight the common enemy with such weapons
as he can handle the best. If he is best master of
the sword, let him use that ; if his skill is in archery,
let him fit sharp arrows to the string ; if his heavy
strength takes most naturally to the battle-axe, let
him swing that like crusading Richard ; if it suits
him to go into battle on foot or on Bucephalus,
with Saul's armor or David's sling, why, in the
name of Christian liberty and the New Testa-
ment, let him go after his own fashion and be God-
speeded. In this way every man is turned to the
best account. His idioms become so many special
Christian powers. Instead of rousing into opposi-
tion the individualities of a large part of mankind
by one sweeping act of uniformity, Christianity
gives them full play and enlists them into its ser-
vice. A system that so adapts itself to the various
circumstances, natural traits, and lawful moods of
men, never becomes superannuated, has the free-
dom of all countries as well as ages, lays hold of so-
NATURE OF THE SYSTEM. 343
ciety at all points, and levies support from a wide
range offerees.
Another power of Christianity is its preaching
ministry. The Pagan priesthood has always been
chiefly sacrificial and ritualistic. Islam has no cler-
ical order : the Imaum not being appointed by the
Koran, nor devoting himself to religious teaching
as a business. But Christianity has set apart an
order of men to the sole work of expounding, en-
forcing, and propagating religion, chiefly in the way
of public vocal argument and appeal 'men who
shall not be novices, but apt to teach, manifesting
the word through preaching, giving themselves
wholly to it, that their profiting may appear to all.'
I say sole work ; for the administration of the sacra-
ments which falls to Christian ministers occupies so
little time that it may be overlooked in this con-
nection. Accordingly, all Protestant countries are
so many sermon-making and sermon-hearing coun-
tries. Of a Sunday there are more popular relig-
ious discourses pronounced in them, many times
over, than in all the w r orld besides, through all the
year. And they come, too, chiefly from trained
men, to whom this form of teaching is almost their
sole business. All proceeds on the principle that it
pleases God by the " foolishness of preaching " both
to save them that believe, and to make believers.
A powerful peculiarity of Christianity ! It se-
cures to it the best possible defenders and propa-
gators. It secures to believers regular, frequent,
344 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
and ablest instruction and prompting in Christian
principles. And it carries forward this instructing
and prompting, this defense and propagation, under
the most engaging and efficient forms ; mainly by
that public address which so economizes the time
and labor both of audience and speaker which so
rouses his own powers, moves the popular sympa-
thies, and meets the popular taste mainly by this,
supplemented by such occasional private dealing with
individuals as may be required to meet important
specialties in their condition.
Let me bring into a single view three other pow-
erful features of the Christian Religion which well
deserve a fuller consideration. These are its holy
precepts, easy test, and mighty sanctions. I have
already dwelt on the fact that Christ comes to us
with a practical code of the greatest purity, known
to all tolerable consciences to be such. Equally
plain is it that if this code were universally acted
on, we should have universal paradise. Next, each
unbeliever is told that if he will in good faith set
himself to acting on the code, he " shall know of
the doctrine," certainly a very fair offer; win-
ning in its first aspect, full of an air of candor and
ingenuous self-confidence ; making faith easy, if
faith is justified ; giving a crucial test of the Bible
quite independent of scholarly accomplishment and
leisure, and indeed of everything save an honest
wish to know the truth. And then, to rouse him
to this wish, he is pressed with motives so vast that
TOTAL STRENGTH. 345
no greater can be imagined. Lo Heaven, if you
win a practical faith otherwise, Hell ! After
faith has been won, the man continues to be plied
from that better fulcrum, as long as he lives, witli
the mightiest leverage of gratitude, hope, and fear.
Shall any tell us that a system whose practical side
so appeals to universal conscience, whose intellect-
ual side so approaches the masses of society with
most easy and decisive test of itself adapted to their
laborious and unscholarly state, and which forever
follows up all with infinite motives, does not possess
sources of power which, were there no other, would
make it a world-mover !
But, as we have seen, there are many others.
The Biblical Religion is strong in its unity, strong in
its simplicity, strong in its splendid literature, strong
in its mingled absolutism and liberty, strong in its
great stores of confessed truth, strong in the sub-
limity of its proposed object and means, strong in
the accord of its facts and doctrines with Nature
and experience, strong in its adaptation to the wants
of mankind, strong in its superiority to all other re-
ligions, strong in its terrible alternative of no-relig-
ion, strong in its prophecies and miracles and other
profuse evidences. Putting together these strong
features, what a stalwart Whole do they seem to
make ? Especially in the light of its actual history
showing what great literary attacks it has borne
up against, what bloody persecutions it has outlived,
what potent enemies it has overthrown, what huge
846 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
burdens it has lifted from society, what wonderful
individual, local, and national transformations it has
wrought, what a shining literature it has created,
what a. crowd of languages it has taught to speak
its Bible all over the world, what an array of schools,
and colleges, and churches, and philanthropic insti-
tutions it has founded, what delightful art and use-
ful science it has nurtured, what vast sums it is an-
nually expending in the various Christian enterprises,
what warm love it has won, what high heroism it
has inspired, what rich consolations and joys it has
given, what a sovereign hold it has had on the judg-
ments and hearts of multitudes of the earth's wisest
and best, what saintly living and triumphal dying it
has secured among the worst and feeblest of men.
