CHAPTER V.
RELIGION.
Sacredliterature constitutes the most vivid testimony one can consult respecting the course of the human mind, its phases, progress, eclipses and illuminations; the influence of moral systems, national governments, and popular customs; the character of diversified races, the knowledge of the past, and the hope of the future.
The sensibility of pagan antiquity was more powerfully impressed with the perfectibility latent in creation than their intellect had the ability to discriminate, or their conscience to realize. At the best transition periods of literary and scientific excellence, in the conclaves of their divinities, they represented each god holding some musical instrument, thus denoting the exquisite and eternal harmony which pervades the universe. But true religion is not the mere enthusiasm of science which worships a great natural law, as one adores an element frozen into a vast ice-idol; it is rectified intelligence beholding the almighty Father, palpable in the glorious creation as it beams all around, and sanctified affection especially exercised in devotion to the incarnated, atoning, and interceding Son, through the power and grace of the eternal Spirit. Montesquieu, in his Soul of Law, has noticed the fact, that Christianity, in fitting us for the felicity of the next life, creates the chief happiness of this. Such exalted fruits are produced by divine redemption wherever its influence is diffused. For instance, despite the grandeur of the empire and the viciousness of the climate, it prevented the establishment of despotism in Ethiopia, and bore into the midst of Africa the legislation and refinements of Europe. Instead of such destruction as was wrought by Timour and Gengis Kan, while they devastated the cities and tribes of Asia, or the perpetual massacres executed by the chiefs of Greece and Rome, the victories of theCross leave to conquered nations such grand donations as life, liberty, law, refinement, and a religion which injures none but blesses all. Heavenly truth teaches man his duties by unfolding to him his destiny. It does not leave him unaided in secular academies, frigid universities, and pagan gymnasia, to vegetate in a brutal ferocity a hundred times more venomous than the savage state. Pure religion civilizes its subjects by nourishing them with truth, as well as with bread; it ennobles them by aggrandizing the intellect and renovating the heart, thus imparting to the feeblest pupil formed in her school, more lofty and substantial philosophy than can be possessed by the most erudite worldly sage. Its process is of another sort, and directed to different ends than those contemplated by materialists who undertake to perfect the education of a people through evolutions rather than by instructions, placing in their hands a mute stone to facilitate the increase of transient physical force, instead of inculcating those high lessons which to the soul give eternal life.
The salvation of the social world depends upon personal and popular allegiance to Christ, from whom mankind, as a depraved race, are spiritually and politically detached. It is necessary by all means, that public institutions should be constructed on Christian principles, under that divine guidance which, blending things temporal with things celestial, leads both to a common centre and explains how coincident are authority and obedience, while it subordinates force to reason, to righteousness, and the knowledge of infallible truth. Until this end is attained, there can be neither peace nor content; for if the legislator, deceived in his design, establishes a principle different from that which is produced from the nature of things, the state will not cease to be agitated until it is either destroyed or changed, and invincible justice reclaims her original empire. When the use of human faculties is controlled, but not confined, by the doctrines of Christianity which contain all truth, by the precepts and counsels which nourish every virtue, it tends incessantly toward the development of that intelligence and those sentiments which constitute moral perfection. It is thus that the heavenly influence acts without interruption upon popular literatures, arts, sciences, philosophies, laws; and this unfolding of native capacities, which is never long arrested, forms the true progressof those civilizing powers in their potent relation to Christian nations. If the divine preservative is withdrawn from a people, they immediately sink into barbarism, and one everywhere finds profoundly marked the traces of that true light which once shined, though the candlestick be now removed. If primitive faith is allowed to become adulterated, vague opinions will arise from the bosom of doubt and indifference, like the sterile clouds which float in a wintry sky, till night deepens and all is obscured.
