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Title: Humanity in the City

Author: E. H. Chapin

Release Date: August 27, 2008 [EBook #26441]

Language: English

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HUMANITY IN THE CITY.


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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as
faithfully as possible; please see list of printing issues at the end
of the text.

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[Illustration: E. H. Chapin]




HUMANITY IN THE CITY.

BY THE

REV. E. H. CHAPIN.


 NEW YORK:
   DE WITT & DAVENPORT, PUBLISHERS,
   160 & 162 NASSAU STREET.

 BOSTON:
   ABEL TOMPKINS, 38 & 40 CORNHILL.

       *       *       *       *       *

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by
DE WITT & DAVENPORT,

In the Clerk's Office of the U. S. District Court
for the Southern District of New York


 G. W. ALEXANDER,
   BINDER,
 9 Spruce Street.

 W. H. TINSON.
   STEREOTYPER,
 24 Beekman Street.

 TAWS, RUSSELL & CO.
   PRINTERS,
 No. 26 Beekman Street.


       *       *       *       *       *


CONTENTS.

                                                         PAGE

  I. THE LESSONS OF THE STREET                             13

  II. MAN AND MACHINERY                                    39

  III. THE STRIFE FOR PRECEDENCE                           65

  IV. THE SYMBOLS OF THE REPUBLIC                          93

  V. THE SPRINGS OF SOCIAL LIFE                           123

  VI. THE ALLIES OF THE TEMPTER                           157

  VII. THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR                           187

  VIII. THE HELP OF RELIGION                              223


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PREFACE.


A volume like the present hardly requires the formality of a preface. It
is the continuation of a series already published, and, like that, aims
at applying the highest standard of Morality and Religion to the phases
of every-day life. In order, however, that the view with which these
discourses have been prepared may not be misconceived, I wish merely to
say that I am far from supposing that these are the only themes to be
preached, or that they constitute the highest class of practical
subjects, and shall be sorry if in any way they seem to imply a neglect
of that interior and holy life which is the spring not only of right
affections, but of clear perception and sturdy, every-day duty. I hope,
on the contrary, that the very aspects of this busy city life--the very
problems which start out of it--will tend to convince men of the
necessity of this inward and regenerating principle. Nevertheless, I
maintain that these topics have a place in the circle of the preacher's
work, and he need entertain no fear of desecrating his pulpit by secular
themes, who seeks to consecrate all things in any way involving the
action and the welfare of men, by the spirit and aims of His Religion
who, while he preached the Gospel, likewise fed the hungry, healed the
sick, and touched the issues of every temporal want. I may have failed
in the method, I trust I have not in the purpose.

    E. H. C.

_New York, May, 1854._




THE LESSONS OF THE STREET.

HUMANITY IN THE CITY.




DISCOURSE I.

THE LESSONS OF THE STREET.

      Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the
      streets.--PROVERBS, i. 20.


The great truths of religion may be communicated to the mind and the
heart in two ways--by abstract treatment, and by illustration. It must
be taken up in its absolute connection with God, and with our own souls.
In solitary meditation, in self-examination, and in prayer, we shall
learn the intrinsic claims which Faith and Duty have upon reason and
conscience. But we cannot proceed far before we discover the necessity
of some _symbol_, by which these abstract principles may be made
distinct to us. And, looking around for this purpose, we find that all
the phases of existence are full of spiritual illustration--full of
religious suggestion and argument. Thus our Saviour pronounced his great
doctrines of Eternal Life, and of Personal Religion, and then turned to
the world for a commentary. Under his teaching nature became an
illuminated missal, lettered by the lilies of the field, and pencilled
with hues that played through the leaves of Olivet. The wild birds, in
their flight, bore upward the beautiful lesson of Providence, and the
significance of the Kingdom of Heaven was contained in a mustard-seed.
By no abstruse reasoning did he make his instructions so vivid to his
disciples, and so fresh to ourselves. But he awoke the conviction of
moral need, and repentance, and Divine Love, by drawing from instances
with which they had been familiar all their lives--the procedures of
government, the transactions of business, the labors of the husbandman,
and the incidents of home. And the result is essentially the same,
whether we start with the religious truth to find some illustration in
the world around us, or from some aspect of human life, or nature,
extract a religious truth. Nor need this always be sharply obvious. It
is only necessary that our point of view be sufficiently elevated to
throw a spiritual light upon things, and to reveal their moral
relations; for, often, our understandings are cleared, and our hearts
made better, by the mere scope and tendency of such observations.

With this conviction, I called your attention, last winter, to some of
the "Aspects of City Life," and with the same view, I wish now to
address you, for a few Sunday evenings, on the Conditions of Humanity in
the City, in which series I shall endeavor not only to present new
topics of interest, but to urge more explicitly some points, which, in
the afore-mentioned discourses, I merely touched upon.

The essential meaning of the personification in the text is in
accordance, I think, with the general tenor of remark which I have just
been making. For I understand it to mean, that everything is
instructive, that even in the common ways of life the most important
truths, and the profoundest moral and religious significance, are
contained. And the words before us, also, specifically indicate the
subject upon which I wish to speak this evening, for they declare that
"Wisdom... uttereth her voice in the streets."

The street through which you walk every day; with whose sights and
sounds you have been familiar, perhaps, all your lives; is it all so
common-place that it yields you no deep lessons,--deep and fresh, it may
be, if you would only look around with discerning eyes? Engaged with
your own special interests, and busy with monotonous details, you may
not heed it; and yet there is something finer than the grandest poetry,
even in the mere spectacle of these multitudinous billows of life,
rolling down the long, broad, avenue. It is an inspiring lyric, this
inexhaustible procession, in the misty perspective ever lost, ever
renewed, sweeping onward between its architectural banks to the music of
innumerable wheels; the rainbow colors, the silks, the velvets, the
jewels, the tatters, the plumes, the faces--no two alike--shooting out
from unknown depths, and passing away for ever--perpetually sweeping
onward in the fresh air of morning, under the glare of noon, under the
fading, flickering light, until the shadow climbs the tallest spire, and
night comes with revelations and mysteries of its own.

And yet this changeful tide of activity is no mere lyric. It is an epic,
rather, unfolding in its progress the contrasts, the conflicts, the
heroisms, the failures,--in one word, the great and solemn issues of
human life. And a few comprehensive lessons from that "Wisdom which
uttereth her voice in the streets," may prove a fitting introduction,
from which we can pass to consider more specific conditions of humanity
in the city.

Taking up the subject in this light, I observe that the first lesson of
the street is in the illustration which it affords us of the
_diversities of human conditions_. The most superficial eye recognizes
this. A city is, in one respect, like a high mountain; the latter is an
epitome of the physical globe; for its sides are belted by products of
every zone, from the tropical luxuriance that clusters around its base,
to its arctic summit far up in the sky. So is the city an epitome of
the social world. All the belts of civilization intersect along its
avenues. It contains the products of every moral zone. It is
cosmopolitan, not only in a national, but in a spiritual, sense. Here
you may find not only the finest Saxon culture, but the grossest
barbaric degradation. There you pass a form of Caucasian development,
the fine-cut features, the imperial forehead, the intelligent eye, the
confident tread, the true port and stature of a man. But who is this
that follows in his track; under the same national sky, surrounded by
the same institutions, and yet with those pinched features, that stunted
form, that villainous look; is it Papuan, Bushman, or Carib? Fitly
representing either of these, though born in a Christian city, and
bearing about not only the stamp of violated physical law, but of moral
neglect and baseness. And no one needs to be told that there are savages
in New York, as well as in the islands of the sea. Savages, not in
gloomy forests, but under the strength of gas-light, and the eyes of
policemen; with war-whoops and clubs very much the same, and garments as
fantastic, and souls as brutal, as any of their kindred at the
antipodes. China, India, Africa, will you not find their features in
some circles of the social world right around you? Idolatry! you cannot
find any more gross, any more cruel, on the broad earth, than within the
area of a mile around this pulpit. Dark minds from which God is
obscured; deluded souls, whose fetish is the dice-box or the bottle;
apathetic spirits, steeped in sensual abomination, unmoved by a moral
ripple, soaking in the slump of animal vitality. False gods, more
hideous, more awful, than Moloch or Baal; worshipped with shrieks,
worshipped with curses, with the hearth-stone for the bloody altar, and
the drunken husband for the immolating priest, and women and children
for the victims. I have no terms of respect too high for the brave and
conscientious men who carry the gospel, and their own lives, in their
hands to distant shores. But, surely, they need not go thus far to
_seek_ for the benighted and the debased. They may find there a wider
extent of heathenism, but none more intense than that which prevails
close by the school and the church. The richest products of modern
progress and Christian culture grow on the verge of barren wastes, and
jungles of violence, and "the region of the shadow of death."

In the street, however, not only do we behold these different degrees of
civilization, but those problems of diversity, which the highest form of
existing civilization developes--the diversities of extreme poverty, and
extreme wealth, for instance. Here sits the beggar, sick and pinched
with cold; and there goes a man of no better flesh and blood, and no
more authentic charter of soul, wrapped in comfort, and actually bloated
with luxury. There issues the whine of distress, beside the glittering
carriage-wheels. There, amidst the rush of gaiety; the busy, selfish
whirl; half naked, shivering, with her bare feet on the icy pavement,
stands the little girl, with the shadow of an experience upon her that
has made her preternaturally old, and it may be, driven the angel from
her face. Still, we cannot believe that above that wintry heaven which
stretches over her, there is less regard for the poor, neglected child,
than for that rosy belt of infant happiness which girdles and gladdens
ten thousand hearths.

And here, too, through the brilliant street, and the broad light of day,
walks Purity, enshrined in the loveliest form of womanhood. And along
that same street by night, attended by fitting shadows, strolls
womanhood discrowned, clothed with painted shame, yet, even in the
springs of that guilty heart not utterly quenched. We render just homage
to the one, we pour scorn upon the other; but, could we trace back the
lines of circumstance, and inquire why the one stands guarded with such
sweet respect, and why the other has fallen, we might raise problems
with which we cannot tax Providence, which we may not lay altogether to
the charge of the condemned, but for which we might challenge an answer
from society.

And, if we would ascertain the practical purport of this lesson of human
diversity which is so conspicuous in the street--the meaning of these
sharp contrasts of refinement and grossness, intelligence and ignorance,
respectability and guilt--we only ask a question that thousands have
asked before us. And yet, it is possible to surmise the purpose of these
diversities. We know, for one thing, that out of them come some of the
noblest instances of character and of achievement. Ignorance and crime
and poverty and vice, stand in fearful contrast to knowledge and
integrity and wealth and purity; but they likewise constitute the dark
background against which the virtues of human life stand out in radiant
relief; virtues developed by the struggle which they create; virtues
which seem impossible without their co-existence. For, whence issues any
such thing as _virtue_, except out of the temptation and antagonism of
vice? How could _Charity_ ever have appeared in the world, were there no
dark ways to be trodden by its bright feet, and no suffering and sadness
to require its aid? I look at these asylums, these hospitals, these
ragged schools--a zodiac of beautiful charities, girdling all this
selfishness and sin--I look at these monuments which humanity will honor
when war shall be but a legend, and laurels have withered to dust; and
when I think what they have grown out of, and why they stand here, I
regard them as so many sublime way-marks by which Providence unfolds its
purposes among men, and by which men trace out the plan of God.

And then, again, perhaps this problem of human diversity presses
heaviest where civilization is the most advanced, in order that men may
be more sharply aroused to seek some practical solution. It is an
encouraging sign when an evil begins to be intensely felt, and the
demand for relief becomes desperate. The civilization of our time is
imperfect; involves many incongruities; perhaps creates some evils; but
that it is an improved civilization, is evinced by the fact that it is
_self-conscious_; for perception is the necessary antecedent of endeavor
and success. The contrasts of human condition, then, that unfold
themselves in the crowded street, may teach us our duty and our
responsibility in lessening social inequality and need.

But a solution of this problem, clearer perhaps than any other, appears
when we consider another lesson of the street; a lesson which requires
us to look a little deeper, but which, when we do look, is no less
evident than these diversities. That lesson unfolds the essential
_unity_ of humanity. For, we find that the differences between men are
_formal_ rather than _real_; that, with various outward conditions, they
pass through the same great trials; and that the scales which seem to
hang uneven at the surface, and to be tipped this way and that by the
currents of worldly fortune, are very nearly balanced in the depths of
the inner life. We are shallow judges of the happiness or the misery of
others, if we estimate it by any marks that distinguish them from
ourselves; if, for instance, we say that because they have more money
they are happier, or because they live more meagrely they are more
wretched. For, men are allied by much more than they differ. The rich
man, rolling by in his chariot, and the beggar, shivering in his rags,
are allied by much more than they differ. It is safer, therefore, to
estimate our neighbor's real condition by what we find in our own lot,
than by what we do not find there. And now, see into what an essential
unity this criterion draws the jostling, divergent masses in yonder
street! Each man there, like all the rest, finds life to be a
discipline. Each has his separate form of discipline; but it bears upon
the kindred spirit that is in every one of us, and strikes upon motives,
sympathies, faculties, that run through the common humanity. Surely, you
will not calculate any _essential_ difference from mere appearances; for
the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over brackish
depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that
covers a divine peace. You know that the bosom _can_ ache beneath
diamond brooches, and how many blithe hearts dance under coarse wool.
But I do not allude merely to these accidental contrasts. I mean that
about equal measures of trial, equal measures of what men call good and
evil, are allotted to all; enough, at least, to prove the identity of
our humanity, and to show that we are all subjects of the same great
plan. You say that the poor man who passes yonder, carrying his burden,
has a hard lot of it, and it may be he has; but the rich man who brushes
by him has a hard lot of it too--just as hard for _him_, just as well
fitted to discipline him for the great ends of life. He has his money
to take care of; a pleasant occupation, you may think; but, after all,
an _occupation_, with all the strain and anxiety of labor, making more
hard work for him, day and night, perhaps, than his neighbor has who
digs ditches or thumps a lapstone. And it is quite likely that he feels
poorer than the poor man, and, if he ever becomes self-conscious, has
great reason to feel meaner. And then, he has his rivalries, his
competitions, his troubles of caste and etiquette, so that the merchant,
in his sumptuous apartments, comes to the same essential point, "sweats,
and bears fardels," as well as his brother in the garret; tosses on his
bed with surfeit, or perplexity, while the other is wrapped in peaceful
slumber; and, if he is one who recognizes the moral ends of life, finds
himself called upon to contend with his own heart, and to fight with
peculiar temptations. And thus the rich man and the poor man, who seem
so unequal in the street, would find but a thin partition between them,
could they, as they might, detect one another kneeling on the same
platform of spiritual endeavor, and sending up the same prayers to the
same eternal throne.

But, say you, "here is one who is returning to a home of destitution, of
misery; where the light of the natural day is almost shut out, but in
which brood the deeper shadows of despair." And yet, in many a splendid
mansion you will find a more fearful destitution, a dearth of
affections, killed by envy, jealousy, distrust; stifled by glittering
formalities; a brood of evil passions that mock the splendor, and darken
the magnificent walls. The measure of joy, too, is distributed with the
same impartiality as the measure of woe. The child's grief throbs
against the round of its little heart as heavily as the man's sorrow;
and the one finds as much delight in his kite or drum, as the other in
striking the springs of enterprise or soaring on the wings of fame.
After all, happiness is the rule, not the exception, even in the hearts
that beat in the crowded city; and its great elements are as common as
the air, and the sunshine, and free movement, and good health. And what
the fortunate may seem to gain in variety of methods, may only be
unconscious devices to simulate or recover that natural relish which
others have never lost. And no one doubts that the great dispensations
of life, the events that make epochs in our fleeting years, cleave
through all the strata of outward difference, and lay bare the core of
our one humanity. Sickness! does it not make Dives look very much like
Lazarus, and show our common weakness, and reveal the common marvel of
this "harp of thousand strings?" And sorrow! it veils all faces, and
bows all forms alike, and sends the same shudder through the frame, and
casts the same darkness upon the walls, and peals forth in the same
dirge of maternal agony by the dead boy's cradle in the sumptuous
chamber, and the baby's last sleep on its bed of straw. And Death! how
wonderfully it makes them all alike who in the street wore such various
garments, and had such distinct aims, and were whirled apart in such
different orbits! Ah! our essential humanity comes out in those composed
forms and still features. Those divergent currents have carried them out
upon the same placid sea at last; and the same solemn light streams
upon the clasped hands and the uplifted faces. We don't mind the drapery
so much then. It seems a very superficial matter beside the silent and
starless mystery that enfolds them all.

In what I have thus said I do not mean to maintain that outward
conditions are nothing. I think they are a great deal; and we do right
in striving to improve them; in escaping the evil, and seeking to secure
the good that pertains to them. But, I repeat, when we come to the
essential humanity, to the real discipline and substance of life, we
find the same great features; and so this lesson of the street may help
explain the problem suggested by the other; may reconcile each of us to
our condition in the crowd, and direct our attention to substantial
results.

But, again, the street, with its processions and activities, teaches us
that much in human life is merely _phenomenal_, merely _appears_. We
enter into this truth by a very common train of observation. We know how
much is put on purposely for the public gaze, and has no other intention
than to be seen; how hollow are many of the smiles, and gay looks, and
smooth decencies. And even the complexion of some, with its red and
white, is more unsubstantial than all the rest; for it is in danger of
being washed away by the first shower. It is strange to meet people
whose personal significance in life is that of a shop window exhibiting
lace and jewelry; strange to encounter men in whose place we might
substitute a well-dressed effigy, and they would hardly be missed. Of
course appearances should be attended to, and are good in their place.
It is right that we should honor society by our best looks and ways. But
it is not merely ridiculous, it is sad, to think how much in the street,
where humanity exhibits all its phases, is appearance and but little
else.

But dress and manners are not all that is phenomenal in human life.
These men and women themselves, this streaming crowd, these brick walls
and stately pinnacles, those that pursue and the things that are
pursued, are only appearances. It may be profitable for us to stand
apart from this multitude, this river of living forms, and think in how
short a time it all will have passed away; how short a time since, and
it was not! A little while ago, and this rich and populous city was a
green island, and our beautiful bay clasped it in its silver arms like
an emerald. The wilderness stood here, and the child of the forest
thought of it as a prepared abiding place for himself and for his people
for ever. The red man has gone; the wild woods have vanished; and these
structures, and vehicles, and busy crowds, have come into their places
magically, like the new picture in a dissolving view. But are these
forms of life, is your presence here or mine, any more substantial than
those that have sunk away? Nay, all this splendid civilization, what is
it but a sparkling ripple in the calm eternity of God? Dwellings,
stores, banks, churches, streets, and the restless multitudes, are but
forms of life,--as it were a rack of cloud drifting across the mirror of
absolute being. That which seems to you substantial is only spectral.
And as the dress of the fop, and the smile of the coquette, is merely an
appearance; so the wealth for which men strain in eager chase, and the
fabrics which pride builds up, the anvils on which labor strikes its
mighty blows, and the body to which so much is devoted, and which
absorbs so much care, are but appearances also. While that which may
seem to you as a shadow--the spiritual substratum of life, the basis of
those spiritual laws which run through all our conditions--is the only
abiding substance.

If we only look in this light, my friends, upon the continuous spectacle
of human movement and human change, we shall find that "Wisdom...
uttereth her voice in the streets." Old as the thought may be, in the
rush of the great crowd it will come to us fresh and impressively, that
all this is but a form of spiritual and eternal being. A day in the city
is like life itself. Out of unconscious slumber into the brilliant
morning and the thick activity we come. But, by-and-by, the heaving mass
breaks into units, and one by one dissolves into the shadow of the
night. Two cities grow up side by side--the city in which men appear,
the city into which they vanish; the city whose houses and goods they
possess for a little while and then leave behind them, and the city
whose white monuments just show us the pinnacles of their estates in the
eternal world. The busy, diversified crowd that rolls through the
streets--it is only an appearance! It is a ceaseless march of
emigration. In a little while, the names in this year's Directory may be
read in Greenwood.

But we must not rest with this as the final lesson of the street. It is
only the form of Life that is transient and phenomenal; but the _Life_
itself is here, also--here, in these flashing eyes, and heaving breasts,
and active limbs. These conditions, however transient, involve the great
interest of Humanity; and that lends the deepest significance to these
conditions. The interest of Humanity! which gives importance to all it
touches, and transforms nature into history; which imparts dignity to
the rudest workshop, and the most barren shore, and the humblest
grave--this permits us to draw no mean or discouraging conclusions from
the achievements and the changes of the multitudes around us. It may do
for the skeptic, who sees nothing in existence but these forms of
things; who sees nothing but the limited phenomena of our present state,
and thinks that includes all; it may do for him to croak over the
transitoriness of life, and call it a trivial game. But it is _not_
trivial; and there is no spot where man acts, there is nothing that he
does, that is insignificant. Perhaps you have a quick eye for the
foibles of people, and can detect their vanities, and meannesses, and
laughable conceits. If you employ this gift to correct a bad habit, or
expose a falsehood, it is well enough. But if it induces you to look
upon things merely with the skill of a satirist, then let me say, there
is no "ludicrous side" to life; there is nothing in human conduct that
is simply absurd. The least transaction has a moral cast, and every word
and act reveals spiritual relations. The interest of man can never be
thrown into insignificance by his conditions; these draw interest from
him. And, whatever his post in the world, however limited or broad his
sphere of observation, for _him_ life is real, and has intense
relations. We must not stand so far apart from the crowd as to occupy
the position of mere spectators, and regard these men and women as so
many mechanical figures in a panorama. We must look through the depths
of their experience into their own souls, and through the depths of that
experience again upon the world, beholding it as it appears to the
beggar, and the lonely woman, and the child of vice and crime, and the
hero, and the saint, and as it falls with intense yet diverse
refractions upon all these multiform angles of personality. So shall we
learn to cherish a solemn and tender interest in the dear humanity
around us, and feel the arteries of sympathy which connect it, in all
its conditions, with our own hearts. And, as we return homeward from our
study of the street, it may be with our irritation, and prejudice, and
selfishness softened down; with a larger love flowing out towards the
least, and even the worst; realizing the spiritual ties that make us
one, and the Infinite Fatherhood that encircles us all; perhaps
suggestions will come to us that have been best expressed in the words
of the poet--

    "Let us move slowly through the street,
      Filled with an ever-shifting train,
    Amid the sound of steps that beat
      The murmuring walks like autumn rain.

    "How fast the flitting figures come!
      The mild, the fierce, the stony face;
    Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
      Where secret tears have left their trace.

       *       *       *       *       *

    "Each, where his tasks or pleasures call
      They pass, and heed each other not.
    There is, Who heeds, Who holds them all,
      In His large love and boundless thought.

    "These struggling tides of life that seem,
      In wayward, aimless course to tend,
    Are eddies of the mighty stream
      That rolls to its appointed end."




MAN AND MACHINERY.




DISCOURSE II.

MAN AND MACHINERY.

      For the spirit of the living creature was in the
      wheels.--EZEKIEL, i. 20.


Whatever may have been the significance of the sublime vision from which
I have extracted those words, I do not think that their essential
meaning is perverted when I apply them to the subject which comes before
us this evening. I am not aware of any sentence that expresses more
concisely the relation which I would indicate between _Man_ and
_Machinery_; between those great agents of human achievement and the
living intelligence which works in them and by them. And though a Divine
Spirit moved in those flashing splendors which burned before the eyes of
the prophet, is it not also a divine spirit that mingles in every great
manifestation of humanity, and that moves even in the action of man,
the worker, toiling among innumerable wheels?

