{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_26441/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_26441","id":"gutenberg_26441","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26441","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Sociology","Sermons, American","Universalist Church of America -- Sermons"],"text":"Produced by Julia Miller and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive/American Libraries.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHUMANITY IN THE CITY.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as\nfaithfully as possible; please see list of printing issues at the end\nof the text.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n[Illustration: E. H. Chapin]\n\n\n\n\nHUMANITY IN THE CITY.\n\nBY THE\n\nREV. E. H. CHAPIN.\n\n\n NEW YORK:\n   DE WITT & DAVENPORT, PUBLISHERS,\n   160 & 162 NASSAU STREET.\n\n BOSTON:\n   ABEL TOMPKINS, 38 & 40 CORNHILL.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEntered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by\nDE WITT & DAVENPORT,\n\nIn the Clerk's Office of the U. S. District Court\nfor the Southern District of New York\n\n\n G. W. ALEXANDER,\n   BINDER,\n 9 Spruce Street.\n\n W. H. TINSON.\n   STEREOTYPER,\n 24 Beekman Street.\n\n TAWS, RUSSELL & CO.\n   PRINTERS,\n No. 26 Beekman Street.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n                                                         PAGE\n\n  I. THE LESSONS OF THE STREET                             13\n\n  II. MAN AND MACHINERY                                    39\n\n  III. THE STRIFE FOR PRECEDENCE                           65\n\n  IV. THE SYMBOLS OF THE REPUBLIC                          93\n\n  V. THE SPRINGS OF SOCIAL LIFE                           123\n\n  VI. THE ALLIES OF THE TEMPTER                           157\n\n  VII. THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR                           187\n\n  VIII. THE HELP OF RELIGION                              223\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nA volume like the present hardly requires the formality of a preface. It\nis the continuation of a series already published, and, like that, aims\nat applying the highest standard of Morality and Religion to the phases\nof every-day life. In order, however, that the view with which these\ndiscourses have been prepared may not be misconceived, I wish merely to\nsay that I am far from supposing that these are the only themes to be\npreached, or that they constitute the highest class of practical\nsubjects, and shall be sorry if in any way they seem to imply a neglect\nof that interior and holy life which is the spring not only of right\naffections, but of clear perception and sturdy, every-day duty. I hope,\non the contrary, that the very aspects of this busy city life--the very\nproblems which start out of it--will tend to convince men of the\nnecessity of this inward and regenerating principle. Nevertheless, I\nmaintain that these topics have a place in the circle of the preacher's\nwork, and he need entertain no fear of desecrating his pulpit by secular\nthemes, who seeks to consecrate all things in any way involving the\naction and the welfare of men, by the spirit and aims of His Religion\nwho, while he preached the Gospel, likewise fed the hungry, healed the\nsick, and touched the issues of every temporal want. I may have failed\nin the method, I trust I have not in the purpose.\n\n    E. H. C.\n\n_New York, May, 1854._\n\n\n\n\nTHE LESSONS OF THE STREET.\n\nHUMANITY IN THE CITY.\n\n\n\n\nDISCOURSE I.\n\nTHE LESSONS OF THE STREET.\n\n      Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the\n      streets.--PROVERBS, i. 20.\n\n\nThe great truths of religion may be communicated to the mind and the\nheart in two ways--by abstract treatment, and by illustration. It must\nbe taken up in its absolute connection with God, and with our own souls.\nIn solitary meditation, in self-examination, and in prayer, we shall\nlearn the intrinsic claims which Faith and Duty have upon reason and\nconscience. But we cannot proceed far before we discover the necessity\nof some _symbol_, by which these abstract principles may be made\ndistinct to us. And, looking around for this purpose, we find that all\nthe phases of existence are full of spiritual illustration--full of\nreligious suggestion and argument. Thus our Saviour pronounced his great\ndoctrines of Eternal Life, and of Personal Religion, and then turned to\nthe world for a commentary. Under his teaching nature became an\nilluminated missal, lettered by the lilies of the field, and pencilled\nwith hues that played through the leaves of Olivet. The wild birds, in\ntheir flight, bore upward the beautiful lesson of Providence, and the\nsignificance of the Kingdom of Heaven was contained in a mustard-seed.\nBy no abstruse reasoning did he make his instructions so vivid to his\ndisciples, and so fresh to ourselves. But he awoke the conviction of\nmoral need, and repentance, and Divine Love, by drawing from instances\nwith which they had been familiar all their lives--the procedures of\ngovernment, the transactions of business, the labors of the husbandman,\nand the incidents of home. And the result is essentially the same,\nwhether we start with the religious truth to find some illustration in\nthe world around us, or from some aspect of human life, or nature,\nextract a religious truth. Nor need this always be sharply obvious. It\nis only necessary that our point of view be sufficiently elevated to\nthrow a spiritual light upon things, and to reveal their moral\nrelations; for, often, our understandings are cleared, and our hearts\nmade better, by the mere scope and tendency of such observations.\n\nWith this conviction, I called your attention, last winter, to some of\nthe \"Aspects of City Life,\" and with the same view, I wish now to\naddress you, for a few Sunday evenings, on the Conditions of Humanity in\nthe City, in which series I shall endeavor not only to present new\ntopics of interest, but to urge more explicitly some points, which, in\nthe afore-mentioned discourses, I merely touched upon.\n\nThe essential meaning of the personification in the text is in\naccordance, I think, with the general tenor of remark which I have just\nbeen making. For I understand it to mean, that everything is\ninstructive, that even in the common ways of life the most important\ntruths, and the profoundest moral and religious significance, are\ncontained. And the words before us, also, specifically indicate the\nsubject upon which I wish to speak this evening, for they declare that\n\"Wisdom... uttereth her voice in the streets.\"\n\nThe street through which you walk every day; with whose sights and\nsounds you have been familiar, perhaps, all your lives; is it all so\ncommon-place that it yields you no deep lessons,--deep and fresh, it may\nbe, if you would only look around with discerning eyes? Engaged with\nyour own special interests, and busy with monotonous details, you may\nnot heed it; and yet there is something finer than the grandest poetry,\neven in the mere spectacle of these multitudinous billows of life,\nrolling down the long, broad, avenue. It is an inspiring lyric, this\ninexhaustible procession, in the misty perspective ever lost, ever\nrenewed, sweeping onward between its architectural banks to the music of\ninnumerable wheels; the rainbow colors, the silks, the velvets, the\njewels, the tatters, the plumes, the faces--no two alike--shooting out\nfrom unknown depths, and passing away for ever--perpetually sweeping\nonward in the fresh air of morning, under the glare of noon, under the\nfading, flickering light, until the shadow climbs the tallest spire, and\nnight comes with revelations and mysteries of its own.\n\nAnd yet this changeful tide of activity is no mere lyric. It is an epic,\nrather, unfolding in its progress the contrasts, the conflicts, the\nheroisms, the failures,--in one word, the great and solemn issues of\nhuman life. And a few comprehensive lessons from that \"Wisdom which\nuttereth her voice in the streets,\" may prove a fitting introduction,\nfrom which we can pass to consider more specific conditions of humanity\nin the city.\n\nTaking up the subject in this light, I observe that the first lesson of\nthe street is in the illustration which it affords us of the\n_diversities of human conditions_. The most superficial eye recognizes\nthis. A city is, in one respect, like a high mountain; the latter is an\nepitome of the physical globe; for its sides are belted by products of\nevery zone, from the tropical luxuriance that clusters around its base,\nto its arctic summit far up in the sky. So is the city an epitome of\nthe social world. All the belts of civilization intersect along its\navenues. It contains the products of every moral zone. It is\ncosmopolitan, not only in a national, but in a spiritual, sense. Here\nyou may find not only the finest Saxon culture, but the grossest\nbarbaric degradation. There you pass a form of Caucasian development,\nthe fine-cut features, the imperial forehead, the intelligent eye, the\nconfident tread, the true port and stature of a man. But who is this\nthat follows in his track; under the same national sky, surrounded by\nthe same institutions, and yet with those pinched features, that stunted\nform, that villainous look; is it Papuan, Bushman, or Carib? Fitly\nrepresenting either of these, though born in a Christian city, and\nbearing about not only the stamp of violated physical law, but of moral\nneglect and baseness. And no one needs to be told that there are savages\nin New York, as well as in the islands of the sea. Savages, not in\ngloomy forests, but under the strength of gas-light, and the eyes of\npolicemen; with war-whoops and clubs very much the same, and garments as\nfantastic, and souls as brutal, as any of their kindred at the\nantipodes. China, India, Africa, will you not find their features in\nsome circles of the social world right around you? Idolatry! you cannot\nfind any more gross, any more cruel, on the broad earth, than within the\narea of a mile around this pulpit. Dark minds from which God is\nobscured; deluded souls, whose fetish is the dice-box or the bottle;\napathetic spirits, steeped in sensual abomination, unmoved by a moral\nripple, soaking in the slump of animal vitality. False gods, more\nhideous, more awful, than Moloch or Baal; worshipped with shrieks,\nworshipped with curses, with the hearth-stone for the bloody altar, and\nthe drunken husband for the immolating priest, and women and children\nfor the victims. I have no terms of respect too high for the brave and\nconscientious men who carry the gospel, and their own lives, in their\nhands to distant shores. But, surely, they need not go thus far to\n_seek_ for the benighted and the debased. They may find there a wider\nextent of heathenism, but none more intense than that which prevails\nclose by the school and the church. The richest products of modern\nprogress and Christian culture grow on the verge of barren wastes, and\njungles of violence, and \"the region of the shadow of death.\"\n\nIn the street, however, not only do we behold these different degrees of\ncivilization, but those problems of diversity, which the highest form of\nexisting civilization developes--the diversities of extreme poverty, and\nextreme wealth, for instance. Here sits the beggar, sick and pinched\nwith cold; and there goes a man of no better flesh and blood, and no\nmore authentic charter of soul, wrapped in comfort, and actually bloated\nwith luxury. There issues the whine of distress, beside the glittering\ncarriage-wheels. There, amidst the rush of gaiety; the busy, selfish\nwhirl; half naked, shivering, with her bare feet on the icy pavement,\nstands the little girl, with the shadow of an experience upon her that\nhas made her preternaturally old, and it may be, driven the angel from\nher face. Still, we cannot believe that above that wintry heaven which\nstretches over her, there is less regard for the poor, neglected child,\nthan for that rosy belt of infant happiness which girdles and gladdens\nten thousand hearths.\n\nAnd here, too, through the brilliant street, and the broad light of day,\nwalks Purity, enshrined in the loveliest form of womanhood. And along\nthat same street by night, attended by fitting shadows, strolls\nwomanhood discrowned, clothed with painted shame, yet, even in the\nsprings of that guilty heart not utterly quenched. We render just homage\nto the one, we pour scorn upon the other; but, could we trace back the\nlines of circumstance, and inquire why the one stands guarded with such\nsweet respect, and why the other has fallen, we might raise problems\nwith which we cannot tax Providence, which we may not lay altogether to\nthe charge of the condemned, but for which we might challenge an answer\nfrom society.\n\nAnd, if we would ascertain the practical purport of this lesson of human\ndiversity which is so conspicuous in the street--the meaning of these\nsharp contrasts of refinement and grossness, intelligence and ignorance,\nrespectability and guilt--we only ask a question that thousands have\nasked before us. And yet, it is possible to surmise the purpose of these\ndiversities. We know, for one thing, that out of them come some of the\nnoblest instances of character and of achievement. Ignorance and crime\nand poverty and vice, stand in fearful contrast to knowledge and\nintegrity and wealth and purity; but they likewise constitute the dark\nbackground against which the virtues of human life stand out in radiant\nrelief; virtues developed by the struggle which they create; virtues\nwhich seem impossible without their co-existence. For, whence issues any\nsuch thing as _virtue_, except out of the temptation and antagonism of\nvice? How could _Charity_ ever have appeared in the world, were there no\ndark ways to be trodden by its bright feet, and no suffering and sadness\nto require its aid? I look at these asylums, these hospitals, these\nragged schools--a zodiac of beautiful charities, girdling all this\nselfishness and sin--I look at these monuments which humanity will honor\nwhen war shall be but a legend, and laurels have withered to dust; and\nwhen I think what they have grown out of, and why they stand here, I\nregard them as so many sublime way-marks by which Providence unfolds its\npurposes among men, and by which men trace out the plan of God.\n\nAnd then, again, perhaps this problem of human diversity presses\nheaviest where civilization is the most advanced, in order that men may\nbe more sharply aroused to seek some practical solution. It is an\nencouraging sign when an evil begins to be intensely felt, and the\ndemand for relief becomes desperate. The civilization of our time is\nimperfect; involves many incongruities; perhaps creates some evils; but\nthat it is an improved civilization, is evinced by the fact that it is\n_self-conscious_; for perception is the necessary antecedent of endeavor\nand success. The contrasts of human condition, then, that unfold\nthemselves in the crowded street, may teach us our duty and our\nresponsibility in lessening social inequality and need.\n\nBut a solution of this problem, clearer perhaps than any other, appears\nwhen we consider another lesson of the street; a lesson which requires\nus to look a little deeper, but which, when we do look, is no less\nevident than these diversities. That lesson unfolds the essential\n_unity_ of humanity. For, we find that the differences between men are\n_formal_ rather than _real_; that, with various outward conditions, they\npass through the same great trials; and that the scales which seem to\nhang uneven at the surface, and to be tipped this way and that by the\ncurrents of worldly fortune, are very nearly balanced in the depths of\nthe inner life. We are shallow judges of the happiness or the misery of\nothers, if we estimate it by any marks that distinguish them from\nourselves; if, for instance, we say that because they have more money\nthey are happier, or because they live more meagrely they are more\nwretched. For, men are allied by much more than they differ. The rich\nman, rolling by in his chariot, and the beggar, shivering in his rags,\nare allied by much more than they differ. It is safer, therefore, to\nestimate our neighbor's real condition by what we find in our own lot,\nthan by what we do not find there. And now, see into what an essential\nunity this criterion draws the jostling, divergent masses in yonder\nstreet! Each man there, like all the rest, finds life to be a\ndiscipline. Each has his separate form of discipline; but it bears upon\nthe kindred spirit that is in every one of us, and strikes upon motives,\nsympathies, faculties, that run through the common humanity. Surely, you\nwill not calculate any _essential_ difference from mere appearances; for\nthe light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over brackish\ndepths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that\ncovers a divine peace. You know that the bosom _can_ ache beneath\ndiamond brooches, and how many blithe hearts dance under coarse wool.\nBut I do not allude merely to these accidental contrasts. I mean that\nabout equal measures of trial, equal measures of what men call good and\nevil, are allotted to all; enough, at least, to prove the identity of\nour humanity, and to show that we are all subjects of the same great\nplan. You say that the poor man who passes yonder, carrying his burden,\nhas a hard lot of it, and it may be he has; but the rich man who brushes\nby him has a hard lot of it too--just as hard for _him_, just as well\nfitted to discipline him for the great ends of life. He has his money\nto take care of; a pleasant occupation, you may think; but, after all,\nan _occupation_, with all the strain and anxiety of labor, making more\nhard work for him, day and night, perhaps, than his neighbor has who\ndigs ditches or thumps a lapstone. And it is quite likely that he feels\npoorer than the poor man, and, if he ever becomes self-conscious, has\ngreat reason to feel meaner. And then, he has his rivalries, his\ncompetitions, his troubles of caste and etiquette, so that the merchant,\nin his sumptuous apartments, comes to the same essential point, \"sweats,\nand bears fardels,\" as well as his brother in the garret; tosses on his\nbed with surfeit, or perplexity, while the other is wrapped in peaceful\nslumber; and, if he is one who recognizes the moral ends of life, finds\nhimself called upon to contend with his own heart, and to fight with\npeculiar temptations. And thus the rich man and the poor man, who seem\nso unequal in the street, would find but a thin partition between them,\ncould they, as they might, detect one another kneeling on the same\nplatform of spiritual endeavor, and sending up the same prayers to the\nsame eternal throne.\n\nBut, say you, \"here is one who is returning to a home of destitution, of\nmisery; where the light of the natural day is almost shut out, but in\nwhich brood the deeper shadows of despair.\" And yet, in many a splendid\nmansion you will find a more fearful destitution, a dearth of\naffections, killed by envy, jealousy, distrust; stifled by glittering\nformalities; a brood of evil passions that mock the splendor, and darken\nthe magnificent walls. The measure of joy, too, is distributed with the\nsame impartiality as the measure of woe. The child's grief throbs\nagainst the round of its little heart as heavily as the man's sorrow;\nand the one finds as much delight in his kite or drum, as the other in\nstriking the springs of enterprise or soaring on the wings of fame.\nAfter all, happiness is the rule, not the exception, even in the hearts\nthat beat in the crowded city; and its great elements are as common as\nthe air, and the sunshine, and free movement, and good health. And what\nthe fortunate may seem to gain in variety of methods, may only be\nunconscious devices to simulate or recover that natural relish which\nothers have never lost. And no one doubts that the great dispensations\nof life, the events that make epochs in our fleeting years, cleave\nthrough all the strata of outward difference, and lay bare the core of\nour one humanity. Sickness! does it not make Dives look very much like\nLazarus, and show our common weakness, and reveal the common marvel of\nthis \"harp of thousand strings?\" And sorrow! it veils all faces, and\nbows all forms alike, and sends the same shudder through the frame, and\ncasts the same darkness upon the walls, and peals forth in the same\ndirge of maternal agony by the dead boy's cradle in the sumptuous\nchamber, and the baby's last sleep on its bed of straw. And Death! how\nwonderfully it makes them all alike who in the street wore such various\ngarments, and had such distinct aims, and were whirled apart in such\ndifferent orbits! Ah! our essential humanity comes out in those composed\nforms and still features. Those divergent currents have carried them out\nupon the same placid sea at last; and the same solemn light streams\nupon the clasped hands and the uplifted faces. We don't mind the drapery\nso much then. It seems a very superficial matter beside the silent and\nstarless mystery that enfolds them all.\n\nIn what I have thus said I do not mean to maintain that outward\nconditions are nothing. I think they are a great deal; and we do right\nin striving to improve them; in escaping the evil, and seeking to secure\nthe good that pertains to them. But, I repeat, when we come to the\nessential humanity, to the real discipline and substance of life, we\nfind the same great features; and so this lesson of the street may help\nexplain the problem suggested by the other; may reconcile each of us to\nour condition in the crowd, and direct our attention to substantial\nresults.\n\nBut, again, the street, with its processions and activities, teaches us\nthat much in human life is merely _phenomenal_, merely _appears_. We\nenter into this truth by a very common train of observation. We know how\nmuch is put on purposely for the public gaze, and has no other intention\nthan to be seen; how hollow are many of the smiles, and gay looks, and\nsmooth decencies. And even the complexion of some, with its red and\nwhite, is more unsubstantial than all the rest; for it is in danger of\nbeing washed away by the first shower. It is strange to meet people\nwhose personal significance in life is that of a shop window exhibiting\nlace and jewelry; strange to encounter men in whose place we might\nsubstitute a well-dressed effigy, and they would hardly be missed. Of\ncourse appearances should be attended to, and are good in their place.\nIt is right that we should honor society by our best looks and ways. But\nit is not merely ridiculous, it is sad, to think how much in the street,\nwhere humanity exhibits all its phases, is appearance and but little\nelse.\n\nBut dress and manners are not all that is phenomenal in human life.\nThese men and women themselves, this streaming crowd, these brick walls\nand stately pinnacles, those that pursue and the things that are\npursued, are only appearances. It may be profitable for us to stand\napart from this multitude, this river of living forms, and think in how\nshort a time it all will have passed away; how short a time since, and\nit was not! A little while ago, and this rich and populous city was a\ngreen island, and our beautiful bay clasped it in its silver arms like\nan emerald. The wilderness stood here, and the child of the forest\nthought of it as a prepared abiding place for himself and for his people\nfor ever. The red man has gone; the wild woods have vanished; and these\nstructures, and vehicles, and busy crowds, have come into their places\nmagically, like the new picture in a dissolving view. But are these\nforms of life, is your presence here or mine, any more substantial than\nthose that have sunk away? Nay, all this splendid civilization, what is\nit but a sparkling ripple in the calm eternity of God? Dwellings,\nstores, banks, churches, streets, and the restless multitudes, are but\nforms of life,--as it were a rack of cloud drifting across the mirror of\nabsolute being. That which seems to you substantial is only spectral.\nAnd as the dress of the fop, and the smile of the coquette, is merely an\nappearance; so the wealth for which men strain in eager chase, and the\nfabrics which pride builds up, the anvils on which labor strikes its\nmighty blows, and the body to which so much is devoted, and which\nabsorbs so much care, are but appearances also. While that which may\nseem to you as a shadow--the spiritual substratum of life, the basis of\nthose spiritual laws which run through all our conditions--is the only\nabiding substance.\n\nIf we only look in this light, my friends, upon the continuous spectacle\nof human movement and human change, we shall find that \"Wisdom...\nuttereth her voice in the streets.\" Old as the thought may be, in the\nrush of the great crowd it will come to us fresh and impressively, that\nall this is but a form of spiritual and eternal being. A day in the city\nis like life itself. Out of unconscious slumber into the brilliant\nmorning and the thick activity we come. But, by-and-by, the heaving mass\nbreaks into units, and one by one dissolves into the shadow of the\nnight. Two cities grow up side by side--the city in which men appear,\nthe city into which they vanish; the city whose houses and goods they\npossess for a little while and then leave behind them, and the city\nwhose white monuments just show us the pinnacles of their estates in the\neternal world. The busy, diversified crowd that rolls through the\nstreets--it is only an appearance! It is a ceaseless march of\nemigration. In a little while, the names in this year's Directory may be\nread in Greenwood.\n\nBut we must not rest with this as the final lesson of the street. It is\nonly the form of Life that is transient and phenomenal; but the _Life_\nitself is here, also--here, in these flashing eyes, and heaving breasts,\nand active limbs. These conditions, however transient, involve the great\ninterest of Humanity; and that lends the deepest significance to these\nconditions. The interest of Humanity! which gives importance to all it\ntouches, and transforms nature into history; which imparts dignity to\nthe rudest workshop, and the most barren shore, and the humblest\ngrave--this permits us to draw no mean or discouraging conclusions from\nthe achievements and the changes of the multitudes around us. It may do\nfor the skeptic, who sees nothing in existence but these forms of\nthings; who sees nothing but the limited phenomena of our present state,\nand thinks that includes all; it may do for him to croak over the\ntransitoriness of life, and call it a trivial game. But it is _not_\ntrivial; and there is no spot where man acts, there is nothing that he\ndoes, that is insignificant. Perhaps you have a quick eye for the\nfoibles of people, and can detect their vanities, and meannesses, and\nlaughable conceits. If you employ this gift to correct a bad habit, or\nexpose a falsehood, it is well enough. But if it induces you to look\nupon things merely with the skill of a satirist, then let me say, there\nis no \"ludicrous side\" to life; there is nothing in human conduct that\nis simply absurd. The least transaction has a moral cast, and every word\nand act reveals spiritual relations. The interest of man can never be\nthrown into insignificance by his conditions; these draw interest from\nhim. And, whatever his post in the world, however limited or broad his\nsphere of observation, for _him_ life is real, and has intense\nrelations. We must not stand so far apart from the crowd as to occupy\nthe position of mere spectators, and regard these men and women as so\nmany mechanical figures in a panorama. We must look through the depths\nof their experience into their own souls, and through the depths of that\nexperience again upon the world, beholding it as it appears to the\nbeggar, and the lonely woman, and the child of vice and crime, and the\nhero, and the saint, and as it falls with intense yet diverse\nrefractions upon all these multiform angles of personality. So shall we\nlearn to cherish a solemn and tender interest in the dear humanity\naround us, and feel the arteries of sympathy which connect it, in all\nits conditions, with our own hearts. And, as we return homeward from our\nstudy of the street, it may be with our irritation, and prejudice, and\nselfishness softened down; with a larger love flowing out towards the\nleast, and even the worst; realizing the spiritual ties that make us\none, and the Infinite Fatherhood that encircles us all; perhaps\nsuggestions will come to us that have been best expressed in the words\nof the poet--\n\n    \"Let us move slowly through the street,\n      Filled with an ever-shifting train,\n    Amid the sound of steps that beat\n      The murmuring walks like autumn rain.\n\n    \"How fast the flitting figures come!\n      The mild, the fierce, the stony face;\n    Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some\n      Where secret tears have left their trace.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"Each, where his tasks or pleasures call\n      They pass, and heed each other not.\n    There is, Who heeds, Who holds them all,\n      In His large love and boundless thought.\n\n    \"These struggling tides of life that seem,\n      In wayward, aimless course to tend,\n    Are eddies of the mighty stream\n      That rolls to its appointed end.\"\n\n\n\n\nMAN AND MACHINERY.\n\n\n\n\nDISCOURSE II.\n\nMAN AND MACHINERY.\n\n      For the spirit of the living creature was in the\n      wheels.--EZEKIEL, i. 20.\n\n\nWhatever may have been the significance of the sublime vision from which\nI have extracted those words, I do not think that their essential\nmeaning is perverted when I apply them to the subject which comes before\nus this evening. I am not aware of any sentence that expresses more\nconcisely the relation which I would indicate between _Man_ and\n_Machinery_; between those great agents of human achievement and the\nliving intelligence which works in them and by them. And though a Divine\nSpirit moved in those flashing splendors which burned before the eyes of\nthe prophet, is it not also a divine spirit that mingles in every great\nmanifestation of humanity, and that moves even in the action of man,\nthe worker, toiling among innumerable wheels?