[Works of Theodore Parker]

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:* JAN 311911 *l

BX 9815 .P3 1907 v. A
Parker, Theodore, 1810-1860
[Works]

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THE

TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

IN CHRISTIANITY

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THE

Transient and Permanent
IN Christianity

BY

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THEODORE PARKER

EDITED WITH NOTES
BY

GEORGE WILLIS COOKE

* JAN 311911

BOSTON

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION

25 Beacon Street

Copyright, 1908
AjrERiCAN Unitarian Association

Pkksswobk by The University Press, Cambridob, U. S. A.

EDITOR'S PREFACE

A number of the earliest and latest, as well as sev-
eral of the most significant, of Theodore Parker's ser-
mons have been brought together in this volume.
His South Boston sermon, which first brought him into
prominence as an expounder of the new theology, gives
title to the volume. It is followed by his epoch-mak-
ing discourse on Jesus, at " the Great and Thursday
Lecture." The earliest written of his sermons to se-
cure the honor of print, that on the relations of the
Bible to the soul, has never before been reprinted from
the pages of the obscure magazine in which it ap-
peared.

Following these sermons are a number which were
first printed in " The Dial," the famous organ of
transcendentalism. Emerson said of them, that
" some numbers had an instant exhausting sale, be-
cause of papers by Theodore Parker." Among these
were the sermons on " The Pharisees," and " Primitive
Christianit3^" His earliest critical article is his
" Thoughts on Theology," in review of Dorner's book
on Christ. His sermon on goodness also occupied a
conspicuous place in his controversy with the religious
leaders of his day.

Special occasions gave emphasis to his discourses on
the use of Sunday, and the real meaning of revivals.
The revival sermons, if severe, are sane and profoundly
ethical. His first ordination sermon after that at
South Boston gave opportunity for a more explicit
interpretation of his later and wiser theology.

The volume closes with the last piece of writing he
prepared for publication, in the form of a humorous

EDITOR'S PREFACE

and satirical criticism of the teleological method in
theology.

It cannot be claimed that Parker was at his soundest
and best in any of the sermons and essays contained
in this volume ; but historically several of them are
of the higliest importance. They must be read and
studied by anyone who would* understand why he cre-
ated so great a stir by his preaching, and why he had
for many yeixTs the largest congregation which assem-
bled in Boston.

Theodore Parker was a free thinker; but he was
also deeply religious. His philosophy enabled him
to trust greatly in God, to have bravest confidence in
man's sublime destiny, but at the same time to scorn all
tradition and all supernatural defences of religion.
His confidence in the soul was without hesitation or
doubt.

G. W. C.

CONTENTS

Page
I. The Transient and Permanent in Chris-
tianity' 1

II. The Relation of Jesus to His Age . 40

III. The Relation of the Bible to the Soul 58

IV. The Christianity of Christ, of the

Church, and of Society 76

V. The Pharisees 103

VI. Primitive Christianity 127

VII. Thoughts on Theology 156

VIII. The Excellence of Goodness .... 214

IX. The Christian Use of Sunday . . . 230

X. The Personality of Jesus . . . . . 270

XI. The Function of a Teacher of Religion 288

XII. False and True Theology ...'.. 342

XIII. A False and True Revival of Religion 365

XIV. The Revival we Need 391

XV. A Bumblebee's Thoughts 425

Notes 445

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT IN
CHRISTIANITY

"Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not
pass away." — Luke xxi, 33.

In this sentence Ave have a very clear indication
that Jesus of Nazareth believed the religion he taught
would be eternal, that the substance of it would last
for ever. Yet there are some who are affirighted by
the faintest rustle which a heretic makes among the
dry leaves of theology ; they tremble lest Chris-
tianity itself should perish without hope. Ever and
anon the cry is raised, " The Philistines be upon us,
and Christianity is in danger." The least doubt re-
specting the popular theology, or the existing ma-
chinery of the church ; the least sign of distrust in
the religion of the pulpit, or the religion of the
street, is by some good men supposed to be at enmity
with faith in Christ, and capable of shaking Chris-
tianity itself. On the other hand, a few bad men,
and a few pious men, it is said, on both sides of the
water, tell us the day of Christianity is past. The
latter, it is alleged, would persuade us that, hereafter,
piety must take a new form, the teachings of Jesus
are to be passed by, that religion is to wing her way
sublime, above the flight of Christianity, far away,
toward heaven, as the fledged eaglet leaves for ever
the nest which sheltered his callow youth. Let us,
therefore, devote a few moments to this subject, and
consider what is transient in Christianity, and what

1

2 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

is permanent therein. The topic seems not in-
appropriate to the times in which we Hve, or the oc-
casion that calls us together.

Christ says his word shall never pass away. Yet,
at first sight, nothing seems more fleeting than a
word. It is an evanescent impulse of the most fickle
element. It leaves no track where it went through
the air. Yet to this, and this onl}', did Jesus intrust
the truth wherewith he came laden to the earth ; tinith
for the salvation of the world. He took no pains to
perpetuate his thoughts: they were poured forth
where occasion found him an audience — by the side
of the lake, or a well ; in a cottage, or the temple ;
in a fisherman's boat, or the synagogue of the Jews.
He founds no institution as a monument of his words.
He appoints no order of men to preserve his bright and
glad relations. He only bids his friends give freely
the truth they had freely received. He did not even
write his words in a book. With a noble confidence,
the result of his abiding faith, he scattered them broad-
cast on the world, leaving the seed to its own vitality.
He knew that what is of God cannot fail, for God
keeps his own. He sowed his seed in the heart, and
left it there, to be w^atered and warmed by the dew
and the sun which heaven sends. He felt his words
were for eternity. So he trusted ^hem to the uncer-
tain air; and for eighteen hundred years that faithful
element has held them good — distinct as when first
warm from his lips. Now they are translated into
every human speech, and murmured in all earth's
thousand tongues, from the pine forests of the north
to the palm groves of eastern Ind. They mingle, as
it were, with the roar of a populous city, and join the

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 3

chime of the desert sea. Of a Sabbath morn they are
repeated from church to church, from isle to isle, and
land to land, till their music goes round the world.
These words have become the breath of the good, the
hope of the wise, the joy of the pious, and that for
many millions of hearts. They are the prayers of our
churches, our better devotions by fireside and fieldside ;
the enchantment of our hearts. It is these words that
still work wonders, to which the first recorded miracles
were nothing in grandeur and utility. It is these which
build our temples and beautify our homes. They raise
our thoughts of sublimity ; they purify our ideal of
purity ; they hallow our prayer for truth and love.
They make beauteous and divine the life which plain
men lead. They give wings to our aspirations. What
charmers they are ! Sorrow is lulled at their bidding.
They take the sting out of disease, and rob adversity
of his power to disappoint. They give health and
wings to the pious soul, broken-hearted and ship-
wrecked in his voyage through life, and encourage him
to tempt the perilous way once more. They make all
things ours : Christ our brother ; time our servant ;
death our ally, and the witness of our triumph. They
reveal to us the presence of God, which else we might
not have seen so clearly, in the first wind-flower of
spring, in the falling of a sparrow, in the distress of
a nation, in the sorrow or the rapture of the world.
Silence the voice of Christianity, and the world is well-
nigh dumb, for gone is that sweet music which kept
in awe the rulers of the people, which cheers the poor
widow in her lonely toil, and comes like light through
the windows of morning, to men who sit stooping and
feeble, with failing eyes and a hungering heart. It
is gone — all gone ! only the cold, bleak world left be-
fore them.

4 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

Such is the hf e of these words ; such the empire they
have won for themselves over men's minds since they
were spoken first. In the meantime, the words of great
men and mighty, whose name shook whole continents,
though graven in metal and stone, though stamped in
institutions, and defended by whole tribes of priests
and troops of followers — their words have gone to
the ground, and the world gives back no echo of their
voice. Meanwhile, the great works, also, of old times
■ — castle, and tower, and town, their cities and their
empires, have perished, and left scarce a mark on the
bosom of the earth to show they once have been. The
philosophy of the wise, the art of the accomplished,
the song of the poet, the ritual of the priest, though
honored as divine in their day, have gone down a prey
to oblivion. Silence has closed over them ; only their
spectres now haunt the earth. A deluge of blood has
swept over the nations ; a night of darkness, more deep
than the fabled darkness of Egypt, has lowered down
upon that flood, to destroy or to hide what the deluge
had spared. But through all this the words of Chris-
tianity have come down to us from the lips of that
Hebrew youth, gentle and beautiful as the light of a
star, not spent by their journey through time and
through space. They have built up a new civilization,
which the wisest gentile never hoped for, which the
most pious Hebrew never foretold. Through centuries
of wasting these words have flown on, like a dove in the
storm, and now wait to descend on hearts pure and
earnest, as the Father's spirit, we are told, came down
on his lowly Son. fThe old heavens and the old earth
pre indeed passed aAvay, but the word stands. Noth-
ing shows clearer than tliis how fleeting is what man
jcalls great, how lasting what God pronounces true.

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 5

(Looking at the word of Jesus, at real Christianity,
the pure rehgion he taught, nothing appears more fixed
and certain. Its influence widens as hght extends ; it
deepens as the nations grow more wise. But looking
at the history of what men call Christianity, nothing
seems more uncertain and perishable. While true re-
ligion is always the same thing, in each century and
every land, in each man that feels it, the Christianity
of the pulpit, which is the religion taught, the Chris-
tianity of the people, which is the religion that is ac-
cepted and lived out, has never been the same thing in
any two centuries or lands, except only in name. The
difference between what is called Christianity by the
Unitarians in our times, and that of some ages past,
is s-reater than the difference between Mahomet and the
Messiah. The difference at this day between opposing
classes of Christians, the difference between the Chris-
tianity of some sects, and that of Christ himself, is
deeper and more vital than that between Jesus and
Plato, pagan as we call him. The Christianity of the\
seventh century has passed away. We recognize only
the ghost of superstition in its faded features, as it
comes up at our call. It is one of the things which
has been, and can be no more, for neither God nor the
world goes back. Its terrors do not frighten, nor its
hopes allure us. We rejoice that it has gone. But A
how do we know that our Christianity will not share »
the same fate? Is there that difference between the
nineteenth century, and some seventeen that have gone
before it since Jesus, to warrant the belief that our
notion of Christianity shall last for ever? The stream
of time has already beat down philosophies and theolo-
gies, temple and church, though never so old and re-
vered. How do we know there is not a perishing ele-

6 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

ment in what we call Christianity? Jesus tells us his
word is the word of God, and so shall never pass away.
But who tells us that our word shall never pass away?
[that our notion of his word shall stand for ever?

Let us look at this matter a little more closely. In
actual Christianity — that is, in that portion of Chris-
tianity which is preached and believed — there seems to
have been, ever since the time of its earthly founder,
two elements, the one transient, the other permanent.
The one is the thought, the folly, the uncertain wisdom,
the theological notions, the impiety of man ; the other,
the eternal truth of God. These two bear, perhaps,
the same relation to each other that the phenomena of
outward nature, such as sunshine and cloud, growth,
decay, and reproduction, bear to the great law of na-
ture, which underlies and supports them all. As in
that case more attention is commonly paid to the par-
ticular phenomena than to the general law, so in this
case more is generally given to the transient in Chris-
tianity than to the permanent therein.

It must be confessed, though with sorrow, that tran-
sient things form a great part of what is commonly
taught as religion. An undue place has often been
assigned to forms and doctrines, while too little stress
has been laid on the divine life of the soul, love to
God and love to man. Religious forms may be useful
and beautiful. Thc}^ are so, whenever they speak to
the soul, and answer a want thereof. In our present
state some forms are perhaps necessary. But they are
only the accident of Christianity, not its substance.
They are the robe, not the angel, who may take an-
other robe quite as becoming and useful. One sect has
many forms ; another, none. Yet both may be equally

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 7

Christian, in spite of the redundance or the deficiency.
They are a part of the language in which religion
speaks, and exist, with few exceptions, wherever man
is found. In our calculating nation, in our rational-
izing sect, we have retained but two of the rites sol
numerous in the early Christian Church, and even these!
we have attenuated to the last degree, leaving them
little more than a spectre of the ancient form. An-
other age may continue or forsake both ; may revive
old forms, or invent new ones to suit the altered cir-
cumstances of the times, and yet be Christians quite
as good as we, or our fathers of the dark ages.
Whether the Apostles designed these rites to be per-
petual, seems a question which belongs to scholars and
antiquarians ; not to us, as Christian men and women.
So long as they satisfy or help the pious heart, so long
they are good. Looking behind or around us, we see
that the forms and rites of the Christians are quite as
fluctuating as those of the heathens, from whom some
of them have been, not unwisely, adopted by the earlier
church.

Again, the doctrines that have been connected with
Christianity, and taught in its name, are quite as
changeable as the form. This also takes place un-
avoidably. If observations be made upon nature,
which must take place so long as man has senses and
understanding, there will be a philosophy of nature,
and philosophical doctrines. These will differ as the
observations are just or inaccurate, and as the deduc-
tions from observed facts are true or false. Hence
there will be different schools of natural philosophy
so long as men have eyes and understandings of differ-
ent clearness and strength. And if men observe and
reflect upon religion — which will be done so long as

8 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

man is a religious and reflective being — there must
also be a philosophy of religion, a theology and the-
ological doctrines. These will differ, as men have felt
much or little of religion, as they analyze their sen-
timents correctly or otherwise, and as they have rea-
soned right or wrong. Now the true system of nature,
which exists in the outward facts, whether discovered
or not, is always the same thing, though the philosophy
of nature, Avhich men invent, change every month, and
be one thing at London and the opposite at Berlin.
Thus there is but one system of nature as it exists in
fact, though many theories of nature, w'hich exist
in our imperfect notions of that system, and by which

(we may approximate and at length reach it. Now
there can be but one religion which is absolutely true,
existing in the facts of human nature and the ideas of
Infinite God. That, whether acknowledged or not, is
always the same thing, and never changes. So far as
a man has any real religion — either the principle or
the sentiment thereof — so far he has that, by whatever
name he may call it. For, strictl}^ speaking, there is
but one kind of religion, as there is but one kind of
love, though the manifestations of this religion, in
forms, doctrines, and life, be never so diverse. It is
through these men approximate to the true expression
of this religion. Now, while this religion is one and
always the same thing, there may be numerous systems
I of theology or philosophies of religion. These, with
their creeds, confessions, and collections of doctrines,
deduced by reasoning upon the facts observed, may
be baseless and false, either because the observation
was too narrow in extent, or othenvise defective in
^ point of accuracy, or because the reasoning was illog-
lical, and therefore the deduction spurious. Each of

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 9

these three faults is conspicuous in the systems of the- I
ology. Now, the solar system as it exists in fact is
permanent, though the notions of Thales and Ptolemy,
of Copernicus and Descartes, about this system, prove
transient, imperfect approximations to the true expres-
sion. So the Christianity of Jesus is permanent,
though what passes for Christianity with popes and
catechisms, with sects and churches, in the first cen-
tury or in the nineteenth century, prove transient also.
Now it has sometimes happened that a man took his
philosophy of nature at second-hand, and then at-
tempted to make his observations conform to his the-
ory, and nature ride in his panniers. Thus some phi-
losophers refused to look at the moon through Gali-
leo's telescope, for, according to their theory of vision,
such an instrument would not aid the sight. Thus
their preconceived notions stood up between them and
nature. Now it has often happened that men took
their theology thus at second-hand, and distorted the
history of the world and man's nature besides, to make
religion conform to their notions. Their theology
stood between them and God. Those obstinate philos-
ophers have disciples in no small number.

What another has said of false systems of science
will apply equally to the popular theology : " It is
barren in effects, fruitful in questions, slow and lan-
guid in its improvement, exhibiting in its generality
the counterfeit of perfection, but ill filled up in its de-
tails, popular in its choice, but suspected by its very
promoters, and therefore bolstered up and countenanced
with artifices. Even those who have been determined
to try for themselves, to add their support to learning,
and to enlarge its limits, have not dared entirely to de-
sert received opinions, nor to seek the spring-head of

10 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

things. But they think they have done a great thing
if they intersperse and contribute something of their
own ; prudently considering, that by their assent they
can save their modesty, and by their contributions,
their hberty. Neither is there, nor ever will be, an
end or limit to these things. One snatches at one
thing, another is pleased with another; there is no
dry nor clear sight of anything. Every one plays the
philosopher out of the small treasures of his own fancy ;
the more sublime wits more acutely and with better
success; the duller with less success but equal obsti-
nacy ; and, by the discipline of some learned men,
sciences are bounded within the limits of some certain
authors which they have set down, imposing them upon
old men and instilling them into young. So that now
(as Tully cavilled upon Cesar's consulship) the star
Lyra riseth by an edict, and authority is taken for
truth, and not truth for authority ; which kind of order
and discipline is very convenient for our present use,
but banisheth those which are better."

, Any one who traces the history of what is called
Christianity, will see that nothing changes more from
I'age to age than the doctrines taught as Christian, and
/insisted on as essential to Christianity and personal
salvation. What is falsehood in one province passes
for truth in another. The heresy of one age is the
orthodox belief and " only infallible rule " of the next.
JNow Arius, and now Athanasius, is lord of the ascen-
dant. Both were excommunicated in their turn, each
for affirming what the other denied. ]\Ien are burned
for professing what men arc burned for denying.
For centuries the doctrines of the Christians were no
better, to say the least, than those of their contem-

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 11

porary pagans. The theological doctrines derived
from our fathers seem to have come from Judaism,
heathenism, and the caprice of philosophers, far more
than they have come from the principle and sentiment
of Christianity. The doctrine of the trinity, the very |
Achilles of theological dogmas, belongs to philosophy 1
and not religion ; its subtleties cannot even be ex- '
pressed in our tongue. As old religions became su-i
perannuated, and died out, they left to the rising faith,
as to a residuary legatee, their forms and their doc- 1
trines ; or rather, as the giant in the fable left his I
poisoned garment to work the overthrow of his con-
queror. Many tenets that pass current in our theol-
ogy seem to be the refuse of idol temples, the off-
scourings of Jewish and heathen cities, rather than the
sands of virgin gold, which the stream of Christianity
has worn off from the rock of ages, and brought in
its bosom for us. It is wood, hay, and stubble, where-
with men have built on the corner-stone Christ laid.
What wonder the fabric is in peril when tried by fire?
The stream of Christianity, as men receive it, has
caught a stain from every soil it has filtered through,
so that now it is not the pure water from the well of
life which is offered to our lips, but streams troubled
and polluted by man with mire and dirt. If Paul and
Jesus could read our books of theological doctrines,
would they accept as their teaching what men have
vented in their name.'' Never till the letters of Paul
had faded out of his memory ; never till the words of
Jesus had been torn out from the book of life. It
is their notions about Christianity men have taught as
the only living word of God. They have piled their
own rubbish against the temple of tinith where piety
comes up to worship ; what wonder the pile seems un-

12 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

shapely and like to fall? But these theological doc-
trines are fleeting as the leaves on the trees. They —

" are found
Now green in youth, now withered on the ground:
Another race the following spring supplies;
They fall successive, and successive rise."

Like the clouds of the sky, they are here to-daj' ; to-
morrow, all swept off and vanished, while Christianity
itself, like the heaven above, with its sun, and moon,
and uncounted stars, is always over our head, though
the cloud sometimes debars us of the needed light.
It must of necessity be the case that our reasonings,
and therefore our theological doctrines, are imperfect,
and so perishing. It is only gradually that we ap-
proach to the true system of nature by observation
and reasoning, and work out our philosophy and the-
ology by the toil of the brain. But meantime, if we
•are faithful, the great truths of morality and religion,
jthe deep sentiment of love to man and love to God, are
perceived intuitively, and by instinct, as it were, though
our theology be imperfect and miserable. The theo-
logical notions of Abraham, to take the story as it
stands, were exceedingly gross, yet a greater than
Abraham has told us Abraham desired to see my day,
saw it, and Avas glad. Since these notions are so fleet-
ing, why need we accept the commandment of men as
the doctrine of God.''

This trarisitoriness of doctrines appears in many in-
stances, of which two may be selected for a more at-
tentive consideration. First, the doctrine respecting
Ithe origin and authority of the Old and New Testa-
ment. There has been a time when men were burned
for asserting doctrines of natural philosophy which

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 13

rested on evidence the most incontestable, because those
doctrines conflicted with sentences in the Old Testa-
ment. Every word of that Jewish record was regarded
as miraculously inspired, and therefore as infallibly
true. It was believed that the Christian religion itself
rested thereon, and must stand or fall with the im-
maculate Hebrew text. He was deemed no small sinner
who found mistakes in the manuscripts. On the au-'
thority of the written word man was taught to believe
impossible legends, conflicting assertions ; to take fiction
for fact, a dream for a miraculous revelation of God,
an oriental poem for a grave history of miraculous
events, a collection of amatory idyls for a serious dis-
course " touching the mutual love of Christ and the
church ;" they have been taught to accept a picture
sketched by some glowing eastern imagination, never
intended to be taken for a reality, as a proof that the
Infinite God spoke in human words, appeared in the
shape of a cloud, a flaming bush, or a man who ate,
and drank, and vanished into smoke ; that he gave
counsels to-day, and the opposite to-morrow ; that he
violated his own laws, was angry, and was only dis-
suaded by a mortal man from destroying at once a
whole nation — millions of men who rebelled against
their leader in a moment of anguish. Questions in
philosophy, questions in the Christian religion, have
been settled by an appeal to that book. The inspiration
of its authors has been assumed as infallible. Every
fact in the early Jewish history has been taken as a
type of some analogous fact in Christian history'. The
most distant events, even such as are still in the arms
of time, were supposed to be clearly foreseen and fore-
told by pious Hebrews several centuries before Christ.
It is assumed at the outset, with no shadow of evidence.

14 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

that those writers held a miraculous communication
with God, such as he has granted to no other man.
What was originally a presumption of bigoted dews
became an article of faith, which Christians were
burned for not believing. This has been for centuries
the general opinion of the Christian church, both Cath-
olic and Protestant, though the former never accepted
the Bible as the only source of religious truth. It has
been so. Still worse, it is now the general ophiion of
religious sects of this day. Hence the attempt, which
always fails, to reconcile the philosophy of our times
with the poems in Genesis writ a thousand years before
Christ. Hence the attempt to conceal the contradic-
tions in the record itself. JNlatters have come to such
a pass that even now he is deemed an infidel, if not by
implication an atheist, whose reverence for the Most
High forbids him to believe that God commanded Abra-
ham to sacrifice his son, a thought at which the flesh
creeps with horror ; to believe it solely on the authority
of an oriental story, written down nobody knows when
or by whom, or for what purpose ; which may be a
poem, but cannot be the record of a fact, unless God
is the author of confusion and a lie.

Now, this idolatry of the Old Testament has not al-
ways existed. Jesus says that none born of a woman
is greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the
kingdom of heaven was greater than John. Paul tells
us the law — the very crown of the old Hebrew revela-
tion — is a shadow of good things, which have now
come ; only a schoolmaster to bi'ing us to Christ ; and
when faith has come, that we are no longer under the
schoolmaster ; that it was a law of sin and death, from
which we are made free by the law of the spirit of life.
Christian teachers themselves have differed so widely in

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 15

their notion of the doctrines and meaning of those
books, that it makes one weep to think of the follies
deduced therefrom. But modern criticism is fast
breaking to pieces this idol which men have made out
of the scriptures. It has shown that here are the
most different works thrown together ; that their au-
thors, wise as they sometimes were, pious as we feel
often their spirit to have been, had only that Inspira-
tion which is common to other men equally pious and
wise ; that they Avere by no means infallible, but were
mistaken in facts or in reasoning — uttered predic-
tions which time has not fulfilled ; men who in some
measure partook of the darkness and limited notions
of their age, and were not always above its mistakes or
its corruptions.

The history of opinions on the New Testament is
quite similar. It has been assumed at the outset, it
would seem with no sufficient reason, without the small-
est pretence on its writers' part, that all of its authors
were infallibly and miraculously inspired, so that they
could commit no error of doctrine or fact. Men have
been bid to close their eyes at the obvious difference
between Luke and John — the serious disagreement
between Paul and Peter ; to believe, on the smallest evi-
dence, accounts which shock the moral sense and revolt
the reason, and tend to place Jesus in the same series
with Hercules, and Apollonius of Tyana ; accounts
which Paul in the Epistles never mentions, though he
also had a vein of the miraculous running quite through
him. Men have been told that all these things must
be taken as part of Christianity, and if they accepted
the religion, they must take all these accessories along

I with it ; (that the living spirit could not be had without
the killing letter)^ All the books which caprice or ac-

16 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

cident had brought together between the Hds of the
Bible were declared to be the infallible word of God,
the only certain rule of religious faith and practice.
Thus the Bible was made not a single channel, but the
only certain rule of religious faith and practice. To
disbelieve any of its statements, or even the common in-
terpretation put upon those statements by the partic-
ular age or church in which the man belonged, was held
to be infidclit}', if not atheism. In the name of him
who forbid us to judge our brother, good men and
pious men have applied these terms to others, good and
pious as themselves. That state of things has by no
means passed away. ]\Ien, who cry down the absurdi-
ties of paganism in the worst spirit of the French
" free-thinkers," call others infidels and atheists, who
point out, though reverently, other absurdities which
men have piled upon Christianity. So the world goes.
An idolatrous regard for the imperfect scripture of
God's word is the apple of Atalanta, which defeats
theologians running for the hand of divine truth.

But the current notions respecting the infallible in-
spiration of the Bible have no foundation in the Bible
itself. Which evangelist, M'hich apostle of the New
Testament, what prophet or psalmist of the Old Tes-
tament, ever claims infallible authority for himself
or for others.'' Which of them does not in his own
writings show that he was finite, and, with all his zeal
and piety, possessed but a limited inspiration, the
bound whereof we can sometimes discover? Did Christ
ever demand that men should assent to the doctrines of
the Old Testament, credit its stories, and take its poems
for histories, and believe equally two accounts that con-
tradict one another? Has he ever told you that all
the truths of his religion, all the beauty of a Chris-

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 11

tian life, should be contained in the writings of those
men who, even after his resurrection, expected him to
be a Jewish king ; of men who were sometimes at vari-
ance with one another, and misunderstood his divine
teachings ? Would not those modest writers themselves
be confounded at the idolatry we pay them? Opin-
ions may change on these points, as they have often
changed — changed greatly and for the worse since
the days of Paul. They are changing now, and we
may hope for the better; for God makes man's folly
as well as his wrath to praise him, and continually
brings good out of evil.

Another instance of the transitoriness of doctrines
taught as Christian is found in those which relate to
the nature and authority of Christ. One ancient party
has told us that he is the infinite God; another, that
he is both God and man ; a third, that he was a man,
the son of Joseph and Mary — born as we are, tempted
like ourselves, inspired, as we may be, if we will pay the
price. Each of the former parties believed its doc-
trine on this head was infallibly true, and formed the
very substance of Christianity, and was one of the es-
sential conditions of salvation, though scarce any two
distinguished teachers, of ancient or modem times,
agree in their expression of this truth.

Almost every sect that has ever been makes Chris-
tianity rest on the personal authority of Jesus, and not^
the immutable truth of the doctrines themselves, or
the authority of God, who sent him into the world.
Yet it seems difficult to conceive any reason why moral
and religious truths should rest for their support on
the personal authority of their revealer, any more than

the truths of science on that of him who makes them
IV— 2

18 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

known first or most clearly. It is hard to see why the
great truths of Christianity rest on the personal au-
thority of Jesus, more than the axioms of geometry
rest on the personal authority of Euclid or Archimedes.
The authority of Jesus, as of all teachers, one would
naturally think, must rest on the truth of his words,
and not their truth on his authority.

Opinions respecting the nature of Christ seem to be
constantly changing. In the three first centuries af-
ter Christ, it appears, great latitude of speculation
prevailed. Some said he was God, with nothing of
human nature, his body only an illusion ; others, that
he was man, with nothing of the divine nature, his mi-
raculous birth having no foundation in fact. In a few
centuries it was decreed by councils that he was God,
thus honoring the divine element ; next, that he was
man also, thus admitting the human side. For some
ages the Catholic church seems to have dwelt chiefly
on the divine nature that was in him, leaving the human
element to mystics and other heretical persons, whose
bodies served to flesh the swords of orthodox be-
lievers. The stream of Christianity has come to us in
two channels — one within the church, the other with-
out the church — and it is not hazarding too much to
say, that since the fourth century the true Christian
life has been out of the established church, and not in
it, but rather in the ranks of dissenters. From the
Reformation till the latter part of the last century, we
are told, the Protestant church dwelt chicfl}' on the
human side of Christ, and since that time many works
have been written to show how the two — perfect deity
and perfect manhood — were united in his character.
But, all this time, scarce any two eminent teachers agree
on these points, however orthodox they may be called.

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 19

What a difference between the Christ of John Gerson
and John Calvin — yet were both accepted teachers
and pious men. What a difference between the Christ
of the Unitarians and the Methodists — yet may men
of both sects be true Christians and acceptable with
God. What a difference between the Christ of Mat-
thew and John — yet both were disciples, and their
influence is wide as Christendom and deep as the heart
of man. But on this there is not time to enlarge.

Now it seems clear, that the notion men form about
the origin and nature of the scriptures, respecting the
nature and authority of Christ, have nothing to do with
Christianity except as its aids or its adversaries ; they
are not the foundation of its truths. These are theo-
logical questions, not religious questions. Their con-
nection with Christianity appears accidental: for if
Jesus had taught at Athens, and not at Jerusalem ; if he
had wrought no miracle, and none but the human na-
ture had ever been ascribed to him ; if the Old Testa-
ment had for ever perished at his birth, Christianity
would still have been the word of God ; it would have
lost none of its truths. It would be just as true, just
as beautiful, just as lasting, as now it is; though we
should have lost so many a blessed word, and the work
of Christianity itself would have been, perhaps, a long
time retarded.

To judge the future by the past, the former au-
thority of the Old Testament can never return. Its
present authority cannot stand. It must be taken for
what it is worth. The occasional folly and impiety
of its authors must pass for no more than their value ;
while the religion, the wisdom, the love, which make
fragrant its leaves, will still speak to the best hearts

20 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

as hitherto, and in accents even more divine when
reason is allowed her rights. The ancient belief in the
infallible inspiration of each sentence of the New Tes-
tament is fast changing, very fast. One writer, not
a sceptic, but a Christian of unquestioned piety, sweeps
off the beginning of INIatthew ; another, of a different
church and equally religious, the end of John. Nu-
merous critics strike off several epistles. The Apoc-
alypse itself is not spared, notwithstanding its con-
cluding curse. Who shall tell us the work of retrench-
ment is to stop here; that others will not demonstrate,
what some pious hearts have long felt, that errors of
doctrine and errors of fact may be found in many
parts of the record, here and there, from the beginning
of Matthew to the end of Acts.? We see how opinions
have changed ever since the apostles' time ; and who
shall assure us that they were not sometimes mistaken
in historical, as well as doctrinal matters ; did not some-
times confound the actual with the imaginary ; and that
the fancy of these pious writers never stood in the
/ place of their recollection?

>s7 /"'■^ut what if this should take place.'' Is Christianity
r then to perish out of the heart of the nations, and van-
ish from the memory of the world, like the religions
that were before Abraham.'' It must be so, if it rest
on a foundation which a scoffer may shake, and a score
of pious critics shake down. But this is the founda-
tion of a theology, not of Christianity. That does not
rest on the decision of councils. It is not to stand or
fall with the infallible inspiration of a few Jewish fish-
ermen, who have writ their names in characters of light
all over the world. It does not continue to stand
through the forbearance of some critic, who can cut,
when he will, the thread on which its life depends.

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 21

Christianity does not rest on the infalhble authority of
the New Testament. It depends on this collection of
books for the historical statement of its facts. In
this we do not require infallible inspiration on the part
of the writers, more than in the record of other his-
torical facts. To me it seems as presumptuous, on the
one hand, for the believer to claim this evidence for
the truth of Christianity, as it is absurd, on the other
hand, for the sceptic to demand such evidence to sup-
port these historical statements. I cannot see that it
depends on the personal authority of Jesus. He was
the organ through which the infinite spoke. It is God
that was manifested in the flesh by him, on whom rests
the truth which Jesus brought to light, and made
clear and beautiful in his life ; and if Christianity be
true, it seems useless to look for any other authority to
uphold it, as for some one to support Almighty God.
'oo if it could be proved — as it cannot — in opposition
to the greatest amount of historical evidence ever col-
lected on any similar point, that the gospels were the
fabrication of designing and artful men, that Jesus of
Nazareth had never lived, still Christianity would stand \
firm, and fear no evil. None of the doctrines of that
religion would fall to the ground ; for, if true, they
stand by themselves. But we should lose — oh, irre-
parable loss ! — the example of that character, so beau-
tiful, so divine, that no human genius could have con-
ceived it, as none, after all the progress and refinement
of eighteen centuries, seems fully to have comprehended
its lustrous life»,^-lf Christianity were true, we should
still think it was so, not because its record was written
by infallible pens, nor because it was lived out by an
infallible teacher; but that it is true, like the axioms
of geometry, because it is true, and is to be tried by

22 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the oracle God places in the breast. If it rest on the
personal authority of Jesus alone, then there is no cer-
tainty of its truth if he were ever mistaken in the
smallest matter, as some Christians have thought he
was in predicting his second coming.

These doctrines respecting the scriptures have often
changed, and are but fleeting. Yet men lay much
stress on them. Some cling to these notions as if they
were Christianity itself. It is about these and similar
points that theological battles are fought from age to
age. Men sometimes use worst the choicest treasure
which God bestows. This is especially true of the use
men make of the Bible. Some men have regarded it as
the heathen their idol, or the savage his fetish. They
have subordinated reason, conscience, and religion to
this. Thus have they lost half the treasure it bears
in its bosom. No doubt the tiij^ Avill come when its
true character shall be felt, ^hcn it will be seen, that,
amid all the contradictions of the Old Testament — its
legends, so beautiful as fictions, so appalling as facts ;
amid its predictions that have never been fulfilled ;
amid the puerile conceptions of God, which sometimes
occur, and the cruel denunciations that disfigure both
psalm and prophecy, there is a reverence for man's
nature, a sublime trust in God, and a depth of J)iety,
rarely felt in these cold northern hearts of ours. Then
the devotion of its authors, the loftiness of their aim,
and the majesty of their life, will appear doubly fair,
and prophet and psalmist will warm our hearts as never
before. Their voice will cheer the young, and sanctify
the grey-headed ; will charm us in the toil of life, and
sweeten the cup death gives us when he comes to shake
off this mantle of flesh. Then will it be seen that the

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 23

words of Jesus are the music of heaven, sung in an
earthly voice, and the echo of these words in John and
Paul owe their efficacy to their truth and their depth,
and to no accidental matter connected therewith. Then
can the word, which was in the beginning and now is,
find access to the innermost heart of man, and speak
there as now it seldom speaks. Then shall the Bible —
which is a whole library of the deepest and most
earnest thoughts and feelings, and piety and love, ever
recorded in human speech — be read oftener than ever
before, not with superstitition, but with reason, con-
science, and faith fully active. Then shall it sustain
men bowed down with many sorrows ; rebuke sin, en-
courage virtue, sow the world broadcast and quick with
the seed of love, that man may reap a harvest for life
everlasting.

/ With all the obstacles men have thrown in its path,
Jiow much has the Bible done for mankind ! No abuse
/has deprived us of all its blessings ! You trace its
path across the world from the day of Pentecost to this
day. As a river springs up in the heart of a sandy
continent, having its father in the skies, and its birth-
place in distant, unknown mountains ; as the stream
rolls on, enlarging itself, making in that arid waste a
belt of verdure wherever it turns its way ; creating
palm groves and fertile plains, where the smoke of the
cottager curls up at eventide, and marble cities send
the gleam of their splendor far into the sky ; such has
been the course of the Bible on the earth. Despite of
idolaters bowing to the dust before it, it has made a
deeper mark on the world than the rich and beautiful
literature of all the heathen. The first book of the
Old Testament tells man he is made in the image of
God; the first of the New Testament gives us the

\^

24 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

motto, Be perfect as your Father in heaven. Higher
words were never spoken. How the truths of the Bible
have blessed us ! There is not a boy on all the hills of
New England ; not a girl born in the filthiest cellar
which disgraces a capital in Europe, and cries to God
against the barbarism of modern civilization ; not a
boy nor a girl all Christendom through — but their
lot is made better by that great book.

Doubtless the time will come when men shall see
Christ also as he is. Well might he still say, " Have
I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known
me.'' " No ! we have made him an idol, have bowed the
knee before him, saying, " Hail, king of the Jews ! "
called him " Lord, Lord ! " but done not the things
which he said. The history of the Christian world
might well be summed up in one word of the evangelist
— " and there they crucified him ;" for there has never
been an age when men did not crucify the Son of God
afresh. But if error prevail for a time and grow old
in the world, truth will triumph at the last, and then
we shall see the Son of God as he is. Lifted up, he
^ shall draw all natfons unto him. Then will men under-
<r stand the word of Jesus, which shall not pass away.
Then we shall see and love the divine life that he lived.
How vast has his influence been ! How his spirit
wrought in the hearts of his disciples, rude, selfish,
bigoted, as at first they were ! How it has wrought in
the world! Llis words judge the nations. The wisest
son of man has not measured their height. They
speak to what is deepest in profound men, what is
holiest in good men, what is divincst in religious men.
They kindle anew the flame of devotion in hearts long
cold. They are spirit and life. His truth was not

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 25

derived from Moses and Solomon ; but the light of God
shown through him, not colored, not bent aside. His
life is the perpetual rebuke of all time since. It con-
demns ancient civilization ; it condemns modern civiliza-
tion. Wise men we have since had, and good men ; but
this Galilean youth strode before the world whole thou-
sands of years, so much of divinity was in him. His
words solve the questions of this present age. In him
the godlike and the human met and embraced, and a
divine life was born. Measure him by the world's
greatest sons — how poor they are ! Try him by the
best of men — how little and low they appear ! Exalt
him as much as we may, we shall yet, perhaps, come
short of the work. But still was he not our brother;
the son of man, as we are; the Son of God, like our-
selves ?yjlis excellence — was it not human excellence ?
Is wisdom, love, piety — sweet and celestial as they
were — are they not what we also may attain ? In
him, as in a miiTor, we may see the image of God, and
go on from glory to glory, till we are changed into the
same image, led by the spirit which enlightens the hum-
ble. Viewed in this way, how beautiful is the life of
Jesus ! Heaven has come down to earth, or, rather,
earth has become heaven. The Son of God, come of
age, has taken possession of his birthright. The
brightest revelation is this — of what is possible for
all men, if not now, at least hereafter. How pure is
his spirit, and how encouraging its words ! " Lowly
sufferer," he seems to say, " see how I bore the cross.
Patient laborer, be strong; see how I toiled for the
unthankful and the merciless. Mistaken sinner, see of
wli^t thou art capable. Rise up, and be blessed."
/^ But if, as some early Christians began to do, you
take a heathen view, and make him a god, the Son of

26 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

God in a peculiar and exclusive sense, much of the sig-
nificance of his character is gone. His virtue has no
merit, his love no feeling, his cross no burden, his agony
no pain. His death is an illusion, his resurrection but
a show. For if he were not a man, but a god, what
are all these things? what his words, his life, his ex-
cellence of achievement? It is all nothing, weighed
against the illimitable greatness of him who created
the worlds and fills up all time and space ! Then his
resignation is no lesson, his life no model, his death
no triumph to you or me, who are not gods, but mortal
men, that know not what a day shall bring forth, and
walk by faith " dim sounding on our perilous way."
Alas ! we have despaired of man, and so cut off his
brightest hope.

In respect of doctrines as well as forms, we see all is
transitory. " Everywhere is instability and insecur-
ity." Opinions have changed most on points deemed
most vital. Could we bring up a Christian teacher of
any age — from the sixth to the fourteenth century,
for example, though a teacher of undoubted sound-
ness of faith, whose word filled the churches of Chris-
tendom — clergymen would scarce allow him to kneel
at their altar, or sit down with them at the Lord's
table. -His notions of Christianity could not be ex-
pressed in our forms, nor could our notions be made
intelligible to his ears. The questions of his age,
those on which Christianity was thouglit to depend —
questions which perplexed and divided the subtle
doctors — are no questions to us. The quarrels
which then drove wise men mad, now only excite a
smile or a tear, as we are disposed to laugh or weep
at the frailty of man. We have other straws of our

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 27

own to quarrel for. /Their ancient books of devotion
do not speak to us ; their theology is a vain word.
To look back but a short period, the theological
speculations of our fathers during the last two cen-
turies, their " practical divinity," even the sermons
written by genius and piety, are, with rare excep-
tions, found unreadable ; such a change is there in
the doctrines.

Now, who shall tell us that the change is to stop
here ; that this sect or that, or even all sects united, have
exhausted the river of life, and received it all in their
canonized urns, so that we need draw no more out of the
eternal well, but get refreshment nearer at hand.''
Who shall tell us that another age will not smile at our
doctrines, disputes, and unchristian quarrels about
Christianity, and make wide the mouth at men who
walked brave in orthodox raiment, delighting to
blacken the name of heretics, and repeat again the old
charge, " He hath blasphemed ? " Who shall tell us
they will not weep at the folly of all such as fancied
truth shone only in the contracted nook of their
school, or sect, or coterie .^ Men of other times may
look down equally on the heresy-hunters, and men
hunted for heresy, and wonder at both. The men of
all ages before us were quite as confident as we that
their opinion was truth, and their notion was Chris-
tianity and the whole thereof. The men who lit the
fires of persecution, from the first martyr to Christian
bigotry down to the last murder of innocents, had no
doubt their opinion was divine. The contest about
transubstantiation, and the immaculate purity of the
Hebrew and Greek texts of the scriptures, was waged
with a bitterness unequalled in these days. The
Protestant smiles at one, the Catholic at the other, and

28 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

men of sense wonder at both. It might teach us all
a lesson, at least of forbearance. No doubt an age
will come in which ours shall be reckoned a period of
darkness — like the sixth century — when men groped
for the wall, but stumbled and fell, because they
trusted a transient notion, not an eternal truth; an
age when temples were full of idols set up by human
folly ; an age in which Christian light had scarce
begun to shine into men's hearts. But while this
change goes on, while one generation of opinions
passes away, and another rises up, Christianity itself,
that pure religion which exists eternal in the consti-
tution of the soul and the mind of God, is always the
same. The word that was before Abraham, in the
very beginning, will not change, for that word is
truth. From this Jesus subtracted nothing; to this
he added nothing. But he came to reveal it as the
secret of God, that cunning men could not under-
stand, but which filled the souls of men meek and
lowly of heart. This truth we owe to God ; the reve-
lation thereof to Jesus, our elder brother, God's chosen
son.

To turn away from the disputes of the Catholics
and the Protestants, of the Unitarian and the Trini-
tarian, of old school and new school, and come to the
plain words of Jesus of Nazareth, Christianity is a
simple thing, very simple. : It is absolute, pure
morality ; absolute, pure religion ; tlic love of man ;
the love of God acting without let or hindrance. The
only creed it lays down is the great truth which
springs up spontaneous in the holy heart — there is
a God. Its watchword is. Be perfect as your Father
in heaven. The only form it demands is a divine life ;

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 29

doing the best thing in the best way, from the highest
motives ; perfect obedience to the great law of God.
Its sanction is the voice of God in your heart ; the
perpetual presence of him who made us and the stars
over our head; Christ and the Father abiding within
us. All this is very simple — a little child can under-
stand it ; very beautiful — the loftiest mind can find
nothing so lovely. Try it by reason, conscience, and
faith — things highest in man's nature — we see no
redundance, we feel no deficiency. Examine the par-
ticular duties it enjoins — humility, reverence, sobri-
ety, gentleness, charity, forgiveness, fortitude, resig-
nation, faith, and active love; try the whole extent
of Christianity, so well summed up in the command,
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind — thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;" and is there any-
thing therein that can perish? No, the very oppo-
nents of Christianity have rarely found fault with the
teachings of Jesus. The end of Christianity seems to
be to make all men one with God as Christ was one
with him ; to bring them to such a state of obedience
and goodness that we shall think divine thoughts and
feel divine sentiments, and so keep the law of
God by living a life of truth and love. Its
means are purity and prayer; getting strength
from God, and using it for our fellow-men
as well as ourselves. (It allows perfect freedom. It
does not demand all men to think alike, but to think
uprightly, and get as near as possible at truth ; not
all men to live alike, but to live holy, and get as near
as possible to a life perfectly divine. Christ set up
no pillars of Hercules, beyond which men must not
sail the sea in quest of truth. He says, " I have

30 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear
them now. . . Greater works than these shall ye
do." Christianity lays no rude hand on the sacred
peculiarity of the individual genius and character.
But there is no Christian sect which does not fetter
a man. It would make all men think alike, or
smother their conviction in silence. Were all men
Quakers or Catholics, Unitarians or Baptists, there
would be much less diversity of thought, character,
and life, less of truth active in the world, than now.
But Christianity gives us the largest liberty of the
sons of God; and were all men Christians after the
fashion of Jesus, this variety would be a thousand
times greater than now: for Christianity is not a
system of doctrines, but rather a method of attain-
ing oneness with God. It demands, therefore, a
good life of piety within, of purity without, and gives
the promise that whoso does God's will shall know of
God's doctrine.

In an age of con'uption, as all ages are, Jesus stood
and looked up to God. There was nothing between
him and the Father of all ; no old world, be it of
Moses or Esaias, of a living rabbi, or sanhedrim of
rabbis ; no sin or perverscncss of the finite will. jAs
^ the result of this virgin purity of soul and perfect
obedience, the light of God shone down into the very
depths of his soul, bringing all of the Godhead which
flesh can receive. He would have us do the same;
worship with nothing between us and God ; act, think,
feel, live, in perfect obedience to him ; and we never
are Christians as he was the Christ, until we worship,
as Jesus did, with no mediator, with nothing between
us and the Father of ^Ih; He felt that God's word
was in him ; that he was one with God. He told what

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 31

he saw, the truth ; he Hved what he felt, a hfe of love.
The truth he brought to light must have been always
the same before the eyes of all-seeing God, nineteen
centuries before Christ, or nineteen centuries after
him. A life supported by the principle and quickened
by the sentiment of religion, if true to both, is al-
ways the same thing in Nazareth or New England.
Now that divine man received these truths from God,
was illumined more clearly by " the light that light-
eneth every man," combined or involved all the truths
of religion and morality in his doctrine, and made
them manifest in his life. Then his words and ex-
ample passed into the world, and can no more perish
than the stars be wiped out of the sky. The truths
he taught ; his doctrines respecting man and God ; the
relation between man and man, and man and God,
with the duties that grow out of that relation — are
always the same, and can never change till man ceases
to be man, and creation vanishes into nothing. No ;
forms and opinions change and perish, but the word
of God cannot fail. The form religion takes, the
doctrines wherewith she is girded, can never be the
same in any two centuries or two men ; for since the
sum of religious doctrines is both the result and the
measure of a man's total growth in wisdom, virtue,
and piety, and since men will always differ in these
respects, so religious doctrines and forms will always
differ, always be transient, as Christianity goes forth
and scatters the seed she bears in her hand. But the
Christianity holy men feel in the heart, the Christ
that is born within us, is always the same thing to
each soul that feels it. This differs only in degree,
and not in kind, from age to age, and man to man.
There is something in Christianity which no sect, from

S2 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the "Ebionites" to the "Latter-Day Saints," ever
entirely overlooked. This is that common Christianity
which bums in the hearts of pious men.

Real Christianity gives men new life. It is the
growth and perfect action of the holy spirit God puts
into the sons of men. It makes us outgrow any form
or any system of doctrines we have devised, and ap-
proach still closer to the truth. It would lead us to
take what help we can find. It would make the
Bible our servant, not our master. It would teach us
to profit by the wisdom and piety of David and Solo-
mon, but not to sin their sins, nor bow to their idols.
/It would make us revere the holy words spoken
by " godly men of old," but revere still more the word
of God spoken through conscience, reason, and faith,
as the holiest of all. It would not make Christ the
despot of the soul, but the brother of all men. It
would not tell us that even he had exhausted the ful-
ness of God, so that he could create none greater;
for with him " all things are possible," and neither
Old Testament nor New Testament ever hints that
creation exhausts the creator. Still less would it tell
us the wisdom, the piety, the love, the manly excel-
lence of Jesus was the result of miraculous agency
alone, but that it was won, like the excellence of
humbler men, by faithful obedience to him who gave
his son such ample heritage. It would point to
him as our brother, who went before, like the good
shepherd, to charm us with the music of his words,
and with the beauty of his life to tempt us up the
steeps of mortal toil, within the gate of heaven. It
would have us make the kingdom of God on earth,
and enter more fittingly the kingdom on high. It
would lead us to form Christ in the heart, on which

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 33

Paul laid such stress, and work out our salvation by
this. For it is not so much by the Christ who lived
so blameless and beautiful eighteen centuries ago
that we are saved directly, but by the Christ we form
in our hearts and live out in our daily life, that we
save ourselves, God working with us both to will and
to do.

Compare the simpleness of Christianity, as Christ
sets it forth on the mount, with what is sometimes
taught and accepted in that honored name; and what
a difference ! One is of God ; one is of man. There
is something in Christianity which sects have not
reached; something that will not be won, we fear,
by theological battles, or the quarrels of pious men ;
still wg_may rejoice that Christ is preached in any
way./ The Christianity of sects, of the pulpit, of
society, is ephemeral — a transitory fly. It will
pass off and be forgot. Some new form will take
its place, suited to the aspect of the changing times.
Each will represent something of truth, but no
one the whole. It seems the whole race of
man is needed to do justice to the whole of
truth, as " the whole church to preach the whole
gospel." ) Truth is intrusted for the time to a perish-
able ark of human contrivance. Though often ship-
wrecked, she always comes safe to land, and is not
changed by her mishap. That pure ideal religion
which Jesus saw on the mount of his vision, and lived
out in the lowly life of a Galilean peasant ; which
transforms his cross into an emblem of all that is
holiest on earth; which makes sacred the ground he
trod, and is dearest to the best of men, most true to
what is truest in them — cannot pass away. Let

men improve never so far in civilization, or soar never
IV— 3

v/

34? THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

so high on the wings of religion and love, they can
never outgo the flight of truth and Christianity. It
will always be above them. It is as if we were to fly
towards a star, which becomes larger and more bright
the nearer we approach, till we enter and are absorbed
in its glory.

If we look carelessly on the ages that have gone
by, or only on the surfaces of things as they come
up before us, there is reason to fear; for we con-
found the truth of God with the word of man. So
at a distance the cloud and the mountain seem the
same. When the drift changes with the passing
wind an unpracticed eye might fancy the mountain
itself was gone. But the mountain stands to catch
the clouds, to win the blessing they bear, and send
it down to moisten the fainting violet, to form streams
which gladden valley and meadow, and sweep on at
last to the sea in deep channels, laden with fleets.
Thus the forms of the church, the creeds of the sects,
the conflicting opinions of teachers, float round the
sides of the Christian mount, and swell and toss, and
rise and fall, and dart their lightning, and roll their
thunder, but they neither make nor mar the mount
itself. Its lofty summit far transcends the tumult,
knows nothing of the storm which roars below, but
burns with rosy light at evening and at mom, gleams
in the splendors of the mid-day sun, sees his light
when the long shadows creep over plain and moor-
land, and all night long has its head in the heavens,
and is visited by troops of stars which never set, nor
veil their faces so pure and high.

Let then the transient pass, fleet as it will ; and may
God send us some new manifestation of the Christian

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 35

faith, that shall stir men's hearts as they were never
stirred ; some new word, which shall teach us what we
are, and renew us all in the image of God ; some better
life, that shall fulfil the Hebrew prophecy, and pour
out the spirit of God on young men and maidens,
and old men and children ; which shall realize the
word of Christ, and give us the Comforter, who
shall reveal all needed things ! There ai'e Simeons
enough in the cottages and churches of New England,
plain men and pious women, who wait for the consola-
tion, and would die in gladness if their expiring breath
could stir quicker the wings that bear him on. There
are men enough, sick and " bowed down, in no wise
able to lift up themselves," who would be healed could
they kiss the hand of their Savior, or touch but the
hem of his garment; men who look up and are not
fed, because they ask bread from heaven and water
from the rock, not traditions or fancies, Jewish or
heathen, or new or old ; men enough who, with throb-
bing hearts, pray for the spirit of healing to come
upon the waters, which other than angels have long
kept in trouble ; men enough who have lain long time
sick of theology, nothing bettered by many physi-
cians, and are now dead, too dead to bury their dead,
who would come out of their graves at the glad
tidings. God send us a real religious life, which
shall pluck blindness out of the heart, and make us
better fathers, mothers, and children ! a religious life,
that shall go with us where we go, and make every
home the house of God, every act acceptable as a
prayer. We would work for this, and pray for it,
though we wept tears of blood while we prayed.

Such, then, is the transient and such the permanent
in Christianity. What is of absolute value never

36 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

changes ; we may cling round it and grow to it for
ever. No one can say his notions shall stand. But
we may all say, the truth as it is in Jesus shall
never pass away. Yet there are always some, even
religious men, who do not see the permanent element,
so they rely on the fleeting, and, what is also an evil,
condemn others for not doing the same. They mis-
take a defence of the truth for an attack upon the
holy of holies, the removal of a theological error for
the destruction of all religion. Already men of the
same sect eye one another with suspicion, and lower-
ing brows that indicate a storm, and, like children
who have fallen out in their play, call hard names.
Now, as always, there is a collision between these two
elements. The question puts itself to each man,
" Will you cling to what is perishing, or embrace what
is eternal? " This question each must answer for
himself.

My friends, if you receive the notions about Chris-
tianity which chance to be current in 3'our sect or
church, solely because they are current, and thus ac-
cept the conmiandmont of men instead of God's truth,
there will always be enough to commend yon for
soundness of judgment, piiidcnce, and good sense,
enough to call you Christian for that reason. But
if this is all you rely upon, alas for you ! The ground
will shake under your feet if you attempt to walk
uprightly and like men. You will be afraid of every
new opinion, lest it shake down your church ; you
will fear " lest, if a fox go up, he will break down
your stone wall." The smallest contradiction in the
New Testament or Old Testament, the least disagree-
ment between the law and the gospel, any mistake
of the apostles, will weaken your faith. It shall be

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 37

with you " as when a hungry man dreameth, and be-
hold, he eateth ; but he awaketh, and his soul is
empty."

If, on the other hand, you take the true word of
God, and live out this, nothing shall harm you. Men
may mock, but their own mouthfuls of wind shall be
blown back upon their own face. If the master of
the house were called Beelzebub, it matters little what
name is given to the household. The name Christian,
given in mockery, will last till the world go down.
He that loves God and man, and lives in accordance
with that love, needs not fear what man can do to him.
His religion comes to him in his hour of sadness,
it lays • its hand on him when he has fallen among
thieves, and raises him up, heals and comforts him.
If he is crucified, he shall rise again.

My friends, you this day receive, with the usual
formalities, the man you have chosen to speak to you
on the highest of all themes — what concerns your
life on earth, your life in heaven. It is a work for
which no talents, no prayerful diligence, no piety, is
too gi^eat; an office that would dignify angels, if
worthily filled. If the eyes of this man be holden,
that he cannot discern between the perishing and the
true, you will hold him guiltless of all sin in this ;
but look for light where it can be had, for his office
will then be of no use to you. But if he sees the
truth, and is scared by worldly motives, and will not
tell it, alas for him ! If the watchman see the foe
coming, and blow not the trumpet, the blood of the
innocent is on him.

Your own conduct and character, the treatment you
offer this young man, will in some measure influence
him. The hearer affects the speaker. There were

S8 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

some places where even Jesus " did not many mighty
works, because of their unbehef," Worldly motives
— not seeming such — sometimes deter good men from
their duty. Gold and ease have, before now, ener-
vated noble minds. Daily contact with men of low
aims takes down the ideal of life, which a bright spirit
casts out of itself. Terror has sometimes palsied
tongues that, before, were eloquent as the voice of
persuasion. But thereby truth is not holden. She
speaks in a thousand tongues, and with a pen of iron
graves her sentence on the rock forever. You may
prevent the freedom of speech in this pulpit if you
will. You may hire your servants to preach as you
bid ; to spare your vices, and flatter your follies ; to
prophesy smooth things, and say. It is peace, when
there is no peace. Yet in so doing you weaken and
enthral yourselves. And alas for that man who con-
sents to think one thing in his closet and preach
another in his pulpit! God shall judge him in his
mercy, not man in his wrath. But over his study and
cfver his pulpit might be writ. Emptiness; on his
canonical robes, on his forehead and right hand.
Deceit, Deceit.

But, on the other hand, you may encourage your
brother to tell the truth. Your affection will then be
precious to him, your prayers of great price. Every
evidence of your sympathy will go to baptize him
anew to holiness and truth. You will then have his
best words, his brightest thoughts, and his most hearty
prayers. He may grow old in your service, blessing
and blest. He will have —

" The sweetest, best of consolation.
The thought that he lias given,

THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 39

To serve the cause of Heaven,
The freshness of his early inspiration."

Choose as you will choose; but weal or woe depends
upon your choice.

II

THE RELATION OF JESUS TO HIS AGE

Have any of the rulers, or of the Pharisees, believed on him?
John vii, 48.

In all the world there is nothing so remarkable as
a great man ; nothing so rare ; nothing which so well
repays study. Human nature is loyal at its heart, and
is, always and everywhere, looking for this its true
earthly sovereign. We sometimes say that our insti-
tutions, here in America, do not require a great man ;
that we get along better without than with such. But
let a real, great man light on our quarter of the
planet ; let us understand him, and straightway these
democratic hearts of ours bum with admiration and
with love. We wave in his words, like com in the har-
vest wind. We should rejoice to obey him, for he
would speak Avhat we need to hear. Men are always
half expecting such a man. But vhen he comes, the
real, great man that God has been preparing, men are
disappointed ; they do not recognize him. He does
not enter the city through the gates which expectants
had crowded. He is a fresh fact, brand new; not ex-
actly like any former fact. Therefore men do not
recognize nor acknowledge him. His language is
strange, and his form unusual. He looks revolution-
ary, and pulls down ancient walls to build his own
temple, or at least, splits old rocks asunder, and
quarries anew fresh granite and marble.

There arc two classes of great men. Now and then
some arise whom all acknowledge to be great, soon as

40

JESUS AND HIS AGE 41

they appear. Such men have what is true in relation
to the wants and expectations of to-day. They say
what many men have wished but had not words for;
they translate into thoughts what, as a dim sentiment,
lay burning in many a heart, but could not get
entirely written out into consciousness. These men
find a welcome. Nobody misunderstands them. The
world follows at their chariot-wheels, and flings up its
cap and shouts its huzzas, — for the world is loyal,
and follows its king when it sees and knows him. The
good part of the world follows the highest man it
comprehends ; the bad, whoever serves its turn.

But there is another class of men so great that all
cannot see their greatness. They are in advance of
men's conjectures, higher than their dreams; too good
to be actual, think some. Therefore, say many, there
must be some mistake ; this man is not so great as he
seems ; nay, he is no great man at all, but an im-
postor. These men have what is true not merely in
relation to the wants and expectations of men here
and to-day ; but what is true in relation to the uni-
verse, to eternity, to God. They do not speak what
you and I have been trying to say, and cannot; but
what we shall one day, years hence, wish to say, after
we have improved and grown up to man's estate.

Now it seems to me, the men of this latter class,
when they come, can never meet the approbation of
the censors and guides of public opinion. Such as
wished for a new great man had a superstition of the
last one in their minds. They expected the new to
be just like the old, but he is altogether unlike.
Nature is rich, but not rich enough to waste anything.
So there are never two gi'eat men very strongly similar.
Nay, this new great man, perhaps, begins by de-

42 THE TRANSIENT AND PERINIANENT

stroying much that the old one built up with tears
and prayers. He shows, at first, the limitations and
defects of the former great man ; calls in question
his authority. He refuses all masters ; bows not to
tradition ; and with seeming irreverence, laughs in
the fact of the popular idols. How will the " re-
spectable men," the men of a few good iniles and
those derived from their fathers, " the best of men and
the wisest," — how will they regard this new great
man.'* They will see nothing remarkable in him ex-
cept that he is fluent and superficial, dangerous and
revolutionary. He disturbs their notions of order ; he
shows that the institutions of society are not perfect,
that their imperfections are not of granite or marble,
but only of words written on soft wax, which may be
erased and others written thereon anew. He shows
that such imperfect institutions are less than one
great man. The guides and censors of public opinion
will not honor such a man, they will hate him. Why
not.'' Some others not half so well bred, nor well fur-
nished with precedents, welcome the new great man ;
welcome his ideas ; welcome his person. They say,
" Behold a Prophet."

When Jesus, the son of Mary, a poor woman, wife
of Joseph the carpenter, in the little town of Nazareth,
when he " began to be about thirty years old," and
began also to open his mouth in the synagogues and
the highways nobody thought him a great man at
all, as it seems. "Who are you?" said the
guardians of public opinion. He found men expect-
ing a great man. This, it seems, was the common
opinion, that a great man was to arise, and save the
church, and save the state. They looked back to

JESUS AND HIS AGE 43

Moses, a divine man of antiquity, whose great life
had passed into the world, and to whom men had done
honor in various ways ; amongst others, by telling
all sorts of wonders he wrought, and declaring that
none could be so great again, none get so near to
God. They looked back also to the prophets, a long
line of divine men, so they reckoned, but less than
the awful Moses ; his stature was far above the nation,
who hid themselves in his shadow. Now the well-in-
structed children of Abraham thought the next great
man must be only a copy of the last, repeat his ideas,
and work in the old fashion. Sick men like to be
healed by the medicine which helped them the last
time; at least, by the customary, drugs which are
popular.

In Judea, there were then parties of men, distinctly
marked. There were the conservatives — they repre-
sented the church, tradition, ecclesiastical or theo-
cratical authority. They adhered to the words of
the old books, the forms of the old rites, the tradition
of the elders. " Nobody but a Jew can be saved,"
said they ; " he only by circumcision, and the keeping
of the old formal law; God likes that, he accepts
nothing else." These were the Pharisees, with their
servants the scribes. Of this class were the priests
and the Levites in the main, the national party, the
native-Hebrew party of that time. They had tra-
dition, Moses and the prophets ; they believed in
tradition, Moses and the prophets, at least in public ;
what they believed in private God knew, and so did
they. I know nothing of that.

Then there was the indifferent party ; the Sadducees,
the state. They had wealth, and they believed in it,
both in public and private too. They had a more

44 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

generous and extensive cultivation than the Pharisees.
They had intercourse with foreigners, and understood
the writers of Ionia and Athens which the Pharisee
held in abhorrence. These were sleek, respectable men,
who, in part., disbelieved the Jewish theology. It
is no very great merit to disbelieve even in the devil,
unless you have a positive faith in God to take up
your affections. The Sadducee believed neither in
angel nor resurrection, not at all in the immortality
of the soul. He believed in the state, in the laws,
the constables, the prisons, and the axe. In religious
matters, it seems the Pharisee had a positive belief,
only it was a positive belief in a great mistake. In
religious matters the Sadducee had no positive belief
at all, not even in an error; at least, some think so.
His distinctive affirmation was but a denial. He be-
lieved what he saw with his eyes, touched with his
fingers, tasted with his tongue. He never saw, felt,
nor tasted immortal life ; he had no belief therein.
There was once a heathen Sadducee who said, " My
right arm is my God ! "

There was likewise a party of come-outcrs. They
despaired of the state and the church too, and turned
off into the wilderness, " where the wild asses quench
their thirst," building up their organizations free, as
they hoped, from all ancient tyrannies. The Bible
says nothing directly of these men in its canonical
books. It is a curious omission ; but two Jews, each
acquainted with foreign writers, Josephus and Philo,
give an account of these. These were the Essenes, an
ascetic sect, hostile to marriage, at least many of
them, who lived in a sort of association by themselves,
and had all things in common.

The Pharisees and the Sadducees had no great

JESUS AND HIS AGE 45

living and ruling ideas; none I mean which repre-
sented man, his hopes, wishes, affections, his aspir-
ations, and power of progress. That is no very
rare case, perhaps, you will say, for a party in the
church or the state to have no such ideas ; but they
had not even a plausible substitute for such ideas.
They semed to have no faith in man, in his divine
nature, his power of improvement. The Essenes had
ideas, had a positive belief; had faith in man,
but it was weakened in a great measure by their
machinery. They, like the Pharisees and the Sad-
ducees, were imprisoned in their organization, and
probably saw no good out of their own party lines.
It is a plain thing that no one of these three parties
would accept, acknowledge, or even perceive the
greatness of Jesus of Nazareth. His ideas were not
their notions. He was not the man they were look-
ing for; not at all the Messiah, the annointed one
of God, which they wanted. The Sadducee ex-
pected no new great man unless it was a Roman
quaestor or procurator ; the Pharisees looked for a
Pharisee stricter than Gamaliel ; the Essenes for an
ascetic. It is so now. Some seem to think that if
Jesus were to come back to earth, he would preach
Unitarian sermons, from a text out of the Bible, and
prove his divine mission and the everlasting truths,
the truths of necessity that he taught, in the Uni-
tarian way, by telling of the miracles he wrought
eighteen hundred years ago; that he would prove the
immortality of the soul by the fact of his own cor-
poreal resurrection. Others seem to think that he
would deliver homilies of a severer character; would
rate men roundly about total depravity, and tell of
unconditional election, salvation without works, and

46 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

imputed righteousness, and talk of hell till the women
and children fainted, and the knees of men smote
together with trembling. Perhaps both would be mis-
taken.

So it was then. All these three classes of men, im-
prisoned in their prejudices and superstitions, were
hostile. The Pharisees said, " We know that God
spake unto Moses; but as for this fellow, we know
not whence he is. He blasphemeth Moses and the
prophets ; yea, he hath a devil, and is mad, why hear
him ? " The Sadducees complained that " he stiiTed
up the people ;" so he did. The Essenes, no doubt,
would have it that he was " a gluttonous man and
a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners."
Tried by these three standards, the judgment was
true; what could he do to please those three parties?
Nothing! nothing that he would do. So they hated
him ; all hated him, and sought to destroy him. The
cause is plain. He was so deep they could not see
his profoundness ; too high for their comprehension ;
too far before them for their sympathy. He was
not the great man of the day. He found all or-
ganizations against him, church and state. Even
John the Baptist, a real prophet, but not the pro-
phet, doubted if Jesus was the one to be followed.
If Jesus had spoken for the Pharisees, they would
have accepted his speech and the speaker too. Had
he favored the Sadducees, he had been a gi'eat man
in their camp, and Herod would gladly have poured
wine for the eloquent Galilean, and have satisfied the
carpenter's son with purple and fine linen. Had he
praised the Essenes, uttering their shibboleth, they
also would have paid him his price, have made him
the head of their association perhaps, at least have

JESUS AND HIS AGE 47

honored him in their way. He spoke for none of
these. Why should they honor or even tolerate him?
It were strange had they done so. Was it through
any fault or deficiency of Jesus that these men re-
fused him? Quite the reverse. The rain falls and
the sun shines on the evil and the good; the work of
infinite power, wisdom, and goodness is before all men,
revealing the invisible things, yet the fool hath said,
ay, said in his heart, " There is no God ! "

Jesus spoke not for the prejudices of such, and
therefore they rejected him. But as he spoke truths
for man, truths from God, truths adapted to man's
condition there, to man's condition everywhere and al-
ways, when the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes
went away, their lips curling with scorn ; when they
gnashed on one another with their teeth, there were
noble men and humble women who had long awaited
the consolation of Israel, and they heard him, heard
him gladly. Yes, they left all to follow him. Him !
no, it was not him they followed ; it was God in him
they obeyed, the God of truth, the God of love.

There were men not counted in the organized sects;
men weary of absurdities, thirsting for the truth, sick,
they knew not why nor of what, yet none the less sick,
and waiting for the angel who should heal them, though
b}" troubled waters and remedies unknown. These men
had not the prejudices of a straightly organized and
narrow sect. Perhaps they had not its knowledge, or
its good manners. They were " unlearned and igno-
rant men," those early followers of Christ. Nay,
Jesus himself had no extraordinary culture, as the
v.orld judges of such things. His townsmen won-
dered, on a famous occasion, how he had learned to
read. He knew little of theologies, it would seem ;

48 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the better for him, perhaps. No doubt the better for
us that he insisted on none. He knew they were not
religion. The men of Gahlee did not need theology.
The youngest scribe in the humblest theological school
at Jerusalem, if such a thing were in those days, could
have furnished theology enough to believe in a life-
time. They did need religion ; they did see it as
Jesus unfolded its loveliness ; they did welcome it when
they saw ; welcome it in their hearts.

If I were a poet as some are born, and skilled to
paint with words what shall stand out as real, to live
before the eye, and then dwell in the affectionate mem-
ory for ever, I would tell of the audience which heard
the sermon on the mount, which listened to the para-
bles, the rebukes, the beautiful beatitudes. They
were plain men, and humble women ; many of them
foolish like you and me; some of them sinners. But
they all had hearts ; had souls, all of them — hearts
made to love, souls expectant of truth. When he
spoke, some said, no doubt, " That is a new thing,
that the true worshipper shall worship in spirit and
in truth, as well here as in Jerusalem, now as well as
any time ; that also is a hard saying, love your enemies ;
forgive them, though seventy times seven they smite
and offend you ; that notion that the law and the
prophets are contained, all that is essentially religious
thereof, in one precept, love men as yourself and God
with all your might. This differs a good deal from
the Pharisaic orthodoxy of the synagogue. That is
a bold thing, presumptuous and revolutionary to say,
" I am greater than the temple, wiser than Solomon, a
better symbol of God than both." But there was some-
thing deeper than Jewish ortliodoxy in their hearts ;
something that Jewish orthodoxy could not satisfy,

JESUS AND HIS AGE 49

and what was yet more troublesome to ecclesiastical
guides, something that Jewish orthodoxy could not
keep down, nor even cover up. Sinners were converted
at his reproof. They felt he rebuked whom he loved.
Yet his pictures of sin, and sinners too, were anything
but flattering. There was small comfort in them.
Still it was not the publicans and harlots who laid
their hands on the place where their hearts should be,
saying, " You hurt our feelings," and " we can't bear
you ! " Nay, they pondered his words, repenting in
tears. He showed them their sin ; its cause, its con-
sequence, its cure. To them he came as a Savior, and
they said, " Thou art well-come," those penitent Mag-
dalenes weeping at his feet.

It would be curious could we know the mingled emo-
tions that swayed the crowd which rolled up around
Jesus, following him, as the tides obey the moon, wher-
ever he went ; curious to see how faces looked doubtful
at first as he began to speak at Tabor or Gennesareth,
Capernaum or Gischala, then how the countenance of
some lowered and grew black with thunder suppressed
but cherished, while the faces of others shone as a
branch of stars seen through some disparted cloud
in a night of fitful storms, a moment seen and then
withdrawn. It were curious to see how gradually many
discordant feelings, passion, prejudice, and pride were
hushed before the tide of melodious religion he poured
out around him, baptising anew saint and sinner, and
old and young, into one brotherhood of a common
soul, into one immortal service of the universal God ;
to see how this young Hebrew maid, deep-hearted,
sensitive, enthusiastic, self-renouncing, intuitive of
heavenly truth, rich as a young vine, with clustering
affections just purpling into ripeness, — how she seized,

50 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

first and all at once, the fair ideal, and with generous
bosom confidingly embraced it too ; how that old man,
gray-bearded, with baldness on his head, full of pre-
cepts and precedents, the lore of his fathers, the ex-
perience of a hard life, logical, slow, calculating, dis-
trustful, remembering much and fearing much, but
hoping a little, confiding only in the fixed, his reverence
for the old deepening as he himself became of less
use, — to see how he received the glad inspirations
of the joiner's son, and wondering felt his youth steal
slowly back upon his heart, reviving aspirations long
ago forgot, and then the crimson tide of early hope
come gushing, tingling on through every limb ; to see
how the young man halting between principle and pas-
sion, not yet petrified into worldliness, but struggling,
uncertain, half reluctant, with those two serpents,
custom and desire, that beautifully twined about his
arms and breast and neck their wormy folds, conceal-
ing underneath their burnished scales the dragon's
awful strength, the viper's poison fang, the poor youth
caressing their snaky crests, and toying with their
tongues of flame — to see how he slowly, reluctantly,
amid great questionings of heart, drank in the words
of truth, and then, obedient to the angel in his heart,
shook off, as ropes of sand, that hideous coil, and trod
the serpents underneath his feet. All this, it were cur-
ious, ay, instructive too, could we but see.

They heard him with welcome various as their life.
The old men said, " It is Moses or Elias ; it is Jere-
miah, one of the old prophets arisen from the dead,
for God makes none such, now-a-days, in the sterile
dotage of mankind." The young men and maidens
doubtless it was that said, " This is the Christ ; the de-
sire of the nations ; the hope of the world, the great

JESUS AND HIS AGE 51

new prophet ; the Son of David ; the Son of man ; yes,
the Son of God. He shall be our king." Human
nature is loyal, and follows its king soon as it knows
him. Poor lost sheep ! the children of men look always
for their guide, though so often they look in vain.

How he spoke, words deep and piercing ; rebukes for
the wicked, doubly rebuking, because felt to have come
out from a great, deep, loving heart. His first word
was, perhaps, " Repent," but with the assurance that
the kingdom of God was here and now, within reach of
all. How his doctrines, those great truths of nature,
commended themselves to the heart of each, of all sim-
ple-souled men looking for the truth ! He spoke out
of his experience ; of course into theirs. He spoke
great doctrines, truths vast as the soul, eternal as God,
winged Avith beauty from the loveliness of his own life.
Had he spoken for the Jews alone his words had per-
ished with that people ; for that time barely the echo
of his name had died away in his native hamlet ; for the
Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, you and I had
heard of him but as a rabbi ; nay, had never been blest
by him at all. Words for a nation, an age, a sect, are
of use in their place, yet they soon come to nought.
But as he spoke for eternity, his truths ride on the
wings of time ; as he spoke*for man, they are welcome,
beautiful and blessing, wherever man is found, and so
must be till man and time shall cease.

He looked not back, as the Pharisee, save for illus-
trations and examples. He looked forward for his
direction. He looked around for his work. There it
lay, the harvest plenteous, the laborers few. It is al-
ways so. He looked not to men for his idea, his word
to speak ; as little for their applause. He looked in
to God, for guidance, wisdom, strength, and as water

52 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

in the wilderness, at the stroke of Moses, in the He-
brew legend, so inspiration came at his call, a mighty
stream of truth for the nation, faint, feeble, afraid,
and wandering for the promised land ; drink for the
thirst}', and cleansing for the unclean.

But he met opposition ; O, yes, enough of it. How
could it be otherwise.'' It must be so. The very soul
of peace, he brought a sword. His word was a con-
suming fire. The Pharisees wanted to be applauded,
commended ; to have their sect, their plans, their tradi-
tions praised and flattered. His word to them was
" Repent ;" of them, to the people, " Such righteous-
ness admits no man to the kingdom of heaven ; they are
a deceitful prophecy, blind guides, hypocrites ; not sons
of Abraham, but children of the devil." They could
not bear him ; no wonder at it. He was the aggres-
sor ; had carried the war into the very heart of their
system. They turned out of their company a man
whose blindness he healed, because he confessed that
fact. They made a law that all who believed on him
should also be cast out. Well they might hate him,
those old Pharisees. His existence was their reproach ;
his preaching their trial; his life with its outward
goodness, his piety within, was their condemnation.
The man was their ruin, and they knew it. The cun-
ning can see their own danger, but it is only men wise
in mind, or men simple of heart, that can see their real,
permanent safety and defence; never the cunning;
neither then, neither now.

Jesus looked to God for his truth, his great doc-
trines not his own, private, personal, depending on his
idiosyncracies, and therefore only subjectively true, —
but God's, universal, everlasting, the absolute religion.
I do not know that he did not teach some errors also,

JESUS AND HIS AGE 53

along with it. I care not if he did. It is by his
truths that I know him, the absolute religion he taught
and lived ; by his highest sentiments that he is to be
appreciated. He had faith in God and obeyed God;
hence his inspiration, great, in proportion to the greater
endowment, moral and religious, which God gave him,
great likewise in proportion to his perfect obedience.
He had faith in man none the less. Who ever yet had
faith in God that had none in man? I know not.
Surely no inspired prophet. As Jesus had faith in
man, so he spoke to men. Never yet, in the wide
world, did a prophet arise, appealing with a noble
heart and a noble life to the soul of goodness in man,
but that soul answered to the call. It was so most
eminently with Jesus. The Scribes and Pharisees
could not understand by what authority he taught.
Poor Pharisees ! how could they. His phylacteries
were no broader than those of another man ; nay, per-
haps he had no phylacteries at all, nor even a broad-
bordered garment. Men did not salute him in the
market-place, sandals in hand, with their " Rabbi !
Rabbi ! " Could such men understand by what au-
thority he taught ? no more than they dared answer his
questions. They that knew him felt he had author-
ity quite other than that claimed by the Scribes ; the au-
thority of true words, the authority of a noble life ;
yes, authority which God gives a great moral and re-
ligious man. God delegates authority to men just in
proportion to their power of truth, and their power of
goodness ; to their being and their life. So God spoke
in Jesus, as he taught the perfect religion, anticipated,
developed, but never yet transcended.

This then was the relation of Jesus to his age ; the
sectarians cursed him ; cursed him by their gods ; re-

54 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

jected him, abused him, persecuted him ; sought his life.
Yes, they condemned him in the name of God. All
evil, sa3's the proverb, begins in that name ; much con-
tinues to claim it. The religionists, the sects, the sec-
tarian leaders rejected him, condemned and slew him
at the last, hanging his body on a tree. Poor priests
of the people, they hoped thereby to stifle that awful
soul ! they only stilled the body ; that soul spoke with
a thousand tongues. So in the times of old when the
Saturnian day began to dawn, it might be fabled that
the old Titanic race, lovers of darkness and haters of
the light, essayed to bar the rising morning from the
world, and so heaped Pelion upon Ossa, and Olympus
on Pelion ; but first the day sent up his crimson flush
upon the cloud, and then his saff^ron tinge, and next the
sun came peering o'er the loftiest height, magnificently
fair — and down the mountain's slanting ridge poured
the intolerable day ; meanwhile those triple hills, labor-
iously piled, came toppling, tumbling down, with lum-
bering crush, and underneath their ruin hid the help-
less giants' grave. So was it with men who sat in
Moses' seat. But this people, that " knew not the
law," and were counted therefore accursed, they wel-
comed Jesus as the}^ never welcomed the Pharisee, the
Sadducee, or the Scribe. Ay, hence were their tears.
The hierarchial fire burned not so bright contrasted
with the sun. That people had a Simon Peter, a
James, and a John, men not free from faults, no
doubt, the record shows it, but with hearts in their
bosoms, which could be kindled and then could light
other hearts. Better still, there were Marthas and
INIarys among that people who " knew not the law "
and were cursed. They were the mothers of many a
church.

JESUS AND HIS AGE 55

The character of Jesus has not changed, his doc-
trines are still the same ; but what a change in his rela-
tion to the age, nay to the ages. The stone that the
builders rejected is indeed become the head of the cor-
ner, and its foundation too. He is worshipped as a
God. That is the rank assigned him by all but a
fraction of the Christian world. It is no wonder.
Good men worship the best thing they know, and call
it God. What was taught to the mass of men, in those
days, better than the character of Christ.'' Should
they rather worship the Grecian Jove, or the Jehovah
of the Jews.'' To me it seems the moral attainment of
Jesus was above the hierarchical conception of God, as
taught at Athens, Rome, Jerusalem. Jesus was the
prince of peace, the king of truth, praying for his
enemies — " Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do ! " The Jehovah of the Old Testament
was awful and stern, a man of war, hating the wicked.
The sacerdotal conception of God at Rome and Athens
was lower yet. No wonder, then, that men soon
learned to honor Jesus as a God, and then as God himr
self. Apostolical and other legends tell of his di-
vine birth, his wondrous power that healed the sick,
palsied and crippled, deaf and dumb and blind, created
bread, turned water into wine, and bid obedient devils
come and go ; a power that raised the dead. They tell
that nature felt with him, and at his death the strongly
sympathizing sun paused at high noon, and for three
hours withheld the day; that rocks were rent, and
opening graves gave up their sainted dead, who trod
once more the streets of Zion, the first-fruits of them
that slept ; they tell too how disappointed death gave
back his prey, and spirit-like, Jesus restored, in flesh
and shape the same, passed through the doors shut up.

56 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

and in a bodily form was taken up to heaven before
the face of men ! Beheve men of these things as they
win. To me they are not truth and fact, but mythic
symbols and poetry ; the psalm of praise with which the
world's rude heart extols and magnifies its King. It
is for his tnith and his life, his wisdom, goodness,
piety, that he is honored in my heart ; yes, in the
world's heart. It is for this that in his name are
churches built, and prayers are prayed; for this that
the best things we know, we honor with his name.

He is the greatest person of the ages, the proudest
achievement of the human race. He taught the abso-
lute religion, love to God and man. That God has yet
greater men in store I doubt not ; to say this is not to
detract from the majestic character of Christ, but to
affirm the omnipotence of God. When they come, the
old contest will be renewed, the living prophet stoned,
the dead one worshipped. Be that as it may, there are
duties he teaches us far different from those most com-
monly taught. He was the greatest fact in the
whole history of man. Had he conformed to what
was told him of men ; had he counseled only with flesh
and blood, he had been nothing but a poor Jew — the
world had lost that rich endowment of religious genius,
that richest treasure of religious life, the glad tidings
of the one religion, absolute and true. What if he had
said, as others, " None can be greater than Moses,
none so great ? " He had been a dwarf ; the spirit of
God had faded from his soul ! But he conferred with
God, not men ; took counsel of his hopes, not his fears.
Working for men, with men, by men, tinisting in God,
and pure as truth, he was not scared at the little din of
church or state, and trembled not, thougli Pilate and
Herod were made friends only to crucify him that was

JESUS AND HIS AGE 57

a born king of the world. Methinks I hear that lofty
spirit say to you or me, Poor brother, fear not, nor
despair. The goodness actual in me is possible for
all. God is near thee now as then to me ; rich as ever
in truth, as able to create, as willing to inspire. Daily
and nightly he showers down his infinitude of light.
Open thine eyes to see, thy heart to live. Lo, God is
here.

Ill

RELATION OF THE BIBLE TO THE SOUL

The value and importance of the Bible are generally
acknowledged. We call it the book of books, the
Holy Bible; the divine book, the book of life. We
generally, at least in theory, regard it as differing
from all other books that have been, are, or shall ever
be, in respect to its origin, design and utility. Other
books we refer to the free action of the human mind,
this to a direct action of God's own spirit. Other
books we take for what they seem to be worth. If
they interest us we read them, if their doctrines ap-
pear reasonable we accept ; if false or inadequate we
reject them, never fancying we sin by using reason as
the last standard whereby to measure their merits or
defects. But with the Bible a different method is
pursued ; men read it as a duty, assent to its doc-
trines without understanding them, admit its binding
authority, even when its precepts consist not with the
universal sense of justice, but seem arbitrary. Thus
attempts are made to justify some of the sanguinary
laws of Moses, and the alleged command made to Abra-
ham to sacrifice his son.

The Bible is honored above all other books. IMen
form societies, make great personal sacrifices — the
poor servant girl contributing her hard earned shilling
to circulate this book in other lands. It is in all hands.
It is a well known friend in the poorest cottage. It
is admitted to the proudest palace. It has a place in
the pedlar's crowded pack, and cheers him when he

58

THE BIBLE AND THE SOUL 59

rests from his toil, and sits down dusty and faint upon
his burden. It goes with the pilgrim who ventures
untrod lands; beguiles his toil, comforts his sorrows,
and kindles his hopes. Perhaps there is not a Chris-
tian bark afloat on the ocean that sails without a
Bible.

Now this lofty place, this universal reception, is
granted to no other book. None other speaks equally
and with the same authority to the lofty and the low,
the learned and the ignorant. None other can sanc-
tion an oath, solemnize a marriage, dry a mourner's
tear or arm the soul for sadness, deepest affliction and
death. Surely a book to which so lofty a place has
been assigned must possess rare merits. What are
they? What are the distinguishing features of this
book, which give it precedence to all others? or rather,
what is the relation of the Bible to the soul?

Before answering this latter question it may be well
to determine what it is not.

The Bible is not the master of the soul. The disci-
ples of Jesus were forbidden to be called masters. If
they cannot bear that title, still less can their Avrit-
ings, some thousands of years after the writers are
dead. The old prophets have still feebler claims to
that distinction, for the very least in the new dispensa-
tion (the kingdom of heaven) is above the greatest of
those men. Christianity acknowledges no master to
the soul. God is its Father ; the spirit of our faith is
that of freedom, not bondage. Its chief apostle says,
" Call no man your master;" still less can we call any
book " master." However much we may venerate the
scriptures of the Old Testament and New Testament,
they are never to hold the soul in bondage. The artist
is not to be crushed by his instruments, but is to apply
them to their proper ends.

60 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

The Bible is not the foundation of rehgion. It is
sometimes fancied rehgion is founded upon the Bible ;
it is said, if a man should disbelieve that book, he would
of necessity cease to be religious. But religion is older
than the Bible. Enoch Avalked with God without its
support. Abraham and Moses and David and Isaiah
and Solomon and Daniel knew nothing of it. Religion
is not founded on the scriptures, more than the sense of
justice is based on the " common law." The reverse of
this is true, for the Bible is founded on the indestruc-
tible religious sentiment, as the " common law " rests
on the sense of justice in the soul. Men sometimes
think the statutes of the land were providentially
struck out in some happy moment which will never re-
turn, that if these should perish, so would order and
justice decease from being. They say the same of
the Bible, and assert that morality and religion would
have been quite lost from the world if the Bible had
chanced to perish.