Perhaps if we were called upon to name some one feature of the present
age which distinguishes it from all other ages, and endows it with a
special wonder and glory, we should call it the Age of Machinery. We
trust our age is unfolding something better than material triumphs. The
results of past thought and past endeavor are pouring through it in
expanding currents of knowledge, liberty, and brotherhood. But the great
_agents_ in this diffusion of ideas and principles are those vehicles of
iron, and those messengers of lightning, which compress the huge globe
into a neighborhood, and bring all its interests within the system of a
daily newspaper. Like the generations which have preceded us, we enter
into the labors of others, and inherit the fruits of their effort. But
these powerful instruments, condensing time and space, endow a single
half-century with the possibilities of a cycle. If we take the period
comprehending the American and the French revolutions as a dividing
line, and look both sides the chasm, we shall discover the difference
of a thousand years. Remarkable for brilliant achievements in every
department of physics, ours well deserves to be called the Age of
_Science_, also. But it is still more remarkable, for the application of
the most majestic and subtle constituents of the universe to the most
familiar uses; the wild forces of matter have been caught and harnessed.
Go into any factory, and see what fine workmen we have made of the great
elements around us. See how magnificent nature has humbled itself, and
works in shirt-sleeves. Without food, without sweat, without weariness,
it toils all day at the loom, and shouts lustily in the sounding wheels.
How diligently the iron fingers pick and sort, and the muscles of steel
retain their faithful gripe, and enormous energies run to and fro with
an obedient click; while forces that tear the arteries of the earth and
heave volcanoes, spin the fabric of an infant's robe, and weave the
flowers in a lady's brocade.

I think, then, we may appropriately call it--The Age of Machinery. It is
not a peculiarity of the city, but, rather, seeks room to stretch
itself out; and so you may perceive its smoky signals hovering over a
thousand vallies, and the echo of its mighty pulses throbbing among the
loneliest hills. Nevertheless, it is sufficiently developed here to
illustrate the Conditions of Humanity in the City, and this fact,
together with the general interest of the subject, is my warrant for
taking it up in the present discourse. And my remarks must necessarily
be of a general cast, as I have no room for the statistics, and details,
and various discussions which grow out of the theme.

And the key-note of all that I shall say, at the present time, is really
in the text itself--"For the spirit of the living creature was in the
wheels."

In the first place, these words suggest the relations of _Use_ and
_Help_ between Man and Machinery. Upon surveying these numerous and
complicated instruments, the thought that most readily occurs, perhaps,
is that of the _necessity_ of machinery. The very first step that man
takes, out of the condition of infant weakness and animal rudeness, must
be accomplished by the aid of some implement. He alone, of all beings
upon the face of the earth, is obliged to _invent_, and is capable of
endless invention. The necessity for this springs out, and is a prophecy
of, his destiny. The moment he was seen fashioning the first tool,
however imperfect, that moment was indicated the difference between
himself and the brute, and the control he was destined to gain over the
world about him. To fulfil this destiny, he confronts nature with naked
hands; and yet, there is the earth to plough, the harvest to reap, the
torrent to bridge, the ocean to cross; there are all the results to
achieve which constitute the difference between the primitive man, and
the civilization of the nineteenth century. The Machine, then--the agent
which links the gratification to the want--is born of necessity. But we
must make a distinction between those instruments which are positively
essential, and those, for instance, which merely answer the demands of
luxury or indolence.

And this brings up the question of the _comparative_ uses of
Machinery--the foremost place being assigned to those implements which
are absolutely indispensable to man's existence upon the earth. But
between this absolute degree, and that of frivolous invention, there are
countless grades of utility. And the question of usefulness must be
decided according to the _standard_ of utility which we apply. If bare
subsistence is assumed to be the end of man upon the earth, most of our
modern inventions are useless. We can travel without a locomotive, and
procure a meal without a cooking-range. The moment we rise above the
grossest conception of human existence, the test of usefulness becomes
enlarged, and we can make a safe decision upon whatever increases man's
comfort, adds to his ability, or inspires his culture. In this way, new
things _become_ indispensable. That which was not necessary _à priori_,
_is_ necessary now, in a fresh stage of development, and in connection
with circumstances that have sprung up and formed around it. That which
was not necessary to man the savage, living on roots and raw fish, is
necessary to man the civilized, with new possibilities opening before
him, and new faculties unfolded within him. The printing-press was not
absolutely necessary to Nimrod, or to Julius Cæsar, but is it not
absolutely necessary now? Strike it out of existence to-day, and what
would be the condition of the world to-morrow? You would have to tear
away with it all that has grown up around it, and become assimilated to
it--the textures of the world's growth for three hundred years. Paul
moved the old world without a telegraph, and Columbus found a new one
without a steamship. But see how essential these agents are to the
present condition of civilization. How many derangements among the
wheels of business, and the plans of affection, if merely a snow-drift
blocks the cars, or a thunder-storm snaps the wires! Our estimate of
necessity, and, therefore, of utility, must be formed according to
present conditions, and the legitimate demand that rises out of them;
these conditions themselves being the necessary developments of society
and of the individual.

But some of these, you may say, are the demands of luxury, of indolent
ease, of man setting nature to work and lapsing in self-indulgence. To
some degree this result may grow out of the present state of things; as
some portion of evil will follow in the sweep of an immense good. But
what is the precise sentence to be passed upon this prevalent luxury? Of
course, admitting the evil--which is apparent--I maintain that there is
a great deal of good in it; that it is inextricably associated with much
real refinement and progress. Men are accustomed to speak of the
simplicity and purity of past times, and to compare, with a sigh, the
good old era of the stage-coach and the spinning-wheel with these days
of whizzing machinery, Aladdin palaces, and California gold. But the
core of logic that lies within this rind of sentiment forces a
conclusion that I can by no means admit, the conclusion that the world
is going backward. I never knew of an epoch that was not thought by some
then living to be the worst that ever was, and which did not seem to
stand in humiliating contrast with some blessed period gone by. But the
golden age of Christianity is in the future, not in the past. Those old
ages are like the landscape that shows best in purple distance, all
verdant and smooth and bathed in mellow light. But could we go back and
touch the reality, we should find many a swamp of disease, and rough
and grimy paths of rock and mire. Those were good old times, it may be
thought, when baron and peasant feasted together. But the one could not
read, and made his mark with a sword-pommel; and the other was not held
so dear as a favorite dog. Pure and simple times were those of our
grandfathers,--it may be. Possibly not so pure as we may think, however,
and with a simplicity ingrained with some bigotry and a good deal of
conceit. The fact is, we are bad enough, imperfect, not because we are
growing worse, but because we are yet far from the best. I think,
however, with Lord Bacon, that _these_ are "the old times." The world is
older now than it ever was, and it contains the best life and fruition
of the past. And this special condition of luxury is a growth out of the
past, and is the necessary concomitant of much that is good. Opening new
channels for industry, it furnishes occupation for thousands; while, in
many of its phases, it indicates a refined culture, and a sphere
elevated above the imperative wants of existence. It is no proof of the
disadvantages of machinery, therefore, to say that it ministers to
something beside absolute bodily need, and delivers man from a slow and
exhausting drudgery. So far as it helps us to control nature, and
increases the facilities of human intercourse, and diffuses general
comfort and elegance, and affords a respite from incessant physical
toil, so far it is an agent and a sign of progress.

But, it may be said again, that it is the agent of a selfish and
exclusive power, enriching a few and injuring many. And it cannot be
denied that grave problems grow out of the relations between Machinery
and the laboring classes. Every little while, some new invention is
thrust forward, which takes a portion of labor out of the hands of flesh
and transfers it to hands of iron. It is not enough to say that mankind
in general is benefited by these inanimate agents, which do the work of
the world so much more rapidly and powerfully. This may answer as an
argument against a monopoly of any one kind of mechanical force. It may
be a reason for using cars instead of steamboats, and balloons rather
than railroads. The general good must be advanced, whatever the damage
to private interests. But the present case brings up the question
whether machinery is a general good at all; whether the effect of its
introduction into almost every department of labor, will not be felt in
the destitution of millions. And, upon this point, I observe, that, like
all other great revolutions, the immediate effect may be such as has
been suggested. But the final result will be beneficial, and such a
result may be traced out even now. For instance, this clogging of old
departments of labor will precipitate men upon fresh ones, and upon
those that have been too much neglected. It will tend to introduce woman
to branches of industry perfectly suited to her, but which have been too
exclusively occupied by the other sex, and to turn the attention of
robust men to those great fields of productive toil which are as yet but
little improved. It may drive them from the dependence, the crowded
competition, the unwholesome life of the city, into the broad fields and
open air and the sovereignty of the soil. And if this immense intrusion
of machinery has only this result, of equalizing the balance against
production, we shall have one solution of the problem. And there will be
another solution, if this phalanx of mechanism shall lift the mass of
men above the occasions of coarse material drudgery into other
activities, which doubtless will be thrown open, and shall allow more
leisure for spiritual culture. But in this, and all other great
questions affecting human welfare, I throw myself back, finally, upon
the tokens of Providential Design. The world moves forward, not
backward; and the great developments of time are for good, not evil. By
machinery, man proceeds with his dominion over nature. He assimilates it
to himself; it becomes, so to speak, a part of himself. Every great
invention is the enlargement of his own personality. Iron and fire
become blood and muscle, and gravitation flows in the current of his
will. His pulses beat in the steamship, throbbing through the deep,
while the fibres of his heart and brain inclose the earth in an electric
network of thought and sympathy. That which was given to help man, will
not hinder nor hurt him. "For the spirit of the living creature is in
the wheels."

I observe, in the second place, that the words of the text accord with
the testimony which machinery bears to the _dignity of man_. All these
great inventions--these implements of marvellous skill and power--prove
that the inventor, or the worker, himself is _not_ a machine. I know of
nothing which gives me so forcible an impression of the worth and
superiority of mind, of its alliance with the Creative Intelligence, as
the exhibition of an ingenious piece of mechanism. I have stood with
wonder before such a specimen, and seen it work with all the precision
of a reflecting creature. Lifting the most tremendous weights, cleaving
the most solid masses, performing the nicest tasks, as though a living
intellect were in it, informing it and directing its power. I hardly
know of any achievement that stands as a higher witness for the human
mind. The great poem that bursts in a flood of inspiration upon the soul
of genius, and opens the realms of immortal beauty, may lift us to a
nobler plane of endeavor. The heroic act of toil or martyrdom for
principle, certainly has a loftier, because it is a moral, grandeur. But
as an illustration of the _creativeness_ of man's intellect--of its
wondrous capability--of its alliance with that attribute of the Divine
Nature which is evident in the fibres of the grass-blade and the march
of the galaxy--I know of nothing more striking than this piece of
mechanism, which is the product of the most profound and patient
thought, the harmonizing of antagonistic forces, the combination of the
most abstruse details, fitted to the remotest exigencies, and working
just as the inventive mind meant it should, and just as it was set
a-going, as if that mind were presiding over it, were in it, though it
is now far distant, or has vanished from the earth. That mind is
immortal! that nature, which is common to all men, transcends any shape
of matter and is superior to mechanism. And it may be necessary to say
this, necessary to say that man, who is helped by machinery, is
_separate_ from it. It is mind that is thus involved with matter. The
spirit of a living creature that is in the wheels.

It may be necessary to say this, my friends, and to say it frequently,
lest the vast mechanical achievements of our time seduce us into a mere
mechanical life. I do not think that the deepest question is, whether
machinery will multiply to such an extent as to snatch the bread from
the mouths of living men; but whether men, with all the possibilities of
their nature, will not become absorbed in that which supplies them with
bread alone? I have just expressed my admiration for the genius of the
great inventor. Nor can I honor too highly the faithful and industrious
mechanic--the man who fills up his chink in the great economy by
patiently using his hammer or his wheel. For, he _does_ something. If he
only sews a welt, or planes a knot, he helps build up the solid pyramid
of this world's welfare. While there are those who, exhibiting but
little use while living, might, if embalmed, serve the same purpose as
those forms of ape and ibis _inside_ the Egyptian caverns--serve to
illustrate the shapes and idolatries of human conceit. At any rate,
there is no doubt of the essential nobility of that man who pours into
life the honest vigor of his toil, over those who compose this feathery
foam of fashion that sweeps along Broadway; who consider the insignia of
honor to consist in wealth and indolence; and who, ignoring the family
history, paint coats of arms to cover up the leather aprons of their
grandfathers.

I shall not be misunderstood then, when, making a distinction in behalf
of the mechanic by profession, I say that no man should be a mere
mechanic in _soul_. In other words, no man should be bound up in a
routine of material ends and uses. He should not be a mechanic, working
exclusively in a dead system, but always the architect of a living
ideal. And surrounded, astonished, served and enriched as we are by
these splendid legions of mechanism, the danger is that material
achievement will seem to us the _supreme_ achievement; that all life
will become machinery; and the higher interests of being, and the great
firmament of immortality, be eclipsed by these flashing wheels. We are
in danger of being drawn away from the sanctities of the inner life and
the still work of the soul, by this maelstrom of excitement and power.
No religious man can help asking, and asking anxiously, whether the
spirit of devotion is as deep and fresh, whether spiritual communion
with God is as direct and constant, in this whirl and roar, and
marvellous achievement, as they were in times bearing less evidently the
signs of material progress. For, that which merely gives us a stronger
grasp of the world around us, and sends us along the level of nature, is
not the most genuine element of progress; but that which elevates our
moral plane and enriches the great deep of our spiritual being. The
steamship and telegraph are not absolute tokens of this progress, but
the moral earnestness and the Christian charity that work through them
are; and these must spring up in hearts that are not merely adjusted to
the world, but lifted above it--that are not so occupied by mere
machinery as to neglect the living streams of an inward and devout
culture.

But, for another reason,--or as an extension of the same reason,--we
need to realize the truth that man is separate from and superior to
machinery. It is because, upon a practical recognition of this truth
depends the just action of all who control the interests of labor, and,
so to speak, the lives and souls of the laborers. If we should beware of
an influence that would render us _mere_ mechanics in our own higher
nature, we should likewise remove anything that makes others mere
machines, presenting for us no other consideration than the amount of
work they can perform for us, and with how little care and cost. I
cannot now enter into the great questions that spring up here concerning
the relations of capital and labor, and of the employer and the
employed. I only observe that these are among the deepest questions of
the time: questions which will be heard, which must be discussed, and
practically answered. And they who by plans and experiments, however
visionary they may seem, however abortive they may prove, are trying to
solve this problem, are much wiser in their generation than those who
content themselves with cutaneous palliatives and a stolid conservatism.
But I maintain now, that back of all these considerations stands this
truism,--that man is not a machine; that the being who toils in the
factory, the furnace, the dark mine underground, is one who needs and
hopes and suffers and dies, as sinews of iron and fabrics of brass
cannot. "The spirit of a living creature is in the wheels." A cry for
justice, for free action, for spiritual opportunity, comes not from the
roaring engine or the dizzy loom, but out from the midst of those who
are endowed with the sensitiveness and the moral possibilities that
belong to humanity, and humanity alone. Set in motion the grandest piece
of mechanism ever conceived by human genius, and still there is infinite
difference between it and the poorest drudge that bears God's
image,--between it and any human claim.

It must have been a noble spectacle, a few weeks since, to have seen
that great ship[A] sail out of port, stretching its proud beak over the
sea, and with thundering exultation trampling its sapphire floor. One
might have followed its wake with a glistening eye, and said to
himself--"There is the great symbol of human progress, there is the
consummation of man's triumph over nature! The long results of ages are
condensed in that fabric of strength and beauty. Man has compelled the
forest, and ravished the mine, and converted the stream, and chained the
fire; and now, with the eye of science and the hand of skill, he rides
in this triumphal chariot, making a swift, obedient pathway of the
deep!" But when that dark day burst upon them, and nature with one angry
sweep transformed that splendid palace into a floating death-chamber;
when ocean lifted up this triumph of man's skill, and shook it like a
toy; the interest which hung over that awful desolation--the interest to
which your hearts flow out with painful sympathy to-night--was in
nothing that man had achieved, but in humanity itself. All the
workmanship, all the material splendor, all the skill, were nothing
compared with one heart beating amidst that tempest; compared with one
groan that rose from that sea of agony, and then was silent for ever.

    [Footnote A: This discourse was delivered just after the tidings
    of the loss of the San Francisco, in December, 1853.]

And, again, when I consider the conduct of that gallant captain who, day
by day, rode by the side of the shuddering wreck, and in slippery peril
maintained the royalty of his manhood, and sent a brother's cheer and a
brother's help through the storm; when I think of that noble achievement
where the Stars and Stripes and the Cross of St. George were lost and
blended in the light of universal humanity; I say to myself--how does an
act like this shed light upon a thousand instances of human depravity!
What is any material triumph compared to this moral beauty! And what is
the great distinction between rags and coronets, between senates and
workshops, when in the breast of every man, and everywhere, there is the
possibility of such heroism, such charity, and such splendid
performance!

And so, my friends, turning from this specific illustration, and looking
through the wards of cities, the busy factories, the dim attics and
cellars, they all become glorious by the reflected light of the humanity
that toils and suffers within them. Man is greater than any achievement
of mechanism, any interest of capital, and all the questions which these
involve must be brought to the test of his moral capabilities, and his
spiritual as well as earthly wants.

But I observe, finally, that the words of the text suggest the
_Providential design_ and the _Divine agency_ that are involved in the
great mechanical achievements of our age. As the Divine Spirit flowed
through those living creatures and moved those wheels, so God's
influence is in the movement of humanity, and in the instruments of that
movement. We get only a narrow, and often an inexplicable conception of
things, until we behold them encircled by this horizon of a Providential
design. And if humanity, with all its claims and possibilities, is
involved in this network of mechanism, so doubtless are the processes of
Infinite Wisdom. Something more than material greatness, or ends limited
merely to this earth, is to be wrought out by it. Indications of this
appear already. The telegraph and steamship, for instance, serve not
only the interests of trade and commerce, but of liberty, and
brotherhood, and of Christian influence.

It is beautiful to see how the most selfish agents presently become
converted to the broadest uses, and matter is transformed into the
vehicle of spirit. For God is in history. It is a Divine dispensation,
and has miracles of its own. And, because they come by natural
development let us not fail to recognize the benevolence and the
significance involved with them. Is not the effect of miracle in the
electric wire? The printing-press, is it not the gift of tongues? It is
atheistic to suppose that all these wondrous agents have only a narrow
and material purpose, and play no part in the highest scheme of the
world. Like the prophet by the river Chebar, we may behold them as the
symbols in a sublime vision. These wheels within wheels, full of eyes,
full of intelligence, and full of human destiny and vast purpose, we
know not all their meaning yet. But they have a great meaning.
Beneficent intention runs through their swift motions--voices of promise
rise in their multitudinous sounds. A living spirit is in these
wheels--the influence of God; the spirit of man. And, in due time, out
of them will evolve the incalculable issues of human welfare and the
Divine glory.




THE STRIFE FOR PRECEDENCE.




DISCOURSE III.

THE STRIFE FOR PRECEDENCE.

      And if a man strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned
      except he strive lawfully.--II. TIMOTHY, ii. 5.


In walking the streets of the city, there rises the interesting
question--What are the various motives which animate these restless
people, and send them to and fro? As a French author has well
observed,--"The necessaries of life do not occasion, at most, a third
part of the hurry." They are comparatively few who struggle among these
busy waves for a bare subsistence. There are others who are impelled by
some of the deepest affections of the human heart, and who toil day
after day with noble self-sacrifice for the comfort of dependent
parents, and helpless children. While others still run on errands of
mercy, and work in the harness of unrelaxing duty. But when we have
taken all these influences into the account, and made the most of them,
there remains a large quantity of activity which, as we trace it to its
spring, we shall find issuing from a desire for influence, for
notoriety, for some kind of personal distinction. The city,--in this
instance, as in many others, representing the world at large,--is
essentially a race-course, or battle-field, in which, through forms of
ambitious effort, and cunning method, and plodding labor, and
ostentation, the aspirations of thousands appear and carry on a _Strife
for Precedence_.

And, in selecting this phase of human life as the theme of the present
discourse, I observe in the first place--that the desire for precedence
is one of the _deepest_ and most _subtle_ motives in the soul of man. It
is prolific of disguises. It is not merely under the mask which we may
put on before other people, but it glides through various
transformations of self-deceit; like the evil genius in the fairy tale,
now dwindling to a mere seed, now bursting into a devouring fire. When,
with an honest purpose, we probe it and pluck at it, still we may
detect it in the lowest socket of the heart. Often it is most vital when
we feel most sure that it is vanquished. It delights in the garb of
humility, and finds its food in the profession of self-renunciation. See
its grossest expression in the desire for physical superiority--the
glory of the victor in the Grecian games, or the modern pugilist with
the champion's belt. This is the reason why men, priding themselves upon
qualities in which they are equalled by any mastiff and excelled by any
horse, will stand up and batter one another into a mass of blood and
bruises. And if we analyze the merit of some conqueror upon a hundred
battle-fields, we shall find ingredients almost as coarse. Only there
was a larger impulse, and more genius to light the way; so that _his_
combat in the ring became _achievement_, and his success _fame_. The
outside difference was in the value of the stakes; but the huzzas did
not rise much nearer to heaven in the one instance than in the other.
And when we get at the real centre of all those plaudits, we find only a
little throbbing atom, a little human heart, all on fire with the lust
for supremacy.

But these are the more palpable shapes of this desire for Precedence. It
works more covertly, but with no less energy. I need not--for I
cannot--specify all the instances in which it acts. It would constitute
a more concise statement to affirm where it does _not_ act. It is
sufficiently apparent in the scramble of the market and the parade of
the street; at the toilette of beauty; in the etiquette of the
drawing-room, where people sit as if in a cavern of icicles; in the
spurious patriotism of politics; and too often, it is to be feared, in
the highest seats of the synagogue, and where men lift holy hands of
prayer. It is the scholar's inspiration. When he comes to the steep and
rugged way, it helps him to make a foot-hold, and the thorns blossom
into roses as he climbs. Sometimes, even, it saturates the plan of the
philanthropist, and peppers the milk of his charity with an inconsistent
wrath.

It seems an unhappy, as it must often be an unjust method, to attribute
any appearance of good conduct to the meanest possible motive. It is a
policy that makes a man afraid of his best friends. He feels that every
draft he makes upon human honor, or affection, is liable to be cashed
with counterfeit bills. If there were no alternative between the
cleverness that suspects everybody, and the credulity that trusts
everybody, I think I had rather be one of the dupes than one of the
oracles. For, really, there is less misery in being cheated than in that
kind of wisdom which perceives, or thinks it perceives, that all mankind
are cheats. But, while simple fact forbids our assuming either of these
extremes, we must, nevertheless, in reasoning upon the phenomena of
human conduct, allow large scope for the influence of which I am now
treating. For, as I have already intimated, we shall find it lurking
under numerous forms. In discussing the question of Slavery, for
instance, it is often said--that it is for the interest of the master to
take good care of his human as he does of his brute stock--to see that
they are well-fed, clothed, &c. And so it is for his _interest_ to do
this. But how often does the lust for supremacy over-ride interest
itself! How often does an imperious personality thrust itself forward
in the most absurd ways, damaging its own property and welfare, just as
a boy breaks his top, or a balked rider shoots his horse, or an
independent congregationalist locks his pew-door, as much as to
say--"There, the world knows one thing about me, at least. It knows that
I am _master_ and _owner_ here!"

But I observe, further, that, while this desire for Precedence is common
among men of all conditions, there are some modes of its expression
which are peculiarly excited in a democratic form of society. That which
is the open glory of a community like ours, is with many a secret
vexation and shame. People boast here of the equality of our
institutions, and then try their best to break up the social level. In a
genuine Aristocracy, where they have endeavored to preserve a
gulf-stream of noble blood in the midst of the plebeian Atlantic, and a
man holds his distinction by the color of the bark on his family tree,
and the kind of sap that circulates through it, there is no danger of
any unpleasant mistakes. The hard palm of Labor may cross the gloved
hand of Leisure, and nobody will suspect that the select is too
familiar with the vulgar. Consequently, there is a good deal of
affability and prime manliness, besides those associations of sentiment
and imagination which, if there must be an aristocracy, lend it an
artistic consistency. But here, where everybody says that all men are
equal, and everybody is afraid they _will_ be; where there are no
adamantine barriers of birth and caste; people are anxiously exclusive.
And though the forms of aristocracy flourish more gorgeously in their
native soil, the genuine _virus_ can be found in New York almost as
readily as in London, or Vienna. And the virus breaks out in the most
absurd shapes of liveries and titles. And these forms of aspiration are
not only absurd because they are inconsistent, but because they
illustrate no real ground of precedence. They are superficial and
uncertain. They do not pertain to the man but to his accidents. He gains
by them no intrinsic glory, no permanent good. To employ the language of
the text, by these he strives for masteries; but he does not strive
lawfully, and so he is not crowned. And this leads me to say something
respecting what is false, and what is legitimate, in that strife for
Precedence which is so amply illustrated in the life of the City.