\n\nPerhaps if we were called upon to name some one feature of the present\nage which distinguishes it from all other ages, and endows it with a\nspecial wonder and glory, we should call it the Age of Machinery. We\ntrust our age is unfolding something better than material triumphs. The\nresults of past thought and past endeavor are pouring through it in\nexpanding currents of knowledge, liberty, and brotherhood. But the great\n_agents_ in this diffusion of ideas and principles are those vehicles of\niron, and those messengers of lightning, which compress the huge globe\ninto a neighborhood, and bring all its interests within the system of a\ndaily newspaper. Like the generations which have preceded us, we enter\ninto the labors of others, and inherit the fruits of their effort. But\nthese powerful instruments, condensing time and space, endow a single\nhalf-century with the possibilities of a cycle. If we take the period\ncomprehending the American and the French revolutions as a dividing\nline, and look both sides the chasm, we shall discover the difference\nof a thousand years. Remarkable for brilliant achievements in every\ndepartment of physics, ours well deserves to be called the Age of\n_Science_, also. But it is still more remarkable, for the application of\nthe most majestic and subtle constituents of the universe to the most\nfamiliar uses; the wild forces of matter have been caught and harnessed.\nGo into any factory, and see what fine workmen we have made of the great\nelements around us. See how magnificent nature has humbled itself, and\nworks in shirt-sleeves. Without food, without sweat, without weariness,\nit toils all day at the loom, and shouts lustily in the sounding wheels.\nHow diligently the iron fingers pick and sort, and the muscles of steel\nretain their faithful gripe, and enormous energies run to and fro with\nan obedient click; while forces that tear the arteries of the earth and\nheave volcanoes, spin the fabric of an infant's robe, and weave the\nflowers in a lady's brocade.\n\nI think, then, we may appropriately call it--The Age of Machinery. It is\nnot a peculiarity of the city, but, rather, seeks room to stretch\nitself out; and so you may perceive its smoky signals hovering over a\nthousand vallies, and the echo of its mighty pulses throbbing among the\nloneliest hills. Nevertheless, it is sufficiently developed here to\nillustrate the Conditions of Humanity in the City, and this fact,\ntogether with the general interest of the subject, is my warrant for\ntaking it up in the present discourse. And my remarks must necessarily\nbe of a general cast, as I have no room for the statistics, and details,\nand various discussions which grow out of the theme.\n\nAnd the key-note of all that I shall say, at the present time, is really\nin the text itself--\"For the spirit of the living creature was in the\nwheels.\"\n\nIn the first place, these words suggest the relations of _Use_ and\n_Help_ between Man and Machinery. Upon surveying these numerous and\ncomplicated instruments, the thought that most readily occurs, perhaps,\nis that of the _necessity_ of machinery. The very first step that man\ntakes, out of the condition of infant weakness and animal rudeness, must\nbe accomplished by the aid of some implement. He alone, of all beings\nupon the face of the earth, is obliged to _invent_, and is capable of\nendless invention. The necessity for this springs out, and is a prophecy\nof, his destiny. The moment he was seen fashioning the first tool,\nhowever imperfect, that moment was indicated the difference between\nhimself and the brute, and the control he was destined to gain over the\nworld about him. To fulfil this destiny, he confronts nature with naked\nhands; and yet, there is the earth to plough, the harvest to reap, the\ntorrent to bridge, the ocean to cross; there are all the results to\nachieve which constitute the difference between the primitive man, and\nthe civilization of the nineteenth century. The Machine, then--the agent\nwhich links the gratification to the want--is born of necessity. But we\nmust make a distinction between those instruments which are positively\nessential, and those, for instance, which merely answer the demands of\nluxury or indolence.\n\nAnd this brings up the question of the _comparative_ uses of\nMachinery--the foremost place being assigned to those implements which\nare absolutely indispensable to man's existence upon the earth. But\nbetween this absolute degree, and that of frivolous invention, there are\ncountless grades of utility. And the question of usefulness must be\ndecided according to the _standard_ of utility which we apply. If bare\nsubsistence is assumed to be the end of man upon the earth, most of our\nmodern inventions are useless. We can travel without a locomotive, and\nprocure a meal without a cooking-range. The moment we rise above the\ngrossest conception of human existence, the test of usefulness becomes\nenlarged, and we can make a safe decision upon whatever increases man's\ncomfort, adds to his ability, or inspires his culture. In this way, new\nthings _become_ indispensable. That which was not necessary _a priori_,\n_is_ necessary now, in a fresh stage of development, and in connection\nwith circumstances that have sprung up and formed around it. That which\nwas not necessary to man the savage, living on roots and raw fish, is\nnecessary to man the civilized, with new possibilities opening before\nhim, and new faculties unfolded within him. The printing-press was not\nabsolutely necessary to Nimrod, or to Julius Caesar, but is it not\nabsolutely necessary now? Strike it out of existence to-day, and what\nwould be the condition of the world to-morrow? You would have to tear\naway with it all that has grown up around it, and become assimilated to\nit--the textures of the world's growth for three hundred years. Paul\nmoved the old world without a telegraph, and Columbus found a new one\nwithout a steamship. But see how essential these agents are to the\npresent condition of civilization. How many derangements among the\nwheels of business, and the plans of affection, if merely a snow-drift\nblocks the cars, or a thunder-storm snaps the wires! Our estimate of\nnecessity, and, therefore, of utility, must be formed according to\npresent conditions, and the legitimate demand that rises out of them;\nthese conditions themselves being the necessary developments of society\nand of the individual.\n\nBut some of these, you may say, are the demands of luxury, of indolent\nease, of man setting nature to work and lapsing in self-indulgence. To\nsome degree this result may grow out of the present state of things; as\nsome portion of evil will follow in the sweep of an immense good. But\nwhat is the precise sentence to be passed upon this prevalent luxury? Of\ncourse, admitting the evil--which is apparent--I maintain that there is\na great deal of good in it; that it is inextricably associated with much\nreal refinement and progress. Men are accustomed to speak of the\nsimplicity and purity of past times, and to compare, with a sigh, the\ngood old era of the stage-coach and the spinning-wheel with these days\nof whizzing machinery, Aladdin palaces, and California gold. But the\ncore of logic that lies within this rind of sentiment forces a\nconclusion that I can by no means admit, the conclusion that the world\nis going backward. I never knew of an epoch that was not thought by some\nthen living to be the worst that ever was, and which did not seem to\nstand in humiliating contrast with some blessed period gone by. But the\ngolden age of Christianity is in the future, not in the past. Those old\nages are like the landscape that shows best in purple distance, all\nverdant and smooth and bathed in mellow light. But could we go back and\ntouch the reality, we should find many a swamp of disease, and rough\nand grimy paths of rock and mire. Those were good old times, it may be\nthought, when baron and peasant feasted together. But the one could not\nread, and made his mark with a sword-pommel; and the other was not held\nso dear as a favorite dog. Pure and simple times were those of our\ngrandfathers,--it may be. Possibly not so pure as we may think, however,\nand with a simplicity ingrained with some bigotry and a good deal of\nconceit. The fact is, we are bad enough, imperfect, not because we are\ngrowing worse, but because we are yet far from the best. I think,\nhowever, with Lord Bacon, that _these_ are \"the old times.\" The world is\nolder now than it ever was, and it contains the best life and fruition\nof the past. And this special condition of luxury is a growth out of the\npast, and is the necessary concomitant of much that is good. Opening new\nchannels for industry, it furnishes occupation for thousands; while, in\nmany of its phases, it indicates a refined culture, and a sphere\nelevated above the imperative wants of existence. It is no proof of the\ndisadvantages of machinery, therefore, to say that it ministers to\nsomething beside absolute bodily need, and delivers man from a slow and\nexhausting drudgery. So far as it helps us to control nature, and\nincreases the facilities of human intercourse, and diffuses general\ncomfort and elegance, and affords a respite from incessant physical\ntoil, so far it is an agent and a sign of progress.\n\nBut, it may be said again, that it is the agent of a selfish and\nexclusive power, enriching a few and injuring many. And it cannot be\ndenied that grave problems grow out of the relations between Machinery\nand the laboring classes. Every little while, some new invention is\nthrust forward, which takes a portion of labor out of the hands of flesh\nand transfers it to hands of iron. It is not enough to say that mankind\nin general is benefited by these inanimate agents, which do the work of\nthe world so much more rapidly and powerfully. This may answer as an\nargument against a monopoly of any one kind of mechanical force. It may\nbe a reason for using cars instead of steamboats, and balloons rather\nthan railroads. The general good must be advanced, whatever the damage\nto private interests. But the present case brings up the question\nwhether machinery is a general good at all; whether the effect of its\nintroduction into almost every department of labor, will not be felt in\nthe destitution of millions. And, upon this point, I observe, that, like\nall other great revolutions, the immediate effect may be such as has\nbeen suggested. But the final result will be beneficial, and such a\nresult may be traced out even now. For instance, this clogging of old\ndepartments of labor will precipitate men upon fresh ones, and upon\nthose that have been too much neglected. It will tend to introduce woman\nto branches of industry perfectly suited to her, but which have been too\nexclusively occupied by the other sex, and to turn the attention of\nrobust men to those great fields of productive toil which are as yet but\nlittle improved. It may drive them from the dependence, the crowded\ncompetition, the unwholesome life of the city, into the broad fields and\nopen air and the sovereignty of the soil. And if this immense intrusion\nof machinery has only this result, of equalizing the balance against\nproduction, we shall have one solution of the problem. And there will be\nanother solution, if this phalanx of mechanism shall lift the mass of\nmen above the occasions of coarse material drudgery into other\nactivities, which doubtless will be thrown open, and shall allow more\nleisure for spiritual culture. But in this, and all other great\nquestions affecting human welfare, I throw myself back, finally, upon\nthe tokens of Providential Design. The world moves forward, not\nbackward; and the great developments of time are for good, not evil. By\nmachinery, man proceeds with his dominion over nature. He assimilates it\nto himself; it becomes, so to speak, a part of himself. Every great\ninvention is the enlargement of his own personality. Iron and fire\nbecome blood and muscle, and gravitation flows in the current of his\nwill. His pulses beat in the steamship, throbbing through the deep,\nwhile the fibres of his heart and brain inclose the earth in an electric\nnetwork of thought and sympathy. That which was given to help man, will\nnot hinder nor hurt him. \"For the spirit of the living creature is in\nthe wheels.\"\n\nI observe, in the second place, that the words of the text accord with\nthe testimony which machinery bears to the _dignity of man_. All these\ngreat inventions--these implements of marvellous skill and power--prove\nthat the inventor, or the worker, himself is _not_ a machine. I know of\nnothing which gives me so forcible an impression of the worth and\nsuperiority of mind, of its alliance with the Creative Intelligence, as\nthe exhibition of an ingenious piece of mechanism. I have stood with\nwonder before such a specimen, and seen it work with all the precision\nof a reflecting creature. Lifting the most tremendous weights, cleaving\nthe most solid masses, performing the nicest tasks, as though a living\nintellect were in it, informing it and directing its power. I hardly\nknow of any achievement that stands as a higher witness for the human\nmind. The great poem that bursts in a flood of inspiration upon the soul\nof genius, and opens the realms of immortal beauty, may lift us to a\nnobler plane of endeavor. The heroic act of toil or martyrdom for\nprinciple, certainly has a loftier, because it is a moral, grandeur. But\nas an illustration of the _creativeness_ of man's intellect--of its\nwondrous capability--of its alliance with that attribute of the Divine\nNature which is evident in the fibres of the grass-blade and the march\nof the galaxy--I know of nothing more striking than this piece of\nmechanism, which is the product of the most profound and patient\nthought, the harmonizing of antagonistic forces, the combination of the\nmost abstruse details, fitted to the remotest exigencies, and working\njust as the inventive mind meant it should, and just as it was set\na-going, as if that mind were presiding over it, were in it, though it\nis now far distant, or has vanished from the earth. That mind is\nimmortal! that nature, which is common to all men, transcends any shape\nof matter and is superior to mechanism. And it may be necessary to say\nthis, necessary to say that man, who is helped by machinery, is\n_separate_ from it. It is mind that is thus involved with matter. The\nspirit of a living creature that is in the wheels.\n\nIt may be necessary to say this, my friends, and to say it frequently,\nlest the vast mechanical achievements of our time seduce us into a mere\nmechanical life. I do not think that the deepest question is, whether\nmachinery will multiply to such an extent as to snatch the bread from\nthe mouths of living men; but whether men, with all the possibilities of\ntheir nature, will not become absorbed in that which supplies them with\nbread alone? I have just expressed my admiration for the genius of the\ngreat inventor. Nor can I honor too highly the faithful and industrious\nmechanic--the man who fills up his chink in the great economy by\npatiently using his hammer or his wheel. For, he _does_ something. If he\nonly sews a welt, or planes a knot, he helps build up the solid pyramid\nof this world's welfare. While there are those who, exhibiting but\nlittle use while living, might, if embalmed, serve the same purpose as\nthose forms of ape and ibis _inside_ the Egyptian caverns--serve to\nillustrate the shapes and idolatries of human conceit. At any rate,\nthere is no doubt of the essential nobility of that man who pours into\nlife the honest vigor of his toil, over those who compose this feathery\nfoam of fashion that sweeps along Broadway; who consider the insignia of\nhonor to consist in wealth and indolence; and who, ignoring the family\nhistory, paint coats of arms to cover up the leather aprons of their\ngrandfathers.\n\nI shall not be misunderstood then, when, making a distinction in behalf\nof the mechanic by profession, I say that no man should be a mere\nmechanic in _soul_. In other words, no man should be bound up in a\nroutine of material ends and uses. He should not be a mechanic, working\nexclusively in a dead system, but always the architect of a living\nideal. And surrounded, astonished, served and enriched as we are by\nthese splendid legions of mechanism, the danger is that material\nachievement will seem to us the _supreme_ achievement; that all life\nwill become machinery; and the higher interests of being, and the great\nfirmament of immortality, be eclipsed by these flashing wheels. We are\nin danger of being drawn away from the sanctities of the inner life and\nthe still work of the soul, by this maelstrom of excitement and power.\nNo religious man can help asking, and asking anxiously, whether the\nspirit of devotion is as deep and fresh, whether spiritual communion\nwith God is as direct and constant, in this whirl and roar, and\nmarvellous achievement, as they were in times bearing less evidently the\nsigns of material progress. For, that which merely gives us a stronger\ngrasp of the world around us, and sends us along the level of nature, is\nnot the most genuine element of progress; but that which elevates our\nmoral plane and enriches the great deep of our spiritual being. The\nsteamship and telegraph are not absolute tokens of this progress, but\nthe moral earnestness and the Christian charity that work through them\nare; and these must spring up in hearts that are not merely adjusted to\nthe world, but lifted above it--that are not so occupied by mere\nmachinery as to neglect the living streams of an inward and devout\nculture.\n\nBut, for another reason,--or as an extension of the same reason,--we\nneed to realize the truth that man is separate from and superior to\nmachinery. It is because, upon a practical recognition of this truth\ndepends the just action of all who control the interests of labor, and,\nso to speak, the lives and souls of the laborers. If we should beware of\nan influence that would render us _mere_ mechanics in our own higher\nnature, we should likewise remove anything that makes others mere\nmachines, presenting for us no other consideration than the amount of\nwork they can perform for us, and with how little care and cost. I\ncannot now enter into the great questions that spring up here concerning\nthe relations of capital and labor, and of the employer and the\nemployed. I only observe that these are among the deepest questions of\nthe time: questions which will be heard, which must be discussed, and\npractically answered. And they who by plans and experiments, however\nvisionary they may seem, however abortive they may prove, are trying to\nsolve this problem, are much wiser in their generation than those who\ncontent themselves with cutaneous palliatives and a stolid conservatism.\nBut I maintain now, that back of all these considerations stands this\ntruism,--that man is not a machine; that the being who toils in the\nfactory, the furnace, the dark mine underground, is one who needs and\nhopes and suffers and dies, as sinews of iron and fabrics of brass\ncannot. \"The spirit of a living creature is in the wheels.\" A cry for\njustice, for free action, for spiritual opportunity, comes not from the\nroaring engine or the dizzy loom, but out from the midst of those who\nare endowed with the sensitiveness and the moral possibilities that\nbelong to humanity, and humanity alone. Set in motion the grandest piece\nof mechanism ever conceived by human genius, and still there is infinite\ndifference between it and the poorest drudge that bears God's\nimage,--between it and any human claim.\n\nIt must have been a noble spectacle, a few weeks since, to have seen\nthat great ship[A] sail out of port, stretching its proud beak over the\nsea, and with thundering exultation trampling its sapphire floor. One\nmight have followed its wake with a glistening eye, and said to\nhimself--\"There is the great symbol of human progress, there is the\nconsummation of man's triumph over nature! The long results of ages are\ncondensed in that fabric of strength and beauty. Man has compelled the\nforest, and ravished the mine, and converted the stream, and chained the\nfire; and now, with the eye of science and the hand of skill, he rides\nin this triumphal chariot, making a swift, obedient pathway of the\ndeep!\" But when that dark day burst upon them, and nature with one angry\nsweep transformed that splendid palace into a floating death-chamber;\nwhen ocean lifted up this triumph of man's skill, and shook it like a\ntoy; the interest which hung over that awful desolation--the interest to\nwhich your hearts flow out with painful sympathy to-night--was in\nnothing that man had achieved, but in humanity itself. All the\nworkmanship, all the material splendor, all the skill, were nothing\ncompared with one heart beating amidst that tempest; compared with one\ngroan that rose from that sea of agony, and then was silent for ever.\n\n    [Footnote A: This discourse was delivered just after the tidings\n    of the loss of the San Francisco, in December, 1853.]\n\nAnd, again, when I consider the conduct of that gallant captain who, day\nby day, rode by the side of the shuddering wreck, and in slippery peril\nmaintained the royalty of his manhood, and sent a brother's cheer and a\nbrother's help through the storm; when I think of that noble achievement\nwhere the Stars and Stripes and the Cross of St. George were lost and\nblended in the light of universal humanity; I say to myself--how does an\nact like this shed light upon a thousand instances of human depravity!\nWhat is any material triumph compared to this moral beauty! And what is\nthe great distinction between rags and coronets, between senates and\nworkshops, when in the breast of every man, and everywhere, there is the\npossibility of such heroism, such charity, and such splendid\nperformance!\n\nAnd so, my friends, turning from this specific illustration, and looking\nthrough the wards of cities, the busy factories, the dim attics and\ncellars, they all become glorious by the reflected light of the humanity\nthat toils and suffers within them. Man is greater than any achievement\nof mechanism, any interest of capital, and all the questions which these\ninvolve must be brought to the test of his moral capabilities, and his\nspiritual as well as earthly wants.\n\nBut I observe, finally, that the words of the text suggest the\n_Providential design_ and the _Divine agency_ that are involved in the\ngreat mechanical achievements of our age. As the Divine Spirit flowed\nthrough those living creatures and moved those wheels, so God's\ninfluence is in the movement of humanity, and in the instruments of that\nmovement. We get only a narrow, and often an inexplicable conception of\nthings, until we behold them encircled by this horizon of a Providential\ndesign. And if humanity, with all its claims and possibilities, is\ninvolved in this network of mechanism, so doubtless are the processes of\nInfinite Wisdom. Something more than material greatness, or ends limited\nmerely to this earth, is to be wrought out by it. Indications of this\nappear already. The telegraph and steamship, for instance, serve not\nonly the interests of trade and commerce, but of liberty, and\nbrotherhood, and of Christian influence.\n\nIt is beautiful to see how the most selfish agents presently become\nconverted to the broadest uses, and matter is transformed into the\nvehicle of spirit. For God is in history. It is a Divine dispensation,\nand has miracles of its own. And, because they come by natural\ndevelopment let us not fail to recognize the benevolence and the\nsignificance involved with them. Is not the effect of miracle in the\nelectric wire? The printing-press, is it not the gift of tongues? It is\natheistic to suppose that all these wondrous agents have only a narrow\nand material purpose, and play no part in the highest scheme of the\nworld. Like the prophet by the river Chebar, we may behold them as the\nsymbols in a sublime vision. These wheels within wheels, full of eyes,\nfull of intelligence, and full of human destiny and vast purpose, we\nknow not all their meaning yet. But they have a great meaning.\nBeneficent intention runs through their swift motions--voices of promise\nrise in their multitudinous sounds. A living spirit is in these\nwheels--the influence of God; the spirit of man. And, in due time, out\nof them will evolve the incalculable issues of human welfare and the\nDivine glory.\n\n\n\n\nTHE STRIFE FOR PRECEDENCE.\n\n\n\n\nDISCOURSE III.\n\nTHE STRIFE FOR PRECEDENCE.\n\n      And if a man strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned\n      except he strive lawfully.--II. TIMOTHY, ii. 5.\n\n\nIn walking the streets of the city, there rises the interesting\nquestion--What are the various motives which animate these restless\npeople, and send them to and fro? As a French author has well\nobserved,--\"The necessaries of life do not occasion, at most, a third\npart of the hurry.\" They are comparatively few who struggle among these\nbusy waves for a bare subsistence. There are others who are impelled by\nsome of the deepest affections of the human heart, and who toil day\nafter day with noble self-sacrifice for the comfort of dependent\nparents, and helpless children. While others still run on errands of\nmercy, and work in the harness of unrelaxing duty. But when we have\ntaken all these influences into the account, and made the most of them,\nthere remains a large quantity of activity which, as we trace it to its\nspring, we shall find issuing from a desire for influence, for\nnotoriety, for some kind of personal distinction. The city,--in this\ninstance, as in many others, representing the world at large,--is\nessentially a race-course, or battle-field, in which, through forms of\nambitious effort, and cunning method, and plodding labor, and\nostentation, the aspirations of thousands appear and carry on a _Strife\nfor Precedence_.\n\nAnd, in selecting this phase of human life as the theme of the present\ndiscourse, I observe in the first place--that the desire for precedence\nis one of the _deepest_ and most _subtle_ motives in the soul of man. It\nis prolific of disguises. It is not merely under the mask which we may\nput on before other people, but it glides through various\ntransformations of self-deceit; like the evil genius in the fairy tale,\nnow dwindling to a mere seed, now bursting into a devouring fire. When,\nwith an honest purpose, we probe it and pluck at it, still we may\ndetect it in the lowest socket of the heart. Often it is most vital when\nwe feel most sure that it is vanquished. It delights in the garb of\nhumility, and finds its food in the profession of self-renunciation. See\nits grossest expression in the desire for physical superiority--the\nglory of the victor in the Grecian games, or the modern pugilist with\nthe champion's belt. This is the reason why men, priding themselves upon\nqualities in which they are equalled by any mastiff and excelled by any\nhorse, will stand up and batter one another into a mass of blood and\nbruises. And if we analyze the merit of some conqueror upon a hundred\nbattle-fields, we shall find ingredients almost as coarse. Only there\nwas a larger impulse, and more genius to light the way; so that _his_\ncombat in the ring became _achievement_, and his success _fame_. The\noutside difference was in the value of the stakes; but the huzzas did\nnot rise much nearer to heaven in the one instance than in the other.\nAnd when we get at the real centre of all those plaudits, we find only a\nlittle throbbing atom, a little human heart, all on fire with the lust\nfor supremacy.\n\nBut these are the more palpable shapes of this desire for Precedence. It\nworks more covertly, but with no less energy. I need not--for I\ncannot--specify all the instances in which it acts. It would constitute\na more concise statement to affirm where it does _not_ act. It is\nsufficiently apparent in the scramble of the market and the parade of\nthe street; at the toilette of beauty; in the etiquette of the\ndrawing-room, where people sit as if in a cavern of icicles; in the\nspurious patriotism of politics; and too often, it is to be feared, in\nthe highest seats of the synagogue, and where men lift holy hands of\nprayer. It is the scholar's inspiration. When he comes to the steep and\nrugged way, it helps him to make a foot-hold, and the thorns blossom\ninto roses as he climbs. Sometimes, even, it saturates the plan of the\nphilanthropist, and peppers the milk of his charity with an inconsistent\nwrath.\n\nIt seems an unhappy, as it must often be an unjust method, to attribute\nany appearance of good conduct to the meanest possible motive. It is a\npolicy that makes a man afraid of his best friends. He feels that every\ndraft he makes upon human honor, or affection, is liable to be cashed\nwith counterfeit bills. If there were no alternative between the\ncleverness that suspects everybody, and the credulity that trusts\neverybody, I think I had rather be one of the dupes than one of the\noracles. For, really, there is less misery in being cheated than in that\nkind of wisdom which perceives, or thinks it perceives, that all mankind\nare cheats. But, while simple fact forbids our assuming either of these\nextremes, we must, nevertheless, in reasoning upon the phenomena of\nhuman conduct, allow large scope for the influence of which I am now\ntreating. For, as I have already intimated, we shall find it lurking\nunder numerous forms. In discussing the question of Slavery, for\ninstance, it is often said--that it is for the interest of the master to\ntake good care of his human as he does of his brute stock--to see that\nthey are well-fed, clothed, &c. And so it is for his _interest_ to do\nthis. But how often does the lust for supremacy over-ride interest\nitself! How often does an imperious personality thrust itself forward\nin the most absurd ways, damaging its own property and welfare, just as\na boy breaks his top, or a balked rider shoots his horse, or an\nindependent congregationalist locks his pew-door, as much as to\nsay--\"There, the world knows one thing about me, at least. It knows that\nI am _master_ and _owner_ here!\"\n\nBut I observe, further, that, while this desire for Precedence is common\namong men of all conditions, there are some modes of its expression\nwhich are peculiarly excited in a democratic form of society. That which\nis the open glory of a community like ours, is with many a secret\nvexation and shame. People boast here of the equality of our\ninstitutions, and then try their best to break up the social level. In a\ngenuine Aristocracy, where they have endeavored to preserve a\ngulf-stream of noble blood in the midst of the plebeian Atlantic, and a\nman holds his distinction by the color of the bark on his family tree,\nand the kind of sap that circulates through it, there is no danger of\nany unpleasant mistakes. The hard palm of Labor may cross the gloved\nhand of Leisure, and nobody will suspect that the select is too\nfamiliar with the vulgar. Consequently, there is a good deal of\naffability and prime manliness, besides those associations of sentiment\nand imagination which, if there must be an aristocracy, lend it an\nartistic consistency. But here, where everybody says that all men are\nequal, and everybody is afraid they _will_ be; where there are no\nadamantine barriers of birth and caste; people are anxiously exclusive.