Still farther, the Bible or the New Testament is not
the sole and exclusive foundation of Christianity, but
simply its historical form. Christianity at this day
does not rest merely on the New Testament. Its essen-
tial truths were before Abraham, Avhen there was no Bi-
ble. It is the word that was in the very beginning, the
true light which has always shone, enlightening every
man, so far as he was enlightened at all ; for all the
true religious light of the world has only come from
true religion, which is essentially the same with Chris-
tianity. Though it may differ in form, Christianity
was ordained before the creation of the world, so that it
is not simply " as old as the creation," but far older,
ancient as the eternal ideas of justice, love, holiness,
and truth. It is sometimes imagined, if the New Tes-

THE BIBLE AND THE SOUL 61

tament had been lost in the dark ages, that Christianity
also would have ceased to be. But can this be true?
Had this temple of Christianity been destroyed the
spirit of Christianity could not have perished ; for,
granting it were shown, in opposition to the greatest
amount of historical evidence ever brought to bear on
the point, that the facts related in the Gospels were
not facts but fictions; that Jesus never rose from the
dead ; never died, as it is related ; never wrought mira-
cles, taught doctrines or even lived — still Christian-
ity would be as true, as lasting, as now it is, when en-
vironed by all these historical statements. It is true
that Christianity is intimately connected with its Gal-
ilean founder, but not inseparably. Its truths are laid
in human nature ; they will live with the soul. They
are the soul's law. Heaven and earth may pass away,
but not one jot or tittle of Christianity can fail.

The Bible is not greater than conscience and reason.
They are directly from God, God's voice heard plainly
in the heart, as even on Horeb, or Sinai or the mount
of transfiguration. Nothing can be superior to these
instructors. The Bible may agree with reason, utter
the same sentiments with conscience ; and so far it will
have authority. It can never contradict these coun-
sellors, and yet claim obedience. Wliat God has made
cannot be unmade by any power short of his own ;
so nothing arbitrary or capricious can ever become
binding on reason and conscience, let it be taught on
what external authority it may. One chief merit of
Christianity consists in restoring natural morality and
natural religion to their original and proper place,
in permitting conscience, reason and the religious sen-
timent to speak In their native, heavenly tones, and
with their primitive authority. By thus restoring

62 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

natural religion, by thus appealing to those divine
counsellors and prophets of eternity, it overthrows all
arbitrary systems of religion which are not founded in
the nature and reason of things ; and puts to eternal
silence all capricious advisers. Thus by fulfilling the
true, the right, the good and the holy, it destroj^s all
that is false, wrong, bad and profane.

Other religions have also their sacred books. The
Hindoos have their Vedas and Puranas ; ]\Iahometans
their Koran ; sectarians their creed. These books are
deemed by the foolish among their followers greater
than the soul, superior to conscience, reason and the
religious sentiment. They are appealed to as masters,
the last standard of faith, are honored as the sole and
exclusive foundation of these peculiar religious sys-
tems. They can only be the basis of a system that
is not founded in the nature and reason of things.
Faith in the peculiar institutions of such books, in
the Vedas, Korans, and creeds, in any arbitrar}^ sys-
tem, is not freedom but bondage. It is not obedience
to the universal " law of the spirit of life," but to
some partial statute of man's device. It degrades
man wliilc it comforts him. It puts his better nature
to a deadly sleep before it offers him relief from the
present, or faith for the future. Such S3'stems the
apostle well calls the " Hagars shapcn in ignorance,
born into bondage with their cliildren, which are to
be driven out before the frccborn Isaac, and destined
like Ishmael to have their hand against every man."
Of the scriptures, then, it may be said, as it has been
of the Sabbath: " The Bible was made for man, not
man for tlie Bible."

But if the Bible is not a master of the soul, and is
not superior to reason and conscience, it sustains the

THE BIBLE AND THE SOUL 63

relation of teacher. Yet it teaches in no lormal
method. It does not teach men by pouring certain ab-
stract doctrines into all minds ; still less is it by casting
all souls anew in the same mould, desti'oying individual
action and individual peculiarities. Nor does it in-
struct by cultivating merely a single faculty, while all
the rest are left to sleep, and that is rendered preter-
naturally acute. Far different from this is the method
of the New Testament. It teaches by arousing the
soul, awakening all its noblest powers, and exciting
them to free, earnest action, each in its own sphere.
It reveals the true idea of a man, the divine man, man
as he should be ; tells him of his noble nature, the image
of God. It sets before him the noblest aim, " Be
perfect as God." It assures him that if with free
spirit he contemplates the image of God reflected in
Jesus, he shall be changed into the same image, in-
formed by the same spirit, and pass from one stage
of spiritual glory to another still higher. In this
manner it seeks to renew the primitive likeness of God
in the soul, to complete the man, to bring him to the
fulness of Christ, making him one with God, so that
he shall think God's thoughts, feel God's sentiments,
and live God's will.

The New Testament is to us what the teacher is to
the child. It reveals to us the truths we ourselves
might, perhaps, discover at a more advanced stage of
progress. Thus it anticipates experience, and gives
us the truth at our first setting-out in life. A teacher
can never do more than quicken the spirit, and hasten
the time when the expanded soul shall act freely and
right. The father leads his boy by the hand until he
can walk alone ; he would learn to walk without this
aid, but at a later age.

64 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

Now it has ever been the office of great minds to
instruct men of humbler powers. Some great genius
rises up, and with his far-reaching eye sees what others
do not dream of. He clothes his discourses in words
that sound mysterious to the unwonted ear. Some
few minds, only less than his own, accept of his teach-
ings and hand them down to others less gifted than
themselves, who in their turn communicate them to the
multitude of men. Thus the truth which none but a
genius could discover soon becomes the property of
the wise and learned, next the common possession of
all men. This takes place in all science and in every
art. Those who make the great discoveries are looked
on as inspired men, commissioned by the gods to make
a revelation to the world. They are justly called in-
spired, for they are possessed with a large portion of
the spirit that is in all men, enabling others to com-
prehend the new truth. So we find the men who in-
vented the plough, the loom, the ship, and the letters
of the alphabet, were regarded as gods ; at least, as
men inspired by the gods. Thus of old time the elo-
quent orator, the wise legislator, the prudent counsel-
lor and the glowing poet, were called inspired men,
the divinely appointed teachers of mankind. Their
words were treasured as holy sayings, the very words of
God. Such men, in part, were the writers of the
Bible ; not of that only, but of other books also, deemed
holy by nations who knew not Christ, and never called
the ineffable spirit by the Hebrew name, Jehovah.
The spirit of God everywhere reveals itself ; and though
perhaps more clearly in the Old Testament than in any
other witness of equal antiquity, yet God has not left
himself without witness among any people. The In-
dian, the Persian, the Egyptian, and the Greek, had

THE BIBLE AND THE SOUL 65

each their sacred books, which were to them in a lower
degree what the Hebrew scriptures were to the Jews.
Let not this be taken as an idle assertion at random,
for it is sanctioned by the high authority of Paul,
who could quote Grecian writers acknowledging the
paternal authority of God and the divine nature of
man. The heathen, not less than the Hebrews, had
the " schoolmaster to bring them to Christianity."

Now it happens that pupils outgrow their teachers.
Since they start at their outset in life with all the re-
sults of their teachers' discoveries, if true to themselves,
they will go beyond their old masters, think for them-
selves, and follow truth wherever she may lead. This
takes place every day in the sciences and arts. One
learns the art of sailing in a rude boat ; another per-
fects this discovery by inventing a steamship. In
these matters no man is afraid or ashamed to go far-
ther than his teachers, though they were inspired men.
The same may be said of laws and political institutions.
Like old garments which were fine in their day, they
are laid aside when their end is answered. No man
wears them when worn out from respect to their maker.
This event has befallen many portions of the Old Tes-
tament. The old Hebrew writers ran and were glo-
rified ; but now they depart and leave the race for
other feet. Their errand is accomplished. But their
writings, like the military bridges and trenches of the
old Romans, still remain interesting objects to the
pains-taking antiquary and diligent scholar. They
still teach wisdom, inspire faith and quicken devo-
tion. Moses was a great man, one of the greatest to
whom the sun has ever lent light. He was a prophetic
man ; he looked far down into human nature, far on-
ward into futurity. His laws were in part wise, won-
IV— 5

66 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

derf ul for his age ; so they took a deep hold on the
world, and have fixed their roots in every code that
civilized men obey in the wide world. But it is only
the true, the universal, the divine part of them that
thus extends and still lives. All the peculiar institu-
tions of his system, which belong to the man Moses, not
to the divine idea of justice, holiness and love, have
long since fallen to decay ; the ruin has grown green
with age, and is now tenanted with ignorance and
superstition, which still linger about the tent of that
great man, as owls and bats, who cannot bear the
light, seek shelter in rotten trees and old forsaken
buildings, which they leave at night-fall, to come out
and mourn over the light of the world, wishing it
would be always night, for their day is darkness, and
their power vanishes as the gray morning dawns.

Moses has been the world's teacher ; and, as has been
said of Jesus, " his name has not been written, but
ploughed into its history." Now we are not subject
to his instructions ; for we too are men, and have seen
what he and Solomon desired to see and saw not. He
was a worthy schoolmaster, and has fitted us for a bet-
ter and higher instruction. Why appeal to his old
text-books, as if they were the limit of human prog-
ress.'^ His law was a "shadow of good things to
come ;" why grasp at the shadow when they have
come, and we have embraced the substance.'' The Old
Testament was the da3'break ; but now the sun has
risen, why should we still stumble in darkness, not
knowing whither we go?

But if these instructions have done their will ; if
the Old Testament, which Paul considered imperfect
and transitory, a law of sin and death, has been su-
perseded ; if the teacher of babes gave place to the

THE BIBLE AND THE SOUL 67

friend of man, how do we know that the New Testa-
ment, the gospel, nay, even Christianity itself, shall
not one day be passed by and forgotten, having pre-
pared the way for a more beautiful revelation of the
divine image than Jesus himself? In heaven the angels
need no Bible. How do we know the time will not
come when man on earth shall not need the New Tes-
tament, having outgrown even that teacher also? The
word is continually becoming dark ; and shall we pre-
sume to say it can never assume a more perfect form,
utter deeper truths, nor exert' a mightier power to win
and bless men, than in the man Christ Jesus? It
is not for you and me to set limits to the infinite, and
say to omnipotent wisdom, " Hither shalt thou come,
but no farther." It is only impious superstition that
dares foreshorten God, and say that there is for man
no higher revelation than past times can bring, and
that infinity is exhausted.

Doubtless there are men at this day who understand
Christianity far better than it was understood by its
teachers in the first ages of our era. Writings there
are that display more of the beauty and power of
Christianity than even the burning words of John and
Paul. At that time Christianity was in its swaddling
bands, laid in the manger ; now it is, at least, in its
cradle, but by no means fully grown. Man will
doubtless go on, outgrowing his teachers ; and Chris-
tianity a thousand years hence will be very different,
and far more perfect than at this day. During the
last ten centuries it has assumed very various forms,
and even now the Christianity of Christ is well nigh
lost amid the jar of the world, the subtleties of schools,
and the idolatry of sects. These things are doubtless
to perish in the using — God send them a speedy end ;

68 THE TRANSIENT AND PER:MANENT

but Christianity, in its essence, can never pass away.
The gospel can never cease to be a teacher, for all its
teachings are the laws of nature and of man. Their
foundation is God's common law of the universe ; of
this " one jot or tittle shall in no wise fail." There is
nothing in Christianity that can ever perish. Its idea
of God, of man, of the relation between them ; its doc-
trine of man's nature, duty, destination ; of God's
love, that broods like the day over beast and plant
and man, its prophetic prayers for the kingdom of
heaven on earth ; its divine promises ; its perfect ideal of
human excellence, all these are immortal as thought,
religion and God. They have always been in the
world, shining, though more feebly and in darkness ;
and while a heart beats must ever be.

It is a striking fact, that during the eighteen hun-
dred years Christianity has been proclaimed in the
world, no one has found a defect or a fault in its doc-
trines, commands or promises. For eighteen hun-
dred years its enemies have attacked it, exhausting
all the weapons learning could furnish or wit devise.
The philosopher and scoffer have wielded their arms
against it, yet not the slightest feature of Christianity
has been defaced in this warfare. For eighteen cen-
turies the noblest souls born into the world of time have
striven in their heavenward flight, in aspirations, med-
itations and prayer, yet even in fancy or the rapt hour
of visionary enthusiasm have they never gone beyond
the plain teachings and living character of that Gal-
ilean peasant. The religion he brought to light still
stands, fresh as at first. No sign of decay is written
on it, no mark of age appears ; it lives an immortal
youth. In the meantime the opinions, the laws, the
philosophies of old time have fallen heavily to the

THE BIBLE AND THE SOUL 69

ground. New ones have arisen from century to cen-
tury to supply their place, and live a brief day. Man-
kind has passed on. Thus the lights of old time,
like the lamps in the street, are passed by, diminished
by the distance, and gradually lost sight of, while high
above us, like the eternal stars, whose positions and size
vary not with the world's change of place, Christianity
still shines with mild and tranquil light, and appears
clearer and more lovely to man as he awakes more
broadly from his dream, and is refined and elevated
by the science and culture of successive ages. Art
and science only enable him to see more clearly the
beauty and the power of its teachings.

There are famous men in our times. How many
will be famous ten years hence? Very few. How
many names of popular writers (at this day in all
mouths,) will have been heard of when a century has
flown ? Not one of a hundred ; and when ten centuries
have passed away scarce one writer will stick to the
common heart. Society continually winnows the chaff
from the wheat. In the furnace of time the dross of
whole Alexandrian libraries is burned up, while the
fine gold passes into the ages, and is current a thousand
years hence as well as to-day. It knows nothing of
time or space. To God's truth as to God a thousand
years are as one day, and all space as a single spot.
Now let it be considered that through eighteen hun-
dred years of change, downfall, progress and retreat,
war and peace, the shock of conflicting nations, the dis-
covery of new worlds, the voice of Christianity has
come down to us as soft and gentle, as powerful and
persuasive, as when first it proclaimed glad tidings,
and forced unwilling Pharisees to confess that voice di-
vine. Its melody floats over every civilized land.

70 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

There is not a ploughman on the hills of New Eng-
land, not a baby bom in a garret of the dirtiest lane
of the filthiest city in Europe, whose fate is not
changed, and its destiny forecast and ameliorated
thereby. How divine must be that voice which can
thus penetrate so many centuries, be heard in so many
lands, and welcomed by so many hearts ! The same
may be said of some portions of the Old Testament.
Three thousand years that are past have not silenced
the truths of INIoses, David and Isaiah. Three thou-
sand years that are yet to come will do no more. They
stand like the exquisite statues and temples of old
time, to be imitated, not surpassed ; while the errors of
these men must be forgotten.

God raises up prophetic men ; they teach whole
centuries. Their words are fresh a thousand 3'ears
because they are so true. The error which clings to
them is made vital by their truth ; at least, all human
error is separated from them, and the divine truth
still lives. So it has been with Socrates, Homer,
Moses, and Zoroaster. Such has been the history of
a large portion of the Hebrew scriptures. Their in-
fluence has been mighty, sometimes disastrous, but
often beneficent. Now the most remarkable of all
these prophetic men was Jesus of Nazareth. He fore-
saw all ; others since his time have been after-seen.
His words were all truth, the words of everlasting life.
This proves they were from God, and not man. So
all in God's likeness will receive them. Since he speaks
God's word, it is plain he is inspired by God's spirit ;
and so are all who utter such kindling truths.

Since these things are so, it is plain that Christ
will always teach, his gospel be an eternal text-book.
The form of Christianity will change to suit the char-

THE BIBLE AND THE SOUL 71

acter and wants of different nations and ages. Its
old ordinances and symbols may pass away ; the myth-
ical and profane stories must be separated from the
gospel, and the few foolish doctrines of the early teach-
ers be severed from the inspiring truths of Jesus,
which " are the same yesterday, to-day, and forever ;"
but the essence of Christianity can never change.
God grant there may be new forms of religion, which
shall take a deeper hold of the soul; that voices more
like the true word shall speak to the spirit of man,
arousing it from sloth, quickening its aspirations, and
guiding its flight. Remnants of superstition, folly,
Judaism, heathenism, and nameless abominations, still
cling to every sect which claims the Christian name.
It is the prayer of all devout hearts that these may
soon cease, and living men, like Jesus, once more tempt
forth new souls to a kindred life of truth and holiness
and love. Viewed in this light, the New Testament is
a teacher which the world can never outgrow. But
yet, like other teachers, the Bible has sometimes been
a tyrant. This is partly the fault of the pupils,
partly of the book itself.

The Old Testament, with all its merits, is full of
imperfections. They are degrading views of God and
of man ; duty is often made light of ; and arbitrary
institutions, that have no foundation in the nature of
things, have been imposed upon man. The soul shud-
ders at the awful and revolting character ascribed to
the Jehovah of the Jews, a god jealous and revenge-
ful, partial and unlovely. It shrinks at the odious
institutions sanctioned by his name. Now some men
have fancied they must take the whole Bible into their
hearts and belief. Hence at this day men justify war,
capital punishment, slavery, and other nameless sins.

72 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

by an appeal to the -writings of Moses. Thereby is
their sense of justice outraged; the voice of God in
the soul is struck dumb before an old Hebrew tradi-
tion, and the soul itself enthralled. Some men at this
day will thus adhere to the letter, while the spirit has
long since gone. So orphan girls cling to the robes
of their mother, dead and buried, fancying they hold
her in their arms. Men honor the revelations made
to Moses and Ezekiel, never dreaming that brighter
revelations shall be made to their own souls, if the}'
will be as faithful. They will tell you the canon of
revelation is closed, that you and I, born in the de-
crepitude of mankind, inheriting only the dregs and
ashes of humanity, must be poor imitators of two or
three men, who have incarnated in past ages all of
God's spirit that can be embodied in mortal flesh.
They therefore will cling to the hem of truth's gar-
ments ; nay, look wistfully on the waters long since
colored by her majestic shade, as she swept over the
world, but never take truth like a bride to their arms
and their hearts. Such are idolators of the Bible;
they shut their eyes when they read, yet hope to see
visions. They close the gates of reason, and still ex-
pect wisdom. They keep traditions and care nothing
for truth. How abortive is their effort ! No wonder
they think man incapable of tinath, and God superan-
nuated or deceased. Such men would see visions ; they
only dream dreams. " Ephraim is joined unto idols;
let him alone."

These remarks apply not only to the Old Testament ;
some portions of the new covenant also have done the
same. Paul and Peter and James and John saw not
all things ; nor were they placed above the reach of
passion, human weakness, the dreams of that age, and

THE BIBLE AND THE SOUL 73

that imperfection of wisdom incidental to this mortal
state. Yet the conflicting peculiarities of each of these
writers, which no man can reconcile ; and the errors
they all agreed in, are forced equally upon us by teach-
ers of doctrines. Even the simple Evangelists agree
not entirely, and seem never to have drawn a sharp
line between the fabulous and the historical. But
the truth and fiction they offer us, mingled together,
have been equally received as the words of ever-
lasting life. We profess to know what they knew not.
So it is not Paul of Tarsus, but we men of the nine-
teenth century whom " much learning hath made mad."
All this is mournful to relate, still more melancholy
to consider. Jesus is our friend; men have made him
their master. His gospel makes us free by awaking
reason, conscience and faith. Men have desecrated
these powers, which are the image of God, and so be-
come slaves. Christ gives us all things, and we glory
in men.

But the Bible is not merely a teacher ; it is a com-
forter also. The Old Testament has some crumbs of
comfort for hungering souls. Though but a shadow
of good things, it is still a shadow in the heat. Who
in son'ow has ever read the appropriate Psalms with-
out finding comfort.'' But it is to the gospel we look
mainly for the comforter as for the teacher. This
comforts us by the assurance that man is made for
justice, goodness, holiness and truth; that he has in-
finite time before him to become perfect in. So, if
a man looks back on j^ears wasted in sleep, in riot, or in
sin ; if he looks around on imperfection, it is not with
despair, but with faith ; for what is not behind him is
before him, and a future is better than a past. It as-
sures him of his connection with God, a connection

74 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

so intimate that no good thought, feeling or wish is
ever formed in vain. It tells him that God has so
formed this scene of things, so watches over it, that no
real evil can happen to a man ; but every soitow shall
one day bear fruit of blessedness. It offers no delu-
sions to comfort man by blinding the eye or harden-
ing the heart into insensibility, but it looks through
sorrow and suffering with an absolute trust in God, to
serener peace and deepest tranquility. It teaches and
comforts still more by example than through doc-
trines, precepts and exhortations. Man has always
known what he should be, has felt what he is. The
oldest poems are laments at his fall, and lyric prayers
for better things. But, between the ideal we should
be, and the actual we are, there has alwaj^s been " a
great gulf." No stoic nor epicurean could cross it.
Now Christ filled up this chasm by living all the
truths that he taught. So his life was a gospel, his
death a revelation. The one teaches us to live in the
body, the other to die to the flesh, that the soul may
have more life.

Such, then, is the relation of the Bible to the soul.
It is a teacher and comforter, not a master to whom
man is to be subordinate. It teaches and comforts
only so far as man is free, and faithful to himself.
The old dispensation has passed away ; it has little in-
struction, little comfort for us. But the Gospel will
teach to the end of time, yet, be it remembered, this
also came from the soul of man through the inspira-
tion of God, which gives us all our knowledge: it has
not exhausted the soul. It is one tree growing out of
the earth, one drop out of the ocean, one ray from
the boundless world of light. It Is not the soul's mas-
ter, but its servant. The soul is that likeness of God,

THE BIBLE AND THE SOUL 75

greater and better than its reflection, the gospel itself;
for he who uttered its kindling truths, which now
warm the world into love, and soften and refine it to
holiness, deep and glowing though this inspiration
was, did not exhaust its treasures and set limits to the
progress of man. No one has ever so deeply rever-
enced the human soul as Christ. The scriptures, the
great truth of his gospel, the nature of God, duty, and
religion, already known, speak of the soul's immortal-
ity and the brotherhood of man, as parts of the uni-
versal revelation made to all men. The mind of man
is like a chamber filled with the richest and most beau-
tiful objects, but without light. The inspiration of
God discloses these treasures, and by the gospel has
shed light into this apartment. Each should walk
by this light, and he will discover new truths in his
soul ; each should set before him the high standard of
Christian excellence, " Be perfect as your Father in
heaven," and, using the revelations made to others,
seek new ones in himself, and in his own life incarnate
more of the word which was in the beginning, and
still is.

IV

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST, OF THE
CHURCH AND OF SOCIETY

" Hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches, .... I know thy
works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." —
Bible.

Every man has at times in his mind the ideal of what
he should be, but is not. This ideal may be high and
complete, or it may be quite low and insufficient ; yet
in all men that really seek to improve it is better than
the actual character. Perhaps no one is satisfied with
himself, so that he never wishes to be wiser, better, and
more holy. Man never falls so low that he can see
nothing higher than himself. This ideal man which
we project, as it were, out of ourselves, and seek to
make real ; this wisdom, goodness, and holiness, which
we aim to transfer from our thoughts to our life, has
an action, more or less powerful, on each man, render-
ing him dissatisfied with present attainments, and rest-
less unless he is becoming better. With some men it
takes the rose out of the cheek, and forces them to
wander a long pilgrimage of temptations before they
reach the delectable mountains of tranquility, and find
" rest for the soul " under the tree of life.

Now there is likewise an ideal of perfection floating
before the eyes of a community or nation ; and that
ideal, which hovers, lofty or low, above the heads of
our nation, is the Christian ideal, " the stature of
the perfect man in Christ Jesus." Christianity, then,
is the ideal our nation is striving to realize in life; the
sublime prophecy we are laboring to fulfil. Of course

76

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 77

some part thereof is made real and actual, but by no
means the whole ; for if it were, some higher ideal must
immediately take its place. Hence there exists a dif-
ference between the actual state in which our country-
men are, and the ideal state in which they should be;
just as there is a great gulf between what each man
is, and what he knows he ought to become. But there is
at this day not only a wide difference between the true
Christian ideal and our actual state, but, what is still
worse, there is a great dissimilarity between our ideal
and the ideal of Christ. The Christianity of Christ
is the highest and most perfect ideal ever presented to
the longing eyes of man ; but the Christianity of the
church, which is the ideal held up to our eyes at this
day, is a very different thing ; and the Christianity
of society, which is that last ideal imperfectly real-
ized, has but the slightest affinity with Christ's sublime
archetype of man. Let us look a little more narrowly
into the matter.

Many years ago, at a time when all nations were In
a state of deep moral and religious degradation ; when
the world lay exhausted and sick with long warfare;
at a time when religion was supported by each civilized
state, but when everywhere the religious form was
outgrown and worn out, though the state yet watched
this tattered garment with the most jealous care, call-
ing each man a blasphemer who complained of Its
scantiness or pointed out Its rents ; at a time when no
wise man, anywhere, had the smallest respect for the
popular religion; except so far as he found it a con-
venient Instrument to keep the mob In subjection to
their lords ; and when only the few had any regard for
religion. Into whose generous hearts It Is by nature so
deeply sown that they are bom religious, — at such a

78 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

time, in a little corner of the world, of a people once
pious but then corrupted to the heart, of a nation well
known but only to be justly and universally hated,
there was born a man, a right true man. He had no
advantage of birth, for he was descended from the
poorest of the people; none of education, for he was
brought up in a little village, whose inhabitants were
wicked to a proverb ; and so little had schools and
colleges to do for him that his townsmen wondered
how he had learned to read. He had no advantage of
aid or instruction from the great and the wise ; but
grew up and passed his life, mainly, with fishers and
others of like occupation, the most illiterate of men.
This was a true man, such as had never been seen
before. None such has risen since his time. He was
so true that he could tolerate nothing false ; so pure
and holy that he, and perhaps he alone of all men,
was justified in calling others by their proper name ;
even when that proper name was blind guide, fool,
hypocrite, child of the devil. He found men forget-
ful of God. They seemed to fancy he was dead.
They lived as if there had once been a God, who had
grown old and deceased. They were mistaken also as
to the nature of man. They saw he had a body ; they
forgot he is a soul, and has a soul's rights, and a soul's
duties. Accordingly they believed there had been rev-
elations, in the days of their fathers, when God was
alive and active. They knew not there were revela-
tions every day to faithful souls; revelations just as
real, just as direct, just as true, just as sublime, just
as valuable, as those of old time ; for the Holy Spirit
has not yet been exhausted, nor the river of God's in-
spiration been drunk dry by a few old Hebrews, great
and divine souls though they were.

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 79

He found men clinging to tradition, as orphan girls
cling to the robe of their mother dead and buried,
hoping to find life in what had once covered the living.
Thus men stood with their faces nailed to the past,
their eyes fastened to the ground. They dreamed
not that the sun rose each morning fresh and anew.
So their teachers looked only at the w^est, seeking the
light amid dark and thundering clouds, and mocking
at such as, turning their faces to the east, expounded
the signs of new morning, and " wished for the day."

This true man saw through their sad state, and com-
forting his fellows, he said. Poor brother man, you are
deceived. God is still alive. His earth is under your
feet. His heaven is over your head. He takes care
of the sparrows. Justice, and wisdom, and mercy, and
goodness, and virtue, and religion, are not superannu-
ated and ready to perish. They are young as hunger
and thirst, which shall be as fresh in the last man as
they were in the first. God has never withdrawn from
the universe, but he is now present and active in this
spot, as ever on Sinai, and still guides and inspires all
who will open their hearts to admit him there. INIen
are still men ; born pure as Adam, and into no less a
sphere. All that Abraham, Moses, or Isaiah possessed
is open unto you, just as it was to them. If you will,
your inspirations may be glorious as theirs, and your
life as divine. Yea, far more ; for the least in the
new kingdom is greater than the greatest in the old.
Trouble not yourselves, then, with the fringes and
tassels of thread-bare tradition, but be a man on your
own account.

Poor sinful brother, said he to fallen man, you have
become a fool, a hypocrite, deceiving and deceived.
You live as if there were no God, no soul; as if you

80 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

were but a beast. You have made yourself as a ghost,
a shadow, not a man. Rise up and be a man, thou
child of God. Cast off these cumbrous things of old.
Let conscience be your lawgiver, reason your oracle,
nature your temple, holiness j'our high-priest, and a
divine life your offering. Be your own prophet; for
the law and the old prophets were the best things men
had before John ; but now the kingdom of heaven is
preached ; leave them, for their work is done. Live no
longer such a mean life as now. If you would be
saved, love God with your whole heart, and man as
yourself. Look not back for better days, and say
Abraham is our father ; but live now, and be not Abra-
hams, but something better. Look not fonvard to the
time when your fancied deliverer shall come ; but use
the moment now in your hands. Wait not for the
kingdom of God ; but make it within you by a divine
life. What if the Scribes and Pharisees sit in the
seat of authority.'' Begin your kingdom of the divine
life, and fast as you build it, difficulties will disappear ;
false men will perish, and the true rise up. Set not
for your standard the limit of old times, — for here is
one greater than Jonah or Solomon, — but be perfect
as God. Call no man master. Call none father, save
the Infinite Spirit. Be one with him ; think his
thoughts ; feel his feelings ; and live his will. Fear
not: I have overcome the world, and you shall do yet
greater things ; I and the Father will dwell with you
forever. Thus he spoke the word which men had
longed to hear spoken, and others had vainly essayed
to utter. While the great and gifted asked in deri-
sion. Art thou greater than our father Jacob? multi-
tudes of the poor in spirit heard him ; their hearts
throbbed with the mighty pulsations of his heart.

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 81

They were swayed to and fro by his words, as an elm
branch swings in the summer wind. They said, This
is one of the old prophets, Moses, Elias, or even that
greater prophet, the " desire of all nations." They
shouted with one voice. He shall be our king; for
human nature is always loyal at its heart, and never
fails of allegiance, when it really sees a real hero of
the soul, in whose heroism of holiness there is nothing
sham. As the carnal pay a shallow worship to rich
men and conquering chiefs, and other heroes of the
flesh, so do men of the spirit revere a faithful hero of
the soul, with whatever in them is deepest, truest, and
most divine.

Before this man had seen five-and-thirty summers
he was put to death by such men as thought old things
were new enough, and false things sufficiently true,
and, like owls and bats shriek fearfully when morn-
ing comes, because their day is the night, and their
power, like the spectres of fable, vanishes as the cock-
crowing ushers the morning in. Scarce had this di-
vine youth begun to spread forth his brightness ; men
had seen but the twilight of his reason and inspiration ;
the full moon must have come at a later period of
life, when experience and long contemplation had ma-
tured the divine gifts, never before nor since so prod-
igally bestowed, nor used so faithfully. But his
doctrine was ripe, though he was young. The tinith
he received first-hand from God required no age to ren-
der it mature. So he perished. But as the oak the
woodman fells in autumn on the mountain-side scatters
ripe acorns over many a rood, some falling perchance
into the bosom of a stream, to be cast up on distant
fertile shores, so at his words sprang up a host of men,

living men like himself, only feebler and of smaller
IV— 6

82 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

stature. They were quickened by his words, electrified
by his love, and enchanted by his divine life. He
who has never seen the sun can leara nothing of it
from all our words ; but he who has once looked thereon
can never forget its burning brilliance. Thus these
men " who had been with Jesus " were lit up by him.
His spirit passed into them, as the sun into the air,
with light and heat. They were possessed and over-
mastered by the new spirit they had drunken in. They
cared only for truth and the welfare of their brother
men. Pleasure and ease, the endearaients of quiet
life and the dalliance of home, were all but a bubble
to them, as they sought the priceless pearls of a di-
vine life. Their heart's best blood — what was it to
these men.'* They poured it joyfully as festal wine
was spent at the marriage in Cana of Galilee ; for,
as their teacher's life had taught them to live, so had
his death taught them to die to the body, that the soul
might live greater and more. In their hearts burned
a living consciousness of God, a living love of man.
Thus they became rare men, such as the world but sel-
dom sees. Some of them had all of woman's tenderness,
and more than man's will and strength of endurance,
which earth and hell cannot force from the right path.
Thus they were fitted for all work. So the Damascus
steel, we are told, has a temper so exquisite it can trim
a feather and cleave iron bars.

Forth to the world are sent these willing seedsmen
of God, bearing in their bosom the Christianity of
Christ, desiring to scatter this precious seed in every
land of the wide world. The priest, the philosopher,
the poet, and the king — all who had love for the past,
or an interest in ])rcscnt delusions — join forces to cast
down and tread into dust these Jewish fishermen and

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 83

tent-makers. They fetter the hmbs, they murder the
body ; but the word of God is not bound, and the soul
goes free. The seed, sown broadcast with faith and
prayers, springs up and grows night and day, while
men wake and while they sleep. Well it might, be-
neath the hot sun of persecution, and moistened by the
dew that martyrs shed. The mailed Roman, hard as
iron from his hundred battles, saw the heroism of
Christian flesh, and beginning to worship that,
saw with changed heart the heroism of the Chris-
tian soul; the spear dropped from his hand, and
the man, newborn, prayed greater and stronger than
before. Hard-hearted Roman men, and barbarians
from the fabulous Hydaspis, stood round in the Forum
while some Christian was burned with many tortures
for his faith. They saw his gentle meekness, far
stronger than the insatiate steel or flame, that never
says enough. They whispered to one another — those
hard-hearted men — in the rude speech of common life,
more persuasive than eloquence. That young man has
a dependent and feeble father, a wife, and a little
babe, newly born, but a day old. He leaves them
all to uncertain trouble, worse perhaps than his own ;
yet neither the love of young and blissful life, nor
the care of parent, and wife, and child, can make
him swerve an inch from the truth. Is there not God
in this? And so when the winds scattered wide the
eloquent ashes of the uncomplaining victim to rega]
or priestly pride, the symbolical dust, which Moses
cast towards heaven, was less prolific and less power-
ful than his.

So the world went for two ages. But in less than
three centuries the faith of that lowly youth, and so
untimely slain, proclaimed by the fearless voice of

84 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

those trusting apostles, written in the blood of their
hearts, and illuminated by the divine life they lived —
this faith goes from its low beginning on the Galilean
lake, through Jerusalem, Ephesus, Antioch, Corinth,
and Alexandria ; ascends the throne of the Cffisars,
and great men, and temples, and towers, and rich
cities, and broad kingdoms, lie at its feet. What
wrought this wondrous change so suddenly ; in the
midst of such deadly peril; against such fearful odds?
We are sometimes told it was because that divine youth
had an unusual entrance into life ; because he cured a
few sick men, or fed many hungry men, by unwonted
means. Believe it you who may, it matters not. Was
it not rather because his doctrine was felt to be true,
real, divine, satisfying to the soul ; proclaimed by real
men, true men, who felt what they said, and lived what
they felt? Man was told there was a God still alive,
and that God a father; that man had lost none of that
high nature which shone in Moses, Solomon, or Isaiah,
or Theseus, or Solon, but was still capable of virtue,
thought, religion, to a degree those sages not only
never realized, but never dreamed of. He was told
there were laws for his nature, laws to be kept ; duties
for his nature, duties to be done; rights for his na-
ture, rights to be enjoyed ; hopes for his nature,
hopes to be realized, and more than realized, as man
goes forward to his destiny, with perpetual increase of
stature. It needs no miracle, but a man, to spread
such doctrines. You shall as soon stay Niagara with
a straw, or hold in the swelling surges of an Atlantic
storm with the " spider's most attenuated thread," as
prevent the progress of God's truth, with all the kings,
poets, priests, and philosophers the world has ever
seen ; and for this plain reason, that truth and God are

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 85

on the same side. Well said the ancient, " Above all
things truth beareth away the victory."

Such was the nature, such the origin of the
Christianity of Christ, the true ideal of a divine life ;
such its history for three hundred years. It is true
that, soon as it was organized into a church, there were
divisions therein, and fierce controversies, Paul with-
standing fickle Peter to the face. It is true, hirelings
came from time to time to live upon the flock ; indolent
men wished to place their arm-chair in the church and
sleep undisturbed ; ambitious men sought whom they
might devour. But in spite of all this, there was
still a real religious life. Christianity was something
men felt, and felt at home, and in the market-place,
by fire-side and field-side, no less than in the temple.
It was something they would make sacrifice for, leav-
ing father and mother and child and wife. If needful ;
something they would die for, thanking God they were
accounted worthy of so great an end. Still more, it
was something they lived for every day; their religion
and their life were the same.

Such was Christianity as It was made real In the
lives of the early Christians. But now, the Chris-
tianity of the church, by which is meant that some-
what which is taught in our religious books, and
preached in our pulpits, is a thing quite different,
nay, almost opposite. It often fetters and enslaves
men. It tells them they must assent to all the doc-
trines and stories of the Old Testament, and to all
the doctrines and stories of the New Testament ; that
they must ascribe a particular and well-defined char-
acter to God, must believe as they are bid respecting
Christ and the Bible or they cannot be saved. If
they disbelieve, then is the anathema uttered against

86 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

them ; true, the anathema is but mouthfuls of spoken
wind, yet still it is uttered as though it could crush
and kill. The church insists less on the divine life
than on the doctrines a man believes. It measures a
man's religion by his creed, and calls him a heathen or
a Christian as that creed is short or long. Now, in
the Christianity of Christ there is no creed essential,
unless it be that lofty desire to become perfect as God ;
no form essential, but love to man and love to God.
In a word, a divine life on the earth is the all in all
with the Christianity of Christ. This and this only
was the kingdom of God, and eternal life. Now the
church, as keeper of God's kingdom, bids you assent
to arbitrary creeds of its own device, and bow the knee
to its fonns. Thus the Christianity of the church, as
it is set forth at this day, insults the soul, and must
belittle a man before it can bless him. The church is
too small for the soul ; " the bed is shorter than that a
man can stretch himself on it, and the covering nar-
rower than that he can wrap himself in it." Some
writer tells us of a statue of Olympian Jove, majestic
and awful in its exquisite beauty, but seated under a
roof so low, and within walls so narrow, that should
the statue rise to its feet, and spread the arms, it must
demolish its temple, roof and wall. Thus sits man in
the Christian church at this day. Let him think in
what image he is made ; let him feel his immortal na-
ture, and rising, take a single step towards the divine
life — then where is the church?

The range of subjects the church deigns to treat of
is quite narrow, its doctrines abstract ; and thus Chris-
tianity is made a letter, and not a life ; an occasional
affair of the understanding, not the daily business of
the heart. The ideal now held up to the public as the

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 87

highest word ever spoken to man, is not the ideal of
Christ, the measure of a perfect man, not even the ideal
of the apostles and early Christians. Anointed teach-
ers confess without shame that goodness is better than
Christianity. True, alas ! it is better in degree ; yes,
different in kind from the Christianity of the church.
Hence, in our pulpits we hear but little of the great
doctrines of Jesus, the worth of the soul, the value of
the present moment, the brotherhood of all men, and
their equality before God ; the necessity of obeying
that perfect law God has written on the soul, the con-
sequences which follow necessarily from disobeying —
consequences which even omnipotence cannot remove ;
and the blessed results for now and for ever that arise
from obedience, and the all-importance of a divine life ;
the power of the soul to receive the Holy Ghost ; the di-
vine might of a regenerate man ; the presence of God
and Christ now in faithful hearts ; the inspiration of
good men ; the kingdom of God on the earth — these
fomi not the substance of the church's preaching.
Still less are they applied to life, and the duties which
come of them shown and enforced. The church is
quick to discover and denounce the smallest deviation
from the belief of dark ages, and to condemn vices
no longer popular ; it is conveniently blind to the great
fictions which lie at the foundation of church and state ;
sees not the rents, daily yawning more wide, in the
bowing walls of old institutions ; and never dreams
of those causes, which, like the drug of the prophet
in the fable, are rending asunder the idol of brass and
clay men have set up to worship. So the mole, it has
been said, within the tithe of an inch its vision extends
over, is keener of insight than the lynx or the eagle ;
but to all beyond that narrow range is stone blind.

88 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

Alas ! what men call Christianity, and adore as the
best thing they see, has been degraded ; so that if men
should be all that the pulpit commonly demands of
them, they Avould by no means be Christians. To such
a pass have matters reached, that if Paul should come
upon the earth now, as of old, it is quite doubtful that
he could be admitted to the Christian church; for
though Felix thought much knowledge had made the
apostle mad, yet Paul ventured no opinion on points
respecting the nature of God, and the history of Christ,
where our pulpits utter dogmatic and arbitrary decis-
ions, condemning as infidels and accursed all such as
disagree therewith, be their life never so godly. These
things are notorious. Still more, it may be set down
as quite certain, that if Jesus could return from the
other world, and bring to New England that same
boldness of inquiry which he brought to Judea, that
same love of living truth and scorn of dead letters ;
could he speak as he then spoke, and live again as he
lived before, — he also would be called an infidel by the
church, be abused in our newspapers, for such is our
wont, and only not stoned in the streets, because that is
not our way of treating such men as tell us the truth.

Such is the Christianity of the church in our times.
It does not look forward but hackxtxird. It does not
ask truth at first hand from God ; seeks not to lead men
directly to him, through the divine life, but only to
make them walk in the old paths trodden by some good
pious Jews, who, were they to come back to earth, could
as little understand our circumstances as we theirs.
The church expresses more concern that men should
walk in these peculiar paths, than that they sliould
reach the goal. Thus the means are made the end.
It enslaves men to the Bible ; makes it the soul's master,

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 89

not its servant ; forgetting that the Bible, Hke the
Sabbath, was made for man, not man for the Bible.
It makes man the less and the Bible the greater. The
Savior said, Search the scriptures ; the apostle recom-
mended them as profitable reading; the church says.
Believe the scriptures, if not with the consent of reason
and conscience, why without that consent or against it.
It rejects all attempts to humanize the Bible, and
separates its fictions from its facts ; and would fain
wash its hands in the heart's blood of those who strip
the robe of human art, ignorance, or folly from the
celestial form of divine truth. It trusts the imperfect
scripture of the word, more than the word itself, writ
by God's finger on the living heart. " Where the
spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," says the apostle.
But where the spirit of the church is, there is slavery.
It would make all men think the same thoughts, feel
the same feelings, worship by the same form.

The church itself worships not God, who is all in all,
but Jesus, a man born of woman. Grave teachers, in
defiance of his injunction, bid us pray to Christ. It
supposes the soul of all our souls cannot hear, or will
not accept a prayer, unless offered formally, in the
church's phrase, forgetting that we also are men, and
God takes care of oxen and sparrows and hears the
young ravens when they cry, though they pray not in
any form or phrase. Still, called by whatever name,
called by an idol's name, the true God hears the living
prayer. And yet perhaps the best feature of Chris-
tianity, as it is now preached, is its idolatrous worship
of Christ. Jesus was the brother of all. He had
more in common with all men than they have with one
another. But he, the brother of all, has been made to
appear as the master of all ; to speak with an authority

90 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

greater than that of reason, conscience, and faith — an
office his subHme and God-like spirit would revolt at.
But yet, since he lived divine on earth, and was a hero
of the soul, and the noblest and largest hero the world
has ever seen, perhaps the idolatry that is paid him is
the nearest approach to true worship which the mass
of men can readily make in these days. Reverence for
heroes has its place in history ; and though worship of
the greatest soul ever swathed in the flesh, however
much he is idealized and represented as incapable of
sin, is without measure below the worship of the ineffa-
ble God, still it is the purest and best of our many
idolatries in the nineteenth century. Practically speak-
ing, its worst feature is that it mars and destroys the
highest ideal of man, and makes us beings of very small
discourse, that look only backward.

The influence of real Christianity is to disenthral the
man, to restore him to his nature, until he obeys con-
science, reason, and religion, and is made free by that
obedience. It gives him the largest liberty of the sons
of God, so that as faith in truth becomes deeper the
man is greater and more divine. But now those pious
souls who accept the church's Christianity are, in the
main, crushed and degraded by their faith. They
dwindle daily in the church's keeping. Their worship
is not faith, but fear; and bondage is written legibly
on their forehead, like the mark set upon Cain. They
resemble the dwarfed creed they accept. Their mind
is encinistcd with unintelligible dogmas. They fear to
love man lest they offend God. Artificial in their anx-
iety, and morbid in their self-examination, their life
is sickly and wretched. Conscience cannot speak its
mother tongue to them; reason does not utter its ora-
cles, nor love cast out fear. Alas ! the church speaks

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 91

not to the hearty and the strong; and the little and
the weak, who accept its doctrines, become weaker and
less thereby. Thus woman's holier heart is often
abased and defiled, and the deep-thoughted and true of
soul forsake the church, as righteous Lot, guided by an
angel, fled out of Sodom. There will always be wicked
men who scorn a pure church, and perhaps great men
too high to need its instructions. But what shall we
say when the church, as it is, impoverishes those it was
designed to enrich, and debilitates so often the trusting
souls that seek shelter in its arm-f*

Alas for us, we see the Christianity of the church is a
very poor thing, a very little better than heathenism.
It takes God out of the world of nature and of man,
and hides him in the church. Nay, it does worse ; it
limits God, who possesseth heaven and earth, and is
from everlasting to everlasting, restricting his influence
and inspiration to a little corner of the world and a
few centuries of history, dark and uncertain. Even in
this narrow range, it makes a deity like itself, and
gives us not God, but Jehovah. It takes the living
Christ out of the heart, and transfigures him in the
clouds, till he becomes an anomalous being, not God,
and not man; but a creature whose holiness is not the
divine image he has sculptured for himself out of the
rock of life, but something placed over him, entirely by
God's hand, and without his own eff^ort. It has taken
away our Lord, and left us a being whom we know not ;
severed from us by his prodigious birth, and his alleged
relation to God, such as none can share. What have
we in common with such an one, raised above all chance
of eiTor, all possibility of sin, and still more surrounded
by God at each moment, as no other man has been.''
It has transferred him to the clouds. It makes Chris-

92 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

tianity a belief, not a life. It takes religion out of the
world, and shuts it up in old books, whence, from
time to time, on Sabbaths, and fast-days and feast-daj's,
it seeks to evoke the divine spirit, as the witch of Endor
is fabled to have called up Samuel from the dead. It
tells you, with grave countenance, to believe every word
spoken by the apostles, — weak, Jewish, fallible, prej-
udiced, mistaken as they sometimes were — for this
reason, because forsooth Peter's shadow and Paul's
pocket-handkerchief cured the lame and the blind. It
never tells you. Be faithful to the spirit God has given ;
open your soul and you also shall be inspired, beyond
Peter and Paul it may be, for great though they were,
they saw not all things, and have not absorbed the
Godhead. No doubt the Christian church has been
the ark of the world ; no doubt some individual churches
are now free from these disgraces ; still the picture is
true as a whole.

Alas ! it is true that men are profited by such pitiful
teachings ; for the church is above the community, and
the Christianity/ of society is far below that of the
church ; even in that deep there is a lower deep. This
is a hard saying, no doubt. But let us look the facts
in the face, and sec how matters are. It is written in
travelers' journals and taught in our school-books that
the Americans are Christians ! It is said in courts of
justice that Christianity is part of the law of the land ;
with the innocent meaning, it is likely, that the law of
the land is part of Christianity. But Avhat proofs
have we that the men of New England arc Christians?
We point to our churches. Lovely emblems they are
of devotion. In city and village, by road-side and
stream-side, they point meekly their taper finger to
the sky, the enchanting sj^mbol of Christian aspiration

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 93

and a Christian life. Through all our land of hill
and valley, of springs and brooks, they stand, and most
beautiful do they make it, catching the earliest beam
of day, and burning in the last flickering rays of the
long-lingering sun. Sweet, too, is the breath of the
Sabbath bell, dear to the hearts of New England; it
floats undulating on the tranquil air, like a mother's
brooding note, calling her children to their home. We
mention our Bibles and religious books found in the
houses of the rich, and read with blissful welcome be-
side the hearth-stone of the poor. We point to our
learned clergy, the appointed defenders of the letter
of Christianity. All this proves nothing. The apos-
tles could point to no long series of learned scribes ;
only to a few rough fishermen in sheep-skins and goat-
skins. They had no multitude of Bibles and religious
books, for they cast behind them the Old Testament
as a law of sin and death, and the New Testament was
not then written, save in the heart ; they had no piles
of marble and mortar, no silvery and sweet-noted bell
to rouse for them the slumbering morn. Yet were
those men Christians. They did not gather of a Lord's
day in costly temples to keep an old form, or kill the
long-delaying hours ; but in small upper rooms, on
the sea-shore, beneath a tree, in caves of the desert
mountains, or the tombs of dead men in cities, met
those noble hearts to worship God at first hand, and
exhort one another to a manly life and a martyr's
death, if need were.

We see indeed an advance in our people above all
ancient time ; we fondly say, the mantle of a more
liberal culture is thrown over us all. The improved
state of society brings many a blessing in its train.
The arts diff'use comfort ; industry and foresight af-

94. THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

ford us, in general, a competence; schools and the
printing-press, which works indcfatigablj with its iron
hand day and night, spi'cad knowledge wide. Our
hospitals, our asylums and churches for the poor, give
some signs of a Christian spirit. Crimes against man's
person are less frequent than of old, and the legal
punishments less frightful and severe. The rich do
not ride rough-shodden over the poor. These things
prove that the age have advanced somewhat. They do
not prove that the spirit of religion, of Christianity,
of love, the spirit of Christ, of God, are present among
us and active; for enlightened prudence, the most
selfish of selfishness, would lead to the same results ;
and who has the hardihood to look facts in the face
and call our society spiritual and Christian.'' The so-
cial spirit of Christianity demands that the strong
assist the weak.

We appeal as proofs of our Christianity to our at-
tempts at improving ruder tribes, to our Bibles and
missionaries, sent with much self-denial and sacrifice
to savage races. Admitting the nobleness of the de-
sign, granting the Christian spirit is shown in these
enterprises — for this at least , must be allowed, and
all heathen antiquity is vainly challenged for a similar
case — there is still a most melancholy reverse to this
flattering picture. Where shall we find a savage na-
tion on the wide world that has, on the whole, been
blessed by its intercourse with Christians? Where one
that has not, most manifestly, been polluted and cursed
by the Christian foot.'' Let this question be asked from
Siberia to Patagonia, from the ninth century to the
nineteenth ; let it be put to the nations we defraud of
their spices and their furs, leaving them in return our
religion and our sin ; let it be asked of the red-man.

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 95

whose bones we have broken to fragments, and trodden
into bloody mire on the very spot where his mother bore
him ; let it be asked of the black-man, torn by our
cupidity from his native soil, whose sweat, exacted by
Christian stripes, fattens our fields of cotton and corn,
and brims the wine-cup of national wealth ; whose
chained hands are held vainly up as his spirit strives to
God, with great, overmastering prayers for vengeance,
and seem to clutch at the volleyed thunders of just, but
terrible retribution, pendent over our heads. Let it be
asked of all these, and who dares stay to hear the
reply, and learn what report of our Christianity goes
up to God?

We need not compare ourselves with our fathers, and
say we are more truly religious than they were. Shame
on us if we are not. Shame on us if we are always to
be babies in religion, and whipped reluctant into decent
goodness by fear, never growing up to spiritual man-
hood. Admitting we are a more Christian people than
our fathers, let us measure ourselves with the absolute
standard. What is religion amongst us? Is it the
sentiment of the infinite penetrating us with such
depth of power that we would, if need were, leave
father and mother and child and wife, to dwell in
friendless solitudes, so that we might worship God
in peace? O no, w^e were very fools to make such a
sacrifice, when called on for the sake of such a religion
as that commonly preached, commonly accepted and
lived. It is not worth that cost, so mean and degraded
is religion among us. Religion does not possess us as
the sun possesses the violets, giving them warmth, and
fragrance, and color, and beauty. It does not lead
to a divine character. One would fancy the bans of
wedlock were forbidden between Christianity and life,

96 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

also, as we are significantly told they have been be-
tween religion and philosophy ; so that the feeling and
the thought, like sterile monks and nuns, never ap-
proach to clasp hands, but dwell joyless, each in a
several cell. Religion has become chiefly, and with
the well-clad mass of men, a matter of convention, and
they write Christian with their name as they write
" Mr." because it is respectable ; their fathers did so
before them. Thus to be Christians comes to nothing,
it is true, but it costs nothing, and is fairly worth
what it costs.

Religion should be " a thousand-voiced psalm " from
the heart of man to man's God, who is the original of
goodness, truth, and beauty, and is revealed in all that
is good, true, and beautiful. But religion is amongst
us in general but a compliance with custom, a pruden-
tial calculation, a matter of expediency, whereby men
hope, through giving up a few dollars in the shape of
pew-tax, and a little time in the form of church-going,
to gain the treasures of heaven and eternal life. Thus
religion has become profit ; not reverence of the highest,
but vulgar hope and vulgar fear; a working for wages,
to be estimated by the rules of loss and gain. Men
love religion as the mercenary worldling his well-en-
dowed wife ; not for herself, but for what she brings.
They think religion is useful to the old, the sick, and
the poor, to charm them with a comfortable delusion
through the cloudy land of this earthly life ; they wish
themselves to keep some running account therewith,
against the day when they also shall be old, and sick,
and poor. Christianity has two modes of action, direct
on the heart and life of a man, and indirect through
conventions, institutions, and other machinery ; and in
our time the last is almost its sole influence. Hence

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 97

men reckon Christianity as valuable to keep men in
order; it would have been good policy for a shrewd
man to have invented it, on speculation, like other con-
trivances, for the utility of the thing. In their eyes
the church, especially the church for the poor, is neces-
sary as the court-house or the jail; the minister is a
well-educated Sabbath-day constable ; and both are
parts of the great property establishment of the times.
They value religion, not because it is true and divine,
but because it serves a purpose. They deem it needful
as the poll-tax, or the militia system, a national bank
or a sub-treasury. They value it among other com-
modities ; they might give it a place in their inven-
tories of stock, and hope of heaven or faith in Christ
might be summed up in the same column with money
at one per cent.

The problem of men Is not first the kingdom of God,
that is, a perfect life on the earth, lived for its own
sake; but first all other things, and then, if the king-
dom of God come of itself, or is thrown into the bar-
gain, like pack-thread and paper with a parcel of
goods, why very well; they are glad of it. It keeps
" all other things " from soiling. Does religion take
hold of the heart of us? Here and there, among rich
men and poor men, especially among women, you shall
find a few really religious ; whose life is a prayer, and
Christianity their daily breath. They would have
been religious had they been cradled among cannibals
and before the flood. They are divine men, of whom
the spirit of God seems to take early hold, and reason
and religion to weave up, by celestial Instinct, the warp
and woof of their daily life. Judge not the age by
its rellgnous geniuses. The mass of men care little for
Christianitv ; were It not so, the sins of the forum and
IV -7"

98 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the market-place, committed in a single month, would
make the land rock to its centre. INlen think of re-
ligion at church on the Sabbath ; they make sacrifices,
often great sacrifices, to support public worship, and
attend it most sedulously, these men and women. But
here the matter ends. Religion does not come into
their soul, does not show itself in their housekeeping
and trading. It does not shine out of the windows of
morning and evening, and speak to them at every turn.
How many young men in the thousand say thus to
themselves, Of this will I make sure, a Christian char-
acter and divine life, all other things be as God sends?
How man}^ ever set their hearts on any moral and re-
ligious object, on achieving a perfect character, for
example, with a fraction of the interest they take in
the next election.'' Nay, woman also must share the
same condemnation. Though into her rich heart God
more generously sows the divine germs of religion ;
though this is her strength, her loveliness, her primal
excellence; yet she also has sold her birthright for
tinsel ornaments, and the admiration of deceitful lips.
Men think of religion when they are sick, old, in trou-
ble, or about to die, forgetting that it is a crown of
life at all times ; man's choicest privilege, his highest
possession, the chain that sweetly links him to heaven.
If good for anything it is good to live by. It is a
small thing to die religiously, a devil could do that; but
to live divine is man's work.

Since religion is thus regarded or disregarded by
men, we find that talent and genius, getting insight of
this, float off to the market, the workshop, the senate,
the farmer's field or the court-house, and bring home
with honor tlic fleece of gold. INIcanwhile anointed
dulness, arrayed in canonicals, his lesson duly conned,

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 99

presses semi-somnous the consecrated cushions of the
pulpit, and pours forth weekly his impotent drone, to
be blest with bland praises so long as he disturbs not
respectable iniquity slumbering in his pew, nor touches
an actual sin of the times, nor treads an inch beyond
the beaten path of the church. Well is it for the safety
of the actual church that genius and talent forsake its
rotten walls, to build up elsewhere the church of the
first-born, and pray largely and like men. Thy king-
dom come. There is a concealed scepticism among us,
all the more deadly because concealed. It is not a
denial of God — though this it is whispered to our
ear is not rare — for men have opened their eyes too
broadly not to notice the fact of God, everywhere
apparent, without and within ; still less is it disbelief of
the scriptures ; there has always been too much belief
in their letter, though far too little living of theii;
truths. But there is a doubt of man's moral and
religious nature, a doubt if righteousness be so super-
excellent. We distrust goodness and religion, as the
blind doubt if the sun be so fine as men tell of, or as
the deaf might jeer at the ecstatic raptures of a mu-
sician. Who among men trusts conscience as he trusts
his eye or ear? With them the highest in man is self-
interest. When they come to outside goodness, there-
fore, they are driven by fear of hell as by a scorpion
whip, or bribed by the distant pleasures of heaven.
Accordingly, if they embrace Christianity, they make
Jesus, who is the archetype of a divine life, not a man
like his brothers, who had human appetites and pas-
sions, was tempted in the flesh, was cold, and hungry,
and faint, and tired, and sleepy, and dull — each in its
season — and who needed to work out his own salvation,
as we also must do ; but they make him an unnatural

100 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

character, passionless, amphibious, not man and not
God ; whose hohness was poured on him from some
celestial um, and so was in no sense his own work ; and
who, therefore, can be no example for us, goaded as we
are by appetite, and bearing the ark of our destiny in
our own hands. It is not the essential element of Chris-
tianity, love to man and love to God, men commonly
gather from the New Testament ; but some perplexing
dogma or some oriental dream. How few religious
men can you find whom Christianity takes by the hand
and leads through the Saharas and Siberias of the
world ; men whose lives are noble, who can speak of
Christianity as of their trading and marrying, out of
their own experience, because they have lived it ! Therq
is enough cant of religion, creeds written on sancti-
monious faces, as signs of that emptiness of heart
" which passeth show," but how litle real religion, that
comes home to men's heart and life, let experience
decide.

Yet, if he would, man cannot live all to this world.
If not religious, he will be superstitious. If he wor-
ship not the true God, he will have his idols. The web
of our mortal life, with its warp of destiny and its
woof of free will, is most strangely woven up by the
flying shuttles of time, which rest not, wake we or
sleep ; but through this wondrous tissue of the perishing
there runs the gold thread of ctcmit}', and like the net
-Peter saw in his vision, full of strange beasts and
creeping things, this web is at last seen to be caught up
to Heaven by its four corners, and its common things
become no longer unclean. We cannot always be false
to religion. It is the deepest want of man. Satisfy
all others, we soon learn that we cannot live by bread
only, for as an ancient has said, " it is not the growing

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST 101

of fruits that nourisheth man, but thy word, which
preserveth them that put their trust in thee." With-
out the divine hfe we are portionless, bereft of
strength ; without the Hving consciousness of God, we
are orphans, left to the bleakness of the world.

But our paper must end. The Christianity of the
church is a very poor thing; it is not bread, and it is
not drink. The Christianity of society is still worse ;
it is bitter in the mouth and poison in the blood. Still
men are hungering and thirsting, though not always
knowingly, after the true bread of life. Why shall
we perish with hunger.'* In our Father's house is
enough and to spare. The Christianity of Christ is
high and noble as ever. The religion of reason, of the
soul, the word of God, is still strong and flame-like, as
when first it dwelt in Jesus, the chief est incarnation of
God, and now the pattern-man. Age has not dimmed
the luster of this light that lighteneth all, though they
cover their eyes in obstinate perversity, and turn away
their faces from this great sight. Man has lost none
of his God-likeness. He is still the child of God, and
the Father is near to us as to him who dwelt in his
bosom. Conscience has not left us. Faith and hope
still abide ; and love never fails. The Comforter is
with us ; and though the man Jesus no longer blesses
the earth, the ideal Christ, formed in the heart, is with
us to the end of the world. Let us then build on these.
Use good words when we can find them, in the church,
or out of it. Learn to pray, to pray greatly and
strong ; learn to reverence what is highest ; above all
learn to live, to make religion daily work, and Chris-
tianity our common life. All days shall then be the
Lord's day ; our homes, the house of God, and our
labor, the ritual of religion. Then we shall not glory

102 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

in men, for all things shall be ours ; we shall not be
impoverished by success, but enriched by affliction.

Our service shall be worship, not idolatry. The
burdens of the Bible shall not overlay and crush us ;
its wisdom shall make us strong, and its piety enchant
us. Paul and Jesus shall not be our masters, but
elder brothers, who open the pearly gate of truth and
cheer us on, leading us to the tree of life. We shall
find the kingdom of heaven and enjoy it now, not
waiting till death ferries us over to the other world.
We shall then repose beside the rock of ages, smitten
by divine hands, and drink the pure water of life as
it flows from the eternal, to make earth green and
glad. We shall serve no longer a bond-slave to tradi-
tion, in the leprous host of sin, but become free men,
by the law and spirit of life. Thus like Paul shall we
form the Christ within ; and like Jesus, serving and
knowing God directly, with no mediator intervening,
become one with him. Is not this worth a man's wish ;
worth his prayers ; worth his work ; to seek the living
Christianity, the Christianity of Christ? Not having
this, Ave seem but bubbles ; bubbles on an ocean, shore-
less and without bottom ; bubbles that sparkle a mo-
ment in the sun of life, then burst to be no more. But
with it we are men, immortal souls, heirs of God, and
joint heirs with Christ.

V

THE PHARISEES

If we may trust the statement of grave philosophers,
who have devoted their Hves to science, and given proofs
of what they affirm, which are manifest to the senses, as
well as evident to the understanding, there were once,
in very distant ages, classes of monsters on the earth
which differed, in many respects, from any animals
now on its surface. They find the bones of these ani-
mals " under the bottom of the monstrous world,'' or
imbedded in masses of stone which have since formed
over them. They discover the foot-prints, also, of
these monstrous creatures in what was once soft clay,
but has since )ecome hard stone, and so has preserved
these traces for many a thousand years. These
creatures gradually became scarce, and at last dis-
appeared entirely from the face of the earth, while
nobler races grew up and took their place. The relics
of these monsters are gathered together by the curious.
They excite the wonder of old men and little girls, of
the sage and the clown.

Now there was an analogous class of moral monsters
in old time. They began quite early, though no one
knows who was the first of the race. They have left
their foot-prints all over the civilized globe, in the
mould of institutions, laws, politics, and religions, which
were once pliant, but have since become petrified in the
ages, so that they seem likely to preserve these marks
for many centuries to come. The relics of these moral
monsters are preserved for our times in some of the

103

104 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

histories and institutions of past ages. But they ex-
cite no astonishment when discovered, because, while
the sauri of gigantic size, the mammoth, and the mas-
todon, are quite extinct, the last of the Pharisees has
not yet been seen, but his race is vigorous and flourish-
ing now as of old. Specimens of this monster are by
no means rare. They are found living in all countries
and in every walk of life. We do not search for them
in the halls of a museum or the cabinets of the curious,
but every man has seen a Pharisee going at large on
the earth. The race, it seems, began early. The Phari-
sees are of ancient blood, some tracing their genealogy
to the great father of lies himself. However this may
be, it is certain we find them well known in very ancient
times. Moses encountered them in Egypt. They
counterfeited his wonders, as the legend relates, and
" did so with their enchantments." They followed him
into the desert, and their gold, thrown into the fire, by
the merest accident came out in the shape of an idol.
Jealous of the honor of Moses, they begged him to
silence Eldad and Medad, on whom the spirit of the
Lord rested, saying, " Lord INIoses, rebuke them."
They troubled the Messiah in a later day ; they tempted
him with a penny ; sought to entangle him in his talk,
strove to catch him, feigning themselves just men.
They took counsel to slay him, soon as they found
cunning of no avail. If one was touched to the heart
by true words — which, though rare, once happened,
— he came by night to that great prophet of God,
through fear of his fellow Pharisees. They could
boast that no one of their number had ever believed on
the Savior of the nations — because his doctrine was a
new thing. If a blind man was healed, they put him
out of the synagogue, because his eyes were opened,

THE PHARISEES 105

and, as he confessed, by the new teacher. They bribed
one of his avaricious followers to betray him with a
kiss, and at last put to death the noblest of all the
sons of God, who had but just opened the burden of
his mission. Yet they took care — those precious
philanthropists — not to defile themselves by entering
the judgment-hall with a pagan. When the spirit
rose again, they hired the guard to tell a lie, and say,
" His disciples came by night and stole the body while
we slept."

This race of men troubled Moses, stoned the proph-
ets, crucified the Savior, and persecuted the apostles.
They entered the Christian church soon as it became
popular and fashionable. Then they bound the yoke
of Jewish tradition on true men's necks, and burned
with fire, and blasted with anathemas, such as shook it
off, walking free and upright, like men. The same
race is alive, and by no means extinct, or likely soon
to be so.

It requires but few words to tell what makes up the
sum of the Pharisee. He is, at the bottom, a man like
other men, made for whatever is high and divine. God
has not curtailed him of a man's birthright. He has
in him the elements of a Moses or a Messiah. But his
aim is to seem good and excellent, not to be good and
excellent. He wishes, therefore, to have all of good-
ness and religion, except goodness and religion itself.
Doubtless, he would accept these also, were they to be
had for the asking, and cost nothing to keep ; but he
will not pay the price. So he would make a covenant
with God and the devil, with righteousness and sin, and
keep on good terms with both. He would unite the two
worlds of salvation and iniquity, having the appear-
ance of the one, and the reality of the other. He would

106 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

work in deceit and wickedness, and yet appear to men
with clean hands. He will pray in one direction, and
yet live in just the opposite way, and thus attempt, as
it were, to blind the eyes and cheat the justice of all-
knowing God. He may be defined, in one sentence, as
the circumstances of a good man, after the good man
has left them. Such is the sum of the Pharisee in all
ages and nations, variously modified by the customs
and climate of the place he happens to dwell in, just
as the rabbit is white in winter and brown in summer,
but is still the same rabbit, its complexion only altered
to suit the color of the ground.

The Jewish Pharisees began with an honest man,
who has given name to the class, as some say. He
was moral and religious, a lover of man and God. He
saw through the follies of his time, and rose above
them. He felt the evils that oppress poor mortal man,
and sought to remove them. But it often happens that
a form is held up, after its spirit has departed, and a
name survives, while the reality which bore this name
is gone for ever. Just as they keep at Vienna the
crown and sword of a giant king, though for some
centuries no head has been found large enough to wear
the crown, no hand of strength to wield the sword, and
their present owner is both imbecile and diminutive —
so it was in this case. The subsequent races of Phari-
sees cherished the form after the spirit had left it,
clinging all the closer because they knew there was
nothing in it, and feared, if they relaxed their hold, it
would collapse through its emptiness, or blow away
and be lost, leaving them to the justice of God, and
the vengeance of men they had mocked at and insulted.
In Christ's time the Pharisee professed to reverence the
law of INIoscs, but contrived to escape its excellent

THE PHARISEES 107

spirit. He loved the letter, but he shunned the law.
He could pay tithes of his mint, anise and cummin,
which the law of Moses did not ask for, and omit
mercy, justice and truth, which both that and the law
of God demanded. He could not kindle a fire nor
pluck an ear of corn on the Sabbath, though so cold
and hungry that he thought of nothing but his pains,
and looked for the day to end. He could not eat bread
without going through the ceremony of lustration. He
could pray long and loud where he was sure to be
heard, at the corners of the streets, and give alms in
the public places, to gain the name of devout, charitable
or munificent, while he devoured widows' houses or the
inheritance of orphans in private, and his inward part
was full of ravening and wickedness.

There are two things which pass for religion in two
different places. The first is the love of what is right,
good, and lovely ; the love of man, the love of God.
This is the religion of the New Testament, of Jesus
Christ ; it leads to a divine life, and passes for religion
before the pure eyes of that Father of all, who made
us and the stars over our heads. The other is a mere
belief in certain doctrines, which may be true or false ;
a compliance with certain forms, either beautiful or
ludicrous. It does not demand a love of what is right,
good, and lovely, a love of man or God. Still less does
it ask for a life in conformity with such sentiments.
This passes for religion in the world, in kings' courts,
and in councils of the church, from the council at Nice
to the synod at Dort. The first is a vital religion, a
religion of life. The other is a theological religion, a
religion of death ; or, rather, it is no religion at all, all
of religion but religion itself. It often gets into the
place of religion, just as the lizard may get into the

108 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

place of the lion, when he is out, and no doubt sets
up to be lion for the time, and attempts a roar. The
one is the religion of men, and the best men that have
ever lived, in all ages and countries ; the other is the
religion of Pharisees, and the worst men in all ages
and in all countries.

This race of men, it has been said, is not 3'et ex-
hausted. The}^ are as numerous as in John the Bap-
tist's time, and quite as troublesome. Now, as then,
they prefer the praise of men to the praise of God ;
which means, they would rather seem good, at small
cost, than take the pains to be good. They oppose
all reforms, as they opposed the INIessiah. They tra-
duce the best of men, especially such as are true to
conscience, and live out their thought. They perse-
cute men sent on God's high errand of mercy and love.
Which of the prophets have they not stoned? They
build the tombs of deceased reformers, whom they
would calumniate and destroy, were they now living
and at work. They can wear a cross of gold on their
bosom, " which Jews might kiss and infidels adore."
But had they lived in the days of Pilate, they would
have nailed the Son of God to a cross of wood, and now
crucify him afresh, and put him to an open shame.
These Pharisees may be found in all ranks of life ; in
the front and the rear, among the radicals and the
conservatives, the rich and the poor. Though the
Pharisees are the same in nature, differing only
superficially, they may yet be conveniently divided
into several classes, following some prominent fea-
tures.

The Pharisee of the fireside. — He is the man who at
home professes to do all for the comfort and convenience
of his family, his wife, his children, his friends ; yet, at

THE PHARISEES 109

the same time, does all for his own comfort and con-
venience. He hired his servants only to keep them
from the alms-house. He works them hard, lest they
have too much spare time, and grow indolent. He pro-
vides penuriously for them, lest they contract extrava-
gant habits. Whatever gratification he gives himself,
he does entirely for others. Does he go to a neighbor-
ing place to do some important errands for himself, and
a trifle for his friend — the journey was undertaken
solely on his friend's account. Is he a husband — he
is always talking of the sacrifice he makes for his wife,
who yet never knows when it is made, and if he had
love, there would be no sacrifice. Is he a father — he
tells his children of his self-denial for their sake, while
they find the self-denial is all on their side, and if he
loved them, self-denial would be a pleasure. He speaks
of his great aff^ection for them, which, if he felt, it
would show itself, and never need be spoken of. He
tells of the heavy burdens borne for their sake, while,
if they were thus borne, they would not be accounted
burdens nor felt as heavy. But this kind of Pharisee,
though more common than we sometimes fancy, is yet
the rarest species. Most men drop the cloak of hypoc-
risy when they enter their home, and seem what they
are. Of them, therefore, no more need be spoken.

The Pharisee of the printing press. — The Pharisee
of this stamp is a sleek man, who edits a newspaper.
His care is never to say a word offensive to the ortho-
dox ears of his own coterie. His aim is to follow in
the wake of public opinion, and utter, from time to
to time, his oracular generalities, so that whether the
course be prosperous or unsuccessful, he may seem to
have predicted it. If he must sometimes speak of a
new measure, whose fate is doubtful with the people, no

110 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

one knows whether he would favor or rej cct it — so
equally do his arguments balance one another. Never
was prophecy more clearly inspired and impersonal.
He cannot himself tell what his prediction meant, until
it is fulfilled. " If Croesus crosses the Halys, he shall
destroy a great empire," thunders the Pharisee, from
his editorial corner, but takes care not to tell whether
Persia or Lydia shall come to the ground. Suggest a
doubt that he ever opposed a measure which has since
become popular, he will prove you the contrary, and his
words really have that meaning, though none suspected
it at the time, and he least of all. In his, as in all pre-
dictions, there is a double sense. If he would abuse a
man or an institution which is somewhat respectable,
and against which he has a private grudge, he inserts
most calumnious articles in the shape of a " communi-
cation," declaring at the same time his " columns are
open to all." He attacks an innocent man soon as he
is unpopular ; but gives him no chance to repl}'^, though
in never so Christian a spirit. Let a distinguished man
censure one comparatively unknown, he would be very
glad to insert the injured man's defence, but is pre-
vented by " a press of political matter," or " a press
of foreign matter," till the day of reply has passed.
Let an humble scholar send a well-written article for
his journal, which does not square with the notions of
the coterie ; it is returned with insult added to the
wrong, and an " editorial " appears putting the public
on its guard against such as hold the obnoxious opin-
ions, calling them knaves and fools, or what is more
taking with the public at this moment, when the ma-
jority are so very faithful and religious, " infidels "
and " atheists." The aim of this man is to please his
party, and seem fair. Send him a paper reflecting on

THE PHARISEES 111

the measures or the men of that party, he tells you it
would do no good to insert it, though ably written.
He tells his wife the story, adding, that he must have
meat and drink, and the article would have cost a
" subscriber." He begins by loving his party better
than mankind ; he goes on by loving their opinions
more than truth, and ends by loving his own in-
terest better than that of his party. He might be
painted as a man sitting astride a fence, which divided
two enclosures, with his hands thrust into his pockets.
As men come into one or the other enclosure, he bows
obsequiously and smiles ; bowing lowest, and smiling
sweetest, to the most distinguished person. When the
people have chosen their place, he comes down from
" that bad eminence " to the side where the majority
are assembled, and will prove to your teeth that he had
always stood on that side, and was never on the fence,
except to reconnoitre the enemy's position.

The Pharisee of the street. — He Is the smooth
sharper, who cheats you in the name of honor. He
wears a sanctimonious face, and plies a smooth tongue.
His words are rosemary and marjoram, for sweetness.
To hear him lament at the sins practiced in business,
you would take him for the most honest of men. Are
you in trade with him — he expresses a great desire to
serve you; talks much of the subject of honor; honor
between buyer and seller, honor among tradesmen,
honor among thieves. He is full of regrets that the
world has become so wicked ; wonders that any one can
find temptation to defraud, and belongs to a society for
the suppression of shoplifting or some similar offense
he is in no danger of committing, and so

" Compounds for sins he is inclined to,
By damning those he has no mind to."

11^ THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

Does this Pharisee meet a philanthropist — he is full of
plans to improve society, and knows of some little evil,
never heard of before, which he wishes to con*ect in a
distant part of the land. Does he encounter a religious
man — he is ready to build a church if it could be
built of words, and grows eloquent talking of the
goodness of God and the sin of the world, and has a
plan for evangelizing the cannibals of New Zealand,
and christianizing, forsooth, the natives of China, for
he thinks it hard they should " continue heathens and so
be lost." Does he overtake a lady of affluence and re-
finement — there are no limits to his respect for the
female sex, no bounds to his politeness, no pains too
great for him to serve her. But let him overtake a
poor woman of a rainy day, in a lonely road, who
really needs his courtesy — he will not lend her his
arm or his umbrella, for all his devotion to the female
sex. He thinks teachers are not sufficiently paid, but
teases a needy young man to take his son to school a
little under price, and disputes the bill when rendered.
He knows that a young man of fortune lives secretly
in the most flagrant debauchery. Our Pharisee treats
him, with all conceivable courtesy, defends him from
small rumors ; but when the iniquity is once made pub-
lic, he is the very loudest in his condemnation, and
wonders any one could excuse him. This man will be
haughty to his equals, and aiTogant to those he deems
below him. With all his plans for christianizing China
and New Zealand, he takes no pains to instruct and
christianize his own family. In spite of his sorrow for
the wickedness of the world, and his zeal for the sup-
pression of vice, he can tell the tnith so as to deceive,
and utter a lie so smoothly that none suspects it to be
untrue. Is he to sell you an article — its obvious faults

THE PHARISEES 113

are explained away, and its secret ones concealed still
deeper. Is he to purchase — he finds a score of de-
fects, which he knows exist but in his lying words.
When the bargain is made, he tells his fellow-Pharisee
how adroitly he deceived, and how great are his gains.
This man is fulfilled of emptiness. Yet he is suffered
to walk the earth, and eat and drink, and look upon
the sun, all hollow as he is.

The Pharisee of politics. — This, also, is a numer-
ous class. He makes great professions of honesty ;
thinks the country is like to be ruined by want of in-
tegrity in high places, and, perhaps, it is so. For his
part, he thinks simple honesty, the doing of what one
knows to be right, is better than political experience,
of which he claims but little ; more safe than the eagle
eye of statesman-like sagacity, which sees events in
their causes and can apply the experience of many cen-
turies to show the action of a particular measure, a
sagacity that he cannot pretend to. This Pharisee of
politics, when he is out of place, thinks much evil is
likely to befall us from the office-holders, enemies of
the people ; if he is in place, from the office-wanters,
most pestilent fellows ! Just before the election this
precious Pharisee is seized with a gi*eat concern lest
the people be deceived, the dear people, whom he loves
with such vast aflPection. No distance is too great for
him to travel ; no stormy night too stormy for him,
that he may utter his word in season. Yet all the while
he loves the people but as the cat her prey, which she
charms with her look of demure innocence, her velvet
skin and glittering eyes, till she has seized it in her
teeth, and then condescends to sport with its tortures,
sharpening her appetite and teasing it to death. There

is a large body of men in all political parties,
IV— 8

114. THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

" who sigh and groan
For public good, and mean their own."

It has always been so, and will always continue so, till
men and women become Christian, and then, as pagan
Plato tells us, the best and wisest men will take high
offices cheerfully, because they involve the most irksome
duties of the citizen. The Pharisee of politics is all
things to all men (though in a sense somewhat different
from the apostle, perhaps), that he may, by any means,
gain some to his side. Does he meet a reformer — he
has a plan for improving and finishing off the world
quite suddenly. Does he fall in with a conservative —
our only strength is to stand still. Is he speaking
with a wise friend of the people — he would give every
poor boy and girl the best education the state could
afford, making monopoly of wisdom out of the question.
Does he talk with the selfish man of a clique, who cares
only for that person girded with his belt — he thinks
seven-eighths of the people, including all of the working
class, must be left in ignorance beyond hope ; as if God
made one man all head, and the other all hands. Does
he meet a Unitarian — the Pharisee signs no creed, and
always believed the Unity ; with a Calvinist — he is so
Trinitarian he wishes there were four persons in the
god-head, to give his faith a test the more difficult.
Let the majority of voters, or a third part}^ who can
turn the election, ask him to pledge himself to a par-
ticular measure — this lover of the people is ready,
their " obedient servant," whether it be to make prop-
erty out of paper, or merchandise out of men. The
voice of his electors is to him not the voice of God,
which might be misunderstood, but God himself. But
when his object is reached, and the place secure, you
shall see the demon of ambition that possesses the man

THE PHARISEES 115

come out into action. This man can stand in the hall
of the nation's wisdom, with the Declaration of Inde-
pendence in one hand, and the Bible, the great charter
of freedom, in the other, and justify — not excuse,
palliate, and account for — but justify, the greatest
wrong man can inflict on man, and attempt to sanction
slavery, quoting chapter and verse from the New Testa-
ment, and do it as our fathers fought, in the name of
" God and their country." He can stand in the centre
of a free land, his mouth up to the level of Mason
and Dixon's line, and pour forth his eloquent lies, all
freedom above the mark, but all slavery below it. He
can cry out for the dear people till they think some
man of wealth and power watches to destroy them,
while he wants, authority ; but when he has it, ask him
to favor the cause of humanity, ask him to aid those
few hands which would take hold of the poor man's son
in his cabin, and give him an education worthy of a
man, a free man ; ask him to help those few souls of
great faith who perfume heaven's ear with their pray-
ers, and consume their own hearts on the altar, while
kindling the reluctant sacrifice for other hearts, so slow
to beat ; ask him to aid the noblest interests of man,
and help bring the kingdom of heaven here in New
England, — and where is he.'' Why, the bubble of a
man has blown away. If you could cast his character
into a melting-pot, as chemists do their drugs, and
apply suitable tests to separate part from part, and so
analyze the man, you would find a little wit and less
wisdom ; a thimble-full of common sense, worn in the
fore part of the head and so ready for use at a mo-
ment's call ; a conscience made up of maxims of expe-
diency and worldly thrift, which conscience he wore
on his sleeve to swear by when it might serve his turn.

116 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

You would find a little knowledge of history to make
use of on the 4th of July and election days ; a convic-
tion that there was a selfish principle in man, Avhich
might be made active ; a large amount of animal cun-
ning, selfishness, and ambition, all worn very bright by
constant use. Down farther still in the crucible would
be a shapeless lump of faculties he had never used,
which, on examination, would contain manliness, justice,
integrity, honor, religion, love, and whatever else that
makes man divine and immortal. Such is the inventory
of this thing which so many worship, and so many
would be. Let it also pass to its reward.

The Pharisee of the church. — There was a time
when he Avho called himself a Christian took as it were
the prophet's vow, and toil and danger dogged his
steps ; poverty came like a giant upon him, and death
looked ugly at him through the casement as he snt
down with his wife and babes. Then to be called a
Christian was to be a man, to pray prayers of great
resolution and to live in the kingdom of heaven. Now,
it means only to be a Protestant or a Catholic, to be-
lieve with the Unitarians or the Calvinists. We have
lost the right names of things. The Pharisee of the
church has a religion for Sunday, but none for the
week. He believes all the time things and absurd
things ever taught by popular teachers of his sect. To
him the Old Testament and the New Testament arc
just the same — and the Apocrypha he never reads —
books to be worshipped and sworn by. He believes
most entirely in the law of INIoscs, and the gospel of
the Messiah which annuls that law. They are both
" translated out of the original tongues, and appointed
to be read in churches." Of course he practices one
just as much as the other. His belief has cost him so

THE PHARISEES 117

much he does nothing but beheve, never dreams of Hv-
ing his behef. He has a rchgion for Sunday, and a
face for Sunday, and Sunday books, and Sunday talk ;
and just as he lays aside his Sunday coat, so he puts
by his talk, his books, his face, and his religion. They
would be profaned if used on a week-day. He can sit
in his pew of a Sunday — wood sitting upon wood —
with the demurest countenance and never dream the
words of Isaiah, Paul, and Jesus, which are read him,
came out of the serene deeps of the soul that is fulfilled
of a divine life, and are designed to reach such deeps
in other souls, and will reach them if they also live
nobly. He can call himself a Christian, and never do
anything to bless or comfort his neighbor. The poor
pass, and never raise an eye to that impenetrable face.
He can hear sermons, and pay for sermons that de-
nounce the sin he daily commits, and thinks he atones
for the sin by paying for the sermon. His Sunday
prayers are beautiful, out of the psalms and the gos-
pels ; but his weekly life, what has it to do with his
prayer? How confounded would he be, if heaven
should take him in earnest, and grant his request ! He
would pray that God's name be hallowed, while his life
is blasphemy against him. He can say " Thy kingdom
come," when if it should come, he would wither up at
the sight of so much majesty. The kingdom of God
is in the hearts of men ; does he wish it there, in his own
heart? He prays " Thy will be done," yet never sets
a foot forward to do it, nor means to set a foot forward.
His only true petition is for daily bread, and this he ut-
ters falsely, for all men are included in the true petition,
and he asks only for himself. When he says " for-
give us as we forgive," he imprecates a curse on himself,
most burning and dreadful ; for when did he give or

118 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

forgive? The only " evil " he prays to be delivered
from is worldly trouble. He does not wish to be saved
from avarice, peevishness, passion, from false lips, a
wicked heart and a life mean and dastardly. He can
send Bibles to the heathen on the deck of his ship, and
rum, gunpowder, and cast-iron muskets in the hold.
The aim of this man is to get the most out of his fellow-
mortals, and to do the least for them, at the same time
keeping up the phenomena of goodness and religion.
To speak somewhat figurativel}'^, he would pursue a
wicked calling in a plausible way, under the very win-
dows of heaven, at intervals singing hymns to God,
while he debased his image; contriving always to keep
so near the walls of the New Jerusalem, that when the
destroying flood swept by, he might scramble in at a
window, booted and spun*ed to ride over men, wearing
his Sunday face, with his Bible in his hand, to put the
Savior to the blush and out-front the justice of Al-
mighty God. But let him pass also ; he has his reward.
Sentence is pronounced against all that is false. The
publicans and the harlots enter into the kingdom of
God before that man.

The Pharisee of the pulpit. — The Scribes and Phari-
sees sat once in INIoses' seat; now they go farther up
and sit in the seat of the Messiah. The Pharisee of
the pulpit is worse than any other class, for he has the
faults of all the rest, and is set in a place where even
the slightest tarnish of human frailty is a disgrace,
all the more disgraceful because contrasted with the
spotless vestments of that loftiest spirit that has be-
strode the ages, and stands still before us as the highest
ideal ever realized on the earth — the measure of a
perfect man. If the gold rust, what shall the iron do?
The fundamental sin of the Pharisee of the pulpit is

THE PHARISEES 119

this : he keeps up the form, come what will come of the
substance. So he embraces the form when the sub-
stance is gone for ever. He might be represented in
painting as a man, his hands filled with husks from
which the com has long ago been shelled off, carried
away and planted, and has now grown up under God's
blessing, produced its thirty or its hundred-fold, and
stands ripe for the reaper, waiting the sickle ; while
hungering crowds come up escaping from shipwreck
or wandering in the deserts of sin, and ask an alms, he
gives them a husk — only a husk ; nothing but a husk.
" The hungry flock look up and are not fed," while
he blasts with the curses of his church all such as
would guide the needy to those fields where there is
bread enough and to spare. He wonders at " the
perverseness of the age," that will no longer be fed with
chaff and husks. He has seen but a single pillar of
God's temple, and thinking that is the whole, condemns
all such as take delight in its beautiful porches, its
many mansions and most holy place. So the fly, who
had seen but a nail-head on the dome of St. Peter's,
condemned the swallow who flew along its solemn vault,
and told the wonders she had seen. Our Pharisee is
resolved, God willing, or God not willing, to keep up
the form, so he would get into a false position should
he dare to think. His thought might, not agree with
the form, and since he loves the dream of his fathers
better than God's truth, he forbids all progress in the
form. So he begins by not preaching what he believes,
and soon comes to preach what he believes not. These
are the men who boast they have Abraham to their
father ; yet, as it has been said, they come of quite a
different stock, which also is ancient and of great
renown.