Let us, then, consider some of the forms which this struggle assumes in
the streets and the dwellings around us. I remark, in the first place,
that it inspires much of the effort for _wealth_. I believe there are
but few, comparatively, who are anxious to make money merely for the
sake of piling it up, and counting it out. There may be a mania of this
kind, in which men become enamored of Mammon for his own sake, and hug
him to their breasts, and kiss his golden lips, with all the ardor of
lovers. Still, I suspect that the genuine miser--that is, one who loves
money for itself alone--is an exceptional man. But every man who is not
absolutely inactive and useless in the world, is moved by some kind of
passion. For, it is not correct to speak of _outliving_ our passions. We
may outlive the passion of young, fresh love, that makes the world a
May-time of blossoms and of roses. We may outlive the passion for
selfish fame, because some transcendent claim of duty snatches us up to
a sublimer level. We may change these earlier forms for the passion of
philanthropy, the passion for truth, the passion of holy conviction. But
so long as we live at all, we do not outlive passion. And with many the
most persistent desire is for that precedence which attends the
possession of wealth. That miser, as you call him, with a face like
parchment, and in whose nature all the springs of emotion seem to have
grown rusty with long disuse, is animated by a secret flame that keeps
him all a-glow. It is the consciousness of power--the mightiest power of
the present age--the power of money. Those figures which he scrawls at
his writing-desk involve a more potent magic than the cabalistic cyphers
of Doctor Dee, or Cornelius Agrippa. His hand presses the spring of an
influence that casts midnight or sunshine over the World of Traffic, and
shakes entire blocks of real estate with a speculative earthquake. It is
not the Czar or the Sultan, but the Capitalist, that makes war or
preserves peace. The destinies of the time are enacted not in Congress
or Parliament, but in the Bank of England and in Wall street. It is a
mighty power that sits on 'Change, and inspires the great movements of
the world; sending its messengers panting through the deep and feeling
around the globe with telegraphic nerves. And one may well be more
ambitious to wield a portion of this power than to speak in senates, or
to sit upon a throne. Here is something that will raise him above the
common level; will pay him for long years of sacrifice and contumely;
will hide meanness of birth, and scantiness of education, and paint over
the stains of damaged character. Here is the most feasible way of
distinction in a democracy. The doors of respectability and honor turn
on silver hinges. Gravity relaxes, fashion gives way, beauty smiles, and
talent defers, before the man of money. He may be an ignoramus, but he
possesses the golden alphabet. He may be a boor, but Plutus lends a
charm which eclipses the grace of Apollo. He may have accumulated his
wealth in a way which would make an intelligent hyena ashamed of
himself, but he _has_ accumulated it, and the past is forgotten. I do
not mean to say that, as the general rule, wealth is thus associated,
but I believe that one great motive for money-getting, is the
consciousness of the power and the distinction that accompany its
possession; and so, many a man in the thick dust of the mart--though it
may not always be clear to himself--is really engaged in a strife for
Precedence.

Again, consider the illustrations of this strife in the _Style_ of
_Living_. It is really a battle of chairs and mirrors, of plate and
equipage, and is the spring of the monstrous extravagance that
characterizes our city life. For I suppose there is no place on the
earth where people have run into such gorgeous nonsense as here--turning
home into a Parisian toy-shop, absorbing the price of a good farm in the
ornaments of a parlor, and hanging up a judge's salary in a single
chandelier. Not that I accept the standard of absolute necessity, or
agree with those who cry out--"Have nothing but what is absolutely
_useful_!" For, if the universe had been cast after their type, there
would have been no embroidery on the wings of the butterfly, and the
awful summit of Mont Blanc would have yielded fire-wood. There is an
instinct of beauty and grace implanted in our nature, which demands
elegance and even luxury, and the bare necessaries of life do _not_
answer every purpose. And, to say nothing of the employment which these
accessories of refinement afford for thousands--for I have spoken of
this in the previous series--the most sturdy utilitarian is not
consistent with his theory. He defers to the social condition around him
to such an extent that he sleeps on a bed instead of a bench, and wears
broadcloth instead of untanned sheepskin. And, therefore, others might
say, and say truly, that a good deal that is actually superfluous is the
fruit of certain social proprieties which cannot, with any consistency,
be violated. Our style of living may lawfully run from the bare
necessaries of existence, through the stages of comfort and convenience,
even into luxury, according to our condition and means. But in some of
the style of living in this very city, there is neither good taste,
social propriety, nor common sense. It is an apoplectic splendor; a
melo-dramatic glitter; in one word, a vulgar spirit of social rivalry
blossoming in lace, brocade, gilding, and fresco. It is one way of
getting a head taller than another upon this democratic level. It is a
carpet contest for the mastery in what is called "society." And if one
mourns over the exuberant selfishness that lifts its pinnacles out of
this dreary sea of hunger and despair, and wonders that so many live
wrapped in the idea that they were created merely to be gratified; he
can hardly help being amused, on the other hand, at this fashionable
strife for precedence, and the methods which it developes.

But enough has been said to illustrate the false element in the great
struggle for Human Precedence. This vicious principle is most
comprehensively stated in the proposition, that there is no substantial
ground of supremacy in anything that is merely accidental or external to
a man. These things may sometimes stand as symbols of true merit and
greatness, but they are not themselves proofs of precedence. A man's
wealth may be the fruit of noble energy and honest toil, and he may
exert a wide influence by virtue of that intrinsic ability of which his
good fortune is the sign. Indeed, the more I study the world the more I
acquire a respect for these kings of enterprise--these heroes of
practical effort--who, feeling that they have been sent into the world
to do something, do not fold their hands and shut their eyes in ideal
dreams, or stumble at discrepancies, but lay hold of what lies about
them--rough stone, timber, iron, brass,--and become what it is really a
noble compliment to say of any man--"the architects of their own
fortune." I have great respect for these men who drive the wheels, and
kindle the furnaces, and launch the ships, and build the edifices, and
keep this sea of every-day action perpetually agitated by the keels of
their endeavor. Their claims to precedence, however, consist not in
their wealth, but in that which accumulates the wealth. But the man who
rests merely upon what he _has_, occupies no substantial ground of
supremacy. And if this is the case with those whose claim hangs merely
upon what they are worth in the world of money, it is at least equally
so with those who set their title to precedence upon their style of
dress or living. For how uncertain are all these things! depending upon
the fickle currents of fortune; throwing the honors into our hands
to-day, and transferring them to our neighbor to-morrow! How tantalizing
this conflict, in which victory changes with the fashion, and we feel
weak or strong according to the verdict of a clique! And all these
rivalries and envies and aspirations, what a confession of personal
feebleness they really are! How slightly a true man feels them, who
knows that he is not mere silk or furniture, and never frets about his
place in the world; but just slides into it by the gravitation of his
nature, and swings there as easily as a star! But the mere leader of
fashion has no genuine claim to supremacy; at least, no abiding
assurance of it. He has embroidered his title upon his waistcoat, and
carries his worth in his watch-chain; and if he is allowed any real
precedence for this it is almost a moral swindle,--a way of obtaining
goods under false pretences. But without running into more minute
discussion, I say again--that there is no substantial ground of
supremacy in aught that is merely accidental or external; and he who
rests upon such claims stands upon a pedestal as uncertain as it is
spurious.

"If a man strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive
lawfully." This was the old rule of the Grecian games, which would not
permit the prize to be gained by any unfair or incomplete methods. It
was applied by the apostle to a specific work--the great work of the
Christian ministry. But it is a law which prevails in all human action.
And, while it suggests that spurious precedence for which there is so
much striving, it also indicates the fact that there _is_ a real
difference of degree among men, and that there are proper methods of
obtaining supremacy.

And, as I look around in the populous city, in order to illustrate the
grounds of this lawful precedence, I observe, in the first place, that
there are men who occupy the higher places by ordinance of nature so to
speak; or, more properly, by the purpose of God. It is a fact in nature
that all men are created equal, and it is also a fact in nature that
all men are not equal. All men are created equal as to the essential
rights and privileges of humanity. They have a claim to live; they have
an impartial share in the Divine Love; they have a right to liberty, to
freedom of thought and of limb, by a constitution older than any
historical document, drawn up in the court of God's decrees and
authenticated by His handwriting in the soul. Thus far all men are
_created_ equal, and, if it turns out otherwise with them, it ensues
from what is _made_ by man, not what is commanded by Heaven. But so far
as quantity of nature is concerned--original capacity and spiritual
gifts--men are not equal. And if it is asked--"Why are they not equal?"
I answer, it is by appointment of the same Sovereign Mind which has
ordained that "one star shall differ from another star in glory." But
each form of being has its own capacities, and if these are filled the
moral harmony is secured. Through all prevails the law of compensation,
balancing the vicissitudes of experience. And, among these diversities
of human capacity, some must of necessity occupy the highest place--men
whose native genius carries them up in a splendid orbit, and endows them
with control. And the world at large always acknowledges the rectitude
of this appointment. It cherishes no envy toward men of this kind, but
renders them spontaneous homage.

But, although this genius, this original power, rises to a natural
supremacy, it does not involve the most legitimate element of
precedence. There is no real ground of merit in the natural talents of a
man, any more than there is a ground of merit in personal beauty, or
family descent. He has nothing but what has been given him--the five
talents instead of his neighbor's one talent--and, so long as he does
not use them to their best purpose, there is only an admirable
possibility, no merit of achievement.

And all genuine merit--that which entitles one to some ground of human
precedence--comes from personal achievement in life; substantially, from
the stock of actual benefit which one has contributed to the world, and
which has become assimilated to his own spiritual nature. The ground of
precedence--so far as it is lawful for man to think of anything like
precedence at all--is not in outward possessions, not in gifts, but in
_uses_. And here is thrown open a broad and noble field, depending not
upon genius or station, but upon _will_, and therefore accessible to
every man. Here is an arena where one may strive lawfully, emulous to
build up his own inner nature, emulous to let such power as he possesses
go out in blessings for the world. A field for all of us, my friends,
right here in the dense city, amidst the hurrying feet, the clang of
machinery, and the roar of wheels. And the condition of the game is, not
large capacity but good purpose and loyal endeavor; not to strive
greatly but to strive lawfully.

And, I observe once more, that the real claim to precedence is not
eagerly snatched by us, but _comes_ to us. It is not in _seeming_ but in
_being_, and it makes no essential difference whether the world
confesses it or not, so long as we actually have it, working in our
consciousness of duty and drawing our consolation from inward resources.
Here, my friend, is your work--here is the field of opportunity, which,
however broad and rich absolutely, is for you great and pregnant with
incalculable possibilities. And though men may not see its best results,
they are nevertheless real, and develop in your own soul a light and
power, a ground and fabric of precedence that cannot be shaken, and will
never vanish away.

And yet, to a large extent, the world does confess this true supremacy.
For, let me ask, who among these crowds of citizens are really honored?
Not those who are so eagerly and vainly striving in their narrow,
conventional circle, heedful merely of the rules of their own little
game. But those who actually fill an honorable place in life. How much
acknowledged dignity is there in that man who just accepts his station
and makes the most of it, filling it with patience and self-sacrifice
and achieving the victory of principle and affection! How much genuine
nobleness in the quiet, unconscious discharge of duty! The field for
precedence is it not a broad one, and close at hand? And is there no
alternative between a frivolous and outside distinction, and some great
theatre of action large enough to fill and dazzle the world's eye?
Daily, right around us, there are occasions that summon up all the
energies of manhood as with a trumpet-peal. See yonder! where the
conflagration, bursting through marble walls, casts a terrible splendor
down the street and reddens the midnight sky. What an enemy has broken
loose among us, devouring the achievements of human skill and the hopes
of enterprise! What shall stay it? With a triumphant shout it snaps the
fetters of stone; it roars with victory; it bends its flaming crest
towards peaceful homes where men and mothers and babes lie in
unconscious slumber. The bell beats; and what old bugle-strain, what
pibroch, what rattling drum, ever sounded a more perilous call? And on
what battle-field that you have read of was there ever displayed a
loftier heroism, a more dauntless energy, than that man displays who,
with the unconscious courage of duty, plunges into the furnace, mounts
the quivering walls, and, making his own body a barrier between his
fellow-men and the flame, stands there scorched, bruised, bleeding, and
beats the red terror back and beats it down, with that irresistible
energy which always springs from the human will bent upon a noble
purpose?

And so, in other forms, more quiet and more sacred, where the
anticipation of public applause does not furnish its motive, men are
exercising a heroism, and working achievements, that make dim and pale
the trophies that are plucked from fields of war and in lists of
glittering renown. And when these things are known the hearts of men
render a spontaneous honor, and admit the genuine titles of supremacy.
Yet, if this true achievement in life is not known or confessed by the
world, its results really exist, and impart their inalienable strength
and blessing to the soul, while as the grounds of false supremacy
dissolve all gives way.

And, my friends, the tendency of things is to bring out more and more
these real claims to human precedence, and to throw all spurious titles
into the shade. This is the radical purport of true democracy, which I
take to be the social synonym of _Christianity_. I have shown what
inconsistencies and false distinctions swarm here in our midst, under
the profession of republican equality. This, however, is because names
are _not_ things. I don't call that "democracy" which is simply the
domineering spirit of self-exaltation in a new shape. For there is no
_essential_ difference whether we call the social order a monarchy or a
commonwealth; whether its leading men are Charles and Louis, or
Robespierre and Cromwell. If we must have the old social fallacies, they
appear more attractive with the old symbols. In that case, I would
rather not have them changed. For, when I look merely at the
_sentimental_ side of things, I feel sorry when the so-called "Royal
Martyr," with a dignity which contrasts with his past conduct, stretches
his head upon the block; or when the pitiless insults of a Parisian mob
are hurled upon the head of the beautiful Marie Antoinette. A poetic
regret and enthusiasm is awakened by the associations that cluster about
the Golden Lion and the Bourbon Lilies. And, when I turn to those grim
Ironsides, or those frantic Jacobins, the work they are doing looks
savage enough. But, with a more discriminating vision, I perceive that
that rude popular storm, which desolates palaces and shatters crowns,
embosoms a rectifying process which, tumbling all false distinctions
from their pedestals, shall by-and-by heave up the platform of social
justice, and reveal the true dignity of man. The essential work of
democracy is not the destruction of forms; is not the giant arm of
revolution, striking the hours of human progress by the crash of falling
thrones. But its great work is _construction_--is in changing the very
_spirit_ of institutions--and it asserts its legitimacy and bases its
claims upon the Christian doctrine of the human soul.

Therefore, I regard these spurious claims to precedence--these endeavors
after social distinction by virtue of riches, and equipage, and
wardrobes--as only evidences of a transition-state. Men, letting go the
feudal forms, and still assuming that there is some ground of human
precedence, as there really is, have adopted these false expressions of
it. They will in turn pass away, and give place to more genuine
methods.

But let it be remembered, that these false forms of precedence are not
only inconsistent with our social professions and institutions, but they
are futile because they are contrary to the Divine Law. Our endeavors in
life have a twofold operation, and we must count not only their effect
upon others but their reaction upon the fabric of our own inner being.
For, whatever honor _men_ may attribute to us, we know that there is no
real, substantial ground of supremacy except in the excellence and power
of our own spiritual nature. And this is acquired not in ostentatious
and selfish striving, but when self is least thought of; in the calm
work of duty, and when all conception of human merit fades into the
Glory of God. And this is the great end to be desired--this strength and
exaltation of the soul. This imparts the profoundest significance to
that great life-struggle which goes on in these crowded streets. The
city! what is it but a vast amphitheatre, filled with racers, with
charioteers, with eager competitors; surrounded by an unseen and awful
array of witnesses? And here, daily, the lists are opened, and men
contend for success, for station, for power. But these are meretricious
and perishable awards. The real prize is a spiritual gain, a crown that
"fadeth not away." And, if we comprehend the great purpose of existence
at all--if we look with any eagerness to its intrinsic issues and its
final result; we shall heed that decree of Divine Wisdom and Justice
that comes down to us through all the vicissitude of life--through all
the hurry and turmoil and contention. "If a man strive for masteries,
yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully."




THE SYMBOLS OF THE REPUBLIC.




DISCOURSE IV.

THE SYMBOLS OF THE REPUBLIC.

      Thou art a great people, and hast great power.--JOSHUA, xvii. 17.


These words, originally addressed by the Hebrew Leader to the children
of Joseph--the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh--have been applicable to
many nations which, since that time, have risen, and flourished, and
fallen. But when we consider the circumstances of its origin, its
marvellous growth in all the attributes of civilization, and especially
the immense _possibilities_ which it involves; without even being
chargeable with a natural vanity, we may say, that to no country on the
face of the earth have they ever been more fitted than to this. For, my
friends, we know that it _is_ a dictate of our nature to magnify that
which is our own. However insignificant it really is, man spreads an
ideal glory over the land of his birth. Perhaps its historical
importance compensates for its geographical narrowness, or its material
poverty is hidden by its intellectual wealth. From its stock of mighty
men--its heroes, and bards, and sages--who have brightened the roll of
fame; or from its memorable battle-fields, on rude heath and in mountain
defile; or from its achievements which have swelled the tides of human
enterprise, and made the world its debtor; he draws the inspiration, he
carries away the conviction of greatness--so that wherever its emblems
come before his eyes, they touch the deep springs of reverence and
pride. Nor let us condemn this feeling as merely a selfish and
exaggerating one. This spirit of nationality exists for wise purposes,
embosoms the richest elements of loyalty and faith, and is one of those
profound _sentiments_ of our nature that cannot be driven out by any
process of logic.

But, if a nation really inherits the description in the text, it must
possess something more than an illustrious history and an ideal glory.
We must determine its greatness by its symbols; yet these must be not
merely signs of things, but instruments of achievement; not merely the
illustrations of dead works or patriotic enthusiasm, but the agents of
actual power and of living performance. Now, in looking over the world
at the present time, there are other nations to which the words of
Joshua might be applied as well as to our own, and with as little
assumption of national vanity. Other people are great and have great
power, by virtue of political importance, vast possessions, and strong
institutions. To say nothing of the rest, consider that huge domain
which at this hour confronts the troubled principalities of Europe. It
stretches itself out over three continents. The waves of three oceans
chafe against its shaggy sides. The energies of innumerable tribes are
throbbing in its breast. It clasps regions yet raw in history as well as
those that are grey with tradition, and incloses in one empire the bones
of the Siberian mammoth and the valleys of Circassian flowers. And it is
great not only by geographical extent, but by political purpose--great
by the idea which is involved with its destiny--an idea austere as the
climate, tremendous as the forces, indomitable as the will of the
gigantic north. It would set the inheritance of the Byzantine Emperors
in the diadem of Peter the Great. It would make the Sea of Marmara and
the ridges of the Caucasus, paths to illimitable empire and
uncompromising despotism. It moves down the map of the world, as a
glacier moves down the Alps, patient and relentless, startling the
jealous rivals that watch its course, and granting contemptuous peace to
the allies that shiver in its shadow.

In considering, therefore, the symbols which prove that we also are a
great people, having great power, we should select those which indicate
the possession of a _peculiar_ power. This peculiarity is not in our
geographical extent or material greatness. But it _is_, I think, in our
institutions, in the tendency of our national ideas, and in the
legitimate result of these. It is in conceptions and elements the direct
opposite of those that work in the destiny of the mighty empire just
referred to--and for this reason I _have_ referred to it.

In taking up a subject, then, which is especially connected with the
conditions of humanity in the city, because in the city the conception
of a people--of a public--is especially illustrated, let us
inquire--What _are_ the symbols of our republic; the signs and agents of
our greatness as a nation? And, for the sake of avoiding too many
specifications, I propose to consider these under two or three general
classes.

In the first place, then, I would select as a symbol of the Republic,
_Whatever represents the privilege of Free Thought_. As to whatever
gives full play to the intellect, whatever diffuses the intelligence,
whatever wakes up and assists the entire spiritual nature of individuals
and communities, I think there is really more opportunity here than
anywhere else on the face of the earth. And, as a sign and instrument of
this, I would point to some _District School-house_; rough,
weather-worn, standing in some bleak corner of New York or New
Hampshire; through whose closed windows the passer-by catches the
confused hum of recitation, or at whose door he sees children of all
conditions mingling in motley play. Of all conditions, so far as
external peculiarities go; for the laws of nature and the ordinances of
Providence cannot be dispensed with even here; but of one condition as
the recognized possessors of immortal _mind_. Those who have helped
mould the Republic have clearly seen that, although intelligence is not
the foundation of national greatness--for there is something deeper than
that--still it is the discerning and directing power upon which depends
the right use even of moral elements. They have scouted the notion that
there is any ultimate evil in diffused knowledge; any such thing as "a
dangerous truth;" and have affirmed that the best way to winnow the
false from the true, is to equip and set a-going the intellectual
machine by which God has ordained that the work shall be done. It has
been felt, that, if the State can properly extend its influence anywhere
beyond the restrictive limits of evil, or the punishment of overt wrong;
if anywhere it may exercise a positive ministration for good; it is
here, where it does not interfere on the one hand with those outward
pursuits which should be left to individual choice and aptitude, nor on
the other, with those inward sanctities which pertain to conscience and
to God; it is here, in that region of our personality from which we can
best discern our duty and fill our place. For the intellect is the most
neutral of all our qualities. Man is swayed by the animal propensities
of his nature; he is swayed by the moral and religious elements of his
nature; but the intellect, by itself, is not a motive power. It is a
_light_; and no one will object to its being kindled except those who,
by that objection, virtually confess that they fear the light. And this
work of kindling is just what the state purposes to do for a child;
leaving his religious convictions to such helps as conscience has
chosen, and his position in life to the decision of circumstances. And
there is no way in which it can show so much impartiality, and exercise
practically the most essential conception of freedom. For thus, as I
have already said, it recognizes a common inheritance--something which
all have--the possession of _mind_--something which is of more
importance than any external condition, for it influences external
condition; (whoever saw an educated community of which anything like a
large fraction were paupers and criminals?) something on which rests the
claim of human freedom; for the charter of man's liberty is in his soul,
not his estate. It says to the poorest child--"You are rich in this one
endowment, before which all external possessions grow dim. No piled-up
wealth, no social station, no throne, reaches as high as that spiritual
plane upon which every human being stands by virtue of his humanity; and
from that plane, mingling now in the Common School with the lowliest and
the lordliest, we give you the opportunity to ascend as high as you may.
We put into your hands the key of knowledge; leaving your religious
convictions, with which we dare not interfere, to your chosen guides. So
far as the intellectual path may lead, it is open to you.--Go free!" And
when we consider the great principles which are thus practically
confessed; when we consider the vast consequences which grow out of
this; I think that little District School-house dilates, grows
splendid, makes our hearts beat with admiration and gratitude, makes us
resolve that at all events, _that_ must stand; for, indeed, it is one of
the noblest symbols of the Republic--a sign and an instrument of a great
people, having great power.

Or, if you would behold another of these symbols, go through this city,
and pause wherever you hear the rumbling of the _Printing-Press_. As I
have dwelt upon the characteristics of this great power in another
place, I only allude to it here as a vehicle of that _expression_ which
is so essential to all genuine freedom of thought. Mere education is no
evidence of this freedom. It may be made, it has been made in one of the
most intelligent but despotic countries in Europe, an instrument for
drilling the human mind into an absolute routine of state policy. Mere
liberty of speculation is nothing, though it has the boundless firmament
of abstraction for its own, so long as it is not allowed to strike the
solid ground of fact or touch one organized abuse. Let us be thankful
for a free-press--the electric tongue of thought, which at every stroke
is felt throughout a continent, which no dictator dares to chain, and
over whose issues no censor sits in judgment--or only that great censor,
public opinion. Everybody is aware of its evil as well as its good--the
errors, the crudities, the abominations it sends out. But we must
remember that it is only the representative, the voice, of elements that
actually exist in human minds and bosoms; and, surely, it is better that
they should come out into the free air, and be sprinkled by the chloride
of truth, than to work darkly and infectiously out of sight. It is the
hidden, not the open evil that is dangerous.