Herein is a great difference which distinguished the Christian religion from all anterior systems. In pagan antiquity, the master could, without internal trouble, possess his slave; princes claimed to belong to a divine race, and the patrician felt that he and his plebeian neighbor were born far apart. This was revolted against more than complained of, as the benighted were actuated by natural indignation rather than by conscientious reason. But, under the gospel, within the oppressor, as in the oppressed, a heavenly voice evermore proclaimed the eternal fact that all are equal before God, and that justice is a boon and bond for all. Despite this ennobling principle, this sanctification of the human conscience, however, the advancement of mankind remained subordinate to the same rules. It was ever requisite that successive emancipations should be preceded by an adequate development of intelligence, and a corresponding elevation of moral sentiment. Freedom is a calamitous conquest to one not fitted to enjoy it. But under the instruction of the gospel, and by virtue of its power, the slave, the imbecile, the mendicant, and alien, become equals and brothers in common with the master and citizen, however unbounded may be his wealth and extensive his power. It is the second moral creation of humanity. The natural conscience thereby receives, as incontestable axioms, laws and obligations which in all preceding experience it never discovered in itself. It is meant by this that the application of these laws may become both easy and certain. The office of the Gospel is not to found a state or impart a code. It is addressed to man, whom it leaves in the exercise of free will. The light which each one brings upon earth, by the celestial message becomes more brilliant and divine; but it is, and ever must be, more or less obscured by ignorance and perverted by passion. Absolute fraternity and immaculate charity we should not expect to become the law of the state; they wouldthen cease to be virtues. Our duty and perfection consist in causing them to control and diminish our imperfections. But in proportion as the spirit of the gospel is comprehensively exemplified, and obedience to its requirements is complete, earth, purified from disorder, becomes the image of heaven, and is the sojourn of peace, innocence, and holy joy. The true happiness of man and the healthful tranquillity of states can be established and preserved only by the sacred worship of that religion which, in the energetic language of Tertullian, is "a second royalty." The same principle which places order in society by creating social power, gives order to the family by constituting domestic power. The two powers resemble each other, because the family is society on a small scale; they are unequal, since society at large is a grand family wherein all individuals are a homogeneous aggregate. But both alike emanate from the power of God from whose authority alone all fraternity is derived (Eph. iii. 14, 15). In the same manner, then, as the paternal government is identical with social power in the family, social power is the paternal government of general society: it is herein that we may find a reason for the immortality of power, and perceive why it is that the religion of Jesus Christ, being the container and communicator of all excellence, is the wisest and most beneficent civilizer on earth. Jurists and statesmen are beginning to acknowledge that all legitimate legislation comes from God, the Father of all just law, and that our multifarious libraries of conflicting and impotent statutes, born only of man, resemble a vast hospital of infant foundlings. A piece of inscribed paper, called a constitution, can never long exist and be of value, save as it is the exponent of intelligence, sound morality, and spiritual religion, together with the matured capacity of self-government based on these.
The word "democracy" was invented two thousand years ago, but for many centuries the thing itself did not actually exist. It was in the country of the greatest of great men, and, at the opening of the most auspicious of the progressive ages, the country and age of Washington, that real practical equality was established, and that mainly by the power of reformed religion. A power was then inaugurated higher and better than that which ruled when the Greek Plato, Phrygian Æsop, and Roman Epictetus, were bought and sold as slaves. Preceding nations and religions werein due time excelled, and the mighty successor, in ascending the new throne of imperial equality, incorporated into herself all the most enduring and salutary attributes which could be derived from past civilizations, upon which a better progress, under these brighter skies, has so happily supervened.
For the preparation of a race for such a destiny as is here enjoyed, it was necessary that they should at the outset burst those chains of political and ecclesiastical despotism, which priestcraft had forged and fastened around the human soul; and how nobly did the first colonists perform this duty! Bruce and Wallace at the head of the Covenanters, in Scotland; Cromwell and Milton, Hampden and the Puritans, in England; Washington and the war of American independence constituted one continued struggle for civil and religious liberty. Those fierce and fiery furnaces through which this selectest race fearlessly passed, were intended to purify and qualify them for the work of the latter days; and the result is, that at this moment they are emancipated, and ready to continue the functions of their Heaven-appointed office. The Bacons, Hookers, Miltons, Souths, Baxters, Howes, Taylors, and Owens, of the mother country, contributed the full aggregate of their best wisdom to enrich the commencement of our theology, and are not wanting in worthy representatives and improved disciples among us at the present day. Without losing their depth, our age greatly excels theirs in breadth; and if the few are less erudite, the masses are infinitely more enlightened. Diffusion, expansion, universality, is the great principle of American knowledge; and it is this which distinguishes us above all other lands.
Locke is sometimes represented as the first who asserted the doctrines of religious freedom; but several preceding authors had expressed substantially the same views. Such in particular were Sir Thomas More in his Utopia; some of the earlier Independents, or Brownists; the incomparable Cudworth; Jeremy Taylor in his Liberty of Prophesying, published in 1647; Dr. John Owen in a piece on Toleration, annexed to his Discourse before Parliament the day after the execution of Charles the First; and Milton in his Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes. But these left the work very incomplete. The mediæval period had been a progress, but it became an impediment not easily displaced on the stage ofits last and most formidable advancement. The English revolution was the grand event which terminated the seventeenth century, that heir of all foregoing epochs, and which superseded them with a divine commission to finish their imperfect endeavors. The two revolutions which arose in its bosom to close the historical career of the middle age, were only partial and incomplete. Both movements, the political and the religious, were local and, therefore, limited, because their principle lacked generality. But the American revolution opportunely broke forth to universalize the ameliorating germs which anterior institutions had conserved, so that their unchecked growth, and boundless propagation, became possible everywhere. The age of Leo X. then succumbed, and the age of Washington became the dawn of supreme freedom for the best good of universal man.