120 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

The Pharisee's faith is in the letter, not the spirit.
Doubt in his presence that the book of Chronicles and
the book of Kings are not perfectly inspired and infal-
libly true on those very points where they are exactl}^
opposite ; doubt that the Infinite God inspired David
to denounce his enemies, Peter to slay Ananias, Paul
to predict events that never came to pass, and Matthew
and Luke, John and Mark, to make historical statements
which can never be reconciled — and he sets you down
as an infidel, though you keep all the commandments
from your youth up, lack nothing, and live as John
and Paul prayed they might live. With him the un-
pardonable sin is to doubt that ecclesiastical doctrine
to be true which reason revolts at, and conscience and
faith spurn off with loathing. With him the Jews are
more than the human race. The Bible is his master,
and not his friend. He would not that you should
take its poems as its authors took them ; nor its narra-
tives for what they are worth, as you take others. He
will not allow you to accept the life of Christianity ; but
you must have its letter also, of which Paul and Jesus
said not a word. If you would drink the water of life,
you must take likewise the mud it has been filtered
through, and drink out of an orthodox urn. You must
shut up reason, conscience and common sense when you
come to those books, which above all others came out of
this triple fountain. To those books he limits divine
inspiration, and in his modesty has looked so deep into
the counsels of God that he knows the live coal of in-
spiration has touched no lips but Jewish, No! nor
never shall. Does the Pharisee do this from true
reverence for the word of God, which was in the be-
ginning, which is life, and which lightetli every man
that cometh into the world.'' Let others judge. But

THE PHARISEES 121

there is a blindness of the heart to which the fabled
darkness of Egypt was noon-day light. That is not
the worst scepticism which with the Sadducee denies
both angel and resurrection ; but that which denies man
the right to think, to doubt, to conclude ; which hopes
no light save from the ashes of the past, and would
hide God's truth from the world with the flap of its
long robe. We come at truth only by faithful thought,
reflection, and contemplation, when the long flashes of
light come in upon the soul. But truth and God are
always on one side. Ignorance and a blind and barren
faith favor only lies and their great patriarch.

The Pharisee of the pulpit talks much of the divine
authority of the church and the minister, as if the one
was anything more than a body of men and women met
for moral and religious improvement, and the other
anything but a single man they had asked to teach
them, and be an example to the flock, and not " Lord
of God's heritage." Had this Pharisee been born in
Turkey, he would have been as zealous for the Maho-
metan church as he now is for the Christian. It is only
the accident of birth that has given him the Bible
instead of the Koran, the Shastra, the Veda, or the Shu-
King. This person has no real faith in man, or
he would not fear when he essayed to walk, nor would
fancy that while every other science went forward, the-
ology, the queen of science, should be bound hand and
foot, and shut up in darkness without sun or star;
no faith in Christ, or he would not fear that search
and speech should put out the light of life; no faith
in God, or he would know that his truth, like virgin
gold, comes brighter out of the fire of thought, which
bums up only the dross. Yet this Pharisee speaks of
God as if he had knoAvn the Infinite from his boyhood ;

U2 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

had looked over his shoulder when he laid the founda-
tions of the earth ; had entered into all his counsels,
and known to the tithing of a hair, how much was
given to Moses, how much to Confucius, and how
much to Christ, and had seen it written in the book of
fate that Christianity as it is now understood was the
loftiest religion man could ever know, and all the
treasure of the Most High was spent and gone, so
that we had nothing more to hope for. Yet the loftiest
spirits that have ever lived have blessed the things of
God ; have adored him in all his works, in the dew-
drops and the stars ; have felt at times his spirit wami
their hearts, and blessed him who w^as all in all, but
bowed their faces down before his presence, and owned
they could not by searching find him out unto perfec-
tion ; have worshipped and loved and prayed, but said
no more of the nature and essense of God, for thought
has its limits, though presumption it seems has none.
The Pharisee speaks of Jesus of Nazareth. How he
dwells on his forbearance, his gentleness, but how he
forgets that righteous indignation which spoke through
him, applied the naked point of God's truth to Phari-
sees and hypocrites, and sent them back with rousing
admonitions. He heeds not the all-embracing love that
dwells in him, and wept at sin, and worked with bloody
sweat for the oppressed and down-trodden. He speaks
of Paul and Peter as if they were masters of the soul,
and not merely its teachers and friends. Yet should
those flaming apostles start up from the ground in their
living holiness, and tread our streets, call things by
their right names, and apply Christianity to life, as
they once did, and now would do were they here, think
you our Pharisee would open his house, like Roman
Cornelius or Simon of Tarsus?

THE PHARISEES 123

There are two divisions of this class of Pharisees:
those who do not think — and they are harmless and
perhaps useful in their way, like snakes that have no
venom, but catch worms and flies — and those who do
think. The latter think one thing in their study, and
preach a very different thing in their pulpit. In the
one place they are free as water, ready to turn any
way ; in the other, conservative as ice. They fear
philosophy should disturb the church as she lies bed-
ridden at home, so they would throw the cobwebs of au-
thority and tradition over the wings of truth, not suf-
fering her with strong pinions to fly in the midst of
heaven, and communicate between man and God. They
think " you must use a little deceit in the world," and
so use not a little. These men speak in public of the
inspiration of the Bible, as if it were all inspired with
equal infallibility ; but what do they think at home ?
In his study the Testament is a collection of legendary
tales, in the pulpit it is the everlasting gospel ; if any
man shall add to it the seven last plagues shall be
added to him, if any one takes from it his name shall
be taken from the book of life. If there be a sin in the
land, or a score of sins tall as the Anakim which go to
and fro in the earth and shake the churches with their
tread, let these sins be popular, be loved by the power-
ful, protected by the affluent; will the Pharisee sound
the alarm, lift up the banner, sharpen the sword, and
descend to do battle.'' There shall not a man of them
move his tongue ; " no, they are dumb dogs, that can-
not bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber ; yes,
they are greedy dogs, that can never have enough."
But let there be four or five men in obscure places,
not mighty through power, renown, or understanding,
or eloquence; let them utter in modesty a thought that

124 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

is new, which breathes of freedom or tends directly
towards God, — and every Pharisee of the pulpit shall
cry out from Cape Sable to the Lake of the Woods,
till the land ring again. Doubtless it is heroic thus
to fight a single new thought, rather than a score of
old sins. Doubtless it is a very Christian zeal thus to
pursue obscurity to its retreat, and mediocrity to its
littleness, and startle humble piety from her knees,
while the Goliath of sin walks with impudent forehead
at noon-day in front of their armies, and defiles the
living God — a very Christian zeal, which would de-
stroy a modest champion, however true, who, declining
the canonical weapons, should bring down the foe and
smite off the giant's head. Two persons are mentioned
in the Bible who have had many followers : the one is
Lot's wife, who perished looking back upon Sodom ;
the other Demetrius, who feared that " this our craft is
in danger to be set at nought."

Such, then, are the Pharisees. We ought to accept
whatever is good in them ; but their sins should be
exposed. Yet in our indignation against the vice,
charity should always be kept for the man. There is
" a soul of goodness in things evil," even in the Phari-
see, for he also is a man. It is somewhat hard to be
all that God made us to become ; and if a man is so
cowardly he will only aim to seem something, he de-
serves pity, but certainly not scorn or hate. Bad as
he appears, there is yet somewhat of goodness left in
him., like hope at the bottom of Pandora's box. Fallen
though he is, he is yet a man to love and be loved.
Above all men is the Pharisee to be pitied. He has
grasped at a shadow, and he feels sometimes that he is
lost. With many a weary step and many a groan, he
has hewn him out broken cisterns that hold no water,

THE PHARISEES 125

and sits dusty and faint beside them ; " a deceived
heart has turned him aside," and there is " a He in his
right hand." Meantime the stream of Hfe hard by
falls from the rock of ages ; its waters flow for all ; and
when the worn pilgrim stoops to drink, he rises a
stronger man and thirsts no more for the hot and pol-
luted fountain of deceit and sin. Further down, men
leprous as Naaman may dip and be healed.

While these six classes of Pharisees pursue their
wicked way, the path of real manliness and religion
opens before each soul of us all. The noblest sons of
God have trodden therein, so that no one need
wander. Moses, and Jesus, and John, and Paul have
gained their salvation by being real men ; content to
see goodness and God, they found their reward ; they
blessed the nations of the earth, and entered the king-
dom of religious souls. It is not possible for false-
ness or reality to miss of its due recompense. The net
of divine justice sweeps clean to its bottom the ocean
of man, and all things that are receive their due. The
Pharisee may pass for a Christian, and men may be
deceived for a time, but God never. In his impartial
balance it is only real goodness that has weight. The
Pharisee may keep up the show of religion ; but what
avails it.'' Real sorrows come home to that false heart ;
and when the strong man, totterin'g, calls on God for
more strength, how shall the false man stand? Before
the justice of the All-Seeing, where shall he hide?
Men have the Pharisee's religion, if they will, and they
have his reward, which begins in self-deception, and
ends in ashes and dust. They may, if they choose,
have the Christian's religion and they have also his
reward, which begins in the great resolution of the
heart, continues in the action of what is best and most

126 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

manly in human nature, and ends in tranquility and
rest for the soul, which words are powerless to describe,
but which man must feel to know. To each man, as
to Hercules, there come two counselors ; the one of the
flesh, to offer enervating pleasures and unreal jo3^s for
the shadow of virtue ; the other of the spirit, to demand
a life that is lovely, holy, and true. Which will you
have.'^ is the question put by Providence to each of us;
and the answer is the daily life of the Pharisee or the
Christian. Thus it is of a man's own choice that he is
cursed or blessed, that he ascends to heaven or goes
down to hell.

VI

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY

There are some ages when all seem to look for a
great man to come up at God's call, and deliver them
from the evils they groan under. Then humanity seems
to lie with its forehead in the dust, calling on heaven
to send a man to save it. There are times when the
powers of the race, though working with their wonted
activity, appear so misdirected that little permanent
good comes from the efforts of the gifted ; times when
governments have little regard for the welfare of the
subject, when popular forms of religion have lost their
hold on the minds of the thoughtful, and the conse-
crated augurs, while performing the accustomed rites,
dare not look one another in the face, lest they laugh
in public and disturb the reverence of the people,
their own having gone long before. Times there are
when the popular religion does not satisfy the hunger
and thirst of the people themselves. Then mental en-
ergy seems of little value, save to disclose and chron-
icle the sadness of the times. No great works of deep
and wide utility are then undertaken for existing or
future generations. Original works of art are not
sculptured out of new thought. Men fall back on
the achievements of their fathers, imitate and repro-
duce them, but take no steps in any direction into the
untrodden infinite. Though wealth and selfishness pile
up their marble and mortar as never before, yet the
chisel, the pencil, and the pen, are prostituted to imi-
tation. The artist does not travel beyond the actual.

127

128 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

At such times the rich are wealthy onl}' to be luxurious,
and dissolve the mind in the lusts of the flesh. The
cultivated have skill and taste only to mock, openly
or in secret, at the forms of religion, and its substance
also ; to devise new pleasures for themselves ; pursue the
study of some abortive science, some costly game, or
dazzling art. When the people suffer for water and
bread, the king digs fish-pools, that his parasites may
fare on lampreys of unnatural size. Then the poor
are trodden down into the dust. The weak bear the
burden of the strong, and they who do all the work of
the world, who spin, and weave, and delve, and drudge,
who build the palace, and supply the feast, are the only
men that go hungry and bare, live uncared for, and
when they die are huddled into the dirt, with none to
say God bless you. Such periods have occurred sev-
eral times in the world's history.

At these times man stands in frightful contrast with
nature. He is dissatisfied, ill-fed, and poorly clad ;
while all nature through there is not an animal, from
the mite to the mammoth, but his wants are met and
his peace secured by the great Author of all. ]\Ian
knows not whom to trust, while the little creature that
lives its brief moment in the dew-drop, which hangs on
the violet's petal, enjoys perfect tranquillity so long as
its little life runs on. Man is in doubt, distress, per-
petual trouble; afraid to go forward, lest he go wrong;
fearful of standing still, lest he fall ; while the meanest
worm that crawls under his feet is all and enjoys all its
nature allows, and the stars overhead go smoothly as
ever on their way.

At such times, men call for a great man, who can put
himself at the head of their race, and load them on, free
from their troubles. There is a feeling in the heart of

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 129

us all that as sin came by man, and death by sin, so by
man, under providence, must come also salvation from
that sin, and resurrection from that death. We feel,
all of us, that for every wrong there is a right some-
where, had we but the skill to find it. This call for a
great man is sometimes long and loud before he comes,
for he comes not of man's calling but of God's ap-
pointment.

This was the state of mankind many centuries ago,
before Jesus was born at Bethlehem. Scarce ever had
there been an age when a deliverer was more needed.
The world was full of riches. Wealth flowed into the
cities, a Pactolian tide. Fleets swam the ocean. The
fields were full of cattle and corn. The high-piled
warehouses at Alexandria and Corinth groaned with
the munitions of luxury, the product of skillful hands.
Delicate women, the corrupted and the corrupters of
the world's metropolis, scarce veiled their limbs in gar-
ments of gossamer, fine as woven winds. Metals and
precious stones vied with each other to render loveli-
ness more lovely, and beauty more attractive, or oftener
to stimulate a jaded taste, and whip the senses to their
work. Nature, with that exquisite irony men admire
but cannot imitate, used the virgin luster of the gem to
reveal more plain the moral ugliness of such as wore
the gaud. The very marble seemed animate to bud
and blossom into palace and temple. But alas for
man in those days ! The strong have always known
one part of their duty, how to take care of themselves ;
and so have laid burdens on weak men's shoulders ; but
the more difficult part, how to take care of the weak,
their natural clients, they neither knew nor practiced
so well even as now. If the history of the strong is

ever written, as such, it will be the record of rapine and
IV— 9

130 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

murder from Cain to Cush, from Nimrod to Napoleon.
In that age men cried for a great man, and wonder-
ful to tell, the prophetic spirit of human nature, which
detects events in their causes, and by its profound faith
in the invisible sees both the cloud and the star before
they come up to the horizon, foretold the advent of
such a man. " An ancient and settled opinion," says
a Roman writer, " had spread over all the east, that it
was fated at this time for some one to arise out of
Judea, and rule the world." We find this expectation
in many shapes, psalm and song, poem and prophecy.
We sometimes say this prediction was miraculous, while
it appears rather as the natural forecast of hearts
which believe God has a remedy for each disease, and
balm for every wound. The expectation of relief is
deep and certain with such, just as the evil is imminent
and dreadful. If it have lasted long and spread wide,
men only look for a greater man. This fact shows
how deep in the soul lies that religious element which
sees clearest in the dark, when understanding cannot
see at all ; which hopes most when there is least ground,
but most need of hope. But men go too far in their
expectations. Their faith stimulates their fancy, which
foretells what the deliverer shall be. In this men are
always mistaken. Heaven has endowed the race of men
with but little invention. So in those times of trouble
they look back to the last peril, and hope for a re-
deemer like him they had before ; greater it may be,
but always of the same kind. This same poverty of
invention, and habit of thinking the future must re-
produce the past, appears in all human calculations.
If some one had told the amanuensis of Julius Caesar
that in eighteen centuries men would be able in a few
hours to make a perfect copy of a book twenty times

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 131

as great as all his master's commentaries and history he
would pronounce it impossible, for he could think of
none but the old method of a scribe fomiing each word
with a pen letter by letter, never anticipating the mod-
ern way of printing with a rolling press driven by
steam. So if some one had told Joab that two thou-
sand years after his day men in war would kill one
another with a missile half an ounce in weight, and
would send it three or four hundred yards, driving it
through a shirt of mail or a plough-share of iron, he
would think but of a common bow and arrows, and say
it cannot be. What would Zeuxis have thought of a
portrait made in thirty seconds, exact as nature, pen-
ciled by the sun himself? Now men make mistakes in
their expectation of a deliverer. The Jews were once
raised to great power by David, and again rescued
from distress and restored from exile by Cyrus, a great
conqueror and a just man. Therefore the next time
they fell into trouble, they expected another king like
David or Cyrus, who should come, perhaps in the
clouds, with a great army to do much more than either
David or Cyrus had done. This was the current ex-
pectation, that when the Redeemer came he should be
a great general, commander of an army, king of the
Jews. He was to restore the exiles, defeat their foes,
and revive the old theocracy, to which other nations
should be subservient.

Their deliverer comes ; but Instead of a noisy gen-
eral, a king begirt with the pomp of oriental royalty,
there appears one of the lowliest of men. His king-
dom was of truth, and therefore not of this world.
He drew no sword, uttered no word of violence, did
not complain when persecuted, but took it patiently ;
did not exact a tooth for a tooth, nor pay a blow with a

132 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

blow, but loved men who hated him. This conqueror,
who was to come with great pomp, perhaps in the
clouds, with an army numerous as the locusts, at whose
every word kingdoms were to shake, appears, born in a
stable, of the humblest extraction, the companion of
fishermen, living in a town whose inhabitants were so
wicked men thought nothing good could come of it.
The means he brought for the salvation of his race
were quite as surprising as the Savior himself; not
armies on earth or in heaven, not even new tables of
laws ; but a few plain directions, copied out from the
primitive and eternal scripture God wrote in the heart
of man — the true protevangelium — love man ; love
God ; resist not evil ; ask and receive. These were the
weapons with which to pluck the oppressor down from
his throne ; to destroy the conquerors of the world ; dis-
lodge sin from high places and low places ; uplift the
degraded, and give weary and desperate human nature
a fresh start ! How disappointed men would have
looked, could it have been made clear to them that this
was now the only deliverer Heaven was sending to
their rescue. But this could not be ; their recollection
of past deliverance, and their prejudice of the future
based on this recollection, blinded their eyes. They
said, " This is not he ; when the Christ cometh, no man
shall know whence he is. But we know this is the Naz-
arene carpenter, the son of Joseph and INIary." Men
treated this greatest of saviors as his humble brothers
had always been treated. Even his disciples were not
faithful ; one betrayed him with a kiss ; the rest forsook
him and fled ; his enemies put him to death, adding
ignominy to their torture, and little thinking this was
the most effectual way to bring about the end he
sought, and scatter the seed whence tlie whole race was
to be blessed for many a thousand years.

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 133

There is scarce anything in nature more astonishing
to a reflective mind than the influence of one man's
thought and feeHng over another, and on thousands
of his fellows. There are few voices in the world,
but many echoes, and so the history of the world is
chiefly the rise and progress of the thoughts and feel-
ings of a few great men. Let a man's outward posi-
tion be what it may, that of a slave or a king, or an
apparent idler in a busy metropolis, if he have more
wisdom, love, and religion than any of his fellow-
mortals, their mind, heart, and soul are put in mo-
tion, even against their will and they cannot stand
where they stood before, though they close their eyes
never so stiffly. The general rule holds doubly strong
in this particular case. This poor Galilean peasant,
son of the humblest people, bom in an ox's crib, who
at his best estate had not where to lay his head ; who
passed for a fanatic with his townsmen, and even with
his brothers — children of the same parents — who
was reckoned a lunatic, a very madman or counted as
one possessed of a devil by grave, respectable folk about
Jerusalem ; who was put to death as a rebel and blas-
phemer, at the instance of Pharisees, the high-priest,
and other sacerdotal functionaries — he stirred men's
mind, heart, and soul as none before nor since has done,
and produced a revolution in human aff'airs which is
even now greater than all other revolutions, though it
has hitherto done but a little of its work.

He looked trustfully up to the Father of all. Be-
cause he was faithful God inspired him till his judg-
ment, in religious matters, seems to have become cer-
tain as instinct, infallible as the law of gravitation, and
his will irresistible because it was no longer partial,
but God's will flowing through him. He gave voice

134 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

to the new thought which streamed on him, asking no
questions whether Moses or Solomon in old time had
thought as he, nor whether Gamaliel and Herod would
vouch for the doctrine now. He felt that in him was
something greater than Moses or Solomon, and he did
not, as many have done, dishonor the greater to make
a solemn mockery of serving the less. He spoke what
he felt, fearless as truth. He lived in blameless obed-
ience to his sentiment and his principle. With him
there was no great gulf between thought and action,
duty and life. If he saw sin in the land — and when
or where could he look and not see that last of the
giants? — he gave warning to all who would listen.
Before the single eye of this man, still a youth, the
reverend veils fell off from antiquated falsehood ; the
looped and windowed livery of Abraham dropped from
recreant limbs, and the child of the devil stood there,
naked but not unshamed. He saw that blind men, the
leaders and the led, were hastening to the same ditch.
Well might he weep for the slain of his people, and
cry, " Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! " Few heard his
cries, for it seems fated that when the son of man
comes he shall not find faith on the earth. Pity alike
for the oppressed and the oppressor — and a bound-
less love, even for the unthankful and the merciless —
burned in his breast, and shed their light and warmth
wherever he turned his face. His thought was heav-
enly ; his life only revealed his thought. His soul ap-
peared in his words, on which multitudes were fed.
Prejudice itself confessed, " never man spake like this."
His feeling and his thought assumed a form more
beauteous still, and a whole divine life was wrought
out on the earth, and stands there yet, the impcrisliable
type of human achievements, the despair of the super-

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 135

stitious, but the way, the truth, and the hfe to holy
souls. His word of doctrine was uttered gently as the
invisible dew comes down on the rose of Engaddi, but
it told as if a thunderbolt smote the globe. It brought
fire and sword to the dwelling-place of hoary sin.
Truth sweeps clean off every refuge of lies, that she
may do her entire work.

A few instances show how these words wrought in
the world. The sons of Zebedee were so ambitious they
would arrogate to themselves the first place in the new
kingdom, thinking it a realm where selfishness should
hold dominion, — so bloody-minded they would call
down fire from heaven to burn up such men as would
not receive the teacher. But the spirit of gentleness
subdues the selfish passion, and the son of thunder be-
comes the gentle John, who says only, " Little chil-
dren, love one another." This same word passes into
Simon Peter also, the crafty, subtle, hasty, selfish son
of Jonas ; the first to declare the Christ, the first to
promise fidelity, but the first likewise to deny him, and
the first to return to his fishing. It carries this dis-
ciple — though perhaps never wholly regenerated —
all over the eastern world ; and he who had shrunk from
the fear of persecution now glories therein, and counts
it all joy when he falls into trouble on account of the
word. With Joseph of Arimathea, " an honorable
counselor," and Nicodemus, " a ruler of the Jews," the
matter took another turn. We never hear of them in
the history of trial. They slunk back into the syna-
gogue, it may be ; wore garments long as before, and
phylacteries of the broadest ; were called of men
" rabbi," " sound, honorable men, who knew what they
were about," " men not to be taken in." It is not of
such men God makes reformers, apostles, prophets. It

136 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

is not for such pusillanimous characters to plunge into
the cold, hard stream of truth, as it breaks out of the
mountain and falls from the rock of ages. The^^ wait
till the stream widens to a river, the river expands its
accumulated waters to a lake, quiet as a mirror. Then
they confide themselves in their delicate and trim-
wrought skiff to its silvery bosom, to be wafted by
gentle winds into a quiet haven of repose. Such men
do not take up truth when she has fallen by the way-
side. It might grieve their friends. It would com-
promise their interests, would not allow them to take
their ease in their inn, for such they regard their sta-
tion in the world. Besides, the thing was new. How
could Joseph and Nicodemus foretell it would prevail .-^
It might lead to disturbance ; its friends fall into
trouble. The kingdom of heaven offered no safe " in-
vestment " for ease and reputation, as now. Doubtless
there were in Jerusalem great questionings of heart
among Pharisees and respectable men, scribes and doc-
tors of the law, when they heard of the new teacher and
his doctrine so deep and plain. There must have been
a severe struggle in many bosoms, between the con-
viction of duty and social sympathies which bound the
man to what was most cherished by flesh and blood.

The beautiful gospel found few adherents and little
toleration with men learned in the law, burdened with
its minute intricacies, devoted to the mighty considera-
tion of small particulars. But the true disciples of
the inward life felt the word, which others only lis-
tened for, and they could not hush up the matter.
It would not be still. So they took up the ark of
truth where Jesus set it down, and bore it on. They
periled their lives. They left all — comfort, friends,
liome, wife, the embraces of their children — the most

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 137

precious comfort the poor man gets out of the cold,
hard world ; they went naked and hungry ; were stoned
and spit upon ; scourged in the synagogues ; separated
from the company of the sons of Abraham ; called the
vilest of names ; counted as the offscouring of the
world. But it did them good. This was the sifting
Satan gave the disciples, and the chaff went its way,
as chaff always does ; but the seed-wheat fell into good
ground, and now nations are filled with bread which
comes of the apostles' sowing and watering, and God
giving the increase.

To some men the spread of Christianity in two cen-
turies appears wonderful. To others it is the most
natural thing in the world. It could not help spread-
ing. Things most needful to all are the easiest to
comprehend, the world over. Thus every savage in
Othaheite knows there is a God ; while only four or
five men in Christendom understand his nature, essence,
personality, and " know all about him !" Thus while
the great work of a modem scholar, which explains the
laws of the material heavens, has never probably been
mastered by three hundred persons, and perhaps there
is not now on earth half that number who can read and
understand it without further preparation, the gospel,
the word of Jesus, which sets forth the laws of the
soul, can be understood by any pious girl fourteen
years old, of ordinary intelligence, with no special
preparation at all, and still forms the daily bread and
very life of whole millions of men.

Primitive Cristianity was a very simple thing, apart
from the individual errors connected with it ; two great
speculative maxims set forth its essential doctrines,
" Love man," and " Love God." It had also two great
practical maxims, which grew out of the speculative,

138 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

" we that are strong ought to bear the burdens of the
weak," and "we must give good for evil." These
maxims lay at the bottom of the apostles' minds and
the top of their hearts. These explain their conduct ;
account for their courage ; give us the reason of their
faith, their strength, their success. The proclaimers
of these maxims set forth the life of a man in perfect
conformity therewith. If their own practice fell short
of their preaching — which sometimes happens spite
of their zeal — there was the measure of a perfect man
to which they had not attained, but which lay in their
future progress. Other matters which they preached,
that there was one God, and that the soul never dies,
were known well enough before, and old heathens, in
centuries gone by, had taught these doctrines quite as
distinctly as the apostles, and the latter much more
plainly than the Gospels. These new teachers had cer-
tain other doctrines peculiar to themselves, which hin-
dered the course of truth more than they helped it, and
which have perished with their authors.

No wonder the apostles prevailed with such doctrines,
set off or recommended by a life, which — notwithstand-
ing occasional errors — was single-hearted, lofty, full
of self-denial and sincere manliness. " All men are
brothers," said the apostles ; " their duty is to keep
the law God wrote eternally on the heart, to keep this
without fear." The forms and rites they made use of,
their love-feasts and Lord's suppers, their baptismal
and funeral ceremonies, were things indifferent, of no
value save only as helps. Like the cloak Paul left
behind at Troas, and the fishing-coat of Simon Peter,
they were to serve their turn, and then be laid aside.
They were no more to be perpetual than the sheep-
skins and goat-skins which likwise have apostolical au-

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 139

thoritj in favor of their use. In an age of many forms
Christianity fell in with the times. It wore a Jewish
dress at Jerusalem, and a Grecian costume at Thessa-
lonica. It became all things to all men. Some rites of
the early church seem as absurd as many of the later ;
but all had a meaning once, or they would not have
been. Men of New England would scarce be willing to
worship as Barnabas and Clement did ; nor could Bar-
tholomew and Philip be satisfied with our simpler form,
it is possible. Each age of the world has its own way,
which the next smiles at as ridiculous. Still, the four
maxims mentioned above give the spirit of primitive
Christianity, the life of the apostles' life.

It is not marvelous these men were reckoned unsafe
persons. Nothing in the world is so dangerous and
untractable, in a false state of society, as one who loves
man and God. You cannot silence him by threat or
torture, nor scare him with any fear. Set in the
stocks to-day, he harangues men in public to-morrow.
" Herod will kill thee," says one. " Go and tell that
fox, behold, I cast out devils and deceivers to-day and
to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected,"
is the reply. Bum or behead such men, and out of
their blood, and out of their ashes there spring up
others, who defy 3'ou to count them, and say, " Come,
kill us, if you list, we shall never be silent." Love be-
gets love the world over, and martyrdom makes con-
verts, certain as steel sparks, when smitten against
the flint. If a fire is to burn in the woods, let it be
blown upon.

Primitive Christianity did not owe its spread to the
address of its early converts. They boast of this fact.
The apostles, who held these four maxims, were plain
men ; very rough Galilean fishermen ; rude in speech.

140 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

and not over-courteous in address, if we may credit the
epistles of Paul and James. They had incorrect no-
tions in many points, which both we and they deem
vital. Some of them — perhaps all — expected a re-
surrection of the body; others, that the Jewish law,
with its burdensome rites and ostentatious ceremonies,
was to be perpetual, binding on all Christians and the
human race. Some fancied — as it appears — that
Jesus had expiated the sins of all mankind ; others, that
he had existed before he was born into this world.
These were doctrines of Jewish and heathen parentage.
All of these men — so far as the New Testament en-
ables us to judge — looked for the visible return of
Jesus to the earth with clouds and great glory, and
expected the destruction of the world and that in a
very few years. These facts are very plain to all
who will read the epistles and gospels, in spite of the
dust which interpreters cast in the eyes of common
sense. Some apocryphal works, perhaps older than
the canonical, certainly accepted as authentic in some
of the early churches, relate the strangest mar\'els
about the doings and sayings of Jesus, designing
thereby to exhibit the greatness of his character, while
they show how little that was understood. We all
know what the canonical writings contain on this
head, and from these two sources can derive much in-
formation as to the state of opinion among the
apostles and their immediate successors. Simon Peter,
notwithstanding his visions, seems always to have been
in bondage to the law of sin and death, if we may
trust Paul's statement in the epistle ; James — if the
letter be his — had irriational notions on some points ;
and even Paul, the largest-minded of them all, was
not disposed to allow women the rights which reason

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 141

claims for the last creation of God. But what If
these men were often mistaken, and sometimes on
matters of great moment? We need not deny the
fact, for the sake of an artificial theory snatched
out of the air. It is not expedient to lie in behalf
of truth, however common it has been. We need not
fear Christianity shall fall because Christians were
mistaken in any age. Were human beings ever free
from errors of opinion, imperfection in action? Has
the nature of things changed, and did the earth bring
forth superhuman men in the first century? It does
not appear. But underneath these mistakes, errors,
follies of the primitive Christians there beat the noble
heart of religious love, which sent life into their
every limb. These maxims they had learned from
Jesus, seen exhibited in his life, found written on
their heart — these did the work, spite of the imper-
fection and passions of the apostles, Paul withstand-
ing Peter to the face, and predicting events that
never came to pass. The nobleness of the heart found
its way up to the head, and neutralized errors of
thought.

By means of these causes the doctrines spread.
The expecting people felt their deliverer had come,
and welcomed the glad tidings. Each year brought
new converts to the work, and the zeal of the
Christian burnt brighter with his success. Paul
undertook many missions, and the word of God grew
mightily and prevailed. In him we see a striking in-
stance of the power of real Christianity to recast the
character. We cannot forbear to dwell a moment
on the theme.

There are two classes of men who come to religion.
Some seem to be born spiritual. They are aboriginal

142 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

saints, natives of heaven, whom accident has stranded
on the earth ; men of few passions, of no tendency
to violence, anger, or excess in anything. They do
not hesitate between right and wrong, but go the
true way as naturally as the bird takes to the air and
the fish to the water, because it is their natural ele-
ment and they cannot help it. Reason and religion
seem to be coeval. Their Christianity and their con-
sciousness are of the same date. Desire and duty,
putting in the warp and woof, weave harmoniously,
like sisters, the many-colored web of life. To these
men life is easy ; it is not that long warfare which
it is to so many. It costs them nothing to be good.
Their desires are dutiful, their duties desirable.
They have no virtue which implies struggle. They
are goodness all over, which is the harmony of all
the powers. Their action is their repose ; their re-
ligion their self-indulgence; their daily life the most
perfect worship. Say what we will of the world,
these men, who are angels born, are happier in their
lot than such as are only angels bred, whose religion
is not a matter of birth, but of hard earnings. They
start, in their flight to heaven, from an eminence
which other souls find it hard to attain, and roll down,
down like the stone of Sisyphus many times in the
perilous ascent. Paul was not born of this nobility
of heaven.

The other class are men of will ; hard, iron men, who
have passions, and doubts, and fears, and a whole
legion of appetites in their bosom, but yet come
armed with a strong sense of duty, a masculine in-
tellect, a tendency upwards towards God, a great
heart of flesh, contracting and expanding between
self-love and love of man. These are the men who

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 143

feel the puzzle of the world, and are taken with its
fever; stout-hearted, strong-headed men, who love
strongly and hate with violence, and do with their
might whatever they do at all. These are the men
that make the heroes of the world. They break the
way in philosophy and science ; they found colonies,
lead armies, make laws, construct systems of theology,
form sects in the church ; a yoke of iron will not
hold them, nor that of public opinion, more difficult
to break. When these men become religious they are
beautiful as angels. The fire of God falls on them ;
it consumes their dross ; the uncorrupted gold remains
in virgin purity. Once filled with religion, their zeal
never cools. You shall not daunt them with the hiss-
ing of the great and learned, nor scare them with
the roar of the street or the armies of a king. To
these men the axe of the headsman, yes, all the
tortures malice can devise or tyranny inflict, are as
nothing. The resolute soul puts down the flesh and
finds in embers a bed of roses. To this class belonged
Paul, a man evidently quick to see, stern to resolve,
and immovable in executing; a man of iron will, that
nothing could break down ; of strong moral sense,
deep religious faith, and a singular greatness of heart
towards his fellow-men ; but yet furnished with an
overpowering energy of passion, which might warp
his moral sense, his faith, his philanthropy aside, and
make him a bigot, the slave of superstition, a fanatic,
perverse as Loyola and desperate as Saint Dominic.
In him the good and the evil of the old dispensation
seemed to culminate ; for he had all the piety of
David, which charms us in the shepherd-psalm ; all
the diabolic hatred which appears in the curses of
that king, who was so wondrous a mixture of heaven,

lU THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

earth, and hell. In addition to this natural character,
Paul received a Jewish education at the feet of Gamaliel
— a Pharisee of the straightest sect. His earlier life at
Tarsus brought him in contact with the Greeks, in-
tensifying his bigotry for the time, but yet facili-
tating his escape from the shackles of a worn-out
ritual.

It is easy to see how the doctrines of Jesus would
strike the young Pharisee, fresh from the study of
the law. Christianity set aside all he valued most ;
struck down the law, held the prophets of small ac-
count, put off the ritual, declared the temple no better
to pray in than a fisher's boat ; affirmed all men to
be brothers, thus denying the merit of descent from
Abraham, and declared if any one loved God and man
he should have treasures in heaven, and inspiration
while on earth. No wonder the old Pharisee, whose
soul was caught in the letter; no wonder the young
Pharisee, accustomed to swear by the old, felt pricked
in their hearts, and gnashed their teeth. It is a hard
thing, no doubt, for men who count themselves child-
ren of Abraham to be proved children of a very dif-
ferent stock, dutiful sons of the great father of lies.
It is easy to fancy w^hat Paul would think of the
arrogance of the new teacher, to call himself greater
than Solomon or Jonah, and profess to see deeper
down than the law ever went ; what of the presumption
of the disciples, " unlearned and ignorant men," to
pretend to teach doctrines wiser than Moses, and when
they could not read the letter of his word. It is no
wonder he breathed out fire and slaughter, and " per-
secuted them even unto strange cities." But it is
dangerous to go too far in pursuit of heretical game.
Men sometimes rouse up a lion when they look for

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 145

a linnet, and the eater is himself eaten. But Paul
had a good conscience in this. He believed what
came of the fathers, never applying common sense to
his theology, nor asking if these things be so. He
thought he did God service by debasing his image and
helping to stone Stephen. At length he becomes a
Christian in tliought. We know not how the change
took place. Perhaps he thought it miraculous, for in
common with most of his times and country he never
drew a sharp line betAveen tlie common and the super-
natural. He seems often to have dwelt in that cloudy
land where all things have a strange and marvelous
aspect.

A later contemporary of Paul relates some of the
most remarkable events, as he deemed them, which
occurred in those times. He gives occasionally minute
details of the superstition, crime, and madness of the
emperors of Rome. But the most remarkable event
which occurred for some centuries after Tiberius, he
never speaks of. Probably he knew nothing of it.
Had he heard thereof it would have seemed inconsid-
erable to this chronicler of imperial follies. But
the journey from Jerusalem to Damascus of a young
man named Saul, if we regard its cause and its
consequences, was a more wonderful event than
the world saw for the next thousand years.
Men thought little of its result at the time. The
gossips of the day had specious reasons, no doubt, for
Paul's sudden conversion, and said he was disap-
pointed of preferment in the old state of things, and
hoped for an easy living in the new; that he loved
the distinction and notoriety the change would give
him, and hoped also for the loaves and fishes, then

so abundant in the new church. Doubtless there were
IV— 10

146 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

some who said, " Paul is beside himself." But King
Herod Agrippa took no notice of the matter. He
was too busy with his dreams of ambition and lust
to heed what befell a tent-maker from a Cilician city,
in his journey from Jerusalem to Damascus, Yet
from that time the history of tlie world turns on this
point. If Paul had not been raised up by the
Almighty for this very work, so to say, who shall
tell us how long Christianity would have lain con-
cealed under the Jewish prejudice of its earlier dis-
ciples? These things are for no mortal to discover.
But certain it is that Paul found the Christians an
obscure Jewish sect, full of zeal and love, but narrow
and bigoted, in bondage to the letter of old Hebrew
institutions ; but he left them a powerful band in all
great cities, free men by the law of the spirit of life.
It seems doubtful that Peter, James, or John would
have given Christianity its natural form of universal
faith.

There must have been a desperate struggle before
Paul became a Christian. He must renounce all the
prejudices of the Jew and the Pharisee; and the idols
of the tribe and the den are the last a man gives up.
He must be abandoned by his friends, the wise, the
learned, the venerable. Few men know of the battle
between new convictions and old social sympathies;
but it is of the severest character — a war of exter-
mination. He must condemn all his past conduct,
lose the reputation of consistency, leave all the com-
forts of society, all chance of reputation among men
— be counted as a thief and murderer, perhaps be
put to death. But the truth conquered. We think
it easy to decide as Paul, forgetting that many things
become plain after the result which were dim and
doubtful before.

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 147

When the young man had decided In favor of Chris-
tianity he would require some Instruction In matters
pertaining to the heavenly doctrine, we should sup-
pose,— taking the popular views of Christianity,
which make it an historical thing, depending on per-
sonal authority or eye-witness and external events, as
the only possible proof of Interaal truths. He would
go and sit down with the twelve and listen to their
talk, and leara of all the miracles ; how Jesus raised
the young man, the maiden, called Lazarus from the
tomb ; how he changed the water into wine, and fed
the five thousand ; he would go to Martha and Mary
to leaiTi the recondite doctrine of the Savior ; to the
mother of Jesus, to inquire about his birth of the Holy
Spirit. But the thing went different. He did not
go to Peter, the chief apostle ; nor to John, the be-
loved disciple ; nor James, the Lord's brother. " I
conferred not with flesh and blood," says the new con-
vert, " neither went I up to Jerusalem to them that
were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia."
Three years afterwards, for the first time, he had an
Interview with Peter and James. Fourteen years
later he went up to Jerusalem to compare notes, as
it were, with those " who seemed to be somewhat."
They could tell him nothing new. At last — many
years after the commencement of his active ministry
— James, Peter, and John give him the right hand
of their fellowship. Paul, It seems, had heard of the
great doctrines of Jesus, and out of their principles
developed his scheme of Christianity — not a very
difficult task, one would fancy, for a plain man who
reckoned Christianity was love of man and love of
God. In those days the gospels were not written, nor
yet the epistles. Christianity had no history, except

148 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

that Jesus lived, preached, was crucified, and appeared
after his crucifixion. Therefore the gospel Paul
preached might well enough be different from those
now in our hands. Certainly Paul never mentions a
miracle of Jesus ; says nothing of his super-human
birth. Had he known of these things, a man of his
strong love of the marvelous would scarcely be silent.

In him primitive Christianity appears to the greatest
advantage. It shone in his heart like the rising sun
chasing away the mist and clouds of night. His
prejudices went first ; his passions next. Soon he
is on foot, journeying the world over to proclaim
the faith, which once he destroyed. Where are his
bigotry, prejudice, hatred, his idols of the tribe and
the den? The flame of religion has consumed them
all. Forth he goes to the work ; the strong passion,
the unconquerable will, are now directed in the same
channel with his love of man. His mighty soul wars
with heathenism, declaring an idol is nothing ; with
Judaism, to announce that the law has passed away ;
with folly and sin, to declare them of the devil, and
lead men to truth and peace. The resolute apostle
goes flaming forth in his ministry. A soul more
robust, great-hearted, and manly, does not appear in
history, for some centuries at least. Danger is noth-
ing; persecution is nothing. It only puts the keener
edge on his well-tempered spirit. He is content and
joyful at bearing all the reproaches man can lay on
him. There was nothing sham in Paul. He felt what
he said, which is common enough. He lived what he
felt, which is not so common. What wonder that such
a man made converts, overcame violence, and helped
the truth to triumph? It were wonderful if he had
not. Take away the life and influence of Paul, the

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 149

Christian world is a different thing; we cannot tell
what it would have been. Under his hands, and those
of his coadjutors, the new faith spreads from heart to
heart, till many thousands own the name, and amid all
the persecution that follows the pious of the earth cele-
brate such a jubilee as the sun never saw before.

However, it was not among the great and refined,
but the low and the rude, that the faith found its
early confessors. Men came up faint and hungry,
from the liighways and hedges of society, to eat the
bread of life at God's table. They ate and were
filled. Here it is that all religions take their rise.
The sublime faith of the Hebrews began in a horde
of slaves. The Christian has a carpenter for its
revealcr ; fishermen for its first disciples ; a tent-maker
for its chief apostle. Yet these men could stand be-
fore king's courts — and Felix trembled at Paul's
reasoning. Yes, the world trembled at such reason-
ing. And when whole multitudes gave in their adhes-
ion ; when the common means of tyranny, prisons, racks,
and the cross, failed to repress " this detestable super-
stition," as ill-natured Tacitus calls it; but when two
thousand men and women, delicate maidens, and men
newly manned, come to the Praetor and say, " We are
Christians all ; kill us if you will ; we cannot change "
— then for the first time official persons begin to look
into the matter, and inquire for the cause which makes
women heroines, and young men martyrs. There
are always enough to join any folly because it is new.
But when the headsman's axe gleams under his apron,
or slaves erect a score of crosses in the market-place,
and men see the mangled limbs of brothers, fathers,
and sons huddled into bloody sacks, or thrown to the
dogs, it requires some heart to bear up, accept a new
faith, and renounce mortal life.

150 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

It is sometimes asked, what made so man}' converts
to Christianity under such fearful circumstances?
The answer depends on the man. Most men apply
the universal solvent, and call it a miracle — an over-
stepping of the laws of mind. The apostles had
miraculous authority ; Peter had miraculous revela-
tions ; Paul a miraculous conversion ; both visions, and
other miraculous assistance all their life. That they
taught by miracles. But what could it he? The
autliority of the teachers? The authority of a Jew-
ish peasant would not have passed for much at
Ephesus or Alexandria, at Lycaonia or Rome. Were
they infallibly inspired, so that they could not err
in doctrine or practice? Thus it has been taught.
But their opponents did not believe it ; their friends
knew nothing of it, or there had been no sharp dis-
sension between Paul and Barnabas, nor any disagree-
ment of Paul with Peter. They themselves seemed
never to have dreamed of such an infallibility, or
they would have changed their plans and doctrine
as Peter did ; nor need instruction as Titus, Timothy,
and all the primitive teachers, to whom James sent
the circular epistle of the first synod. If they had
believed themselves infallibly inspired, they would not
assemble a council of all to decide what each infallible
person could determine as well as all the spirits and
angels together. Still less could any discussion arise
among the apostles as to the course to be pursued.
Was it their learning that gave them success? They
could not even interpret the psalms without making
the most obvious mistakes, as any one may see wlio
reads the book of Acts. Was it their eloquence, their
miraculous gift of tongues? What was the eloquence
of Peter or James, when Paul, their chief apostle, was

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 151

weak In bodily presence and contemptible in speech?
No ; it was none of these things. They had somewhat
more convincing than authority, wiser than learning,
more persuasive than eloquence. Men felt the doctrine
was true and divine. They saw its truth and divinity
mirrored in the life of these rough men ; they heard the
voice of God in their own hearts say, it is true. They
tried it by the standard God has placed in the heart,
and it stood the test. They saw the effect it had on
Christians themselves, and said, " Here at least is
something divine, for men do not gather grapes of
thorns." When men came out from hearing Peter or
Paul set forth the Christian doctrine and apply It to
life, they did not say, " What a moving speaker ; how
beautifully he ' divides the word ;' how he mixes the
light of the sun, and the roar of torrents, and the sub-
limity of the stars, as it were, in his speech ; what a
melting voice ; what graceful gestures ; what beautiful
similes gathered from all the arts, sciences, poetry, and
nature herself ! " It was not with such reflections they
entertained their journey home. They said, " What
shall we do to be saved? "

Primitive Christianity was a wonderful element, as It
came Into the world. Like a two-edged sword, it cut
down through all the follies and falseness of four thou-
sand years. It acknowledged what was good and true
in all systems, and sought to show its own agreement
with goodness and truth, wherever found. It told men
what they were. It bade them hope, look upon the
light, and aspire after the most noble end — to be
complete men, to be reconciled to the will of God and
so become one with him. It gave the world assurance
of a man, by showing one whose life was beautiful as
his doctrine, and that combined all the excellence of all

153 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

former teachers, and went before the world thousands
of years. It told men there was one God, who had
made of one blood all the nations of the earth, and
was a Father to each man. It showed that all men are
brothers. Believing in these doctrines ; seeing the
greatness of man's nature in the very ruin sin had
wrought ; filled with the beauty of a good life, the
comforting thought that God is always near, and
ready to help — no wonder men felt moved in their
heart. The life of the apostles and early Christians,
the self-denial they practiced, their readiness to endure
persecution, their love one for the other, beautifully
enforced the words of truth and love.

One of the early champions of the faith appeals in
triumph to the excellence of Christians, which even
Julian of a later day was forced to confess. You
know the Christians soon as j-ou see them, he says ;
they are not found in taverns, nor places of infamous
resort ; they neither game, nor lie, nor steal, attend the
baths or the theaters ; they are not selfish, but loving.
The multitude looked on, at first, to see " whereunto
the thing would grow." They saw and said, " See
how these Christians love one another, how the new
religion takes down the selfishness of the proud, makes
avarice charitable, and the voluptuary self-denying."

This new spirit of piety, of love to man and love to
God, the active application of the great Christian max-
ims to life, led to a manly religion ; not to the pale-
faced pietism which hangs its head on Sundays, and
does nothing but whine out its sentimental cant on
week-days, in hopes to make this driveling pass current
for real manly excellence. No ; it led to a noble, up-
right frame of mind, heart, and soul, and in this way it
conquered the world. The first apostles of Christianity

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 153

were persuasive through the power of truth. They
told what they had felt. They had been under the
law, and knew its thraldom ; they had escaped from the
iron furnace, and could teach others the way. No
doubt, the wisest of them was in darkness on many
points. Their general ignorance, in the eyes of the
scholar, must have stood in strange contrast with their
clear view of religious truth. It seems, as Paul says,
that God had chosen the foolish and the weak to con-
found the mighty and the wise. Now we have accom-
plished scholars skilled in all the lore of the world,
accomplished orators ; but who docs the work of Paul
and Timothy.'* Out of the mouth of babes and suck-
lings praise was perfected; out of the mouth of clerks
and orators what do we get? Well said Jeremiah,
" The prophets shall become wind and the word not be
in them."

If we come from the days of the apostles to their suc-
cessors, and still later, we find the errors of the first
teachers have become magnified ; the truth of Christian-
ity is dim; men had wandered further from that
great light God sent into the world. The errors of
the pagans, the Jews, the errors of obstinate men, who
loved to rule God's heritage better than to be ensam-
ples unto the flock, had worked their way. The same
freedom did not prevail as before. The word of God
had become a letter; men looked back, not forward.
Superstition came into the church. The rites of Chris-
tianity — its accidents, not its substance — held an
undue place ; asceticism was esteemed more than hith-
erto. The body began to be reckoned unholy ; Christ
regarded as a God, not a man living as God com-
mands. Then the priest was separated from the peo-
ple, and a flood of evils came upon the church, and

154 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

accomplished what persecution, with her headsmen and
her armies, never could effect. Christianity was grossly
corrupted long before it ascended the throne of the
world. But for this corruption it would have found
no place in the court of Rome or Byzantium. Still, in
the writings of early Christians, of Tertullian and
Cyprian, for example, we find a real living spirit, spite
of the superstition, bigotry, and falseness too obvious
in the men. They spake because they had somewhat
to say, and were earnest in their speech. You come
down from the writings of Seneca to Cyprian, you miss
the elegant speech, the wonderful mastery over lan-
guage, and the stores of beautiful imagery with which
that hard bombastic Roman sets off his thought. But
in the Christian you find an earnestness and a love of
man which the Roman had not, and a fervent piety, to
which he made no pretension. But alas, for the super-
stition of the bishop, his austerity and unchristian
doctrines ! It remains doubful whether an enlight-
ened man, who had attained a considerable growth in
religious excellence, would not justly have preferred
the religion of Seneca to that of Cyprian ; but there
is no doubt such an one would have accepted with joy-
ful faith the religion of Jesus — the primitive Chris-
tianity undefiled by men. To come down from the
Christianity of Christ to the religion popularly taught
in the churches of New England, and we ask, can it
be this for which men suffered martyrdom — this which
changed the face of the world? Is this matter, for
which sect contends with sect, to save the heathen
world? Christianity was a simple thing in Paiil's
time ; in Christ's it was simpler still. But what is it
now? A modern writer somewhat quaintly says the
early writers of the Christian church knew what Chris-

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 155

tianity was ; they were the fathers : the scholastics and
philosophers of the dark ages knew what reason was ;
they were the doctors: the religionists of modern times
know neither what is Christianity nor what is reason ;
they are the scrutators.

VII

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY*

At the present day Germany seems to be the only
country where the various disciplines of theology are
pursued in the liberal and scientific spirit which some
men fancy is peculiar to the nineteenth century. It is
the only country where they seem to be studied for
their own sake, as poetry, eloquence, and the mathe-
matics have long been. In other quarters of the world
they are left too much to men of subordinate intellect,
of little elevation or range of thought, who pursue
their course, which is " roundly smooth and languish-
ingly slow," and after a life of strenuous assiduity,
find they have not got beyond the " standards " set up
ages before them. Many theologians seem to set out
with their faces turned to some popular prejudice of
their times, their church or their school, and walk
backwards, as it were, or at best in a circle, where the
movement is retrograde as often as direct. Somebody
relates a story, that once upon a time a scholar, after
visiting the place of his academic education, and find-
ing the old professors then just where they were ten
years before, discussing the same questions and blowing
similar bubbles and splitting hairs anew, was asked by
a friend, " what they were doing at the old place." He

* Entwicklungsffeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi
von den altesien Zeiten his auf die neustcr,, dargestellt. Von J.
A. DonxER, a. o. Professor der Theologie an der Universitat
Tiibinjren. Stiittfjart: 1B39. 1 vol. Rvo, pp. xxiv. and 556.
(Historical development of the doctrine of the person of
Christ from the earliest to the latest times, etc.).

156

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 157

answered, " One was milking the barren heifer, and
the others holding the sieve."

To this rule, for such we hold it to be in France,
England, and America at this day, there are some
brilliant exceptions ; men who look with a single eye
towards truth, and are willing to follow wherever she
shall lead ; men, too, whose mind and heart elevate them
to the high places of human attainment, whence they
can speak to bless mankind. These men are the crea-
tures of no sect or school, and are found where God
has placed them, in all the various denominations of
our common faith. It is given to no party or coterie,
to old school or new school, to monopolize truth, free-
dom, and love. We are sick of that narrowness which
sees no excellence, except what wears the livery of its
own guild. But the favored sons of the free spirit are
so rare in the world at large, their attention so seldom
turned to theological pursuits, that the above rule will
be found to hold good in chief, and theology to be left,
as by general consent, to men of humble talents and
confined methods of thought, who walk mainly under
the cloud of prejudice, and but rarely escape from the
trammels of bigotry and superstition. Brilliant and
profound minds turn away to politics, trade, law, the
fascinating study of nature, so beautiful and compos-
ing; men who love freedom, and are gifted with power
to soar through the empyrean of thought, seek a freer
air and space more ample, wherein to spread their
wings. Meanwhile the dim cloisters -of theology, once
filled with the great and wise of the earth, are rarely
trod by the children of genius and liberty. We have
wise, and pious, and learned, and eloquent preachers,
the hope of the church, the ornaments and defense of
society ; men who contend for public virtue, and fight

158 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the battle for all souls with earnest endeavor, but who
jet care little for the science of divine things. We
have sometimes feared our young men forsook in this
their fathers' wiser wa^'s, for surely there was a time
when theology was studied in our land.

From the neglect of serious, disinterested, and manly
thought, applied in this direction, there comes the obvi-
ous result ; while each other science goes forward, pass-
ing through all the three stages requisite for its growth
and perfection ; while it makes new obsei'vations, or
combines facts more judiciously, or from these infers
and induces general laws, hitherto unnoticed, and so
develops itself, becoming yearly wider, deeper, and
more certain, its numerous phenomena being referred
back to elementary principles and universal laws, the-
ology remains in its old position. Its form has
changed ; but the change is not scientific, the result of
an elementary principle. In the country of Bossuet
and Hooker, we doubt that any new observation, any
ncAV combination of facts, has been made, or a general
law discovered in these matters by any theologian of
the present century, or a single step taken by theolog-
ical science. In the former country an eminent phi-
losopher, of a brilliant mind, with rare faculties of
combination and lucid expression, though often wordy,
has done much for psychology, chiefly, however, by
uniting into one focus the several truths which emanate
from various anterior systems ; by popularizing the dis-
coveries of deeper spirits than his own, and by turning
the ingenuous j^outh to this noble science.^ In spite
of the defects arising from his presumption, and love
of making all facts square with his formula, rather
than the fornnila express the spirit of the facts, he has
yet furnished a magazine whence theological supplies

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 159

may be drawn, and so has indirectly done much for a
department of inquiry which he has himself never en-
tered. We would not accept his errors, his hasty gen-
eralizations, and presumptuous flights — so they seem
to us — and still less would we pass over the vast serv-
ice he has done to this age by his vigorous attacks on
the sensual philosophy, and his bold defense of spiritual
thought. Mr. Coleridge, also in England, a spirit
analogous, but not similar, to M. Cousin, has done
gi'eat service to this science, but mainly by directing
men to the old literature of his countrymen and the
Greeks, or the new productions of his philosophical con-
temporaries on the continent of Europe. He seems to
have caught a Pisgah view of that land of stream and
meadow which he was forbid to enter. These writers
have done great service to men whose date begins with
this century. Others are now applying their methods,
and writing their books, sometimes with only the en-
thusiasm of imitators, it may be.

We would speak tenderly of existing reputations in
our own country, and honor the achievements of those
men who, with hearts animated only by love of God
and man, devote themselves to the pursuit of truth in
this path, and outwatch the Bear in their severe studies.
To them all honor ! But we ask for the theologians
of America, who shall take rank as such with our his-
torians, our men of science and politics. Where are
they ? We have only the echo for answer, Are they ?

We state only a common and notorious fact, in say-
ing that there is no science of theology with us. There
is enough cultivation and laborious thought in the
clerical profession, perhaps, as some one says, more
serious and hard thinking than in both the sister pro-
fessions. The nature of the case demands it. So there

160 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

was thinking enough about natural philosophy among
the Greeks after Aristotle; but little good came of it
in the way of science. We hazard little in saying that
no treatise has been printed in England in the present
century of so great theological merit as that of pagan
Cicero on the nature of the gods, or the preface to his
treatise of laws. The work of Aristotle, we are told,
is still the text-book of morals at the first university in
Chnstian England.

In all science this seems everywhere the i*ule: The
more light, the freer, the more profound and searching
the investigation, why the better; the sooner a false
theory is exploded, and a new one induced from the
observed facts, the better also. In theology the oppo-
site rule seems often to prevail. Hence, while other
sciences go smoothly on in regular advance, theology
moves only by leaps and violence. The theology of
Protestantism and Unitarianism are not regular devel-
opments, which have grown harmoniously out of a sys-
tematic study of divine things, as the theory of grav-
itation and acoustics in the progress of philosophy,^
They are rather the result of a spasmodic action, to
use that term. It was no difficult thing in philosophy
to separate astronomy from the magicians, and their
works of astrology and divination. It required only
years, and the gradual advance of mankind. But to
separate religion from the existing forms, churches or
records, is a work almost desperate, which causes
strife and perhaps bloodshed. A theological reforma-
tion throws kingdoms into anarchy for the time. Doc-
trines in philosophy are neglected as soon as proved
false, and buried as soon as dead. But the art of the
embalmcr preserves in the cliurcli the hulls of effete
dogmas in theology, to cumber the ground for cen-

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 161

turies, and disgust the pious worshipper who would
offer a reasonable service. It is only the living that
hury the dead. The history of these matters is curi-
ous, and full of warning. What was once condemned
by authority becomes itself an authority to condemn.
What was once at the summit of the sublime, falls, in
its turn, to the depth of the ridiculous. We remem-
ber a passage of Julius Firmicus,^ which we will trans-
late freely, as it illustrates this point: " Since all
these things," namely, certain false notions, " were
ill concocted, they were at first a terror unto mortals ;
then, when their novelty passed away, and mankind
recovered, as it were, from a long disease, a certain
degree of contempt arises for that former admiration.
Thus, gradually, the " human mind has ventured to
scrutinize sharply, where it only admired with stupid
amazement at the first. Very soon some sagacious
observer penetrates to the secret places of these arti-
ficial and empty superstitions. Then, by assiduous
efforts, understanding the mystery of what was form-
erly a secret, he comes to a real knowledge of the causes
of things. Thus the human race first learns, the piti-
ful deceits of the profane systems of religion ; it next
despises, and at last rejects them with disdain."
Thus, as another has said, " Men quickly hated this
blear-eyed religion (the Catholic superstitions), when
a little light had come among them, which they hugged
in the night of their ignorance."

For the successful prosecution of theology, as of
every science, certain conditions must be observed.
We must abandon prejudice. The maxim of the
saint, Confido, ergo sum, is doubtless as true as that
of the philosopher, Cogito, ergo sum. But it is per-
nicious when it means, as it often does, I believe, and
IV— 11

162 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

therefore it is so. The theologian of our day, hke the
astronomer of Galileo's time, must cast his idols of
the tribe, the den, the market-place, and the school,
to the moles and the bats ; must have a disinterested
love of truth ; be willing to follow wherever she leads.
He must have a willingness to search for all the facts
relative to divine things, which can be gathered from
the deeps of the human soul, or from each nation and
every age. He must have diligence and candor to ex-
amine this mass of spiritual facts ; philosophical skill
to combine them ; power to generalize and get the
universal expression of each particular fact, thus dis-
covering the one principle which lies under the nu-
merous and conflicting phenomena. Need we say that
he must have a good, pious, loving heart? An un-
devout theologian is the most desperate of madmen.
A whole Anticyra ^ would not cure him.

This empire of prejudice is still wide enough a do-
main for the prince of lies ; but formerly it was wider,
and included many departments of philosophy which
have since, through the rebellion of their tenants, been
set off to the empire of reason, which extends every
century. Theology, though now and then rebellious
against its tyrant, has never shaken off his yoke, and
seems part of his old ancestral domain, where he and
his children shall long reign. An old writer ^ uncon-
sciously describes times later than his own, and says
" no two things do so usurp upon and waste the fac-
ulty of reason as enthusiasm and superstition ; the one
binding a faith, the other a fear upon the soul, which
they vainly entitle some divine discovery ; both train
a man up to believe beyond possibility of proof; both
instruct the mind to conceive merely by the wind the
vain words of some passionate men, that can but pre-

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 163

tend a revelation or tell a strange story ; both teach a
man to deliver over himself to the confident dictate of
the sons of imagination, to determine of things by
measures phantastical, rules which cannot maintain
themselves in credit by any sober and severe discourses ;
both inure the mind to divine rather than to judge, to
dispute for maxims rather vehement than solid ; both
make a man afraid to believe himself, to acknowledge
the truth that overpowers his mind, and that would
reward its cordial entertainment with assurance and
true freedom of spirit. Both place a man beyond pos-
sibility of conviction, it being in vain to present an ar-
gument against him that thinks he can confront a
revelation, a miracle or some strange judgment from
heaven, upon his adversary to your confusion. It
seems there is not a greater evil in the state than wick-
edness established by law ; nor a greater in the church
than error [established] by religion, and an ignorant
devotion towards God. And therefore no pains and
care are too much to remove these two beams from
the eye of human understanding, which render it in-
sufficient for a just and faithful discovery of objects
in religion and common science. * Pessima res est
errorum apotheosis, et pro peste intellectus habenda
est, si vanis accedat veneratio.' " *

Theology is not yet studied in a philosophical spirit
and the method of a science. Writers seem resolved
to set up some standard of their fathers or their own ;
so they explore but a small part of the field, and that
only with a certain end in view. They take a small
part of the human race as the representative of the
whole, and neglect all the rest. As the old geogra-

* Spencer's Discourse concerning Prodigies: London, 1665.
Preface, p. xv.

164 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

phers drew a chart of the world, so far as they knew
it, but crowded the margin, where the land was un-
known, " with shrieks, and shapes, and sights unholy,"
with figures of dragons, chimeras, winged elephants,
and four-footed whales, anthropophagi, and " men
whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders," so
" divines " have given us the notions of a few sects of
religious men, and telling us they never examined the
others, have concluded to rest in this comprehensive
generalization, that all besides were filled with false-
hood and devilish devices. What is to be expected of
such methods? Surely it were as well to give such in-
quirers at starting the result they must reach at the
end of their course. It appears legitimate to leave
both students and teachers of geology, mathematics,
and science in general, to soar on the loftiest thoughts
toward absolute truth, only stopping when the wing
was weary or the goal reached; but to direct the stu-
dents and teachers of things divine to accept certain
conclusions arrived at centuries ago ! If Faraday and
Herschel pursued the theological method in their sci-
ences, no harm would be done to them or the world
if they were required to accept the " standard " of
Thales or Paracelsus, and subscnbe the old creed every
lustrum. The method could lead to nothing better,
and the conclusion the inquirer must reach might as
well be forced upon him at the beginning as the end
of his circular course. The ridiculous part of the
matter is this, that the man professes to search
for whatever truth is to be found, but has sworn a
solemn oath never to accept as truth what does not con-
form to the idols he worships at home. We have some-
times thought what a strange spectacle — ridiculous
to the meiTy, but sad to the serious — would appear

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 165

if the Almighty should have sent down the brilliant
image of pure, absolute religion into the assembly of
divines at Westminster or any similar assembly.
Who would acknowledge the image?

The empire of prejudice is perhaps the last strong-
hold of the father of lies that will suiTender to reason.
At present a great part of the domain of theology is
under the rule of that most ancient czar. There com-
mon sense rarely shows his honest face, reason seldom
comes. It is a land shadowy with the wings of ig-
norance, superstition, bigotry, fanaticism, the brood
of clawed and beaked and hungry chaos and most an-
cient night. There darkness, as an eagle, stirreth up
her nest; fluttereth over her young; spreadeth abroad
her wings ; taketh her children ; beareth them on her
wings over the high places of the earth that they may
eat, and trample down and defile the increase of the
fields. There stands the great arsenal of folly ; and
the old war-cry of the pagan, " Great is Diana of the
Ephesians," is blazoned on the banner that floats
above its walls. There the spectres of Judaism, and
heathenism, and pope and pagan, pace forth their
nightly round ; the ghost of Moloch, Saturn, Baal,
Odin, fight their battles over again, and feast upon the
dead. There the eye is terrified, and the mind made
mad with the picture of a world that has scarce a re-
deeming feature, with a picture of heaven such as a
good free man would scorn to enter, and a picture of
hell such as a fury would delight to paint.

If we look a little at the history of theology, it ap-
peal's that errors find easiest entrance there, and are
most difl^cult to dislodge. It required centuries to
drive out of the Christian church a belief in ghosts
and witches. The devil is still a classical personage

166 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

of theology ; his existence maintained by certain
churches in their articles of faith; and while we are
writing these pages, a friend tells us of hearing a
preacher of the popular doctrine declare in his public
teaching from the pulpit, that to deny the existence
of the devil is to destroy the character of Christ. In
science, we ask first. What are the facts of obsei'V'ation
whence we shall start? Next, What is the true and
natural order, explanation, and meaning of these facts?
The first work is to find the facts, then their law
and meaning. Now here are two things to be con-
sidered, namely, facts and no-facts. For every false
theory there are a thousand false facts. In tlieolog}',
the data, in many celebrated cases, are facts of as-
sumption, not observation ; in a word, are no-facts.
When Charles the Second asked the Royal Society
" why a living fish put into a vessel of water added
nothing to the weight of the water?" there were
enough, no doubt, to devise a theory, and explain the
fact, " by the upward pressure of the water," " the
buoyancy of the air in the living fish," " its motion and
the re-action of the water." But when some one ven-
tured to verify the fact, it was found to be no-fact.
Had the Ro^al Academy been composed of " divines,"
and not of naturalists and philosophers, the theological
method would have been pui*sued, and we should have
had theories as numerous as the attempts to reconcile
the story of Jonah with human experience, and science
would be where it was at first. Theology generally
passes dry-shod over the first question, — What are
the facts? — " with its garlands and singing robes
about it." Its answer to the next query is therefore
of no value.

We speak historically of things that have happened,

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 167

when we say that many, if not most, of those theologi-
cal questions which have been matters of dispute and
railing belong to the class of explanations of no-facts.
Such, we take it, are the speculations, for the most
part, that have grown out of the myths ^ of the Old
and New Testament; about angels, devils, personal
appearances of the Deity, miraculous judgments, su-
pernatural prophecies, the trinity, and the whole class
of miracles from Genesis to Revelation. Easy faith
and hard logic have done enough in theology. Let
us answer the first question, and verify the facts be-
fore we attempt to explain them.

As we look back on the history of the world the ret-
rospect is painful. The history of science is that of
many wanderings before reaching the truth. But the
history of theology is the darkest chapter of all, for
neither the true end nor the true path seems yet to be
discovered and pursued. In the history of every de-
partment of thought there seem to be three periods
pretty distinctly marked: first, the period of hypoth-
esis, when observation is not accurate, and the solu-
tion of the problem, when stated, is a matter of conjec-
ture, mere guess-work. Next comes the period of
observation and induction, when men ask for the facts
and their law. Finally, there is the period when sci-
ence is developed still further hy its own laws without
the need of new observations. Such is the present
state of mathematics, speculative astronomy, and some
other departments, as we think. Thus science may be
in advance of observation. Some of the profound re-
marks of Newton belong to this last epoch of science.
An ancient was in the first when he answered the
question, " why does a man draw his feet under him
when he wishes to rise from his seat.'' " by saying it

168 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

was " on account of the occult properties of the circle."
Now theology with us is certainly in the period of
hypothesis. The facts are assumed ; the explanation
is guesswork. To take an example from a section of
theology much insisted on at the present day — the
use and meaning of miracles. The general thesis is,
that miracles confirm the authority of him who works
them, and authenticate his teachings to be divine. We
will state it in a syllogistic and more concrete form.
Every miracle-worker is a heaven-sent and infallible
teacher of truth. Jonah is a miracle-worker. There-
fore Jonah is a heaven-sent and infallible teacher of
truth. Now we should begin by denying the major in
full, and go on to ask proofs of the minor. But the
theological method is to assume both. When both
premises are assumptions, the conclusion will be —
what we see it is. Men build neither castles nor tem-
ples of moonshine. Yet, in spite of this defect, lim-
itation, and weakness, it is a common thing to sub-
ject other sciences to this pretended science of theol-
ogy. Psychology, ethics, geology, and astronomy,
are successively arranged, examined, and censured or
condemned because their conclusions — though legiti-
mately deduced from notorious facts — do not square
with the asumptions of theology, which still aspires
to be head of all. But to present this claim for the-
ology in its present state is like making the bramble
king over the trees of the forest. .The result would
be as in Jotham's parable. Theology would say,
" Come and put your trust in my shadow. But if
you will not, a fire shall go out from the bramble and
devour the cedars of Lebanon."

Now it seems to us there are two legitimate methods
of attempting to improve and advance theology. One

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 169

is for the theologian to begin anew, trusting entirely
to meditation, contemplation, and thought, and ask
what can be known of divine things, and how can it be
known and legitimated? This work of course de-
mands that he should criticise the faculty of knowing,
and determine its laws, and see, a 'priori, what are our
instruments of knowing, and what the law and method
of their use, and thus discover the novum organum of
theology. This determined, he must direct his eye
inward on what passes there, studying the stars of
that inner firmament, as the astronomer reads the
phenomena of the heavens. He must also look out-
ward on the face of nature and of man, and thus read
the primitive gospel God wrote on the heart of his
child, and illustrated in the earth and the sky and the
eveilts of life. Thus from observations made in the
external world, made also in the internal world, com-
prising both the reflective and the intuitive faculties
of man, he is to frame the theory of God, of man,
of the relation between God and man, and of the duties
that grow out of this relation, for with these four
questions we suppose theology is exclusively con-
cerned. This is the philosophical method, and it is
strictly legimate. It is pursued in the other sciences,
and to good purpose. This science becomes the in-
terpreter of nature, not its lawgiver. The other
method Is to get the sum of the theological thinking
of the human race, and out of this mass construct a
system, without attempting a fresh observation of
facts. This is the historical method, and it is useful
to show what has been done. The opinion of mankind
deserves respect, no doubt ; but this method can lead
to a perfect theology no more than historical eclecti-
cism can lead to a perfect philosophy. The former

ITO THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

researches in theology, as in magnetism and geology,
offer but a narrow and inadequate basis to rest on.

This historical scheme has often been attempted,
but never systematically, thoroughly, and critically,
so far as we know. In England and America, how-
ever, it seems almost entirely to have dispossessed the
philosophical method of its rights. But it has been
conducted in a narrow, exclusive manner, after the
fashion of antiquarians searching to prove a pre-con-
ceived opinion, rather than in the spirit of philosophi-
cal investigation. From such measures we must ex-
pect melancholy results. From the common abhor-
rence of the philosophical method, and the narrow and
uncritical spirit in which the historical method is com-
monly pursued, comes this result. Our philosophy of
divine things is the poorest of all of our poor philoso-
phies. It is not a theology, but a despair of all the-
ology. The theologian — as Lord Bacon says of a
method of philosophizing that was common in his time
— " hurries on rapidly from particulars to the most
general axioms, and from them as pi'inciples, and their
supposed indisputable truth, derives and discovers the
intermediate axioms." Of course what is built on con-
jecture, and only by guess, can never satisfy men who
ask for the facts and their law and explanation.

Still more, deference for authority is carried to the
greatest extreme in theology. The sectarian must not
dispute against the " standards " set up by the Synod
of Dort, the Westminster divines, or the Council of
Trent. These settle all controversies. If the the-
ologian is no sectarian, in the usual sense of that word,
then his " standard " is the Bible. He settles ques-
tions of philosophy, morals, and religion, by citing
texts, which prove only the opinion of the writer, and

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 171

perhaps not even that. The chain of his argument is
made of scripture sentences well twisted. As things
are noAv managed by theologians in general there is
little chance of improvement. As Bacon says of uni-
versities in his day, " they learn nothing but to be-
lieve; first, that others know this which they know not,
and often [that] themselves know that which they
know not. They are like a becalmed ship ; they never
move but by the wind of other men's breath, and have
no oars of their own to steer withal." And again:
" All things are found opposite to advancement, for
the readings and exercises are so managed that it can-
not easily come into any one's mind to think of things
out of the common road ; or if, here and there, one
should venture to ask a liberty of judging, he can
only impose the task upon himself, without obtaining
assistance from his fellows ; and if he could dispense
with this, he will still find his industry and resolution a
great hindrance to his fortune. For the studies of
men in such places are confined and penned down to
the writings of certain authors, from which if any
man happens to differ he is presently reprehended as
a disturber and innovator." And still further : " Their
wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors did,
out of no great quantity of matter, and infinite agita-
tion of wit, spin cobwebs of learning admirable for the
fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or
profit."

There are two methods of philosophizing in gen-
eral, that of the materialists and spiritualists, to use
these terms. The one is perhaps most ably represented
in the Novum Organum of Lord Bacon, and the other
in Descartes' Book of Method and of Principles. The
lattter was early introduced to England by a few

172 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

Platonizing philosophers, — now better known abroad
than at home, we fancy, — whose pious Hves, severe
study, and volumes full of the ripest thought, have
not yet redeemed them, in the judgment of their coun-
trymen, from the charge of being mystics, dreamers
of dreams, too high for this world, too low for the
next, so of no use in either. But this method, inas-
much as it laid great stress on the inward and the
ideal — in the Platonic sense — and, at least in its
onesidedness and misapplication, led sometimes to the
visionary and absurd, has been abandoned by our
brethren in England, Few British scholars since the
seventeenth century have studied theology in the spirit
of the Cartesian method. The other method, that
of Bacon, begins by neglecting that half of man's na-
ture which is primarily concerned with divine things.
This has been found more congenial with the taste
and character of the English and American nations.
They have applied it with eminent success to exper-
imental science, for which it Avas designed, and from
which it was almost exclusively derived by its illus-
trious author. We would speak with becoming diffi-
dence respecting the defects of a mind so vast as Ba-
con's, which burst the trammels of Aristotle and the
school men, emancipated philosophy in great meas-
ure from the theological method which would cripple
the intellectual energies of the race. But it must be
confessed that Bacon's philosophy recognizes scarcely
the possibility of a theology, certainly of none but
an historical theology, gathering up the limbs of
Osiris dispersed throughout the world. It lives in the
senses, not the soul. Accordingly, this method is ap-
plied chiefly in the departments of natural and me-
chanical philosophy, and even liere Englishmen begin

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 173

to find it inadequate to the ultimate purposes of sci-
ence, by reason of its exceeding outwardness, and so
look for a better instrument than the Novum Organum
wherewith to arm the hand of science.* One of the
most thorough Baconians of the present day, as we
understand it, is M. Comte, the author of the course of
positive philosophy just published at Paris; and it is
curious to see the results he has reached, namely, ma-
terialism in psychology, selfishness in ethics, and athe-
ism in theology.^ It is not for us to say he is log-
ically false to his principles.

Some of the countrymen of Bacon, however, have
attempted to apply his method in other departments
of human inquiry. Locke has done this in metaphys-
ics. It was with Bacon's new instiniment in his hand
that he struck at the root of innate ideas, at our
idea of infinity, eternity and the like. But here
his good sense sometimes, his excellent heart and
character, truly humane and Christian, much oft-
ener, as we think, saved him from the conclu-
sions to which this method has legitimately led
others who have followed it. The method defective,
so was the work. A Damascus mechanic, with a very
rude instrument, may form exquisite blades and deli-
cate filigree ; but no skill of the artist, no excellence of
heart, can counteract the defects of the Novum Or-
ganum, Avhcn applied to morals, metaphysics or the-
ology. Hume furnishes another instance of the same
kind. His treatise of Natural Religion we take to
be a rigid application of Bacon's method in theolog-
ical inquiries, and his inductions to be legitimate, ad-
mitting his premises and accepting his method. A

* See Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, etc.
London, 1840. 2 vols. bvo. Preface to Vol. I.

174* THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

third instance of the same kind is afforded by the ex-
cellent Dr. Paley. Here this method is applied in
morals; the result is too well known to need mention.

Never did a new broom sweep so clean as this new
instrument in the various departments of metaph^^sics,
theolog}", and ethics. Love, God, and the soul are
swept clean out of doors.* We are not surprised that
no one, following Bacon's scheme, has ever succeeded
in argument with these illustrious men, or driven ma-
terialism, selfishness, and scepticism from the field of
philosophy, morals, and religion. The answer to these
systems must come from men who adopt a different
method. Weapons tempered in another spring were
needed to cleave asunder the seven-orbed Baconian
shield, and rout the scepticism sheltered thereby. No
Baconian philosopher, so it seems to us, has ever ruffled
its terrible crest, though the merest stripling of the
gospel could bring it to the ground. The replies to
Locke, Hume, Paley, come into England from coun-
tries where a more spiritual philosophy has fortunately
got footing.

The consequences of this exclusive Baconianism of
the English have been disastrous to theological pur-
suits. The " divines " in England, at the present
day, her bishops, professors, and pi'ebendaries are not
theologians. They are logicians, chemists, skilled in
the mathematics ; historians, poor commentators upon
Greek poets. Theology is out of their line. They
have taken the ironical advice of Bishop Hare.®
Hence it comes to pass, either that theology is not
studied at all, only an outside and preparatory de-
partment is entered ; or it is studied with little success,

* We would not have it supposed we charge these results
upon the men, but on their systems, if legitimately carried out.

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 175

even when a man like Lord Brougham ^ girds himself
for the task. The most significant theological pro-
ductions of the last fivie-and-twenty years in England
are the Bridgewater Treatises, ^"^ some of which are
valuable contributions to natural science. Of Lord
Brougham's theological writings little need be said ;
and of the Oxford Tracts/^ we shall only say, that
while we admire the piety displayed in them, we do not
wonder that their authors despair of theology, and
so fall back on dark ages ; take authority for truth,
and not truth for authority. The impotence of the
English in this department is surely no marvel. It
would take even a giant a long time to hew down an
oak with a paver's maul, useful as that instrument may
be in another place. Few attempt theology, and fewer
still succeed. Men despair of the whole matter.
While truth is before them in all other departments,
and research gives not merely historical results to the
antiquary, but positive conclusions to the diligent
seeker, here, in the most important of all the fields of
human speculation, she is supposed to be only behind
us, and to have no future blessing to bestow. Thus
theology, though both queen and mother of all science,
is left alone, unapproached, unseen, unhonored,
though worshipped by a few weak idolaters with vain
oblation, and incense kindled afar off, while strong
men and the whole people have gone up on every hill-
top and under every green tree, to sacrifice and do
homage to the useful and the agreeable. Any one who
reads the English theological journals or other re-
cent works on those subjects, will see the truth of what
we have said, and how their scholars retreat to the
time of the Reformation and Revolution, and bring
up the mighty dead, the Hookers, the Taylors, the

176 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

Cudworths, with their illustrious predecessors and con-
temporaries, who with all their faults, had a spark
of manly fire in their bosoms, which shone out in all
their works. It must be confessed that theology in
England and America is in about the same state with
astronomy in the time of Scotus Erigena.

Now theological problems change from age to age ;
the reflective character of our age, the philosophical
spirit that marks our time, is raising questions in the-
ology never put before. If the " divines " will not
think of theological subjects, nor meet the question,
why others will. The matter cannot be winked out of
sight. Accordingl}"-, unless we are much deceived, the
educated laymen have applied good sense to theology,
as the " divines " have not dared to do, at least in
public, and reached conclusions far in advance of the
theology of the pulpit. It is a natural consequence of
the theological method that the men wedded to it should
be further from truth in divine things than men free
from its shackles. It is not strange, then, for the pul-
pit to be behind the pews. Yet it would be very sur-
prising if the professors of medicine, chemistry, and
mathematics understood those mysteries more imper-
fectly than laymen, who but thought of the matter in-
cidentally, as it were.

The history of theology shows an advance, at least
a change, in its great questions. They rise in one age
and are settled in the next, after some fierce disputing ;
for it is a noticeable fact that as religious wars — so
they are called — are of all others the most bloody,
so theological controversies are most distinguished
for misunderstanding, perversity, and abuse. Wc
know not why, but such is the fact. Now there arc
some great questions in theology that come up in our

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 177

time to be settled, which have not been asked in the
same spirit before. Among them are the following.

What relation does Christianity bear to the Abso-
lute.'* What relation does Jesus of Nazareth bear to
the human race.'* What relation do the scriptures of
the Old and New Testament bear to Christianity.''

The first is the vital question, and will perhaps be
scarce settled favorably to the Christianity of the
church. The second also is a serious question, but one
which the recent discussions of the Trinity will help
to answer. The third is a practical and historical
question of great interest. In the time of Paul the
problem was to separate religion from the forms of the
Mosiac ritual ; in Luther's day, to separate it from
the forms of the church ; in our age, to separate it
from the letter of scripture, and all personal authority,
pretended or real, and leave it to stand or fall by
itself. There is nothing to fear from truth or for
truth. But if these questions be answered, as we
think they must be, then a change will come over the
spirit of our theology, to which all former changes
therein were as nothing. But what is true will stand;
yes, will stand, though all present theologies perish.

We have complained of the position of theology
in England and America. Let us look a little into
a single department of it, and one most congenial to
the English mind, that of ecclesiastical history ; here
our literature is most miserably deficient. Most Eng-
lish writers quote the Fathers, as if any writer of the
first six centuries was as good authority for Avhatever
relates to the primitive practice or opinion as Clement
of Alexandria or Justin Martyr. Apart from the
honorable and ancient name of Cave, we have scarce

an original historian of the church in the English
IV— 12

178 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

tongue, unless we mention Mr. Campbell,^ ^ whose little
work is candid and clear, and shows an acquaintance
with the sources, though sometimes it betra3's too much
of a polemical spirit. England has produced three
great historians within less than a century. Their
works, though unequal, are classics ; and their name
and influence will not soon pass away. To rank
with them in ecclesiastical history, we have Ech-
hard, Milner, Waddington, ]Milman ! The French
have at least Dupin, Tillemont, and Fleury ; the Ger-
mans, Mosheim, Walch, Arnold, Semler, Schroeckh,
Gieseler and Neander, not to mention others scarcely
inferior to any of these. In America, little is to be
expected of our labors in this department. We have
no libraries that would enable us to verify the quota-
tion in Gieseler; none perhaps that contains all the
important sources of ecclesiastical history. Still, all
other departments of this field are open to us, where
a large library is fortunately not needed.

Now in Germany theology is still studied by minds
of a superior order, and that with all the aid which
science can offer in the nineteenth century. The
mantle of the prophet, ascending from France and
England, and with it a double portion of her spirit,
has fallen there. Theology has but shifted her
ground, not forsaken the earth ; so it is said there is
always one phoenix, and one alone, in the world, al-
though it is sometimes in the Arabian, sometimes in the
Persian sky. In that country, we say it with thanks-
giving, theology is still pursued. Leibnitz used to
boast that his countr\^mcn came late to pliilosophy.
It seems they found their account in entering the
field after the mists of morning had left the sky, and
the ban-iers could be seen when the dew had vanished

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 179

from the grass. They have come through philosophy
to theology still later; for the theology of the Ger-
mans before Semler's time, valuable as it is in some
respects, is only related to the modern, as our Scan-
dinavian fathers who worshipped Odin and Thor two
thousand years ago, are related to us. Germany is
said to be the land of books. It is par eminence the
land of theological books. To look over the Literatur
Anzeiger, one is filled with amazement and horror at
the thought, that somebody is to read each of the
books, and many will attempt inward digestion thereof.
Some thousands of years ago it was said, " of writ-
ing books there is no end." What would the same
man say could he look over the catalogue of the last
Leipsic fair.?

We do not wonder that the eyes of theologians are
turned attentively to Germany at this time, regarding
it as the new east out of which the star of hope is to
rise. Still, it is but a mixed result which we can ex-
pect ; something will no doubt be effected both of
good and ill. It is the part of men to welcome the
fonner and ward off the latter. But we will here close
our somewhat desultory remarks, and address our-
selves to the work named at the head of this article. ^^

In any country but Germany we think this would
be reckoned a wonderful book ; capable not only of
making the author's literary reputation, but of mak-
ing an epoch in the study of ecclesiastical history,
and of theology itself. The work is remarkable in
respect to both of these departments of thought.
Since copies of it are rare in this country we have been'
induced to transfer to our pages some of the author's
most instructive thoughts and conclusions, and give
the general scope of the book itself, widely as it differs

180 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

in many respects from our own view. Its author is
a professor of theology at one of the more orthodox
seminaries in Germany ; and, so far as we know, this
is the only work he has given to the public in an in-
dependent form.

In one of the prefaces — for the work has two, and
an introduction to boot — the author says that as
Christianity goes on developing itself, and as men get
clearer notions of what they contend about, all the-
ological controversies come to turn more and more
upon the person of Christ, as the point where all must
be decided. With this discovery much is gained, for
the right decision depends, in some measure, on putting
the question in a right way. It is easy to see that all
turns on this question, whether it is necessary that
there should be, and whether there actually has been,
such a Christ as is represented in the meaning, though
not always in the words of the church. That is, whether
there must be and has been a being in whom the per-
fect union of the divine and the human has been made
manifest in history. Now if philosophy can demon-
strate incontestably that a Christ, in the above sense,
is a notion self-contradictory, and therefore impossi-
ble, there can no longer be any controversy between
philosophy and theology. Then the Christ and the
Christian church — as such — have ceased to exist ;
or rather philosophy has conquered the whole depart-
ment of Christian theology, as it were, from the enemy ;
for when the citadel is taken, the outworks must sur-
render at discretion. On the other hand, if it is shown
that the notion of an historical, as well as an ideal,
Christ is a necessary notion, " and the speculative
construction of the person of Christ " is admitted, then
philosophy and theology, essentially and most inti-

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 181

mately set at one with each other, may continue their
common work in peace. Philosophy has not lost her
independence, but gained new strength. Now one
party says, this, is done already, " the person of
Christ is constructed speculatively ;" while the other
says, the lists are now to be closed, inasmuch as it has
been demonstrated that there can be no Christ who is
alike historical and ideal.