Even the prodigious vitality and force of mediaeval
errors grafted on it show the rich strength of the
stock from which they rob a support. Even the
noisy and furious assaults made on it tell of its mas-
sive strength as the noise and spume of the sea
bespeak the rocky nature of the coast on which it
is dashing.
And yet, great as must be the power of a system
to which such facts and features belong, I must re-
gard them merely as tokens of a power far greater
than is fairly expressed in themselves. To me
Christianity includes the whole personal strength of
Deity. It is inhabited of the Holy Ghost. It is
as mighty as God Himself. And, in virtue of this
personal almightiness working in the inherent fit-
TOTAL STRENGTH. 347
nesses of the System, it will at last carry everything
before it and renew the eartli into a heaven. So
claims the System itself. Who is able to refute this
claim? Where are the facts against it? It is,
surely, nothing against it that the Christian Forces
are at present more or less latent ; are capable of
being successfully resisted at particular points ; ap-
pear at times to advance but slowly toward their
goal. Is not yonder oak on the whole steadily
building itself up, year by year, into the indisput-
able monarch of the forest though from time to
time it loses many a leaf, and is even stripped into
seeming lifelessness by winds and winters ? Is not
yonder ocean a great power, with a great voice and
resistless wave at command ; and is it not gradually
wearing away the hardest rocks, and even gaining
from century to century on the whole continent
which it besets though it sometimes shows neither
ripple nor murmur, and always shows a dailv ebb?
Is not the wind a great power ; able on occasion to
travel at whirlwind-pace, level dwellings and forests,
sweep before it the white fleets of the nations like
so many snow-flakes, and insensibly wear down the
face of the whole world though it often breathes
gently as a zephyr, or breathes not at all, and during
short periods works no sensible effects ? Is not the
Earth itself, considered as a unit, a still greater
power ; what with its cogent attractions, its profound
caldron preparing volcanoes and earthquakes, its
endless outpour of chemical and mechanical ener-
348 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
gies in aid of vegetable and animal life, its swift
double-rush through space though its motions and
attractions are always silent as death, and though
it is only now and then that the glowing giants
within thunder away at the gates of the senses ?
Is not Light a great power ; moving at such be-
wildering rate, painting all Nature so exquisitely,
inspiring all vegetable and animal life, and forever
creating anew on innumerable retinas all the forms
and aspects of the material universe though there
are such things as shadows and even nights, and
though one may easily darken his eye and room
and places without number where light would be
a blessing? Is not this general Gravity, of which
we hear so much, a great power ; this gravity that
reaches never so far, that acts universally, that binds
its every material thing helplessly to the earth,
that swings round the planets and suns and even
firmaments on their mighty ways with such supreme
ease though you and I successfully counteract it
at particular points whenever we lift a weight, or
take a walk, or cast upward a stone? Nay, have I
not heard of one endlessly convertible natural power,
just now fashionable among unbelievers, which is
slowly reducing yonder vague Fire-Mist into an
orderly firmament, with its unspeakable momenta
of revolving orbs and wide paradises of vegetable,
animal, and even spiritual life ? What a dynamic
will be that ripened firmament with its schemed
millions of rushing solar systems ! And yet, ac-
IMPERIAL ROME. 349
cording to unbelief, all that power really belongs to
the tenuous, eddying nebula of to-day a power
largely latent, capable of being successfully resisted
at certain points and in certain, measures of develop-
ment (witness our own successful counteractions of
heat and gravity), and going forward to its ma-
turest and most wonderful effects on a path of won-
derful length. Why may not Christianity be an-
other such power ? Why may it not go on working
according to its own stately law until it has built
up around itself " the New Heavens and New Earth
in which shall dwell righteousness?" Why not?
No science is against it. Facts are for it. I seem,
every now and then, to catch glimpses in the Chris-
tian conversions and revivals of a power that is
equal to anything power that amazes and awes
me. There are tremblings that predict the earth-
quake. There are subtle stirrings of the air that
show the coming cyclone. And what if, at times,
the Christian chariot seems to drive heavily? Is
it not moving against the immense depravity of a
world of free moral agents whose freedom must not
O
be ruthlessly trampled upon? And may not the
clock on the wall of Heaven, by whose golden cir-
cle that chariot is driven, be one that measures off
very different years from those that figure in our
earthly chronologies ? Have I not heard that " with
the Lord a thousand years are as one day " ?