The prophet Ezekiel prefaces his predictions with a striking delineation of human progress under divine guidance. A whirlwind and a cloud appear in the north, illumined with a brightness as of fire, out of which appears the likeness of four living creatures; each has four faces, four wings, and hands under their wings; and the faces are severally like those of a man, of a lion, of an ox, and an eagle. Their wings are raised and joined one to another, and when they moved it was "straight forward," and they turn not as they go. By the side of these was a sphere, composed of a "wheel within a wheel," which also had four faces, was connected with the living creatures, and moved in perfect harmony with them; was full of eyes, and its operations, though endlessly diversified, were harmonious in action, and one in purpose, for all were guided by one great, controlling Agent. The wheels had a perpetually onward movement, and so immense were they in circumference, that their "height was dreadful." And such is the providence of God, a scheme for executing destinies high as heaven, and enduring as eternity, vast in conception, sublime in results, and, like their Author, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. Another apt and beautiful emblem of the same sovereign disposal closes the sacred writings. As mediatorial King, the Lord Jesus Christ unrolls the mysterious scroll, radiant with the eternal purposes of Jehovah, the controlling of all events, and the overruling of vicissitudes and revolutions of human affairs. As Matthew was symbolizedby the man, Mark by the lion, and Luke by the ox, so he who was most intimate with the earthly presence of the Messiah, and who was elected to portray the final unfolding of the mighty redemption, bore the eagle as indicative of his inspiration, and the foretokener of final supremacy. That bird of power has lighted on the banner of our Union, and with it will sail with supreme dominion in the highest azure, till all glorious predictions are fulfilled.
Observe in what a remarkable manner the whole of North America was transferred into Protestant hands. New England early became an object of desire with France, and nothing seemed more probable at one time than that she would be the sole possessor thereof. Bancroft records how, in 1605, De Mont "explored and claimed for France the rivers, the coasts, and bays of New England. But the decree had gone out that the beast of Rome should never pollute this land of promise, and it could not be revoked. The hostile savages first prevented their settlement; yet they yield not their purpose. Thrice in the following year was the attempt renewed, and twice were they driven back by adverse winds, and the third time wrecked at sea. Again did Pourtrincourt attempt the same enterprise, but was, in like manner, compelled to abandon the project. It was not so written. This was the land of promise which God would give to the people of his own choice. Hither he would transplant the 'vine' which he had brought out of Egypt. Here it should take root, and send out its boughs into the sea, and its branches unto the river." At a still later period, a French armament of forty ships of war sailed from Chebucto, in Nova Scotia, for the purpose of destroying the nursery of that Puritanism which was destined to pervade this New World. News of the attempt occasioned a day of fasting and prayer to be observed in all the churches. While Mr. Prince was officiating in Old South Church, Boston, on this occasion, and praying most fervently that the dreaded calamity might be averted, a sudden gust of wind arose (the day till then had been perfectly clear) so violently as to cause the clattering of the windows. That was the waft of a tempest at sea, in which the greater part of the French fleet was wrecked. The duke and his principal general committed suicide, many of the subordinates died with disease, and thousands weredrowned. A small remnant returned to France utterly confounded, and the enterprise of resisting Providence in this direction was abandoned forever. Malignity was rebuked, as the heathen had previously been driven out. A pestilence raged just before the arrival of the pilgrims, which swept off vast numbers of the Indians, and the newly arrived pioneers of universal cultivation were preserved from absolute starvation by the very corn which savages had buried for their winter's provisions. Moreover, it should be here remarked that Lord Lenox and the Marquis of Buckingham were not permitted to succeed in establishing the colony which they attempted at New Plymouth. The hierarchy of England, as well as that of Rome, were foiled before the Independents had arrived, to whom the Court of Heaven had given the chief sway over this mighty empire of the prospective church. The historian of those times well observes: "Had New England been colonized immediately on the discovery of the American continent, the old English institutions would have been planted under the powerful influence of the Roman Catholic religion. Had the settlement been made under Elizabeth, it would have been before the activity of the popular mind in religion had conducted to a corresponding activity of mind in politics. The Pilgrims were Englishmen, Protestants, exiles for religion, men disciplined by misfortune, cultivated by opportunities of extensive observation, equal in rank as in right, and bound by no code but that which was imposed by religion, or might be created by the public will. America opened as a field of adventure just at the time when mind began to assume its independence, and religion its vitality."