Or, still again, you might have seen a true symbol of the Republic in
the spectacle which has been presented this very day--the spectacle of a
_Free Worship_. The great stream of religious impulse has poured through
these streets, and separated into its rills of distinctive opinion,
without trepidation and without challenge. Every man has had the
opportunity to commune with his God, and approach the Cross of his
Redeemer, with no established barriers between. Neither the cathedral
nor the chapel rest upon the patronage of the state, but in the deep
foundations of individual conviction. To be sure, here and there, there
is a little assumption; but it is dramatic rather than substantial, and
does not amount to much. Here and there breaks out an unjust prejudice
or a spiteful calumny, but it shames the source more than the object,
and soon dies away in the atmosphere of tolerance and investigation. It
looks doubtful sometimes, but I verily believe that the real spirit, as
well as the mere form of Religious equality, is beginning to prevail.
Every day, it is more and more practically acknowledged that
Christianity is profounder than any name, and exists under strange and
despised names; that there really is decent observance in every church,
and holy living in every communion; and a man finds that his neighbor
has the same essence of righteousness as himself, though he has not half
so many links in his creed. And something more than tolerance grows out
of this practical liberty. It is not easy to measure the moral
sincerity, the moral principle, which results from it; which is far more
precious than mere intelligence; which is the perennial spring and
assurance of national welfare.

But I proceed to observe, in the second place, that we may select as a
symbol of the Republic--a sign and an instrument of a great people,
having great power--whatever illustrates the principle of _Political
Equality_. I am speaking, at present, not of our deficiencies, but of
our possessions; not of the instances in which this doctrine of equality
is practically contradicted, but of those in which it is practically
acknowledged. The sovereignty of every man is a fundamental principle in
our institutions; it is essential to the conception of a Republic; and
so far as it _is_ legitimately a Republic, we shall find this principle
in operation. And, looking around for some extant symbol of this, let me
select that which is the object of so much strife and agitation--the
_Presidential Chair_. I do not, by any means, consider this the most
comfortable seat in the nation, or that the most deserving man is sure
to get there; but, as an emblem, I believe it illustrates the noblest
privileges, and the proudest supremacy, on the face of the globe. And I
refer to it as a _possibility_ for the poorest and humblest child in the
land. No hereditary gallery leads to it--only the broad road of the
people. And, as the highest seat in the nation, it illustrates all the
honors of the nation. They are possible to anybody. And I trust the time
has not yet arrived when this can be said only by way of satire; can be
true only because the waves of political corruption carry the meanest
and unworthiest into office; but as a grand fact, a fact with which are
involved the springs of our national greatness and power, it may be said
that here there are no barriers of caste, no terms of descent, no depths
so low that enterprise cannot rise out of them, no heights so exalted
that genius cannot attain them; for, on a platform as level to the
peasant's threshold as to the nabob's door, stand the judge's bench, the
senator's seat, and the President's chair.

As another symbol of this political equality, I would name the
_Ballot-Box_. I am aware that this is not everywhere a consistent
symbol; but to a large degree it is so. I know what miserable
associations cluster around this instrument of popular power. I know
that the arena in which it stands is trodden into mire by the feet of
reckless ambition and selfish greed. The wire-pulling and the bribing,
the pitiful truckling and the grotesque compromises, the exaggeration
and the detraction, the melo-dramatic issues and the sham patriotism,
the party watch-words and the party nick-names, the schemes of the few
paraded as the will of the many, the elevation of men whose only worth
is in the votes they command--vile men, whose hands you would not grasp
in friendship, whose presence you would not tolerate by your
fireside--incompetent men, whose fitness is not in their capacity as
functionaries, or legislators, but as organ pipes; the snatching at the
slices and offal of office, the intemperance and the violence, the
finesse and the falsehood, the gin and the glory; these are indeed but
too closely identified with that political agitation which circles
around the Ballot-Box. But, after all, they are not essential to it.
They are only the masks of a genuine grandeur and importance. For it
_is_ a grand thing--something which involves profound doctrines of
Right--something which has cost ages of effort and sacrifice--it _is_ a
grand thing that here, at last, each voter has just the weight of one
man; no more, no less; and the weakest, by virtue of his recognized
manhood, is as strong as the mightiest. And consider, for a moment, what
it is to cast a vote. It is the token of inestimable privileges, and
involves the responsibilities of an hereditary trust. It has passed into
your hands as a right, reaped from fields of suffering and blood. The
grandeur of History is represented in your act. Men have wrought with
pen and tongue, and pined in dungeons, and died on scaffolds, that you
might obtain this symbol of freedom, and enjoy this consciousness of a
sacred individuality. To the ballot have been transmitted, as it were,
the dignity of the sceptre and the potency of the sword. And that which
is so potent as a right, is also pregnant as a duty; a duty for the
present and for the future. If you will, that folded leaf becomes a
tongue of justice, a voice of order, a force of imperial law; securing
rights, abolishing abuses, erecting new institutions of truth and love.
And, _however_ you will, it is the expression of a solemn
responsibility, the exercise of an immeasurable power for good or for
evil, now and hereafter. It is the medium through which you act upon
your country--the organic nerve which incorporates you with its life and
welfare. There is no agent with which the possibilities of the Republic
are more intimately involved, none upon which we can fall back with more
confidence, than the Ballot-Box.

But there is a symbol which represents the power and greatness of a
Republic more significantly than all the rest, and is comprehensive of
all the rest. It is the fruit of unfettered thought and political
equality, of intelligence and virtue, of private sovereignty and public
duty--it is a free, true, harmonious _Man_. As the crown or the sceptre
is the symbol of a Monarchy; as heraldic honors are the symbols of an
Oligarchy; so, I repeat, the most expressive symbol of a Republic is a
man--a man free in limb and soul, a man intelligent and self-governed, a
man whose spiritual vision is clear, and in whose breast the voice of
conscience is peremptory, with whom the conception of duties is deeper
even than the conception of rights; in short, a man who embodies all the
elements, and represents to the world the best results of Liberty. Laws
are nothing, institutions are nothing, national power and greatness are
nothing, save as they assist the Moral purpose of God in the development
of humanity. To this test we must bring the symbols of the Republic, and
judge whether they are fitting and consistent. No matter what else they
accomplish, no matter what else they signify, if they do not serve this
end they are either incomplete instruments, or vain forms. For, Man is
of more worth than Institutions; Religion is greater than politics; and
the designs of Providence are wider than the cycles of National destiny.

I turn, then, to the signs of our own national greatness; I turn to
these symbols of spiritual freedom and political equality; and I
ask--how completely do they develop this most significant symbol of
all--how completely do they serve the purposes of God in History--by
securing the welfare, the culture, the moral elevation of humanity? And
the reply is--that, by our institutions and our endeavors, these ends
have been served in various ways. There is here, to-day, a more
enlightened, free, self-governed humanity--and we say it without
arrogance--than anywhere else on the globe. Our benefits are of the kind
that are not realized, because they are so great and familiar--like the
light and the air; but take them away, or transfer us to some other
atmosphere, and how we should miss them, and pine and dwindle! Let no
man, in his zeal for bold rebuke or needed reform, overlook what has
been done, and what is enjoyed here, as to the noblest results of
national greatness and power.

But every sincere man must say likewise that, with us, the
_possibilities_ are far greater than the _performance_; that these
symbols are the splendid tokens of what _may be_, rather than what _is_.
And, that I may bring this discourse to a practical conclusion, let me
say that two things, at least, are necessary to convert these
possibilities into the noblest achievement.

In the first place, it is essential that every citizen of the republic
should recognize his own manhood; the sacredness of his own personality;
and should recognize this especially in relation to his duties, which
are inextricably involved with his rights. For here it is true in a
special sense, that the mass is but an aggregate of personalities--that
public sin is but the projection of your sin and mine. A man will often
say that he is responsible to his country, and responsible to his
constituents; but upon no claim, by no sophistry, should he suffer
himself to forget that he is also responsible to his God. He does forget
this, when he acts for political interests, and as one of a party, as he
never would act in his private affairs. And does he suppose that there
is a corporate vice, or virtue, differing from his private vice or
virtue, as a gentleman's purse differs from the public fund? There is no
such distinction in moral qualities. It is your own coin that helps
swell the amount; it bears your stamp, and you are responsible for the
product. If the party lies, then _you_ are guilty of falsehood. If the
party--as is very likely--does a mean thing, then _you_ do it. It is
surely so, so far as you are one of the party, and go with it in its
action. God does not take account of parties; party names are not known
in that court of Divine Judgment; but your name and mine are on the
books there. There is no such thing--and this is true, perhaps, in more
senses than one--there is no such thing as a party conscience. It is
individual conscience that is implicated. Party! Party! Ah! my friends,
here is the influence which, it is to be feared, balks and falsifies
many of these glorious symbols. Men rally round musty epithets. They
take up issues which have no more relation to the deep, vital, throbbing
interest of the time, than they have to the fashions of our
grandfathers. They parade high-sounding principles to cover selfish
ends; interpret the Constitution by a doctrine of loaves and fishes;
while individual independence and private conviction are whirled away in
the political maelstrom, and the party-badge is reverenced and hugged as
the African reverences and hugs his fetish. And surely it is a case for
congratulation, when some great, exciting question breaks out and jars
these conventional idols, and so sweeps and shatters these party
organizations and turns them topsy-turvy, that a man is shaken out of
his harness, does not know exactly what party he _does_ belong to, and
begins to feel that he has a soul of his own. I am not denying the use
and the necessity of parties as instruments, but protest against them as
ends, especially when principle is smothered under their platforms, and
they absorb the moral personality of a man.

It may not seem so strange that the political field should so often be
the field of a lax and depressed morality, when we consider that here is
the great theatre where human ambition struggles for its aims; here are
enlisted the strongest passions of the soul; here throng some of its
fiercest temptations; here the stakes played for are the kingdoms of
this world, and the glory of them. And this, I suppose, is the reason
why the most authentic type of human depravity is a thoroughly
unprincipled politician. Such an instance, at least, may strike us more
forcibly, because we see the perversion of great faculties, and
capabilities are contrasted with performance; while, on the other hand
he may be confirmed in his moral bankruptcy by the fact that, in playing
upon the passions of men he sees the worst side of humanity. But,
surely, there have been those who passed this ordeal, and came out with
brighter lustre; who have kept the eye of conscience elevated above the
ecliptic of political routine; who have made politics identical with
lofty duties and great principles; whose patriotism was not a clamorous
catch-word, but a breathing inspiration, a silent heart-fire. In private
life they have felt the great privilege of their citizenship; the
magnitude of the obligation which bound them to virtue and to
consistency; while, in public life, they have kept their trust firm as
steel, bright as gold; have felt, with due balance on either side, the
beatings of the popular heart and the dictates of the everlasting Right;
and in themselves have represented the union of liberty and law, the
real greatness of a nation. Without such men, the nation has no
greatness; for its significance and its power are in the moral worth of
its citizens.

The second condition necessary to the fulfilment of the great results
indicated by these symbols, is consistent action upon the ideas that
constitute the basis of our own institutions. If many of the privileges
and peculiarities which I have specified in this discourse are possessed
by other nations, in one respect we differ from them all. These
privileges and peculiarities are _legitimately_ ours. They have not been
grafted on hereditary antagonisms. They have not grown up in _spite_ of
our institutions, but as the _fruit_ of our institutions. These ideas,
entwined with the very roots of our Republic, shooting through every
fibre, running into every limb, bind us to a recognition of human
brotherhood; to sympathy with Liberty wherever it struggles; and to
stedfast opposition to whatever crushes the rights, hinders the
development, or denies the humanity of man. If these symbols of the
Republic mean anything, they mean just this; and whatever is
inconsistent with this, is inconsistent with the terms of our national
birthright. Depend upon it, not the assertion of Liberty, but whatever
is opposed to Liberty, is the innovating and agitating element in this
country. It interrupts the legitimate current of our destiny. It shocks
the popular heart with inconsistency. It becomes mixed with the ashes of
the old heroes, and the land keeps heaving with the fermentation. One
assumption is too impudent, too nakedly in contradiction with the
fundamental ideas of our Republic ever to be admitted--the assumption
that the man who speaks for freedom, who sympathizes with the broadest
doctrine of human rights, and sets around these the eternal barriers of
justice, is an innovator and an agitator. I ask--what made our
Revolution legitimate? What were the central ideas that throbbed in the
breasts of its heroes and martyrs? Take down the old muskets bent in the
hot encounter, and printed with many a death-gripe; take down the old
uniforms, clipped by Hessian sabres and torn by British bullets; take
down the dusty muster-rolls, scrawled with those venerable names--names
that now "are graven on the stone," names that are buried in the sod,
names that have gone up to immortality--and ask, for what was this great
struggle? Was it not for freedom, based upon the conception of the right
and supremacy of freedom? And is _this_ the legitimate conclusion of
that sublime postulate--this other Fact which, never retreating, always
advancing, follows the steps of Freedom over the continent like a
shadow, looms up like a phantom against the Rocky Mountains, and darkens
the fairest waters? On the contrary, is not Freedom that old truth, that
conceded premise that does _not_ agitate? Liberty, Human Rights,
Universal Brotherhood, was it not for these ideas ye fought--was it not
these ye planted in the soil, and laid with the corner-stone of our
institutions? My friends, I know, and you know, could those men give
palpable sign and representation, the answer that would come, as in one
quick flash from bayonet to bayonet, in one long roll of drums, from
Lexington to Yorktown.

These peculiar privileges, then, to which I have referred, differ from
those of other nations inasmuch as they are not grafted expedients, but
legitimate fruits. Unless we change the premises of our Republic, and
shift the foils in our historical argument, these are necessary
conclusions. They are necessary conclusions, if our symbols represent
realities. Russia is consistent with its national idea. It pours forth
its legions and moves to its work with a terrible consistency. And if
we--also a great people, having great power--are equally consistent, we
shall fall back upon no selfish conservatism, but aid whatever tends to
fulfil the Providential purpose of our existence, and whatever helps and
advances man.

One thing is certain. So long as any nation truly lives, it unfolds its
specific idea and lives according to its original type. When it fails to
do this, the sentence of decay is already written upon it. If it fails
to illustrate God's purpose in its obedience, it illustrates His control
in retribution. For there is nothing supreme, nothing finally
triumphant, nothing of the last importance, but His Law. It penetrates,
and oversweeps, and survives all charters and institutions and
nationalities, like the infinite space that encompasses Alps and Andes,
and planets and systems. It is this that successive generations
illustrate. It is this that all history vindicates. If a nation runs
parallel to this Divine Law, it is well; if false to its purpose and its
control, down it goes. The prophet Isaiah, in one of the most terrific
and sublime passages of the Bible, represents the king of Babylon, while
passing into the under-world, saluted by departed rulers, by dead kings,
rising from their shadowy thrones, and exclaiming, "Art thou become weak
as we? Art thou become like unto us?" Thus has many a nation gone down
to its doom. Shall it be so with this Republic, because false to its
ideal? Shall it descend to the shades of perished pomp and greatness,
and see Nineveh with dusty, hieroglyphic robes rising up to meet it; and
Persia, with the empty wine-cup of its luxury; and Rome, with the shadow
of universal empire on its discrowned head; and hear them say--"Art thou
become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?"

My friends, I look at the eager enterprise, the young, hopeful vigor,
the tides of possibility that flow through this great city; I look at
the symbols of this Republic; and I cannot believe that such is to be
the result. I look back upon our history, and cannot argue such a future
from such a past. A great light lay upon the wake of those frail ships
that bore our fathers hither; the wake of past ages, the following of
good men's prayers and brave men's deeds, the mingling currents of
martyr-blood and prophet-fire. And methinks, as they struck the shore,
and met the savage wilderness, a Voice saluted them; a voice not of
profane ambition and of selfish hope, but of Divine promise, intending
Divine results--proclaiming, "Thou art a great people, and hast great
power." And He will fulfil this prophecy, Who leads the course of
history over the broad deep and through mysterious ways, and Who unfolds
His own glory in the destinies of men.




THE SPRINGS OF SOCIAL LIFE.




DISCOURSE V.

THE SPRINGS OF SOCIAL LIFE.

      Let them learn first to show piety at home.--I. TIMOTHY, v. 4.


The text--which I purpose to employ not as a specific precept, but as
the illustration of a general principle--indicates those Springs of
Social Life which constitute the subject of the present discourse.

The crowd in a city affords comparatively little interest, when we
contemplate it merely as a crowd. But, when we resolve it into its
individual particles, and consider each of these as endued with the
attributes and involved with the conditions of humanity, our deepest
sympathies are touched. Every drop of that great stream is a conscious
personality. In some shape, the universe is reflected in it. In some
way, it takes hold of the reality of life: and the living organism of
which it is composed both acts and suffers, receives from the world
around it and contributes to it. That entire mass of people involves
nothing more than the interest of humanity, and the same interest
pertains to the least unit of that mass.

And, doubtless, you have sometimes busied yourself with the
speculation--"Where do all these people come from? And whither do they
retire at night?" Now, this is really a very suggestive question, and to
follow it out to a practical answer would yield results of the
profoundest importance. For out of hidden channels, here and there, _do_
spring all these struggling activities, these human diversities, these
various influences good and evil, that make up the crowd and spectacle
of city life. And night after night, with the rarest exceptions, into
some retreat they all disappear. Some spot--whether it seem the veriest
mockery to style it so, or whether it be a synonym for the sweetest
sanctities--some spot each of this living multitude calls by the name of
"Home."

For some that name is associated with a more than oriental
magnificence. Man and nature wait upon them there in every conceivable
form of service. There is no method of convenience or luxury which
ingenuity can devise; no bounty that earth can yield from her many-zoned
bosom; no shape which art can summon from the regions of the beautiful,
that is not possible there. Lifting its palatial walls, and kindling
with brilliant lights, it stands there as the completest symbol of
material refinement and civilization. It is arctic winter without. The
snow chokes up the dreary street, and the whistling wind cuts the
beggar's rags. But it is Italy, it is Ceylon, it is tropic gorgeousness
within. And these are the abodes of the children of fortune, whose
wishes require no talisman but expression, who, all their lives long,
have been used to such indulgence, or who accept it now as the fruit of
their own effort. This is the hospitality which some men find in life,
and out of which they constitute a home.

But none the less enviable, and perhaps much more so, are those retreats
where comfort waits on moderate means, while contentment imparts to
these an unpurchasable efficacy; where, blended with those infirmities
and liabilities which are common to palace and cottage, the domestic
affections flourish, and the dearest treasures of life are kept.
Thousands of homes like this there are, all around us. It describes the
largest class of homes, we may believe. And who can estimate their
influence over these busy tides of action, all day long? That world of
traffic, that world of toil, that looks so hard and gross and
sordid,--is it not transformed somewhat, does it not grow beautiful
even, when you think how many of its energies have their spring by the
infant's cradle and the mother's chair? And what lights, what shadows,
unseen by you, fall upon the speculative eyes, fall upon the hearts, of
thousands in that homeward-streaming crowd! Light of welcoming
hearth-fires, shadows of children's play upon the walls; light of
affections in which there are no decay and no deceit; shadows of sacred
retirement where God alone is; light of joys which this world's storms
cannot utterly quench; shadows of sorrow around sick-beds, and in vacant
places, that still make home the dearer as the arena of earth's purest
discipline and of its most triumphant faith!

And why delineate the features of that other class of homes, whose most
significant word is "_Privation_?" Where cheerlessness, and hunger, and
desponding toil, or hopeless apathy, brood continually. Let your own
sympathies, let your own imaginations that cannot exaggerate the
reality, call up the vision of such. Think how many such abodes there
are this very night, which winter besieges with all his terrors, and
into which he sends his invading frost! Think what Home is to hundreds,
and, therefore, how life looks to them, seen through this atmosphere of
disease and want, with starvation by the hearth, and death at the door,
and misery everywhere! Think, when the cold pierces even through all
your wrappages of comfort, and scarcity almost pinches, what forms of
humanity, with lungs, and nerves, and hearts, and every capacity for
suffering, are scraping the moss of subsistence from the barest rocks of
life, and struggling every day through an avalanche! Think what this
Sabbath has been in the dwellings of the poor, you who have had time to
listen to the Gospel, and have heard it comfortably--so comfortably,
perhaps, that you have fallen asleep under it--think what this Sabbath
has been in the dwellings of the poor! And yet, when I consider what,
doubtless, the Sabbath has been in some of those places, I am thankful
that the highest ideal, the richest sanctities of Home, are not
dependent upon outward conditions; for even there, unfaltering duty and
true love have made the bare walls beautiful, and prayer has set the
desolate chamber on the steps of the Divine throne; and before the eye
of faith the cold arch of the winter night, that looks in through hole
and cranny, has burst into a revelation of heaven, and a path for those
ministering angels that come to help the sufferer and to comfort God's
poor.

With more unqualified sadness, therefore, our thoughts must rest upon
still another group of dwellings, where deprivation and ignorance are
mingled with vice and crime--where want and guilt strip away the masks
of civilization, and bring out the essential savage in man's nature.
These also we must call "_homes_!" These breathing-holes of abomination,
these moral tombs, where huddle the demons of violence, and cunning, and
debauchery, and from which they issue. That vast Hades of social evil
opening downward from our streets, where the best ideals have no type,
and the purest sentiments scarce a name; where God is but a dark cloud
of muttering thunder in the soul; where all that is fair in womanhood is
dishevelled and transformed; and where childhood is baptized in infamy,
trained to sin, canopied with curses, and rocked to sleep by the
convulsive hell of passions all around it.

The Homes of the Metropolis! Thus diversified are they in their general
types, and more numerous in their individual conditions than can be
specified. And, surely, it is no vain speculation that inquires--"What
are they? Into what retreats do the elements of this busy crowd
dissolve, night after night?" Whatever they may be, a common interest
envelopes them and links them all together--the interest of humanity.
They have vanished from the streets. One great shadow covers them, and
hides their distinctions. For a time they are all equal. They have
fallen asleep--poor, tired humanity at the best!--they have fallen
asleep on the bosom of a common Providence, that bears them all up, as
it bears the planet on which they now repose, through the orbit of its
great purpose and the immensities of its love. But in the morning all
these diversities will break forth again, each pouring its influence
into the general stream. And who does not perceive how much the
character of that influence must depend upon the condition of those
homes? Who does not see that not only the interest of the common
humanity in its most intimate experiences attaches to them, but the
interest of community? Not only are they the reservoirs of individual
power and peculiarity, but they are the Springs of Social Life. And this
the apostle indicated, when he directed that certain, who bore intimate
relations to the early church, should "first learn to show piety at
home."

Keeping this conclusion in mind, let me ask you to consider, for a
little while, what Home _must_ be.

