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Sermon – Eulogy – 1834

Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham (1793-1870) graduated from Harvard in 1811. He was the pastor of the 1st Congregational Church in Boston (1815-1850). Frothingham preached this sermon on the death of the Marquis de Lafayette on June 29, 1834.

SERMON

ON THE

DEATH

GENERAL LAFAYETTE,

PREACHED TO THE

FIRST CHURCH OF BOSTON,

SUNDAY, THE 29TH OF JUNE, 1834.

BY N. L. FROTHINGHAM,
MINISTER OF THE CHURCH.

S E R M O N.Ecclesiastes xlviii.12.

“Elias it was, who was carried up in a whirlwind; and Eliseus was filled with his spirit. Whilst he lived, he was not moved with the presence of any prince, neither could any bring him into subjection.”

If it were only a political leader, a great military commander, a national friend and benefactor, an illustrious man, – according to any of the vulgar patterns of fame, – that has at length gone the way, where the meanest must follow, where the most different conditions are made equal, and there is no more place for rank and pride; his memory would hardly be a fitting subject to mix with the services of the Lord’s house. If it were some mere man of the people, some man of the times, some creature of splendid accidents, that claimed to be made mention of, here is not the place where such a claim would be regarded. If the feeling, that now pervades this community to its furthest borders, were a party feeling; if the tribute, that is now paying to his name from the freemen of all nations, were a tribute to station and chance, to talents or historical renown, and not to character, to a pure and noble desert; if the voice of praises and regrets, that is lifted up on every side of us, were only a popular acclamation for some transient benefit, or an unmeaning echo of what it has become customary for half a century to repeat; the pulpit at least might well be silent. But the circumstances are altogether otherwise; and the preacher may be more than excused if he is not silent, however inadequate to the occasion his words may be, and however lost and forgotten among worthier expressions of eulogy.

The man of whom I am to speak, and whom no one needs name, was perhaps even more remarkable by his conduct and personal qualities, than by all the various situations of his eventful life. At the top of fortune and power and favour, never elated; in the depths of disappointment and hopeless afflictions, never stooping or depressed; amidst the most magnificent temptations, never beguiled; amidst the wildest disorders, never discomposed; amidst the most difficult and delicate conjunctures, never at a loss; amidst the sharpest perils, never afraid; – he was true to himself and his principles, through the most agitating succession of changes that ever swept over the world. And therefore it is, and not because he stood on an eminence, and not for any advantages which he might have but chanced to bestow, that we may make mention of him in our holy places and the offices of devotion.

One may look in vain among the names of ancient or modern celebrity, to find any other who closely reminds us of the Father of our Country, by a similar combination of noble endowments. But He not only recalls him, but presents the most striking resemblance to him. He was formed of like materials. He was trained by a like discipline. A son of his house, and a pupil of his school, he appears with such a similarity of moral features as is seldom transmitted by natural descent, or formed by the influence of any model or education. No one shares with him this distinction. “Elias it was, who was carried up in a whirlwind; and Eliseus was filled with his spirit. Whilst he lived, he was not moved by the presence of any prince, neither could any bring him into subjection.”

There is something very instructive, as well as affecting in the sensation which the account of his death has recently produced among this people. He was a foreigner; of a different speech from ourselves, and dwelling in a distant home. He was an old man. He had passed far beyond the limit that is usually assigned to mortal life, and might seem to have lived long enough for any active service, having little else left to do but to die. He was not contributing, nor ever did contribute, by any peculiar intellectual ability, to the delight or instruction of mankind. He was a plain and a private man; divested by his own act of every title but that of a moral nobility, and deprived by an ungrateful government of all authority but that of a moral influence and command. He was not even adorned with the glory of success, but found the close of his days overshaded with disappointment and defeat. There have been some to tell us that there was no strain of greatness about him, and that the only appellation fairly due him is that of the good. We shall admit the assertion, – we shall accept the discovery, – when our views of what constitutes a great character shall agree more fully with theirs, who deny him the praise of possessing one. That part of the commendation, however, which they are willing to bestow, is as much as we need care at this moment to take up. We may point to it, and say; here is the true source of the sympathy and admiration and regret that we are now witnessing; feelings that are not confined to us but communicate their emotion round the globe. It is for the sake of his virtues, that his departure is bewailed as a misfortune; and his long-delayed assumption to a better glory than that of earth’s empire and man’s applause has come upon us as a prematureness and a surprise; and his “bones flourish out of their place”; and his remembrance is precious. When you have seen young faces saddened and old eyes wet at the tidings of his decrease, you knew that it was from the thought of his worth. When you hear the expressions of the general sorrow, you cannot fail to recognize in them testimonies of homage to a generous, constant, elevated soul.

A leading name has been struck from the roll of the living. A golden band, that connected us with the history of two generations and with some of the most interesting passages in the history of man, is broken. A venerable form, marred – as you have seen it – among the exposures of his daring devotion to what was right; familiar with all extremes of fortune, with the rough exercise of camps, and the dazzling pomp of courts, and the dreary solitude of dungeons; – equally collected in halls of legislation and fields of battle, and in popular crowds whether they were moved at his eloquence or muttered their discontent, whether they offered him garlands or demanded his head; – equally at home in the quiet joys of the vintage and the harvest and the summer flowers, and in the stormy labours of three revolutions; – wherever it has been, it has now gone to mingle its dust with a long line of distinguished ancestry. A brave and a loving heart has added one more to the company of the glorified. They who shall visit like pilgrims his residences in the old world will look round in vain for his cordial hand and benignant countenance; and he will not cross the sea for a fifth time towards the land that he helped to redeem. He has disappeared. He has lain down in the great rest. The ground is not consecrated by the ashes of a more single-minded and estimable and admirable man. Do not call death an equalizer, when it thus puts obediently the seal of a stamped decree and an eternal distinction upon the deeds and the name of one, over whom it has no power.

Let it be permitted to say a few words, which are all that the occasion permits, upon the peculiar character of this citizen of two worlds, this persevering friend of universal humanity, this pure impersonation – if such a thing was ever presented – of the two grand principles of order and liberty. It is of his character only that I would say these few words; for the facts in his recorded life have long been a book for our children, and are read of all. They shall be spoken with hat deep conviction and that affectionate reverence, which are neither new nor feigned.

The personal qualities, you will readily believe, must have been in several respects remarkable of one, who, without ostentation, – nay, declining and despising all the parade that vain men covet, – has made himself memorable, the world over, as a champion and pleader, a confessor and a faithful example, wherever the injurious were to be restrained, or the unfortunate helped, or the oppressed delivered. “Elias it was, who was carried up in a whirlwind; and Eliseus was filled with his spirit.” He was filled with it. What that spirit was, in its general features, we should be unpardonable if we were uninformed or forgetful. But let us attempt to define it with some particularity. Now that he is joined to his old commander, we remember that “whilst he lived he was not moved with the presence of any prince, neither could any bring him into subjection.” The text fitly describes him, in some of the leading traits of his steady and lofty mind. He never swerved from his principles; never temporized with the weak, nor gave way before the strong. None ever held his integrity faster than he, through all good and evil repute. He was inflexibly consistent; and this, which is a rare merit under any circumstances, becomes the more remarkable, when it is displayed as his was amidst troubled and disjointed times, when the world was maddening in a tumult of changes, and he wise were distracted, and the wicked ruled, and the firm were divided with perplexity and fear. He stood to his purposes with an unshaken constancy, and permitted nothing on earth to feel itself his master. His courage towered up above the most frightful emergencies, and his self-possession abode the proof, when others were losing their reason. He refused ever to despair of a cause that he had once believed to be good. He refused to withdraw his hand from its most unrequited and ill-requited toils, from its sternest perils and dearest sacrifices. It was nothing to him where he stood, so that he stood for the right. He made no compromises with rabble or emperor. The violence of the low could neither intimidate his resolution nor wear out his patience, while the will of the earth’s mightiest and proudest ones could not imagine for a moment that it had the right or the power to dictate to his.

But in all this rigid perseverance and high honour was there no harshness, no arrogancy, no repulsive or unlovely admixture? So far from it, as you all well know, that nothing can be conceived more mild and courteous, more unaffected and unpretending, than his whole carriage of himself towards his fellow men. He won hearts, wherever there could be truly said to be hearts, by the gentle dignity and the meek courageousness of his bearing. He was full of quick sympathies. He was forbearing and kind. He embraced all within the regards of an unwearied benevolence. The elements of his nature were all strong, but all kept in their proper places. He united with singular happiness those, which are usually found severed and opposed. There were tenderness and force dwelling together in him, like the leopard and he kid of the ancient prediction. His was a spirit of prudence and a spirit of fire, tempered into one. He was daring but wise, eager in action but patient in endurances, sanguine and impetuous, but self-moderated. His presence of mind was not allowed to desert him under any necessities that called for it. He never forgot what was due to others, nor made any haughty estimates of what was due to himself. There was nothing in him of the self-seeking of an ordinary ambition, nor was the plain modesty of his manners impaired in any degree by the scenes of breathless interest in which he had sustained a chief part, or by the vast concerns that were accustomed to rest upon his counsel and conduct, or by the general encomiums of mankind. He was eminently disinterested. It was not his own aggrandizement that he ever carried in view, but only his unsullied name, and his unshaken principles, and the welfare of the world. Rich remunerations have been offered him, only to be declined with the cold assertion, that he attached no more importance to the refusal than to the acceptance. He divested himself of all honours, which would not contribute to any valuable end by being worn. An enemy to dangerous power, he put it calmly aside from him as often as it was presented to his hands; whether it was offered in the shape of the marshal’s staff, or the sword of the constable of France, or the more splendid ensigns of a dictator’s command. An enemy to outside pomp, he withdrew from all appearance of it, when no good to others was to be gained from the display. He, who made his first visit to our shoes in a vessel of his own preparing, would not wait for the national ship of war that was commissioned to bring him over on his last one; but preferred coming as a private man and a stranger, if it might be allowed him to do so. He found the arms of twenty-four states ready to catch him up; and the old soldier was to be greeted as a father rather than as a guest; and every sound he heard was to be like a benediction, and every step he took better than victory. No one can have read of him, without being sure that it was not so satisfying a joy to him, when he rose up in the federation of the Field of Mars as the interpreter and representative of a nation, or when he was placed at the head of more than a million and a half of his armed countrymen, as when he perceived that he lived in the affections of millions of the grateful and the free. Much as has been related of him, much as is already known of him, his history remains to be written. But his character it is impossible to mistake; and whatever new shall be hereafter recorded will be in honourable consistency with it and only illustrate it the more.

“Whilst he lived,” says the text, “he was not moved with the presence of any prince, neither could any bring him into subjection.” What a train of the crowned and the discrowned, now for the most part but shades of kings, passes before us at the repetition of these words. They brought their importunities to him, or they laid their orders upon him; but they found him just as he has now been described. What was royalty, in its threats or persuasions, to the royal law in his own breast? A German sovereign one, and a deposed monarch driven from two thrones long afterwards, were taught by him that the vengeance of the one and the intercessions of the other were alike vain, when they would urge him to crouch to a galling necessity, or dissemble his cherished sentiments, or compromise his pure fame. In his own city five princes reigned, from the time when he first entered into its busy affairs, to the day when he closed his eyes upon it forever. We have only to look at his intercourse with hem, to perceive that there was something in him above their regal state.

The first, and most unhappy, both leaned upon him and feared him; and might have been rescued by him a second time, if it had not been thought too much to be indebted to him a second time for deliverance. The next was that wonderful chief, who almost dazzled the world blind with the blaze of his conquests. But there was one, who kept fixed upon him a searching and sorrowful look, as unshrinking as his own, and, as the event proved, more than equal to his own. He had retired quietly to his country home. He refused even an interview with the “emperor and king,” in his palace hall, since he had assumed to be a despot over his brethren. Palaces! He had seen all their hollowness and false luster. He was entitled to them as his resort from his early youth, and he had witnessed more wretchedness than he had ever beheld elsewhere in their envied inmates. The places that had been the objects of his boyish delight, he knew as dwellings of bitter cares and sorrows, before they were burst open by violence and spotted with blood. And is it strange, if he should have lost something of his reverence for courts? But let me add, that, when the conqueror was subdued, – when the city, that had well nigh been made the capital of the earth, was traversed and encamped in by insolent foes, – he endeavoured earnestly to befriend the fallen majesty, whose domination he had resisted. He had no hostility against the imperial fugitive, now that his ambition had overleaped itself and was no longer a terror. His indignation was turned to the opposite side; and when the English ambassador offered peace on the condition of delivering him up to the invaders, he replied, “I am surprised, my lord, that in making so odious a proposition to the French nation, you should have addressed yourself to one of the prisoners of Olmutz.”

The third figure that rises, is that of an unwieldy pretension to royalty, set up by foreign hands, and speaking what he was told to speak, and almost as helpless while he reigned, as the phantom that he seems to us now. His infatuated successor is an exile, one hardly remembers where, from an authority that he neither knew how to limit nor maintain. What could be, of whom we are now thinking, have to do with pageants like these, – except to warn them that they must pass away?

Another interval of murderous contention, and another king is in the seat that had been so rapidly and ominously left empty. Him he met as an adviser, and not as an inferior, as a patron rather than as a dependent. But his deed and intention returned to him void, and his expectations were once more baffled.

Let it be so. He has at length gone where there is no more disappointment, and where his faithful works will faithfully follow him. We will not wish that he had remained for further trials. We cannot bear to think of his furnishing opportunities for cavil, to those who do not revere and cannot understand him, by any faltering that might possibly have crept along with his old age, – by any clouding of his clear judgment, any declension of his well-used strength. Let him pass upward in peace to the King of kings and the Lord of lords, by the signs of whose “presence” he was always “moved,” and to whose holy Providence he brought himself cheerfully “into subjection.”

No; we will not desire him back. He has done enough; endured enough; enjoyed enough. It is time that he was translated. But we will write up his name as on a banner. We will plead that his memory may be sacredly appreciated and never forgotten. His example should shine out as a lesson, in these days of sycophancy and rank abuses, of party spoils and political profligacy and greedy gain; when Elias has been carried up in his chariot of glories, and they who never felt his spirit, and even scoffed at his immortal services, presume to connect themselves with his fame.

The bones of the disciple-prophet were said to awaken the dead. “He did wonders in his life, and at his death were his works marvelous.” ¹ The miracle is done over again yet, and more nobly done. The name and character and deeds of the just are often a living and divine touch, after “their bodies are buried in peace.” May it be so with him! May the memory of that Eliseus, whom I have endeavoured to bring to your hearts to-day, stir up a community that is already turning into corruption to a fresh and purer life!

Endnotes

1 Ecclesiasticus xlviii.13.

Sermon – Succes Failure in Life – 1833

Jasper Adams (1793-1841) graduated from Brown University (1815) and was an ordained minister in the Protestant Episcopal Church.

Few things are more striking than the fact, that so few of all the young men, who are permitted to arrive at “man’s estate,” ever come to satisfy the just and reasonable expectations of their parents, their friends, and their country. This is true even of those who are born and educated under the most favourable influences. It has been a standing theme of complaint, and source of unhappiness in all ages and in every country. There are few parents of considerable families whose hopes in regard to their children, have not been more or less blasted by disappointment. Of a thousand youths who grow up to participate in the business of life, how few are there whose lives are crowned with honour, with virtue, and with distinguished private or public usefulness? Yet, perhaps, every one of these youths was the object of the hopes, the prayers and the fond anticipations of devoted and affectionate parents.

This frequent and painful failure of parental anticipations and prospects, cannot be the result of chance, and must, therefore, have an adequate cause or causes. And as the highest interests of society are deeply involved in everything which pertains to its young men, it seems useful to attempt an investigation of the cause or causes to which this so frequent failure may be justly ascribed.

Of all the laws by which events are linked together, the relation of cause and effect is the most permanent, the most extensive, and to us the most valuable. And it is worthy of special remark, that in proportion as knowledge has advanced, the dominion of cause and effect has been extended, and in the same proportion has the dominion of chance been diminished. It is to the imperfection of the human mind, and not to any irregularity in the nature of things, that our ideas of chance and probability are to be referred. Events which to one man seem accidental and precarious, to another who is better informed, or who has a more comprehensive grasp of intellect, appear regular and certain. Contingency and verisimilitude, are, therefore, the offspring of human ignorance, and with an intellect of the highest order, cannot be supposed to have any existence. The laws of the material world have the same infallible operation on the minute and on the great bodies of the universe, and the motions of the former are as determinate as those of the latter. There is not a particle of water or of air, of which the condition is not defined by rules as certain as those which govern the sun or the planets, and which has not from the beginning, described a line determined by mechanical principles, and capable of being mathematically defined. This line is, therefore, in itself, a thing capable of being known, and would be an object of science to a mind informed of all the original conditions, and possessing an analysis that could follow them through their various combinations. The same is true of every atom of the material world;–so that nothing but information sufficiently extensive, and an analysis sufficiently powerful is wanting, to reduce all physical events to certainty, and from the condition of the world at any one instant, to deduce its condition at the next,–nay, to obtain an analytical expression representing at a single view, all the phenomena that have ever happened, or ever will happen in our system. ¹

In truth, the discoveries which we have made in the material world, and the triumphs which we have achieved over physical difficulties, confer imperishable honour on human nature, and have contributed beyond measure to the welfare of mankind. And is it certain, or even probable, that while physical nature is thus subjected to invariable laws, capable of the most definite measurement and calculation, the powers of the understanding, and the results of moral conduct, should be governed by laws not admitting of careful statement and exact knowledge? There is much reason for the opinion, that the material world was originally created, and that the present physical order of things and events is regulated with a view to subserve the intellectual, moral and religious interests of the universe. ² Are we, then, to believe that while the beauty of order, of regularity and of symmetry pervade the one, these same elements may not impart their beauty, their interest and their value to the other? Reason, analogy and common sense equally unite against such a conclusion. It is true, that moral principles and the results of moral conduct, are not capable of being presented in the imposing array of mathematical calculations; but we must not conclude that nothing is certain which cannot be clothed with mathematical formulas, or illustrated by mathematical diagrams. Law is a science scarcely less definite than geometry; and the moral principles and conduct which destroy the expectations of parents, and ruin such numbers of our most promising young men, may be expressed as definitely, and their influence and results may be estimated as exactly in regard to the ultimate issue, as in either of these sciences. It is a great mistake to suppose, that nothing can be certainly known or anticipated, out of the range of the mathematical and physical sciences.

This train of reflections has often presented itself to my mind, and the truths contained in it are entitled, I am persuaded, to a careful and respectful consideration. And in this view, I have thought, I could not select a more suitable subject for discussion, than what may be termed the “Laws of success and failure in Life,” when called by appointment to address such an audience as is now before me; especially one standing in a relation to me of so interesting and confidential a nature. ³ Unless you, young gentlemen, shall become respectable in private life, useful citizens of your country, qualified to participate honourably in private business and in public transactions, examples of integrity, of industry, of enterprise, of virtue, and of piety, my labours will have been expended in vain, and my life will have accomplished no useful purpose.

Permit me, then, to suppose the case of a thousand youths not yet beyond the period of life, at which the plastic hand of education is accustomed to exercise the full measure of its strength and influence. In truth, the case is much more matter of plain fact than of supposition; since in every community, there are not a thousand, but many thousands of youths in the precise situation which I am contemplating. I may well presume, that such youths are still ingenuous and pure in their minds, upright in their dispositions, uncontaminated in their habits, noble and generous in their impulses, and anxious to satisfy the anticipations of their parents, and the expectations of their friends and country, by lives of distinguished virtue, usefulness and honour.

How, then, are our young men of such qualities and such aspirations to attain the advantages and distinctions, in which success in life is supposed to consist; and to avoid the disastrous wreck of mortification and ruin, of blasted hopes and disappointed expectations, which constitute failure in life? I do not expect to exhaust the subject, but I am convinced that young men will attain the one of these results, and avoid the other, in strict proportion as they shall be governed by the principles and maxims which I proceed to state and illustrate.

1. No one can expect to ensure success and avoid failure in life, without a careful, persevering, and extensive preparation for the duties of life in his youth. ⁴

Youth has often been called the seed-time of life. The resemblance, though it has become trite by the frequency of its use, is still strikingly illustrative of the influence which a due improvement of youth never fails to have upon the success of mature life. It has always been true, and it must always remain true, that as we sow in youth we shall gather in manhood. Not more surely will he be disappointed, who expects figs to grow upon thorns, or grapes upon a bramble-bush, ⁵ than he, who expects an honourable and successful manhood will follow a slothful, neglectful or profligate youth. Such is the established order of Providence in the government of this world. This order of Providence, is, in other terms, the decree of the Most High;–we may render obedience to its requirements and secure respect, esteem and happiness; or we may neglect or refuse obedience, and seal our insignificance, shame and ruin.

That the education of young men must be made to correspond with the acquirement and other circumstances of the age in which they are to live and act, is one of those positions which cannot be made more plain by argument. Nor has the world varied more in any respect, than in the kind and standard of qualifications which have been esteemed most necessary and valuable. Milton says, “I call a complete and generous education, that which fits a man to perform justly, skillfully and magnanimously, all the offices both private and public, of peace and war.” ⁶ And many ages before Milton’s time, Juvenal had expressed the same sentiment:

“Gratum est, quod patriae civem propuloque dedisti,
“Si facis, ut patriae sit idoneus, utilis agris,
“Utilis et bellorum, et pacis rebus agendis.”—Sat. 14th, 70-72.

In the age of Homer, swiftness in the race, personal strength, and physical courage, were the chief requisites by which honour and esteem were secured. These were qualities, on which, the fame of Ajax and Achilles, of Hector and Diomedes, was founded. In the later ages of Grecian history, skill in the arts of painting and sculpture, of architecture and the drama, in philosophy, and above all, in oratory, was the chief ground of eminence. Military prowess has always been considered a conspicuous source of individual and national distinction. This was remarkably the case at Rome; yet even in that military republic, moral and civil qualifications seem to have come at length to be held in higher estimation, than military. ⁷ The same will be true in all countries, as civilization and refinement advance in their growth. At Rome, the civil and moral eminence by which Cicero, Cato and Laelius were adorned, was not less honourable than the military renown of Lucullus, Pompey and Caesar; and at the court of Augustus, Virgil and Horace enjoyed as much distinction as the successful generals by whom that Emperor was surrounded. As the Roman Empire declined, the military again triumphed over the civic virtues; and during the middle ages, personal prowess again became the principal qualification supposed to be entitled to confer rank and honour. This continues to be the case, in a considerable measure, in most parts of Europe;-and in Russia, military rank is still the highest, and almost the exclusive source of honour. Colonized as the United States were from Europe, it is not strange, that the European standard of honour was introduced into this country; and while the colonies were surrounded by numerous and warlike nations of Indians, the cultivation of the military spirit was certainly excusable, probably necessary, perhaps even indispensable. The war of the Revolution, moreover, made it necessary, that military talents should be a principal ground of distinction, as they were of usefulness, during the perilous crisis in which the country was then situated.

But our Indian enemies have disappeared, our national independence has long since been fully established; and however indispensable may have been military talents during the preceding part of our national history, circumstances warrant the full belief, that in our future progress, they will be unnecessary;-perhaps they may be injurious to our country. Everything indicates, that the arts of peace will be the great concern, as they have always been the great interest of mankind, during the age for which you are to be educated. It is constantly becoming more probable, that the plan of governing men chiefly by oral influences; by producing a practical and unequivocal conviction, that it is for the general interest of mankind to cultivate peace and tranquility, and by resorting to force only as an aid supplementary to moral causes, will be ultimately successful. Our own experiment has been thus far highly satisfactory and encouraging.

It may well be presumed, therefore, that the sentiments of Juvenal and Milton, so far as they relate to war, will have less application to the age to which you will belong, than to any which has gone before it in the history of mankind. To be respectable, useful, and successful, then, in life, you must be qualified to take a part in an age and in a state of society distinguished for general freedom of opinion and action, unusual diffusion of intelligence among all ranks of people, and an unexampled spirit of enterprise. It is an age, moreover, as much distinguished for profound and various learning, as for the extension of freedom, intelligence and enterprise. “Knowledge” has always been “power,” but never in such a sense and in such a degree, as at the present time. Such an age and such a state of society, therefore, imperatively demand extensive acquirements in knowledge. You must be acquainted with the poets, critics, orators, and historians of ancient Greece and Rome, ⁸ both for their intrinsic excellence; and because an acquaintance with them is necessary to a full and complete acquaintance with our own literature. Some acquaintance with the annals and institutions of other ancient nations, usually enters into a comprehensive course of education. Modern literature and institutions have received a tincture from some of the usages and institutions of the middle ages; and therefore, though they are a barren period in the history of mankind, yet as something may be learned from every situation in which man has lived and acted, they may not be entirely neglected. The French and German languages, are among the most valuable acquisitions with which your industry and enterprise can be rewarded. Every well educated gentleman must feel it to be required of him, to have some acquaintance with the history and institutions of modern Europe. From Great-Britain, much the greatest part of our customs, usages, literature, and institutions were derived, and no man can dispense with a full and even minute knowledge of the history of that Empire. Inventions and discoveries in the exact and experimental sciences, and our triumphs over the physical difficulties of nature, are one of the best defined characteristics of the times in which we live; and to this source we are indebted for the immense improvements which have been made in the comforts, conveniences, and elegancies of life. A full acquaintance with these, must be the result of professional study and the devotion of a life to them; but anyone who is contented to live and die in total ignorance of them, fails of seeing human enterprise and perseverance crowned with their most splendid wreaths.

The branches of knowledge comprised in this enumeration are highly valuable;-they are necessary, even indispensable to success in the highest walks of literature and philosophy, of usefulness and eminence. There are, however, two other departments of learning, which to us, as Christians, as Americans, are of still higher and more permanent value. First, as Christians, the careful study of our religion, merits our supreme regard. It is the standard of our morals both theoretical and practical, the chief source of the moral influences which alone can meliorate the condition of mankind, and the foundation of our ultimate hopes and prospects. We are most sacredly bound by every consideration of duty and interest to study in its history, in its literature, in its evidences, in its morals, and in its doctrines. Again, after our religion, nothing is so valuable as a complete and familiar acquaintance with the history, literature and institutions of our own country. If we remain in ignorance of our own, it is comparatively of small importance, that we are acquainted with the history, the literature, the institutions, and the languages of ancient times and foreign nations. Nor has there been a country, perhaps, from the beginning of time, whose history and institutions have been more worthy of careful and attentive study. ⁹ Our aboriginal history presents a field, which, as yet, has been but partially explored. There is nothing in the history of the world, which can be compared with our colonial growth. Our Revolution has as yet only begun to exert the influence which it must be destined to extend over the other quarters of the globe. The rise and progress of our National and State governments may justly excite our self-respect, and our confidence in our ability to maintain, perfect and perpetuate them. If we have been too much engaged by active employments to distinguish ourselves in speculative philosophy and the more abstract sciences, we have signalized ourselves by some of the noblest inventions in the more practical and useful departments of the arts and sciences. Government is the most practical, the most useful, and the most difficult of all human sciences; and in this great department, we have long since reached a point, which some of the European nations have attempted to reach in vain; and towards which, all of them are but gradually advancing. In a sense and in degree in which it was never attained before, we have consummated the beau-ideal of good government which presented itself to the mind of the philosophic Cicero when he said, “Statuo esse optime constitutam rempublicam, quae ex tribus generibus illis, regali, optimo et populari, modice confusa.” Finally, the people of the United States, in retaining Christianity as the basis of all their great institutions, social, civil, and political, have discontinued the abuses of all religious establishments, and while placing all denominations of Christians on an equal footing, they have granted universal toleration to all other religions.

2. No elements are more indispensable to ensure success in life, than industry, perseverance and enterprise. They will be equally necessary, in your case, to the accomplishment of the plan of education which has just been sketched, and to the successful pursuit of any profession of life, in which you may hope to be useful and honourable. If the Creator has made an original difference among men, by dispensing talents to them with an unequal hand, men have made an infinitely wider difference among themselves, by the unequal improvement which they have made of these precious endowments. In this, as well as in all other countries, men frequently become rich by inheritance, and by other ways in which personal merit has no concern, but substantial usefulness and honour must ever, among us, be the fruit of personal industry, enterprise and perseverance. The noble sentiment of Juvenal has its full force in respect to us, and our institutions:-

“Panlus, vel Cossus, vel Drusus moribus esto;
“Hos ante effigies majorum pone tuorum;
“Praecedant ipsas illi, te consule, virgas.
“Prima mihi debes animi bona. Sanctus haberi,
“Justitiaeque tenax factis dictisque mereris?
“Agnosco procerem. Salve, Getulice, sent u
“Silanus, quocunque alio de sanguine rarus
“Civis et egregious patriae contingis ovanti.”—Sat. 8. 1. 21-28.

The love of labour and the ability to bear long continued, exhausting, and perplexing labour, can only be acquired by a patient and severe course of discipline; but it is a qualification equally indispensable for attaining to stations of distinguished usefulness, and for discharging the duties of such stations when attained. The men who have fulfilled the duties of the more useful and difficult situations in life, with credit to themselves and advantage to their country, have been prepared for them by a careful preliminary training. It cannot be necessary to do more than refer to the story of Demosthenes, when addressing a literary society. Cicero says, that he acquired the immense treasures of literature and philosophy by which he adorned the annals of his country, and conferred immortality on himself, while his associates were occupied at entertainments, in celebrating festival days, in gaming, in athletic sports, or in other amusements and relaxations. ¹⁰ King Alfred, without an example to imitate, without the advantage of early education even the most scanty, in an unlearned age, and a still more unlearned country, after his best years had been consumed, and his youthful strength exhausted by the hardships of a military life, in the course of which he is said to have fought fifty battles; amidst the seductions of a throne, seductions of all others the most difficult to be resisted, became the first scholar and the most useful man, as he had before been the greatest soldier of his age. Hence, he ranks the greatest among kings, and almost the greatest among men. Sir Isaac Newton ascribed his success in the sciences to his superior patience and willingness to labour. If patience and resolution are not, as some have asserted, the only elements of genius, they are at least its firmest auxiliaries, its most powerful instruments;-and they are qualities so important, as to lead not unfrequently, in search of truth, to the same results as genius itself. But of all others, the example of Franklin is the most instructive to those whose circumstances require them to be the architects of their own fortunes. His father was accustomed to quote this verse of the Proverbs of Solomon:–“Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; ¹¹ –and the memoirs of the son warrant us in believing, that it had a decisive influence on his aspiring genius. ¹² Born in the lowest obscurity, his industry and enterprise raised him to be the companion and the adviser of kings. Lord Chatham said, he was “one, whom all Europe held in estimation for his knowledge and wisdom, and ranked with Boyle and Newton; who was an honour, not to the English nation only, but to human nature.” ¹³ How great must have been the industry of Washington? How great must be the industry of every President of the United States? ¹⁴ How great must be the industry of all men who fill situations of distinguished usefulness and honour? Lord Chancellor Brougham said in the House of Lords in 1831, that during more than twelve months preceding, he had been employed, with the exception of five days, and those spent chiefly in travelling, from six or seven in the morning, until twelve or one at night; and he seemed to intimate on the same occasion, that two other members of the government had been engaged in still more exhausting labours. ¹⁵ No branch of reading is more instructive than the biography of those, who, born in the humbler walks of life, have risen by their talents and virtues, to the highest grades of useful distinction. The examples of Kepler, Hardwicke, Kenyon, Thurlow, La Grange, Day, Canova, Eldon, Stowell, West, Franklin and Sherman, are fitted to refresh the spirits and give an impulse to the energies of men the most industrious, and the most enterprising. When we look into the lives of such men, the cause of their success is no longer a secret to us; we cease to be surprised at the distinctions which they won. When we observe the series of struggles which they endured amidst poverty, obscurity, and neglect, their disciplined passions, their love of knowledge, their firmness of purpose, and their unconquerable zeal, we perceive that their success has followed in the rain of their exertions by the ordinary law of cause and effect.

It is a great mistake, however, to suppose, that the “res augusta domi” is the only obstruction to young men in the way to acquirement of knowledge and the attainment of eminence. In such a state of society as ours, where our peculiar institutions free most of our young men from the necessities of personal labour, the love of ease, the appetite for frivolous amusements, the seductions of pleasure, and the impulses of false honour, constitute obstacles still more formidable. It will require all your resolution and energy, to withstand these fatal enemies to your future prospects and welfare. Men have, sometimes, overcome the obstacles of obscure birth and narrow circumstances, who have afterwards fallen victims to sloth, intemperance and sensual gratifications of every kind.

Most intimately connected with a habit of industry, is a judicious employment of our time. How have those men, who have accomplished most in life, found time for all their variety of occupations? The answer is not difficult. They found time by never losing it. Time is the only gift of heaven, of which every man living has precisely the same share. The passing day is exactly of the same dimensions to each of us, and by no contrivance can anyone extend its duration by so much as a single minute. It is not like a sum of money, which we can employ in trade, or put out at interest, and thereby add to, or multiply its amount. Its amount is unalterable. We cannot make it increase; we cannot even keep it by us. Whether we will or not, we must spend it; all our power over it, therefore, consists in the manner in which it is spent. Part with it we must; but we may give it either for something or for nothing. Its mode of escaping from us, however, is so silent and subtle, that we are exceedingly apt, because we do not feel it passing out of our hands, to forget that we are parting with it at all, and thus from mere heedlessness, the precious possession is allowed to flow away as if it were a thing of no value. The chief rule, therefore, in regard to the economizing and right employment of time, is to accustom ourselves to watch it as it passes away. Of all the talents entrusted to our care, our time is the most valuable. ¹⁶

As long since as the time of Cicero, the intimate connexion which subsists between different branches of learning, and the light which they reflect on each other, was well understood. Etenim omnes artes, says he, quae ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quoddam commune inculum, et quasi cognatione quadam inter se continentur. ¹⁷ This fine observation is not less true now than in the time of Cicero, while its application is continually becoming more extensive as new sciences are invented, new departments of literature are cultivated, new arts are discovered, and new branches of business are opened or extended. Without the aid of the instruments which the science of optics has conferred on astronomy, this most noble of all the natural sciences, could not have been successfully cultivated. In like manner, astronomy has greatly contributed to the advancement of geography, navigation and commerce. Chemistry has the most intimate connexion with manufactures, with the mechanic arts, and with agriculture. An elaborate comparison of the various languages of the earth, has shed much light on the history of the nations which have inhabited its surface. No man can be an accomplished physician, without making himself acquainted with the laws of the intellectual powers. Chemistry and botany are the foundation of the medical profession. Law, Politics, and the Law of Nations are but branches of Ethics in the extensive use of that term. Christianity has a most intimate connexion with man in all his relations, social, civil, and political. There are few sciences that have not contributed to bring commerce to its present state; and commerce, in its turn, has greatly contributed to advance natural history, geography, physics, and astronomy. Moreover, from it has sprung, in a great measure, the system of European colonization, which is producing such mighty results in Asia, in Africa, and more especially in America. Finally, commerce has become instrumental in the diffusion of Christianity among “the nations that have long sat in darkness,” by furnishing facilities for the conveyance of missionaries, and for keeping up the intercourse with them which is necessary for their support, their comfort, and their usefulness. This part of my subject might be amplified to any extent; but the few facts adverted to, are sufficient to vindicate my views in regard to the comprehensiveness of the education which I have ventured to recommend. It will never cease to be true, that the various branches of science, of literature, of art, and of business, have, with each other, relations so intimate, that a man who has traversed a wide range of enquiry, will ever have an immense advantage over others, whose education has been less generous, comprehensive, and liberal.

3. But while an education thus extensive and liberal is recommended, we must remember that human powers and human efforts are limited, and that a judicious concentration of our exertions on the profession of our choice, is still more necessary to our success in life. No genius can correspond with the inscription on the pedestal of Buffon’s statue;-“majestati naturae par ingenium.” An acquaintance with many branches of learning is most highly useful; an acquaintance with our own profession is indispensable. In our profession, our learning must be full, minute, exact, and familiar; and it must comprise all the acquirements which our profession embraces. The field of scientific, literary and philosophical enquiry, has become so vast, that the most industrious may well be excused for being unacquainted with many things, even with entire departments of science; but any want of acquaintance with our own chosen profession, the little vineyard of science we have chosen with special care to cultivate, will always be disreputable, injurious to our interests, and to the trusts committed to us, and may not unfrequently cover us with mortification and disgrace.

Every professional man may be said to live by the public confidence; and confidence, as Mr. Pitt well remarked, “is a plant of slow growth.” The public will not give us its confidence, as Mr. Pitt well remarked, “is a plant of slow growth.” The public will not give us its confidence, unless we furnish some title by which we may justly claim it. Public confidence in us, cannot grow up healthy, strong, and vigorous, without the most careful and judicious cultivation. Men seldom gain it without knowledge, talents, and integrity; and if without these qualities, they, by the aid of propitious circumstances, succeed in its attainment, their hold on it will be temporary, it will soon elude their grasp, and leave them to the pain of blasted hopes, the victims of disappointment and failure. Industry, enterprise, devotion to business, knowledge, talents, worth, are the only qualities that can ensure permanent reputation and lasting usefulness.

4. We must avail ourselves of opportunities favourable to our success in life. History acquaints us, that even the destiny of nations has often been determined for evil or for good, by incidents slight in themselves. The Patriarch Moses, after having been “hid three months” in the house of his father, was exposed in an ark of bulrushes on the banks of the river of Egypt. How much has depended, in the history of mankind, on the preservation of this child by Pharoah’s daughter? Without any reference to his Divine inspiration, no other individual mentioned in the annals of the world, has exercised a more extensive and permanent influence over the destinies of mankind in general, than Moses. Christianity and Mahometanism alike respect, and in different degrees, derive their origin from the Mosaic institutes. Europe, with all its American descendants, the greater part of Asia, and the north of Africa, retain, in their opinions, their usages, their civil as well as their religious ordinances, deep and indelible traces of the Hebrew polity. ¹⁸ Rome was saved from being taken by the Gauls, by the cackling of the sacred geese kept in the Capitol. And when we consider, that the Roman Empire continued to comprise whatever was formidable in power, pure in morals, refined in manners, cultivated in art and science, and illustrious in genius, during the long period of a thousand years; that the Eastern Roman Empire continued to exist almost to our own times; (1453,) that the Western Imperial City was the metropolis of the unbroken Latin Church during more than another thousand years, and still continues the Metropolis of more than half of all Christendom;-when we recollect with Lord Holt, ¹⁹ that “the laws of all nations are raised out of the ruins of the civil (Roman) law, as all governments are sprung out of the ruins of the Roman Empire;” or with D’Aguesseau, (alluding to the Roman Law,) that “the grand destinies of Rome are not yet accomplished; (that) she reigns throughout the world by her reason, after having ceased to reign by her authority;” ²⁰ -I say, when we take into view all these consequences, we may well understand the influence exercised by the trivial circumstance referred to, on the destiny of the nations of the earth. How much is our situation affected at this day by the voyages of Columbus and Sebastian Cabot? How much are we affected personally, as well as nationally, by the wise moderation, the elevated wisdom, the consummate prudence and good judgment, the untiring industry, the inflexible patriotism, the exalted genius and high moral courage of one man;-Washington.

But if entire nations and successive ages are so much affected by circumstances in themselves trivial, this is still more strikingly true of individuals. In fact, almost every man, in reviewing his past life, must recollect occasions, when, in the order of Providence, his future welfare was made to be depending on the most trivial contingences. ²¹ Of men in similar circumstances, we habitually see one eminently successful, another successful in a measure, and a third failing entirely of the result which he had promised himself to attain. This remark is confined to no class or order of men. Of merchants who have commenced business under equal advantages, we every day see one prosperous and another ruined. Lawyers, physicians, clergymen; and planters of the same education, and of equal natural endowments, meet in life with the most unequal success. So marked a difference of results is not without an adequate cause. It cannot be true, that while “the condition of every particle of water and of air is defined by rules as certain as those which govern the sun or the planets,” ²² the results of human conduct and of human endeavours, are undefined by laws and uninfluenced by cause and effect;-the pervading principle by which all the parts of universal nature are bound to each other. We are accustomed to see almost uniform success accompanying the endeavours of some men, while failure scarcely less uniform, waits on all the plans of another. Where other circumstances are equal, (and this is the supposition upon which we are reasoning,) to what can this difference be ascribed? It cannot be ascribed to chance;-for, “it is to the imperfection of the human mind, and not to any irregularity in the nature of things, that our ideas of chance and probability are to be referred.” ²³ Chance means a series of events not regulated by any law that we perceive; but because we do not perceive the existence of a law, we must not reason as if there were none, or were no principle by which a previous state of things determines that which is to follow. ²⁴ Juvenal has admirably expressed the truth on this subject.

Nullum numen habes, si sit prudential; sed te
Nos facimus, Fortuna, Deam, coeloque locamus. ²⁵

In the same situation, one man is attentive to the course of events, is watchful of favourable occasions as they arise, decides with promptitude, acts with intelligence and energy, and in this way controls events and turns them to his advantage; or if this is impossible, averts the ruinous consequences which might otherwise overwhelm him. Another is inactive, neglectful, without foresight to anticipate results; he acts with feebleness and irresolution, and instead of controlling events, becomes the victim of circumstances.