\nAnd though the forms of aristocracy flourish more gorgeously in their\nnative soil, the genuine _virus_ can be found in New York almost as\nreadily as in London, or Vienna. And the virus breaks out in the most\nabsurd shapes of liveries and titles. And these forms of aspiration are\nnot only absurd because they are inconsistent, but because they\nillustrate no real ground of precedence. They are superficial and\nuncertain. They do not pertain to the man but to his accidents. He gains\nby them no intrinsic glory, no permanent good. To employ the language of\nthe text, by these he strives for masteries; but he does not strive\nlawfully, and so he is not crowned. And this leads me to say something\nrespecting what is false, and what is legitimate, in that strife for\nPrecedence which is so amply illustrated in the life of the City.\n\nLet us, then, consider some of the forms which this struggle assumes in\nthe streets and the dwellings around us. I remark, in the first place,\nthat it inspires much of the effort for _wealth_. I believe there are\nbut few, comparatively, who are anxious to make money merely for the\nsake of piling it up, and counting it out. There may be a mania of this\nkind, in which men become enamored of Mammon for his own sake, and hug\nhim to their breasts, and kiss his golden lips, with all the ardor of\nlovers. Still, I suspect that the genuine miser--that is, one who loves\nmoney for itself alone--is an exceptional man. But every man who is not\nabsolutely inactive and useless in the world, is moved by some kind of\npassion. For, it is not correct to speak of _outliving_ our passions. We\nmay outlive the passion of young, fresh love, that makes the world a\nMay-time of blossoms and of roses. We may outlive the passion for\nselfish fame, because some transcendent claim of duty snatches us up to\na sublimer level. We may change these earlier forms for the passion of\nphilanthropy, the passion for truth, the passion of holy conviction. But\nso long as we live at all, we do not outlive passion. And with many the\nmost persistent desire is for that precedence which attends the\npossession of wealth. That miser, as you call him, with a face like\nparchment, and in whose nature all the springs of emotion seem to have\ngrown rusty with long disuse, is animated by a secret flame that keeps\nhim all a-glow. It is the consciousness of power--the mightiest power of\nthe present age--the power of money. Those figures which he scrawls at\nhis writing-desk involve a more potent magic than the cabalistic cyphers\nof Doctor Dee, or Cornelius Agrippa. His hand presses the spring of an\ninfluence that casts midnight or sunshine over the World of Traffic, and\nshakes entire blocks of real estate with a speculative earthquake. It is\nnot the Czar or the Sultan, but the Capitalist, that makes war or\npreserves peace. The destinies of the time are enacted not in Congress\nor Parliament, but in the Bank of England and in Wall street. It is a\nmighty power that sits on 'Change, and inspires the great movements of\nthe world; sending its messengers panting through the deep and feeling\naround the globe with telegraphic nerves. And one may well be more\nambitious to wield a portion of this power than to speak in senates, or\nto sit upon a throne. Here is something that will raise him above the\ncommon level; will pay him for long years of sacrifice and contumely;\nwill hide meanness of birth, and scantiness of education, and paint over\nthe stains of damaged character. Here is the most feasible way of\ndistinction in a democracy. The doors of respectability and honor turn\non silver hinges. Gravity relaxes, fashion gives way, beauty smiles, and\ntalent defers, before the man of money. He may be an ignoramus, but he\npossesses the golden alphabet. He may be a boor, but Plutus lends a\ncharm which eclipses the grace of Apollo. He may have accumulated his\nwealth in a way which would make an intelligent hyena ashamed of\nhimself, but he _has_ accumulated it, and the past is forgotten. I do\nnot mean to say that, as the general rule, wealth is thus associated,\nbut I believe that one great motive for money-getting, is the\nconsciousness of the power and the distinction that accompany its\npossession; and so, many a man in the thick dust of the mart--though it\nmay not always be clear to himself--is really engaged in a strife for\nPrecedence.\n\nAgain, consider the illustrations of this strife in the _Style_ of\n_Living_. It is really a battle of chairs and mirrors, of plate and\nequipage, and is the spring of the monstrous extravagance that\ncharacterizes our city life. For I suppose there is no place on the\nearth where people have run into such gorgeous nonsense as here--turning\nhome into a Parisian toy-shop, absorbing the price of a good farm in the\nornaments of a parlor, and hanging up a judge's salary in a single\nchandelier. Not that I accept the standard of absolute necessity, or\nagree with those who cry out--\"Have nothing but what is absolutely\n_useful_!\" For, if the universe had been cast after their type, there\nwould have been no embroidery on the wings of the butterfly, and the\nawful summit of Mont Blanc would have yielded fire-wood. There is an\ninstinct of beauty and grace implanted in our nature, which demands\nelegance and even luxury, and the bare necessaries of life do _not_\nanswer every purpose. And, to say nothing of the employment which these\naccessories of refinement afford for thousands--for I have spoken of\nthis in the previous series--the most sturdy utilitarian is not\nconsistent with his theory. He defers to the social condition around him\nto such an extent that he sleeps on a bed instead of a bench, and wears\nbroadcloth instead of untanned sheepskin. And, therefore, others might\nsay, and say truly, that a good deal that is actually superfluous is the\nfruit of certain social proprieties which cannot, with any consistency,\nbe violated. Our style of living may lawfully run from the bare\nnecessaries of existence, through the stages of comfort and convenience,\neven into luxury, according to our condition and means. But in some of\nthe style of living in this very city, there is neither good taste,\nsocial propriety, nor common sense. It is an apoplectic splendor; a\nmelo-dramatic glitter; in one word, a vulgar spirit of social rivalry\nblossoming in lace, brocade, gilding, and fresco. It is one way of\ngetting a head taller than another upon this democratic level. It is a\ncarpet contest for the mastery in what is called \"society.\" And if one\nmourns over the exuberant selfishness that lifts its pinnacles out of\nthis dreary sea of hunger and despair, and wonders that so many live\nwrapped in the idea that they were created merely to be gratified; he\ncan hardly help being amused, on the other hand, at this fashionable\nstrife for precedence, and the methods which it developes.\n\nBut enough has been said to illustrate the false element in the great\nstruggle for Human Precedence. This vicious principle is most\ncomprehensively stated in the proposition, that there is no substantial\nground of supremacy in anything that is merely accidental or external to\na man. These things may sometimes stand as symbols of true merit and\ngreatness, but they are not themselves proofs of precedence. A man's\nwealth may be the fruit of noble energy and honest toil, and he may\nexert a wide influence by virtue of that intrinsic ability of which his\ngood fortune is the sign. Indeed, the more I study the world the more I\nacquire a respect for these kings of enterprise--these heroes of\npractical effort--who, feeling that they have been sent into the world\nto do something, do not fold their hands and shut their eyes in ideal\ndreams, or stumble at discrepancies, but lay hold of what lies about\nthem--rough stone, timber, iron, brass,--and become what it is really a\nnoble compliment to say of any man--\"the architects of their own\nfortune.\" I have great respect for these men who drive the wheels, and\nkindle the furnaces, and launch the ships, and build the edifices, and\nkeep this sea of every-day action perpetually agitated by the keels of\ntheir endeavor. Their claims to precedence, however, consist not in\ntheir wealth, but in that which accumulates the wealth. But the man who\nrests merely upon what he _has_, occupies no substantial ground of\nsupremacy. And if this is the case with those whose claim hangs merely\nupon what they are worth in the world of money, it is at least equally\nso with those who set their title to precedence upon their style of\ndress or living. For how uncertain are all these things! depending upon\nthe fickle currents of fortune; throwing the honors into our hands\nto-day, and transferring them to our neighbor to-morrow! How tantalizing\nthis conflict, in which victory changes with the fashion, and we feel\nweak or strong according to the verdict of a clique! And all these\nrivalries and envies and aspirations, what a confession of personal\nfeebleness they really are! How slightly a true man feels them, who\nknows that he is not mere silk or furniture, and never frets about his\nplace in the world; but just slides into it by the gravitation of his\nnature, and swings there as easily as a star! But the mere leader of\nfashion has no genuine claim to supremacy; at least, no abiding\nassurance of it. He has embroidered his title upon his waistcoat, and\ncarries his worth in his watch-chain; and if he is allowed any real\nprecedence for this it is almost a moral swindle,--a way of obtaining\ngoods under false pretences. But without running into more minute\ndiscussion, I say again--that there is no substantial ground of\nsupremacy in aught that is merely accidental or external; and he who\nrests upon such claims stands upon a pedestal as uncertain as it is\nspurious.\n\n\"If a man strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive\nlawfully.\" This was the old rule of the Grecian games, which would not\npermit the prize to be gained by any unfair or incomplete methods. It\nwas applied by the apostle to a specific work--the great work of the\nChristian ministry. But it is a law which prevails in all human action.\nAnd, while it suggests that spurious precedence for which there is so\nmuch striving, it also indicates the fact that there _is_ a real\ndifference of degree among men, and that there are proper methods of\nobtaining supremacy.\n\nAnd, as I look around in the populous city, in order to illustrate the\ngrounds of this lawful precedence, I observe, in the first place, that\nthere are men who occupy the higher places by ordinance of nature so to\nspeak; or, more properly, by the purpose of God. It is a fact in nature\nthat all men are created equal, and it is also a fact in nature that\nall men are not equal. All men are created equal as to the essential\nrights and privileges of humanity. They have a claim to live; they have\nan impartial share in the Divine Love; they have a right to liberty, to\nfreedom of thought and of limb, by a constitution older than any\nhistorical document, drawn up in the court of God's decrees and\nauthenticated by His handwriting in the soul. Thus far all men are\n_created_ equal, and, if it turns out otherwise with them, it ensues\nfrom what is _made_ by man, not what is commanded by Heaven. But so far\nas quantity of nature is concerned--original capacity and spiritual\ngifts--men are not equal. And if it is asked--\"Why are they not equal?\"\nI answer, it is by appointment of the same Sovereign Mind which has\nordained that \"one star shall differ from another star in glory.\" But\neach form of being has its own capacities, and if these are filled the\nmoral harmony is secured. Through all prevails the law of compensation,\nbalancing the vicissitudes of experience. And, among these diversities\nof human capacity, some must of necessity occupy the highest place--men\nwhose native genius carries them up in a splendid orbit, and endows them\nwith control. And the world at large always acknowledges the rectitude\nof this appointment. It cherishes no envy toward men of this kind, but\nrenders them spontaneous homage.\n\nBut, although this genius, this original power, rises to a natural\nsupremacy, it does not involve the most legitimate element of\nprecedence. There is no real ground of merit in the natural talents of a\nman, any more than there is a ground of merit in personal beauty, or\nfamily descent. He has nothing but what has been given him--the five\ntalents instead of his neighbor's one talent--and, so long as he does\nnot use them to their best purpose, there is only an admirable\npossibility, no merit of achievement.\n\nAnd all genuine merit--that which entitles one to some ground of human\nprecedence--comes from personal achievement in life; substantially, from\nthe stock of actual benefit which one has contributed to the world, and\nwhich has become assimilated to his own spiritual nature. The ground of\nprecedence--so far as it is lawful for man to think of anything like\nprecedence at all--is not in outward possessions, not in gifts, but in\n_uses_. And here is thrown open a broad and noble field, depending not\nupon genius or station, but upon _will_, and therefore accessible to\nevery man. Here is an arena where one may strive lawfully, emulous to\nbuild up his own inner nature, emulous to let such power as he possesses\ngo out in blessings for the world. A field for all of us, my friends,\nright here in the dense city, amidst the hurrying feet, the clang of\nmachinery, and the roar of wheels. And the condition of the game is, not\nlarge capacity but good purpose and loyal endeavor; not to strive\ngreatly but to strive lawfully.\n\nAnd, I observe once more, that the real claim to precedence is not\neagerly snatched by us, but _comes_ to us. It is not in _seeming_ but in\n_being_, and it makes no essential difference whether the world\nconfesses it or not, so long as we actually have it, working in our\nconsciousness of duty and drawing our consolation from inward resources.\nHere, my friend, is your work--here is the field of opportunity, which,\nhowever broad and rich absolutely, is for you great and pregnant with\nincalculable possibilities. And though men may not see its best results,\nthey are nevertheless real, and develop in your own soul a light and\npower, a ground and fabric of precedence that cannot be shaken, and will\nnever vanish away.\n\nAnd yet, to a large extent, the world does confess this true supremacy.\nFor, let me ask, who among these crowds of citizens are really honored?\nNot those who are so eagerly and vainly striving in their narrow,\nconventional circle, heedful merely of the rules of their own little\ngame. But those who actually fill an honorable place in life. How much\nacknowledged dignity is there in that man who just accepts his station\nand makes the most of it, filling it with patience and self-sacrifice\nand achieving the victory of principle and affection! How much genuine\nnobleness in the quiet, unconscious discharge of duty! The field for\nprecedence is it not a broad one, and close at hand? And is there no\nalternative between a frivolous and outside distinction, and some great\ntheatre of action large enough to fill and dazzle the world's eye?\nDaily, right around us, there are occasions that summon up all the\nenergies of manhood as with a trumpet-peal. See yonder! where the\nconflagration, bursting through marble walls, casts a terrible splendor\ndown the street and reddens the midnight sky. What an enemy has broken\nloose among us, devouring the achievements of human skill and the hopes\nof enterprise! What shall stay it? With a triumphant shout it snaps the\nfetters of stone; it roars with victory; it bends its flaming crest\ntowards peaceful homes where men and mothers and babes lie in\nunconscious slumber. The bell beats; and what old bugle-strain, what\npibroch, what rattling drum, ever sounded a more perilous call? And on\nwhat battle-field that you have read of was there ever displayed a\nloftier heroism, a more dauntless energy, than that man displays who,\nwith the unconscious courage of duty, plunges into the furnace, mounts\nthe quivering walls, and, making his own body a barrier between his\nfellow-men and the flame, stands there scorched, bruised, bleeding, and\nbeats the red terror back and beats it down, with that irresistible\nenergy which always springs from the human will bent upon a noble\npurpose?\n\nAnd so, in other forms, more quiet and more sacred, where the\nanticipation of public applause does not furnish its motive, men are\nexercising a heroism, and working achievements, that make dim and pale\nthe trophies that are plucked from fields of war and in lists of\nglittering renown. And when these things are known the hearts of men\nrender a spontaneous honor, and admit the genuine titles of supremacy.\nYet, if this true achievement in life is not known or confessed by the\nworld, its results really exist, and impart their inalienable strength\nand blessing to the soul, while as the grounds of false supremacy\ndissolve all gives way.\n\nAnd, my friends, the tendency of things is to bring out more and more\nthese real claims to human precedence, and to throw all spurious titles\ninto the shade. This is the radical purport of true democracy, which I\ntake to be the social synonym of _Christianity_. I have shown what\ninconsistencies and false distinctions swarm here in our midst, under\nthe profession of republican equality. This, however, is because names\nare _not_ things. I don't call that \"democracy\" which is simply the\ndomineering spirit of self-exaltation in a new shape. For there is no\n_essential_ difference whether we call the social order a monarchy or a\ncommonwealth; whether its leading men are Charles and Louis, or\nRobespierre and Cromwell. If we must have the old social fallacies, they\nappear more attractive with the old symbols. In that case, I would\nrather not have them changed. For, when I look merely at the\n_sentimental_ side of things, I feel sorry when the so-called \"Royal\nMartyr,\" with a dignity which contrasts with his past conduct, stretches\nhis head upon the block; or when the pitiless insults of a Parisian mob\nare hurled upon the head of the beautiful Marie Antoinette. A poetic\nregret and enthusiasm is awakened by the associations that cluster about\nthe Golden Lion and the Bourbon Lilies. And, when I turn to those grim\nIronsides, or those frantic Jacobins, the work they are doing looks\nsavage enough. But, with a more discriminating vision, I perceive that\nthat rude popular storm, which desolates palaces and shatters crowns,\nembosoms a rectifying process which, tumbling all false distinctions\nfrom their pedestals, shall by-and-by heave up the platform of social\njustice, and reveal the true dignity of man. The essential work of\ndemocracy is not the destruction of forms; is not the giant arm of\nrevolution, striking the hours of human progress by the crash of falling\nthrones. But its great work is _construction_--is in changing the very\n_spirit_ of institutions--and it asserts its legitimacy and bases its\nclaims upon the Christian doctrine of the human soul.\n\nTherefore, I regard these spurious claims to precedence--these endeavors\nafter social distinction by virtue of riches, and equipage, and\nwardrobes--as only evidences of a transition-state. Men, letting go the\nfeudal forms, and still assuming that there is some ground of human\nprecedence, as there really is, have adopted these false expressions of\nit. They will in turn pass away, and give place to more genuine\nmethods.\n\nBut let it be remembered, that these false forms of precedence are not\nonly inconsistent with our social professions and institutions, but they\nare futile because they are contrary to the Divine Law. Our endeavors in\nlife have a twofold operation, and we must count not only their effect\nupon others but their reaction upon the fabric of our own inner being.\nFor, whatever honor _men_ may attribute to us, we know that there is no\nreal, substantial ground of supremacy except in the excellence and power\nof our own spiritual nature. And this is acquired not in ostentatious\nand selfish striving, but when self is least thought of; in the calm\nwork of duty, and when all conception of human merit fades into the\nGlory of God. And this is the great end to be desired--this strength and\nexaltation of the soul. This imparts the profoundest significance to\nthat great life-struggle which goes on in these crowded streets. The\ncity! what is it but a vast amphitheatre, filled with racers, with\ncharioteers, with eager competitors; surrounded by an unseen and awful\narray of witnesses? And here, daily, the lists are opened, and men\ncontend for success, for station, for power. But these are meretricious\nand perishable awards. The real prize is a spiritual gain, a crown that\n\"fadeth not away.\" And, if we comprehend the great purpose of existence\nat all--if we look with any eagerness to its intrinsic issues and its\nfinal result; we shall heed that decree of Divine Wisdom and Justice\nthat comes down to us through all the vicissitude of life--through all\nthe hurry and turmoil and contention. \"If a man strive for masteries,\nyet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE SYMBOLS OF THE REPUBLIC.\n\n\n\n\nDISCOURSE IV.\n\nTHE SYMBOLS OF THE REPUBLIC.\n\n      Thou art a great people, and hast great power.--JOSHUA, xvii. 17.\n\n\nThese words, originally addressed by the Hebrew Leader to the children\nof Joseph--the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh--have been applicable to\nmany nations which, since that time, have risen, and flourished, and\nfallen. But when we consider the circumstances of its origin, its\nmarvellous growth in all the attributes of civilization, and especially\nthe immense _possibilities_ which it involves; without even being\nchargeable with a natural vanity, we may say, that to no country on the\nface of the earth have they ever been more fitted than to this. For, my\nfriends, we know that it _is_ a dictate of our nature to magnify that\nwhich is our own. However insignificant it really is, man spreads an\nideal glory over the land of his birth. Perhaps its historical\nimportance compensates for its geographical narrowness, or its material\npoverty is hidden by its intellectual wealth. From its stock of mighty\nmen--its heroes, and bards, and sages--who have brightened the roll of\nfame; or from its memorable battle-fields, on rude heath and in mountain\ndefile; or from its achievements which have swelled the tides of human\nenterprise, and made the world its debtor; he draws the inspiration, he\ncarries away the conviction of greatness--so that wherever its emblems\ncome before his eyes, they touch the deep springs of reverence and\npride. Nor let us condemn this feeling as merely a selfish and\nexaggerating one. This spirit of nationality exists for wise purposes,\nembosoms the richest elements of loyalty and faith, and is one of those\nprofound _sentiments_ of our nature that cannot be driven out by any\nprocess of logic.\n\nBut, if a nation really inherits the description in the text, it must\npossess something more than an illustrious history and an ideal glory.\nWe must determine its greatness by its symbols; yet these must be not\nmerely signs of things, but instruments of achievement; not merely the\nillustrations of dead works or patriotic enthusiasm, but the agents of\nactual power and of living performance. Now, in looking over the world\nat the present time, there are other nations to which the words of\nJoshua might be applied as well as to our own, and with as little\nassumption of national vanity. Other people are great and have great\npower, by virtue of political importance, vast possessions, and strong\ninstitutions. To say nothing of the rest, consider that huge domain\nwhich at this hour confronts the troubled principalities of Europe. It\nstretches itself out over three continents. The waves of three oceans\nchafe against its shaggy sides. The energies of innumerable tribes are\nthrobbing in its breast. It clasps regions yet raw in history as well as\nthose that are grey with tradition, and incloses in one empire the bones\nof the Siberian mammoth and the valleys of Circassian flowers. And it is\ngreat not only by geographical extent, but by political purpose--great\nby the idea which is involved with its destiny--an idea austere as the\nclimate, tremendous as the forces, indomitable as the will of the\ngigantic north. It would set the inheritance of the Byzantine Emperors\nin the diadem of Peter the Great. It would make the Sea of Marmara and\nthe ridges of the Caucasus, paths to illimitable empire and\nuncompromising despotism. It moves down the map of the world, as a\nglacier moves down the Alps, patient and relentless, startling the\njealous rivals that watch its course, and granting contemptuous peace to\nthe allies that shiver in its shadow.\n\nIn considering, therefore, the symbols which prove that we also are a\ngreat people, having great power, we should select those which indicate\nthe possession of a _peculiar_ power. This peculiarity is not in our\ngeographical extent or material greatness. But it _is_, I think, in our\ninstitutions, in the tendency of our national ideas, and in the\nlegitimate result of these. It is in conceptions and elements the direct\nopposite of those that work in the destiny of the mighty empire just\nreferred to--and for this reason I _have_ referred to it.\n\nIn taking up a subject, then, which is especially connected with the\nconditions of humanity in the city, because in the city the conception\nof a people--of a public--is especially illustrated, let us\ninquire--What _are_ the symbols of our republic; the signs and agents of\nour greatness as a nation? And, for the sake of avoiding too many\nspecifications, I propose to consider these under two or three general\nclasses.\n\nIn the first place, then, I would select as a symbol of the Republic,\n_Whatever represents the privilege of Free Thought_. As to whatever\ngives full play to the intellect, whatever diffuses the intelligence,\nwhatever wakes up and assists the entire spiritual nature of individuals\nand communities, I think there is really more opportunity here than\nanywhere else on the face of the earth. And, as a sign and instrument of\nthis, I would point to some _District School-house_; rough,\nweather-worn, standing in some bleak corner of New York or New\nHampshire; through whose closed windows the passer-by catches the\nconfused hum of recitation, or at whose door he sees children of all\nconditions mingling in motley play. Of all conditions, so far as\nexternal peculiarities go; for the laws of nature and the ordinances of\nProvidence cannot be dispensed with even here; but of one condition as\nthe recognized possessors of immortal _mind_. Those who have helped\nmould the Republic have clearly seen that, although intelligence is not\nthe foundation of national greatness--for there is something deeper than\nthat--still it is the discerning and directing power upon which depends\nthe right use even of moral elements. They have scouted the notion that\nthere is any ultimate evil in diffused knowledge; any such thing as \"a\ndangerous truth;\" and have affirmed that the best way to winnow the\nfalse from the true, is to equip and set a-going the intellectual\nmachine by which God has ordained that the work shall be done. It has\nbeen felt, that, if the State can properly extend its influence anywhere\nbeyond the restrictive limits of evil, or the punishment of overt wrong;\nif anywhere it may exercise a positive ministration for good; it is\nhere, where it does not interfere on the one hand with those outward\npursuits which should be left to individual choice and aptitude, nor on\nthe other, with those inward sanctities which pertain to conscience and\nto God; it is here, in that region of our personality from which we can\nbest discern our duty and fill our place. For the intellect is the most\nneutral of all our qualities. Man is swayed by the animal propensities\nof his nature; he is swayed by the moral and religious elements of his\nnature; but the intellect, by itself, is not a motive power. It is a\n_light_; and no one will object to its being kindled except those who,\nby that objection, virtually confess that they fear the light. And this\nwork of kindling is just what the state purposes to do for a child;\nleaving his religious convictions to such helps as conscience has\nchosen, and his position in life to the decision of circumstances. And\nthere is no way in which it can show so much impartiality, and exercise\npractically the most essential conception of freedom. For thus, as I\nhave already said, it recognizes a common inheritance--something which\nall have--the possession of _mind_--something which is of more\nimportance than any external condition, for it influences external\ncondition; (whoever saw an educated community of which anything like a\nlarge fraction were paupers and criminals?) something on which rests the\nclaim of human freedom; for the charter of man's liberty is in his soul,\nnot his estate. It says to the poorest child--\"You are rich in this one\nendowment, before which all external possessions grow dim. No piled-up\nwealth, no social station, no throne, reaches as high as that spiritual\nplane upon which every human being stands by virtue of his humanity; and\nfrom that plane, mingling now in the Common School with the lowliest and\nthe lordliest, we give you the opportunity to ascend as high as you may.\nWe put into your hands the key of knowledge; leaving your religious\nconvictions, with which we dare not interfere, to your chosen guides. So\nfar as the intellectual path may lead, it is open to you.--Go free!\" And\nwhen we consider the great principles which are thus practically\nconfessed; when we consider the vast consequences which grow out of\nthis; I think that little District School-house dilates, grows\nsplendid, makes our hearts beat with admiration and gratitude, makes us\nresolve that at all events, _that_ must stand; for, indeed, it is one of\nthe noblest symbols of the Republic--a sign and an instrument of a great\npeople, having great power.\n\nOr, if you would behold another of these symbols, go through this city,\nand pause wherever you hear the rumbling of the _Printing-Press_. As I\nhave dwelt upon the characteristics of this great power in another\nplace, I only allude to it here as a vehicle of that _expression_ which\nis so essential to all genuine freedom of thought. Mere education is no\nevidence of this freedom. It may be made, it has been made in one of the\nmost intelligent but despotic countries in Europe, an instrument for\ndrilling the human mind into an absolute routine of state policy. Mere\nliberty of speculation is nothing, though it has the boundless firmament\nof abstraction for its own, so long as it is not allowed to strike the\nsolid ground of fact or touch one organized abuse. Let us be thankful\nfor a free-press--the electric tongue of thought, which at every stroke\nis felt throughout a continent, which no dictator dares to chain, and\nover whose issues no censor sits in judgment--or only that great censor,\npublic opinion. Everybody is aware of its evil as well as its good--the\nerrors, the crudities, the abominations it sends out. But we must\nremember that it is only the representative, the voice, of elements that\nactually exist in human minds and bosoms; and, surely, it is better that\nthey should come out into the free air, and be sprinkled by the chloride\nof truth, than to work darkly and infectiously out of sight. It is the\nhidden, not the open evil that is dangerous.