Professor Dorner thinks both parties are wrong,
that " the speculative construction of the Christ " is
not yet completed: or in other words, that it has not
yet been shown by speculative logic that an entire and
perfect incarnation of the Infinite, in the form of a
perfect man, is an eternal and absolute idea, and there-
fore necesary to the salvation and completion of the
human race; nor, on the other hand, has the opposite
been demonstrated. Faith has been developed on one
side, and reason on the other, but not united. Philos-
ophy and religion are only enamored of one another,
not wed ; and the course of their true love is anything
but smooth. His object is to show what has already
passed between the two parties ; or, to speak without a
figure, to give the net result of all attempts to explain
by reason or faith the idea of the Christ, to show what
has been done, and what still remains to be done, in
this matter. He thinks there is no great gulf fixed be-
tween faith and reason ; that if Christianity be ra-
tional, that reason itself has been unfolded and
strengthened by Christianity, and may go on with no
limit to her course.

He adds, moreover, that if Christ be, as theologians
affirm, the key to open the history of the world, as
well as to unloose all riddles, then it is not modesty
but arrogant inactivity which will not learn to use

182 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

this key, and disclose all mysteries. He assumes two
things in this inquiry, with no attempt at proof,
namely, first, that the idea of a God-man — a being
who is at the same time perfect God and perfect man
■ — is the great feature of Christianity ; that this idea
was made actual in Jesus of Nazareth : and again
that this idea of a God-man exists, though uncon-
sciously, in all religions, that it has been and must
be the ideal of life to be both human and divine, a
man filled and influenced by the power of God. Soon
as man turns to this subject it is seen that a holy and
blessed life in God can only be conceived of as the unity
of the divine and human life. Still further, the ideal
of a revelation of God consists in this, that God re-
veals himself not merely in signs and the phenomena
of outward nature, which is blind and dumb, and knows
not him who knows it, but that he should reveal himself
in the form of a being who is self-conscious, and knows
him as he is known by him. In the infancy of
thought. It was concluded, no adequate representation
of God could be made In the form of a God-man ; for
the divine and human were reckoned Incompatible ele-
ments, or incommensurable quantities. God was con-
sidered an abstract essence, of whom even being was
to be predicated only with modesty. In its . theoretic
result this differed little from atheism ; for it was not
the Infinite, but an indefinite being, who revealed him-
self in the finite.

Now Christianity makes a different claim to the
God-man. It has been the constant faith of the Chris-
tian church that in Jesus the union of the divine and
human was effected in a personal and peculiar manner.
But the objection was made early, and is still repeated,
that this idea is not original in Christianity, since there

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 183

were parallel historical manifestations of God in the
flesh before Jesus. But if this objection were real it
is of no value. Its time has gone by, since Chris-
tianity is regarded as a doctrine, and not merely an
historical fact, as the organization of truth, which
unites the scattered portions into one whole, that they
may lie more level to the comprehension of men. But
to settle this question, whether the idea is original with
Christianity, it becomes necessary to examine the pre-
vious religions, and notice their essential agreement or
disagreement with this.

" In this posture of affairs, all contributions will be
welcome which sei've to give a clearer notion of the
ante-christian religions. So far as these contributions
contain only the truth, it is a matter of indifference
whether they are made with a design hostile or favor-
able to Christianity. For the more perfectly we sur-
vey the field of ante-christian religions, in its whole
compass, the more clearly, on the one hand, do we per-
ceive the preparation made for Christianity by pre-
vious religions, and its historical necessity ; and, on
the other hand, as we look back over all the phenom-
ena in this field, we see not less clearly the same new-
ness and originality of the Christian religion, which
has long been admitted by every sound historical mind,
as it looks forward and sees its world-traversing and
inexhaustible power. Yes, we must say, that it is for
the sake of proving the truth of Christianity, and in
particular of its all-supporting, fundamental idea —
the absolute incarnation of God in Christ — that we
have abandoned the more limited stand-point which
was supported by single peculiarities, such as inspira-
tion, prophecy, and the like ; that taking our position
in the more comprehensive stand-point, supported by

184. THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the whole course of rehgious history before Christ, we
may thoroughly understand how the whole ante-chris-
tian world strives towards Christ ; how in him the com-
mon riddle of all previous religions is solved, and how
in him, or, still more particularl}^ in his fundamental
idea, lies the solution by which we can understand all
these religions better than they understood themselves.
So long as all religions are not understood in their
essential relation to Christianity, as negative or posi-
tive preparations for it, so long the historical side
thereof will swing in the air."

He then goes on to inquire if it were possible this
idea of the God-man could proceed from any religion
before Christ, or was extant in his time. The Jews
were hostile to it, as appears from the various forms
of Ebionitism embraced by the Jewish Christians.
Besides, the doctrine, or the fact, finds no adequate
expression in Peter or James, in INIatthew, IMark, or
Luke. Hence, some have conjectured it came from
heathenism, and the conjecture seems at first corrobo-
rated by the fact that it was not developed in the
church until the Gentiles had come in, and the apos-
tles who lived in the midst of the heathens were the
men who taught this doctrine.* But this natural sus-
picion is without foundation. Heathenism may be
divided Into eastern and western. The Indian religion
may be taken as the type of one, the Greek of the
other. But neither separates God distinctly enough

* The influence of heathenism on the opinions of the primi-
tive Christians has never yet, it would seem, had justice done it
by writers of ecclesiastical history. AVe see traces of in the
apocryphal Gospels and Epistles, some of which are perhaps as
ancient as the canonical writings. In our view, the divinity of
Christ, and its numerous correlative doctrines, come from this
source.

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 185

from the world. Both deserve to be called the worship
of nature.* One proceeds from the divine in the ob-
jective world, the other from the finite, and both seek
the common end, the unity of the divine and human.
Hence, in the east, the various incarnations of Krishna,
in one of which he assumes the human form as the
highest of all. Here the God descends to earth, and
becomes a man. Again, Vishnu actually becomes
man. The idea of the God-man appears, as in Chris-
tianity, in the condescension of God to the human
form. There is no doubt these notions were well
known in Alexandria in the time of Jesus. But the
Christian idea cannot be explained from this source,
for the true unity of the divine and human natures
nowhere appears, therefore the redemption of men by
the eastern religion is but momentary. The incarnate
Deity does not draw men to him. Besides, the dualism
of this system destroys its value and influence. It ends,
at last, in a sort of quietism and pantheism, which de-
nies the existence of the world.

The Greek religion is the opposite of this. It deifies
man, instead of humanizing God. It admitted poly-
theism, though a belief in fate still lingered there, as
the last relic of primitive pantheism. It does not de-
velop the ethical idea, but confounds it with physical
causes. It begins, in part, the opposite way from the
Indian, but comes to the same conclusion at last, a de-
nial of all but God, " the one divine, substance before
which all the finite is an illusion." j- Besides, our au-

* This we think true of neither, except while the religion was
in its weak and incipient stages. In the Greek religion there are
three stages, the Saturnian, Olympian, and Dionysian. Only
the first is a worship of nature.

t This wholesale way of disposing of centuries of philo-
sophical inquiry is quite as unsafe as it were to take the mid-

186 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

thor finds the moral element is wanting in the Greek
religion. In this conclusion, however, we think him
too hasty ; certainly the moral element has its proper
place in such writers as ^^schylus, Pindar, and Plato.
It would be difficult to find an author in ancient or
modern times in whom justice is more amply done to
the moral sense than in the latter.

However, Dr. Dorner thinks Parsism is an exception
to the general rule of ancient religions. Here the
moral element occurs in so perfect a form that some
will not reckon it with the heathen religions. But
this has not got above the adoration of nature, which
defiles all the other heathen forms of religion. Be-
sides, the dualism which runs through all the oriental
systems allows no true union of the divine and human.
Accordingly, the Parsee Christians always had a strong
tendency to Manicheism, and ran it out into the no-
tions of the Docet.T, and then found that in Jesus
there was no union of the two natures. According to
Parsism, the divine can never coalesce with the human ;
for the Infinite Being, who is the cause of both Ormuzd
and Ahriman, remains always immovable, and at per-
fect rest. It, however, admits a sort of Arian notion
of a mediator between him and us, and has a poor
sort of a God-man in the person of Sosiosh, though
some conjecture this is a more modern notion they have
taken from the Jews. Thus it appears the central
idea of Christianity could have proceeded from no
heathen religion.

Could it come from the Hebrew system.? Quite as

dle-ajre philosophers, the mystics, the sensualists of Erifrland and
France, with the transceiuleiitalists of Germany, as the natural
results and legitimate issue of the Cliristian religion.

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 187

little.* Of all the ancient religions, the Hebrew alone
separates God from the world, says our mistaken au-
thor, and recognizes the distinct personality of both
God and man. This solves the difficulty of heathenism.
It dwells on the moral union of man and God, and
would have it go on and become perfect, and in the
end God write the law in the heart, as in the beginning
he wrote it on tables of stone. f But in avoiding the
adoration of nature, the Jews took such a view of the
Deity that it seemed impossible to them that he should
incarnate himself in man. All the revelations of God
in the Old Testament are not the remotest approach
to an incarnation like that in Jesus. They made a
great chasm between God and man, which they at-
tempted to fill up with angels and the like.J The de-
scriptions of wisdom in Proverbs, the Apocrypha, and
Philo, are not at all like the Christian incarnation.
The Alexandrian Jews assimilated to the Greek sys-
tem, and adopted the Platonic view of the Logos, while
the Palestine Jews, instead of making their idea of
the INIessiah more lofty and pure, and rendering it
more intense, only gave it a more extensive range, and
thought of a political deliverer. Thus it appears the
idea of a God-man could not come from any of these

* See the attempt of Mr. Hennell (Inquiry into the Divine
Origin of Christianity: London, 1839. 1 vol. 8vo, pp. 8 — 23)
to derive some of the Christian ideas from the Essenes

t If we understand the Hebrew Scriptures, and St. Paul,
they both teach that he did write the law in the heart in the be-
ginning, else the law of stone were worthless.

t Here, also, the author fails to notice the striking fact of
the regular progress of the theophanies of the Old Testament.
1. God appears himself in human form, and speaks and eats
with man. 2. It is an angel of God who appears. 3. He speaks
only in visions, thoughts, and the like, and his appearance is en-
tirely subjective. We see the same progress in all primitive
religious nations.

188 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

sources, nor yet from any contemporary philosophy
or rehgion. It must, therefore, be original with Chris-
tianity itself. It was impossible for a heathen or
Hebrew to say, in the Christian sense, that a man
was God or the son of God. But all former religions
were only a prasparatio evangclica in the highest sense.
This fact shows that Christianity expresses what all
religions sought to utter, and combines in itself the
truths of heathenism and Judiasm.

" Judiasm was great through the idea of the ab-
solute, personal God ; the greatest excellence of heathen-
ism is the idea of the most intimate nearness and
residence of a divine life in a free human form. But
the idea of the personal existence of God in Christ
was both of them united together into a higher unity.
According to the heathen way of considering the mat-
ter, the divine, alone absolute and impersonal Being,
who soars above the gods — if it is possible for him
to reveal himself — must have first in Christ come to
a personal consciousness of himself, which he had not
before; but this would be the generation of a personal
God through the form of human life, and therefore a
human act. Judiasm had for its foundation not an
obscure, impersonal being, a merely empty substance,
but a subject, a personality. But to such as admitted
its form of monotheism, the incarnation of God seemed
blasphemy. But Christianity is the truth of both
systems. In the personality of Christ it sees as well
a man who is God, as a God who is man. With the
one, it sees in Jesus as well the truth of the Hellenic
apotheosis of human nature, as with the other it sees
the complete condescencion of God, which is the funda-
mental idea in the east. But it required long and va-
rious warfare before the Christian principle went

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 189

through the Greek and Jewish principle and presented
to the understanding its true form. We shall see that
even now its work is not completed." *

He next turns to consider the historical development
of this central idea, which Jesus brought to light in
word and life. This remained always enveloped in the
church, but it was not developed, except gradually,
and part by part. Then he proceeds on the clever
hypothesis that all moral and religious truth was po-
tentially involved in the early teachers, though not
professed consciously and actually evolved by them ;
a maxim which may be applied equally to all phil-
osophers, of all schools, for every man involves all
truth, though only here and there a wise man evolves
a little thereof. Now, the church did not state all
this doctrine in good set speech, yet it knew intuitively
how to separate false from true doctrine, not as an
individual good man separates wrong from right, by
means of conscience. This is rather more true of the
church than it is of particular teachers, who have not
been inventors of truth, but only mouths which uttered
the truth possessed by the church. f However, amid
conflicting opinions, where he gets but intimations of
the idea of a God-man, and amid many doctrines taught
consciously, he finds this tendency to glorify Christ,
even to deify him, which he regards as a proof that
the great central idea lay there. This, also, we take
to be a very great mistake, and think the tendency to

* We have given a pretty free version of portions of this ex-
tract, and are not quite certain that in all cases we have taken
the author's meaning.

t But these mouths of the church seem smitten with the old
spirit of Babel, for their " language was confounded, and they
did not understand one another's speech," nor always their own,
we fancy.

190 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

deify persons arose from several causes, sucli as the
popular despair of man.^^ The outward aspect of the
world allows us to form but a low opinion of man ;
the retrospect is still worse. Besides, some distnjsted
the inspiration which God gives man on condition of
holiness and purit}^ Therefore, when any one rose
up, and far transcended the achievements and expecta-
tions of mere vulgar souls, they said he is not a man
but a god, at least the son of a god ; human nature is
not capable of so much. Hence, all the heroes of
times pretty ancient are either gods or the descend-
ants of gods, or at least miraculously inspired to do
their particular works. Then the polytheistic notions
of the new converts to Christianity favored this popu-
lar despair, by referring the most shining examples
of goodness and wisdom to the gods. Hence, for
those who had believed that Hercules, Bacchus, and
Devanisi were men, and became gods by the special
grace of the Supreme, it was easy to elevate Jesus,
and give him power over their former divinities, or
even expel them if this course were necessary. Now,
there are but two scales to this balance, and what
was added to the divinity of Jesus was taken from
his humanity, and so the power of man underrated.
Hence, we always find that as a party assigns Jesus
a divine, extra-human or miraculous character, on the
one hand, just so far it degrades man on the other,
and takes low views of human nature. The total
depravity of man, and the total divinity of Jesus, come
out of the same logical root. To examine the history
of the world by striking the words and life of Jesus
out of the series of natural and perfectly human ac-
tions, and then deciding as if such actions had never
been, seems to us quite as absurd as it would be, in

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 191

giving a description of Switzerland, to strike out the
Alps and the lakes, and then say the country was
level and dull, monotonous and dry. To us, the popu-
lar notions of the character of Jesus " have taken away
our Lord, and we know not where they have laid him."
To our apprehension, Jesus was much greater than the
evangelists represent him. We would not measure him
by the conceptions formed by Jewish or heathen con-
verts, but by the long stream of light he shed on the
first three centuries after his death and through them
on all time since.

But to return to our task. Dr. Dorner admits this
idea does not appear in the earliest Christian writings,
which we think is quite as inexplicable, taking his stand-
point, as it would be if Columbus, after the discovery
of the new continent, had founded a school of geogra-
phers, and no one of his pupils had ever set down
America in his map of the world, or alluded to it
except by implication. But as Christianity went on
developing, it took some extra-Christian ideas from the
other religions. Thus from Judiasm it took the no-
tion of a primitive man and a primitive prophet ;
from heathenism, the doctrine of the Logos. These
two rival elements balanced each other, and gave a uni-
versal development to the new principle. Thus while
Christianity attacked its foes, it built up its own
dogmatics, not unlike the contemporaries of Ezra, who
held the sword in one hand and the trowel in the
ether. He finds three periods in the history of Chris-
tology: I. That of the establishment of the doctrine
that there were two essential elements in Jesus, the
divine and human. II. Period of the one-sided eleva-
tion of either the one or the other ; this has two epochs :
1. From the Council of Nice to the Reformation ;

192 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

period of the divine side. 2. From the Reformation
to Kant ; period of the human side. III. Period of
the attempt to show both in him, and how they unite.
We must pass very hastily over the rest of the work ;
for after we have thus minutely described his stand-
point and some of his general views, and have shown
his method, the student of history will see what his
opinions must be of the great teachers in the church,
whose doctrines are well known.

To make the new doctrines of Christianity intel-
ligible, the first thing was to get an adequate expres-
sion, in theological dogmas, of the nature of Christ.
On this question the Christian world divides into two
great parties — one follows a Hebrew, the other a
Greek, tendency — one taking the human, the other
the divine, side of Christ. Hence come two independ-
ent Christologies, the one without the divine, the other
without the human, nature in Jesus. These are the
Ebionites and the Docetse. " Docetism, considered in
antithesis with Ebionitism, is a very powerful witness
of the deep and wonderful impression of its divinity,
which the new principle had made on mankind at its
appearance; an impression which is by no means fully
described by all that Ebionitism could say of a new,
great, and holy prophet that had risen up. On the
other hand, Ebionitism itself, in its lack of ideal ten-
dency, is a powerful evidence on the historical side of
Christianity, by its rigid adhesion to the human ap-
pearance of Christ, which the other denied." Strange
as it may seem, these two antithetic systems ran into
one another, and had both of them this common ground,
that God and man could not be joined; for while the
Ebionites said Jesus was a mere man, the Christ
remained a pure ideal not connected with the body.

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 193

a redemption was effected by God, and Jesus was the
symbol ; while the Doceta;, denying the body of Jesus
had any objective reality, likewise left the Christ a
pure ideal, never incarnated. " Both were alike un-
satisfactory to the Christian mind. Both left alike
unsatisfied the necessity of finding in Christ the union
of the human and divine; therefore this objection may
be made to both of them, which, from the nature of
things, is the most significant, namely, that man is not
redeemed by them, for God has not taken the human
nature upon himself, and sanctified it by thus assum-
ing it. The church, guided rather by an internal tact
and necessity than by any perfect insight, could sketch
no comprehensible figure of Christ in definite lines.
But by these two extreme doctrines it was advanced
so far that it became clearly conscious of the neces-
sity, in general, of conceiving of the Redeemer as di-
vine and human at the same time."

Various elements of this doctrine were expressed by
the various teachers in the early ages. Thus, on the
divine side it was taught, first, by the Pseudo-Clement,
Paul of Samosata, and Sabellius, that a higher power
dwelt in Christ; next by Hippolitus, that it was not
merely a higher power, but a hypostasis, that dwelt in
Christ. Tertullian, Clement, and Dionysius of Alex-
andria, with Origen, considered this subordinate to the
Father, though the latter regarded it as eternally be-
gotten. The next step was to consider this hypostasis
not merely subordinate, but eternal ; nor this only, but
of the same essence with the Father. This was de-
veloped in the controversy betwen Dionysius of Rome
and of Alexandria ; between Athanasius and Arius. At
the same time the human side was also developed.

Clement and Origen maintained, in opposition to the
IV— 13

194 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

Gnostics, that Christ had an actual human body. Then
Apollinaris taught that Christ had a human soul
(ilrvxv)i but the Logos supplied the place of a human
mind (vows). But in opposition to him, Gregory of
Nazianzen taught that he had a human mind also.
Thus the elements of the Christ are " speculatively
constructed " on the human and divine side ; but still
all their elments were not united into a human per-
sonal character — for the human nature of Christ was
still regarded as impersonal. But attempts were made
also to unite these parts together, and construct a
whole person. This, however, led rather to a mixture
than an organic and consistent union ; therefore the
separateness and distinctness of the two natures also
required to be set forth. This was done very clearly.
The Council of Nice declared he was perfect God ; that
of Chalcedon that he was perfect man also, but did not
determine how the two natures were reconciled in the
same character. " The distinctive character of these
two natures " — we quote the words of Leo the Great
— " was not taken away by the union, but rather
the peculiarity of each nature is kept distinct, and
runs together with the other, intO' one Prosopon and
one Hypostasis." * Next follow the attempts to con-

* We give the Greek words Prosopon and Hypostasis, and
not the common terms derived from the Latin. The subtleties
of this doctrine can only be expressed in the Greek tongue. A
Latin Christian could believe in three personcr and one sub~
stantia, for he had no better terms, while the Greek Christian
reckoned this heretical if not atheistical, as he believed in one
essence and three substances. But to say three persons — rpia
irpoffuwa — in the Godhead, was heresy in Greece, as to say
three substances (tres suhstanti(p) was heresy at Rome. Well
says Augustine, apologizing for the Latin language, " dictum est
tres personae, non ut illud diceretur, sed ut non taceretur." —
De Trinitate, Lib. V. c. 9.

St. Augustine has some thoughts on this head, which may sur-

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 195

struct one person out of these two natures. Some said
there was one will, others two wills, in the person of
Christ. This was the quarrel of the Monothelites and
the Dyothelites. Others said the union was effected
by the loss of the attributes of the human, or divine
being; some supposing the one passed into and so be-
came the other, or that both coalesced in a tertium quid,
a (Tvvdero'i (f)vcn<;. But it became orthodox to affirm
that each retained all its peculiar attributes, and so
the two were united. Now this doctrine may seem
very wise, because it is very puzzling ; but the same
words may be applied to other things. We have very
little skill in showing up absurdities, but can apply all
this language to very different matters, and it shall
sound quite as well as before. Thus we may take a
circle instead of the Father, and a triangle for the
son, and say the two natures were found in one, the
circle became a triangle, and yet lost none of its cir-
cularity, while the triangle became a circle, yet lost

prise some of his followers at this day. " And we recognize
in ourselves an image of God, that is, of the Supreme Trinity,
not indeed equal, nay, far and widely different; not co-eternal,
and (to express the whole more briefly) not of the same sub-
stance with God: yet that, than which of all things made by
him none in nature is nearer to God; which image is yet to be
perfected by re-formation, that it may be nearest in likeness also.
For we both are to know that we are to love to be this and to
know it. In these then, moreover, no falsehood resembling truth
perplexes us." — Civ. Dei, Lib. XI. c. 26, as translated in Pusey's
ed. of Augustine's Confessions. London: 1840. 1 Vol. 8vo, p.
283, note.

The late Dr. Emmons seems aware of the imperfection of
language, and its inability to express the idea of a Trinity.
" Indeed there is no word, in any language, which can convey
a precise idea of this incomprehensible distinction; for it is not
similar to any other distinction in the minds of men, so that it
is very immaterial whether we use the name person, or any
other name, or a circumlocution instead of a name, in discours-
ing upon this subject." — Sermon IV. p. 87. Wrentham, 1800.

196 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

none of its triangularity. The union of the two was
perfect, the distinctive character of each being pre-
served. They corresponded point for point, area for
area, centre for centre, circumference for circumfer-
ence, yet was one still a circle, the other a triangle.
But both made up the circle-triangle. The one was
not inscribed, nor the other circumscribed. We would
by no means deny the great fact, which we think lies
at the bottom of the notion of the Trinity, a fact,
however, which it seems to conceal as often as to ex-
press in our times, that the Deity diffuses and therefore
incarnates himself more or less perfectly in human be-
ings, and especially in Jesus, the climax of human
beings, through whom " proceed " the divine influences,
which also " proceed " from the Father. Hence the
doctrine of the Holy Ghost. This truth, we think, is
expressed in all religions ; in the incarnations of Vishnu ;
the polytheistic notions of the Greeks ; the angels,
archangels, and seraphs, that make up the Amshaspand
of the Persians, which Daniel seems to imitate, and
the author of the Apocal^^pse to have in his eye.

But to return. These points fixed, the Catholic
church dwelt chiefly on the divine in Christ, and con-
tinued to do so till the Reformation, while the hu-
man side was represented by heretics and m^'stics,
whom here we have not space to name.

We now pass over some centuries, in which there
was little life and much death in the church — times
when the rays of religious light, as they came through
the darkness, fell chiefly, it seems, on men whom the
light rendered suspicious to the church — and come
down to times after the Reformation. After the great
battles had been fought through, and the Council of
Trent held its sessions, and the disturbances incident

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 197

to all great stirs of thought had passed over, and the
oriental and one-sided view of Christ's nature had been
combated, the human side of it comes out once more
into its due prominence. " By the long one-sided con-
templation of the divine in Christ, his person came to
stand as somewhat absolutely supernatural, as the other
side of and beyond human nature ; something perfectly
inaccessible to the subjective thought, while it is the
greatest thing in Christianity to recognize our brother
in him." With the Reformation there had come a
subjective tendency, which laid small stress on the
old notions of Christ, in which the objective divine
nature had overlaid and crushed the subjective and
human nature in him. This new subjective tendency
is a distinctive feature of the Reformation. It shows
itself in the doctrine of justification by faith, and quite
as powerfully in the altered form of Christology. But
here, too, we must tread with rapid feet, and rest on
only two of the numerous systems of this period, one
from the reformers themselves, the other from a the-
osophist. The human nature is capable of divinity
(humana natura divinitatis capax), said the early
Protestants ; what Christ has first done all may do
afterw^ards. Well said INIartin Luther, strange as it
may seem to modem Protestants, who learn ecclesiasti-
cal history from the " library of useful knowledge," ^^
" lo, Christ takes our birth (that is, the sinfulness of
human nature) from us unto himself, and sinks it in
his birth, and gives us his, that we thereby may be-
come pure and new, as if it were our own, so that every
Christian may enjoy this birth of Christ not less than
if he also, like Jesus, were bom bodily of the Virgin
Mary. Whoso disbelieves or doubts this, the same is
no Christian," Ag-ain : "This is the meaning; of

198 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

Esaias, to us a cliild is bom, to us a son is given.
To us, to us, to us is he bom, and to us given. There-
fore look to it, that thou not only gettest out of the
Evangel a fondness for the history itself, but that
thou makest his birth thine own, and exchangest with
him, becomest free from thy birth, and passcst over to
his — then thou indeed shalt sit in the lap of the Virgin
Mary, and art her dear child." This thought lay at
the background of the Reformation, which itself was
but an imperfect exhibition of that great principle.
He that will look finds traces of the action of this
same principle in the Greek revival of religion five cen-
turies before Christ; in the numerous mystical sects
from the first century to the Reformation ; in such
writers as Ruysbrock, Harphius, Meister Eckhart,
Suso, Tauler, the St. Victors, and many others. Per-
haps it appears best in that little book, once well
known in England under the title Theologia Gcr-
manica,^^ and now studied in Germany, and called
Deutsche Theologie ; a book of which Luther says, in
the preface to his edition of it, in 1520, " Next to the
Bible and St. Augustine, I have never met with a book
from which I have learnt more what God, Christ, man,
and all things are. Read this little book who will, and
then say whether our theology is old or new ; for this
little book is not new."

We give a few words from it relating to the incarna-
tion of God, for the private ear of such as think all is
new which they never heard of before, and all naughty
things exist only in modem German. It says man
comes to a state of union with God " when he feels and
loves no longer this or that, or his own self, but
only the eternal good; so likewise God loves not him-
self as himself, but as the eternal good, and if there

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 199

were somewhat better than God, then God would
love that. The same takes place in a divine man, or
one united with God, else he is not united Avith him.
This state existed in Christ in all its perfection, else
he would not be the Christ. If it were possible that
a man should be perfect and entire, in true obedience
be as the human nature of Christ was, that man would
be one with Christ, and would be by grace what he was
by nature. Man in this state of obedience would be
one with God, for he would be not himself but God's
own (Eigen), and God himself would then alone be-
come man. Christ is to you not merely the objective,
isolated in his sublimity, but we are all called to this,
that God should become man in us. He that believes
in Christ believes that his (Christ's) life is the noblest
and best of all lives, and so far as the life of Christ
is man, so far also is Christ in him." In this book —
and its ideas are as old in this shape as the time of
Dionysius the Areopagite — the historical Christ Is
only the primitive type, the divine idea of man, who
appears only as a model for us, and we may be all that
he was, and we are Christians only in so far as we
attain this. It is only on this hypothesis, we take it,
that there can be a Christology which does not abridge
the nature of man.* This same idea — that all men

* Dr Bauer, a very able Trinitarian writer and Professor at
Tubingen, sums up the various Christological theories in this
way: Reconcilation must be regarded, either, (1) as a necessary
process in the development of the Deity himself, as he realizes
the idea of his being; or, (3) as an analogous and necessary
process in the development of man, as he becomes reconciled
with himself, the one is wholly objective, the other wholly sub-
jective; or, (3) as the mediation of a tertium quid, which holds
the human and divine natures both, so involves both the above.
In this case reconcilation rests entirely on the historical fact,
which must be regarded as the necessary condition of reconcila-

200 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

are capable of just the same kind and degi-ee of union
with God which Jesus attained to — runs through all
the following Christologies. It appears in a modified
form in Osiander and Schwenkfcld, whom we shall only
name.* But they all place the historical below the
internal Christ which is fonned in the heart, and here
commences what Dr. Dorner calls the degeneracy of
the principle of the Reformers, though the antithesis
between nature and gi'ace was still acknowledged by
the Protestants. But as our author thinks, the sub-
jective view received a one-sided development, especially
in Servetus and the Socinians, who differ however in
this at least, that while the former, in his pantheistic
way, allows Christ to be in part uncreated (res in-
creata), the latter considei's him certainly a created be-
ing to whom God had imparted the divine attributes.
We pass over Theophrastus and Paracelsus, and give
a few extracts from Valentine Weigel's " Giildene
Griff." With him, man is an epitome of the whole
world — a favorite notion with many mystics — all
his knowledge is self-knowledge. " The eye, by which
all things are seen, is man himself, but only in reference
to natural knowledge ; for in supernatural knowledge
man himself is not the eye, but God himself is botli
the light and the eye in us. Our eye therefore must
be passive, and not active. Yet God is not foreign

tion between God and man; of conrse he, who takes this latter
view, considers Jesus as a sacrifice for the sins of the workl.
See his Die Christliche Lehre von der Versohnung in ihrer
geschichtliche Entwickelung, etc. Tiibinpen, 1838.

* See Osiander's Confessio de unico Mediatore J. C. et justi-
ficatione fidei, 1551. His Epistola in qua confutantur, etc.,
1549. See also Schwenkfcld Quaestioncs von ]">kcntnis J. C.
und seiner Gloricn, 15fil, von dcr Speyse des ewigen Lebens,
1547. Schwenkfcld's Christology agrees closely, in many re-
spects, with that of Swedcnborg.

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 201

to men in whom he is the eye, but that passive rela-
tion of man to him has this significance, that man is
the yielding influence by which God becomes the seeing
eye." This light in us, or the Avord, is for him the
true Christ, and the historical God-man disappears en-
tirely in the background. The book whence all wis-
dom comes is God's word, a book written by the finger
of God in the heart of all men, though all cannot
read it. Out of this are all books written. This
book of life, to which the sacred scriptures are an
external testimony, is the likeness of God in man, the
seed of God, the light, the word, the Son, Christ.
This book lies concealed in the heart, concealed in the
flesh, concealed in the letter of scriptures. But if it
were not in the heart, it could not be found in the
flesh and the scripture. If this were not preached
within us, if it were not always within us — though in
unbelief — we could have nothing of it. A doctrine
common enough with the fathers of the first three or
four centuries. If we had remained in Paradise, we
should never have needed the outward word of scrip-
ture, or the historical incarnation of Jesus.* But ex-
pelled from Paradise, and fallen through sin, it is
needful that we be bom again of Christ, for we have
lost the holy flesh and the Holy Ghost, and must
recover both from Christ. Because we cannot read
this inner book, God will alter our spirit by scriptures
and sermons. All books are only for fallen men.
Christ was necessary to the race, as the steel to the

* Quaint George Herbert has a similar thought. We quote
from memory.

" For sure when Adam did not know
To sin, or sin to smother.
He might to Heaven from Paradise go,
As from one room to another."

202 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

stone, but his office is merely that of a prophet and
preacher of righteousness, for God was incarnate in
Abel, Noah, Adam, and Abraham, as well as in Je-
sus, " and the Lord from Heaven " exists potentially
in all men ; the external Christ, who was born of
Mary, is an expressive and visible model of the internal
Christ. In a word, he makes Christ the universal
divine spirit shed down into man, though it lies buried
and immovable in most men. But whenever it comes
to consciousness, and is lived out, there is an incarna-
tion of God.

These views are shared by many teachers, who mod-
ify them more or less, of whom we need mention but
a few of the more prominent: Poiret, Henry More,
Bishops Fowler and Gastrell, Robert Fleming, Hussey,
Bennet, Thomas Burnet, Goodwin, and Isaac Watts.*

This mystical view appears in Jacob Boehme, and
through him it passed on to philosophy, for it is ab-
surd to deny that this surprising man has exerted an
influence in science as deep almost as in religion. Ger-
man philosophy seems to be the daughter of m^^sti-
cism.

But we must make a long leap from Valentine
Weigel to Immanuel Kant, who has had an influence on
Christology that will never pass away. It came as
a thunder-bolt out of the sk}^ to strike down the
phantoms of doubt and scatter the clouds of scep-
ticism. Kant admits that in practice and the actual
life of man, the moral law is subordinate to sensuality ;

* See, who will, his three discourses " on the Glory of Christ as
God-man" (I-ond. 174fi), and Goodwin's book to which he refers,
" Knowledge of God the Father and his Son J. C." See also the
writings of Edward Irving, Cudworth's vSermon before the
House of Parliament, in the American edition of his works,
Vol. II. p. 549, seq.

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 203

this subordination he calls radical evil. Then to per-
fect mankind we need a radical restoration, to restore
the principles to their true order from which they
have been inverted ; this restoration is possible on
three conditions: 1. By the idea of a race of men
that is well-pleasing to God, in which each man would
feci his natural destination and perfectibility. It is
the duty of each to rise to this, believe it attainable,
and trust its power. This state may not be attained
empirically, but by embracing the principle well-pleas-
ing to God ; and all the faults in manifesting this prin-
ciple vanish, when the whole course is looked at. We
should not be disturbed by fear lest the new moral dis-
position be transient, for the power of goodness in-
creases with the exercise of it. The past sins are
expiated only by suffering, or diminution of well-being
in the next stage of progress. 2. The foundation of
a moral commonwealth * — without this there will be
confusion. This is possible only on condition that
it is religious also. Thus this commonwealth is at
the same time a church, though only an ideal one;
for it can rest on nothing external, but only on the
" unconditional authority of reason, which contains in
itself the moral idea." 3. This ideal church, to be-
come real, must take a statutory form, for it is a
universal tendency of man to demand a sensual con-
firmation of the truth of reason, and this renders it
necessary to take some outward means of introducing
the true rational religion, since, without the hypothesis
of a revelation, man would have no confidence in rea-
son, though it disclosed the same truth with revelation,

* It is a saying of Pagan Plato in the Timasus, " We shall
never have perfect men until we can surround them with per-
fect circumstances," an idea the English Socialists are attempt-
ing to carry out in a very one-sided manner.

204 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

because it is so difficult to convince men that pure
morality is the only service of God, while they seek
to make it easier by some superstitious ser^uce (after-
dienst).

On these notions the following Christology is nat-
urally constructed. Man needs no outward aid for
the purpose of reconcilation, sanctification, or happi-
ness ; but the belief in an outward revelation is needed
for the basis of the moral commonwealth. Christianity
can allow this, as it has a pure moral spirit. Here
everything turns on the person of its founder. He
demands perfect virtue, and would found a kingdom
of God on the earth. It is indifferent to practical re-
ligion, whether or not we are certain of his historical
existence, for historical existence adds no authority.
The historical is necessary only to give us an idea
of a man well-pleasing to God, which we can only
understand by seeing it realized in a man who pre-
serves his morality under the most difficult circum-
stances. To get a concrete knowledge of supersensual
qualities, such as the idea of the good, moral actions
must be presented to us perfonned in a human manner.
This is only needed to awaken and purify moral emo-
tions that live in us. The historical appearance of
a man without sin is possible; but it is not necessary
to consider he is bom supematurally, even if the im-
possibility of the latter is not absolutely demonstrable.
But since the archetype of a man well-pleasing to
God lies in us in an incomprehensible manner, what
need have we of further incomprehensibilities, since
the exaltation of such a saint above all the imperfec-
tions of human nature would only offer an objection to
his being a model for us — since it gives him not an
achieved but an innate virtue — for it would make the

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 205

distance between him and us so great that we should
find in him no proof that we could ever attain that
ideal. Even if the great teacher does not completely
correspond to the idea, he may yet speak of himself
as if the ideal of the good was bodily and truly repre-
sented in him, for he could speak of what his maxims
would make him. He must derive his whole strength
from reason. The value of his revelation consists
only in leading to a conscious, voluntary morality,
in the way of authority. When this is done, the stat-
utory scaffolding may fall. The time must come
when religion shall be freed from all statutes, which
rest only on history, and pure reason at last reign,
and God be all in all. Wise men must see that belief
in the Son of God is only belief in man himself; that
the human race, so far as it is moral, is the well-
pleasing Son of God. This idea of a perfect man
does not proceed from us, but from God, so we say
that he has condescended and taken human nature upon
himself. The Christ without and the Christ within
us are not two principles, but the same. But if we
make a belief in the historical manifestation of this
idea of humanity in Christ the necessary condition
of salvation, then we have two principles, an empiric
and a rational one. The true God-man is the arche-
type that lies in our reason, to which the historical
manifestation conforms.

This system has excellences and defects. By exalt-
ing the idea of moral goodness, Kant led men to ac-
knowledge an absolute spiritual power, showing that
this is the common ground between philosophy and
Christianity, and with this begins the reconciliation of
the two.* He recognized the divine as something

* Leibnitz made the attempt to effect the same thing, but in
a manner more mechanical and unsatisfactory.

206 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

dwelling in man, and therefore filled up the chasm, as
it were, between the two natures. Again, he acknowl-
edged no authority so long as it was merel}' outward
and not legitimated in the soul, for he had felt the
slavery incident upon making the historical a dogma.
He saw the mind cannot be bound by anything merely
external, for that has value only so far as it contains
the idea and makes it historical. But, on the other
hand, he exalts the subjective too high, and does not
legitimate the internal moral law, which Dr. Dorncr
thinks requires legitimating as much as the historical
manifestation. His foundation therefore is unstable
until this is done. Besides he is not consistent with
himself; for while he ascribes absolute power to this
innate ideal of a perfect man, he leaves nothing for
the historical appearance of the God-man. He makes
his statutory form useless, if not injurious, and makes
a dualistic antithesis between reason and God. Still
more is it inconsistent with Christianity, for it makes
morality the whole of religion ; it cuts off all con-
nection between the divine and human life by denying
that influence comes down from God upon man. He
makes each man his own redeemer, and allows no ma-
turity of excellence, but only a growth towards it.
In respect to the past, present, and future, it leaves
men no comfort in their extremest need.

We pass next to the Christology of Schelling, leaping
over such thinkers as Rohr, Wegschcider, De Wctte,
Hase, Hamann, Oettinger, Franz Baader, Novalis, Ja-
cobi and Fichte.

The divine unity is always actualizing itself; the
one is constantly passing into the many ; or in plain
English, God is eternally creative. God necessarily
reveals himself in the finite ; to be comprehensible to

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 207

us, he must take the limitations of finite existence.
But since he cannot be represented in any finite form,
the divine hfe is portrayed in a variety of individuals ;
in a copious history, each portion whereof is a revela-
tion of a particular side of the divine life. God there-
fore appears in historical life as the finite, which is
the necessary form of the revelation of him. The
finite is God in his development, or the Son of God.
All history, therefore, has a higher sense. The hu-
man does not exclude the divine. Thus the idea of
the incarnation of God is a principle of philosophy ;
and since this is the essence of Christianity, philosophy
is reconciled with it. Nature herself points forward
to the Son of God, and has in him its final cause.
Now the theologians consider Christ as a single per-
son ; but, as an eternal idea alone can be made a
dogma, so their Christology is untenable as a
dogma. Now the incarnation of God is from eternity.
Christ is an eternal idea. The divinity of Christianity
cannot be proved in an empirical way, but only by
contemplating the whole history as a divine act. The
sacred history must be to us only a subjective symbol,
not an objective one, as such things were to the Greeks,
who thereby became subordinate to the finite, and re-
fused to see the infinite, except in that form. But as
Christianity goes immediately to the infinite, so the
finite becomes only an allegory of the infinite. The
fundamental idea of Christianity is eternal and uni-
versal, therefore it cannot be constructed historically
without the religious construction of history. This
idea existed before Christianity, and is a proof of its
necessity. Its existence is a prediction of Christianity
in a distant foreign country. The man Christ is the
climax of this incarnation, and also the beginning of

208 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

it ; for all his followers are to be incarnations of God,
members of the same body to which he is the head.
God first becomes truly objective in him, for before him
none has revealed the infinite in such a manner. The
old world is the natural side of history. A new era, in
which the infinite world preponderates, could only be
brought by the truly infinite coming into the finite, not
to deify it, but to sacrifice it to God, and thereby ef-
fect a reconciliation ; that is, by his death he showed
that the finite is nothing ; but the true existence and
life is only in the infinite. The eternal Son of God
is the human race ; created out of the substance of the
Father of all ; appearing as a suffering divinity, ex-
posed to the horrors of time, reaching its highest point
in Christ ; it closes the world of the finite and discloses
that of the infinite, as the sign of the spirit. With
this conclusion, the mythological veils in which Christ
as the only God-man has been arrayed must fall off.
The ever-living spirit will clothe Christianity in new
and permanent forms. Speculation, not limited by the
past, but comprehending distinction as it stretches far
on into time, has prepared for the regeneration of
esoteric Christianity and the proclamation of the abso-
lute gospel. Viewed in this light, Christianity is not
regarded merely as doctrine or history, but as a pro-
gressive divine act ; the history of Christ is not merely
an empirical and single, but an eternal history. At the
same time it finds its anti-type in the human race.
Christianity, therefore, is not merely one religious con-
stitution among others, but the religion ; the true mode
of spiritual existence, the soul of history, which is
incorporated in the human race to organize it into
one vast body whose head is Christ. Thus he would
make us all brothers of Christ, and show that the in-

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 209

carnation of God still goes on to infinity in the birth
of the Son of God, until the divine life takes to itself
the whole human race, sanctifies and penetrates all
through it, and recognizes it as his body of which
Christ is the head; as his temple of which Christ is
the comer-stone. We shall not dwell upon the excel-
lence of this view, nor point out its defects. The few
who understand the mystical words of St. John, and
the many who do not understand them, can do this
for themselves.

Our remarks are already so far extended that we
must omit the Christology of Hegel, though this, how-
ever, we do with the less reluctance, as the last word
of that system has but just reached us; it comes with
the conclusion of Strauss's work on Dogmatics.* We
regret to pass over the views of Schleiermacher which
have had so deep an influence in Germany, and among
many of the more studious of our Trinitarian breth-
ren in this country. To most of our own denomination
only the Lemnian horrors of its faint echo have come.
We give Dr. Dorner's conclusion in his own words.
"Christology has now reached a field as full of anticipa-
tions as it is of decisions. But the anxiety which here
takes possession of us is a joyful one, and bears in itself
the tranquil and certain conviction that, after a long
night, a beautiful dawn is nigh. A great course has
been run through, and the deep presentiments of the
greatest minds of the primitive times of Christianity
begin to find their scientific realization. After long
toil of the human mind, the time has at last come when
a rich harvest is to be reaped from this dogma, while
the union, already hastening, is effected between the

* Die Christliche Glaubenslehre, etc. Von Dr. D. F. Strauss.
2 vols. 8vo. 1840, 1841.
IV— 14

210 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

essential elements of Christology which seem the most
hostile to each other. Previous Christologies have
chiefly presented these elements in their separation and
opposition to one another. Now, while we contemplate
them together in their living unity, which verifies their
distinction from one another, we see their historical
confinnation and necessity, and now, as Ethiopia and
Arabia, according to the prophet, were to present
their homage to the Lord, as must the middle ages, with
their scholasticism and modem philosophy, the whole
of history — as well of the ante-christian religons, as
that of the Christian dogma — assemble about the
one (the Son of Man), that they miay lay down their
best gifts before him who first enables them to under-
sand themselves; while, on the other hand, he confers
on them the dignity of his own glorification, and allows
them to contribute to it, so that by their service, like-
wise, his character shall pass into the consciousness
of the human race with an increasing brilliancy."

Now, if we ask what are the merits and defects of
the work we have passed over, the answer is easy. It is
a valuable history of Christology ; as such, it is rich
with instructions and suggestions. A special history
of this matter was much needed. That this, in all
historical respects, answers the demands of the times,
we are not competent to decide. However, if it be
imperfect as a history, it has yet gi*cat historical mer-
its. Its chief defects are of another kind. Its main
idea is this, that the true Christ is perfect God and
perfect man, and that Jesus of Nazareth is the time
Christ. Now, he makes no attempt to prove either
point ; yet he was bound, in the first instance, as a
philosopher, to prove his proposition ; in the second,
as an historian, to verify his fact. He attempts

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 211

neither. He has shown neither the eternal necessity,
nor the actual existence of a God-man. Nay, he ad-
mits that only two writers in the New Testament ever
represent Jesus as the God-man. His admission is
fatal to his fact. He gives us the history of a dogma
of the church ; but does not show it has any founda-
tion to rest on.

We must apply to this book the words of Leibnitz,
in his letter to Buraet, on the manner of establishing
the Christian religion.* " I have often remarked,
as well in philosophy as theology, and even in medicine,
jurisprudence, and history, that we have many good
books, and good thoughts, scattered about here and
there, but that we scarce ever come to establishments.
I call it an establishment, when at least certain points
are determined and fixed for ever ; when certain theses
are put beyond dispute, and thus ground is gained
where something may be built. It is properly the
method of mathematicians, who separate the certain
from the uncertain, the known from the unknown.
In other departments it is rarely followed, because
we love to flatter the ears by fine words, which make
an agreeable mingling of the certain and the uncer-
tain." But it is a very transient benefit that is thus
conferred ; like music and the opera, which leave scarce
any trace in the mind, and give us nothing to repose
on ; so we are always turning round and round, treating
the same questions in the same way, which Is problematic,
and subject to a thousand exceptions. Somebody once
led M. Casaubon the elder into a hall of the Sarbonne,
and told him the divines have disputed here for more
than three hundred years ! He answered, and what
have they decided.'' It is exactly what happens to

* 0pp. ed. Dutens., Vol. VI. p. 243, seq.

212 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

us in most of our studies. ... I am confident
that if we will but use the abilities wherewith God and
nature have furaished us, we can remove many of the
evils which now oppress mankind, can establish the
truth of religion, and put an end to many contro-
versies which divide men, and cause so much evil to
the human race, if we are willing to think consecutively,
and proceed as Ave ought. ... I would proceed
in this way, and distinguish propositions into two
classes: 1. What could be absolutely demonstrated
by a metaphysical necessity, and in an incontestable
way : 2. Avhat could be demonstrated morally ; that is,
in a way which gives what is called moral cci'taint}^ as
we know there is a China and a Peru, though we have
never seen them. . . . Theological truths and
deductions therefrom are also of two kinds. The first
rest on definitions, axioms, and theorems derived from
true philosophy and natural theology ; the second rest
in part on history and events, and in part on the
interpretation of texts, on the genuineness and divinity
of our sacred books, and even on ecclesiastical an-
tiquity ; in a word, on the sense of the texts." And,
again : * " We must demonstrate rigorously the truth
of natural religion, that is, the existence of a being
supremely powerful and wise, and the immortality of
the soul. These two points solidly fixed, there is but
one step more to take — to show, on the one hand, that
God could never have left man without a true re-
ligion ; and' on the other, that no known religion can
compare with the Christian. The necessity of em-
bracing it is a consequence of these two plain truths.
However, that the victory may be still more complete,
and the mouth of impiety be shut for ever, I cannot

* Eplstola II. ad Spizclium. 0pp. v. p. 344.

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY 213

forbear hoping that some man skilled in history, the
tongues, and philosophy, in a word, filled with all sorts
of erudition, will exhibit all the harmony and beauty
of the Christian religion, and scatter for ever the
countless objections which may be brought against its
dogmas, its books, and its history."

VIII
THE EXCELLENCE OF GOODNESS

" And the king said. He is a good man." — 2 Sam. xviii, 27.

At the bottom of all things there is a law. Kings
are made to act in a certain manner, and not other-
wise. Thus the rock is made to be solid and the water
to be fluid, under certain conditions, and not the re-
verse. This -law, here and everywhere, is perfect. It
is the work of God. All law is the will of God ; it is
God in action, for God is not a mere abstraction, but
is concreted in part, so to say, in the world we look
upon. He is not only the other side of the universe,
but here ; here and now, as much here as anywhere.
He is immanent in creation, and yet transcends crea-
tion. Suppose all created worlds were struck out of
existence, God docs not cease to be ; does not cease to
be here, for he transcends all the created worlds. But
they cannot exist without God. You cannot, without
a contradiction, conceive of them devoid of God, for
he is immanent therein. Without his continual pres-
ence to preserve, as well as his transient presence to
create they would cease to be. Indeed the existence
of these things is, as it were, but a continual crea-
tion.

This being so, God being in all, in essence no less
than in power, active in each — smallest and greatest
— and active too with no let or hindrance of his in-
finity, the world becomes a revelation of God, so far
as these material things can disclose and reveal the
Infinite One. But these are to us only a revelation

214

THE EXCELLENCE OF GOODNESS 215

of something kindred to qualities that are awakened
in ourselves. Hence all men do not see the same things
revealed therein. The world, or the smallest particle
thereof, reveals God's power, his wisdom and his good-
ness. It reveals these attributes in just that order
to mankind. In the history of our consciousness we
come, in the order of time, to understand force sooner
than wisdom, and that before goodness. The natural
man is before the spiritual man. Mankind represents
in its large process the same things which you and
I represent in our smaller story. In a few years of
our early life we must climb through all the stages
which the human race has passed by in its sixty centu-
ries ; else we are not up to the level that mankind lias
reached in our day.

Watching the progress of ideas in history, we see
that mankind began as we do, and goes on as we
have gone ; and first became conscious of God's power ;
next of his wisdom ; of his goodness last of all. We
see out of us only what we are internally prepared
to see; for seeing depends on the harmony between
the object without and your own condition within.
Hence no two of us see the same things in the sun and
moon and stars ; hence some men see only God's power
in the world ; others, his wisdom also ; and others still
his goodness crowning all the rest.

Had we some active quality as much transcending
goodness as that surpasses physical force, we should
see in the world, I doubt not, still further revelations
of God ; qualities higher than goodness. In him there
may be, must be, other qualities greater than good-
ness, only you and I can now have no conception
thereof, not having analogous qualities active in our-
selves. It is by no means to be supposed that our

216 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

ideas of God exhaust the character and nature of God ;
nor even that the material world reveals now to us
all of him which it might reveal had we a higher na-
ture, or a larger development of the nature we have.
The limit of our finite comprehension is no bound to
the Infinite God. If a bear were to look at a watch,
he might notice the glitter of the metal, perhaps at-
tend to its constant click. But the contrivance of the
watch he would not see nor yet its use, not having in
himself the qualities to appreciate, or even apprehend,
that contrivance or that use. How inadequate a con-
ception must he have both of the watch and the man
who made it ! So it is with us in our application of
the world and its Maker. We are all in this respect
but as bears.

Now men admire in God what they admire in them-
selves. It is so unavoidably. You may see three pe-
riods in man's history. In the first bodily force is
most highly prized. Here the hero is the strongest
man ; he who can run the swiftest, and strike the hard-
est; is fearless and cruel. In that state men conceive
mostly of a God of force. He is a man of Avar. He
thunders and lightens. He rides on the wind, is
painted with thunderbolts in his hand. He sends the
plague and famine. The wheels of his chariot rattle
in war. What represents force is a type of him. In
some primitive nations their name of God meant only
the strong, the powerful.

Then as men advance a little, there comes a period
in which intellectual power or wisdom is prized above
bodily force. Men esteem its superiority, for they
see that one wise head is a match for many strong
bodies. It can command ten weak men to overcome a
strong one, whom singly they dared not touch; but

THE EXCELLENCE OF GOODNESS 217

no aggregation of foolish men, however numerous,
can ever outwit a single wise man, for no combination
of many little follies can ever produce wisdom. In
this stage he is the hero who has the most intellectual
power ; knows the secrets of nature ; has skill to rule
men; speaks wise sayings: Saul, the tallest man, has
given place to Solomon, the wisest man. The popu-
lar conception of God changes to suit this stage of
growth. Men see his wisdom ; they see it in the birth
of a child, in the course of the sun and moon ; in the
return of the seasons; in the instinct of the emmet
or the ostrich : God works the wonders of nature. Wis-
dom is the chief attribute in this age ascribed to God.
Who shall teach him? says the contemplative man
of this age — where the sage of a former day would
have asked, who can overcome him?

There comes yet another period, in which moral
power is appreciated. He is the hero who sees moral
truth, walks uprightly, subordinates his private will
to the universal law, tells the truth, is reverent and
pious, loves goodness and lives it. The saint has be-
come the hero ; he rules not by superior power of hand,
or superior power of head, but by superior power of
heart — by justice, truth, and love; in one word, by
righteousness. " The Queen of Sheba came from the
uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of
Solomon," said Jesus, " but behold a greater than Solo-
mon is here." In this period, men form a higher
conception of God. Men believe that he is not
only wise, but good; he loves men; he loves jus-
tice, goodness, truth, demands mercy and not sacri-
fice ; he keeps his word, and is an upright God.
He is no longer regarded as the God of the Mosaic law,
jealous, revengeful, exacting; but as a Father of in-

218 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

finite goodness. In one word, God is love. He is not
a man of war, nor a worker of wonders barely, but a
Savior. The Jewish name of God — Jehovah — does
not appear in the New Testament! Read the Old
Testament and New Testament in connection, you will
see this twofold progress in the state of man, and
these divergent conceptions of God. However, you
will not find them distinctly separated, as in this sketch;
you must estimate them b}^ their centre and types, not
by their circumference, for in nature and in human
affairs there are no classes of things, but only individu-
als, which we group into classes for convenience in
understanding their relations one to another. But
these facts are suggestive to such as think.

It was said there is a law at the bottom of all things ;
that this law is the will of God, who is immanent in
nature, and yet transcends nature; that it is God in
action. The same rule holds good in relation to man-
kind. Here also is a law. God is immanent in man
as much as in nature, yet as much transcending man.
This is a doctrine of the Bible, and appears in va-
rious forms in all the more spiritual sects of Chris-
tians. But we are conscious and free, having power
to keep the law, or to a certain extent to violate it ;
we are not merely to be governed as the material
world — but to be self-governed. As conscious and
free beings it is our duty to keep this law ; to keep it
knowingly and voluntarily, not merely because we
should as duty, but also, and no less, because we would
as desire ; thus bringing the whole of our nature into
obedience to God. This our duty is our welfare too.
Now goodness is the keeping of this law ; the keeping
thereof knowingly and joyfully, with the hand, with
the head, with the heart. Goodness is conformity with

THE EXCELLENCE OF GOODNESS 219

God in the matter of self-government. In its highest
form it is a conscious conformity therewith, and so is
religion. The good man puts himself in a line with
God, in unison with him. He accords with God, and
works after where God has worked before. In the
matter of self-government he is consciously one with
God ; for God's law acts through him, and by him, with
no let nor hindrance.

Now we do not always appreciate the excellence of
goodness. We seldom believe in its power. Mankind
has been struggling here on the earth six thousand
years — perhaps much longer — who knows ? Yet
even now, few men see more than signs of God's power
and wisdom in the world. Most men stop at the first.
The force of muscles they understand better than the
force of mind, and that better than the excellence of
justice, uprightness, truth, and love. So it has be-
come a political maxim to trust a man of able intellect
sooner than a just and good man of humbler mind.
Most men, perhaps, tremble before a God who can de-
stroy the world to-morrow, and send babes new-born
to endless hell, far more than they rejoice in a God
who rules by perfect justice, truth, and love, who to-
day blesses whatever he has made, and will at last bless
them all more abundantly than thought can fancy or
heart can wish.

We bow before the man of great capabilities of
thought, of energetic mind, of deep creative genius.
Yet is the good man greater than the wise man — tak-
ing wisdom in its common sense of intellectual power,
capacity of thought; greater and nobler far! He
rests on a greater idea. He lives in a larger and
loftier sentiment. Yet I would not underv^alue intel-
lectual power. Who of us does not reverence a man

220 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

that has the understanding of things ; whose capacious
mind grasps up the wonders of this earth, its animals
and plants, its stones and trees ; which measures the
heavens, and tells the wonders of the stars, the open
secret of the universe ; knows the story of man ; is pos-
sessed of the ideas that rule the world ; has gathered
the wisdom of the past, and feels that of the present
throb mightily within his heart? Who does not honor
that capaciousness of thought which sees events in their
causes, can rule a nation as you j^our household, fore-
casting its mighty destinies, and that for centuries of
years, and moulding the fate of millions yet to come?
Who does not appreciate the man who can speak what
all feel, but feel dumbly, and can't express ; who
enchants us with great thoughts which we know to
be our own, but could not say them ; the man who
holds the crowd or the nation breathless, pausing
at his thought, and sways them to and fro as sway
the waters underneath the moon? Who will not honor
the poetic mind which tells the tale of our life,
and paints to us in rhythmic speech the rocks, the
trees, the wind singing melodious in every pine, the
brook melting adown its sinuous course ; which tells
anew the story of our hopes and fears, our passions,
tears, and loves, and paints the man so very like, he
trembles but to recognize himself? Who does not
honor the man of vast mind, who concentrates in him-
self the ideas and sentiments of an age, and shoots them
forth far on into the darkness of the coming time, a
stream of light, dazzling and electric too, where mil-
lions come and light their little torch, and kindle with
its touch their household fire? I would not undervalue
this power of thought, the mind's creative skill. It is
not the meanest ambition to seek to rise above the mass

THE EXCELLENCE OF GOODNESS 221

of men in this, and rule not o'er their bodies but o'er
their minds, by power of thought, and Hve a king for
many a hundred years. It is the " last infirmity " of
noble men. There is a magnificence in force of mind
which may well bid us all look up to admire, and bow
down to do homage. It is vast and awful even when
alone, not wedded with a noble heart. I would be
the last to undervalue this.

But it is little compared to the power of goodness —
the resting, living in those ever fair ideas which we
call justice, right, religion, truth — it is very little
and very poor. In time we confess it is so of each
great but wicked man of thought. Men who stood
aghast, awed by the terrific mind of Caesar, of Crom-
w^ell, of Napoleon, come at length to see that a single
good man, who conforms with God, yields to no temp-
tation, harbors no revenge — not railing when mocked
at, not paying back scorn for scorn ; who is able to
stand alone amid the desertion of friends, and the
ribald mockery of the public mind, serenely lifting up
a forehead blameless and unabashed to men and God ;
who lives in the law of the just, the good, the holy,
and the true — is greater than all Caesars, all Crom-
wells, all Napoleons. His power is real, not depend-
ing on the accident of a throne or an army, and as
the most ancient heaven, is permanent and strong, rest-
ing on the same foundation with them — the law of
God. He lives in his undying powers.

Ask yourself what is it that makes you admire this
or that great man? Is it what is highest in you, or
what is lowest? Is it your best quality? If not, then
is your admiration not of the best things in man,
for the quality you admire in him is only an enlarge-
ment of the same quality in yourself? Your little hon-

222 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

ors his much, and if your httle is not of your best,
no more is his much. It is dangerous to admire what
it is not safe to love.

Now all things in nature league with the good man ;
her symbols and her soothing influence are on virtue's
side. So are the highest sentiments that flash as light-
ning on your mind in some great hour — the sunrise
of the soul. Goodness unites all men. It hinders no
other man's goodness, for it is not selfish ; rests on noth-
ing private, personal to you or me, but on what is
universal, patent to the world. It is badness that sep-
arates, makes man afraid of his brother, jealous and
exclusive. Badness rests on somewhat private, and
personal to you and me. It seeks its own ; only its own
welfare. There cannot be a community of misers and
cut-throats. They must lay aside their miserly and
nmrderous principles before they can live together.
Birds of prey never go in flocks ; they are grasping,
each takes before the other. It is a social nature that
unites in groups the harmless sheep, the ox, the horse.
It is not this, but famine, stern necessity, that crowds
hyenas and wolves together into bands, when they
would bring down some beast of noble mark. Spiders
cannot work together harmonious as silk-worms. They
bite and devour one another.*

When a good man commences his career of goodness,
sceptics will doubt and bigots will oppose him. These
men have no faith in goodness, only in cunning or in
force. But the great heart of mankind will beat with

* It is said that some French ]ihilosophers, irrelifyiously dis-
regarding this hint of nature, shut tip a great quantity of
spiders, in hopes of obtaining a material finer than silk, and in
quantities proportionate to the spider's energy. But the spiders
quarrelled more than they spun, and in a few days there was
hut one spider left.

THE EXCELLENCE OF GOODNESS 223

him. Even men indebted to sin will forsake their old
tyrants, and welcome him to their arms, confessing their
former life a mistake and a grievous curse. By-and-
by the world rolls round to his side, and the longer it
stands the more will his ideas prevail, for the world
is going a pilgrimage towards the truth.

The secret history of the world is a contest be-
tween ideas of goodness and badness. We sometimes
think it is all over with goodness ; but it gets the better
continually. What is bad dies out, perishing slowly in
the ages. What is good lives for ever. A truth is
never obsolete. All nature is really leagued against
selfishness ; for God is the author of nature, and there
is no devil. A selfish nation digs its own grave ; if
strong it digs it all the deeper, and the more secure.
That is the lesson which Rome teaches the world. A
selfish party in the nation does the same thing. A
selfish man in society seems to succeed, but his success
is ruin. He has poisoned his own bread. For all that
is ill got he must pay back tenfold. God is not
mocked. The man laughs that he has escaped a duty.
Poor, blind man ! a curse has fallen on him ; it cleaves
to his bones. Justice has feet like wool, so noiseless
you hear not her steps ; but her hands are hands of
iron, and where God lays them down it is not in man
to lift them up.

A moral man, from the height of his idea, looks
down on the world and sees the cause, process, and
result of all this. He sees that the bad man has con-
jured up a fiend to stand always beside him, corrupt-
ing his dainties ; while all the foes that attack a good
man are, by the magic wand of his goodness, trans-
formed to angels which encamp about his dwelling-
place to guard him from sloth and pride. For all

224 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

good actions, sentiments, and thoughts, a tenfold re-
compense is paid him here. We all know the history
of Cassar, the fortunes of Cromwell, the story of Na-
poleon — men that towered over the world as giants
of vast intellectual force, of comparatively little good-
ness, of little power of heart. What if one had the
head of Napoleon and the heart of Fenelon ; if such
an one should rise amongst us, should be a senator of
these United States, their president — what an effect
would it have on us, on the nations of the world, on
millions yet unborn ! What a monument would he
build — that should last perennially fair when the pyra-
mids shall have crumbled into dust ; what a furrow of
light would his name leave behind him in the world !
How would he elevate our notions of a man — yes, our
notions of God ! To be ruled by such an one would
be the beginning of freedom. What advance should
we make in the qualities of a man ! Nature would
be on his side, and God none the less. If it be not
the meanest ambition to rule over men's minds by the
power of thought — but a great excellency, as the
world goes — what shall be said of the desire to live
in men's hearts by the magic of goodness ; the am-
bition to lead all men to be brothers, to conform with
God, to live by his law, and be blessed by the freedom
of obedience, and so be one with him? Why, words
cannot paint the excellence of that zeal of a seraphic
soul.

Goodness is the service of God. The good heart,
the good life are the best, the only sacrifice that he de-
mands. When men saw mainly the power of God,
trembling thereat, they made sacrifice of things dearest
to them, to bribe their God as to appease a cruel king.
" Come not empty-handed before thy God," said the

THE EXCELLENCE OF GOODNESS 225

priest. Even now, many a man who sees also the
wisdom of God, and bows before him as the soul of
thought, will sacrifice reason, conscience, and good
sense, as Abraham would offer Isaac, and as Solomon
slew sheep and goats. They think God loves tears and
hates smiles ; so they pay him with gloom, gloomy Sun-
days and gloomy weeks, and most despairing and mel-
ancholy prayers. How many think religion to con-
sist of this. Belief is the sign of their Christianity
and its only proof! No doubt there are, practically
speaking, two parts of religion : piety the sentiment,
morality the expression, a revelation of that sentiment
as the world is a revelation of God. Piety is the in-
ness of morality, as morality Is the out-ness of piety.
No doubt there are two parts of sei*vice to God, namely,
faith and love within the man, works and goodness
without the man. If faithful love be in the man,
works of goodness must needs appear in his manifested
life. If not, who shall assure us that faith and love
exist within? a good tree is known by its good fruit.
It is of more importance that the tree be good, than
it be called by a good name.

Now one of the sacramental sins of the Christian
churches has been to lay the main stress on expressions
of faith, on devotion or belief. If they laid the main
stress on real piety that were well, for it would be
making the tree good, when, of course, its fruit would
be also good. Piety is love of God with the mind and
heart; he who has this must conform to God in his
self-government, so far as he knows God's will. But
piety cannot be forced. It eludes the eye. It will
not be commanded nor obey the voice of the charmer.
So the churches early insisted that belief and devotion
were the main things of Christianity. They told men
IV— 15

226 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

what to believe — how to be devout. They gave men
a creed for their behef, and a form or a rite for their
devotion. The whole thing was brought into the outer
court — placed under the eye of the priest. Behold
Christianity made easy ; the power of God and the wis-
dom of God, and God's goodness too, become a stum-
bling-block and foolishness to the Christians themselves !
None was accounted a Christian but a conformist to the
ways of man. He only was a Christian who be-
lieved the popular creed and complied witli the popular
form. The absolute religion of Christ had passed
away from the churches ; the sectarianism, of the priest-
hood had usurped its place. Goodness was cheated of
its due. In the name of Christ was it taught that a
good man might be damned; he had kept the law of
God as reason and conscience make it known ; he had
been faithful to God and true and loving to man ; he
had believed all things that to him were credible, and
done prayerfully the duty of a man. " What of
that? " said the priest, " he has not believed nor wor-
shipped with the rest of men. Hell waiteth for such."
Would to God I could say that these things only were,
that they are not. It has for many a hundred years
been a heresy in the Christian churches to believe that
a man goes to heaven on account of his goodness, his
righteousness, or is acceptable to God because he walks
manfully by the light God gives him ! Has been, did
I say.'' Far worse, it is so now! It is a heresy to
believe it now in all popular and recognized churches
of Christendom ! A creed and a rite are of course but
external — only the gold of the altar — not the altar
sanctifying the gold. Once they were symbols, per-
haps, and signs of all good things to some pious man.
They helped him to commune with God. They aided

THE EXCELLENCE OF GOODNESS 227

him to grow. Losing their first estate, to many they
become not stimulants of goodness, but substitutes for
it. The man rests at the symbol and learns no more !
It was so in Judea when Christ came into the world.
No nation of old time surpassed the Jews in their con-
cern for external rites of devotion. No modern nation
has equalled them in this. But they were not a good
and moral nation ; they were not then, and are not
now. They were always hated — not without some
reason. Let us do them justice for their marvelous
merits, but not be blind to their faults. Christ found
that in the popular faith goodness and religion were
quite different things. Men thought that God was to
be served by rites and beliefs. So the priests had
taught, making religion consist in what was useless
to God and man — a wretched science with the few,
a paltry ceremony with the mass. Not so did the
prophets teach, for priests and prophets are never
agreed. Christ fell back on goodness. He demanded
this, he set forth its greatness, its power, in his words
and in his life. He encumbered no man with creeds,
nor rites. He said, " He that doeth the will of my
Father shall know of the doctrine." He summed up
the essentials of religion in a few things, a right heart,
and a right life, in piety and goodness. He knew
they would extend, and that swiftly, to many things.
Moses and the law might go their way ; they had au-
thority to bind no man. His words were their o^vri'
evidence and proof; moral truth is its own witness.
He had authority. Whence came it? From the
scribes and the priests? They hated him. From tra-
dition, Moses, the Old Testament? Quite as little.
He puts them behind him. He had authority because
he conformed to God's law, in his mind and in his

228 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

heart, and in his Hfe. So God spoke through him;
inspiration came, and though his friends forsook him,
and church and state rose in tumult, clamorous for
his overthrow ; though the world turned against him,
and he stood alone, he w'as not alone — better than
friends, and church, and state, and, world, better than
twelve legions of angels, the Father was with him, and
he fell not !

Even publicans and harlots welcomed him. They
did not love sin. They had been deluded into its
service; they found it a hard master. Joyfully they
deserted that hopeless Armada to sail the seas with
God, soon as one came who put the heart, conscience,
reason, on religion's side, speaking with an authority
they felt before they saw, showing that religion was
real and dear. Humble men saw the mystery of god-
liness, they felt the power of goodness which streamed
forth from their brother's heart of fire. They started
to found a church on goodness, on absolute religion,
little knowing what they did. Alas ! it was a poor
church which men founded in that great name, though
the best the world ever saw ; it was little compared with
the ideas of Jesus, little and poor compared with the
excellence of goodness and the power of real religion.

Some day there will be churches built in which it
shall be taught that the only outward ser\'ice God
asks is goodness, and truth the only creed ; that a di-
vine life — piety in the heart, morality in the hand —
is the only real worship. Men will use symbols or not,
as they like ; perhaps will still cling to such as have
helped us hitherto ; perhaps leave them all behind, and
have communion with man in work, and word, and joy-
ful sympath}^ with God through the elements of earth,
and air^ and water, and tlic sky ; or in a serencr hour,

THE EXCELLENCE OF GOODNESS 229

without these elements, come nearer yet to him. But
in that day will men forget Jesus — the son of Joseph,
the carpenter, whom the priests slew, as a madman and
an infidel, but whom the world has worshipped as a
God? Will his thought, his sentiments, his influence
pass away? no, oh! no. What rests on the ideas of
God lasts with those ideas. Power shall vanish ; glory
shall pass away ; England and America may become
as Nineveh and Babylon. Yes, the incessant hand of
time may smooth down the ruggedness of the Alle-
ghany and the Andes, but so long as man is man must
these truths of Jesus live ; religion be the love of man
the love of God. IMcn will not name Jesus, God ; they
may not call him master, but the world's teacher.
They will love him as their great brother, Avho taught
the truth, and lived the life of heaven here; who broke
the fetters of the oppressed, and healed the bruises of
the sick, and blessed the souls of all. Then will good-
ness appear more transcendant, and he will be deemed
the best Christian who is most like Christ ; most excell-
ing in truth, piety, and goodness. They will not be
the preachers who bind, but they who loose mankind ;
who are full of truth, who live great noble lives, and
walk with goodness and with God. Worship will be
fresh and natural as the rising sun — beautiful like
that, and full of promise too. Truth for the creed,
goodness for the form, love for the baptism — shall
we wait for that, with folded arms? No, brothers, no.
Let us live as if it were so now. Earth shall be blessed
and heaven ours.

IX

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY

The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
— Mark ii, 27.

From past ages we have received many valuable in-
stitutions, that have grown out of the transient wants
or tlie permanent nature of man. Amongst these are
two which have done a great service in promoting the
civilization of mankind, which still continue amongst
us. I speak now of the institution of Sunday, and
that of preaching. By the one a seventh part of the
time is separated from the common pursuits of life,
in order that it may be devoted to bodily relaxation,
and to the culture of the spiritual powei-s of man ; by
the other, a large body of men, in most countries the
best educated class, are devoted to the cultivation of
these spiritual powers. Such at least is the theory
of those two institutions, be their effect in practice what
it may. This morning, let us look at one of them,
and so I invite your attention to some thoughts relative
to the Sunday, to the most Christian and pix)fitable
use of that day.

There is a stricter party of Christians amongst us,
who speak out their opinions concerning the Sunday ;
tliis comprises what are commonly called the more
" evangelical " sects. There is a party less strict in
many particulars, comprising what are commonly called
the more " liberal " sects. They have hitherto been
comparatively silent on this theme. Their opinions
about the Sunday have not usually been so plainly

230

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 231

spoken out, but have been made apparent by their
actions, by occasional and passing words, rather than
by full, distinct, and emphatic declarations. The
stricter party, of late years, have been growing a
little more strict ; the party less strict likewise advance
in the opposite direction. Recently, a call has been
published by a few men for a convention to consult
and take some steps towards the less rigid course, for
the purpose, as I understand it, of making the Sunday
even more valuable than it is now.^ I take it for
granted that both parties desire to make the best pos-
sible use of the Sunday — the use most conducive to
the highest interests of mankind ; that they desire this
equally. There are good men on both sides, the more
and the less strict ; pious men, in the best sense of that
word, may be found on both sides. There is no need
of imputing bad motives to either party in order to
explain the difference between the two.

Such is the aspect of the two parties in the field,
looking opposite ways, but at one another. It seems
likely that there will be a quarrel, and, as is usual
in such cases, hard words on each side, hard thoughts
and unkind feelings on both sides. Before the quarrel
begins, and our eyes are blinded by the dust of con-
troversy ; before our blood is fired, and we become
wholly incapable of judgment — let us look coolly at
the matter, and ask, do we need any change in respect
to the observance of the Sunday? Are the present
opinions respecting the origin, nature, and original
design of that institution just and true? Is the pres-
ent mode of observing it the most profitable that can
be devised? The inquiry is one of great importance.

To answer these questions, it is necessary to go back
a little into the history of the Hebrew Sabbath and

232 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the Christian Sunday. However, it is not needful to
go much into detail, or consume this precious hour in
a learned discussion on antiquarian matters which con-
cern none but scholars.

With the Hebrews the actual obsei'vance of Satur-
day — the Sabbath — as a day of rest, seems to be of
pretty late origin. The first mention of it in authentic
Hebrew history, as actually observed, occurs about
two hundred years after Samuel, and about six hun-
dred after Moses — a little less than nine hundred be-
fore Christ. The passage is found in 2 Kings iv. 23 ;
a child had died, as the narrative relates — the mother
wished to send for Elisha, " the man of God." Her
husband objects, saying, " Wherefore wilt thou go to
him to-day .f* it is neither new moon nor Sabbath."
This connection with the new moon is significant. In
the earlier historical books of Joshua, Judges, the two
books of Samuel, and the first of Kings, there is no
mention of the Sabbath, not the least allusion to it.

This seems to have been the origin of its observance
— the worship of one God, with the distinctive name
Jehovah, gradually got established in the Hebrew na-
tion ; for this they seem largely indebted to Moses.
Gradually this worship of Jehovah became connected
with a body of priests, who were regularly organized
at length, and claimed descent from Levi — some of
them from Aaron, his celebrated descendant, the elder
brother of INIoses. The rise of the Lcvitical priest-
hood is remarkable, and easily traced in the Old Testa-
ment. Some books are entirely destitute of a Levitical
spirit, such as Genesis and Judges; others are filled
with it, as Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and the books
of Chronicles. With the priesthood it seems there
came the observance of certain days for religious or

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 233

festal purposes — New Moon days, Full Moon days,
and the like. These seem to have been derived from
the nations about them, with whom the moon — deified
as Astarte, the Queen and Mother of Heaven, and un-
der other names — was long an object of worship.
The observance of those days points back to the period
when fetishism, the worship of nature, was the prom-
inent form of religion. With the other days of re-
ligious observance came the seventh day, called the
Sabbath. No one knows its true historical origin.
The statement respecting its origin in the fourth com-
mandment, and elsewhere in the Old Testament, can
hardly be accepted as literally true by any one in this
century. No scientific man, in the present stage of
philosophic inquiry, will believe that God created the
universe in six days, and then rested on the seventh.
Did other nations observe this day before the Hebrews ;
was it also connected with some fetishistic form of wor-
ship ; what was the historical event which led to the
selection of that day in special.'' This it is easy to
ask, but perhaps not possible to answer. These are
curious questions ; they are of little practical im-
portance to us at this moment.

After the Hebrew institutions of religion got fixed —
the worship of Jehovah, the Levitical priesthood, and
the peculiar forms of sacrifice — it became common to
refer their origin back to the time of Moses, who lived
fourteen or fifteen hundred years before Christ. Since
few memorials from his age have come down to us. It
is plain we can know little of him. But from the
impression which his character left on his nation and
through them on the whole world, from the myths
so early connected with his name, it seems pretty clear
that he was one of the greatest and most extraordinary

234 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

men that ever lived. Mankind seldom tell great things
of little men. It is difficult to say what share he had
in making the laws of the Hebrew nation which are
commonly referred to him, and as it is popularly
taught, revealed to him directly by Jehovah. Perhaps
we are not safe in referring to him even the whole of
the ten commandments ; surely not in any one of their
present forms.* Was the Sabbath observed as a day
of rest before Moses.'' Was its observance enforced
by him.'' Was it even known to him? These ques-
tions are not easily answered. This is only certain :
from the time of Moses to that of Jehoram, a period of
about six hundred years, there is no historical mention
of its observance, not the least allusion to it. Yet
we have documents which treat of that period — the
books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and the Kings —
some of them historical documents, which go into the
minute detail of the national peculiarities, and were
evidently written with a good deal of concern for
strict integrity and truth; they refer to the national
rite of circumcision. Now, if the Sabbath had been
observed during that period, it is difficult to believe it
would have received no passing notice in those historical
books. But not only is there no mention of it therein,
none even in the times of David and Solomon, who fa-
vored the priesthood so strongly ; but in the book of
Chronicles, the most Levitical book in the Bible, at a
date more than two hundred years later than the time
of Jehoram, it is distinctly declared that the Sabbath
had not been kept for nearly five hundred years. f But

* These celebrated commandments have come down to us in
three distinct forms; namely, in Exodus xx., in Exodus xxxiv.,
and in Dcut. v. The diflFerences between these several codes are
quite remarkable and significant.

t 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21.

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 235

even if this statement is true, which is scarcely probable,
it is plain from the frequent mention of the Sabbath
in the writings of the latter part of that period —
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others — that the institution was
one well known and highly regarded by religious men.
After the return from the Babylonian exile, it seems
to have been kept with considerable rigor; this we
leam from the book of Nehemiah.

The Hebrew law, as it is contained in the Penta-
teuch, is a singular mixture of conflicting statutes, evi-
dently belonging to diff'erent ages, many of them
wholly unsuitable to the condition of the people when
the laws are alleged to have been given. However, they
are all referred back to the time of Moses in the Pen-
tateuch itself, and by the popular theology at the
present day. In the law the command is given to keep
the seventh day as a day of rest, and that command
is referred distinctly to Jehovah himself. The reason
is given for choosing that day — " for in six days the
l/ord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day
he rested and was refreshed ; " the Sabbath, therefore,
was to be kept in commemoration of the fact that after
Jehovah had spent the week in creating the world,
" he rested and was refreshed." It was to be a day
of rest for master and slave, for man and beast. A
special sacrifice was offered on that day, in addition
to the usual ceremonies, but no provision was made
for the religious instruction of the people. The Sab-
bath was what its Hebrew name implies, a rest from
all labor. The law, in general terms, forbade all
work ; but, not content with that, it descends to minute
details, specifically prohibiting by statute the gather-
ing or prepai'ation of food on the Sabbath, even of
food to be consumed on that day itself; the lighting

236 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

of a fire, or the removal from one's place ; and, by a
decision where the statute did not apply, forbade the
gathering of sticks of wood. The punishment for
violating the Sabbath in general, or in any one of these
particulars, was death : " Whosoever doeth work
therein shall be put to death." However, amusement
was not prohibited, nor eating and drinking, only
work. The command, " Let no man go out of his
place on the seventh day," at a later period was liberally
interpreted and a man was allowed to go two thousand
cubits, a Sabbath-day's journey.

Long after the time of INIoses, some of the Hebrews
returned from exile amongst a more civilized and re-
fined people. It seems probable that only the stricter
portion returned and established themselves in the land
of their fathers. Nehemiah, their leader, enforced the
observance of the Sabbath with a strictness and rigor
of which earlier times afford no evidence. But the
nation was not content with making it a day of idleness.
They established synagogues, where the people freely
assembled on the Sabbath and other public days, for
religious instruction, and thus founded an excellent
institution which has shown itself finiitful of good re-
sults. So far as I know, that is the earliest instance
on record of provision being made for the regular re-
ligious instruction of the whole people. Experience
has shown its value, and now all the most highly civi-
lized nations of the earth have established similar in-
stitutions. However, in the synagogues the business
of religious instruction was not at all in the hands
of the priests, but in those of the people, acting in
their primary character without regard to Levitical es-
tablishments. A priest, as such, is never an instructor
of the people; he is to go through his ritual, not be-
yond it.

THE CHRISTIAN USE OP SUNDAY 237

It is easy to learn from the New Testament what
were the current opinions about the Sabbath in the
time of Christ. It was unlawful to gather a head of
wheat on the Sabbath, as a man walked through the
fields ; it was unlawful to cure a sick man, though that
cure could be effected by a touch or a word ; unlawful
for a man to walk home and carry the light cushion
on which he had lain. What was unlawful was reck-
oned wicked also; for what is a crime in the eyes of
the priest he commonly pretends is likewise a sin before
the eyes of God. Yet it was not unlawful to eat,
drink, and be merry on the Sabbath ; nor to lift a
sheep out of the ditch ; nor to quarrel with a man who
came to deliver mankind from their worst enemies.
It was lawful to perform the rite of circumcision on
the Sabbath, but unlawful to cure a man of any sick-
ness. Jesus once placed these two, the allowing of that
ritual mutilation and the prohibition of the humane act
of curing the sick on the Sabbath, in ridiculous con-
trast. In the fourth Gospel he goes further, and ac-
tually denies the alleged ground for the original in-
stitution of the Sabbath ; he denies that God had ever
ceased from his work, or rested : " My Father work-
eth hitherto." * However, in effecting these cures he
committed a capital offence ; the Pharisees so regarded
it, and took measures to insure his punishment. It
does not appear that they were illegal measures. It is
probable they took regular and legal means to bring
him to condign punishment as a Sabbath-breaker. He
escaped by flight.

Such was the Sabbath with the Hebrews, such the
recorded opinion of Jesus concerning it. There were
also other days in which labor was forbidden, but with

*John V. 1 — 18, and vii. 19 — 24.

238 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

them we have nothing to do at present. Jesus taught
piety and goodness without the Hebrew hmitations ; of
course, then, the new wine of Christianity could not be
put into the old bottle of the Jews. Their fast days
and Sabbath days, their rites and forais, were not for
him.

Now, not long after the death of Christ his follow-
ers became gradually divided into two parties. First,
there were the Jewish Christians ; that was the oldest
portion, the old school of Christians. They are men-
tioned in ecclesiastical history as the Ebionites, Nazar-
ines, and under yet other names. Peter and James
were the great men in that division of the early Chris-
tians. Matthew, and the author of the Gospel accord-
ing to the Hebrews, were their evangelists. The church
at Jerusalem was their stronghold. They kept the
whole Hebrew law; all its burdensome ritual, its cir-
cumcision and its sacrifices, its new-moon days and its
full-moon days. Sabbath, fasts, and feasts ; the first
fifteen bishops of the church at Jerusalem were cir-
cumcised Jews. It seems to mc they misunderstood
Jesus fatally, counting him nothing but the Messiah
of the Old Testament, and Christianity, therefore, noth-
ing but Judaism brightened up and restored to its
original purity.

I have often mentioned how strongly Matthew, tak-
ing him for the author of the first Gospel, favors this
way of thinking. He represents Jesus as commanding
his disciples to observe all the Mosaic law, as the Phar-
isees interpreted that law,* though such a command is
utterly inconsistent with the general spirit of Christ's
teachings, and even with his plain declaration, as pre-

* Matt xxiii. 1—3.

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 239

served in other parts of the same Gospel. It is worthy
of note that this command is pecuhar to Matthew. But
there is another instance of the same Jewish tendency,
though not so obvious at first sight. Matthew repre-
sents Jesus as saying " the Son of man," that is, the
Messiah, " is Lord even of the Sabbath day." Accord-
ingly, he is competent to expound the law correctly,
and determine what is lawful to do on that day. In
Matthew, therefore, Jesus, in his character of Messiah,
is represented as giving a judicial opinion, and ruling
that it " is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days."
Now, Mark and Luke represent it a little different. In
IMark, Jesus himself declares that " the Sabbath was
made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." Mat-
thew entirely omits that remarkable saying. Accord-
ing to Mark, Jesus declares in general terms that man
is of more consequence than the observance of the Sab-
bath, while Matthew only considers that the Messiah is
" Lord of the Sabbath day." The cause of this di-
versity is quite plain. Matthew was a Jewish Chris-
tian, and thought Christianity was nothing but re-
stored Judaism.

The other party may be called liberal Christians,
though they must not be confounded with the party
which now bears that name. They were the new
school of early Christians. They rejected the He-
brew law, so far as it did not rest on human nature,
and considered that Christianity was a new thing ;
Christ not a mere Jew, but a universal man, who had
thrown down the wall of partition between Jews and
Gentiles. All the old, artificial distinctions, there-
fore, were done away with at once. Paul was the head
of the liberal party among the primitive Christians.

UO THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

He was considered a heretic; and though he was more
efficient than any of the other early preachers of
Christianity, yet the author of the Apocalypse thought
him not worthy of a place in the foundation of the
new Jerusalem, which rests on the twelve apostles.*
The fourth Gospel, with peculiarities of its own, is
written wholly in the interest of this party ; James is
not mentioned in it at all, and Peter plays but quite
a subordinate part, and is thrown into the shade by
John. The disciples are spoken of as often misunder-
standing their great Teacher. These peculiarities
cannot be considered as accidental ; they are monu-
ments of the controversy then going on between the
two parties. Paul stood in direct opposition to the
Jewish Christians. This is plain from the Epistle
to the Galatians, in which the heads of the rival sects
appear very unlike the description given of them in
the book of Acts. The observance of Jewish sacred
days was one of the subjects of controversy. Let us
look only at the matter of the Sabbath as it came in
question between the two parties. Paul exalts Christ
far above the Messianic predictions of the Old Testa-
ment, calling him an image of the invisible God, and
declaring that all the fulness of divinity dwells in
him,, and adds, that he had annulled the old Hebrew
law. " Therefore," says Paul, " let no man judge
you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a holy day,
or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath." f Here he
distinctly states the issue between the two Christian
sects. Elsewhere he speaks of the Jewish party as
men that " would pervert the gospel of Christ " by
teaching that a man was " justified by the works of
the law," that is, by a minute observance of the He-

* Rev. xxi. 14. t Col. ii. 16.