5. The cultivation of personal religion and moral qualities of a high order, is indispensable to our full and complete success in life. A sacred writer says, “trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes; fear the Lord, and depart from evil. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; and with all thy getting, get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee; she shall bring thee to honour when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace; a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.” ²⁶ This language is as beautiful as the sentiments are persuasive, authoritative and valuable. In truth, it is only the inferior ends of life which can be attained without personal religion and the high moral qualities which flow from that perennial spring. But I can establish this position by authority so high and so decisive, that I may well omit all argument of my own. Lord Chatham, in advising his nephew while at the University of Cambridge, writes thus:-“I come now to the point of the advice I have to offer you, which most nearly concerns your welfare, and upon which every good and honourable purpose of your life will assuredly turn. I mean the keeping up in your heart, the true sentiments of religion. If you are not right towards God, you can never be so towards man; the noblest sentiment of the human breast, is here brought to the test.” Again he says, “Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, is big with the deepest wisdom; the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and an upright heart, that is understanding. This is eternally true.” “Hold fast, therefore, by this sheet-anchor of happiness, religion; you will often want it in the times of most danger, the storms and tempests of life. Cherish true religion, continues he, as preciously as you will fly, with abhorrence and contempt, superstition and enthusiasm. The first is the perfection and glory of human nature; the two last the depravation and disgrace of it. Remember, the essence of religion is, a heart void of offence towards God and man; not subtle speculative opinions, but an active vital principle of faith.” ²⁷ Again, another statesman says, “The individuals, the communities that are penetrated with a truly religious spirit, and exercise the moral qualities which flow from that source only, regularly prosper. They inherit the earth. Those that pursue a different course, as regularly dwindle into nothing and disappear.” ²⁸ The most accomplished and successful chemist of the present century says, “I envy no quality of the mind or intellect in others; not genius, power, wit, or fancy; but if I could choose what would be most delightful, and I believe most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to ever other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness, creates new hopes when all earthly hopes vanish, and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights; awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity.” Again he says, “religion, whether natural or revealed, has always the same beneficial influence on the mind. In youth, in health, and prosperity, it awakens feelings of gratitude and sublime love, and purifies at the same time that it exalts; but it is in misfortune, in sickness, in age, that its effects are most truly and beneficially felt; when submission in faith and humble trust in the divine will, from duties become pleasures, undecaying sources of consolation; then it creates powers which were believed to be extinct, and gives a freshness to the mind, which was supposed to have passed away forever, but which is not renovated as an immortal hope. Its influence outlives all earthly enjoyments, and becomes stronger as the organs decay and the frame dissolves; it appears as that evening star of light in the horizon of life, which, we are sure, is to become in another season a morning star, and it throws its radiance through the gloom and shadow of death.” ²⁹ Such are the sentiments, and such the result of the experience and reflection of men of the most cultivated understandings, and of the most enlarged acquaintance with human affairs. Many can comprehend the value and necessity of personal religion in reference to another life, who are not prepared to admit its value or its influence on the affairs of this life. The truth, however, the everlasting truth is, that without a clear sense of our relation to God, and of the duties, responsibilities and prospects thence resulting; man, in every period of his existence, is a desolate being, and cuts himself off from all the purest sources of happiness. The poet has well said;-

“But dreadful is their doom, whom doubt has driven To censure Fate, and pious hope forego; Like yonder blasted boughs by lightning riven, Perfection, beauty, life, they never know.”
³⁰

It is probable, that the sentiment now under illustration, might be brought to the test of positive proof and actual experiment, by an extensive enquiry into the lives of individuals, especially into the lives of those whose biography we possess, minutely and accurately written. Such an inductive examination, my time and avocations have not permitted me to make; but two instances of testimony on this point have fallen in my way, which are so decisive and valuable, that I should do wrong to omit citing them. A gentleman, educated at one of our most distinguished colleges, has furnished this statement respecting the class to which he belonged, not more than thirty years since. “It was a class,” says he, “from which much was expected, as the instructors were often heard to declare, and was certainly not deficient, when compared with other classes, either as to numbers or talents. Unhappily a very low standard of morals was prevalent; only two of the class were free from the habit of profane swearing; and nearly all except these two, would occasionally get intoxicated. This class went out into the world as one of the hopes of the country. Comparatively a small number of them ever occupied respectable and conspicuous situations. In twenty-two years after leaving college, two-thirds of that class were known to have died; and of these full one half died the victims of intemperance. Of the survivors, some now living are known to be in the lowest state of degradation.” Another individual has given the character and history of another class which was graduated less than forty years since. “It was numerous;” says he, “the influence was decidedly in favour of morality. Before leaving college, a large proportion came under the power of religious principle, in consequence of a general revival of religion. Twenty-five years after the time of graduation, only one quarter of the class had died; and of the surviving three quarters, a large proportion were occupying stations of considerable usefulness.” ³¹ This is a highly instructive narrative, and it would be well, if others, in imitation of these gentlemen, would furnish direct testimony of the same kind, in regard to the connection between early moral and religious character, and subsequent success in the business of life. The entire subject of such a connection, is worth a careful investigation. No persons are so well qualified to furnish the requisite information, as the aged graduates of our colleges. The reason of this is plain. No persons are so well acquainted with the real characters of each other, as those who have been associated in the relation of classmates at our colleges, at the gay and fresh season of youth, when mankind are not accustomed to disguise their motives, feelings, intentions, and principles.

I can scarcely be mistaken, young gentlemen, when I suppose, that I have brought to your notice, on this occasion, a subject in which you will consider yourselves very deeply concerned. Next to your eternal salvation, and the welfare of your country, your success in life, must, of all subjects be the most interesting. An estate wasted by extravagance may often be repaired by subsequent industry and frugality; health injured by excesses may sometimes be restored by the renovating powers of nature or by the skill of physicians;-but who shall recall a wasted life to the guilty individual who has squandered the precious treasure? One life, and one life only is given you, and I am convinced from the reason of the case, from my own partial experience, and from the more ample experience of others, that your failure or success will chiefly depend on your neglect of, or adherence to, the principles and maxims which I have at this time attempted to establish and illustrate. To be successful, i.e. useful and honourable in life, you must laboriously prepare for discharging its great duties. You must be industrious; you must be enterprising. You must carefully cultivate your understandings, by making yourselves extensively acquainted with the most useful and valuable branches of literature, and science. Still one man cannot know everything, and to attempt this, would be not only unwise and visionary, but ruinous. Your attention, then, must be specially concentrated upon your chosen profession, and pursuit in life. You must watch the favourable occasions that may present themselves in your way, and skillfully turn them to your advantage. Nor must you consider the minor moralities and observances beneath your notice. You must cultivate all the qualities which make up good manners and good morals;-for good manners are part of the code of good morals. Above all, you must cultivate personal religion;-for as Lord Chatham says, “if you are not right towards God, you can never be so towards man.” It is a great mistake to suppose, that personal religion is valuable only in reference to the life to come;-it is the grand elevating and purifying element in character, the most precious of all precious possessions even in regard to the affairs of this life. All these various means of success, you must use carefully, perseveringly, resolutely;-and what young man ever failed in life, who used faithfully all these ways of ensuring success?-no one, I may assert with all confidence.

The reason why so many fail in life, is very obvious to all who will observe and reflect on the subject. They never use the means which are indispensable to success. Their preparatory and professional education has, through indolence, negligence, or impatience of restraint, ³² been totally inadequate to its end. There is a lion in their path, ³³ whenever any object is to be accomplished requiring serious labour and adventurous enterprise. Their minds have not been enriched by various literature, nor their understandings disciplined by laborious study, precise method, and exact learning. Even within the narrow precincts of their own professions, their knowledge is too loose and indefinite to guide them in practice. All favourable occasions, and opportunities leading to success are seized by others, while they are beset by sloth, or the love of frivolous amusements; or they are destroyed by the withering blight of gross and degrading vices. Perhaps they neither fear God nor regard man. Perhaps they have small regard for the pious and moral influences which never fail to spring from the religious observance of Sunday, and an habitual attendance on the public worship of Almighty God. Perhaps the language of cursing and bitterness, and vulgar abuse, may be more familiar to them, than the accents of kindness and the law of love. Perhaps “God is not in all their thoughts,” nor his name upon their tongues, unless for the purpose of profaning it. Perhaps “they tarry long at the wine,” ³⁴ and are “mighty at strong drink.” Perhaps they are more familiar with the theatre than with the church; and the evening may more often find them at the gaming table than at their own fire-sides. Perhaps they have been ensnared by “the strange woman, who forsaketh the guide of her youth and forgetteth the covenant of her God; whose house inclineth unto death, and whose guests are in the depths of Hell; who hath cast down many wounded; by whom many strong men have been slain; whose house is the way to Hell, going down to the chambers of death.” ³⁵ They have neither said nor done anything to inspire public confidence. And yet these men are surprised at their want of success in life; and charge their failure upon their friends, upon want of discernment in the public to discover their merits, upon the government under which they live, upon fortune, upon fate, and sometimes upon Divine Providence. No one, however, is surprised at their failure, but themselves;-everyone else sees it to be the natural and inevitable consequence of their original deficiencies, and subsequent indifference, neglect, or misconduct. After some years, they abandon their professions for which they were never qualified, give themselves up to ruinous vices, if they have not done so before and become the victims of discouragement and despair, if not of premature death. In this way, thousands of ingenuous young men have been lost to themselves and to society, who under more favourable auspices, might have been useful, respectable, and happy.

Next to the blasting effects of vicious habits, nothing is more destructive to the ultimate prospects of young men, than an injudicious haste to enjoy the honours and emoluments of the learned professions, before they are qualified to discharge the duties which these professions impose. So sensible have the people of the United States been, to the danger of entrusting concerns of weighty import to very young men, that in our National, and in many of our State constitutions, a particular age is prescribed, previous to which, the public interests cannot be committed to their hands. ³⁶ The law supposes that a man is not qualified to manage his own concerns until he is twenty-one years of age; and, therefore, does not permit him to become responsible for his own civil acts, before he has reached that time of life. Yet we constantly see youths in their minority, or if not, yet in the very first months of their majority, willing to assume the responsibilities of the Medical profession, of the Bar, and of the Christian Ministry. I must not be understood to say, that wisdom always accompanies length of days; still the position may be assumed as a general rule, with all confidence, that the term of twenty-five years does not usually bring with it more wisdom, discretion, and good judgment, than is sufficient to justify men in entrusting to the hands of others, their fortunes, their lies, and their eternal interests. It is the obvious dictate of reason and common sense, that the previous part of life should be occupied in a comprehensive course of study and discipline.

I cannot persuade myself to close; until I have presented this subject in still another light. I refer to the happiness of an active, energetic, and useful life, compared with a life of indulgence, sloth, and inglorious ease. Man was formed chiefly for action, and an active life is to him the highest sphere of duty and usefulness, of dignity and happiness. Study and contemplation are, in themselves, sources of high satisfaction and enjoyment, but they derive a still greater value from their relation to our future pursuits in an active course of duty and usefulness. Cicero commends some of his countrymen of distinguished rank, for their fondness for the study of geometry, dialectics, and the civil law, because those sciences are employed in the investigation of truth; but he affirms, that to permit ourselves to be drawn away, even by these attractive sciences, from active employments, is contrary to our duty. He says, “Virtutis enim laus omnis in action consistit.” ³⁷ All wise and effectual action must spring from study and reflection. Eminent scholarship must be the fruit of industry, energy, and enterprise. You will not be learned men when you leave the walls of the college. You will not be learned men when you are admitted as members of the learned professions. Your success and happiness must consist, in your making continual advances, in the path of life which you have chosen to pursue. That class of learned men whose closets are the chief scene of their labours, or who are engaged in the instruction of youth, are supposed to be principally useful, inasmuch as their labours contribute to furnish others with materials and qualifications for active usefulness. The approbrious appellation of literary miser, is bestowed on him who is intent only on acquiring knowledge for its own sake, and without any view to convert it to the benefit of mankind.

Observe the distinctions around you in society, and reflect on the causes in which they originate. The choice of Hercules is substantially, if not formally presented to every young man in your situation. ³⁸ Milton exhorts instructors “to inflame their scholars with the study of learning, and the admiration of virtue, to infuse into their young breasts such an incredible diligence and courage, (spirit of enterprise,) such an ingenuous and noble ardour, as will not fail to make many of them renowned and matchless men, and to stir them up with high hopes of living to be brave (excellent) men and worthy patriots, dear to God and famous to all ages.” “The end of learning,” continues he, “is to repair the ruins of our first parents, by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which, being united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection.” ³⁹

The original standard of acquirements and of character in South-Carolina, was very high; and by this standard, the illustrious men were formed whose names adorn our annals. One of the most distinguished of our statesmen has said, “the only distinction to which South-Carolina can aspire, must be based on the moral and intellectual acquirements of her sons.” ⁴⁰ The names of Rutledge, of Pinckney, of Laurens, of Drayton, of Heyward, of Lynch, of Middleton, of Moultrie, of Marion, of Gadsden, of Hayne, of Dehon, of Lowndes, and of Waties, are embalmed in our history, and their renown can never perish. You will inherit the country and the institutions which they loved and honoured by their talents, their acquirements, and their virtues. The same country will hereafter commit its interests and its honour to your keeping. It will also fall to you to sustain, perfect, and perpetuate the institutions which they founded, and to perform the duties which they so honourably performed. This is the time for you to decide, whether like them, you will be respectable, useful, and distinguished in life. The distinctions of talents, of acquirements, of virtue, of piety, are imperishable. By sloth, by impatience under restraint, by impiety, and by vice, you may consign yourselves to insignificance, blast the hopes of your parents, and refuse to render them those returns (pretia nascendi) for their expense, their labour, and anxiety, which will be inestimably precious in their eyes, their chief solace in advanced age, and which they may so rightfully require at your hands.

I am very sensible, that an address upon such a subject as that which I have chosen for this occasion, would have come with a much superior grace, from one who could have furnished in his own person, a case of signal success in life to be ascribed to an observance of the maxims and principles which I have attempted to illustrate and enforce. Such an one might have spoken with a degree of authority and a weight of argument to which I can lay no claim. “Feci ut potui.” Feeble as my attempt may have been, to point out to you the path to useful distinction, it is a sincere and disinterested endeavour to promote your welfare for time and eternity. Blessed will your lives be to yourselves, to your relatives, to your friends, and to your country, if you are habitually governed from the beginning to end of them, by high moral and religious principle, by the love of knowledge, of labour, of order, of truth, of your country, and of mankind.

NOTES.

A.
The author takes occasion to publish Cicero’s account of his professional education as an illustration of his views contained in this address. The greatest part of it was published in the Southern Review, vol. ii p. 515. He has used the translation of the Review, after carefully comparing it with the original, and has translated the remainder, so that it is now published entire.

Cicero says, “when I became acquainted with the Roman Forum. Hortensius was at the height of his reputation, Crassus was dead, Cotta had been banished, and judicial proceedings were suspended in consequence of the war. Hortensius was in the army, performing his term of service, according to the Roman discipline, one year as a common soldier, another as a military tribune. Sulpicious was absent, as was also M. Antony. Trials were conducted under the Varian law alone, as there was occasion for no other, by reason of the war. L. Memmius and Q. Pompey were habitually present, and spoke as their manner was. They were not distinguished in their profession; but still they are honoured with the title of orators by the eloquent Philip, according to whose testimony their speaking had the ehemence and fluency which belongs to the style of accusation.

The other most celebrated orators of the time, were in office, and I had almost daily opportunities of hearing them speak in public. For, C. Curio was then tribune of the people;-he, however, was not in the habit of speaking, since he had, on one occasion, been deserted by the whole assembly;-Q. Metellus Celer was not distinguished, but spoke occasionally. Q. Varius, C. Carbo, and Cn. Pomponius were distinguished orators, and may almost be said to have lived in the Forum. C. Julius, also, Curule Aedile, almost daily delivered speeches in a very accurate style. As I had been extremely desirous to hear Cotta, I regretted his banishment; still I attended on the speaking of the other orators with great zeal. In the mean time, I was not satisfied with hearing oratorical performances only, but passed no day without reading, writing, and meditation. The next year, Q. Varius was condemned to banishment under his own law. Moreover, I attended diligently to the study of the civil law under Q. Scaevola, who, though he did not give formal instruction on the subject, yet permitted such as were desirous of learning, to attend his consultations and learn what they could in that way. The year succeeding, Sylla and Pompey were elected consuls, and P. Sulpicius, tribune. With the oratorical style of the latter, I became intimately acquainted, as he spoke daily in some cause or other.

About the same time, Philo the head of the Academy and some of the principal men of Athens, left that city and came to Rome, being driven away by the Mithridatic war. To his instructions I devoted myself with the greatest ardour, not only because I was enthusiastically fond of philosophy itself, and delighted with the variety and importance of the subjects with which it made me acquainted, but because I was impressed with the belief, that the whole judicial system was abolished forever. During this year, Sulpicius died. The next, three of the most distinguished orators, Q. Catulus, M. Antony, and C. Julius, were most cruelly put to death. This same year, I also took lessons at Rome of Molo the Rhodian, who was both an eminent pleader at the bar and skillful teacher of rhetoric. Although this account of my studies may seem irrelevant to the object of this treatise, yet I have given it, that you, Brutus, (as it is already known to Atticus,) might have your wish gratified, of being made perfectly acquainted with the course I have pursued, and that you might likewise see how closely I have followed the footsteps of Hortensius throughout the whole of it. For almost three years after this, the city was free from any disturbance, but by reason either of the death, or departure, or banishment of the public speakers (for even M. Crassus, and the two Lentuli were not at Rome,)Hortensius took the lead in pleading causes;-the reputation, however of Antistius daily increased; Piso spoke frequently; Pomponius not so often; Carbo seldom; Philiponce or twice daily.

During this whole period, I was engaged night and day in the assiduous study of every branch of knowledge. I used to be with Diodotus the Stoic, who died lately at my house, where he had long resided. From him I learned, among other things, the principles of dialectics, which deserves to be considered as a more contracted and circumscribed eloquence, and, without which, you too, Brutus, have judged it impossible to attain to that higher kind of eloquence which is regarded as only a diffusive or expanded dialectics. To this teacher, and to the various branches of knowledge he professed, I devoted myself, but not so exclusively, as not to continue my oratorical exercises regularly every day. I studied and declaimed together, often with M. Piso and Q. Pompey, or with somebody else, sometimes in Latin, but more frequently in Greek, both because the Greek being riher in oratorical embellishments, naturally led to the same perfection in the use of the Latin language, and because I could not be instructed, nor have my errors corrected by Greek masters, unless I spoke Greek. In the meantime came the tumult about re-establishing the commonwealth, and the cruel deaths of Scaevola, Carbo, Antistius; the return of Cotta, Curio, Crassus,, the Lentuli, Pompey; law and judicature restored; the republic recovered; out of the number of orators, however, three perished. Pompoius, Censorinus, Murena. Then, for the first time, we began to be concerned in causes, both private and public, not to learn our business in the Forum, as many do, but that as far as possible, we might go into it ready prepared. At the same time, we studied once more under Molo, who had come s ambassador to the Senate, touching the rewards of the Rhodians. Thus it was, that our first speech in a public (or criminal) cause, that, namely, for Sextus Roscius, ⁴¹ was so highly commended, that no undertaking of the kind was thought beyond our talents; and from that time forward, we appeared in many others, in which we prepared ourselves elaborately, and even by midnight studies.

“And since it is your wish to know me, not by a few prominent marks, but by a full length portrait, I shall include some things in this account of myself, which may, perhaps, seems to be of minor importance. I was at that time remarkably spare, and feeble of body; with a long attenuated neck; and altogether, such a frame and constitution as is thought to make any extraordinary exertion of the lungs, imminently dangerous. The concern of those to whom I was dear, was so much the more increased, that I spoke always without the least remission or variety, with my voice stretched to the utmost pitch, and my whole body laboring and agitated. So that my friends and the physicians advised me to abandon all idea of the Forum, but I thought it better to encounter any peril, than renounce the pursuit of that glory which I believed to be within my reach. And thinking that by altering my manner of speaking, and modulating my voice with greater skill, I should at once avoid all danger, and improve my elocution, with a view of effecting such a change, I determined to go to Asia. ⁴² So after having been engaged in practice as an advocate for two years, and when my name was now become celebrated in the Forum, I left Rome. At Athens I staid six months, attending the praelections of Antiochus, the most renowned and able philosopher of the old Academy, and thus renewed, under the directions of a great master, the study philosophy, which I had cultivated from my earliest youth, and progressively improved myself in ever since. At the same time I used sedulously to practice speaking under Demetrius, the Syrian, an old and not undistinguished professor of the art. Afterwards, I travelled all over Asia, taking lessons of the greatest orators, with whom I exercised myself in the same way by their own invitation. Of these, the most distinguished was Menippus of Stratonice; in my opinion, the best speaker of that day in all Asia; and, if to be entirely free from affectation and impertinencies ⁴³ of all sorts, (nihil habere molestiarum nec ineptiarum) is to be Attic, none was more so than this orator. Dionysius also was continually with me; as were Aeschylus the Cnidian, and Xenocles of Adramyttium. These were then reckoned the principal speakers of Asia. But not satisfied with their assistance, I went to Rhodes, and applied myself to the same Molo whom I had heard at Rome: who, whilst he was himself distinguished in the management of causes, and a writer of eminence, was the severest of critics in detecting and censuring any fault, and very able in the business of elementary instruction. He took particular pains (I will not say with what success) to prune away my style which was redundant, and rioted in a sort of youthful luxuriance and licentiousness, and to keep it, so to express myself, within its banks. So that I returned at the end of two years, not only better disciplined and practiced, but quite changed; for I had acquired a proper control of my voice, and what may be called the effervescence of my oratory had passed off, my lungs had gathered strength, and my whole constitution, some small degree of vigour and consistency.

“There were two orators at that time pre-eminent, to excite my emulation, Cotta and Hortensins: the former, pleasant and equable, expressing himself with great propriety, and with a careless ease and freedom; the other, ornate, animated, and not as you knew him, brutus, when he was on the wane, but much more vehement both in style and delivery. I, therefore, supposed that Hortensius was to be my principal rival, both as I resembled him more by the animation of my manner, and was nearer to him in age; and besides that, in the most important causes the leading part was always conceded to him by Cotta himself; for a concourse of people, and the tumult of the Forum, require impassioned and ardent speaker with a musical voice, and an impressive and rather dramatic manner. In the course of the first year after my return from Asia, I pleaded several important causes whilst I was suing for the Quaestorship, Cotta for the Consulship, and Hortensius for the place of AEdile. The next year I passed in Sicily; Cotta, after his Consulship, went to Gaul; Hortensius was and was reputed to be first at the bar. When I came back from Sicily, my talent (whatever it was) seemed to have attained to its full maturity and perfection. I fear I am dwelling too long upon these things, especially as they concern myself; but my object in all that I have said, is not to make a boast of any genius and eloquence, which I am far from pretending to, but to shew you what my labour and industry have been. After having been employed then for five years =, in the most important causes, and among the leading advocates, I was fairly matched with Hortensius in the impeachment of Verres, just after he had been elected Consul, and I AEdile. But as this conversation, besides a bare recital of facts calls for some ideas upon the art, I will briefly state what I think was most remarkable in Hortensius. After his consulship, (probably because he had no competitor among the Consulars, and he did not care about those who had not been Consuls) he relaxed from that application and study, which had been so intense in him from his childhood, and surrounded with the good things of life, he determined to live more happily, as he reckoned it, more at his ease certainly. The first, and second, and third year, the colouring of his eloquence, like that of an old picture, began gradually to fade, so gradually however, that an unpracticed eye could not detect the change, although connoisseurs might. As he grew older, he seemed to fall off every day, as in other respects, so particularly in the command of language. While on the other hand, I did not for a moment neglect, by every sort of exercise, but especially by writing a great deal, to increase the talent, whatever it was, that I possessed in that way. Meanwhile, (to omit other things) in the election of Praetors, I stood at the head of the college ⁴⁴ by a very large majority; for not only by my industry and assiduity in the management of causes, but also by a more exquisite and an uncommon style of speaking, I had forcibly drawn the attention of men towards me. I will say nothing of myself. I shall confine myself to the rest of our public speakers, among whom there was none who seemed to have cultivated more thoroughly than other people, those literary studies, in which the fountains of eloquence are contained; none, who had made himself master of philosophy, mother both of good words and actions; none who was sufficiently versed in the civil law, a knowledge of which is so essential to an orator, especially in private causes; none who was so familiar with the Roman history, as to be able to call witnesses of high authority from the dead whenever need were; none who, when he had fairly caught his adversary in his toils, could relax the minds of the judges, and divert them for a while from the severity of their character and situation, to mirth and laughter; none who could expatiate at large, and introduce into the discussion of a particular case, general views and universal principles; none who, to amuse an audience, could digress from the subject in hand, who could inflame their minds with anger, or melt them to tears,–none, in short, who possessed that control over the human soul, which is the peculiar privilege of the orator.”—Cicero Liber de Claris Oratoribus, c. 89-93.

B.
The utility of classical studies has been much discussed within a few years. Most branches of the argument may be said to have been exhausted in the discussion, except perhaps the argument from experience. Some have supposed the moral influence of the classics to be unfavourable; the author, therefore, publishes a part of his introductory lecture on Moral Philosophy, in which he had occasion to defend the classics in this respect.

II. The claim of the Greek and Roman writers, to be made the basis of the higher education in our colleges, has been frequently and earnestly discussed; and it is believed, that there has been a vast preponderance of argument in their favour. To enter into the merits of the general question, is not consistent with my present object: but one exception has been taken to their claim, which it will be appropriate to my design to notice. It has been urged against the classic writers, by some excellent men, whose feelings and opinions are entitled to great respect, that their moral tendency is unfavourable to youth, however much they may contribute to improve their minds and cultivate their understandings. This objection, if true, would be insurmountable: for no cultivation of the intellect can compensate for the destruction of the moral principles. I shall, therefore, give it a careful consideration.

The tests which present themselves for determining this question, are;-(a) a review of the Greek and Roman classic writers, in respect to the moral sentiments which they contain, and the moral impression which they are calculated to produce: (b) an enquiry into the actual effect which has been produced by the study of these writers on classical scholars. My limits prescribe, that I should confine myself to the classic writers which are usually read at our best institutions.

(a) One of the earliest classics put into the hands of our youth, is Caesar’s Commentaries. This work is the personal narrative of the military achievements of that great commander, and is distinguished for its simple, perspicuous, and beautiful style. Its moral effect cannot be unfavourable, unless this is always the case with narratives of military adventures; a position that will scarcely be maintained. The histories of Sallust, in a neat and graphic style, convey a deep and lasting impression of the public injury and private ruin which never fail to follow in the train of private profligacy and unprincipled ambition. History has been said to be philosophy teaching by example; and what example can teach with more effect, the destructive consequences of civil dissensions, than that furnished by the History of Thucydides? Herodotus is various in his materials, mild and equitable in his observations, instructive in his details, and it is believed, has never been accused of being injurious to the morals of youth. The great Epics of Homer and Virgil, address themselves to the susceptibilities of taste, and not to the moral sense. The Idyls of Theocritus, and the Eclogues and Georgies of Virgil, were designated to recommend rural life, and to give instruction in husbandry, the most useful, the most healthful, the most moral, and the most dignified of all human employments. The Odes of Pindar and Horace contain some of the most brilliant and striking thoughts even on moral subjects, to be found in any language; and in the Satires and Epistles of Horace, a trace of the Stoic principles prevails, (Eichhorn’s Litterargeschichte, vol. i. p, 155.) and the inconsistences and less grave vices of men are chastised in a peculiar strain of pleasantry.

Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico Tangit; et admissus circum praecordia, ludit.—Pers. Sat. 1. 116.

He attacks vices chiefly by the formidable instrument of ridicule. Perhaps no writer has chastised avarice with equal spirit and effect. Satire was the only branch of literature in which the Romans were original, and in a moral point of view, their satire is peculiarly rich. Few writers can be read with more profit in this respect, than Juvenal. He portrays the moral corruption of Rome with a spirit and depth of feeling inferior only to that of St. Paul (Romans i. 18-32.) Scaliger says of him, ardet, instat, jugulat;-and the character which he has given of Lucilius, is appropriate to himself.

Euse velut strict quoties Lucilius ardens
Infremuit, rubetauditor, cni frigid mens est
Criminibus, tacita sudant praecordia culpa.—Sat. 1. 165.

No writer is more fertile in valuable sentiments, suited as materials of thought and action, to all situations and circumstances of life. Where are the terrors of a guilty conscience depicted with such power as in his 13th Satire. No other human writing, perhaps, contains so many exalted sentiments, within the same compass, as his 8th Satire. Where can we obtain better instruction on the regulation of our desires than in the 10th Satire. What can be more beautiful or more valuable than the conclusion to which he comes, after having discussed the desire of riches, of power, of fame, of beauty, and of one life;-which make up the sum of human wishes;-

Orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpora sano.
Fortem posce animum, et mortis terrore carentem,
Qui spatium vitae extremum inter munera ponat
Naturae, qui ferre queat quoscunque labors,
Nesciat irasci, cupiat nihil; et potiores,
Herculis aerumnas credit, saevosqne labors,
Et venere et caenis et plumis Sardanapali.—Sat x. 1. 356-362.

The 14th Satire on the influence of example, should be studied by parents, by instructors, and by magistrates, that they may be sensible of the influence which they wield and the responsibility which they incur. The style of Persius is harsh and obscure, but he had a richness of thought, and an energy of expression peculiar to himself. It has before been said, that he was a stoic in his doctrines, and his fine summary of moral doctrines has already been quoted. Among many impressive moral passages, I cannot refrain from citing his description of the power of conscience to punish the wicked.

Mague pater Divum, saevos punier tyrannos
Haud alia ratione elis, cum dira libido
Moverit ingenium fervent tineta veneno;
Virtutem videant, intabescantque relicta.
Anne magis Siculi gemuerunt aera juvenci;
Et magis auratis pendens laquearibus ensis
Purpureas subter ervices terruit; imus,
Imus praecipites, quam si sibi dicat; et intus
Palleat infelix quod proxima nesciat uxor?—Sat iii. 35-43.

The works of the critical writers, such as Aristotle, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Quintilian, Louginus, and the rhetorical treatises of Cicero, are of a didactic nature, and have never been supposed to be unfriendly to morals. The same may be said of Lysias, Isocrates, Demosthenes, and Cicero, the principal classic orators which are studied in our colleges. History is a moral species of writing, and Tacitus and Livy are the Roman historians, which have been chiefly studied. Tacitus has ever been celebrated above all other historians, for the profound moral reflections which are found in his writings. It would be difficult to find in modern times a specimen of biography equally instructive with his life of Agricola. No where do we see the influence of high integrity, strict attention to duty, respect to superiors when in a subordinate station, and condescention to inferiors when in a superior:-in short, all those qualities which are accustomed to raise men to usefulness and distinction, more strikingly exemplified than in the conduct of Agricola. No writer, perhaps, ever possessed in an equal degree with Tacitus, the power of concentrating valuable thought. Describing the state of the times under Domitian, when the teachers of wisdom had been expelled, and their writings had been burnt in public, he says;-Scilicet illo igne vocem populi Romani et libertatem senates et conscientiam generis humani aboleri arbiratbantur, expulses insuper sapientiae professoribus, atque omni bona arte in exsilium acta, ne quid usquam honestum occurreret. (Agricola, c. 2.)

The original object of dramatic writing, was, by representation of such occurrences as might well be supposed to take place in actual life, to render deep the impression of the ultimate triumph of virtue, and the infallibly ruinous consequences of vice. Thus Horace says:

Ille bonis faveatque, et consilietur amicis,
Et regat iratos, et amet peccare timentes;
Ille dapes laudet mensae brevis: ille salubrem
Justitiam, legesque, et apertis otia portis:
Ille regat commissa; Deosque precetur et oret.,
Ut redeat miseris, abeat fortuna siperbis.—Ars Poet. 196-201.

An English poet has expressed the same views;-

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius and to mend the heart,
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o’er each scene and be what they behold;
For this the tragic muse first trod the stage.—Pope’s Prologue to Addison’s Cato, 1-5.

And although this original design of the dramatic art has signally failed, and it is matter of history, that the use of dramatic representations is so connected with their abuse to licentiousness, that it seems impossible to have the one without the accompanying curse of the other; still, the ancient dramatists are never represented on the stage, and we may, in the perusal of such writers as Sophocles, Euripides, and Terence, obtain the benefit that was originally designed. St. Paul quotes (1 Cor. xv. 33 see Rosenmullur.) FROM Euripides or Menander, the moral maxim, “evil communications corrupt good manners.” The Tabula Cebetis, or Picture of human life by Cebes, who was a Theban and a Socratic writer, is an allegorical representation of life with its diversified trials, temptations, encouragements, and vicissitudes. The great and salutary moral doctrine is maintained and beautifully illustrated, tht riches, reputation, and even life itself, are neither blessings nor curses in their nature, but become such to their possessors according to the use which they make of them. The chief works of Plato and Xenophon, which are studied in an elementary course of classical learning, are the Crito, the Phaedo, and the Apology of Socrates of the former; and the Cyropaedia, the Anabasis, and the Memoirs of Socrates, of the latter. The dialogue of Phaedo, contains the conversations of Socrates concerning the immortality of the soul, held in his prison the very day on which he drank the fatal hemlock; and the conclusion contains a minute and moving notice of his behavior at that trying period. Rousseau had this passage in mind when he wrote his parallel, or rather contrast, between the life and death of Socrates and Jesus Christ, in which he said;-if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God. (Profession de Foi du Vicaire Savoyard, Rousseau’s Emile, vol. ii. p. 239.) The Cyropaedia of Xenophon is a historical romance, (Xenophontis quae extant, Edit. Schneider Tom i. p. 663.) founded upon fact, in which the author has given his views, in much detail, of the duties and qualifications of an accomplished prince or governor. If those maxims, and that line of conduct which tend to make a nation prosperous and happy, are embraced by the term moral, this beautiful work must be entitled to our approbation as justly forming part of the studies of youth. The Anabasis contains the author’s journal of the celebrated retreat of the ten thousand Greeks from Persia, which has given him the celebrated retreat of the ten thousand Greeks from Persia, which has given him the reputation of being the greatest military commander of his time. In his memoirs of Socrates, he gives a full narrative of his moral doctrines, often conveyed, there is reason to presume, in the very terms, and with the striking illustrations which he was accustomed to use. This most valuable of all Xenophon’s works, would well repay the labour of a careful perusal, if it contained nothing more than the beautiful allegory of Prodicus of Cos, respecting the celebrated choice of Hercules. Every youth, when he comes to act for himself, is in the situation of Hercules. (p. 27) On the one side, is the way of sloth and pleasure terminating in ruin; and on the other, the way of labour and virtue leading to happiness. Happy the youth, who with Hercules chooses the path of labour and of virtue. We may judge of the deep moral impression which this story makes on those who read it, from the circumstance that it has had so many imitators. Among the ancients, it was imitated by Lecian, and among the English, is illustrated by Lord Shaftesbury in his characteristics. It is imperfectly translated in the 97th No. of the Tatler. Shenstone rendered it into English verse; and Dr. Lowth, a scholar equally celebrated in the walks of classic and sacred literature, made it the subject of a poetical paraphrase.

The philosophical writings of Cicero, however, in which he has transferred all that was most valuable in the Greek Philosophy, to his native tongue, are probably the most valuable legacy of the kind, which we have received from antiquity. Cicero may be viewed in several characters, and we are at a loss in which to admire him most. As an orator, none but Demosthenes has been placed in comparison with him; and as a statesman, Juvenal may be presumed to have expressed the settled conclusion, at which his countryman had arrived, upon a full view of his conduct.

Tatum igitur muros intra toga contulit illi
Nominis et tituli. Quantum non Lencade, quantum
Thessaliae campis Octavius abstulit u do
Caedibus assiduis gladio S d Roma parentem,
Roma patrem patriae Ciceronem libera dixit.—Sat. viii. 240-244.

As a patriot, it is difficult to form a sufficiently high estimate of him, without a familiar acquaintance with his writings. The republic and its best interests were ever present to his mind. His reputation for scholarship is founded on nothing less than an acquaintance with every branch of literature which was known at the time when he lived. As a moralist, he produced the most valuable treatise of all antiquity. (De Officiis) and without the careful study of it, even at this time, a moral education must be acknowledged to be very imperfect. It is a remarkable fact, that some of the moral views contained in this treatise, (Lib. iii. c. 12-17.) have been judged too strict by such writers as Pothier, Puffendorf, and Grotius. (Kent’s Com. On Am. Law, vol. ii. p. 387.) amid all the light which Christianity has furnished. Among other merits, it contains all the striking thoughts which are to be found in the remarks of Dr. Channing on the career of Bonaparte, and on which no inconsiderable share of his reputation is founded. The work of Panaetius, a Grecian stoic, was taken as the basis of this treatise; but the several parts of the subject were so much amplified by Cicero, so many corrections were made by him, so many modifications of the ultra doctrines of the stoics were introduced and so many and such extensive deficiencies were supplied, (Lib. iii. c. 2.) that he may justly claim the substance as his own. It is in the form of letters to his son, who was studying philosophy at Athens at the time when it was written. It has been allotted to few sons to receive letters of this description from a father.

Two things appear to have led to the suggestion, that the tendency of the classics is unfriendly to morals; to wit, the circumstance, that there are some passages in the classic writers, of an immoral description;-and that the character of the heathen deities is such as no man can approve, and therefore, may have a pernicious influence.

1. The immoral passages to which objections have justly been made, are chiefly to be found in Ovid, Horace, and Juvenal. The reading of Ovid has generally been discontinued in our schools, and his writings are not so valuable, that it is desirable to retain them. The immoral passages of Horace and Juvenal, scarcely compose a thousandth part of those authors, and are always omitted by instructors in reading them. It is not perceived, that the study of the valuable parts of a classic writer in case objectionable passages are omitted, can injure the morals of a youth; any more than that travelling through a fine country and enjoying its best society, should injure him in the same respect, when he is careful to avoid every circumstance that could contaminate him. 2. The objection arising from the character of the heathen deities, admits of an equally clear and decisive answer. It may be said, that our youth who study the classics, are taught to have no respect for the heathen divinities, and even no belief in their existence; much less are they taught to regard them as models of character and conduct. It is not reasonable to believe, that a system of which our youth have no belief, and for which they have no respect, can have a moral influence upon them either favourable or unfavourable.

(b) Nor does it appear, if we examine the practical effect which the study of the Greek and Roman classic writers has had on classical scholars, that this influence, whatever it may have been, has been injurious in its tendency. It will not be said, that our classical scholars are the most immoral men in our community; which ought to be the fact, if the influence of the classical writers is unfriendly to the morals of youth. The clergy who adorn our pulpits and who have the chief influence in giving the tone to the public morals, are generally men well versed in ancient learning. It has not been understood, that the part of our clergy, who are without classical attainments, though some of them are highly respectable and useful, have been superior to their more learned brethren, in the all-important point of moral qualifications. Are our layers and statesmen who have drunk deep at the Pierian spring, less worthy of public trust or private confidence, than others? Are those physicians who have the best acquaintance with the classic writers, the men whom we are least willing to admit to the responsible and confidential relation which they sustain to ourselves and our families? The contrary in each of these cases is unquestionably true, and our eminent classical scholars are, as a class, examples of every great and shining virtue.

But the subject is not yet exhausted. The characters contained in the classics, are a most valuable part of them, and never fail to make a deep and salutary impression. Where is the sentiment, that the excellence of a mother is to be seen in the valuable traits of character exhibited by her children, so beautifully inculcated, as in the Roman Cornelia presenting her sons to her friend, as her most valuable jewels? Where has more delicate sensibility to the slightest touch of dishonor been displayed, than in the case of Lucretia, to whom life became an intolerable burthen, the moment her honour was tarnished. Where shall we find a scene of conjugal and parental tenderness so delicate and so touching, as the interview of Hector and Andromache? What country ever had patriots superior to Cincinnatus and the Decii? Nor was this exalted spirit of patriotism confined to individuals; it was a national characteristic. It was this trait which gave the Romans the empire of the world. Examples manifesting this spirit have been drawn from the Roman history, to encourage the efforts and strengthen the energies of every succeeding nation, and by none more often than by our own statesmen. When, during the year 1776, American affairs were in their most depressed state, when the country was invaded and apparently almost overwhelmed by a numerous and well disciplined army, John Jay, in an address to his countrymen, reminded them of the noble conduct of the citizens of Rome, when placed in circumstances somewhat similar. After the armies of Rome, said he, had been repeatedly defeated by Hannibal, that imperial city was besieged by this brave and experienced general, at the head of a numerous and victorious army. But so far were her glorious citizens from being discouraged by the loss of so many battles, and of all their country; so confident of their own virtue and the protection of heaven, that the very land on which the Carthagenians were encamped, was sold at public auction, for more than the usual price. (Pitkin’s Civ. And Po. History of U. States, vol, i. p. 380.) The Roman history has ever been the great storehouse of the heroic virtues.

The enquiry has frequently been made of the author, why a boy who is not designed for a learned profession, should be required to study the Latin and Greek classics. He has frequently replied to this question, and he embraces this occasion to publish an answer to the same enquiry, contained in an address delivered within a few months, before a literary society in the University of Pennsylvania, by Hon. Joseph Hopkinson, LL. D. District Judge of the U. States for the district of Pennsylvania.

“The American parent,” says he, “does an injustice to his child which he can never repair for which no inheritance can compensate, who refuses to give him a full education, because he is not intended for a learned profession;-whatever he may intend, he cannot know to what his son may come; and, if there should be no change in this respect, will a liberal education be lost upon him because he is not a lawyer, a doctor, or a divine? Nothing can be more untrue or pernicious than this opinion. It is impossible to imagine a citizen of this commonwealth to be in any situation, in which the discipline and acquirements of a collegiate education, however various and extended, will not have their value. They will give him consideration and usefulness, which will be seen and felt in his daily intercourse of business or pleasure, they will give him weight and worth as a member of society, and be a never failing source of honourable, virtuous, and lasting enjoyment, under all circumstances, and in every station of life. They will preserve him from the delusion of dangerous errors, and the seduction of degrading and destructive vices. The gambling table will not be resorted to, to hasten the slow and listless step of time, when the library offers a surer and more attractive resource. The bottle will not be applied to, to stir the languid spirit to action and delight, when the magic of the poet is at hand to rouse the imagination, and pour its fascinating wonders on the soul. Such gifts, such acquirements, will make their possessor a truer friend, a more cherished companion, a more interesting, beloved, and loving husband, a more valuable and respected parent.”

C.
The author has translated from the French, a letter from President John Adams to the Abbe De Mably, which contains the best summary view of the sources of American history with which he is acquainted within the same compass. Considerable search has been made for the English original, but without success. The author cannot say, whether the original is existing.

To M. the Abbe De Mably, 1782.

It is with pleasure that I have learned your design of writing upon the American Revolution, because your other writings, which are much admired by the Americans contain principles of legislation, of policy, and of negotiation, which are perfectly analogous to theirs; so that you will scarcely be able to write upon this subject without producing a work which will serve for the instruction of the public, and especially for that of my fellow-citizens. But I trust you will not accuse me of presumption, of affectation, or of singularity, if I venture to express to you the opinion, that it is yet too soon to undertake a complete history of this great event, and that there is no man either in Europe or America, who, at this time, is in a situation to do it, and who has the materials requisite or necessary for its accomplishment.