For three centuries, the selectest materials were preparing for their prepared work. From Wyckliffe proceeded a succession of dauntless advocates for the emancipation of the human mind from the power of despotism. The principles proclaimed by Luther and fortified by Calvin, were adopted from Huss and Jerome, the pupils of the great original hero of Oxford and Lutterworth. But as the "Morning Star of the Reformation" arose in western England, so did the full day dawn from a still remoter horizon, and Puritanism in eastern America was the Reformation reformed. The sifted wheat of the old world sowed the prepared soil of the new, whereon the best portion of the best nation then extant, came to realize thefond expectation of Columbus, concerning the continent he discovered, when, actuated by the spirit of prophecy, his adventures westward were urged mainly "by the hopes he cherished of extending here the kingdom of Christ." Independency was supreme from the beginning in Massachusetts, and the revolution hastened the spread of democracy in religion, as in politics, throughout American society. In those commonwealths where the aristocratic principle was still strong, as in Virginia, it was boldly assailed and completely subdued. Entails disappeared, and the church lost its official rank in the state. Men everywhere began to feel that they must not longer be Jews of the ancient bondage to law, but Christians under the new dispensation of grace; not apostles of the past, but prophets of the future.
All the great theologians of the American church have originated near where the first spiritual colony was planted, and have constantly spread their influence toward the West. In this department of high thought, as in every other professional walk, Europe often republishes original masterpieces from America, many of which are acknowledged to be the best ever produced. From New England, too, has emanated every form of "liberal" doctrine, which has modified primitive sternness, and tended, perhaps, to develop more fully the wealth of that gospel which is full of grace and truth. Thus the seeds which Christianity has sown during eighteen centuries are successively springing up; liberty to the enthralled, human amity, divine mercy, and equality to all. Its end is to spiritualize man, to animate all races toward the highest attainments, and cause the will of God to be done on earth as it is in heaven. In her mighty advance into the great heart of our land, Religion recognizes and authenticates the right of human souls to outstep the limits of the visible world, and to become regenerate and refreshed in the ideal of eternity.
The immense immigration to our republic at the present time, is filling another notable page in the providential history of America. Had such infloodings of aliens occurred at any former period of our history, they would probably have ruined us. This heterogeneous mass now amounts to half a million annually, and would have been sufficient to crush our free institutions in their incipient state. But what might overflow a sapling, may only refresh the growth andmature the strength of a sturdy oak. The power of assimilation has happily become more potent than the influence of the most copious immigration. It was to this end that the facilities for oceanic transit were restricted, till the consequences of the greatest enlargement would not render their use unsafe. How profoundly should we admire that divine wisdom which has so graciously cast the lines of our heritage, and measured out to us the responsibilities thereof! Millions of the papal world are wafted to our shores, to be enlightened, elevated, Christianized, and taught the prerogatives of freemen, to say nothing of the three millions of instruments placed in our hands by unrighteous bondage, to "sharpen, polish, and prepare for the subjugation of another continent to the Prince of Peace."
From Adam to Augustus transpired the great process of preparation, incarnation, and elementary diffusion of divine truth. While Japhet was proceeding to people more than half the globe, his progeny, Greeks, Romans, and English, successively advanced with accumulative efficiency to redeem the degenerate descendants of Shem. At length the predestined father of all ennobling civilization, in the persons of his selected children, took possession of the continent of America, and is now executing his most consummate work. To give the latest, and therefore the best, Japhetic elements a fair opportunity for undisturbed development here, God caused the preceding stock in western Europe to turn its commercial ambition toward the East, where England now wields the sceptre over two hundred millions of the Shemitic race. Simultaneously with the growth of that gigantic secular power in British India, a few sons of New England, mighty in faith, conceived a still grander enterprise, and modern missions bore the blessed gospel to the most ancient and benighted lands. Young Japhet Christianized in republican America, and marching with irresistible progress westward to join senior members of the civilizing household from the opposite point, according to Gen. ix. 27, "shall enlarge himself, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem," taking Ham by the way.
It is not the aim of the Christian religion to stifle the germs of individuality in man, but rather to disenthrall them from the crushing burdens with which they are overlaid by the lusts of the flesh and the vanities of life; as was at the first exemplified in the stronglymarked character of Peter and James, John and Paul. Individuals so freed and fortified ever constitute the chief agents of wise amelioration, and are the foremost heroes of comprehensive reforms. They are the powerful living preachers and inspiring writers who are full of the spirit of their own age, and yearn to subordinate it to the reign of Christ. They are ready often to accept of changes, and are always able to transform them into progress. Says the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews, "That which has become antiquated and decrepid with age, is nigh to its final disappearance." Then let us not cling to the dotage which belongs to the superstitions of superannuated nations, but press onward to achieve, without pause or encumbrance, our own more exalted and ennobling destiny.