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 241

brew ritual. Paul rejects the authority of the Old
Testament. The law of Moses was but a school-
master's servant to bring us to Christ ; man had come
to Christ, and needed that servant no longer ; the law
was a taskmaster and guardian set over man in his
minority, now he had come of age, and was free; the
law was a shadow of good things, and they had come ;
it was a law of sin and death, which no man could
bear, and now the law of the spirit of life, as revealed
by Jesus Christ, had made men free from the law of sin
and death. Such was the work of the glorious gospel
of the blessed God. Thus sweeping off the authority
of the old law in general, he proceeds to particulars :
he rejects circumcision, and the offering of sacrifices;
rejects the distinction of nations as Jew and Gentile;
the distinction of meats as clean and unclean, and all
distinction of days as holy and not holy. If one man
thought one day holier than another day, if another
man thought all days equally holy, he would have each
man time to his conviction, but not seek to impose that
conviction on his brothers. Such was Paul's opinion
of " the law of Moses," such of the Sabbath ; the Chris-
tians were not " subject to ordinances."

Let us come now to the common practice of the early
Christians. The apostles went about and preached
Christianity, as they severally understood it. They
spoke as they found opportunity ; on the Sabbath
to the Jews in the synagogues, and on the other days
as they found time and hearers. It does not appear
from the New Testament that they limited themselves
to any particular day ; they were missionaries, some
of them remained but a little while in a place, making

*Gal. i. 5.
IV— 16

242 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the most of their time. It seems that the early Chris-
tians, who Hved in large towns, met every day for re-
ligious purposes. But as that would be found incon-
venient, one day came to be regarded as the regular
time of their meetings. The Jewish Christians ob-
served the Sabbath with pharisaic rigor, while the lib-
eral Christians neglected it. But both parties of
Christians observed, at length, the first day of the
week as a peculiar day. No one knows when this ob-
servance of the Sunday began; it is difficult to find
proof in the New Testament that the apostles regarded
it as a peculiar day ; it seems plain that Paul did not.
But it is certain that in the second century after
Jesus the Christians in general did so regard it, and
perhaps all of them.

Why was the Sunday chosen as the regular day for
religious meeting? It was regarded as the day on
which Jesus rose from the dead ; and, following the
mythical account in Genesis, it was the day on which
God began the creation, and actually created the light.
Here there were two reasons for the selection of that
day ; both are frequently mentioned by the early Chris-
tian, writers. Sunday, therefore, was to them a sym-
bol of the new creation, and of the hght that had
come into the world. The liberal Christians, in sep-
arating from the Jewish Sabbath, would naturally ex-
alt the new religious day. Athanasius, I think, is
the first who ascribes a divine origin to the institution
of Sunday. He says " the Lord changed this day
from the Sabbath to the Sunday ;" but Athanasius
lived three centuries after Christ, and seems to have
known little about the matter.

The officers and the order of services in the churches
on the Sunday seem derived from the usages of the

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 243

Jewish synagogues. The Sunday was thus observed:
the people came together in the morning; the exercises
consisted of readings from the Old Testament and
such writings of the Christians as the assembly saw
fit to have read to them. In respect to these writings
there was a wide difference in the different churches,
some accepting more and others less. The overseer
or bishop made an address, perhaps an exposition
of the passage of Scripture. Prayers were said and
hymns chanted ; the Lord's supper was celebrated.
The form no doubt differed, and widely, too, in dif-
ferent places. It was not the form of servitude, but
the spirit of freedom, they observed. But all these
things were done, likewise, on other days ; the Lord's
supper could be celebrated on any day, and is on
every day by the Catholic church, even now ; for the
Catholics have been true to the early practices In more
points than the Protestants are willing to admit. In
some places it is certain there was a " communion "
every day. Sunday was regarded holy by the early
Christians, just as certain festivals are regarded holy
by the Catholics, the Episcopalians and the Lutherans
at this day ; as the New Englanders regard Thanks-
giving day as holy. Other days, likewise, were re-
garded as holy ; were used in the same manner as the
Sunday, Such days were observed In honor of par-
ticular events In the life of Jesus, or in honor of
saints and martyrs, or they were days consecrated by
older festivals belonging to the more ancient forms
of religion. In the Catholic church such daj's are
still numerous. It is only the Puritans who have
completely rejected them, and they have been obliged
to substitute new ones In their place. However, there
was one peculiarity of the Sunday which distinguished

244 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

it from most or all other daj's. It was a day of re-
ligious rejoicing. On other days the Christians knelt
in prayer; on the Sunday they stood up on joyful
feet, for light had come into the world. Sunday was
a day of gladness and rejoicing. The early Chris-
tians had many fasts ; they were commonly held on
Wednesdays and Fridays, often on Saturday also,
the more completely to get rid of the Jewish super-
stition which consecrated that day ; but on Sunday
there must be no fast. He would be a heretic who
should fast on Sunday. It is strictly forbidden in
the " canons of the apostles ;" a clergyman must be
degraded and a layman excommunicated for the of-
fence. Says St. Ignatius, in the second century, if
the epistle be genuine, " Every lover of Christ feasts
on the Lord's day." " We deem it wicked," says
Tertullian in the third century, " to fast on the Sun-
day, or to pray on our knees." " Oh," says St. Je-
rome, " that we could fast on the Sunday, as Paul
did and they that were with him." St. Ambrose says
the " Manichees were damned for fasting on the Lord's
day." At this day the Catholic church allows no
fasting on Sunday, save the Sunday before the cruci-
fixion ; even Lent ceases on that day.

It does not appear that labor ceased on Sunday in
the earliest age of Christianity. But when Sunday
became the regular and most important day for hold-
ing religious meetings, less labor must of course be
performed on that day. At length it became common
in some places to abstain from ordinary work on the
Sunday. It is not easy to say how early this was
brought about. But after Christianity had become
" respectable," and found its way to the ranks of the
wealthy, cultivated, and powerful, laws got enacted

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 245

in its favor. Now the Romans, like all other ancient
nations, had certain festal days in which it was not
thought proper to labor unless work was pressing.
It was disreputable to continue common labor on such
days without an urgent reason ; they were pretty
numerous in the Roman calendar. Courts did not sit
on those days ; no public business was transacted.
They were observed as Christmas and the more im-
portant saints' days in Catholic countries ; as Thanks-
giving day and the Fourth of July with us. In the
year three hundred and twenty-one Constantine, the
first Christian emperor of Rome, placed Sunday among
their ferial days. This was perhaps the first legis-
lative action concerning the day. The statute forbids
labor in towns, but expressly excludes all prohibition
of field-labor in the country.* About three hundred
and sixty-six or seven the Council of Laodicea decreed
that Christians " ought not to Judaize and be idle on
the Sabbath, but to work on that day; especially observ-
ing the Lord's day, and if it is possible, as Christians,
resting from labor." Afterwards the Emperor Theo-
dosius forbade certain public games on Sunday,
Christmas, Ephiphany, and the whole time from
Easter to Pentecost. Justinian likewise foi'bade the-
atrical exhibitions, races in the circus, and the fights
of wild beasts on Sunday, under severe penalties.
This was done in order that the religious services of
the Christians might not be disturbed. By his laws
the Sunday continued to be a day in which public
business was not to be transacted. But the Christmas
days, the fifteen days of Easter, and numerous other
days previously observed by Christians or pagans,
were put in the same class by the law. All this it

* Justinian, Cod. Lib. iii. Tit. xii, 1, 3.

246 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

seems was done from no superstitious notions respect-
ing those days, but for the sake of public utihty and
convenience. However, the rigor of the Jewish Sab-
batical laws was by no means followed. Labors of
love, opera caritatis, were considered as suitable busi-
ness for those days. The very statute of Theodosius
recommended the emancipation of slaves on Sunday'.
All impediments to their liberation were removed on
that day, and though judicial proceedings in all other
matters were forbidden on Sunday, an exception was
expressly made in favor of emancipating slaves. This
statute was preserved in the code of Justinian.* All
these laws go to show that there were similar customs
previously established among the Christians without
the aid of legislation.

About the middle of the sixth century the Council
of Orleans forbade labor in the fields, though it did
not forbid traveling with cattle and oxen, the prepar-
ation of food, or any work necessary to the cleanliness
of the house or the person — declaring that rigors of
that sort belong more to a Jewish than to a Christian
observance of the day. That, I think, is the earliest
ecclesiastical decree which has come down to us for-
bidding field-labor in the country ; a decree unknown
till five hundred and thirty-eight years after Christ.
But before that, in the year three hundred and thir-
teen, the Council of Elvira in Spain decreed that if
any one in a city absented himself three Sundays con-
secutively from the church, he should be suspended
from communion for a short time. Such a regulation,
however, Avas founded purely on considerations of pub-
lic utility. INIany church establishments have thought
it necessary to protect themselves from desertion by
similar penal laws.

*Cod., Lib. iii. Tit. xii. 1, 2. See also, 1, 3 and 11.

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 247

In Catholic countries, at the present day, the morn-
ing of Sunday is appropriated to public worship, the
people flocking to church. But the afternoon and
evening are devoted to society, to amusement of va-
rious kinds. Nothing appears sombre, but every-
thing has a festive air; even the theatres are open.
Sunday is like Christmas or a Thanksgiving day in
Boston, only the festive demonstrations are more pub-
lic. It is so in the Protestant countries on the con-
tinent of Europe. Work is suspended, public and
private, except what is necessary for the observance
of the day ; public lectures are suspended ; public libra-
ries closed ; but galleries of paintings and statues are
thrown open and crowded ; the public walks are
thronged. In Southern Germany, and, doubtless,
elsewhere, young men and women have I seen in sum-
mer, of a Sunday afternoon, dancing on the green,
the clergyman, Protestant or Catholic, looking on and
enjoying the cheerfulness of the young people.
Americans think their mode of keeping Sunday is un-
holy ; they, that ours is Jewish and pharisaical. In
Paris, sometimes, courses of scientific lectures are de-
livered after the hours of religious services, to men
who are busy during the week with other cares, and
who gladly take the hours of their only leisure day to
gain a little intellectual instruction.

When England was a Catholic country. Catholic
notions of Sunday of course prevailed. Labor was
suspended ; there was service in the churches, and af-
terwards there were sports for the people, but they
were attended with quarreling, noise, uproar, and con-
tinual drunkenness. It was so after the Reformation.
In the time of Elizabeth the laws forbade labor except
in time of harvest, when it was thought right to work,

248 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

if need were, and " save the thing that God hath
sent." Some of the Protestants wished to reform
those disorders, and convert the Sunday to a higher
use. The government, and sometimes the superior
clergy, for a long time interfered to prevent the re-
form, often to protect the abuse. The " Book of
Sports," appointed to be read in churches, is well
known to us from the just indignation with which it
filled our fathers.

Now, it is plain, that in England before the Refor-
mation, the Sunday was not appropriated to its high-
est use ; not to the highest interests of mankind ; no,
not to the highest concerns which the people at that
time were capable of appreciating. The attempts
made then and subsequently, by government, to en-
force the observance of the day for purposes not the
highest led to a fearful reaction ; that to other and
counter reactions. The ill consequences of those
movements have not yet ceased on cither side of the
ocean.

The Puritans represented the spirit of reaction
against ecclesiastical and other abuses of their time,
and the age before them. Let me do these men no in-
justice. I honor the heroic virtues of our fathers
not less because I see their faults, see the cause of their
faults, and the occasion which demanded such mascu-
line and terrible virtues as the Puritans unquestion-
ably possessed. I speak only of their doctrine of the
Sunday. They were driven from one extreme to the
other, for oppression makes wise men mad. They
took mainly the notions of the Sabbath which belong
to the later portions of the Old Testament ; they in-
tei*preted them M'ith the most pharisaical rigor, and
then applied them to the Sunday. Did they find no

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 249

warrant for that rigor in the New Testament? they
found enough in the Old ; enough in their own charac-
ter, and their consequent notions of God. They thus
introduced a set of ideas respecting the Sunday, which
the Christian church had never known before, and
rigidly enforced an observance thereof utterly foreign
both to the letter and spirit of the New Testament,
They made Sunday a terrible day, a day of fear and
of fasting, and of trembling under the terrors of the
Lord. They even called it by the Hebrew name —
the Sabbath. The Catholics had said it was not safe
to trust the scriptures in the hands of the people, for
an inspired word needed an expositor also inspired.
The abuse which the Puritans made of the Bible by
their notions of the Sunday seemed a fulfilment of
the Catholic prophecy. But the Catholics did not
see what is plain to all men now — that this very
abuse of Sunday and scripture was only the reaction
against other abuses, ancient, venerated, and enforced
by the Catholic church itself.

Every sect has some institution which is the symbol
of its religious consciousness, though not devised for
that purpose. With the early Christians, it was their
love-feasts and communion ; with the Catholics, it is
their gorgeous ritual with its ancient date and divine
pretensions — a ritual so imposing to many ; with the
Quakers, who scorn all that is symbolic, the symbol
equally appears in the plain di^ess and the plain speech,
the broad brim, and thee and thou. With the Puri-
tans, this symbol was the Sabbath, not the Sunday.
Their Sabbath was like themselves, austere, inflexible
as their " divine decrees ;" not human and of man,
but Hebrew and of the Jews, stem, cold and sad.

The Puritans were possessed with the sentiment of

250 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

fear before God; they had ideas analogous to that
sentiment, and wrought out actions akin to those ideas.
They brouglit to America their ideas and sentiments.
Behold the effect of their actions. Let us walk rev-
erently backAvard, with averted eyes, to cover up their
folly, their shame, and their sin, as they could not
walk to conceal the folly of their progenitors. The
Puritans are the fathers of New England and her
descendant states ; the fathers of the American idea ;
of most things in America that are good ; surely, of
most that is best. They seem made on purpose for
their work of conquering a wilderness and founding
a state. It is not with gentle hands, not with the
dalliance of effeminate fingers, that such a task is
done. The work required energy the most masculine,
in heart, head, and hands. None but the Puritans
could have done such a work. They could fast as
no men ; none could work like them ; none preach ;
none pray ; none could fight as they fought. They
have left a most precious inheritance to men who have
the same greatness of soul, but have fallen on happier
times. Yet this inheritance is fatal to mere imita-
tors, who will go on planting of vineyards wlicre the
first planter fell intoxicated with the fruit of his own
toil. This inheritance is dangerous to men who will
be no wiser than their ancestors. Let us honor the
good deeds of our fathers ; and not eat, but reverently
bury their honored bones.

The Puritans represented the natural reaction of
mankind against old institutions that were absurd or
tyrannical. The Catholic church had multiplied feast
days to an extreme, and taken unnecessary pains to
promote fun and frolic. The Puritans would have
none of the saints' days in their calendar; thought

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 251

sport was wicked ; cut down Maypoles, and punished
a man who kept Christmas after the old fashion. The
Catholic church had neglected her golden opportuni-
ties for giving the people moral and religious instruc-
tion ; had quite too much neglected public prayer and
preaching, but relied mainly on sensuous instruments
— architecture, painting, music. In revenge, the
Puritan had a meeting-house as plain as boards could
make it ; tore the pictures to pieces ; thought an or-
gan " was not of God," and had sermons long and
numerous, and prayers full of earnestness, zeal, piety,
and faith, in short, possessed of all desirable things
except an end. Did the Catholics forbid the people
the Bible, emphatically the book of the people — the
Puritan would read no other book ; called his chil-
dren Hebrew names, and reenacted " the laws of God "
in the Old Testament, " until we can make better."
Did Henry and Elizabeth underrate the people and
overvalue the monarchy, nature had her vengeance
for that abuse, and the Puritan taught the world that
kings, also, had a joint in their necks.

The Puritans went to the extreme in many things:
in their contempt for amusements, for what was grace-
ful in man or beautiful in woman ; in their scorn of
art, of elegant literature, even of music; in their
general condemnation of the past, from which they
would preserve little excepting what was Hebrew,
which, of course, they overhonored as much as they
undervalued all the rest. In their notions respecting
the Sunday they went to the same extreme. The
general reason is obvious. They Avished to avoid old
abuses, and thought they were not out of the water
till they were in the fire. But there was a special
reason, also — the English are the most empirical of

252 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

all nations. They love a fact more than an idea, and
often cling to an historical precedent rather than obey
a great tinith which transcends all precedents. The
national tendency to external things, perhaps, helped
lead them to these peculiar notions of the Sabbath.
The precedent they found in " the chosen people," and
established, as they thought, by God himself.

The ideas of the Puritans respecting the Sunday
are still cherished in the popular theology of New En-
gland. There is one party in our churches possessed
of many excellencies, which has always had the merit
of speaking out fully what it thinks and feels. At
this day that party still represents the Puritanic opin-
ions about the Sunda}^, though a little modified. They
teach that God created the world in six days, and
rested the seventh; that he commanded mankind, also,
to rest on that day ; commanded a man to be stoned
to death for picking up sticks of a Saturday ; that
by divine authority the first day of the week was sub-
stituted for the seventh, and therefore that is the re-
hgious duty of all men to rest from work on that day,
for the Hebrew law of the Sabbath is binding on
Christians for ever. It is maintained that abstinence
from work on Sunday is as much a religious duty as
abstinence from theft or hatred ; that the day must be
exclusively devoted to religion, in the technical sense
of that Avord, to public or private worship, to religious
reading, thought or conversation. To attend church
on that day is thought to be a good in itself, though
it should lead to no further good, and therefore a
duty as imperative as the duty of loving man and God.
The preacher may not edify, still the duty of attend-
ing to his ministration of the word remains the same;

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 253

for the attendance is a good in itself. It is taught
that work, that amusement, common conversation, the
reading of a book not technically religious is a sin,
just as clearly a sin as theft or hatred, though per-
haps not so great. Writing a letter, even, is de-
nounced as a sin, though the letter be written for the
purpose of arresting the progress of a war, and se-
curing life and freedom to millions of men.

Now it is very plain that such ideas are not con-
sistent with the truth. In the language of the church,
they are a heresy. As we learn the facts of the case
we must give up such ideas concerning the Sunday.
It is like any other day. Christianity knows no
classes of days, as holy or profane; all days are the
Lord's days, all time holy time.

But then comes the other question. What is the best
use to be made of the day ; the use most conducive to
the highest interests of mankind? Will it be most
profitable to " give up the Sunday," to use it as the
Catholics do, as the Puritans did, or to adopt some
other method? To answer these questions fairly, let
us look and see the effects of the present notions about
the Sunday, and the stricter mode of observing it here
in New England. The experience of two hundred
years is worth looking at. Let us look at the good
effects first.

The good and evil of any age are commonly bound
so closely together that in plucking up the tares
there is danger lest the wheat also be uprooted, at
least trodden down. In America, especially in New
England, everything is intense, with of course a ten-
dency to extravagance, to fanaticism. Look at some
of the most obvious signs of that intensity. No con-
servatism in the world is so biffoted as American con-

254 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

servatism ; no democracy so intense. Nowhere else
can you find such thorough-going defenders of the
existing state of things, social, ecclesiastical, civil ;
such defenders of drunkenness, ignorance, superstition,
slavery, and war; nowhere such radical enemies to the
existing state of things ; such foes of dininkenness,
ignorance, superstition, slavery, and war. No " re-
vivals of religion " are like the American ; none of
old were like these. See how the American soldiers
fight ; how the American men will work. Puritanism
was intense enough in England; in the New World it
was yet more so. Our fathers were intense Calvinists ;
more Calvanistic than Calvin — they became Hop-
kinsian. They hated the Pope; kings and bishops
were their aversion. They feared God. Did they
love him — love him as much.'' They had an intense
religious activity, but they had another Intensit3\ It
is better that we should say it, rather than men who
do not honor them. That intensity of action, when
turned towards material things, or as they called
them, " carnal things," needed some powerful check.
It was found in their bigotry and superstition. In
such an age as theirs, when the Reformation broke
down all the ordinary restraints of society, and rent
asunder the golden ties which bound man to the past ;
when the Anglican church ended in fire, and the En-
glish monarchy in blood ; when men full of piety
thanked God for the fire and the bloodshed, and felt
the wrongs of a thousand years driving them almost
to madness — what was there to keep such men within
bounds, and restrain them from the wildest license
and unbridled anarchy? Nothing but superstition;
nothing short of fear of hell. They broke down the
monarchy ; they trod the church under their feet.

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 255

She who had once been counted as the queen and mother
of society was now to be regarded only as the apoc-
alyptic woman in scarlet, the mother of abominations,
bride of the devil, and queen of hell. The Old Testa-
ment wrought on the minds of these men like a charm,
to stimulate and to soothe. " One day," said they,
" is made holy by God ; in it shall no work be done
by man or beast or thing inanimate. On that day
all must attend church as an act of religion." Here,
then, was a bar extending across the stream of world-
liness, filling one seventh part of its channel wide and
deep, and wonderfully interrupting its whelming tide.
I admire the divine skill which compounds the gases
in the air; which balances centripetal and centrifugal
forces into harmonious proportions — those fair ellip-
ses in the unseen air; but still more marvelous is that
same skill, diviner now, which compounds the folly
and the wisdom of mankind ; balances centripetal and
centrifugal forces here, stilling the noise of kings and
the tumult of the people, making their wrath to serve
him, and the remnant thereof restraining for ever.

On Sunday, master and man, the slave stolen from
the wilderness, the servant — a Christian man bought
from some Christian conqueror — must cease from
their work. Did the covetous, the cruel, the strong,
oppress the weak for six days, the Sabbath said,
" Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further." The
servant was free from his master, and the weary was
at rest. The plough stood still in the furrow ; the
sheaf lay neglected in the field ; the horse and the ox
enjoyed their master's Sabbath of rest, all heedless
of the divine decrees, of election or reprobation, yet
not the less watched over by that dear Providence
which numbered the hairs of the head, and overruled

256 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the falling of a sparrow for the sparrow's good. All
must attend church, master and man, rich and poor,
oppressor and oppressed. Good things and great
things got read out of the Bible, it was the book of
the people, the New Testament, written much of it
in the interest of all mankind, with special emphasis
laid on the rights of the weak and the duties of the
strong. Good things got said in sermon and in
prayer. The speakers must think, the hearers think,
as well as tremble. Begin to think in a circle narrow
as a lady's ring or the Assembly's Catechism, you
will think out ; for thought, like all movement, tends
to the right line. Calvinism has always bred think-
ers, and when barbarism was the first danger was per-
haps the only thing which could do it. Calvinism,
too, has always shown itself in favor of popular lib-
erty to a certain degree, and though it stops far short
of the mark, yet goes far beyond the Catholic or Epis-
copalian.

Sunday, thus enforced by superstition, has yet been
the education-day of New England ; the national
school-time for the culture of man's highest powers ;
therein have the clergy been our educators, and done a
vast service which mankind will not soon forget. It was
good seed they sowed on this soil of the New World ;
the harvest is proof of that. They builded wiser than
they knew. Their unconscious hands constructed
the thought of God. Even their superstition and big-
otry did much to preserve church and clergy to us;
much also to educate and develop the highest powers
of man. But for that superstition we might have seen
the same anarchy, the same unbridled license in the
seventeenth century which we saw in the eighteenth,
as a consequence of a similar revolution, a similar re-

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 257

action ; only it would have been carried out with the
intensity of that most masculine and earnest race of
men. How much further English atrocities would
have gone than the French did go ; how long it would
have taken mankind, by their proper motion, to re-
ascend from a fall so adverse and so low, I cannot tell.
I see what saved them from the plunge.

True, the Sunday was not what it should be, more
than the week ; preaching was not what it should be,
more than practice. But without that Sunday, and
without that preaching, New England would have
been quite a different land ; America another nation
altogether; the world by no means so far advanced as
now. New England with her descendants has always
been the superior portion of America. I flatter no
man's prejudice, but speak a plain truth. She is su-
perior in intelligence, in morality — that is too plain
for proof. The prime cause of that superiority must
be sought in the character of the fathers of New En-
gland ; but a secondary and most powerful cause is
to be found also in those two institutions — Sunday
and preaching. Why is it that all great movements,
from the American Revolution downi to anti-slavery,
have begun here? Why is it that education societies,
missionary societies, Bible societies, and all the move-
ments for the advance of mankind, begin here.''
Why, it is no more an accident than the rising of
the tide. Find much of the cause in the superior
character, and therefore in the superior aims of the
forefathers, much also will be found due to this —
once in the week they paused from all work ; they
thought of their God, who had delivered them from the
iron house and yoke of bondage; they listened to the
words of able men, exhorting them to justice, piety,
IV— 17

258 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

and a heavenly walk with God ; they trembled at fear of
hell, they rejoiced at hope of heaven. The church —
no, the " meeting-house " — was the common property
of all ; the minister the common friend. The slave
looked up to him ; the chief magistrate dared not look
down on him. For more than a hundred years the
ablest men of New England went into the pulpit. No
talent was thought too great, no learaing too rich and
profound, no genius too holy and divine, for the work
of teaching men their highest duty, and helping to
their highest bliss. He was the minister to all. There
was not then a church for the rich, and a chapel for
the poor ; the rich and the poor met together, for one
God was the maker of them all — their Father too ;
they had one gospel, one Redeemer — their Brother
not less than their God; they journeyed toward the
same heaven, which had but one entrance for great and
little ; they prayed all the same pra^^er. The effect of
this socialism of religion is seldom noticed ; so we walk
on moist earth, not thinking that we tread on the thun-
der-cloud and the lightning. But it is not in human
nature for men of intense religious activity to meet
in the same church, sing the same psalm, pray the same
prayer, partake the same elements of communion, and
not be touched with compassion — each for all, and all
for each. The same causes which built up religion in
New England built up democracy along with it. Is
it not easy to see the cause which made the rich men
of New England the most benevolent of rich men ;
gave them their character for generosity and public
spirit — yes, for eminent humanity? The acorn is
not more obviously the parent of the oak than those
two institutions of New England the parent of such
masculine virtues as distinguish her sons.

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 259

Regarded merely as a day of rest from labor, the
Sunday has been of great value to us. Considering
the intense character of the nation, our tendency to
material things, and our restless love of work, it seems
as if a Moses of the nineteenth century, legislating
for us, would enact two rest-days in the week rather
than one. It is a good thing that a man once a week
pauses from his work, arrays himself in clean gar-
ments, and is at rest.

Regarded in its other aspects, Sunday has aided the
intellectual culture of the people to a degree not often
appreciated. To many a man, yes, to most men, it is
their only reading day, and they will read " secular "
books, spite of the clerical admonition. Many a poor
boy in New England, who has toiled all the week, and
would gladly have studied all the night, did not ob-
stinate nature forbid, has studied stealthily all Sunday,
not Jeremiah and the prophets, but Homer and the
mathematics, and risen at length to eminence amongst
cultivated men — he has to thank the Sunday for the
beginnings of that manly growth.

The moral and religious effect of the day is yet more
impoi'tant. One seventh part of the time was to be
devoted to moral and religious culture. The clergy
watched diligently over Sunday, as their own day.
Work was then the accident ; religion was the business.
Everything with us becomes earnest; Sunday as earn-
est as the week. It must not be spent idly. Per-
haps no body of clergymen, for two hundred years,
on the whole were ever so wakeful and active as the
American. They also are earnest and full of in-
tensity, especially in the more serious sects. I think
I am not very superstitious ; not often inclined to lean
on my father's staff rather than walk on my own feet ;

260 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

not over-much accustomed to take things on trust be-
cause they have been trusted to all along: but I must
confess that I see a vast amount of good achieved by
the aid of these two institutions, the Sunday and
preaching, which could not have been done without
them. I know I have my prejudices; I love the Sun-
day ; a professional bias may wai*p me aside, for I am
a preacher — the pulpit is my joy and my throne.
Judge you how far my profession and my prejudice
have led me astray in estimating the value of the Sun-
day, its preaching, and the good they have achieved
for us in New England. I know what superstition,
what bigotry, has been connected with both ; I know
it has kept grim and terrible guard about these in-
stitutions. I look upon that supei-stitution and big-
otry as on the old New England guns which were
fought with in the Indian wars, the French wars, and
the Revolution — things that did service when men
knew not how to defend what they valued most with
better tools and more Christian. I look on both with
the same melancholy veneration, but honor them the
more that now they are old, battered, unfit for use,
and covered with rust. I would respectfully hang
them up, supcrstitution an'd the musket, side by side ;
honorable, but harmless, with their muzzles down, and
pray God it might never be my lot to handle such un-
godly weapons, though in a cause never so humane and
holy.

Let us look a little at the ill effects of these notions
of the Sunday and the observance which they led to.
It is thought an act of religion to attend church
and give a mere bodily presence there. Hence the
minister often relies on this circumstance to bring
his audience together; preaches sermons on the duty

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 261

of going to church, while ingenuous boys blush for
his weakness, and ask, " Were it not better to rely
on your goodness, your piety, your wisdom ; on your
superior ability to teach men, even on your eloquence ;
rather than tell them it is an act of religion to come
and hear you, when both they and you are painfully
conscious that they are thereby made no wiser, no
better, nor more Christian ? " This notion is a dan-
gerous one for a clergyman. It flatters his pride and
encourages his sloth. It blinds him to his own defects,
and leads him to attribute his empty benches to the
perverseness of human nature and the carnal heart,
which a few snow-flakes can frighten from his church,
while a storm will not keep them from a lecture on
science or literature. No doubt it is a man's duty to
seek all opportunities of becoming wiser and better.
So far as church-going helps that work, so far it
is a duty. But to count it in itself, irrespective of its
consequences, an act of religion, is to commit a dan-
gerous error, which has proved fatal to many a man's
growth in goodness and piety. Let us look to the
end, not merely at the means.

This notion has also a bad eff'ect on the hearers.
It is thought an act of religion to attend church,
whether you are edified or not by sermon, by psalm,
or prayer; an act of religion, though you could more
profitably spend the time in your own closet at home,
or with your own thoughts in the fields. Of course,
then, he who attends once a day is thought a Chris-
tian to a certain degree ; if twice, more so ; if thrice,
Avhy that denotes an additional amount of growth in
grace. In this way the day is often spent in a con-
tinual round of meetings. Sermon follows sermon ;
prayer treads upon the footsteps of prayer; psalm

262 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

effaces psalm, till morning, afternoon, evening, all
are gone. The Sunday is ended and over; the man is
tired — ■ but has he been profited and made better
thereby? The sermons and the prayers have cancelled
one another, been heard and forgot. They were too
numerous to remember or produce their effect. So
on a summer's lake, as the winds loiter and then pass
by, ripple follows ripple, and wave succeeds to wave,
yet the next day the wind has ceased and the unstable
water bears no trace left there by all the blowings of
the former day, but bares its incontinent bosom to the
frailest and most fleeting clouds.

Another ill effect follows from regarding attend-
ance at church as an act of religion in itself — it is
forgotten that a man cannot teach what he does not
know. If you have more manhood than I, more re-
ligion ; if you are the more humane and the more
divine, it is idle for me to try and teach you divinity
and humanity ; idle in you to make believe you are
taught. The less must learn of the greater, not the
greater directly of the less. It is too often forgotten
by the preacher that his hearers may be capable of
teaching him ; that he cannot fill them out of an empti-
ness, but a fulness. Hence it conies to pass that no
one, how advanced soever, is allowed to graduate, so
to say, from the church. Perhaps it may do a great
man, mature in Christianity, good to sit down with his
fellows and hear a little man talk who knows nothing
of religion ; it may increase his sympathy with man-
kind. It can hardly be an act of religion to such a
man so advanced in his goodness and piety; perhaps
not the best use he could make of the hour.

The current opinion hinders social tendencies. A
man must not meet with his friend and neighbor, or

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 263

if he does, he must talk with bated breath, with ghostly
countenance, and of a ghostly theme. From this
abuse of the Sunday comes much of the cold and un-
social character which strangers charge us with. As
things now go, there are many who have no oppor-
tunity for social intercourse except the hour of the
Sunday. Then it is forbidden them. So they suffer
and lose much of the charm of life ; become ungenial,
unsocial, stiff, and hard, and cold.

This notion hinders men, also, from intellectual cul-
ture. They must read no book but one professedly
religious. Such works are commonly poor and dull ;
written mainly by men of little ability, of little breadth
of view ; not written in the interests of mankind, but
only of a sect — the Calvinists or Unitarians. A good
man groans when he looks over the immense piles of
sectarian books written with good motives, and read
with the most devout of intentions, but which produce
their best effect when they lead only to sleep. Yet it
is commonly taught that it is religion to spend a part
of Sunday in reading such works, in listening, or in
trying to listen, or in affecting to try and listen, to
the most watery sermons, while it is wicked to read
some " secular " book, philosophy, history, poem, or
tale, which expands the mind and warms the heart.
Our poor but wisdom-seeking boy must read his Homer
only by stealth. There are many men who have no
time for intellectual pursuits, none for reading, except
on Sunday. It is cruel to tell them they shall read
none but sectarian books or listen only to sectarian
words.

But there are other evils yet. These notions and
the corresponding practice tend to make religion ex-
ternal, consisting in obedience to form, in compliance

264 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

with custom ; while religion is and can be only piety
and goodness, love to God and love to man. To keep
the Sunday idle, to attend church, is not being reli-
gious. It is easy to do that ; easy to stop there, and
then to look at real, manly saints who live in the odor
of sanctity, whose sentiment is a prayer, their deeds
religion, and their whole life a perpetual communion
with God, and say, " Infidel ! Unbeliever."

Then, as one day is devoted to religion, it is thought
that is enough; that religion has no more business in
the world than the world in religion. So division is
made of the territory of mortal life, in which partition
worldliness has six days, while poor religion has only
the Sunday, and content with her own limits, feels no
salient wish to absorb or annex the week ! It is painful
to see this abuse of an institution so noble. No com-
monness of its occurrence renders it less painful. It is
painful to be told that men of the most scrupulous sects
on Sunday are in the week the least scrupulous of
men.

But even in religious matters it is thought all things
which pertain directly to the religious welfare of men
are not proper to be discussed on Sunday. One must
not preach against intemperance, against slavery,
against war, on Sunday. It is not " evangelical ; " not
" preaching the gospel." Yet it is thought proper to
preach on total depravity, on eternal damnation ; to
show that God will damn for ever the majority of
mankind ; that the apostle Peter was a Unitarian.^
The Sunday is not the time, the pulpit not the place,
preaching not the instrument, wherewith to oppose
the monstrous sins of our day and secure education,
temperance, peace, freedom, for mankind. It is not
evangelical, not Christian, to do that of a Sunday !

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY. 265

Yet wonderful to say, it is not thought very wicked
to hold a political caucus on Sunday for the merest
party purposes ; not wicked at all to work all day at
the navy-yards in fitting out vessels if they are only
vessels of war; not at all wicked to toil all Sunday, if
it is only in aiming to kill men in regular battle.
Theological newspapers can expend their cheap cen-
sure on a member of Congress for writing a letter
on Sunday, yet have no word of fault to find with the
order which sets hundreds to work on Sunday in pre-
paring armaments of war ; not a word against the war
which sets men to butcher their Christian brothers on
the day which Christians celebrate as the anniversary
of Christ's triumph over death ! ^ These things show
that we have not yet arrived at the most profitable
and Christian mode of using the Sunday ; and when I
consider these abuses I wonder not that the cry of " In-
fidel " is met by the unchristian taunt, yet more de-
serving and biting, " Thou hypocrite ! " I wonder
not that some men say, " Let us away with the Sun-
day altogether; and if we have no place for rest, we
will have none for hypocrisy."

The efforts honestly made by good and honest men
to Judaize the day still more; to revive the sterner
features of ancient worship ; to put a yoke on us which
neither we nor our fathers could bear; to transform
the Christian Sunday into the Jewish Sabbath, must
load to a reaction. Abuse on one side will be met
by abuse on the other; despotic asceticism by license;
Judaism by heathenism. Superstition is the mother
of denial. Men will scorn the Sunday ; abuse its timely
rest. Its hours that may be devoted to man's highest
interests will be prostituted to low aims, and worldli-
ness make an unbroken sweep from one end of the

266 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

month to the other ; and then it will take jcslts of toil
before mankind can get back and secure the blessings
now placed within an easy reach. I put it to you,
men whose heads time has crowned with white or
sprinkled with a sober gray, if you would deem it salu-
tary to enforce on your grandchildren the Sabbath
austerities which your parents imposed on you? In
your youth was the Sunday a welcome day, a genial
day, or only wearisome and sour? Was religion,
dressed in her Sabbath dress, a welcome guest ; was she
lovely and to be desired? Your faces answer. Let
us profit by your experience.

How can we make the Sunday yet more valuable?
If we abandon the superstitious notions respecting
its origin and original design, the evils that have hith-
erto hindered its use will soon perish of themselves.
They all grow out of that root. If men are not driven
into a reaction by pretensions for the Sunday which
facts will not warrant, if unreasonable austerities are
are not forced upon them in the name of the law and
the name of God, there is no danger in our day that
men will abandon an institution which already has
done so much service to mankind. Let Sunday and
preaching stand on their own merits, and they will en-
counter no more opposition than the common school and
the work-days of the week. Then men will be ready
enough to appropriate the Sunday to the highest ob-
jects they know and can appreciate. Tell men the
Sunday is made for man, and they will use it for its
highest use. Tell them man is made for it, and they
will war on it as a tyrant. I should be sorry to see
the Sunday devoted to common work ; soiTy to hear
the clatter of a mill or the rattle of the wheels of busi-

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 267

riess on that day, I look with pain on men engaged
needlessly in work on that day ; not with the pain of
wounded superstition, but a deeper regret. I would
not water my garden with perfumes when common
water was at hand. We shall always have work
enough in America ; hand-work, and head-work, for
common purposes. There is danger that we shall not
have enough of rest, of intellectual cultivation, of re-
finement, of social intercourse ; that our time shall be
too much devoted to the lower interests of life, to the
means of living and not the end.

I would not consider it an act of religion to attend
church ; only a good thing to go there when the way
of improvement leads through it, when you are made
wiser and better by being there. I am pained to see a
man spend the whole of a Sunday in going to church
— and forgetting himself in getting acquainted with
the words of the preachers. I think most intelligent
hearers, and most intelligent and Christian preachers,
will confess that two sermons are better than three,
and one is better than two. One need only look at
the afternoon face of a congregation in the city to be
satisfied of this. If one half the day were devoted to
public worship, the other half might be free for private
studies of men at home, for private devotion, for
social relaxation, for intercourse with one's own family
and friends. Then Sunday afternoon and evening
would afford an excellent opportunity for meetings
for the promotion of the great humane movements of
the day, which some would think not evangelical
enough to be treated of in the morning. Would it be
inconsistent with the great purposes of the day, incon-
sistent with Christianity, to have lectures on science,
literature, and similar subjects delivered then? I do

268 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

not believe the Catholic custom of spending the Sun-
day afternoon in England, before the Reformation,
was a good one. It diverted men from the higher end
to the lower. I cannot think that here and now we
need amusement so much as society, instruction, re-
finement, and devotion. Yet it seems to me unwise
to restrain the innocent sports of children of a Sunday
to the same degree that our fathers did, to make Sun-
day to them a day of gloom and sadness. Thoughtful
parents are now much troubled in this matter; they
cannot enforce the old discipline, so disastrous to them-
selves ; they fear to trust their own sense of what is
right — so perhaps get the ill of both schemes, and the
good of neither. There are in Boston about thirty
thousand Catholics, twenty-five thousand of them,
probably, too ignorant to read with pleasure or profit
any book. At home amusement formed a part of their
Sunday service ; it was a part of their religion to
make a festive use of Sunday afternoon. What shall
they do.f* Is it Christian in us by statute to interdict
them from their recreation.'' With the exception of
children and these most ignorant persons, it does not
appear that there is any class amongst us who need
any part of the Sunday for sport.

I am not one of those who wish " to give up the Sun-
day ;" indeed there are few such men amongst us ; I
would make it yet more useful and profitable. I would
remove from it the superstitution and the bigotry
which have so long been connected with it ; I would use
it freely, as a Christian not enslaved by the letter of
Judaism, but made free by an obedience to the law of
the spirit of life. I would use the Sunday for re-
ligion in tlie wide sense of that word ; use it to pro-
mote piety and goodness, for humanity, for science,

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY 269

for letters, for society. I would not abuse it by impu-
dent license on the one hand nor by slavish supersti-
tion on the other. We can easily escape the evils
which come of the old abuse ; can make the Sunday
ten times more valuable than it is even now; can em-
ploy it for all the highest interests of mankind, and
fear no reaction into libertinism.

The Sunday is made for man, as are all other days ;
not man for the Sunday. Let us use it, then, not con-
suming its hours in a Jewish observance ; not devote it
to the lower necessities of life, but the higher; not
squander it in idleness, sloth, frivolity, or sleep ; let
us use it for the body's rest, for the mind's culture,
for head and heart and soul.

Men and women, you have received the Sunday
from your fathers, as a day to be devoted to the high-
est interests of man. It has done great service for
them and for you. But it has come down accom-
panied with superstitution which robs it of half its
value. It is easy for you to make the day far more
profitable to yourselves than it ever was to your fath-
ers ; easy to divest it of all bigotry, to free it from all
oldness of the letter ; easy to leave it for your children
an institution which shall bless them for ages yet to
come; or it is easy to bind on their necks unnatural
restraints, to impose on their conscience and under-
standing absurdities which at last they must repel
with scorn and contempt. It is in your hands to make
the Sunday Jewish or Christian.

X

THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS

I. Let us first ascertain the opinion prevalent in the
life time of Jesus himself, as the basis of our inquiry.
It appears from the New Testament that the contem-
poraries of Jesus regarded him as the son of Joseph
and Mary (INIatt. xiii, 55, Luke iv. 22, John vi, 42).
His brothers and sisters also are mentioned, (ot dSeXc^oi
avTov), and Jesus is called the first-born son of Mary,
(tov 7r/jft)TOTOKov), iH somc mauuscrlpts, and the common
editions (Matt, i, 25). In the third Gospel the author
calls Joseph and Mary his parents (ol yovei<; avrov) and
Mary herself is represented as calling Joseph his
father. In the fourth Gospel Philip speaks of Jesus
as the son of Joseph of Nazareth (John i, 45).

The genealogies still preserved in the first and third
Gospels, in curious contradiction to his divine origin,
proceed in the supposition that Jesus had two human
parents, a mortal father as well as a mortal mother.
So, on the side of his father, his descent is traced back
to Abraham in the one author, and to Adam in the
other.

The Ebionites, who were the primitive Christians, it
seems always adhered to the opinion that Jesus was a
man born and begotten in the common way, selected
and anointed, and so becoming the Christ, not by his
birth, but his selection and inspiration. It seems
highly probable that this was the opinion of the earl-
iest church at Jerusalem.*

* See Justin Martyr, Dial, cum Tryphone, cap. 49 (0pp. ed.

270

THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS 271

It seems that the celebrated Gospel according to the
Hebrews regarded Jesus as a man born after the com-
mon way, and made his divinity commence only with
the baptism by John ; for after the descent of the Holy
Spirit it is stated, " There came a voice from heaven
and said, ' Thou art my beloved Son, this day have I
begotten thee,' " Justin found this passage in the
Memoirs of the Apostles extant in his time,f and it is
still preserved, with many other curious and instructive
readings, in the celebrated Cambridge manuscript, the
Codex Bezoe (Luke iii. 22).

These monuments very plainly refer us to a period
when it may reasonabl}^ be supposed that the prevalent
opinion among the followers of Jesus was, that he was
a man born after the common way, of two human
parents, and subsequently became the Christ, the He-
brew Messiah. This is the nature and this the office
assigned him. Such is the basis on which successive
deposits of speculation have been made and continue to
be made. It is no part of our present concern to de-
termine what the Christians at first thought of his his-
tory, of his miracles, and of his resurrection, for we
limit our inquiry to the nature and office of Jesus.

II. In the first and third Gospels, as they now stand
in manuscripts and editions, it is taught that Jesus was
the son of Mary and a holy spirit (Matt. i. 18, and
Luke i. 35, it is in both cases Trvevixa ayiov, not ro irvevfia

otto, Tom.II. p. 156), and Eusebius, H. E. Lib. III. 27 (ed.

Heinichen, Tom. I. p. 252). See also Schwegler, Nachapos-

tolische Zeital ter (Tubingen, 1846, 2 vols. 8vo.), B. I. p. 90 et

seq.

See also Schwegler, Nachapostolische Zeiltalter (Tubingen, 1846,

2 vols. 8vo), B. I. p. 90, et seq.

tDial. cum Tryphone, cap. 88 (Tom. II. p. 308). See, too,
Epiphanius Haeres, xxx. 13, and Schwegler, I. c. B. I. p. 197, et
seq.

272 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

ayiov). He was miraculously born, with no human
father. He is also the Christ, the Hebrew Messiah,
predicted in the Old Testament. He is called the Son
of God (o utos Tov ©eoij). He is endowed with miracu-
lous powers, is transfigured, returns to life after his
crucifixion, and is to come back yet once more. Such
is the highest office, and such is the highest nature as-
signed him in the first and third Gospels.

There is, however, one curious passage in Matt. xi.
27, and Luke x. 22, in which Jesus is represented as
saying, " x\ll things are delivered to me b}' my Father,
and no one knows who is the Son, except the Father,
and who is the Father, except the Son, and he to whom
the Son is pleased to reveal him." This passage may
possibly mean only that Jesus is the complete possessor
of his Messianic powers, and he alone knows who is the
Messiah, and alone understands the character of God.
But to us it seems to have a different meaning, and to
stand in plain contradiction to the general notion of
Jesus entertained in these two Gospels. It will pres-
ently appear to what a different class of speculations
this verse seems to belong.

The second Gospel calls Jesus a son of God, (wo?
©eov, not o vL6<i, except iii. 11, etc., where uninformed
persons speak), but is not quite so definite in its state-
ments as the two other Gospels already referred to ; but
it does not seem pi*obable that the author designed to
set forth a distinct theory of the natvu'e and office of
Christ peculiar to himself, only to avoid difficulties by
silence. The omission of the miraculous birth of Jesus,
however, is characteristic of the third Gospel, which
often compromises and steers a middle course between
the Hebrew and the PIcllcnistic Christians. This omis-
sion (as well as the neglect to mention the Galileans,

THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS 273

with whom Jesus stands in such entirely opposite rela-
tions in the first and third Gospels ) was probably a part
of the author's plan.

Thus, then, we find that a miraculous birth, with
only one human parent, is the deposit of the first and
third Gospels, the addition they have made to the earher
Christology.

III. Let us next examine the epistles attributed to
Peter, James, and Jude, with the Apocalypse — books
which indicate the tendency of the Jewish party among
the Christians.

In the so-called Epistle of James, which is rich in
dogmatic peculiarities, and a valuable monument in the
history of the development of Christianity, there is no
peculiar and characteristic Christology which requires
mention here.

In the First Epistle of Peter, so called, it is said the
spirit of Christ was in the prophets of the Old Testa-
ment, who foretold his sufferings and glory (to Trvev/xa
XpuTTov, 1 Peter i. 11) ; Christ was pre-appolnted before
the foundation of the world ( Trpoeyvwcr/AcVo? ) ; with his
precious blood the Christians are redeemed from their
foolish course of life, inherited from their fathers
(/xaraia? avaaTpo(f)7J<i TrarpOTrapaSoroD, i. 18, 19), that is,
from the Jewish form of religion. He also bore the
sins of Christians in his own body on the cross, and
died, the just for the unjust, that he might conduct
the Christians to God (ii. 24, and iii. 18).

After his death, he went to the departed spirits who
had not believed in the time of Noah. He is now gone
to heaven, and is on the right hand of God. Angels,
and authorities, and powers are subject to him (iii. 22).

The Second Epistle attributed to Peter, and that to
Jude, are without any peculiar Christological signifi-
cance for the present purpose.
IV— 18

274 THE TRANSIENT AND PER^NIANENT

In the Apocalj'pse, Christ is the " first-born of the
dead, and the ruler of the kings of the world " (i. 5) ;
he is the " beginning of the creation of God " (^ ^PXV
T»]s KTtcrews tov &€ov^ iii. 14). He has the same functions
as in the epistles mentioned above, — he redeems the
Christians by his blood.

Here the new matter added to the previous Christol-
ogy is this : his spirit had previously existed ; he was
pre-appointed before the foundation of the world, was
the beginning of creation, redeems man by his blood, is
the first-bom of the dead, ruler of the kings of the
world, and has preached to the souls of men who lived
before the flood.

IV. In the four epistles ascribed to Paul, whose
genuineness, we think, has not been questioned — those
to the Romans, Corintliians, and Galatians, we find a
Christology unknown to the three Gospels and the
other writings we have referred to above. As the
Pauline Christology becomes more complicated than its
predecessors, it is necessary to consider its elements sep-
arately ; so we will speak first of the nature, and then of
the function of Jesus.

In these Epistles, as in those Gospels, Jesus is the
Christ of the Hebrew Scriptures — crucified, and risen
from the dead. This is the point of generic agreement
between the Christology of these four Epistles and
those three Gospels. But in the Epistles there appear
these peculiarities: the Christ had a pre-existence be-
fore he appeared in the personal form of Jesus ; he was
with the Israelites in the wilderness, a spiritual rock
that followed the people in their wanderings, and from
which they all drank the same spiritual drink — mean-
ing, we take it, the same spiritual drink which the
Christians drank in Paul's time, contradictory as it may

THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS 275

seem ; but the Christ could not change. This pre-
existence is taught by the common text in Galatians iii.
17, which says that the covenant of God with Abra-
ham, more than four hundred years before Moses, was
made by God, through the mediation of Christ {viro rov
®eov ets XpiaTov) ; but as the best copies omit the refer-
ence to Christ, this passage cannot be fairly used at the
present time as an authority. However, a single genu-
ine passage, if clear and distinct, is as good as many.

In 2 Cor. viii. 9, it is said that Christ had been rich,
but had impoverished himself (cVrwxeuo-ev) for mankind.
Of course, he could only have been rich in a state of
existence before he took the personal form of Jesus.

Thus he was not merely a man and Messiah — hav-
ing had a pre-existence in the latter capacity, at least
— but God is immanent with him in a peculiar sense ;
for it is said (2 Cor. v. 19), " God was in Christ recon-
ciling the world to himself." By the text of the com-
mon editions he is once called " God over all, blessed
for ever " (6 wv im ■jrdvTwv ©eos €vXoyr]TO<i ets TOv<i atwva?,
Rom. ix. 5) ; but as the word God is of doubtful au-
thority, the text ought not to be pressed into the service
of any opinion as if it represented the undisputed sense
of Paul. However, in passages beyond dispute, he is
called God's power, and God's wisdom {®€ov 6vva{xiv Kal
®€ov ao(f>iav, 1 Cor. i. 24), and is once called absolutely
the Spirit {to irvevfjia, 2 Cor. iii. 17).

His resurrection is distinctly declared, but no allusion
is made to his miraculous birth or miraculous deeds.

Such is Paul's opinion of the nature of Christ, but he
says more of the office and function of Christ than of
his nature. He was the final cause, the scope or object
aimed at in the law of Moses (Te\o<i vofxov, Rom. x. 4,
and TeAo9 tov ^vo/xov^ KaTapyovfiivov, 2 Cor. iii. 13).

276 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

The Jews did not understand this, and so there is a
veil on their understanding while they read the Old
Testament, but it will be removed when they are con-
verted to Christianity.

He is the instrument by which God is to judge the
world ; all are to appear before his tribunal ; he is to
rule the living and the dead (Rom. ii. 16; 2 Cor. v.
10).

Christ intercedes (evrryxavei) for men with God
(Rom. viii. 34), he is the paschal sacrifice for the Chris-
tians (1 Cor. V. 7), men who were not just before and
are not just now are to be accounted just before God
on account of their faith in Christ, and by means of
the ransom he has paid (Rom. v. 22-24 ; v. 18, et seq.,
et al.). This ransom is paid for all men, and not
merely for the Jews ; he is the new Adam, who brings
life to such as are dead (1 Cor. xv. 21, 22). Once,
Paul had been ignorant of this fact, and knew Christ
after the flesh, as the Savior of the Jews alone, but now
not after the flesh, but the Christ and Savior of all (2
Cor. V. 16).

He is the proximate and efficient cause of all things,
as God is the ultimate cause thereof (St oii [Xpto-Toii] to,
TrdvTa, 1 Cor. viii. 6), though elsewhere God is the ulti-
mate, the efficient, and the possessory cause of all
things.*

In these four Epistles, following their undisputed
test, and neglecting the passages where the text is
doubtful, Paul goes no higher In his description of the
nature and function of Christ. He is a man, born of

* "E| avTOv, Kal dl avrov, Kal eh avrhv ra iravra, Rom. ix. 36.
These words seem to denote respectively tlie itltimate cause (or
ground) of all thinjjs; the proximate or efficient (instrumental)
cause thereof; and the owner of all things, whose purpose tliey
were to serve.

THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS 277

a woman ; the first-born among many brethren ; he had
a pre-existence, distinct, and apparently self-conscious.
He is the proximate cause of all things. His coming
is the fulfilment of the law, which is now repealed, null,
and void. He is the Savior of all men, through a
sacrifice on his part, and faith on their part.

The peculiar addition which Paul makes to the
Christology of his predecessors is this : a more distinct
statement of his personal pre-existence and function
as minister of the Abrahamic covenant, and as sus-
tainer of the Israelites in the wilderness ; a generaliza-
tion of his function to that of a universal Christ and
Savior, and the destruction of the Mosaic law.

V. In some of the other Epistles ascribed to Paul,
though with a disputed certainty, we find the person-
ality of Christ goes still higher. Passing over the
passages in the Epistle to the Ephesians which are
vague in their character or uncertain in their text, we
come to the Philippians, and find there more remark-
able expressions. Thus it is said that Jesus was in
the form of God, though not equal to God, as we un-
derstand it (ev i^op(f)f] ®eov, [[. 6, 9—11). He descends
from this eminence and receives the form of a servant
(^lxop(f)r]v SouAou), but has since received "the name
above every name ;" all beings, subterranean, earthly,
and super-celestial, are to do homage to him.

In Colossians, Christ is " an image of God, the in-
visible " (etKwv rov ®eov tov aopdrov)^ " the first-born of
all creatures, for in him (eV avTM^) were made all things
in heaven and upon the earth — the seen and the un-
seen; all are made by him and for him " (8t avTov koI
CIS avTov), by him, as instrument, and for him, as
possessor. " He is before all, and all things continue to
subsist by him." " He is the beginning, that in all re-

278 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

spects he might be the first, for in him it has pleased
[God] that all the fulness [of the Deity] should dwell
(i. 15-20.) All the fulness of the Deity resides cor-
poreally in him " (HavTa TrXrjpoiiia Tri<i 6e.6rr]TO<; awfiariKw^,
ii. 9), and he is "all in all" (iii. 11), the absolute.

The same Christology appears substantially in the
Epistle to the Ephesians, which is, indeed, little more
than an expansion of that to the Colossians, only the
doctrine is not quite so clearly set forth, and there is
some discrepancy in the readings of the manuscripts
in important passages.

The other minor Epistles ascribed to Paul are not
important in respect to their Christology, and so we
pass them by. But, in the important Epistle to the
Hebrews, remarkable additions are made to the Chris-
tology of the early age. Here, the Christ is " ap-
pointed heir of all things," the agent by whom God
made the aeons (atwm?), " a reflected image of his
[God's] glory and stamp of his substance " (a-rravyaafia
rrj<i 86$rj<i koI xapaKTrip t^s VTrocrTaaews ) , and sustains all
things by the word of his power. He sits " at the
right hand of the majesty above." He is the " word
of God " (p>a @eov), he is the " first-born ;" is superior
to the angels, and, in the Old Testament, has been
called " God's Son ;" the angels serve him ; the Old
Testament is referred to as calling him by the title
of the true God (o ©eds), and his authority is eternal
(i. 8, 9). It is Christ who, " in the beginning, es-
tablished the earth;" the heavens are the work of his
hands. The universe will perish, but Christ will re-
main the same for ever, and his years w^ill have no
end. The angels arc to worship him, for they exist
only for the sake of mankind, while Christ is the ulti-
mate object and final cause of all creation. Yet, not-

THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS 279

withstanding this exaltation of nature, he was made
a little lower than the angels, so that he might suffer
death for the sake of all mankind. In his human
form he became perfect by temptation and suffering.

Such is his nature; his function is commensurate
with it. He is a priest for ever; by his own blood
has obtained eternal redemption and superseded all
sacrifices. He has appeared once to remove sin, and
will come again to bring such as wait for him to sal-
vation. He took the form of flesh and blood that he
might by death destroy the devil, who had the power
of death (ii. 14), and deliver mankind, who were sub-
ject to fear thereof. He is the " cause of eternal sal-
vation to all that obey him," and in all his achieve-
ment is the preserver of mankind (v. 9). He is a
priest, not according to a temporary enactment, but
in virtue of the power of indissoluble life (vii. 16).
The old law is set aside, and its priesthood at an end;
for there has come a high priest, holy, free from evil
in his nature, blameless in his life, thereby separated
from sinners, and become higher than the heavens.
He is the mediator of an everlasting covenant, in
which the law will be that written eternally on the
heart of man.

In these Epistles it is plain a much higher dignity
is claimed for the nature and function of Christ. All
the fulness of God resides in him ; he is even called
God, the God; still, he is man also, wholly a creature,
and dependent on God for existence.

VI. There still remain the Johannic writings, so-
called. Epistles and Gospel. The Second and Third
Epistles ascribed to John have no Christological value,
and require no examination. The First Epistle and
the fourth Gospel represent another addition made to

280 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the Christological strata already deposited, not wholly,
we fear, in tranquil seas. Here we find the continuation
and development of ideas found in the doubtful works
attributed to Paul.

But before we speak of the Johannic Christology,
we must say a few words by way of preface. The
Christians and Jews had, amongst others, this point
of ideal agreement: a common reverence for the Mes-
siah, the Christ ; but this point of ideal agreement
became a point of practical disagreement and quarrel ;
for the Christians affirmed that Jesus of Nazareth
was that Christ, while the Jews declared that he was
only a malefactor. The attempt was made by Paul
to bring the Jews to attach their reverence for the
ideal Christ to the concrete person, Jesus of Nazareth ;
then discord between the Christians and Jews would
end.

Plato had taught, in well-known passages, that God
could not come into direct communication with man.
Philo, at Alexandria, an older contemporary of Jesus,
was of the same opinion. But Philo, though a Platon-
ist in his philosophy, continued also a Jew in the
form of his religion, and believed that God did actually
come into communication with men ; according to his
Platonic theology, it must be by mediators, beings
between the finite man and the infinite God. At the
head of these was the Logos, whom Philo calls a
god and god junior (0eos and ©fos SciiTepos), He
found a preparation for his doctrine of the Logos in
the figurative language of the Old Testament, and
Apocrypha, in the personified wisdom of God (2o<^ta
Tov 0€o{!) and word of God (Ao'yo? tov ®€ov). But in
the Old Testament and Apocrypha, this Logos, wis-
dom or word, docs not appear detached from God, but

THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS 281

still attached to him : we think it is still the same with
Philo, the Logos is not completely detached from God
and become a distinct personality, though this may
be thought doubtful. All this has been abundantly
discussed of late years, and requires no further ex-
amination here.

In this manner he found a point of agreement on
the one hand with the Jews, and on the other with the
philosophers ; so the Jew could accept much of the
Platonic philosophy without giving up his form of
religion, and his Platonic contemporaries might find
Judaism itself dignified into a philosophical scheme.
Thus the Platonists and the Jews had a point in com-
mon, namely, the Logos, which belonged to the current
philosophy of the time, and which Philo had found in
the Old Testament. In this way a preliminary step
was taken to promote a reconciliation between the
philosophers and the Jews ; between the representatives
of science, voluntary reflection, on the one side, and
the representatives of inspiration, passive recipients
of God, on the other side. It seems the attempt was
not wholly unsuccessful ; the Philonic doctrine of the
Logos had great influence in the development of phi-
losophy.

We have mentioned already the point of agreement
which the Christians had with the Jews, and the point
of diff^erence. The first controversy of the Christians
with others related to the INIessiahship of Jesus. To
make out their case, the Christians were forced to
alter the features of the expected Messiah a good
deal, to make the ideal of prophecy fit the actual of
history. This they did by a peculiar manner of inter-
preting the Old Testament. Specimens of a most re-
markable perversion of its language, in order to prove

282 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

that Jesus of Nazareth was the Hebrew Messiah, ap-
pear in abundance in the New Testament. The Jews
rejected the Christian doctrine that Jesus was the
Messiah, and along with it the Christian mode of
interpreting the Messianic prophecies. In eighteen
hundred years Httle progress has been made in turn-
ing the point of difference between them into a point
of agreement.

The new Christians had numerous points of general
agreement with the monotheistic believers about them,
and Paul finds an argument in the inscription on an
altar and in a verse from a heathen book. The Chris-
tian and the Platonic philosophers agree in this, that
there were mediators between man and God. But the
author of the Johannic Gospel finds an important and
special point of agreement with the Alexandrian phi-
losophy in particular. He accepts the doctrine of the
Logos ; Christians in general might have done so, as
indeed they did, with no detriment to their Chris-
tianity. But we find a new and vital doctrine com-
mon to Christianity and philosophy — Christ is the
Logos.

This author has two important doctrines to set forth,
along with many others, namel}"^: the generic doctrine
of all Christians, that Jesus was that Christ of the
Old Testament (this was addressed to the Jews, and
of small consequence to the heathens^ who had not
heard of the " promise " until they were told of its
fulfilment;) and also his peculiar dogma, that Christ
was the Logos. If the Jews rejected the first doc-
trine, as indeed they did, the heathens might accept
the other, which really came to pass in due time. We
are not, however, to suppose that the author of this
scheme wrought with a distinct consciousness of the

THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS 283

work he was doing, and of its relation to the thought
of mankind.

In philosophy, as in nature, nothing is done by
leaps. In the Hebrew literature, in the Old Testament
and Apocrypha, there had been a gradual, but unin-
tentional, preparation for the Philonic idea of the
Logos, and a similar preparation is visible in the
heathen literature. In the successive elevations of
the person of Jesus, which we have already seen in
the three earlier Gospels and the Epistles, there was
a preparation for the still further elevation of his
person. It would have been abrupt, sudden, and un-
natural, if Jesus had been called a God in the Gospel
according to the Hebrews ; it is not surprising at all
in the Epistle to the Hebrews. There had been a
gradual sloping up, from Jesus considered as the son
of Joseph and Mary to Jesus considered as the maker
of the worlds, from the man to the God. If extended
over many years, the ascent is not violent — it is not
per saltum, but gradatim, that the difficulty is over-
come. Vires acquirit eundo is true of more than fame.
The first Life of Ignatius Loyola, published by Ri-
badaneira, his friend, fifteen years after Loyola's
death, records no miracle ; the enlarged edition, some
twenty years later, contains no miracle. But at his
canonization, more than two hundred miracles were
claimed for him, and the depositions of six hundred
and seventy-five witnesses were used in the process.

The Christology of the fourth Gospel is quite re-
markable. The author states his design at the end
of what has been thought the genuine portion of the
book : " These things are written that you may be-
lieve that Jesus is the Christ — the Son of God ; and
that believing you might have life in his name " (xx.
31).

284 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

He begins with the Logos : " In the beginning was
the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos
was God." These are some of the powers ascribed to
the Logos (we will still use the word in the neuter
gender, and speak thereof as it): all things were
made (eyeVero) by it; life was in it, and the life was
the light of men ; it enlightens every man ; it was
in the world, but not known thereby; to such as
received it, it gave power to become children of a
God (rcKva ©eov) ; such persons had their origin
from a God {^k ®eov), not from man {^k ^eA^/mro?
avSpo's). It alone had seen God; it only brought
him to the knowledge (iirjyrjaaTo) of men. It was
in the bosom of the Father.* At length, the Logos
was made flesh {(rapi iyevero), and dwelt amongst
men, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Nothing is said about the physical birth of Jesus.
The author puts his divine character so high that a
supernatural birth would add nothing to his dignity.
We pass over the historical and general dogmatical
peculiarities of the fourth Gospel, to speak of its
Christological peculiarities.

Jesus is not merely the first-born of all created
things, ( IT/aoiTOTOKo? 7rao-r}s KTtVews), but the " only-
begotten Son" (rbv /xovoyev?/), he "came down from
heaven," and "is in heaven" (o wv Iv tw oi'pavdi) ;
whoso believes in him will not perish but have ever-
lasting hfe (iii. 13).

The author makes a distinction between the Logos
and the spirit (Trvei'^a). Jesus has the spirit, ab-
solutely, not in limited quantities {Ik ixlrpov). "The

•Clement, of Alex., defines the K^Xttoj' rov Qeov: rh 5" doparSv
Kal S.p'p7)T0v. WaOi'v avrbv KeKXriKacrii' ivrevOev rives, wj &v vepi-
ei\r](f)6Ta Kal eyKoXweffifieKOv ra ndi'Ta.

THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS 285

Father has given all things to Christ" (iii. 34,
85).

The Christ is identical with the Father (x. 30, et
al.) ; it is not merely an indemnity of function, but
of nature. There is a perfect mutuality between the
two (xiv. 9, 10, et al.) ; however, there is a difference
between the two — with the Father all is primitive ;
with the Son all is derivative. The Son can do noth-
ing of himself {a.<f>' iavTov, V. 19, et al.). The Son
is also inferior to the Father (xiv. 28, et al.). Yet
the Son has self-continuing life (C^V ^v eavrw, v. 26).
He is the bread that came down from heaven ; he
alone has seen the Father.

Men are not to be saved by piety and goodness, as
in the other Gospels (Matt. xxii. 34-40, et passim), but
by belief in him (iii. 36; vi. 40, et passim) ; they are
even to pray in his name (ev tw ovo^an [xov, xiv. 13,
et al.) ; he will send them the Helper (■n-apdK\r]To<i^
TO TTvevfJia T^s aX-qOtia^ ; iTvevjxa aytov), who will remind
them of all Christ's teachings, and teach them all
things.

Christ is the Son of man, but he is also the Son
of God (o vio<i Tov 0eou, passim), and maintains the
most intimate relation with God. He intercedes with
the Father for his disciples, and will have the glory
•which he had before the world was made.

His disciples are wholly dependent on him, without
him they can do nothing; he is the vine and they but
branches. If they abide in him, they may ask what
they will, and it will be given them (xv. 4, et seq.).
The Helper is to proceed from God, but to commun-
icate the things of Christ (xv. 26; xvi. 15). He
desires that there may be the same mutuality and
oneness among his disciples as between himself and

286 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the Father (xvii. 21, et seq. et al.), and that they
may be in the same place with him (2-i, et al.).

The conditions of discipleship are these: a behef in
him, which seems to mean a behef that he is Christ
and Logos ; and love of each other. The consequence
of such discipleship is eternal life (^^v alm'Lov, iii.
15, et passim) ; the immanence of the spirit of Christ
and of God (xiv. 17, 23) ; his disciples shall be where
he is (xiv. 3). It is not promised that they shall be
what he is or as he is, only where he is. It does not
appear that they are to bear the same relation to
God which Christ bears to him ; they are not to be
sons of God in the same sense as Christ.

The same Christology appears substantially in the
first Johannic Epistle. However, it is not so fully
expressed in the Epistle as in the Gospel, and there
are some minor differences of opinion, only one of
which is important for the present pui-pose, namely,
that Christ is a sin-offering (tAaa/^ds). He is even
a sin-offering for all mankind, and not for the Chris-
tians alone (ii. 2). The doctrine of the atoning
death of Christ, we think, does not appear at all in
the Gospel, but is obvious in the Epistle.

The passage which we mentioned before (INIatt. xi.
27, and Luke x. 22), seems to belong to the Johannic
writings, and not to the synoptic Gospels ; but we
have no conjecture to offer as to its origin.

We thus see the gradual elevation of the personality
of Christ, from the son of Joseph and Mary to the
Son of God, with a distinct pre-existence before he
" was made flesh,'* a God who was in the beginning,
who made all things, is one with the Father, but still
dependent on him, and inferior to him. The Christ
in the fourth Gospel strongly resembles the Christ

THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS 287

in the Arlan hypothesis of the Trinity ; he is, how-
ever, widely different from the Christ of the Athan-
asian hypothesis of the Trinity. The subsequent steps
were easily taken, and then Christ was represented as
the God (6 0eos), equal with the Father in all things.

XI

THE FUNCTION OF A TEACHER OF RELI-
GION

If the inhabitants of this town were to engage a
scientific man to come and dwell amongst you as sup-
erintendent of agriculture, and teach you practical
farming, it is plain what purpose you would set be-
fore him for which he must point out the way and
furnish the scientific means. You would say, " Show
us how to obtain continually the richest crops ; of the
most valuable quality, in quantity the greatest, with
the least labor, in the shortest time. Show us the
means to that end."

It is plain what you would expect of him. He
must understand his business thoroughly, farming as
a science — the philosophy of the thing, teaching by
ideas and showing the reason of the matter ; farming,
likewise, as an art, the practice of the thing, the ap-
plication of his science to your soil; demonstrating
by fact the truth of his words, and thus proving the
expediency of his thought.

Of course he ought to know the soil and climate of
the special place ; what crops best suit the particular
circumstances. He must become familiar with the
prevalent mode of farming in the town and neighbor-
hood, and know its good and ill. He should under-
stand the ancestral prejudices he has to encounter,
which oppose his science and his art. It would be well
for him to know the history of agi*iculture — general
of the world, special of this place — understanding

288

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 289

what experiments have been already tried with profit,
what with failure. He should keep his eye open to the
agriculture of mankind; ever on the look-out for new
animals, plants, roots, seeds, scions and better varie-
ties of the old stock; for richer fertilizers of the soil
— no islands of guano too remote for him to think
upon; for superior modes of tillage; and more effec-
tive tools, whereby man could do more human work
with less human toil. He would naturally confer
with other farmers about him and all round the world,
men of science or of practice, analyzing soils, enrich-
ing farms, greatening the crops. He would stimulate
his townsmen to think about their work, and to create
new use and new beauty on their estates. He need
not be very anxious that all should think just as their
fathers had done, or plough and shovel with instru-
ments of the old pattern.

But what if he were ignorant and knew no more
than others about him, and was yet called " the Hon-
orable Agricultural Superintendent," " the Reverend
Professor of Farming," and had been " ordained with
ancient ceremonies ! " It is plain he could not teach
what he did not know. If he knew only the theory, not
also the practice, he would be only a half teacher.

What if he was lazy, and would not learn .? or big-
oted, and stuck in some old form of agriculture, and
would never depart from it — the Hebrew, from the
time when there was no blacksmith in Israel, and men
filed them ploughshares out of lumps of cold iron? or
the Catholic form, in the days of Gregory VII, or
Innocent HI ? or the Reformed agriculture, from
Luther's and Calvin's time? or the Puritanic, from the
age of New England Cotton and Davenport? What

if he took some ancient heatlien autlior, Cato, Varro,
IV— 19

290 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

Virgil, or Columella, as an infallible guide, and in-
sisted that no crop, however seemingly excellent, could
be good for anything unless won from the earth in
that old-fashioned way ; or declared that no blessing
would fall upon a man's field unless he were a profess-
ing follower of Elias the Tishbite, and broke up
ground with a team not less than four and twenty oxen
strong !

What if he were perverse and cowardly, and saw
the great errors in the common mode of farming — the
theory wrong, the practice imperfect — and knew how
to correct them, doubling the harvest while halving the
toil, but yet would never tell his better way lest he
should hurt the feelings of the people, be thought
" radical " and " revolutionary," a " free-thinker,"
and should lead men to doubt whether it were best to
plough and sow at all ; or lest they should deny that
bread could feed men, or even be raised out of the
ground? What if he were silent for fear he should
spoil the sale of acorns and beech nuts by introducing
wheat and Indian corn? What if he knew a perfect
cure for the disease which makes the potato gather
blackness, but would not tell it lest the bountiful sup-
ply should hurt the market of some men who had whole
acres of onions and cabbages looking up for a high
price?

What if he knew of better breeds of swine, horses,
and horned cattle ; better grains, fruits, flowers, vege-
tables ; of better tools to work with, superior barns and
houses to store or to live in, and yet kept it all to him-
self, fearing that he should be called hard names by
such farmers as preferred pounding their corn with'
pestle and mortar to grinding it in a water-mill?

What if he spent his time in abusing the soil, de-

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 291

daring it capable of no good thing, ruined, lost, de-
praved, declaring it was impossible to make any im-
provement in husbandry, that neither material nor hu-
man nature would admit of another step in that direc-
tion ; and took pains to defend the worst faults of the
popular agriculture, insisting that the poorest farms
were actually the richest, that tares were indispensable
to wheat, the field of the sluggard the best symbol of
good farming; and flamed out into elegant wrath
against all who dared have better farms and larger
crops than their fathers rejoiced in! What could you
say to all that?

But on the other hand, what if your superintendent
of farming went manfully to his work, studied the soil
and put in fitting crops, pointed out improvements to
be made in fencing, draining, ploughing, planting,
harvesting ; introducing better varieties of cattle and of
plants ; set the people to think about their work, and
so made the head save the hands ; taught the children
to observe the magnificent beauty of New England
flowers and trees, and taught them the great laws of
agriculture, whereby " each bush doth put its glory
on like a gemmed bride," and in three years' time had
doubled the productions of the town !

You have asked this young man to superintend your
spiritual culture, not the farming of your fields, but of
yourself. He must attend to the highest of all husban-
dry, and rear the noblest crops of use and beauty. Out
of the soil of human nature he is to produce great har-
vests of human character. He is to teach the science
of humanity — the art of life. You say to him, " Oh,
young man, come and show us how to become the no-
blest men and women, achieving the greatest amount

292 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

of human character of the highest human kind, Avith
the least waste of effort, in the shortest time. Show
us the ideal character, the end we ought to reach ; the
ideal life, the means thereto. We take 3'ou for helper,
friend, counselor, teacher ; not our master to command,
not the slave of our pride and prejudice to be com-
manded ; not our vicar, to be, to do, and to suffer in
our place, for we do not wish to live by attorney, but
each of us on his own account. Be our teacher, help-
ing in the highest work of life. As we commit to you
this highest trust, we expect your highest efforts, your
noblest thoughts, the manly prayers of your quick-
ened and ever greatening life."

Man is a spirit, organized in matter. In our being
is one element, which connects us consciously with God,
the cause and providence of the universe, imminent in
all and yet transcending all. It is an essential faculty
of human nature, belonging to the ontology of man,
and gives indications of its presence in all men above
the rank of the idiot ; the rudiments appear even in him.
It acts in all stages of human history ; in the mere
wild-man, Avhere it appears in only its instinctive fonn ;
in the savage, who has no conception of a God, only of
the divine in nature, a mighty force, differing in kind
from matter and from man ; in the barbarian, who
makes concrete deities out of plants, and animals, and
elements, and men ; and in the most enlightened phil-
osophers who compose the academies of science at
Paris or Berlin.

It is also the strongest faculty in man, overmaster-
ing all the rest ; easily excited, not soon put down,
and often running to the wildest and most fanatical
excess. In rude stages of human history it sometimes

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 293

appears as a wild instinct, rushing with bhnd and head-
long violence, a lust after God, a rage of barbaric de-
votion. Thus in the mythic tale it drives Abraham
to sacrifice his only son, and in actual history it im-
pels Cybeles' priests and a whole nation of Jews to
odious mutilation of the flesh ; or maddens Hebrew
priests who call God Jehovah, to butcher their brother
priests who named him Baal. Among civilized men, in
its abnormal form of action, it can silence and subdue
the most powerful human affection. In three-fourths
of Christendom the most unnatural celibacy is counted
a virtue ; how it separates the lover from the one be-
loved, the husband from his wife, yea, the mother from
her child ! Its power is visibly written in the great
buildings of ancient and modern Rome, of Greece,
Palestine, India, Egypt, of all the world. Their pyra-
mids and temples, catacombs and churches, are unmis-
takable monuments of its power. From old Byzan-
tium to modern Dublin, from Cadiz to Archangel, all
Europe is crossed with its sign-manual; the handwrit-
ing of humanity upon the world is dotted throughout
with visible marks of this mighty yet most subtle force.
See what institutions it has built up — the most
widely-extended in time and space. The plough passed
over Jerusalem eighteen hundred years ago ; the tem-
ple of Solomon and his successors has gone to the
ground ; no family speak now the language of King
David; yet on every seventh day, in Boston, New
York, Cincinnati, Mexico, in all the great cities of the
western world, the scattered Israelites assemble to keep
the old religious law. Moses has been dead three thou-
sand years, yet in the name of Jehovah his hand still
circumcises every Hebrew boy. What hold the popu-
lar theology takes on Christendom! Empires are but

294 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

waves in the sea of Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam-
ism, which ripples into popes, and czars, and sultans,
or swells into kingdoms and commonwealths that last
whole centuries ; these perish, while the great religious
institution, like the ocean of waters, still holds on. To-
day a hundred and fifty millions worship as Mahomet
bids ; two hundred and fifty millions count Jesus of
Nazareth as God ; while twice that number — so 'tis
said — reckon Buddha as their heavenly lord. Such
great combinations of men have never been produced
except by the religious element. Theological ideas
override the distinctions of nations, nay of races, and
the Mongolian Chinese accept the theologic thought
of the Caucasian from Hindostan.

History and philosophy alike show that this is the
master-element in man — designed for a high place
in the administration of his affairs ; for as a man is
spirit as well as body, immortal not less than meant
for time, and has a personal consciousness of his rela-
tion to the cause and providence of all, so it is ob-
viously needful that this element which deals with
eternity and God, should live upon the strongest and
deepest root in human nature. The fact is plain,
the meaning and the purpose not hard to see; it has
only powers proportionate to its work.

But hitherto the religious element has been the
tyrant over all the other faculties of man. None has
made such great mistakes, run to such excesses, been
accompanied with such cruelty, and caused such wide-
spread desolation. All human development is ac-
complished through the help of experiments which
fail. What errors do men make in their agi'iculture
and mechanic arts ; how many unsuccessful attempts
before they produce a loom, or an axe, simplest of

A TEACHER OF RELIGION S95

tools ! What mistakes in organizing the family !
what errors in forming the state! And even now how
much suffering comes from the false political doc-
trines men adhere to ! Look at the countries which
are ruined by the bad governments established therein.
Asia Minor was once the world's garden, now it is
laid waste : what cities have perished there ; what king-
doms gone to the ground ; for a thousand years its
soil has hardly borne a single great man — conspic-
uous for art, letters, science, commerce, or aught save
cruelty in war, and rapacity in peace [ In the land
whence the ideas which now make green the world
once went so gladly forth, camels and asses seem the
only undegenerate production. Yet it once teemed
with cities full of wholesome life. But all these mis-
takes are slight compared with the wanderings of the
religious faculty in its historical progress. Consider
the human sacrifices, the multilations of the body or
the spirit, which have been regarded as the highest
acts of homage to God. What is the Russian's sub-
jection to a Czar compared to a Christian's worship of
a conception of God who creates millions of millions
of men only for the pleasure of squelching them down
in bottomless and eternal hell! In the Crimea^ just
now, in a single night, the allies burned up a year's
provisions for three-and-thirty thousand men — the
bread of all Springfield and Worcester for a twelve-
month; in fourteen months a quarter of a million
Russian soldiers have perished ; Moravia is yet black
with the desolations of the Thirty Years' war, whose
last battle was fought more than two hundred years
ago. But what is all the waste of war, the destruction
of property, the butchery of men ; what are all the
abominations of slavery, compared to the eternal tor-

296 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

ment of a single soul ! Yet it is the common belief
of Christendom that not one man, but millions of mil-
lions of men are, with unmitigated agony to be trod
for ever under the fiery foot of God and the devil,
partners in this dance of the second death which never
ends, and treads down a majority of all that are!

A man may be mastered by his bodily lusts, the
lowest appetites of the flesh, eaten up by his own dogs
and swine, the victim of drunkenness and debauchery.
All about us there are examples of this fate ! But
he may also be mastered by his religious instinct, be-
come its slave, and equally ruined. The Spanish in-
quistor, thinking he did God service in burning his
children for their mode of worship, is a worse form
of ruin than the dininkard ! Which has most com-
pletely gone to waste, the poor uneducated harlot of
the street, or the well-endowed minister in Boston who
in the name of God calls on his parish to kidnap a
fugitive slave? Consider the millions of men tor-
mented by dreadful fear, who dare not think lest God
should overhear their doubt — for he is thought to
be always eavesdropping, and ever on the watch at the
keyhole of human consciousness, hearkening for the
footfall of a wandering thought — stab at and run
them through, and then impale them on his thunder-
bolt, fixed in the eternal flame? The evil caused by
the perverted appetites of the body is truly vast ; but
it is nothing when compared to the wide-extending
mischief which comes from the perversion of this deep-
est and strongest instinct of the soul. When a little
stream in a country town overflows its banks a few
faggots are swept away from the farmer's woodpile,
a ground squirrel is drowned out of his hole, a log
washed off" from the saw mill, a lamb, perchance, or

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 297

a straggling calf in some lonely pasture may perish
by the flood; next week the bowed grass erects itself,
and the freshet is forgot. But when the Amazon
breaks over its continental bounds, it sweeps great
cities from the earth ; it floods wide provinces with
its nauseous deluge of slime, which reeks its miasma
into the air, poisoning with pestilence one half the
tropic land. It is as easy for a giant to strike in the
wrong place as for a girl, and the mischief must be
proportionate to the strength of stroke. Look over
Christendom, heathendom, and see what ghastly evils
come from these mistakes.

The function of a sectarian priest is to minister to
the perversion of this faculty, to perpetuate the error
— sometimes he knows it, oftenest he knows it not,
but is one of the tools wherewith mankind makes the
faulty experiment. But the teacher of a true form of
religion is to take this most powerful element and
direct it to its normal work ; is to use this force in pro-
moting the general development and elevation of man-
kind ; to husband the periodical inundation of the
Amazon, and therewith fertilize whole tropic realms,
making the earth bring forth abundantly, not for
seven years only, but for seventy times seven, yea,
for ever. In that soil which hitherto has borne such
flowers as the pyramids, temples and churches of the
world, with peaceful virtues in many a realm, such
weeds as popery and the false doctrines of the popu-
lar theology of Christendom, he is to rear the fairest
and most useful plants of humanity, health, wisdom,
justice, benevolence, piety, whole harvests of welfare
for mankind.

Using the word religion in its wide sense, in the re-
ligion of the enlightened man of these times there are

298 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

involved three things — feehngs, ideas, actions —
which follow in this historical and logical order. At
first his religious faculty works instinctively, the re-
sult is emotional, a mere feeling ; the next result is
reflectional, the intellect is busy, and thereby he becomes
conscious of what instinctively went on, and the feel-
ing leads to an idea ; at length it is volitional, in conse-
quence of the feeling and the idea he wills, and de-
termines the inward phenomena to an outward action,
a deed.

The teacher of religion is to deal with all these —
to work in the plane of feelings, the department of
sentiment where life is emotional ; in that of ideas, the
department of theology, where life is likewise specula-
tive ; in that of actions, the department of morality,
where life is also practical. As he is to address the
intellect, work with ideas, and by these to excite the
feelings, and thereby stir men to action, let me begin
with the department of theology and thence proceed.

I. Of the teacher of religion in relation to ideas of
theology. There is one great scheme of thought
called " Christianity," or more properly, the " Chris-
tian theology." It is common to all sects in Christen-
dom. Of this the " liberal " have least, the illiberal
most ; but they differ only quantitatively — in amount,
not kind. This is the common soil of Christendom,
whence grow such great trees as Catholicism and Prot-
estantism, with the various offshoots from each. From
this common inheritance the minister is to take what
he thinks true and useful, to reject what he thinks
useless, to remove out of his way what he finds bane-
ful.

But he Is not to draw merely from this well, he is
to get all the theologic trutli he can find in other

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 299

schemes of theology, not disdaining to be taught by
an enemy. For two thousand years France has culti-
vated the olive and the vine, but lately has translated
to her soil Chinese treatises on this branch of hus-
bandry, and found profit in the " heathens' counsel."
The early Christians held to the scriptures of the hos-
tile Jew before they thought of claiming " Inspira-
tion " for their own gospels and epistles. Nay, Paul
of Tarsus did not disdain to quote heathen poets for
authority that man is God's child — " for we also
are his offspring." The teacher of religion must not
be limited to these ancient wells of knowledge, he
must dig new springs filled from the universal source,
the great mountains of truth. He is to take no
church for master — Hebrew, heathen, Mahometan,
or Christian, Protestant or Catholic ; no man, no sect,
no word ; but all which can aid for helps. He is not
to be content with the " said so " of any man, how-
ever famous or great ; only with the " it is so " of
fact, or the " I find it so " of his own personal ex-
perience. He has no right to foreclose his mind
against truth from any source.

In dealing with theological ideas his work will be
two-fold ; first, negative and militant, destroying a
false theology ; next, positive and constructant, build-
ing up a true theology. Look a moment at each.

i

1. Of the negative and destructive work of theol-
ogy. Here the teacher will have much to do — both
general and special work.

For the popular theology, common to all Christen-
dom, logically rests on this supposition: it Is wholly
Impossible for man, by himself, to ascertain any moral
or religious truth ; he cannot know that the soul is Im-

300 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

mortal, that there is a God, that it is right to love
men, and wrong to hate ; he may have " opinions,"
but they will be " only whims," belief in immortality,
" one guess among many ; " there can be no knowledge
of justice, no practice of charity and forgiveness.
But God has made a miraculous communication of
doctrines on matters pertaining to religion ; these are
complete, containing all the truth that man will ever
need to know on religion ; and perfect, having no
error at all: man must accept these as ultimate au-
thority in all that pertains to religion — to religious
sentiments, ideas, and actions. The sum of these mi-
raculous doctrines is called the " supernatural revela-
tion ;" it is the peculiar heritage of Christians, though
part of it was designed originally for the Jews, and
previously delivered to them, who were once the " pe-
culiar people," " the Lord's own," but now in conse-
quence of their refusing the new revelation, which re-
peals the old, are " cast off and rejected." The Cath-
olic maintains that the Roman church is the exclusive
depository of this miraculous revelation, and the Prot-
estant limits it to the Bible ; but both, and all their
manifold sects, claim to rest on this foundation — the
word of God, supernatural, miraculous, exclusive, and
infallible. Hence their ministers profess to derive the
" power to bind and loose," and claim to teach with
an authority superior to reason, conscience, the heart
and soul of man. Hence they call their doctrine " di-
vine ;" all else is only " human teaching," " founded in
reason, but with no authority." Hence theology is
called " sacred," not because true, and so far as true —
for then the truths which Thales, or which Plato,
taught were also " sacred " and " divine ;" but as mi-
raculous in its origin, coming from a source which

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 301

is outside of human consciousness, and above all the
doubts of men. In virtue of this miraculous revela-
tion, the meanest priest ever let loose from Rome, or
the smallest possible minister ever brooded into motion
at Oberlin or Princeton, is supposed to know more
about God, man, and the relation between them, than
Socrates and all the " uninspired " philosophers, from
Aristotle of Stagyra down to Baur of Tubingen, could
ever find out with all the thinking of their mighty
heads.