In undertaking such a work, a writer ought to divide the history of America into several periods. 1. From the first establishment of the Colonies in 1600, to the beginning of their difficulties with Great Britain in 1761. 2. From this beginning, (occasioned by an order of the Board of Trade and Plantations in Great Britain, given to the officers of the customs in America, to cause the acts of trade to be executed in a more rigorous manner, and to this end, to apply to the courts of justice for writs of assistance) to the commencement of hostilities, 19th April 1775. During this period of fourteen years, war was waged only with he pen. 3. From the battle of Lexington to the signing of the treaty with France, 6th of February 1778. During this period of three years, the war was waged only between Great Britain and the United States. 4. From the treaty with France to the breaking out of hostilities first between Great Britain and France, then with Spain, afterwards to the formation (development) of the Armed Neutrality and the war against Holland. Finally, all these scenes find their conclusion in the negotiations of the peace.

Without a clear knowledge of the history of the colonies during the first period, a writer will find himself constantly embarrassed, from the beginning of his work to the end, to give an account of the events and characters which will present themselves for description at each step, as he advances towards the second, third, and fourth periods. To acquire a sufficient knowledge of the first period, all the charter granted to the colonies, and the commissions and instructions given to the Governors must be read, all the Codes of Law of the different colonies, (and thirteen folio volumes of dry and repulsive statutes which are neither perused with pleasure nor in a small space of time,) all the records of the Legislatures of the different colonies, which will be found only in manuscript and by travelling in person from New-Hampshire to Georgia; the records of the Boards of Trade and of Plantations in Great Britain, from their institution to their dissolution, as also the office-papers of some of the offices of State.

There is another branch of reading which cannot be dispensed with, when the others shall have been completed. I speak of those writings which have appeared in America from time to time; I do not pretend, however, situated as I am, at a distance from all the books and writings, to make an exact enumeration of them;-the writings of the early Governors Winthrop and Winslow, of Dr. Mather, Mr. Prince,-Neal’s History of New-England, (2 vols. 8 vo. Tr.)—Douglas’ Summary of the first settlements, the progressive improvement of the lands, and present state of the British colonies, (Douglas, Wm., Summary Historical and Political of the British settlements in N. America, 2 vols. 8 vo. Tr.)-Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts-Bay, (3 vols. 8 vo. Tr.)-Smith’s History of New-York,–Smith’s History of New-Jersey,–the works of William Penn,–Dummer’s Defence of the New-England Charters,–the History of Virginia, and several others. ⁴⁵ All this was previous to the present dispute which began in 1761.

During the second period, the writings are more numerous and more difficult to be obtained:-works of great importance were then given to the public in the form of controversies between those who were actors in this scene, in quality of writers,–some of them deserve to be distinguished. We may reckon among them the writings of the Royal Governors Pownal, Bernard, and Hutchinson, of Lt. Gov. Oliver, of Mr. Sewall, Judge of Admiralty for Halifax,–of Dr. Jonathan Mayhew, James Otis, Oxenbridge Thatcher, Samuel Adams, Josiah Quincy, Joseph Warren;–and perhaps the following have not been less important than any of the others; to wit, the writings of Mr. Dickinson, of Mr. Wilson, and of Dr. Rush of Philadelphia, of Mr. Livingston, and Mr. Dougal of New-York, of Colonel Bland and Arthur Lee of Virginia, and of several others. The records of the city of Boston, and particularly of a Committee of Correspondence, of the Board of Commissioners of the Customs, of the House of Representatives, and of the Council, (Bureau du Conseil) of Massachusetts-Bay,–moreover, the Boston gazettes of late times, not to mention those of New-York and Philadelphia, ought to be collected and examined since the year 1760. All this is necessary to write with precision and in detail, the history of the controversies previous to the commencement of hostilities, comprising the period from the year 1761 to 19th April 1775.

During the third and fourth periods, the records, pamphlets and gazettes of the thirteen States ought to be collected, as well as the Journals of Congress, (a part of which, however, are still secret,) and the collection of New Constitutions of the different States,–the Remembrancer and the Annual Register, periodical papers published in England. The “Affaires de l’Angleterre and de l’Amerique,”—and the “Mercure de France” published at Paris, and the “Politique Hollandais” printed at Amsterdam,-the entire series of the correspondence of General Washington with the Congress from the month of July 1775, to this day, which has not been, and which will not be published until Congress shall order, or permit it to be published. And permit me to inform you, that unless this vast source be opened, it will be scarcely possible for a writer to undertake a history of the American war. There are besides, other writings of importance in the Archives of the Secret Committee, in those of the Committee of Commerce,–of the Committee of Foreign Affairs—of the Committee of the Treasury, of the naval Committee; in the War Office. (as long as it continued,)—and in the Archives of the Department of War, of Naval Affairs, of Finance, and of Foreign Affairs, since their institution. There is, also, the correspondence of the American Ministers in France, Spain, Holland, and other parts of Europe.

The greatest part of the documents and materials being still unpublished, it is a premature step to undertake a general history of the American Revolution; but too much activity and pains cannot be used in making a collection of the materials. In the meantime, there are, in fact, already two or three general histories of the American War and Revolution, published at London; and two or three others published at Paris. Those in the English language are only rude and confused materials without discrimination, and all these histories both in English and in French, are nothing more than monuments of the complete ignorance of their authors on this subject.

An entire and very long life, beginning at the age of twenty years, would be required, to collect from all nations and from all parts of the world, in which they exist, the documents requisite to form a complete history of the American War; because it is, in truth, the history of the human race during all this period. It is necessary to unite with it the history of France, of Spain, of Holland, of England, and of the Neutral Powers, as well as the history of America. The materials of it must be collected from all these nations; and the most important of all the documents, as well as the characters of the actors and the secret springs of the transactions, are still concealed in cabinets and in cipher.

Whether you, Sir, undertake to give a general history, or simply some remarks and observations similar to those which you have given upon the Greeks and Romans; you will produce a work highly interesting and instructive in regard to morals, politics and legislation, and I shall esteem it an honour and a pleasure to furnish you with all the small aid which shall be in my power, to facilitate your researches. It is impossible for me to inform you, whether the government of this country (France) would wish to see such a work profoundly written, and by an author of great celebrity, in the French language. It admits of a question, perhaps, whether such an enterprise of explaining principles of government so different from those which prevail in Europe, especially in France, would be viewed with an indifferent eye;–it is, however, a thing of which I do not consider myself a competent judge.

Permit me, Sir, to close this letter by giving you a key to all this history. There is a general analogy in the governments and characters of all the thirteen States;-but it was not until the discussions and the war began in Massachusetts, the leading Province of N. England, that the primitive institutions produced their first effect. Four of these institutions ought to be well studied and fully examined by everyone who may wish to write on this subject with a knowledge of causes; for they have produced a decisive effect, not only on the first determinations of the debates, on the public councils and the first resolutions to resist by arms, but also by the influence which they had upon the minds of the other colonies, in setting them an example, to adopt more or less the same institutions and similar measures.

The four institutions referred to, are, 1. The townships or districts. 2. The churches. 3. The schools. 4. The militia.

1. The townships are certain portions of country, or territorial districts, into which Massachusetts-Bay, Connecticut, New-Hampshire, and Rhode-Island were divided. Each township is usually six miles or two leagues square. The inhabitants who live within these limits, form by law, corporations or bodies politic, and are invested with certain powers and privileges;-as for example, with the power of repairing the highways, maintaining the poor, choosing the selectmen, constables, collectors of the taxes and other officers, and especially their representatives in the Legislature; as also with the right of assembling as often as they are notified by their selectmen, in town-meetings, in order to deliberate upon the public affairs of the township, or to give instructions to their representatives. The consequences of this institution have been, that all the inhabitants having acquired, from their infancy, a habit of discussing, deliberating and judging of public affairs, the sentiments of the people have in the first instance been formed, and their resolutions have been taken in these small townships or districts, from the commencement to the end of the discussions, and of the war.

2. The churches are religious societies which comprise the whole people. Each district contains a parish and a church. The greatest part have only one, but some have several of them. Each parish has a meeting house, and a minister supported at its own expense. The constitutions of the churches are extremely popular, and the clergy have little influence or authority, except what their piety, their virtue, and their knowledge naturally give them. They are chosen by the people of their parish, and receive their ordination from the neighbouring clergy. They are all married, have families, and live with their parishioners in perfect friendship and intimacy. They visit the sick, practice charity towards the poor, solemnize all marriages and burials, and preach twice each Sunday;-the least stain upon their moral character would cause them to lose their influence, and would injure them for life. They are wise, virtuous and pious men. Their sentiments are in general suited to those of the people, and they are jealous friends of liberty.

3. There are schools in each township; they are established by an express law of the colony; each township consisting of sixty families, is obliged, under the penalty of a fine, constantly to maintain a school and a master who teaches reading, writing, arithmetic, and the elements of the Latin and Greek languages. All the children of the inhabitants, those of the rich as well as of the poor, have the right of going to this public school. Students are prepared in them for Cambridge, N. Haven, Warwick, (Providence, Tr.) and Dartmouth Colleges; and in these colleges, masters are educated for the schools, ministers for the churches, lawyers and physicians, magistrates and officers for the government of the country.

4. The militia comprehends all the people. By the laws of the country, each male inhabitant between 16 and 60 years of age, is enrolled in a company and regiment of militia, completely furnished with all the officers. He is obliged always, to keep in his house and at his own expense, a musket in good order, a powder-horn, a pound of gunpowder, twelve flints, twenty-four leaden bullets, a cartouch-box, and a knapsack: so that the whole country is ready to march for its defense at the first signal. The companies and regiments are required to assemble at a certain time of the year, under the orders of their officers, for the inspection of their arms and ammunition, and to perform military exercises.

This, Sir, is a slight sketch of the four principal sources of that wisdom in council, of that skill and military courage, which produced the American Revolution, and which, I trust, will be sacredly preserved as the foundations of the liberty, the happiness and the prosperity of the people. If there are other particulars upon which I can give you information, you will do me a favour by letting me know it. I have the honour to be,

JOHN ADAMS.

D.
The author reprints from the columns of a newspaper, the best summary which he has seen, of the multifarious duties of the President of the United States.

“This (the Government of the United States) is a business government, and the chief magistrate, so far from being a parade officer, has much more business to do than any other officer in the Union. His business is of an arduous and complicated nature. He must be thoroughly acquainted with the laws of the country; for every question in the administration and execution of the laws, throughout the Union, which is referred to Washington, must be decided in the last resort, by him. Matters the most perplexed, are in this way constantly submitted to him, which he must personally investigate and settle. It is impossible to do this, without being familiar with the whole course of judicial decision in the Courts both of the States and the Union. All the intricacies of the public land system must be at his command. The entire series of the revenue laws, with their successive changes and present state, must be present at once to his mind; for millions of the public property depend upon his being able, in case of need, to direct their prompt application. All cases of disputed accounts, in every part of the service requiring executive sanction, are referred to and must be examined by him. The President must know the whole internal condition of the country, and the natural and economical connection of its various parts with each other, for he is daily called on to authorize expenditures of the public money, under the acts of Congress providing for surveys. Every act of Congress is presented to him for his signature. He must do what, if it were the sole business of the most industrious of our legislators, would be thought enough to occupy all their time; that is, he must read over every act of Congress, weight the reports on which it is founded and the debates of its friends and opposers, and make up his mind whether, under the solemnity of an oath, he can put his name to it. In the administration of so vast a country as this, and under a government so recent as ours, new cases, unprovided for by legislation, are of frequent occurrence in every department of the service. These must be anxiously examined and decided by the chief magistrate, according to the analogy of the constitution and laws of the country. Almost the whole province of the Indian affairs of the country, a subject difficult and embarrassing beyond belief, is left by law with the discretion of the President. A number of treaties, with different tribes of Indians, are annually to be made of the highest importance to the United States; difficulties of the most embarrassing character, in the execution of former treaties, frequently arise; and collisions between different States of the Union and the aborigines in their neighbourhood, of painful and alarming aspect, have taken place from time to time ever since the peace of 1783. All these are subjects on which the President must often come to an instant decision, involving vast amount of property, and affecting human life itself. The proceedings of court martials, naval and military, are referred to the President, and their record, often extremely voluminous, must be read by him with the greatest care, as he is to approve or disapprove the sentence. The same holds of criminal trials in the Courts of the United States. The President is obliged to administer, in the last resort, the discipline of the West-Point Academy; and in case of dismission, generally receives applications for the restoration of the cadet, requiring careful investigation of the circumstances. Then there is the entire foreign intercourse of the country, to which he must pay the closest attention. He must carefully read the voluminous correspondence of every foreign minister, charge d’affaires, and, in all cases of importance, that of the consuls and commercial agents; and he must direct the answers to be returned by the Secretary of State. With the principal powers of Europe we have negotiations pending, some of which relate to matters that have been in discussion twenty years; others to controversies as old as the constitution. The documents necessary to the understanding of these negotiations, fill a great number of printed volumes, and no doubt as many more lie unpublished in the archives of government. In addition to this, these negotiations often turn upon difficult points of foreign law, the law of nature and nations, and the import and construction of our own treaties. It will not do, when the time of decision arrives, for the President to be obliged to sit down, and begin to inquire into the subject. He cannot conscientiously leave to his Secretary of State, what his duty requires him to understand himself. All this profound and various knowledge must, therefore, be laid up in his mind, as in a vast storehouse, in orderly arrangement for immediate use. Besides the correspondence with our own ministers, the President must superintend the intercourse of the ministers of foreign powers with this government. We need only revert to the administration of Washington or the first of Madison, to understand the difficulty of this part of his duty. With all these labours pressing upon him, the President must, during one half of the year, stand ready to direct the answers to be made to the calls of the two Houses of Congress, on every imaginable subject, not merely of legislation, but of enquiry. He must find time to receive applications and recommendations for every office within his nomination; applications sometimes, it is believed, amounting to several hundreds for an office. He must receive the visits, and attend to the personal communications of every citizen of the United States, who repairs to Washington with business over which the chief magistrate has, or is supposed to have, a control. And he must go through his enormous amount of work, (more unquestionably, than devolves on any [other] officer in the world,) under the knowledge, that he is to be traversed at every step, by an active, and often unscrupulous and unprincipled opposition; that whichever way he decides or acts, some of the ablest men and most active presses in the country will be instantly in motion to prove that he ought to have done the precise contrary.” (Walsh’s National Gazette, Oct. 16th, 1828.)

E.
The celebrated letters of Lord Chatham to his nephew, Thomas Pitt, seem to the author to be much less known in this country, than they deserve to be. The great experience and distinction of Lord Chatham give them high authority. They are strongly illustrative of the views contained in this address, and the author avails himself of this occasion to place them in the hands of the ingenuous young men of the college, and to recommend them to their special notice.

The English Editor’s Preface.—The following letters were addressed by the late Lord Chatham to his nephew, Mr. Pitt, (afterwards Lord Camelford,) then at Cambridge. They are few in number, written for the private use of an individual during a short period of time, and containing only such detached observations on the extensive subjects to which they relate, as occasion might happen to suggest, in the course of familiar correspondence. Yet even these imperfect remains will undoubtedly be received by the public with no common interest, as well from their own intrinsic value, as from the picture which they display of the character of their author. The editor’s wish to do honor to the memory both of the person by whom they were written, and of him to whom they were addressed, would alone have rendered him desirous of making these papers public. But he feels a much higher motive, in the hope of promoting by such a publication the inseparable interests of learning, virtue, and religion. By the writers of that school, whose philosophy consists in the degradation of virtue, it has often been triumphantly declared, that no excellence of character can stand the test of close observation: that no man is a more amiable and dignified, is the opposite sentiment, delivered to us in the words of Plutarch, and illustrated throughout all his writings! ‘Real virtue,” says that inimitable moralist, ‘is most loved, where it is most nearly seen: and no respect which it commands from strangers, can equal the never ceasing admiration it excites in the daily intercourse of domestic life”—Plut. Vit. Periclis.

The following correspondence, imperfect as it is (and will not lament that many more such letters are not preserved?) exhibits a great orator, statesman and patriot, in one of the most interesting relations of private society. Not as in the cabinet or the senate, enforcing by a vigorous and commanding eloquence, those councils to which his country owed her pre-eminence and glory; but implanting with parental kindness into the mind of an ingenious youth, seeds of wisdom and virtue, which ripened into full maturity in the character of a most accomplished man: directing him to the acquisition of knowledge, as the best instrument of action; teaching him by the cultivation of his reason, to strengthen and establish in his heart those principles of moral rectitude which were congenial to it; and, above all, exhorting him to regulate the whole conduct of his life by the predominant influence of gratitude, and obedience to God, as the only sure groundwork of every human duty.

What parents, anxious for the character and success of a son, born to any liberal station in this great and free country, would not, in all that related to his education, gladly have resorted to the advice of such a man? What youthful spirit animated by any desire of future excellence, and looking for the gratification of that desire, in the pursuits of honourable ambition, or in the consciousness of an upright, active and useful life, would not embrace with transport any opportunity of listening on such a subject to the lessons of Lord Chatham? They are here before him. Not delivered with the authority of a preceptor, or a parent, but tempered by the affection of a friend towards a disposition and character well entitled to such regard.

On that disposition and character the editor forbears to enlarge. Their best panegyric will he found in the following pages. Lord Camelford is there described such as Lord Chatham judged him in the first dawn of his youth, and such as he continued to his latest hour. The same suavity of manners, and steadiness of principle, the same correctness of judgment, and integrity of heart, distinguished him through life; and the same affectionate attachment from those who knew him best, as followed him beyond the grave.

It will be obvious to every reader on the slightest perusal of the following letters, that they were never intended to comprise a perfect system of education, even for the short portion of time to which they relate. Many points in which they will be found deficient, were undoubtedly supplied by frequent opportunities of personal intercourse, and much was left to the general rules of study established at an English university. Still less, therefore, should the temporary advice addressed to an individual, whose previous education had labored under some disadvantage, be understood as a general dissuasive from the cultivation of Grecian literature. The sentiments of Lord Chatham were in direct opposition to any such opinion. The manner in which, even in these letters, he speaks of the first of poets, and the greatest of orators: and the stress which he lays on the benefits to be derived from their immortal works, could leave no doubt of his judgment on this important point. That judgment was afterwards most unequivocally manifested, when he was called upon to consider the question with a still higher interest, not only as a friend and guardian, but also as a father.

“I call that,” says Milton, “a complete and generous education, which fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war.”

This is the purpose to which all knowledge is subordinate; the test of all intellectual and moral excellence. It is the end to which the lessons of Lord Chatham are uniformly directed. May they contribute to promote and encourage its pursuit! Recommended, as they must be, to the heart of every reader, by their warmth of sentiment and eloquence of language; deriving additional weight from the affectionate interest by which they were dictated; and most of all enforced by the influence of his own great example, and by the authority of his venerable name.

LETTER I.—My dear child;–I am extremely pleased with your translation now it is written over fair. It is very close to the sense of the original, and done in many places, with much spirit, as well as the numbers not lame or rough. However, an attention to Mr. Pope’s numbers will make you avoid some ill sounds, and hobbling of the verse, by only transposing a word or two, in many instances. I have, upon reading the Eclogue over again, altered the third, fourth, and fifth lines, in order to bring them nearer to the Latin, as well as to render some beauty which is contained in the repetition of words in tender passages. You give me great pleasure, my dear child, in the progress you have made. I will recommend to Mr. Leech to carry you quite through Virgil’s AEneid, from beginning to ending. Pray show him this letter, with my service to him, and thanks for his care of you. For English poetry, I recommend Pope’s translation of Homer, and Dryden’s Fables in particular. I am not sure, if they are not called Tales instead of AEneid quite through, and much of Horace’s Epistles. Terence’s plays I would also desire Mr. Leech to make you perfect master of. Your cousin has read them all. Go on, my dear, and you will at least equal him. You are so good that I have nothing to wish but that you may be directed to proper books; and I trust to your spirit, and desire to be praised for things that deserve praise, for the figure you will hereafter make. God bless you my dear child.

Your most affectionate uncle.

LETTER II.—Bath, Oct. 12, 1751.—My dear nephew;–As I have been moving about from place to place, your letter reached me here, at Bath, but very lately, after making a considerable circuit to find me. I should have otherwise, my dear child, returned you thanks for the very great pleasure you have given me, long before now. The very good account you give me of your studies, and that delivered in very good Latin, for your time, has filled me with the highest expectation of your future improvements: I see the foundations so well laid, that I do not make the least doubt but you will become a perfect good scholar; and have the pleasure and applause that will attend the several advantages hereafter, in the future course of your life, that you can only acquire now by your emulation and noble labours in the pursuit of learning, and of every acquirement that is to make you superior to other gentlemen. I rejoice to hear that you have begun Homer’s Iliad; and have made so great a progress in Virgil. I hope you taste and love those authors particularly. You cannot read them too much: they are not only the two greatest poets, but they contain the finest lessons for your age to imbibe: lessons of honour, courage, disinterestedness, love of truth, command of temper, gentleness of behavior, humanity, and, in one word, virtue in its true signification. Go on, my dear nephew, and drink as deep as you can of these divine springs: the pleasure of the draught is equal at least, to the prodigious advantages of it to the heart and morals. I hope you will drink them as somebody does in Virgil, of another sort of cup: Ille impiger hausit spumantem pateram. Quickly he drained the foaming bowl.”

I shall be highly pleased to hear from you, and to know what authors give you most pleasure. I desire my service to Mr. Leech; pray tell him I will write to him soon about your studies. I am with the greatest affection, my dear child, your loving uncle.

LETTER III.—Bath, Jan. 12, 1754.—My dear nephew;–Your letter from Cambridge affords me many very sensible pleasures: first, that you are at last in a proper place for study and improvement, instead of losing any more of that most precious thing, time, in London. In the next place, that you seem pleased with the particular society you are placed in, and with the gentleman to whose care and instructions you are committed; and above all, I applaud the sound, right sense, and love of virtue, which appears through your whole letter. You are already possessed of the true clue to guide you through this dangerous and perplexing part of your life’s journey, the years of education; and upon which, the complexion of all the rest of your days will infallibly depend: I say you have the true clue to guide you, in the maxim you lay down in your letter to me, namely, that the use of learning is, to render a man more wise and virtuous; not merely to make him more learned. Macte tua virtute; ‘Go on, and prosper.’ Go on, my dear boy, by this golden rule, and you cannot fail to become everything your generous heart prompts you to wish to be, and that mine most affectionately wishes for you. There is but one danger in your way; and that is, perhaps, natural enough to your age, the love of pleasure, or the fear of close application and laborious diligence. With the last there is nothing you may not conquer: and the first is sure to conquer and enslave whoever does not strenuously and generously resist the first allurements of it, lest by small indulgences, he fall under the yoke of irresistible habit. Vitanda est improba siren, desidia, ‘Avoid that ugly siren, idleness,’ I desire may be affixed to the curtains of your bed, and to the walls of your chambers. If you do not rise early, you never can make any progress, worth talking of; and another rule is, if you do not set apart your hours of reading, and never suffer yourself or anyone else to break in upon them, your days will slip through your hands, unprofitably and frivolously; unpraised by all you wish to please, and really unenjoyable to yourself. Be assured, whatever you take from pleasure, amusements, or indolence, for these first few years of your life, will repay you a hundred fold, in the pleasures, honours; and advantages of all the remainder of your days. My heart is so full of the most earnest desire that you should do well, that I find my letter has run into some length, which you will, I know, be so good as to excuse. There remains now nothing to trouble you with, but a little plan for the beginning of your studies, which I desire, in a particular manner, may be exactly followed in every tittle. You are to qualify yourself for the part in society, to which your birth and estate call you. You are to be a gentleman of such learning and qualifications as may distinguish you in the service of your country hereafter; not a pedant, who reads only to be called learned, instead of considering learning as an instrument only for action. Give me leave, therefore, my dear nephew, who have gone before you, to point out to you the dangers in your road; to guard you against such things, as I experience my own defects to arise from; and at the same time, if I have had any little successes in the world, to guide you to what I have drawn many helps from. I have not the pleasure of knowing the gentleman who is your tutor, but I dare say he is every way equal to such a charge, which I think no small one. You will communicate this letter to him, and I hope he will be so good as to concur with me, as to the course of study I desire you may begin with; and that such books, and such only, as I have pointed out, may be read. They are as follows:–Euclid; a course of Logic; a course of experimental Philosophy; Locke’s Conduct of the Understanding; his Treatise also on the Understanding; his Treatise on Government, and Letters on Toleration. I desire, for the present, no books of poetry6, but Horace and Virgil; of Horace the Gdes, but above all, the Epistles, and Ars Poetica. These parts, Nocturna versate manu, versate diurnal. Tully de Officiis, de Amicitia. De Senectute. His Catilinarian Orations and Philippies. Sallust. At leisure hours, an abridgment of the history of England to be run through, in order to settle in the mind a general chronological order and series of principal events, and succession of kings: proper books of English history, on the true principles of our happy constitution, shall be pointed out afterwards. Burnet’s History of the Reformation, abridged by himself, to be read with great care. Father Paul on beneficiary matters, in English. A French master, and only Moliere’s Plays to be read with him, or by yourself, till you have gone through them all. Spectators, especially Mr. Addison’s papers, to be read very frequently at broken times in your room. I make it my request that you will forbear drawing, totally, while you are at Cambridge; and not meddle with Greek, (see p. 41 and letter xvi.) otherwise than to know a little the etymology of words in Latin, or English, or French: nor to meddle with Italian. I hope this little course will soon be run through; I intend it as a general foundation for many things, of infinite utility, to come as soon as this is finished.

Believe me, with the truest affection, my dear nephew, ever yours,

LETTER IV.—Bath, Jan. 14, 1754.—My dear nephew;–You will hardly have read over one very long letter from me before you are troubled with a second. I intended to have written soon, but I do it the sooner on account of your letter to your aunt, which she transmitted to me here. If anything, my dear boy, could have happened, to raise you higher in my esteem, and to endear you more to me, it is the amiable abhorrence you feel for the scene of vice and folly, (and of real misery and perdition, under the false notion of pleasure and spirit,) which has opened to you at your college, and at the same time, the manly, brave, generous, and wise resolution and true spirit, with which you resisted and repulsed the first attempts upon a mind and heart, I thank God, infinitely too firm and noble, as well as too elegant and enlightened, to be in any danger of yielding to such contemptible and wretched corruptions. You charm me with the description of Mr. Wheler, and while you say you could adore him, I could adore you for the natural, genuine love of virtue, which speaks in all you feel, say, or do. As to your companions, let this be your rule. Cultivate the acquaintance with Mr. Wheler which you have so fortunately begun: and, in general, be sure to associate with men much older than yourself: scholars whenever you can; but always with men of decent and honourable lives. As their age and learning, superior both to your own, must necessarily, in good sense, and in the view of acquiring knowledge from them, entitle them to all deference, and submission of your own lights to theirs, you will particularly practice that first and greatest rule for pleasing in conversation, as well as for drawing instruction and improvement from the company of one’s superior in age and knowledge, namely, to be a patient, attentive, and well bred hearer, and to answer with modesty; to deliver your own opinions sparingly and with proper diffidence; and if you are forced to desire farther information or explanation upon a point, to do it with proper apologies for the trouble you give: or if obliged to differ, to do it with all possible candour, and an unprejudiced desire to find and ascertain truth, with an entire indifference to the side on which that truth is to be found. There is likewise a particular attention required to contradict with good manners; such as, begging pardon, begging leave to doubt, and such like phrases. Pythagoras enjoined his scholars an absolute silence for a long noviciate. I am far from approving such a taciturnity; but I highly recommend the end and intent of Pythagoras’ injunction; which is to dedicate the first parts of life more to hear and learn, in order to collect materials, out of which to form opinions founded on proper lights, and well examined sound principles, than to be presuming, prompt, and flippant in hazarding one’s own slight crude notions of things; and thereby exposing the nakedness and emptiness of the mind, like a house opened to company before it is fitted either with necessaries, or any ornaments for temerity and presumption, but a more serious danger is sure to ensue, that is, the embracing errors for truths, prejudices for principles; and when that is once done, (no matter how vainly and weakly,) the adhering perhaps to false and dangerous notions, only because one has declared for them, and submitting, for life, the understanding and conscience to a yoke of base and servile prejudices, vainly taken up and obstinately retained. This will never be your danger; but I thought it no amiss to offer these reflections to your thoughts. As to your manner of behaving towards these unhappy young gentlemen you describe, let it e manly and easy; decline their parties with civility; retort their raillery with raillery, always tempered with good breeding; if they banter your regularity, order, decency, and love of study, banter in return their neglect of them; and venture to own frankly, that you came to Cambridge to learn what you can, not to follow what they are pleased to call pleasure. In short, let your external behavior to them be as full of politeness and ease as your inward estimation of them is full of pity, mixed with contempt. I come now to the part of the advice I have to offer to you, which most nearly concerns your welfare, and upon which every good and honourable purpose of your life will assuredly turn; I mean the keeping up in your heart the true sentiments of religion. If you are not right towards God, you can never be so towards man; the noblest sentiment of the human breast is here brought to the test. Is gratitude in the number of a man’s virtues? If it be, the highest benefactor demands the warmest returns of gratitude, love, and praise: Ingratum qui dixerit, omnia dixit. ‘When you have spoken ingratitude, you have spoken everything.’ If a man wants this virtue, where there are infinite obligations to excite and quicken it, he will be likely to want all others towards his fellow creatures, whose utmost gifts are poor compared to those he daily receives at the hands of his never failing Almighty friend. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, is big with the deepest wisdom; the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and, an upright heart, that is understanding. This is eternally true, whether the wits and rakes of Cambridge allow it or not: nay, I must add of this religious wisdom. Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace, whatever your young gentlemen of pleasure may think of a tainted health and battered constitution. Hold fast therefore by this sheet-anchor of happiness, religion; you will often want it in the times of most danger; the storms and tempests of life. Cherish true religion as precisely as you will fly with abhorrence and contempt superstition and enthusiasm. The first is the perfection and glory of the human nature; the two last, the depravation and disgrace of it. Remember the essence of religion is, a heart void of offence towards God and man; not subtle, speculative opinions, but an active vital principle of faith. The words of a heathen were so fine that I must give them to you: Compositum jus, fasque animi, sanctosque recessus mentis, et incoctum generoso pectus honesto. ‘What is just and right within the soul, and the sacred recesses of the mind, and a breast imbued with generous honesty.”

Go on, my dear child, in the admirable dispositions you have towards all that is right and good, and make yourself the love and admiration of the world! I have neither paper nor words to tell you how tenderly I am yours.

LETTER V.—Bath. Jan. 24, 1754.—I will lost not a moment before I return my most tender and warm thanks to the most amiable, valuable, and noble minded of youths, for the infinite pleasure his letter gives me. My dear nephew, what a beautiful thing is genuine goodness, and how lovely does the human mind appear, in its native purity, (in a nature as happy as yours,) before the taints of a corrupted world have touched it! To guard you from the fatal effects of all the dangers that surround and beset youth, (and many there are,) I thank God, is become my pleasing and very important charge; your own choice, and our nearness in blood, and still more, a dearer and nearer relation of hearts, which I feel between us, all concur to make it so. I shall seek then every occasion, my dear young friend, of being useful to you, by offering you those lights, which one must have lived some year in the world to see the full force and extent of, and which the best mind and clearest understanding will suggest imperfectly, in any case, and in the most difficult, delicate, and essential points perhaps not at all, till experience, that dear bought instructor, comes to our assistance. What I shall therefore make my task, (a happy, delightful task, if I prove a safeguard to so much opening virtue,) is to be for some years , what you cannot be to yourself, your experience; experience anticipated, and ready digested for your use. Thus we will endeavour, my dear child, to join the two best seasons of life, to establish your virtue and your happiness upon solid foundations. So much in general. I will now, my dear nephew, say a few things to you upon a matter where you have surprisingly little to learn, considering you have seen nothing but Bocounock; I mean behavior. Behaviour is of infinite advantage or prejudice to a man, as he happens to have formed it to a graceful, noble, engaging, and proper manner, or to a vulgar, coarse, ill-bred, or awkward, and ungenteel one. Behaviour, though an external thing which seems rather to belong to the body than to the mind, is certainly founded in considerable virtues: though I have known instances of good men, with something very revolting and offensive in their manner of behavior, especially when they have the misfortune to be naturally very awkward and ungenteel; and which their mistaken friends have helped to confirm them in, by telling them, they were above such trifles as being genteel, dancing, fencing, riding, and doing all manly exercises, with grace and vigour. As if the body, because inferior, were not a part of the composition of man; and the proper, easy, ready, and graceful use of himself, both in mind and limb, did not go to make up the character of an accomplished man. You are in no danger of falling into this preposterous error; and I had a great pleasure in finding you, when I first saw you in London, so well disposed by nature, and so properly attentive to make yourself genteel in person, and well bred in behavior. I am very glad you have taken a fencing master; that exercise will give you some manly, firm, and graceful attitudes: open your chest, place your head upright, and plant you well upon your legs. As to the use of the sword, it is well to know it; but remember, my dearest nephew, it is a science of defense; and that a sword can never be employed by the hand of a man of virtue, in any other cause. As to the carriage of your person, be particularly careful, as you are tall and thin, not to get a habit of stooping; nothing has so poor a look; above all things, avoid contracting any peculiar gesticulations of the body, or movements of the muscles of the face. It is rare to see in any one a graceful laughter; it is generally better to smile than to laugh out, especially to contract a habit of laughing at small or no jokes. Sometimes it would be affectation, or worse, mere moroseness, not to laugh heartily, when the truly ridiculous circumstances of an incident, or the true pleasantry and wit of a thing, call for and justify it; but the trick of laughing frivolously is by all means to be avoided: Risu inepto, res ineptior nulla est. ‘Nothing is so silly as a silly laugh.’ Now as to politeness; many have attempted definitions of it; I believe it is best to be known by description; definition not being able to comprise it. I would however, venture to call it, benevolence in trifles, or the preference of others to ourselves in little daily, hourly occurrences in the commerce of life. A better place, a more commodious seat, priority in being helped at table, &c. what is it but sacrificing ourselves in such trifles to the convenience and pleasure of others? And this constitutes true politeness. It is a perpetual attention, (by habit it grows easy and natural to us,) to the little wants of those we are with, by which we either prevent, or remove them. Bowing, ceremonious, formal compliments, stiff civilities, will never be politeness: that must be easy, natural, unstudied, manly, noble. And what will give this but a mind benevolent and perpetually attentive to exert that amiable disposition in trifles towards all you converse and live with? Benevolence in greater matters takes a higher name, and is the queen of virtues. Nothing is so incompatible with politeness as any trick of absence of mind. I would trouble you with a word or two more upon some branches of behavior, which have a more serious moral obligation in them, than those of mere politeness; which are equally important in the eye of the world. I mean a proper behavior, adapted to the respective relations we stand in towards the different ranks of superiors, equals, and inferiors. Let your behavior towards superiors, in dignity, age, learning, or any distinguished excellence, be full of respect, deference, and modesty. Towards equals, nothing becomes a man so well as well bred ease, polite freedom, generous frankness, manly spirit, always tempered with gentleness and sweetness of manner, noble sincerity, candour, and openness of heart, qualified and restrained within the bounds of discretion and prudence, and ever limited by a sacred regard to secrecy, in all things entrusted to it, and an inviolable attachment to your word. To inferiors, gentleness, condescension, and affability, is the only dignity. Towards servants, never accustom yourself to rough and passionate language. When they are good, we should consider them as humiles amici, as fellow Christians, ut conserve; and when they are bad, pity, admonish, and part with them if incorrigible. On all occasions beware, my dear child, of anger, that demon, that destroyer of our peace. Ira furor brevis est, animum rege qui nisi paret imperat, hunc fraenis, hune tu compesce catenis. ‘Anger is temporary madness,–unless it obey, it will rule the mind like a tyrant, restrain it with curbs and chains.’

Write soon and tell me of your studies. Your ever affectionate.

LETTER VI.—Bath, Feb. 3, 1754.—Nothing can or ought to give me a higher satisfaction, than the obliging manner in which my dear nephew receives my most sincere and affectionate endeavours to be of use to him. You much overrate the obligation, whatever it be, which youth has to those who have trod the paths of the world before them, for their friendly advice how to avoid the inconveniences, dangers, and evils, which they themselves may have run upon for want of such timely warnings, and to seize, cultivate, and carry forward towards perfection, those advantages, graces, virtues, and felicities, which they may have totally missed, or stopped short in the generous pursuit. To lend this helping hand to those who are beginning to tread the slippery way, seems, at best but an office of common humanity to all; but to withhold it from one we truly love, and whose heart and mind bear every genuine mark of the very soil proper for all the amiable, manly, and generous virtues to take root, and bear their heavenly fruit; inward, conscious peace, fame amongst men, public love, temporal and eternal happiness; to withhold it, I say, in such an instance, would deserve the worst of names. I am greatly pleased, my dear young friend, that you do me the justice to believe I do not mean to impose any yoke of authority upon your understanding and conviction. I wish to warn, admonish, instruct, enlighten, and convince your reason; and so determine your judgment to right things, when you shall be made to see that they are right; not to overbear and impel you to adopt anything before you perceive it to be right or wrong, by the force of authority. I hear with great pleasure, that Locke lay before you when you last wrote to me; and I like the observation that you make from him, that we must use our own reason, not that of another, if we would deal fairly by ourselves, and hope to enjoy a peaceful and contented conscience. This precept is truly worthy of the dignity of rational natures. But here, my dear child, let me offer one distinction to you, and it is of much moment: it is this: Mr. Locke’s precept is applicable only to such opinions as regard moral or religious obligations, and which as such, our own consciences alone can judge and determine for ourselves: matters of mere expediency, that affect neither honour, morality, or religion, were not in that great and wise man’s view: such are the usages, forms, manners, modes, proprieties, decorums, and all those numberless ornamental little acquirements, and genteel well-bred attentions, which constitute a proper, graceful, amiable, and noble behavior. In matter of this kind, I am sure, your own reason, to which I shall always refer you, will at once tell you, that you must, at first, make use of the experience of others; in effect, see with their eyes, or not be able to see at all; for the ways of the world, as to its usages and exterior manners, as well as to all things of expediency and prudential considerations, a moments reflection will convince a mind as right as yours, must necessarily be to inexperienced youth, with ever so fine natural parts, a terra incognita. As you would not, therefore, attempt to form notions of China or Persia, but from those who have travelled those countries, and the fidelity and sagacity of whose relations you can trust; so will you as little, I trust, prematurely form notions of your own concerning that usage of the world (as it is called) into which you have not yet travelled, and which must be long studied and practiced before it can be tolerably well known. I can repeat nothing to you of so infinite consequence to your future welfare, as to conjure you not to be hasty in taking up notions and opinions: guard your honest and ingenuous mind against this main danger of youth: with regard to all things that appear not to your reason, after due examination, evident duties of honour, morality, or religion, (and in all such as do, let your conscience and reason determine your notions and conduct) in all other matters, I say, be slow to form opinions, keep your mind in a candid state of suspense, and open to full conviction when you shall procure it, using in the mean time the experience of a friend you can trust, the sincerity of whose advice you will try and prove by your own experience hereafter, when more years shall have given it to you. I have been longer upon this head than I hope there was any occasion for: but the great importance of the matter, and my warm wishes for your welfare, figure, and happiness, have drawn it from me. I wish to know if you have a good French master: I must recommend the study of the French language, to speak and write it correctly, as to grammar and orthography, as a matter of the utmost and indispensable use to you, if you would make any figure in the great world. I need say no more to enforce this recommendation: when I get to London, I will send you the best French dictionary. Have you been taught geography and the use of the globes by Mr. Leech? If not, pray take a geography master and learn the use of the globes; it is soon known. I recommend to you to acquire a clear and thorough notion of what is called the solar system; together with the doctrine of comets. I wanted as much or more to hear of your private reading at home as of public lectures, which I hope, however, you will frequent for examples sake. Pardon this long letter, and keep it by you if you do not hate it. Believe me, my dear nephew, ever affectionately yours.

LETTER VII.—Bath, March 30, 1754.—My dear nephew;–I am much obliged to you for your kind remembrance and wishes for my health. It is much recovered by the regular fit of gout, of which I am still lame in both feet, and I may hope for better health hereafter in consequence. I have thought it long since we conversed: I waited to be able to give you a better account of my health, and in part to leave you time to make advances in your plan of study, of which I am very desirous to hear an account. I desire you will be so good as to let me know particularly, if you have gone through the abridgment of Burnet’s History of the Reformation, and the treatise of Father Paul on Benefices; also how much of Locke you have read. I beg you not to mix any other English reading with what I recommended to you. I propose to save you much time and trouble by pointing out to you such books, in succession, as will carry you the shortest way to the things you must know to fit yourself for the business of the world, and give you the clearer knowledge of them, by keeping them unmixed with superfluous, vain, empty trash. Let me hear, my dear child, of your French also; as well as of those studies which are more properly university studies. I cannot tell you better how truly and tenderly I love you, than by telling you I am most solicitously bent on your doing everything that is right, and laying the foundations of your future happiness and figure in the world, in such a course of improvement, as will not fail to make you a better man, while it makes you a more knowing one. Do you rise early? I hope you have already made to yourself the habit of doing it; if not, let me conjure you to acquire it. Remember your friend Horace. Etni posces ante diem librum cum lumine, si non intendes animum studiis, et rebus honesties, invidia vel amore miser torquebere. “If you do not go with a lamp before day light to your books,–if you do not bend your mind to study and virtuous employment, jealousy or love will soon make you miserable.” Adieu. Your ever affectionate uncle.

LETTER VIII.—Astrop Wells, Sept. 5, 1754.—My dear nephew;–I have been a long time without conversing with you, and thanking you for the pleasure of your last letter. You may possibly be about to return to the seat of learning on the banks of the Cam; but I will not defer discoursing to you on literary matters till you leave Cornwall, not doubting but you are mindful of the muses amidst the very savage rocks and moors, and yet more savage natives, of the ancient and respectable dutchy. First, with regard to the opinion you desire concerning a common-place book; in general, I much disapprove the use of it, it is chiefly intended for persons who mean to be authors, and tends to impair the memory, and to deprive you of a ready, extempore use of your reading, by accustoming the mind to discharge itself of its reading on paper, instead of relying on its natural power of retention, aided and fortified by frequent revisions of its ideas and materials. Some things must be common-placed in order to be of any use; dates, chronological order, and the like; for instance, Nathaniel Bacon ⁴⁶ ought to be extracted in the best method you can: but in general my advice to you is, not to common-place upon paper, but, as an equivalent to it, to endeavour to range and methodize in your head what you read, and by so doing frequently and habitually to fix matter in the memory. If you have not read Burnet’s History of his own Times, I beg you will. I hope your father is well. My love to the girls. Your ever affectionate.