\n\nOr, still again, you might have seen a true symbol of the Republic in\nthe spectacle which has been presented this very day--the spectacle of a\n_Free Worship_. The great stream of religious impulse has poured through\nthese streets, and separated into its rills of distinctive opinion,\nwithout trepidation and without challenge. Every man has had the\nopportunity to commune with his God, and approach the Cross of his\nRedeemer, with no established barriers between. Neither the cathedral\nnor the chapel rest upon the patronage of the state, but in the deep\nfoundations of individual conviction. To be sure, here and there, there\nis a little assumption; but it is dramatic rather than substantial, and\ndoes not amount to much. Here and there breaks out an unjust prejudice\nor a spiteful calumny, but it shames the source more than the object,\nand soon dies away in the atmosphere of tolerance and investigation. It\nlooks doubtful sometimes, but I verily believe that the real spirit, as\nwell as the mere form of Religious equality, is beginning to prevail.\nEvery day, it is more and more practically acknowledged that\nChristianity is profounder than any name, and exists under strange and\ndespised names; that there really is decent observance in every church,\nand holy living in every communion; and a man finds that his neighbor\nhas the same essence of righteousness as himself, though he has not half\nso many links in his creed. And something more than tolerance grows out\nof this practical liberty. It is not easy to measure the moral\nsincerity, the moral principle, which results from it; which is far more\nprecious than mere intelligence; which is the perennial spring and\nassurance of national welfare.\n\nBut I proceed to observe, in the second place, that we may select as a\nsymbol of the Republic--a sign and an instrument of a great people,\nhaving great power--whatever illustrates the principle of _Political\nEquality_. I am speaking, at present, not of our deficiencies, but of\nour possessions; not of the instances in which this doctrine of equality\nis practically contradicted, but of those in which it is practically\nacknowledged. The sovereignty of every man is a fundamental principle in\nour institutions; it is essential to the conception of a Republic; and\nso far as it _is_ legitimately a Republic, we shall find this principle\nin operation. And, looking around for some extant symbol of this, let me\nselect that which is the object of so much strife and agitation--the\n_Presidential Chair_. I do not, by any means, consider this the most\ncomfortable seat in the nation, or that the most deserving man is sure\nto get there; but, as an emblem, I believe it illustrates the noblest\nprivileges, and the proudest supremacy, on the face of the globe. And I\nrefer to it as a _possibility_ for the poorest and humblest child in the\nland. No hereditary gallery leads to it--only the broad road of the\npeople. And, as the highest seat in the nation, it illustrates all the\nhonors of the nation. They are possible to anybody. And I trust the time\nhas not yet arrived when this can be said only by way of satire; can be\ntrue only because the waves of political corruption carry the meanest\nand unworthiest into office; but as a grand fact, a fact with which are\ninvolved the springs of our national greatness and power, it may be said\nthat here there are no barriers of caste, no terms of descent, no depths\nso low that enterprise cannot rise out of them, no heights so exalted\nthat genius cannot attain them; for, on a platform as level to the\npeasant's threshold as to the nabob's door, stand the judge's bench, the\nsenator's seat, and the President's chair.\n\nAs another symbol of this political equality, I would name the\n_Ballot-Box_. I am aware that this is not everywhere a consistent\nsymbol; but to a large degree it is so. I know what miserable\nassociations cluster around this instrument of popular power. I know\nthat the arena in which it stands is trodden into mire by the feet of\nreckless ambition and selfish greed. The wire-pulling and the bribing,\nthe pitiful truckling and the grotesque compromises, the exaggeration\nand the detraction, the melo-dramatic issues and the sham patriotism,\nthe party watch-words and the party nick-names, the schemes of the few\nparaded as the will of the many, the elevation of men whose only worth\nis in the votes they command--vile men, whose hands you would not grasp\nin friendship, whose presence you would not tolerate by your\nfireside--incompetent men, whose fitness is not in their capacity as\nfunctionaries, or legislators, but as organ pipes; the snatching at the\nslices and offal of office, the intemperance and the violence, the\nfinesse and the falsehood, the gin and the glory; these are indeed but\ntoo closely identified with that political agitation which circles\naround the Ballot-Box. But, after all, they are not essential to it.\nThey are only the masks of a genuine grandeur and importance. For it\n_is_ a grand thing--something which involves profound doctrines of\nRight--something which has cost ages of effort and sacrifice--it _is_ a\ngrand thing that here, at last, each voter has just the weight of one\nman; no more, no less; and the weakest, by virtue of his recognized\nmanhood, is as strong as the mightiest. And consider, for a moment, what\nit is to cast a vote. It is the token of inestimable privileges, and\ninvolves the responsibilities of an hereditary trust. It has passed into\nyour hands as a right, reaped from fields of suffering and blood. The\ngrandeur of History is represented in your act. Men have wrought with\npen and tongue, and pined in dungeons, and died on scaffolds, that you\nmight obtain this symbol of freedom, and enjoy this consciousness of a\nsacred individuality. To the ballot have been transmitted, as it were,\nthe dignity of the sceptre and the potency of the sword. And that which\nis so potent as a right, is also pregnant as a duty; a duty for the\npresent and for the future. If you will, that folded leaf becomes a\ntongue of justice, a voice of order, a force of imperial law; securing\nrights, abolishing abuses, erecting new institutions of truth and love.\nAnd, _however_ you will, it is the expression of a solemn\nresponsibility, the exercise of an immeasurable power for good or for\nevil, now and hereafter. It is the medium through which you act upon\nyour country--the organic nerve which incorporates you with its life and\nwelfare. There is no agent with which the possibilities of the Republic\nare more intimately involved, none upon which we can fall back with more\nconfidence, than the Ballot-Box.\n\nBut there is a symbol which represents the power and greatness of a\nRepublic more significantly than all the rest, and is comprehensive of\nall the rest. It is the fruit of unfettered thought and political\nequality, of intelligence and virtue, of private sovereignty and public\nduty--it is a free, true, harmonious _Man_. As the crown or the sceptre\nis the symbol of a Monarchy; as heraldic honors are the symbols of an\nOligarchy; so, I repeat, the most expressive symbol of a Republic is a\nman--a man free in limb and soul, a man intelligent and self-governed, a\nman whose spiritual vision is clear, and in whose breast the voice of\nconscience is peremptory, with whom the conception of duties is deeper\neven than the conception of rights; in short, a man who embodies all the\nelements, and represents to the world the best results of Liberty. Laws\nare nothing, institutions are nothing, national power and greatness are\nnothing, save as they assist the Moral purpose of God in the development\nof humanity. To this test we must bring the symbols of the Republic, and\njudge whether they are fitting and consistent. No matter what else they\naccomplish, no matter what else they signify, if they do not serve this\nend they are either incomplete instruments, or vain forms. For, Man is\nof more worth than Institutions; Religion is greater than politics; and\nthe designs of Providence are wider than the cycles of National destiny.\n\nI turn, then, to the signs of our own national greatness; I turn to\nthese symbols of spiritual freedom and political equality; and I\nask--how completely do they develop this most significant symbol of\nall--how completely do they serve the purposes of God in History--by\nsecuring the welfare, the culture, the moral elevation of humanity? And\nthe reply is--that, by our institutions and our endeavors, these ends\nhave been served in various ways. There is here, to-day, a more\nenlightened, free, self-governed humanity--and we say it without\narrogance--than anywhere else on the globe. Our benefits are of the kind\nthat are not realized, because they are so great and familiar--like the\nlight and the air; but take them away, or transfer us to some other\natmosphere, and how we should miss them, and pine and dwindle! Let no\nman, in his zeal for bold rebuke or needed reform, overlook what has\nbeen done, and what is enjoyed here, as to the noblest results of\nnational greatness and power.\n\nBut every sincere man must say likewise that, with us, the\n_possibilities_ are far greater than the _performance_; that these\nsymbols are the splendid tokens of what _may be_, rather than what _is_.\nAnd, that I may bring this discourse to a practical conclusion, let me\nsay that two things, at least, are necessary to convert these\npossibilities into the noblest achievement.\n\nIn the first place, it is essential that every citizen of the republic\nshould recognize his own manhood; the sacredness of his own personality;\nand should recognize this especially in relation to his duties, which\nare inextricably involved with his rights. For here it is true in a\nspecial sense, that the mass is but an aggregate of personalities--that\npublic sin is but the projection of your sin and mine. A man will often\nsay that he is responsible to his country, and responsible to his\nconstituents; but upon no claim, by no sophistry, should he suffer\nhimself to forget that he is also responsible to his God. He does forget\nthis, when he acts for political interests, and as one of a party, as he\nnever would act in his private affairs. And does he suppose that there\nis a corporate vice, or virtue, differing from his private vice or\nvirtue, as a gentleman's purse differs from the public fund? There is no\nsuch distinction in moral qualities. It is your own coin that helps\nswell the amount; it bears your stamp, and you are responsible for the\nproduct. If the party lies, then _you_ are guilty of falsehood. If the\nparty--as is very likely--does a mean thing, then _you_ do it. It is\nsurely so, so far as you are one of the party, and go with it in its\naction. God does not take account of parties; party names are not known\nin that court of Divine Judgment; but your name and mine are on the\nbooks there. There is no such thing--and this is true, perhaps, in more\nsenses than one--there is no such thing as a party conscience. It is\nindividual conscience that is implicated. Party! Party! Ah! my friends,\nhere is the influence which, it is to be feared, balks and falsifies\nmany of these glorious symbols. Men rally round musty epithets. They\ntake up issues which have no more relation to the deep, vital, throbbing\ninterest of the time, than they have to the fashions of our\ngrandfathers. They parade high-sounding principles to cover selfish\nends; interpret the Constitution by a doctrine of loaves and fishes;\nwhile individual independence and private conviction are whirled away in\nthe political maelstrom, and the party-badge is reverenced and hugged as\nthe African reverences and hugs his fetish. And surely it is a case for\ncongratulation, when some great, exciting question breaks out and jars\nthese conventional idols, and so sweeps and shatters these party\norganizations and turns them topsy-turvy, that a man is shaken out of\nhis harness, does not know exactly what party he _does_ belong to, and\nbegins to feel that he has a soul of his own. I am not denying the use\nand the necessity of parties as instruments, but protest against them as\nends, especially when principle is smothered under their platforms, and\nthey absorb the moral personality of a man.\n\nIt may not seem so strange that the political field should so often be\nthe field of a lax and depressed morality, when we consider that here is\nthe great theatre where human ambition struggles for its aims; here are\nenlisted the strongest passions of the soul; here throng some of its\nfiercest temptations; here the stakes played for are the kingdoms of\nthis world, and the glory of them. And this, I suppose, is the reason\nwhy the most authentic type of human depravity is a thoroughly\nunprincipled politician. Such an instance, at least, may strike us more\nforcibly, because we see the perversion of great faculties, and\ncapabilities are contrasted with performance; while, on the other hand\nhe may be confirmed in his moral bankruptcy by the fact that, in playing\nupon the passions of men he sees the worst side of humanity. But,\nsurely, there have been those who passed this ordeal, and came out with\nbrighter lustre; who have kept the eye of conscience elevated above the\necliptic of political routine; who have made politics identical with\nlofty duties and great principles; whose patriotism was not a clamorous\ncatch-word, but a breathing inspiration, a silent heart-fire. In private\nlife they have felt the great privilege of their citizenship; the\nmagnitude of the obligation which bound them to virtue and to\nconsistency; while, in public life, they have kept their trust firm as\nsteel, bright as gold; have felt, with due balance on either side, the\nbeatings of the popular heart and the dictates of the everlasting Right;\nand in themselves have represented the union of liberty and law, the\nreal greatness of a nation. Without such men, the nation has no\ngreatness; for its significance and its power are in the moral worth of\nits citizens.\n\nThe second condition necessary to the fulfilment of the great results\nindicated by these symbols, is consistent action upon the ideas that\nconstitute the basis of our own institutions. If many of the privileges\nand peculiarities which I have specified in this discourse are possessed\nby other nations, in one respect we differ from them all. These\nprivileges and peculiarities are _legitimately_ ours. They have not been\ngrafted on hereditary antagonisms. They have not grown up in _spite_ of\nour institutions, but as the _fruit_ of our institutions. These ideas,\nentwined with the very roots of our Republic, shooting through every\nfibre, running into every limb, bind us to a recognition of human\nbrotherhood; to sympathy with Liberty wherever it struggles; and to\nstedfast opposition to whatever crushes the rights, hinders the\ndevelopment, or denies the humanity of man. If these symbols of the\nRepublic mean anything, they mean just this; and whatever is\ninconsistent with this, is inconsistent with the terms of our national\nbirthright. Depend upon it, not the assertion of Liberty, but whatever\nis opposed to Liberty, is the innovating and agitating element in this\ncountry. It interrupts the legitimate current of our destiny. It shocks\nthe popular heart with inconsistency. It becomes mixed with the ashes of\nthe old heroes, and the land keeps heaving with the fermentation. One\nassumption is too impudent, too nakedly in contradiction with the\nfundamental ideas of our Republic ever to be admitted--the assumption\nthat the man who speaks for freedom, who sympathizes with the broadest\ndoctrine of human rights, and sets around these the eternal barriers of\njustice, is an innovator and an agitator. I ask--what made our\nRevolution legitimate? What were the central ideas that throbbed in the\nbreasts of its heroes and martyrs? Take down the old muskets bent in the\nhot encounter, and printed with many a death-gripe; take down the old\nuniforms, clipped by Hessian sabres and torn by British bullets; take\ndown the dusty muster-rolls, scrawled with those venerable names--names\nthat now \"are graven on the stone,\" names that are buried in the sod,\nnames that have gone up to immortality--and ask, for what was this great\nstruggle? Was it not for freedom, based upon the conception of the right\nand supremacy of freedom? And is _this_ the legitimate conclusion of\nthat sublime postulate--this other Fact which, never retreating, always\nadvancing, follows the steps of Freedom over the continent like a\nshadow, looms up like a phantom against the Rocky Mountains, and darkens\nthe fairest waters? On the contrary, is not Freedom that old truth, that\nconceded premise that does _not_ agitate? Liberty, Human Rights,\nUniversal Brotherhood, was it not for these ideas ye fought--was it not\nthese ye planted in the soil, and laid with the corner-stone of our\ninstitutions? My friends, I know, and you know, could those men give\npalpable sign and representation, the answer that would come, as in one\nquick flash from bayonet to bayonet, in one long roll of drums, from\nLexington to Yorktown.\n\nThese peculiar privileges, then, to which I have referred, differ from\nthose of other nations inasmuch as they are not grafted expedients, but\nlegitimate fruits. Unless we change the premises of our Republic, and\nshift the foils in our historical argument, these are necessary\nconclusions. They are necessary conclusions, if our symbols represent\nrealities. Russia is consistent with its national idea. It pours forth\nits legions and moves to its work with a terrible consistency. And if\nwe--also a great people, having great power--are equally consistent, we\nshall fall back upon no selfish conservatism, but aid whatever tends to\nfulfil the Providential purpose of our existence, and whatever helps and\nadvances man.\n\nOne thing is certain. So long as any nation truly lives, it unfolds its\nspecific idea and lives according to its original type. When it fails to\ndo this, the sentence of decay is already written upon it. If it fails\nto illustrate God's purpose in its obedience, it illustrates His control\nin retribution. For there is nothing supreme, nothing finally\ntriumphant, nothing of the last importance, but His Law. It penetrates,\nand oversweeps, and survives all charters and institutions and\nnationalities, like the infinite space that encompasses Alps and Andes,\nand planets and systems. It is this that successive generations\nillustrate. It is this that all history vindicates. If a nation runs\nparallel to this Divine Law, it is well; if false to its purpose and its\ncontrol, down it goes. The prophet Isaiah, in one of the most terrific\nand sublime passages of the Bible, represents the king of Babylon, while\npassing into the under-world, saluted by departed rulers, by dead kings,\nrising from their shadowy thrones, and exclaiming, \"Art thou become weak\nas we? Art thou become like unto us?\" Thus has many a nation gone down\nto its doom. Shall it be so with this Republic, because false to its\nideal? Shall it descend to the shades of perished pomp and greatness,\nand see Nineveh with dusty, hieroglyphic robes rising up to meet it; and\nPersia, with the empty wine-cup of its luxury; and Rome, with the shadow\nof universal empire on its discrowned head; and hear them say--\"Art thou\nbecome weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?\"\n\nMy friends, I look at the eager enterprise, the young, hopeful vigor,\nthe tides of possibility that flow through this great city; I look at\nthe symbols of this Republic; and I cannot believe that such is to be\nthe result. I look back upon our history, and cannot argue such a future\nfrom such a past. A great light lay upon the wake of those frail ships\nthat bore our fathers hither; the wake of past ages, the following of\ngood men's prayers and brave men's deeds, the mingling currents of\nmartyr-blood and prophet-fire. And methinks, as they struck the shore,\nand met the savage wilderness, a Voice saluted them; a voice not of\nprofane ambition and of selfish hope, but of Divine promise, intending\nDivine results--proclaiming, \"Thou art a great people, and hast great\npower.\" And He will fulfil this prophecy, Who leads the course of\nhistory over the broad deep and through mysterious ways, and Who unfolds\nHis own glory in the destinies of men.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SPRINGS OF SOCIAL LIFE.\n\n\n\n\nDISCOURSE V.\n\nTHE SPRINGS OF SOCIAL LIFE.\n\n      Let them learn first to show piety at home.--I. TIMOTHY, v. 4.\n\n\nThe text--which I purpose to employ not as a specific precept, but as\nthe illustration of a general principle--indicates those Springs of\nSocial Life which constitute the subject of the present discourse.\n\nThe crowd in a city affords comparatively little interest, when we\ncontemplate it merely as a crowd. But, when we resolve it into its\nindividual particles, and consider each of these as endued with the\nattributes and involved with the conditions of humanity, our deepest\nsympathies are touched. Every drop of that great stream is a conscious\npersonality. In some shape, the universe is reflected in it. In some\nway, it takes hold of the reality of life: and the living organism of\nwhich it is composed both acts and suffers, receives from the world\naround it and contributes to it. That entire mass of people involves\nnothing more than the interest of humanity, and the same interest\npertains to the least unit of that mass.\n\nAnd, doubtless, you have sometimes busied yourself with the\nspeculation--\"Where do all these people come from? And whither do they\nretire at night?\" Now, this is really a very suggestive question, and to\nfollow it out to a practical answer would yield results of the\nprofoundest importance. For out of hidden channels, here and there, _do_\nspring all these struggling activities, these human diversities, these\nvarious influences good and evil, that make up the crowd and spectacle\nof city life. And night after night, with the rarest exceptions, into\nsome retreat they all disappear. Some spot--whether it seem the veriest\nmockery to style it so, or whether it be a synonym for the sweetest\nsanctities--some spot each of this living multitude calls by the name of\n\"Home.\"\n\nFor some that name is associated with a more than oriental\nmagnificence. Man and nature wait upon them there in every conceivable\nform of service. There is no method of convenience or luxury which\ningenuity can devise; no bounty that earth can yield from her many-zoned\nbosom; no shape which art can summon from the regions of the beautiful,\nthat is not possible there. Lifting its palatial walls, and kindling\nwith brilliant lights, it stands there as the completest symbol of\nmaterial refinement and civilization. It is arctic winter without. The\nsnow chokes up the dreary street, and the whistling wind cuts the\nbeggar's rags. But it is Italy, it is Ceylon, it is tropic gorgeousness\nwithin. And these are the abodes of the children of fortune, whose\nwishes require no talisman but expression, who, all their lives long,\nhave been used to such indulgence, or who accept it now as the fruit of\ntheir own effort. This is the hospitality which some men find in life,\nand out of which they constitute a home.\n\nBut none the less enviable, and perhaps much more so, are those retreats\nwhere comfort waits on moderate means, while contentment imparts to\nthese an unpurchasable efficacy; where, blended with those infirmities\nand liabilities which are common to palace and cottage, the domestic\naffections flourish, and the dearest treasures of life are kept.\nThousands of homes like this there are, all around us. It describes the\nlargest class of homes, we may believe. And who can estimate their\ninfluence over these busy tides of action, all day long? That world of\ntraffic, that world of toil, that looks so hard and gross and\nsordid,--is it not transformed somewhat, does it not grow beautiful\neven, when you think how many of its energies have their spring by the\ninfant's cradle and the mother's chair? And what lights, what shadows,\nunseen by you, fall upon the speculative eyes, fall upon the hearts, of\nthousands in that homeward-streaming crowd! Light of welcoming\nhearth-fires, shadows of children's play upon the walls; light of\naffections in which there are no decay and no deceit; shadows of sacred\nretirement where God alone is; light of joys which this world's storms\ncannot utterly quench; shadows of sorrow around sick-beds, and in vacant\nplaces, that still make home the dearer as the arena of earth's purest\ndiscipline and of its most triumphant faith!\n\nAnd why delineate the features of that other class of homes, whose most\nsignificant word is \"_Privation_?\" Where cheerlessness, and hunger, and\ndesponding toil, or hopeless apathy, brood continually. Let your own\nsympathies, let your own imaginations that cannot exaggerate the\nreality, call up the vision of such. Think how many such abodes there\nare this very night, which winter besieges with all his terrors, and\ninto which he sends his invading frost! Think what Home is to hundreds,\nand, therefore, how life looks to them, seen through this atmosphere of\ndisease and want, with starvation by the hearth, and death at the door,\nand misery everywhere! Think, when the cold pierces even through all\nyour wrappages of comfort, and scarcity almost pinches, what forms of\nhumanity, with lungs, and nerves, and hearts, and every capacity for\nsuffering, are scraping the moss of subsistence from the barest rocks of\nlife, and struggling every day through an avalanche! Think what this\nSabbath has been in the dwellings of the poor, you who have had time to\nlisten to the Gospel, and have heard it comfortably--so comfortably,\nperhaps, that you have fallen asleep under it--think what this Sabbath\nhas been in the dwellings of the poor! And yet, when I consider what,\ndoubtless, the Sabbath has been in some of those places, I am thankful\nthat the highest ideal, the richest sanctities of Home, are not\ndependent upon outward conditions; for even there, unfaltering duty and\ntrue love have made the bare walls beautiful, and prayer has set the\ndesolate chamber on the steps of the Divine throne; and before the eye\nof faith the cold arch of the winter night, that looks in through hole\nand cranny, has burst into a revelation of heaven, and a path for those\nministering angels that come to help the sufferer and to comfort God's\npoor.\n\nWith more unqualified sadness, therefore, our thoughts must rest upon\nstill another group of dwellings, where deprivation and ignorance are\nmingled with vice and crime--where want and guilt strip away the masks\nof civilization, and bring out the essential savage in man's nature.\nThese also we must call \"_homes_!\" These breathing-holes of abomination,\nthese moral tombs, where huddle the demons of violence, and cunning, and\ndebauchery, and from which they issue. That vast Hades of social evil\nopening downward from our streets, where the best ideals have no type,\nand the purest sentiments scarce a name; where God is but a dark cloud\nof muttering thunder in the soul; where all that is fair in womanhood is\ndishevelled and transformed; and where childhood is baptized in infamy,\ntrained to sin, canopied with curses, and rocked to sleep by the\nconvulsive hell of passions all around it.\n\nThe Homes of the Metropolis! Thus diversified are they in their general\ntypes, and more numerous in their individual conditions than can be\nspecified. And, surely, it is no vain speculation that inquires--\"What\nare they? Into what retreats do the elements of this busy crowd\ndissolve, night after night?\" Whatever they may be, a common interest\nenvelopes them and links them all together--the interest of humanity.\nThey have vanished from the streets. One great shadow covers them, and\nhides their distinctions. For a time they are all equal. They have\nfallen asleep--poor, tired humanity at the best!--they have fallen\nasleep on the bosom of a common Providence, that bears them all up, as\nit bears the planet on which they now repose, through the orbit of its\ngreat purpose and the immensities of its love. But in the morning all\nthese diversities will break forth again, each pouring its influence\ninto the general stream. And who does not perceive how much the\ncharacter of that influence must depend upon the condition of those\nhomes? Who does not see that not only the interest of the common\nhumanity in its most intimate experiences attaches to them, but the\ninterest of community? Not only are they the reservoirs of individual\npower and peculiarity, but they are the Springs of Social Life. And this\nthe apostle indicated, when he directed that certain, who bore intimate\nrelations to the early church, should \"first learn to show piety at\nhome.\"\n\nKeeping this conclusion in mind, let me ask you to consider, for a\nlittle while, what Home _must_ be.\n\nIn the first place--it is the _earliest and the most influential\nschool_. Nowhere else is the character so moulded; nowhere else is so\nmuch infused into our entire being. For, whatever it may be, it is the\nnursery of childhood; and \"the child is father to the man.