In the first place--it is the _earliest and the most influential
school_. Nowhere else is the character so moulded; nowhere else is so
much infused into our entire being. For, whatever it may be, it is the
nursery of childhood; and "the child is father to the man." Here dawns
upon the human mind the conception of life. Here, when the nature is
uninscribed and plastic, it takes its first impressions. I suppose it to
be true, that more is learnt, more that is elementary and a key to all
the rest, in the first few years of childhood than in all after time. I
do not deny, of course, that much is corrected and overcome under
another class of influences. But the deepest impressions, the seeds of
the most stubborn habits, are planted at home. Hence the peculiar
anxiety of good men to rescue _children_ from the influences of a bad
home. And, even then, with what obstacles do they have to contend! How
radical are the prejudices already formed in that young mind! How
obstinate the customs, how opaque the ignorance, how rank the growth of
error! Nay, into what complete fruition have all these grown, simply in
the neglect of home-culture, to say nothing of influences positively
evil! Really, the color and current of a man's destiny are indicated
here, unless a shock of wonderful transformation comes over him. I do
not mean to say that anybody is wholly the creature of circumstances;
but he is the _subject_ of circumstances. If they do not entirely make
_him_, they furnish the occasion out of which he makes something; and,
viewed either from the platform of the inward or the outward, they
furnish an important key to his life. And, although the path of
reformation is more difficult than the descent into evil, and demands an
effort which too few are inclined to put forth; though by the conditions
of our nature the good is more easily swept away than the bad; still, it
is encouraging to estimate the permanence and the power of those _good_
influences which are received at home. Everybody knows, when he is
pitched into this whirlpool of evil that rolls around him in the world,
how those old home-restraints lie upon him like a magic chain, hard to
be forced away--perhaps never utterly forced away. And, seeking for
those who should stand up in this boisterous sweep of sin, you would
look and I would look to those who had received the best impressions
under the domestic roof. If I were alone, poor, compelled to ask charity
somewhere in this selfish world, I would go, not to the man who has
learnt most of what he calls his "wisdom" from the experience of mature
life, but to him in whose heart there evidently remains something of
childhood's tenderness, kept warm by the remembered pressures of his
mother's breast. If I were seeking to restore some wild prodigal,
brazen-fronted by his own wicked will and by the scorn with which men
have battered him--if I were looking for some gleam of promise in his
turbulent nature, and sounding its depths to find some spring of
repentance--I should never despair if I could discover one gentle pulse
that beat with the memories of a good and happy home. Why, who needs to
be told of the potency of this our earliest school, to say nothing of
other influences, if only a faithful _mother_ presides there? O! mother,
mother, name for the earliest relationship, symbol of the divine
tenderness; kindling a love that we never blush to confess, and a
veneration that we cannot help rendering; how does your mystic
influence, imparted from the soft pressure and the undying smile, weave
itself through all the brightness through all the darkness of our after
life. The mould of character set on the front of the world's great men,
and gladly confessed by them, bears your stamp. Your inspiration burns
along the poet's line. It is your true courage, more than man's rude
daring, that makes the force of heroes. The statesman, when treason to
humanity wears the garb of power, and duty calls him like a trumpet,
hears your voice. The philanthropist, when he feels that the most
efficient service is to be patient and to wait, imbibes the strength of
your fortitude. The sailor, "on the high and giddy mast," mingles your
name close to God's. And thousands in life's great claims, in life's
great perils, trace back the influences of the hour to some early time,
some calm moment, when,--little, timid children,--they knelt by your
side, and from tones of reverence and looks of love and simple words of
prayer, they first learnt piety at home.

But I observe again, that Home is the sphere where are most clearly
displayed _the real elements of character_. The world furnishes
occasions of trial, but it also furnishes prudential considerations.
Without any absolute hypocrisy, one measures his speech and restrains
his action in the street and the market. And it is easy to conceive how
small men may perform great deeds, and mean men seem philanthropic, and
cowards flourish as heroes, with the tremendous motive of publicity to
urge them. But at home all masks are thrown aside, and the true
proportions of the man appear. Here he can find his actual moral
standard, and measure himself accordingly. If he is irritable, here
breaks forth his repressed fretfulness. If he is selfish, here are the
sordid tokens. If he passes in any way for more than he is worth, here
you may detect the counterfeit in the ring of his natural voice and the
superscription of his undisguised life. No, the world is not the place
to prove the moral stature and quality of a man. There are too many
props and stimulants. Nor, on the other hand, can he himself determine
his actual character merely by looking into his own solitary heart.
Therein he may discover _possibilities_, but it needs actuality to make
up the estimate of a complete life. He must _do_ something as well as be
something; he must do something in order that he may be something. For,
what he thinks is in his heart may be exaggerated by self-flattery, or
darkened by morbid self-distrust. It needs some occasion to prove what
is really there. And Home is precisely that sphere which is sufficiently
removed from the factitious motives of publicity on the one extreme, and
the unexercised possibilities of the human heart on the other, to afford
a genuine test. What a man really is, therefore, will appear in the
truest light under his own roof and by his own fireside. I can believe
that he is a Christian, when I know that he faithfully takes up the
daily duties, and bears the crosses, that cluster within his own doors.
I shall think that the world rightly calls him a philanthropist, when,
notwithstanding common faults and infirmities, he receives the
spontaneous award of the good husband and father, and the kindness of
his nature is reflected in the very air and light of his dwelling.
And,--talk of noble deeds!--where will you find occasions for, where
will you behold manifestations of, a more beautiful self-sacrifice, a
more generous heroism, than in the labors and in the endurance of
thousands of men and women, shut out from the world's observation in
silent nooks and corners of this very city, amidst the relationships and
cares and struggles of home? But whether it be in forms of good or evil,
we know that the real elements of character, the genuine moral qualities
of people, must be expressed there.

And, I remark once more, that at Home we must find _the most essential
happiness or misery of life_. The same conditions apply here as those
which relate to character. The world is a theatre of _seeming_, and we
can hardly tell by what we notice there who is, or who is not, happy. We
know that gaiety is often the reckless ripple over depths of despair;
and that men will bear up with a smile while untold agony is gnawing at
their heart-strings, and will die laughing, in an agony of defiance,
under the sword-strokes of fortune. On the other hand we may count some
as unfortunate, in whose bosoms, all the while, there are flowing
inexhaustible springs of peace, and who derive real joy from what we
suppose to be a hard and pitiable lot. But amidst the undisguised
realities of home we can form the most correct estimate of a man's
condition. In the first place because, as has been remarked, he is there
most truly himself. He gains opportunity for reflection, and gives vent
to the secret burden of his heart. There he empties the load of his
envies, his rivalries, his disappointments; which he has carried before
the world muffled in courtesy or pride. These, it may be, meet and are
re-acted upon by kindred elements; engendered, perhaps, by the very
atmosphere which he himself, in the first place, created. Oh! how many
rich dwellings there are, crowded with every appointment of luxury, that
are only glittering ice-caverns of selfishness and discontent;
pavilions of misery, where jangling discord mars the show, and a chill
of mutual distrust breathes through the sumptuous apartments, and
heartless ostentation presides like a robed skeleton at the feast. You
feel that nothing is genial or spontaneous there. The courtesy is dreary
etiquette, and the laughter forced music. You would dine as happily with
the forms on the canvas, with the cold marbles in the hall. For all this
magnificence is nothing more than a gorgeous pall over dead
affections--nothing more than the coronation of a living woe.

"Better is a dinner of herbs," says the wise man, "where love is, than a
stalled ox and hatred therewith." And many a home exists where there
_is_ but little more than a dinner of herbs, which affection and mutual
loyalty, and sweet dispositions, convert into a palace. And there are
fixed boundaries of peace, that society cannot encroach upon, while the
processions of ambition and pleasure and ceaseless pursuit, pass by its
windows and disturb it not. Here the good man and the brave man--the
man who has nobly discharged his duty at whatever cost--is respected and
understood. Hither he can retreat beyond the shots of calumny which have
torn the ensign of his good name; beyond the deceit of men, which halts
at the threshold. Here he can look calmly out upon the changes of
fortune and the frowns of the world. Here his perplexed spirit finds
inspirations of strength, and space for rest. There is no happiness in
life, there is no misery, like that growing out of the dispositions
which consecrate or desecrate a Home.

Moreover, the elements of profoundest joy or suffering are there,
because there are unfolded the deepest experiences of our mortal lot.
There transpire those events which constitute the _eras_ of our
existence. There, day by day, grows the sentiment of filial veneration
and love. There is the joy of wedded felicity. There wells up in the
heart the first strange gush of parental affection. There comes the
intimation of awful change staring upon us with the face of death.
There falls the shadow of the funeral train, passing across the
threshold. There breaks in upon us the sense of bereavement, in the
vacant chambers; where the familiar foot-step patters, where the
familiar voice is heard no more. From the very nature of things, the
profoundest happiness and misery of human life must be experienced among
the conditions of Home.

Having thus in some respects considered what Home _must_ be, I have
virtually anticipated whatever may be said in the second division of
this discourse respecting what Home _ought_ to be.

Thus, as it is the earliest and most influential school, it behoves
every one who is bound by its responsibilities to make it an agent of
the _best culture_. The great subject of Home Education, is of itself
enough for a series of discourses; and I have not room to lay down even
the general propositions which belong to it, much less for
specifications. But I would remind you--and I think the suggestion is
especially needed amidst the whirl of city life--that there _is_ such a
thing as Home Education, and it presses its claims upon everybody who
inhabits a Home. There is such a thing as Home Education, differing from
school education, whether of the week day or the Sabbath, and therefore
it is a matter we ought to attend to, and not suppose we have done
enough when we patronize an academy, or help fill a class on Sunday. To
every parent--to every influential member of a household--there is
committed a charge which can be shifted to no one else; there is an
opportunity which no outside teacher possesses. There are some duties in
life that we have to look for and to go after; there are others which
are passed right into our hands, whether we will or not. And this duty
of Home Education is of the latter kind. Now, I have just said that I
cannot specify here, and even if there were room I am not sure that it
would be advisable. For I doubt whether we can give any manual of
methods and instruments in this respect, any more than there can be a
manual of religious exercises suited to every spiritual peculiarity.
Dispositions, capacities, circumstances, must create their own methods.
And perhaps the poorest method of all would be some system of domestic
education, which the experimenter thinks will do the work exactly. I am
somewhat suspicious of systems. I am more than suspicious of any
constrained formal method, bringing up children in a mere manual drill,
crimping them into a mould of mincing proprieties, and making them speak
with an automaton click. Perhaps the most headlong young men that can be
found, are those who spent their early days in a sort of strait jacket
with a clock-work movement. They were wound up so tight when they were
boys, that now they take great pleasure in going fast, and running down.
In other words, having felt their early training to be mere _training_,
the moment they strip off the constraint, they plunge into the opposite
extreme of _no_ constraint. Nay, I believe that even children who are
left to their own instincts, and shoved out into the world to take care
of themselves, are generally better balanced, and go with steadier
motion than these. Of course, however, neither extreme is right. There
is such a thing, I say once more, as Home Education, involving all
necessary training and true constraint; and yet not oppressively felt as
such, because it is free, informal, and respects the spontaneity of the
childish nature. But, whether our Home Education be formal or informal,
direct or indirect, there is one kind of education which we are sure to
impart. It is the education of example, silent, effective, stronger and
more easily apprehended than any set of maxims. I would we were all duly
impressed with the responsibilities of Home as they appear in this
light; might feel, however we may be absorbed in business or in
pleasure, that the young mind and heart are receiving influences, and
growing into expressions that in some way will surprise us.

In the next place I observe, that if we display our real dispositions
and characters at home, we should recognize it practically as _a sphere
of moral discipline_. The family is a divine ordinance--the Home is an
institution of God, forecast in the peculiarities of our very nature.
History shows no period when it did not exist, and we discover no tribe
so barbarous as to be without it. It is the foundation of all society.
It embosoms the germ and ideal of the State. According to the purity of
its relations, the intensity of its sympathies, the inviolability of its
rights, a nation's life is high or low, feeble or strong, fickle or
enduring. And if it is thus rooted in the nature and the history of man,
we may well believe that it affords some of the profoundest occasions
for that moral discipline which is the great purpose of our existence
upon the earth.

It is certainly the great sphere in which our affections are to be
cultivated. Of course I do not mean that this is the limit of their
cultivation. But here they are nurtured, and out of this they grow. As
love is the Infinite Nature itself, so is it the prevalent sentiment of
all life. It has been ordained that this great element should flow
through every form of being, linking them together by a common feeling,
and lending some interest to the most insignificant. And man has been
set in the family relation that this sentiment might be developed.
There is no one in whose heart it does not exist. You cannot find me a
being so defaced, so alienated from the common stock of humanity, as to
cherish in his bosom no secret fount of love, no fibril of affection
linking him to something else. But of this love there are numerous
degrees; and the highest forms of it, that go forth in expressions of
self-sacrifice and worldwide sympathy, are only developed by culture.
And for this culture there are rich opportunities amidst the relations
and sanctities of Home.

And there is opportunity among these relations also, for active duty,
and in its daily tasks and responsibilities, is often illustrated that
practical lesson which society so much needs--the lesson of mutual help.
It is a school where we may learn endurance and charity. Out of its
trials is developed the sense of religious need; and under the shadow of
its bereavements we appreciate the glorious vision of Faith. There are
other issues in life, where we need these divine helps; none where we
feel the need of them more. Those who have stood by the sick-bed and
taken the last look of the dearest earthly objects, and yet have lifted
hearts of trust, and eyes of transcendent hope, are able to meet the
intensest sorrows of the world, and to come out like refined gold. Home,
then, should be regarded especially in this light, as a sphere where the
richest elements of our moral culture are supplied.

Finally, if at home we find the most essential happiness or misery of
life, of course each should do his best to make it the most _attractive_
of all places. He should bring not his worst, but his best temper there.
How many are there who bottle up their wrath all the day long, and
uncork it when they get home! They had better reverse the process. If
you must chafe under disappointment, and indulge angry passion, let it
out in the excitement of the world, where the rough friction of business
will help you to get rid of it, or where nobody has time to care whether
you get rid of it or not.

And let _business_ stay where it belongs. Do not interrupt social claims
with its speculations; nor drag the counting-room into the parlor.
There are some men with whom business is a disease; they are never easy
with it and never rid of it. Thus, perhaps, they acquire a reputation
for smartness and enterprise; but they do it, it is to be feared, by
putting aside other and more sacred claims.

Nor let him who is the genial companion abroad, be the morose boarder in
his own house, reserving his vivacity for society and the lees for the
fireside. It is a great deal better to be like the stream that is good
and welcome wherever it flows, but is sure to be fresh at its source.
Indeed, there are men who are made up of foam, and sparkle, and who
circulate in society, but contribute nothing to the necessaries of life,
and are returned empty. It is an unfortunate gift that cheers the world
outdoors, but casts only a dreary shadow inside.

Of course, in speaking of the influence of dispositions in making home
attractive, I would include the duty of those who stay at home as well
as of those who go abroad, and that self-sacrifice and kind hearts
should be found as well as brought there. Indeed, if time would allow me
to make a theme of what now can be only a hint, I should dwell largely
upon _woman's_ influence in this matter.

But home is to be rendered attractive not only by the disposition, but
by the customs of its inmates. It must be a place to live, not merely to
eat and sleep in; a place where we can find entertainment, and not
always leave in search of it. It is really a monstrous folly, this
fashionable treatment of home, which leads people to abandon it almost
every night in pursuit of pleasure, or else to sweep it with a rout,
which considers a household evening very dull, and makes Sunday a day
for sleeping and yawning. The central idea of home is _stability_, and
this has much less chance to be realized in the city than in the
country. In the latter, old forms and landmarks are not so liable to
interruption, and the slow process of time works instead of the hand of
innovation. But in a city, where a man emigrates before he has fairly
settled, and where many move with every May-day, the idea of a homestead
is almost obsolete. Elegance, solidity, venerable associations, none of
these can resist the march of improvement, and the rapid tide of
business enterprise. The main streets of a great city in this country,
may almost be termed so many dissolving views of perpetual change and
renewal. But, perhaps, there is hardly one of us who does not feel that
by his or her own exertions the essential element of Home can be made
far more abiding than it now is; and where we hear of frivolous
daughters and dissipated sons, many a parent may ask the question, "What
have I done to cheer and consecrate the household world, and make it
more abiding?"

My friends, when I consider the magnitude and importance of the subject
now before us, and how many topics of discussion grow out of it--when I
think how much must be left entirely unsaid--I entreat you not to
suppose that I offer this discourse as anything more than a
_suggestion_--a suggestion meant to turn your attention to this subject
of Home in the City, and leaving it to the elaboration of your own
thoughts. Remember, here abide the deepest springs of social life. The
noblest privileges, the greatest duties, find their basis here; and we
are taught first "to show piety at Home." And the influence of this
institution upon all other fields of human action, private or public, is
too obvious to mention. All life flows from the centre, outwards; and
the citizen who desires the order and purity of the community in which
he lives; the philanthropist, who, under all conditions, regards the
highest welfare of his race; the Christian, who urges the secret culture
of the soul, must look with peculiar solicitude to this institution. It
is one whose impotence is demonstrated by the strength of the instinct
which creates it and clings to it--an instinct which associates the most
genuine happiness with its sacred enclosure of affection, however rude
or poor that spot may be--which, while a man has such a place to call
his own, makes him feel that he is somebody, and has some tie and claim
in the world; and which, on the other hand, associated the most bitter
destitution, the dreariest isolation, with that one word--"Homeless."

How this instinct abides, how long and how far it goes with us, is
beautifully illustrated in the lines of Goldsmith.

    "In all my wand'rings round this world of care,
    In all my griefs--and God has giv'n my share,
    I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
    Amidst these humble bow'rs to lay me down;
    To husband out life's taper at the close,
    And keep the flame from wasting by repose.

       *       *       *       *       *

    Around my fire an ev'ning group to draw,
    And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;
    And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue,
    Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,
    I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
    Here to return--and die at Home at last."

Hopes, my friends, which I think glow in the breasts of most of us, and
burst spontaneously from our lips. "Let us," we say, "if our lot may be
so ordered--if the lines of duty run not otherwise--let us live at
Home." Here, amidst those darkened and brightened associations which are
woven in the warp and woof of our deepest experience. Here, where gentle
memories steal upon us with the shadows of the twilight, and for ever
tapestry the walls. Here, where we have held delightful intercourse with
man, and secret communion with God. Here, where we have tried to do our
duty, and exercise our love, and to drink with patience the sweet and
bitter which our Father mingles in life's mysterious cup. Here, where
old friends are always cherished and new ones gladly come. Here, where
the dearest ties of earth have bound us in a family circle; and though
here and there we find broken links, we still keep hold of them, and
they draw us up.

And when on this familiar hearth our own vital lamp burns low, and the
golden bowl begins to shudder and the silver cord to untwine, let our
last look be upon faces that we best love; let the gates that open into
the celestial City be these well-known doors--and thus may we also
_die_ at Home!

And this instinct of Home is not attached merely to earthly conditions,
but mingles with those aspirations which flow into the illimitable
future. As in the vast city we seek some enclosure of our own--some
place of shelter for our heads, of sympathy for our hearts; so,
respecting the destiny of the soul. In spite of all our philosophy, we
cannot be satisfied with the conception of a mere immaterial essence
floating hither and thither in immensity. The intellect looks eagerly
forward to a boundless and excursive state; but the affections, the
sentiments, yearn for some locality--some spot of residence and repose.
We cannot help cherishing the conception of a place where our friends
are grouped together, and whither we shall go, though to be united in
wider and more glorious relations. And, knowing no better name for it,
with eyes of hope and tearful rapture, we look up and call it "Home."




THE ALLIES OF THE TEMPTER.




DISCOURSE VI.

THE ALLIES OF THE TEMPTER.

      He that is not with me is against me.--MATTHEW xii. 30.


One of the discourses of the preceding series was devoted to a
consideration of the vices--especially the three prominent vices--of
great cities. I propose at the present time to speak of the
_Influences_, more or less direct, by which these and kindred evils are
encouraged. Vice, and moral corruption of any kind, no doubt has its
roots in the gross hearts and in the perverted appetites of men. But the
most superficial observer must see that these are nourished not merely
by their native soil, but by the social atmosphere which spreads around.
Of course character constitutes the man, and, however this may be
affected by circumstances, it enfolds the consciousness of an original
personality acting upon and through and in spite of its conditions.
Nevertheless, the ingredients of this very personality are assimilated
out of these conditions, and it is difficult to limit or define the
subtile elements that blend in the deepest currents of a man's nature.
It is, at least, a simple truism that he differs in one state of society
from what he is in another. And, therefore, among the forces which help
make up his moral condition, we must calculate the social forces. His
virtues are not all self-sustained, and his vices draw nutriment from
fine and remote channels. It would be an interesting process to analyze
our own habits and temper and cast of thought, and find how much of this
is involved with our physical relations. The air we breathe, the house
in which we dwell, the very way in which it fronts the sun, the degrees
of light and of shade that fall upon us with the flying hours, all weave
their delicate influences into the tissues of our being. And how much
that we do not suspect comes to us, day by day, in social intercourse,
in the bearing of friends, in the tone and air of conversation, in the
mere magnetism of the parlor or the street! How much to strengthen or
to weaken us; to clear or to cloud our moral atmosphere; to make us
fresh and decisive, or to slowly sap our virtue! But it is a more solemn
task to compute the influences that proceed _from_ us, and to discover
how, unknown to ourselves, we are swaying the circles of other lives.
Why, the mightiest forces go silently. You do not see the gases that
compose the vital air. You do not feel the aroma that steals along
loaded with poison, or wafts a blessing through the sick man's window.
You do not hear the electric pulse that beats in the summer light and in
the drop of dew. Neither can you estimate the mysterious attraction that
plays all through this network of social relations, nor the energy of
good or of evil with which it is charged not merely from your words and
deeds, but from the still reservoir of your example.

When I look around at the prevalent vices of the city, then, and at its
various forms of corruption, I am not willing to rest with the mere
assertion, that all this is the fruit of personal sin and folly on the
part of those who have yielded to temptation. It _is_ the fruit of
personal sin and folly. And we, perhaps, in our serene respectabilities,
shrink back and wonder at it. It _is_ strange--is it not?--that the
young, the fair, the gifted, should yield themselves to that arch-deceit
which has allured and ruined men for six thousand years? Is it not the
same old guilt, the same sophistry and foolishness, here in New York,
that it always has been? Did it not bear the same Circean cup through
the halls of Nineveh and Babylon, and fling Cæsars and Alexanders to the
ground? Did it not wear the same seductive smile and harlot tinsel when
it walked the streets of Tyre, and reclined in the decorated chambers of
Egypt? And will not its votaries find now, as then, that it entices with
the embrace of death and the fascination of hell? Why should they thus
float upon the very rim of this great whirlpool, and not notice the
groans that come up from its depths; and see that its phosphoric
illusion is mixed with fiery flakes of torment and the foam of despair?
It is indeed wonderful that so many should be thus deluded over and
over again; so many noble energies thrown away, so many sanctions
trampled upon, so many bright hopes quenched for ever. It is wonderful
that any being made in the form of man, should cast down his
prerogatives and wallow like the beast. Sufficient evidence of sin and
folly in those who do this, to be sure; but in what way do these
allurements present themselves? What are the resources and entrenchments
of these vices, by which they act upon human appetite and passion? You
point me to brilliant windows and gay apartments; to sparkling glasses,
and shining heaps, and shapes of painted shame. "These," you say, "are
the forms which the Tempter assumes. Under smiling features and fair
garlands, he hides at first that hideousness which in due time is
revealed to his victims. From the lighted vestibules which open so
easily to the touch, and where all seems only a coronation of youthful
pleasure and natural joy, the feet of men slide downward into those
abysses which are hidden from the public gaze, and over whose depths the
blackness of darkness broods." And all this, again, is true. These are
the ways in which the Tempter works. But is there nothing but this to
explain the power which evil has upon men, in the midst of the great
city? These manifold allurements, these haunts of infamy and shambles of
destruction--I see them standing upon strange foundations. I see them
propped by these very influences to which I have alluded; influences of
social condition and individual example. They would not be so
formidable, they would not stand so long, were it not that
respectability in its daily walk and conversation; and social culture in
thousands of homes; and even justice in its lofty seat; lend them
support. "He that is not with me is against me," said Jesus; and, taking
this proverb as a rule, a good many people may be surprised to find
that, in one way and another, they are _Allies_ of the Tempter.

The allies of the Tempter, I propose to speak of now--not the forms of
Temptation, which I have already illustrated. Nor do I intend to dwell
upon those _direct_ conditions of moral evil, out of which vice and
crime grow as spontaneously as weeds out of a damp and neglected
soil--those wide seed fields of _ignorance_ and abject _poverty_ which
lie around us. But the more remote and indirect causes it may be
profitable for us to consider; and to these I now proceed.

I observe, then, in the first place, that the Tempter has one Ally in
_Public Sanction_. There are sources of vice and crime that are
permitted and encouraged by _Law_. I hardly need specify the prominent
instance to which I allude. But I am not aware of a more enormous public
inconsistency than what is termed "the License System"--the system of
permitting the sale of intoxicating drinks in a degree, and of
restricting them in a degree. For, by this method, either a moral wrong
is committed, or else a civil one. If these drinks are an individual and
public injury; if they distribute the seeds of disease, crime, death,
and every form of social misery; then what right have we in any respect
to set upon them the solemn sanction of a Law? If, on the other hand,
they are a benefit to mankind; a good gift of Providence, as some seem
to think; why should we hamper their circulation? Why should we allow
one man the privilege of distributing such a blessing, and forbid
another who, no doubt, is equally zealous for the public good?