Sextus Calpurnius, proconsular legate for Aqui-
taine, has just returned from his travels over the
350 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
Roman World. What lias he seen ? Some things,
certainly, which he could have wished not to see
many breaches of the law among subjects and rulers,
especially in outskirting countries : much miscon-
duct among the best citizens, tending sadly to the
disadvantage of the state : everywhere parties, loud-
voiced and fiercely gesticulating parties ; Grecists
disputing with Latinists, the friends of one provin-
cial policy protesting against the friends of another,
the partisans of one general warmly accusing the
partisans of another, one scheme of military tactics
struggling with hard words against another scheme.
He has even encountered on the borders of the
Hercynian forest some Roman cohorts in full re-
treat from winter and savages : nay, under his own
eyes, not longer ago than the ides of May, one whole
legion was fairly swallowed up in Africa through
heat, battle, and mismanagement. But what of
that? Has he not also seen the eagle of the empire
stretching wings from Britain to Mt. Atlas, and
from Euphrates to the Pillars of Hercules ? Has he
not found this wide region profusely sprinkled with
public works highways, bridges, aqueducts, arches,
palaces, Colisea massive, Roman-built? Has he
not found the name of Roman citizen better pro-
tection to him than spear and shield among twenty
different languages ? Has he not met the legions
in all climates steadily conquering hunger and thirst ;
cold and heat; man, Nature, and themselves? Has
he not seen great commanders faint before the i
IMPERIAL ROME. f 51
like children, great national coalitions briefly tram-
pled out, some great Carthage sending up from
endless rubbish a smoking testimonial to a still
greater foe ? Has he not seen haughty kings un-
covering before the majesty of the Roman People,
empires holding place proudly as Roman allies and
wards, and the whole Roman World the abode of
order and thrift beyond all other lands ? At last,
coming to The City, Mistress and Mother, lias he
not stood by the tomb of the Scipios and there stud-
ied the victory, the glory, the empire in its sources ?
Lo, the soundness of her jurisprudence ; lo, the
patriotism of her citizens ; lo, the passion for glory
among all her classes ; lo, the substantial rewards
she gives to feats of public service ; lo, the training
of her great families to statesmanship and command ;
lo, her liberty and flexibility as citizens, her disci-
pline and centralization as soldiers ! Yes, Rome is
mighty. Having felt her pulse both at the extrem-
ities and at the central heart, in the fresh present
and in wrinkled antiquity ; having handled her
thews and sinews through parallels and centuries
yes, this is no pretender triumphing by grace of
almighty chance, but a true giant full of life and
brawn, including in herself a full philosophy of her
success. So he comes exultingly to his province
again. He, too, is a Roman. He is an element, a
representative, and a guardian, of this great Polit-
ical Force. New spirit awakes within him in view
of the dignity of his position and of the power
352 CHRISTIAN DYNAMICS.
which supports him. His arm is strung anew for
frontier strifes and upholding of the Roman Majesty.
He feels strong with its strength, royal with its
sovereignty, rich with its broad domains, illustrious
with its achievements, almost immortal with the
life of its Eternal City.
What hinders me from feeling after that old Ro-
man manner? I, too, from my frontier have gone
forth to a survey not for my sake, but for yours.
I have not found all I could wish. On the contrary
I have found it still a day of battle and process :
and that Christianity, like many great Natural
Powers, has made a covenant with time. But I
have also found myself, beyond a doubt, part and
parcel of a very strong system. I see that in my
place, however obscure, I am representing, not some
fraction trembling on the verge of nihility, but a
great muscular Integer ; and that even more than
imperial Rome at her strongest marches with the
standard of my honorable legation. Nay, I see that
there is nothing to show, neither in its nature nor
working, that this Strong Power which I am de-
fending, and which is defending me, is not as strong
as Almighty God nothing to show that a Force
strictly unlimited, if dealing with such a being as
man and having unlimited duration to work in,
would have a different history from Christianity it-
self. And what is a great deal better, and far
more than Roman was ever permitted to find I find
that rny Rome is as true as she is strong. Her claim
A GREATER EMPIRE. 353
to a Divine founding is just. Her Romulus is
really God. Her Numas are really inspired. Her
Delphos and Dodonas really give Divine answers.
Her Sibylline Books, and her Law of the Tables
really come from above. From the seven hills of
her strength, she calls the nations to allegiance with
a voice potential with the double royalty of con-
scious Divine right and conscious Divine prowess.
All this I have found. Shall not my heart be
glad at such findings ? Shall it not sound as with
the voice of exulting psalms as sounds some ca-
thedral when the jubilee of a nation rises within it?
I have not lost my youth. I am not throwing my
manhood away. I have given myself to the best,
and what shall prove the most victorious, of Causes.
It is impossible that such a wise Power and power-
ful Wisdom with a voice that almost wins battles
of itself, and a sword that throbs towards conquest
with the pulse of a Creator should have but a
secondary success. She has succeeded already.