\" Here dawns\nupon the human mind the conception of life. Here, when the nature is\nuninscribed and plastic, it takes its first impressions. I suppose it to\nbe true, that more is learnt, more that is elementary and a key to all\nthe rest, in the first few years of childhood than in all after time. I\ndo not deny, of course, that much is corrected and overcome under\nanother class of influences. But the deepest impressions, the seeds of\nthe most stubborn habits, are planted at home. Hence the peculiar\nanxiety of good men to rescue _children_ from the influences of a bad\nhome. And, even then, with what obstacles do they have to contend! How\nradical are the prejudices already formed in that young mind! How\nobstinate the customs, how opaque the ignorance, how rank the growth of\nerror! Nay, into what complete fruition have all these grown, simply in\nthe neglect of home-culture, to say nothing of influences positively\nevil! Really, the color and current of a man's destiny are indicated\nhere, unless a shock of wonderful transformation comes over him. I do\nnot mean to say that anybody is wholly the creature of circumstances;\nbut he is the _subject_ of circumstances. If they do not entirely make\n_him_, they furnish the occasion out of which he makes something; and,\nviewed either from the platform of the inward or the outward, they\nfurnish an important key to his life. And, although the path of\nreformation is more difficult than the descent into evil, and demands an\neffort which too few are inclined to put forth; though by the conditions\nof our nature the good is more easily swept away than the bad; still, it\nis encouraging to estimate the permanence and the power of those _good_\ninfluences which are received at home. Everybody knows, when he is\npitched into this whirlpool of evil that rolls around him in the world,\nhow those old home-restraints lie upon him like a magic chain, hard to\nbe forced away--perhaps never utterly forced away. And, seeking for\nthose who should stand up in this boisterous sweep of sin, you would\nlook and I would look to those who had received the best impressions\nunder the domestic roof. If I were alone, poor, compelled to ask charity\nsomewhere in this selfish world, I would go, not to the man who has\nlearnt most of what he calls his \"wisdom\" from the experience of mature\nlife, but to him in whose heart there evidently remains something of\nchildhood's tenderness, kept warm by the remembered pressures of his\nmother's breast. If I were seeking to restore some wild prodigal,\nbrazen-fronted by his own wicked will and by the scorn with which men\nhave battered him--if I were looking for some gleam of promise in his\nturbulent nature, and sounding its depths to find some spring of\nrepentance--I should never despair if I could discover one gentle pulse\nthat beat with the memories of a good and happy home. Why, who needs to\nbe told of the potency of this our earliest school, to say nothing of\nother influences, if only a faithful _mother_ presides there? O! mother,\nmother, name for the earliest relationship, symbol of the divine\ntenderness; kindling a love that we never blush to confess, and a\nveneration that we cannot help rendering; how does your mystic\ninfluence, imparted from the soft pressure and the undying smile, weave\nitself through all the brightness through all the darkness of our after\nlife. The mould of character set on the front of the world's great men,\nand gladly confessed by them, bears your stamp. Your inspiration burns\nalong the poet's line. It is your true courage, more than man's rude\ndaring, that makes the force of heroes. The statesman, when treason to\nhumanity wears the garb of power, and duty calls him like a trumpet,\nhears your voice. The philanthropist, when he feels that the most\nefficient service is to be patient and to wait, imbibes the strength of\nyour fortitude. The sailor, \"on the high and giddy mast,\" mingles your\nname close to God's. And thousands in life's great claims, in life's\ngreat perils, trace back the influences of the hour to some early time,\nsome calm moment, when,--little, timid children,--they knelt by your\nside, and from tones of reverence and looks of love and simple words of\nprayer, they first learnt piety at home.\n\nBut I observe again, that Home is the sphere where are most clearly\ndisplayed _the real elements of character_. The world furnishes\noccasions of trial, but it also furnishes prudential considerations.\nWithout any absolute hypocrisy, one measures his speech and restrains\nhis action in the street and the market. And it is easy to conceive how\nsmall men may perform great deeds, and mean men seem philanthropic, and\ncowards flourish as heroes, with the tremendous motive of publicity to\nurge them. But at home all masks are thrown aside, and the true\nproportions of the man appear. Here he can find his actual moral\nstandard, and measure himself accordingly. If he is irritable, here\nbreaks forth his repressed fretfulness. If he is selfish, here are the\nsordid tokens. If he passes in any way for more than he is worth, here\nyou may detect the counterfeit in the ring of his natural voice and the\nsuperscription of his undisguised life. No, the world is not the place\nto prove the moral stature and quality of a man. There are too many\nprops and stimulants. Nor, on the other hand, can he himself determine\nhis actual character merely by looking into his own solitary heart.\nTherein he may discover _possibilities_, but it needs actuality to make\nup the estimate of a complete life. He must _do_ something as well as be\nsomething; he must do something in order that he may be something. For,\nwhat he thinks is in his heart may be exaggerated by self-flattery, or\ndarkened by morbid self-distrust. It needs some occasion to prove what\nis really there. And Home is precisely that sphere which is sufficiently\nremoved from the factitious motives of publicity on the one extreme, and\nthe unexercised possibilities of the human heart on the other, to afford\na genuine test. What a man really is, therefore, will appear in the\ntruest light under his own roof and by his own fireside. I can believe\nthat he is a Christian, when I know that he faithfully takes up the\ndaily duties, and bears the crosses, that cluster within his own doors.\nI shall think that the world rightly calls him a philanthropist, when,\nnotwithstanding common faults and infirmities, he receives the\nspontaneous award of the good husband and father, and the kindness of\nhis nature is reflected in the very air and light of his dwelling.\nAnd,--talk of noble deeds!--where will you find occasions for, where\nwill you behold manifestations of, a more beautiful self-sacrifice, a\nmore generous heroism, than in the labors and in the endurance of\nthousands of men and women, shut out from the world's observation in\nsilent nooks and corners of this very city, amidst the relationships and\ncares and struggles of home? But whether it be in forms of good or evil,\nwe know that the real elements of character, the genuine moral qualities\nof people, must be expressed there.\n\nAnd, I remark once more, that at Home we must find _the most essential\nhappiness or misery of life_. The same conditions apply here as those\nwhich relate to character. The world is a theatre of _seeming_, and we\ncan hardly tell by what we notice there who is, or who is not, happy. We\nknow that gaiety is often the reckless ripple over depths of despair;\nand that men will bear up with a smile while untold agony is gnawing at\ntheir heart-strings, and will die laughing, in an agony of defiance,\nunder the sword-strokes of fortune. On the other hand we may count some\nas unfortunate, in whose bosoms, all the while, there are flowing\ninexhaustible springs of peace, and who derive real joy from what we\nsuppose to be a hard and pitiable lot. But amidst the undisguised\nrealities of home we can form the most correct estimate of a man's\ncondition. In the first place because, as has been remarked, he is there\nmost truly himself. He gains opportunity for reflection, and gives vent\nto the secret burden of his heart. There he empties the load of his\nenvies, his rivalries, his disappointments; which he has carried before\nthe world muffled in courtesy or pride. These, it may be, meet and are\nre-acted upon by kindred elements; engendered, perhaps, by the very\natmosphere which he himself, in the first place, created. Oh! how many\nrich dwellings there are, crowded with every appointment of luxury, that\nare only glittering ice-caverns of selfishness and discontent;\npavilions of misery, where jangling discord mars the show, and a chill\nof mutual distrust breathes through the sumptuous apartments, and\nheartless ostentation presides like a robed skeleton at the feast. You\nfeel that nothing is genial or spontaneous there. The courtesy is dreary\netiquette, and the laughter forced music. You would dine as happily with\nthe forms on the canvas, with the cold marbles in the hall. For all this\nmagnificence is nothing more than a gorgeous pall over dead\naffections--nothing more than the coronation of a living woe.\n\n\"Better is a dinner of herbs,\" says the wise man, \"where love is, than a\nstalled ox and hatred therewith.\" And many a home exists where there\n_is_ but little more than a dinner of herbs, which affection and mutual\nloyalty, and sweet dispositions, convert into a palace. And there are\nfixed boundaries of peace, that society cannot encroach upon, while the\nprocessions of ambition and pleasure and ceaseless pursuit, pass by its\nwindows and disturb it not. Here the good man and the brave man--the\nman who has nobly discharged his duty at whatever cost--is respected and\nunderstood. Hither he can retreat beyond the shots of calumny which have\ntorn the ensign of his good name; beyond the deceit of men, which halts\nat the threshold. Here he can look calmly out upon the changes of\nfortune and the frowns of the world. Here his perplexed spirit finds\ninspirations of strength, and space for rest. There is no happiness in\nlife, there is no misery, like that growing out of the dispositions\nwhich consecrate or desecrate a Home.\n\nMoreover, the elements of profoundest joy or suffering are there,\nbecause there are unfolded the deepest experiences of our mortal lot.\nThere transpire those events which constitute the _eras_ of our\nexistence. There, day by day, grows the sentiment of filial veneration\nand love. There is the joy of wedded felicity. There wells up in the\nheart the first strange gush of parental affection. There comes the\nintimation of awful change staring upon us with the face of death.\nThere falls the shadow of the funeral train, passing across the\nthreshold. There breaks in upon us the sense of bereavement, in the\nvacant chambers; where the familiar foot-step patters, where the\nfamiliar voice is heard no more. From the very nature of things, the\nprofoundest happiness and misery of human life must be experienced among\nthe conditions of Home.\n\nHaving thus in some respects considered what Home _must_ be, I have\nvirtually anticipated whatever may be said in the second division of\nthis discourse respecting what Home _ought_ to be.\n\nThus, as it is the earliest and most influential school, it behoves\nevery one who is bound by its responsibilities to make it an agent of\nthe _best culture_. The great subject of Home Education, is of itself\nenough for a series of discourses; and I have not room to lay down even\nthe general propositions which belong to it, much less for\nspecifications. But I would remind you--and I think the suggestion is\nespecially needed amidst the whirl of city life--that there _is_ such a\nthing as Home Education, and it presses its claims upon everybody who\ninhabits a Home. There is such a thing as Home Education, differing from\nschool education, whether of the week day or the Sabbath, and therefore\nit is a matter we ought to attend to, and not suppose we have done\nenough when we patronize an academy, or help fill a class on Sunday. To\nevery parent--to every influential member of a household--there is\ncommitted a charge which can be shifted to no one else; there is an\nopportunity which no outside teacher possesses. There are some duties in\nlife that we have to look for and to go after; there are others which\nare passed right into our hands, whether we will or not. And this duty\nof Home Education is of the latter kind. Now, I have just said that I\ncannot specify here, and even if there were room I am not sure that it\nwould be advisable. For I doubt whether we can give any manual of\nmethods and instruments in this respect, any more than there can be a\nmanual of religious exercises suited to every spiritual peculiarity.\nDispositions, capacities, circumstances, must create their own methods.\nAnd perhaps the poorest method of all would be some system of domestic\neducation, which the experimenter thinks will do the work exactly. I am\nsomewhat suspicious of systems. I am more than suspicious of any\nconstrained formal method, bringing up children in a mere manual drill,\ncrimping them into a mould of mincing proprieties, and making them speak\nwith an automaton click. Perhaps the most headlong young men that can be\nfound, are those who spent their early days in a sort of strait jacket\nwith a clock-work movement. They were wound up so tight when they were\nboys, that now they take great pleasure in going fast, and running down.\nIn other words, having felt their early training to be mere _training_,\nthe moment they strip off the constraint, they plunge into the opposite\nextreme of _no_ constraint. Nay, I believe that even children who are\nleft to their own instincts, and shoved out into the world to take care\nof themselves, are generally better balanced, and go with steadier\nmotion than these. Of course, however, neither extreme is right. There\nis such a thing, I say once more, as Home Education, involving all\nnecessary training and true constraint; and yet not oppressively felt as\nsuch, because it is free, informal, and respects the spontaneity of the\nchildish nature. But, whether our Home Education be formal or informal,\ndirect or indirect, there is one kind of education which we are sure to\nimpart. It is the education of example, silent, effective, stronger and\nmore easily apprehended than any set of maxims. I would we were all duly\nimpressed with the responsibilities of Home as they appear in this\nlight; might feel, however we may be absorbed in business or in\npleasure, that the young mind and heart are receiving influences, and\ngrowing into expressions that in some way will surprise us.\n\nIn the next place I observe, that if we display our real dispositions\nand characters at home, we should recognize it practically as _a sphere\nof moral discipline_. The family is a divine ordinance--the Home is an\ninstitution of God, forecast in the peculiarities of our very nature.\nHistory shows no period when it did not exist, and we discover no tribe\nso barbarous as to be without it. It is the foundation of all society.\nIt embosoms the germ and ideal of the State. According to the purity of\nits relations, the intensity of its sympathies, the inviolability of its\nrights, a nation's life is high or low, feeble or strong, fickle or\nenduring. And if it is thus rooted in the nature and the history of man,\nwe may well believe that it affords some of the profoundest occasions\nfor that moral discipline which is the great purpose of our existence\nupon the earth.\n\nIt is certainly the great sphere in which our affections are to be\ncultivated. Of course I do not mean that this is the limit of their\ncultivation. But here they are nurtured, and out of this they grow. As\nlove is the Infinite Nature itself, so is it the prevalent sentiment of\nall life. It has been ordained that this great element should flow\nthrough every form of being, linking them together by a common feeling,\nand lending some interest to the most insignificant. And man has been\nset in the family relation that this sentiment might be developed.\nThere is no one in whose heart it does not exist. You cannot find me a\nbeing so defaced, so alienated from the common stock of humanity, as to\ncherish in his bosom no secret fount of love, no fibril of affection\nlinking him to something else. But of this love there are numerous\ndegrees; and the highest forms of it, that go forth in expressions of\nself-sacrifice and worldwide sympathy, are only developed by culture.\nAnd for this culture there are rich opportunities amidst the relations\nand sanctities of Home.\n\nAnd there is opportunity among these relations also, for active duty,\nand in its daily tasks and responsibilities, is often illustrated that\npractical lesson which society so much needs--the lesson of mutual help.\nIt is a school where we may learn endurance and charity. Out of its\ntrials is developed the sense of religious need; and under the shadow of\nits bereavements we appreciate the glorious vision of Faith. There are\nother issues in life, where we need these divine helps; none where we\nfeel the need of them more. Those who have stood by the sick-bed and\ntaken the last look of the dearest earthly objects, and yet have lifted\nhearts of trust, and eyes of transcendent hope, are able to meet the\nintensest sorrows of the world, and to come out like refined gold. Home,\nthen, should be regarded especially in this light, as a sphere where the\nrichest elements of our moral culture are supplied.\n\nFinally, if at home we find the most essential happiness or misery of\nlife, of course each should do his best to make it the most _attractive_\nof all places. He should bring not his worst, but his best temper there.\nHow many are there who bottle up their wrath all the day long, and\nuncork it when they get home! They had better reverse the process. If\nyou must chafe under disappointment, and indulge angry passion, let it\nout in the excitement of the world, where the rough friction of business\nwill help you to get rid of it, or where nobody has time to care whether\nyou get rid of it or not.\n\nAnd let _business_ stay where it belongs. Do not interrupt social claims\nwith its speculations; nor drag the counting-room into the parlor.\nThere are some men with whom business is a disease; they are never easy\nwith it and never rid of it. Thus, perhaps, they acquire a reputation\nfor smartness and enterprise; but they do it, it is to be feared, by\nputting aside other and more sacred claims.\n\nNor let him who is the genial companion abroad, be the morose boarder in\nhis own house, reserving his vivacity for society and the lees for the\nfireside. It is a great deal better to be like the stream that is good\nand welcome wherever it flows, but is sure to be fresh at its source.\nIndeed, there are men who are made up of foam, and sparkle, and who\ncirculate in society, but contribute nothing to the necessaries of life,\nand are returned empty. It is an unfortunate gift that cheers the world\noutdoors, but casts only a dreary shadow inside.\n\nOf course, in speaking of the influence of dispositions in making home\nattractive, I would include the duty of those who stay at home as well\nas of those who go abroad, and that self-sacrifice and kind hearts\nshould be found as well as brought there. Indeed, if time would allow me\nto make a theme of what now can be only a hint, I should dwell largely\nupon _woman's_ influence in this matter.\n\nBut home is to be rendered attractive not only by the disposition, but\nby the customs of its inmates. It must be a place to live, not merely to\neat and sleep in; a place where we can find entertainment, and not\nalways leave in search of it. It is really a monstrous folly, this\nfashionable treatment of home, which leads people to abandon it almost\nevery night in pursuit of pleasure, or else to sweep it with a rout,\nwhich considers a household evening very dull, and makes Sunday a day\nfor sleeping and yawning. The central idea of home is _stability_, and\nthis has much less chance to be realized in the city than in the\ncountry. In the latter, old forms and landmarks are not so liable to\ninterruption, and the slow process of time works instead of the hand of\ninnovation. But in a city, where a man emigrates before he has fairly\nsettled, and where many move with every May-day, the idea of a homestead\nis almost obsolete. Elegance, solidity, venerable associations, none of\nthese can resist the march of improvement, and the rapid tide of\nbusiness enterprise. The main streets of a great city in this country,\nmay almost be termed so many dissolving views of perpetual change and\nrenewal. But, perhaps, there is hardly one of us who does not feel that\nby his or her own exertions the essential element of Home can be made\nfar more abiding than it now is; and where we hear of frivolous\ndaughters and dissipated sons, many a parent may ask the question, \"What\nhave I done to cheer and consecrate the household world, and make it\nmore abiding?\"\n\nMy friends, when I consider the magnitude and importance of the subject\nnow before us, and how many topics of discussion grow out of it--when I\nthink how much must be left entirely unsaid--I entreat you not to\nsuppose that I offer this discourse as anything more than a\n_suggestion_--a suggestion meant to turn your attention to this subject\nof Home in the City, and leaving it to the elaboration of your own\nthoughts. Remember, here abide the deepest springs of social life. The\nnoblest privileges, the greatest duties, find their basis here; and we\nare taught first \"to show piety at Home.\" And the influence of this\ninstitution upon all other fields of human action, private or public, is\ntoo obvious to mention. All life flows from the centre, outwards; and\nthe citizen who desires the order and purity of the community in which\nhe lives; the philanthropist, who, under all conditions, regards the\nhighest welfare of his race; the Christian, who urges the secret culture\nof the soul, must look with peculiar solicitude to this institution. It\nis one whose impotence is demonstrated by the strength of the instinct\nwhich creates it and clings to it--an instinct which associates the most\ngenuine happiness with its sacred enclosure of affection, however rude\nor poor that spot may be--which, while a man has such a place to call\nhis own, makes him feel that he is somebody, and has some tie and claim\nin the world; and which, on the other hand, associated the most bitter\ndestitution, the dreariest isolation, with that one word--\"Homeless.\"\n\nHow this instinct abides, how long and how far it goes with us, is\nbeautifully illustrated in the lines of Goldsmith.\n\n    \"In all my wand'rings round this world of care,\n    In all my griefs--and God has giv'n my share,\n    I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,\n    Amidst these humble bow'rs to lay me down;\n    To husband out life's taper at the close,\n    And keep the flame from wasting by repose.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    Around my fire an ev'ning group to draw,\n    And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;\n    And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue,\n    Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,\n    I still had hopes, my long vexations past,\n    Here to return--and die at Home at last.\"\n\nHopes, my friends, which I think glow in the breasts of most of us, and\nburst spontaneously from our lips. \"Let us,\" we say, \"if our lot may be\nso ordered--if the lines of duty run not otherwise--let us live at\nHome.\" Here, amidst those darkened and brightened associations which are\nwoven in the warp and woof of our deepest experience. Here, where gentle\nmemories steal upon us with the shadows of the twilight, and for ever\ntapestry the walls. Here, where we have held delightful intercourse with\nman, and secret communion with God. Here, where we have tried to do our\nduty, and exercise our love, and to drink with patience the sweet and\nbitter which our Father mingles in life's mysterious cup. Here, where\nold friends are always cherished and new ones gladly come. Here, where\nthe dearest ties of earth have bound us in a family circle; and though\nhere and there we find broken links, we still keep hold of them, and\nthey draw us up.\n\nAnd when on this familiar hearth our own vital lamp burns low, and the\ngolden bowl begins to shudder and the silver cord to untwine, let our\nlast look be upon faces that we best love; let the gates that open into\nthe celestial City be these well-known doors--and thus may we also\n_die_ at Home!\n\nAnd this instinct of Home is not attached merely to earthly conditions,\nbut mingles with those aspirations which flow into the illimitable\nfuture. As in the vast city we seek some enclosure of our own--some\nplace of shelter for our heads, of sympathy for our hearts; so,\nrespecting the destiny of the soul. In spite of all our philosophy, we\ncannot be satisfied with the conception of a mere immaterial essence\nfloating hither and thither in immensity. The intellect looks eagerly\nforward to a boundless and excursive state; but the affections, the\nsentiments, yearn for some locality--some spot of residence and repose.\nWe cannot help cherishing the conception of a place where our friends\nare grouped together, and whither we shall go, though to be united in\nwider and more glorious relations. And, knowing no better name for it,\nwith eyes of hope and tearful rapture, we look up and call it \"Home.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE ALLIES OF THE TEMPTER.\n\n\n\n\nDISCOURSE VI.\n\nTHE ALLIES OF THE TEMPTER.\n\n      He that is not with me is against me.--MATTHEW xii. 30.\n\n\nOne of the discourses of the preceding series was devoted to a\nconsideration of the vices--especially the three prominent vices--of\ngreat cities. I propose at the present time to speak of the\n_Influences_, more or less direct, by which these and kindred evils are\nencouraged. Vice, and moral corruption of any kind, no doubt has its\nroots in the gross hearts and in the perverted appetites of men. But the\nmost superficial observer must see that these are nourished not merely\nby their native soil, but by the social atmosphere which spreads around.\nOf course character constitutes the man, and, however this may be\naffected by circumstances, it enfolds the consciousness of an original\npersonality acting upon and through and in spite of its conditions.\nNevertheless, the ingredients of this very personality are assimilated\nout of these conditions, and it is difficult to limit or define the\nsubtile elements that blend in the deepest currents of a man's nature.\nIt is, at least, a simple truism that he differs in one state of society\nfrom what he is in another. And, therefore, among the forces which help\nmake up his moral condition, we must calculate the social forces. His\nvirtues are not all self-sustained, and his vices draw nutriment from\nfine and remote channels. It would be an interesting process to analyze\nour own habits and temper and cast of thought, and find how much of this\nis involved with our physical relations. The air we breathe, the house\nin which we dwell, the very way in which it fronts the sun, the degrees\nof light and of shade that fall upon us with the flying hours, all weave\ntheir delicate influences into the tissues of our being. And how much\nthat we do not suspect comes to us, day by day, in social intercourse,\nin the bearing of friends, in the tone and air of conversation, in the\nmere magnetism of the parlor or the street! How much to strengthen or\nto weaken us; to clear or to cloud our moral atmosphere; to make us\nfresh and decisive, or to slowly sap our virtue! But it is a more solemn\ntask to compute the influences that proceed _from_ us, and to discover\nhow, unknown to ourselves, we are swaying the circles of other lives.\nWhy, the mightiest forces go silently. You do not see the gases that\ncompose the vital air. You do not feel the aroma that steals along\nloaded with poison, or wafts a blessing through the sick man's window.\nYou do not hear the electric pulse that beats in the summer light and in\nthe drop of dew. Neither can you estimate the mysterious attraction that\nplays all through this network of social relations, nor the energy of\ngood or of evil with which it is charged not merely from your words and\ndeeds, but from the still reservoir of your example.\n\nWhen I look around at the prevalent vices of the city, then, and at its\nvarious forms of corruption, I am not willing to rest with the mere\nassertion, that all this is the fruit of personal sin and folly on the\npart of those who have yielded to temptation. It _is_ the fruit of\npersonal sin and folly. And we, perhaps, in our serene respectabilities,\nshrink back and wonder at it. It _is_ strange--is it not?--that the\nyoung, the fair, the gifted, should yield themselves to that arch-deceit\nwhich has allured and ruined men for six thousand years? Is it not the\nsame old guilt, the same sophistry and foolishness, here in New York,\nthat it always has been? Did it not bear the same Circean cup through\nthe halls of Nineveh and Babylon, and fling Caesars and Alexanders to the\nground? Did it not wear the same seductive smile and harlot tinsel when\nit walked the streets of Tyre, and reclined in the decorated chambers of\nEgypt? And will not its votaries find now, as then, that it entices with\nthe embrace of death and the fascination of hell? Why should they thus\nfloat upon the very rim of this great whirlpool, and not notice the\ngroans that come up from its depths; and see that its phosphoric\nillusion is mixed with fiery flakes of torment and the foam of despair?\nIt is indeed wonderful that so many should be thus deluded over and\nover again; so many noble energies thrown away, so many sanctions\ntrampled upon, so many bright hopes quenched for ever. It is wonderful\nthat any being made in the form of man, should cast down his\nprerogatives and wallow like the beast. Sufficient evidence of sin and\nfolly in those who do this, to be sure; but in what way do these\nallurements present themselves? What are the resources and entrenchments\nof these vices, by which they act upon human appetite and passion? You\npoint me to brilliant windows and gay apartments; to sparkling glasses,\nand shining heaps, and shapes of painted shame. \"These,\" you say, \"are\nthe forms which the Tempter assumes. Under smiling features and fair\ngarlands, he hides at first that hideousness which in due time is\nrevealed to his victims. From the lighted vestibules which open so\neasily to the touch, and where all seems only a coronation of youthful\npleasure and natural joy, the feet of men slide downward into those\nabysses which are hidden from the public gaze, and over whose depths the\nblackness of darkness broods.\" And all this, again, is true. These are\nthe ways in which the Tempter works. But is there nothing but this to\nexplain the power which evil has upon men, in the midst of the great\ncity? These manifold allurements, these haunts of infamy and shambles of\ndestruction--I see them standing upon strange foundations. I see them\npropped by these very influences to which I have alluded; influences of\nsocial condition and individual example. They would not be so\nformidable, they would not stand so long, were it not that\nrespectability in its daily walk and conversation; and social culture in\nthousands of homes; and even justice in its lofty seat; lend them\nsupport. \"He that is not with me is against me,\" said Jesus; and, taking\nthis proverb as a rule, a good many people may be surprised to find\nthat, in one way and another, they are _Allies_ of the Tempter.\n\nThe allies of the Tempter, I propose to speak of now--not the forms of\nTemptation, which I have already illustrated. Nor do I intend to dwell\nupon those _direct_ conditions of moral evil, out of which vice and\ncrime grow as spontaneously as weeds out of a damp and neglected\nsoil--those wide seed fields of _ignorance_ and abject _poverty_ which\nlie around us. But the more remote and indirect causes it may be\nprofitable for us to consider; and to these I now proceed.