LETTER IX.—Pay Office, April 9, 1755.—My dear nephew;–I rejoice extremely to hear that your father and the girls are not unentertained in their travels. In the meantime your travels through the paths of literature, arts, and sciences, (a road sometimes set with flowers, and sometimes difficult, laborious, and arduous,) are not only infinitely more profitable in future, but at present, upon the whole, infinitely more delightful. My own travels at present are none of the pleasantest: I am going through a fit of the gout; with much proper pain and what proper patience I may. Avis au lecteur, my sweet boy; remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Let no excesses lay the foundations of gout and the rest of Pandora’s box; nor any immoralities, or vicious courses, sow the seeds of a too late and painful repentance. Here ends my sermon, which I rust, you are not fine gentleman enough, or in plain English silly fellow enough to laugh at. Lady Hester is much yours. Let me hear some account of your intercourse with the muses. And believe me ever, your truly most affectionate.

LETTER X.—Pay Office, April 15, 1755.—A thousand thanks to my dear boy for a very pretty letter. I like extremely the account you give of your literary life; the reflections you make upon some West Saxon actors in the times you are reading, are natural, manly, and sensible, and flow from a heart that will make you far superior to any of them. I am content you should be interrupted (provided the interruption be not long) in the course of your reading, by declaiming in defence of the thesis you have so wisely chosen to maintain. It is true indeed that the affirmative maxim, Omne solum forti patria est, “Every soil is his country to the brave,” has supported some great and good men under the persecutions of faction and party injustice, and taught them to prefer an hospitable retreat in a foreign land to an unnatural mother country. Some few such may be found in ancient times: in our own country also some; such was Algernon Sidney, Ludlow, and others. But how dangerous is it to trust frail, corrupt man, with such an aphorism! What fatal casuistry is it big with! How many a villain might, and has, masked himself in the sayings of ancient illustrious exiles, while he was, in fact, dissolving all the nearest and dearest ties that hold societies together, and spurning at all laws divine and aphorisms! If all soils are alike to the brave and virtuous, so may all churches and modes of worship; that is, all will be equally neglected and violated. Instead of every soil being his country, he will have no one for his country; he will be the forlorn outcast of mankind. Such was the late Bolingbroke of impious memory. Let me know when your declamation is over.

LETTER XI.—Pay Office, May 20, 1755.—My dear nephew;–I am extremely concerned to hear that you have been ill, especially as your account of an illness, you speak of as past, implies such remains of disorder as I beg you will give all proper attention to. By the medicine your physician has ordered, I conceive he considers your case in some degree nervous. If that be so, advise with him whether a little change of air and of the scene, together with some weeks’ course of steel waters, might not be highly proper for you, I am to go the day after to-morrow to Sunning Hill, in Windsor Forest, where I propose to drink those waters for about a month. Lady Hester and I shall be happy in your company, if your doctor shall be of opinion that such waters may be of service to you; which, I hope, will be his opinion. Besides health recovered, the muses shall not be quite forgot; we will ride, read, walk, and philosophise, extremely at our ease, and you may return to Cambridge with new ardour, or at least with strength repaired, when we leave Sunning Hill. If you come, the sooner the better on all accounts. We propose to go into Buckinghamshire in about a month. I rejoice that your declamation is over, and that you have begun, my dearest nephew, to open your mouth in public. I wish I had heard you perform: the only way I ever shall hear your praises from your own mouth. My gout prevented my so much intended and wished for journey to Cambridge: and now my plan of drinking waters renders it impossible. Come, then, my dear boy, to us; and so Mahomet and the mountain may meet, no matter which moves to the other. Adieu. Your ever affectionate.

LETTER XII.—July 13, 1755.—My dear nephew;–I have delayed writing to you in expectation of hearing farther from you upon the subject of your stay at college. No news is the best news, and I will hope now that all your difficulties upon that head are at an end. I represent you to myself deep in study, and drinking large draughts of intellectual nectar; a very delicious state to a mind happy enough, and elevated enough, to thirst after knowledge and true honest fame, even as the hart panteth after the water brooks. When I name knowledge, I ever intend learning as the weapon and instrument only of manly, honourable, and virtuous action, upon the stage of the world, both in private and public life; as a gentleman, and as a member of the commonwealth, who is to answer for all he does to the laws of his country, to his own breast and conscience, and at the tribunal of honour and good fame. You, my dear boy, will not only be acquitted, but applauded and dignified at all these respectable and awful bars. So, go on and prosper in your glorious and happy career; not forgetting to walk an hour briskly, every morning and evening, to fortify the nerves. I wish to hear, in some little time, of the progress you shall have made in the course of reading chalked out. Adieu. Your ever affectionate uncle. Lady Hester desires her best compliments to you.

LETTER XIII.—Stowe, July 24, 1755.—My dear nephew:–I am just leaving this place to go to Wotton; but I will not lose the post, though I have time but for one line. I am extremely happy that you can stay at your college, and pursue the prudent and glorious resolution of employing your present moments with a view to the future. May your noble and generous love of virtue pay you with the sweet rewards of a self-approving heart and an applauding country! And may I enjoy the true satisfaction of seeing your fame and happiness, and of thinking that I may have been fortunate enough to have contributed, in any small degree, to do common justice to kind nature by a suitable education! I am no very good judge of the question concerning the books; I believe they are your own in the same sense that your wearing apparel is. I would retain them and leave the candid and equitable Mr.—to plan with the honest Mr.—schemes of perpetual vexation. As to the persons just mentioned, I trust that you bear about you, a mind and heart much superior to such malice; and that you are as little capable of resenting it, with any sensations but those of cool, decent contempt, as you are of fearing the consequences of such low efforts. As to the caution money, I think you have done well. The case of the chambers, I conceive, you likewise apprehend rightly. Let me know in your next what these two articles require you to pay down, and how far your present cash is exhausted, and I will direct Mr. Campbell to give you credit accordingly. Believe me, my dear nephew, truly happy to be of use to you. Your ever affectionate.

LETTER XIV.—Bath, Sept. 25, 1755.—I have not conversed with my dear nephew a long time: I have been much in a post-chaise, living a wandering Scythian life, and he has been more usefully employed than in reading or writing letters; travelling through the various, instructing, and entertaining road of history. I have a particular pleasure in hearing now and then a word from you in your journey, just while you are changing horses, if I may so call it, and getting from one author to another. I suppose you are going through the biographers, from Edward the Fourth downwards, not intending to stop till you reach to the continuator of honest Rapin. * * * * I have met with a scheme of chronology by Blair, showing all cotemporary, historical characters, through all ages: it is of great use to consult frequently, in order to fix periods, and throw collateral light upon any particular branch you are reading. Let me know, when I have the pleasure of a letter from you, how far you are advanced in English history. You may probably not have heard authentically of Governor Lyttleton’s captivity and release. He is safe and well in England, after being taken and detained in France some days. Sir Richard and he met, unexpectedly enough, at Brussels, and came together to England. I propose returning to London in about a week, where I hope to find Lady Hester as well as I left her. We are both much indebted for your kind and affectionate wishes. In publica commode peccem si longo sermon morer, “I would sin against the public weal were I to detain with a long discourse,” one bent on so honourable and virtuous a journey as you are.

LETTER XV.—Pay Office, Dec. 6, 1755.—Of all the various satisfactions of mind I have felt upon some late events, none has affected me with more sensibility and delight than the reading my dear nephew’s letter. The matter of it is worthy of a better age than that we live in; worthy of your own noble, untainted mind; and the manner and expression of it is such, as, I trust, will one day make you a powerful instrument towards mending the present degeneracy. Examples are unnecessary to happy natures; and it is well for your future glory and happiness that this is the case; for to copy any now existing, might cramp genius and check the native spirit of the piece, rather than contribute to the perfection of it. I learn from Sir Richard Lyttleton, that we may have the pleasure of meeting soon, as he has already, or intends to offer you a bed at his house. It is on this, as on all occasions, little necessary to preach prudence, or to intimate a wish that your studies at Cambridge might not be broken by a long interruption of them. I know the rightness of your sound mind, and leave you to all the generous and animating motives you find there, for pursuing improvements in literature and useful knowledge, as much better counselors than your ever most affectionate uncle. Lady Hester desires her compliments. The little cousin is well.

LETTER XVI.—Horse Guards, Jan 31, 1756.—My dear nephew;–Let me thank you a thousand times for your remembering me, and giving me the pleasure of hearing that you was well, and had laid by the ideas of London and its dissipations, to resume the sober train of thoughts that downs, square caps, quadrangles, and matin-bells, naturally draw after them. I hope the air of Oambridge has brought no disorder upon you, and that you will compound with the muses so as to dedicate some hours, not less than two, of the day to exercise. The earlier you rise, the better your nerves will bear study.The earlier you rise, the better your nerves will bear study. When you next do me the pleasure to write to me, I beg a copy of your elegy on your mother’s picture: it is such admirable poetry, that I beg you to plunge deep into prose and severer studies, and not indulge your genius with verse for the present.Substitute Tully and Demosthenes in the place of Homer and Virgil; and arm yourself with all the variety of manner, copiousness, and beauty of diction, nobleness and magnificence of ideas of the Roman consul; and render the powers of eloquence complete by the irresistible torrent of vehement argumentation, the close and forcible reasoning, and the depth and fortitude of mind of the Grecian statesman. This I mean at leisure intervals, and to relieve the course of those studies, which you intend to make your principal object. The book relating to the empire of Germany, which I could not recollect, is Vitriaris’s Jus Publicum, an admirable book in its kind, and esteemed of the best authority in matters much controverted. We are all well: Sir Richard is upon his legs and abroad again. Your ever affectionate uncle.

LETTER XVII.—Hayes, near Bromley, May 11, 1756.—My dear nephew’s obliging letter was every way most pleasing, as I had more than begun to think it long since I had the satisfaction of hearing he was well. As the season of humidity and relaxation is now almost over, I trust that the muses are in no danger of nervous complaints, and that whatever pains they have to tell are out of the reach of Esculapius, and not dangerous, though epidemical to youth at this soft month—

“When lavish nature in her best attire,Clothes the gay spring, the season of desire.”

To be serious, I hope my dearest nephew is perfectly free from all returns of his former complaint, and enabled by an unailing body, and an ardent elevated mind, to follow, Quo te coelestis sapientia duceret, “Wherever divine wisdom shall lead thee.” My holidays are now arpproaching, and I long to hear something of your labours, which, I doubt not, will prove in their consequence more profitable to your country a few years hence than your uncle’s. Be so good as to let me know what progress you have made in our historical and constitutional journey, that I may suggest to you some farther reading. Yours most affectionately.

Endnotes

1 The basis of this paragraph is a noble passage contained in the Edinburgh Review, (vol. xxiii. P. 320) which, by abridging and otherwise altering, the author has converted the purpose of his argument.
2 See this opinion discussed and illustrated at great length in President Edwards’ “History of Redemption,” (Works, vol. iii. N. Y. edition, 1830.) a work in many respects profound and instructive.—See also London Quarterly Review for May 1830, p. 194. 195.
3 Nothing can be more accurate than the views of the ancients in regard to the relation subsisting between tutor and pupil. Quintilian says, “discipulos id unum monee ut praeceptores suos non minus, quam ipsa studia ament, et parentes esse, non quidem corporum, sed mentium credant.” Lib. ii. c. 9. Juvenal speaks of it thus:–Dii, majorum umbris tenuem et sine pondere terram, Spirantesque crocos, et in urna perpetuum ver,
Qui praeceptorem sancti voluere parentis
Esse loco.—Sat. vii. 1. 207-210.
4 See Note A.
5 St. Luke, vi. 44.
6 Letter to Master Samuel Hartlib on Education.
7 Juvenal. Sat. viii. 236-244. Cicero De Officiis, lib. e. c. 22. 24. Lib. ii. c. 13.
8 See Note B.
9 See Note C.
10 Oratio pro Archia, c. vi.
11 Chap. xxii. V. 29.
12 Franklin’s Works, vol. i. p. 85.
13 Franklin’s Works, voi. L. p. 323.
14 See Note. D.
15 The entire passage stands thus in the report:– ‘With respect to the question of the recess, he had no fears, whatever might be the impatience of one or two well-meaning but over-anxious individuals, that the people would do full justice to the motives of the government, in the time which they might propose. But, good God! when they talked of a prorogation for a week, did they know the state of exhaustion to which incessant labour had reduced some members of the Government? The two noble Lords (Althorp and Russell) could not, he was satisfied, go on without some repose; and as for himself, although he did not complain, it was exactly twelve months last Friday, since he had been at work, with the exception of three days at Christmas, and two days at Easter, (chiefly spent, by the by, in travelling) from six or seven in the morning till twelve or one at night. If any man was so unreasonable as to say they should go on, he was confident at least that the great body of the reasoning classes of his countrymen would think differently; and that if they threw themselves on them, they could have no fear of obtaining a verdict.”—Walsh’s National Gazette, for December 15th, 1831.
16 The greatest part of this paragraph is abridged from Lib. of Eut. Knowledge, vol. viii. Part 1, p. 12.
17 Oratio pro Archia, c. i.
18 1 Milman’s History of the Jews, 135.
19 Quoted by Sir J. Mackintosh, Discourse on the Law of Nature and Nations. p. 78.
20 Mercuriale, xiii.
21 As we are accustomed to call them.
22 See p. 4.
23 See p. 3.
24 See Edinburgh Review, vol. xxiii. P. 321.
25 Sat. x. 365.—Again Sat. xiv. 315.
26 Proverbs, Ch. Iii. 5-7.—Ch. iv. 7-9.
27 See Note E.
28 Speech of Mr. A. H. Everett, in the Senate of Massachusetts, 1833.
29 Consolations in travel, or the last days of a philosopher, by Sir H. Davy, pp. 23. 206.
30 Beattie’s Minstrel, B. 1.
31 Am. Quar. Register, vol. iv. p. 187. 188.
32 The author cannot hesitate to re-print in a note, some striking remarks on the necessity of restraint, made by Mr. Wirt in his speech on the trial of Judge Peck before the U.S. Senate;-see p. 481 of the report. This speech, in all the highest qualities of Forensic eloquence, does not appear to the author inferior to any one of the orations of Cicero or Demosthenes.
“There is no good,” says he, “that does exist or can exist, unless guarded by restraint. The best things that we enjoy, the noblest qualities that we possess, become vicious by excess. Mercy degenerates into weakness, generosity into waste, economy into penury’ justice into cruelty, ambition into crime. The principle of restraint has the sanction of Almighty wisdom itself, for it is impressed on every part of the physical as well as the moral world. The planets are kept in their orbits by the restraint of attraction;-but for this law, the whole system would rush into inextricable confusion and ruin. Does it detract from the simplicity, the beauty, the grandeur of this system, to say, that one of the laws which uphold it, is the law of restraint? Is it not to the restrained position of the earth, that we owe the revolution of the seasons with all their appropriate and successive enjoyments; and to its restrained revolution towards the sun, that we owe the relief of day and night, the seasons of labour and repose? What hinders the vine from wasting its juices in wild and fruitless luxuriance, but the restraint of the pruning-hook, and the discipline of the training hand? What hinders the produce of that vine from becoming a universal curse, but the restraint of temperance? What gives to civilized society its finest charm, but the restraints of decorum, of mutual respect, of honor, confidence, kindness, hospitality? Look where you will then, above you, around you, below you, you see that the great conservative principle is restraint;-tht same restraint which holds human society itself together.”
33 Proverbs, xxii. 13.—xxvi. 13.
34 Proverbs, xxiii. 30.
35 Proverbs, ii. 16-18.-ix. 18.—vii. 26. 27.
36 No person can be a member of the House of Representatives of the United States, until he has attained the age of twenty-five. A Senator must be thirty, and the President of the United States must be thirty-five years of age. A considerable number of the State constitutions have similar provisions, but the requisite age is usually not so high. A roman Senator was required to have attained the term of thirty years.
37 De Officiis, lib. i. c. 6.
38 See Note B.
39 Letter on Education, quoted p. 7.
40 Speech of John C. Calhoun in U. S. Senate, 15th Feb. 1833.
41 It appears from Aul. Gellius, that Cicero was twenty-seven years of age when he defended Roscius. Noct. Attic. 1 xv. c. 28. Nepos had erroneously made him less.
42 Why go to Asia, not to Athens? Cicero answers this question in another place. Athenis jam diu doctrina ipsorum Atheniensium interit; domicilium tantum in illa urbe remanet studiorum, quibus vacantcives, peregrine fruuntur et tamen eruditissimos bomines Asiaticos quivis Atheniensis indoctus, non verbis, sed sono vocis, nec tam bene quam suaviter loquendo, facile superabit.—De Orat. 1.iii.c.ii.
43 We use the term in its largest sense, in which it is precisely equivalent to ineptiae, quasi inaptiae.
44 Cic. De Officiis 1, iii. c. 26.
45 The enumeration in this paragraph is very imperfect for the reason assigned above; the translator, therefore, thinks it useful to add some further particulars and to subjoin the titles of some other historical works of the same class, including several of more modern date. Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana, Winthrop’s History of New-England from 1630 to 1649, edited by James Savage, Priace’s Chron. Hist. of N. England, N. England’s Memorial by N. Morton, edited by John Davis, Minot’s History of Massachusetts-Bay from 1748 to 1765, Bradford’s History of Massachusetts from 1764 to 1820, Baylies’ History of Plymouth, Williams History of Vermont, Belknap’s History of New Hampshire, Williamson’s History of Maine, Trumbull’s History of Connecticut, Moulton’s History of New York, Gordon’s History of Pennsylvania, McMahon’s History of Maryland, Smith’s (John) History of Virginia, Stith’s History of Virginia, Beverly’s History of Virginia, Burk’s History of Virginia, Williamson’s History of North-Carolina, Hewatt’s History of South-Carolina and Georgia, Ramsay’s History of South-Carolina, M’Call’s History of Georgia, M. Marbois’ History of Louisiana, Martin’s History of Louisiana, Chalmer’s Political Annals, Marshall’s History of Kentucky, Peirce’s History of Harvard University to 1769, Massachusetts Historical Collections, New Hampshire Historical Collections, Maine Historical Collections, New-York Historical Collections, Hazard’s Historical Collections, Holmes’ American Anals. This catalogue is select and valuable, and might have been increased tenfold. Completeness has not been aimed at.
46 Author of a work on the History of England.

Sermon – Fasting – 1832, MA

Orville Dewey (1794-1882) graduated from Andover theological seminary in 1819. He held jobs as a teacher, a clerk, and an agent for the American education society. Dewey was pastor for the Unitarian Church in New Bedford (1823-1833), the 2nd Unitarian Church of New York (1835-1848), a church in Albany for a year, a church in Washington for two years, and for the “New South” society (1858-1862). This sermon was preached by Dewey on the 1832 Massachusetts fast day.

SERMON

ON THE

MORAL USES OF THE PESTILENCE,

DENOMINATED

ASIATIC CHOLERA.

DELIVERED ON

FAST-DAY, AUGUST 9, 1832.

By Rev. ORVILLE DEWEY,
PASTOR OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN NEW-BEDFORD

SERMON.

Isaiah XXVI. 9.

WHEN THY JUDGMENTS ARE IN THE EARTH, THE INHABITANTS OF THE WORLD WILL LEARN RIGHTEOUSNESS.

The visitation of a calamity in some respects of an unprecedented character, has awakened the world to an unusual degree of consideration. It is most desirable that this consideration should be rightly directed; that it should be guarded from all resorts to superstitious reliance’s, and from an absorption in mere worldly fears; and that it should yield some results adequate to the greatness of the occasion. If the world after this calamity shall have passed over it, is to be no wiser than it was before, such a failure must, to every sober mind, believing in the providence, be a deep cause of regret. The end is more important than the means. It more concerns every being to improve God’s discipline, than to escape it. To fail of that end, to fail of the improvement of the discipline, would be a greater calamity than it is to endure the visitation of the pestilence itself. For surely we are not, as Christians, to forget, that there are worse evils than the pestilence—worse evils than all outward calamities—evils so much worse, that all outward calamities are designed to be their antidote and cure.

This consideration, too, of the moral uses of the prevailing pestilence, would tend, more than any thing else, to allay the fears it inspires. To caution the people against being alarmed, to reiterate and multiply admonitions on this point, to warn the timid and terror-stricken, that this very panic is among the surest harbingers of the dreaded disease, to tell them continually that the more alarmed, the more exposed they are, to exhort and urge them, as they value their lives, to be calm, to recommend to them, in fine, by such constant implication, to try not to be afraid—this seems to be very ill adapted to answer the purpose. It is as if we would frighten people out of their fears, or hurry them into moderation and calmness. Besides, it is not easy, unless we look at the moral aspects of this calamity, to prevent some natural tremors, some agitations, perhaps, of unmanly fear. If the elements are left to work their will upon us, if they are working to no end, but to show their awful and destructive power, if the scourge is borne upon the uncommissioned winds, and its pavilion is darkness, and its way is mystery, and its end is death; and no explanation, and nothing for the mind to deal with, but elements, and powers, but inevitable fate, and dire necessity,—how can mortal hearts sustain themselves in the dread encounter with agents so blind, inexorable, and awful! But if there is a Power, beneficent as it is mighty, that stays, at its pleasure, the pestilence that walketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at noon-day; if it suffers the prevalence of disease to answer wise purposes; if this calamity, however singular, is, nevertheless, a part of the universal providence; if it is, like all other means for the reform and improvement of the world, to do more good than evil; then surely may we learn to look upon it with calmness and acquiescence. Then indeed shall we look seriously upon it, and we shall look upon it with fear, too, but with a fear that is rational and religious; with a fear that will turn very much, indeed, upon the state of our own minds. We shall think much of ourselves, and so much the less of the outward and physical forms of this evil; we shall think much of the good it is to do to millions of our fellow-men, and so much the less of the mere bills of mortality, dreadful as they are. In fine, we shall have our fears, but they will mingle much of devout and grave consideration with them—a trust and satisfaction in the wisdom of God’s providence; an apprehension lest we, and others, shall not reap the good designed to be communicated; and these moral considerations will assuage and moderate those panic sensations which are now occupied with nothing but danger, and rumors of danger.

There is another argument for attention, and for universal attention. The visitation of this calamity is a voice to the world. Other calamities have been partial in their extent. Other forms of pestilence have been confined to particular countries, or districts of country. No famine ever devastated a whole continent. No war ever raged from ocean to ocean. But to the ravages of this fearful destroyer, neither oceans nor continents have set bounds. It has compassed the habitable globe. From the plains of India, from the mountains of central Asia, its march has been steady and irresistible; it has traversed deserts and seas; it has broken through all the defences which the power and vigilance of governments could set up against it; till that which, for years, has been the rumor of far off evils, is suddenly become terrific reality; and the despoiler of two continents knocks at the door of our American homes.

At such a visitation, it is meet that the world should pause. It is meet that days of fasting and humiliation and prayer should suspend the ordinary pursuits and cares of life, and give an opportunity to meditate upon the ‘ways of God to man.’

I have thus far urged the propriety and advantage of a sober and attentive consideration of this extraordinary calamity. But is there any thing to consider? Is there any meaning in this visitation which can, without presumption, be fixed upon, by us, as the subject of attention?

I. I ask in reply: Is there not a providence in it? Permitted, or produced, does it not come within the range of the Almighty power and agency? Who will say that it is without the sphere of God’s government? Who will tell us where those dread regions are, over which God has no control, in which he does not his pleasure? Has not the whole course of events which take place in the world, a design? Did they receive their original, do they receive their present, impulses, from the tendencies of matter, or the ordinations of fate? But if there re ends to be accomplished by all things, will there not be a relation, an intentional relation, between the means and the ends? Why then—so far as the agency of any event is specific—why shall we not say, that the object, the design, the meaning, is specific?

And now, let me ask, was there ever a calamity in the world, not miraculous, which apparently possessed such a high and solemn moral significance as this pestilence? Was any design of earthly events ever more clear, specific or solemn? We saw an evil, the most insidious and deadly, entering the world by a thousand avenues, and gaining a strength unknown to former ages, by the modern improvements, if improvements we must call them, in the processes of distillation. We saw the produce of the ten thousand harvest-fields wrought, from all wholesome uses, into an intoxicating and destroying poison. We heard the voice of wailing, and lamentation and despair, from ten times ten thousand dwellings; and we asked, with many others, what can stay the progress of this horrible evil? What is to save the world? What is to leave in the world, any innocent father, mother, sister, friend, not utterly broken-hearted? And now, at this very crisis, when good men had begun to be alarmed, indeed, but when the good were more alarmed than the bad were reformed—at this very crisis, there appears in the world, a disease unknown to former times, and it appears as the grand antagonist power to the monster. Intemperance. It strikes as its foremost victims the votaries of strong drink; and to them, its blow, though all others, or nearly all, with prudence may escape—to them its blow is almost inevitable death!

If this be not providence, what is a providence? If this be not a voice from heaven, by what tokens shall we know such a voice? If all the pains and penalties that follow vice, are held, in all creeds but that of the atheist, to be the remedial and disciplinary processes of the Supreme wisdom; if those specific diseases, which set their mark and brand upon particular vices, are justly to be regarded as possessing, in a more striking degree, the same admonitory character, what less shall we think of a visitation like this unprecedented pestilence? If a new species of brain-fever were to appear in the world, and if it made gamesters its principal victims, what more specific and solemn moral would it hold out, than is to be found in this plague of the cholera?

It is true, indeed, that the desire, natural to the reflecting mind, of finding reasons for things, and of finding reasonableness, intelligence and wisdom, in the whole surrounding scene of life, may have carried us too far. It is true, too, that this is one of the subjects that comes not within the range of demonstrative, but only of moral evidence. I do not say that I know that this is a special visitation, designed to check a particular vice; and, on the other hand, no man can say that he knows, it is not. I can only say, that my mind leans to this view of the subject. I firmly believe that if there had been no intemperance in the world, this pestilence would not have been in the world. But what do I say? I had thought that I was arguing, and I find that I am stating a simple fact. Certainly there would have been no such pestilence in the world; there might have been such a disease, and it might have prevailed like other diseases—but there would have been no such pestilence in the world, if it had not been for intemperance. Intemperance is its very haunt, its resort, its prey—that without which, it would have no place on earth—that without which it could not live. Intemperance has occasioned it, created it, called it into being. Has it not? What means, then, the language of every medical report and opinion on the subject? What is to be made of the sense and experience of the whole world upon this point? Why do the intemperate every where feel that it is they who are exposed, that it is they who are meant? And why are so many moderate drinkers, as the disease approaches nearer and nearer to them, setting down the untasted cup? Is it too much to say, that it was designed for the check and destruction of the vice in question?

But it may be said, that the intemperate are not its only victims. It is true, that they are only its chief, its most conspicuous victims; other suffer. But this only comports with the general order of God’s providence. The innocent are every where suffering with, and for, and through, the guilty. It may possibly be said, also, that this pestilence does not, after all, and will not, altogether, reform the world, and so will fail of the alleged end, and therefore could not have been designed for that end. The general answer to both these objections, is the same. God’s providence over the mind, is adapted to the mind; does not compel it, or overwhelm it with flagrant and instantaneous results, but appears to its reason, elicits its powers, respects its freedom, deals with it by influences that are gentle and persuasive, and not coercive and irresistible. Whether the world will be reformed or not—it is warned—and this is the material point for us to establish. It is all the less likely to be reformed, till it feels that it is warned.

It is for this reason that I am concerned to urge the doctrine of a providence, in relation to this stupendous and wide-spreading calamity: for indeed the facts without the doctrine, are sufficient for my main purpose. And so eminently providential does it appear, that it might not be difficult for us to persuade ourselves, that it was designed to teach and explain this great doctrine of a providence to the generation of the thoughtless, the negligent, and skeptical. Let us, then, dwell a moment longer upon this point, to illustrate this use, if not design, of the affliction that is sent upon us.

The difficulty sometimes found with the doctrine of a providence, is, that it is held to be special, that it recognizes the efficacy of prayer, that it is believed to interpose at the call of human weakness, and distress, and penitence. It is the interposition of providence that is by some doubted.

But let it be supposed that the world were to be reformed from the vice of intemperance, and then, the cholera—that peculiar disease which is now prevailing—would cease. It would cease, because it would no longer find victims. The very element which supports it, would be taken away. On what condition, then, would it cease? The answer is, on the very condition of repentance. It would cease at the voice of humiliation and prayer; at the voice of a sorrowing and reformed people. Here, then, in a general view, is the efficacy of prayer, and here is the doctrine of a providence.

And why may we not go farther? Why may we not go beyond the general view? Why should it be thought “a thing incredible” with us, that he who inflicts the blow, should, with an interposing hand, suspend it, when its purpose is answered? It is here, perhaps, that the difficulty about a providence presses hardest. Are not the operations of nature, it may be said—are not the laws that govern the elements, uniform? I answer, we do not know that they are. What saith the visitation of this calamity? It reminds us how wide a theatre there is, for the operations of the overruling hand—how vast a region, before which the vail is lifted up, that none can penetrate. Where is the origin of this dread pestilence? Where are its dark magazines, out of which swift destruction cometh? Where is the secret of its presence, and the hiding of its power? Wisdom is baffled in the iniquity, and experience is but a blind guide. Whether it is in the heaven, or in the earth, or in the waters under the earth, it is questioned, and it is questioned in vain. Whether it is in the atmosphere, or in the human system—whether it is contagious, or infectious, or epidemic, or local, the understanding of the learned has not found out, and the wisdom of the wise has not decided. It has travelled through the world: the eyes of millions have been eagerly bent upon it; the voices of every language, have invoked from it, its dark secret; the seers of every healing art, from the Ganges to the Atlantic shore, have sought for the interpretation of its fearful signs—and still it is shrouded in impenetrable mystery. The object is clear; it is proclaimed as with the voice of a trumpet; all else is darkness and silence. Where the bolt strikes, we can see; we see who are its foremost victims; but the bosom of the black cloud, as it rolls onward, no eye has penetrated.

Let no man tell me, that in the bosom of that black cloud, there is no might, or mystery, beyond the reach and measure of his understanding,—no space for the secret work of God,—for the operations of an inscrutable and interposing providence. Let no man tell me, that he who rides on the whirlwind, and directs the storm, is bound by the chains of any fate or necessity. He doth his pleasure amidst the armies of heaven, amidst the thrones and powers of the firmament, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can say unto him, what doest thou? None can know what he doeth, or may dare to say what he doeth not; what is interposition, or what is not interposition; how far the overruling hand is stretched out, or where it is stayed; what chord in the mighty system of things it toucheth, or what hidden spring it doth unlock; what it bindeth that shall not be loosed, or looses, that shall not be bound.

But the skeptic will perhaps say, in fine, that man is a creature too insignificant to be the object of such attention and care, as we allege; that the Being who sits enthroned above the heavens, and governs millions of worlds, will not stoop to regard a thing so inconsiderable and indifferent as this dweller in the dust. But look at this being, when struggling as a victim in the grasp of the fell destroyer. If it were the lot of man, to drop from the course of life like an animal, a mere inert lump of clay, we might think differently. But what is the death of a man? What is it when it comes in the form of this disease, held to be so terrible? It is not any frightful paroxysm of pain, which makes that hour so awful; it is not the gathering mist that settles upon the closing eye-lids, that makes it so dark; it is not convulsion, and gasping for breath, and the mortal strife, that gives such intensity to every thought and feeling; but it is parting from the thousand ties that bind the heart to life; it is the solemn vision of eternity opening upon the soul; it is that intense spiritual consciousness that seems to concentrate all that is solemn and sublime in the universe, upon that dread moment; it is an element mightier than any earthly power, that imparts such grandeur to the death-bed scene; it is a portion of the Divinity, that is holding conflict with disease, and pain, and sorrow, and death. Will not God regard it, in its great and perilous hour? Can he hold that which was made in his own image, as too mean for his interposition or disposal? Can we believe that thousands and millions in the world, are dying under the stroke of this one peculiar and extraordinary infliction, and that there is no providence and no meaning in all this?

II. But if there is a meaning in this, what is it? If there is a providence, what does it teach? What do facts teach, let the doctrine be what it may? ¹

The answer to this question, has been necessarily implied in the previous discussion; but we should be totally wanting to the occasion that has assembled us together, if we did not give it our direct and separate attention. I say, then, that that which providence teaches, that which facts teach the world in this great calamity, is a lesson of temperance. The calamity itself, as I think, naturally leads us to recognize a providence, and a special and interposing providence. But providence, if there be any in this matter, has an end. That end, if there be an end, must be, I repeat, to teach the world a lesson of temperance.

Will it not teach this? Will not increased temperance be the effect? And if it will, why should we not say, that it was intended to be the effect? But will it not, I repeat? Suppose the cholera were to remain ten years in this country, or in Europe: there is no reason to expect its speedy disappearance—it has already returned to some of the cities in Europe—it has been a long period in Asia: if, I say, the cholera were to remain ten years among us; if for that length of time it should hover in the air, ready to stoop with its deadly talons upon any dissolute city, or village, or individual, can it be doubted that by such an agency, the work of reform would be carried on with a success and effect, beyond all former example? Can it be doubted, that ten years, with the sword hanging over every man’s head, would make us comparatively a temperate people? How many is this single Summer’s experience showing, that they can live without spirituous drinks, and that they are altogether better without them! “When thy judgments are in the earth,” saith the Prophet, and surely when such judgments are in the earth, “the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.”

And if they are to learn righteousness, or if this going forth of the pestilence is fitted to teach them, then I am prepared to take another step, and to say, that it is a beneficent visitation. If you doubt whether your ears hear me rightly, I repeat it, and say it is a beneficent visitation. I confess that I do no not partake of the unmixed and supreme horror, which many feel at this disease. There is another calamity, another curse, which, as I believe, it is designed to remove, and which impresses me with greater horror. The Cholera, I am firmly persuaded, will prevent more suffering than it will occasion. The woes of unrestricted intemperance in this country for ten years would be far greater than the woes of a ten years’ plague. I cannot pray, therefore, without the most careful qualification, and the most guarded submission, that this pestilence should depart from our borders. I dare not say, it is best for us that it should depart. I dare not absolutely pray for the removal of this disease, any more than for the removal of many other diseases. I see clearly that the world would sink at once into the ruins of sensual indulgence, if no pain or sickness followed excess. I see that to indulgence, disease, of some kind or other, is the antagonist power. I now see indulgence of one particular species, rising to a most alarming height; and I see a disease breaking out at the same time to counteract it. This, to my apprehension, is the method which Providence has adopted for teaching the lesson of temperance. Say that this pestilence is developed by intemperance itself, or say that its causes, not of any new creation, have always lain hidden in the bosom of the elements; or say that it is the result of general laws; still it is none the less the teaching of Providence. And I dare not absolutely ask that the teaching should be suspended till the lesson is learnt. Though the discipline be costly and dear, I dare not ask it. I know that it is taking from us the lives of some valuable and beloved citizens, but I do not esteem even their lives too precious a sacrifice for the salvation of the land. I see the innocent, indeed, dying for the guilty; but I see in this, only the usual order of God’s providence; I see, indeed, the order of his grace; I see, as it were, Jesus again in his members, dying for the world.

The horrors of the Cholera, I must be allowed to repeat, are not the greatest horrors that are to be found in the abodes of the civilized world. The convulsions of this disease are not, in my eyes, so horrible as the paroxysm of drunkenness—the rioting of its merriment, or the writhing’s of its fury. The delirium of sickness is not so dreadful as the madness of the inebriate man. The dreaded “collapse” presents not a picture so dreadful as the poor wretch who lies by the wayside; no waiting friends or sympathizing kindred around him; senseless to the passing jest or buffet; no longer a human being, but the ghastly ruins of what was once human. And a brief sickness and a speedy death carry no such agony to the bosom of a family as ten, or twenty, or thirty years of dissoluteness in it; no, nor as one year’s woe and shame of intemperance, in one of its before cherished and beloved members. Nor doth the land mourn, nor ever can it mourn for a pestilence, nor is its substance wasted, nor are all its laws and safeguards sapped and undermined, though all the plagues of Egypt fall upon it—no, there is no such peril to any people in all this, as there is in the poisoned fountains of intoxication that are now deluging the world—there is no such sorrow, as the sorrow of millions by their desolate hearths, made desolate by this accursed indulgence; there is no such “cup of trembling” and of “wrath poured out without mixture,” as the horrible cup of excess!

It is impossible not to observe in this connection, that this judgment of Providence on the people at large, is especially a voice of admonition, a call for reform, to cities and populous places. It has always been found that in proportion as men congregate together, and wealth increases in the hands of some, and poverty presses hard upon others, that the vices shoot up into monstrous and fearful luxuriance. The most splendid advantages, the brightest gifts of heaven as they seem at least to most men, are here set in glaring and mournful contrast with the most awful abuses of them. It is here too perhaps, that the noblest virtues are developed and formed; but the powers of good in these circumstances have hitherto held but a feeble and doubtful conflict with the powers of evil; they have not, indeed, been put forth; and Christian men and women in our cities, are yet, perhaps, to learn the measure and the methods of their duty.

It would be dullness, worse than ingratitude, and more inexcusable, not to refer in this view to the noble efforts for teaching the poor and rescuing the vicious, which are now making by a Christian ministry devoted to those objects, in the metropolis of our own State—efforts, which it is hoped will in process of time, present to the world, the model of a Christian City. ² This Ministry for the poor in cities, like the Sunday School, and the improved Prison Discipline, and the Bethel Churches, I regard as one of the great moral discoveries of the age. Physical causes, I trust, are also to lend their aid. It seems to me, not an extravagant anticipation, that the astonishing improvements about to be introduced in the facilities for carriage and passage,—the railroads, I mean—will have the effect to prevent the enormous growth of cities, to send their inhabitants abroad to build beautiful and delightful abodes in the country, and will thus tend to break up those hot beds of vice, those congregated masses of filth and misery which are now found in them. Meanwhile this pestilence is doing its work—its work of mercy as well as of judgment—its work of physical as well as moral purification. It would be scarcely too much to say, that the cleansing of our cities and villages, especially if it may be a precedent for future years, will save more lives, than the cholera will destroy.

Will there not be a moral cleansing, also? Will not this judgment of the Most High, strike a salutary dread into the scenes of drunkenness, debauchery, and Sabbath-breaking—and of that horrible filthiness which is itself a heinous sin? Is not that very point—the mass of evil in cities—that wickedness in high places, to which, all of the earth, the philanthropist and Christian have looked with the greatest despondency,—is it not to have light poured in upon it—the light of inquiry and of hope? Are not the miseries of those ten thousand thronged abodes, which it makes the heart ache to think of—are they not to be relieved? Is not that pestilential atmosphere of contagious vice, forever hanging over the cities and crowded villages of the world, and every year drawing millions from the healthful airs of a simple and rural life, to breathe it and die—is it not, at length, to be purified? Is not this fearful stroke of the lightning from heaven, to break the heavy and thick and settled cloud, beneath which such iniquities and abominations have been done for ages? When, ye children of darkness and vice and vileness! Will ye hear? Hath not trembling and death come into your habitations? Hath not horror taken hold of your hearts? When, till the judgment-hour break upon you, will ye listen to the voice of God?

I feel, too, that this visitation ought to speak to men in power, to the rulers of the earth, and to those, who, by their influence, reign in society. Why are those masses of vice, and filth, and famine, and bodily prostration, where the cholera finds its haunt, suffered to exist? It is, in part, because great men, aye, and good men, have failed to do their duty.—Much of this prostration, physical and moral, is to be referred, ultimately, to political oppression, to arbitrary distinctions in society, to cruel and unjust laws, and to proud self-complacency and selfishness, “passing by, on the other side.” In Asia, helpless millions have been swept away, the victims of grinding tyranny and of unparalleled social abuses. Such victims are to be found in Europe, too; nor are they wanting in America! When, let me ask then—ye great ones of the earth, and ye good men! When will ye hear? When will the whole power of the world, political and moral, arise to do good, and to heal the wounds of society, and to build up the fallen fortunes of afflicted humanity!

No, I am not indifferent to the fate of the unhappy victims of this visitation, hurried as they are by thousands to an untimely grave, and to a sudden and unlooked-for judgment. Who, with a Christian’s heart, will not mourn for them, as well as for the evil that they have inflicted upon the world? And yet, what can I say to them, or to the partakers of their guilt—what can I say, more or less than this? “You have been reasoned with, pleaded with, besought, warned, by every voice of tenderness and by every voice of terror, that God has given to man, or to woman, to utter, and it has been all in vain. You have resisted the outstretched hands of affection, and the pleading eye, and the breaking heart. You have trampled upon the dearest interests of society, as if it were without remorse. You have trampled upon all the admonitions of God’s word and providence, as if it were, without fear. You have trodden under foot all the agonizing remonstrances of your own hearts and consciences, as if they were but fit to pave your way to the resorts and haunts of indulgence. Would to God, that all this land not been in vain; but it has been in vain. It has been all in vain! You would not hear. You would not relent. You would not give up the deadly draught that bereaved you of every thing to respect, and of every thing to love. The child, the wife, the friend, have asked permission but to respect, but to love you; and you have hardened yourself against appeals, that might have broken—Oh! They might have broken, a heart of stone.” What they shall we say? Must we say and think, that it is hard, very hard that this additional, this last dread infliction, has come upon the victims of excess,—that this bolt has fallen, as it were, direct from heaven, to dash the guilty cup from their hands? God Almighty give them grace to be wise in the day of his rebuke! We dare not prescribe the term of this, to the vicious, tremendous day. May it be shortened, we are ready to say; yet we dare not ask that it may be shortened, but through the intervention of repentance, at the instance of a humbled and reformed people!