She will go on succeeding. She' will add province
after province, kingdom after kingdom, to her Eter-
nal City. At last she will fill the earth with her
superb monuments and superber Self. And, from
age to age, transfigured men shall stand on her
lofty battlements and look away through the glow
of a Golden Age to all the ends of the earth, with-
out being able to see the least occasion for such
faith ward looking words as I have now finished
addressing to you.
23
PATER MUNDI,
OK,
MODERN SCIENCE TESTIFYING
TO THE
HEAVENLY FATHER,
UY THE AUTHOR OF ECCE CCELUM."
The First Series is now ready. Tinted paper. 300 pp. 12mo.
I 'rice, $1.50. Sent post-paid on receipt of the price, by
NOYES, HOLMES, & COMPANY,
117 Washington Street, Boston.
The publishers of Ecce Cesium now solicit the attention of
scholars and of the public at large, to a still more important
work by the same author. Pater Mundi is believed to meet a
great need of the times. Men are busy, as never before, at taking
away the ancient Jehovah in the name of Science. In books, in
popular lectures, in journals having wide circulation and relig-
ious pretensions, and even in colleges whose founders hoped and
demanded better things from them, the public is being industri-
ously persuaded that it is scientific as well as natural to be with-
out God in the world. Let all who would see for themselves
how little ground exists for such claims, read Pater Mundi ; and
let all who wish well to the popular faith, to our holy religion,
ind to the safety of society, promote its circulation to the ut-
most. It is a book for the times. Though in the form of col-
lege lectures, and claiming scientific thoroughness, it is believed
to be easy and luminous reading for all classes.
EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES.
From (he Rev. W. A. Stearns, D.D., L.L.D., President of Amherst College
I have beard them with the deepest interest. They are so clear, so log
ical, so rich in illustration, so unexceptionable and beautiful in style, an1
so conclusive in the argum.-nt attempted, that I have profoundly ad-
mired them. Those gentlemen who heard them when delivered here,
would, 1 am sure, from the comments which they made upon them, agree
with me entirely in the judgment I have expressed. May the Great Being
whose existence these lectures so nobly defend from the attacks of the
loolish, though calling themselves scientist* and philosophers, spare the
life of the author and enable him to complete the full course of thinking
on which he has so triumphantly entered and advanced.
From Rev. Prof. C. S. Lyman, of Yale College.
All whom I have heard speak of these lectures have expressed for them
the highest admiration. In thought and diction they are worthy of
Chalmers.
From Prof. Julius 11. Seel ye, Professor of Mental and Moral Philoso-
phy in Amherst College.
It is with great delight that I have received the new book. I like, es-
pecially, its whole attitude respecting the question discussed; that it is so
full of faith and so uncompromising. Atheism is as unworthy the intel-
lect, as it is repugnant to the heart; and I am tired of tame apologies
from timid believers in a God. I like to see a book that has something
of a clarion ring about it, and is not afraid to defy denial, when it speaks
of the being and the glory of the Heavenly Father.
I believe that Pater Mundi will do great good, and I thank the Lord
for permitting the author to prepare and publish it.
From Rev. A. P. Pcabotly, D.D. L.L.D , Preacher to Harvard Uni
versity, and Plummcr /Vo/f.sxor of Christian Morals.
I thank the author with all my heart for rater Mundi. It is the most
eflicient work of its class which the present generation has produced;
and as the now existing scepticism is deeper, more [pseudo] scientilic,
more pretentious, than that of any preceding age; the book which, like
Pater Mundi, is adapted to our times, must need be both broader and
more profound than previous needs have elicited. Its treatment of the
preat theme is at once thoroughly philosophical and popular, both in
ptvle and in adaptation to the capacity of all readers of average intclli"
gence. It was an unspeakable privilege to the students of Amherst Col-
lege, to have heard the lectures; I trust that the same privilege wil! be
extended through the press to thousands of our young men. While I
lind no fault nor deficiency in the treatment ot any branch of the argu-
mont, I am especially impressed by the Seventh Lecture, as the clearest,
strongest, and most eloquent statement of the need of God, and of the
demonstration thence resulting of His existence, in the plenitude of Ilia
attributes, that lias come within the range of my reading.
From Rev. Albert Barnes,
T was so profoundly impressed, or, if I may say so, oppressed and over-
wnelmed with the sublimity and grandeur of the truths presented in Ecce
CoBlum, and with the manner in which the author presented these groat
truths, that I am glad he has followed with another volume on the same
general subject. I anticipate in the perusal of it great pleasure and
profit. I think the author is doing great service to the cause of truth
and I hope that God will spare him to complete his work.
So far as I am able to judge, the greatest enemy which Christianity has
to encounter now, is found in the oppositions of science, so-called. In
fact, so far as I understand them, the aim and tend -ncy of much of this
science, are to blank Atheism ; and 1 think a man can do no better service
in this age, than to meet and counteract this tendency. I rejoice that
God raises up men who are qualified to do it. I believe that the author of
Ecce Ccelum Is such a man. He has a noble work before him, and I hope
he will be enabled to do it.
From the Independent.