\n\nI observe, then, in the first place, that the Tempter has one Ally in\n_Public Sanction_. There are sources of vice and crime that are\npermitted and encouraged by _Law_. I hardly need specify the prominent\ninstance to which I allude. But I am not aware of a more enormous public\ninconsistency than what is termed \"the License System\"--the system of\npermitting the sale of intoxicating drinks in a degree, and of\nrestricting them in a degree. For, by this method, either a moral wrong\nis committed, or else a civil one. If these drinks are an individual and\npublic injury; if they distribute the seeds of disease, crime, death,\nand every form of social misery; then what right have we in any respect\nto set upon them the solemn sanction of a Law? If, on the other hand,\nthey are a benefit to mankind; a good gift of Providence, as some seem\nto think; why should we hamper their circulation? Why should we allow\none man the privilege of distributing such a blessing, and forbid\nanother who, no doubt, is equally zealous for the public good?\n\nBut this very system is a confession by public opinion, in its most\nauthentic form of expression, that the sale of intoxicating drinks is an\nevil. \"Only,\" we are told, \"as it is a prevalent and deep-seated evil,\nit must be _regulated_.\" But how can we regulate an irregularity? How\ncan you regulate an obstruction that is involved with the springs of a\nmachine, or the works of a clock? The only possible method obvious to\ncommon sense, would be to remove the obstruction; and it would be\nthought the most foolish speculation conceivable for one to spend his\ningenuity in contriving some way to keep the obstruction where it is,\nand yet to keep the clock going as it ought. If it moved regularly, the\nmatter referred to would not be an obstruction; and if it did not, the\ncontrivance to keep it there would be a help to the obstruction. Now, I\nconsider this great vice of Intemperance a decided obstruction in the\nclock-work of an individual man, or the more general mechanism of\nsociety. It transforms a great many faces into bad dial-plates, disturbs\nthe pendulum of public order, makes people go much too fast, and renders\nthem liable to strike at all times. Now, if a man, or a community, can\nbe made to go just as well with it as without it, we certainly need no\nlegislation, for there _is_ no obstruction. On the other hand, if it is\nessentially an irregularity, the only rational method is to get rid of\nits accessories altogether. To enact some way in which the irregularity\nshall work, is to confirm and sanction the irregularity. And the\nlicense-system--for I wish to be plain and specific here--confirms and\nsanctions the agents of intemperance. It indicates a way in which the\nirregularity may work.\n\nAnd not only is vice thus aided by the Law. The existence of such a\nsanction engenders either an error or a moral wrong. For it indicates\nthat the sale of intoxicating drinks is a public benefit, which is\nfalse; or, on the other hand, that it is lawful to uphold an evil. The\nsame principle carried out by individuals, would excuse almost any\nfault. The man who steals a loaf of bread may contend that it is a\nnecessary expedient; and he who fills an empty purse at his neighbor's\nexpense, only endeavors to regulate an irregularity.\n\nBut suppose we make the system a strict one, what process should be\nemployed? Probably you would say--\"break up all these filthy and low\nhaunts; all these places where the habitually intemperate, the degraded,\nthe wretchedly poor congregate; and let these beverages be sold only in\nrespectable places and to respectable people.\" But is this really the\nbest plan? On the contrary, it seems quite reasonable to maintain that\nit is better to sell to the intemperate than to the sober--to the\ndegraded than to the respectable--for the same reason that it is better\nto burn up an old hulk than to set fire to a new and splendid ship. I\nthink it worse to put the first glass to a young man's lips, than to\ncrown with madness an old drunkard's life-long alienation--worse to wake\nthe fierce appetite in the depths of a generous and promising nature,\nthan to take the carrion of a man, a mere shell of imbecility, and soak\nit in a fresh debauch. Therefore, if I were going to say where the\nLicense should be granted in order to show its efficacy, I would\nsay--take the worst sinks of intemperance in the city, give them the\nsanction of the Law, and let them run to overflowing. But shut up the\ngilded apartments where youth takes its first draught, and\nrespectability just begins to falter from its level. Close the ample\ndoors through which enters the long train of those who stumble to\ndestruction and reel into quick graves, and let the flood overwhelm only\nthe maimed and battered conscripts that remain. Besides, it is better to\nsee vice as it really is, than as it sometimes appears. The danger of\nintemperance is when it assumes this very garb of respectability, and\nsits in the radiant circle of fashion attended by wit and beauty and\nsocial delight. Let us see the Tempter, not as he seems when he throws\nout his earliest lures, in festal garments and with roses around his\nbrow; but as he looks when fairly engaged in his work, showing his\ngenuine expression. Let us see this vice of intemperance in its\n_results_, as they teem and darken here in the midst of our city life.\nLay bare its channel--let us see to its very depths--where it flows over\nthe wrecks of human happiness, and over dead men's bones. Lay bare its\nfestering heaps of disease, its madness, its despair, its domestic\ndesolation, its reckless sweep over all order and sanctity; and thus,\ntracing it from its sources under glittering chandeliers and in fonts of\ncrystal, we shall be able to say--\"this is the real element which exists\nand does its work, by public connivance and with the sanction of Law!\"\n\nIf you ask me then, whether I think that a statute of absolute\nprohibition would stop this flowing curse, I reply that at least it\nwould put the influence of authority on the right side. It would lend it\nthe force of consistent endeavor. As it is, it would be far better if\nthe public sanction had no expression; for now it only confirms and\nguarantees the evil. Its power is exerted not in the right, but in the\nwrong direction. It is an ally of the tempter. For the spirit of\neverlasting Justice and Benevolence, speaking as it were by the mouth of\nJesus, says--\"He that is not with me is against me.\"\n\nBut I observe, in the second place, that the forces of temptation in the\ncity are nourished by _public neglect_. In individual experience it will\nbe found, I think, that sins of _omission_ are more numerous and are\nworse than sins of _commission_. If we examine our lives closely, we\nshall discover that our moral indebtedness comes even less from what we\nhave done, than from what we ought to have done. And this individual\nexperience has a counterpart in social conditions. How many evils among\nus grow up under the shadow of inoperative laws--laws which have a voice\nand nothing else--nay, hardly a voice, so seldom are they heard even to\nspeak. They appear to have been enacted merely as a compliment to\ndecency, and they remain in the statute-book as \"idle as painted ships\nupon a painted ocean.\" The dens of debauch keep open doors night and\nday; the saloons of profligacy send out their cards of invitation; the\ngambler rattles his triumphant dice; but excursive policemen never see,\nand vigilant magistrates never hear! Some provision of nature has\nimparted a very singular quality to the optic powers of the one, and the\nauditory nerves of the other. The laws against this vice, or that\ncustom, stand fixed and silent; and as for putting them in operation,\none would as soon think of pulling up so many grave-stones. They _are_\nthe grave-stones of a dead public sentiment--the stumbling-blocks of a\nblind justice, that too often shakes hands with the very guilt which it\nprofesses to condemn. I do not, by any means, believe that everything is\nto be accomplished by law. I do not believe that the profoundest results\nare to be accomplished by it. But, if it possesses any efficacy at all,\nit consists in its power to repress open and shameless wrong; and where\nany such wrong _is_ open and shameless, public neglect is the cause, and\nsuch public neglect, therefore, is an Ally of the Tempter. And let us\nconsider the enormity of such evils. In every great city there are some\nomissions of executive duty, which, though grievous to be borne, are\nnoticed with good humor. But there are moral swamps, sending up their\nfoul steam to pollute the common light; there are kennels of\nuncleanness, running with the waste of human lives, sweeping along with\nthe death-gurgle of human souls; there is a dry-rot of impurity\ninfecting the town-air, withering the dearest sanctities of society and\nof home--and over this kind of evil we cannot be facetious. Think how\nmuch is risked here, and how much is lost! Domestic happiness,\nreputation, honor, health, order, the prospects of the young, the peace\nof the old--Fathers, the hopes of your sons! Mothers, the interests of\nyour daughters! and, though speaking may have little effect, say whether\nwe ought not to speak, and to speak indignantly, of the neglect which\nlets these evils spread with deadly luxuriance, and winks at them as\nthough they were harmless?\n\nBut, my friends, what do we mean by \"public sanction,\" or \"public\nneglect?\" There are some convenient synonyms which help us to cover up\nour personal responsibility--help us to transfer our own sense of duty\nto a vague secondary agent, and keep peace with our own consciences.\nAnd yet they are only _synonyms_, after all. Now this term \"public\" is\nbut another word for the aggregate of our personal obligations, and does\nnot for a single moment rid us of our share in the general influence.\nThe real point of my present topic is this--you and I and every other\nindividual involved in this network of social relations, are helping or\nweakening the force of these prevalent evils. And it may arouse us to\nsome decision of conduct to consider how the most respectable--those who\nwould shrink with horror from these foul customs--are, nevertheless,\nAllies of the Tempter. And I might state, as a comprehensive\nproposition, that every man _is_ an Ally of the Tempter, who does not\nput forth a conscious and positive moral energy; who does not habitually\nthrow his example and his influence in the right direction. It is not\nenough that he abstains from wrong himself--that he is chaste, and\ntemperate, and upright, and unimpeached. For perhaps the most hopeless\npeople, morally speaking, are those people who, according to their own\nconfession, \"have never done any harm.\" There is a good prospect for\nthose who are trying to grow better, however they may slip and flounder.\nThere is hope, on the other hand, for the desperately wicked--for the\nvery violence of one extreme precipitates the other; and sometimes the\nbest and purest souls have been swept by a thunder-shower of sin. But\nthose who rest upon the fact that they \"have never done any harm,\" by\nbeing so easily contented show but little moral vitality. There is no\naspiration in their natures. They seem to have no particular mission in\nthe universe; for, if they have never done any harm, they have done\nlittle else. They are poorly fitted for this earth, which demands the\neffort of all our faculties; poorly fitted for heaven, whose inhabitants\nwould not make harmlessness their chief characteristic. Their residence\nand their paradise might be a great exhausted receiver, where there is\nno gravitation to draw them down, and no air to send them up. But, in\ntruth, these people deceive themselves. Every man exerts a _positive_\ninfluence, and cannot, if he would, be a mere negation in the world. In\nthe great conflict of good and evil there is no middle ground. There\nare no compromises in God's government, and neutral men are the devil's\nallies. \"He that is not with me, is against me.\"\n\nLet us see, then, how possible it is that _we_ may contribute to the\nforce of evil in the City. In other words, let us inquire--in what way\ndo respectable and harmless people, as they deem themselves, become\nAllies of the Tempter?\n\nIn the first place, by their _customs_. And, chief of all, by the custom\nof an intense and inconsiderate selfishness. How many there are who\nrequire no other sanction for what they do than \"that pleases me,\" or\n\"this gratifies me!\" It is wonderful what a mighty agent _self_ is,\nestimated by its own standards. It is the hero of every exploit, the\ncentre of every event, and the oracle of all opinions. It interprets the\npurpose of the universe; it finds out exactly what the world was made\nfor. At least, a good many, apparently, have ascertained that the world\nwas made for them, and that they were sent into it to get what\ngratification they can. And it appears sadly out of tune to them, if it\ndoes not serve this end. In anything they do, therefore, they consider\nonly selfish consequences. They do not apprehend the universe in its\ngreat harmony. They do not trace out its web of mutual relations--a\nbraid of light held in the hand of Infinite Love. They do not know the\nsympathy that shoots in the crystal, and shimmers in the aurora, and\nbeats in the heart of the ocean, and makes the silent music that rolls\nfrom sphere to sphere along the glittering scale of heaven. If they did,\nthey would discover, perhaps, that the social world is constructed upon\nthe same plan; and man cannot be an alien from the common humanity\nhowever hard he may try. Yes: concerning any custom, you have not only\nyourself to consider, but the bearings of its influence throughout this\ntissue of hearts and minds with which you are involved. You cannot\nisolate yourself from your responsibilities. You cannot shut yourself\nwithin comfortable walls, and say--\"Here is the limit of my obligations,\nand here I will do as I please!\" You may _say_ this, but you do not rid\nyourself of these claims. Through imperceptible aqueducts your influence\nruns abroad; and what you do, and what you are, contributes particles of\ndisease or health to the social atmosphere that envelopes all. I look\naround, then, upon the vices and even the crimes of the City, and I say\nthat some of them find root in the customs of the respectable and the\nfashionable. Profligacy, which we shrink from in its open profession,\nand which appears abominable in its avowed haunts, finds encouragement\nwherever the libertine receives the smile of beauty, and the guilt of\nthe meanest sort of a man is excused on account of an agreeable manner.\nThus the poison of the snake, and the blight of his venom on many a\nreputation and many a womanly heart, is all forgotten in the\ndrawing-room, because of the fascination of his hiss and the glitter of\nhis skin. Again, the Tempter has an Ally in the world of Traffic,\nwherever bad things are stamped with respectable names--when, for\ninstance, swindling is called \"smartness,\" and robbery \"per-centage.\"\nAmong people of less note in the world these matters are named\n\"cheating\" and \"stealing,\" and some of them may take punishment the more\nreluctantly because they cannot perceive the difference. And, still\nagain, I think that a little use of intoxicating drinks is like the\nlittle matter that kindles a great fire, and that there would not be so\nmuch intemperance if there were not so many \"temperate\" drinkers. The\nsluices of the grog-shop are fed from the wine-glasses in the parlor;\nand there is a lineal descent from the gentleman who hiccups at his\nelegant dinner-table to the sot who makes a bed of the gutter.\n\n\"Am I my brother's keeper?\" asked the first man who reddened his hands\nwith the violated life of a man; and the answer came crying upward in a\nvoice of blood from the ground. \"Am I my brother's keeper?\" _you_ ask,\nperhaps, with a tone of surprise or scorn. _You_ ask O! respectable\ngentleman or lady; O! man in the thick of business; O! self-indulgent\nEpicurean;--and the answer comes to you not from the ground merely, but\nfrom the universal air--the answer of kindred pulses, of confluent\nsympathies, of an inseparable humanity--though it swarms in rags, and\nriots in shame, and seems far off from you in its hell of debasement and\ndespair. Nay, perhaps the answer comes very _near_ to you. It may come\nfrom some one of your own household. You may ask--\"Who has tempted even\nmy very child?\" Ask _Yourself_--\"Need he have gone outside this very\ndoor to find temptation?\" Ah! perhaps you are not merely an Ally of the\nTempter, but have furnished conscripts for his vast army. Your children\nperhaps will rise up and call you--_not_ \"blessed.\" And see, too, what\nkind of conscripts the Tempter draws from the ranks of respectable and\nespecially of fashionable life. Mere striplings, so dwarfed and dwindled\nby precocious dissipation that they look like feeble specimens of\nwax-work; whose faculties--the evident product of a thin soil--have been\ndeveloped by bottles of wine and fast horses; whose memories are too\nshort to remember their parents; whose ideas are too artificial to touch\nany genuine spring of nature; who are ashamed of true manliness, and\nmake a miserable farce of what they _call_ \"manliness;\" and who, as\nthey parade the streets, make up a sort of bombastic interlude in the\ndrama of \"Young America.\"\n\nBut, whatever view we may take of this general subject, it is evident\nthat we cannot easily exaggerate the influence of \"respectable and\nfashionable\" customs upon the forces of temptation. And, surely, it\nbecomes each of us to consider the tendencies of his own example, and\nask--\"Is it toward the right or the wrong? Is it for, or against the\ngood?\"\n\nAgain, the Tempter finds help from our _indifference_. This, indeed, may\nbe the qualification which should be applied to the remarks I have just\nmade. It is not to be supposed that the evil influences which go out\nfrom the customs alluded to, are the results of _intention_. They spring\nup in a lack of interest and of the consciousness of duty. They grow\nrank and luxuriant in neglect. If we were only in earnest as to these\nvices and crimes and guilty customs; if we would only wake from our\napathy, to reflection and conviction; how soon would they diminish, and\nhow many of them would pass away!\n\nBut, as comprehensive of this, and in fact all the rest that may be\nsaid, I observe, finally, that the temptations of a great city are\nstrong because of a lack of the spirit of _Christian love_. In one\nrespect, especially, is it true that men in general are not _with_\nJesus, and therefore are against him. They have not his sympathies, his\nspirit of self-sacrifice, his broad, deep, universal charity. Baneful\ncustoms, and cold indifferentism grow up in a soil that is watered by no\nliving and unselfish love. They show the dryness and the baseness of our\nsocial state. And it is not merely in the lack of active and practical\nlove that the Tempter grows strong; but in the exercise of a prevalent\n_uncharitableness_. Too many of us have no disposition but scorn for the\nfallen; see no blessed possibilities in them; do not detect any divine\nray glimmering in the thick darkness--do not discern the precious soul,\nlike a crown-jewel, in its filthy and battered casket. And if this\nparalyzes and kills the springs of our own activity, need I say how the\nhearts of the offending are repelled and hardened in such a hostile\natmosphere? Need I say how desperate is the Ishmaelitish conviction;\nthe sense of isolation and antagonism; and, on the other hand, how\npowerful and healing, even for the most distant and hopeless, is the\nsweet attraction of sympathy? And what are we, that we dare to cherish\nthis exclusive horror, this pitiless, unrelenting scorn? When we\nconsider our own slips, compared with our temptations; the account to\nwhich God may hold us, not the smooth standards of human respectability;\nhow much higher is our own moral level, that we feel no chords of a\ncommon humanity reaching down even to those fallen ones, and cannot\nstoop to touch them? My friends, it may be, after all, that the Tempter\nhas no surer ally than the averted face of contempt and the word of\nunsoftened rebuke, driving the barb of conscious guilt deeper and\ndespairingly into a brother's soul.\n\nAnd, as I look upon this mass of social evil, these steaming wells of\npassion, these solid fortifications of habit where the Tempter is\nentrenched, I ask how is all this to pass away? And the answer is--only\nby the spirit of Christian Love, sweeping these impediments of\nselfishness from the heart, and animating us to effort. _With_ Christ\nthe work certainly can be done. In this Gospel-beating amidst the guilt\nand sorrow of the world like the pulsations of a Divine heart--in the\nfew leaves of this Testament--there is an illimitable power, before\nwhose inspiration in the purposes and deeds of men no evil thing shall\nstand. And the spirit and exercise of this Love _is_ Religion. It is the\nup-shot of all that is preached--it is the open and tangible test of\nevery mystic experience that drifts through the soul--it is so deep, so\nbroad, and runs so far, that it comprehends all requirements; and they\nwho cherish it, and practice it in the low and dark and desolate places\nof the world, are the true saints. Nothing else will do in its place.\nNot Churches, nor creeds, nor rituals, nor respectabilities. Without it\nwe are not friends of Christ, nor co-workers with God. Without it we\ndeepen the channels of human woe, and prop the strong-holds of\nwickedness. Without it, whatever we may not be, we are Allies of the\nTempter. The Saviour says to each of us to-day, placed amidst these\nantagonistic forces of Life--\"He that is not with me is against me.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHILDREN OF THE POOR.\n\n\n\n\nDISCOURSE VII.\n\nTHE CHILDREN OF THE POOR.\n\n      The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto\n      them.--LAMENTATIONS iv., 4.\n\n\nThe writer of these words bewailed a state of War and Captivity--a state\nof things in which the great relations of human life are broken up and\ndesecrated. But it is strange to find that the most flourishing forms of\ncivilization involve conditions very similar to this. For, if any man\nwill push beyond the circle of his daily associations, and enter the\nregions of the abject poor, he will see how the hostile forces of\nprivation, and hunger, and unguided impulse, have laid waste the\nsanctities of existence in the abodes and in the breasts of thousands as\nwith sword and with fire. There is no essential difference in\nstarvation, whether it ensues from the ravages of an invading host or\nfrom the lack of means. Temptation is a fierce legion; and death looks\nno more terrible under a Babylonian helmet, than it does upon the gaunt\nfaces of men who die upon the bare floor or wallow in rags. The worst\ncalamity _in_ a calamity--if I may use such an expression--the most\ndeplorable thing in any of the great evils of life, occurs when the\nselfish instinct within us is aroused, by want or terror, to such a\ndegree that it overwhelms all social limitations, absorbs every\nsympathy, and leaves nothing but an intense individualism. This is the\nresult in a sudden shock of danger, when the alarmed instinct is the\nfirst that starts to the summons. Sometimes, in protracted peril, it\ngrows into an actual delirium of selfishness, and drowns even the sense\nof fear--as men amidst the horrors of a shipwreck will commit the most\nbrutal excesses, and even rob the dying. And thus, in the desolation of\nJerusalem as described by Jeremiah, the very yearnings of maternity were\nswallowed up by this fierce instinct.\n\n    \"The hands of tender-hearted women cooked their own children;\n    They were their food, in the destruction of the daughter of my people.\"\n\nAnd results as bad as this appear in the conditions of poverty,\nsuffering, and social degradation. Every fine chord of human nature is\nseared, sodden, torn from its sockets, in the darkness of the moral\nfaculties and by the pressure of animal wants. The poor man is conscious\nof nothing but privation and suffering. He gazes at the power and\ndiscipline and pomp of society all about him, not as an ally but as a\ncaptive, or as a savage foe. The whole wears the aspect of a besieging\narmy, and the Ishmaelitish feeling predominates. In the midst of the\nCity he becomes an Arab of the desert, a robber of the rock. Now, it\nmakes little difference whether the circle is wider or narrower, whether\nthe siege is a moral or a literal one, whether the agent is the sword or\nthe condition of society. The essential results will be the same. The\ncivilization of New York may and does hem in a desolation as fearful in\nkind as that of Jerusalem, and involves sufferings as keen, and wakes\nup instincts as fiercely selfish. And one whose sympathies with the wide\nhumanity are as fresh and clear as the Prophet's were with the woes of\nhis people, might draw closer within these various circles of prosperity\nand refinement and activity, that lend such attractiveness to the great\ncity--this magnificent girdle of commerce, embossed with the symbols of\nall nations--these arteries of traffic, filled with circulating wealth\nand power--these groups of fashion and of beauty, whose cheapest jewels\nwould open the kingdom of heaven to ten thousand souls; he might pass\nwithin all these bands of \"civilization,\" and in some alley, or \"Five\nPoints,\" sit down and weep for the calamity of his brethren. He would\nbehold there War and Captivity enough to fill an entire volume of\nLamentations. Captivity! were men ever bound by a darker chain, or\ntrampled by a harder heel, than those victims of destitution and of\ntheir own passions? War! did the Jew behold any hosts more terrible\npressing into Jerusalem, than you and I might see if we looked about us?\nThe entrenched filth that all day long sends its steaming rot through\nlane and dwelling, through bone and marrow, and saps away the life. Cold\nthat encamps itself in the empty fire-place, and blows through the\nbroken door, and paralyzes the naked limbs. Hunger that takes the strong\nman by the throat, and kills the infant in its mother's arms. And still\nanother traitorous legion that, equipped with the fascinations of the\nbottle and the shamelessness of harlotry, appeals to the passions of the\nbrutal and proffers comfort to the hearts of the sad. War and Captivity\nin the midst of peace and refinement--is it not, my friends? And, with\nall this, may we not expect that fierce instinct of selfishness which\noverwhelms every other impulse, and breaks out in crime? Ah! and do we\nnot discover a counterpart to that saddest feature of all in such\ncircumstances--a desecration even of the parental instinct? Fathers,\nbeating their sons into the career of guilt; and mothers--worse than\nthose who made horrid food of their own children--offering their\ndaughters to the Moloch of lust in the shape of some \"gentlemanly\"\ndevil with a portable hell in his own breast!\n\nAnd it seems to me that if one with a prophet vision and a prophet\nheart, widened to the compass of humanity, should thus go into these\nwaste places, nothing would affect him more; nothing would strike a\ndeeper and tenderer chord in his bosom; than the condition of these\nlittle ones amidst the siege and terror. And, comprehending all their\nneed--their moral as well as their physical destitution--he might\nexclaim, as describing the most pitiable spectacle of all--\"The young\nchildren ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.\"\n\nAnd I think that every one of you who has reflected at all upon this\nsubject, must feel that, of all the conditions of Humanity in the darker\nregions of the City, there is none more sorrowful, more momentous, and\nat the same time more hopeful, than the condition of the Children of the\nPoor. And I do not call your attention to this subject to-night with the\nexpectation of proclaiming any fresh doctrine, or offering any novel\nsuggestion, but because in a series of discourses like the present I\ncannot consistently pass by such a prominent phase; and more especially\nbecause I wish to push the old truth from your heads into your hearts,\nso that you may be excited to immediate and practical action.\n\nI purpose then, in regard to the Children of the Poor, to maintain one\nor two _principles_, to state a few _facts_, and to consider some\n_remedies_; and these will constitute the divisions of my discourse.\n\nIn the first place then, I lay down a general principle which divides\nitself into two specific principles. I maintain that we are under\npeculiar obligations in regard to children. Of all our duties, except\nthose which we owe directly to God--of all the ways in which we are\nrequired to _show_ our duty to God--I know of none more peremptory than\nthis. It is the obligation of an instinct that appears everywhere; that\nswells in the breasts of the rudest people; that mingles with the most\ntender and beautiful and sacred associations of human life.\n\nChildhood and Children! is there any heart so sheathed in worldliness,\nor benumbed by sorrow, or hardened in its very nature, as to feel no\ngentle thrill responding to these terms? Surely, in some way these\nlittle ones have \"touched the finer issues\" of our being, and given us\nan unconscious benediction. Some of you are Mothers, and have acquired\nthe holiest laws of duty, the sweetest solicitudes, the noblest\ninspirations, in the orbit of a child's life. And, however wide the\ncircle of its wandering, you have held it still, by some tether of the\nheart, bound to the centre of a fathomless and unforgetting love. Some\nof you are Fathers, and in the opening promise of your sons have built\nfresh plans and enjoyed young hopes, and even in the decline of life\nhave walked its morning paths anew. Many of us have felt our first great\nsorrow, and the breaking up of the spiritual deep within us, by the\ncouch of a dead child. Clasping the little lifeless hand, we have\ncomprehended, as never before, the _reality_ of death, and through the\ngloom, covering all the world about us, have caught sudden glimpses of\nthe immortal fields. And, all of us, I trust, are thankful that God has\nnot created merely men and women, crimped into artificial patterns, with\nselfish speculation in their eyes, with sadness and weariness and\ntrouble about many things carving the wrinkles and stealing away the\nbloom; but pours in upon us a fresh stream of being that overflows our\nrigid conventionalisms with the buoyancy of nature, plays into this\ndusty and angular life like the jets of a fountain, like floods of\nsunshine, upsets our miserable dignity, meets us with a love that\ncontains no deceit, a frankness that rebukes our quibbling compliments,\nnourishes the poetry of the soul, and, perpetually descending from the\nthreshold of the Infinite, keeps open an arch-way of mystery and heaven.