This, my friends, is the only escape, of which we can feel any assurance, or ought to feel any very strong desire. This pestilence has a moral mission to fulfill; its fulfillment is the only pledge for its termination. No services, no offerings to God, coming short of this, can promise us any relief. No wall of prayers is to be built up, to keep out this dreaded disease; no mere solemnities of fasting and humiliation, will disinfect the atmosphere; nothing, within our knowledge, but removing the cause, will remove the curse.

One more word, and I will relieve your attention from the unusual task, which I have ventured, at this time, to lay upon it.

What is it, then, I ask, which imparts to the pestilence, whose ravages have been the occasion of setting apart this day of solemn prayer and humiliation,—what imparts to this pestilence, I say, its peculiar horror? And, I answer, it is the terrible speed with which it does its work. It is not that its victims, according to present appearances, are likely to be more numerous than sometimes are the victims of a prevailing influenza, or of a malignant fever; not more numerous, than are, every year, the victims of consumption. It is, that death has been brought near to many minds, as it never was before. The impression has been made upon them, in a character and with an emphasis altogether new, that they might, indeed, die suddenly; that their moral account with this life, might be made up, and settled, and sealed forever, in a few brief hours; that although to-day in the midst of life, to-day walking in the same negligent course as for years before, to-day unprepared to die,—yet that to-morrow’s rising sun might behold them dead, and its parting ray might shine around the grave, that had closed upon them forever.

It is, my brethren, a most solemn and monitory conviction. This pestilence has created an era, I believe, in many of our minds, from which a new spiritual life ought to be dated. We have erred in this matter; we have erred in regard to the strict account, which we have to give, of life. We have been misled, with the negligent world, into the irrational, the absurd idea, that we may lie in sin, and yet die in safety; that we may live without religion, and yet die with it; that we may at last find some gracious dispensation from the law that is to “render to every man according to his living deeds.” We have vaguely and vainly imagined, with multitudes in the same delusion, that our sickness may, at length, do, what our health will not; that the last feeble pulses of life, may be strong enough to turn back the mighty current of tastes, and affections, and habits, that for years has been flowing on with accumulated power.

This is one of the grand ruining delusions of the world. “It is not this day,” men are perpetually saying, and still with every successive period of life they are saying, forever saying, “it is not this day, it is not this year, on which I can venture the decision of the great question for eternity; by and bye,” is the secret thought of thousands of hearts, “by and bye, amidst the days of sickness and sorrow, or of old age, I will prepare for heaven.” Let this solemn visitation of God, let this voice of the pestilence, break up forever that tremendous delusion. It speaks not only to the heinous transgressor, but scarcely less awfully to the careless neglector of his duty. It is in his heart, a voice of weighty admonition. What meaneth,—if it means not this—what meaneth that fear, curdling the very heart’s blood,—the fear of smiting disease and sudden death? Yes, its meaning is moral. It is not a mere dread of pain, or of parting with life. It is a fear, breathed in the deeper recesses of the soul. It is a voice, that speaks of duties neglected, of sins indulged; of the soul, unprepared for death. That very fear, that very voice, believe me, shall yet give witness at the bar of judgment: for us, or against us,—to proclaim our fidelity, or our neglect,—to declare that we have listened to the voice of God’s judgments, or have hardened ourselves in the day of his rebuke. But let me not close with the words of this last dreadful alternative upon my lips. Let us hope better things, and things that pertain to salvation. Let us give all earnestness, to meditation, and watchfulness, and humble prayer, that we may be found faithful to all the teachings of God’s wisdom, and all the tokens of God’s will!

Endnotes

1. Our doctrine does not, and that for obvious reasons, contradict the text, Luke xiii. 1-5.

2. Rev. Dr. Tuckerman’s Reports, Boston.

* Originally posted: December 24, 2016.

Sermon – Loss of Children – 1832

William Bourn Oliver Peabody (1799-1847) graduated from Harvard in 1816. He was a teacher at Exeter Academy (1817). Peabody was pastor of the Unitarian Church in Springfield, MA, a position he held throughout his life.

THE LOSS OF CHILDREN.

A SERMON.

Delivered January 22, 1832.

BY WILLIAM B. O. PEABODY,
Minister of the Third Society in Springfield.

This Sermon, suggested by a time of unusual anxiety and sorrow in this place, is respectfully dedicated to those who have suffered and those who are apprehending the loss of their children.

2 Kings, 4, 26.Is it well with the child? And she said it is well.

This was said by a Hebrew mother, whose child had but just before expired in her arms. It was taken away suddenly and without warning: but she bore it, as became one who was acquainted with Divine Providence, and knew that He who gave, had a right to take away. She was not acquainted with the disclosures of Christianity which have thrown such brightness into the far regions of death: so that in her, this God, to whom this feeling was expressed, rewarded it divinely—by restoring the child living to her arms.

There are many who are looking upon the opening promise of their children, with a joy, which none but a parent understands: and they ought never to forget, that the young human being is delicate as the flower, whose whole history is embraced in the words “the wind passeth over it, and it is gone.” It would seem as if in the ordinary course of life, this was taught them by sufficient warnings. But there are times, when the air of death breathes widely and fatally from the dark cloud: when many wither at once, as the storm is passing by: there are times when the most thoughtless parents begin to tremble, and feel as if they heard the rushing of the death-angel’s wing. It is well that they should keep before their minds, the consolations which they may need sooner than they suppose: they know not where his withering touch may fall next—but wherever if falls, the mourner will need all the comfort, which the kind Providence of God has given.

When the first born of Egypt were slain, the Hebrew children were secure with death all around them;—but there is no mark of God upon your doors. Since you may be called to mourn, come and meditate on the grave: it is the place where you may lay your treasure down to-morrow; come, and meditate on the grave: it is the place where you may lay your treasure down to-morrow; come, and meditate upon it now—not in sorrow—not in dismay—but in the preparation of the gospel of peace. Those who are familiar with death, see him without his terrors: if they lose what they love, they can say “it is well,” the Lord gave and the Lord taketh away.

It may seem to the world—the thoughtless world, as if little consolation were required in preparation for the loss of children: if they are called away, they say, they will leave no vacancy in society—there will be no loss to the world. They will say this, because they cannot look down into a parent’s heart and measure the depth of her affections: they can no more understand the anguish which she feels when her infant’s heart is cold, then they can understand the looks of unutterable delight with which she gazed upon its living features, studying their first dawnings of expression: or the intense interest with which she hung over its fainting head in its sickness, trembling every moment lest she should see the seal of death upon its brow: they cannot imagine what warm affections are broken—what towering hopes are struck down on the quenching even of the fatal spark of life in an infant’s breast:—they know not therefore the energy of submission which is required, for the parent to say, Father, thy will be done.

But they will wonder less at the sorrow—or I may rather say, they will believe in the sorrow, which such events occasion, if they will remember this—the parent loses not only all it was, but all she hoped it would have been. It was to her a subject of constant and affectionate interest: she saw in it what others could not see: she saw the revelations of mind, and the play of the affections upon its features: she felt that young as it was, it had a heart—a living heart, which beat in answer to her own. She loses this: and then her hopes! She hoped that it would be in its childhood among the beautiful and happy: she had already imagined a glorious path in which it was to travel up to life: she foresaw no disappointment—no downfall in all her visions of its future welfare: and when all this is suddenly destroyed, no wonder that for the time, the whole heart is a wild and desolate ruin.

That it is well with children when they die, we know: we will then inquire what are the designs of Providence in calling children away from their parents’ arms.

I think that you cannot possibly imagine more than two reasons why children are thus called away. The first is, to save them from the evils of the world. Far be it from me to represent this life as a vale of tears—or as a place where the miserable out-number the happy: I know that it is not so, and that the great proportion of the earth’s inhabitants want not the power but the disposition to be happy. Still, time and chance happen to them all: and if you look upon those who started together in life, with high hopes and bounding steps, you find some who are soon bent down with suffering, while others keep on successfully to the last. You find some, who midway in life, are wasted with disease, which breaks off all the purposes of life and sinks them slowly and heavily to the grave: you find some, who, without any fault of their own, are thrown into a condition in life, in which they have everything to endure, with no hope of any thing better in this world: you see the man with the crown of rejoicing taken from his head: you see the aged moving alone, unsupported and uncared for to the tomb. Such destinies in life there are: and such might have been the portion of the child who perished yesterday, to-day, or the one that shall die to-morrow: if so, the parent should thank God, who hides it from the evil, even though He hides it in the grave.

But these which I have named, are not the worst evils of life. This is a world of sin. They who come forward to bear a part in it, meet a thousand various temptations: and there are too many who yield to them and fall. The generous and high-minded youth sometimes becomes a cold, selfish and unfeeling man: the man who used to look the world in the face, becomes base and dishonorable, and either frowns in savage defiance or looks down with shame: they who were loved for their kind hearts, become slaves to their vices which make them a burden and sorrow to their friends: and very often, those whom the world accuses of no vices, are yet entirely destitute of moral principles and religious affections. If it might have been the fate of your child, to sink in any one of these snares—if there were the least danger of his becoming an alien from heaven, and self outcast from his God, what parent would not rejoice to have this child taken to a better world before it becomes deeply stained with the corruption of this? You should bless the hand that throws open a door of the grave.

No parent feels as if her child could ever have become a slave to corruption—but God knows—and if it is not to save them from the evils of life, that they are taken away, it must be for the second reason:—to place them in a condition more favorable to their improvement than this world affords.

I fear that the future life is so imperfectly realized, that this consolation loses most of its power. Why will men persist in thinking of heaven as a place of unmeaning rest?—of indolent happiness,—where the soul finds nothing but still and deep repose? They ought to reflect, that repose is not happiness to the mind—and that the enjoyment they dream of, is rather stagnation than repose—it is a state wholly unsuited to the nature of man. They ought to think of heaven, as a place where every power of every mind shall be steadily, successfully, and therefore happily exerted: where every affection of every heart shall be deeply interested, and therefore fully blessed. What the employment of that state will be, we know so far as this—it must be the employment of mind, in such researches as give the highest happiness—in discovering the manifestations of the glory and goodness of God. To think of heaven as we do, affords no comfort, no attraction;—it is like the long yellow line of a desart, seen by mariners who are looking for green hills and vallies as they draw near the shore: when, would they imagine it, as a place, where all are active, interested and happy, they would feel that when their child is gone to that world, there are some there, who will watch the flower, as it unfolds the beauty of its promise, and spreads out to the Sun of Righteousness, its leaves from which the dew of youth will never dry.

Think thus of heaven, and it will be something real and substantial to offer to the mourning heart. It is evidently a region more favorable to the growth of the immortal nature than this world: for, though in this world, there are trials and hardships, which serve to discipline some spirits and in this way to form them for heaven; there are other spirits perhaps, which are comparatively pure, and do not need them;—which are gentle, and could not bear them; which could not endure the rough climate of this world, but can grow and flourish divinely in the milder air of heaven. Such spirits, it is but reasonable to suppose, are translated, because heaven is better for them than earth—and God in his mercy, places every soul in the state, whatever it may be, which is most favorable to its growth in excellence: in our Father’s house there are many mansions—and all are open to the innocent as well as the just.

This accounts for the fact which has been so often observed, that many children of the brightest promise are removed from this world. A fact I have no doubt it is: though parents naturally esteem their own children too highly, and the lost are often the most loved, without being the best—still, it has been remarked from the earliest ages, that early death is given to the favorites of heaven. And why should it not be so? If there I a better world, for which they are better fitted than for this, why should we wish to detain them here? Why should we lament when the heavenly spirit ascends to its home in the skies? The parents should be ready to give up their child to a father, who has more right to its presence and affection than they—and, assured that “of such is the kingdom of heaven,” they should feel, that the hour cannot be untimely, which numbers it with the cherubim and all the radiant spirits round the throne.

I have mentioned the only reasons that I can imagine why children should be removed so early from the world—one is to save them from evils in the world—the other to place them in a state more favorable to improvement than this. And now we may humbly inquire why it is that parents are thus afflicted: there are reasons, which the kindness of God has graciously permitted us to know.

But first let me say, that it is not sent as a judgment, let the blow fall where it may: there is a language in use among some Christians, which ought never to be heard in the Christian world; which ascribes the misfortunes of life to divine displeasure. Can any thing be more opposed to our Saviour’s teaching? His words are almost indignant when he says to the narrow-minded Jews—What! Think ye that the murdered men were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you no! I do not fear that you will point out mourners as subjects of divine displeasure; but I do fear lest some who have heard this language in their youth, should retain so much of their early impressions as to feel, if they are called to suffer, that the mercy of God is for a season withdrawn—I fear lest they should forget that whatever he does, is done in kindness, and should be less ready, than in better days, to bend the knee in submission to his will.—If the least vestige of such delusion exists in any of your hearts, let me entreat you to cast it away. God seeks your welfare as much—yes, more than you seek it yourself; he knows what is for your welfare, and you do not; therefore he sometimes conducts you to happiness in a way which you find it hard to tread. But if that path conducts you to heaven where you may fold your lost resume to your heart again; there you will see that what men called judgments, were often the best blessings ever sent from above; and you will praise God with all your hearts, that, in those days of earthly sorrow when you half doubted his kindness, His will and not yours, was done.

But I may ask you to consider these as chastening—for we need chastening, and it is kind to give them; we do lean with wondrous confidence upon the world; we do cherish even the frailest of our blessings as if we could not lose them; and since a trust like this must fail us; since it may induce us to fix the hopes here, that should anchor to heaven, He warns us in the mildest way, that we are preparing for disappointment—that we are giving far too much to the world—that we are expecting from it a permanent happiness, which it cannot give and was never meant to give.—When we embark on the voyage of life in vessels which cannot live in the open sea—when the waves are only sleeping for an hour, and the storm is already gathered in the cloud, is it not a kind providence, which induces us to turn back and make better preparation? Would we wish it to allow us to keep blindly on till we dash upon the rock? Oh no! the chastening may be hard to bear—but it may save us from what is of all things the most dreadful—from shipwreck of the soul. But I may embrace all in one: children are taken for the parents’ sake, in order that the parents may have their thoughts carried gently, but irresistibly upward to the heaven of the blessed; the place where they who perish in their innocence, and they whose labor of life I well done, shall be happy forever. Where their treasure is, there their heart will be also: the child is the parents’ treasure, and it is lifted up, that their hearts may follow to its home in the skies. And follow it they will. Other warnings might be disregarded; they cannot be insensible to this! Other blessings might be lightly resigned; they cannot find it in their hearts to surrender this! And since there is a way in which they may make it their own again; since there is no need of giving it up forever; since they may at once arise and move forward in that way, which leads to the heavenly rest, they will feel an inspiration, to go on and secure the lost treasure in another world, if they can enjoy it no more in this. They will feel like the disciples when their Master ascended; they stood with him on their favorite hill—rejoicing that the grave had given up its dead, and he was once more with his own. He talked with them for the last time of what lay near all their hearts, and before the sound had died away upon their ears, he rose calmly to the skies and was lost in the depths of heaven.—Long did they stand gazing upward; and parents, when their child ascends, often feel an attraction to which they were strangers before, and which leads their thoughts upward as rapidly and surely, as the star led the eastern travelers to our Saviour’s feet.

You will understand the reason why I have directed your thoughts to this subject to-day: it is because the air of death is around us: because they who are just beginning to live, are marked out to die: because some have already suffered, and there is too much reason to fear that others, who little apprehend it now, must become acquainted with grief. If it must be so, do not let it come without preparation, for I do assure you, prepare for it as you may, you will find it hard to bear; to see the child in its morning beauty changed into that on which even affection dreads to look; to feel the current of life in its bosom wearing away; to see its eyes turned upon you as if you were a God—with a plaintive, beseeching expression, which seems to say to you as the sufferer did to our Saviour, ‘I know, that if thou wilt, thou canst heal me;’ to feel that you can do nothing to relieve it, and after many a change of anxiety and hope, to see the shadow of death pass over it and its features grow fixed and cold as if graven from the marble of the tombs,—this requires preparation—all the preparation which the gospel of peace can give. Do not hope to prepare when the sorrow is already come: it will then be too late—unless you prepare now—in the present—the only accepted time, the day of sorrow will not be a day of salvation to you. Let it not be so with you. If the next visitation of death shall come to you—if they shall ask of you as of the Hebrew mother, Is the child well? May you be able like her to say It is well—for it is gone to be happy with its God!

Sermon – Modern Emigrant – 1832

The

Modern Emigrant;

Or,

Lover of Liberty:

Being

A DISCOURSE,

Delivered in the city of New-York,

By The

Rev. J. M. Horner,

Author of ‘Immersion the only scriptural mode of Baptizing;’ of ‘Modern Persecution A Poem;’ and of ‘Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Collected, arranged, and composed for the use of the Union Baptists.’

O let me take my eagle flight,
Where Liberty is known and felt;
Where no despotic power can reign,
Over the souls or minds of men.
May I but scale the mountain top,
Or dwell within some humble cot,
Where I may freely write or speak,
Those thoughts which reason generate.

Introduction.

My Christian Friends, — When I was invited to address you in the character of a Minister of Jesus Christ, I thought it would not be amiss to submit to your notice my reasons for leaving the land of my nativity, my beloved relations, and my pastoral charge. If I do this, I must not only advert to the state of religion in England, but to the laws and politics of that country. I know that many professors, and some of the best Christians, are opposed to the idea of ministers introducing politics in their discourses.

I am one of those who think that Ministers should not give themselves to politics, so as to unfit them for the discharge of their more important duties. But that they should watch the proceedings of the government under which they live, make themselves acquainted with the politics of their own country, and recommend to the people of their charge good and wholesome laws, must be evident to every impartial mind.

If a Minister should see the people of his charge laden with an unjust taxation, imposed upon by a heavy tithe system and laboring under disabilities because of their religious and Christian creed, without speaking, writing or exercising his influence for their emancipation, in my opinion he would be cruel to an extreme enthusiastic beyond measure, or destitute of the common feelings of humanity. To say that the professors of religion should not concern themselves about the laws of their country, and the politics which surround them, is to say that the Dissenters of England should endure their religious disabilities, their cruel tithe system their oppressive government without speaking about them or writing on the subject or even petitioning their Legislature for their liberty and support. Were I called upon for a further justification for glancing at temporal governments in my discourses, I would do it by observing, that the prophets in their predictions, and the apostles in preaching, often noticed the governments under which they lived, and the politics which surrounded them.

A DISCOURSE.

“Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them.” -Acts, 8,5.

SAMARIA in the original, שמרוך. The root of which is שמר and signifies to keep, watch, guard. Observe in שמרוך or Samaria, the Lord’s people were kept.

1. From the oppression of their enemies, and many of the troubles which the wars among them occasioned.

2. In that city the Lord’s chosen people had to “watch and “guard” against the encroachments of idolatry, and the influence of error.

This city stood about twenty miles north of Jerusalem, being twelve miles south of Dothan. This was a city of the Ephramites, the capital of the ten tribes of Israel : it was once wholly given up to idolatry. At that time, the Jews being afflicted with wars, fled to Samaria for shelter, and introduced their holy religion among its inhabitants.

When Philip went to preach the gospel of Christ to the Samaritans, he found them in possession of copies of the laws of Moses, which were corrupted with sundry mistakes. Not merely those which arose from the transcribers making on Hebrew letter for another, but because they were mixed with tenets in favor of idolatry.

Those two circumstances, namely, that of the Jews fleeing to Samaria from the storm of persecution, and that of Philip to preach the gospel to the Samaritans, reminds me of our venerable English forefathers, who, when the rod of oppression was shook over the English nation, and its Monarch descended from the throne of justice to exercise an undue authority, by inflicting pains and penalties, and confiscating the goods of those who dared to think for themselves in matters relative to their souls and their God, fled from the land which gave their birth, and to which they were attached by many reciprocal ties. But where did they flee? Not to any of the European nations. For by so doing they would not have bettered their condition; — not to any of the nations professedly Christian, for even there I blush to add, an intolerant spirit reigned. They fled to this country, now called the United States of America, and where they, like the Jews, or like Philip introduced their holy religion wherever they went.

Although the spirit of intolerance is in a measure subsided, and freedom of thought and the exercise of private judgment allowed yet a spirit of emigration prevails in every part of England, for her inhabitants are flocking to this country by hundreds and by thousands. It is true that these modern emigrants may not have the same reasons for leaving their native land as their forefathers, nevertheless they may have had powerful motives for taking up their abode in this country. Whether this be true or not with regard to many, it is true with regard to myself; for I can assure you that I have not given up my cottage of superfluity, my home of comforts, my house of temporal and spiritual mercies, my dearest relations, who were tied to me by the remembrance of their fostering care, my pastoral charge, who lived in my heart and partook of my homely, but I hope the spiritual productions of my study; — my native country, the inhabitants of which are as brave and famous as any in the world, who are repository of arts and sciences, and a library of intellectual wealth; — I say I have not given up all these without power inducement and reasons for taking such an important step . If I were called upon to give those reasons, I would cheerfully do so, among which the following would have a place:

1. Because of the influence of a bad Government.

You know that the inhabitants of any country are in a great measure influenced by the Government which exists among them.

You may know from history, and I know by experience, that an aristocratical government is generally, if not always, tyrannical in its enactments, oppressive in its measures and covetous in its demands. This I know to be the case with the English Government, for while it is desirous of exceeding every other country in its national splendor and ornamental palaces, it robs, plunders, and deprives the Lancashire weavers, the farmers’ laborers, and the parish paupers of the common necessities of life, by its enormous salaries and oppressive taxation., For there are taxes on the man of God, who bestows his gratuitous and theological lectures on the villagers; taxes on the widow, who consecrates her mud-walled cot to the worship of Jehovah; taxes on the house of God, which has been raised by the voluntary subscription of the poor. And what is worse than all is, that if the aged and infirm invite their minister to preach in their parlor, and if the conscience of the man of God dictates to him his exclusive allegiance to his Supreme in matters of religion, and he banishes from his creed the idea of asking man whether or not he may do his duty to his God; and should he comply with the request of those who entertain the same views and thus deliver his gospel sermon to twenty-two or more aged infirm, and worn-out pilgrims, the one must be liable to the penalty of ten pounds and the other to the penalty of forty pounds. (George III. cap. 155.)

Besides these fines and penalties on things pertaining to God, there are taxes on every article which enters the mouth or covers the back, or is placed under the foot. Taxes upon everything which is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, and taste; taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion; taxes on every thing on earth, and the waters under the earth; on every thing from abroad, or that Is grown at home; taxes on the raw material; taxes on every value that is added to it by the industry of man; taxes on the sauce which pampers man’s appetite, and the drug which restores him to health; taxes on the ermine which decorates the judge, the rope which hangs the criminal, and the brass nails of the coffin; taxes on the ribands of the bride; at bed or at board, couchant or levant, they must pay. The schoolboy whips his taxed top, the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle, on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman pouring his medicine, which has paid 7 per cent. into a spoon which has paid 15 per cent., throws himself back upon his chintz bed which has paid 22 per cent., makes his will on an eight-pound stamp, and expires in the arms of an apothecary, ¹ who has paid one hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then taxed from two to ten per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble, and he is then gathered to his fathers to be taxed no more.

Now when we are thus oppressed with something like Egyptian bondage, and surrounded with fallen cheeks, the impoverished circumstances, and the cries of the poor, it cannot but affect the feelings of humanity. And like a swallow, which from the laws of nature predicts the near approach of an inclement season, takes her anticipating flight to some distant region, where she may enjoy her liberty, and a full supply of the calls of nature, so humanity, affected by the heart-rending scenes of poverty, and exorbitant demands of usurpers, cannot but desire to take her flight to some distant shore, where she may not be so much annoyed. The means, too, by which that Government is formed, the materials of which it is composed, are also appalling to the reflecting mind. Here I do not allude to the majority of the House of Parliament, nor to those illustrious characters — characters to whom minds reason has dictated sound and political ideas — who are the ornaments of their country, the political lights of the world, and the Washington’s of their day, — but to those characters and that hereditary system, which makes the throne of England groan with the weight of novices, and crowds the Upper House with characters, whom nature never formed for an important office, and for whom reason never demanded enormous salaries. I cannot stay to be more explicit on these particulars; suffice it to say, that I believe the English Government to be a mixture of Heathenism, Popery, and Protestantism. Such is its nature, that I believe the present day would blush to give it birth, and that none but the dark ages of Popery could have sent it into existence.

2. Because of the state of the Church in that country.

I admit that in every corner of that country, the gospel is preached, and the number of gospel ministers is abundant, many of whom evince extra ordinary talents; but, alas! the church is afflicted with skepticism, with imbecility of faith, with a deadness of soul in spiritual matters, with divisions and subdivisions, contentions and strife. There are but a few ministers who are satisfied with them. Should a minister step out of the common formal path he is looked upon as a speckled bird, and set up as a mark to be shot at. Such a state of Christianity is sufficient to induce us to say, from such “Good Lord deliver us.” Here I would observe, that I have desired to enjoy a more pure religious atmosphere, and the friendly company of those who are more zealous in matters pertaining to God, and the salvation of men; and since American Christians have been represented to me to be such like characters, I have ventured to come home and witness their zeal for the Lord of Hosts.

3. Because of Acquaintances and Christian Friends.

Many of these have emigrated to this country, whose talents will command respect, whose pious demeanor will make them ornaments to America and whose heavenly graces will enable them to adorn their Christian profession. Do not say that this is a small inducement; for the desire to enjoy the company of pious intimate and long-tried friends, induced a Hobab and a Jacob to leave the land of their nativity. I pity the soul that is destitute of natural affection, for it betrays a littleness of mind; but I more especially pity the soul that is destitute of love, for it displays a want of that grace which is the most essential virtue to the Christian.

4. Because of the reputed and reviving state of Christianity in this country.

The revivals of religion in America, form a very general topic of conversation in England; and many a time when I have read of them, my heart has burned with sacred desire to be among them. The revival of Christianity, the political views of the people, and the constitution of the united states, have been topics of close study and deep interest to me for seven years past; and such were my views, that I consider I should have been remiss in my duty, and I pierced my heart through with many sorrows, had I not visited America.

I have now submitted to your consideration, my reasons for the important step I have taken and therefore I shall proceed to notice —

I. The time to which the text refers us.

That was a time of violent persecution to the church – a time when the political atmosphere in which they breathed, the Mosaical partialities, and the deep-rooted prejudices of the Jews, appeared to form a dark cloud, which threatened the annihilation of the church; — a time when the Sun of righteousness appeared to be sunk in his orbit, and the light of the gospel to withdraw its shining; — a time, when the powers of darkness appeared to be let loose, and to seize with a salacious and insatiable desire upon the innocent lambs of the fold of Christ; — a time, when the hope of preserving Christianity to evangelize the earth must have been faint, and when the combined circumstances, the united powers and wickedness of men, appeared to predict the downfall of the Christian empire, and the giving up of the world to heathenish superstition., But, O my friends, “be not faithless, but believing; rejoice, and be exceedingly glad;” for although this was a time of thundering Jehovah was behind the cloud, and laughed at impossibilities; and as he has loved his church with an “everlasting love,” and has promised the “gates of hell shall never prevail against it,” so will he subvert the powers of darkness, frustrate the wicked designs of the ungodly, and cause the wrath of man to praise him. Yea, God did over-rule that persecution and caused it to disperse the Apostles to disseminate the gospel, and build up his church. Through that persecution, the gospel was sent to Samaria, to the Gentiles, to Rome, to Spain, to France, and to England; and when the violent hand of persecution was raised in England against the Non-Conformists, they fled to this country, and brought with them the mild truths, the enlightening truths, the all-glorious and soul-reviving truths of the Gospel of Christ.

II. We have here a particular account of what Philip did; and, therefore, let us notice —

1. The place he chose.

It was Samaria, which, in the New Testament, signifies the territory between Judea and Galilee, and where the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Issachar, had dwelt. We might have supposed that Samaria was the last place that Philip would have visited, and that there was the least probability of introducing the gospel there, because of the deep-rooted prejudices of its inhabitants against the Jews, so much so, that they even refused civil dealings with them. (John, iv. 9) And we all know that prejudice, which is invariably connected with ignorance, forms a mighty barrier to the introduction of any doctrine, however scriptural that doctrine may be, therefore we see, that if we are desirous of being informed how necessary it is that our minds possess “Charity, — Charity, which doth not behave herself unseemly;” which deliberately meditates on every new idea which strikes the mind; — Charity, which will not allow herself to be influenced by sectarianism, nor confined within the precincts of a party spirits; Charity which always listens to the voice of Reason, and with calmness and deliberation attends to logical productions.

2. The means Philip used to gain success.

Those were not the artificial show of heathenism, nor the theatrical or priestly splendor of the Papists, which merely work upon the senses without carrying conviction to the heart; neither did he act like Mahomet, who enforced his doctrines, and imposed his dogmas by sword and bloodshed, by fines and penalties; but he gave plain statements of divine truths, accompanied with the working of miracles, which spoke volumes to every reflecting mind, and carried with them a conviction of the holy truths he preached.

See what the Gospel Word can do,
When Plainly stated, and set forth;
What mighty changes it achieves,
When’er it is received by Faith.

3. The success which attended Philip’s labors.

We may here observe that his success was very great, for the Holy Ghost has stated, “That when the people saw the miracles which Philip wrought, and heard him preach the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ they were baptized, both men and women,” which circumstance occasioned great and general joy in that city we may also consider that this great work of conversion was not confined to the metropolis of that country, but that it spread into all the suburbs and villages of the Samaritans. Thus we see that the word ran among them like fire among dry stubble, which I consider amply shows that the work was of God; so that we perceive when the gospel is preached in its purity, it is powerful and highly calculated to bring men to themselves to religion, and to God.

The Gospel is a mighty sword,
Which slays the selfishness of men;
It brings their souls to know the Lord,
And shows them how a heaven to gain.

III. There are two or three considerations, which, if noticed, will tend to show that Philips success was extraordinary; and those were

1. We may consider that many centuries prior to that time, and even down to the moment that Philip began preaching among them, they had been given up to idolatry, and that the idolaters were always prejudiced against Christianity.

2. That the minds of the Samaritans were embittered against Jerusalem in particular, and the Jews in general.

3. That at that time Simon the Sorcerer gave out that he was a great character, who mightily deluded the people by his wickedness and magic art; for him they had regard, yea he had long ascended the throne of their minds, and ruled with a mighty influence over their sentiments and conduct. Now, when we consider that those great obstacles which stood in the way to an introduction of the gospel among the Samaritans were overcome by the preaching of Philip, it will be evident that his success was extraordinary.

IV. The work in which Philip employed himself when at the city of Samaria. “He preached Christ into them;” that is, he preached the Savior unto them as an all-sufficient sacrifice to be offered to justice for the sins of his people; and, in order to do this, he must have preached —

1. Their incapacity to atone for themselves;

For they would not accept of a sacrifice on their behalf, except they were first convinced of their need of one. They would not receive such a conviction, without being shown their fallen state as sinners, their weakness and infirmity.

2. Philip must have preached Christ’s mysterious union with Deity.

If he showed them their utter incapability to atone for themselves, he must likewise have presented to their consideration a superior character, who possessed a capability to obey the Mosaical law, and who by his death could satisfy the demands of Divine Justice : therefore he preached Christ unto them as a mighty god come in the flesh to destroy the works of the Devil; as a Savior most eminently fitted; who could restore their lapsed powers, and implant in them heavenly tempers; – whose mysterious incarnation could endear them to God; – whose natural birth could procure their spiritual regeneration; — and whose unspotted life could restore them to a blissful immortality. Methinks that he would preach him as the joy of mourners, the glory of the infamous, and the salvation of the lost.

Yea, he would preach Christ as being wonderful in his prophetic, priestly, and kingly offices: — as one who had gained a triumphant conquest over death, hell, and all his inveterate enemies : as one whose doctrines would trample upon the arguments of the subtle, the power of princes, the blindness of zeal, the forced of custom, the pleasures of sin, and all the attempts of the wicked. It is easy to imagine that his extensive mind, his ardent soul, his honest heart, were all impressed with the greatness of his work, the importance of his character, and the glory of his Master.

3. Philip must have preached the manner of Christ’s crucifixion and death.

He showed them the analogy of the Predictions of the Prophets, with Christ’s life, miracles, and death; and, being near the very spot which was the stage and not the corner on which these things were transacted, he would be enabled to produce incontestable evidence of the fulfilment of those predictions.

4. Philip must have preached the triumphant resurrection of Christ;

And, to convince them of the truth of that essential doctrine, he would not have to resort to any garbled argument, nor any “cunningly-devised fable;” no, now yet to the pages of ancient or modern history, but to clear and evident facts, which transpired on the public platform of their own neighborhood, and which must have been so clear and evident to them, as to put to silence the skeptical characters, and convince the gainsayers.

5. Philip preached Christ as a King having a kingdom, and mildly swaying his scepter over the same; and, therefore, he preached

1.Christ’s capability and manner, by which he would overcome all his enemies; and here I imagine he would not need to make elaborate discourses, in order to convince them that Christ’s enemies were numerous, formidable in their strength, and terrific in their stately combinations; for they were at that time eye-witnesses of the superstitions of the Heathens, the spite of Pagans, and the malice of the Jews, all of which combined to oppose Christianity. The very first thought that impressed their minds, the first moments of reflection they devoted to the subject they would feel irresistibly convinced that Christ’s opponents were more numerous than any other principality or kingdom had to contend with. Philip, of course would take this opportunity of exhibiting the glory of Christ, by showing them how he would overcome his innumerable, combined and stately enemies; and, in doing this, he did not pretend to show them that Christ would assume any worldly grandeur to work upon the senses of his antagonists, or that he would wield a powerful sword to subdue their inveterate opposition, or command a warlike army of thousands to establish his kingdom in the world; but he would show them how that Christ had commissioned his disciples, men of no name, without any pretensions to worldly pomp and grandeur, without sword in their hand, or armies to command, should go forth and make a simple statement of facts, and preach the gospel of the kingdom of God; and that the gospel which was so generally despised, should subdue kingdoms, set men right, and convert them to its glorious truths.

O let thy kingdom come, great God
Subdue the nations round;
May the whole earth thy Gospel own,
And listen to its sound!
May kingdoms which in darkness lie,
Be brought beneath its light,
Lay down their weapons, and no more
Presume with thee to fight.
May Pagan tribes and Indian castes,
Be broken and subdued;
Give them to feel thy sovereign grace,
Constrain them by the Word.

2. Philip preached Christ unto them as a King, who had enacted laws for the government of his kingdom and also described the nature of them; and while exhibiting the goodness of those laws, he would know that they were decreed by him who had all power and that they were signed and sealed by him who had spoken, and would most assuredly bring it to pass. He would endeavor to convince them, that Christ had enacted laws for the government of nations, cities, families, masters and servants; and, that as far as they were governed by them, so should they have peace in this life, as well as an hope of that which is to come.

3. Philip preached Christ the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and therefore the best qualified to remunerate his heroes, his warriors, and all who enlisted in the glorious cause of subduing kingdoms. Promoting righteousness and evangelizing the earths. The truth of these sentiments may be shown by consulting those words, Col. 2, 9, where it is said that Christ possesses all fullness; that is, a fullness of repentance for sin, a fullness of justification for the soul, and a fullness of glorification at the right hand of the Majesty on high. When Christ spoke of his people, and the remuneration with which he will bless them, he spoke of them in the following manner: “I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” John, 10, 28.

Now unto Him who is able to enlist you in his cause, to help you to fight manfully the battle of the Lord, and to crown you with laurels that will never fade, and with glory which will never fall from your heads, be ascribed all honor, might, majesty, and dominion, now and forever. Amen.

Endnotes

1 No druggist or doctor in England can sell medicine or practice physic, without first paying one hundred pounds to Government.

Sermon – Election – 1830, Connecticut

The following election sermon was preached by Charles Boardman in New Haven, CT on May 5, 1830.

THE DUTIES AND EMBARRASSMENTS OF RULERS.

SERMON,

ADDRESSED TO

THE LEGISLATURE

OF THE

STATE OF CONNECTICUT,

AT THE

ANNUAL ELECTION

IN NEW-HAVEN,

MAY 5, 1830.

BY CHARLES A. BOARDMAN,
Pastor of the Third Congregational Church in New-Haven.

At a General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, holden at New-Haven in said State, on the first Wednesday of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty,

Resolved, That the Hon. William W. Boardman of the Senate, and Joseph N. Clarke, Esq. of the House of Representatives, be a committee to wait upon the Re. Mr. Boardman, and to present to him the thanks of this Assembly for the Sermon delivered before them on Wednesday last, and to request a copy of the same for publication.

A true copy of record,
Examined by
THOMAS DAY, Secretary.

A SERMON. EXODUS xviii. 17-24.

“And Moses’ father-in-law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee: Be thou for the people to God-ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God: and thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do. Moreover, thou shalt provide out of all the people, able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, and rulers of tens: and let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee; but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee. If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace.”

The charge committed to Moses at the Exodus, was of great magnitude. He was leading an infant nation, and that the nation upon which the Most High had set his name, out from the grasp of oppression, to the possession of privileges and immunities which would one day manifest to the world, that “they were the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them.” He was to give them laws, adjudicate in all their controversies, and bring them, an united people, into the possession of their promised inheritance. Qualified for the high trust, as he was, both by the excellencies of his mind, and the advantages of a finished education at the Egyptian court, he found himself sinking under the responsibilities and embarrassments of his office, and would doubtless have fallen an early victim to his devotion to the interests committed to his hands, had it not been for the timely suggestion of his father-in-law. This suggestion contains a condensed exhibition of the duties of rulers, and their embarrassments. It was adopted by Moses, approved by God, and produced the happiest results. It is my object to present these topics of thought, in their order. I therefore notice,

I. The general duties of rulers.

Government is obviously an ordinance of God, having for its object the happiness of men. The duties of rulers, therefore, all lie in the creation and appropriate application of the means of advancing and securing this object; involving,

1. The perspicuous definition of the rights and duties of the people; and their protection in the enjoyment of their rights and privileges. Insecurity, oppression and misery, must inevitably result from the neglect, on the part of rulers, of either of these branches of duty. Law must define and protect right, or government inevitably becomes the most powerful engine of corruption and wretchedness to the people. Accordingly, the plan suggested to Moses in the text, and approved of God, embraced distinctly this principle. “And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt show them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do.”

2. It is the duty of rulers, to provide for the education of the people, and to encourage and promote the universal diffusion of knowledge.

Although knowledge is not the “righteousness which exalteth a nation,” it is essential to the production of that righteousness, and to the existence and perpetuity of elevated national character, and happiness. It is true that a nation may become voluptuous in the midst of the glory of its intellectual renown, because a learned aristocracy may exist in the midst of general stupidity, and intellectual debasement; and because, moral depravity may, and, unresisted, will, pervert and prostitute privilege to selfish and vicious gratification. But ignorance is neither “the mother of devotion,” nor security against universal licentiousness. On the contrary, general ignorance constitutes the foundation on which every despotism on earth rests, and opposes one of the most effectual barriers to the progress of holiness and sound morality. Despots so understand this subject, and when they would enslave, the avenues to intellectual improvement are cautiously closed against the mass of the people, and opened only to the favored few; and then “truth falls in the streets, and equity cannot enter.” In this country, where the people are the original depositaries of power, nothing can be more idle, than to expect that any system of legislation can result in the happiness of the people, and the elevation of national character, which overlooks the wide diffusion of knowledge. The resources of a state can never be developed and applied to the augmentation of human happiness, while the mass of the people are shut out from the means of an education, so ample at least, as to qualify them for, and create in them more or less of a taste for reading, and thorough discussion in the different departments of practical writing. There must be therefore, schools and literary institutions of all that diversity of character, and in such numbers, as to place the amount of education just alluded to, within the reach of the great body of the people; or the splendid experiment which we are making of the ability of men to govern themselves, and thus to promote their own happiness, will result not only in our own undoing, but in the disappointment of the hopes of half the world, and the increased rigor of all existing despotisms.

3. The happiness of men as the object of government, makes it the duty of rulers to resist vice, and protect, and give scope to the institutions of religion.

Vice contains in itself the elements of disease and death. Unresisted, it produces the same certain suffering and ruin upon a State, which it inflicts upon its individual votaries. And against its encroachments, in all the forms in which it is tangible to legislative enactment and judicial fidelity, the law must lift up its voice and its penalty. For there is a contagion in vice, and such a wide spread predisposition in men to its contamination, that, without the resistance, and purifying influence of prohibitory enactment, it is resistless and overwhelming. I am not unaware of the power of a sound and healthful public opinion to resist evil. I know that a public opinion, formed under the light and sanctifying influence of the gospel, and modeled by its morality and pervading the mass of the community, can, and will do a thousand fold more to repress and exterminate vice, than all that the civil magistrate can do, by the mere force of law. But it is to be remembered, that such a public opinion does not now exist, and cannot be made to exist, and cannot be made to exist, without the influence of law to create and sustain it. The operation of the laws for the suppression of vice, and the protection of morals, adopted by the Pilgrim Fathers of New-England, has done more than all other causes combined, (with the exception of the gospel of God,) to produce the morality which has been her praise and glory all abroad; and to this hour, we are more indebted to this influence for what remains of healthful public opinion, than to any other cause, the gospel only excepted. True, some of these laws threw strong bands upon the arms of the ungodly; but most of them were the very cords by which the Lord Jesus would bind men to his throne, and an inheritance of light: and it becomes the descendants of this noble race of men, to see to it, that in removing those parts of their scheme of government, which change of circumstances has rendered useless or obnoxious, that they do not “break the bands of Christ asunder, and cast away his cords from us.” For it is vain to expect, that a public opinion which shall resist the encroachment of vice, will long survive the withdrawal of legislative and judicial resistance of the evil. Because, there is a large class of immoralities, and these the most deadly in their influence and ultimate results, to the countenance of which, legislative influence is virtually extended, by failing to array against them the power of law. In this class may be ranked, gaming in all its forms, Sabbath breaking, profanity, and intemperance. Now, had no law existed against these vices, could a public opinion have been formed, which would render the enactment and execution of such statutes now practicable? And what would be the immediate and certain result upon public opinion, of the present repeal of these statutes? Annihilate the protection which legislation has given to the Sabbath, or relax the frown which it has fixed on drunkenness, difficult as that vice is of legal detection, and you have given a governmental influence to corruption, under which a public sentiment would speedily be formed, which would laugh at the impotency of all law, and render useless all the machinery of civil government.