We had not read Ecce Ccelum, and imagined that the enconiums which
we had seen pronounced upon it must be too high wrought for sober
truth. But now that we have read Pater Mundi, by the same author, we
are ready to believe every word of praise to have been within bounds-
The present volume is no dry, didactic treatise. It is warm, alive, elo-
quent. The author proves himself, in his freshness of thought and in the
eloquence of his argument, inferior to no writer of the day. We find no
slips in science, nor in his multiplied illustrations from ancient and mod
era literature. And we do find a grandeur of conception and a striking
originality of conception, so audacious that scarcely any other writer we
know of would have ventured upon it. We see no reason why our au-
thor's writings should not become classics in the language. Nothing can
bo more invigorating to the thoughtful reader.
From the Congregationalist.
We have read it with keen enjoyment, and are disposed to regard it as
h' most substantial and serviceable contribution to thy natural theology
of this generation, as it is the freshest and most popular. No better book
none more entertain ing, can be placed in tho hands of inquisitive readers,
especially bright minded young men and women- The author lays out his
work with a singularly clear perception of the crepuscular skepticism
which needs to be dissipated; and enters upon it with manly and gener-
ous fairness of statement, rigor of argument, and amplitude of apposite
and convincing illustration. His style is in the main so admirable, that
it may seem ungenerous to take exceptions. Probably the excess of
ornamentation, the overfulness of illustration, the easy aflluence of the
most highly poetic diction, and the general gorgeousness of rhetoric will
secure a hearing for the truth by persons whom it is desirable to influ-
ence, who might not be attracted by an ordinary book.
From the /Imirs at Home.
The decidedly oratorical style will serve to make the essays, incisive--
eloquent, and eminently philosophical as we acknowledge them to be all
the more widely popular and useful.
From the Religious Herald.
Cogent argument is so lighted up with brilliant Illustration, as to make
Interesting the profoundest thoughts.
From the Christian Union. Rev. II. W. Beecher.
The author, who, in Ecce Cesium, established a reputation for that rare
combination of excellencies f'rvid rhetoric, scientific accuracy, and com-
mon sense has produced another book designed to defend and illustrate
the doctrine of Theism. It is like breathing mountain air to feel this
man's earnestness; it is a true mental tonic. One sees instantly that he
id able-souled, that he can push and climb without getting short of
breath; and it is almost a foregone conclusion, after reading the first
chapter, that one must either stride with him to hl-s high conclusion, or
part company before starting. This unequivocal earnestness and power
display themselves at the outset; great heart is warmed up to begin with;
10 that one is almost inclined to distrust a leader who has so much the air
of a partisan. The face set like a fl : nl does not wait to be struck to emit
its sparks, but glows with a fiery zeal which inflames everything it looks
upon. Yet, no candid reader will say that DR. BURR is dogmatic; he
only pl'es error with weapons for which infidelity has claimed a patent
right. No one who reads this first volume, will wish that the author had
written less or otherwise than he has.
from the Advance.
The previous work entitled Ecce Cesium, received the highest commend,
at ion from the most competent judges. The present volume will still fur-
ther augment the reputation of the author as a thinker and writer. He
puts the Atheistic hypothesis to severe and annihilating tests; fully meet-
Ing its objections and cavils. The arguments of this work are not only
cogent, but are expressed in a lucid, glowing, and eloquent style; and the
book entitles the writer to a position among our best religious authors.
Frv *ev. Edwin Hall, D.D., Professor in Auburn Theological Seminary
I lure read the work with constantly increasing satisfaction and delight
It is entirely worthy of the author of Ecce Cesium and of its subject. So
far as my reading extends and I have long endeavored to read in that de-
partment whatever I could lay my hands on that promised to give me
light I regard it as the most original and valuable contribution to the
subject, which the age has produced. I shall waic with longing for the
second volume. In the meantime, I hope the work may have a circula-
tion as extensive as its worth deserves. If it were left for me to fix that
desert, there should not be a library or a family in the land without it.
From the Watchman and Reflector.
The thousands of readers of "Ecce Coelum" have not got fairly over the
feeling of astonishment and admiration which the perusal of that remark-
able book brought to them, before another of equal merit from the same
author is announced. "Pater JVIundi," we are confident, will lessen noth-
ing of the high character which Dr. Burr has won as an acute and accu-
rate thinker, an accomplished scholar, a brilliant rhetorician, and a
humble, childlike believer in God and His revelation. The purpose of the
author is to defend and illustrate Theism and Christianity from the side oi
Modern Science. There is a wonderful candor in the entire process of ar-
gumentation. Nothing is assumed beyond what the eyes of man behold
and his reason assents to. The conclusion, without being asserted, is irre-
sistibly forced into one's own view, and wins acceptance from the thought-
ful, reasonable soul. The eloquence of some of these passages respecting
the fatherhood of God is overwhelming in effect. We earnestly com-
mend the book to the careiul study pf our so-called scientific men who are
trying hard to rule a personal God out of the universe. We wish, too,
that every young man in the nation would read these poges. We are sure
that nothing more fascinating in interest and really healthful and elevat-
ing in influence can be found among all the books of the day. The book
is handsomely printed by Nichols & Noyes of this city.