\n\nAnd now, just consider what a child _is_--this being thus fresh from the\nunknown realm, tender, plastic, dependent; a bud enfolding the boundless\npossibilities of humanity, and growing rank, running to waste, or\nopening in beauty, as you turn, neglect, or support it--just consider\nwhat a child is; and he must be far gone in indifference or depravity,\nwho does not recognize the specific duty growing out of a general\nobligation which is forced upon us by the intrinsic claims of that\nchild's nature. If we were appealed to by nothing else but its drooping\nreliance and natural wants, there would be enough to draw our attention\nto every phase of childhood that comes within our sphere.\n\nBut our purpose this evening calls us away from these brighter images of\nchildhood, to consider those who are surrounded with the most savage\naspects and the worst influences of the world. And, beside the absolute\nduty which is imposed upon us by their natural position, I observe that\nthe Children of the Poor create an appeal to _prudential_\nconsiderations. They form a large proportion of those groups known in\nevery city as \"The _Dangerous_ Classes.\" For they will be developed\nsomehow. If they receive not that attention which is demanded by their\nposition; if they are left to darkness and neglect; still, it is no mere\nmass of negative existence that they constitute. There is vitality there\nand positive strength, in those lanes and cellars, put forth for evil if\nnot drawn towards the good. We must not confound ignorance with torpor\nof spirit or bluntness of understanding. One of the most remarkable\ncharacteristics of vagrant children is a keen, precocious intellect. A\nboy of seven in the streets of a city is more developed in this respect\nthan one of fourteen in the country--a development, of course, which is\neasily accounted for by the antagonisms with which the child has had to\ncontend, and the devices which have been inspired by the sheer pressure\nof want. He has been pitched into the sea of events to sink or swim, and\nthose sharpened faculties are the tentacles put forth by an effort of\nnature in order to secure a hold of life. And there is something very\nsad and very fearful in this precocity. The vagrant boy has known\nnothing of the stages of childhood, conducting with beautiful simplicity\nfrom one timid step to another, and gradually forming it for the\nrealities of the world. But the neglected infant has wilted into the\npremature man, with his old cunning look, blending so fantastically, so\nmournfully, with the unformed features of youth. Knowing the world on\nits worst side--knowing its hostility, its knavery, its foulness, its\nheartless materialism--knowing it as the man does not know it who has\nonly breathed the country air, and looked upon the open face of nature.\nIs it not very sad, my friends, that the vagrant boy _should_ know so\nmuch; and, without one hour of romance, one step of childish innocence\nand imagination, should have gone clear through \"the world\" which so\nmany boast that they understand--the knave's world, the libertine's\nworld, the world of the skeptical, scoffing, Ishmaelitish spirit? And\nyet he has so little _real_ knowledge--there is such a cloud of\nignorance and moral stupor resting upon his brain and heart! So much of\nhim is merely animal, foxy, wolfish, and this sharpened intellect only a\nfaculty, an instinct, a preternatural organ pushed out to gain\nsubsistence with. It is a terrible anomaly, and yet, I say, it is none\nthe less an active power, and shows us that, however neglected, the\nchild of the abject poor is not dormant or undeveloped. In the first\nplace, very likely, it has developed itself into a dogged atheism--a\nsulky unbelief. The brain of the vagrant boy is active with speculation\nas well as with practice--he has some theory of this life in which he\nlives, and, as might be expected, a theory woven with the tissues of\nhis own experience; woven with the shadows and the lurid lights of his\nlot. A gentleman passing one day through the streets of Edinboro', saw a\nboy, who lived by selling fire-wood, standing with a heavy load upon his\nback, looking at a number of boys amusing themselves in a play-ground.\n\"Sometimes,\" says the writer, \"he laughed aloud, at other times he\nlooked sad and sorrowful. Stepping up to him I said--'Well, my boy, you\nseem to enjoy the fun very much; but why don't you lay down your load of\nsticks?'... 'I wan't thinking about the burden--I wan't thinking about\nthe sticks, sir.' 'And may I ask what you were thinking about?' 'Oh, I\nwas just thinking about what the good missionary said the other day. You\nknow, sir, I don't go to church, for I have no clothes; but one of the\nmissionaries comes every week to our stair, and holds a meeting. He was\npreaching to us last week, and among other things he said--\"Although\nthere are rich folks and poor folks in this world, yet we are all\nbrothers.\" Now, sir, just look at these lads--every one of them has\nfine jackets, fine caps, with warm shoes and stockings, but I have\nnone;--So I was just thinking if those were my brothers, it doesn't look\nlike it, sir--it doesn't look like it. See, sir, they are all flying\nkites, while I am flying in rags--they are running about at kick-ball\nand cricket; but I must climb the long, long stairs, with a heavy load,\nand an empty stomach, whilst my back is like to break. It doesn't look\nlike it, sir--it doesn't look like it.'\" Or, take the following\ninstance, which I extract from the Records of one of the Benevolent\nSocieties of our own city: \"Can you read or write? said the visitor to a\npoor boy. Marty hung his head. I repeated the question two or three\ntimes before he answered, and the tears dropped on his hands, as he\nsaid, despairingly, and I thought defiantly--'No, sir, I can't read nor\nwrite neither. God don't want me to read, sir. Indeed, so it looks\nlikely. Didn't He take away my father since before I can remember him?\nAnd haven't I been working all the time to fetch in something to eat,\nand for the fire, and for clothes? I went out to pick coal when I could\ntake a basket in my arms--and I have had no chance for school since.'\"\nNow this is fallacious and dangerous reasoning, my friends;\nnevertheless, it _is_ reasoning, and shows that the mind of the poor boy\nis not inactive as to the problems of life. And the intellect which is\nso acute in theory will soon drive to practice. Stimulated by that\nselfish instinct which, as I have shown, will under pressure absorb\nevery other consideration, he speedily commences the career of _crime_.\nAnd have you ever looked into this matter of crime? Or do you know it\nonly as a monstrous fact in the social mechanism, and in the records of\nhuman nature? If so, it would be well for us to consider the way in\nwhich it appears to the violator of right--the way in which things look\nto him who works _inside_ the web of guilt. And we may be sure that it\ndoes not look to him as it does to us from the midst of respectabilities\nand comforts, or from a high intellectual and moral stand-point. Now I\nam not going to justify crime, or to indulge any sentiment upon the\nsubject. But, really, one of the most practical questions that can be\nasked is--\"_Why_ is this one, or that one, a criminal?\" Do I say that\nthe guilt should be imputed to the condition--that it is all owing to\ncircumstances? No: but I _do_ say that, in nine cases out of ten, crime\nis no proof of _special_ depravity apart from _general_ depravity, and\nthat the circumstances have just so much weight as this--that put you or\nme in those same circumstances, in nine cases out of ten, we should be\ncriminals too. In the same circumstances, my friends; and this involves\na great deal. It involves an hereditary taint stamped in the very mould\nof birth; it involves physical misery; it involves intellectual and\nmoral destitution; it involves the worst kind of social influence; it\ninvolves the pressure of all the natural appetites, rioting in this need\nof the body and this darkness of the soul. And it implies no suspicion\nof a man's moral standard--it is no insult to his self-respect--to tell\nhim that, under similar conditions, it is extremely probable he would\nhave been a criminal too. Reasoning in an arm-chair is very proper, and\noften very accurate, but the logic of starvation is too peremptory for\nsyllogisms. There is a sort of compound made up of frost, damp, dirt and\nrags, which works double magic: it sometimes converts a thief into a\nphilosopher, and sometimes a philosopher into a thief. I am not\nspeaking, however, of the mere impulse of animal want, but of this\ncondition where the counter-acting forces are dormant. And for this\nreason you and I can draw no immoral conclusion from the doctrine of\ncircumstances. We could not be like the moral leper who infests the dark\nregions of the city--we could not be like the child of sin and shame who\nbroods there--without losing our identity. In contemplating this matter,\nthe feeling for ourselves should be simply one of humility and\nthankfulness. We have grown up in pure light and air, appeased with the\ncomforts, and braced by at least the current morality of society. But,\nconcerning those degraded ones, what some call \"charity\" is no more than\n\"justice.\" It is no more than justice to say--all the conditions being\nconsidered--that as to a vast majority of them, crime is no proof of\n_special_ depravity. It is the genuine humanity that is there--not base\nmetal. It came from the common mint--somewhere you will find upon it a\nfaint scar of the Divine Image--but the coin was pitched into this\nbonfire of appetite and blasphemy, and it has come out a cinder. Thus,\nproud and happy Mother, might _your_ boy have been a defaced and\ndistorted being, kicked, cuffed, knotted with frost, blackened with\nbruises; a pick-pocket, a wharf-rat, a panel-thief; with his intellect\nsharpened to an intense and impish cunning--only knowing that it is a\nhard world, and he must get out of it what he can. Thus, fond Father,\nmight _your_ daughter, whom the very winds must salute with courtesy,\nhave gone through the streets at night--a painted desolation, a reeling\nshame. Do you think these were made of better texture than those who\nblacken and fester yonder? Do you think that when these last came into\nthe world there was no milk in mothers' breasts for them, no Divine\nsolicitude about them, no tenderness in the heart of Christ; but that\nthey were the refuse, whirled into existence as the great wheel of Life\nshaped the finer mould of the respectable and the happy? I tell you\nthat God made them complete souls, and stamped His Image upon them--but\nthey have fallen into the dark and dreary ways; the fierce flames have\nhardened them; the foul air has tainted them; and their special\ndepravity, over and above the common depravity, is the infection of\ncircumstances. The young boy, the young girl, driven by necessity and\nsharpened with cunning, run into crime. They are all _educated_; for\ncircumstances--not merely books--are education; but this is their\nseminary, and the alphabet is spontaneous, and the science of quick\ngrowth. And with the consequences of all this exposure and temptation we\nare all mixed up; and, if the claim of the child in its intrinsic\nposition does not move us, _prudential_ considerations should--the\nconsideration of what society does suffer, and must suffer, if these\nconditions are not changed.\n\nSuch, then, are some of the _principles_ involved with my theme. Let us\nin the second place pass to consider, very briefly, a few of the\n_facts_. Briefly, because I have no time for details, and because the\ngeneral state of the case is but too well known to you.\n\nIt is a fact, then, that there are among us a vast number of children in\nthe most miserable and perilous condition. In the year 1849, the Chief\nof Police reported the destitution and vice among this class of vagrants\nas almost \"incredible.\" In that report he says--\"The offspring of always\ncareless, generally intemperate, and oftentimes dishonest parents, they\nnever see the inside of a school-room, and so far as our excellent\nsystem of public education is concerned, it is to them a nullity.\" It\nappears that, at that time, in 12 wards of the city, there were 2,955 of\nthese children, of whom two-thirds were females between the ages of 8\nand 16. I am informed, also, by the Chief of Police, that 100 per cent.\nshould now be added to this estimate; not all attributable, of course,\nto growth in depravity, but to the increase of population, especially by\nimmigration. I understand, moreover, that within the past year there\nhave been ten thousand arrests, and five thousand commitments of boys\nalone between the ages of 5 and 15.\n\nThese are naked statistics, affording you an outline of the actual state\nof things. Need I paint the costume and the scenery, and describe the\nsad and awful drama in which these children play their parts? I could\nnot if I would. But think of that vast amount of young life running to\nwaste, sweeping through the sewers of the social fabric, an\nunder-current of taint and desolation! Think of them, starved, beaten,\ndriven into crime not merely by necessity, but by the very hands of\ntheir parents! and think of them this night, cuddling in rags, shivering\non straw, cradled in reeking filth, drinking in blasphemy and obscenity\nand cunning policies of sin, under that dark canopy that shuts out\nsocial sympathy, and hides the very Face of God. And if you have, I will\nnot say parental hearts, but human souls, you will ask if there ought\nnot to be some remedy, and will say that all who can should help in\nadministering that remedy.\n\nAnd _remedies_ there appear to be, my friends. For, while I said that\nthere is no condition in the city more sad and momentous than that of\nthese children of the poor, I said, likewise, that there is none more\n_hopeful_. The essential and comprehensive remedy of all I indicated in\nthe close of the last discourse, and shall have occasion to dwell upon\nin the next. That remedy is the practical operation of\nChristianity--first of all in our own hearts, and then flowing out in\naction. I mean especially the _method_ of Jesus, which consisted not of\nmere teaching but of _help_--which touched not only the issues of the\nsin-sick soul, but the weakness and want of the body. To the demoniac,\nto the leper, to the impotent man by the pool, he brought not abstract\ntruths, but words of healing and works of practical deliverance. How\nstriking is the fact that the freshest and noblest charities of this\nnineteenth century are only developments of the manner in which the\nRedeemer soothed the sorrows and vanquished the evils of the world! For\nthose institutions which especially excite the public interest at the\npresent day, are those whose plan it is first to remove the children of\nthe poor from those wretched and foul _conditions_ upon which I have\nlaid so much stress, and to lead them to a higher culture by extending,\nfirst, the hand of temporal relief. They aim to break up the sockets of\ncustom, and to introduce the degraded child to fresh motives of action\nand fields of endeavor; to throw around him the atmosphere of a true\nhome, and to blend intellectual, and moral, and religious training with\nthat true charity which teaches one how to assert his own manliness, and\nsupport himself by the honest labor of his own hands. Now I do not wish\nto be invidious, I am glad that such a constellation of philanthropic\npromise has risen upon the dark places of the abject poor. I point with\npleasure to what has been accomplished in the Sahara of the Five Points,\nand in what still remains to be done I discern a field broad enough to\nprevent collision and dispute--broad enough to employ the means and the\ngenerous energies of thousands. With equal pleasure I refer to that\n\"Juvenile Asylum,\" with its noble interposition ere the feet of the\nerring boy shall take the _second_ step in crime, and which has recently\nrendered still more efficient its system of labor and relief by\nextending the benefit to girls. But as I wish this evening to\nconcentrate your sympathies, I call your attention especially to the\ninstitution known as \"The Children's Aid Society,\" the general character\nand the practical results of which I will briefly state. Its main object\nis sufficiently indicated by its name. Its machinery is simple, and acts\nupon the principle just laid down. It seeks first to remove the poor\nchild from the coil of evil influences which have been thrown around\nhim, and which have been daily strengthened by the sharpest pressure of\nanimal necessities. It comprehends the two-fold benefit of _education_\nand _labor_ in its system of \"Industrial Schools.\" Of these, at the\npresent time, in this city, there are eight, in which a multitude of\nchildren are educated, taught to work, supplied with a warm dinner\ndaily, and with such clothing as they can learn to make. In connection\nwith these there is one shoe-shop, in which thirty or forty boys earn a\nlivelihood. Another object of this society is to find employment for its\nbeneficiaries out of the city, and during the past year places in the\ncountry have been found for one hundred and twenty-five, where their\nemployers treat them as their own children.\n\nIn institutions like these, then, you perceive the indications of a\nremedy for the condition of these children of the poor--a system of help\nwhich gives something more than spiritual instruction on the one hand,\nsomething more than mere food and clothing on the other; which combines\nmeasures of relief and nourishment for the demands of our whole nature\nin the form of the ignorant and suffering child; and which, better than\nall, lifts him out of the humiliating condition of a mere pauper or\ndependent, and sets him in a channel of manly exertion,\nself-development, and self-support; which not only does the negative\nwork of removing a mass of evil from society, but makes for it the\npositive contribution of an improved and educated humanity. I do not say\nthat all the relief lies here, that it will do all that is needed, or\nthat nothing better will be devised. But I think the _tendency_ of these\ninstitutions is the right one, and that they indicate the _way_ in which\nthis great social problem is to be solved. But it is not necessary to\nsay that the faith which we cherish in such a system is dead without\nworks; and that something more is needed than a few model institutions\nworking here and there. This matter makes a practical claim upon us all,\nin the fact that, in one way or another, we may all help forward this\nmethod of relief--we may help it forward as active laborers in the very\nmidst of the field, as teachers and missionaries, or contributors of our\ngoods and money. Each knows what he can best do--what is his special,\nProvidential _call_ in the matter; but let him be assured that he _has_\na call; and that this spectacle of exposed, needy, suffering childhood\nis not a mere spectacle for his sympathies, but a field white with a\nharvest that waits for his effort. Have we nothing but sympathies\nwherewith to answer the poor woman's prayer--a prayer that echoes\nthrough so many hearts in this great city--\"May the Lord spare my Archy\nfrom the bad boys, and from taking to the ways of his father!\"\n\nThere is one thing which strikes me as very affecting in the condition\nof any child. It is when that condition is necessarily a melancholy\none--when the circumstances which hem it around cast over the surface of\nthat young life an abiding gloom. A melancholy child! What an anomaly\namong the harmonies of the universe; something as incongruous as a bird\ndrooping in a cage, or a flower in a sepulchre. The musical laughter\nmuffled and broken; the spontaneous smile transformed to a sad\nsuspicion; and the austerities of mature life, the fearful speculation,\nand forecast of evil, fixed and frozen on a boy's face! And then the\nsorrow of a child is so _absorbing_--for he lives only in the present.\nIn the afflictions which fall upon him, man has the aid of reason and\nfaith--he looks beyond the present issue, he detects the significance of\nhis calamity, and strengthened thus a brave heart can vanquish any\nsorrow. But, as Richter beautifully says--\"the little cradle, or\nbed-canopy of the child, is easier darkened than the starry heaven of\nman.\" Surely, then, it is a blessed thing to contribute aught that will\nlighten this gloom, and place the child in natural conditions.\n\nBut there is one phase of this subject which, in its appeal to us, is\nmore eloquent than all the rest. It is where there are children who\nstand not merely in the intrinsic claim of their childhood; or in their\ntouching sadness; or pushing their energies into vice and crime; but\nnobly struggling _against_ the tide of evil--struggling to bear up in\ntheir lot--enduring and achieving for the sake of those who, young as\nthese children are, are dependent on them. If I had time, I think I\ncould write a \"Martyrology;\" not following the track of famous men,\nwhose faces look out upon us from the brutal amphitheatre and from the\nfire with a halo of glory around them, and whom we behold, by the vision\nof faith, with their gory robes transfigured to celestial whiteness,\nwaving palms in their hands; but tracing out incidents in the lives of\nsome of the children here in our city--not dead, but _living_ martyrs!\nO! I think I _could_ write such a Martyrology, with blood and tears,\nover many a gloomy threshold, on the walls of many a desolate room; and\nlet future generations come and read it--a fearful record of human\nsuffering--a sweet memorial of human virtue--when many of these old\nwoes, we trust, shall have passed away for ever.\n\nPermit me, in closing, to present two or three incidents illustrative of\nthis heroism and sacrifice among the Children of the Poor.\n\nTake, for instance, the account of a writer who tells us that in the\nstreet he \"met a little girl, very poor, but with such a sweet sad\nexpression,\" adds he, \"that I involuntarily stopped and spoke to her.\nShe answered my questions very clearly, but the heavy, sad look never\nleft her eyes a moment. She had no father or mother. She took care of\nthe children herself; she was only _thirteen_; she sewed on check\nshirts, and made a living for them.\" He went to see her. \"It is a low,\ndamp basement her home. She lives there with the three little children,\nwhom she supports, and the elder sick brother, who sometimes picks up a\ntrifle. She had been washing for herself and little ones. 'She almost\nthought that she could take in washing now,' and the little ones with\ntheir knees to their mouths crouched up before the stove, looked as if\nthere could not be a doubt of sister's doing anything she tried. 'Well,\nAnnie, how do you make a living now?' 'I sew on the check shirts, sir,\nand the flannel shirts; I get five cents for the checks, and nine cents\nfor the others; but just now they wont let me have the flannel, because\nI can't deposit two dollars.' 'It must be very hard work?' 'O! I don't\nmind, sir; but to-day the visitors came, and said we'd better go to the\npoor-house, and I said I couldn't like to leave these little ones yet;\nand I thought if I only had candles, I could sit up till ten or eleven,\nand make the shirts.' ... She had learned everything she knew at the\nIndustrial School.... She never went to church, for she had no clothes,\nbut she could read and write.... 'It was very damp there,' she said,\n'and then it was so cold nights.'\"\n\nI will, in the next place, introduce you to a garret-room, six feet by\nten. The occupants are a poor mother and her son. The mother works at\nmaking shirts with collars and stitched bosoms, at six shillings and\nsixpence per dozen, for a man who pays half in merchandise, and who,\nwhen she is starving for bread, puts her off with calico at a _shilling_\na yard that is not worth more than fourpence! But _he_ is not the martyr\nin the case. When the visitor entered, her son George, about twelve\nyears old, \"was just coming in for dinner, pale and apparently exhausted\nby the effort of climbing the stairs, and sank down upon a rough plank\nbench near the door.\" He worked in a glass-factory, earning a bare\nsubsistence. \"He is a little old man at twelve,\" says the narrator, \"the\npaleness of his sunken cheeks was relieved by the hectic flush; his\nhollow dry eye was moistened by an occasional tear; and his thin white\nlip quivered as he told me his simple story; how he was braving hunger\nand death--for he cannot live long--to help his mother pay the rent and\nbuy her bread. 'Half-past ten at night is early for him to return,' said\nthe mother; 'sometimes it is half-past eleven and I am sitting up for\nhim.' Sometimes, in the morning, she finds him awake, 'but he don't want\nto get up, and he puts his hands on his sides and says, 'Mother, it\nhurts me here when I breathe.' I can work, and I do work,' adds she,\n'all the time--but I can't make as much as my little boy.'\"\n\nOne more account. It is of a beggar-girl who \"lives,\" as the narrative\ngoes on to say, \"in a rear building where full daylight never shines--in\na cellar-room where pure dry air is never breathed. A quick gentle girl\nof twelve years, she speaks to the visitor as he enters--'Mother does\nnot see you, sir, because she's blind.' The mother was an old woman of\nsixty-five or seventy years, with six or seven others seated around.\n'But you told me you and your mother and little sister lived by\nyourselves.' 'Yes, sir--here it is;'\" and at the end of the passage the\nvisitor discovers a narrow place, about five feet by three. The bed was\nrolled up in one corner, and nearly filled the room. \"'But where is your\nstove?' 'We have none, sir. The people in the next room are very kind to\nmother, and let her come in there to warm--because, you know, I get half\nthe coal.' 'But where do you cook your food?' 'We never cook any, sir;\nit is already cooked. I go early in the morning to get coal and chips\nfor the fire, and I must have two baskets of coal and wood to kindle\nwith by noon. That's mother's half. Then when the people have eaten\ndinner, I go round to get the bits they leave. I can get two baskets of\ncoal every day now; but when it gets cold, and we must have a great\ndeal, it is hard for me to find any--there's so many poor chaps to pick\nit. Sometimes the _ladies_ speak cross to me, and shut the door hard at\nme, and sometimes the _gentlemen_ slap me in the face, and kick my\nbasket, and then I come home, and mother says not to cry, for may be\nI'll do better to-morrow. Sometimes I get my basket almost full, and\nthen put it by for to-morrow; and then, if next day we have enough, I\ntake this to a poor woman next door. Sometimes I get only a few bits in\nmy basket for all day, and may be the next day. And then I _fast_,\nbecause, you know, mother is sick and weakly, and can't be able to fast\nlike me.'\"\n\nThese my friends, are some of the \"short and simple annals of the poor.\"\nBut those of whom Gray spoke rest peacefully in the \"country\nchurchyard;\" their spirits are in heaven, and their history is embalmed\nin his own immortal Elegy. But _these_ records are of those who yet live\nand suffer--\"Martyrs _without_ the palm.\"\n\nAnd could I summon them here to-night, and would the Master but enter as\nwhen upon earth, surely he would look upon them in tender pity; would\nbless them; would take in his arms those whom the world has cast aside\nand overlooked. Nay, perhaps he would transfigure their actuality into\ntheir possibility, and we might see \"the angels in their faces,\"\npleading with us before the Father's throne!\n\n\n\n\nTHE HELP OF RELIGION.\n\n\n\n\nDISCOURSE VIII.\n\nTHE HELP OF RELIGION.\n\n      For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to\n      come.--HEBREWS xiii, 14.\n\n\nThere are a good many people who, apparently, are never troubled by any\nspeculations arising out of a comprehensive view of things. They are\nkeenly alive to all objects within their sphere; but their eyes are\nclose to the surface, and their experience comes in shocks of sensation,\nand shreds of perception. They know the superficial features of the\nworld and its conventional expressions; are conversant with its business\nand its pleasures; with the market, the fashions, the town-talk, the\nworldly fortunes of their neighbors. Sometimes, a powerful affliction\nstartles them in this smooth routine, and for a moment they are\nsurprised to find how wide the universe is, and among what great\nrealities we dwell. But, usually, their existence is a narrow revolving\ndisc, bringing around the same group of incidents and the same\nassociations, morning, noon, and night. They comprehend Life as they\ncomprehend the expanse of yonder harbor, dotted with shifting but\nfamiliar forms, ruffled by a passing wind or bright under a summer sun,\nand whose tides duly rise and fall. But they little think of the oceanic\nvastness which it represents; and how its oscillations come from great\ncurrents that leap out of the Antarctic, and swell around tropical\nislands, and sweep the lines of continents, and roll in the Polar Sea.\n\nThese, therefore, are not perplexed by questions such as occur to him\nwho, looking beyond his own worldly interests and the area of daily\nroutine, takes into view the scope of being and the profounder phenomena\nof human life. For such a view will inevitably engender speculation, nor\ncan he rest until he obtains some _theory_ of existence. These very\nconditions of Humanity in the City, for instance--these conditions of\npoverty, and responsibility, and relationship, and privilege, and\nstrife, and toil--yea, the lessons which come to us from the crowd as it\nflows through these streets; constitute a great problem, of which every\nthinking man will seek some solution.\n\nNow, throughout this entire series of discourses--although I have not\ndeemed it necessary in every instance to make a specific application--I\nhave assumed that you and I were looking upon these various phases of\nHumanity from the Christian stand-point, and therefore I could not fitly\nconclude this work without indicating the Help which RELIGION affords\nconcerning these problems of existence.\n\nI observe, then, that while it may seem very simple to affirm that a\n_theory_ does not, in any case, alter _facts_; yet there is often an\nadvantage in laying down this proposition. For this leads us to\nunderstand precisely what a theory _may_ do. It does not alter facts,\nbut it throws them into new relations, and presents them in an entirely\ndifferent light. Materialism, for instance, is a theory of Life; and\nChristianity--in which term I include not only a system of Doctrines,\nbut of practical forces--is also a theory of Life. Now, neither of these\ngets rid of the great facts of existence. Men sin and suffer and die,\nwhether we adopt the one system or the other. But, surely, when we\napproach these facts from the side of Religion, they appear in very\ndifferent lights, and are taken up with very different results, from\ntheir appearance and effect when interpreted by the creed of Unbelief.