Now in theology the teacher must show that there
is no philosophic or historical foundation for this vast
fiction, it is " such stuff as dreams are made of ; "
there is no supernatural, miraculous, or infallible rev-
elation ; the Roman church has none such, the Protes-
tant none ; it is not the Bible, but the universe is the
only scripture of God — material nature its Old Testa-
ment, human nature the New, and in both fresh leaves
get written over every day. He must show that inspi-
ration comes not supernaturally and exceptionally, by
the miraculous act of God, but naturally and instan-
tially, by the normal act of man, and is proportionate
to the individual's powers and use thereof ; that the test
of inspiration is in the doctrine, not outside thereof ; its
truth the only proof that what man thinks is also
thought by God ; that all truth is equally his word, and
they who discover it are alike inspired — whether truth
pertaining to astronomy or religion ; that the highest
authority for any doctrine is its agreement with fact —
facts of observation, or of intuitive or demonstrative
consciousness. Surely no man, no sect, no book nor
oracle is master to a single soul, for each man is born
a new Adam —

302 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

" The world is all before him where to choose
His place of rest, and Providence his guide."

In this resistance to the pretended authority of an
alleged miraculous revelation there is much to do.
The teacher must preach the disadvantages of such a
revelation, as Luther preached against the " infallible "
pope and Roman church, or as Jesus thundered and
lightened against the vain pretensions of the ancient
Pharisees. Who shall dare bind the spirit of man and
say, " thus far shalt thou reason, but no farther, and
here shall thy proud thoughts be stayed.^ " The
smallest priest ! But who can stay the movement of
those orbs in the spiritual heaven.? Only he who, in
the constitution of our spirit gave us that great charter
which secures unbounded freedom of thought. A
spoiled child, a little wayward-minded girl, idiotic even,
may command a thousand adult persons, if they be but
slaves ! What if they are men ?

Once the hierarchy of philosophers sought to shut
men in the midland seas, between the two Hercules'
Pillars of Aristotle and Ptolemy ; none must sail forth
with venturous keel into the wide ocean, seeking for
scientific truth ; man must only paddle about the shores,
where the masters had named all the headlands and
marked out the way. What honor do we pay to men
who broke the spell that bound the race? Once kings
forbid all thought and speech about the state, the sub-
ject must not doubt, but only answer and obey.
Where will such tyrants go? Let future Cromwells
say. In theology such men are forbid to think, to
doubt, to reason, and inquire. " Search the scripture "
is made to mean, accept it as an idol. So we see men
chained by the neck to some post of authority, their
heads also tied down to their feet, for ever hobbling

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 303

round and round, picking some trampled grass on the
closely nibbled spot, yet counting their limping stumble
as the divine march of the heavenly host, and the
clanking of their chains as the music of the spheres,
most grateful unto God. Now and then some minister
comes down and moves off the human cattle, and toes
them out to feed on some other bit of well-trod land,
while all before us reaches out the heavenly pasture,
for which we long, and faint, and die.

It is an amazing spectacle ! Modern science has
show that the theological astronomy, geology and geog-
raphy are mixed with whims, which overlay their facts ;
that the theological history is false in its chief partic-
ulars, relating to the origin and development of man-
kind; that its metaphysics are often absurd, its chief
premises false ; that the whole tree is of gradual
growth ; and still men have the hardihood to pretend
it is all divine, all true, and that every truth in the
science and morals of our times, nay, any piety and
benevolence in human consciousness has come from the
miraculous revelation, and this alone ! Truly it is a
teacher's duty to expose this claim,, so groundless, so
wicked, so absurd, and refer men to the perpetual reve-
lation from God in the facts of his world of matter
and of man.

So much for the general basis on which the popular
theology of Christendom is said to rest, a basis of
fancy. Next, a word of some of its erroneous doc-
trines.

There are five doctrines common to the theology of
Christendom, namely — the false idea of God, as imper-
fect in power, Avisdom, justice, benevolence, and holi-
ness ; the false idea of man, as fallen, depraved, and by

304 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

nature lost; the false idea of the relation between God
and man, a relation of perpetual antagonism, man nat-
urally hating God, and God hating " fallen " and " de-
praved " man ; the false idea of inspiration, that it
comes only by a miracle on God's part, not by normal
action on man's ; and the false idea of salvation, that
it is from the " wrath of God," who is " a consuming
fire " breaking out against " poor human nature," by
the " atoning blood of Christ," that is by the death of
Jesus of Nazareth, which appeased the " wrath of
God," and on condition of belief in this popular the-
ology, especially of the five false ideas.

I will not now dwell on these monstrous doctrines.*
But this scheme of theology stands in the way of man's
progressive improvement. It impedes human progress
more than all the vices of passion, drunkenness, and de-
bauchery ; more than all the abominations of slavery,
which puts the chains on every eighth man in this re-
publican democracy ! Accordingly the teacher who
wishes to secure a normal development of the religious
faculties of men, and to direct their powers so as to pro-
duce the highest human welfare, must use all the weap-
ons of science against the errors of this theology,
opposing them as Luther opposed the pope and Roman
church, as Paul and Jesus the polytheism and pharisa-
ism of their time ; yes, as Moses withstood the idolatry
of Egypt — not with i'11-nature, with abuse, but with all
the weapons of fair argument.

I know it is sometimes said that a minister ought
never to attempt to correct errors in the theology of his

* See " A Discourse of the Relation between the Ecclesiastical
Institutions and the Religious Consciousness of the American
People, delivered at I.onfovood, Chester County, Pennsylvania,
May 19th, 18.5.5," (New York, 185,5,) and "Sermons of Theism,
Atheism, and the Popular Theology." (Boston, 1853.)

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 305

time ; that must be left to the laity or outsiders, for
" the Christian church is to be reformed, not from
within, but only from without," and " the minister has
no right to disturb the peace of the churches by point-
ing out their false doctrines or wicked practices."
Such counsel have I had from men of " high standing "
in the Christian pulpit, who practice also what they
preach. Let them follow their own advice. But alas,
if the deceitful lead the blind !

This destruction and denial is always a painful
work. It is the misfortune of the times that now so
much of it must needs be done, but the other part will
be full of delight.

2. Of the positive and constructant work in the-
ology.

In general he has to show that theology Is a human
science, whereof piety is the primordial sentiment, and
morality the act. A religious life is the practice
whereof a true theology is the science. Here, as else-
where, man is master, and learns by his own experi-
ment ; no man is so great as mankind, no scheme of
theology to be accepted as a finality ; the past is subject
to revision by the present, which must also give an ac-
count of itself in the future. A real theology must be
made up from facts with consciousness and observation,
and like all science is capable of demonstration.

In special the teacher must set forth the great posi-
tive doctrines of a scientific theology, which is founded
on these facts. To follow the five-fold division adove
referred to, he is to teach the philosophic idea of
God, of man, of the relation between the two, of in-
spiration, and of salvation.
IV— 20

306 THE TRANSIENT AND PERINIANENT

Of the philosophic idea of God. If the teacher be
able-minded, and fitly furnished with spiritual culture,
starting from facts of consciousness in himself, of ob-
servation in the world of matter, aided by the history
of the past and the achievements of the present, it is
not difficult for him to set forth and establish the idea
of God as infinitely perfect ; philosophically from these
materials he constructs the idea of the infinite God, the
absolute Being, with no limitation. God must have all
conceivable perfection — the perfection of being, self-
existence, eternity of duration, endless and without be-
ginning ; of power, all mightiness ; of mind, all know-
ingness ; of conscience, all righteousness ; of affection,
all lovingness ; of soul, all holiness, absolute fidelity to
himself. These words describe the idea of God, and
distinguish it from all others ; but these qualities do
not exhaust the perfections of God, only our present
conception thereof. To one with more and greater
faculties, other qualities must doubtless appear in his
conception of the Infinite. Look up at the heavens
and consider the worlds of matter revolving there visi-
ble to the unarmed sight; multiply those dots of light
by the function of the telescope, consider each but the
center of a system of other worlds all full of motion and
of conscious life; with a miscroscope study a bit of
Dover chalk, or slatestone from Berlin, and see in a
single inch the million-million tiny monuments of what
once was life, its epitaph now published in such small
print ; close your eyes, and imagine those astral schemes
of suns each is the centre of a planetary system, and
every orb as full of life as this, but variant in character
as in circumstance and condition, then ask if you can
comprehend the consciousness of the Being who is the
cause and providence of all this — ay, of the creator

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 307

of a single drop of ink ! What we can know of the
infinite God is but a whisper from a world of harmony.
Still, though inadequate, the idea may be free from
contradiction, and contain no thought which does not
represent a quality in God, as the fly on the dome of St.
Peter's, who sees but an inch, may yet see the nail he
perches on. Thus conscious of the limited extent of
human powers, I like not to call God personal, lest my
Idea be invested with the defect of human personality ;
or impersonal, lest the limits of matter be crowded
about the idea of God. For cerLalnly God's infinite
consciousness must differ from our finite and dependent
consciousness as the creative power of the universe dif-
fers from the instinct action of an unconscious baby
grasping the finger of its twin-born mate. The quality
and quantity of the Infinite consciousness we cannot an-
alyze and so exhaustingly comprehend. Still this posi-
tive fact remains to us — the infinitely perfect God.
This I think the highest thought which mankind has yet
reached, the grandest idea in the consciousness of hu-
manity.

How different is this from the theological conception
of God whereof the ethical character Is as revolting as
the Trinitarian arithmetic thereof Is absurd. Wliat a
difference between the Infinite God and the wrathful
God of the popular theology — as he appears In the
New England Primer, In Michael Angelo's last Judg-
ment — in every " Christian scheme of divinity ! "

Of the philosophic idea of man. Starting from In-
disputable facts it Is easy to show what a noble nature
there Is in man, so endowed with vast capabilities. I
wonder that any one can think meanly of this chief
creation of God, can talk of " poor human nature ; "

308 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

why, in comparison with the instinctive aspiration of
our nature the loftiest achievements of a Leibnitz or a
Jesus seem low and little. What a history is there be-
hind us ! Man began his career with no inheritance
save what was covered with his skin ; without material
or spiritual property — no house, nor tool, nor gar-
ment, nor breakfast laid up for to-morrow, no science,
law, literature, customs, habits, manners or even lan-
guage ; out of him was material nature, in him rude hu-
man nature. See what has thence risen up in the thirty
or forty thousand years of his probable existence.
What a panorama of triumph lies there behind us !
Surely the history of man is a continual victory, the
triumph of what is spiritual over the merely animal,
of conscious reflection over mere brute, instinctive, ani-
mal desire. It is the Infinite Providence which planned
the campaign and guides the victorious march. Even
the errors and follies of mankind — the experiments
which fail — are steps forward, only not straight for-
ward. The teacher ought to understand the historical
development of mankind, that in the panorama of what
has been done he may demonstrate the nobility of our
nature, and show the certainty of our triumph at the
last over all the transient evils of our condition.

He may take the body for his text, far more " won-
derfully made " than the Hebrew psalmist could con-
ceive of three thousand years ago, but hopefully more
than " fearfully." What masterly workmansliip it is
which puts these elements together — this " handful of
enchanted dust," making an instrument so perfect for
a purpose which is so grand ! He can unfold and pub-
lish the body's laws, the celestial mechanics of this mi-
crocosm, as the astronomers disclose the mode of action
of the forces in the sky. Every law of the body is a

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 309

commandment from the most high God, who enacts
geology in tables of stone, but in scriptures of flesh
has writ the law of flesh.

He may take the part of man not material for his
theme, and show the unity of spirit in such diversity of
faculties — intellectual, moral, affectional, and relig-
ious — disclosing the natural function of each, all in
their order combining to achieve the destination of
mankind.

He can show that human nature, on the whole, is just
what God meant it to be, no mistake of his careless
hand, not damaged by the " Devil ;" that it is God's
perfect means for his perfect purpose ; that the parts
are also adequate to their several functions — the body
exactly fitted to the body's work, the intellectual,
moral, affectional, and religious faculties exactly suited
to the duty they have to do. He can show this by met-
aphysical analysis, and demonstrate it all by deduc-
tion from the infinite perfection of God; or by the
synthesis of actual history, show how all these contin-
ually work together for good. For the freedom of
man — his power of self-rule, direct by his simple will,
or mediate through outward helps of circumstance and
condition — enlarges like his property and other power,
from age to age ; and the quantity of human virtue is
ever on the increase. Human nature unfolds itself by
trial, b}'^ experiment, wherein man makes as many mis-
takes as a child in learning to think, to speak, to walk,
to read and write, yet learns by every error, yea, by
every sin. The misstep of the individual or nation is
but one incident of the universal human desire of per-
fection as end and progress as the means thereto ; and
as we prefer health, strength, and beauty before sick-
ness and deformity, before pain and death, not less

310 THE TRANSIENT AND PER:MANENT

naturally does man, at last, reject all but truth in
things Intellectual, all save justice in things moral, and
holds fast to holiness and love. Our history is not a
retreat, it is a march forward. Mythology fancies a
*' fall ;" history records an ascension. The tempting
devil disappears — a theologic fancy of the younger
age ; the guiding Providence remains a scientific fact.
Nothing is more clearly demonstrated than the contin-
ual progress of humanity, I mean the regular gro^vth
of every excellence. Let a man make a pictorial view
of any special art — the trade of the smith, farmer,
carpenter, clothier, sailor ; or of any science — arith-
metic, astronomy, chemistry ; or of morality and reli-
gion ; and since the historic age began, see what a con-
tinual progress there has been ! Combine all these into
one grand panorama of humanity, and lo, what a mon-
ument of our greatness, what a prophecy of our desti-
nation it affords ! ]Man started with nothing ; in one
or two thousand generations see what he has done ;
this naked and penniless Adam turns out the thriftiest
child of God. Behold his material and spiritual es-
tate!

The religious teacher will set forth the ideal of
what man should be ; it is the prayer of human nature,
through the imagination ascending from every human
faculty, which longs for its complete and perfect de-
velopment. What a future this ideal foretells, to be
made by man, as the past has been, partly by his
instinctive action outrunning his personal will, partly
by his conscious calculation, setting the purpose and
thereto devising means ! This is plain — there must
be a destination proportionate to the nature of man,
a fulfilment of the soul's desires. By the facts of the
past and present, history shows that it is likely to be

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 311

so, and by the facts of consciousness — intuitive and
demonstrative — by deduction from the idea of a per-
fect God, human nature shows that it must be so and
shall. Indeed the infinite perfection of God is collat-
eral security for the promise, made in our nature
itself, that normal desire shall ultimately have its
satisfaction, and the ideal of man shall one day be
the actual of humanity.

Man's immortality must be dwelt upon. This can
be shown not by things outside of us, not at all by
quoting stories which cannot be true, but by the de-
velopment of facts given instinctively in the con-
sciousness of all. How easy it is to show that an im-
mortality of blessedness awaits the race and each in-
dividual thereof, wherefrom not even the wickedest
of men shall ultimately be cut off. Surely the Infinite
God must have made man so that humanity contains
all the forces needful for the perfect realization of
the ideal thereof.

The philosophic idea of man gathered up from
common and notorious facts, how different it is from
the *' poor human nature " we read of in theological
books, and which so many ministers whine over in ser-
mon and in prayer!

Of the philosophic idea of the relation between God
and man. This must correspond to the character of
God himself. In the world of man as the world of
matter he must be a perfect cause to create, a perfect
providence to direct ; must create and provide from
a perfect motive — the desire to bless ; for a perfect
purpose — for blessedness as end ; and furnish perfect
means, adequate to achieve the end. On God's part
it must be a relation of love — an infinite desire to

312 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

bless, attended with infinite power to bless. God is
capable of nothing else. Of all possible worlds he
must have made the best. The evil passions which
the Christian theology ascribe to God are impossible.
He a " jealous god ;" he a " consuming fire ;" he have
" wrath," and keep it " for ever ! " he torment men
for his own delight of vengeance; his wisdom mock
when their fear cometh ! He say to a single child
of humanity, " Depart from, me, ye accursed, into
everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels ;
I never knew you ! " Even the meanest of mortal
mothers meets her son, all stained with blood which
cries out against him, and at the foot of the gallows
folds the felon in her arms, with " JNIy son ! my son !
would to God that I could die for thee ! " And do you
believe that the cause and providence of ^^onder stars
and of these little flowers will doom to endless hell a
child of his ! Shame on the worse than heathen
thought ! A savage might easily make the monstrous
error, attributing his own love of vengeance to his God ;
overburdened with veneration for antiquity, even the
noblest men might repeat the mistake ; and celibate
monks of the dark ages — victims of the darker the-
ology which ruled them with its whip of fear — might
rejoice in the cruel, dreadful thought. Let us be
just to all, gentle in our judgment of theologic as
other wanderings — but let no thoughtful man do
less than spurn the malignant doctrine far away.
Suffering there is ; suffering there may be hereafter,
must be, perhaps, but the present and the future mis-
ery must be overruled for the good of all, the good
of each ; it is God's medicine, not poison from a
" devil."

There arc no types in human affairs to represent

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 313

the relation of the Infinite God to man. The words
of tenderest and most purely affectional human in-
timacy best convey the idea ; so let us call God our
Father and our Mother too.

How different is this from the theological idea of
the relation between God and man — the imperfect
God and the depraved man — the antagonistic rela-
tion !

Of the philosophic idea of inspiration. The In-
finite God is everywhere in the world of matter; its
existence is a sign of him, for infinite power is the
background and condition of these particles of dust.
Here is matter — take one step and there is God, it
is not possible without him — the derived depending
on the original. Matter is manifest to the senses,
God to the spirit. He acts where he is, not anywhere
an idle God. The powers of matter are but modes
of God's activity ; nature lives in him — without his
continual active presence therein nature were not.
He

"Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze.

Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the tress;

Lives through all life, extends through all extent,

Spreads undivided, operates unspent."
"To him no high, no low, no great, no small;

He fills, he bounds, connects and equals all."

He is equally present in the world of man, the world
of spirit: it also depends on him; he lives in it, and
it in him. He is also active therein. God is nowhere
idle. Human life as much depends on him as the life
of nature. Just so far as any human faculty acts
after its normal mode, it is inspired. Truth of
thought is the test of intellectual inspiration; justice,

314 THE TRANSIENT AND PER]\IANENT

of moral ; love, of affectional ; holiness, self-reliant
integrity, of religious inspiration.

All the world of matter is subject to law — con-
stant modes of operation of the forces thereof, which
of necessity are always kept. So there are modes of
operation for the human spirit, whereto obedience is
partly of free will ; for while matter is wholly bound,
man is partially free. When we act in obedience to
these ideal laws, then God works with them, through
them, in them ; we are inspired by him. So inspira-
tion is not a transient fact, exceptional in the history
of mankind, and depending on the arbitrar}' caprice
of an imperfect Deity, but constant, instantial, and
resulting from the laws which the Infinite God enacts
in the constitution of man ; its quality ever the same,
its degree varying only with the original genius of
each person, and the faithful use thereof. We grow
and live thereon as the tree grows by the vegetative
power residing in itself, and in the earth, the water,
the air, and sun. Miraculous inspiration exists only
as a dream, or a cheat ; a fancy of the self-deceived,
or a pretence of the deceivers. Nomial inspiration is
not limited to theological or religious men, but is the
common heritage of all. The houscAvife in her
kitchen, the smith in his shop, the philosopher, poet,
statesman, trader, all may alike communicate with
God, and receive liberal supply. Inspiration of this
sort belongs to the nature of man's spirit, which de-
pends on Infinite God as the flesh on finite matter ;
one may have much, another little, and the use and
form thereof will be most exceedingly unlike — as
vegetation differs in the forest, field, and garden, but
all comes from the same elemental air and water,
earth and sun. It is not limited to one age, but is

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 315

diffused to all, its amount continually increasing with
the higher forms of human life.

How much this differs from the theological idea of
inspiration — miraculous, unnatural, and often " re-
vealing " things absurd and monstrous !

Of the philosophic idea of salvation. To realize
the ideal of human nature, that is salvation ; to de-
velop the body into its natural strength, health, and
beauty ; to educate the spirit, all its faculties at nor-
mal work, harmoniously acting together, all men at-
taining their natural discipline, development, and de-
light ! Part of it we look for in the next world, and
for that rely upon the infinite perfection of God ;
part of it we toil for here, and shall achieve it here.
To do a man's best, to try to do his best, that is to
be "■ acceptable to God," to " make our peace with
him," who is of all preserver and defence. There is
no " wrath of God " to be saved from ; no " vicarious
atonement " to be saved by ; no miracle is wrought by
God; he asks only normal service of man, and as he
is infinitely perfect, so must he have arranged all
things, that all shall work for good at last, mankind
be saved, and no son of perdition e'er be lost. Suf-
fering there is — there will be. I, at least, cannot
show why it is needful in the world's great plan, nor
see the steps by which this suffering will end, nor al-
ways see the special purpose that it serves — but wiLh
the certainty of such a God the ultimate salvation
of all is itself made sure.

How different is all this from the theological idea
of salvation — " hard to be won, and only by a few ! "

How much we need a theology like this — a natural
theology, scientifically derived from the world of mat-

316 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

ter and of man, the product of religious feeling and
philosophic thought ! Such ideas of God, of man,
of the relation between the two, of inspiration, of sal-
vation — it is what mankind longs for, as painters
long for artistic loveliness, and scholars for scientific
truth ; yea, as hungry men long for their daily bread.
The philosopher w^ants a theology as comprehensive
as his science — a God with wisdom and with power
immanent in all the universe, and yet transcending
that. The philanthropist wants it not less, a God who
loves all men. Yea, men and women all throughout
the land desire a theology like this, which shall legiti-
mate the instinctive emotions of reverence, and love,
and trust in God, that to their spirits, careful and
troubled about many things, shall give the comfort
and the hope and peace for which they sigh ! How
much doubt there is in all the churches which the min-
ister cannot appease ; how much hunger he can never
still, because he offers only that old barbaric theology
which suited the rudeness of a savage age, and is re-
jected by the enlightened consciousness of this ! How
much truth is there outside of all the sects- — how
much justice and benevolence and noblest piety,
which they cannot bring in, because this popular the-
ology, like a destroying angel armed with a flaming
fiery sword, struts evermore before the church's gate,
barring men off from beneath the tree of life, anxious
to hew off the heads of lofty men, and gash and
frighten all such as be of gentle, holy heart.

So much for the teacher's relation to ideas, the in-
strument he is to work withal, and waken the religious
feelings into life.

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 317

II. Of the teacher of rehgion in his relation to the
feelings connected with religion.

With theological ideas of this scientific stamp it is
easy to rouse the religious feelings, the great master
emotions, and then rear up that whole brood of beauti-
ful affections whose nests such an idea of God broods
over and warms to life. If God be preached to men
as endowed with infinite perfection, he at once is felt as
the object of desire for every spiritual faculty; to the
mind, infinite wisdom — the author of all truth and
beauty; to the conscience, infinite justice — the creator
of all right ; to the affections, infinite love — the father
and mother of all things which are ; to the soul, infinite
holiness — absolute fidelity. So here is presented to
men the Infinite God — perfectly powerful, wise, just,
loving, and holy, self-subsistent, self-reliant. Is any
one an atheist to such a God? No, not one ! Who can
fail to love him.'' the philosopher, who throughout all
the world seeks truth, the science of things? the poet
and the artist, who hunt the world of things and
thoughts all through for shapes and images of beauty ?
the moralist, who asks for ideal justice and rejoices to
find it imperative in nature and in man? the philan-
thropist, who would fold to his great heart pirates and
murderers, and bless the abandoned harlot of the street,
yea, have mercy on the " Christian " stealer of men
in Boston? the sentimentalist of piety, who loves devo-
tion for itself, who would only lie low before the divine
as an anemone beneath the sky, and with no dissevering
thought, in joyous prayer would mix and lose his per-
sonal being in mystic communion with the infinite con-
sciousness of God ? Surely all these in the Infinite God
will find more than the object which elsewhere they

318 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

vainly seek. And the great mass of men and women,
in our cares and sorrows, in our daily joys and not in-
frequent sins, we all cry out for the infinite perfection
of God, and bless the feet of such as bring tlie idea
upon their tongues revealing words of peace ! Love
of God springs up at once, and strongly grows ; what
tranquility follows, what youthful play of all the fac-
ulties at first, at length what manly work! What joy-
ous and long-continued delight in God ! We long then
to keep all the commandments he writes in nature and
in man. When it is God's voice that speaks, how rev-
erently shall we all listen for each oracle. How shall
I respect my own body when I know it is a human
Sinai, where more than ten commandments are given
— writ on tables which no angry Moses ever breaks,
kept eternally in the universe, which is the ark of God's
covenant, holding also the branch that buds for ever,
and the memorial-bread of many a finished pilgrimage.
From this mountain God never withdraws, no thunder-
ing trumpets forbid approach, but the Father's voice
therein for ever speaks. And how shall I reverence this
spiritual essence which I call m3'^self , where instinct and
reflection for ever preach their sermon on the mount,
full of beautitudes for wlioso hears and heeds ! How
readily will all the generous feelings towards men spring
up when such a sun of righteousness shines down from
heaven with natural inspiration in her beams ; not New
England grass grows readier beneath the skies of June.
How dutiful becomes instinctive desire; how desirable
is conscious duty then ! Is the way hard and steep to
climb.'' the difficulty is lessened at the thought of God,
and full of noblest aspirations, heartiest trust, the
brave man sallies forth, victory perching on his banner.
What consolation will such ideas afford men in their

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 319

sorrows ! Let me know that infinite wisdom planned all
this world, a causal providence, and perfect love in-
spired the plan ; that it will all turn out triumphant at
the last — not a soul lost in the eternal march, no
suffering wasted, not a tear-drop without its compensa-
tion, not a sin but shall be overruled for good at last ;
that all has been foreseen and all provided for, and
mankind furnished with powers quite adequate to
achieve the end, for all, for each: what a new motive
have I for active toil ! yea, what consolation In the worst
defeat ! I can gird my loins with strength, and go
forth to any work ; or defeated, wounded, conquered,
I can fold my arms in triumph still, looking to the
eternal victory.

The teacher of religion Is with men in their joy and
In their sorrow. Old age and youth pass under his
eye ; he Is the patron saint of the crutch and the cradle,
and with such ideas — the grandest weapon of this age
— he can excite such pious emotions in the maiden and
the youth as shall make all their life a glorious day,
full of manly and womanly work, full of human vic-
tory ; and In the experienced heart of age he can kindle
such a flame of hope, and trust, and love, as shall adorn
the evening with warm and tranquil glories : — saffron
and purple, green and gold — all round the peaceful
sky, and draw down the sweet influence of heaven into
that victorious consciousness, and while his mortal years
become like the morning star, paling and waning its
ineffectual fire, the Immortal shall advance to all the
triumphs of eternal day.

Hitherto priests and ministers of all forms of re-
ligion — I blame them not — - have sought to waken
emotions, mostly of fear before the God of their fancy,
a dark and dreadful God. With such ideas of him,

320 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

they had no more which they could do. So the popu-
lar religion has been starved with fear, and with ma-
lignant emotions even worse. It is under this dread-
ful whip that men have builded up those pyramids, and
mosques, and temples, and cathedrals, and formed those
great institutions which outlast empires. Such things
belong to the beginning of our pilgrimage. When
man was a child he thought as a child. Now shall he
put childish things away.

So much for the teacher's relation to the feelings
connected with religion.

III. Of the teacher of religion in relation to acts of
morality. Religion begins in feeling, the emotional
germ ; it goes on to thought, the intellectual blade,
budding, leafing, and flowering forth prophetic ; it
becomes an act, a deed, the moral fruit — full of bread
of life for to-day, full of seeds of life for the un-
bounded future. Morality is keeping the natural laws
written of God in the constitution of matter and of
man. These we first feel by our instinctive emotions,
and next know by the calculation of reflective thought,
and at last practice by the will, making the ideal of
emotion and of thought the actual of practice in daily
life. The whole great field of morals belongs to the
jurisdiction of the teacher of religion.

1. He must show the practical relation of man to the
world of matter, the basis of all our endeavors. Here
he must set forth the duty of industry, of thrift, of
temperance — the normal use of what nature affords,
or industry and thrift provides. He is to learn the
natural rule of conduct by studying the constitution
of matter, the constitution of man, and then apply this
law of God to human life. He can show what use man

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 321

should make of his mastery over the material world,
the function of property, the product of industry, in
the development of the individual and the race, and
explain the services which vassal matter may render to
imperial man. He is to point out the conditions on
which we depend for health, strength, long life, and
beauty — all the perfections of the body — the way
to live so as to keep a sound spirit in sound flesh —
handsome and strong. These things belong to what
may be called the material basis of morals.

2. He must also teach the true human morals, the
rule of conduct which should govern man in regulating
his own personal affairs, and in his dealings with man-
kind. Here, too, from the constitution of human na-
ture he is to unfold the rule of conduct, the eternal
right, and make the application thereof to all the forms
of collective and of individual human life.

Here come the great morals which we call politics —
the relation of state with state, and of the government
with the people. This comes directly under the cogni-
zance of the teacher of religion, especially in this coun-
try, where all the people are the government, and where
such an intense interest is felt in political affairs, and
so many take an active part in the practical business
of making and administering the laws. If politicians
commonly aim to provide for their own party, or at
best only for their own nation, he must consult for the
eternal right, which is the joint good of all the people,
yea, of mankind also. They derive their rule of con-
duct from the expediency of to-day, nay, often only
from the whim of the moment, he his from the justice of
eternity ; they consult only about measures, and defer
to statutes of the realm, compacts, compromises, and

the constitution of the land, he communes with prin-
IV— 21

322 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

ciples, and defers only to the laws of God, the consti-
tution of the universe.

He must preach on politics, not as the representa-
tive of a party but of mankind, and report not the
mean counsels of a political economy, which consults
for one party or one nation, for one day alone, but
declare the sublime oracles of political morality, which
looks to the welfare of all parties, all nations, and
throughout all time. He must know no race but the
human, no class but men and women, no ultimate law-
giver but God, whose statute book is the world of mat-
ter and the world of men — justice the sole finality.

I know some men say " religion has nothing to do
with politics, and the minister should never preach on
the political rights and duties of the citizens of demo-
cratic America ! " They mean morality has nothing
to do with politics ; that is, in making and administering
the laws, no consideration is to be had of charity, truth,
justice, or common honesty. Certainly they mean
nothing else. On what other supposition can we be
asked to support the fugitive slave bill and the deci-
sions of kidnappers' courts ! I know men in pulpits,
" men fearfully and wonderfully made," who say " the
minister should have nothing to do with politics " — ex-
cept to vote and talk as his task-masters and owners
imperatively command ; that is, he should never preach
in favor of good laws or against wicked ones, never
set forth the great principles of morality which under-
lie the welfare of the state, nor point out measures to
embody and apply mere principles ; and never, never
expose the false principles and wicked measures which
would lead the community to ruin. " For Christianity
has nothing to do with the politics of men ; the minis-
ter's business is ' to preach the gospel,' ' to save souls,'

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 323

he speaks ' as to dying men,' who have here no continu-
ing city, but only seek one which is to come ; therefore
is the Sunday left for preaching on what does not con-
cern this world ! " Such ministers ought to have
nothing to do with anything, and soon will have what
they ought.

The teacher of religion nothing to do with the po-
litical actions of the people, one whole department of
conduct — which most intimately concerns the welfare
and the character of every child — left out of the
jurisdiction of morality and religion ! Look at the
conduct of the founders of the great world-sects ! Had
Mahomet nothing to do with politics? On the ruins
of the idolatrous structures of old, out of Hebrew and
Christian stones, cemented with his own wisdom and
folly, he built up the commonwealth of Islam, wherein
an hundred and fifty million men now find repose.
Moses nothing to do with politics ! As the poetic tale
relates, he led two million men out of Egypt, and
therefrom built up a new state with ideas of politics
far in advance of his times. Jesus nothing to do with
politics ! In the fourth Gospel — not an historical
document, but mainly a religious fiction — he says,
" My kingdom is not of this world ; " but in the more
authentic documents, the first Gospel and the third, he
promises that his twelve disciples " shall sit on twelve
thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel!" and
actually laid down the moral principles of political
conduct, which if applied according to his direction,
would revolutionize every state, and make a Christian
commonwealth of the world. Actually at this day the
words of Mahomet, Moses, and Jesus are appealed to
as the supreme law in Turkish, Hebrew, and Roman
courts. What an intense irony it is when the professor

324 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

of the gospel says, " Christianity has nothing to do
with pohtics," and the professor of law tells his pupils
" Christianity is part of the common law," " the Bible
the foundation of common jurisprudence!"

All the great Christian leaders were also men of
politics, their word of religion became flesh in the state.
Look at Augustine, at Ambrose of Milan, at the patri-
archs of the Eastern churches, at the metropolitans
of the West, at Gregory VII., at Innocent III., all
men whose word became law ! Augustine was a Ro-
man organizer, filled with the ideas of Paul of Tarsus.
What an influence he had in destroying the pagan state,
and building what he esteemed the " City of God."
Bernard, the monk of Clairvaux, made popes and un-
made them, and out of his lap shook an army of cini-
saders upon the Holy Land. Bossuet had as lasting
an influence on France as the " grand monarque ;"
Louis claimed to be himself the state, but the priest was
so more than the king. Luther controlled kingdoms ;
the word of powerful John Calvin became the constitu-
tion of Geneva, it moulded the Swiss cantons, and had
a powerful political influence wherever thoughts of that
great thinker went.

Look at the founders of the American churches —
at Robinson, and Cotton, and Hooker, and Davenport,
and Wilson ; at Higginson and Roger Williams ! Ask
Edwards and Hopkins, ask Mayhew and Channing, if
the minister should teach that politics have nothing to
do with religion ; and religion notliing to do with poli-
tics ! You might as well say the sailor had nothing
to do with the ocean, and New England manufactur-
ers no concern with the Connecticut and the Merrimac,
with wind, or water, or fire ! Look at the actual poli-
tics of America, at the open denial of the higher law,

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 325

at the politician's insolent mock against all religion,
and see the need that the teacher should lay down the
great moral principles of human nature, and apply
them to the political measures of the day. It is only
when the minister is a purchased slave that he tells
men Christianity has nothing to do with political con-
duct, and praises the practical atheist as the " model
Christian."

Then come the morals of society. Here the teacher
must look at the dealings of men in their relations of in-
dustry and of charity, and set forth the mutual duty
of the strong and the weak, the employer and the em-
ployed, the educated and the ignorant, the many and
the few. Natural religion must be applied to life in
all departments of industrial activity ; fai'ming, manu-
facturing, buying and selling must all be conducted on
the principles of the Christian religion, that is, of nat-
ural justice. The religious word must become religious
flesh — great, wide, deep, universal religious life. The
deceit and fraud of all kinds of business he must re-
buke, and show the better way, deriving the rule of con-
duct from human nature itself.

I know there are men, yea, ministers, who' think
that " Christianity " has no more to do with " bus-
iness " than with politics. It must not be applied to
the liquor trade, or the money trade, or the slave trade,
or to any of the practical dealings of man with man.
It is not " works " but " faith " which " saves " the
soul. So the minister who preaches a " gospel " which
has nothing to do with politics, preaches also a gospel
which has nothing to do with buying and selling, with
honesty and dishonesty, with any actual concern of
practical life. Leave them and pass them by, not with-
out blame but yet with pity too.

326 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

Look at the social life of man, — see what waste of
toil and the material it wins; here suffering from un-
earned excess, there from want not merited ; here deg-
radation from idleness, there from long-continued and
unremitting drudgery. See the vices, the crimes,
which come from the evil conditions in which we are
bom and bred ! These things are not always to con-
tinue. Defects in our social machinery are as much
capable of a remedy as in our mills for com or cotton.
It is for the minister to make ready the materials with
which better forms of society shall one day be made.
If possible he is to prepare the idea thereof; nay, to
organize if he can. What a service will the man
render to humanity who shall improve the mechanism
of society, as Fulton and Watt the mechanism of the
shops, and organize men into a community, as they
matter into mills. Yet it is all possible and it is some-
thing to see the possibility.

Then come the morals of the family. Here are the
domestic relations of man and woman, lover and be-
loved, husband and wife ; of parent and child, of rela-
tives, friends, members of the same household. Here,
too, the teacher is to learn the rule of conduct from
human nature itself and teach a real morality — ap-
plying religious emotions and theological ideas to do-
mestic life. The family requires amendment not less
than the community and state.

There is an ill-concealed distrust of our present do-
mestic relations, a scepticism much more profound than
meets the ear or careless eye. Tlic community is un-
easy, yet knows not what to do. See, on the one hand,
the great amount of unnatural celibacy, continually
increasing; and on tlie other, tlio odious vice which so
mars soul and body in an earthly hell. The two ex-

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 327

tremes He plain before the thoughtful man, both un-
natural, and one most wicked and brutal. Besides, the
increase of divorces, the alteration of laws so as to
facilitate the separation of man and wife, not for one
offence alone, but for any which is a breach of wed-
lock, the fact that women so often seek divorce from
their husbands — for drunkenness and other analogous
causes — all show that a silent revolution is taking
place in the old ideas of the family. Future good will
doubtless come of this, but present evil and licentious-
ness is also to be looked for before we attain the nor-
mal state. Many European novels which are char-
acteristic of this age bring to light the steps of this
revolution.

The old theology subordinates woman to man. In
the tenth commandment she is part of her husband's
property, and so, for his sake, must not be " coveted."
In the " divine " schedule of property she is put be-
tween the house and the man-slave ; not so valuable as
the real estate, but first in the inventory of chattels
personal. Natural religion will change all this. When
woman is regarded as the equal of man, and the family
is based on that idea, there will follow a revolution
of which no one, as yet, knows the peaceful, blessed con-
sequence not only to the family, but the community
and the state.

Most Important of all come the morals of the in-
dividual. The teacher of religion must seek to make
all men noble. He is not to make any one after the
likeness of another — in the image of Beecher or Chan-
ning, Calvin, Luther, Peter, Paul or Jesus, Moses or
Mahomet, but to quicken, to guide, and help each man
gain the highest fonn of human nature that he is ca-

328 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

pable of attaining to ; to help each become a man,
feehng, thinking, wilhng, hving on his own account,
faithful to his special individualitj' of soul. I wish men
understood this, as their individuality is as sacred before
God as that of Jesus or of Moses ; and you are no
more to sacrifice your manhood to them than they theirs
to you. Respect for your manhood or womanhood,
how small soever your gifts may be, is the first of all
duties. As I defend my body against all outward at-
tacks, and keep whole my limbs, so must I cherish the
integrity of my spirit, take no man's mind or con-
science, heart or soul, for my master — the helpful
all for helps, for despots none. I am more important
to myself than Moses, Jesus, all men, can be to me.
Holiness, the fidelity to my own consciousness, is the
first of manly and womanly duties ; that kept, all others
follows sure.

With such feelings of love to God, such ideas of
God, of man, of their relation, of inspiration, of salva-
tion — with such actions, it is easy to see what form a
free church will take. It will be an assembly of men
seeking to help each other in their religious growth and
development, wakening feelings of piety, attaining
ideas of theology, doing deeds of moralit}^ living a
gi'eat, manly, religious life; attempting, also, to help
the religious development of mankind. There must
be no fetter on the free spirit of man. Let all men
be welcome here — the believer and the unbeliever,
the Calvinist with his absurd trinity of imperfect God-
heads, the atheist with his absurdity of denial ; diverse,
in creed, we are all brothers in humanit3^ Of coui*se
you will have such sacraments of help as shall prove
helpful. To me, the ordinances of religion are piety

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 329

and morality; others ask bread, and wine, and water;
yet others, a hundred other things. Let eacli walk the
human road, and take Avhat crutch of support, what
staff of ornament he will.

In these three departments the teacher of religion
is to show the ideal of human conduct, derived from
the constitution of man, by the help of the past and the
present ; and then point out the means which lead to
such an end, persuading men to keep their nature's
law, and to achieve its purpose. Nay, he must go be-
fore them with his life, and demonstrate by his char-
acter, his fact of life, what he sets forth as theory
thereof; he cannot teach what he does not know. He
only leads who goes before. A good farm is the best
argument for good farming. A mean man can teach
nobleness only as the frost makes fire. A low man in
a pulpit — ignoble, lazy, bigoted, selfish, vulgar —
what a curse he is to any town ; an incubus, a night-
mare, pressing the slumbrous church ! A lofty man,
large minded, well trained, with a great conscience,
a wide, rich heart, and above all things a great pious
soul, who instinctively loves God with all his might —
what a blessing to any town is a manly and womanly
minister like that! Let him preach the absolute re-
ligion, the service of God by the normal use, discipline,
development, and delight of every limb of the body,
every faculty of the spirit, and all the powers we pos-
sess over matters and man ; let him set forth the five
great ideas of a scientific theology, and what an afflu-
ence of good will rain down from him !

What a field is before the religious teacher, what
work to be done, what opportunities to do it all ! Here
is a false theology to be destroyed ; but so destroyed

330 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

that even every good brick or nail shall be kept safe ;
nay, the old rubbish is to be shot into the deep to make
firm land whereon to erect anew ; out of the good of
the past and present a scientific theology, with many
e, blessed institution, is to be builded up. Great vices
are to be corrected — war between state and state ; op-
pression of the government over the people; there is
the slave to be set free — bound not less in the chain
of " Christian theology " than with the constitution
and the law. The American church is the great blood-
hound which watches the plantations of the south, bay-
ing against freedom with most terrific howl. " Chris-
tian theology " never breaks a fetter, while Christian
reliffion will set all men free ! Woman is to be treated
as the equivalent of man, with the same natural, es-
sential, equal, and unalienable rights ; here is a reform
which at once affects one half the human race, and then
the other half. Here is drunkenness to be abolished ; it
is to free states what slavery is to the south. Pov-
erty must be got rid of, and ignorance overcome ; covet-
ousness, fraud, violence, all the manifold forms of
crime, vices of passion, the worser vices of calculation,
these are the foes which he must face, rout, overcome.
AVhat noble institutions shall he help humanity build
up !

The great obstacle in the way of true religion is
the false ideas of the popular theology. It has over-
sloughcd human life, has checked and drowned to
death full many a handsome excellence, and gendered
the most noisome weeds. So have I seen a little dainty
meadow, full of fair, sweet grass, where New En-
gland's water-nymph, the Arethusa, came in June —
fresh as the morning star, itself the day-star of a sum-
mer on high — yea, many a blessed little flower bloomed

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 331

out. But a butcher and a leather-dresser built beside
the stream which fed the nymph, disgorging therein a
flood of pestilence, and soon in place of Arethusa and
her fair-faced sister flowers, huge weeds came up from
the rank slime, and flaunted their vulgar, ugly dresses
all the summer long, and went to seed peopling the spot
with worse than barrenness !

Man has made great mistakes in his religious his-
tory. Worse than in aught beside. The enforced
singleness of monk and nun, the polygamous conjunc-
tion of a master and his purchased beasts of luxury at
Constantinople or Jerusalem, or at New Orleans, or at
Washington ; the brutish vice of ancient cities, which
swallows down woman quick into an actual pit worse
than that fabled which took in the Hebrew heretics
and their strange fire ; the political tyranny of Asia
Minor and Siberia ; the drunken intemperance which
reels in Boston and New York, companion of the wealth
which loves the spectacle ; all this is not a worse de-
parture from the mutual love which should conjoin one
woman and one man, from natural justice, from whole-
some food and drink, than the theological idea of God
is a departure from the actual God whom you meet in
nature as the cause and providence of all the universe,
and feel in your own heart as the Father and Motlier
of the soul! Let not this amuse you. The strongest
boy goes most astray — furthest if not oftenest. It
is little things man first learns how to use — a chip of
stone before an axe of steel ; how long he rides on asses
before he learns to yoke fire and water, and command
the lightning to convey his thought !

How much this religious faculty has run to waste
— rending its banks, pouring over the dam, or turn-
ing the priest's loud clattering mill of vanity, not

332 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

grinding corn for the toilsome, hungry world. Man
sits on the bank, in mortars pounding his poor bread
with many a groan, mourning over political oppression,
the lies of great and the vanity of little men, over war
and want, slavery, drunkenness, and many a vice, while
the priest turns to private account this river of God,
which is full of water ! Will it always be so ? Al-
ways ! Once the streams of New England crept along
their oozy beds, where only the water-lily lay in maiden
loveliness, or leaped down rocks in wild majestic play.
None looked thereon but the woods, which, shagged
with moss, bent down and dipped therein the venerable
beard ; or the moose, who came with pliant lip to avoo
the lilies when sunrise wakened those snow-clad daugh-
ters of the idle streams ; or the bear, slaking her thirst
in the clean water, or swimming with her 3^oung across ;
or the red man, who speared a salmon there and gave
the river a poetic name. Look now : the woods have
withdrawn, and only frame the handsome fields ; the
moose and the bear have given place to herds and
flocks ; the river is a mechanic — sawing, planing,
boring, spinning, weaving, forging iron — more skil-
ful than Tyrian Hiram, or Bezaleel and Aholiab, once
called inspired, and clothes the people in more loveli-
ness than Solomon in all his glory e'er put on ; the red
man, as idle as the stream which fed him, he is now
three million civil-suited sons of New England, all
nestled in their thousand towns, furnished with shop,
and ship, and house, and church, and rich with works
of thought.

It is the little streams we utilize first. New Eng-
land inherited the culture which a thousand generations
slowly won ; but it took her two hundred years to catch
and tame the Merrimac, still serving its apprentice-

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 333

ship. It is chiefly the small selfishness of man we or-
ganize as yet, not the great overmastering powers ;
these wait for more experienced years. But the great
river of religious emotion — the Danube, the Nile, the
Ganges, the Mississippi, the Amazon of each human
continent, which, fed from tallest heaven-touching hills,
has so often torn up the yielding soil, and in its tor-
rent dashed the ruins of one country on the next in a
deluge of persecution, crusade, war — one day a peace-
ful stream will flow by the farm and garden which it
gently feeds, turn the mills of science, art, literature,
trade, politics, law, morals ; will pass by the cottage,
the hamlet, the village, and the city, all full of peaceful
men and women, industrious and wealthy, intelligent,
moral, serving the Infinite God by keeping all his law.
What an age will that be when the soul is minister, not
despot, and the church is of self-conscious humanity !

Do you want a teacher to do for you the noblest
work that man can do for man ; to tell you of the In-
finite God, of the real man, not the fabulous, of the
actual divine scriptures, of the live religion ; to help
waken it in you, and organize it out of you ; engineer-
ing for the great religious enterprises of mankind, and
leading the way in all the progressive movements of the
race.'' Then encourage this young man in his best ef-
forts, rebuke all meanness, cowardice, dishonesty, aff'ec-
tation, sloth, all anger, all hate, all manner of un-
faithfulness. Cheer and bless him for every good
quality ; honor his piety and morality ; reverence all
self-reliant integrity, all self-denying zeal. Bid him
spend freely his costliest virtue, 'twill only greaten
in the spending. If he have nothing to say, let him
say it alone ; make no mockery of hearkening where

334. THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

ears catch only wind, and the audience get cold ; give
him empty room. But if he have truth to tell, listen
and live !

Do you want such a minister as superintendent of
the highest husbandry, the culture of your soul? or
a parasite, a flunkey, who will lie lies in your very
face, giving you all of religion except feelings, ideas,
and actions ; a man always quoting and never living ;
making your meanness meaner after it is baptized
and admitted to the church, and stuffed with what
once to noble men were sacraments ! Then I will tell
you where to find such " by the quantity," at whole-
sale. I will show you the factories where they are
turned out for the market. Nay, give me any pat-
tern of minister which you require, I will lead you to
the agent, who will copy it exactly, and from dead
wood now stored away in churches laid up to dry,
in three years furnish the article, made to order as
readily as shoemakers' lasts, and by a similar process,
" warranted sound in the faith " — if not in that " once
delivered to the saints," at least in that now kept b}'
the sinners ! There are towns in Virginia which breed
slaves for the plantations and the bagnios of the
south ; and also northern towns which breed slaves
for the churches. God forgive us for taking his

name in vam

I know some men think the minister must be a
little mean man, with a little mind, and a little con-
science, and a little heart, and a little small soul, with
a little effeminate culture got by driveling over the
words of some of humanity's noblest men ; who never
shows himself on the highway of letters, morals, sci-
ence, business, politics, where thought, well girt for
toil, marches forth to more than kingly victory ; but

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 335

now and then creeps round in the parlors of society,
and sneaks up and down the aisles of a meeting-house,
and crawls into the pulpit, lifting up his cowardly
and devirilized face, and then with the words and
example of Moses, and Samuel, and David, and
Esaias, and Jesus, and Paul before him, under his
eye, in a small voice whines out his worthless stuff
which does but belittle the exiguity of soul which
appropriately sleeps before him in the pews, not be-
neath him in spirit, only below him in space. I know
men who want such a minister, that will " preach the
gospel," and never apply the Christian religion to
politics, to business, to society, to the life of the fam-
ily or the individual, not even to the church ! An
admirable gospel for scribes, and pharisees, and hypo-
crites! Glad tidings of great joy is it to the hunkers
and stealers of men : " Religion nothing to do with
politics ; the morality of Jesus not to be applied to
the dealings of man ; the golden rule too precious for
daily use ! " Such a man will " save souls " — pre-
served in hypocrisy and kept on ice from youth to
age ! How he can call his idolatry even worshipping
the Bible I know not; for you cannot open this book
anywhere but from between its oldest or its newest
leaves there rustles forth the most earnest human
speech, words which burn even now when they are
two or three thousand 3"ears old !

How much a real minister of religion may do ! He
deals with the most concerning of all concerns, what
touches the deepest wants of all men. How a man in
such a calling can be idle, or indifferent, or dull to
himself, I see not. The covetous man may be weary
of money, a voluptuary sicken with pleasures, and one
ambitious and greedy of praise get tired of new access

336 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

of power, and loathe his own good name ; but how a
minister of religion can ever tire of toil to bless man-
kind is past my finding out. How much a real
teacher of absolute religion may bring to pass ! Earth
had never so palpable a need of a live minister with
living religion in him, I care not whether you call it
Christianity or no — but the feelings, the ideas, and
the actions of such a religion as human nature de-
mands ! The harvest truly is plenteous, but the la-
borers — where are they ?

No man has so admirable an opportunity as the
minister to communicate his best thoughts to the pub-
lic. The politician has his place in the Senate, and
speaks twice or thrice in a session, on the external
interests of men, chiefly busying himself about meas-
ures of political economy, and seldom thinking it
decorous or " statesmanlike " to appeal to principles
of right, or address any faculty deeper than the un-
derstanding, or appeal to aught nobler than selfish-
ness. The reformer, the philanthropist, finds it diffi-
cult to gather an audience ; they come reluctantly, at
rare intervals of business or pleasure. But every
Sunday custom tolls the bell of time. In the ruts of
ancient usage men ride to the meeting-house, seat them
in venerable pews, while the holiest associations of
time and place calm and pacify their spirit, else often
careful and troubled about many things, and all are
ready for the teacher of religion to address their deep-
est and their highest powers. Before him lies the
Bible — an Old Testament, full of prophets and rich
in psalm and history ; a New Testament, crowded with
apostles and martyrs, and in the midst thereof stands
that great Hebrew peasant, lifting up such a mag-
nificent and manly face. The very hymn the people

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 337

sing is old and rich with holy memories ; the pious

breath of father, mother, sister, or perhaps some one

more tenderly beloved, is immanent therein ; and the

tune itself comes like the soft wind of summer which

hangs over a pond full of lilies, and then wafts their

fragrance to all the little town. Once every week,

nay, twice a Sunday, his self-gathered audience come

lo listen and to learn, expecting to be made ashamed

of every meanness, vanity and sin ; asking for rebuke,

and coveting to be lifted up towards the measure of a

perfect man. It is of the loftiest themes he is to

treat. Beside all this, the most tender confidence is

reposed in him — the secrets of business, the joy of

moral worth, the grief of wickedness, the privacy of

man's and woman's love, and the heart's bitterness

which else may no man know, often are made known

to him. He joins the hands of maidens and lovers,

teaching them how to marry each other; he watches

over the little children, and in sickness and in sorrow

is asked " to soothe, and heal, and bless." Prophets

and apostles sought such avenues to men, for him

they are already made. Surely if a man, in such a

place, speaking Sunday by Sunday, year out, year in,

makes no mark, he must be a fool !

There was never such an opportunity for a great

man to do a great constructive work in religion as

here and now. How rich the people are — in all

needed things, I mean — and so not forced to starve

their soul that life may flutter round the flesh ; how

intelligent they are ! no nation comes near us in this.

The ablest mind finds whole audiences tall enough to

reach up and take his greatest, fairest thought.

There is unbounded freedom in the north ; no law

forbids thought, or speech, or normal religious life.
IV— 22"

338 TPIE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

How well educated the women are ! A man, with all
the advantages of these times — rapidity of motion
from place to place, means of publishing his thought
in print and swiftly spreading it by newspapers
throughout the land, freedom to speak and act, the
development of the people, their quick intelligence to
appreciate and apply a truth — has far more power
to bless the world religiously than the gospels ascribe
to Jesus of Nazareth with all his miracles ! What
was walking on the water compared to riding in a
railroad car ; what " speaking with tongues " to print-
ing your thought in a wide-spread newspaper; and
w'hat all other feigned miracles to the swift contact
of mind with thoughtful mind !

Close behind us are Puritans and Pilgrims, who
founded New England, fathers of all the north. They
died so little while ago that, lay down your ear to
the ground, you may almost fancy that you hear their
parting prayer, " Oh, Father, bless the seed we planted
with our tears and blood. And be the people thine ! "
Still in our bosom bums the fathers' fire. Through
all our cities sweeps on the great river of religious
emotion ; thereof little streams also run among the
hills, fed from the same heaven of piety ; yea, into all
our souls descends the sweet influence of nature, and
instinctively we love and trust. All these invite the
scientific mind and the mechanic hand of the minister
to organize this vast and wasted force into institutions
which shall secure the welfare of the world. Shall
we use the waters of New England hills, and not also
the religious instincts of New England men? What
if a new Jesus w'ere to appear in some American
Nazareth, in some Massachusetts Galilee of the Gen-
tiles, and bear the same relation to the consciousness

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 339

of this age as the other Jesus to his times, what greater
opportunities with no miracle would he now possess
than if invested with that fabled power to restore the
wanting limb or to bring back the dead to life !

The good word of a live minister will probably be
welcomed first by some choice maiden or matron, the
evening star of that heaven which is soon to blaze
with masculine glory all night long. What individu-
als he may raise up ! What schools he may establish,
and educate therein a generation of holy ones ! If
noble, how he may stamp his feeling and his ideas on
the action of the age, and long after death will re-
appear — a glorious resurrection this — in the intel-
ligence, the literature, the philanthropy ; in the tem-
perance, and purity, and piety of the place ! How
many towns in America thus keep the soul of some
good minister, some fanner or mechanic, lawyer or
doctor — oftenest of all, of some good religious
woman, long after her tomb has become undistin-
gulshable in the common soil of graves? And how
do we honor such?

"Past daj'S, past men — but present still;

Men who could meet the hours,
And so bore fruit for every age.

And amaranthine flowers ; —
Who proved that noble deeds are faith,

And living words are deeds,
And left us dreams beyond their dreams.

And higher hopes and needs."

All things betoken better times to come. There
was never so grand an age as this — how swiftly
moves mankind ! But how much better we can do !
Religious emotion once flowed into the gothic archi-
tecture of Europe, the fairest flower of human art —

340 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

little blossoms of painting and sculpture, philosophy,
eloquence, and poetry, all hidden, and yet kept within
this great compound posy of man's history. The
Catholic church has her great composers in stone,
artists in speech, and actors in marble ; the Protestant
its great composers in philosophy and literature, with
their melody of thought, their harmony of ideas. One
day there must be a church of mankind, whose com-
posers of humanity shall think men and women into
life, and build with living stones ; their painting, their
sculpture, their architecture, the manhood of the indi-
vidual, the virtue of the family and community ; their
philosophy, their eloquence and song, the happiness
of the nation, the peace and good will of all the
world.

Oh, young man, gird your loins for this work ; spare
not yourself but greatly spend. And you who ask
his help — how much you all can do ! The world
waits for you ! a truth of religion, it will burn its way
into history, not as thunder to destroy, but as sun-
light to create and bless. The human author may be
buzzed about in the whisperings of bigots and self-
misguided men ; rooks may caw, and owls may hoot
at him ; the rats of the state may gnaw at his deeds,
and the church's mice nibble at his feelings ; nay, he
may stand on the scaffold, be nailed to a cross — a
thief on either hand — and mocking words be writ
against his name; or he may mix his last prayer with
the snapping of fagots. Resistance is all in vain: his
soul, in its chariot of fire, goes up to the calm still
heaven of holy men, and his word of truth burns in
to the consciousness of the world, and where he went,
bare and bleeding, with painful feet, shall mankind
march to triumph and great joy !

A TEACHER OF RELIGION 341

It is amazing how much a single man may do for
good. The transient touch of genius fertihzes the
recipient soul. So in early autumn the farmer goes
forth afield, followed by his beast, bearing a few
sacks of corn, and dragging an inverted harrow
adown the lane. All day long the farmer, the genius
of the soil, scatters therein the seed, his horse harrow-
ing the valleys after him ; at night he looks over the
acres newly sown, the com all smoothly covered in,
puts up the bars behind him, speaks kindly words to
his half-conscious fellow-laborer, " a good day's work
well done, old friend ! " and together they go home
again, the beast with ears erect and quickened pace,
as mindful of his well-deserved rack. For months
the farmer sees it not again ; but all the autumn long
the seed is putting down its root, and putting up its
happy blade. All winter through it holds its own
beneath the fostering snow. How green it is in
spring! and while that genius of the soil has gone to
other fields and pastures new, how the winds come
and toss the growing wheat, and play at wave and
billow in the green and fertile field ! In the harvest
time what a sea of golden grain has flowed from out
that spring of seed he opened and let loose ! So in
the Christian mythology, Gabriel's transient saluta-
tion, " Hail, thou that art highly favored amongst
women," was in full time followed by a multitude of
the heavenly host, singing " Glory to God in the high-
est, and on earth peace and good will to men ! "

XII

FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY

But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the com-
mandments of men. — Matt. xv. 9.

I ask your attention to some thoughts on the
ecclesiastical and the philosophical methods of study-
ing theology.

The religious is the strongest of all our spiritual
faculties. This is shown not onl}^ by the wide spread
and long duration of particular forms of religion,
like Buddhism, Christianity, JNIahometanism, embrac-
ing different nations, and even races, or by the monu-
ments which these have left in all peopled space and
all civilized time; but also by the ease with which it
puts down the great passions of the body, and still
more by the power which it has to overmaster the mind,
the conscience, and the affections of man, and to sub-
due the great interests of civilization.

If this mighty faculty be directed according to its
nature, it works the highest welfare and secures the
most rapid progress, the most elevated civilization to
the individual, the nation, and to mankind ; but if it
be misdirected against its nature, it hinders the pro-
gressive development of man's faculties, and leads
to the most terrible ruin of the individual and the
nation. It will help man, or else hinder him, and
that with a force proportionate to the vast power of
the facult}^ itself.

We all live by eating and drinking; the normal
appetite inclines mankind as a whole to the proper

342

FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY 343

articles of food and drink suited to the climate and
the stage of civilization ; but the appetite may be
perverted and misdirect the individual, so that he
eats and drinks things not fit for him, or uses them
in excessive quantity, and is poisoned by what should
feed him. Look about you at the terrible examples
of each form of error — gluttons who have " eaten
their own heads off," thinking no more than the swine
they feed upon and resemble ; drunkards who have
drowned themselves in the Red Sea of their own de-
bauchery, the Pharaohs of intemperance, their nobler
faculties strangled long before their flesh is cold !
The religious faculty — call it soul — may err as
much as the appetite for food, and the mistake pro-
duce consequences not less hideous on the individual
and the nation. A church may poison the soul with
foul doctrines as easily as a grog shop may poison
the body with foul drink.

The animals are all unprogressive in their char-
acter; but little room is left them for individual will
or reflection. Their action is almost all spontaneous,
instinctive, compulsory of their organization, not free
of their individual personality. Hence they are tools
of a power which works through them, rather than
agents acting on their own account. So they do not
err in choice of food or drink or mode of conduct. If
an individual does so, no tribe of animals ever makes
that mistake.^ They grow no wiser by experiment,
they suffer from none, for they try none.^ But God
has made man — within certain and somewhat narrow
limits — his own master. We are progressive, and
must make experiments in the art of life. Instinct is
the sole and perfect guide for the beast, representing
not his thought, but God's thought for him. But

344 THE TRANSIENT AND TERMANENT

man is partly ruled by instinct, which is God's
thought, and partly must he rule himself by his own
personal reflective will. After he gets beyond the
wildness of his primitive state, the reflective action
is much more than the instinctive. He makes great
errors in his experiments. Individuals do so. John
is a drunkard ; Lewis and Margaret are dandies, both
come to nothing, one but a cup of drink, the others
a bundle of fine clothes. Nations likewise do so: the
Swedes are a people of dininkards ; the Greeks and
Romans were debased by the vices of their civiliza-
tion, and barbarous, half -naked men tore these effem-
inate dandies limb from limb.

Similar mistakes are made by individuals and by
nations in the development of the religious faculty,
and the consequences are worse than even drunken-
ness ; thereof history furnishes terrible examples, on a
small scale by individuals, or on a great scale by
nations — Abraham sacrificing his only son, Spain
butchering her subjects by the hundred thousand,
because they could not believe what was unbelievable.

In mankind's religious development, as in yours and
mine, three things are indispensable, namely — emo-
tions, religious feelings, which come directly from the
spontaneous action of this religious faculty itself;
ideas, which come from the reflective action of the in-
tellect ; and actions, which come from the will, influ-
enced by emotions and ideas.

These ideas are the middle term between emotions
and actions ; they reach forward and create deeds,
they reach backward and cause emotions, which create
new deeds. The sum of ideas in religious matters is
what men call theology — thoughts about God, about

FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY 345

man, and about the relation between God and man.
Now as true religion is piety, the love of God, and
morality, the keeping of his laws; so a true theology
is the science Avhereof religion is the practice — theol-
ogy the intellectual part, as piety is the emotional
part, and morality the practical part.

A true theology helps both piety and morality ; a
false theology hinders each. Now the character of
the theolog-ical ideas which men attain to and believe
in will depend mainly on the method in which they
seek for theologic truth ; a false method will ultimately
lead to a false theology and its consequences, and a
true method will ultimately lead to a true theology
and its consequences ; the road from Boston to Salem
will never carry the travelers to Roxbur}^, though so
much nearer at hand. As the theology which is ac-
cepted has such an immense influence on the indi-
vidual, the community, the nation, or the race which
accepts it, you see how important it is to have a right
method in theology. It is not the highest end of life
to attain wealth, honor, power, fame, but to build up
a religious character, noble in kind, great in quantity ;
to be a complete man, with a whole, sound body,
developed normally, with a whole, sound spirit, nor-
mally developed in its intellectual, its moral, its af-
fectional, and its religious part. To a nation I think
there is no one thing which so much hinders its devel-
opment as a false theology, for that chains the spirit
and then drives it to an unnatural and a false church,
an unnatural and false state, community, family, and
so on ; and there is no one thing which so much helps
a nation to a masterly development as a true theology,
which sets the spirit free, and then leads it to found
a natural and true church, a natural and true state,

346 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

community, family, and so on. This being so, it is
of the utmost importance to you and me that the na-
tion should have this true method in theology, for that
is to the general activity of the people what the con-
stitution is to its political activity, what his tools are
to the blacksmith, fanner, spinner or weaver.

As the theology determined the action of the reli-
gious faculty, and as that is the strongest faculty in
man, you see at once what wide, deep and controlling
force theological ideas have on the entire concerns of
men. Let me give an example. About a hundred
and twenty or a hundred and thirty years ago the
Methodist sect began in England. At first it w'as to
the British church what the Protestant Reformation
was to the Roman — an awakening to new religious
life, and putting that into new practical forms. It
began with George Whitfield, the greatest ecclesiastical
orator, and John Wesley, the greatest ecclesiastical
organizer and statesman that Christendom had seen
for a thousand years. By this power to persuade
and this power to organize men did these two persons
give it such a start that now the sect is some twelve
millions strong, has wide influence in Great Britain
and America, and has done much service in controlling
the vices of passion, and in keeping the humblest,
poorest, and least cared-for part of the population
from falling still lower down. But this sect, with its
many millions, has never produced a great man, a great
discoverer, organizer, administrator, philosopher, poet,
or historian. It had one respectable scholar, Adam
Clarke, who amassed considerable learning, though he
used it without originality or good judgment. He
died in 1832, and since then no Methodist has had a
European reputation. I do not know of an Amer-

FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY 347

ican Methodist, more than American CathoHc, who
is eminent for anything but devotion for his church.
Yet there is talent enough born into the ]\Iethodist
church ; it affects powerfully the poorest and least
educated class of men in the Northern states, who
furnish able men for its preachers. When the Meth-
odist synod met in Boston a few years ago we were
astonished to see such a collection of superior heads ;
they would average better than any American legis-
lature I have seen. Everybody knows what zeal, what
industry, what self-denial there are in the sect. Yet
little comes of all this talent, because the theology and
the discipline of the sect crush all free individuality
of mind, conscience, heart, and soul. Just in pro-
portion as a man becomes thoroughly a Methodist, he
ceases to be an individual man with a free mind, a
free conscience, free affections, and freedom of soul;
instead thereof he becomes a vulgar fraction of his
sect, one twelve-millionth part of the Methodist church.
Not many years since a Methodist preacher said,
" We preach religion without philosophy, and that is
the secret of our success." He meant that they pro-
claimed doctrines which must be believed without ap-
peal to reason, and commanded deeds to be done with-
out regard to conscience. The consequence is that
men with large reason and conscience either will not
enter the Methodist church at all, or if they do, they
thence presently come out, or stay only to have their
minds pinched to the narrowest compass, and their
conscience stifled stone dead.

There is one method which has been adopted by
all the Christian sects in their theological investiga-
tions. Some, like the Methodists and Catholics, and

348 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

most of the Trinitarians, adhere to it with all their
might ; others, like the English church, the Unitarians,
the Univcrsalists, and the Lutherans, care less for it,
and break away in practice from what they all pro-
fess in theory. I call this the ecclesiastical method.

There is another method adopted by philosophical
men in their scientific investigations in these days, but
rejected by all the great sects; some earnestly and
violently repudiating it, while others reject its theory
though they follow it more or less in practice. Tliis
I call the philosophical method.

So far as they are ecclesiastical, all theologians fol-
low the ecclesiastical method ; it is instantial with them.
So far as they are philosophical, all scientific men
follow the philosophical method; it is instantial with
them. Let me say that when some ecclesiastical men
study philosophy, they abandon the ecclesiastical
method ; hence men like Dr. Whewell in England, and
others, have attained great eminence in science, and
done large service therein.

I. Let me say a word of the ecclesiastical method.
This consists of an assumption and a deduction. INIen
assume that certain words spoken or written are a
direct, miraculous and infallible communication from
God, and therefore are of ultimate authority, for all
time, in all matters of religion and theology. To
these men must subordinate their intellectual, moral,
affectional, and religious faculties. That is the as-
sumption.

From these words certain doctrines are deduced,
and enforced on men as the miraculous and infallible
commands of God which must be accepted in spite of
the instinctive or reflective action of man's mind, con-

FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY 349

science, heart, and soul. These are called doctrines
of " revealed religion," and men must believe them,
howsoever unreasonable, immoral, unlovely, and irre-
ligious. That is the deduction.

The Christian sects differ on many other things,
but they all agree in assuming this miraculous and
infallible communication from God as the ultimate
authority, and in deducing thence all their doctrines ;
so however unlike their conclusions, all agree in their
assumption and deduction. There is diversity of doc-
trines, but unity of method. The Catholic finds that
communication in the Bible, in ecclesiastical tradition,
and in the decisions of the Roman church — expressed
by the infallible general council, and enforced by the
infallible Pope — which three are the ultimate au-
thority of the Catholic, all summed up and repre-
sented, however, by the infallible Pope. The Protes-
ant finds that communication only in the Bible, which
is the ultimate authority of Protestantism, and is to
him what the Pope is to the Catholic. Some Protes-
tant sects reject the Apocr3"pha as no part of the mi-
raculous communication ; some individual Protestants
reject certain doubtful books of the Old Testament
or the New ; but all the little Protestant sects, Trini-
tarian, Unitarian, Nullitarian, and the three great
Christian sects, the Greek, the Roman, and the Teu-
tonic churches, agree in the assumption and in the
deduction. By the same method the Roman gets his
infallible Pope, and the Teuton his infallible Bible,
the Trinitarian his trinity, the Unitarian his unity,
the Damnationist his eternal torment, and the Salva-
tionist tlie redemption of all men.

Now the Christian sects do not prove that the words
they take as ultimate authority in matters of religion

550 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

are a divine, miraculous, and infallible communication
from God ; they do not prove this from facts of ob-
servation in the world without, or facts of conscious-
ness within. That fact is assumed. In the whole
compass of theological literature there is no proof of
the fact ; there is no evidence which would lead an
impartial jur}^ to think for a moment that there was
the shadow of a proof. There is no direct evidence
adequate to prove it : there is no personal evidence —
the testimony of known men, carefully collected to-
gether and tested ; and there is no circumstantial evi-
dence — the testimony of known things. It is assump-
tion, and no more. It is thought wicked to doubt
what none has ever proved, and what never can be
proved.

From this assumption the theologians deduce cer-
tain doctrines, and read them as mysteries, revelations,
commandments, resting on God, things which must
not be questioned. If you reject them j'ou are to be
damned for ever.

Look at some of the most remarkable of these ec-
clesiastical doctrines thus deduced. I shall not take
great religious or theological tiniths, such as the exist-
ence of God, the immorality of man, his dependence
on God and accountability to him ; for these are facts
of consciousness which are common to all forms of
religion, in the enlightened, the civilized, the half-
civilized, the barbarous, and even the savage state, and
all of these have been demonstrated, it seems to me,
till the argument for each can be analyzed into propo-
sitions, each of which is self-evident, and requires no
proof. Whatever the theologians may say, none of
these four great tniths rest at all on the theological
method for their support. I shall take seven dogmas,

FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY 351

which are certainly no part of natural religion, and
are claimed to be very important parts of the miracu-
lous revelation. Here they are: —

1. The existence of the devil, a personal being,
totally and absolutely evil, with immense power, which
he uses to thwart God and ruin men.

2. The total depravity of man : the first man was
created good, but fell from his innocence, and " In
Adam's fall we sinned all " — so that we are totally
depraved, and the human race has turned out just as
God meant it should not turn out.

3. The wrath of God: he is in a state of continual
indignation against this totally depraved mankind,
and is " angry with the wicked every day."

4. The eternal torment of the immortal soul: the
wrathful God has prepared an everlasting hell, where
the absolutely evil devil will act as his lieutenant-
governor and torment sinful mankind, the immense
majority of the human race, for ever.

5. The incarnation of God: God is one and yet
three — the Father, who is eternally the Father ; the
only begotten Son, who is eternally the Son ; and the
Holy Ghost, who proceeds eternally from the Father
and the Son. By God the Holy Ghost, God the
Father — who is also God the Son and God the Holy
Ghost — overshadowed Mary, the spouse of Joseph,
and she bore God the Son, who was successively God
a baby, God a boy, God a youth, and God a man,
eating, drinking, dying, was sacrificed, raised again,
and ascended to heaven, and all the time was still
God.

6. The atonement, the death of God: he was killed
by wicked men, and rose again, taking away the sin
of part of the totally depraved mankind, through the

352 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

mitigation of God's wrath, so that a certain portion
are destined to eternal happiness, while the rest must
go down to eternal woe, prepared for the devil and
his angels.

7. The salvation of men by belief: you must be-
lieve all these six doctrines, or else perish everlastingly.

Now, there is no circumstantial, no personal evi-
dence for the truth of any of these seven monstrous
doctrines. You find no devil on the face of the earth
to-day, no footsteps of him in the " Old Red Sand-
stone," not a track of his step amid all the " Vestiges
of the Natural History of Ci'eation ;" no detective
police could ever find the faintest scent of this crea-
ture. Ask the minister, " How do you know there is
such a devil? " and he answers, " It is a doctrine of
the divine and miraculous revelation," Ask again,
" How do you know the revelation is divine and mi-
raculous, from God?" and if he be an honest man,
and understand his profession as well as the street
sweepers their business, he will sa}^ " I do not know
it, I only find it convenient to assume it. I have not
a particle of evidence for it."

Then there is no circumstantial or personal evidence
for the total depravity of man. Wise men you find,
none wholly wise ; good men, none wholly good ; bad
men also, but none totally bad. Take the human
race in every age, wisdom prevails over folly, good-
ness over badness, virtue over vice ; even Lawrence
and Stone,^ it is thought, made more honest bargains
than deceitful ones. South Carolina representatives
in Congress are sober all the forenoon. Cruel mas-
ters are exceptional, even amongst slaveholders. INIur-
derers are always in the minorit}- ; thieves and sturdy
beggars likewise, and even liars. History records no

FALSE xVND TRUE THEOLOGY 353

fall of man, but rather an ascent, a continual increase
in wisdom, justice, philanthropy, piety, and trust
in God.

There is no evidence for the wrath of God, and an
eternal hell ; earthquakes, volcanoes, storm, pestilence,
death, indicate no ugliness on God's part, no lack of
love. In the world of time and space you cannot find
a single fact of observation which indicates the wrath
of God. Take any man, the worst or the best, who is
not debauched by indulgence in the ecclesiastical the-
ology, not poisoned by these odious doctrines, and in
him you cannot find a fact of consciousness which in-
dicates wrath on God's part. Nay, in the clear mirror
of the human soul, wiped clean from the breath of that
contagion, is God's infinite love reflected ; the natural
man looks there, and sees the dear Father and Mother
of all mankind. Ask the minister how he knows of
God's wrath and eternal torment ; ask the council of
ministers at North Wobum ■* how they know that God
will damn all babies unbaptized and dying newly bom,
and if you could beguile them into honest speech, they
would tell you " It rests on the authority of some
one who died many years ago ; we do not know who
said it, nor what authority he had for saying it."

So it is with each of these other doctrines — the
incarnation of God in a miraculous baby, the death
of God by crucifixion, the resurrection of the dead
God ; the atonement, God the Son appeasing God the
Father, this one undivided third part of the Trinity
appeasing the two other undivided third parts. There
is nothing which can be called circumstantial or per-
sonal evidence for these things ; they all rest on the
said so of somebody who knew no better than we ; who
took his dreams of the night or his whimseys of the

day for the facts of the universe.
IV— 23

354 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

In the Catholic church 3'ou will be told of the mi-
raculous immaculate conception of Mary, the mother
of God, of the miracles of St. Valentine, to whom this
day is consecrated, of St. Dennis, who had his head
cut off, and walked home with it under his arm. All
this rests on the same sort of evidence as these seven
dogmas just named; on the "said so" of somebody
who knew nothing about it. There is no more reason
for believing the miraculous birth of Jesus, the " Son
of God," than of Mary, the " mother of God," or of
Anna, the " mother of God's mother," " the grand-
mother of God ;" the whole rests on nothing. The
Catholic church says that you must believe in the in-
fallible Pope, and do the works which the church com-
mands, and you shall find life everlasting; else you
shall find hell everlasting. There is as much reason
for that as there is for the Protestant mode of salva-
tion ; there is none at all for either.

This method leads to monstrous evils. To assume
that there was such a communication from God, to
submit man's highest faculties to such outside author-
ity, in the long run always degrades these faculties,
and leads men in God's name to despise the very high-
est gifts he ever gave to man. The odious doctrines
thus deduced drive some men to utter irreligion, even
to atheism. All the way from Greek Epicurus to
German Feuerbach,^ it is the follies taught in the
name of God that have driven men to atheism. But
speculative atheism is always exceptional, rarer than
murder. Multitudes of men believe these doctrines
because they are taught in the name of religion —
and what fear follows, what distrust of self and of
man, what belittlement of all the intellectual powers !
How such men turn off from fair normal life, and

FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY 355

hope to serve God and win heaven by some unnatural
trick ! Go to a meeting of scientific men, who are
discussing geology, physiology, what you will, and
how patiently they look for facts, and examine and
cross-examine every witness, to be sure they get at a
real fact, not at a dream. Thence how carefully they
induce the law of the facts ; what respect do they show
for man's mind; what fairness of investigation, what
freedom from confinement to the old ! Go to a meet-
ing of ministers, discussing the science of religion,
and what a difference ! what sophistry in " investiga-
tion," what contempt for mind, what neglect of facts,
what fear of inquiry ! With them credulity is counted
one of the greatest of virtues ; belief without evidence
or against evidence is a part of piety. To call for
proof is to be a " sceptic," an " infidel." All ques-
tions must be settled by quoting texts, which represent
not facts of the universe, but the opinion of some man,
perhaps unknown, who died hundreds of years ago.
Not only is it impossible to attain truth in this way,
but this method of trying for it debases the mind, the
conscience, the heart, and the soul of those who take
the pains. Children who go apart to study their
lessons, and come together to recite them, learn truth
by this process, and strengthen their mind ; but if they
separate to dream, and assemble to tell their dreams,
what good comes of it? Dreams for facts, stupidity
for science, Alas, there are children of a larger
growth ! So much for the ecclesiastical method.

II. The philosophical method is just the opposite
of this. It is quite simple ; it rests on two assump-
tions. The first is the faithfulness of the human fac-
ulties, the senses for sensation, the spiritual powers for

356 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

their spiritual function, intellectual, moral, affectional,
and religious. The other assumption is the existence
of this outward world, whereof the senses testify.

Then from facts of consciousness within, and facts
of observation without, the theological inquirer seeks
to learn the nature of God, of man, and the relation
between the two, with the duties, rights, and destina-
tion of man, which come therefrom. By this method
the inquirer takes the whole universe as the revelation
of God. The world of matter presents the phenomena
of God which are manifest to the senses of man, while
the world of man presents him the other phenomena
of God which are manifest to the mind, the conscience,
the heart, and the soul. He would learn from all the
history of mankind, and gather what previous ages
had learned. The human race is many thousand years
old ; all civilized nations have their religious books, the
Bibles of the nations, writ by men of genius and piety ;
none contains all truth, nor only truth, but each has
some, for man is always religiously inclined, always
looks for the true, the beautiful, the just, the good,
and the holy ; and God has not made these things hard
to find, accessible to great men only, the inheritance
of but a single people, a revelation only to learned
men. The conscience of the child out-travels oft the
conscience of the sire, and the wife intuitively knows
more of God and religion than her philosophic hus-
band ever dared to think. Each of the six great
world-sects has taught much truth ; I think the Chris-
tian most of all ; and besides that, it has the tran-
scendant character of Jesus — a man of such noble
courage, with such abhorrence of hypocrisy, such ten-
der love for mankind, and piety so inward, blossoming
out into the " strong and flame-like flower " of such

FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY 357

morality ! The Catholic church has much to teach ;
every Protestant sect also a great deal. I just spoke
of the Methodists, showing the evil which comes from
their false method, and ecclesiastical discipline ; they
have a fervor of religious emotion, a zeal for the spir-
itual welfare of neglected mhite people, which makes
them exceedingly useful.

The inquirer after religion and theology by the
philosophical method will take the good which past
ages have to teach. But man's nature is more than
his history ; so the chief source of theologic truth will
be found in man himself, in the instinctive and reflec-
tive action of his faculties in their normal use and
development. Men talk of inspiration, the contact
of the human spirit with the infinite God, the incoming
of Deity to our soul. I think it is a fact, not mirac-
ulous and exceptional, but normal and instantial; just
so far as man uses his natural faculties in their natural
way, the divine power of the universe flows into him
and acts by him, as vegetative force into these hand-
some plants. Faithful use of the faculties is the
human condition of this divine inspiration, and truth,
beauty, justice, love, integrity, these are its tests. I
know there are moments of ecstasy, which are to com-
mon hours what genius is to ordinary men, what spring
is to the year, and in this precious flower-time of spir-
itual action much is done, nor would I ever neglect
these handsome opportunities ; I would take every
flower which was off*ered to me then, but with cool,
calm reason, in my soberest moments would examine
it, and learn its value.

Now if a man tries this philosophical method, he
will come to a true theology, which shall be to the
actual facts of God's nature, man's nature, and the

358 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

relation between them, what astronomy is to the facts
of the solar S3^stem. The science of theology will
then be based on facts of observation and of conscious-
ness; not on mere words, which represented the dream
of some deluded man, but on the facts of the universe,
writ in matter without us and mind within. Then
theology will be a progressive science, enlarging its
scope of comprehension. INIere belief will pass into
certain knowledge. For theolog}^, as from astron-
omy, chemistry, medicine, miracles will disappear,
and law take their place — ^the constant mode of
operation of the natural powers which God gave to
matter and to spirit. Those seven odious dogmas
which I have just named will pass off. So the spec-
ters of the night, made of tormenting dreams which
disturbed the little girl who read stories of hobgob-
lins before she slept, are all gone when she opens her
eyes, looks out of the window, and sees the apple trees
unfold their fragrant, roseate beauty to some May
morning's rising sun ! The idea of a capricious,
changeable, and wrathful God, damning men by the
hundred million, paving his wide hell with the skulls
of babies not a span long,^ their parents racked above
that fiery floor — all that will vanish, and instead
thereof shall your soul be gladdened by the perpetual
presence of the Infinite Power, Wisdom, Justice, and
Love, the Perfect God of the universe, who is presnt
in all matter, in all spirit, acting everywhere by law,
perfect cause and perfect providence, Father and
Mother to you and me and all that are. No longer
shall you dream that you are totally depraved, your
nature hateful to God, you no lawful child of his, but
mothered by the devil's dam, with no natural right
to heaven, ruin your final fate. You shall account

FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY 359

yourself the grandest work God has ever made, cre-
ated from a perfect motive, the desire to bless, and for
a perfect end, the highest welfare possible for you,
and furnished with faculties which are a perfect means
thereto. Then you shall not fear and crouch down,
and skulk about the world like a rat in the daylight
of a city street, ashamed of your nature, afraid of
your instincts, emasculating your intellect, your af-
fections, and your soul ; but with upright walk shall
you go about your daily life, knowing that you have
duties to do, rights to enjoy, serving your God by the
normal discipline, development, use, and enjoyment
of every limb of the body, every faculty of the spirit,
every power which you possess over matter and over
man. What heed will you then take to do every
manly duty for its own sake, making conscience su-
preme, and to bear any cross laid upon you which
should be borne. If you mistake and overstep the
natural law of right — as you will, especially in early
life — mortified with shame you will turn back to the
natural and better way. Religion will not be a re-
generation, being born again, a change of nature, a
cutting something native off or tying something for-
eign on ; but a development of nature, what the blos-
som is to the bud, what growth to manhood or woman-
hood is to girl or boy. Conscious of immortality, liv-
ing now the everlasting life, you will look forward to
that future heaven, which instinct tells even the sav-
age of, and which science demonstrates to enlightened
and thoughtful man. You are sure of the Infinite
God, you have a right to his providence, and you can
trust him in all that is to come. Fear of the devil
and his noisy hell of absurd and wicked torment, you
will leave to such as love the hideous thought, whom

360 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

3'ou would but cannot cure ; and in its place the cer-
tainty of ultimate heaven will come to you as the sure
gift of the Infinite Father, the Infinite Mother, who is
cause and providence to all the world !

When such doctrines of God, man, and the relation
between them, of man's duties, rights, and destination,
are set forth and accepted, what a change will fol-
low ! Speculative atheism will be stark dead ; no
thoughtful man will look upon the world of matter,
and deny the power, law, and mind which are immi-
nent therein ; no thoughtful man will feel the world of
spirit within him, but will also feel the consciousness
of the perfect God, and joyous turn to him — for it
is not the God of nature that the speculative atheist
would deny, but only the unreal God of theologic
dreams, which science turns off from, while the Deity
which all the world of matter and the world of spirit
alike reveal, the scientific men draw near with love
greatening continually as they know him and ap-
proach.

What an effect will this natural theology have in mak-
ing a real revival in natural religion ! Conscious of
such a nature in us, of such a God as cause and provi-
dence, of such duties, such rights, such a destination
— what wealth of religious emotion will spring up
within the human soul! what depth of piety, the love
of God! what strength of morality, the keeping of
his commands ! What an influence will it have on
the individual, to make him a great man, intellectual,
moral, affcctional, and religious; then on the family,
the community, the state, the church, and the world !
Then ministers and politicians will not seek to justify
a well-known wrong by quoting texts from Bible, or
Koran, or saint, none knows who; but out of the ex-

FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY 361

perience of mankind past and the consciousness of
mankind present, and the actual inspiration of God
now, shall both derive the unchanging higher law of
truth, justice, love, and make these the statutes of
mankind, till the constitution of the universe become
the people's common law !

I just now spoke of the religious faculty as the
strongest of all the human powers. When it works
aright, what servuce Avill it render us ! It is a mighty
Amazon, reaching from the infinite ocean of God, far
into the innermost continent of man, fed by the breath
of that ocean which it tends unto. What tall moun-
tains shall it drain ; what kingdoms of water ; what mills
and factories of human wealth shall it turn ; what
fleets laden with peaceful welfare shall it bear on its
bosom ; what cottages, palaces, villages, towns, and
mighty cities, swarming with progressive, virtuous,
happy men, shall be reflected in this great river of
God, which mixes their image also with the stars of
heaven all the night, its varicolored glories all the
day!

A false method in science gave man astrology, al-
chemy, magic ; a true method gives him astronomy,
chemistry, the medicative and beautifying arts, mills,
factories, railroads, steam engines and telegraphs,
ether. A false method in politics gave him a military
despotism, slavery of the Asiatic millions, crushed
underneath a tyrant's bloody foot ; a true method gives
him an industrial democracy, the marriage of liberty
to law, filling the world with happy daughters and
progressive sons. A true method in theology mar-
ries the religious instinct to philosophical reflection,
and they will increase and multiply, replenishing the
earth, and subduing it ; toil and thought shall dwell

362 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

in the same household, and desii'e and dut}' go hand
and hand therein.