But this very system is a confession by public opinion, in its most
authentic form of expression, that the sale of intoxicating drinks is an
evil. "Only," we are told, "as it is a prevalent and deep-seated evil,
it must be _regulated_." But how can we regulate an irregularity? How
can you regulate an obstruction that is involved with the springs of a
machine, or the works of a clock? The only possible method obvious to
common sense, would be to remove the obstruction; and it would be
thought the most foolish speculation conceivable for one to spend his
ingenuity in contriving some way to keep the obstruction where it is,
and yet to keep the clock going as it ought. If it moved regularly, the
matter referred to would not be an obstruction; and if it did not, the
contrivance to keep it there would be a help to the obstruction. Now, I
consider this great vice of Intemperance a decided obstruction in the
clock-work of an individual man, or the more general mechanism of
society. It transforms a great many faces into bad dial-plates, disturbs
the pendulum of public order, makes people go much too fast, and renders
them liable to strike at all times. Now, if a man, or a community, can
be made to go just as well with it as without it, we certainly need no
legislation, for there _is_ no obstruction. On the other hand, if it is
essentially an irregularity, the only rational method is to get rid of
its accessories altogether. To enact some way in which the irregularity
shall work, is to confirm and sanction the irregularity. And the
license-system--for I wish to be plain and specific here--confirms and
sanctions the agents of intemperance. It indicates a way in which the
irregularity may work.

And not only is vice thus aided by the Law. The existence of such a
sanction engenders either an error or a moral wrong. For it indicates
that the sale of intoxicating drinks is a public benefit, which is
false; or, on the other hand, that it is lawful to uphold an evil. The
same principle carried out by individuals, would excuse almost any
fault. The man who steals a loaf of bread may contend that it is a
necessary expedient; and he who fills an empty purse at his neighbor's
expense, only endeavors to regulate an irregularity.

But suppose we make the system a strict one, what process should be
employed? Probably you would say--"break up all these filthy and low
haunts; all these places where the habitually intemperate, the degraded,
the wretchedly poor congregate; and let these beverages be sold only in
respectable places and to respectable people." But is this really the
best plan? On the contrary, it seems quite reasonable to maintain that
it is better to sell to the intemperate than to the sober--to the
degraded than to the respectable--for the same reason that it is better
to burn up an old hulk than to set fire to a new and splendid ship. I
think it worse to put the first glass to a young man's lips, than to
crown with madness an old drunkard's life-long alienation--worse to wake
the fierce appetite in the depths of a generous and promising nature,
than to take the carrion of a man, a mere shell of imbecility, and soak
it in a fresh debauch. Therefore, if I were going to say where the
License should be granted in order to show its efficacy, I would
say--take the worst sinks of intemperance in the city, give them the
sanction of the Law, and let them run to overflowing. But shut up the
gilded apartments where youth takes its first draught, and
respectability just begins to falter from its level. Close the ample
doors through which enters the long train of those who stumble to
destruction and reel into quick graves, and let the flood overwhelm only
the maimed and battered conscripts that remain. Besides, it is better to
see vice as it really is, than as it sometimes appears. The danger of
intemperance is when it assumes this very garb of respectability, and
sits in the radiant circle of fashion attended by wit and beauty and
social delight. Let us see the Tempter, not as he seems when he throws
out his earliest lures, in festal garments and with roses around his
brow; but as he looks when fairly engaged in his work, showing his
genuine expression. Let us see this vice of intemperance in its
_results_, as they teem and darken here in the midst of our city life.
Lay bare its channel--let us see to its very depths--where it flows over
the wrecks of human happiness, and over dead men's bones. Lay bare its
festering heaps of disease, its madness, its despair, its domestic
desolation, its reckless sweep over all order and sanctity; and thus,
tracing it from its sources under glittering chandeliers and in fonts of
crystal, we shall be able to say--"this is the real element which exists
and does its work, by public connivance and with the sanction of Law!"

If you ask me then, whether I think that a statute of absolute
prohibition would stop this flowing curse, I reply that at least it
would put the influence of authority on the right side. It would lend it
the force of consistent endeavor. As it is, it would be far better if
the public sanction had no expression; for now it only confirms and
guarantees the evil. Its power is exerted not in the right, but in the
wrong direction. It is an ally of the tempter. For the spirit of
everlasting Justice and Benevolence, speaking as it were by the mouth of
Jesus, says--"He that is not with me is against me."

But I observe, in the second place, that the forces of temptation in the
city are nourished by _public neglect_. In individual experience it will
be found, I think, that sins of _omission_ are more numerous and are
worse than sins of _commission_. If we examine our lives closely, we
shall discover that our moral indebtedness comes even less from what we
have done, than from what we ought to have done. And this individual
experience has a counterpart in social conditions. How many evils among
us grow up under the shadow of inoperative laws--laws which have a voice
and nothing else--nay, hardly a voice, so seldom are they heard even to
speak. They appear to have been enacted merely as a compliment to
decency, and they remain in the statute-book as "idle as painted ships
upon a painted ocean." The dens of debauch keep open doors night and
day; the saloons of profligacy send out their cards of invitation; the
gambler rattles his triumphant dice; but excursive policemen never see,
and vigilant magistrates never hear! Some provision of nature has
imparted a very singular quality to the optic powers of the one, and the
auditory nerves of the other. The laws against this vice, or that
custom, stand fixed and silent; and as for putting them in operation,
one would as soon think of pulling up so many grave-stones. They _are_
the grave-stones of a dead public sentiment--the stumbling-blocks of a
blind justice, that too often shakes hands with the very guilt which it
professes to condemn. I do not, by any means, believe that everything is
to be accomplished by law. I do not believe that the profoundest results
are to be accomplished by it. But, if it possesses any efficacy at all,
it consists in its power to repress open and shameless wrong; and where
any such wrong _is_ open and shameless, public neglect is the cause, and
such public neglect, therefore, is an Ally of the Tempter. And let us
consider the enormity of such evils. In every great city there are some
omissions of executive duty, which, though grievous to be borne, are
noticed with good humor. But there are moral swamps, sending up their
foul steam to pollute the common light; there are kennels of
uncleanness, running with the waste of human lives, sweeping along with
the death-gurgle of human souls; there is a dry-rot of impurity
infecting the town-air, withering the dearest sanctities of society and
of home--and over this kind of evil we cannot be facetious. Think how
much is risked here, and how much is lost! Domestic happiness,
reputation, honor, health, order, the prospects of the young, the peace
of the old--Fathers, the hopes of your sons! Mothers, the interests of
your daughters! and, though speaking may have little effect, say whether
we ought not to speak, and to speak indignantly, of the neglect which
lets these evils spread with deadly luxuriance, and winks at them as
though they were harmless?

But, my friends, what do we mean by "public sanction," or "public
neglect?" There are some convenient synonyms which help us to cover up
our personal responsibility--help us to transfer our own sense of duty
to a vague secondary agent, and keep peace with our own consciences.
And yet they are only _synonyms_, after all. Now this term "public" is
but another word for the aggregate of our personal obligations, and does
not for a single moment rid us of our share in the general influence.
The real point of my present topic is this--you and I and every other
individual involved in this network of social relations, are helping or
weakening the force of these prevalent evils. And it may arouse us to
some decision of conduct to consider how the most respectable--those who
would shrink with horror from these foul customs--are, nevertheless,
Allies of the Tempter. And I might state, as a comprehensive
proposition, that every man _is_ an Ally of the Tempter, who does not
put forth a conscious and positive moral energy; who does not habitually
throw his example and his influence in the right direction. It is not
enough that he abstains from wrong himself--that he is chaste, and
temperate, and upright, and unimpeached. For perhaps the most hopeless
people, morally speaking, are those people who, according to their own
confession, "have never done any harm." There is a good prospect for
those who are trying to grow better, however they may slip and flounder.
There is hope, on the other hand, for the desperately wicked--for the
very violence of one extreme precipitates the other; and sometimes the
best and purest souls have been swept by a thunder-shower of sin. But
those who rest upon the fact that they "have never done any harm," by
being so easily contented show but little moral vitality. There is no
aspiration in their natures. They seem to have no particular mission in
the universe; for, if they have never done any harm, they have done
little else. They are poorly fitted for this earth, which demands the
effort of all our faculties; poorly fitted for heaven, whose inhabitants
would not make harmlessness their chief characteristic. Their residence
and their paradise might be a great exhausted receiver, where there is
no gravitation to draw them down, and no air to send them up. But, in
truth, these people deceive themselves. Every man exerts a _positive_
influence, and cannot, if he would, be a mere negation in the world. In
the great conflict of good and evil there is no middle ground. There
are no compromises in God's government, and neutral men are the devil's
allies. "He that is not with me, is against me."

Let us see, then, how possible it is that _we_ may contribute to the
force of evil in the City. In other words, let us inquire--in what way
do respectable and harmless people, as they deem themselves, become
Allies of the Tempter?

In the first place, by their _customs_. And, chief of all, by the custom
of an intense and inconsiderate selfishness. How many there are who
require no other sanction for what they do than "that pleases me," or
"this gratifies me!" It is wonderful what a mighty agent _self_ is,
estimated by its own standards. It is the hero of every exploit, the
centre of every event, and the oracle of all opinions. It interprets the
purpose of the universe; it finds out exactly what the world was made
for. At least, a good many, apparently, have ascertained that the world
was made for them, and that they were sent into it to get what
gratification they can. And it appears sadly out of tune to them, if it
does not serve this end. In anything they do, therefore, they consider
only selfish consequences. They do not apprehend the universe in its
great harmony. They do not trace out its web of mutual relations--a
braid of light held in the hand of Infinite Love. They do not know the
sympathy that shoots in the crystal, and shimmers in the aurora, and
beats in the heart of the ocean, and makes the silent music that rolls
from sphere to sphere along the glittering scale of heaven. If they did,
they would discover, perhaps, that the social world is constructed upon
the same plan; and man cannot be an alien from the common humanity
however hard he may try. Yes: concerning any custom, you have not only
yourself to consider, but the bearings of its influence throughout this
tissue of hearts and minds with which you are involved. You cannot
isolate yourself from your responsibilities. You cannot shut yourself
within comfortable walls, and say--"Here is the limit of my obligations,
and here I will do as I please!" You may _say_ this, but you do not rid
yourself of these claims. Through imperceptible aqueducts your influence
runs abroad; and what you do, and what you are, contributes particles of
disease or health to the social atmosphere that envelopes all. I look
around, then, upon the vices and even the crimes of the City, and I say
that some of them find root in the customs of the respectable and the
fashionable. Profligacy, which we shrink from in its open profession,
and which appears abominable in its avowed haunts, finds encouragement
wherever the libertine receives the smile of beauty, and the guilt of
the meanest sort of a man is excused on account of an agreeable manner.
Thus the poison of the snake, and the blight of his venom on many a
reputation and many a womanly heart, is all forgotten in the
drawing-room, because of the fascination of his hiss and the glitter of
his skin. Again, the Tempter has an Ally in the world of Traffic,
wherever bad things are stamped with respectable names--when, for
instance, swindling is called "smartness," and robbery "per-centage."
Among people of less note in the world these matters are named
"cheating" and "stealing," and some of them may take punishment the more
reluctantly because they cannot perceive the difference. And, still
again, I think that a little use of intoxicating drinks is like the
little matter that kindles a great fire, and that there would not be so
much intemperance if there were not so many "temperate" drinkers. The
sluices of the grog-shop are fed from the wine-glasses in the parlor;
and there is a lineal descent from the gentleman who hiccups at his
elegant dinner-table to the sot who makes a bed of the gutter.

"Am I my brother's keeper?" asked the first man who reddened his hands
with the violated life of a man; and the answer came crying upward in a
voice of blood from the ground. "Am I my brother's keeper?" _you_ ask,
perhaps, with a tone of surprise or scorn. _You_ ask O! respectable
gentleman or lady; O! man in the thick of business; O! self-indulgent
Epicurean;--and the answer comes to you not from the ground merely, but
from the universal air--the answer of kindred pulses, of confluent
sympathies, of an inseparable humanity--though it swarms in rags, and
riots in shame, and seems far off from you in its hell of debasement and
despair. Nay, perhaps the answer comes very _near_ to you. It may come
from some one of your own household. You may ask--"Who has tempted even
my very child?" Ask _Yourself_--"Need he have gone outside this very
door to find temptation?" Ah! perhaps you are not merely an Ally of the
Tempter, but have furnished conscripts for his vast army. Your children
perhaps will rise up and call you--_not_ "blessed." And see, too, what
kind of conscripts the Tempter draws from the ranks of respectable and
especially of fashionable life. Mere striplings, so dwarfed and dwindled
by precocious dissipation that they look like feeble specimens of
wax-work; whose faculties--the evident product of a thin soil--have been
developed by bottles of wine and fast horses; whose memories are too
short to remember their parents; whose ideas are too artificial to touch
any genuine spring of nature; who are ashamed of true manliness, and
make a miserable farce of what they _call_ "manliness;" and who, as
they parade the streets, make up a sort of bombastic interlude in the
drama of "Young America."

But, whatever view we may take of this general subject, it is evident
that we cannot easily exaggerate the influence of "respectable and
fashionable" customs upon the forces of temptation. And, surely, it
becomes each of us to consider the tendencies of his own example, and
ask--"Is it toward the right or the wrong? Is it for, or against the
good?"

Again, the Tempter finds help from our _indifference_. This, indeed, may
be the qualification which should be applied to the remarks I have just
made. It is not to be supposed that the evil influences which go out
from the customs alluded to, are the results of _intention_. They spring
up in a lack of interest and of the consciousness of duty. They grow
rank and luxuriant in neglect. If we were only in earnest as to these
vices and crimes and guilty customs; if we would only wake from our
apathy, to reflection and conviction; how soon would they diminish, and
how many of them would pass away!

But, as comprehensive of this, and in fact all the rest that may be
said, I observe, finally, that the temptations of a great city are
strong because of a lack of the spirit of _Christian love_. In one
respect, especially, is it true that men in general are not _with_
Jesus, and therefore are against him. They have not his sympathies, his
spirit of self-sacrifice, his broad, deep, universal charity. Baneful
customs, and cold indifferentism grow up in a soil that is watered by no
living and unselfish love. They show the dryness and the baseness of our
social state. And it is not merely in the lack of active and practical
love that the Tempter grows strong; but in the exercise of a prevalent
_uncharitableness_. Too many of us have no disposition but scorn for the
fallen; see no blessed possibilities in them; do not detect any divine
ray glimmering in the thick darkness--do not discern the precious soul,
like a crown-jewel, in its filthy and battered casket. And if this
paralyzes and kills the springs of our own activity, need I say how the
hearts of the offending are repelled and hardened in such a hostile
atmosphere? Need I say how desperate is the Ishmaelitish conviction;
the sense of isolation and antagonism; and, on the other hand, how
powerful and healing, even for the most distant and hopeless, is the
sweet attraction of sympathy? And what are we, that we dare to cherish
this exclusive horror, this pitiless, unrelenting scorn? When we
consider our own slips, compared with our temptations; the account to
which God may hold us, not the smooth standards of human respectability;
how much higher is our own moral level, that we feel no chords of a
common humanity reaching down even to those fallen ones, and cannot
stoop to touch them? My friends, it may be, after all, that the Tempter
has no surer ally than the averted face of contempt and the word of
unsoftened rebuke, driving the barb of conscious guilt deeper and
despairingly into a brother's soul.

And, as I look upon this mass of social evil, these steaming wells of
passion, these solid fortifications of habit where the Tempter is
entrenched, I ask how is all this to pass away? And the answer is--only
by the spirit of Christian Love, sweeping these impediments of
selfishness from the heart, and animating us to effort. _With_ Christ
the work certainly can be done. In this Gospel-beating amidst the guilt
and sorrow of the world like the pulsations of a Divine heart--in the
few leaves of this Testament--there is an illimitable power, before
whose inspiration in the purposes and deeds of men no evil thing shall
stand. And the spirit and exercise of this Love _is_ Religion. It is the
up-shot of all that is preached--it is the open and tangible test of
every mystic experience that drifts through the soul--it is so deep, so
broad, and runs so far, that it comprehends all requirements; and they
who cherish it, and practice it in the low and dark and desolate places
of the world, are the true saints. Nothing else will do in its place.
Not Churches, nor creeds, nor rituals, nor respectabilities. Without it
we are not friends of Christ, nor co-workers with God. Without it we
deepen the channels of human woe, and prop the strong-holds of
wickedness. Without it, whatever we may not be, we are Allies of the
Tempter. The Saviour says to each of us to-day, placed amidst these
antagonistic forces of Life--"He that is not with me is against me."




THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR.




DISCOURSE VII.

THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR.

      The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto
      them.--LAMENTATIONS iv., 4.


The writer of these words bewailed a state of War and Captivity--a state
of things in which the great relations of human life are broken up and
desecrated. But it is strange to find that the most flourishing forms of
civilization involve conditions very similar to this. For, if any man
will push beyond the circle of his daily associations, and enter the
regions of the abject poor, he will see how the hostile forces of
privation, and hunger, and unguided impulse, have laid waste the
sanctities of existence in the abodes and in the breasts of thousands as
with sword and with fire. There is no essential difference in
starvation, whether it ensues from the ravages of an invading host or
from the lack of means. Temptation is a fierce legion; and death looks
no more terrible under a Babylonian helmet, than it does upon the gaunt
faces of men who die upon the bare floor or wallow in rags. The worst
calamity _in_ a calamity--if I may use such an expression--the most
deplorable thing in any of the great evils of life, occurs when the
selfish instinct within us is aroused, by want or terror, to such a
degree that it overwhelms all social limitations, absorbs every
sympathy, and leaves nothing but an intense individualism. This is the
result in a sudden shock of danger, when the alarmed instinct is the
first that starts to the summons. Sometimes, in protracted peril, it
grows into an actual delirium of selfishness, and drowns even the sense
of fear--as men amidst the horrors of a shipwreck will commit the most
brutal excesses, and even rob the dying. And thus, in the desolation of
Jerusalem as described by Jeremiah, the very yearnings of maternity were
swallowed up by this fierce instinct.

    "The hands of tender-hearted women cooked their own children;
    They were their food, in the destruction of the daughter of my people."

And results as bad as this appear in the conditions of poverty,
suffering, and social degradation. Every fine chord of human nature is
seared, sodden, torn from its sockets, in the darkness of the moral
faculties and by the pressure of animal wants. The poor man is conscious
of nothing but privation and suffering. He gazes at the power and
discipline and pomp of society all about him, not as an ally but as a
captive, or as a savage foe. The whole wears the aspect of a besieging
army, and the Ishmaelitish feeling predominates. In the midst of the
City he becomes an Arab of the desert, a robber of the rock. Now, it
makes little difference whether the circle is wider or narrower, whether
the siege is a moral or a literal one, whether the agent is the sword or
the condition of society. The essential results will be the same. The
civilization of New York may and does hem in a desolation as fearful in
kind as that of Jerusalem, and involves sufferings as keen, and wakes
up instincts as fiercely selfish. And one whose sympathies with the wide
humanity are as fresh and clear as the Prophet's were with the woes of
his people, might draw closer within these various circles of prosperity
and refinement and activity, that lend such attractiveness to the great
city--this magnificent girdle of commerce, embossed with the symbols of
all nations--these arteries of traffic, filled with circulating wealth
and power--these groups of fashion and of beauty, whose cheapest jewels
would open the kingdom of heaven to ten thousand souls; he might pass
within all these bands of "civilization," and in some alley, or "Five
Points," sit down and weep for the calamity of his brethren. He would
behold there War and Captivity enough to fill an entire volume of
Lamentations. Captivity! were men ever bound by a darker chain, or
trampled by a harder heel, than those victims of destitution and of
their own passions? War! did the Jew behold any hosts more terrible
pressing into Jerusalem, than you and I might see if we looked about us?
The entrenched filth that all day long sends its steaming rot through
lane and dwelling, through bone and marrow, and saps away the life. Cold
that encamps itself in the empty fire-place, and blows through the
broken door, and paralyzes the naked limbs. Hunger that takes the strong
man by the throat, and kills the infant in its mother's arms. And still
another traitorous legion that, equipped with the fascinations of the
bottle and the shamelessness of harlotry, appeals to the passions of the
brutal and proffers comfort to the hearts of the sad. War and Captivity
in the midst of peace and refinement--is it not, my friends? And, with
all this, may we not expect that fierce instinct of selfishness which
overwhelms every other impulse, and breaks out in crime? Ah! and do we
not discover a counterpart to that saddest feature of all in such
circumstances--a desecration even of the parental instinct? Fathers,
beating their sons into the career of guilt; and mothers--worse than
those who made horrid food of their own children--offering their
daughters to the Moloch of lust in the shape of some "gentlemanly"
devil with a portable hell in his own breast!

And it seems to me that if one with a prophet vision and a prophet
heart, widened to the compass of humanity, should thus go into these
waste places, nothing would affect him more; nothing would strike a
deeper and tenderer chord in his bosom; than the condition of these
little ones amidst the siege and terror. And, comprehending all their
need--their moral as well as their physical destitution--he might
exclaim, as describing the most pitiable spectacle of all--"The young
children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them."

And I think that every one of you who has reflected at all upon this
subject, must feel that, of all the conditions of Humanity in the darker
regions of the City, there is none more sorrowful, more momentous, and
at the same time more hopeful, than the condition of the Children of the
Poor. And I do not call your attention to this subject to-night with the
expectation of proclaiming any fresh doctrine, or offering any novel
suggestion, but because in a series of discourses like the present I
cannot consistently pass by such a prominent phase; and more especially
because I wish to push the old truth from your heads into your hearts,
so that you may be excited to immediate and practical action.

I purpose then, in regard to the Children of the Poor, to maintain one
or two _principles_, to state a few _facts_, and to consider some
_remedies_; and these will constitute the divisions of my discourse.

In the first place then, I lay down a general principle which divides
itself into two specific principles. I maintain that we are under
peculiar obligations in regard to children. Of all our duties, except
those which we owe directly to God--of all the ways in which we are
required to _show_ our duty to God--I know of none more peremptory than
this. It is the obligation of an instinct that appears everywhere; that
swells in the breasts of the rudest people; that mingles with the most
tender and beautiful and sacred associations of human life.

Childhood and Children! is there any heart so sheathed in worldliness,
or benumbed by sorrow, or hardened in its very nature, as to feel no
gentle thrill responding to these terms? Surely, in some way these
little ones have "touched the finer issues" of our being, and given us
an unconscious benediction. Some of you are Mothers, and have acquired
the holiest laws of duty, the sweetest solicitudes, the noblest
inspirations, in the orbit of a child's life. And, however wide the
circle of its wandering, you have held it still, by some tether of the
heart, bound to the centre of a fathomless and unforgetting love. Some
of you are Fathers, and in the opening promise of your sons have built
fresh plans and enjoyed young hopes, and even in the decline of life
have walked its morning paths anew. Many of us have felt our first great
sorrow, and the breaking up of the spiritual deep within us, by the
couch of a dead child. Clasping the little lifeless hand, we have
comprehended, as never before, the _reality_ of death, and through the
gloom, covering all the world about us, have caught sudden glimpses of
the immortal fields. And, all of us, I trust, are thankful that God has
not created merely men and women, crimped into artificial patterns, with
selfish speculation in their eyes, with sadness and weariness and
trouble about many things carving the wrinkles and stealing away the
bloom; but pours in upon us a fresh stream of being that overflows our
rigid conventionalisms with the buoyancy of nature, plays into this
dusty and angular life like the jets of a fountain, like floods of
sunshine, upsets our miserable dignity, meets us with a love that
contains no deceit, a frankness that rebukes our quibbling compliments,
nourishes the poetry of the soul, and, perpetually descending from the
threshold of the Infinite, keeps open an arch-way of mystery and heaven.