Still, however, the direct resistance of immorality by law, is not all that is needed, to secure the people against influence, or produce the greatest amount of elevation of character and happiness. It will be too late to expect deliverance from corruption and ruin, when the religion of the Bible; the religion which transforms the character of man, and stamps him with the living image of God, has lost its hold upon the hearts and consciences of men. For, then come down upon the land, not infidelity merely, nor heathenism even, but atheism, and the judgments from on high, which are necessary to convince the world that “there is a God in Israel.” And that day of calamity will come, when the gospel and its institutions, and the appropriate means of giving it effect, are prevented from exerting their proper influence. It is from the gospel, therefore, that that strong, redeeming and purifying influence is to come, which must give elevation and stability to the public morality, and dignity and happiness to the nation. But to accomplish these objects, the gospel must have “free course.” With its appropriate institutions, and the means of every character necessary to its application to the “business and bosoms” of the entire community, it must go forth unrestrained by the frown of legislative enactment or example, and unencumbered by legislative favoritism to particular sects. In other words, let the gospel and its institutions be properly upheld by the rulers of the people;–so upheld as never to encroach upon the rights of conscience; never to invade denominational privilege; never to compel men to assume the badge of discipleship, as a test of official qualification; but so upheld by the example of those in high places, and by their adoption of appropriate measures, as to protect the Sabbath from profanation, give unrestrained efficacy to the gospel in the hands of an enlightened and efficient ministry,–room and privilege to charitable and benevolent associations to do their work, and for the church of God to accomplish her high and holy enterprise, under the blessing of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; and from the mightiness and all pervading nature of this cause, we may expect the perpetuity of our free institutions, the steady advance of national prosperity, and individual elevation and blessedness, and God will look down upon the land with favor, and lay it over with the manifestations of his presence and glory.

II. My second topic of thought is, the embarrassments of rulers. These arise,

1. From the magnitude and complicated nature of the interests committed to their hands.

Amazing interests are involved in the development and application of the intellectual resources of a State. These interests mingle in, and go to form the elements of action, in every department of life, and to an indefinite, but wide extent, modify and control the character and destiny of the State. A particular direction given to education, once bound Europe to the papal throne, and enslaved the minds of three fourths of Christendom, for ages. Under the same influence, France was prepared for the infidelity, and contempt of authority, which overthrew the throne of the monarch, and demolished the altars of God; riveted the chains of her despotism, and in connexion with the awakened wrath of heaven, sent her sons to fatten with their blood the soil of every country of Europe.

Interests of similar magnitude are involved in the development and application of the industry of a State. These too are found spreading themselves over the formation of individual character, and giving to public morality its complexion and its influence. Let the laws of a State and their administration be such, as to hold out but a doubtful security to the rewards of patient general industry, or so foster the spirit of adventure and speculation, as to produce an impression upon the yeomanry of the land, more or less extensively, that adventure is preferable to labor; or that the public scorn attaches to their circumstances or employment, and a mighty spirit, at war with the regular and healthful operations of commerce, is raised up to allure both the young and the old to recklessness and ruin, and to fill the land with idleness and crime.

Of still greater consequence are the interests involved in the morality and religion of a State. These are to give direction to all its physical and intellectual resources; to array against order, hope, and heaven, the intellectual prowess;–the wealth;–the distinction of public favor, and the passions of the State: or, to sanctify them all to the purpose of blessing men and glorifying God. Beside; these are the moving power of all influences;–always operating, always producing results of some specific character, good or evil, which far distant generations are to inherit, and which reach, in a great multitude of instances, into eternity;–to the judgment, and away;–forever,–beyond it.

All these amazing interests, complicated as they are, are committed to the care of rulers. And when it is recollected what tremendous consequences are to follow the neglect, mismanagement or abuse of them, and how easily they may all be sacrificed; how gentle a touch of almost any of the springs which regulate them, may give a wrong direction to the movements of the whole machinery of government, and result in wasting and desolation in time, and woe eternal beyond the grave,–a sober man might well tremble at the thought of assuming even a share in the control of such interests: and such a man must feel embarrassed by the magnitude and intricacy of the work cast upon his hands. For where shall he begin? Shall it be with that class of interests which respect the development of the intellectual resources of the State? By pursuing it under false lights, or with a disproportioned ardor, he may push his favorite object beyond the point of safety, or give it a false, and perhaps fatal direction, and then, he may have touched some hidden “cord of woe,” that, in the language of another, “may vibrate, long after his head is laid in the dust.” What shall he do? Remain himself inactive, in hope to throw the labor and responsibility upon others? That, were to assume a more tremendous responsibility still, that of neglecting interests which suffer as fatally from neglect as from abuse. What shall we do? Follow the mere dictates of his own feelings, without exploring consequences? That, is to abuse public confidence, pervert justice, and trifle, it may be, with everlasting interests, and just before him, is God in judgment on his present conduct!

2. Another source of embarrassment to rulers is, in the nature and power of existing influences, adverse to the advancement of the great interests of the nation.

The very means of becoming great and happy, which God has put into our hands, are capable of a perversion to produce deep and extensive national corruption. Our free institutions may be made the means of corrupting the hearts and the morals of the great mass of the community. Our learning, turned to the advancement of ungodliness, with the power of a free press to give it application and expansion;–our wealth, and the influence of station, either not employed on the side of God and his salvation, or devoted to the cause of irreligion; and our means of reaching the public mind with a pure and vigorous morality, either neglected, or thrown away, would as certainly corrupt the nation, extensively and vitally, as is the connexion between causes and their appropriate effects. From these means of national greatness, there have already come forth powerful opposing influences.

The press is, to an unhappy extent, exerting this influence. While it is true that many, perhaps a majority of the presses of our country, are devoted to the cause of good order, and morality, it is neither to be denied nor concealed, that many of them are exerting their influence in an opposite direction. Some of them, presuming on either the good nature of the community, or the prostration of public principle, unblushingly avow their hostility to the Bible, and evangelical influence in every form, and Bible morality as protected by the existing laws of the land: while others, more insidiously indeed, but with still more effect, are directing their energies to the same great but dreadful object. Now although it be true, that the influence thus exerted to corrupt and destroy, is to a very considerable extent counteracted by the opposing power of a more elevated press, it is both absurd and wicked, to believe and expect that this corrupting influence will produce no destructive results. Neither the entire mass of the community, nor all that portion of it whose influence is most commanding, has reached that point of moral elevation, and quick and delicate moral sensibility, which, as from the touch of pollution, recoils instinctively from all contact with licentiousness, and throws back upon the propagators of its doctrines, the frown and the scorn which neither pride, nor passion, nor the offer of popular favor, nor the endurance of invective, can relax. It is presumption to suppose it. Presses are already scattering over the face of the nation, infidel, irreligious, and atheistical tracts and periodicals; and, they are supported, and are rearing up a generation “of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity; and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood,” and whose influence, through the whole extent of its range, is to sweep away “the foundations of many generations.”

Extended, organized resistance to benevolent efforts and institutions, constitutes a powerful opposing cause of national greatness and happiness. That this resistance exists, will not be questioned; nor, that it exists under the form of organized, voluntary associations. It aims to check and retard the progress, if not subvert the foundations of those societies, whose object it is to diffuse more widely the light of the gospel, and to give augmented power to its influence all over the nation, and throughout the globe. And while this resistance to these institutions thus continues, it carries over its hostility to that great standing defence of national morality and blessedness, the Sabbath of the Lord, and pleads at the bar of the national councils for its prostitution by the power of civil enactment. And more than this;–while the godly of every name are pleading for the preserving and sanctifying influence of this holy day, and weeping over the sins of the land, there comes down a voice from high places, rebuking their solicitations with the insidious charge of ecclesiastical ambition, and gravely preaching to them the duty of pious living. All this is not, and cannot be ineffectual. It will, to a greater or less extent, retard the advancement of the public morality, and weaken the only influence, which is infallibly adapted to secure the nation against the corruption and curse of voluptuousness.

Another opposing influence of national elevation and happiness, is found, in the causes in operation to produce diminished patriotism, and disunion.

Some of these causes have just been stated. For, whatever tends to corrupt the public morals, and impair the sense of religious obligation, and weaken the influence of the gospel and its institutions upon the public mind, becomes in the same proportion, a cause of diminishing that love of country, which, fixing its strongest attachments and sympathies on the real and abiding and great interests of that country, imparts to them a paramount importance and value, and draws around them a nation’s prayers, and treasures, and bosoms, and blood, and pours them all down when the perpetuity of these interests demand the sacrifice. Such a patriotism, not only imparts loftiness to a nation’s glory, and invincibility to its defences, but makes its government strong, and the work of legislation both easy and efficient. And in proportion as it is diminished, the opposing causes of the nation’s greatness are multiplied. And that there are causes beside those which have been named, in operation to produce this diminution, there is little reason to doubt.

The strong, and increasing love of money, indicated by the spirit of adventure and speculation, and the reluctance with which, in many sections of the land, it is granted for purposes of public utility and improvement; as it is a selfish affection, is incompatible with that lofty patriotism which renders the work of government easy and effectual.

The luxury, which is steadily advancing in the land, is infallibly connected with an effeminacy and corruption, at war with the advancement of all the great interests of the nation, and is silently, but steadily and surely diminishing both the number of truly patriotic men, and the power of patriotic principles.

The ambition of civil distinction, is operating to diminish the amount of sterling patriotism, and to produce division and strife. There is an ambition, which fixes first on extensive usefulness, as its object, and brings the whole man under the steady influence of a mental and moral discipline, that produces qualifications of an high order for the duties of every responsible station. In such an ambition, there is a magnanimity and a promise of good, which balance its power to do evil, and give its energies a happy direction and influence. That, is an ambition that waits, but not in hypocrisy nor guile, for the public favor; which follows the perceived development of official qualifications, not seizes on that favor by art or intrigue, and in the fullness of self-complacent confidence proclaims, “Come see my zeal (not indeed for the Lord, but) for the people!” And “Oh that I were made a judge in the land!” But there is an ambition of this latter kind abroad; and when it shall have spread itself over so broad a surface, and taken such a deep root, that the legislation of the land shall be exercised principally with reference to provisions of place and favor, and the government itself shall become one great laboratory of office, with its public functionaries sworn to the superintendence of the manufacture; “and the people” shall “love to have it so;” then there will have come up over the land, in the length and breadth of it, a spirit dark and foul;–a spirit of selfishness and insubordination; a spirit of party strife and bitter crimination; a spirit changeful as the wind, yet to patriotism, public health and peace, deadly as the Samoom, and resistless as death. And there is in the very circumstances, which contemplated in one aspect, hold out a brilliant promise to the stability of our institutions and the peace and prosperity of the land, an opportunity for the widely extended operations of this spirit, and perhaps a tendency to quicken the development of its fearful energies. While unlike all other civilized nations, were are separated by oceans from the intrigue and corruption of foreign courts; and our liability to disastrous alliances with them, is diminished by the breadth of the line, and the nature of the barrier of separation; from this very circumstance, we are destitute of one powerfully united influence, which their contiguity puts into their possession, viz: the external pressure of foreign, but contiguous jealousy, rivalry, and arms. This compressing influence from without, adapted as it is, to throw upon party strife and wild ambition the resisting power of a near, perceived, and common danger, and thus to present to all minds the necessity of preserving, as an interest which comprehends almost all others, a common union, we have not. The consequence is, that while there is no pressure from without, to awe the recklessness of unprincipled ambition, and dissolve the power of faction the moment it oversteps the bounds of public safety, the existence even in embryo of this spirit of ambition, within the nation, constitutes a pressure from the centre of unity, tending to the widest extremes of anarchy and ruin. This circumstance unbinds the arm of the wicked political aspirant, and invites the exercise of all the arts of intrigue and corruption, by the augmented hope of success which it proffers; and the thought of what some master spirits of this character might speedily accomplish, is terrible.

Now let these opposing causes of national elevation and blessedness go into complete and successful operation; let the irreligious portion of our public press go on to minister to a depravity which derides the Bible and its God; let the resistance to benevolent exertions become successful, and sweep away the Sabbath, and either annihilate the power of the gospel, or confine its energies to the present limits of its influence; let the love of money, and the luxury, and the ambition of civil distinction, which are already visible, become more and more general, and clamorous, and powerful, till virtuous patriotism is dead, and the spirit of faction and disunion has risen up in its might, and nothing of Bible religion or Bible morality is left to rebuke and resist it; and soon will corruption and spiritual wickedness go up into high places, and the Sabbath will be gone; and infidel judges will swear fidelity on the book which they believe a lie; and perjury, unrebuked, will occupy the stand of the witness, and the box of the juror; and shame will lose her blush; and all that is fair, and lovely, and of good report, in this delightful heritage, will rot under one vast and universal gangrene; and then comes the end, and the light that has gladdened half the world is extinguished forever. God opens the grave for a great nation, and into it, it sinks, without promise or hope of a resurrection.

This is the result of the unrestrained operation of these causes; and can the ruler who remembers his or his fellow men, and who would neither neglect nor abuse the interests committed to his hands, contemplate the existence of these causes, even in their incipient state, and the result to which they tend, and feel no embarrassment in the discharge of his duties? When he recollects that God has made him “his minister, for good,” and sees how far these causes of ruin lie from the reach of direct penal enactment; how the penalty, or censorship which would silence one licentious press, would lay a similar injunction upon all the presses in the land, and turn back the whole nation to barbarism and death; and how the punishment of resistance to benevolent effort must fall with equal effect upon that effort itself; and yet how surely evil influences, unresisted, go on to the production of evil—must he not stagger under the weight of his responsibilities and embarrassments, rather than amuse himself with the titles which he wears.

The view we have taken, discloses,

1. The temerity of those who covet political elevation, merely for the distinction it confers. God has instituted civil government, for immeasurably higher purposes, than those of decking its ministers with a few perishing names of honor, and furnishing them with stations of dignified repose. To official stations, he has bound by cords which never an be broken, duties and responsibilities which can never be dissolved; duties, and interests, and embarrassments, and results, both of action and inaction, which, could they be spread out in a clear and strong light before the eye, in all their magnitude, and intricacy, and relations, would be seen to create a demand on the intellect and heart, mighty enough for an angel to sustain. And yet, there are those, who, looking only on the outside of government, and fascinated with both the sound and glitter of titles, and in love with power, covet earnestly, and seek laboriously, the dignity of station, not for the purpose of benefiting their fellow men; not to enter into the labors of benevolence, and justice, but to become ministers of power, and enjoy the greetings of distinction in the market-place. They may not wish to deceive the people, nor pervert their privileges, nor abuse their interests; nothing may be farther from their deliberate intention. But they think little, how easily a deceived heart may turn man aside from duty and safety; and little of the responsibilities which attach themselves to the object of their pursuit. But let these look at the duties and embarrassments which are bound to official station; let them remember that to the hands of rulers are committed interests too great for a feeble mind to grasp, and influences too powerful for a corrupt heart wisely and happily to direct; and this too, under embarrassments that darken the path of the great, and burden the hands of the mighty; let them think what a dark record “spiritual wickedness in high places” makes for the judgment day to read, and what a fearful retribution is to follow oppression and misrule, down through eternity; and then let them judge whether wisdom or rashness guides the desire of their hearts.

The view we have taken,

2. Rebukes the spirit of violent and indiscriminate censure of rulers.

While the nature and value of the interests entrusted to the control of the rulers of a free people, demand that the characters of the men who are to assume this control should be well understood, and therefore fairly and honorably canvassed; yet no necessity for calumny, and personal abuse, and indiscriminate vituperation exists. Corruption only can create such a necessity. Yet the existence of parties, and the comparative violence which the fear or mortification of defeat on the one hand, and the hope or fruition of success on the other, excite and perpetuate, create upon the whole community a liability to the indulgence of a spirit of censure towards rulers, incompatible alike with justice, candor, gratitude, the requisitions of the Bible, and the best interests of the State. This liability too, is probably increased, to no inconsiderable extent by the general neglect of an enlightened and fair comparison of the duties, with the unavoidable and appalling embarrassments of rulers. From this neglect, often results the indulgence of unreasonable expectations, which, of course, are ungratified, and which occasion fault-finding, where justice would demand content, and hostility, where benevolence would require co-operation. But let this comparison be fairly made, and we shall see the wisdom of the statute of Israel, “Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people,” and repress that spirit of vituperation and abuse even, which is already undermining the influence of authority, and withdrawing from the race of virtuous and honorable distinction, many of the men whose services might bless the land, but whose consciousness of integrity, and self-respect, will not allow them to brook the thanklessness and censure which, to so unhappy an extent, become the reward of public fidelity. Let it be remembered, that there are difficulties connected with the most conscientious and faithful discharge of public duty, which baffle the energies of the mightiest and the best of men, and that what may seem political error, when contemplated under one aspect, and in one class of relations, may, under another aspect, and different relations, appear political virtue “seven times tried.”

The view we have taken, suggests,

3. The importance of personal piety to rulers.

The duty which God requires at their hands, is the advancement of the public interests which involve and affect the happiness of their fellow men. Their influence is therefore necessarily felt in all the departments of life, and reaches in its consequences (it may be) over successive generations in time, and onward, through eternity. In the discharge of this duty, however, they find themselves continually in contact with real, practical, and amazing difficulties, any one of which, either wrongly met, or willfully neglected, may produce not only increased wickedness here, but the eternal ruin of deathless spirits. But their individual responsibility to God is not a “jot nor tittle” diminished by the embarrassments which cluster about their path. Let them, in regardlessness of God, trifle with those interests, or wickedly pervert them to the advancement of their own selfish advantage, and rule but to make gain of the people; and the execrations of an abused nation follow them to the grave:–And there—God,–an offended God, meets them, to fulfill the oath which he sware, “If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me!” And if men ever need an open intercourse with heaven; if they ever need such an alliance to eternal wisdom, as to derive from it continual accessions to their own; if they ever need such an interest in the blood of atonement, as shall secure the pardon of their sins, and the protection and salvation of God, it is when, clothed with the authority, they assume the responsibilities of rulers of the people. And let all our rulers thus ally themselves to the eternal throne, and they will carry up the temporal interests of the people they are set to govern, to a participation in the safety and blessedness of that alliance, and God will pour out the treasures of his goodness upon the land, and cheer it with the manifestations of his goodness and glory.

AMEN.

Sermon – Election – 1829, Vermont

The following election sermon was preached by Charles Walker in Montpelier on October 8, 1829.

SERMON,

PREACHED AT MONTPELIER,

BEFORE

THE LEGISLATURE

OF THE

STATE OF VERMONT,

ON THE DAY OF THE

GENERAL ELECTION,

OCTOBER 8, 1829.

BY CHARLES WALKER,
PASTOR OF THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, EAST RUTLAND.

PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE LEGISLATURE.

IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY,

October 10, 1829.

Resolved, that a committee of two members be appointed, to wait on the Rev. Charles Walker, and return him the thanks of this House for his Election Sermon, delivered before both branches of the Legislature, on the 8th inst. And request a copy for the press.

On this resolution Mr. Warner of Sudbury, and Mr. Wooster were appointed a committee.

T. MERRILL, Clerk.

Rev. Charles Walker,

Sir,–In pursuance of the foregoing resolution, we have the honor of tendering to you, the thanks of the House of Representatives, for your Election Sermon, delivered before both branches of the Legislature, on the 8th inst. And request a copy for the press.

JOSEPH WARNER,
BENJAMIN WOOSTER,
Committee.

SERMON.Daniel VI. 10. “Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.”

THE piece of history of which this text forms a part is peculiarly interesting and instructive. It is interesting on account of the standing and character of the actors, and on account of the plot and its development, in which goodness and wickedness are opposed to each other, and virtue is rewarded and vice punished. It is instructive because it shows us, by an example taken from real life, how, in certain circumstances, we may regulate our conduct so as to meet the approbation of God, and secure his favor—how He will frown on the disobedient and reward the obedient.

Daniel, on account of the excellence of his character, enjoyed the confidence of the king of Chaldea, and notwithstanding he was a foreigner and his people captives, he was raised to the office of highest dignity and authority in the gift of the monarch. Thus elevated, he became the object of the envy and malice of other rulers in the kingdom, and they commenced a most unjust and cruel persecution against him. His mantle of integrity and robe of innocence did not secure him from the malicious attacks of those who envied his prosperity and shrunk from the blaze of his goodness. They could not endure that a foreigner, a Jew, one who belonged to a captive race, should occupy a seat of honor and power above them. And they were especially offended that one whose religion was so different from theirs, who despised their Gods and worshipped Jehovah; and whose holy life was a constant reproof of their loose principles and vicious practices, should be raised to a station from whence the lustre of his virtues shone in high conspicuity, and revealed the dark depravity of those around him.

They determined on his destruction. To accomplish this, it was necessary either to shake the confidence which the king had reposed in him, or to render him, by some act of his own, obnoxious to the laws of the kingdom. But how could this be done? How could they impeach one whose official doings were ever regulated by the strictest principles of integrity and faithfulness, and whose whole life was adorned with whatsoever is pure and honest and lovely, and of good report? That they felt this difficulty is sufficiently evident from the language of the sacred historian.—“Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion nor fault, forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him.” They saw but one way in which they could find a plausible pretext for his impeachment, and this was to make his religion the occasion of his downfall, and to lay a snare which his piety would not permit him to avoid. They said among themselves—“We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.”

Having observed the regularity with which he engaged in devotional exercises, and knowing that he discharged these duties of piety from principle, they rightly judged that he would not omit them. If, therefore, they could prevail on the king to make a law that no man, during a certain space of time, should pray, they believed that Daniel might be detected in violating this law, and that thus an accusation might be brought against him which would ensure his condemnation. With this malicious object in view, they did prevail on the king to sign a decree, ‘that whosoever should ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of the king himself, should be cast into the den of lions.”

The king was not aware of the purpose of those who obtained his signature to this unrighteous decree. He did not know that a plot was laid, and now sanctioned by his own hand and seal, to destroy his most trusty and approved servant. Flattered, perhaps, with the idea that he should be the only being, to whom the people, throughout his vast dominions, would present petitions or prayers for thirty days—thus elevating himself, as it were, to the place of God—he signed a writing which was intended to be the death-warrant of the man whom he prized above all others. The decree having obtained the royal signature, was irrevocable—according to the laws of the Medes and Persians, it altered not.

And now what will Daniel do? Will he yield to the machinations of his enemies and cease to worship God? Will he give up his devotional exercises, which are enjoined by the divine law, and tremble and turn pale and submit to a human mandate which counteracts the authority of Heaven? Will he let evil men triumph over his defection from his religion? Will he violate his conscience to save his life?

What did he do? Just what his enemies supposed he would. They knew the integrity of his character and the firmness of his principles. They knew his unconquerable attachment to religious duties and his sternness of purpose to obey God rather than man. They knew that, though he might not e afraid to violate an unnecessary and unrighteous human law, there was a Power that he dared not disobey—there were laws which he would not violate. They expected, therefore, that he would disregard the law which they had caused to be made; and it was this expectation which urged them to procure the wicked decree.

He hesitated not. His views of duty were maturely formed and strengthened by holy habit, and they were not now to be given up. What followed, therefore, as related in the sacred narrative, was a matter of course—“Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house, and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.” It made no alteration either in the manner or frequency of his devotions. While, on the one hand, he did not seek to enrage his enemies nor pour contempt on the royal authority, by a more open or frequent performance of religious services; neither, on the other hand, did he seek to gain the favor of his persecutors or avoid the operation of the iniquitous law, by a more retired or less constant attendance on the duties of divine worship. The former would have been unnecessary bravado; the latter, considering that he was determined to worship God, would have been hypocrisy. From both, the course he pursued clearly exempted him. He simply continued in his former habits, doing exactly and only “as he did aforetime.”

It was of course soon known that the first officer in the kingdom paid no regard to the monarch’s decree. The history says—“Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God.” Now their object was accomplished—they had an accusation against him. To the king they went; and according to the letter and penalty of the impious decree, they had the malicious satisfaction of seeing Daniel, at the going down of the sun, cast into the den of lions.

The events which followed—the safety of this servant of God in his perilous situation—his deliverance, and the utter destruction of those who plotted against his life—though exceedingly interesting and instructive, it does not come within the compass of my present design to notice.

The history, as far as we have pursued it, shows us the conduct of a good man and of a distinguished civil ruler, in such circumstances as are fitted to develop moral character, and will afford a foundation for some profitable reflections, not inappropriate to the present occasion.

1. We have, in this historic record, a sublime example of moral courage.

We see a man who, in the discharge of duty, fears nothing but the God who made him. We see a man who, having regulated his principles and shaped his course by the standard of divine truth, refuses to be turned aside from the path of obedience by the command or the force of the mightiest power on earth. He dares to act as his conscience dictates. He dares to be singular, and, in the midst of an idolatrous nation, surrounded by opposers and enemies, to maintain the worship of Jehovah. In full view of the den of lions, and with the certain prospect of a horrible death, he dares to violate the king’s decree, and hold fast his allegiance to God.

He had adopted the principle, the correctness of which is generally admitted in theory but too seldom reduced to practice, that “we ought to obey God rather than man.” On this principle he was determined to act, whatever might be the consequences. He felt that it might not be necessary for him to live; but it was necessary for him to obey God.—This was true courage—courage, not excited by ambition, nor fed by applause; not like the courage of the warrior, roused to deeds of daring by the notes of fame’s loud trumpet; not like the courage of the conqueror in whose eyes the world’s diadem glitters and who is intoxicated with the lust of dominion; but cool, collected, and sustained by its own noble and unearthly principles. It was courage which had its origin and derived its strength, not from earth, but from heaven—not from “looking at things seen and temporal,” but from contemplating “things unseen and eternal.”

Worldly policy, I know, would condemn the conduct of Daniel. It would say that he unnecessarily exposed his life—that he might have neglected his devotions for thirty days, or have performed them only in secret. He thought otherwise—God thought otherwise, for He approved of the conduct of his servant.—The spirit of every divine command is—obey, and leave the event with God. This is the path of duty; it is the only path of safety. But to go undeviatingly and unshrinkingly forward in the path, in the circumstances we have contemplated, required the moral courage of a martyr. It demanded a courage to which many a soldier, who can breast a cannon’s mouth, is a stranger. It called for a courage as much superior to the heedless daring of those heroes whom the world applauds, as the motive which inspired it is superior to worldly ambition.

2. We see, in the example before us, how a human law ought to be treated which requires men to violate the laws of God.

The decree of the Chaldean king was directly opposed to the law of God. Men are commanded by the divine law to worship their Maker daily—to “pray without ceasing.” By the decree in question, they were forbidden to pray at all for thirty days. To obey both was impossible. He of whom the text speaks obeyed the divine law and violated the human edict. And he did right. His conscience approved his course; and his God approved it. The decree, as it counteracted the laws of God, ought not to have been obeyed. No man had a right to obey it. And no human power had a right to require obedience.

Not often, in civilized and Christian lands, have governments enacted laws which clearly and openly opposed the commands of God. But they have sometimes done it. An instance of this kind exists in the history of our own national government—in the law which requires the transportation and opening of the mail on the Sabbath. This law, being a violation of the commandment of God, ought not to be obeyed. And the man who should conscientiously refuse to obey it—though he might be rejected from office or otherwise punished for his disobedience—would stand justified at the tribunal of heaven, in regard to this act, as certainly as Daniel was justified in refusing to obey the wicked decree of the Chaldean king.

I know it is said by many, that the pecuniary interests of our country render it expedient to continue the business of the mails on the Sabbath. But I have yet to learn that such expediency, provided it exists, is a sufficient excuse for setting aside a divine commandment. Are we never to obey God when our obedience will be attended with any pecuniary sacrifice? Are we never to make an offering to God of anything but of that which costs us nothing? But does the alleged expediency exist? How happens it to exist in this country, when in the commercial emporium of the world—the city of London, there are no mails sent forth, nor is the post-office opened on the Sabbath? Does not God know what is expedient for the subjects of his kingdom? And has He not, by a positive commandment, clearly decided that it is expedient for man to rest from worldly business one seventh part of the time? And is not the wisdom of this appointment satisfactorily demonstrated by the experience and history of all Christian nations?

I know, also, when petitions were sent to Congress praying that the law, requiring the business of the mail to be attended to on the Sabbath, might be repealed—it was said, by those who opposed the petitioners, that Congress had no right to legislate concerning the Sabbath. Granted; so the petitioners thought, and they simply asked that Congress would not make laws touching the Sabbath—that they would repeal the law which required its violation. They did not ask for a statute obliging men to keep the Sabbath holy and inflicting a penalty in case of transgression. They did not ask—“as they be slanderously reported and as some affirm that they did”—that Congress would order every mail-contractor and post-master, every stage-driver and stage-passenger to keep the Sabbath, on penalty of its high displeasure. All they sought for was, that the government would no longer command men to attend to secular business on the hours of holy time.

I know, moreover, that it was said in the report of the committee of the Senate, to whom the petitions had been referred, that if Congress complied with the prayer of the petitioners, it would be deciding a disputed theological question—which day is the Sabbath—and that, as there was a difference in the views of the people on this point, government had no right to decide it. This has been regarded, by many, as a master-stroke of unanswerable argument and enlightened liberality, and as such has been praised from one end of the nation to the other. But it is nothing but a piece of sophistry, which has, in a hundred instances, been exposed and refuted. Congress has already decided which day is the Sabbath, by not holding its sessions on the Lord’s day, and by exempting that day from days of business in its courts of judicature. All that the petitioners desired was that government would be consistent with itself, and exempt that sacred day also from days of business in regard to the mails.—If a Jew or a Sabbatarian were appointed a member to Congress, would that body adjourn over Saturday to accommodate him? Must a nation’s Sabbath be disregarded because a mere handful of individuals in that nation happen to think differently from the whole body of the people? Such pretended argumentation is scarcely worthy of an answer.

I am happy in being the citizen of a State, where the divine law of the Sabbath is regarded by the public acts of the civil rulers. ¹ And it is with no small degree of pain, that I have felt myself called upon by duty, to censure the conduct of the national government in relation to the Sabbath mails. I love and honor the government of my country; and in all things which do not require me to violate the laws of God, consider myself bound to obey its statutes. But no government can have a right to require its subjects to violate the laws of God. And no law, directly requiring such violation, ought to be obeyed by any citizen.

3. We see, in the example brought to view in the text, that extensive business and the multiplied calls of office do not necessarily preclude a regular attention to the duties of religion.

Few men have ever been in circumstances requiring a more constant and untiring attention to the duties of his station than he, whose history we have contemplated. He was the prime minister of a great nation—had no powerful friends to sustain him—had nothing but his reputation, growing out of his unremitting attention to the duties of his office, to recommend him either to the public favor or to the patronage of the king. And as his official conduct, even by the admission of his enemies, was above suspicion, he must have been devotedly occupied with the business of his station. And yet he found time for a strict attention to the duties of religion. Regularly, three times a day, he had a season of devotion and “prayed and gave thanks before his God.”

How this fact puts to flight many excuses that are offered for neglecting the duties of religion. How it ought to put to shame many a man, who pleads his worldly engagements as an apology for not attending to devotional exercises. This plea is often hears, The man says that the calls of office, or of business, are so constant that he has no time to spend in the daily worship of God. No time! Can this be true? Who gives you all the time you spend on earth? And is it too much that He requires some portion of what he gives to be devoted exclusively to Him? Have you time for meals and sleep, and no time to serve Him whose blessing alone can cause either to be refreshing and invigorating? Have you time to attend to the wants of your body, which is soon to moulder into dust, and no time to attend to the interests of your soul, which is to exist forever? Have you time to spend in conversation with your friends, in relaxation from toil and in amusement, and no time to spend in communion with God, in seeking salvation and laying up a treasure in heaven?—For what purpose was time given? Was it to afford an opportunity to gather a little golden dust which will be blown away by the tempest of the last day, or to collect a few wreaths of worldly honor which will wither and perish; or was it not rather given to afford an opportunity to seek durable riches, honors that never die, crowns of unfading glory in the presence of God and of the Lamb? No time to pray! No time to serve God in the daily exercises of devotion? For what, then, have you time? Were not the days and hours of this world intended principally to afford a season of preparation for eternity? For what is time really valuable, but for this? No man ought to feel that he has time for anything else, till the duties of devotion are performed. This was the grand object for which God gave us time. And, oh! let no man who lives; who measures out his existence by a succession of days and nights which God gives him; who feeds on the divine bounty, sleeps under the divine protection, moves by the divine support—let no man says that he has not time to acknowledge these benefits in daily acts of devotion.

The plea is vain. Others, who have been as busily employed as any of us can pretend to be, have been constant in their attention to religious duties. Daniel, with a principal share of the responsibility in the government of a mighty empire, was an eminent example of constancy in domestic devotion. And our own beloved Washington, than whom no man was ever more devoted to the calls of office, either in the cabinet or in the field, always found time for daily devotional exercises. All men, whose hearts are right with God, have frequent seasons of private and domestic worship. And no man, who has time for anything, can truly say he has no time for these duties. He, who gave us our being and our days, demands of us the homage of habitual thanksgiving and prayer, and no plea for neglect can be admitted before his tribunal.

4. We learn from the example before us, that patriotism alone, in the popular signification of that word, is not sufficient to secure salvation and eternal life.

The man, whose character and history we have contemplated, was a patriot. His untiring application to the duties of his office, and his singular wisdom and integrity as a ruler, are manifest and striking proofs that he sought the best interests of the country which he served. And probably if ever there was a man, who might have claimed the rewards of heaven on account of the extent and usefulness of his efforts for the public welfare, he was the man. Yet he thought it necessary to super add to the virtues of patriotism those of piety. He did not expect to obtain forgiveness and salvation on account of having consecrated his services to the public good. He sought for a seat in heaven by daily prayer and a religious life.

Doubtless he judged right. Such views accord with the standard of divine truth. While every man is bound, by the highest obligation to seek the welfare of his country and the good of his fellow men, he is bound also, by the same obligation, to honor God by discharging the peculiar duties of religion. Nor will the most devoted attention to the former excuse the neglect of the latter. The same divine authority, which commands—“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” commands also—“And render unto God the things that are God’s.” Will an obedience to the one do away the obligation of obeying the other? A man has served his country—Very well; and has he also served his God? A man has been useful as a patriot—Very good, we will give him due credit and honor; but has he been useful too as a Christian? Is not the latter as important as the former? Look into the Bible and say—which will weigh most in the balances of eternity.

But notwithstanding the plainness and positiveness with which the scriptures decide, that a life of piety and prayer is the only evidence of a title to heaven, many cherish the notion, that the man who has served his country well and faithfully will receive, on that account, the reward of eternal life. We can excuse heathen poets and orators, who were destitute of a written revelation, for always sending their departed heroes and statesmen up to a dwelling among the gods. But how can we excuse poets and eulogists and historians, called Christian, when they manifest a similar dark and heathenish disposition to exalt patriots, on account of their patriotism, to a seat in heaven? Yet this, in despite of truth and of the Bible, is often done. Thus when certain distinguished American patriots have died, a hundred writers from the formal eulogist to the newspaper scribler, have given them a place in paradise. Now I pretend not to decide concerning the eternal condition of those departed statesmen. This must be determined by their Almighty Judge. But, in the name of the Bible and of Christianity, I protest against the principle, extensively cherished and often directly avowed, that the patriotism and public services of those men entitled them to the happiness of heaven. If they were Christians and pious men, they are happy: if they were not, there is, of course, no place for them in those mansions which Christ prepared for his followers.

I honor the man who has usefully devoted his life to the service of his country. Let him have deserved praise. Yea, let him “have his reward,” the reward he sought. If he sought the “honor that cometh from man,” let him have it, up to the full measure in which it is due. If he sought the “honor that cometh from God only,” then, and only then, let him be accounted worthy of the reward, which the scriptures promise to the disciple of Jesus Christ.

I have already alluded to Washington. To illustrate the point now under discussion, I mention him again. I love to repeat his revered name. Whose patriotism was ever of a purer and more elevated kind than his? Whose devotedness to a country’s welfare was ever more entire, useful and disinterested than his? If patriotism and public usefulness could entitle any man to the happiness of heaven, was not Washington that man? But he had no such views. He sought, it is true, a dwelling in heaven; but he sought it as a sinner at the feet of his Saviour, and not as a reward for his patriotism. Some striking facts in his history will exemplify this. His servant, who waited on him during the long period in which he led our armies and presided in our councils, told a Christian minister, a few years since, that when he entered his master’s room, as he was directed to do, early in the morning, he frequently found him on his knees, pouring out his desires in fervent prayer before God. This, we have reason to believe was his habitual practice.—An original anecdote of the father of his country, recently published, gives another pleasing testimony to the genuineness of his piety. “While the American army under the command of Washington lay encamped at Morristown, N. J. it occurred that the service of the communion was to be administered in the Presbyterian church in that village. In a morning of the previous week, the General, after his accustomed inspection of the camp, visited the house of the Rev. Dr. Jones, then pastor of that church, and after the usual preliminaries, thus accosted him—‘Doctor, I understand that the Lord’s supper is to be celebrated with you next Sunday, I would learn if it accords with the cannons of your church to admit communicants of another denomination? The Doctor rejoined—‘Most certainly; ours is not the Presbyterian table, General, but the Lord’s table, and we hence give the Lord’s invitation to all his followers of whatever name.’ The General replied, ‘I am glad of it; this is as it ought to be; but as I was not quite sure of the fact, I thought I would ascertain it from yourself, as I propose to join with you on that occasion. Though a member of the church of England, I have no exclusive partialities.’ The Doctor reassured him of a cordial welcome, and the General was found seated with the communicants the next Sabbath.”—Such a man was Washington. He sought for a place in heaven, not by relying on his public services, but by obeying the precepts of his Saviour. He sought the favor of God by habitual prayer and by attending devoutly on the ordinances of the gospel. And eternity will tell to which his country is most indebted, his skill in arms and his wisdom in council, or to that spirit of humble piety and prayer by which he obtained the favor of God in all his enterprises. And now let me ask—whose patriotism will save him, if Washington’s would not?

5. We see, in the example furnished by the text, how rulers may promote the interests of religion without directly legislating on the subject.

Whatever may have been the authority with which the Chaldean ruler was clothed, it is plain that the circumstances in which he was placed prevented his establishing, by law, his own religion. He was among a nation of idolaters, and any official act on his part, designed to destroy idolatry and establish the Jewish religion, would doubtless have been resisted, and the loss of his office and probably of his life would have been the consequence. Still, however, he exerted a powerful influence in favor of true religion—an influence which even his enemies felt, and which, we have reason to believe, was widely useful among the people. This was done by his example. He was a living epistle of the truth, known and read of all men. And it is certain that even to the present day his example, as recorded by the pen of inspiration, sends forth a healthful influence, and is among the means by which the world is benefitted and men are saved.

The civil rulers of this State are not permitted by the constitution to enact laws regulating the creed or the form of worship of the inhabitants. They cannot dictate, by statute, how, or where, men shall worship God, or whether they shall worship him at all. These matters are left to be decided by every man’s conscience and to be answered for by every man’s accountability to God. This is as it should be. We are glad that is so.

But does it follow, because our civil rulers cannot legislate concerning the modes of religion, that they can do nothing in favor of Christianity and of the immortal interests of their constituents? Certainly not. You can, Honored Rulers, do much to promote the eternal welfare of your fellow men and to send the streams of salvation through our beloved State. Do not the offices you hold by the choice of your fellow citizens, show that you are men of high standing and influence? Are not your opinions, feelings and movements felt, in their effects, throughout the State? By imitating then the example of that ruler, whom the text places so prominently before us, you may recommend piety as the richest of all personal possessions—you may lead many, in the ways of truth and righteousness, up to the seats of holiness and the bliss of heaven.

And now, Respected Rulers, when you invited me to meet you on this occasion you did not expect from me a lecture on the science of legislation. On such a subject, were it needful for my usefulness, the station you occupy would seem to be proof that I might sit at your feet and take lessons of instruction from you. But you invited me, as a minister of Jesus Christ, to proclaim His messages and urge His commandments—In the name, then, of my Lord and Master, I come, and ask you all to love and obey Him. This is His will. To show how you may comply with his requisitions, I have placed before you the example of one ruler, whose character and conduct He approved, and who is now with Him in the world of glory. Will you imitate the example of that ruler in worshipping and serving God? Will you engage heartily in the work of obeying the Saviour’s commandments? Will you piously discharge all the duties of religion? Oh! do it, and Vermont shall be blessed. Do it, and though our mountains may not be greener or our vallies more fertile, a moral beauty, pleasing to the eye of God, shall be thrown over our State. Do it, and you will awaken the voice of thanksgiving and the voice of prayer in a thousand dwellings scattered over our territory. Do it, and the news that all the rulers in the State have become obedient to the Son of God, shall cause new “joy in the presence of the angels” on high. O do it, and you will comply with the message of my Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. Nothing less than this will please him or satisfy his demands.—And need I tell you that you are bound to obey Him? Is he not your Lord and King?

He has erected a tribunal before which we must all shortly appear. Soon the trumpet will sound and we shall stand before the Son of man. Then all these human distinctions will be done away and the ruler and the subject stand on the same level. Then these heavens shall pass away and this earth shall be burnt up. And then shall every man be rewarded according to his works. “Be wise, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.”

Endnotes

1 A particular instance may be mentioned.—The law, passed some years since, requiring the courts, in our several counties, to commence their sessions on Monday, was found to subject the Judges and other gentlemen attending courts to the necessity of traveling on the Sabbath, in order to pass from county to county, or to assemble from distant parts of the same county, at an early hour on Monday. Of the operations of this law, our honorable Judges and many other gentlemen, who conscientiously regard the sacredness of the Sabbath, complained. The Legislature, on hearing these facts, with a promptness for which they ought to be honored by every good citizen, altered the day of commencing the courts from Monday to Tuesday.

Sermon – Pilgrims – 1827

Lyman Beecher (1775-1863) graduated from Yale in 1797, having studied theology with Timothy Dwight (the president of Yale). He was ordained in 1798. He preached at: the Presbyterian Church in East Hampton (1799-1810), the Congregational Church in Litchfield, CN (1810-1826), the Hanover Street Church in Boston (1826-1832), and the Second Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati (1832-1842). Beecher also served as president of Lane Seminary in Cincinnati (1832-1852).

THE MEMORY OF OUR FATHERSA SERMON

DELIVERED AT PLYMOUTH

ON THE TWENTY-SECOND OF DECEMBER

1827

BY LYMAN BEECHER D.D.