The uniform migration assigned to human progress, and the region of its fondest aspirations, have always been in one direction. The Egyptians styled their paradise the land, and their god Osiris, the lord of the "West." The Atalantis, or "happy isles" of the Greeks were situated in the western ocean. To the west lay, likewise, "the land of spirits" of all our American savages. In fine, the great tree of humanity, vouchsafed to overshadow the whole earth, was made by the Divine Husbandman to germinate and send up its strong trunk in the ancient land of Asia. Grafted with a noble stalk, it shot forth new branches, and unfolded fairer blossoms in Europe; the best strength and sweetest odor of which seem destined soon to appear in America, embodied in its latest and richest fruit. Every thing here is happily arranged for the full accomplishment of the gracious designs of Providence for the triumph of the true, the just, and the good; so that if Christians are but faithful to this destination, the whole world will soon appear as a sublime concert of nations, blending their voices into a lofty harmony in the Creator's praise.
The introduction of "the voluntary system" into national religion, was a primary fruit of the American revolution. The scheme was entirely new, and grew out of the great movement westward, and Providence-wise, in the person and principles of Roger Williams. The Catholic church, which had been mainly instrumental in building up our modern civilization, became corrupt in consequence of the absolute supremacy which it attained. To preventthe like corruption from vitiating Christianity in this new land of her sojourn, the best mode was to accord equality to all her disciples, and no evil has resulted from the experiment. The support given to religion in the United States is larger than in any European state, except Great Britain; the professors of religion here are nearly as numerous as the electors, and public morality is certainly as well preserved as in any other part of the world. The ecclesiastical hierarchy of England costs as much as all the states of continental Europe put together, and contributes least to the promotion of vital religion among either people or clergy. About forty millions of dollars are paid annually to the church establishment, of which enormous sum not half a million is received by the four thousand two hundred and fifty-four poor curates, who do nearly all the professional work as deputies, dependent upon the absent state bishop, or neighboring aristocrat. This abominable system of pluralities has naturally introduced immorality and licentiousness among a large proportion of the upper clerical ranks. The mere form of religion is substituted in the place of spiritual power, and may be said to constitute the system of modern indulgences, by which men purchase for themselves a subterfuge from reproach. In America, the people claim the interposition of their state governments, in securing the freest secular education, while they deny the right or the utility of interfering in any degree with religion. But by the rulers of England the law is entirely reversed; they claim a strict superintendence of religious interests by government, and are only willing to leave every other department of instruction to the voluntary and unassisted efforts of individuals. Fears are sometimes entertained lest the great numbers of Catholic and other immigrants should exercise an inimical influence upon our resident population. But we should remember that the institutions indigenous to the United States are the most vigorous protest against both religious and political superstition, and by their own uncoerced influence will most effectively transform into their own likeness all comers thereunto. Maryland was settled with Catholics, yet it is certain that American Protestantism has exerted a much more powerful influence upon them than foreign Catholicism. The most conservative and zealous adherents to our civil and religious polity, especially in the great new States, are those whose alien parents recentlylanded on our free shores. We have convinced ourselves, and will yet teach the world, that the policy of government consists in permitting the utmost latitude of thought, and the fullest liberty of conscience.
Christianity did not take full possession of civil society in mediæval times, till the old races had been refreshed by the mixture of new men. Before then, says Troplong, it had "rather negotiated and transacted with the world than ruled with dominion." The new amalgam now forming under the mild splendor of western skies, will aggregate within itself the best results of all anterior religious discipline, and be made to superabound with original glories through newly added spiritual worth. Papacy may yet remain for a season, as a reminiscence of incipient culture, and the waymark of that power and progress which a fuller unfolding of Christianity will certainly surpass, as she proceeds to the ulterior accomplishment of her all-embracing mission. There will be no more pontiffs, when each child of humanity has become a renovated citizen, divinely anointed and equipped for the functions of acceptable worship. The great atonement, or sin-offering of mankind, was consummated by Christ, in his own personal sacrifice; and the great thank-offering of mankind became possible through Christ, by means of the Spirit. Henceforth there can be no more human priesthood or typical sacrifice between God and man, for the Mediator, the High Priest, is himself the God Man. The mediatorial act of reconciled humanity consists simply in unencumbered faith; trust in the love of God revealed to the individual believer in Jesus Christ by the Spirit, promised on that condition, and relying upon that Spirit to renew his own heart, and the world. It is thus that one is made to feel that the Christian religion is capable of an infinite expansion. God, man, mankind, are the three great factors which divine grace opens up in individual consciousness, utterly distinct from external conventionalisms, the harmonious completeness of which will yet realize the fullness of heavenly blessings on earth. In the beginning of this dispensation, a supernatural impulse prompted one hundred and twenty believers, men and women, natives and foreigners, assembled at Jerusalem, with Pentecostal fervor to burst forth in praise of God, not in the use of ritual formularies, nor in the extinct sacred language, but in the living tonguesof multifarious nations, which had then become the organs of an inward divine life and adoration common to all. But even that glorious outburst of spiritual freedom was local, and is yet to be infinitely more gloriously universalized. Then will our holy religion be seen in its wholeness, at once historical and ideal, human and divine; capable equally of individual and general application, and to be gratefully admired as well for its perpetual progress, as in its final triumphs.