And now, just consider what a child _is_--this being thus fresh from the
unknown realm, tender, plastic, dependent; a bud enfolding the boundless
possibilities of humanity, and growing rank, running to waste, or
opening in beauty, as you turn, neglect, or support it--just consider
what a child is; and he must be far gone in indifference or depravity,
who does not recognize the specific duty growing out of a general
obligation which is forced upon us by the intrinsic claims of that
child's nature. If we were appealed to by nothing else but its drooping
reliance and natural wants, there would be enough to draw our attention
to every phase of childhood that comes within our sphere.

But our purpose this evening calls us away from these brighter images of
childhood, to consider those who are surrounded with the most savage
aspects and the worst influences of the world. And, beside the absolute
duty which is imposed upon us by their natural position, I observe that
the Children of the Poor create an appeal to _prudential_
considerations. They form a large proportion of those groups known in
every city as "The _Dangerous_ Classes." For they will be developed
somehow. If they receive not that attention which is demanded by their
position; if they are left to darkness and neglect; still, it is no mere
mass of negative existence that they constitute. There is vitality there
and positive strength, in those lanes and cellars, put forth for evil if
not drawn towards the good. We must not confound ignorance with torpor
of spirit or bluntness of understanding. One of the most remarkable
characteristics of vagrant children is a keen, precocious intellect. A
boy of seven in the streets of a city is more developed in this respect
than one of fourteen in the country--a development, of course, which is
easily accounted for by the antagonisms with which the child has had to
contend, and the devices which have been inspired by the sheer pressure
of want. He has been pitched into the sea of events to sink or swim, and
those sharpened faculties are the tentacles put forth by an effort of
nature in order to secure a hold of life. And there is something very
sad and very fearful in this precocity. The vagrant boy has known
nothing of the stages of childhood, conducting with beautiful simplicity
from one timid step to another, and gradually forming it for the
realities of the world. But the neglected infant has wilted into the
premature man, with his old cunning look, blending so fantastically, so
mournfully, with the unformed features of youth. Knowing the world on
its worst side--knowing its hostility, its knavery, its foulness, its
heartless materialism--knowing it as the man does not know it who has
only breathed the country air, and looked upon the open face of nature.
Is it not very sad, my friends, that the vagrant boy _should_ know so
much; and, without one hour of romance, one step of childish innocence
and imagination, should have gone clear through "the world" which so
many boast that they understand--the knave's world, the libertine's
world, the world of the skeptical, scoffing, Ishmaelitish spirit? And
yet he has so little _real_ knowledge--there is such a cloud of
ignorance and moral stupor resting upon his brain and heart! So much of
him is merely animal, foxy, wolfish, and this sharpened intellect only a
faculty, an instinct, a preternatural organ pushed out to gain
subsistence with. It is a terrible anomaly, and yet, I say, it is none
the less an active power, and shows us that, however neglected, the
child of the abject poor is not dormant or undeveloped. In the first
place, very likely, it has developed itself into a dogged atheism--a
sulky unbelief. The brain of the vagrant boy is active with speculation
as well as with practice--he has some theory of this life in which he
lives, and, as might be expected, a theory woven with the tissues of
his own experience; woven with the shadows and the lurid lights of his
lot. A gentleman passing one day through the streets of Edinboro', saw a
boy, who lived by selling fire-wood, standing with a heavy load upon his
back, looking at a number of boys amusing themselves in a play-ground.
"Sometimes," says the writer, "he laughed aloud, at other times he
looked sad and sorrowful. Stepping up to him I said--'Well, my boy, you
seem to enjoy the fun very much; but why don't you lay down your load of
sticks?'... 'I wan't thinking about the burden--I wan't thinking about
the sticks, sir.' 'And may I ask what you were thinking about?' 'Oh, I
was just thinking about what the good missionary said the other day. You
know, sir, I don't go to church, for I have no clothes; but one of the
missionaries comes every week to our stair, and holds a meeting. He was
preaching to us last week, and among other things he said--"Although
there are rich folks and poor folks in this world, yet we are all
brothers." Now, sir, just look at these lads--every one of them has
fine jackets, fine caps, with warm shoes and stockings, but I have
none;--So I was just thinking if those were my brothers, it doesn't look
like it, sir--it doesn't look like it. See, sir, they are all flying
kites, while I am flying in rags--they are running about at kick-ball
and cricket; but I must climb the long, long stairs, with a heavy load,
and an empty stomach, whilst my back is like to break. It doesn't look
like it, sir--it doesn't look like it.'" Or, take the following
instance, which I extract from the Records of one of the Benevolent
Societies of our own city: "Can you read or write? said the visitor to a
poor boy. Marty hung his head. I repeated the question two or three
times before he answered, and the tears dropped on his hands, as he
said, despairingly, and I thought defiantly--'No, sir, I can't read nor
write neither. God don't want me to read, sir. Indeed, so it looks
likely. Didn't He take away my father since before I can remember him?
And haven't I been working all the time to fetch in something to eat,
and for the fire, and for clothes? I went out to pick coal when I could
take a basket in my arms--and I have had no chance for school since.'"
Now this is fallacious and dangerous reasoning, my friends;
nevertheless, it _is_ reasoning, and shows that the mind of the poor boy
is not inactive as to the problems of life. And the intellect which is
so acute in theory will soon drive to practice. Stimulated by that
selfish instinct which, as I have shown, will under pressure absorb
every other consideration, he speedily commences the career of _crime_.
And have you ever looked into this matter of crime? Or do you know it
only as a monstrous fact in the social mechanism, and in the records of
human nature? If so, it would be well for us to consider the way in
which it appears to the violator of right--the way in which things look
to him who works _inside_ the web of guilt. And we may be sure that it
does not look to him as it does to us from the midst of respectabilities
and comforts, or from a high intellectual and moral stand-point. Now I
am not going to justify crime, or to indulge any sentiment upon the
subject. But, really, one of the most practical questions that can be
asked is--"_Why_ is this one, or that one, a criminal?" Do I say that
the guilt should be imputed to the condition--that it is all owing to
circumstances? No: but I _do_ say that, in nine cases out of ten, crime
is no proof of _special_ depravity apart from _general_ depravity, and
that the circumstances have just so much weight as this--that put you or
me in those same circumstances, in nine cases out of ten, we should be
criminals too. In the same circumstances, my friends; and this involves
a great deal. It involves an hereditary taint stamped in the very mould
of birth; it involves physical misery; it involves intellectual and
moral destitution; it involves the worst kind of social influence; it
involves the pressure of all the natural appetites, rioting in this need
of the body and this darkness of the soul. And it implies no suspicion
of a man's moral standard--it is no insult to his self-respect--to tell
him that, under similar conditions, it is extremely probable he would
have been a criminal too. Reasoning in an arm-chair is very proper, and
often very accurate, but the logic of starvation is too peremptory for
syllogisms. There is a sort of compound made up of frost, damp, dirt and
rags, which works double magic: it sometimes converts a thief into a
philosopher, and sometimes a philosopher into a thief. I am not
speaking, however, of the mere impulse of animal want, but of this
condition where the counter-acting forces are dormant. And for this
reason you and I can draw no immoral conclusion from the doctrine of
circumstances. We could not be like the moral leper who infests the dark
regions of the city--we could not be like the child of sin and shame who
broods there--without losing our identity. In contemplating this matter,
the feeling for ourselves should be simply one of humility and
thankfulness. We have grown up in pure light and air, appeased with the
comforts, and braced by at least the current morality of society. But,
concerning those degraded ones, what some call "charity" is no more than
"justice." It is no more than justice to say--all the conditions being
considered--that as to a vast majority of them, crime is no proof of
_special_ depravity. It is the genuine humanity that is there--not base
metal. It came from the common mint--somewhere you will find upon it a
faint scar of the Divine Image--but the coin was pitched into this
bonfire of appetite and blasphemy, and it has come out a cinder. Thus,
proud and happy Mother, might _your_ boy have been a defaced and
distorted being, kicked, cuffed, knotted with frost, blackened with
bruises; a pick-pocket, a wharf-rat, a panel-thief; with his intellect
sharpened to an intense and impish cunning--only knowing that it is a
hard world, and he must get out of it what he can. Thus, fond Father,
might _your_ daughter, whom the very winds must salute with courtesy,
have gone through the streets at night--a painted desolation, a reeling
shame. Do you think these were made of better texture than those who
blacken and fester yonder? Do you think that when these last came into
the world there was no milk in mothers' breasts for them, no Divine
solicitude about them, no tenderness in the heart of Christ; but that
they were the refuse, whirled into existence as the great wheel of Life
shaped the finer mould of the respectable and the happy? I tell you
that God made them complete souls, and stamped His Image upon them--but
they have fallen into the dark and dreary ways; the fierce flames have
hardened them; the foul air has tainted them; and their special
depravity, over and above the common depravity, is the infection of
circumstances. The young boy, the young girl, driven by necessity and
sharpened with cunning, run into crime. They are all _educated_; for
circumstances--not merely books--are education; but this is their
seminary, and the alphabet is spontaneous, and the science of quick
growth. And with the consequences of all this exposure and temptation we
are all mixed up; and, if the claim of the child in its intrinsic
position does not move us, _prudential_ considerations should--the
consideration of what society does suffer, and must suffer, if these
conditions are not changed.

Such, then, are some of the _principles_ involved with my theme. Let us
in the second place pass to consider, very briefly, a few of the
_facts_. Briefly, because I have no time for details, and because the
general state of the case is but too well known to you.

It is a fact, then, that there are among us a vast number of children in
the most miserable and perilous condition. In the year 1849, the Chief
of Police reported the destitution and vice among this class of vagrants
as almost "incredible." In that report he says--"The offspring of always
careless, generally intemperate, and oftentimes dishonest parents, they
never see the inside of a school-room, and so far as our excellent
system of public education is concerned, it is to them a nullity." It
appears that, at that time, in 12 wards of the city, there were 2,955 of
these children, of whom two-thirds were females between the ages of 8
and 16. I am informed, also, by the Chief of Police, that 100 per cent.
should now be added to this estimate; not all attributable, of course,
to growth in depravity, but to the increase of population, especially by
immigration. I understand, moreover, that within the past year there
have been ten thousand arrests, and five thousand commitments of boys
alone between the ages of 5 and 15.

These are naked statistics, affording you an outline of the actual state
of things. Need I paint the costume and the scenery, and describe the
sad and awful drama in which these children play their parts? I could
not if I would. But think of that vast amount of young life running to
waste, sweeping through the sewers of the social fabric, an
under-current of taint and desolation! Think of them, starved, beaten,
driven into crime not merely by necessity, but by the very hands of
their parents! and think of them this night, cuddling in rags, shivering
on straw, cradled in reeking filth, drinking in blasphemy and obscenity
and cunning policies of sin, under that dark canopy that shuts out
social sympathy, and hides the very Face of God. And if you have, I will
not say parental hearts, but human souls, you will ask if there ought
not to be some remedy, and will say that all who can should help in
administering that remedy.

And _remedies_ there appear to be, my friends. For, while I said that
there is no condition in the city more sad and momentous than that of
these children of the poor, I said, likewise, that there is none more
_hopeful_. The essential and comprehensive remedy of all I indicated in
the close of the last discourse, and shall have occasion to dwell upon
in the next. That remedy is the practical operation of
Christianity--first of all in our own hearts, and then flowing out in
action. I mean especially the _method_ of Jesus, which consisted not of
mere teaching but of _help_--which touched not only the issues of the
sin-sick soul, but the weakness and want of the body. To the demoniac,
to the leper, to the impotent man by the pool, he brought not abstract
truths, but words of healing and works of practical deliverance. How
striking is the fact that the freshest and noblest charities of this
nineteenth century are only developments of the manner in which the
Redeemer soothed the sorrows and vanquished the evils of the world! For
those institutions which especially excite the public interest at the
present day, are those whose plan it is first to remove the children of
the poor from those wretched and foul _conditions_ upon which I have
laid so much stress, and to lead them to a higher culture by extending,
first, the hand of temporal relief. They aim to break up the sockets of
custom, and to introduce the degraded child to fresh motives of action
and fields of endeavor; to throw around him the atmosphere of a true
home, and to blend intellectual, and moral, and religious training with
that true charity which teaches one how to assert his own manliness, and
support himself by the honest labor of his own hands. Now I do not wish
to be invidious, I am glad that such a constellation of philanthropic
promise has risen upon the dark places of the abject poor. I point with
pleasure to what has been accomplished in the Sahara of the Five Points,
and in what still remains to be done I discern a field broad enough to
prevent collision and dispute--broad enough to employ the means and the
generous energies of thousands. With equal pleasure I refer to that
"Juvenile Asylum," with its noble interposition ere the feet of the
erring boy shall take the _second_ step in crime, and which has recently
rendered still more efficient its system of labor and relief by
extending the benefit to girls. But as I wish this evening to
concentrate your sympathies, I call your attention especially to the
institution known as "The Children's Aid Society," the general character
and the practical results of which I will briefly state. Its main object
is sufficiently indicated by its name. Its machinery is simple, and acts
upon the principle just laid down. It seeks first to remove the poor
child from the coil of evil influences which have been thrown around
him, and which have been daily strengthened by the sharpest pressure of
animal necessities. It comprehends the two-fold benefit of _education_
and _labor_ in its system of "Industrial Schools." Of these, at the
present time, in this city, there are eight, in which a multitude of
children are educated, taught to work, supplied with a warm dinner
daily, and with such clothing as they can learn to make. In connection
with these there is one shoe-shop, in which thirty or forty boys earn a
livelihood. Another object of this society is to find employment for its
beneficiaries out of the city, and during the past year places in the
country have been found for one hundred and twenty-five, where their
employers treat them as their own children.

In institutions like these, then, you perceive the indications of a
remedy for the condition of these children of the poor--a system of help
which gives something more than spiritual instruction on the one hand,
something more than mere food and clothing on the other; which combines
measures of relief and nourishment for the demands of our whole nature
in the form of the ignorant and suffering child; and which, better than
all, lifts him out of the humiliating condition of a mere pauper or
dependent, and sets him in a channel of manly exertion,
self-development, and self-support; which not only does the negative
work of removing a mass of evil from society, but makes for it the
positive contribution of an improved and educated humanity. I do not say
that all the relief lies here, that it will do all that is needed, or
that nothing better will be devised. But I think the _tendency_ of these
institutions is the right one, and that they indicate the _way_ in which
this great social problem is to be solved. But it is not necessary to
say that the faith which we cherish in such a system is dead without
works; and that something more is needed than a few model institutions
working here and there. This matter makes a practical claim upon us all,
in the fact that, in one way or another, we may all help forward this
method of relief--we may help it forward as active laborers in the very
midst of the field, as teachers and missionaries, or contributors of our
goods and money. Each knows what he can best do--what is his special,
Providential _call_ in the matter; but let him be assured that he _has_
a call; and that this spectacle of exposed, needy, suffering childhood
is not a mere spectacle for his sympathies, but a field white with a
harvest that waits for his effort. Have we nothing but sympathies
wherewith to answer the poor woman's prayer--a prayer that echoes
through so many hearts in this great city--"May the Lord spare my Archy
from the bad boys, and from taking to the ways of his father!"

There is one thing which strikes me as very affecting in the condition
of any child. It is when that condition is necessarily a melancholy
one--when the circumstances which hem it around cast over the surface of
that young life an abiding gloom. A melancholy child! What an anomaly
among the harmonies of the universe; something as incongruous as a bird
drooping in a cage, or a flower in a sepulchre. The musical laughter
muffled and broken; the spontaneous smile transformed to a sad
suspicion; and the austerities of mature life, the fearful speculation,
and forecast of evil, fixed and frozen on a boy's face! And then the
sorrow of a child is so _absorbing_--for he lives only in the present.
In the afflictions which fall upon him, man has the aid of reason and
faith--he looks beyond the present issue, he detects the significance of
his calamity, and strengthened thus a brave heart can vanquish any
sorrow. But, as Richter beautifully says--"the little cradle, or
bed-canopy of the child, is easier darkened than the starry heaven of
man." Surely, then, it is a blessed thing to contribute aught that will
lighten this gloom, and place the child in natural conditions.

But there is one phase of this subject which, in its appeal to us, is
more eloquent than all the rest. It is where there are children who
stand not merely in the intrinsic claim of their childhood; or in their
touching sadness; or pushing their energies into vice and crime; but
nobly struggling _against_ the tide of evil--struggling to bear up in
their lot--enduring and achieving for the sake of those who, young as
these children are, are dependent on them. If I had time, I think I
could write a "Martyrology;" not following the track of famous men,
whose faces look out upon us from the brutal amphitheatre and from the
fire with a halo of glory around them, and whom we behold, by the vision
of faith, with their gory robes transfigured to celestial whiteness,
waving palms in their hands; but tracing out incidents in the lives of
some of the children here in our city--not dead, but _living_ martyrs!
O! I think I _could_ write such a Martyrology, with blood and tears,
over many a gloomy threshold, on the walls of many a desolate room; and
let future generations come and read it--a fearful record of human
suffering--a sweet memorial of human virtue--when many of these old
woes, we trust, shall have passed away for ever.

Permit me, in closing, to present two or three incidents illustrative of
this heroism and sacrifice among the Children of the Poor.

Take, for instance, the account of a writer who tells us that in the
street he "met a little girl, very poor, but with such a sweet sad
expression," adds he, "that I involuntarily stopped and spoke to her.
She answered my questions very clearly, but the heavy, sad look never
left her eyes a moment. She had no father or mother. She took care of
the children herself; she was only _thirteen_; she sewed on check
shirts, and made a living for them." He went to see her. "It is a low,
damp basement her home. She lives there with the three little children,
whom she supports, and the elder sick brother, who sometimes picks up a
trifle. She had been washing for herself and little ones. 'She almost
thought that she could take in washing now,' and the little ones with
their knees to their mouths crouched up before the stove, looked as if
there could not be a doubt of sister's doing anything she tried. 'Well,
Annie, how do you make a living now?' 'I sew on the check shirts, sir,
and the flannel shirts; I get five cents for the checks, and nine cents
for the others; but just now they wont let me have the flannel, because
I can't deposit two dollars.' 'It must be very hard work?' 'O! I don't
mind, sir; but to-day the visitors came, and said we'd better go to the
poor-house, and I said I couldn't like to leave these little ones yet;
and I thought if I only had candles, I could sit up till ten or eleven,
and make the shirts.' ... She had learned everything she knew at the
Industrial School.... She never went to church, for she had no clothes,
but she could read and write.... 'It was very damp there,' she said,
'and then it was so cold nights.'"

I will, in the next place, introduce you to a garret-room, six feet by
ten. The occupants are a poor mother and her son. The mother works at
making shirts with collars and stitched bosoms, at six shillings and
sixpence per dozen, for a man who pays half in merchandise, and who,
when she is starving for bread, puts her off with calico at a _shilling_
a yard that is not worth more than fourpence! But _he_ is not the martyr
in the case. When the visitor entered, her son George, about twelve
years old, "was just coming in for dinner, pale and apparently exhausted
by the effort of climbing the stairs, and sank down upon a rough plank
bench near the door." He worked in a glass-factory, earning a bare
subsistence. "He is a little old man at twelve," says the narrator, "the
paleness of his sunken cheeks was relieved by the hectic flush; his
hollow dry eye was moistened by an occasional tear; and his thin white
lip quivered as he told me his simple story; how he was braving hunger
and death--for he cannot live long--to help his mother pay the rent and
buy her bread. 'Half-past ten at night is early for him to return,' said
the mother; 'sometimes it is half-past eleven and I am sitting up for
him.' Sometimes, in the morning, she finds him awake, 'but he don't want
to get up, and he puts his hands on his sides and says, 'Mother, it
hurts me here when I breathe.' I can work, and I do work,' adds she,
'all the time--but I can't make as much as my little boy.'"

One more account. It is of a beggar-girl who "lives," as the narrative
goes on to say, "in a rear building where full daylight never shines--in
a cellar-room where pure dry air is never breathed. A quick gentle girl
of twelve years, she speaks to the visitor as he enters--'Mother does
not see you, sir, because she's blind.' The mother was an old woman of
sixty-five or seventy years, with six or seven others seated around.
'But you told me you and your mother and little sister lived by
yourselves.' 'Yes, sir--here it is;'" and at the end of the passage the
visitor discovers a narrow place, about five feet by three. The bed was
rolled up in one corner, and nearly filled the room. "'But where is your
stove?' 'We have none, sir. The people in the next room are very kind to
mother, and let her come in there to warm--because, you know, I get half
the coal.' 'But where do you cook your food?' 'We never cook any, sir;
it is already cooked. I go early in the morning to get coal and chips
for the fire, and I must have two baskets of coal and wood to kindle
with by noon. That's mother's half. Then when the people have eaten
dinner, I go round to get the bits they leave. I can get two baskets of
coal every day now; but when it gets cold, and we must have a great
deal, it is hard for me to find any--there's so many poor chaps to pick
it. Sometimes the _ladies_ speak cross to me, and shut the door hard at
me, and sometimes the _gentlemen_ slap me in the face, and kick my
basket, and then I come home, and mother says not to cry, for may be
I'll do better to-morrow. Sometimes I get my basket almost full, and
then put it by for to-morrow; and then, if next day we have enough, I
take this to a poor woman next door. Sometimes I get only a few bits in
my basket for all day, and may be the next day. And then I _fast_,
because, you know, mother is sick and weakly, and can't be able to fast
like me.'"

These my friends, are some of the "short and simple annals of the poor."
But those of whom Gray spoke rest peacefully in the "country
churchyard;" their spirits are in heaven, and their history is embalmed
in his own immortal Elegy. But _these_ records are of those who yet live
and suffer--"Martyrs _without_ the palm."

And could I summon them here to-night, and would the Master but enter as
when upon earth, surely he would look upon them in tender pity; would
bless them; would take in his arms those whom the world has cast aside
and overlooked. Nay, perhaps he would transfigure their actuality into
their possibility, and we might see "the angels in their faces,"
pleading with us before the Father's throne!




THE HELP OF RELIGION.




DISCOURSE VIII.

THE HELP OF RELIGION.

      For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to
      come.--HEBREWS xiii, 14.


There are a good many people who, apparently, are never troubled by any
speculations arising out of a comprehensive view of things. They are
keenly alive to all objects within their sphere; but their eyes are
close to the surface, and their experience comes in shocks of sensation,
and shreds of perception. They know the superficial features of the
world and its conventional expressions; are conversant with its business
and its pleasures; with the market, the fashions, the town-talk, the
worldly fortunes of their neighbors. Sometimes, a powerful affliction
startles them in this smooth routine, and for a moment they are
surprised to find how wide the universe is, and among what great
realities we dwell. But, usually, their existence is a narrow revolving
disc, bringing around the same group of incidents and the same
associations, morning, noon, and night. They comprehend Life as they
comprehend the expanse of yonder harbor, dotted with shifting but
familiar forms, ruffled by a passing wind or bright under a summer sun,
and whose tides duly rise and fall. But they little think of the oceanic
vastness which it represents; and how its oscillations come from great
currents that leap out of the Antarctic, and swell around tropical
islands, and sweep the lines of continents, and roll in the Polar Sea.

These, therefore, are not perplexed by questions such as occur to him
who, looking beyond his own worldly interests and the area of daily
routine, takes into view the scope of being and the profounder phenomena
of human life. For such a view will inevitably engender speculation, nor
can he rest until he obtains some _theory_ of existence. These very
conditions of Humanity in the City, for instance--these conditions of
poverty, and responsibility, and relationship, and privilege, and
strife, and toil--yea, the lessons which come to us from the crowd as it
flows through these streets; constitute a great problem, of which every
thinking man will seek some solution.

Now, throughout this entire series of discourses--although I have not
deemed it necessary in every instance to make a specific application--I
have assumed that you and I were looking upon these various phases of
Humanity from the Christian stand-point, and therefore I could not fitly
conclude this work without indicating the Help which RELIGION affords
concerning these problems of existence.