My friends, almost thirteen years ago I came here
at the request of some of you whom I see before me
to-day. You asked me to preach a true method of
theology, to teach the pure and absolute religion, call-
ing no man my master, but looking to the great INIas-
ter, who is also Father and Mother. It Avas a dark,
rainy Sunday, the 16th of February, ISJjS.'^ I knew
I was coming to a " thirty years' war," should I live
so long, and I had enlisted till the fight should be
over : I did not know how terrible the contest must be ;
you knew it still less. You remember how the churches
roared at us ; only here and there some one said, " Good
may come out of it, as out of another Nazareth ; let
us wait and see. Let both grow together till the
har\'est ; try not to pluck up these tares, lest you also
disturb the wheat." Since on the 22nd of January,
1845, you voted the resolution that it was expedient
that " Theodore Parker should have a chance to be
heard in Boston," a great change has taken place in
the theology of New England, of all the Northern
States. I think the humble labors of this little so-
ciety have not been in vain. It was a great opportu-
nity which this wide hall offered, with its' open doors.
There are strangers who came to scoff but depart not
without having learned to pray.

My main object has never been to make a system of
theology, still less to fonn a sect, or draw a crowd ; an
ambitious Jesuit could better form a sect, any harle-
quin of the pulpit, who knew how to lay his hand on
the religious instincts of men, could sooner draw a
crowd. I have worked for a long time, in a long

FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY 363

time. I have aimed to help men and women become
what God meant we should be — noble men and
women, whose prayer is the communion of their soul
with God's soul, whose life is a daily service of him,
by the normal discipline, development, use, and enjoy-
ment of every limb of the body and every faculty of
the spirit. Do I help you to this? If not, then
leave me, let these handsome walls be silent, empty,
deserted, lone, till some nobler one shall come who shall
waken religion in your consciousness, as that great
master (pointing to the statue of Beethoven) out of
the common air produced such music as enchants the
world. Go you elsewhere, and find you bread from
heaven in whatever desert it be rained down, and fill
you with living water, no matter from what rock it
flows forth, nor whose hand smites open the fountain's
blessed way !

But if I so instruct your mind that it fills itself
with truth and beauty, if I do rouse your conscience
till it see the higher law of God's unchanging right,
and if I do confirm your will till that law becomes
your daily guide to life, if I do touch your affections
till you better love each other — the young man more
purely the maiden, and she him with purer answering
love, till wife and husband, parent and child, kinsfolk,
friend, and acquaintance, are knit in more welcome
ties, till a larger patriotism warm you with concern
for the poor, the maimed, the outcast, the slave, the
drunkard, the harlot, the thief, the murderer, till a
larger philanthropy join you to all mankind — and
if I stir the feelings infinite till your souls are in-
formed with the living God and have an absolute trust
in him — if I help you to these grand ideas of God,
of man, of the relation between them, of duty here,

364 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

and right to heaven hereafter — then am I blessed
in you, and you also are blessed in me, and after the
years of strife shall have passed by, you and I, though
all forgot, our very names perished, shall yet be a
power in the nation to soothe, and heal, and bless,
long after our immortal parts shall have gone to those
joys which the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard,
nor the heart of man begun to comprehend.

XIII
A FALSE AND TRUE REVIVAL OF RELIGION

But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with com-
passion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered
abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. — Matt, ix, 36.

Sunday before last I spoke of the false ecclesiastic
idea of God, and of its insufficiency to satisfy the
wants of science and of religion. Last Sunday I
treated of the true philosophic idea of God, and its suf-
ficiency to satisfy the wants of science and of religion.
To-day I ask your attention to some thoughts on a
false and true revival of religion. The subject is a
great one — both of present and lasting importance.
I cannot dispose of it in a single sermon, so to-day I
shall treat mainly of the false, and show what various
deeds and doctrines are set down to the name of re-
ligion, and what present methods are used for the
revival of something under that name; while next
Sunday I hope to speak of the true, and to show what
are the real religious wants of the community to-day,
and the proper way of satisfying them.

If you go tO' the shop of an apothecary and general
druggist you find some thousand jars, vases, bottles,
gallipots, drawers, and boxes, all labeled with strange
technical names, which you seldom hear except from
doctors, druggists, and their patients. A painful and
unwholesome smell pervades the place. You feel sti-
fled, and not quite safe. On the counter, under the
show glass, you notice fearful-looking knives, forceps,
pincers, and other uneasy tools of polished steel. You
ask the pale, unwholesome-looking young man, who is

365

366 THE TRANSIENT AND PERINIANENT

prematurely bald, and spectacled besides, but kindly
benevolent in his face, what is in all those vessels.
" O, that is medicine. It is all medicine." " But
what is it good for? " " Why it is to make sick men
sound, and keep well men so." " What are these
things under the glass.'' " " They are surgical instru-
ments, sir, to remove teeth, limbs, and help men out of
the many ills that flesh is heir to." " Are they of any
use? " " Of any use? Of course they are. You
don't think I would sell them if they were not? Life
would not be safe, sir, without these drugs and instru-
ments." " Then," says the visitor, " I will have some
medicine and tools. Put me up enough to do my busi-
ness." " Yes ; but we have all kinds, for this is a
general druggery : we have Allopathic, Homoeopathic
Thompsonian, Indian, and Eclectic. There is no medi-
cine, sir, in the four quarters of the globe that we
have not got it here. What will you have? " " 0,
I don't care. It is all medicine — all good, you sa}'.
Give me some of the best." " But," says the thought-
ful apothecary, " you must discriminate. Most of
these things would kill a well man. Some are good
for one disease, some for another. You must not take
all the doctors' stuff in the world, because it is called
medicine. Take a pinch of this and you are a dead
man; a little of that, and you will be a fool all the
rest of your life. That saw and tourniquet are to
amputate limbs withal. I don't think you want to
cut off one of your own legs, do you? You must
consider what kind of medicine you need before you
take any, and when you use it, do so with the greatest
discretion."

Well, it is with ministers' stuff as with doctors'
stuff. There is a whole shop full of deeds and doc-

A REVIVAL OF RELIGION 367

trines labeled " Religion ;" and when a minister, in
his technical way, tells a young man or an old one,
" You must have religion or you will perish everlast-
ingly," it is much as when a doctor tells the sick man,
" you must have medicine or else die." In the one
case, I want to know what medicine ; in the other, what
religion. There is some little difference, I think, be-
tween oatmeal and strychnine, though they are both
called medicine; and there is no less difference between
various things called religion. One is bread — the
bread of life ; the other poison — the poison of death.

Look first a moment at some deeds which are called
religion. (I will not go out from the Christian and
Hebrew church.) I go back three or four thousand
years, and I find an old man — more than seventy
years old — standing by a pile of split wood, with
a brand of fire beside him ; he lays hold of his little
son with one hand, and grasps a large crooked knife
with the other. " What are you going to do with the
boy, and with that knife .'^ " I ask. " I am going to
kill and then burn him on that pile of split wood as
an offering to God." "What do you do that for?"
" Why, it is religion. Only three days ago God said
to me, ' Abraham, take thou thine only son, and offer
him a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will
tell thee of.' This is one of the grandest acts of my
life. Glory to God, who demands the sacrifice of my
only boy ! "

Next I come down two hundred years, and I find an
old man sitting still on a rough seat, out of doors,
with a mob of furious men close beside him. They
have just killed one of their countrymen — stoned him
to death. His body lies there, life hardly extinct, the
mangled flesh 3'ct warm and quivering. " Why did

368 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

you kill this man? " I ask. And seventy elders, bearded
to the girdle, exclaim at once, " Why, he picked up
sticks Saturday afternoon? Would you let a man
live who gathered firewood on Saturday — the seventh
day — when God himself rested from his work, and
was refreshed? Why, it was an act of religion to
kill such a wretch. God himself told us, in good He-
brew speech, ' that man shall die the death outside the
camp. The congregation shall stone him with stones.'
Glory to God!"

I come down a little further, and I find a Hebrew fili-
buster, with an army of men more savage than the Co-
manche Indians. He has just conquered a territory,
killed thirty-one kings, burned all their cities, killing
the men, the women, and the children. He smote
them with the edge of the sword. He utterly destro3^ed
them. He left none to breathe. Temple and tower
went to the ground. He butchered men by the hun-
dred thousand. Their cities yet smoke with fire. The
blackened corpses left there strew the sand ; the horses
they have houghed crawl around and bite the ground
moistened with human blood, in the slow agonies of
starvation to which they were doomed. " What is all
this for? " I ask. And Joshua, the son of Nun, an-
swers, " It is an act of religion. We have the com-
mandment of God. He told me in Hebrew words,
' Hough the horses, destroy the towns, kill the men,
kill the women, kill the children, kill the babes newly
bora.' These are descendants of Canaan, whom God
cursed. Glory to God ! " And all the filibustering
army lift up their Hebrew voices and cry " Glory to
God ! " with one terrific shout.

Next, I make a long stride, and I find a knot of
Roman soldiers surrounding a young man whom they

A REVIVAL OF RELIGION 369

have nailed to a cross. His head has fallen to one
side — he is just dead. It is eighteen hundred and
twenty-one years ago, last Thursday. A wealthy, edu-
cated looking priest stands by, very joyful,' and I ask
him, "Who is this man.''" And he answers, " O, he
is a miserable fellow from Nazareth in Galilee. His
name was Jesus. Don't you see it up there ? " " Why
did you kill him? Was he a murderer.''" "A mur-
derer ! Murder was nothing to his crime." " Was he
a kidnaper.'' A deceitful politician, who got office
and abused it for the people's harm.f* Or a hypo-
critical priest, who thought one thing in his study, and
proclaimed just the opposite in the temple.'' " " O
no ! He was an infidel. He said religion was nothing
but piety and morality ; or, as he called it, loving God
and your neighbor as yourselves. He said man was
gi'eater than the Sabbath, more than this temple, and
that religion would save a man without burning the
blood of goats, and bulls, and sheep. Besides, he
spoke against the priesthood — against us, and said
we would compass sea and land to make one proselyte,
and when we had done it we had made him twice as
much a child of hell as ourselves." " Was there no
other way to deal with such a man ? " asks the visitor.
" We tried to argue him down, but it was of no use.
He beat us in every argument before the accursed
people, who know not the law ; and the more we abused
him, the more would the silly people flock after him,
revere him, and love him. Why, he said we were graves
that appear not, and men stumble into them ; that we
devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long
prayers. There was no answering such things ; so
we scourged him half to death with rods, and then

nailed him up there. We have fixed him now ! "
IV— 24

370 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

" How did he live? " " Like the infidel he was ; trust-
ing in his own goodness and piety for salvation. He
tried to teach the people to trust in their piety and in
their good words. He told a most absurd story about
that poor fool who fell among thieves, going from Jeru-
salem to Jericho ; and then said that one of the priests
went by — it was me he meant — and passed him on
the other side. But I was in a great hurry. I had
to be in Jeinisalem to attend a prayer-meeting, and
I could not attend to the man. Then he told a story
of an old fellow who kept a tavern at Samaria — no-
body ever heard of him before — jogging along on his
donkey, who saw the poor fellow, and turned in there
(he had nothing else to do), set him on his own beast,
and took care of him. He represented that as a good
act, which was pleasing to Almighty God. Then he
told a story of the last judgment, that God would take
into heaven those who had been kind to poor fellows
on earth, and would send the other way those who had
trusted in sacrifices, prayers, and the like. But he
was a miserable fellow. He would have iniined the na-
tion. Why, he told men to forgive their enemies, and
to love those who hate them. It was contrary to the
sacred books, Moses never did so, nor Joshua, nor Sam-
uel, nor David. There was no such thing in all the
volumes of our law." " How did he die? " " Die?
He died like a dog. No whine from him. Not a word
of penitence ; not a tear ; no confession that he was an
infidel. Why, almost his last words were a miserable
blaspheming prayer against us, — ' Father, forgive
them (he meant us), for they know not what they
do.' Why, to crucify such a man was an act of re-
ligion. Look here ! " — And then he lifts up his gar-
ment, and on his phylactery (a piece of parchment)

A REVIVAL OF RELIGION 371

he has got the whole thirteenth chapter of the book
of Deuteronomy written out. " Don't you see, it
commands us to treat such a man just so! Glory to
God!"

I come a little further down, and in a crowded room
at Corinth, some five and twenty years after — stifling,
hot, unwholesome — I find some fourscore earnest, de-
voted-looking men and women met together. Three
or four are talking gibberish, foaming at the mouth.
The room is full of jabber. One is interpreting in
Greek the noise another is making in no language at
all. They seem half-crazy. " What is all this ? " I
ask. " O," says an intellectual-looking man, sitting
there as chairman of the meeting, " it is religion.
These men are miraculously inspired. They speak
with tongues which no man can understand except
he be inspired. Sister Eunice, who lies there struck
down by God, has just made a revelation in an un-
known tongue, and brother Bartholomeus, with the
foam on his beard, is now explaining what it means.
That the world will end in a few days, and we shall be
caught up to the third heavens, and shall judge angels.
It is the latter days, and is the fulfilment of Joel's
prophecy that young men should see visions and old
men dream dreams, and God put his spirit on all.
The blood of the crucified will wash all our sins away."
After he has made this explanation the chairman reads
a letter to the little company of men and women from
a remote city, asking for new missionaries and telling
that those who went a year before have been put to
most excruciating tortures and to death ; and he asks,
" Who will go? " And there stand up twenty men and
women, who say, " Send us ! Let us go ! for we
count it all joy to suffer where our Lord and Master

372 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

suffered before." So, in spite of the fanaticism and
violence that is in them, I see there is in those rude
and humble people such a spirit of rehgion and self-
sacrifice as the world had almost never seen.

I come down a little further, a hundred and twenty
years later, to a town in southern France, and I find a
Roman magistrate has just beheaded a whole family
of Christians — sons, daughters, father, mother.
Friends are just removing the dead bodies, while the
aedile slaves shovel up the saw-dust, saturated with
blood, and wash the foul spots clean from the pave-
ment. " What have these people done ? " I ask. And
the Praetor answers, " O, they are some of the new sect
of atheists called Christians. They would not worship
Mars, nor offer sacrifices to Jupiter. They worship-
ped one Christ, who was crucified by Pontius Pilate,
and who, they declare, is the actual God, and will one
day judge all mankind." " But were they bad men? "
" O, no, the best people in the whole town of Lyons —
poor, earnest, devoted, kindly, sober people. They
did no immoral act. They were the most benevolent
men in the province. They left the little property they
had to the poor of their company — they called it a
church." " How did they die? " " They died, even
the children, with the courage of a Roman soldier, but
the gentleness of a Greek woman. But j^ou know we
must support the public worship of the state. We
must not allow any change in religion, else we are
ruined. This is an act of religion, wliich the gods
command. Glory to the immortal gods ! "

I come down still further to the same city of Lyons,
to the anniversary of that same day — the day of the
martyrdom of the celebrated martyrs of liVons — and
I find a body of Catholic priests and bishops, with the

A REVIVAL OF RELIGION 373

help of the civil magistrates, with ecclesiastic cere-
monies, psalms, prayers, and scriptures, have just tor-
tured a young woman to death, amid the plaudits of
a great crowd. They held up her baby to her before
they lit the tormenting fire, and said, " Repent, and
your baby shall be yours," and she said, " No, I can-
not ;" and they dashed its brains against the stones
of the street. " What has the young mother done? "
I ask. The bishops reply, " She denied the infallibility
of the Pope and of the Roman church. She declared
that Mary, the blessed Virgin, was not the mother of
God, the blessed creator, and for such hideous blas-
phemy we have just burned her in the name of the
holy Catholic church of Christ, on the very day of
the martyrs of Lj^ons. It is an act of religion.
Don't look astonished. Did not God command Abra-
ham to sacrifice Isaac? Did not God command Moses
to stone to death a man who picked up sticks on Satur-
day? Did not God command Joshua to butcher mil-
lions of Canaanites? Glory to God and his blessed
mother ! "

I make another step, and come a little nearer our
own time — the 27th of October, 1553. I find a com-
pany of Swiss preachers and magistrates burning a
Spanish doctor outside the gate of Geneva. " Has he
poisoned any man ? " I ask. And John Calvin — a
pale thin man, with a very intellectual face, says,
" Sir, he did worse than that — he denied the Trinity.
He said Jesus Christ was not God. He declared that
babies dying unsprinklcd by a priest would not be
damned everlastingly. I set the magistrates on him,
and we have just burned him, in the name of God and
the Protestant church of Christ. Glory be to the
triune God, and to the Savior of men — the Prince
of Peace ! "

374 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

I come still nearer — I come down to New England.
It is Tuesday, the first of June, 1660. The magis-
trates of Massachusetts — peaked hats on their heads,
broad ruffles at their necks — have just hanged a wo-
man on Boston common ; a handsome woman, a mil-
liner, a wife and mother also. Her dead body is
swinging in the wind, hanging from one of the
branches of yonder elm — standing still, *' Wliy did
you kill her.-^ " I ask of the Rev. John Norton — a
tall, gaunt, harsh-looking minister, on a white horse,
with a scholar's eyes, and the face of a hangman —
Geneva bands on his neck, a wig on his head, — the
man who seemed more interested in the proceeding than
any other one of the company. " Why did you do
this.? " " She was a Quaker. She said that magis-
trates had no right over the consciences of men ; that
God made revelations now as much as ever, and was
just as near to George Fox as to IMoses and Paul, and
just as near to her as to Jesus Christ; that priests
had no right to bind and loose ; that we should call no
man master on earth ; that sprinkling water on a baby's
face did it no good, and gave no pleasure to God.
Besides, she said war was wicked, and that woman had
just as much right as man ; and when we bade her'
hold her peace she impudently declared that she had
as good a right to publish her opinions as we had to
publish ours. So we hanged her by the neck, in the
name of God and of the Puritan church of New Eng-
land. It is an act of religion. Glory to God, and
the vine he has planted here in the wilderness ! "

I come down still further. It is the same Boston
— the month of JMarch, 1858. Saturday afternoon,
in a meeting-house, I find men and women met to-
gether for pi'ayer and conference — honest-looking

A REVIVAL OF RELIGION 375

men, and respectable — I meet them every day in
the street. Most exciting speeches are made, exciting
stories are told, exciting hymns are sung, fanatical
prayers are put up. Half the assembly seem a little
beside themselves, out of their understanding, more
out of their conscience, still more out of their af-
fections. One says, " The Lord is in Chicago ; a
great revival of religion is going on there." An-
ther says, " O, the Lord is in Boston ; he is pouring
out his spirit here." Appeals are made to fear.
" Come to Christ! There is an eternal hell for you if
you do not come ; an eternal heaven if you will.
Come to Christ ! Choose now ; you may never have
another opportunity. ' This night thy soul shall be
required of thee.' " Prayers are made for individual
men, now designated by description, then by name.
One obnoxious minister is singled out, and set up as
a mark to be prayed at, and the petitioners riddle that
target as they will. One minister asks God to con-
vert him, and if he cannot do that, to remove him out
of the way, and let his influence die with him. Another
asks God to go into his study this very afternoon, and
confound him, so that he shall not be able to finish
the sermon — which had been writ five days before ;
or else meet him the next day in his pulpit, and con-
found him so that he shall not be able to speak.
Another prays that God will put a hook into that
man's jaws, so that he cannot preach. Yet another,
with the spirit of commerce in him, asks God to dis-
suade the people from listening to this offender, and
induce them to leave that house and come up and
fill this.^ I ask a grave, decent-looking, educated min-
ister, " What is all this? " The answer is, " Why, it
is an act of religion. The Lord is in Boston ; he in-

376 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

spires us miraculously. He has made us all of one heart
and of one mind. He hears our prayers ; he gives a
hearing to our petitions, he will answer our prayers,
' For the fervent, effectual prayer of the righteous man
availeth much.' It is a revival of religion ; it is a
great revival ; it goes all over the United States ; even
some Unitarian ministers begin to thaw, at least, to
soften. The Lord is in this house to save the people.
Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth and good
will to men ! "

One step more I take, into surroundings a little dif-
ferent. By the full moon-light, under yonder great
elm — where Mary Dyer was hanged on the first of
June, 1660, for being a Quaker — to answer his ques-
tion, a young woman clasps a young man's hand —
" Yes, we will be one ; only I fear I am not worth}^ ;
and I have loved you so long, and you did not know
it." " But I began first," says the man. And then
from the two hearts, now melting into one, the prayer
goes up, " All thanks to thee. Father and Mother
of us both, thanks for our love. O may we be faith-
ful in our life, and in death not divided ; living a re-
ligion of piety, of holiness before thee on earth : and
one also at last in heaven." Was the prayer spoken,
or was it only throbbed out in their inspired hearts?
I do not know, God does not care; spoken or felt, it
is one to him.

The same night, in a little chamber not far off, a
lone woman lays aside her work, not quite done. " I
will finish that to-morrow morning, before breakfast,"
she says, " it will be ready five hours before the wed-
ding, and I only promised it one hour before." She
looks up at the great moon walking in beauty, and
silvering her little chamber, with a great star or two

A REVIVAL OF RELIGION 377

beside her — the little stars had been put to bed long
before the moon was full. She thinks of the infinite
soul who watches over the slumbering earth, the wake-
ful moon, the great stars and the little, and her own
daily life. " The moon serves thee by making beauty
in the night, the sun in the day, both of them heavenly
bodies," quoth she, " I only an earthly body. Can
I also serve by making bonnets.'' " And out from the
great human heart, the divine soul answers, " Not less ;
each in its order ; the sun in his, the milliner in hers."
She lays her down on her bed, her limbs full of wear-
iness, her eyes full of sleep, her heart full of trust
in that God who fills the earth with his love as the
moon fills her window with its beauty.

In the next house a mother has made her ready for
sleep, but must have one look more to bless her eyes
with the dearest sacrament which mortal ever sees. So
she goes noiselessly into their room, and looks on her
little ones lying there in their various sleep, and talks
to herself:

" The dear Edith ! how handsome she looks in her
sleep ! Wonder if I was ever half so fair at sixteen.
And here is Willie, my first-born. What a blessing
he will be when dear husband comes home from that
long voyage. Tall as his father; almost through col-
lege now. We will go together and hear him at com-
mencement. That will be a day ! Here are the twin
boys nestling — York and Lancaster ; two little hardy
roses on one stalk. Here is baby, almost twenty-eight
months old — two whole years, three months and
twenty-seven days old to-night. What a dear little
blessed baby it is ! Papa won't know little blossom
when he comes home — no, he won't. Father in
heaven ! did I ever deserve such joy .'' Thou who givest

378 THE_TR"ANSIENT AND PERMANENT

me these lives, how shall I make them worthy of thee?
How shall I myself be worthy?" And the rest of
her prayer — God hears it, not I.

In the next street, hard by, are two young men.
" Come," says the elder, finishing his cigar, and fling-
ing it on the pavement, " take a glass in here, and
then you will have spunk enough to go with me.
What a silly fool you are! Who will ever know it?
You won't be young twice. There is one of the hand-
somest of them now at the window." Passion bums
high in the young man's heart ; occasion from without
leas-ues with desire from within ; there is another son
of man in his temptation. But conscience, like a sweet
rose, blooms over it all, and with its fragrant beauty
bids passion be still. The devil steps behind. " No,
I shall not go, neither to your groggery nor to your
brothel — tempt me no more ! " A life is saved, and
integrity not stained.

Not far off a little company of men and women are
assembled to consult upon the welfare of mankind.
" We must end slavery ; we must abolish drunkenness ;
we must educate the people ; woman must be emanci-
pated, and made equal with man ; then prostitution
will end, and many another woe. War must pass
away, society be constructed anew, so that creative love
shall take the place of aggressive lust and repressive
fear. The family, the community, the nation, the
world, must be organized on justice, not on covetous-
ness, fraud, and violence, as now ; and, above all things,
the ecclesiastic idea of religion must be improved.
We must have a true theology, with a just idea of
God, of man, of religion ; and so direct aright the
strongest faculty in man. What can we do to pro-
mote all this blessed revolution? This must be our

A REVIVAL OF RELIGION 379

service of God, and we must not let this generation
pass away until we have mended all this. No matter
what it costs us. Think what it cost our fathers,
the Christian martyrs, nay, Jesus of Nazareth, to do
their work ! Ministers will pray against us — it will
hurt nobody but themselves. Hunkers will scold —
let them ; we can keep our way, and our tempers be-
side. A few grand lives will bless this whole age,
for the nations look up and ask to be guided."

The next day one of this company, a grocer in his
shop, a little covetous, a little ambitious — most men
are so — finds an opportunity offering itself for a
profitable fraud, and he feels the temptation — all
men do. He hesitates for a moment, but he answers,
" No ! there is an Infinite God, and I am a man, and
that God's law is in me. Begone, devil ! " The right
is victorious.

Not far off, the same day, a poor boy in yonder di-
vinity school writes to a friend : " There are great
temptations for a young man to disown himself and
bargain for place. It is the one great lure which in
this age is constantly before our eyes." But he says,
" Get thee behind me ! " keeps the integrity of his soul,
and becomes " utterly indifferent to the passing crit-
icism that besets a young man who aims at a standard
of life of his own." A life of self-denial, of noble
manhood, of manly triumph spreads out before him,
and girds him for the work of such a life.

See what a difference between these various examples
that I have given, yet are they all called religion.
Some of them spring from the very highest emotions
in man ; some of them spring from the meanest, the
cowardliest, and the most sneaking of the passions
that God has given to human nature.

380 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

What an odds in the doctrines called religion ! I
go to the oldest church in Boston — it is called a
synagogue. There the doctrine is, " salvation by cir-
cumcision and belief in the Old Testament." The
worshippers have not grown an inch since the day
that somebody forged the book of Daniel. I go to
the next oldest church — it is called Roman Catholic.
There the doctrine is, " salvation by compliance with
all the ritual of the holy Catholic church, and be-
lief in its doctrines." I go to the Trinitarian Protes-
tant church — the next oldest. There the doctrine is,
" salvation by baptism, — either the sprinkling of
drops, or plunging into a pond or tub, — and belief
in an ecclesiastic theology," which, though it certainly
contains great truths, is yet filled with a mass of most
heinous superstition. I go away from all three to an
enlightened, thoughtful man, and ask — " What doc-
trines, good sir, are most important to religion ? "
And he answers, " No doubt such as produce the man-
liest and most natural life: to me, the infinite perfec-
tion of God, man's fitness for his duty and his des-
tination, immortality, the religious value of daily life.
Get all the truth you can, young man ; have faith in
your mind, your heart, your conscience, your soul.
Religion is natural, whole, human life — right feeling,
right thinking, right doing, right being."

What a difference in doctrines ! All the sects say,
" Believe in God ! " But what an odds in the God they
bid you believe ! One is corn, the bread of life ; the
other is strychnine, the poison of death. In one place
God is variable, ill-natured, revengeful ; he will go into
a minister's study, and confound him ; into a minister's
pulpit, and put a hook into his jaws so tliat ho cannot
preach. That is the God of Park Street theology.

A REVIVAL OF RELIGION 381

In another he is the Father and Mother of all man-
kind, blessing the heathen, Hebrew, Catholic, Prot-
estant, Christian, Gentile, sinner and saint; he is to be
served with a life of daily duty, the normal use of
every faculty he has given.

When I hear of a revival of religion, I always ask,
what do they mean to revive? What feeling, what
thinking, what doing, what being? Is it a religion
that shall kill a boy ; that shall stone a man to death
for picking up sticks Saturday afternoon ; that shall
butcher a nation ; crucify a prophet ; talk gibberish ;
torture a woman for her opinion, and that opinion a
true one? Or is it a religion which will make me
a better man, husband, brother, father, friend ; a bet-
ter minister, mechanic, president, street-sweeper, king
— no matter what — a better man in any form ?

Just now there is a " revival of religion," so called,
going on in the land. The newspapers are full of
it. Crowds of men and women throng the meeting-
houses. They cannot get preaching enough. The
poorer the article, the more they want of it. Speeches
and sermons of the most extravagant character are
made. Fanatical prayers are put up. Wonderful
conversions are told of. The inner-most secrets of
men's and women's hearts are laid bare to the eye of
the gossip and the pen of the newspaper reporter.
The whole is said to be a miraculous outpouring of
the Holy Ghost, the direct interposition of God. You
look a little more closely, and you find the whole thing
has been carefully got up, with the utmost pains.
Look at the motive. Ecclesiastic institutions decay in
England and America. This is well known. The
number of church members in the United States is
quite small — only three and a quarter millions.

382 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

There are sixteen negro slaves to thirteen church mem-
bers ; the slaves increase, the church members do not.
For two hundred years the number was never so small
a fraction of the whole people. The number of births
increases rapidl}^ ; the number of baptisms falls off.
Belief in the ecclesiastic theology is fading out of the
popular consciousness. Men begin to say, " God is
not so ugly and so devilish as the ministers paint him."
Hear an orthodox sermon, and then look at this, and
then ask, " Is the God of the sermon, who is going to
damn this whole congregation — and is in haste to
do it — the God who made these flowers?" [pointing
to the bouquet on the desk beside him]. Look up to
the heavens. Men ask that, and they say, " The min-
ister's God is a devilish dream. The God of nature
and the God of man is no such thing."

They doubt the eternal torment of mankind. A fa-
ther takes his baby in his arms, and sa3's, " If the baby
dies this moment, or if he died the day he was bom,
are you, Dr. Banbaby, going to make me believe God
will damn this child? I shall not believe it." ]\Ien
see contradictions in the Bible ; the best men, the wisest,
see them the most clearly. In short, New England
men, who are famed for common sense, are applying to
religion that common sense which wrought so well in
farming, fishing, manufactures, everything else. Jeal-
ous ministers seek to change this state of things. No
doubt they are as honest as lawyers, grocers, real estate
holders in State Street and Summer street. They
want business kept at the old stand. They have in-
vested in ecclesiastic corporations, and wish to keep up
the stock, which is badly depreciated just now.

But what will they do? They will not mend their
tlieology — their idea of God, man, religion. They

A REVIVAL OF RELIGION 383

will not manufacture an article suited to the demands
of enlightened men. They cannot do it, with their
ecclesiastic idea and method of making doctrines. The
machinery will not do; and they say it is divine ma-
chinery, and cannot be improved. But they want to
force the old article they have got on the popular mar-
ket. Once they could so so; for once ministers were
commonly taken from the ablest men in the country ;
now, well nigh from the feeblest. Once they had the
best education. Once none but ministers had any con-
siderable literary and scientific culture. Then talent
and culture on the church's side could do the eccle-
siastic work. Now it rarely happens that the minis-
ter is the best born man or the best bred man in his
parish. In some cases there are hundreds, and in
many there are ten before him. A strong woman can
throw the minister in the close wrestling of debate. He
cannot argue down his opponents and reason them into
a belief in his terrible idea of a God who damns babies
newly born. But the minister can do something else.
He controls the ecclesiastic machinery, and deals di-
rectly with the religious element in man — the strong-
est, and perhaps also the most easily moved. So he
appeals to religious fear, and tries to scare men into
belief of his doctrines and membership of his church.
He has no effect on great sinners, fraudulent bankers,
fraudulent presidents of incorporated companies, lying
governors, presidents, representatives ; he has much on
weak men.

Attempts at revivals are no new things — the ex-
periment has often been tried. A few winters ago some
Unitarians tried it in Boston, but they toiled all win-
ter and caught nothing — enclosing nothing but a few
sprats and minnows, who ran out through the broad

384 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

meshes of their net before it could be hauled into their
boat. Other ministers, who are the wisest and the
most religious part of that valuable sect, would have
nothing to do with it. Different men went in, false to
their idea of theology — with the best intentions, no
doubt. It was a strange spectacle, that attempt to
build up the ecclesiastic Unitarian pyramid in that way !
It was a worse task than that of the Israelites in Egypt
— not to make bricks without straw, but with nothing
else ! Those men, who undertook to make a hot-house
of religion and force Christians under the Unitarian
glass, were so cold in their religious temperament that
any one of them would chill a whole garden of cucum-
bers in dog days. Strike two flints together and you
get sparks of fire ; from lumps of ice you get nothing
but cold splinters. Nothing came of that. Their
vanity in the beginning of winter turned into vexation
of spirit in spring.

The stricter sects have often tried this experiment.
It is in consistency with their theological idea. You
remember the eff'orts made last year — the prayer meet-
ings, conference meetings, the preaching, and the talk
in the newspapers. Not much came of it. Now cir-
cumstances are different. The commercial crisis last
autumn broke great fortunes to fragments, ground lit-
tle ones to powder, turned men out of business by thou-
sands.^ Then some religious men, of all denomina-
tions, full of Christian charity, set themselves to look-
ing after the poor. The work was well done — never
better. Then to prevent the expected increase of
crime, by an increased attention to justice and charity.
That, too, was well done — greatly to Boston's honor.
But other men would improve the opportunity to make
church members, and enforce belief in the ecclesiastic

A REVIVAL OF RELIGION 385

theology ; so they set the revival machinery in motion.
That is as well known as McCormick's reaper, and
need not be described. Soon as an effect is produced
in New Bedford or elsewhere, the fact is telegraphed to
Boston and other places, and the spark from one fire
lights a thousand more. Men like to follow the multi-
tude. You remember the effects of the election in
Pennsylvania, in October, 1856; it turned the vote of
thousands of men in the Northern States.^ If one
company runs in battle, a whole regiment runs ; if a
regiment, then an army. Nay, a file of soldiers, with
fife and drum, will gather a whole crowd of men and
boys in the streets any day. All men are social, rude
men gregarious. The means of getting up a revival
are as well known as the means for getting up a me-
chanics' fair, a country muster, a cattle show, or a
political convention. They have only to advertise in
the newspapers, and say, " The Rev. Mr. Great-talk
is to be here to-day. He is exceedingly interesting,
and has already converted men by the score or the
hundred." Then they hang out their placards at the
corners of the streets. It is a business operation. It
reminds me of the placards of the rival clothing deal-
ers in North Street, formerly Ann ; and Park Street
church is the Oak Hall of the ecclesiastic business in
slop clothing.*

There is nothing more miraculous in the one case
than in the other. Last year it did not succeed very
well, for business was good, and men with full pockets
were not to be scared with talk about hell. Now the
commercial crisis makes it easy to act on men's fears.
The panic In State Street, which ruined the warehouses,
fills the meeting-houses to-day. If the black death
raged in New Orleans, the yellow fever in Cincinnati,
IV— 25

386 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the plague in Philadelphia, the cholera in New York,
the small-pox in Boston, the revival would be immensely
greater than now. A Jesuit priest once said: " Sea-
sons of pestilence are the harvest of ministers. Then
men are susceptible to fear." Besides, you know what
the newspapers have done. Last year the newspapers
disgusted the public — the sensible part of the public
— with the obscene details of a most unfortunate trial
for indecent and improper conduct. This year the
same newspapers are crowded with gossip about the
revival. The same motive was in either case. If they
could turn a penny by the revival, they did it ; if by
adultery, they did that. They cared not from what
quarter came the clean money.

Now, we are always to expect some extravagance in
the action of a force so strong as this. Some good
will be done by this movement. Let us do justice. 1.
There are wicked men, who are only to be roused b}'^ fear.
Some will be converted. The dread of hell is stronger
than fear of the gallows. Some will be scared out of
their ugly vice and crime. Certainly that is a good
work. But it is only the men who commit the un-
popular, small vices, that are converted. Such as
do the heavy wickedness, those men are never con-
verted, until they are too old for any sin except
hypocrisy. Ask Mr. Polk, ask Mr. Clay, if you
can reach into the other world, and they will tell
you they understood that trick as well as all others.
2. Then there are weak men who are not wicked, but
who can be easily drawn into vice — gambling, drunk-
enness, licentiousness — some of lliom will be checked
in their course, and become sober men, outwardly de-
corous. 3. Then there are unsettled men and women,
who want a master to put his invasive, aggressive will

A REVIVAL OF RELIGION 387

on them, and say they shall, or they shall not. They
will find a master. It is true they will shrink and
shrivel, and dry up. But they want a master, and
finding one, they will grow no more, and be tormented
no more. Ceasing to think, they will cease to doubt ;
and where they have made a solitude, they will call it
the peace of Christ.

1. But the evil very far surpasses the good. Many
men, well bom, well educated, will turn off with dis-
gust from real religion. They will become more sel-
fish, more worldly, proud, heartless, hostile to every
effort for human progress — with no faith in God,
none in man, none in immortality, none in conscience
— their lives devoted to the lower law. Many of them
will be church members, for the actual atheist of to-
day is cunninger than ever before, and entrenches him-
self within the church. There is no fortress like a
pew against the ecclesiastic artillery. Such a revival
will make more men of this stamp. They are the
greatest obstacles to the community's progress. It is
not drunkards, it is not thieves, it is not common
brawlers, who most hinder the development of man-
kind. It is the sleek, comfortable men, outwardly de-
corous, but inwardly as rotten as a grave that is filled
with the contents of a fever hospital.

2. Then, others who were brought into the churches
full of zeal, full of resolution, they will be cursed by
the theology they accept, and will be stunted in their
mental, moral, aifectional, and religious growth — most
of all in their religious. For with the idea of God
that he is an ugly devil, of man that he is a sinful
worm, and of religion that it is an unnatural belief in
what reason, conscience, heart, and soul cry out against,
what true, manly piety can there be.'' Fear takes the

388 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

place of religion, and that ugly carrion crow drives
off all the handsome birds of paradise, bringing the
olive-branch in their beaks.

To me, in the revival itself, there is much that is en-
couraging. I shall speak of it next Sunday. In the
conduct of it there is much profoundly melancholy.
The effect of the misconduct on the people is most
deplorable. What an idea of God is offered to man?
Can any one love such a God.'' Surely not. I do
not wonder men and women go mad. The idea of
Christ — what blasphemy against that noble man,
who said religion is love of God and love of man !
What an idea of religion here, and of heaven here-
after ! My friends, piety is not delirium. It does not
expose to the world the innermost sanctuary of man's
consciousness, and make common talk out of what is
too sacred for any eye but God's, and if it turn a the-
ater into a house of prayer it does not turn that prayer
into noise and rant and theatric fun.

The effect on the morality of the people is not less
bad. Honest industry, forgiveness, benevolence —
these are virtues not thought of in a revival. I do
not hear any prayer for temperance, any prayer for
education, any prayer for the emancipation of slaves,
for the elevation of women, for honesty, for industry,
for brotherly love ; any prayers against envy, suspicion,
bigotry, superstition, spiritual pride, malice and all
uncharitableness. The newspapers tell us fifty thou-
sand are converted in a week. That is a great story,
but it may be true. The revival may spread all over
the land. It will make church members — not good
husbands, good wives, daughters, uncles, aunts ; not
good shoemakers, farmers, lawj-crs, mechanics, mer-
chants, laborers. It will not oppose the rum trade,

A REVIVAL OF RELIGION 389

nor the trade in collies, nor the trade in African or
American slaves. It will not open a school for black
people south of Mason and Dixon's line. It will not
break a chain, or alter a vote against the best institu-
tion in America or the world — not one. Convert the
National Administration, the Supreme Court, the Sen-
ate House; nay, convert the whole administration and
the democratic party to this religion, and they take a
south-side view of all political wickedness. They
spread slavery into Kansas ; they go filibustering
against Mexico, against Cuba; they restore the Afri-
can slave trade. Suppose you could convert all the
merchants, all the mechanics, all the laborers of Bos-
ton, and admit them to the churches that are getting
up this revival, you do not add one ounce to the vir-
tue of the city, not one cent's worth of charity to the
whole town. You weaken its intelligence, its enter-
prise ; you deaden the piety and morality of the peo-
ple. The churches need a revival. No institution in
America is more corrupt than her churches. No thirty
thousand men and women are so bigoted and narrow
as the thirty thousand ministers. The churches —
they are astern of all other craft that keeps the intel-
lectual sea. The people mean to have a revival of
religion, just as the Italians and the French in their
revolution meant liberty, equal rights, democracy. The
people mean a revival of religion ; but the ministers
will turn it to a revival of the ecclesiastic theology —
the doctrine of the dark ages, which we ought to have
cast behind us centuries ago.

A real revival of religion — it was never more
needed. Why are men and women so excited now?
\Vhy do they go to the meeting-houses, and listen to
doctrines that insult the common sense of mankind.''

390 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

They are not satisfied with their rehgious condition.
They feel their want. " They are as sheep having no
shepherd." This movement shows how strong is the
rehgious faculty in man. In the name of democracy
politicians use the deep, patriotic feeling of the peo-
ple to destroy the best institutions of America and
the world ; and in the name of God ministers use this
mightiest religious feeling to impose on us things 3^et
more disastrous. Let you and me remember that re-
ligion is wholeness, not mutilation ; that it is life, and
not death ; that it is service with every limb of this
body, every faculty of this spirit ; that we are not to
take the world on halves with God, or on sevenths,
giving him only the lesser fraction, and taking the
larger ourselves, it is to spread over and consecrate
the whole life, and make it divine.

Let you and me remember this. How much can we
do, — a single man, a single noble woman, — with that
life of natural religion ! He who goes through a land
and scatters blown roses may be tracked next day by
their withered petals that strew the gi'ound ; but he who
goes through it and scatters rose seed, a hundred years
after leaves behind him a land full of fragrance and
beauty for his monument, and as a heritage for his
daughters and his sons. So let you and me walk
through life tliat we shall sow the seeds of piety and
of morality, to spring up fair as these blossoms at
my side, and rich as the bread which is food for all
the nations of mankind.

XIV
THE REVIVAL WE NEED

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven
is perfect. — Matt. v. 48.

Last Sunday I said something of a false and true
revival of religion. To-day I continue the same theme,
asking your attention to some thoughts on the re-
vival of religion which we need, and the way to bring
it to pass.

In the world of man there is nothing so joyous as
real natural religion. It is the centermost of all de-
lights. Other high joys are branches, this the root
they run back to, spring out of, and grow up from.
I feel gratitude to many a man and woman who has
helped me in my life, but to none such thankfulness as
I owe my mother, my father, my sister, for the pains
they took to develop this innermost of all the facts
of consciousness. I cannot remember the earliest twi-
light of religion, when first I felt the " dayspring from
on high," not even the rising of that sun which sheds
such light to all my being. I trust it will not reach
its noon until I have seen some four or five score years,
but will rise higher, shining with more perpendicular
glory until I end my mortal life. For religion grows
not old. Like God, it flourishes in perpetual youth.

I too have experienced the higher joys of life;
thereof not many men know better what is great in
bulk, few more what is nice and exquisite in kind.
Have science, letters, success, a joy to give? I know
it reasonably well. Is there joy in contending with

391

392 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

difficulties? I have had mj part. Are there pleasures
of affection? I have tasted from that golden cup, and
by those I love can drink vicariously at many a spring
my lips directly never touch. But dear and blessed
as are all these things, I count them cheap compared
with my delight in God. These I could renounce
and still be blessed, at least resigned ; but not to know
the Father and Mother of the world, to feel shut out
from that causal and providential love which creates
all from itself, I should go mad and die at once, or
live a maimed, brutal life, and perish like a fool. But
of this deep joy I cannot speak save in the most gen-
eral terms. 'Tis profane to talk of such things even
to most intimate friends. The handsome shapes of our
innermost life are chastely veiled from all the world ;
there I am my own high priest, and into that holy of
holies none but myself and Thou, O God ! can ever
come.

Does not mankind also rate its religious conscious-
ness thus high? Whom does it honor most? Always
its heroes of the soul. IMcn with genius for religion.
Such men as Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Mahomet, they are
above all human names. None else have such millions
bowing thereto ; none others are worshipped so as gods.
How thankful we are to whoever brings religious
truths ! Mankind is loyal, and when it sees its king,
takes him to its heart and honors him for ever. Thank-
ful to those who helped us, with what sympathy do
we look on persons trying to attain religious excel-
lence! No romance is so attractive to us all as the
story of a man longing after God and seeking rest
for the soul. How do you and I, seeing such, wish
to go to this child crying in the darkness, wet and
numb with cold, and like a great Saint Christopher to

THE REVIVAL W^E NEED S93

take him on oui* shoulders and thus ferry him across
the stream, warming his hmbs while we bear him wrap-
ped in our mantle, and then put a candle in his lan-
tern and bread in his pouch and bid him " God speed
jou, my brother ! You will find day by and by."

When a great truth stirs the feelings infinite within
us, how do we love to show the cause thereof to other
men, and set slips from the tree of life in their gardens
to make a new paradise ! Worldly ambition is singular
— for itself alone ; the passion of love is dual — for
him and her ; but the affection of religion is universal-
plural, embracing God and all his world within rejoic-
ing arms. Nothing is so socializing as piety ; my
Father and my Mother, they are also yours.

No man is complete without the culture of the re-
ligious element; no high faculty perfect without help
from that. I see great naturalists without it, great
politicians, great artists ; not great men. Nay, their
special science, politics, art, is less philosophic, states-
manlike, sesthetic, for lack of this wholeness and thor-
ough health within the man's interior. The notes of
music, ground out on a hand-organ in the street, tell
me if their composer had ever listened to the quiring
of the birds of paradise.

There is a story — perhaps some of you never heard
it — that out of Parian stone a great Christian artist
in the dark ages once carved a statue of the Virgin
Mary — the church's ideal woman. It was transcend-
ent of mortality, angelic, disdainful of earth, fit only
for the devotional delights of heaven, not womanly
duty on earth, and sj^mpathy with suffering and sin-
ful men. He wrought so fair that Phidias and
Praxiteles and many a heathen more who knew the
wondrous art to transfigure marble into life, through

394. THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

their open graves came back from heaven to look
thereon ; and filled with joy at this new type of woman-
hood, so different from the Aphrodites and Athenas,
so free alike from sensual taint and oligarchic pride
of intellect and power, with their cold, dumb, visionary
mouths, they kissed the plastic hand which wrought
the wondrous work. But Mary herself — no queenly
virgin transcending earth, but pleasant Joseph's hon-
est wife and natural mother of his boy — came also
back from her heavenly transfiguration. Well pleased
she looked thereon, but was not quite content, loving
the natural woman of humanity, a carpenter's wife and
mother to boys and girls in Nazareth, more than she
loved a non-human, transcendental virgin of the
church's creed, fit only for heavenly joy; and so she
put a live branch of Hebrew lilies, sweet as these New
England violets, wet with dew, into the statue's folded
hand. Fair were they as the marble, but living flow-
ers, which grew out of the hard black ground, and
bore their seed within them, to fill the earth with fu-
ture loveliness. And this piece of actual nature, sur-
passing the sculptor's art, so criticised his dreamy
stone, that when he woke and saw it there, he felt re-
buked and took the heavenly hint, and ever after fash-
ioned his IVIadonnas complete women, of nobler and
more actual shape — not monsters, virgins of the sky,
but women, sisters, wives, mothers, for the world of
time, the mortal earthly beauty kept and made more
fair and human by its wholeness and its complete and
perfect trust in the dear God who fashioned woman's
body and inspired her soul. And as the sign that
such dear divinity yet touched the common ground, he
put the emblematic lilies in the statue's folded hand.
So when I see a man, else grand and beautiful, with

THE REVIVAL WE NEED 395

transcendent mind and conscience and affections too,
but lacking this ultimate finish of religion, I long
to plant therein the soul of piety, which shall com-
plete the whole and so make perfect every part —
mastering the world of time, but not disdaining it.

I have heard of many conversions — here is the
story of a real one. A man was a drunkard, noisy,
violent ; he beat his wife and children, nay, his mother.
Crossing yonder bridge one dark night, all at once
his own conscience spoke in him — " Stop there, Rich-
ard ! Drink no more ! " Not disobedient unto the
heavenly vision, he stopped, and swore to drink no
more. He became a new man. There was a revival
of religion in him — at least a part of it ; ever after
he had temperance, the piety of the flesh. Some of
you understand that conversion. To speak as min-
isters — Jacob wrestles with the devil all night, flings
him, and goes off^ conqueror, the devil down, and the
man up for all time. Honor to conversions of this
stamp !

What a joy it would be if there could come to pass
a real revival of religion, of piety and morality, in
the church of America — I mean among the thirty
thousand Protestant ministers and the thirty hundred
thousand Protestant church members — a revival of
religion which should be qualitatively nice and quan-
titatively large — a great, new growth of the soul ;
such a healthy bloom of piety as would make a White-
Sunday all over the land, prophetic of whole Mes-
sianic harvests of piety and morality which were to
come ! Why, if such a thing were to take place, and
I were Governor of Massachusetts or President of the
United States, though it were seed-time, or harvest-
time, war-time even, I would issue my proclamation

396 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

for a day of thanksgiving and praise to the dear
God who had given such gifts unto men. I would ask
the people to come together in their meeting-houses,
look each other in the face, take each other by the
hand, embrace, and sing their psalms of praise to the
Infinite Father and Mother, whose kingdom had come
on earth, and was shining as the sun from east to
west. I would call on gi'eat orators for choicest
speech ; on the poets, " blest with the vision and the
faculty divine " and furnished with " the accomplish-
ment of verse," to sing the high song and canticles
of joy — the great psalm of glorifying praise to him
w^ho is power, wisdom, justice, love. Nay, I would
send my ambassadors to the nations of the earth,
saying, " Come and rejoice with me, for this my son
was dead and is alive again, he was lost, and is found."
Nay, if such a movement went on in England, France,
Italy, Spain, Turkey, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, I
would ask you to spare me for awhile, and would strike
work to-morrow, that I might go and sacrament my
eyes with the sight of the happy people that is in
such a case. I would learn how that great salvation
was brought about, and fetch home in my garments
the Promethean seed of that fire, to kindle a flame all
other this land.

Only think of it ! a revival of piety, a new power
of love to God, and love for all his laws, writ in the
flesh and spirit, mind and conscience, heart and soul,
and a consequent love of morality — the will and con-
science going side by side, like Caleb and Joshua,
bringing home such clusters from the promised land ;
an increase of intellect, power of use, power of beauty,
power of truth ; a great growth of economy, industry,
riches ; the heaven of chaste love — passion and af-

THE REVIVAL WE NEED 397

fection going hand in hand, taking sweet counsel to-
gether, and walking to the house of God in com-
pany; the growth of justice, humanity, charity. Only
think of it ! Forts turned into pleasure-grounds ; all
training-fields " converted " into public gardens ; ships
of war the penny-posters of the deep ; arsenals changed
to museums; jails become hospitals; not a gallows in
America ; slavery all ended — black slavery, white slav-
ery ; no murder ; no theft ; prostitution gone ; no bes-
tial lust anywhere, but human love for ever; poverty
ended ; drunkenness all banished ; no staggering in the
street ; not an Irishman drunk — not even a member
of Congress ; no kidnapper between the seas ; no liar in
the chair of governor or broker; rulers that love the
people, enacting justice; ministers teaching them the
truths of nature and of human consciousness — pro-
claiming the real live God, w^ho inspires men to-day,
as he dresses these roses in their sweet cloth of gold.
Think of a revival of religion such as that, which
was bringing that about, which would do it in a
hundred years or a thousand ! Why, what were all
the previous great triumphs of mankind to that?
What were the conquests of fire, iron, the invention of
ships, letters, powder, the compass, the printing press,
the steam engine, telegraph, ether? What were the dis-
covery of America, the English Revolution, the Amer-
ican, the French? Nay, what were these six great his-
toric forms of religion — Brahminic, Hebraistic, Clas-
sic, Buddhistic, Christian, Mahometan — they would
be what February and INIarch are to May, July, Sep-
tember and October ; what a few weeks of thaw are
to a whole summer of flowers and an autumn full of
fruit. Why, the very sympathizing sun might pause
in his course and gladden his eyes ; and the stars of

398 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

heaven, whicli have seen their image reflected back in
a looking-glass of human blood, might stop and join
in that primal mythic psalm, " Glory to God in the
highest, on earth peace to all good willing men."

How much we need a real revival of religion ! Not
a renewal of ecclesiastic theology, but a revival of piety
and morality in men's hearts.

The people feel this need ; hence we turn off to look
at all new things in religion. We are tired of that
old stack of hard, dry, meadow hay, where the Chris-
tian herd has so long sought fodder, and been filled
with the east wind. We long for the green pastures
and sweet grass along the streams which run among
the hills ; hence we wish to leap over or crawl under
or crowd through the bars of this old winter cowyard
of the church, and at least get out of that unwholesome
pen and go somewhere, with God to guide us, though
we know not whither.

See the growth of Mormonism.^ Even that has
something which mankind needs ; else men, and es-
pecially women, would not cross the sea three thou-
sand miles wide, and then travel three thousand more
by river or by land for its sake. The success of Mor-
monism is a terrible protest against the enforced celi-
bacy of millions of marriageable Avomen, and the worse
than celibacy of so many who are called married, but
are not. Fifteen years ago " Spiritualism " was two
women making mysterious noises in Rochester, New
York. Now it is I know not how many millions of
persons, some of them thoughtful, many hungering
after God. " Spiritualism " ^ had something to offer
which the churches could not give. Nothing comes
of nothing ; every something has a cause. This very
revival, foolish as is the conduct of it, selfish as are

THE REVIVAL WE NEED 399

the managers who pull the strings — with the people
it indicates a profound discontent in the dull death of
our churches. God created man a living soul, and he
continues such only by feeding on every word which
freshly proceedeth out of the mouth of God. The
old bibles did for those who wrote them ; the old creeds
for such as believed. We want the help of the old
bibles, the inspiration of the new bibles, ever proceed-
ing from God, who freshly fills the old stars in heaven,
and creates new flowers every spring on earth.

I say the people feel this need ; but the need itself
is greater and deeper than the popular consciousness
thereof. We do not know how sick we are. Look
at the chaotic state of things in America, which is but
like the rest of Christendom. First, there is war.
Fenced with a two-fold oceanic ditch, from two to
seven thousand miles wide, we yet spend more than
thirty millions of dollars every year to hire fighting
men in a time of profound peace ; and not one of them
fixes bayonet to do mankind good.

Next consider the character of the Federal Govern-
ment — it is the last place to which you would look
for common honesty, for justice to our own nation;
just now it is a vulture which eats the nation's vitals
out ; only the strong giant grows faster than this
administration can tear off and swallow down. Men
tell us human life is more safe in Constantinople, in
Damascus, in Samarcand, in Timbuctoo, than it is in
Washington. We are told that we have three murders
a fortnight in the capital of the United States, all the
session through. The Government is so busy filibus-
tering against Cuba, Mexico, Central America,^ plant-
ing slavery in Kansas, that it cannot protect the lives
of its own Congressmen in its own capital.

400 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

Next look at slavery. Every seventh man is prop-
erty — a negro slave ; and our supreme court says col-
ored people have no rights which we are bound to
respect. The government seeks to spread this blot
across the continent, from east to west, from south to
north — asks five thousand new soldiers to do it with.
A new state knocks at the door seeking to join the sis-
terhood of freedom ; ^ the government says, " You shall
not come in free ; with bondsmen you may enter."

Fourth: look at the antagonistic character of our
civilization. So much poverty in the midst of so much
riches — so many idlers in so much industry. How
many children in prudent, wealthy, charitable Bos-
ton, cannot go to school in winter from lack of clothes !
See what fortunes are dishonestly made by men who
are only the filibusters of commerce, robbers in a peace-
ful way ! Our industry even now is a war of business
— it is competition, not co-operation. How much
power is lost in the friction of our social machinery.
There are savages in our civilization. In the south,
many of them are slaves — in the north, they are free,
but still savages. A black sea of crime lashes the
white houses of wealth and comfort, where science,
literature, virtue, and piety together dwell.

Fifth : look at the condition of woman. There is no
conscious antagonism betwixt men and women ; each
doubtless unconsciously aims to be more than fair to
the other; but nowhere has woman her natural right.
In the market, the state, the church, she is not counted
the equal of man. Hence come monstrous evils —
prostitution, dependence, lack of individual character,
enforced celibacy, not more grateful to maid than to
man, meant for neither him nor her; and hence come
those marriages which are worse than celibacy itself.

THE REVIVAL V^TE NEED 401

These are the five great evils of mankind to-day,
whence many lesser ones proceed — drunkenness, crime
in its thousand forms. I do not speak to scold man-
kind, still less to scold America. In all respects save
one, we have the best institutions in the world ; and
certainly, the human race had never so glorious a
welfare as to-day. These evils, they were never be-
fore so small. History, it is not a retreat backwards,
it is progress forth, upwards, on. These things are
not a finality ; they are to man's attainable condition
what stumbling is to walking, stammering to speech,
the boy's clumsy, mistaken scrawl to the clear current
writing of the man. We are to outleam these five evils
• — war, wicked government, slaver^^ selfish antagonism
in society, the degradation of woman. We shall out-
grow these things. God has given us the fittest of all
possible means for attaining the end. One of the
mightiest of man's helpers is this religious faculty in
us ; this, nothing else, can give us strength to do that
work.

The business of the farmer is to organize the vege-
tative force of the ground, and raise thence the sub-
stances which shall feed and clothe mankind. The
mechanic is to organize the force of metals, wood, fire,
earth, water, lightning, air, and thereby shape the
niaterial things necessary to human needs — to feed,
clothe, house, and heal mankind ; corn he must turn to
bread, cotton and wool to cloth, the clay, the forest,
the rock, to houses ; poison to medicine. The philos-
opher is to translate the facts of nature from matter
into mind, making them into thoughts, ideas of con-
sciousness ; then to show us how to use the powers
of nature for the farmer's and mechanic's work. The

statesman is to organize the nation's power, its mat-
IV— 26

402 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

ter and its mind, its bodily force, its wealth, intel-
ligence, justice, love, charity, religion, so that men
shall live in peace together at home, with peace abroad,
having security for the person, the substance of man-
hood, and for property, the accident of manhood ; so
that each shall help all, and all enjoy the special genius
God gives to each.

It is the business of the minister to waken, quicken,
strengthen, and guide the religious faculty, and so
gain for us a great general power to help the individual
man in his development of body and of spirit. But
man is social. The individual alone is a wild man ;
it is only in society that noble individualism is instan-
tially possible. While these five evils just named con-
tinue individual men will be as now. It is in the
great social mill that men are made what they are.
Here and there may be one so born that society cannot
shape, bleach, or dye him. He takes no form or color,
save from his mother's bosom ; he has an impenetrable
genius from his birth — plastic to mold others, not
pliant, to be shaped or dyed. But in ninety-nine
hundredths of our character most men are what so-
ciety makes them. Compare Old England and New
England, the children of Cove Place with the children
of Beacon Street, to see the truth of this, the power
of circumstances over the soul.

It is the minister's business not only to waken,
strengthen, and quicken the rehgious power, and point
to this end, but also to diffuse the ideas which shall
mold society, so that it can rear noble men, with
all their natural powers developed well.

The minister is the teacher of the church ; not a
master, a servant to teach. A normal church is a
body of men assembling to promote religion, piety, and

THE REVIVAL WE NEED 403

morality. Its business is, first, protective at home —
to promote piety and morality in its own members ;
and, second, it is diffusive abroad — to promote piety
and morality in all the world according to its strength:
for duty is proportionate to power to do ; and where
the power is little, so is the duty, where much, there
great. So a church must protest against all wrong
which it knows to be wrong; promote all right which it
knows to be right. It is a church for that very pur-
pose, and nothing less. The minister is to help do
that work, to lead in it. He must be in advance
of mankind in what pertains to religion — to all re-
ligion, individual, social. Else he cannot teach ; he
is no minister to work and serve, only an idler to be
worked for and ministered unto.

No doubt there must be primary churches, to teach
the A B C of religion, and ministers fit for that work
of nursing babies ; and also academic and collegiate
churches, and ministers for that grand function. Let
neither despise the other. So, then, the function of
a real church of religion will be partly critical, to war
against the wrong; partly creative, to show us the
right and guide us thither, at least thither-ward.

We have thirty thousand Protestant ministers in the
United States, supported at the public charge, and to
do this very work, for so the people mean. They are
not rich ; are not rich men's sons. As a class, they
have an education which is costly, even where it is
not precious ; which is often paid for directly by the
people's work. All education is thus paid for indi-
rectly, for in that money all human accounts are at
last settled, in the great clearing-house of mankind.
Work is the only coin which is current the world over.
Therein do you pay for the murders which are com-

404 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

mitted at Washington, and for the angels of mercy,
who in Boston carry your beneficence from house to
house, and take unlawful babies newly born, and set
them in religious homes, to grow up to nobleness. In
that coin we pay for all things — the minister's edu-
cation amongst others. The ministers come mainly
from that class of people who are most affected by
religious emotions and ideas, where human sympathies
are the strongest. They seldom are borne by the mis-
erably poor or the ruinously rich. They have two
advantages : birth in the middle class, where they touch
the ground and touch the sky ; and superior culture
above that class. Add to this, moreover, they com-
monly enter the ministry with good motives, more self-
denial than self-indulgence; they are usually free from
gross vices, the crimes of passion ; they are the most
charitable of alms-giving men ; they have the best
opportunities to teach the churches, and to help pro-
mote the critical and creative function which belongs
thereto.

But now, alas ! taken as a class, they do no such
thing — they attempt none such. They do not count
it their business to remove any one of those five great
social evils, and so enable society to raise up noble
individual men. Nay, they seldom take much pains to
remove the lesser evils which have leaked out from
those five great tubs of malarious poison. Let tlie
prayers of the Protestant churches be answered to-
night ; let all the white men and women in the United
States be converted to the ecclesiastic theology which
is taught in orthodox meeting-houses ; let the conver-
sion take in all the babies who know their right hand
from their left — suppose there are fifteen millions who
are " brought under " and " bowed down," as they

THE REVIVAL WB NEED 405

properly call it, and made to believe in the creeds
of the revival ministers ; let all these be added to the
church next Sunday, and take their communion of
baker's bread and grocer's wine — it would not abate
one of those five great evils — war, political corrup-
tion, slavery, selfish antagonism in society, nor the
degradation of woman ! Such a conversion is not a
step towards removing any one of these evils — nay, it
is a step away from that work. Such a conversion
would entail inferiority on a woman ; retard the prog-
ress of civilization, the moralization of mankind ; add
to the fetters of the slave ; strengthen the tyrant's
hand; increase the chances of prospective war, and
add to its horrors when it broke out. For it would
bless all these iniquities in the name of God, and jus-
tify them out of the Old Testament and the New —
it is quite easy to do so. Nay, suppose you should con-
vert the three millions of African slaves over ten years
old, not one of them would dare thereafter to run away
from his master, or strike that master down. Such
conversions would unman the negro slave !

Why is all this? Two months ago I spoke of the
false method of theology. The Christian church has
followed that method, and while teaching many truths
and doing very great service to mankind — which I
should be the last to deny — it has made three mon-
strous errors. Here they are.

First, it has a false conception of God ; its God is a
devil, who means damnation.

Second, it has a false conception of man ; its man
is a worm, who is religiously good for nothing, the
" natural man " fit only for damnation.

Third, it has a false conception of religion ; its
religion is to save men from hell, and it is fit only

406 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

for that. But it does not do even that for more
than one out of a thousand ; for the other nine hun-
dred and ninety-nine it is absolutely good for nothing
on earth or beneath it ; and the one saved is not borne
to heaven on mighty wings of piety and morality, fan-
ning the thin, cold air of the world, but by the magic-
miracle of the atonement, which turns off God's wrath,
and carries man into eternal joy which he has done
nothing to merit and to earn.

These ideas are the minister's tools to work with.
I am not scolding him, only stating facts. Poor man !
he is far more to be pitied than blamed. He sees a
vast amount of evil in the world, and thinks it all a
finality ; it is God's will, and his decree that it shall
last for ever. The evil cannot be removed here and
now — it is the nature of things ; and even in the next
lift it will never be diminished to all eternity. Man
cannot remove it; God will not, for he loves none but
church members, who believe the church theology ; he
will ruin all else, and damned for once is damned for
evermore.

Hence ministers in churches do not make it a prin-
cipal thing to try and remove these evils, to develop
man's nature, to set the religious faculty, that greatest
river of God, to turn the mills of society. They aim
chiefly to remove unbelief in ecclesiastical doctrines,
to admit men to the church, to save their souls from
the wrath of God by belief in the magic of atonement.
" No man," say they, " goes into heaven for his re-
ligion, for any merit of his own; with a whole life of
piety and morality, ended in the citiclest mart^^rdom,
he cannot buy a ticket of entrance;" while a mo-
ment's belief in the ecclesiastic theology and joining
of a church, will admit a pirate, a kidnaper, a deceit-

THE REVIVAL WE NEED 407

ful politician who cures a nation, or a hypocritical
priest — it will admit them all to heaven — each man
as a " dead-head."

Do you doubt that the churches of America count
not manly religious character and life, but only the-
ological belief, as the one thing needful? — then look
at these two facts.

First, the Protestant churches of America have one
great corporation — the Tract Society — wherein
many sects work together. The aim is theological —
to enforce ecclesiastic doctrines ; It is not religious —
to promote love to God, and the keeping of his natural
laws writ in the very constitution of man. So the
Tract Society protests against none of the great
evils I have named. It attacks no popular wickedness ;
it would save men from the fancied wrath of God
by faith in Christ; not by virtue and wisdom save
them from actual Ignorance, superstition, covetous-
ness, drunkenness, dishonesty. It would save men in
their sins hereafter, not from their sins to-day and
here. It has little to say against war, political op-
pression, slavery, the antagonism of society, the deg-
radation of woman. Even the Bible Society, in which
all sects unite, dares not give the New Testament to
a single slave, though the American Anti-Slavery So-
ciety offer them five thousand dollars If they will spend
it thus. Spite of its profession, spite of its good
intention, the church is baptized worldliness, professing
the ecclesiastical theology as magical means of salva-
tion from the future consequences of a life of wicked-
ness below !

That Is the first thing. Next, many Christian min-
isters think they can tease God to do what they want
done ; that they can get him to convert men, and if the

408 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

prayers of the churches center on one man, he pres-
ently " caves in." Now, at a revival meeting who is
prayed for, prayed at, prayed against? The eccle-
siastical archers do not draw their bow at a venture ;
it is with good aim. What Saint Sebastian is there
who is stuck full of the arrows of Calvinistic impreca-
tion? Is it the sly, corrupt politician? the "demo-
crat " who hates democracy, but under its covert seeks
to ruin the people? No; he is orthodox in profession,
though atheistic in his public practice and private
creed. Is it the able lawyer, who prostitutes his grand
talents to bring the most miserable culprit safe from
the justice of the law? No; Sunday after Sunday he
sits in an orthodox meeting-house, and requires no con-
version. Is it the capitalist who rents his shops for
drunkeries and gambling dens, his houses for broth-
els? No ; he is sound in the faith. Is it the merchant
who trades in coolies ? No ; he is a church member,
painted with the proper stripe. Is it the doctor of
divinity who defends slavery as a divine institution?
Not at all ; he believes in the damnation of Unitarians,
Universalists, and babies not wet with baptism ; he
needs no repentance. Is it the trader, whose word is
good for nothing, who will always take you in ? No ;
he is out in the street pimping for the prayer-meetings
of his sects. Is it the man who sends rum and gunpow-
der to the negroes of Africa, and fills his ship with
slaves for Cuba, half of them cast shrieking to the
hungry waves before it touches land? Oh no; he con-
tributes to the Tract Society. Do men pray for the
y)resident of the United States, that in his grand posi-
tion, with his magnificent opportunities, he may secure
to all men the " unalienable right to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness ? " — may take the golden rule

THE REVIVAL WE NEED 409

of this blessed New Testament and make that a meet-
wand for the American government? They ask no
such thing. Do they pray that our Supreme Court
may " do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly
with its God?" They pray for no such men; and
those they do pray for, they ask only that they may
believe the creed, and " come to Christ." To Jesus
of Nazareth. It does not mean to come to him who
said religion was love to God and love to man ! It
means only, come to the catechism and the meeting-
house !

I do not know how many men, and women too, have
labored with me to convert me. Not one ever asked
me to increase in religion, in either part of it — in
piety or morality ; to be more temperate, industrious,
truth-telling — quite the opposite of that — more gen-
erous, just, charitable, philanthropic, forgiving to my
enemies. Not one ever asked m.e to be a better min-
ister, scholar, neighbor, friend, cousin, uncle, brother,
husband. None ever prayed me to love God better,
or to keep his commandments more, only to " come
to Christ ;" and their Christ, it was the catechism,
which tormented me in my infancy, which I sobbed
over many a night and Avept myself to sleep, and
at last made way with the abominable thing, trod it
under my feet for ever, before I had seen my seventh
birthday. I do not know how many letter-writers,
clergymen, laymen, and lay-women visitors, have threat-
ened me with eternal damnation. This one is sure I
am to have it at last ; these others declare it is com-
ing " summarily." No one ever charged me with any
vice, with any lack of virtue or manly excellence ; only
with disbelief in the catechism. That is the second
thing.

410 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

These two things show that the church asks be-
lief in the theology of unreason, not a life of natural
piety and morality ; and because the ministers work
for this, and with tools suited to this end, is it that
so many of them pass their lives

" In dropping buckets into empty wells.
And growing old in drawing nothing up."

These things being so, ecclesiastical revivals do no
considerable good. They make superstitious church
members, not religious men and women. " They heal
the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly " — I
mean, they do not heal it at all.

" They skin and film the ulcerous place.
Whiles rank corruption, raining all within,
Infects unseen."

What is the great obstacle to the liberation of
France, Spain, Italy .'' It is the Roman church ; and
if every Frenchman was a member of the Roman
church, and believed its creed, France might give up
the ghost to-morrow — it would never be free.

What is the great obstacle to the improvement of
Catholics in America.? It is the Catholic church; and
just in proportion as an Irishman is wedded to that
church, just so do I despair of him. In a less degree
our Protestant theology is working a similar harm for
us.

I believe in a revival of religion. There have been
several great movements thereto. Not to go out of the
Hebrew and Christian church, there are several well
known to all of you. That of IMoses, Jesus, Luther,
the Puritans, the Quakers, the Baptists, the Methodists,
Unitarians, Universalists, and the Spiritualists. How

THE REVIVAL WE NEED 411

were they brought about? In each case, there was a
new theologic idea by a man of genius, or a new apph-
cation of an old one by a man of talent. IMoses taught
the people — " There is one God for the Hebrews, to
be served by ritual sacrifices in one place." Jesus de-
clared — " There is one God for all mankind, to be
served by brotherly love. The walls of nationality are
broke down." Luther taught — " The infallible Bi-
ble is superior to a deceitful Pope. There is freedom
of conscience for all men; they are justified by faith
in Christ, not by the ritual of Roman priests. Each
people must manage its own church affairs." The
Puritans declared — " Each church must manage its
own affairs, the Bible its only law." The Baptists de-
clared — " Grown men must be baptized all over. No
man goes into heaven dry-shod; the priest must wet
him from heel to crown. He that believeth and is
immersed, shall be saved." The Quaker said — " The
Holy Ghost in the soul is more than the letter of Scrip-
ture out of it. ]Man is free, not bound by his father's
ordinances. Woman is man's equal. The prayer that
God hears Is in the heart ; he needs no words to un-
derstand it." The Methodist said — " The Gospel is
for the poor and the ignorant," and carried it thither.
Unitarians and Universalists declared — " God is one,
not three. He damns nobody for ever; hates nobody
at all. All men shall land in heaven at last, no matter
howsoever badly shipwrecked ; if they sink, it is to
another sea." The Spiritualists say — " The Bible is
not a finality ; it is no man's master, it is every man's
servant. We, as well as the old prophets, can have
communion with the departed. Christ reveals himself
directly to us, as much as to Paul and Silas, Peter
and James."

412 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

Now, in all these cases, there was a new idea ; not
always a true one, but one which stirred men's souls
and called forth religious emotions. What energy did
religious truths give the followers of Jesus ! What
power there was in the early Puritans, Baptists, Quak-
ers, Methodists, mixed with folly ! Of course you ex-
pect that in all religious movements. What a spread
have the doctrines of Universalists and Unitarians had
in eighty years ! In 1778 I think there were not ten
thousand men in all America who believed the dis-
tinctive doctrine of Unitarians and Universalists —
the ultimate salvation of all men. Now, how wide is
the doctrine spread ! How rapidly Spiritualism has
gone abroad I yet it has no great man in its ranks, not
a philosopher, not a scholar.

When a great religious idea comes new to any man,
what enthusiasm it stirs us to ! The followers of Je-
sus did not comprehend his glorious gospel of piety
and morality ; they thought more of the man than of
his doctrine, his life. They made him a God. " Sal-
vation by Christ " was their creed. The idea was new ;
and though it was false, it was yet a great improve-
ment over Hebraism and heathenism of that time. It
made a new organization of its own, which covered
all Europe with churches. But the vigorous life which
once dwelt in the soil of Christendom, and threw up
that ecclesiastical flora, and made those handsome
shapes of stone fragrant with the beauty of devotion,
it is now all gone. The fossil remains of that religious
vegetation tell how mighty the life must have been.
What was the state's king before the church's bishop?
The Pope put his foot on the neck of emperors, for
he had the religion of Christendom to back him. It
is not so now, even in Europe. There is no more new

THE REVIVAL WE NEED 413

religious life in Saint Peter's church at Rome than in
the pyramids of Egypt. Unburied dead men are in
one, buried dead men in the other. So far as new
thought is concerned the Pope is only a mummy.

We want a revival of religion in the American church
which shall be to the church what the religion of Jesus
was to heathenism and Judaism, which, though useful
once, in his day had served out their time, and had no
more that they could do. We do not want a religion
hierarchically organized, which shall generate nothing
but meeting-houses made of stone, and end at last in a
priesthood. We want a religion democratically or-
ganized, generating gTeat political, social, domestic
institutions, and ending in a world full of noble men
and women, all their faculties developed well, they serv-
ing God with that love which casts out fear.

How can we stir that element to emotions fit for such
a work ? Only by a theology which shall meet the peo-
ple's want, a natural and just idea of man, of God,
of the relation between them — of religion, life, dut}'^,
destination on earth and in heaven ; a theology which
has its evidences in the world of matter — all science
God's testimony thereto ; and in the world of conscious-
ness — every man bearing within him the " lively
oracles " the present witness of his God, his duty and
destination. No sect has such a theology ; no great
sect aims at such, or the life it leads to. The Spiritu-
alists are the only sect that looks foi-ward, and has
new fire on its hearth ; they alone emancipate them-
selves from the Bible and the theology of the church,
while they also seek to keep the precious truths of
the Bible, and all the good things of the church.
But even they — I say this modestly ; they are a new
sect, and everybody wars against them ; my criticism I

414 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

give for their good, in the spirit of hope and tender-
ness — even they are rapping on coffin lids, hstcning
for ghosts, seeking God and God's truth beyond hu-
man nature, not in human nature. Their rehgion is
wonder more than life ; not principally addressing itself
to the understanding, the imagination, the reason, the
conscience, the soul, but to marvelousness more than
aught besides. So with many it is amazement, and not
elevation. But its function is to destroy the belief
in miracles ; it will help set many men free from the
idols of the old theologic den — no small senice, even
if it set up new ones of its own ; because new they will
be less dangerous. I also give thanks for " Spiritual-
ism," and am not surprised at the follies and ex-
travagances, the dishonest}^ of " mediums," which I
partly see and partly hear of. You must ahvays allow
for casualties. You cannot transfer a people from an
old theology to a new one without some breakage and
other harm and loss. This is attendant on all human
operations. When about to build a meeting-house in
the country, of old time, all the toAvn's people came
together on a summer day for the raising. The village
brawler was there, idle boys, loungers, wrestlers, boxers.
There was drinking, and swearing now and then.
Many got a little hot with liquor. Now and then a
spike-pole got crippled, two or three straw hats " per-
ished everlastingly." Some brother was overtaken in
a fault, and carried home boozy. But they pinned
down the ridgepole with shouting ; all summer long the
building was getting forward, the steeple grew up at
last out from the tower it was rooted in ; and in the
autumn there was a harvest of people gathered within
its walls, and generation after generation men went up
there for prayers, and holy vows of noble life. Let us

THE REVIVAL WE NEED 415

always make allowance for casualties, for extravagance,
in the old which is fixed, in the new which will become
so. What extravagances had the Quakers once, the
Christians in Paul's time !

I say we want a revival of religion such as the
world has not seen, yet often longed for. It was the
dream even of the Hebrew prophets, looking for the
time when the nations should learn war no more, when
the sword should be turned into the ploughshare, the
spear to the pruning-hook, when all men should be
taught of God, when " Holiness unto the Lord " should
be on the bells even of the horses. We want a piety
so deep that men shall understand God made man from
a perfect motive, of perfect material, for a perfect
purpose, and endowed with faculties which are perfect
means to that end ; so deep that we shall trust the
natural law he writes on the body and in the soul. We
want a morality so wide and firm that men shall make
the constitution of the universe the common law of all
mankind ; every day God's day — life-time not to be
let out to us at the sevenths or the seventieths, the
larger fraction for wickedness, the lesser for piety and
heaven, but the whole of it his, and the whole of it ours
also, because we use it all as he meant it, for our good.
Then the dwelling-house, the market-house, the court-
house, the senate-house, the shop, the ship, the field,
the forest, the mine, shall be a temple where the psalm
and pra3'er of religion goes up from daily, normal,
blessed work.

Manly, natural religion — it is not joining a church ;
it is not to believe a creed — Hebrew, Christian, Cath-
olic, Protestant, Trinitarian, Unitarian, Nothingarian.
It is not to keep Sunday idle ; to attend meeting ; to
be wet with water ; to read the Bible ; to offer prayers

416 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

in words ; to take bread and wine in the meeting-house.
I know men who do all these things, and j-et give scarce
more evidence of piety and morality than the benches
where they sit — wood resting on wood. Other men
I know who do none of these things, and are yet
amongst the most religious of God's children. Such
things may help you — then use them in God's name,
if you find it so. They may hinder — then, in God's
name cast them off. Jesus of Nazareth was no Chris-
tian, in the ecclesiastical sense of that abused word ;
and could he come to Boston to-day, and bear the same
relation to America in the nineteenth century that he
did to Palestine in the first, he might not be crucified
or stoned dead in the streets, because the laws forbid
such outrage now ; but in the " conference meeting of
business men," the prayer meetings of the grimmer
sects, the revivalists, men and women too, would be-
seech God to convert him from the wicked belief that
his own religion would save his own soul, that our
Father in heaven was effectually to be served by justice
and love to his children ; and if God could not do that
they would pray — " Remove him out of the way, and
let his influence die icith him.^^ I say those things are
not religion ; helps or hindrances they may be. Re-
ligion itself is something far more inward and living.
It is loving God with all your understanding and your
heart and soul. It is service to God with every limb
of that body, every faculty of tlie spirit, every power
he has given you, every day of your life. That re-
ligion, it is a terror to evil-doers, 3'ct offers them en-
couragement to repent; it is an inspiration to whoso
would love man and love God. Suppose I am con-
verted to such a religion ; the sunlight of this idea falls
on me for the first time, kindling emotions which spring

THE REVIVAL WE NEED 417

up as the green grass after April rains. What a
change will it make in my landscape ! Suppose I have
kept a drunkery or a brothel. Then I cast off my sin
and labor to restore what before I had thrown down,
and in cleanness of new life make mankind and myself
amends for my past wickedness.

I carry my religion into my daily work, whatever it
may be. I am a street-sweeper, then my piety will
come out in my faithful performance of duty. No
drunkenness, profanity, obscenity, hereafter. The
faces of my wife and children will be the certificate of
my conversion, of my baptism with the Holy Ghost
and with fire. My character will be the sign that I
belong to the true church of God.

I am a young school-mistress, perplexed in my busi-
ness — all young people are, be their business what it
may. Then my religion will appear in the discretion,
in the sweetness of temper, the forbearance, with which
I feed the little unruly flock, and pasture them on
learning. I am president of the United States, when
this thought of religion comes to me, and I change my
wickedness, and seek with my vast powers to do that
justice to my brother men which I wish them, with their
humble ones, to do to me.

If a minister is filled with this religion, it will not

let him rest. He must speak, whether men hear or

whether they forbear. No fear can scare, no bribe

can charm, no friends can coax him down. The church,

the state, the world oppose him, all in vain. " Get

thee behind me," he quietly says ; and while Satan goes

from this other son of man in his triumph, angels come

and minister to him. He may have small talents ; it

matters not. The new power of his religious idea

comes into him, and one such man " can chase a thou-
IV— 27

418 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

sand, and two ten thousand put to flight." Nay, he
gets inspiration from God. He makes the axis of his
little glass parallel with the axis of God, and the per-
pendicular Deity shines through with concentrated light
and heat.

What if there were one such minister in each of the
three hundred and seventy towns of this state — what
a revival would they make in Massachusetts ! What
an increase of economy, industry, riches ! What a
growth of temperance, education, justice, love, in all
its forms — filial, friendly, related, connubial, parental,
patriotic, philanthropic love ! What if all the thirty
thousand Protestant ministers, and the two thousand
Catholic priests in the United States had such religion
— worked with such theological ideas of man, God,
duty, destination ! There would never be another war,
staining America with blood ; filibustering would be im-
possible ; political oppression, it would not continue a
week, the people would not choose a magistrate in the
day time whom they must hire watchers to sit up and
look after all night, lest he do mischief ; a wicked ruler
would be as impossible as a ghost in the day time.
Slavery would end before the fourth of July, and on
Independence day the mayor of the city might tell
the rear admiral of the Turks, " My dear sir, we are
converted, and as good as African Mahometans, and
there is not a slave in all the United States. Boston
has become almost as Christian as Tunis or Algiers ! "
What a change would come over the structure of so-
ciety ! Co-operative industry ^ would take the place of
selfish antagonism. How would that flower of woman-
hood expand with fairer, sweeter, and more prophetic
bloom ! How would the nation's wealth increase !
What education of all — what welfare now, what prog-

THE REVIVAL WE NEED 419

ress for the future ! What a generation of sons and
daughters would this people raise up ! Ay, what mis-
sionaries should we send abroad, not to preach igno-
rance to the heathen, who have enough of it already,
but to carry the light of the gospel of life to the
nations that " sit in darkness and in the shadow of
death ! "

Such a revival of religion — it is possible ; one day
it will be actual. The ideal in my heart is a prophecy
of the real in mankind's actual life. At length the
best must be; this is as sure as that God is good. But
this revival will not come by miracle. God does his
part by creating us with faculties fit for this glorious
destination ; by providing us in the material world the
best means to achieve that destination and get this
development. To use these powers and opportunities,
it is not God's work, it is yours and mine. There
never was a miracle, there never will be. Trust me,
what God for once makes right, he will never unmake
it into wrong.

This revival of religion will not come by prayer of
words, although the thirty thousand Protestant min-
isters and the two thousand Catholic go down on
their knees together. In 1620 our Puritan fathers
wished to have all New England ploughed up and
made fit for farms. Suppose they had gone down
on their knees and asked God to do it? Not a furrow
would have been turned to-day, not a plough-share
forged or cast. A few weeks ago London men wanted
the Great Eastern ® launched. What if all the Eng-
lish clergy. Episcopal, Dissenters, had put up prayers
in the meeting-houses petitioning God to do this work,
and the Queen and Parliament had knelt down on their
knees in supplication, saying, — " Have mercy upon us,

420 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

0 Lord ! miserable offenders. There is no health in us.
We beseech thee to launch her, good Lord ! " They
might have pra3'ed till they were black in the face, the
vessel would not stir an inch. But they used the
natural means God gave them. The thinkers prayed
great scientific thoughts — they prayed steam-engines
and hydraulic-rams. The laborers prayed work —
they prayed with levers and windlasses, and coal-fire.
With sore toil the hydraulic-rams sweat through their
iron skin, twelve inches thick ; and the launch took
place. Mind gave his right arm to matter, and Miss
Leviathan, on her mamage day, coy, timid, reluctant,
walked with him to the water, and they became one.
Ere long they will take a whole town's population, a
wealth of merchandise, and swim the Atlantic together,
breast to breast, stroke after stroke, three thousand
miles in a week !

Prayer, the devout helpmeet of work, is tlie brave
man's encouragement when struggling after perfection.
But prayer as a substitute for work — not a wife, to
glad the toil and halve the rest, but a witch, to do by
magic miracle — that is blasphemy against the time
God — sterile and contemptible.

Ministers talk of a " revival of religion in answer
to prayer ! " It will no more come than the sub-
marine telegraph from Europe to America. It is the
effectual fervent zcork of a righteous man that availeth
much — his head-work and hand-work. Gossiping be-
fore God, tattling mere words, asking him to do my
duty, that is not prayer. I also believe in prayer
from the innermost of my heart, else must I renounce
my manhood and the Godhood above and about me.

1 also believe in prayer. It is the upspringing of my
soul to meet the Eternal, and thereby I seek to alter

THE REVIVAL V^E NEED 421

and improve myself, not Thee, O Thou Unchangeable,
who art perfect from the beginning. Then I
mingle my soul with the Infinite Presence. I am
ashamed of my wickedness, my cowardice, sloth, fear.
New strength comes into me of its own accord, as the
sunlight to these flowers which open their little cups.
Then I find that he that goeth forth even weeping, bear-
ing this precious seed of prayer, shall doubtless come
again rejoicing, and bring his sheaves with him!

This revival will not come all at once, as the light-
ning shineth from the east to the west, but as the
morning comes, little by little, so will it be welcomed
too. As that material day-spring from on high comes
grateful to grass and trees, to men and women, so will
this revival come upon our hearts, as natural conse-
quence of such prayer and manly toil — our toilsome
prayer, our prayerful toil. It will come as the agri-
culture of New England came — one little field made
ready this year, another next — the Indian corn grow-
ing triumphant amid the black stumps of the oaken
forest which the axe had hewn down and the fire had
swept away, the savage looking grimly on, no longer
meditating war, but yet wondering at the apples which
litter the ground with the ruddy loveliness of un-
wonted, unexpected health. It is coming already - the
peace-men, the temperance-men, anti-slavery men, edu-
cational men, the men of science, poetic men, the re-
form-men, men of commerce, manufacturers, agricul-
ture — every good man, every good woman — all these
are helps to it, each digging up and planting his little
plot of ground. Good ministers of all denominations
— Catholic, Protestant, Trinitarian, Unitarian, Metho-
dist, Baptist, Quaker, Universalist, Spiritualist —
there are thousands of them, are toiling after that

422 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

great end, even though they know it not. Many have
done something, some much — one man more than any.
His name is not honored in the churches — of course
not! Was Jesus, in the Temple.'' They cast him out
even from the s3"nagogue. There is a scholarly man
in New England gifted with such genius for literature
as no other American has ever shown. He has large
power of intuitive perception of the beautiful, the
true, the just, the good, the holy ; cultivated singularly
well, having the poetic power of pictured speech, not
less than the inward eye to see. His life is heroic as
a soldier's ; he never runs, nor hides, nor stoops, nor
stands aside to avoid the shot which hits tall marks ;
yet is no woman gentler than this unflinching man.
He was cradled in the church — it is good for a cradle,
not a college, shop, or house. He was bred in the
ministry, and sat at famous feet. The little town of
Concord is the center of his sphere ; its circumference
— that great circle lies far off", hid underneath the for-
eign horizon of future centuries.