From the Sunday School Times.
This volume is an eloquent and unanswerable protest against modern
atheism in all its forms. "Modern science testifying to the Heavenly
Father," is the author's secondary title, and it describes accurately the
course and object of his argument. His methods of presenting the sub-
ject, however, are entirely original, and are wonderfully effective. The
ivork is particularly opportune. There are in all our congregations
thoughtful, cultivated, quiet men, whose faith has been shaken by the bold
assumptions of infidel scientists. Dr. Burr's book is just suited to restore
such persons to their equilibrium. It is written in a most attractive style*
and shows a masculine vigor of thought that cannot fail to command ro
spect.
From the Theological Eclectic. Professors Day, Schaff, etc.
We have already spoken of thoable work entitled Ecce Ccelutn, in terms
of high commendation. The present work by the same author exhibits
the same power of comprehensive grouping and vivid presentation, and
abounds in great thoughts freshly put.
From Rev. Marl; Hopkins, D.D.. L.L.D., President of William* College.
I am greatly indebted to the author of Pater Mundi. It is a fresh and
powerful work. If any commendation from me will aid its circulation.
it is freely given.
From C. H. Dalsbaugh, Pa.
Certainly this Is a book to stop the mouth of skeptics. It seems to me
that never was atheism in its protean lorms more squarely met on its own
ground, and never more clearly discomfited with its own weapons. No
two links of its argument are left together. The author has triumphantly
vindicated the title of his book. Its matter and style appeal to both our
innate susceptibility to truth, and our sense of the beautiful. In my view,
never did logic and poetry more heartily embrace each other ; never did
beauty smile more divinely on the face of the sternest facts.
From the New York Evening Post.
The clear and beautiful logic, and the crystal style of Ecce Ccelum, fas-
cinated religious minds everywhere in this country. This book is written
by the same perspicuous pen. That it is in the form of lectures, rather
Improves it than otherwise. The special aim of the author is to wrest
from the wild materials of this day the powerful sceptre of science, which
they have seemed to wield. All the teachings of science and nature
point to the "Father of the World." This book is one calculated to
strengthen the faith of professors of religion, and to lead captive young
minds straying into error. We ought to mention in closing, the beautiful
typography of the book. Published by Nichols & Noyes.
From the Evening Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
The style is clear, and always strong and forcible in an unusual degree
while many passages rise to great beauty and eloquence. Seldom have \\e
read anything upon the subject of Christian evidence that was so enter-
taining, so instructive, and so satisfactory as this book. It is the ofl>pring,
of a vigorous intellect, and it is a most valuable addition to religious cul-
ture.
From tlie Christian Recorder, Philadelphia.
So charmed are we with this magnificent production of Dr. Burr's, frit
really we scarce know where to begin its praise. Its excellence is uniform.
Lecture first and lecture eighth equally demand admiration. So every part
of each lecture. The chain of gold is not only complete, but every link ia
complete. The Colonnade is not only symmetrical, but its minute carv-
ings are perfect. To quote from it to our own satisfaction, would be to
quote the whole book, but we remember that Messrs. Nichols & Noyes, the
publishers, have a copyright.
How majestically does the author of Ecce Coelum send forth his
thoughts into the world ! In majesty do they stride forth either to con-
quer, to convince, or to woo. Now as a mailed warrior are they seen, fully
panopled from head to foot, and crushing by the strength of his argu-
ments every foe crushing every atheistic shield, and helmet, and breast-
plate. On almost every page of Pater Mimdi, these all-crushing arguments
are to be met on almost every page we see victims lying mangled and
bleeding.
We do not know that the author of Pater Mundi lays claim to the po-
etic gift ; and yet has he given^us a sublime Didactic Poem. Not in verse,
is it given; it is neither Dactylic, Anapa3Stic, Iambic, nor Trochaic.
But poetic imagination shines on every page. Untrammeled by rule,
and enjoying a freedom that the utmost poetic license could not allow,
the author has givea us a poem infinitely sublimer than could possibly
have been done in any other form. Would that we could give our read-
ers the concluding pages of Lecture VII. Such poetic thought! Such
beauty of expression! Such smoothness! Such harmony! Words an-
swer to words, and sentence to sentence, with such sweetness that one
glides along to the conclusion, as smoothly as a New England sleigh, and
as merrily as its ringing bells.
From the Norwich Bulletin,
It will be a great advantage to the reader of this work to have made the
acquaintance of Dr. Burr's previous volume, "Ecce Ccelum," as thus many
of the references in "Pater Mundi" will be the more intelligible and vivid.