The Lutheran reformation was the dissolution of popery, which constructed the church on false principles, rather than the restoration of the church constructed on true principles. The system superseded at the end of the Leoine age, had achieved the civilization of mankind, but true Christianization it was not competent to attain. Milton felt this when he wrote as follows: "Truth, indeed, once came into the world with her divine Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on, but when he ascended, and his apostles after him were laid asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon, with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time, ever since, the sad friends of Truth—such as durst appear—imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down, gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all, lords and commons, nor ever shall do till her Master's second coming. He shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mold them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection." Coincident with this cheering prophecy, and in the region where it was uttered, arose the Moravian brethren, with their disciples John Wesley and George Whitfield, to teach the despairing world and the dissolute or impotent churches, what real Christianity is, and to show reflecting Christians how little true power exists in national establishments and their crippled machinery. Whitfield, like the embodiment of seraphic zeal, fulmined from the interior of Oxford to the outer borders of our young republic, and having poured all the worth of his spirit into the fountain of religious life in America, gave his body to our soil, and now sleeps near Pilgrim Rock. Wesleyismdid much to regenerate the effete theology under whose ponderous impotency it originated, but is now fast losing its power by an increased assimilation to the surrounding curse of universal formalism. In the eastern portion of our own land, too, where her first foothold was gained, and the grandest conquests in fervid simplicity were secured, that communion is losing strength, we fear; but in the great West, the billows of heavenly fire augment as they advance, and millions of beautiful, as well as fruitful plants will hereafter spring, in consequence of the yet wider and freer spreadings of the celestial flames. Glory be to God, a westward fusion of races has begun, an assimilation of nations is in progress; all arbitrary frontiers are giving way; distances diminish; provincialisms disappear; sects and forms of worships are brought into contact, and are modified by every advantage flowing from salutary emulation, while they regard each other on a closer view with less animosity or reserve. Partisans whose views are short, and whose minds are narrow, may look with regret upon the disappearance of the differences which characterize absolute social systems. But fear not, men and brethren, we are spectators of a delightful and auspicious exhibition. Let nationalities disappear, and in their stead leave mankind free in the presence of their heavenly Father! They have tried long enough to form themselves into ameliorating leagues, and friendly alliances, under the sway of legislative force; the best alliance is that of the family, the equally free and unitedly loving family of Christ.
The heart of young America is not altogether in the past, but like the youth of all progressive peoples, it fondly anticipates a millennium to come. There is much new spiritual wine springing on our soil, and no wise husbandman will attempt to conserve it in old bottles. In the age which now is, has appeared an increased degree of independence and self-help, a growing opinion that man should select his own credo, construct his own opinions, pay no great deference to ancient usages, nor venerate any thing save honorable worth. This doctrine set in with the Sermon on the Mount, and no party or power on earth can arrest its universal adoption. We envy not the formalisms of that worship which vaunts itself amidst cathedral ostentation, where the organ and choir perform their mountebank mouthings over ashes, bones, and dead marble;gorgeous edifices, comparatively empty, which give back the sounds of weekly mummery, while hundreds of thousands live unrecked of, and die uncared for.
We want no chief priests to lounge in the senate, robed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day, and ambitious of laying their presumptuous hands on the advancing ark of truth only to retard it. The men of sacred functions whom our age and country demand, are those who hail the spirit of the times with joy, as the expanding soul of humanity, with its lightnings striking down the throne of tyranny and the altar of priestcraft. In fertilizing co-operation they waken arts and sciences, and bid them advance to bless the people, by erecting homes of comfort and culture amid prairies where the panther roamed, or on heights where the eagle propagated his glorious strength. With sanctified indignation they repel the arrogant claims of antique bigotry, and cease not revising the laws of property, the creeds of religion, the rights of the citizen; making the whole land a temple, a university, a lecture-room, a congress. Originating opinions, they render them free and prevalent as the national atmosphere; canceling the indentures of hereditary governors and teachers, popularizing all languages, with the richest treasures of each, exploring every ocean and cave, analyzing all substances, ransacking all libraries, they tend always and in every thing to discover and apply whatever is conducive to the health, comfort, and freedom of man. These are not rapid and speculative theorists, but the practical and beneficent workers for God and man. Passing amid the agitated and destitute crowds, they recognize in them the mighty woof of humanity, and teach each brother to throw his shuttle across the loom of time, and with fraternal delight weave the needful robe. A terrific power is indeed sleeping or waking in the vast multitudes now gathering in the West, and that which of all things is most requisite there and everywhere, is a high and pure moral education. Give them that under the eye, and for the glory, of that Father who overlooks the world, and with cheerful congratulations we may greet the changes which wait upon each revolving year, and walk unperturbed in presence of the sublime destinies of this mighty Union. When Columbus sailed toward the new and boundless world, while mutiny was in the vessel, and round him spread thewild and threatening billows, muttering despair, we are told that flowers, weeds, and stray leaves, floated near the ship, and resting on the mast-head came birds of the most beautiful and gorgeous plumage, and as the sun gleamed on their variegated wings, they seemed like the angels of hope beckoning across the watery waste. So to us in the midst of occasional tempests, and selfish cliques, appear the intimations of the promised land, fruitful of all good, to which we are hastening; and we only need to remind one another of these pleasant omens, which are too full of the promised triumph to allow the spirit of the Cape to either depress or destroy.