I honor the Chauncys, the Mayhews, the Freemans,
the Buckminsters, the Channings,"^ who taught great
truths, and also lived full of nobleness ; I thank God
for their words, which come directl}^ or echoed, to
your heart and mine. They have gone to their re-
ward. But no living man has done so much as Emer-
son to waken this religion in the great Saxon heart
of the Americans and Britons. It is not doctrine he
teaches — his oAvn creed is not well defined ; it is the
inspiration of manliness that he imparts. He has
never beguiled a man or unsuspecting maid to join a
church, to underwrite another's creed, or comply with
an alien ritual. But his words and his life charm
earnest men with such natural religion as makes them,

THE REVIVAL WE NEED 423

of their own accord, to trust the Great Soul of all, and
refine themselves into noble, normal, individual life.
In six hours of so many recent weeks I think he has
done more to promote the revival of piety and moral-
ity in Boston, than all the noisy rant of Calvinistic
preaching, Calvinistic singing, and Calvinistic prayer
in the last six months.^

What an opportunity there is for you and me to
work in this true revival ! No nation offers a field so
fair. We can speak and listen, we can print and read,
with none to molest or make us afraid. More than all
that, we can live as high as we please. There is no
government, no church, to lay its iron hands on our
heads and say — " Stop there ! " Misguiding minis-
ters may believe in the damnation of babies newly born,
may pray curses on us all ; they cannot light a fagot
to burn a man : their spirit is willing, but their flesh
is weak ! It is a grand age and nation to live in and
work for.

The first thing that you and I want is to be re-
ligious in this sense — to know the Infinite God, who
is perfect power, perfect wisdom, perfect justice, per-
fect holiness, and perfect love. Knowing him, you
cannot fail to love with your understanding and your
heart, to love his world about us, within us, and all his
laws. The warmth and moisture of the ground, they
come out in the grass and in the trees, in the beauty
and the fragrance of these violets, in this rose which
" beside his sweetness, is a cure ;" and so your and my
piety must blossom in our service of God with every
limb of the body, every faculty of the spirit — the
normal use of every power and opportunity we have,
Sundays, ]Monda3's, all time.

Then daily work shall be a gospel, life our continual

4U THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

transfiguration to a nobler growth. We shall bless
our town, our nation, our age, our race. When we
die, we shall leave the world better because we have
lived, with more welfare now, fitter for progress here-
after. We shall bear awa}"^ with us the triumphant
result of every trial, every duty, every effort, every
tear, every prayer, every suffering, nay, of each long-
ing aspiration after excellence. And there and then
the motherly hand of God shall be reached out over us,
and we shall hear the blessed word — " Come, my be-
loved, thou hast been faithful over a few things ; I
will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou
into thy Mother's joy!"

XV

A BUMBLEBEE'S THOUGHTS

Many centuries ago, when the beings now known to
scientific men as radiata, mullusca, and vertebrata did
not exist on the earth, on the twenty-first day of June,
in the year one niilHon six hundred and seventeen be-
fore our era, there was a great scientific convention of
bumblebees (Apis bombax) in a httle comer of a valley
in the Jura mountains. I know not how the place is
now called, its latitude and longitude have not been
ascertained ; but then it was named Blumbloonia ; a
great town was it and a famous. I think this was not
the first convention of bumblebees, not the last ; cer-
tainly there must have been many before it, probably
also many after it, for such a spirit of investigation
could not have been got up of a sudden, nor could it
at once disappear and go down forever. Possibly such
scientific meetings went on in a progressive develop-
ment for many centuries. But, alas ! it is of this alone
that the records have come down to us ; none told the
tale of the others.

Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi: sad omnes illacrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique, longa
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro!

It is not quite easy to determine the affinity of the
bumblebee language used at that meeting; yet it seems
to have analogies with the Caucasian, with both the
Semitic and the Indo-Germanic branches thereof; nay,
some learned men have found or fancied a close re-

425

426 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

semblance to the dialect now in current use among
German philosophers and professors, especially those
of the Hegelian stripe. But I confess I have found the
bumblebee style a little clearer than that of the modem
professors. However, I must pass over all these philo-
logical questions, interesting and important as they
are.

The meeting was conducted after much the same
fashion as are congresses of the learned in these days.
There were four or five hundred members, who met
in general assembly, and had a celebrated bumblebee
for their president ; vice-presidents and secretaries
abounded. There were also sections devoted to special
departments of science — palfEontology, entomology,
zoology, physiology, geology, botany, astronomy,
mathematics pure and mixed ; nay, metaphysics were
not neglected. Every section had its appropriate of-
ficers. These savants had their entertainments not less
than their severe studies ; several excursions were made
to places remarkable for their beauty or their sublimity,
or for some rare phenomenon of animate or inanimate
nature. Rich persons, nobles, and even bumblebee
princesses and queens honored the convention, some-
times by the physical presence of their distinguished
personality, sometimes by inviting the naturalist to a
repast upon choice flowers or on honey of delicious
flavor already stored up for winter. Once the whole
assembly visited the palace of the bumblebee empress
— Bombacissima CXLVII. — and admired it as much
as if her subjects had not built it for this long de-
scended creature, but she had made it herself. She
conferred the order of the long sting on the president,
an honor never given to any bumblebee savant before !
Patriotic and scientific songs were sung at their din-

A BUMBLEBEE'S THOUGHTS 427

ners, and the bumblebees were as merry over their sim-
ple food as Homer's heroes have since been over their
beef, or as modern naturalists with their ice creams and
their wine. To their honor be it spoken, no savant
required to be helped to his place of sleep after dinner,
or was left unsupported and insupportable under the
table; but when night drew on they went each to his
several place of repose, in a pumpkin blossom — which
was the favorite resort — or under a leaf — or to some
other convenient shelter. Yet I am sorry to relate that
little jealousies and rivalries, heart-burnings, and the
disposition to steal another's discovery prevailed at
Bumbloonia in the year b. c. 1,000,617 nearly as much
as they have since done with the two-legged mammals
who now-a-days take their place.

On the last and great day of the meeting it was
announced that by special desire the president would
conclude the session with a brief speech on some matter
of great importance to the interests of all science. He
was the most distinguished savant in the world of bum-
blebees, old, famous alike for his original genius and
his acquired learning ; he was regarded as the sum of
actual knowledge, the incarnation of all science, the
future possible as well as the present actual. Besides,
he would wear the splendid decoration of the order of
the long sting — never seen in a scientific convention
before, and be addressed as " most magnificent drone,"
the title of the highest nobility, members of the im-
perial family ! His speech was waited for with obvi-
ous and yet decorous impatience. At the appointed
hour the sections broke up, though without confusion,
and the members crowded about him greedy of knowl-
edge; even to have heard might one day be a distinc-
tion. He was conducted to the tip of a mullein leaf

428 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

(Verbascum Thapso-Lychnitis), while his audience be-
low hummed and buzzed and clapped their wings and
their antennas with applause ; nay, some briskly snapped
their mandibles together with great and enthusiastic
admiration. After order was restored, the great phi-
losopher of the year b. c. 1,000,617 stretched out his
feelers, and thus began :

Illustrious audience ! It is the greatest honor of
my life, already oppressed with much more than I de-
serve, that in my old age I am allowed to preside over
this distinguished body, and still more myself to ad-
dress these assembled sections before we separate. For
what do I now behold.'' I see before me the congre-
gated talent, learning, and even genius of all the world.
Here are travelers who have skirted every zone ; geolo-
gists who understand the complicated structure of the
soil beneath our feet to the depth of nearly an inch ;
astronomers familiar with the entire heavens ; botanists,
zoologists, physiologists, chemists, who know all things
between the earth beneath and the heavens above ! phi-
lologists, understanding the origin and meaning, the
whence, the wherefore, and the whither of every word
in our wonderful language ; and perhaps more remark-
able than all else, here are metaphysicians that have
analyzed all the facts of consciousness or of uncon-
sciousness which are known or not known to the bumble-
bee. There was never such an assembly ! Old, op-
pressed with the importance of my position and its
solemn responsibilities, your presence overawes me! I
can scarcely control my own emotions of admiration
and esteem. [Great sensation.] Shall I proceed?
shall I be silent? But wherefore am I here? Is it not
to speak? I would fain listen, but obedient to your
command, I am compelled to the more ungrateful

A BUMBLEBEE'S THOUGHTS 429

course. What shall I touch upon? No subject would
be out of place in such an assembly, born to such di-
versity of talents and bread to such largeness of wis-
dom. But I ought to select a theme so deep and so
wide that it shall be attractive to all and worthy like-
wise of this august occasion. So, O ye bumblebees, I
shall deliver

A bumblebee's thoughts on the plan and purpose

OF THE UNIVERSE.

I separate the universe into two parts: the world of
matter, wherein organization and reflection are the
highest forms of activity ; and the world of mind,
where there are also life and thought. In the one the
antithesis is only between motion and rest, grov»^th
and decay, formation and decomposition ; in the other
it is between life and death, progress and regress,
truth and falsehood.

I. I thus dispose of the world of matter. There
are four primitive substances or elements out of which
all other things are made, earth, water, light, heat ;
these are made known to us by the senses. Some bum-
blebees have indeed suspected the existence of a fifth
element, to which they give the name of " air." But I
think its existence has never been proved, nor even
shown to be probable. From the nature of the bum-
blebee mind it is plain there can be but four primitive
and indivisible substances ; for this I might appeal
merely to the many distinguished metaphysicians I see
before me, and the question would be settled at once by
the a priori method. But I take another road, and
appeal only to common sense. I put the question ; did
any of you ever see the air, ever hear it, feel it, taste
it, smell it.f* None; no, not one! It lacks the evidence

430 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

of the senses, the only organs by which the bumble-
bee holds communion with the world of matter. I
know it is asked how can you then fly without " air "
to support 3'ou? I answer — we fly on our wings!
[Loud laughter and great applause.] Let " air " jus-
tify its existence, and I admit it ; not till then.

Now, gentlemen, these elements are not thrown to-
gether without order ; there is a certain ascending
ratio to be noticed among them. Thus at the bottom
of all is earth, the most gross, the most intractable of
all, yet the basis on which all things rest. I hold this
to be the oldest element, yet so imperfect is our knowl-
edge of nature, even now, that we are not yet sure of
the fact ! Next is water, pliant, movable, capable of
many forms, a step above earth. It is also the great
nursery of life. Third comes light ; and highest of all
is heat. This completes the handsome scale : earth is
at one end, visible, tangible, audible, palpable, odor-
izable, subject to any sense; heat is at the other, so
delicate in its nature that it is cognizable only by a
single sense. [Cheers.]

Of these four elements are all things compounded
— rocks, trees, the blossom of the clover we feed upon,
and that of the pumpkin Ave often sleep in ; nay, the
proud and. costly magnificence of the palaces we build,
and the delicious honey we therein store up for win-
ter's use ; even the curious fabric of our bodies — all
is but a combination of these four elements. And, I
repeat it, from the nature of things there can be no
more than four elements ; there can also be no less.
[Sensation.]

Surely there is a plan in these things. But are
they the end, the purpose of the universe ! The fur-
thest from it possible. The material world is not for

A BUMBLEBEE'S THOUGHTS 431

itself; it is but the basis on which another world
is to rest: they are provisional for something else, not
final for themselves ; they have no meaning, no con-
sciousness ; still less have they any self -consciousness.
Suppose the universe stopped with its material part,
with these four elements and their combinations; sup-
pose from some other and more perfect universe a
bumblebee, accomplished as the members of this honor-
able body, should arrive — what would he say to a
world of mere matter where motion, organization,
growth was the highest mode of activity? I think he
would at once leave it with disgust. [Cries of " Hear,
hear," and " Aye, aye."]

II. Let us next look at the world of mind. Here
is thought, consciousness, and in the highest depart-
ments self -consciousness — the mind that looks before
and after, that knows and knows itself, conscious of
its own processes of thought. The bumblebee lives,
feels, thinks, and wills. On the one side indeed he is
fettered by matter, and must touch the mass of the
elements of which his frame is made up ; but on the
other he is winged with mind ; there bound, here free.
Is the bumblebee matter.'' The furthest from it pos-
sible. He is mind; mind in itself, of itself, from
itself, for itself, and by itself.

Is there any order in this world of mind? At first
it would seem there was none, so various are the phe-
nomena of life, so divergent ; so free is the will, and so
manifold the forms of existence. Look at the animals
inferior to us, which crawl on every leaf, which flutter
in the light and heat of day, or which swarm in the
water. Classification appears impossible, for there
seems no order. But after long looking at the facts,
I think I can distinguish a certain method in this mys-

432 THE TRANSIENT AND PERINIANENT

terious world of life and mind. I know I am the first
bumblebee who has even ventured on so bold a gen-
eralization — pardon me if I seem over-confident in my
conviction, for I know that if I am in error here are
hundreds who can correct me: I have studied the prin-
ciple of construction in all departments of the world
of mind, and I find two great classes of living things,
the Protozoa and the Articulata. To the metaphysi-
cians it would be easy to show that there must be two
classes, and can be no more; for as it follows from the
laws of mind that there must be four elements, no less,
no more ; so from these same laws does it follow that
there can be but two classes of living beings. Yet I
do not wish to dwell on these high and difficult mat-
ters. Let us look at these classes themselves.

1. The Protozoa. Gentlemen, these little animals
are the beginning of the world of mind. Here is life ;
but, alas ! at first it Is but little elevated above mere
botanic growth ; I cannot tell where one begins and
the other ends. Yet the highest Protozoa Is Infinitely
superior to the highest plant — different in kind, not
merely In degree ; he has sensibility, has power of mo-
tion — In one word, he has mind. Such is the inef-
faceable difference between the two worlds.

I class the Protozoa Into three genera — the Grega-
rlna, the Rhizopoda, the Infusoria. I know savants
will differ from this division. I tremble while I an-
nounce It to those far abler than myself, yet I think It
will ultimately command the respect of all the scien-
tific bumblebees in the world. I need not dwell on the
peculiarities of each genus.

Now let me ask you, are the Protozoa the purpose
and final cause of the universe? Docs the world of
matter exist for them, and the world of mind.'' By no

A BUMBLEBEE'S THOUGHTS 433

means. Take the Gregarina: he has no definite and
determinate organs ; any part of him may perform the
function of any other part. They have no sex; they
multiply by division. What shall a bumblebee say to
a race of beings whose power of propagation consists
only in the ability to tear themselves to pieces? I
leave them behind me, and pass to the next grand di-
vision of the world of mind.

2. The Articulata. Here begins the true life of
mind, and here the difference between the two worlds
is most clearly seen. Yet the lowest Articulata are but
a little above the highest Protozoa ; it is a thread, not
a chasm, which separates the two — a thread loosely
drawn. I pass over the inferior genera of Articulata:
I come at once to the highest of all, the Bumblebee.

Gentlemen, consider our constitution. Look at our

body. What an admirable thorax, so barrel-shaped

and so strong. Consider the arch of the breast, of

the back ; it is the perfection of mechanic art. How

impenetrable is our armor to the terrible weapons of

our foes ; then, too, how beautiful is it all ! Look at

the abdomen, a congeries of rings well-fitted together.

How strong it is, and yet so flexible. In the lower

orders of Articulata the abdomen is long drawn out,

trailing on the ground a hideous sight. With us it

is compact, condensed to the smallest possible compass.

Gentlemen, I notice this in passing, that the grade of

elevation in the scale of being is always inversely as

the length of the abdomen. With us it is reduced to

the minimum, plainly intimating that we have attained

the maximum of mental grandeur! Think of these

legs — three on either side ; how strong they are, how

admirably divided into several parts, connected with

the most beautiful joints. Is there on earth a fairer
IV— 28

434 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

sight than the well-crooked leg of the bumblebee? No,
gentlemen, there is none; such is my judgment, not my
prejudice. [Continued cheering.] How nicely it is
fitted for walking on the plants which feed us ! Look,
then, at our feelers, at our mandibles, at our eyes, with
many facets. Consider the wings on which we fly
more freely than the water runs — for while that has
its definite course on every leaf, we turn and wander at
our own sweet will. How powerful is our sting. The
Protozoa has no limbs, but

" Every part can every part supply,"

while we have a definite and unalterable figure, which
is the resultant of strength and beauty. We have or-
gans for catching and holding, for walking and flying ;
we can therewith burrow in the ground, wherein we
build our wonderful habitations, which are the perfec-
tion of architecture. Armed front and rear, we can
defend ourselves against our foes with mandible and
sting. What organs of digestion are we furnished
with ! with what exquisite chemistry do we change the
crude juices of the plants into the most delicious honey.
Thus we feed on the most ethereal portion of the flow-
ers, which are the transcendental portion of the plants.
[Loud cheers.]

The Protozoa has no sex ; the bumblebee has three
— the male, the female, the neuter. We exhaust the
categories of sexuality ; the three are actual, a fourth
is not possible, not conceivable. How prolific we are!
Then, too, all grossness is removed from our connubial
activity ; it is not a hideous young bumblebee that is
born naked into the world ; but the produce of our love
in a little round delicate egg — in due time it develops

A BUMBLEBEE'S THOUGHTS 435

itself into a most lovely maggot, and finally is trans-
figured into the complete and perfect bumblebee !

2. How far more wonderful is the bumblebee mind.
What wonderful faculties of sensation, of reflection,
of imagination, of analysis and synthesis ! Alone of
all animals we reason from effect to cause, from cause
to effect. There is consciousness below us, I doubt not
— though dim and feeble. , But self-consciousness is
our glorious monopoly ! It is only the bumblebee that
can lay his feeler on his proboscis and say / am a me.
Even the slimiest worm lives, but we know that we live,
and say, " I think, and so I know I am." Oh glorious
attribute reserved for bumblebees ! We are the sole
possessors of science. To the inferior animals (I will
not call them creatures, for that implies a theory, while
I adhere only to the fixed facts of philosophy [immense
applause] ) ; to the inferior animals metaphysics are
unknown, they know, but do not know they know ; on
the widest heath there is no worm, nor bug, no philo-
sophic mite who ever thinks about his thinking ! There
is no logic in the crickets' senseless noise. Poetry alone
is ours, and in the sublime chants of our immortal bards
all nature is mirrored back again, and made more fair
by passing through the bumblebee consciousness.
[Tremendous applause.] But there is another depart-
ment of superior consciousness which is also peculiar
to us — it is a science and an art — I mean politics.
Our assemblies are not a brute congeries of life, like
the heaps of caterpillars, it is a well-policied state.
How majestic is the presence of our queen, her wisdom
how infinite. [Tremendous applause, long continued.]
I need not speak of the princesses so beautiful, as soon
as they break forth from the brittle shell that guards
their charmed life! [Renewed applause.]

436 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

What wonderful learning have we heaped up. Our
thought is the standard-measure of the world of things.
The great world of matter and of mind lies there out-
side of us — and we are a little world. No, gentlemen,
it is we that are the gi'eat world. Unconscious matter,
and mind not self-conscious, is only the microcosm, it
is the bumblebee consciousness that is the true macro-
cosm, the real great world. [Great sensation.]

But why seek to show the wonderful powers of our
intellect and our vast superiority over all external
things, when the proof of it is before me in the glori-
ous personalities who represent every excellence actual,
possible, or conceivable?

3. Look at the relation between us and the world
of matter. It seems to exist only for our use. Here
I will mention but a single fact, and from that you
can easily judge of all, for it is a crucial fact, a guide-
board instance, that indicates the road which nature
travels on. The red clover grows abundantly all over
the world ; in its deep cup there lies hid the most de-
licious honey, the nectar of the world. But that cup
is so deep no other insect can reach the sweet treasure
at the bottom ; even the common honey-bee, who stands
next below us in the scale of being, must pass it by —
longed for, but not touched ! Yet our proboscis is so
constructed that with ease we suck this exquisite pro-
vision which nature furnishes solely for us ! [Cheers
and applause.]

Now, gentlemen, it is plain that we are the crown
of the universe ; we stand on the top of the world, all
things are for us. I say it with calm deliberation,
and also with most emphatic certainty: the bumblebee
is the purpose of the universe! [Tremendous ap-
plause.] Yes, gentlemen, the plan of the universe in-

A BUMBLEBEE'S THOUGHTS 437

tends the bumblebee as its end and final cause. With-
out him the world would be as unmeaning as a flower
with no honey in its breast. As I look over the long
line of causes and effects which compose the universe ;
as I thence dissolve away the material part thereof,
and look at the idea, the meaning and ultimate pur-
pose, I see all things point to the bumblebee as the
perfection of finite being; I had almost said of all
being. He alone is the principal, the finality ; all else
is but provisional. He alone is his own excuse for
being ; his existence is the reason why he is here ; but
all other things are only that he may be, their excuse
for existence is only this — that they prepare for him,
provide for him, and shelter him. Some things do this
directly, some in a circuitous manner, but though they
serve other purposes, yet their end is to serve him.
For him is the world of matter and its four elements
with their manifold forces, static and dynamic too:
for him its curious combinations, which make up the
world of organization and vegetation: all is but mate-
rial basis for him !

For him, too, is the world of mind, with its two di-
visions of animated life, its Protozoa and its Articu-
lata. Here the lower orders are all subservient, ancil-
lary, not existing for their own sake, but only that
they may serve him. They are the slope on which he
climbs up to existence and enjoyment. The effort of
the universe has been to produce the bumblebee ! So
was it at the beginning, so has it ever been ; so is it
now, so must it ever be. Yet how many million years
before she could make real her own idea, and the high-
est possibility of mind became a settled fact — a bum-
blebee !

What a difference between us and the highest Infu-

438 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

soria ! The two seem hardly to belong to the same
world. How much vaster the odds between us and the
inorganic matter, the primeval atoms of the world.
Yet even from that to us there has been no leap ; the
continuity of being is never broken. Step by step
went on the mighty work. It seemed, indeed, to have
no meaning, there was only a chaos of organization
and decomposition, attraction and repulsion, growth
and decay, life and death, progress and regress. But
at length the end is reached, the idea shines through
the more material fact. One evening the sun went
down on a world without a meaning ; the next morning
it rose, and behold there were bumblebees ; the chaos
of transient night has become the kosmos of eternal
day! [Immense sensation, prolonged applause.]
Shall I say the bumblebee was created.? No, gentle-
men, that w^ere to adduce a mere theory. That he
came as the resultant of all the forces there or here-
tofore active in the universe.'' No more is this to be
allowed in such an assembly ! The bumblebee is mind,
mind in himself, for himself, of himself, by himself.
So he exists of his own accord, his being is his Avill, he
exists because he wills to be. Perhaps I might say
that all things anterior to him were but an efflux from
him. For w'ith a being so vast as the bumblebee's
the effect may well precede the cause, and the non-
existent bumblebee project out of himself all actual
existence! [Renewed applavise.]

Such, gentlemen, is the purpose of the world — the
bumblebee. Such is its plan — to prepare for, to pro-
vide for, to develop him. Here ends the function of
the all of things. The world of matter can no
further go : no more the world of mind ; there can be no
progress beyond us; no order of beings above us, dif-

A BUMBLEBEE'S THOUGHTS 439

ferent in their plan of structure. Look at the great
facts. There are but two divisions of the universe —
the world of matter and the world of mind. From
the nature of things there can be no more. So there
are and there can be only two orders of living beings,
the Protozoa, without permanent definiteness of form,
and without distinct organs ; and the Articulata, with
permanent organs and definite form. Here can be
no new animals with a different plan of structure. The
possibility of matter and of mind is exhausted in us.
I repeat it, gentlemen, though there may be more Pro-
tozoa, more Articulata, yet there can never be a new
form of animated being. The Articulata sums up and
finishes the world. The choice of being is complete in
us ; the last sublimation of matter, that is our body ;
the last elevation of mind, that is ourselves, our es-
sence. The next step would be the absolute, the in-
finite ; nay, who shall dare declare that we are not our-
selves the absolute, the infinite ! [Sensation.]

Gentlemen, do not think it irreverent in me to set
limits thus to the powers of the universe [Cries of " No !
no! "], for we are the standard of existence, the norm
of all being. Our measure was taken before the world
began ; all fits us, and corresponds to our stature. My
antenna is the unit-measure of all space, my thought
of all time. Nay, time and space are but conditions of
my body and my mind ; they have no existence inde-
pendent of us ! My eye controls the light, my tongue
is the standard of sweetness. The bumblebee con-
sciousness is at once the measure and the limit of all
that has been, is, or ever shall be. The possibilities
of mind and matter are exhausted in the universe and
its plan and its purpose on the bumblebee. [Great
sensation and applause.]

440 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

But, gentlemen, there is one faculty of our multi-
form consciousness I have not named as j'et, though I
think it the greatest of all ; I mean the power of criti-
cism, the act to praise, the act to reprehend. Let me
apply this highest faculty of the bumblebee to the
universe itself , for that is the proper object of our criti-
cism. For a Protozoa to criticise the universe it were
ridiculous ; so would it be for a light-winged butterfly,
for a grasshopper, for a cricket, or even the largest
beetle. But for us, gentlemen, the universe lies below
the level of the bumblebee consciousness ; we look down
thereon, and pass judgment. I will make some criti-
cisms on the universe, and also on some of its parts.

Do not think me presumptuous in standing forth as
the representative of bumblebeedom in this matter. I
have peculiar advantages. I have attained great and
almost unexampled age. I have buzzed four summers ;
I have dozed as many winters through ; the number of
my years equals that of my legs and antenna? on one
side, and still my eye is not dim nor my natural vigor
abated. This fact gives me an advantage over all
our short-lived race. My time has been devoted to
science, " all summer in the field, all winter in my cell "
— this has been my motto all my life. I have traveled
wide, and seen the entire world. Starting from this,
my ancestral spot, I made expeditions east, west, north,
and south. I traveled four entire days in each direc-
tion, stopped only at the limits of the world. I have
been up to the top of the highest fir-tree (abies pecti-
nata), yes, have flown over it, and touched the sky. I
have been deeper down in the earth than any bumble-
bee, ten times my own length, — it makes me shudder
to think of it, and then I touched the bottom of the
monstrous world. I have lived in familiarity with all

A BUMBLEBEE'S THOUGHTS 441

the philosophers now on earth, and have gathered all
that time has left of the great thinkers before me. I
am well acquainted with the summits of bumblebee con-
sciousness in times past and present. If any bumble-
bee may criticise, surely I am that one. And if I am
judge of anything it is of the universe itself, for I
have studied it all my life ; if I know anything, or can
know anything, it is the all of things — the world of
matter and the world of mind; this then is my judg-
ment. [Sensation.]

Of the universe in general — the all of things con-
sidered as a whole — I say I like it, and give it my
emphatic approval. I admire its plan, I comprehend
its wisdom, and rejoice in it — it is kindred to our
own. So much for the whole universe — its plan is
good, its purpose excellent, and realized in us. How-
ever, it is not so large as we have commonly supposed,
nor so wonderful ! But, gentlemen, when I come to
speak of its parts, I confess I have my reserves ; I
cannot approve of all things in it — hear me in some
details.

I like the nature and constitution of the bumblebee,
it is admirable, all strength. I give it my entire ap-
proval, nothing is to be added there, — infancy, how
fair it is ! the egg, the maggot that beautifully crawls
out thence into the purple light of day ! How noble
its maturity ! such strength in the neuters, such activ-
ity in the females, such laziness in the drones ! Here
comes old age, " the years that bring the philosophic
mind ! " Gentlemen, the old bumblebee is the hand-
somest thing in the world ! I find no fault with our
nature. But there are defects in our relation to the
material world.

1. Too much time was consumed in preparing for

442 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

our race. Why not accomplish it at once, or in a sliort
space, instead of waiting all that tedious delay of the
long periods indicated by the great convulsions of ge-
ology? Certainly there was a fault somewhere. Is
it in the pause of thought or of execution ! Alas, I
know not. Was it perhaps that the production of the
bumblebee taxed the universe to the utmost, and what
she gained in power she must needs lose in time? It
may be so. Still I repeat it, there was a weakness, a
fault somewhere. The bumblebee might have existed
twenty milhon years before he did, and all that time
was lost!

2. I find fault, also with the proportion of the sea-
sons ; the summers are too short, the winters arc too long
and cold. The first frosts come too early and too
abruptly. Do we not feel it so, especially when we
arrive at our best years — a ripe old age.

3. The trees are too tall, such, I mean, as bear the
most valuable flowers, like the elm, the maple, the lin-
den, and the honey-locust. Why must the bumblebee
fly for his daily food to such an exceeding height?

4. The conditions of life are too difficult. Why
does not honey run all day in any place, or fall each
night like dew? Why must we build our houses, and
not find them built? Why wage inevitable war with
mandibles and stings against unequal foes? Why
does the moth, insensible to stings, devour the honey
we lay up, and lodge with every comb we make? Why
is so much of our time consumed in these mean evils,
which are only for this vile body ; and why is there so
little left for science and for criticism of the uni-
verse?

Yes, gentlemen, I confess it. This Is a hard world
to live in! 'Tis needlessly hard! This fact gives a
melancholy tinge to all our literature !

A BUMBLEBEE'S THOUGHTS 443

5. Our life is too short ; commonly its years do not
exceed the number of legs on one side of our body ;
now and then it is lengthened by a simple antenna more.
It should last as many years as there are legs and feel-
ers on both sides. Then were our life decent and re-
spectable.

Such, gentlemen, is the universe, such its parts, such
its purpose and its plan. Such also its defects; and
such the proud pre-eminence of the bumblebee, who not
only is its crown and its completion, but can enjoy and
comprehend it all; nay, can look beyond and see its
faults, and find a serene but melancholy pleasure in
thinking that it might be better made ! Shall we com-
plain of our lot, at the head of each department of na-
ture, master of two worlds? It were unworthy of the
bumblebee. Let us be proud, because we are so great,
and so be greater that we are so proud. Of this, dear
friends, be sure. No order of beings can ever come su-
perior to us, formed after a different structural plan ;
we are, and we shall ever be, the end of the universe,
its final cause ; all things are made for us alone.

Gentlemen, I shall not long hold out; the frost of
death will soon stiffen even my stalwart limbs. You
will forget me for some greater one, and I shall not
complain ; as I succeeded so shall I be succeeded. But
this shall be my last and greatest wish — may the race
of philosophic bumblebees continue for ever ; their criti-
cism of the universe, may it never cease.

With great applause the assembly welcomed these
words ; there was a prodigious humming, buzzing, clap-
ping of legs and feelers and mandibles, and rustling of
wings, then they flew to a clump of clover, and fed their
fill, then went to sleep, and the next day went home.

NOTES

NOTES

I

TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY

When Theodore Parker preached this sermon he was
a country minister unknown to the general pubhc. It
became at once the subject of controversy, and gave
him a wider hearing. It was pubHshed soon after its
delivery, with the following title-page: A Discourse
on the Transient and Permanent in Christianity ;
Preached at the ordination of INlr. Charles C. Shack-
ford, In the Hawes Place Church in Boston, May 19,
1841. By Theodore Parker, Minister of the Second
Church in Roxbury. Boston, printed by the Author,
1841. It was introduced to the public by the following

PREFACE

This Discourse is now printed in consequence of
some incorrect rumors and printed statements respect-
ing its contents. I have made a few verbal alterations,
changed the order of a few sentences, omitted here and
there a few words which were only repetitions of former
sentences, and added a few paragraphs, which, though
written in the manuscript, were necessarily omitted in
consequence of the length of the discourse. But I have
changed nothing in the substance or doctrine, and have
made the alterations only to set the doctrines in a
clearer and stronger light. The diffuse and somewhat
rhetorical style, though less adapted to reading than
hearing, I could not change without exciting a sus-
picion of falseness. With the above exceptions, the
discourse is printed just as it was delivered.

It is not necessary I should remark upon the article
relating to this discourse, signed by several clergymen,

447

448 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

and so industriously circulated by the religious jour-
nals. The tiling speaks for itself. Others, likewise,
I find, have lifted up their heel against this discourse,
or the i*umor of it. I was not so vain as to expect my
humble attempts to make a distinction between religion
and theology, or to deliver Christianity from heathen
and Jewish notions, would be either accepted or under-
stood by all ; nor yet am I so young as to be surprised
at the cry of " Infidel and Blasphemer," M-hich has been
successively raised against nearly all defenders of the
religion of Jesus, from Origen to Ralph Cudworth.
West Roxbury, June 17, 1841.

A slip of errata was printed and pasted into some
of the copies of this first edition, which also gives a
passage inadvertently omitted in copying the sermon
for the press. This edition was an 8vo of 48 pages.
A second edition was soon called for, which was reset
with smaller type, pages 31 to 39 being devoted to a
complete list of the changes made in preparing the first
edition. Parker prefixed the following :

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The first edition of this discourse was exhausted in
a few days, and I have thought proper to reprint it,
I have added an appendix, which contains the " vari-
ous readings " collected from a comparison of the
printed discourse with the manuscript sermon as it
was preached at South Boston. The reader may thus
see the discourse just as it was delivered.

West Roxbury, July 6th, 1841.

Such was the interest in this sermon, that a third
edition was issued in 1841 by B. H. Greene and E. P.
Pcabody', from the same type as the second edition.
It appeared with this

NOTES 449

publisher's preface.

The demand for this sermon still continuing in the
community, we have taken leave from Mr. Parker to
print a third edition. On mature deliberation we have
concluded, with his concurrence, not to republish the
Appendix of the second edition. One reason is, that
it not only is unsightly, but unnecessary ; an examina-
tion of it showing that the " various readings '* do not
change even a shade of thought. The corrections, it
is obvious, are, as Mr. Parker deemed them, merely
verbal ; such as any scholar would unavoidably make
in copying manuscript for the press. Seven hundred
and fifty of that edition are now in the community, and
this is sufficient for the curiosity of the captious.

We requested Mr. Parker to write a preface to this
edition ; but he replied that as no argument had been
adduced against any idea he had advanced, he had
nothing to say in addition to the discourse, beside the
first preface.

B. H. G.
E. P. P.

Succeeding these three pamphlet 8vo editions of this
sermon, which appeared in 1841, it was republished in
" The Critical and Miscellaneous Writings of Theodore
Parker," which appeared in 1843. It was included
by Miss Cobbe in the eighth volume of her edition, en-
titled " Miscellaneous Discourses."

A very lively controversy followed the delivery of
this sermon. Full accounts of the attacks upon
Parker and his defense, with much of the correspond-
ence, can be found in the standard biographies of
Parker. See Chadwick's Theodore Parker 96-104.
Frothingham's Theodore Parker, 152-159. Weiss*
Life, vol. 1, p. 169-172.

At a subsequent date, probably for the " Critical

450 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

and Miscellaneous Writings " of 1843, Parker brought
together many of the comments on his sermon, -with
the plan of including them in an appendix. This
purpose was abandoned, but the manuscript remains.

The correspondence published in the newspapers,
together with many of the editorial comments on the
controversy, were published in an 8vo. pamphlet of
64 pages bearing this title: The South-Boston
Unitarian Ordination. Boston, published by Saxton
& Pierce, 1841. Another product of the controversy
was a 40— page 8vo pamphlet with this title-page:
A Review of Mr. Parker's Discourse on the Transient
and Permanent in Christianity. By O. A. Brownson.
From the Boston Quarterly Review. Boston, Benjamin
H. Greene, 1841.

Charles Chauncy Shackford, at whose ordination
this sermon was preached, graduated at Harvard in
1835, but his name docs not appear as a student at
the Divinity School. After several years service over
the church in South Boston, he was settled over the
Unitarian church in Lynn. From there he went to
Cornell University, where he was professor of rhetoric
and literature. For a period he lived in Cambridge,
where he died in December, 1891. A volume of his
" Social and Literary Papers " was published in Bos-
ton, 1892.

II

THE RELATION OF JESUS TO HIS AGE

Tin's sermon was preached at the Thursday lecture,
in December, 1844, and was printed the following
month. The title-page was as follows: The Rela-
tion of Jesus to his Age and the Ages. A Sermon
preached at the Thursday Lecture, in Boston, De-
cember 26, 1844, by Theodore Parker, IMinistcr of
the Second Church in Roxbury. Boston, Charles C.

NOTES 451

Little and James Brown, MDCCCXLV. This pam-
phlet was an 8vo of 18 pages.

Parker had preached his South Boston sermon, his
teachings had been discussed by the Boston Associa-
tion of Ministers, of which he was a member, the
" Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion " had
been published, and he had become well known as a
man who had something to say worth hearing. The
scene at the delivery of this sermon has been vividly
described by O. B. Frothingham, in his Life of Parker,
213-215. See also Weiss' Life I, 248-251, and
Chadwick's Theodore Parker, 143, 144.

Ill

THE RELATION OF THE BIBLE TO THE SOUL

In date of composition this sermon was the earliest
written by Parker to appear in print, though in time
of publication it succeeded that on " The Divine Pres-
ence in Nature and the Soul," which appeared in the
first number of " The Dial." It was first preached at
West Roxbury, April 21, 1839, in the afternoon. It
M'as published in " The Western Messenger," Louis-
ville, Ky., then edited by James Freeman Clarke, for
December, 1840, and January, 1841. It has never
before been reprinted.

IV

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST

This sermon was first preached at West Roxbury,
June 28, 1840, in the afternoon, and a week later at
Dedham. It was also preached in Boston and Salem
three or four times in the succeeding months. It was
printed in the second number of " The Dial," October,
1840. It bore the title, " A Lesson for the Day ; or.
The Christianity of Christ, of the Church, and of

452 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

Society." The text was from Revelations iii, 1. It
appeared as the first piece in the volume of " Critical
and Miscellaneous Writings," published in 1843; and
was included in Miss Cobbe's edition, volume nine,
" Critical Writings," volume one.

V

THE PHARISEES

This sermon was first preached for George Ripley
in the Purchase-street Church, Boston, in the forenoon
of January 24, 1841, and in the afternoon of the fol-
lowing Sunday at West Roxbury. It was printed in
" The Dial " for July, 1841 ; and again in the " Crit-
ical and INIiscellaneous Writings," 1843. It appeared
in Miss Cobbe's edition, ninth volume, " Critical Writ-
ings," volume one.

VI

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY

This sermon was preached for Rev. John Turner
Sargent, in the Suffolk-street Chapel in Boston, even-
ing of December 26, 1841. Parker's book of sermon
records docs not indicate that it was preached in West
Roxbury or on any other occasion than the one men-
tioned. On that day Parker preached moniing, af-
ternoon and evening for Mr. Sargent, who probably
occupied the West Roxbury pulpit. It was printed
in " The Dial " for January, 1842, and was reprinted
in " The Critical and Miscellaneous Writings," 1843.
Miss Gobbe included it in her ninth volume, " Critical
Writings," volume one.

The incidents of this exchange with Mr. Sargent
and its consequences are fully described in Weiss' Life
I, 253, and Frothingham's Theodore Parker, 212-
213.

NOTES 453

Mr. Sargent was a minister-at-large among the
poor in Boston, working under the direction of the
Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, a man of the high-
est character and large usefulness. At a later period
Mr. Sargent came into some degree of prominence in
connection with the Chestnut-street Club, which was
held at his house, and at that of Rev. C. A. Bartol.
See " Sketches and Reminiscences of the Radical Club
of Chestnut Street, Boston. Edited by Mrs. John T.
Sargent. Boston, James R. Osgood, 1880."

VII

THOUGHTS ON THEOLOGY

This review of Dorner's work on the " Person of
Christ" appeared in "The Dial" for April, 1842.
It was the concluding piece in " The Critical and Mis-
cellaneous Writings " of 1843. It appeared in Miss
Cobbe's ninth volume, " Critical Writings," volume
one.

Page 158, note 1. Victor Cousin, French educator
and eclectic philosopher, 1792—1867. He translated
Plato, edited Maine de Biran, Abelard, Proclus, and
Descartes, and lectured on philosophy. He published
'• Philosophical Fragments," " Lectures on the True,
and Beautiful, and the Good," " Course of Modem
Philosophy," and *' Justice and Charity." As pro-
fessor at the Sorbonne, and minister of public instruc-
tion, he had a wide-reaching influence on education,
as a popularizer of philosophy, and as a guide to the
higher phases of the national life. John Veitch gives
this estimate of his philosophy : " He has left no
distinctive principle of philosophy which is likely to
be permanent. But he has left very interesting psy-
chological analyses, and several new, just, and true
expositions of philosophical systems, especially that of
Locke and the philosophers of Scotland. He was at

454 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the same time a man of impressive power, of rare and
wide culture, and of lofty aims, — far above priestly
conception and Philistine narrowness. He was fa-
miliar with the broad lines of nearly every system of
philosophy, ancient and modem. His eclecticism was
the proof of a reverential sympathy with the stinig-
gles of human thought to attain to certainty in the
highest problems of speculation. It was eminently a
doctrine of comprehension and of toleration." It was
Cousin's tendency to idealism, and his breadth of sym-
pathy, which led Parker to admire him.

Page 160, note '2. Philosophy is here used in the
old sense as identical with science, and was usually
called natural philosophy.

Page 161, note S. Maternus Julius Firmicus was
a Latin writer of the fourth century. There may have
been two persons of this name or two persons con-
founded under the one name. An advocate of Sicily,
writing on mathematics and astrology, produced in
354 a book entitled Mathesas lihri VIII. This work
was not completed, but was mainly devoted to nativities,
influence of the stars on human destiny, and other as-
trological subjects. Neo-platonic in spirit, this work
was opposed to Christianity. It was published by
Aldus Minutius in 1501. About the same time was
written Essaribus Profanarum lieUgionum, dedicated
to Constantius and Constans, and now exists in manu-
script in the Vatican library. It Avas published in
Strasburg in 1562. It is a vigorous defense of Cln*is-
tianity against paganism. Tlie Avide divergences in
opinion between these two books, though they are both
attributed to Firmicus, have led critics to the conclu-
sion that they could not have been written by the same
person. It is evidently from the latter Avork that
Parker quotes.

Page 162, n^te ^. Antic^^ra was a town in Phocis,
on the Corinthian Gulf, noted in ancient Greece for

NOTES 455

the production of hellebore. On this account it was
frequented by those suffering from mental diseases.

Page 162, note 5. See the work referred to at the
end of this paragraph, and named in the foot-note.

Page 167, note 6. The first work to set forth the
mythical origin of the books of the Bible, or the nar-
ratives contained in them, was that of Herman Samuel
Reimarus, 1694-1768, some of whose writings were
published by Lessing in 1777 as the " Wolfenbiittel
Fragments." In these ideas Lessing shared to a
large extent. The New Testament was first dealt
with in this spirit by Friedrich Davis Strauss, 1808-
1874, in his " Life of Jesus," which was published
in 1834—5. His position was more fully defined in
his " Christliche Glaubenslehre," 1840-1. A sane and
able treatment of mythology in the Bible will be found
in Percy Gardner's " Exploratio Evangelica," the
chapters on " Idea and Myth," and " The Outgrowth
of Myth."

Page 173, note 7. This cannot be accepted as a
just estimate of Comte's philosophy. He was posi-
tivist, not a materialist. His ethical system empha-
sized humanitarianism, not selfishness. It is probable
Parker was not familiar with Comte's writings. He
dealt more liberally with Buckle, whose theories he did
not accept ; but estimated kindly, if critically.

Page 17 U, note 8. Francis Hare, 1671-1740, was
bishop of Chichester. He was chaplain to Queen
Anne, dean of Worcester, later of St. Paul's. He
wrote much, edited some of the classics, was in fre-
quent controversies, and was described as of " a sharp
and piercing wit, of great judgment and understand-
ing, and of a sour and crabbed disposition." He pub-
lished a tract in 1714 on the difficulties and discourage-
ments which attend the study of the Scriptures in the
way of private judgment, which wa^ censured by con-
vocation. It was understood to be ironical, and left

456 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

doubt as to whether he intended to defend Samuel
Clarke and Whiston or if he implied that their vaga-
ries made an appeal to authority necessary.

Page 175, note 9. Henry Brougham, 1778-1868,
was an English statesman, scientist, and man of letters.
He was Lord High Chancellor, a leader in Parliament,
and intimately connected with the passage of the
reform bill of 1832. A man of great popularity and
versatility, he wrote on many subjects, and was as
ready to expound theology as politics. His scholar-
ship was inaccurate, but his theology was sound, ac-
cording to the accepted standards. He edited Paley's
" Natural Theology," and accepted the opinions of
that work. It was this antiquated conception of the
world that provoked Parker's contempt.

Page 175, note 10. The " Bridgewater Treatises "
were originated by Rev. Francis Henry, eighth earl
of Bridgewater, 1758-1829. In his will he placed
£8000 at the disposal of the president of the Royal
Societ}', to be used for the writing and publication
of a treatise or treatises " on the power, wisdom, and
goodness of God, as manifested in the creation." Gil-
bert Davis, then president of the society, selected eight
persons, to each of whom he paid £1000 for a work
in conformity Avith the purposes of the legacy. These
works were published as " The Bridgewater Treatises,"
and attracted much attention. The first was pub-
lished in 1833, and the whole series was as follows: 1.
The Adaptation of External Nature to the INIoral and
Intellectual Condition of ]Man, by Rev. Thomas Chal-
mers, D.D. 2. The Adaptation of External Nature
to the Physical Condition of Man, by John Kidd,
M.D. 3. Astronomy and General Physics considered
with reference to Natural Theology, by Rev. William
Whewell, D.D. 4. The Hand, its Mechanism and
A^ital Endowments as evincing Design, b}' Sir Charles
Bell. 5. Animal and Vegetable Physiology considered

NOTES 457

with reference to Natural Theology, by Peter Mark
Roget. 6. Geology and Mineralogy considered with
reference to Natural Theology, by Rev, William Buck-
land, D.D. 7. The Habits and Instincts of Animals
with reference to Natural Theology, by Rev. William
Kirby. 8. Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function
of Digestion considered with reference to Natural The-
ology, by William Prout, M.D. These works followed
the teleological method of investigation, expanded the
conceptions of Palcy, but added little to the effective-
ness of his reasoning. They are almost wholly for-
gotten now, so largely, has modern science and evolu-
lution done away with the conclusions which they
reached. The dignity of great names added nothing
to Parker's admiration for these works, nor caused
him to hesitate in the rejection of their method, though
he followed it himself too often, to the undoing of his
conclusions.

Page 175, note 11. John Henry Newman began
"Tracts for the Times" in September, 1833, and
they were continued until 1841. They were pub-
lished in London by Rivington, and extended to five
volumes. They were issued, as the prospectus stated,
for the purpose of " contributing something towards
the practical revival of doctrines [such as apostolical
succession, holy Catholic church, confession] which,
although held by the great divines of our church
[Church of England], have become practically obso-
lete with the majority of our members." Newman
was aided by Keoble, Pusey, and other members of
Oxford University. Pusey wrote on " Scriptural
Views of Holy Baptism," " Holy Eucharist," and
kindred topics. The most famous of these tracts was
" No. 90," written by Newman. It was a plea for
Catholicism and for a larger acceptance of the church
as authoritative. It showed that NeAvman and Pusey
were moving towards the Roman Church ; and was

458 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

met witli a stomi of controversy and protest. These
tracts voiced the High Church movement in its earlier
phases ; and gave it formal expression, and intellectual
interpretation. This has been called the Oxford,
Tractarian, and High Church movement ; and it aimed
at a return to Catholicism in all things but the accept-
ance of the authorit}^ of the Pope.

Tage 178, note 12. George Campbell, 1719-1796,
English theologian and Biblical critic, was settled as
a clergyman at Aberdeen and elsewhere. In 1759 he
became principal of jNIarischal College in the Uni-
versity of that city, and in 1771 professor of theology.
His " Dissertation on Miracles " appeared in 1763,
and was followed by his " Principles of Rhetoric " in
1776. In 1778 was published his " New Translation
of the Gospels," with critical notes. The work to
which Parker refers is his " Lectures on Ecclesiastical
History," published after Campbell's death.

Page 179, note 13. Isaac August Dorricr, 1809-
1884;, one of the leading German theologians in the
nineteenth century, was professor of theology at sev-
eral German universities in succession, going to Ber-
lin in 1862. His most distinctive work was his " His-
tory of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person
of Christ," first published in 1839. He also wrote
a " History of Protestant Theology," 1867 ; " System
of Christian Doctrine," 1879; and " Svstem of Chris-
tian Ethics," 1885. He was strongly evangelical, and
vigorously opposed to rationalism.

Page 190, note 14- Since Parker's day this subject
has had extensive investigation in the works of Spen-
cer, Tylor, Lang, Frazer, and others. These schol-
ars find that religion was first expressed in animism,
then in totemism, ancestor-worship, and the deifica-
tion of the powers of nature. The veneration of an-
cestors leads to their deification and worship. This
is followed by that of living kings, heroes and otlier

NOTES 459

leaders, because they represent the ancestors or act
in place of the higher powers. In " Religions of Prim-
itive Peoples," Daniel G. Brinton says : " That when
the brute was at times invested with the aureole of
the divine, man himself should at times partake of
its glory, need be expected. But here let an important
distinction be drawn. Never as man was he clothed
in the attributes of deity, but just in so far as he
was deemed to be more than man. The Latin saying,
deus homini deus, never was true an3nvhere in its literal
sense. Anthropism never existed in any religion.
Man or the likeness of man was never worshipped by
reason of any human attribute, but solely for those
believed to be more than human, superhuman. The
tribes of Polynesia did adore their chieftains ; the an-
cient Egyptians and many another people did pay
their rulers divine honor, and rank them among the
gods ; but always because they considered them par-
takers of the divine nature, sharers in that which is
ever beyond humanity."

Page 197, note 15. The "Library of Useful
Knowledge " was published by the Society established
for the diffusion of L^seful Knowledge, London. Its
publications were Issued in parts, at 6d each. They
included Bacon's " Novum Organum," Bell's " Animal
Mechanics," Bushe's " British Husbandry," De Mor-
gan's " Calculus," ]M tiller's " History of Greek Litera-
ture," Vaughan's " England under the Stuarts," and
other similar works.

Page 198, note 16. Theologia Germanica, Deutsche
Theologia, German Theology, was written by a mystic
before the refonnation, associated with the Friends of
of God or Brethren of the Common Life, and prob-
ably more or less intimately associated with Tauler,
Suso, and Ruysbroek. William Ralph Inge, in his
" Christian Mysticism," says : " The little book called
German Theology, by an unknown author, belongs to

460 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the school of Eckhart. It is one of the most precious
treasures of devotional literature. In some wa3"s it is
superior to the famous treatise of a Kempis, ' On the
Imitation of Christ,' since the self-centered individu-
alism is less prominent. His teaching is closely in
accordance with that of Tauler. It is the crowning
achievement of Christian mysticism before the refor-
mation." Ullman, in his " Reformers before the Ref-
ormation," adds : " All that German mysticism had
hitherto, with the aid of fancy and poetry, produced,
and in simple and affecting diction made level to the
people, the unknown but profound author of the little
treatise, which bears the name of ' Deutsclic Theologia,'
at a somewhat advanced period, speculatively digested
in order to form, as a counterpart to scholasticism, and
more distinctly than had hitherto been done, a system
of sacred doctrines of his own, level to all capacities,
and based on good scriptural and logical grounds."
This book was edited and published by Luther in
1516.

VIII

THE EXCELLENCE OF GOODNESS

Parker preached this sermon at West Roxbury on
the morning of November 10, 1844: and for James
Freeman Clarke, at the Church of the Disciples, on
the morning of January 26, 1845. Owing to the dis-
cussion it awakened, it was at once published in a
16-page, large 12mo pamphlet, with the title: The
Excellence of Goodness. A Sermon preached in the
Church of the Disciples, in Boston, on Sunday, Jan-
uary 26, 1845. By Theodore Parker, Minister of
the Second Church in Roxbury. Published by re-
quest. Boston, Benjamin H. Greene, MDCCCXT.V.
It was included by Miss Cobbc in her ninth volume,
" Critical Writings," volume one.

NOTES 461

In his diary Parker wrote : " Jan. 17, 1845. Two
members of J. F. Clarke's Society came here this after-
noon to state to me that in the Church of the Disciples
there was a strong feeling about my exchanging with
their minister. They came with the kindest intentions
to notify me of the fact — to state, furthermore, that
some of the society would abandon the Church if I
came. But I think the principle in virtue of which
Clarke asked an exchange is true. I feel inclined to
live out this principle."

In his diary Clarke wrote: "January 26, 1845.
Black Sunday. T. Parker preached morning and
evening. I went to West Roxbury to preach." The
sermon preached by Parker in the evening was on
Christian Advancement, and has never been printed.

The incidents of this exchange are described in
Chadwick's Theodore Parker, 144, 145 and in Froth-
in gham's Theodore Parker, 215, 216.

IX

THE CHRISTIAN USE OF SUNDAY

An 8vo pamphlet of 51 pages, the sermon was
prefaced by the scripture readings from Exodus, Num-
bers, and Matthew. The title-page was as follows:
Some Thoughts of the Most Christian Use of the
Sunday : A Sennon preached at the Melodeon, on Sun-
day, Jan. 30th, by Theodore Parker, minister of the
xxviii Congregational Church in Boston ; and now pub-
lished by request. Boston, B. H. Greene, 124 Wash-
ington Street, 1848.

This sermon was reprinted in the " Speeches, Ad-
dresses, and Occasional Sermons of Theodore Parker,"
volume two, 1852. It was included by Miss Cobbe
in her third volume, " Discourses of Theology."

The occasion for this sermon was the agitation be-
gun in 1847 by William Llo^'d Garrison against the

462 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

excessive Sabbatarianism of the time, and the laws in
most of the states which punished those who did not
conform to a narrow interpretation of them. A call
was issued for an anti-Sabbath convention to meet in
Boston on March 23 and 24, 1848. In writincr to
Garrison under date of January 9, Parker said : " I
heartily subscribe my name to the call for the conven-
tion which you speak of. But I don't think I shall
be able to take any prominent part in the discussions
at that convention. Still, I will do what I can. Some-
times I have thought that hitherto, amid the fiercer
this-worldliness of New England, nothing but super-
stition would keep [the people] (in their present low
state) from perverting the Sunday 3'et worse by mak-
ing all their time devoted to INIammon. But there is
' a better time a-coming,' and God bless you in all
attempts to bring it now."

A large proportion of those interested in this move-
ment were anti-slavery workers, but others joined with
them. The convention was well attended, and its pro-
ceedings were fully reported in a pamphlet, as well as
in the newspapers. Parker made an extended speech,
largly reiterating the opinions expressed in the ser-
mon ; and this speech was printed in full in the
pamphlet. He offered a series of resolutions, but they
were rejected; and those presented by Garrison were
accepted. In his diary Parker made these entries in
regard to the sessions of the convention :

" March 23. The Anti-Sabbath convention assembled
to-day. It was a more respectable-looking body of
men than I expected to see together. INIr. Garrison's
call was read, and sounded well. His resolutions wore
thorough, but had some of the infelicities which have
always been distasteful to me.

" 24th. Garrison's resolutions passed. I voted
against some, for some, and was silent upon others.
My own lie on the table; for after so much objection

NOTES 463

was made to them by Lucretia Mott, Garrison, Foster,
and Pillsbury, I thought it not worth while to disturb
the convention with such matters."

Strange as it may seem, Parker's resolutions were
too conservative for the convention. His veneration
for the old sanctities of religion withheld him from the
extremest opinions on such a practical problem. They
were as follows:

" 1. That it is not our design to weaken the moral
considerations or arguments which lead Christians to
devote Sunday to worship, and efforts to promote their
growth in religion.

" 2. That we learn from history, from observation,
and all our experience, that the custom of devoting
one day in the week to the special work of spiritual
culture has produced very happy results.

" 3. That we desire to remove such obstacles as now
hinder men from the most Christian use of the first
day in the week.

" 4. That we consider the superstitious opinons re-
specting the origin of the institution of the Sunday,
as a day to be devoted to religious purposes, to form
the chief obstacle in the way of a yet more profitable
use of that day.

" 5. That we should lament to see the Sunday de-
voted to labor or to sport ; for, though we think all
days are equally holy, we yet consider that the custom
of devoting one day in the week mainly to spiritual
culture is still of great advantage to mankind.

" 6. That, as Christians and as men, we lament and
protest against all attempts of governments to tyran-
nize over the consciences of men."

Weiss says that Parker's speech was " remarkable
for its common-sense," and he gives this extract from
it:

" Men commonly think they are never clear of one
wrong till they have got the opposite wrong. So

464 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

the Puritans, disgusted with the frivoHty which they
saw in the Romish Church — disappointed at finding
in the Catholic Sunday, in its freedom and its frohc,
so Httle for the direct nurture of rehgion — went over
to the other extreme. That was a time of fanatical
reaction against old abuses. There is no great danger
of resisting a wrong too powerfully, but there is great
danger of going over to the opposite wrong, and
contending that that wrong is the right. I would not
commit the same fault that the Puritans did, and go
to the opposite extreme. If men are fanatical in their
notion of keeping the Sunday, I would not be a fanatic
and destroy it ; for, if men now are driven by the spirit
of reaction against the Puritanic idea of the Sunday,
and go to the opposite extreme, why, all the work must
be done over again till it is well done."

Page 231, note 1. " The sole and distinct issue
that we make is this [were the words of the call] : We
maintain that the seventh-day Sabbath was exclusively
Jewish in its origin and design ; that no holiness, in
any sense, attaches to the first day of the week, more
than to any other ; and that the attempt to compel the
observance of any day as * the Sabbath,' especially by
penal enactments, is unauthorized by Scripture or
reason, and a shameful act of imposture and tyranny.
We claim for ourselves, and for all mankind, the right
to worship God according to the dictates of our own
consciences. This right, inherent and inalienable, is
cloven down in the United States ; and we call upon
all who desire to preserve civil and religious liberty to
rally for its rescue."

Page 264, note S. In the first series of tracts of
the American Unitarian Association, no. 55, the Rev.
Samuel Barrett, of Boston, wrote of " The Apostle
Peter a Unitarian." " In a word, he seems," we are
told, " almost without exception, when making mention
of our Savior, to use language with that sort of cau'

NOTES 465

tion, which we might imagine an intelligent and thor-
ough Unitarian would employ, who was apprehensive
that his writings would some time be searched for Trin-
itarian proof-texts."

X

THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS

This article was printed in the " Massachusetts
Quarterly Review " for September, 1850. On the
front cover of this, the twelfth number, it was entitled :
" Different Christologies of the New Testament." The
article itself, the fifth in that number, was headed as
" Some Thoughts on the different opinions in the
New Testament relative to the Personality of Jesus."
It was included by INIiss Cobbe in her tenth volume,
" Critical Writings," second volume.

In a letter written to Samuel J. May, in November,
1846, Parker gives definite expression to his concep-
tion of Jesus. " I think Jesus was a perfect man —
perfect in morality and religion. A religious genius,
as Homer a poetical genius. I can't say there never
will be a greater man in morality and religion, though
I can conceive of none now. Who knows what is
possible for man? If Jesus had lived now, I think
he would have been greater; yes, if he had lived
to be forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years old — why
not.f^ I think him human, not superhuman — the man-
liest of men. I think him inspired directly, but not
miraculously ; not unnaturall}^, but naturally — in-
spired in proportion to his genius and his use thereof.
I think God is immanent in man ; yes, in men — most
in the gi*eatest, truest, best men. How much of the
excellence of Jesus came from organization, I don't
know. Artists are true to nature, it seems to me, and
give him an organization exquisitely human — noble,
intellectual, and heavenly. But I have seen no full

466 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

embodiment of the Christ in art — none of my Christ,
though enough of the Church's Christ. I doubt not,
that as men follow the laws of nature, we shall have
nobler forms, features, heads, and so nobler men. We
have loved force hitherto, and bred draught cattle —
men for war. ]\Iay we not one day have a man with
the philosophic genius of a Socrates, the poetic of a
Homer, the practical of a Napoleon, and the religious
of a Christ?"

XI

A TEACHER OF RELIGION

After the preaching of the sermon at the ordination
of Rev. Charles C. Shackford, in 1841, Parker was
not called to a similar service until 1855. Then he
preached at Barre, in the western part of Worcester
county, Massachusetts, the ordination sermon of ]Mar-
shall Gunnison Kemball. [The name is so spelled in
the " General Catalogue of the Divinity School of
Harvard University," 1898.] The sermon was at once
printed in an 8vo pamphlet of 56 pages, with the
title: A Discourse of the Function of a Teacher of
Religion in these times, preached at the ordination
of Moses G. Kimball as INIinister of the Free Cluirch
at Barre, Worcester County, ]\Iass., on Wednesday,
June 13, 1855. By Theodore Parker, Minister of
the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society in Boston.
Boston, Benjamin H. Greene, 1855. It was included
by Miss Cobbe in her third volume, " Discourses of
Theology."

Kemball was born at Warner, N. H., in 1826, grad-
uated at the Divinity School in 1854, and remained
at Barre until 1861. He was settled over Unitarian
churches at :Madison, Wis., 1866-1869; and Sheboy-
gan, Wis., 1870-1875. He then conducted a private
school at Sheboygan until 1882, when he became an

NOTES 467

examiner in the Pension Bureau, Washington, where
he died in 1904. His sympathy with Parker's theo-
logical beliefs is indicated in the fact that the charge
to the pastor was by John Pierpont, and the right
hand of fellowship by Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
In writing of Kemball and other young Unitarian
preachers who became " Parkerites," J. W. Chadwick
says, in his biography of Parker : " Parker's interest
was very great in those men who were imbued with his
liberal spirit and were engaged in religious enterprises
of more or less independent character. Upon his list,
' pretty good for a beginning,' he counted ' Johnson at
Lynn, Higginson at Worcester, Kemball at Barre,
Longfellow at Brooklyn, Frothingham at Jersey City,
May at Syracuse, Mayo at Albany, and William H.
Fish in Tompkins County [New York].'"

xn

FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY

The panic of 1857 gave incentive to the great
revival of 1857-58, and its excesses led to the preach-
ing of this sermon. It was reported in one of the
daily newspapers, this report was revised by Parker,
and it appeared in a 15-page, 8vo, pamphlet, with
this title-page: False and True Theology. A Sermon
delivered at the INIusic Hall, Boston, on Sunday, Feb-
ruary 14, 1858, by Theodore Parker, INIinister of the
Twenty-eighth Congregational Society. Revised by
the Author. Boston, William L. Kent and Co., 1858.
It was included by INIiss Cobbe in her third volume,
" Discourses of Theology."

In the " Life and Correspondence," John Weiss
describes some of the results which followed the preach-
ing of this discourse (vol. II, 249-252).

Page SlfS, note 1. These statements seem very anti-
quated in view of the evolutionary conceptions of the re-

468 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

lations of the animals to man. The descent theory
not only hypotheticall}^, but practicall}', indicates their
falsity. The view now generally accepted is clearly
stated by Principal C. Lloyd INIorgan, in " Habit and
Instinct," one of the best works on the subject. He
shows clearly that instinct is not infallible, that ani-
mals do make mistakes, and must profit by experience.
" We find," he says on page 131, " that they rapidly
improve in accuracy, and soon have all the appearance
of being under guidance and control, so that they
may be modified or checked according to the nature
of the object, nice or nasty, as the case may be. Now,
we may safely lay down this canon : that which is
outside experience can afford no data for the conscious
guidance of future behavior. . . . Hence we seem
forced to reject the hypothesis of unconscious auto-
matism on the grounds that the activities in question
do afford data to experience, can be modified, and are
therefore subject to voluntary control, by giving rise
to sensations and feelings which enter into the con-
scious life of the chick."

Page 34-3, note 2. Morgan shows that birds and
mammals, as well as lower animals, do constantly learn
by experience, and that there is formed among them
a body of tradition or socially transmitted results of
experience. " In such organisms and young mam-
mals," he says on page 136, " instincts are to be re-
garded as the automatic raw material which will be
shaped under the guidance of consciousness into what
may be called instinct-habits, if by this compound
term we may understand activities founded on a con-
genital instinctive basis, but modified by acquired
experience."

Page 352, note 3. Lawrence and Stone were prom-
inent commission merchants in Boston, and known to
all who heard Parker. The firm was afterwards Mason
and Lawrence.

NOTES 469

Page 353, note Jf.. A Congregational Council at
North Woburn refused to ordain a young man who did
not believe in eternal torments for the wicked. See
note in the volume of this edition of Parker's works,
entitled "The World of Matter and the Spirit of
Man."

Page 35Jf, note 5. Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach,
1804-1872, was a disciple of Hegel, and indirectly one
of the founders of modern socialism. He published
in 1841 " The Essence of Christianity," translated by
George Eliot ; and " The Essence of Religion," 1849.
In these works he interprets all religious beliefs as
subjective in their nature, having no corresponding
objective reality; in a word, as the expression of the
desires of man. God is nature as man feels and
relives it in his own emotional and intellectual life.
Christ is man's ideal of his own being. The work
on Christianity was widely translated and had a pow-
erful influence on some minds. Writing to Dr. John
Rouge, of London, in May, 1854, Parker said of
Feuerbach : " I am glad to find that you do not fol-
low the lead of Feuerbach or of his coadjutors. He
does a service, but it is purely the destruction of the
old, and then he roots up the wheat along with the
tares. There are some Germans who accept him as
their Coryphaeus — atheistic men whose creed is —
' There is no God, Feuerbach is his prophet ; a body
but no soul ; a here but no hereafter ; a world and no
God.' They are much to be pitied — for the super-
stition of the church, with despotism of the state, has
forced their noble natures into this sad conclusion."

Page 358, note 6. The Synod of Dort declared:
" That there is an election and reprobation of infants
no less than of adults we cannot deny in the face of
God, who hates unborn children." The Westminster
Confession says that infants not elected " cannot be
saved." Dr. William Twiss, of the Westminster As-

470 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

sembly, said that " many infants depart from this life
in original sin, and consequently are condemned to
eternal death." See " The Doom of the Majority of
Mankind," by Samuel J. Barrows, Boston, 1883. Mr.
Barrows does not quote the statement to which Parker
refers, but it is one that has been frequently referred
to as having been used in the early part of the nine-
teentli century.

Page 362, note 7. Frothingham gives an interest-
ing account of the beginnings of the Twenty-eighth
Congregational Society in Boston, that to which
Parker preached. " A commodious hall was obtained

— the Melodeon. It occupied the ground now cov-
ered by the Boston Theater [1873] ; and on Feb. 16

— a cold, wintry day, the air thick with bitter rain,
the streets full of snow — the ministry in Boston was
begun, with much misgiving on his part, W'ith san-
guine expectation on the part of his friends.

Mr. Parker's arrangement with his Boston friends
contemplated a Sunday-morning service at the INIelo-
dcon for a year; the pulpit at West Roxbury being
temporarily filled by substitutes, he still having his
residence there, and maintaining pastoral relations with
the people. The Boston preaching was regarded as
an experiment ; but it was so prosperous, that before
the year elapsed, a permanent settlement was decided
on and effected. On the 13th of December, 1845, an
invitation from the Boston Society to become their
minister was accepted. On the 3rd of January, 1846,
the position at West Roxbury was resigned in a tcn-
dcrly-wordcd letter, and the new relation taken up.
Signal success had attended the preaching at the
INJelodeon. The hall was filled every Sunday morning
with earnest listeners, humble people in the main, but
intelligent, eager, determined. They flocked together,
individual men and women, from the four corners of
tlie ecclesiastical world; some from the ' outer darkness '
of the world non-ecclesiastical."

NOTES 471

XIII

A REVIVAL OF RELIGION

Frothingham says in his " Life," that as a sign of
the times the revival of 1857-58 made Parker sad,
" and stirred up within him the theological zeal which
never had wholly slept, but which had temporarily
yielded to a more practical enthusiasm of humanity.
The two sermons, ' A False and True Revival of Re-
ligion,' and ' The Revival of Religion which we Need,'
showed the old fires still burning, their heat as fierce,
their splendor as awful, their beauty as fascinating as
ever, — fires of wrath, and flames of prophecy, at once
angering some, and kindling others with hope."

The first of these sermons was an 8vo, 12-page
pamphlet, without cover, as was the case with all
three of these revival sermons, as printed for popular
circulation. The title-page took this form: A False
and True Revival of Religion. A Sermon, delivered
at Music Hall, Boston, on Sunday, April 4, 1858,
by Theodore Parker. Phonographically reported by
James M. W. Yerrington. Boston, published by Wil-
liam L. Kent & Co., 1858. On page 2 appeared this
announcement:

" Note from the Publisher. — Mr. Parker stated
previous to his discourse that the subject under con-
sideration would be treated in two sermons. The first
(the present) on A False Revival, and the second on
A True Revival. The second discourse, which is im-
mediately connected with the present, will be pub-
hshed on Tuesday, April 13th."

In a letter of April 24, to the Hon. John P. Hale,
Parker wrote of the popular demand for these ser-
mons : " I am glad you like my revival sermons. They
sold 10,000 in ten days, and the demand still con-
tinues. They were stereotyped in forty-eight hours

472 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

after they were preached ; but they struck off 5000
copies before they stopped the press to stereotype the
matter. I have another I will send you in a day or
two, preached two months ago."

Page 375, note 1. This refers to the utterances
at a prayer-meeting in Park Street Church, where the
Almighty was beseeched to silence Parker. One ortho-
dox preacher said in a sermon : " Hell never vomited
forth a more wicked and blasphemous monster than
Theodore Parker; and it is only the mercies of Jesus
Christ which have kept him from eternal damnation al-
ready." On the other hand, John Weiss justly says
of these sermons, that " they are an answer to prayer
worth considering. They overflow with the health of
unsparing criticism, pure morality, and tender devout-
ness. They are filled full with the elements which
promote a revival of conscience and piety in the hearts
of men, fertile as the

" — happy lands that have luxurious names."

Their offense was in their absolute, unvarnished truth-
telling concerning the condition of the church and the
country. Their picture of the beautiful purification
of America, which a true revival would promote, has
the crushing satire of common-sense, unstintedly
spoken, to show what hideous evils arc never touched
and cured by the agitation of evangelical sentiment."
Page 38i, note '2. In his " History of the Amer-
ican People," Woodrow Wilson says of the financial
crisis of 1857 what may be regarded as a very mod-
erate estimate of the situation, vol. 4, page 174:
" Widespread financial distress clouded the winter fol-
lowing the presidential election [of 1856], and filled
all the year 1857 with its deep disquietude, now sharp
and touched with panic, now a slow, dull lethargy in
which merchants and manufacturers and transportation
companies and bankers merely waited and did not hope.

NOTES 473

The sudden growth of enterprise and commerce which
had followed the rapid extension of railways and the
establishment of steam navigation upon the seas, to
which the discovery of gold in California had given
added stimulation, and which every item of the steady
growth of industry and of the nation itself had assisted
to keep in heart these ten years, had inevitably bred
mere speculation, tempted men to unsound ventures,
added excitement to confidence, hairbrained scheming
to the sober making of plans, and credit had at last
been overstrained and wrecked by dishonesty, miscalcu-
lation, and flat failure."

Page 385, note 3. The presidential election of 1856
was influenced by the state elections held in August,
then a dozen in number. Especially influential were
those of October, in which Ohio went Republican, but
Indiana and Pennsylvania Democratic. In November,
at the national election, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
Indiana, and Illinois cast their votes for the candidate
of the Democratic party, thus assuring the election of
Buchanan. Schouler says, in his " History of the
United States," vol. 5, page 357, that " Pennsylvania
alone would have reversed the national result against
the united phalanx of the solid south."

Page 385, note J4.. Oak Hall was a building in the
old business district of Boston for many years devoted
to the sale of clothing. As a clothing-house it was
famous for more than a quarter of a century after
this sermon was preached.

XIV

THE REVIVAL WE NEED

On the Sunday following the delivery of the pre-
ceding sermon Parker continued the subject with the
present one, which was immediately printed with the
following title-page: The Revival of Religion which

474 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

we Need. A Sermon delivered at Music Hall, Boston,
on Sunday, April 11, 1858, by Theodore Parker, Min-
ister of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society.
Phonograpliically reported by James M. W. Yerring-
ton. Boston, published by W. L. Kent & Co., 1858.
It was included by JNliss Cobbe in her third volume,
" Discourses of Theology."

Page 398, note 1. In 1858 Mormonism was at the
height of its aggressiveness, defying the United States
army in Utah, turning out governors and judges, re-
fusing to recognize the national government in any
form, and inciting to the Mountain Meadow massacre.
Moreover, it was growing rapidly in the number of
its adherents, not only in Utah, but in many parts of
the world. The best book on the subject is that by
J. W. Riley, " The Founder of Mormonism," New
York, 1902. An able work in defense of Mormonism
is that by N. L. Nelson, " Scientific Aspects of Mor-
monism," New York, 1904).

Page 398, note 2. August 8, 1857, Parker wrote
to Prof. Edward Desor, of Neuchatel : " Spiritualism
is doing two good things. 1. It knocks the nonsense
of the popular theology to pieces, and so docs us a
negative service. 2. It leads cold, hard, materialistic
men to a recognition of what is really spiritual in their
nature, and so docs a positive good. But there is a
world of humbug, nonsense, and fraud mixed up with
it." At about the same time he preached a sermon
on the subject, reported in the newspapers, in which
he took the same positions.

Page 399, note 3. During the ten years succeeding
the war with Mexico frequent attempts were made to
annex Cuba, and other countries to the south, to the
territory of the United States. These attempts grew
out of the desire of the southern states to increase the
area of slave-holding states.

Page UOO, note J^. Minnesota was admitted into the

NOTES 475

Union of states by act of Congress passed May 4,
1858, under a constitution accepted by the people of
that territory, in October, 1857.

Page Itl8, note 5. This statement, as well as many
others in Parker's sermons, indicate that he was
friendly to the idea of industrial co-operation, perhaps
both productive and distributive. He did not join
Brook Farm, and was not actively connected with the
Associationist movement of that period ; but essen-
tially he shared in these attempts at social reforma-
tion. Writing in his journal, about 1840, he said:
" I have lived long enough to see the shams of things,
and to look them fairly in the face. 1. The state is
a bundle of shams. It is based on force, not love.
It is still feudal. A Christian state is an anomaly,
like a square circle. Our laws degrade, at the begin-
ning, one-half of the human race, and sacrifice them
to the other and perhaps worse half. Our prisons
are institutions that make more criminals than they
mend ; seventeen-twentieths of crimes are against prop-
erty, which shows that something is wrong in the state
of property. Society causes crime, and then hangs
the criminals. 2. The church is still worse. It is a
colossal lie. It is based on the letter of the Bible and
the notion of its plenary inspiration." Again, in
writing of a book which had proposed communism, he
said:

" Property must show why it shall not be abated.
Labor must show why it should exempt so many from
its burdens, and crush others therewith. It is, no
doubt, a good thing that I should read the Greek
Anthology, and cultivate myself in my leisure, as a
musk-melon ripens in the sun ; but why should I be the
only one of the thousand who has this chance.? True,
I have won it dearly, laboriously, but others of better
ability with less hardihood fail in the attempt, and
serve me with the body. It makes me groan to look

476 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

into the evils of society ; when will there be an end ? I
thank God I am not born to set the matter right. I
scarce dare attempt a reform of theology, but I shall
be in for the whole, and must condemn the state and
society no less than the church. These property no-
tions agree not with my own. Yet, certainly the pres-
ent property scheme invokes awful evils upon society,
rich no less than poor. The question, first, of in-
herited property, and next, of all private property,
is to be handled in this century. Can one man serve
another for wages without being degraded? Yes, but
not in all relations. I have no moral right to use the
service of another, provided it degrades him in my
sight, in that of his fellows, or himself."

Page U19, note 6. The first great ocean steamer
was building at this time, and met with various dis-
asters in the launching.

Page Jf22, note 7. These were among the early and
leading ministers of Boston who became known as
Unitarians.

Page Jf23, note 8. In a letter written in December,
1857, Parker comments on his contemporaries, and
estimates that their fame will be enduring in propor-
tion as they have been devoted to conscience and hu-
manity. *' Prescott has changed no man's opinion."
" Webster has connected himself with nothing except
hunkerism." Then he says : " The triumph of Emer-
son, who has a more glorious history than any
American of this generation ! . . . Emerson has
touched the deepest strings on the human harp, and,
ten centuries after he is immortal, will wake music
which he first waked." See Frothingham's " Life,"
page 441.

NOTES 477

XV

A BUMBLEBEE'S THOUGHTS

Edward Desor, a Swiss naturalist of Neuchatel, and
a professor in the college there, spent five years in
Boston in the early 50's. Parker found in him an
intimate friend and confidant, and one from whom he
received the most valuable aid in regard to all scien-
tific subjects. On Desor's return to Europe Parker
wrote : " It is pleasant to remember that we, at least,
have always appreciated him ; and nothing has ever
occurred, in nearly five years' acquaintance and four
years of intimate friendship, to cause the least regret.
He has always been on the humane side, always on the
just side. His love of truth, and sober industry, his
intuitive perception of the relations of things, his
quick sight for comprehensive generalizations, have
made me respect him a good deal. His character has
made me love him very much. There is no man that I
should miss so much of all my acquaintance."

Desor's biography was written by Prof. Carl Vogt,
under the title, " Edward Desor : Lebensbild eines
Naturforschers." It was published as number 24 of
" Deutsche Bucherei," by S. Schottlaender, Breslau.
The following is a brief outline of this biography.
Desor was born February, 1811, near Homburg, the
son of an old Huguenot family from the south of
France. He studied law at Heidelberg, and then went
to Paris, where he translated Carl Ritter's Geography.
Then he went to Switzerland, where he taught French
to the younger members of the Vogt family. After
a year he became the secretary of Agassiz at Neu-
chatel. In August, 1839, he was joined by Carl
Vogt, who became Agassiz's assistant. Another of
this group was A. Gressly. For five years they aided
Agassiz in preparing his work on fossil fishes, in ex-

478 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

ploring glaciers, and in other geological investigations.
After Agassiz came to America, Desor studied glaciers
in Norway and Sweden, and then followed him. They
soon separated, however, for Desor was strongly anti-
slavery, while Agassiz was friendly to conditions in
the south. Desor became a member of the commission
for the geological survey of the United States. In
1852 he returned to Switzerland at the solicitation of
a brother, who soon after died, and left him with an
ample fortune. He became a professor in Neuchatel,
entered into politics, but without success, and died Feb-
ruary 23, 1882. He published several pamphlets on
geological and other scientific subjects. His chief
works were " Excursions et sejours dans les glaciers et
les hautes regions des Alpes de ]M. Agassiz et de ses
compagnons de voyage," Neuchatel, 1844!. " Syn-
opsis des echinides fossiles," Paris, 1858. " Nouvelles
excursions," Neuchatel, 1879. " La Foret vierge et
le Sahara," Paris, 1879.

In Frothingham's " Biography " are published many
of Parker's letters to Desor, as well as several from
Desor to Mrs. Parker after the death of Parker, all
showing the high esteem in which the Boston preacher
was held by his scientific friend. In the " Life and
Correspondence," John Weiss gives a detailed account
of a visit to Desor Avhich Parker made in the summer
of 1859. Desor is described as a man of property,
who spent his summers in La Sagne valley of the Jura
mountains. At Combe- Varin he owned a chalet which
had once been a hunting lodge. Here he entertained
his friends, and he usually had about him a dozen
scientific men. Parker was his guest there, and found
ncAv promise of health in the mountains. He wandered
about the valley and in the woods, used an axe vigor-
ously, and found delight in the company of the other
guests.

One of the results of this summer was a book which

NOTES 479

hore this title-page: Album von Combe- Varin. Zur
Erinnerung an Theodor Parker und Hans Lorenz
Kiichler. Mit fiinf lithographischen Tafeln. Zurich,
Schabelitz'sche Buchhandlung, 1861. It was edited by
Mayer von Esslingen. At the end of this volume, oc-
cupying pages 309—331, is an " Esquiesse de la vie de
Theodore Parker, par E. Desor." Among the con-
tributors to the album were Dr. Jacob Moleschott, of
Heidelberg, the famous physiologist ; Dr. Ch. Martins ;
Dr. C. F. Schonbein, of Bale, the inventor of gun-cot-
ton and the discoverer of ozone ; Herr A. Gressly, and
Herr Jacob Venedy, a German advocate, and a fre-
quent exile for his liberal political and religious opin-
ions.

In his sketch of Parker, contained in this volume,
Desor says of his summer at Combe- Varin :

" It is evident that the presence of a man like Mr.
Parker, under such conditions, in the society of per-
sons devoted to the cultivation of intellectual things,
was both a stimulant and a benefit. The greatest
liberty for everybody being the rule at Combe-Varin,
they never met, except at meals. In the intervals,
each one followed his inclination, some to look for
flowers, for fruits, for lichens, for fossils, while others
went into the woods to read. In the evening, after
tea, or during the day, if the weather was unfavorable,
they met around the table of the chalet, to discuss
some question of general interest. Mr. Parker was of
all the most animated, and such was his desire for
information that he easily obtained from all the guests
communications upon the subjects most familiar to
each. Sometimes we had well-meditated dissertations,
and the articles which compose this volume, will show,
I hope, that they were not devoid of interest and
scientific value.

" It was natural that one whose mind embraced a
wide range of studies, and Avho was at the same time a

480 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

master in the art of expressing his ideas, should fur-
nish his contingent to these recreations. We had, in-
deed, the good fortune to receive many communications
from our deceased friend, mostly upon serious subjects,
religious, philosophical, such as may be found in his
works, or possibly in inedited fragments. Sometimes,
also, subjects less grave were the order of the day.
Though the society was composed in "good part of pro-
fessors and men of letters, there was no concealment
of the imperfection of methods, nor of the whims and
weaknesses of the priests of science. Mr. Parker had,
more than any other man, a sure eye and a practised
judgment when it came to an estimate of the real value
of men and things. Simple in his mental habit, as in
his ph^'sical traits, he specially detested all far-fetched
theories, and doctrines framed for occasion and com-
plaisance, and laughed readily at those theologians and
natural philosophers who believe that they are called
upon at every turn to become the interpreters of the
divine wisdom, power, and goodness. The English, in
their Bridgewater Treatises, have made a singular
abuse of these untimely appeals to Providence, and have
thus compromised the cause Avhich they pretended they
were serving. There is no use in trying to bespeak
glorifications for God. It is not at all astonishing that
the Americans, by habitude or calculation, should have
carried this farther than the English, in their treatises
for popular use, but it seems at least strange that
savants trained in Europe should fall into the same
foible.

" Allusion is made to this manner of studying nature
in the ' History of an Antediluvian Congress of Bum-
ble-bees,' which INIr. Parker related to us one evening
with a chaming humor; he has since kindly prepared
it for this Album. It was his last work.

" Thus the six weeks were passed which INIr. Parker
was pleased to reckon among the most delightful of

NOTES 481

his sojourn in Europe, because, in the midst of the
pure air of our mountains, surrounded by persons who
had all learned to love and to appreciate him, he
thought he had recovered health, especially in living
with that intellectual life which was indispensable to
him, and for which he had languished during his abode
in the Antilles. Besides, he met among the guests of
Combe- Varin, persons who were very sympathetic with
him, particularly Dr. Kiichler. Both of them Prot-
estants, the one in his quality of minister of a religious
congregation, the other as the preacher to the German-
Catholic Church of Heidelberg, they extended a hand
to each other across the forms and rites of their respec-
tive confessions."

Not only did Parker come into intimate relations
at Combe-Varin with Moleschott, who was greatly
dreaded as a materialist, but the volume published as
a tribute to him contained a sketch of a tree under
which Parker often sat, which was made by Dr. Karl
Vogt, professor of natural history at Geissen, and sub-
sequently of geology at Geneva and Berne, also noted
as a materialist. This sketch is reproduced at the end
of the twenty-fifth chapter of Weiss's " Life and Cor-
respondence." In regard to his relations to such men
as these, Frothingham says truly : " He knew the writ-
ings of Moleschott, and talked with him personally.
The books of Karl Vogt were not strange to him. The
philosophy of Ludwig Biichner was as familiar to him
as to any of Biichner's disciples. He was intimate
with the thoughts of Feuerbach. He drew into dis-
cussion every atheist and materialist he met ; talked
with them closely, confidentially ; and rose from the
interview more confident in the strength of his own po-
sitions than ever. Darwin's first book * On the Origin
of Species,' which was brought to him in Rome, con-
tained nothing that disturbed him. He thought it
unsupported in many of its facts, and hasty in its

482 THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT

generalizations ; but the doctrine itself was not offensive
to him. Science he counted his best friend ; relied on'
it for confirmation of his faith ; and was only impatient
because it moved no faster. All the materialists in
and out of Christendom had no power to shake his con-
viction of the infinite God and the immortal existence;
nor would have had, had he lived till he was a century
old ; for, in his view, the convictions were planted deep
in human nature, and were demanded by the exigencies
of human life. The service they rendered to mankind
would have been their sufficient justification, had he
found no other ; and in this respect they interested him
chiefly. He used them daily, as man, as minister, as
reformer — used them in the closet, the study, the
house of mourning, the arena of strife ; and, finding
them suitable for all emergencies, accepted them as
heavenly provisions for them. If more worked their
faiths as he did, fewer would assail them. Moleschott
respected Parker; Desor was his confidential friend;
Feuerbach would have taken him by the hand as a
brother."

It is in the light of such facts as these that Parker's
parable of the bumble-bee is interesting. It was meant
as an attack on the methods of Paley and the Bridge-
water treatises. It also has an element of humor that
is most interesting, as well as keenly satirical. Miss
Cobbe included this parable in her twelfth volume,
" Autobiographical and Miscellaneous Pieces."

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