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS………TO WIT:

District Clerk’s Office

Be it remembered , that on the twenty fourth day of January, A.D. 1828, in the fifty second Year of the Independence of the United States of America, Theophilus R. Marvin, of the said District, has deposited in this Office the Title of A Book, the Right thereof he claims as Proprietor, in the words following, to wit:

The Memory of our Fathers. A Sermon delivered at Plymouth, on the twenty-second of December, 1827. By Lyman Beecher D.D.

In conformity to the Act of the congress of the United States, entitled “An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing a copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned:” and also to an Act supplementary to an Act, entitled, An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned; and explaining the benefit’s thereof to the arts of designing , engraving and etching historical and other prints.”

JNO. W. DAVIS, Clerk of the District of Massachusetts

PLYMOUTH, DEC. 25, 1827

Rev. and dear Sir, —-

At a meeting of the Third Church in this place, on the last evening, it was

“Unanimously Resolved,

That our Pastor be requested to thank the Rev. Dr. Beecher, in the name of this Church, for the Discourse delivered at their request, on the anniversary of the 22nd December, in commemoration of the Landing of the Fathers; and to request a copy of the Discourse for the Press.”

In communicating the above extract from the minutes of the Church, permit me to add,–we feel assured that the Discourse is well calculated to be of extensive utility to the cause of true patriotism and Christianity; and therefore hope that you will not hesitate to gratify our request.

With great respect and consideration,
yours, in the Gospel of Christ,
Frederick Freeman,
Pastor of 3rd Ch. Plymouth.

Rev. Dr. Beecher.

This Discourse was first delivered before the Legislature of Connecticut, and printed at their request. It was re-written and delivered at the Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims, as the only tribute which at that time the writer could pay to the Memory of our Fathers. This departure from the ordinary course, was known and approved by the Committee who made the application, and was the more readily acquiesced by the writer, as the Discourse contains a discussion of just those topics which he regarded as most appropriate, and which he preferred to have associated with that most interesting anniversary.

SERMON.Revelation 21:5

AND HE THAT SAT UPON THE THRONE SAID, BEHOLD, I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW.

The history of the world is the history of human nature in ruins. No state of society, which corresponds with the capacity of enjoyment possessed by man, or with his conceptions and desires, has been permanent and universal. Small portions only of the human family have, at the same time, enjoyed a state of society in any considerable degree desirable; while much the greatest part of mankind have, in all ages, endured the evils of barbarism and despotism.

It is equally manifest, that his unhappy condition of our race has not been the result of physical necessity, but of moral causes. The earth cis as capable of sustaining a happy, as a miserable population; and it is the perversion of her resources and of the human faculties, which has made the misery of man so great. The human intellect has given proof of vigor and ingenuity sufficient to bless the world; and powerful efforts have been made in every age, by afflicted humanity, to surmount this downward bias, and rise to permanent enjoyment. Egypt, in her monumental ruins, affords evidence of a high state of the arts. In Greece, a vigorous intellect and favoring clime thrust up from the dead level around her, a state of society comparatively cultivated and happy; but the sun of her prosperity blazed upon surrounding darkness, to set in a night of ages. Rome fought her way to dominion and civilization, and furnished specimens of mental vigor and finished culture; but the superstructure of her greatness was reared by the plunder of a devastated world. Commerce, which gave to cities a temporary eminence, elevated but a little the moral condition of the multitude; and science, which was restored to modern Europe at the Reformation, and commerce and the arts, which have followed in her train, have not, to this day, disenthralled the nations.

From these experiments so long and so hopelessly made, it appears, that, in the conflict between the heart and the intellect of man, victory has always been declared on the side of the heart; which has led many to conclude, that the condition of man, in respect to any universal abiding melioration, is hopeless. The text throws light upon this dark destiny of our race. It is a voice from heaven announcing the approach of help from above. “He that sitteth upon the throne saith, Behold, I make all things new.”

The renovation here announced, is a moral renovation which shall change the character and condition of men. It will be partial in its influence, like the sun shining through on clouds on favorite spots; but co-extensive with the ruin. Nor shall its results be national glory which gilds only the palace, and cheers only the dwellings of the noble. It shall bring down the mountains, and exalt the valleys; it shall send liberty and equality to all the dwellings of men. Nor shall it stop at the fire-side, or exhaust its blessings in temporal mercies; it shall enter the hidden man of the heart, and there destroy the power which has blasted human hopes, and baffled human efforts. Nor will the change be transient; it is the last dispensation of heaven for the relief of this miserable world, and shall bring glory to God in the highest, and upon earth peace, and good will to men. Many have doubted whether such a renovation pf the world will ever be accomplished; but, He that sat upon the throne, said, ‘it is done;’—i.e. it is certain as if it had come to pass.

I shall submit to your consideration, at this time, some of the reasons which justify the hope, that this nation has been raised up by providence to exert an efficient instrumentality in this work of moral renovation.

I observe then, that, for the accomplishment of this renovation, great changes are required in the civil and religious conditions of nations.

1. The monopoly of the soil must be abolished. Hitherto the majority of mankind, who have tilled the earth, have been slaves or tenants. The soil has been owned by kings, and military chieftains, and nobles, and by them rented to landlords, and, by these, to still smaller dealers, and by these again, it has been divided and subdivided, until the majority, who paid the rent, have sustained in the sweat of their brow, not only their own families, but three or four orders of society above them; while they themselves have been crushed beneath the weight, and have lifted on the borders of starvation; the sickness of a week, and often of a single day, rendering them paupers.

This same monopoly of the soil has sent another large class of the community into manufacturing establishments, to wear out their days in ignorance and hopeless poverty; and another to the camp and navy, where honor and wealth await the few, and ignorance and an early grave, the many.

The consequence of excluding such numbers from the possession and healthful cultivation of the soil has been ignorance, improvidence, reckless indifference, turbulence, and crime. Tortured by their oppressions, and unrestrained by moral principal, they have been prepared for desperate deeds. Such a state of society cannot be made happy: the evil is radical, and can only be remedied by giving a new direction to the physical, moral, and intellectual energies of men. We might as well as well band with iron the trees of the forest, and expect their expansion; or throw upon them in stinted measure, the light and the rain of heaven, and expect their luxuriant growth, as to cramp the human mind by unequal institutions, and expect the development of its resources, in a happy state of society. Room for action must be afforded, and light must be poured upon the understanding, and motive pressed upon the heart. Man must be unshackled and stimulated. But to accomplish this, the earth must be owned by those who till it. This will give action to industry, vigor to the body, and tone to the mind; and, by the attendant blessing of heaven, religion to the heart. From agriculture stimulated by personal rights, will result commerce, science, arts, liberty, and independence.

The attraction of gravity is the great principle of motion in the material world; and the possession of the earth in fee simple by the cultivator, is the great principle of action in the moral world. Nearly all the political evils which have afflicted mankind, have resulted from the unrighteous monopoly of the earth; and the predicted renovation can never be accomplished, until, to some extent, this monopoly has passed away, and the earth is extensively tilled by the independent owners of the soil.

2. To effect the moral renovation of the world, a change is required in the prevailing forms of government.

The monopoly of power must be superseded by the suffrages of freemen. While the great body of the people are excluded from all voice and influence in legislation, it is impossible to constitute a state of society such as the faculties of man allow, and the word of God predicts. While the few govern without responsibility, they will seek their own elevation and depress the multitude. To elevate society, and bring out the human energies in a well ordered state of things, the mass of mankind must be enlightened and qualified for self-government, and must yield obedience to delegated power.

3. Before the moral renovation of the world can be achieved, the rights of conscience must, also, be restored to man.

Few of the millions that have peopled the earth have been qualified by knowledge, or permitted by the governments under which they lived, to read the Bible and judge for themselves. The nominal religions of this world have been supported by governments, who, of course, have prescribed the creed, and modelled the worship, and controlled the priesthood. From such a state of things, what better results could be expected, than that ambitious men should be exalted to the sacred office, while religion itself was despised and persecuted? Governments and ecclesiastics, then, must cease to dictate what men shall believe, and in what manner they shall worship God. The church must be emancipated from worldly dominion, and enjoy that liberty wherewith Jesus Christ has made her free.

Is it to be expected the kingly governments shall cease, and the republican form become universal? I shall not stop now to discuss this question. I would only suggest the inquiry, whether monarchial governments can be sustained without a nobility and an established religion; and whether these privileged orders can exist without that monopoly of the soil, and of political influence, and of the rights of conscience, which are destructive to a religious and happy state of society. That governments will change their name, or their ancient forms, become so popular in their spirit, as that the political power shall be in the hands of the people, cannot be doubted.

It has been contended, that Christianity cannot exist in this world without the aid of religious establishments. But, with more truth it might be said, that, from the beginning of this day, it has existed in spite of them. It took possession of the Roman Empire in the face of a formidable establishment of false religion, and has survived the deadly embrace of establishments nominally Christian, and now, bursting from their alliance, finds in them the most bitter opposition in evangelical doctrine and vital godliness.

To accomplish these changes in the civil and religious condition of the world, revolutions and convulsions are doubtless indispensable. The usurpation of the soil will not be relinquished spontaneously, nor the chains knocked off from the body and the mind of man, by the hands which for ages have been employed to river them. He that sitteth upon the throne must overturn and overturn, before his rights and the rights of man will be restored. Revolutions of course are predicted, such as shall veil the sun, and turn the moon into blood, and shake the earth with the violence of nation dashing against nation; —until every despotic government shall be thrown down, and chaos resume its pristine reign; until the spirit of God shall move again upon the face of the deep, and bring out a new creation. The day of vengeance is no doubt begun, and will no doubt continue, until He that sitteth upon the throne shall have made all things new.

But to the perfection of this work a great example is required, of which the world may take knowledge; and which shall inspire hope, and rouse and concentrate the energies of man. But where would such an experiment be made? Africa required for herself the commiseration of the world, and in Europe and Asia, it would have required ages to dig up the foundations of despotism, and remove the rubbish, to prepare the way for such a state of society as we have described: this too must have been done in opposition to proscription and organized resistance. There was also such a mass of uninformed mind, accustomed to crouch under burdens, and so much was required to prepare it for civil liberty, that little hope remained that he old world, undirected, and unstimulated by example, would ever disenthrall itself. Some nation, itself free, was indeed, to blow the trumpet and hold up the light. But in England, though she enjoyed to some extent the blessings of civil liberty, there was so great a monopoly of the soil and of power, and so much overturning feared and needed, which should with a fearless heart and powerful hand, push on the work. But where could such a nation be found? It must be created, for it had no existence upon the earth. Look now at the history of our Fathers and behold what God hath wrought. They were such a race of men as never before laid the foundation s of an empire; athletic, intelligent and pious. But how should this portion of a nation’s population be uprooted and driven into exile? They were not permitted to remain at home. In that age of darkness, and land of bondage, they had formed some just conceptions of civil and religious liberty; and would fain have modified the civil government and the church of God according to the Gospel. But the reformation from popery, superintended by government, and regulated by policy, stopped short of what the pious expected and desired. The Puritans could not in all things conform, and were not permitted to dissent; and thus they were driven into exile, and compelled to lay as a foundation of a new empire. And now, behold their institutions; such as the world needs, and, attended as they have been by the power of God, able to enlighten and renovate the world. They recognize the equal rights of man—they give the soil to the cultivator, and self-government and the rights of conscience to the people. they enlighten the intellect, and form the conscience, and bring the entire influence of the divine government to bear upon the heart. It was the great object of our Fathers to govern men by the fear of the Lord; to exhibit the precepts, apply the motives, and realize the dispositions, which the word of God inculcates and his Spirit inspires; to imbue families, and schools, and towns, and states, with the wisdom from above. They had no projects of human device—no theories of untried efficacy. They hung all their hopes of civil and religious prosperity on the word of God, and the efficacy of his Spirit. Nor was theirs the presumptuous of grace without works. It was by training men for self-government that expected to make free men; and by becoming fellow workers with God, that they expected his aid in forming Christians; while by intellectual culture, and moral influence, and divine power, they prepared men to enjoy and perpetuate civil liberty.

The law, with sleepless vigilance, watched over the family, the church, the state; and a vigorous and united public opinion rendered its execution certain and efficacious. Every family was required to possess a Bible, every district a school, and every town a pastor. The law protected the Sabbath, and sustained the public worship of God, and punished immorality; and with mild but effectual energy, ruled over all. The great excellence of these institutions is, that they are practical and powerful; the people are not free in name and form merely, but indeed and in truth. Were all these forms blotted out this day, the people would be free, and other forms of civil freedom would arise. The governments are free governments from the foundation to the top stone, and of such practical efficacy as to make free men. The family, embodying instruction and government, was itself an embryo empire. In the school district, the people were called upon to exercise their own discretion and rights, and in the ecclesiastical society, to rear their place of worship, elect their pastor and provide for his support; and all under the protection and guidance of law. The towns, in their popular assemblies, discussed their local interests and administered their own concerns. In these, originated the legislature, and from the legislature emanated the courts of justice. In the states, as they are now recognizes in our nation, all which is local and peculiar, is superintended with a minuteness and efficacy, which no consolidated government could possibly accomplish. The people have only to ascertain from experience what their convenience or interests demands, and their wish becomes a law; and still, in the national government, there is all the comprehension of plan, and power of resource, and unity of action, which are required for the highest degree of national energy and prosperity.

It has been doubted, whether a republic so extensive as ours, can be held together and efficiently governed. But where there is this intellectual and moral influence, and the habitual exercise of civil and religious liberty from the family upward; we see not why a republic may not be extended indefinitely, and still be the strongest, and most effective government in the world.

The history of our nation is indicative of some great design to be accomplished by it. It is history of perils and deliverances, and of strength out of weakness. The wars with the savage tribes, and with the French, and at last with the English, protracted expense, and toil, and blood, through a period of one hundred and fifty years. No nation, out of such weakness, ever became so strong; or was guided through such perils to such safety. “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say; if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us: then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us: then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul: then the proud waters had gone over our soul.” These deliverances, the enemy beheld with wonder, and our Fathers with thanksgiving and praise. But, in the whole history of the world, God has not been accustomed to grant signal interpositions, without ends of corresponding magnitude to be answered by them. Indeed, if it had been the design of heaven to establish a powerful nation, in the full enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, where all the energies of man might find scope and excitement, on purpose to show the world by experiment, of what man is capable; and to shed light on the darkness which should awake the slumbering eye, and rouse the torpid mind, and nerve the palsied arm of millions; where could such an experiment have been made but in this country, and by whom so auspiciously as by our Fathers, and by what means so well adapted to that end, as by their institutions? The course which is now adopted by Christians of all denominations, to support and extend, at home and abroad, religious and moral influence; would seem to indicate the purpose of God to render this nation, extensively, the almoners of his mercy to this world.

For two hundred years, the religious institutions of our land were instituted by law. But as our numbers increased, and liberty of conscience resulted in many denominations of Christians, it became impossible to secure by law the universal application of religious and moral influence. And yet, without this mighty energy the whole system must fail; for physical power, without religious and moral influence, will not avail to sustain the institutions of civil liberty. We might as well rely on the harvests which our Fathers reared for bread, as to rely on the external forms of liberty which they established, without the application of that vital energy, by which the body politic was animated and moved. But, at the very time when the civil law had become impotent for the support of religion and the prevention of immoralities, God began to pour out his Spirit upon the churches; and voluntary associations of Christians were raised up to apply and extend that influence, which the law could no longer apply. And now we are blessed with societies to aid in the support of the Gospel at home, to extend it to the new settlements, and through the earth. We have Bible societies, and Tract societies, and associations of individuals, who make it their business to see that every family has a Bible, and every church a pastor, and every child a catechism. And to these have succeeded Education societies, that our nation may not outgrow the means of religious instruction. And while these means of culture are supplied, this great nation from her eminence begins to look abroad with compassion upon a world siting in darkness; and to put forth her mighty arm to disenthral the nations, and elevate the family of man. Let it be remembered also, that the means now relied upon, and precisely those which our Fathers applied, and which have secured our prosperity. And when we contemplate the unexampled resources of this country in men, soil, climate, seacoasts, rivers, lakes, canals, agriculture, commerce, arts and wealth, and all in connexion with the influence of republican and religious institutions; is it too much to be hoped that God will accept our powerful instrumentality, and make it effectual for the renovation of the world?

The revivals of religion which prevail in our land among Christians of all denominations, furnish cheering evidence of the presence of evangelical doctrine, and of the power of that Spirit by which the truth is to be made efficacious in the salvation of mankind. These revivals are distinguished by their continuance through a period of thirty years; by their extent, , pervading the nation; by their increasing frequency in the same places; by their rapidity and power , often changing, in a few weeks, the character of towns and cities, and even of large districts of country. An earnest of that glorious of that glorious time when a nation shall be born in a day, they purify our literary institutions, and multiply pastors and missionaries to cheer our own land, and enlighten distant nations.

They are without a parallel in the history of the world, and are constituting an era of moral power entirely new. Already the churches look chiefly to them for their members and pastors, and for that power upon public opinion, which retards declension, and gives energy to law and voluntary support to religious institutions.

These revivals then, falling in with these antecedent indications, seem to declare the purpose of God to employ this nation in the glorious work of renovating the earth.

If we look at our missionaries abroad, and witness the smiles of heaven upon their efforts, our confidence, that is the purpose of God to render our nation a blessing to the world, will be increased. In talents, and piety, and learning, and doctrine, and civil policy, they are the legitimate descendants of the Puritans. Everywhere they command high respect, and have been distinguished by their judicious and successful efforts. In Ceylon, and Hawaii, and among the natives of this country, they are fast supplanting idolatry by Christian institutions. Revivals of religion cheer and bless them; and churches, and all the elements of Christian civilization are multiplying around them.

Let this nation go on, then, and multiply its millions and its resources, and bring the whole under the influence of our civil and religious institutions, and with the energies of its concentrated benevolence send out evangelical instruction; and who can calculate what our blessed instrumentality shall have accomplished, when He who sitteth upon the throne shall have made all things new.

If Swartz, and Buchanan, and Vanderkemp, and Carey, and Martyn, and Brainerd, could, each alone, accomplish so much; what may not be expected from the energies of such a nation as this? Fifty such men as Paul the Apostle, unaided by the resources of systematic benevolence, might evangelize the world. What then might not be accomplished by a nation of freemen, destined in little more than half a century to number its fifty million?

If we consider also our friendly relations with the South American States, and the close imitation they are disposed to make of our civil and literary institutions, who can doubt that the spark which our Forefathers struck will yet enlighten this entire continent? But when the light of such a hemisphere shall go up to heaven, it will throw its beams beyond the waves—it will shine into the darkness there, and be comprehended; it will awaken desire, and hope, and effort, and produce revolutions and overturnings, until the world is free.

From our revolutionary struggle, proceeded the revolution in France, and all which has followed in Naples, Portugal, Spain, and Greece; and though the bolt of every chain has been again driven, they can no more hold the Hellespont vexed with storms. Floods have been poured upon the rising flame, but they can no more extinguish the fires of Etna. Still it burns, and still the mountain heaves and murmurs; and soon it will explode with voices, and thunderings, and great earthquakes. Then will the trumpet of jubilee sound, and earth’s debased millions will leap from the dust, and shake off their chains, and cry, “Hosanna to the Son of David.”

Before we conclude this discourse, let us attend to some of the duties to which we are called by our high providential destiny.

1. To cherish with high veneration and grateful recollections the memory of our Fathers. Both the ties of nature and the dictates of policy demand this. And surely no nation ever had less occasion to be ashamed of its ancestry, or more occasion for gratulation in that respect; for while most nations trace their origin to barbarians, the foundations of our nation were laid by civilized men—by Christians. Many of them were men of distinguished families, of powerful talents, of great learning, of pre-eminent wisdom, of decision of character, and of most inflexible integrity. And yet, not unfrequently, they have been treated as if they had no virtues; while their sins and follies have been sedulously immortalized in satirical anecdote. The influence of such treatment of the Fathers is too manifest. It creates and lets loose their invaluable institutions the Vandal spirit of innovation and overthrow; for after the memory of our Fathers shall have been rendered contemptible, who will appreciate and sustain their institutions? ‘The Memory of Our Fathers,’ should be the watchword of liberty throughout the land;–for, imperfect as they were, the world before, had not seen their like, nor will it soon, we fear, behold their like again. Such models of moral excellence, such apostles of civil and religious liberty, such shades of the illustrious dead, looking down upon their descendants with approbation or reproof, according as they follow or depart from the good way, constitute a censorship inferior only to the eye of God;–and to ridicule them is national suicide.

The doctrines of our Fathers have been represented as gloomy, superstitious, severe, irrational, and of a licentious tendency. But when other systems shall have produced a piety as devoted, a morality as pure, a patriotism as disinterested, and a state of society as happy, as have prevailed where their doctrines have been most prevalent; it may be in season to seek an answer to this objection. The same doctrines have been charged with inspiring a spirit of dogmatism and religious domination. But in all the struggles of man with despotic power for civil liberty, the doctrines of our Fathers have been found, usually, if not always, on the side of liberty, as their opposite have been usually found in the ranks of arbitrary power.

The persecutions instituted by our Fathers, have been the occasion of ceaseless obloquy upon their fair fame. And truly it was a fault of no ordinary magnitude that—sometimes, they did persecute. But let him, whose ancestors were not ten times more guilty, cast the first stone, and the ashes of our Fathers will no more be disturbed. Theirs was the fault of the age. And it will be easy to show, that no class of men had at that time approximated so nearly to just apprehensions of religious liberty; and that it is to them that the world is now indebted for the more just and definite views which prevail. More exclamation and invective has been called forth by the few instances of persecution by the Fathers of New England, than by all the fires which lighted the realm of Old England for centuries, and drove into exile, thousands of her most valuable subjects.

The superstition and bigotry of our Fathers are themes, on which come of their descendants, themselves far enough from superstition, if not from bigotry, have delighted to dwell. But when we look abroad, and behold the condition of the world compared with the condition of New England, we may just exclaim, ‘Were to God that the ancestors of all the nations had been not almost, but altogether such bigots as our Fathers were!’

Their strictness in the family, and in church and state, has been complained of as too rigid. But they were laying the foundations of a nation, and applying a moral power, whose impulse should extend through ages; and who that beholds the rapid and appalling moral relaxation of the present day, can believe that they put the system in motion with too much rigor? In proportion as their discipline had been less strict, our present condition had been more alarming, and our future prospects more desperate.

Our Fathers have been ridiculed as an uncouth uncourtly generation. And it must be admitted, that they were not as expert in the graces of dress, and the etiquette of the drawing room, as some of their descendants. But neither could these have felled the trees, nor guided the plough, nor spread the sail which they did; nor braved the dangers of Indian warfare, nor displayed the wisdom in counsel which our Fathers displayed. And, had none stepped upon the Plymouth rock but such effeminate critics as these, the poor natives never would have mourned their wilderness lost, but would have brushed them from the land, as they would brush the puny insect from their face; the Pequods would have slept in safety that night which was their last; and no intrepid Mason had hung upon their rear, and driven into exile the panic-struck fugitives.

2. We are called upon to cherish and extend our religious institutions.

Religion was the power on which our Fathers relied—the power which has made us what we are, and which must guarantee the perpetuity of our blessings. Every other influence has been tried and has failed, while this has been tried with ample promise of success. The application of religious and moral influence id, therefore the great duty to which, as a nation, we are called. On this influence depends our rise or fall—our glorious immortality or our hasty dissolution. Everything but this may be safely left to the operation of existing causes. Ambition will secure the interests of education and science; the love of gold will push agriculture and commerce and arts; and the pride of liberty will arm the nation and render it invincible. All these things, the nations who have preceded us have been able to do. but there was a sickness of the heart which they could neither endure nor heal;—and with this same disease this nation is sick, and intellectual culture, and civil liberty,, and national wealth will not heal it. There is but one remedy; and that is the preaching of the Gospel, with the Holy Ghost sent down from on high. But to render the Gospel effectual , the religious education of the family, and the moral culture of our schools and colleges must be secured; and the Sabbath must be rescued from profanation . The Sabbath is the great organ of the divine administration—the only means provided by God to give ubiquity and power to his moral government. The intellectual culture of a nation requires schools and literary institutions; and that the subjects of instruction shall be brought under their influence. Let the fascinations of pleasure, or the demands of labor withdraw the children and youth from the power of intellectual culture, and ignorance will ensue; in like manner, let the stream of pleasure and of worldly cares bear away the population of the land from the house of God, and from the duties of devotion on the Sabbath; and ignorance of God and of his laws will with equal certainty ensue; irreligion will prevail, and immorality and dissoluteness, to an extent utterly inconsistent with the permanence of republican institutions. Europe can never enjoy civil liberty until she shall do more homage to the Sabbath of God; and we shall enjoy it but a short space after we have ceased to render to God his right in that sacred day: for, all the millions who violate the Sabbath will draw themselves from the moral power of the divine government, deprive their families of a religious education, and abandon them to the power of their evil hearts and their own bad example. In the meantime, the secular interests of men are so indissolubly connected, that the stream of business, put in motion by the wicked on the Sabbath day, not only pains the eye of the virtuous, but, as it deepens, and roars, and rolls onward its turbid waters, it draws into itself by the associations of business, a large, and still larger portion of the community; until it spreads unresisted over the land, obliterates the government of God, and substitutes covetousness and pleasure and dissoluteness, instead of godliness and the morality of the Gospel.

The present undoubtedly, is the generation which is to decide the fate of this great empire, by deciding whether the Sabbath of God shall be preserved or blotted out; for the temptations of the seaboard and of canals are immense, and are increasing most fearfully; and, unless public sentiment and law shall make a stand soon, we may as well attempt to stop the rolling of the ocean, or the current of our mighty rivers.

The universal extension of our religious institutions is the only means of reconciling our unparalleled prosperity with national purity and immortality. Without the preserving power of religious and moral influence, our rapid increase in wealth will be the occasion of our swift destruction. The rank vegetation of unsanctified enterprise, thrown into one vast reservoir of putrefaction, will send up over the land desolation and death. No nation will be so short lived as ours, unless we can balance the temptations of our prosperity by moral power. Our sun has moved onward from his morning to his meridian, with a rapidity and glory which has amazed the world. But, unless we can extend the power of religious institutions through the land, dark clouds will soon obscure his glory, and his descent to a night of ages will be more rapid than his rising.

When we were colonists, or unallied states, the law could make provision for the creation and application of moral power. The law could compel men to desist from secular employments and vain amusements on the Sabbath. The law could compel men to support the Gospel, and attend the public worship of God—and civil officers could see ti it, that every town should in due time settle a minister, and that every family should possess a Bible and a catechism. But these means of moral influence the law can no longer apply; and there is no substitute but the voluntary energies of the nation itself, exerted by associations for charitable contributions and efforts, patronized by all denominations of Christians, and by all classes of the community who love their country, We may boast of of our civil and religious liberty, but they are the fruit of other men’s labors into which we have entered; and the effect of institutions, whose impulse has been felt long after the hands that reared them have moldered in the grave. This impulse too, is fast failing, and becoming yearly, more and more disproportioned to the mass that is to be moved by it. Our religious institutions must be invigorated, or we are undone. They must move onward with our flowing emigration to the Mississippi—must pass the Rocky mountains, and pour their waters of life into the ocean beyond; and from the north to the south, they must bear salvation their waves. In this way the nation can save itself; but unless it can be roused to this mighty work , it will ,like the man among the tombs, become exceedingly fierce, and turn upon itself its infuriated energies, and pour out its own life blood by its self-inflicted wounds. ¹

3. We are called upon to give a quickened and extended impulse to our charitable institutions.

These are the providential substitutes for those legal provisions of our Fathers, which are now inapplicable by change or circumstances. In these the nation must enroll itself spontaneously, and the spirit of the Puritans be revived, for the preservation of their institutions. And now is the time. With our growing prosperity, the fascinations of pleasure increase, and the means and temptations to voluptuousness. Now, unless the salt of the earth contained in Christian institutions can be diffused through the land, the mass will putrify. The tide of business and pleasure, bursting from our cities, rolling on our seacoast, and flowing in our canals, will soon sweep away the Sabbath, unless a vigorous public sentiment, by the preaching of the Gospel, and the power of the Spirit, can be arrayed for its preservation; while Bibles, and Pastors, and teachers are multiplied, till the knowledge of the Lord covers the land, and his saving health id extended to all the people.

4. All Christian denominations are called upon to co-operate for the preservation of religion.

It is idle to expect, and folly to desire the amalgamation of all denominations into one. The papal effort at universal comprehension has shown , what a vast, unstimulated, stagnant uniformity will accomplish ; and God, no doubt, has permitted some varying winds of opinion to move upon the face of the deep, to maintain motion, purity and life. We may say however, that jealousies and ambitious collisions between religious denominations should give place to Christian courtesy, and the magnanimity of an hearty co-operation for the glory of God, and the salvation of the world. It is in vain to expect, and it would be sinful to desire the extinction of any one denomination of real Christians. There is room for all—and work for all; and there is ample reason why each should hail the other as an auxiliary in the work of the Lord. Religious principle must be applied throughout the nation, and no one denomination can do it. The work demands the ceaseless action of each in its own peculiar way, and the magnanimous co-operation of all, for the preservation of the great principles of our common Christianity. Nor will such concert of action be in vain. It will form, extensively, a public opinion which shall accord with the morality of the Gospel—whose sanctions, expressed in the votes of virtuous freemen , shall elevate to influence and power, men of pure morality, , and consign the irreligious , immoral, and dissolute, to merited contempt:–a law which the wicked cannot repeal, and whose penalty they cannot evade. All denominations, united, and directing their suffrages to that end, can check the violation of the Sabbath; can arrest the contagion of intemperance ; can punish duelists in high places, who with shameless notoriety, set at defiance the laws of God and their country, bringing upon us the contempt of the world, and the just judgments of heaven.

5. In this great work of national preservation and universal good will, our civil rulers are, particularly, called upon to co-operate; not, as once, in convoking synods, and approving and recommending creeds; and not in coercing by law, attendance upon public worship, or the support of religious institutions. The day is gone by, in which such interposition is required, or can avail. The God of our Fathers, having giving to us a practical illustration of the efficacy of religious institutions, sustained by law during our minority;—now, in our manhood, puts the price into our hands to be preserved or abandoned spontaneously on our own responsibility. Nor are the church and the state to be so identified, as that the qualifications for civil office must be the same as for membership in that kingdom which is not of this world. Our civil rulers owe to God and their country now, the same illustrious piety, the same estimation of the doctrines of God’s Word, the same attendance upon the ordinances of the Gospel and co-operation for their support, and the same strict and pure morality, which rendered the civil Fathers of our land so illustrious in their character, and so benign in the power of their example upon their own and upon other generations. The example of men in official stations is among the most powerful moral caused which afflict or bless a community. If it be good, it descends with cheering power, like the gentle rain upon the earth; but if it be evil, from its “bad eminence,” it comes down upon the community like the mountain torrent, sweeping away landmarks. The righteous mourn under their sway, and the wicked creep from their hiding places, and walk on every side, setting their mouth against the heavens, and their foot upon all that is sacred and holy. The time has come, when the experiment is to be made, whether the world is to be emancipated and rendered happy, or whether the whole creation shall groan and travail together in pain until the final consummation: and the example of the rulers of our nation will throw decisive weights into the scales, for or against the world’s last hope. If they pour contempt upon the Bible, its doctrines and institutions—if they take in vain the name of God, or profane wantonly his holy day—if they concentrate in the capitol, and spread abroad through the land, the infection of their bad example; the whole nation will feel it, and die under it, unless the indignant virtue of an insulted community shall throw off the body of death, and , by a well-directed suffrage , call to its aid men of talents and of pure morality.

6. To perpetuate our national prosperity and hold up our light to the world, our citizens must ban party spirit, and regulates the suffrage of the nation with reference to the preservation of its moral purity.

The temporary collisions of local interest and of ambition can never be excluded from such a nation as this, and are not to be feared. It is those deep-rooted and permanent divisions, extending through the land, arousing the feelings and arraying the energies of one part of the nation in keen collision with the other, and perpetuating prejudice and strife from generation to generation, which threaten the existence of our republican institutions . Through one such fiery trial we have passed undestroyed though by no means uninjured; and no patriot of the present generation would willingly, I trust, behold our country placed in such jeopardy again. Despotic governments may pass in safety through popular commotions such as would shake down the pillars of a republic. The mobs of England, which, in the presence of a military power, are but the gambols of a kid within the scope of the lion’s paw, would be, in this country, as the letting out of waters. There is no possibility of freedom in this bad world, without so much intelligence and moral principle among the people, as shall create an efficient people sentiment in favor of law and good order. But party spirit prostrates everything within the sphere of its commotion, which is venerable and scared. It directs the attention of the people from their own common interests, to the means of gaining objects to which prejudice and passion may direct them; and the attention of the government from the public good, to the means of its own perpetuity and ascendancy. It renders a wise and comprehensive policy impossible; for party spirit has no magnanimity, no conscience, no consistency, to withhold it from resisting a steadily what is wise as what is unwise, and its victories are too transient to admit of much prospective wisdom. It is eminently hostile to the laws which watch over the morals of the nation;–for who will execute them, when patrizans on both sides fear that they may feel the consequences of fidelity at the next election. Too often, from the nearly balanced state of parties, the most worthless portion of the community actually hold the sway in the elections, even in a state of society comparatively virtuous,–occasioning impunity in the violation of law, and clothing with political consequence, and too often surrounding with adulation, men whom our Fathers would have expelled from good society. It tends to destroy in society, all distinctions of moral character, talent, and learning ,as qualifications for office; while it reconciles the people, upon the plea of necessity, to such preposterous sacrifices of conscience, and common sense, as they would never consent to, unstimulated by its madness. Indeed, in all but the name, it rears beneath the forms of freedom, a real and most horrific despotism. For every party has a soul,–some master spirit, who, without a crown and a scepter, governs with absolute sway. He is surrounded by a nobility, each of whom is commissioned to govern the public opinion within his sphere, and bring his retainers to the polls, to subserve implicitly the interests of the king and of the aristocracy. It needs only to kindle the watch-fire, and every clansman is at his post; and argument might as well avail against bullets in the day of battle, as in these determined contests of parties. There is no remedy for this state of things, but that intelligence which qualifies the people to understand their rights, interests and duties; and that calmness of feeling to which the mind, undisturbed by patrizan efforts, will not fail to come; and that deep conviction of the importance of moral purity, which shall turn the expectations of the people from party men and party measures, to the application of moral power, by the institutions of religion, and the interposition of the Holy Spirit.

Multitudes of Christians and patriots have long since abandoned party politics, and, not knowing what to do, have almost abandoned the exercise of suffrage. This is wrong. An enlightened and virtuous suffrage may, by system and concentration, become one of the most powerful means of promoting national purity and morality;–as the suffrage from which the influence of conscience is withdrawn, cannot fail to be disastrous. While then, as freemen, we remove one temptation to hypocrisy, by dispensing with a profession of religion as a qualification for office , and exclude all occasions of jealousy, by bestowing our votes without reference to Christian denomination; let all Christians and all patriots exercise their rights as electors, with an inflexible regard to moral character; and let the duelist, and the Sabbath-breaker, and the drunkard, and the licentious, find the doors of honor barred, and the heights of ambition defended against them by hosts of determined freemen, and the moral effect will be great. The discrimination by suffrage will exert upon the youth of our country a more salutary restraint and upon dissolute and ambitious men a powerful reforming influence. Let every freeman, then, who would perpetuate the liberty and happiness of his country, and transmit to his descendants of distant generations the precious legacy which our Fathers have sent down to us, inquire concerning the candidate for whom he has solicited to vote,–is he an enemy to the Bible, or to the doctrines and institutions of the Gospel;—is he a duelist, or an intemperate man, or a Sabbath-breaker, or dissolute, or dishonest?—and if, in any of these respects, he be disqualified, let him withhold his vote, and give it to a better man—and it will go far to retrieve the declensions which have taken place, and to render righteousness and peace the stability of our times.

And now, what shall we say to these things? Are they the dreams of a fervid imagination, or are they the words of truth and soberness? Will our blessings be perpetuated, or shall ours be added to the ruined republics that have been? Are we assembled today to bestow funeral honors upon our departed glory, or with united counsels and hearts to strengthen the things that remain? Weak indeed must be the faith that wavers now, and sinks and waves less terrific, and prospects more cheering, than any which our Fathers ever saw. Were it dark even as midnight, and did the waves run high, and dash loud and angry around us, still our faith would not be dismayed: still with our Fathers we would believe, “Qui transtulit sustinet;” and still would we rejoice in the annunciation of Him that sitteth upon the throne, “Behold I create all things new.” Our anchor will not fail –our bark will not flounder; for the means of preservation will be used, and the God of our Fathers will make them effectual. The memory of our Fathers is becoming more precious. Their institutions are commanding a higher estimation. Deeper convictions are felt of the importance of religion ; and more extended and vigorous exertions are made to balance the temptations of prosperity by moral power. Christians are ceasing from their jealousies, and concentrating their energies. The nation is moved, and beginning to enroll itself in various forms of charitable association, for the extension of religion at home and abroad. Philosophers and patriots, statesmen and men of wealth, are beginning to feel that it is righteousness only which exalteth a nation; and to give to the work of moral renovation their arguments, the power of their example, and the impulse of their charity. And the people, weary of political collision, are disposed at length to build again those institutions, which, in times of contention, they had either neglected or trodden down. Such an array of moral influence as is now comprehended in the great plan of charitable operations, were never before brought to bear upon the nation. It moves onward, attended by fervent supplications, and followed by glorious, and unceasing effusions of the Holy Spirit. The god of this world feels the shock of the onset, and has commenced his retreat; and Jesus Christ is pressing onward from conquering to conquer: nor will he turn from his purpose, or cease from his work, until he hath made all things new.

1. In many of the discourses and orations which commemorate the deeds of our Fathers, their character, as the apostles of civil liberty, is especially eulogized; while their doctrines, their piety, and the other peculiarities of their religious institutions, are passed off with cold commendations, or perhaps palliated and excused as the defects of the age. But no historical fact is more completely established, and that their peculiar doctrines and views of experimental religion and church order were dearer to them than life; and that it is these, which, for more than one hundred and fifty years, applied the religious and moral influence under which New England was formed, and which has made her what she is. Let the children of the Pilgrims never forget this; and let the eulogists of their patriotism cease to spread before our eyes such a glitter of style and eloquence, as shall place their civil exploits in the fore-ground, and throw their doctrines, and church order, and eminent piety in the back-ground. The religious and moral causes which have blessed New England, and are now rolling the tide of salvation to the West, can never be concealed; and can never be successfully, misrepresented. As well may the Newtonian philosophy be concealed, as the system of our Fathers—it is out, and known, and read of all men. We are the more called upon to regard this subject with deep interest, from the fact that the attempt is now openly made to destroy the religious and moral energy of the churches which our Fathers planted, by perverting their doctrines, changing the qualifications for membership, and taking from them their immemorial and sacred rights in the election of their own pastors, in the enjoyment of which, their moral power must fail. We have no apprehension that the children of the Pilgrims, when the subject shall be fairly understood, will, by adding injustice to ingratitude, sanctions such innovations.

Sermon – Thanksgiving – 1852 Massachusetts

A sermon preached on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1852, by Reverend Joseph Hodges, Jr. in North Oxford.

A
Sermon
Delivered in North Oxford,
On the day of
Thanksgiving,
Nov. 25, 1852.
By Rev. Joseph Hodges Jr.
Pastor of the Baptist Church.

Sermon
Psalm LXVIII [68]:19.
Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our Salvation.

The psalm from which our text is selected, is deemed one of the most excellent and sublime portions of the Sacred Scriptures. It was sung, most probably, on some public and joyous occasion, when the ark was carried to Mount Zion: possibly, after a successful engagement in battle. It embraces every general topic calculated to excite gratitude and call forth praise, in view of the divine mercy, protection and beneficence. The psalmist, in the rehearsal of these blessing of remembrance, seems to pause and break forth in an expression of praise to God. The effect is very apparent in the mere reading of the psalm; but it is difficult for us to conceive of the full effect when sung by the vast choir who attended the ark, accompanied by so great a number and variety of musical instruments. The triumphs of the Jews, however, looked beyond the mere occasion of them, – temporal triumphs over temporal enemies, — they regarded them as typical of a more glorious one, when the great Messiah should complete his reign. Their minds, thus elated with the present, and moved by a fervid anticipation of the future, amid the imposing multitude, with their overpowering music, must have been excited by a spectacle at once touching to the heart, inspiring to the imagination, and lasting in its associations.

It is indeed, in a manner less imposing, that we are called upon to offer our tribute of praise and thanksgiving. Amid the current of life, our usual duties and avocations, the routine of common events and obligation, it is appropriate for us to pause, and at this season of our annual festival, lift up our humble voice in praise to our usual fruitful harvest, and to engage in other worthy pursuits and enterprises, the results of which furnish evidence of general prosperity. Every useful undertaking has been sustained. Though sin and trouble, losses and accidents, sickness and death, are the usual lot of some, from which none are entirely exempt, amid it all there has been the good hand of a wise Governor and Benefactor to guide, to deal out the blessings of life, and to overrule all events of prosperity or adversity, for the happiness of all.

It would be appropriate to recount the many favors of heaven, to specify the instances of mercy and goodness common to us as individuals or a community. There might be drawn out a long catalogue of benefits, with which the good Providence of God has loaded us, and each so presented, as to excite afresh in our breast delightful emotions of gratitude. These benefits would not be unlike those, which have often, almost annually occurred. God, in his Providence, as you are aware, gives, withholds, and controls, so as not only to affect the mind and heart with a sense of the blessings bestowed, to produce the feeling of gladness; but to stimulate withal a sense of obligation in respect to enterprise and activity. We feel bound not only to laud our great Benefactor, but we are moved by our gratitude to adopt and carry out plans of serving him which shall result in the good of the world and to His honor.

If therefore, instead of recounting these benefits, I refer you to the enterprises and improvements which have grown out of these favors, and which are calculated to stimulate us to greater exertions, to engage in more elevated employments, I may accomplish quite as good a service.

In prosecution of the object which I have suggested, time will allow me only to glance at some of the improvements in agriculture and manufactures, with which we are more intimately connected, and refer to the condition of education amongst us, as associated with the various branches of industry.