The education of "the Brigham girl," deaf, dumb, and blind, was a characteristic achievement of New England enterprise. The "Maine Law," and other kindred efforts for the prevention as well as cure of evils incident to fallen human nature, are worthy of the cause they serve, and honor that merciful God by whom they are inspired. The "Ragged School" has also traversed new shores of philanthropy and transformed the "Old Brewery" into the school-house of intelligence, and the temple of religion. In rooms where the master formerly taught young proficients how adroitly to pick pockets, and precocious lusts rioted in the most loathsome orgies, orphanage now practices the lessons of honorable industry, and rescued penitents bow in virtuous prayer. By hundreds the heirs of misfortune and involuntary victims of vice are gathered from the purlieus of our great eastern cities, in the bosom of judicious piety, and are instinctively borne to the far West as the asylum which affords a home for the protection and healthful exercise of each faculty and limb, be it young or old, feeble or strong. In the East we have heard much of the refinement of the college, and are glad, on a much broader and brighter scale, to see spreading the refinement of the cottage. The schoolmaster of the masses is the great minister for whom the mightiest generations wait. With increased effulgence they will arise to reflect and augment the brightness they have received; and, as in the Grecian race of old, they will cast onward the torch from one to another, till spiritual gloom and vassalage shall no more be found. Over all our vast western domain the rays of commingled truth and righteousness will eventually fall, like blessed flakes of beautiful light, penetrating, subduing, transforming into the image of Christ. The spiritof Christianity is vital and mighty, because it is the spirit of eternity, constituting that wholeness and heartiness which the world most needs. Without measure, the spirit of man will yet receive liberty, intelligence, religion, health; and to this end the old forms in which the word and Spirit of God have been immured and enshrined, as they move westward, will become increasingly unclasped, so that permanent power, free from the transient robe and chain, may go forth as the apostle of peace and herald of good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.
On the 14th of August, 1837, a statue to the memory of Guttenberg, the inventor of printing, was opened to the public at Mayence. High mass was performed by the bishop, and the first printed Bible was displayed. What a suggestive incident! Amid the imposing pageantries of Romanism, wherein popular worship is conducted in an unknown tongue, and by which the revelation of God is in great part kept a sealed book, that first printed copy was displayed, the germ of millions of Bibles which have spread the light of Christianity throughout the habitable globe. The two most influential eras of all authentic history stand most intimately connected with a more fundamental view of this incident—the diffusion of the Scriptures. The Septuagint version followed, and arose out of, the culmination of the Periclean age; and the formation of modern Bible Societies, was cotemporaneous with the inauguration of Washington. The former coincided with the perfection of the Greek language, then about to pervade the entire East, through the agency of Alexander; and the latter arose simultaneously with English supremacy in both hemispheres. All that is in the Bible will yet be in the world, realized by and for progressive amelioration, and every omen indicates that the ultimate fullness of knowledge and righteousness will be attained by mankind through the medium of our mother tongue. The free criticism of the sacred writings during the last fifty years has done infinitely more to advance than to prevent the understanding of the divine substance of them, not only in the New Testament, but also in the Old. The dead rationalism of the eighteenth century bore its own corpse to the grave, except where it has been preserved as a mummy in state churches, and cherished as a dead household god by effete hierarchies. But Christianity is the religion of the Spirit, and "theSpirit is Truth." Life only proceeds from life, and a corpse is none the more potent when wrapped in brilliant drapery. The pool of Bethesda imparted its healing properties only when the waters were moved. Earnest searching of the Scriptures, and repeated trials at a more perfect rendering of their saving import can result in nothing but good. Where life is, there is also spirit, a liberty which is enhanced and controlled by the mightiest spiritual life; but where life is not, there must be death, and by nothing can vitality be produced. Timid and slavish fears may still protest against improved criticism, and against this, as to all other religious progress, oppose that Medusa-head called the danger of rationalistic interpretation. But it is too late in the dawn of blessed experience and expectation to suffer ourselves to be petrified. As the free personal sacrifice of Christ offered once for all, was the central event of universal history, so is the full and free unfolding of his word, under the broad and unobscured sky-light of his Spirit, the central source of all sanctifying truth.