\nIt would be very absurd then, because Christianity does not instantly\nabolish, or fully explain, all these strange and darker realities, to\nfall back upon the opposite ground of skepticism. This is only receding\nfrom the best solution to the worst--or, rather, to no solution at all.\nFor I maintain that Christianity gives us not merely the best, but the\n_only_ solution of these problems. It will be my purpose in this\ndiscourse, at least, to show what kind of help Religion _does_ afford\nfor Humanity in all these diverse conditions; and, having done this, I\nshall leave it to your own convictions to decide whether it is not a\ngreat and practical Help; and whether there _is_ any other help. I\npropose to illustrate the influence of Religion to this effect,\nfirst--as a _Conviction_; second, as a _Working Power_; and third, as an\n_Interpretation_.\n\nI say, then, in the first place, that religion furnishes great help for\nman in the various issues of life, when he becomes actually convinced\nthat its truths and sanctions are _genuine_. In other words, the\nconception of a moral government, of a directing Providence, and of\neternal realities, vividly apprehended by the intellect, kept fresh in\nthe heart, and assimilated to the entire spiritual nature, is a personal\ninspiration. It elevates the platform of a man's being, so that all\nthings appear in true proportion. It clears his vision to detect\nprinciples, and endows him with moral courage. I do not know that I can\nbetter suggest its influence as a help here, in the conditions of the\ncity, than by asking you to imagine what _would_ be the state of things\nin the spheres of toil and traffic--in all the multiform relations of\nour humanity--if men really apprehended and believed it? _It_, I\nsay--not some special dogma or institution, but the absolute spirit and\ntruth of Christianity. For I do not think that, generally, this _is_\nactually credited. I think that, with many professions of religion, and\nmuch outward respect for it, and an extensive circulation of vague\nconceptions about it, it is _not_ commonly felt and vitalized--it is not\napprehended in its blessedness and power, and absolute excellence. To\nthe habits of the soul it does not represent and mean realities as a\nwritten contract does, or a bank-bill--something that men precipitate\nthemselves upon, and that sways the under-currents of their action. New\nYork, with its Broadway and its Wall Street; with its proud buildings\nand its bristling masts; is a reality--but that city of which the text\nmakes mention; that city which good men seek, and which in the\nApocalypse of Faith they see; whose splendors glitter through the solemn\ntwilight; nay, which hems them around for ever, and shines down upon\nthem brighter than the noonday sun; to thousands, toiling, sinning, and\nsuffering here, is _not_ a reality. For, I ask you, my friends, if it\n_were_ realized, could there be so much abject need among us; so much\nstony-hearted selfishness; so much shuffling in trade, and corruption\nin politics, and meanness in intercourse, and foolish superficial\nliving? I know, and you know, that one of the greatest evils is--not\nmerely that men are worldly, irreligious, bound up in sad conditions and\nnarrow conceits; but that they are so, because they do not apprehend the\nnature and do not feel the reality of religion. For I say once more,\nthat a conviction of its reality must be a great help in adjusting the\nproblems of life. And this, because it acts upon the centre of all the\nsin, and much of the suffering of the world. This personal application\nof religion stands before all other remedies for the removal of these\nevils. Others are attempted--others are, in a degree, successful; but\nnone go so deep and produce results so sure. It seems to me that the\nposition of humanity in this respect, is illustrated in the narrative of\nthe Demoniac of Gadara. We are told that he had been bound with chains,\nbut in his fierce madness had burst them asunder. And then, again, men\nhad tried various expedients, but they could not tame him. But when the\ninfluence of Jesus fell upon his soul, it took hold of it with sweet\nauthority; the legion left him, and the poor, wounded, houseless man sat\nclothed and in his right mind. So is it with man in society; so is it\nwith some of these social evils. The power of _law_ has been invoked;\nand it has its legitimate sphere of operation. It checks the purposed\nviolence. It arrests the overt act. It may consistently be summoned to\npurify all those channels of social action which it assumes to regulate;\nand, instead of patronizing the wrong, to set its face and hand against\nit. Thus it may prevent public harm, though it cannot stop self-injury,\nand remove occasions of temptation, though it cannot impart moral\nstrength. It has no efficacy to change the assassin's heart, yet we call\nupon it to guard us against murder. We bid it close the den of infamy,\nthough it does not quench guilty passion. And we may use it to stop the\nsale of intoxicating drinks, though it does not destroy the drunkard's\nappetite. And this indicates both the function and the limitation of the\nlaw. Thrown over the wild forces that rage in the human heart, and that\nafflict community, it is like the fetters on the limbs of the demoniac.\nIt may restrain for a time; but in some sweep of temptation it is\nspurned and snapped asunder. On the other hand, we have the expedients\nof the _reformer_. He comes with props and palliatives; soothing some\ncutaneous irritation, or removing some foul condition. And let us\nrecognize the legitimacy of _his_ endeavor. We must approach the human\nheart through the web of its external circumstances, as well as\ndirectly. Nay, often this is the only way by which we can get at it at\nall. And well may we rejoice over the rescue from specific vices, and\ncommend the zeal and patience which fasten upon some colossal evil to\nbatter and drive it from the world. But notwithstanding such noble\nachievement, how many have remained among the tombs, or gone back to the\nwilderness--demoniacs still! It is an old truth, but I say it as though\nit were in the conviction of a fresh fact forced upon me by these great\nproblems that heave up in the currents of City Life; it is an\nunavoidable conclusion that there is only one influence that can make\nsafe, and pure, and strong in goodness, those recesses out of which\nissue so much social evil, and so much personal suffering. And that is\nthe influence not of the law-giver, nor of the reformer; but of the\nRedeemer. It is that power which flows through the soul in a practical\nconviction of the reality of religion. It is the help which comes from\nits inspiration of divine truth and goodness in the breasts of\nindividual men, turning them from evil, rendering them strong against\ntemptation, and sending out from their lives fresh forces of\nrighteousness and love.\n\nIndeed, I believe that any man who really thinks and feels, and who has\nmuch experience of Life, will become convinced of the _necessity_ of\nReligion. I would leave its claims not to the argument of the Moralist,\nor the advocacy of the Pulpit, but as they urge themselves upon us here\nout of the whirl, and weariness, and vicissitudes of the City. Surely,\nas its calm voice appeals to the sons of men, striving in this heated\natmosphere; chasing phantoms that rise out of the dust; absorbed in the\nfickle game of fortune; borne along for a little while on the top-waves\nof excitement, and then dying unmarked as a rain-drop that falls into\nthe sea; surely as its voice appeals to these, saying--\"Come unto me,\nall ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!\" it\nstrikes the deepest chords in thousands of hearts. I will not adopt now\nany professional argument to prove the great necessity of Religion as a\nHelp in Life. But I would take my stand, in imagination, at some corner\nof yonder tumultuous street. How multiform the crowds that sweep by me;\nhow diverse the faces; what a kaleidoscope of human conditions! And yet,\nwhen you attempt to classify them, how few are the actual _types_ of\nmen--how many fall into a common group; and when you try them by the\nprofoundest standard--that of a common experience and common wants--how\nmarvellously alike they all are! How similar in inward expression, the\nrich man who walks yonder, to that poor drudging son of toil, who bows\nhis back and strains his sinews until they ache! How similar in effect\nthe burdens which they both bear--the burden of wealth, and the burden\nof poverty, in the fact that they _are_ burdens upon the heart and the\nsoul! And are they not both struggling with the realities of life, and\nmoved by quenchless desires, and looking up into the same infinite\nmystery? Ah! my friends, I hardly think it would be the most effectual\nway to preach Religion in this church on Sunday, as a matter of\ncourse--but to stand out there on week-days, and strike the deepest\nchords throbbing unconsciously in the bosoms of those who pass me by. I\nwould appeal to you, O disappointed, almost heart-broken man, who for\nyears have endeavored to earn a competency to lift your head above the\nsheer necessities of life, but have failed in the chase, and been beaten\nback, and seen others who have exerted themselves not near as much, not\nso honorably, perhaps, rise to the very top of the stream and sail clear\nahead;--or to you, O \"favorite of fortune,\" as the world calls you, who\nfind your palace to be only a stately sepulchre, in which all genuine\nfeeling and simple enjoyment lies dead and wrapped in cerements of\nchilling etiquette--whose daughter, perhaps, has mocked your fondest\nplans; or whose son has turned out a miserable weed of dissipation--a\ndegenerate fopling, a rake, a fool;--or to you, O butterfly of fashion,\nsailing with embroidered wings in search of admiration and of pleasure;\nor still again, to you who have just gathered together the means of\nenjoyment, and ease, and everything, to make life pleasant, and lo!\ndeath has entered, and your hopes are darkened and in the dust; I appeal\nto you, O types of this streaming humanity, that wears so many masks,\nyet, carries under all a common heart; and ask you, if there is not some\nvoid that no earthly good can fill--that no finite thing can sustain and\nsatisfy? Can you go on with the common business of the world, discharge\nall its obligations, control yourself in its excitements, resist its\nevil solicitations, bear up under its trials, and, finally, reach that\nperiod in life when you must ask--\"What is all this worth?--these years\nof toil, these eager enterprises, this golden accumulation or\nunfortunate failure--what are they all worth, and what do they\nmean?\"--can anybody well get along with all this, without Religion? My\nfriends, I say to you that, not consciously, perhaps, like the old\nsaints who wrought and prayed and walked with upward-looking faces--but\nreally, in the deep yearning and the secret gravitation of the soul--you\n_do_ confess that here we have no continuing city, and you are seeking\none to come. At least, it seems to me that without the Help of Religion,\nthere is only the alternative of moral indifference--a cold, hard\nworldliness, or of recklessness and spiritual despair. And is not this\nthe alternative which is exhibited in the midst of all our\ncivilization--in the midst of this gorgeous materialism of the\nnineteenth century? Thousands, it is to be apprehended, do exhibit one\nor the other of those extremes which the poet has so well described:\n\n    \"For most men in a brazen prison live,\n      Where, in the sun's hot eye,\n      With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly\n    Their minds to some unmeaning task-work give,\n      Dreaming of naught beyond their prison wall;\n        And so, year after year,\n      Fresh products of their barren labor fall\n        From their tired hands, and rest\n      Never yet comes more near.\n      Gloom settles slowly down over their breast,\n    And while they try to stem\n      The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest,\n    Death in their prison reaches them\n      Unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest.\n\n    \"And the rest, a few,\n      Escape their prison, and depart\n    On the wide ocean of life anew.\n      There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart\n    Listeth, will sail;\n    Nor does he know how there prevail\n    Despotic on life's sea,\n    Trade-winds that cross it from eternity.\n    Awhile he holds some false way, undebarred\n    By thwarting signs, and braves\n    The freshening wind, and blackening waves,\n    And then the tempest strikes him, and between\n    The lightning bursts is seen\n    Only a driving wreck,\n    And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck\n    With anguished face and flying hair,\n      Grasping the rudder hard,\n    Still bent to make some port he knows not where,\n    Still standing for some false impossible shore,\n    And sterner comes the roar\n    Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom,\n    Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom.\"\n\nBut, before I quit this head of my discourse, let me say that in order\nto be accepted as the great Help of Life, Religion must in some way be\n_presented_ as a reality. It must not be held forth as a mere\nabstraction--it must be precipitated into its concrete relations.\nParting with none of its sanctity, it must be stripped of its vagueness\nand technicality, and be spoken in the fresh language of the time. I\nfeel sure that amidst prevalent irreligion, nothing is so much needed as\na definite statement of _what_ religion is; and that men should learn to\nrecognize its vascular connection with every department of action. It\nmust be understood that \"being religious\" is not a work apart by itself,\nbut a spirit of faith and righteousness, flowing out from the centre of\na regenerated heart into all the employments and intercourse of the\nworld. Not merely the preacher in the pulpit, and the saint on his\nknees, may do the work of religion, but the mechanic who smites with the\nhammer and drives the wheel; the artist seeking to realize his pure\nideal of the beautiful; the mother in the gentle offices of home; the\nstatesman in the forlorn hope of liberty and justice; and the\nphilosopher whose thought treads reverently among the splendid mysteries\nof the universe. I know that some will deem this a secularization of\nreligion--a desecration of its holy essence by worldly alliances. But\nthey are mistaken. It is a _consecration_ of pursuits and spheres that\nhave been cut off from all sacredness, and devoted to secondary ends.\nAre not the just, the useful, the beautiful, from God, as well as the\ngood and the holy? And, therefore, is not any practice which serves\nthese, a service of God? It is needed that men should feel that every\nlawful pursuit _is_ sacred and not profane; that every position in life\nis close to the steps of the divine throne; and that the most beaten and\nfamiliar paths lie under the awful shadow of the Infinite; then they\nwill go about their daily pursuits, and fill their common relationships,\nwith hearts of worship and pulses of unselfish love; instead of\nregarding religion as an isolated peculiarity for a corner of the closet\nand a fraction of the week, and leaving all the rest of time and space\nan unconsecrated waste, where lawless passions travel, and selfishness\npitches its tents. O! if religion _were_ thus a diffusive, practical,\nevery-day reality, there would be a marvellous change in the aspects of\nlife and the conditions of humanity around us. The great city, now so\ngross and profane, would become as a vast cathedral, through whose stony\naisles would flow perpetual service; where labor would discharge its\ndaily offices, and faith and patience keep their heavenward look, and\nlove present its offerings. Yea, the very roll of wheels through its\nbusy streets would be as a litany, and the sound of homeward feet the\nchant of its evening psalm.\n\nBut religion is not only a help in and for ourselves; it has a\nministration for others--for this great mass of destitution and\nsuffering that broods in the midst of the city. Christianity is not\nmerely a theory of existence--it is a _working-power_. Its precepts are\npractical, and enjoin not merely states of mind and heart, but\nconditions of activity. There is an entire magazine of working-forces in\nthat one great law--\"Love thy neighbor as thyself.\" Hear the words of\nan apostolical commentator upon it. \"If a brother or sister be naked,\nand destitute of daily food,\" says he, \"and one of you say unto them,\nDepart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them\nnot those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?\nEven so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.\" And wherever\nChristianity has existed and been apprehended, it has produced\nbeneficent results for humanity. It has gone over the earth like its\nDivine Author, with healing and with help for the woes of the race.\nAnybody who takes his stand at the head-waters of modern history, will\nsee that a mighty energy was then poured into the world, whose influence\nis evident in the truest civilization, in the best results, of ages. In\nestimating the practical power of Christianity, we must look at the\n_positive_ phase of things--we must consider what has actually been\ndone; not merely what remains to be done. We must adopt proportionate\nstandards, not the little measures of to-day and yesterday, in which the\ntides of human melioration may oscillate, and even seem to flow\nbackward and at the best to make slight headway. But take up the cycle\nof history that preceded the advent of Christianity, and compare it with\nthe present period; and is there not an entirely different expression on\nthe face of things, so far as conceptions of humanity and influences of\nphilanthropy are concerned? Contrast \"a Roman holiday,\" its butchery and\nits blood, with a modern anniversary that clasps the round world in its\njubilee, and see if humanity has not been helped by religion. Or look\nback upon Grecian art and refinement, and tell me what oration or poem,\nor pantheon of marble beauty, is half as glorious as the plain brick\nfree-school; the asylum of industry; the home for the penitent, the\ndisabled and the poor? Ah! my friends, these are such familiar things\nthat we may not think them the great things they really are; and in\ngazing upon the colossal evils that yet tower up before us, they may\nseem slight achievements. But they _are_ great: and when I see the poor\ndrunkard return to a renovated home--the demoniac sitting clothed and in\nhis right mind once more; when I see the dumb write, and hear the blind\nread, and little rescued children sing their thankful hymns; I think\nhumanity _has_ been helped a great deal since that Divine Teacher walked\nthe earth, and took the lambs to his bosom, and made the foul leper\nclean, and partook with publicans and sinners, and bade the guilty go\nand sin no more. I think that currents of love and self-sacrifice, from\nthat heart that was pierced for us upon the cross, have found their way\nthrough the channels of ages, through all the impediments of worldliness\nand selfishness, and inspired and blessed men far more than they know.\n\nBut if, turning from the positive achievement, you point to the evils\nthat still exist--if you lift the coverings of respectability and custom\nfrom the ghastly facts that are embedded here in our so-called\ncivilization; if you bid me mark the vice, the poverty, the crime, the\noppression, the grinding monopoly, the prejudice, the gigantic\nmaterialism and practical atheism that are mixed up with it, and seem to\nbe inseparable parts of it; then I ask you--how would it be _without_\nthe Help of Religion? What interpretation should we obtain from the\ndark creed of the skeptic, what inspiration from the philosophy of\nannihilation, and of fate? To say nothing of those forces of Love and\nself-sacrifice which it sheds abroad in the world, and to which I have\njust alluded,--Religion, in one single proposition, sends pregnant\nelements of direction and relief into the midst of these giant evils.\nThat one proposition is the immortality of man--the priceless\nspirituality of every man--the ascription of a nature more glorious and\nimperishable than a star. Here is the spring of its perpetual antagonism\nto the world, and to the evil of the world. The latter bases its\nestimate of man upon outward conditions; estimates his name and his\ntitle, his equipage and his parentage, the bulk of his gold, the color\nof his skin, his _apparent_ success or defeat. Christianity points to\nthat vivid centre of a soul, in whose light all these external\ndistinctions fade, are fused into dross, become comparatively naught.\nAll the evil of the world stands upon the assumption of the former\nrule--upon the ground of external and material valuation--which, as has\nbeen well observed by another, is a \"method of studying the problems of\nthe universe by fetching rules from the _wider_ sphere (therefore the\n_lower_) to import into the _higher_.... So long as this logical\nstrategy is allowed, the Titans will always conquer the gods; the\nground-forces of the lowest nature will propagate themselves, pulse\nafter pulse, from the abysses to the skies, and _right_ will exist only\non sufferance from _might_.\" On the other hand, I say, Religion,\nChristianity, starts from the centre outward--starts with the dignity\nand sanctity of the human soul--and in this is the great element of all\nprogress and reform. Out of this have sprung the achievements of modern\nfreedom. Assuming this inward birthright of every man, men have snapped\nfeudal fetters, and broken the seals of ancient proscription, and torn\nup branching genealogies, and trodden diadems in the dust. It was this\nfact that inspired Sidney's speech, and Hampden's effort, and\nWashington's calm determination. It is this that erects itself against\nmajorities, policies, institutions, charters, and will not be beaten\ndown, and will agitate, and will triumph. It is this that sends\nphilanthropy upon its mission; and bids it stoop to the most fallen, and\nsearch under the darkest depravity. \"Go abroad,\" it says, \"amidst the\nguilt and misery of the great city. In the rags, the filth, the\nabomination, there are jewels fallen from heaven. There are souls upon\nwhich angels look with solicitude. There are interests for which Christ\ndied. Search patiently, and deeply, and never give up the endeavor to\nfind, to lift up, to restore.\" Is not all the spring of benevolent\neffort, then, in this single proposition of Religion? This one great\nTruth it utters amidst the suffering and injustice of the world--that\nmen are heirs of one inheritance; possessors of a birthright by virtue\nof which all outward inequalities fade away. It bases a demand for\nmutual help and love, upon the fact that we are all on a\npilgrimage--high, low, honored, degraded, master, slave, we go forth\ntogether, and these earthly distinctions all drop away. Rich man with\nrows of real-estate, with money safe in bank, with solid securities\nwalled around you--you will carry no more away than Lazarus yonder--in\nGod's eyes you are no richer than he. Because here we have no continuing\ncity. The destinies of our common humanity flow forward into another and\nmore enduring one.\n\nAnd, if still this problem of human degradation and suffering presses\nupon us, I say further, that where the constituents of this problem are\nmost prominent, there religion is the most active. The heaviest poverty\nis belted about by the brightest charities; the hot-beds of crime\ngenerate the most radical efforts for its prevention and its cure; and\nwhile oppression is at work, setting its dark types upon virgin soil to\nprint off its own shame and condemnation, indignant voices expose it and\nindignant hearts react against it. And more and more, every day, it is\nfelt and proclaimed that religion is a working-principle--a practical\npower. Never was it more profoundly felt than in this very age that men\nmust be confessors of Christianity as well as professors. And in the\nlight of this conception, proffering fresh and willing help, Religion\nwalks abroad; and lo! waste places grow verdant, and the strongholds of\nguilt and misery sink down, and blessed institutions rise up, and\nindustry takes the place of crime, and cursings are exchanged for songs,\nand the poorest sees the immortal light, and is lifted up by the grand\nthought--that \"here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to\ncome.\"\n\nWe have thus seen that Religion is a Help as to the fact of sin, when\nmen are convinced of it as a great reality; and a help as to the fact of\nhuman suffering, because it is a working-power. But, over and above all\nthis, there are problems that perplex us, and demand some answer;\nproblems as to the How, and the Wherefore, and the End. There are times\nwhen our thoughts rise above all specific instances, and we take up\nhumanity and existence as a whole, and ask--\"What means it all?\"\nSometimes this question starts out of an individual experience. The\nshock of affliction has jarred our hearts; our expectations have come to\nnaught; bereavement has broken up the routine of our life; or our own\nsouls have surprised us with sudden revelations. At any rate, we find\nour being here involved with mystery. There is something that our\nunderstanding cannot entirely grasp; something that our unassisted eyes\ncannot see. And the only help for us in such a case is the Help of\nReligion, presenting us, through faith, with an _interpretation_ of\nhuman life--an interpretation which tells us that what we now experience\nand behold is only transitional, preliminary, and that we see through a\nglass darkly, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.\n\nAnd is it necessary for me to dwell upon the strength which has thus\nbeen imparted to sad and wounded spirits, when with perfect trust in\nInfinite Goodness they have thus realized that they stand only on one\nround of an upward course--only in a little segment of the immense plan?\nI will merely say now, that if, through faith, religion is a help to\nthese by interpreting life in harmony with individual experience, so\nthrough this faith does it help the meditative man troubled by the\ngeneral problem of existence and humanity. The meaning of these various\nconditions in the city--the meaning of these sins, and sorrows, and\ninequalities--the meaning of this tide of life itself that rolls in\nendless succession through these stony arteries--does it perplex you?\nAccept, then, the help which religion gives by interpreting it as only\npreliminary and transitional; only a portion of a wider scheme.\n\nWe commenced this series of discourses by standing, as it were, in the\nstreet, on a level with all these phases of humanity. Ascend now some\nlofty post of observation; some high watch-tower. The mottled tide flows\nand dashes far below you. The sounds of strife and endeavor rise faintly\nto your ears, and are drowned in the upper air. So in the altitude and\ncomprehensiveness of faith, all this that seemed so huge and startling\ndwindles to a little stream in the great ocean of existence, and all\nthese tumults are swallowed up in the currents of silent but beneficent\ndesign. But, in the meantime, the daylight has gone, the night-shadow\nhas fallen, this stream of human life has ebbed away, and all these\nsounds are still. See, now, how much of your perplexity came from a\ndeceit of eye-sight--see how the light of this world blinded you to the\nimmensity and the meaning of existence! See! over your head spreads the\ngreat firmament. There are Sirius, and Orion, and the glittering\nPleiades. How harmoniously they are related; how calmly they roll! And\nnow, O man! fresh from the reeking dust, and the cry of pained hearts,\nand the shadows of the grave, do not the scales of unbelief drop from\nyour eyes, when you see the width of God's universe, and feel that His\npurpose girdles this little planet and steers its freight of souls? You\nwere deceived by your standards of greatness and duration. You thought\nthat this material city, with what it contains, was everything. But\n_they_ have cherished the true view, who in the spirit of the text have\ninterpreted these Conditions of Humanity--the conditions of those who\nseek and sin and suffer in the busy crowd; of those who rest beneath\nyonder gleaming tomb-stones. And, as we read what all wise and good men\nhave virtually said, our mortal term contracts, our immortal career\nopens, our years seem as ticks of a clock, and the entire sum of our\nlife but a minute-mark on the dial of eternity; and this huge metropolis\nbecomes a dim veil, a perishable symbol of real and enduring things.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:\n\nEvery effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as\npossible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious\ntypographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have\nbeen fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:\n\npage 27: quote typo corrected\n\n    But, say you, '[\"]here is one who is returning to a home of\n    destitution, of misery; where the\n\npage 39: typo corrected\n\n    between those great agents of human achievment[achievement]\n    and the living intelligence\n\npage 41: typo corrected\n\n    years. Remarkable for brilliant achievments[achievements] in\n    every department of physics, ours well deserves\n\npage 45: hyphen removed\n\n    the old world without a telegraph, and Columbus found a new\n    one without a steam[-]ship.\n\npage 49: typo corrected\n\n    open air and the sovreignty[sovereignty] of the soil. And if\n    this immense intrusion of machinery has\n\npage 58: duplicate word removed\n\n    stream, and chained the fire; and now, [with] with the eye of\n    science and the hand of skill,\n\npage 84: typo corrected\n\n    dignity is there in that man who justs[just] accepts his\n    station and makes the most of\n\npage 154: removed quote\n\n      celestial City be these well-known doors--and thus may we\n      also _die_ at Home![\"]\n\npage 173: typo corrected\n\n    heaven, whose inhabitants would not make\n    harmlesness[harmlessness] their chief characteristic. Their\n\npage 195: typo corrected\n\n    and, perpetually descending from the threshold of the\n    Infinite, keeps open an arch-way of mysstery[mystery] and\n    heaven.\n\npage 201: typo corrected\n\n    dangerous reasoning, my friends; neverthless[nevertheless],\n    it _is_ reasoning, and shows that the mind of the\n\npage 240: typo corrected\n\n    of life and the conditions of humanity arouud[around] us. The\n    great city, now so gross and profane,","title":"Humanity in the City","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":42599}