The quality of the new work is in all respects admirable. Dr. Burr hai
a wonderful enthusiasm, always fresh and intense. He is full of his sub-
ject. He has the faculty of so treating profound and sublime themes, as
to bring them easily to the comprehension of all. He has a fervid style,
whose richness seems inexhaustible. He has great fertility in argument,
and presents his suggestions with rare simplicity and force. The volume
will go far to combat the sophistries of Atheism, both in uncultured minds
and in those of strong logical power?. We cannot too highly commend
it, and we predict that it will find a place in every we'll stocked religious
library.
From the Standard, Chicago, 111.
if any one should infer from the title of this book that it is a heavy and
prosy dissertation, he would be astonished on looking over its pages
Nothing could be further from the truth. The author Is an enthusiast, one
of those who have not "discovered that one must be indifferent in order to
be fair." The book is fresh, earnest, and eloquent, and we felt its strong
spell before reading a dozen pages. The statement of arguments is admira-
bly clear, the development of them is natural and impressive, and there is
displayed a wonderful power in massing facts so as to give their full and
combined effect.
From the Chicago Tribune.
This work in some respects is very remarkable. It is not only compact
In argument, and forcible and clear in statement, but it is also absolutely
brilliant and sparkling in manner, and rich and copious in illustration.
Judging only from the one volume before us, we should pronounce it as
one of the most remarkable and fascinating books of the day.
From the Orleans Republican, Albion, N. Y.
The author's premises are bold, and his line of argument cl?ar, forcible
aud persuasive; shirking nothing, anticipating, and answering objec-
tions with equal fairness. The work is calm, liberal, and large thoughted;
full of admirable logic, and profound reasoning; and the last three lec-
tures, especially, are grand with beautiful and terrible imagery, exquisite
poetry, and striking allusions to those mysterious facts and forces of na-
ture which startle and awe believer and unbeliever alike; and his conclu-
sion is singularly suggestive and powerful,
From Rev. Austin Phelps, D.D., Professor in Andover Theological
Seminary.
I wish to thank the author for " Pater Mundi." Not that it needs any
commendation from me : hut I cannot but be grateful to any man who helps
me to a new depth or vividness of conception of God ; and this you have
done by your book. I am specially impressed by the power with which it
draws the great alternative, a God benevolent, or a God malignant. The
reductio ad absurdum is fearfully overwhelming; and the recoil with which
one springs hack from it gives one a lodgment and a resting-place in the
Infinite Love which no gentler discipline could secure so well. This vigor
of religious sensibility in your works charms me. We need it greatly in our
Christian literature, to supplement alike the wiry intellect of which we have
enough, and the emotive softness of which, perhaps, we have a little more.
From the American Laptist.
The author has a strong and vigorous style, and a power of grasping
and grouping great truths, which make all that he utters luminous and
convincing. Though prepared specially for educated men, they are adapt-
pd to all readers, have no abstruseness of diction, no intricate, far-fetched
or dubious arguments. The author will impart no small measure of the
Indignation he feels towards atheism, concealing itself under the name of
Miience, to those who roqd his book, and we trust it may have a very \vide
circulation.
From The New Englandcr.
The author of Ecco Cesium could not well be expected to write a dull
book on any subject, much less one in which God and nature were the
chief topic. But whether he would be able to clothe a skeleton of
a two-volume argument for Theism often so dry and grim In other
hands with the flesh and muscle, the life and beauty, that charm us in
Parish Astronomy, could only be shown conclusively by the production of
a work like that before us. Pater Mundi, will, by the glow and magnet-
ism of its rhetoric, and the enthusiastic earnestness of its tone, as well as
the strength of its argument, be sure to command everywhere, apprecia-
tive and admiring readers, and prove, we trust, of special value to those who
are inclined to regard science as hostile to religion. Its logic is vitalized
and made effective by the force and richness of the illustrations drawn
from the various fields of science. It is these all glowing often with poetic
fervor, that rivet the attention at once, and carry the reader on insensibly
from topic to topic. In some of the lectures, indeed, the argument as-
sumes the elevation and almost the form of a grand poem. The sixth, for
example, like a sublime ode, returns, strophe by strophe, with each point
made in the argument, to the same exultant chorus, which becomes at
once a quod erat demonstrandum, to the understanding, and an inspi-
ration of faith to the heart.
The second volume promises to be even more attractive than the first ; for it
is to be still more replete with the marvels and sublimities of the sciences
as illustrative of the argument. It is too much forgotten by many that God
may be studied in flower and forest, in storm and star, and in the soul of
man, as well as in Moses and the prophets. The glowing pages of " Pater
Mundi," teach impressively that the God of Revelation is the God of
Nature as well.
From tlie Methodist.
Tho many gratified readers of" Ecce Coelum." will welcome this new
and important work of Dr. Burr. It is a book for the times. Natural
Theology can no longer retain its old form : the progress, not only of Sci-
ence but of speculative thought, demands a thorough revision, "Pater
Mundi" meets this demand with masterly ability.
From the American Presbyterian Review.