I observe, then, that while it may seem very simple to affirm that a
_theory_ does not, in any case, alter _facts_; yet there is often an
advantage in laying down this proposition. For this leads us to
understand precisely what a theory _may_ do. It does not alter facts,
but it throws them into new relations, and presents them in an entirely
different light. Materialism, for instance, is a theory of Life; and
Christianity--in which term I include not only a system of Doctrines,
but of practical forces--is also a theory of Life. Now, neither of these
gets rid of the great facts of existence. Men sin and suffer and die,
whether we adopt the one system or the other. But, surely, when we
approach these facts from the side of Religion, they appear in very
different lights, and are taken up with very different results, from
their appearance and effect when interpreted by the creed of Unbelief.
It would be very absurd then, because Christianity does not instantly
abolish, or fully explain, all these strange and darker realities, to
fall back upon the opposite ground of skepticism. This is only receding
from the best solution to the worst--or, rather, to no solution at all.
For I maintain that Christianity gives us not merely the best, but the
_only_ solution of these problems. It will be my purpose in this
discourse, at least, to show what kind of help Religion _does_ afford
for Humanity in all these diverse conditions; and, having done this, I
shall leave it to your own convictions to decide whether it is not a
great and practical Help; and whether there _is_ any other help. I
propose to illustrate the influence of Religion to this effect,
first--as a _Conviction_; second, as a _Working Power_; and third, as an
_Interpretation_.

I say, then, in the first place, that religion furnishes great help for
man in the various issues of life, when he becomes actually convinced
that its truths and sanctions are _genuine_. In other words, the
conception of a moral government, of a directing Providence, and of
eternal realities, vividly apprehended by the intellect, kept fresh in
the heart, and assimilated to the entire spiritual nature, is a personal
inspiration. It elevates the platform of a man's being, so that all
things appear in true proportion. It clears his vision to detect
principles, and endows him with moral courage. I do not know that I can
better suggest its influence as a help here, in the conditions of the
city, than by asking you to imagine what _would_ be the state of things
in the spheres of toil and traffic--in all the multiform relations of
our humanity--if men really apprehended and believed it? _It_, I
say--not some special dogma or institution, but the absolute spirit and
truth of Christianity. For I do not think that, generally, this _is_
actually credited. I think that, with many professions of religion, and
much outward respect for it, and an extensive circulation of vague
conceptions about it, it is _not_ commonly felt and vitalized--it is not
apprehended in its blessedness and power, and absolute excellence. To
the habits of the soul it does not represent and mean realities as a
written contract does, or a bank-bill--something that men precipitate
themselves upon, and that sways the under-currents of their action. New
York, with its Broadway and its Wall Street; with its proud buildings
and its bristling masts; is a reality--but that city of which the text
makes mention; that city which good men seek, and which in the
Apocalypse of Faith they see; whose splendors glitter through the solemn
twilight; nay, which hems them around for ever, and shines down upon
them brighter than the noonday sun; to thousands, toiling, sinning, and
suffering here, is _not_ a reality. For, I ask you, my friends, if it
_were_ realized, could there be so much abject need among us; so much
stony-hearted selfishness; so much shuffling in trade, and corruption
in politics, and meanness in intercourse, and foolish superficial
living? I know, and you know, that one of the greatest evils is--not
merely that men are worldly, irreligious, bound up in sad conditions and
narrow conceits; but that they are so, because they do not apprehend the
nature and do not feel the reality of religion. For I say once more,
that a conviction of its reality must be a great help in adjusting the
problems of life. And this, because it acts upon the centre of all the
sin, and much of the suffering of the world. This personal application
of religion stands before all other remedies for the removal of these
evils. Others are attempted--others are, in a degree, successful; but
none go so deep and produce results so sure. It seems to me that the
position of humanity in this respect, is illustrated in the narrative of
the Demoniac of Gadara. We are told that he had been bound with chains,
but in his fierce madness had burst them asunder. And then, again, men
had tried various expedients, but they could not tame him. But when the
influence of Jesus fell upon his soul, it took hold of it with sweet
authority; the legion left him, and the poor, wounded, houseless man sat
clothed and in his right mind. So is it with man in society; so is it
with some of these social evils. The power of _law_ has been invoked;
and it has its legitimate sphere of operation. It checks the purposed
violence. It arrests the overt act. It may consistently be summoned to
purify all those channels of social action which it assumes to regulate;
and, instead of patronizing the wrong, to set its face and hand against
it. Thus it may prevent public harm, though it cannot stop self-injury,
and remove occasions of temptation, though it cannot impart moral
strength. It has no efficacy to change the assassin's heart, yet we call
upon it to guard us against murder. We bid it close the den of infamy,
though it does not quench guilty passion. And we may use it to stop the
sale of intoxicating drinks, though it does not destroy the drunkard's
appetite. And this indicates both the function and the limitation of the
law. Thrown over the wild forces that rage in the human heart, and that
afflict community, it is like the fetters on the limbs of the demoniac.
It may restrain for a time; but in some sweep of temptation it is
spurned and snapped asunder. On the other hand, we have the expedients
of the _reformer_. He comes with props and palliatives; soothing some
cutaneous irritation, or removing some foul condition. And let us
recognize the legitimacy of _his_ endeavor. We must approach the human
heart through the web of its external circumstances, as well as
directly. Nay, often this is the only way by which we can get at it at
all. And well may we rejoice over the rescue from specific vices, and
commend the zeal and patience which fasten upon some colossal evil to
batter and drive it from the world. But notwithstanding such noble
achievement, how many have remained among the tombs, or gone back to the
wilderness--demoniacs still! It is an old truth, but I say it as though
it were in the conviction of a fresh fact forced upon me by these great
problems that heave up in the currents of City Life; it is an
unavoidable conclusion that there is only one influence that can make
safe, and pure, and strong in goodness, those recesses out of which
issue so much social evil, and so much personal suffering. And that is
the influence not of the law-giver, nor of the reformer; but of the
Redeemer. It is that power which flows through the soul in a practical
conviction of the reality of religion. It is the help which comes from
its inspiration of divine truth and goodness in the breasts of
individual men, turning them from evil, rendering them strong against
temptation, and sending out from their lives fresh forces of
righteousness and love.

Indeed, I believe that any man who really thinks and feels, and who has
much experience of Life, will become convinced of the _necessity_ of
Religion. I would leave its claims not to the argument of the Moralist,
or the advocacy of the Pulpit, but as they urge themselves upon us here
out of the whirl, and weariness, and vicissitudes of the City. Surely,
as its calm voice appeals to the sons of men, striving in this heated
atmosphere; chasing phantoms that rise out of the dust; absorbed in the
fickle game of fortune; borne along for a little while on the top-waves
of excitement, and then dying unmarked as a rain-drop that falls into
the sea; surely as its voice appeals to these, saying--"Come unto me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!" it
strikes the deepest chords in thousands of hearts. I will not adopt now
any professional argument to prove the great necessity of Religion as a
Help in Life. But I would take my stand, in imagination, at some corner
of yonder tumultuous street. How multiform the crowds that sweep by me;
how diverse the faces; what a kaleidoscope of human conditions! And yet,
when you attempt to classify them, how few are the actual _types_ of
men--how many fall into a common group; and when you try them by the
profoundest standard--that of a common experience and common wants--how
marvellously alike they all are! How similar in inward expression, the
rich man who walks yonder, to that poor drudging son of toil, who bows
his back and strains his sinews until they ache! How similar in effect
the burdens which they both bear--the burden of wealth, and the burden
of poverty, in the fact that they _are_ burdens upon the heart and the
soul! And are they not both struggling with the realities of life, and
moved by quenchless desires, and looking up into the same infinite
mystery? Ah! my friends, I hardly think it would be the most effectual
way to preach Religion in this church on Sunday, as a matter of
course--but to stand out there on week-days, and strike the deepest
chords throbbing unconsciously in the bosoms of those who pass me by. I
would appeal to you, O disappointed, almost heart-broken man, who for
years have endeavored to earn a competency to lift your head above the
sheer necessities of life, but have failed in the chase, and been beaten
back, and seen others who have exerted themselves not near as much, not
so honorably, perhaps, rise to the very top of the stream and sail clear
ahead;--or to you, O "favorite of fortune," as the world calls you, who
find your palace to be only a stately sepulchre, in which all genuine
feeling and simple enjoyment lies dead and wrapped in cerements of
chilling etiquette--whose daughter, perhaps, has mocked your fondest
plans; or whose son has turned out a miserable weed of dissipation--a
degenerate fopling, a rake, a fool;--or to you, O butterfly of fashion,
sailing with embroidered wings in search of admiration and of pleasure;
or still again, to you who have just gathered together the means of
enjoyment, and ease, and everything, to make life pleasant, and lo!
death has entered, and your hopes are darkened and in the dust; I appeal
to you, O types of this streaming humanity, that wears so many masks,
yet, carries under all a common heart; and ask you, if there is not some
void that no earthly good can fill--that no finite thing can sustain and
satisfy? Can you go on with the common business of the world, discharge
all its obligations, control yourself in its excitements, resist its
evil solicitations, bear up under its trials, and, finally, reach that
period in life when you must ask--"What is all this worth?--these years
of toil, these eager enterprises, this golden accumulation or
unfortunate failure--what are they all worth, and what do they
mean?"--can anybody well get along with all this, without Religion? My
friends, I say to you that, not consciously, perhaps, like the old
saints who wrought and prayed and walked with upward-looking faces--but
really, in the deep yearning and the secret gravitation of the soul--you
_do_ confess that here we have no continuing city, and you are seeking
one to come. At least, it seems to me that without the Help of Religion,
there is only the alternative of moral indifference--a cold, hard
worldliness, or of recklessness and spiritual despair. And is not this
the alternative which is exhibited in the midst of all our
civilization--in the midst of this gorgeous materialism of the
nineteenth century? Thousands, it is to be apprehended, do exhibit one
or the other of those extremes which the poet has so well described:

    "For most men in a brazen prison live,
      Where, in the sun's hot eye,
      With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly
    Their minds to some unmeaning task-work give,
      Dreaming of naught beyond their prison wall;
        And so, year after year,
      Fresh products of their barren labor fall
        From their tired hands, and rest
      Never yet comes more near.
      Gloom settles slowly down over their breast,
    And while they try to stem
      The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest,
    Death in their prison reaches them
      Unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest.

    "And the rest, a few,
      Escape their prison, and depart
    On the wide ocean of life anew.
      There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart
    Listeth, will sail;
    Nor does he know how there prevail
    Despotic on life's sea,
    Trade-winds that cross it from eternity.
    Awhile he holds some false way, undebarred
    By thwarting signs, and braves
    The freshening wind, and blackening waves,
    And then the tempest strikes him, and between
    The lightning bursts is seen
    Only a driving wreck,
    And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck
    With anguished face and flying hair,
      Grasping the rudder hard,
    Still bent to make some port he knows not where,
    Still standing for some false impossible shore,
    And sterner comes the roar
    Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom,
    Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom."

But, before I quit this head of my discourse, let me say that in order
to be accepted as the great Help of Life, Religion must in some way be
_presented_ as a reality. It must not be held forth as a mere
abstraction--it must be precipitated into its concrete relations.
Parting with none of its sanctity, it must be stripped of its vagueness
and technicality, and be spoken in the fresh language of the time. I
feel sure that amidst prevalent irreligion, nothing is so much needed as
a definite statement of _what_ religion is; and that men should learn to
recognize its vascular connection with every department of action. It
must be understood that "being religious" is not a work apart by itself,
but a spirit of faith and righteousness, flowing out from the centre of
a regenerated heart into all the employments and intercourse of the
world. Not merely the preacher in the pulpit, and the saint on his
knees, may do the work of religion, but the mechanic who smites with the
hammer and drives the wheel; the artist seeking to realize his pure
ideal of the beautiful; the mother in the gentle offices of home; the
statesman in the forlorn hope of liberty and justice; and the
philosopher whose thought treads reverently among the splendid mysteries
of the universe. I know that some will deem this a secularization of
religion--a desecration of its holy essence by worldly alliances. But
they are mistaken. It is a _consecration_ of pursuits and spheres that
have been cut off from all sacredness, and devoted to secondary ends.
Are not the just, the useful, the beautiful, from God, as well as the
good and the holy? And, therefore, is not any practice which serves
these, a service of God? It is needed that men should feel that every
lawful pursuit _is_ sacred and not profane; that every position in life
is close to the steps of the divine throne; and that the most beaten and
familiar paths lie under the awful shadow of the Infinite; then they
will go about their daily pursuits, and fill their common relationships,
with hearts of worship and pulses of unselfish love; instead of
regarding religion as an isolated peculiarity for a corner of the closet
and a fraction of the week, and leaving all the rest of time and space
an unconsecrated waste, where lawless passions travel, and selfishness
pitches its tents. O! if religion _were_ thus a diffusive, practical,
every-day reality, there would be a marvellous change in the aspects of
life and the conditions of humanity around us. The great city, now so
gross and profane, would become as a vast cathedral, through whose stony
aisles would flow perpetual service; where labor would discharge its
daily offices, and faith and patience keep their heavenward look, and
love present its offerings. Yea, the very roll of wheels through its
busy streets would be as a litany, and the sound of homeward feet the
chant of its evening psalm.

But religion is not only a help in and for ourselves; it has a
ministration for others--for this great mass of destitution and
suffering that broods in the midst of the city. Christianity is not
merely a theory of existence--it is a _working-power_. Its precepts are
practical, and enjoin not merely states of mind and heart, but
conditions of activity. There is an entire magazine of working-forces in
that one great law--"Love thy neighbor as thyself." Hear the words of
an apostolical commentator upon it. "If a brother or sister be naked,
and destitute of daily food," says he, "and one of you say unto them,
Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them
not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." And wherever
Christianity has existed and been apprehended, it has produced
beneficent results for humanity. It has gone over the earth like its
Divine Author, with healing and with help for the woes of the race.
Anybody who takes his stand at the head-waters of modern history, will
see that a mighty energy was then poured into the world, whose influence
is evident in the truest civilization, in the best results, of ages. In
estimating the practical power of Christianity, we must look at the
_positive_ phase of things--we must consider what has actually been
done; not merely what remains to be done. We must adopt proportionate
standards, not the little measures of to-day and yesterday, in which the
tides of human melioration may oscillate, and even seem to flow
backward and at the best to make slight headway. But take up the cycle
of history that preceded the advent of Christianity, and compare it with
the present period; and is there not an entirely different expression on
the face of things, so far as conceptions of humanity and influences of
philanthropy are concerned? Contrast "a Roman holiday," its butchery and
its blood, with a modern anniversary that clasps the round world in its
jubilee, and see if humanity has not been helped by religion. Or look
back upon Grecian art and refinement, and tell me what oration or poem,
or pantheon of marble beauty, is half as glorious as the plain brick
free-school; the asylum of industry; the home for the penitent, the
disabled and the poor? Ah! my friends, these are such familiar things
that we may not think them the great things they really are; and in
gazing upon the colossal evils that yet tower up before us, they may
seem slight achievements. But they _are_ great: and when I see the poor
drunkard return to a renovated home--the demoniac sitting clothed and in
his right mind once more; when I see the dumb write, and hear the blind
read, and little rescued children sing their thankful hymns; I think
humanity _has_ been helped a great deal since that Divine Teacher walked
the earth, and took the lambs to his bosom, and made the foul leper
clean, and partook with publicans and sinners, and bade the guilty go
and sin no more. I think that currents of love and self-sacrifice, from
that heart that was pierced for us upon the cross, have found their way
through the channels of ages, through all the impediments of worldliness
and selfishness, and inspired and blessed men far more than they know.

But if, turning from the positive achievement, you point to the evils
that still exist--if you lift the coverings of respectability and custom
from the ghastly facts that are embedded here in our so-called
civilization; if you bid me mark the vice, the poverty, the crime, the
oppression, the grinding monopoly, the prejudice, the gigantic
materialism and practical atheism that are mixed up with it, and seem to
be inseparable parts of it; then I ask you--how would it be _without_
the Help of Religion? What interpretation should we obtain from the
dark creed of the skeptic, what inspiration from the philosophy of
annihilation, and of fate? To say nothing of those forces of Love and
self-sacrifice which it sheds abroad in the world, and to which I have
just alluded,--Religion, in one single proposition, sends pregnant
elements of direction and relief into the midst of these giant evils.
That one proposition is the immortality of man--the priceless
spirituality of every man--the ascription of a nature more glorious and
imperishable than a star. Here is the spring of its perpetual antagonism
to the world, and to the evil of the world. The latter bases its
estimate of man upon outward conditions; estimates his name and his
title, his equipage and his parentage, the bulk of his gold, the color
of his skin, his _apparent_ success or defeat. Christianity points to
that vivid centre of a soul, in whose light all these external
distinctions fade, are fused into dross, become comparatively naught.
All the evil of the world stands upon the assumption of the former
rule--upon the ground of external and material valuation--which, as has
been well observed by another, is a "method of studying the problems of
the universe by fetching rules from the _wider_ sphere (therefore the
_lower_) to import into the _higher_.... So long as this logical
strategy is allowed, the Titans will always conquer the gods; the
ground-forces of the lowest nature will propagate themselves, pulse
after pulse, from the abysses to the skies, and _right_ will exist only
on sufferance from _might_." On the other hand, I say, Religion,
Christianity, starts from the centre outward--starts with the dignity
and sanctity of the human soul--and in this is the great element of all
progress and reform. Out of this have sprung the achievements of modern
freedom. Assuming this inward birthright of every man, men have snapped
feudal fetters, and broken the seals of ancient proscription, and torn
up branching genealogies, and trodden diadems in the dust. It was this
fact that inspired Sidney's speech, and Hampden's effort, and
Washington's calm determination. It is this that erects itself against
majorities, policies, institutions, charters, and will not be beaten
down, and will agitate, and will triumph. It is this that sends
philanthropy upon its mission; and bids it stoop to the most fallen, and
search under the darkest depravity. "Go abroad," it says, "amidst the
guilt and misery of the great city. In the rags, the filth, the
abomination, there are jewels fallen from heaven. There are souls upon
which angels look with solicitude. There are interests for which Christ
died. Search patiently, and deeply, and never give up the endeavor to
find, to lift up, to restore." Is not all the spring of benevolent
effort, then, in this single proposition of Religion? This one great
Truth it utters amidst the suffering and injustice of the world--that
men are heirs of one inheritance; possessors of a birthright by virtue
of which all outward inequalities fade away. It bases a demand for
mutual help and love, upon the fact that we are all on a
pilgrimage--high, low, honored, degraded, master, slave, we go forth
together, and these earthly distinctions all drop away. Rich man with
rows of real-estate, with money safe in bank, with solid securities
walled around you--you will carry no more away than Lazarus yonder--in
God's eyes you are no richer than he. Because here we have no continuing
city. The destinies of our common humanity flow forward into another and
more enduring one.

And, if still this problem of human degradation and suffering presses
upon us, I say further, that where the constituents of this problem are
most prominent, there religion is the most active. The heaviest poverty
is belted about by the brightest charities; the hot-beds of crime
generate the most radical efforts for its prevention and its cure; and
while oppression is at work, setting its dark types upon virgin soil to
print off its own shame and condemnation, indignant voices expose it and
indignant hearts react against it. And more and more, every day, it is
felt and proclaimed that religion is a working-principle--a practical
power. Never was it more profoundly felt than in this very age that men
must be confessors of Christianity as well as professors. And in the
light of this conception, proffering fresh and willing help, Religion
walks abroad; and lo! waste places grow verdant, and the strongholds of
guilt and misery sink down, and blessed institutions rise up, and
industry takes the place of crime, and cursings are exchanged for songs,
and the poorest sees the immortal light, and is lifted up by the grand
thought--that "here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to
come."

We have thus seen that Religion is a Help as to the fact of sin, when
men are convinced of it as a great reality; and a help as to the fact of
human suffering, because it is a working-power. But, over and above all
this, there are problems that perplex us, and demand some answer;
problems as to the How, and the Wherefore, and the End. There are times
when our thoughts rise above all specific instances, and we take up
humanity and existence as a whole, and ask--"What means it all?"
Sometimes this question starts out of an individual experience. The
shock of affliction has jarred our hearts; our expectations have come to
naught; bereavement has broken up the routine of our life; or our own
souls have surprised us with sudden revelations. At any rate, we find
our being here involved with mystery. There is something that our
understanding cannot entirely grasp; something that our unassisted eyes
cannot see. And the only help for us in such a case is the Help of
Religion, presenting us, through faith, with an _interpretation_ of
human life--an interpretation which tells us that what we now experience
and behold is only transitional, preliminary, and that we see through a
glass darkly, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.

And is it necessary for me to dwell upon the strength which has thus
been imparted to sad and wounded spirits, when with perfect trust in
Infinite Goodness they have thus realized that they stand only on one
round of an upward course--only in a little segment of the immense plan?
I will merely say now, that if, through faith, religion is a help to
these by interpreting life in harmony with individual experience, so
through this faith does it help the meditative man troubled by the
general problem of existence and humanity. The meaning of these various
conditions in the city--the meaning of these sins, and sorrows, and
inequalities--the meaning of this tide of life itself that rolls in
endless succession through these stony arteries--does it perplex you?
Accept, then, the help which religion gives by interpreting it as only
preliminary and transitional; only a portion of a wider scheme.

We commenced this series of discourses by standing, as it were, in the
street, on a level with all these phases of humanity. Ascend now some
lofty post of observation; some high watch-tower. The mottled tide flows
and dashes far below you. The sounds of strife and endeavor rise faintly
to your ears, and are drowned in the upper air. So in the altitude and
comprehensiveness of faith, all this that seemed so huge and startling
dwindles to a little stream in the great ocean of existence, and all
these tumults are swallowed up in the currents of silent but beneficent
design. But, in the meantime, the daylight has gone, the night-shadow
has fallen, this stream of human life has ebbed away, and all these
sounds are still. See, now, how much of your perplexity came from a
deceit of eye-sight--see how the light of this world blinded you to the
immensity and the meaning of existence! See! over your head spreads the
great firmament. There are Sirius, and Orion, and the glittering
Pleiades. How harmoniously they are related; how calmly they roll! And
now, O man! fresh from the reeking dust, and the cry of pained hearts,
and the shadows of the grave, do not the scales of unbelief drop from
your eyes, when you see the width of God's universe, and feel that His
purpose girdles this little planet and steers its freight of souls? You
were deceived by your standards of greatness and duration. You thought
that this material city, with what it contains, was everything. But
_they_ have cherished the true view, who in the spirit of the text have
interpreted these Conditions of Humanity--the conditions of those who
seek and sin and suffer in the busy crowd; of those who rest beneath
yonder gleaming tomb-stones. And, as we read what all wise and good men
have virtually said, our mortal term contracts, our immortal career
opens, our years seem as ticks of a clock, and the entire sum of our
life but a minute-mark on the dial of eternity; and this huge metropolis
becomes a dim veil, a perishable symbol of real and enduring things.


THE END.


       *       *       *       *       *


TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious
typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have
been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:

page 27: quote typo corrected

    But, say you, '["]here is one who is returning to a home of
    destitution, of misery; where the

page 39: typo corrected

    between those great agents of human achievment[achievement]
    and the living intelligence

page 41: typo corrected

    years. Remarkable for brilliant achievments[achievements] in
    every department of physics, ours well deserves

page 45: hyphen removed

    the old world without a telegraph, and Columbus found a new
    one without a steam[-]ship.

page 49: typo corrected

    open air and the sovreignty[sovereignty] of the soil. And if
    this immense intrusion of machinery has

page 58: duplicate word removed

    stream, and chained the fire; and now, [with] with the eye of
    science and the hand of skill,

page 84: typo corrected

    dignity is there in that man who justs[just] accepts his
    station and makes the most of

page 154: removed quote

      celestial City be these well-known doors--and thus may we
      also _die_ at Home!["]

page 173: typo corrected

    heaven, whose inhabitants would not make
    harmlesness[harmlessness] their chief characteristic. Their

page 195: typo corrected

    and, perpetually descending from the threshold of the
    Infinite, keeps open an arch-way of mysstery[mystery] and
    heaven.

page 201: typo corrected

    dangerous reasoning, my friends; neverthless[nevertheless],
    it _is_ reasoning, and shows that the mind of the

page 240: typo corrected

    of life and the conditions of humanity arouud[around] us. The
    great city, now so gross and profane,





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