Agriculture I may name as a science, as well as an art, of the first importance. Some may be disposed to smile because this employment is spoken of as science. As it has been too often conducted, or neglected, it may seem to be the business of the most limited capacities of the most ordinary calculators, for those alone who can perform drudgery. Too often we fear that this sentiment has been taken for granted by farmers themselves, and hence they have plodded on, too much in the same old track. Hence the rest of the world is in advance of them, and their sons frequently leave them to follow less honorable callings. It is however at the foundation of all other employments, and no less dignified, healthy, or profitable. Its study and practice will serve to develop improvements, resources, strength, and health, as much certainly as any other. A glance at the earlier ages of the world will afford us some idea of the improvements which have taken place. If we may use Jahn as authority; and I know of no better, we must conclude that the implements first employed for husbandry were of the rudest construction, and so continued to be with comparatively little change for ages. Instead of shovels and spades, only sharpened sticks and flattened pieces of wood were used. The plow was made of a bent bough sharpened at one end, requiring the greatest strength and attention to hold it. The harrow was nothing more than a cluster of limbs of trees, thrown together so as to scratch the soil, tear apart the clods, and level somewhat the earth. Every other farming implement was of the same rude character. To perceive the improvements in this branch of business, we need not go further back than our own boyhood. Compare the implements then in use with those now, both as to form and adaptation, and we are struck with the change. Hence the ease and rapidity with which we prepare the land, sow the seed, and reap the harvest. And many are the improvements for gathering fruits and grain, mowing and raking, pulling up stumps by their roots, sinking rock, ditching meadows, irrigating hills, and converting marshes into arable fields. Science has taught us how resuscitate worn-out lands and to make the rich richer. No man who has land paid for, a house to live in, and information which may be gained in our common schools, with a good paper on farming, with health and energy, need be destitute. As much, however, depends on the head as the hands, yea more. There are needed, activity, investigation, perseverance and economy. And on this festival day, when so much of the farmer’s care and productions are brought to our board, in token of our thankfulness we are bound to understand and carry out in the world the improvements which, under a kind Providence, have been developed. Nor should we stop with the present. We should not live without leaving our mark somewhere, in and on our age; such as shall call forth the gratitude of another generation for what we have done; such as shall stimulate that generation to do more, and become wiser, than the former. Thus from generation to generation, the capabilities for the production of fruits shall abundantly manifest that agriculture is in no respect inferior to any other employment in dignity, usefulness, tastes, or health.

It would be interesting to trace the history of improvements in manufactures from the earliest times to the present. We are struck with the improvements in the structure of machinery, and the architecture of the mills within the last twenty-five years. This is true of all manufactories. We have specimens of art in the manufacture of cloth in ancient times, that would compete with those of modern, possibly in beauty, texture, and durability. But the long process and great labor mad these fabric expensive and rare. None but kings and princes could afford to be clothed in soft raiment and embroidered garments. Formerly cotton was deemed the richest and most costly fabric, now the commonest and cheapest. Under what inconveniences too, in the earlier days was cloth woven and garments fabricated? The Israelites had learned the art among the Egyptians and became their superiors. They were the New Englanders among the Southerners. On their tedious return to Palestine, they wove curtains for the tabernacle rich and beautiful. There was work performed under difficulties which, even in this day, in patient, persevering New England, might be deemed insurmountable. Scarcely less astonished should we be, to view the improved facilities with which we are now favored, compared with the disadvantages under which manufactories were commenced in our county. These very disadvantages were such, however, as to give stimulus to every generous enterprise.

May I not be permitted here to refer to the advantages growing out of our manufactories? That there are evils connected with them, we may not deny. The same may be said of every other enterprise under the sun, and it will be so, so long as human nature remains what it is, under the direction and restraints of similar impulses and influences. The evils are not necessarily of the business, but rather of the nature of the men who conduct and perform it. As the world advances there must necessarily be division of labor. Some may sigh for the time to return when in every family there shall be the loom, the spinning wheel, the shoe bench, the carpenter’s bench, the anvil, the chair-maker, the basket-maker, the broom-maker, the tailor, the dress-maker, as well as the farmer and dairy. And what manufacturers they were! Now as good and honest as those times were, who would roll back the world upon them? Now manufacture, commerce, agriculture, and all other honest employments or professions, help each other. What farmer would get twenty-five or thirty cents per pound for his butter in the country, such a season as this even, were all agriculturists who spun and wove their own cloth, and made their own garments and shoes? I do not speak as a partisan. Not at all. There have been in days gone by, honest differences as to the adoption of various measures in respect to political economy. There may be now. But the trouble was then, and now is, I divine, there was and is needed the light which comes from intercommunication of a practical character- a better understanding, not of theories, but of the working of them. When this light and understanding shall prevail, it will be found that all parties are nearer together than they supposed; that their true interest lies just on the line which divides these party interests, on which only the few quiet ones dare to walk. We need now the farmer, the merchant and manufacturer. Let each in his department adopt the principle “Live and let live.” For this purpose we have the world as the field of our operation. This village, this town, this county of Worchester, this our New England, these United States, none are large enough to operate in. Our action and industry must tell on the whole world. We have been inclined to circumscribe ourselves- or certainly to pen up ourselves within the old thirteen states. – Or perhaps we would somehow have New England set apart, or kept by itself, for fear with all honesty, that its industry, its ingenuity, its learning, its good taste, its good morals and religion, would be lost, no longer identified. But the Providence of God in its operations and developments is wiser than men. The foolishness of our Heavenly Father is wiser than the wisdom of the best of us. There is more wisdom in the plans of heaven that in all the concentrated wisdom of all political parties united, to effect the good of the world. When you have looked on the movements of our day, both of our own country and of Europe, some score of years hence, who shall be permitted to do so, will be fully convinced of this. We need not go to England, or China, of California, or Washington, or Boston, to exert any influence. The elements of this world, so far as intellect and principle are concerned, are elastic; and if you strike one, so as to make an impression, like a row of ivory balls suspended in contact, you affect all the rest. What you have to do then is not to turn from your calling, but act in your proper sphere; laying hold upon the information which comes in your path. If you have a farm to cultivate, do it with your might; as if you meant to accomplish something in this line business. If you have a manufactory to build, go about that most manfully. Whatever you have to lay your hand to that is good and honest, be about it in earnest. It is this spirit of earnestness and honesty and patient industry that has made New England what she is.

But as we are inclined to take pride to ourselves, not only as New England but also as a nation, as we have grown strong in our youth, and lest we might as we approached manhood become insolent, Providence is scattering among us thorns; sending- not the best specimens- the world to us. We may think in our vanity, that it is for the purpose of having them instructed and converted both politically and religiously. Would that they might become in both respects almost and altogether like ourselves, save those bands of Slavery for the South, and the Fugitive Slave law for the North. But may we not learn something from them? This truly; that man is our brother, and wherever he is found, in our country, or far away, in whatever circumstances, should be one with us. In this respect, the world is our country, our state, our town, our neighborhood, and whatever distinctions there may be in some respects, we are naturally dependent on each other. If England, proud in every thing as she is, has yielded to this nation the meed of praise, as superior to her in every useful employment, and awarded us a niche above all the world beside, we should be ambitious to prove ourselves as humane, as true to the world in all its wants and interests, as the mother country has been: not in arms and blood-shed, let what has been in this respect suffice, but in giving what is far more honorable, and the wiser policy, the advantages of civilization and pure christianity, of freedom and peace, through our faith and virtue, honesty and industry, ingenuity and energy, art and science, hope and charity. We have taught the world whatever may be the advantage of division of labor in its general character, that no artisan in free New England need confine himself to making the twentieth part of a pin. So sorry an account of his life he need not give, if he will but be a man.

True, as yet, but little of the mere polish, the mere ornament, has occupied our attention. What has been done of this character is only a pastime effort, as a matter of temporary gratification. It is rather a matter of accident than aim, that good taste has been combined with utility. Or rather we may infer that whatever is truly arranged for utility and convenience, produces good proportions, beauty, taste, and permanency. This sentiment is well sustained by a graphic writer in the Edinburgh Review. He says: “The tomb of Moses is unknown; but the traveler slakes his thirst at the well of Jacob. The gorgeous palace of the wisest and wealthiest of monarchs, with cedar and the gold and ivory, and even the great Temple at Jerusalem, hallowed by the visible glory of the Deity himself, are gone; but Solomon’s reservoirs are as perfect as ever. Of the ancient architecture of the holy city, not one stone is left upon another; but the pool of Bethesda commands the pilgrim’s reverence at the present day. The columns of Persepolis are molding into dust; but its cisterns and aqueducts remain to challenge our admiration. The golden house of Nero is a mass of ruins; but the Aqua Claudia still pours into Rome its limpid stream. The Temple of the Sun, at Tadmore in the wilderness, has fallen, but its fountain sparkles in its rays, as when thousands of worshippers thronged its lofty colonnades. It may be London will share the fate of Babylon, and nothing be left to mark it, save mounds of crumbling brickwork. The Thames will continue to flow as it does now. And if any work of art should rise over the deep ocean, time, we may well believe, that it will be neither a palace nor a temple, but some vast aqueduct or reservoir; and if any name should flash through the mist of antiquity, it will probably be that of the man who in his day, sought the happiness of his fellow-men rather than glory, and linked his memory to some great work of national utility and benevolence. This is the true glory, which outlives all others, and shines with undying luster from generation to generation, imparting to works some of its own immortality, and in some degree rescuing them from the ruin which overtakes the ordinary monument of historical tradition, or mere magnificence.”

Utility has ever been the watch-word of American genius, and we are happy that it is so. Even in our more ornamental literature we discern it. A tribute is everywhere paid to utility- so that if one seeks to gratify his love of the beautiful and true, for their own sake, he manifests a disposition to vindicate his course on the score of utility. Our sweet poetry betrays it.

“Not useless are ye, flowers, though made for pleasure,
Blooming o’er fields and wave by day and night;
From every source your sanction bids me treasure
Harmless delight.”

I am inclined to think that utility and beauty are more nearly allied than we are generally disposed to allow. Are not strength and beauty usually combined? Is it not the strong and beautifully proportioned ship that weathers the most storms and outrides the most gales? Is it not the stateliest, the noblest, and hardiest trees, that gain strength through the pelting of a hundred winters? Now nature has furnished the outline, and made the suggestion which we as its learners should carry out in our enterprise. We are struck with the beauty, and acknowledge the advantages of natural scenery. View the valley of French River. Who as he passes along its stream, beholding the hills rising on either side in beauty and loveliness, extending in graceful and undulating curves, furnishing here and there a lively perspective; interspersed, as it was in early autumn, with trees reflecting from their changing foliage every variety of shade, giving a most picturesque and romantic appearance- not the less so on a misty, drizzly day like one of our October Sabbaths, than in the sunshine; -when the leaves and trees seemed fairy pictures, surrounding us with hills and vales of paradise, not in the soberness of reality, but in the beautiful wildness of a dream; as the gorgeous coloring of the imagination, or a rare deceptions of the painter’s skill, or some enchanted view which at best was a happy illusion. Can we say less, than that nature, in her suggestion of beauty as a model of taste, has done her part? But what do we behold amid this delightful landscape, where dashes along, eternally murmuring, the stream which gives name to the valley, itself full of beauty! Do we not here perceive utility? What constitutes the beauty, furnishes also the power which the ingenuity of man has improved, and thus added excellence and life to the picturesque scenery. But has man fully carried out the suggestion of nature? Some little more attention to the planting and nurturing of fruit and shade trees and shrubbery and flowers around our manufactories, dwelling houses, school houses, and house of worship, where the ancient forest has been torn up, would render this valley of the French River on of the most beautiful, unique, and inviting in the land! This might be the result without the expenditure of much money, time or labor. It would be better than a holiday for young persons to start out on some spring-like morning, collect and plant young trees which might take root and live many generations. This would be less fatiguing and much more satisfactory in the end than what is often done. Many a one, to enjoy a holiday, will hasten to the city and swelter in the sun, chasing pleasure which is ever eluding their grasp. Here, in the pastime of planting trees, there would ensue a living satisfaction; a satisfaction continuing and enhancing with the length of life. Here are change of employment, pastime, stimulus to the mind, interest, exercise, and utility, all combined. Besides it would more than gratify. It would cultivate a love for the beautiful, and serve to produce correct taste, drawn from nature herself.

Sometimes indeed, we have views of the sublime in nature which seem to cast into the background the beautiful. The grand cataract, the overshadowing mountain, the wild tornado, the tempest at sea, and the battle-field even, are accounted grand and sublime. The final results of each may be utility. Such, however, are rare. So in life there are projects and actions and engagements which may correspond. Amid destruction and terror, utility in the end may ensue. But the sunrise, the sunset, the sunlight, the moonlight, the starlight, the veiling cloud, the cheering landscape where waves the grass and grain, where murmurs the gentle stream, where are the pleasant vale, undulating hill, and the rich plain, the village with its spire and manufactories and the distant farm house; these are the common things, intimately connected with the useful and the beautiful which all may enjoy, all full of interest, all connected with pleasant, tender, associations varying in different families and different individuals, according to the checkering of their lives. For every thing bears on it the impress of the character and hue of events, sorrows, and joys which have moved our souls and given interest to our lot.

I may be permitted to remark further, that would we have intelligence and good taste prevail with utility, we need education. It is the instrumentality of success. Let all become ignorant in the true sense of the term, and there will follow a combination of ignorance, worthlessness, folly, and dissipation; indeed any thing rather than thrift and comfort. All persons, old and young, have minds; natural powers; some more, some less. All have a thirst for knowledge. They are inclined, however, to put into operation such knowledge as will furnish them immediate gratification. Some kind of knowledge will be practiced, if not for good, for evil; if not from books, from other sources; if not from schools like the one established in this district during the year; certainly from that extemporaneous school which occurs the year round in the street, or in the bar-room, the bowling alley, the card-table, or some other place of which it is a shame to speak. Now one kind of instruction, such as the Commonwealth provides, and which the munificence of individuals in this vicinity aids to carry out, in our common schools, strengthens the powers of the mind and fits them for the business of human life. But the other kind, gained in the street and other places where virtue is derided, serves to weaken the intellectual powers, as well as the moral and physical. Soon as the buoyancy of youth has passed away there are no resources to which to apply for interest or gratification. The mind can be moved only through the baser passions. Hence many become old, young. Their intellect becomes as feeble as that of an infant. Whatever may be their physical strength, they have no moral or intellectual.

It is wise, therefore, and very wise, to give particular attention to the education of the young all over the land. Education properly conducted is intended and calculated to furnish light and power for the accomplishment of good; not to make the world worse than it is, but better; so as to develop its latent powers and put them into operation. Knowledge is power. To be efficient, it must be practical. Mere theory is not power. Theory and practice, or the knowledge which embrace each, is power. The world has grown old, and yet we have just begun to develop its resources, and to use to advantage principles which have lain dormant since its existence. Fields of action and interest are continually opening. The more we do, the more we may. This is a law, which in its general bearings is true; and still, labor will have the better pay. This may seem paradoxical, and yet it is true and philosophical. There may be occasionally an overaction, producing reaction. But this will correct itself and serve to bring about a true balancing of things. We have been afraid to pay much for education, and too often the cause has been permitted to go begging. There can be no better investment than funds secured for the education of the young. When we pay for schoolhouses, teachers, and apparatus, it is like putting money into the bank, or a premium paid for the insurance of property. If we are not safe now, it is because we have not been heretofore sufficiently liberal. Complaints of taxation, or withholding the proper amount of appropriation by the towns, for purposes of schooling, only proves that the voters have not been properly educated. We are therefore happy to know there are some who feel an interest in this subject, and their actions and professions are alike honorable to their minds and hearts.

There are some considerations to which it would be appropriate to refer today worthy of our attention and sympathy. Death has made inroads upon men in high stations within a few months. Though such events are associated with grief and cast over the mind and heart the gloom of sadness, we may not pass them by when some of them are of so recent occurrence. The community has been thereby affected. Not like those whose hearts have been penetrated by deeper sorrow, where the head of a family circle has been stricken down by the common destroyer, and his place left vacant, literally made an aching void, reminding of the reality in form, in countenance, in affection, in voice, and excellence that was, and is no more. True it may be no more of an affliction for the family of Webster, to part with the honored and beloved head, than for another family unknown beyond private life. Many of the latter class possess keen sensibilities, and strong ties of attachment, equal to those of the former. And in view of such an event they are as deeply afflicted. This day comes to all, thus situated, reviving associations long cherished. The day which has been heretofore the occasion of much happiness, now produces the keenest sorrow; not without mitigation. In view of past joys, and intimacies, and virtues, and hopes, there is even to them occasion of gratitude. It is that which bears the pleasant melancholy of a sunny autumn day when the wind suddenly striking the trees with its startling rustle, drops the golden leaves to turn to earth. They who thus die live in the hearts of their friends and are there cherished, how muchsoever to the bustling, unthinking world they may have passed into oblivion. But the memory of great and influential men, who have been active in the world for scores of years and have left their mark upon it, cannot be effaced. That world, that nation, that community which have known their worth, will be profoundly affected. It is natural for us to inquire, who shall fill their places? Who shall ever exert so powerful and happy influence? Not only do men of the world and political virtue make similar inquiries, as they have done successively in regard to the lamented Calhoun of the South, Clay of the West, and Webster of the North; but we are accustomed to hear the same from other professions, and in respect to men occupying smaller sphere- of the bar, of the pulpit, of the bench, and of the seat of science. Though we mourn their departure, that is human, yet we may be grateful for the lives they have been permitted to live; that what they have done, spoken, and written, are in our possession, and may be preserved so far as on examination and the test of time, there are virtue, truth, and value in them. The Providence of God furnished them with their powers of mind, fitted them for and placed them in their posts. It has removed, checked, or prospered them according to its wisdom. So that we see enough of them to show us that they were human, fallible, erring. And therefore we may not adore the men, whilst we may venerate the principles which they inculcated. In the Providence of God we are tough lessons, which we may receive with thankfulness. Instead of regretting the dispensation which removes them as instrumentalities, and thus honors them, it should be rather a matter of gratitude. We complain sometimes of the ingratitude of the majority towards one who is excellent and deserving. We may not be able to judge of the correctness of the decision of the majority in the time of its expression. If it be of God, it will stand, but if it be of men, it will come to naught. Remember the case of Joseph.The majority of his brethren were against him. They in their wisdom plotted his destruction. Their own wisdom was folly. Their plotting was the plan of God to save both him and them. So God meets individual and nations. He teaches them that they are only men, nothing more. It is not the popular will or effort that saves always, or destroys. But some hidden spring which God touches brings out unforeseen results. These results may be in the highest sense an occasion of gratitude to all concerned. Hence we rely not on any system which men of a party may devise for the perfection or permanency of our government, not on the measures of any political party ever in power or that ever will be. These parties, however proper they may be, or however honest, or whatever name they may assume to catch the popular ear, must be, as they ever have been, changing as to the policy of their action. We rely however, on the overruling power and goodness of God. The things which will save or ruin us do not depend upon so slight a circumstance as securing free trade or a protective system. There are currents of honesty and virtue, of truth and sincerity, of charity and good will; or of falsehood and deception, of vice and wrong, of oppression and ambition, which will bless or curse this nation. All other policies, though they be not the wisest, we may meet. Our government may continue to prosper, if we but have the principles of truth and righteousness as their foundation.

There is one view in which we may consider the deaths of these great men calculated to excite the gratitude of the good. In the providence of God they have so occurred, often, as to rebuke the animosity of party spirit. When Adams the elder and Jefferson died, on the same birthday of our national Independence, this was most happily the effect. Years after, when occurring one of the most exciting canvassings for president which resulted in the choice of Harrison, the Providence of God rebuked that spirit by the marked defeat of one candidate, and the death of the other in a few days after his inauguration. Other instances less marked have occurred which were peculiarly salutary in their effects on the community. And now, just in the height of the excitement in respect to the presidential election, he who was deemed the greatest statesman of the age was smitten down, as if God would rebuke this partly spirit. The lesson, which we are taught is a matter of gratitude inasmuch as we are directed to repose confidence in the great and good Sovereign who knows how and when to make use of the great instrumentalities of mind for accomplishing great purposes and of teaching lessons which take immediate effect. We are compelled to pause long enough in our career to notice it. These dispensations and lessons may not be such as to produce elation of mind; yet such they may be as to afford peace, confidence, and hope, and prompt to happy exertions, and result in more holy and charitable sentiments towards men as our brethren who are of the same blood and bound to the same tribunal.

In closing, we are deeply impressed with importance of religious instruction. Man is naturally a religious being. But his religion frequently degenerates into superstition, and seldom does he pursue the course of truth and consistency. We ought to remember, whilst so much is done for the physical powers and the intellect, the most important and elevated are the religious. Notwithstanding the commendation we give to physical and mental sciences, and the importance we attach to their culture, yet little real advantage, lasting benefit will accrue where the sentiments of the Bible are not inculcated and adopted. Look at intelligent, philosophical France; an enlightened nation, almost literally without the Bible. What is the consequence? Other things may contribute to make the nation what it is. But much of their instability and want of true principle spring from the destitution of that religious element which the use of the Scriptures, with due reverence to their Author and true regard for his government, begets. Whilst the French are the politest nation on the earth, the most polished and scientific perhaps, a nation of gentlemen and ladies, doing everything according to the strictest rules of etiquette; they are the lowest in the scale of truth and virtue. If he adheres strictly to this established code, there is not a sin named in the Decalogue which a Frenchman may not commit and yet be esteemed a gentleman, a man of honor. Now education of the intellect and polished manners, without virtue and religion would make this nation like France. And fatal indeed would the prevalence of such principles of virtue and ambition prove to the permanency of our free government. Hence the need of teaching the truth as the Bible contains it. We need a religion which teaches and enforces the Sabbath as a day to be devoted to God, not a mere holiday. We need a religion which shall have control of the heart and life; which shall put an active faith and a conscience into all our works. The measure of religion called for by many, if not the many, is rather just enough to put conscience to rest and turn faith to presumption. They are not willing to live day by day according to their teaching, their principles. Men like to have seasons when by penalties and penances, they may pay off their accumulated debts of sin, with permission from their conscience thus bought off, to indulge themselves again, or to do up their work of religion a little beforehand. To borrow an illustration from the playful, almost sacrilegious suggestion of young Franklin to his Puritan father, when he was laying down the pork for the season in the cellar; “Why would it not be well,” said he, “to crave a blessing on the whole barrel, and thus save time at the table?” Now though men may not be so light and playful about their religion, yet it is the inclination of the human heart to do up their religious matters in a day, and enjoy the world and sin the rest. This disposition tends to sap the foundation of public virtue. It will, if permitted to gain universal ascendency, serve eventually to overthrow our government. This is an evil with which we have to contend in every good and worthy improvement, not only with respect to the virtues of the heart, but such as are common to the intellect, which are requisite in the true progress of science and the arts and human governments, the true progress of the world.

The End

Sermon – Fire – 1840

This sermon was preached by Rev. William M. Rogers in 1840 after the loss of the ships Harold and Lexington.

SERMON

OCCASIONED BY THE LOSS

OF THE

HAROLD AND THE LEXINGTON,

DELIVERED AT THE ODEON,

January 26, 1840.

By WILLIAM M. ROGERS,
PASTOR OF THE FRANKLIN STREET CHURCH.

Rev. William M. Rogers,

Dear Sir,

We were so much interested in the Discourse, delivered by you yesterday, in regard to the destruction of the ‘Lexington,’ and the dreadful loss of life on that occasion, that we are anxious to have it published. We hope that our belief, that good may be done thereby, will be a sufficient reason for you to comply with this request.

With sincere regard and respect,

Your friends,

JOHN C. PROCTOR,
THOMAS A. DAVIS,
DANIEL NOYES,
HENRY EDWARDS,
JOHN R. ADAN,
WM. J. HUBBARD.

Boston, Jan. 27, 1840.

GENTLEMEN,

Agreeably to your request, I submit the manuscript to your disposal. With many thanks for your favorable judgment on my labors,

I remain, yours in the Gospel,

WM. M. ROGERS.

To Messrs. John C. Proctor,
Thomas A. Davis,
Daniel Noyes,
Henry Edwards,
John R. Adan,
Wm. J. Hubbard.

SERMON.JEREMIAH XLIX. 23

HAMATH IS CONFOUNDED, AND ARPAD: FOR THEY HAVE HEARD EVIL TIDINGS: THEY ARE FAINT-HEARTED; THERE IS SORROW ON THE SEA; IT CANNOT BE QUIET.

God only is unchangeable. All else is mutable. Amidst the vicissitudes of things he sits upon the throne of his eternity, inaccessible to change and unapproached of death, the same yesterday, to-day and for ever. Pervading nature by his universal presence, and unmoved amidst all fluctuations, He controls every event, and turns every change to the accomplishment of his own sovereign purposes. There are no accidents in the government of God, no calamities which come unforeseen, unanticipated. But all is known, and predetermined, and for purposes good to man and worthy God. When calamity overtakes us, it is difficult to discern his hand in events which bring with them only unmingled sorrow. Faith is overborne, the heart is over-tasked, and the defences and refuges of piety are prostrated by the first rush of affliction. But when the soul has had time to regain her balance, it becomes her to know, that God is good in sorrow as in joy, in these fearful events which crush our hopes, as in his providential bounty and care, as in the mercies of the cross and the joys of an eternal heaven.

What then is the voice of God in this calamity? What the lesson of his mercy, taught us in blasted hopes, in the hearts broken, in homes desolate and empty? What is the teaching of God, when he makes the dead—our friends, brothers, sisters, children, fathers, to utter his truth? From the graves God hath opened for them embosomed in the waters, let the dead speak to-day, and let us hear their voice a the voice of the eternal God our Father.

There is sorrow on the sea; there are evil tidings on the land. Why is it?

I. There is sorrow on the sea.

Separation from home, parting from friends, coarsness of fare, daily toils and exposure to the diseases of other climates, with sudden death upon the deep; these are the life, not the sorrows of those who go down to the sea. Their sorrows are of a deeper cast. Who has not seen the good ship swing from her moorings, and lift her canvass to the breeze, while the pier-head was thronged with eager friends cheering her parting and waving their last kind wishes for a happy return. The flag of her country waved above her—the emblem of her power and protection, far as the wind may bear, the billows foam. But, ah, she goes where the might of a nation is powerless—among the wonders of God in the sea. How often does the sailor mark the gathering storm, and brace him to meet it with the resources of seamanship. He has seen the sea tumultuous, he has felt the blast of the tempest before, and he walks the deck, strong, in his own resources. The thunders utter their voice, the lightnings flash, deep calleth unto deep, and lift their waves like arms to embrace and engulf the ship. She bends to the tempest, and braces her yards to its blast, or flies before it with resistless speed. But how little can man do. Her canvass is rent to shreds, a rope parts, spar after spar goes by the board, the ship does not answer her helm and she is overborne by the storm, or lies upon the waters, unmanageable, the plaything of its tumultuous waves. How often are the horrors of fire or the leak accompaniments and accessories of the storm, until the good ship goes down with all her rich freight, and the waters gather over her, as if she had never been. Truly God walks the sea in fearful majesty. It may be the sturdy men that walked her deck betake them to their boats, with hope of rescue and of home yet warm about their hearts. But how often is it a living death. The night brings no rest, the sun no cheering. They look for land, and see it not; they discern a sail, and it turns to cloud. An hungered, athirst, starved to the very bone, the kindliness of nature is overpowered, and they glare upon one another with hungry and cannibal eyes. They live in their coffins and their graves are beneath them.

There is sorrow on the sea. Even within the protection of our bays and harbors, where clustering vessels had sought a refuge from the storm, God hath broken the ships of Tarshish with an East wind, and while the shores were blackened with the many who sought their rescue, ready to peril life for life, within sight of their danger, within hearing of their agony, the storm has overmastered them and given back their mutilated corpses to the land again.

There is sorrow on the sea. We have spoken of familiar and recorded sorrow. But who can measure the griefs unwritten save in the book of God; who can catch and utter again the voice of human agonies amid the waste of waters unheard but by the ever present One? Who can describe the bitterness of their death, who went down to the grave struggling hopelessly, with no eye but His upon them? There are none of you familiar with the seas, who have not often passed in mid ocean a spar, a timber, rounded with the ceaseless wash and wear of waters, barnacled and tasseled with weeds, once doubtless a portion of some noble ship. But what was she, and whence? Where are the men that peopled her? She went forth and came not again. Her history is brief. She left her port and was never heard of more. The merchant, who has freighted her deep with the abundance of his warehouse, pores over the registers of arrivals and departures—but her name and her fate are hidden. The mother, whose boy has wandered from his home to the deep, looks for his coming—but he does not come; and often she asks, are there tidings—but tidings there are none. There is unknown sorrow on the sea.

But these are the common and expected casualties of the sea. They are the history of every day and the burden of every print. We meet them without surprise and leave them without abiding impression. Indeed it has come to be accounted a natural death for the seaman to perish by the waters; and when he dies, he dies often unknown, unvalued, with but a passing sensation upon the public mind. Sometimes, indeed, one we have known, and loved, leaving a family circle bound up in his life, finds his grave in the sea, and even then the teachings of that sorrow are too much limited to the firesides which shall know him no more for ever. In such casual and insulated calamities, the public mind is moved too much as the sea, when it open to embosom the sinking ship. There is a wave, a ripple, and it flows on as before. It is moved to sympathy, but passes on uninstructed. The voice of God is hushed amid the thronging cares of life. It is under such circumstances, that our God has often broken the common order of his providences by signal and general calamities. There always has been sorrow on the sea, but now there are evil tidings on the land. It comes to every church, to every congregation, to the families and firesides of our city, and our Commonwealth. It is not the nameless and homeless sailor who has fallen; it is the known, the loved, the honored, the pride and joy of many hearts. Truly God hath spoken with fearful distinctness, and to us all.

II. There are evil tidings on the land.

The facilities of communication between distant points introduced by steam, have been accompanied with a corresponding increase in travel itself. They who seldom travelled before, except under the pressure of circumstances, now mingle in the throng crowding our great routes. The men of business are there oftener than ever, and with them the man of science, the minister of the gospel on some errand of mercy, the father, the mother with helpless infancy, drawn by the ease of transfer from a quiet home to meet and bless once more the absent and the loved. A calamity here, touches society on the nerve. The dismal history of the Home, the Pulaski, the Lexington, shows a long, sad list of the honored and loved, filling every position in human society, and touching each a thousand hearts in his fall; and so will it be in the future. The community may expect, that whenever calamities occur upon our great routes, it will not be the nameless alone who will perish, but with them, the best life society can furnish.

Who did not feel this when the evil tidings of the Lexington came upon us, and the fearful list of dead became distinct and legible? Who but shrunk from the perusal; who but denied to himself the first overwhelming tidings, and disbelieved in spite of evidence, for hope overmastered fear. And when confirmation strong blasted all hopes, with what deep horror did men look upon one another. It was felt to be and it is a public calamity. Its pressure falls heavily on many firesides, but its shadow is over all.

There are evil tidings for us, for who were there? The men of business, whose foresight and energy pushed enterprise to its utmost; they who were the authors and centres of plans branching and extending until they girdled the globe; they whose activity gave bread to hundreds, they were there. And with them the minister of the gospel, one who had found a home in a land strange to his infancy, and whose integrity, learning and worth had won a place for him in many hearts, and a position honorable amongst men, he was there. And with them, one who had crossed many seas and looked upon death right often, and whose protracted absence had given rise to sad forebodings of his fate, when the glad news of his safe arrival filled many hearts with joy, he was there, and he came to crown the hopes of years, and to meet her who was to be his bride. ¹ He hastened to his bridal, but it was with death; and she who was to be a wife was more than a widow. And they too were there who reverently took up their dead, that they might bear it to the family tomb, to rise together in the last day, and together God buried them. And helpless infancy enfolded in a mother’s arms, now first no protection, and veiled and enshrouded, the last sad office of a mother’s love, it was there. The eager crowds that thronged that boat were fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, friends, and with life vigorous at their hearts, and hope bright before them, they rushed, they knew it not, to their own graves. But could the private history of the individuals on board that boat be known, could we follow the tidings of death to each desolate home, and broken heart, there would be more of anguish in the circles of friends who live to suffer, than in the horrors of that night.

But among them never can we forget one, a brother of this church, with whom we have taken sweet counsel, and walked to the house of God in company, with whom we have broken the bread, and lifted the cup, the emblems of a Saviour’s sacrifice, with whom our prayers have gone up to God, and our labors been joined on earth;—possessed of a sweetness of temper, touched lightly by the cares and vexations of life, with a religious character ripening and maturing with great promise; loved as a son and as a brother, and loved in relations more tender than either, life was worth to him all it could be worth to any man. He entered that boat, committing himself, and the record yet remains to us, to his covenant keeping God, and his God in covenant hath taken him to join the sister and the brother, “not lost, but gone before.” And there with his God in covenant let us leave him, assured that redeeming love is a portion richer for the soul than any earthly good. ²

III. There is sorrow on the sea, and evil tidings on the land, and why is it?

In a government administered by infinite wisdom and goodness, nothing can transpire except in consistency with mercy. Sorrows come not forth of the dust; they spring not out of the ground. They have their purpose, and it is one worth the gaining, even at the price of life, and of such life. If we shrink sensitively, and who does not, from the horrors of that night, let us remember that the purpose of their death in the government of God, is as glorious as they were dreadful. In the heavens, one world calls to another to praise God, and in all their glorious circles, day to night, and night to day, proclaim him Creator. That is the voice of his majesty challenging the reverence of man. But here the dead speak to us, and from the enfolding depths where God hath them sure against the resurrection, I seem to hear them admonish us. This is the voice of his mercy—and it tells us to be ready to die at any time and in any way.

It is most solemn truth, that God has pledged himself to no man, how or when he will bring him to his grave. He has cast the shadows of futurity about it and bidden us be always ready. He will not give us this knowledge, to calculate how long we may live in sin, and when it is indispensable to become Christians. He will not sanction our being aliens while we may, and children when we must; but everywhere, in every open grave, in the common course of his providence, in unusual and marked calamities, in the warning of his word and the voice of all experience, he bids us be ready for any death at any time, for there is no safety to the Christless. This is the voice of God’s mercy to the living, coming up from those waters lit up by the fires of death. There never was a calamity so fatal, which to the eye of man seemed so needless, and so improbable; never one where the means of relief from within themselves or rescue from without so promising; and yet every hope was blasted, every expedient fruitless, and death closed the harrowing scene. It is often the case, that God leaves man to the sympathies of home, and the soothing kindnesses of affection; but often as here, he visits him in the midst of his strength, with all the appurtenances of safety about him, yes, in the very midst of his triumphs over nature, where he has imprisoned the fire, and made the air and the water, and the rugged iron toil for him like bondmen, in the very supremacy of his dominion over the elements, the hand of God is upon him and he dies. No miracle attests the present God. The fire and the waters and the air retain their nature, and, acting each in conformity with unvarying laws, they accomplish the purposes of God, and man finds his wisdom foolishness, and his strength helplessness. There is no safety to life in human devices.

And when the outcry rang through that ill-fated boat, that death threatened them in a form most appalling to humanity, how soon were the distinctions of society annulled. Poverty stood side by side with wealth, knowledge with ignorance, strength with feebleness, all were upon a common level. Of what avail was wealth? The coined silver and gold were not worth their bulk in water to quench the burning boat, but were emptied out and trodden under foot as worthless, with the life in peril. Here let the eager and the greedy for gain measure the value of their gettings. Here let them learn that gold will not save the life, though it may ruin the soul. Here let the proud take the guage and dimensions of their distinctions; they never have barred the pathway of death. Here let the vigorous, full of life, and trusting to see many years, acknowledge a mightier strength, before which theirs is but imbecility.

Oh, that was a scene of many and crowding thoughts. Home, and the hearts bound up with them in the issues of life, wives, husbands, parents, children, brothers, sisters, all were present to their thoughts. All that made life worth the having, concentred in the hour; but all that made life desirable could not make the cup to pass from them, which wrung the life from out their hearts.

That was a place of prayers. If men ever pray in earnest, it is at sea, when the help of man utterly fails, and God only can rescue. Doubtless men prayed who never prayed before. God grant their prayers were heard. And there were Christians there to test their piety, and cast themselves upon God, “for he who trusts in Jesus is safe, even amid the dangers of the sea.” But even prayer coming up amid voices of agony, and dying men, was heard unanswered, and they died. Does not God teach us to rely for life neither on human skill or strength, upon wealth or the ties that bind to life, nor even upon the piety of the Christian, for God hath richer blessings for him than life, stored up in heaven. There is assurance of existence no where. God warns us then to be ever ready to die in any way, for he has pledged himself to no man how or when he will bring him to his grave.

There is a duty which yet remains to me in closing this discourse. I address myself to those who never have professed to be Christians, and ask them,

Are you ready to die? Had your soul been in their souls’ stead, what would be now your condition? It is by the mercy of God that you are spared, and spared to the service of this day, to hear the solemn truth of this discourse, that God has not pledged himself to you, how or when he will bring you to the grave. Within the year, three members of the congregation and one of the church have found a sudden death on the sea, while a father of a member of the church has shared the same fate. Of the members of the congregation one was a child of the church, baptized and nurtured for God; the other in the vigor of manhood, generous, energetic, kind and affectionate, found his death by the burning of the Harold in mid ocean. The third in the vigor and promise of life was lost in the Lexington. These events which have filled the house with mourners, and touch every heart, are enforced and deepened by the sorrows of many bereaved by the recent calamity, teaching the same lesson in God’s providence. Be ready to die in any way, at any time. Are you ready? Men have died to teach you the lesson. Many hearts have been wrung with anguish to impress it. And while the weeds of wo are before your eyes, let the voice of the dead come to you as the voice of God, “Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” Be in earnest in the care of your soul. Put off from you this listlessness and indifference which is stamping death upon your immortality, and robbing you of heaven. Strip yourselves of that foolish and wicked pride which fears the world more than God, and shrinks from personal and earnest thought and action in religion. You have chosen a pastor as your guide to Heaven. Make him so frankly, openly, disclosing your hopes, your fears, your doubts and difficulties, never shrinking from a manly avowal of your estate, or from the use of opportunities to know yourself and God. And above all, go to your God, for you have a soul to be saved, and he alone can save it through Christ. So shall your end be peace, and the very grave, which hath enlarged herself to enclose the coming, shall yield to you the fruits of eternal life.

Brethren of the church: A brother has gone, for God has taken him. He mingles his voice in these services no more. He will break bread with us never again on earth. It would seem more natural for the eye to rest upon him in the vigor and bloom of health, worshipping among us, than to speak of his death. But such is the inscrutable purpose of God. We yet remain, but how long? He who hath taken him alone knoweth. And are we ready? Is our work done? Could we leave the earth in peace, feeling that nothing remained for us to do? Oh, it is not so. How much is yet undone! How brief a space to finish it! As we think of the dead, let us cherish no fears for him. We may exultingly take hold upon the promise of Christ, “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” There is enough of sureness and blessedness in the promise to cheer and sustain us in this bereavement. But let us think of the living, of our duties to our own souls, to those who are without hope in the world, and to God himself. Put away the fatal sloth and inaction, which preys upon the piety of a church, like a canker. Awake to righteousness and sin not. Let us humble ourselves before God for our negligence and remissness in his work, our coldness and unbelief, and implore the aids of his Spirit in humble dependence. Let us do these things, for death cometh and afterwards the judgment.

To the bereaved of this church and congregation, we extend our sympathies in their sorrows, and implore in our prayers the blessings of the Almighty Father upon them. But look to richer consolations than are found in any human hearts. Remember that your sorrows, keen as they may be, proceed from one who has tasted death, and known its bitterness, deepened a thousand fold by the accumulated sins of a world. He who hung upon the cross, and tasted death for every man, He it is who hath permitted these bereavements to come upon you, and for the self same end for which he died. They are means to the renewal of the heart or the sanctification of the soul. They are intended to prepare for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Let not affliction fail of its end. Let it not be needful, that sorrow come again. Go then to the Saviour, who has smitten in tenderness, not in wrath, and learn to read this life in the light of heaven—and to hear the voice of God from the graves of your dead, bidding you be holy, trust in Christ, and be happy forever.

Endnotes

1. Capt. Carver, of Plymouth. After a passage so long as to excite serious apprehensions for his safety, he reached his port, and, by his request, every preparation had been made to consummate his marriage immediately on his arrival home. He entered the Lexington in that expectation, and was lost.

2. ‘Among the passengers who perished, was Mr. James G. Brown, of Boston, a young gentleman of devoted religious character, and greatly endeared to all who knew him. On the morning of the fatal 13th, he took, leave of his friends in Newark, where he had recently formed a most tender connection. Among his baggage, since found on the beach, and restored to his friends, is his pocket Bible, and a little volume called “Daily Food,” consisting of texts of Scripture for every month and day in the year. The texts for January 13th, (the fatal day) were, with singular appropriateness, these—“He that endureth to the end shall be saved.” “Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.” These passages were marked by his own hand by a turned down leaf, and from his known habits had doubtless been the theme of his meditation just before the melancholy catastrophe. The portion of Scripture marked as recently read is the 23d psalm, embracing the triumphant exclamation of David, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”’ Newark, N. J. Advertiser.

* Originally posted: December 24, 2016.

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SERMON

GENERAL LAFAYETTE,

Modern Emigrant;

Lover of Liberty:

Introduction.

A DISCOURSE.

1. Because of the influence of a bad Government.

2. Because of the state of the Church in that country.

3. Because of Acquaintances and Christian Friends.

4. Because of the reputed and reviving state of Christianity in this country.

I. The time to which the text refers us.

II. We have here a particular account of what Philip did; and, therefore, let us notice —

1. The place he chose.

2. The means Philip used to gain success.

3. The success which attended Philip’s labors.

III. There are two or three considerations, which, if noticed, will tend to show that Philips success was extraordinary; and those were

IV. The work in which Philip employed himself when at the city of Samaria. “He preached Christ into them;” that is, he preached the Savior unto them as an all-sufficient sacrifice to be offered to justice for the sins of his people; and, in order to do this, he must have preached —

1. Their incapacity to atone for themselves;

2. Philip must have preached Christ’s mysterious union with Deity.

3. Philip must have preached the manner of Christ’s crucifixion and death.

4. Philip must have preached the triumphant resurrection of Christ;

5. Philip preached Christ as a King having a kingdom, and mildly swaying his scepter over the same; and, therefore, he preached

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