A new work by the author of " Ecce Ccelum " is sure to attract unusual
attention; nor will expectation be disappointed. Dr. Burr is an original
and independent thinker, and he writes in a style of singular freshness
and rhetorical beauty. His book is timely. Though popular In its ad-
dress, it sacrifices nothing to effect, and is wholly free from that auperfi-
cialty which is usually found in the attempt to reduce the conclusions of
Bcience to the level of a popular audiance. It discusses with masterly abil-
ity the testimonies o? Modern Science to the being of a God, and defends
Theism from the attacks of skeptical science in a bold and critical spirit
worthy of all praise. It is as profoundly religious as it ia thoroughly sci-
entific. While it freely accepts the results of the freest investigations, it ably
argues that there is nothing in one of these to shake the Christian's faith,
but much to confirm it. The work cannot fail to hav<> an important influ-
ence on Natural Theology bringing it into harmony with the progress of
Science and speculative philosophy, and arming it with a new power of
demonstration.
From the Princeton Review.
Dr. Burr, known to us in his youth as a modest and studious lad, and
since, as the faithful and unpretending pastor of a rural congregation, has
sudden'y burst on our vision as an author of the first mark in the highest
realms of thought, and as a leading defuader of precious truth against the
assaults of scientific pretenders and pretentious sciolists. He calls to mind
the days when the great New England divines, the Eclwardsos, Bellamy,
Backus, Smalley, Emmons, were pastors of agricultural congregations.
The universal approbation of Pater Mundi and the previous volume, by
the press and by Christian thinkers of the highest reputation, we find
borne out by actual inspection. Real science is proved to be the hand-
maid of true religion, in a series of discussions which evince a masterly
comprehension of the issues involved a thorough acquaintance with
modprn science and its relations to religion the whole in a style clear
and simple, vivid and graphic. We think the quiot of a country charge
more propitious to thorough study and deep thinking, than the din and
whirl of metropolitan excitements.
From Prof. D. C. Gilmnn, Tale College.
I feel moved to express my hearty appreciation of the service the author
of "Pater Mundi" is rendering to the world by the publication of these
earnest, brilliant and impressive discourses.
From Hon. Henry TJ. Dnw*s, ST. C.
The pleasure with which I read aloud to my family " Ecce Coelum" has
prepared me for an increased delight and profit in reading " Pater Mundi. "
1 am very proud of the author, and rejoice in his growing fame.
From Our Monthly, Cincinnati, Ohio.
We are very glad to welcome and commend this book. The author does,
with singular ability, what he proposes to do. His trumpet utters no un-
certain sound. There is no danger of any one mistaking his meaning.
We think it high time the arrogant assumptions and speculations of some
scientific men in the interest of infidelity and atheism were exposed, and
the harmony of all true science and revelation vindicated, made more ap-
parent, and presented in some popular form. This Dr. Burr is doing, and
the first installment of his work \ve have in this scries of lectures. That
they will be found interesting and convincing we need not say to thos
who have read ' Ecce Ccelum."
AD F I D-E-M.
A NEW BOOK,
BY THE AUTHOR OF " ECGE CCELUM."
The publishers have the pleasure to announce a new and important work,
by the distinguished author above named, which will command attention
from all classes, entitled
AD Fl DE M ;
OIR,, IP ^. IR, I S EC IE "V I ID IE ZEST O IE S ,
As spoken to the People from Week to Week by One who Believes.
The new work proposes to do for the Evidences of the Christian Religion
what " Ecce Coelum " aims to do for Astronomy. It proposes to bring these
Evidences, without any sacrifice of scholarly accuracy, luminously and ef-
fectively within the reach of ordinary minds. It v/ill show the PEOPLE how
to belie cc..
To indicate the general scope of the work, a brief synopsis of the Contents
Is given below :
I. VARIOUS OPINIONS.
II. GENERAL ASSENT TO FUNDAMENTALS.
III. A SAD EXCEPTION.
IV. A GREAT OFFER.
V. I WILL ACCEPT.
VI. THE HONEST PURPOSE.
VII. USING PRESENT LHJHT.
VIII. PATIENTLY SEEKING LIGHT, UPWARD AND AROUND.
IX. PRESUMPTIONS.
X. THREE PROPHECIKS.
XI. THREE MARKS OF A FALSE CHRIST.
XII. AN INCREDIBLE IMPOSTURE.
XIII. SIGNS AND WONDERS.
XIV. FROM BEHIND THE CURTAIN.
XV. NEARING THE CURTAIN.
XVI. RISING OF THE CURTAIN.
XVII. PROOF BY EXPERIENCE OF THE HOLY GHOST.
XVIII. DYNAMICS OF THE RELIGION.
XIX. WHAT WILL IlE DO WITH IT.
Published in handsome style, uniform with "Ecce Ccelum " <*nd " Pair r
Mundi." 300 pp., 12mo. Price, $1.50. (Ready October 1st.)
NOYES, HOLMES, & COMPANY,
Publishers. Boston.
PI693
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