The great religious movement of our age is breaking up deeper and deeper strata each succeeding year, and the upturning of a still profounder and broader stratum is yet to come. Never before was the future apprehended with such excited desire and hope as by the present generation, for they most generally feel that a more radical regeneration is possible which shall contain within itself the fundamental element of a newer, better, and more durable social order. Not that in these United States we are in danger of relapsing into a Priest Church, or of becoming consolidated into a State Church, but that it is our peculiar mission, under God, to organize the People's Church, with Christ for our only legislator, teacher and judge. We believe that this divine Master would have no successor of Caiaphas to lord it over his flock, and no successor of Pontius Pilate or Tiberius, whether professedly in or out of the discipleship. He, our sympathizing friend, and merciful God, will have all men come to the knowledge of the truth, and then he will himself come again without sin unto salvation. If tyrants will not surrender their chains, and bigots refuse to modify their creeds in timely preparation for that final advent, the gigantic and flaming characters written on heaven and earth, as foretokens of approaching fulfillment, may nevertheless remain, that the obdurate may readthem in the glare of retribution, if they refuse to recognize their warning through the light of reason.
The heavenly ladder is revealed to weary humanity, even while slumbering heavily at its feet on pillows of stone. But the hour is near when with refreshed wakefulness, the blessing of triumphant deliverance so long wrestled for will be obtained. A new civilization has already been born, in which all the treasures of literature, art, science, philosophy and religion, the richest heritage from antecedent mind, will here blend in highest purity, to enjoy progress amid constantly decreased impediments, and display ultimate splendors without a spot. Charity will have fully combined with enthusiasm, and that hope which is the attribute of republics, and which finds its legitimate fortune wholly vested in the advance of its conscious mission, will be most divinely realized in the universal sovereignty of unadulterated faith. We are to remember, however, that the moral progress of our planet is slow. But in this particular it only resembles the general economy of the whole natural world, wherein the law evidently obtains that, the higher the value and the more important the nature of a given product, the slower is its march toward perfect development. Not a few sad features at present mark the general view. What boundless wastes of land are there without a temple or a school, the region of the inaccessible jungle and tangled woodland, haunted by savage beasts, and by nearly as savage men. What millions enter the pagodas of cruelty and lust, and shrink from the blaze that glitters along the marble, with strange emotions, or transfix themselves in the agonizing postures which cruel devotion or blank superstition requires. Coming to so-called civilized lands, what thousands lie confined in cells, where despots incarcerate the brave, who wait for the relief afforded by death, and leave behind them, with the memory of their sufferings, a gleam to lighten posterity. What thousands, slaves of cupidity, drive on the unheeding hour, and pray from the wretched cottage and the famished heart, "How long, oh Lord, how long?" What millions of lonely hunters pursue their way across the prairie and over the mountain, clothed in the savage skin, with the weapons of war in their hand for a defense. But all this only attests the youthfulness of our civilization, and affords the highest encouragementto our hope. The predestined and perpetual amelioration can not fail. Our sun, and system over which he presides, is so moving from his present position in space, that earth will one day be surrounded by skies whose nightly brilliancy shall infinitely transcend our present firmament; and though countless ages will pass away before the event fully transpires, yet, by an inevitable law, it must come.
Nations speaking the English language seem to be the appointed propagators of that Christian civilization upon which the future destinies of mankind depend, and which, once spread and rooted, will be everlasting. No other people have yet reached the degree of intelligence, liberty, reason, and power requisite to the exalted mission. Anglo-Americans have already attained the highest point of excellence possible to imperfect progress, and prove their great advance by the accurate test of superior invention. Thus occupying the head of modern culture, they are an exemplar to all nations, and the vanguard of humanity in its onward course. The deliberate but sure aggression of constitutional liberty and moral improvement will inevitably work out their beneficent consequences here and everywhere. The symptoms of tranquil progress and established freedom multiply and become more evident every day. There is good reason to believe that leading minds in every calling increasingly appreciate the blessings connected with the highest improvement, aware that the grandeur and permanency of a nation depend wholly on a social state founded on true religion, on a just and humane organization of industry, under the auspices of rational freedom.
The great movement, in which all Christian people more or less participate, and will henceforth participate to a much greater extent, has its origin in causes over which man has no power. It proceeds from Jehovah, who has willed that society at large should advance perpetually toward a goal, not indeed to be actually attained on earth, but which may be constantly approximated. Happy for us that our destiny has for its indestructible principle that primary and fundamental law by virtue of which humanity always tends to fortify its energies and perfect its growth; so that, in proportion as intelligence is exalted by Christianity, the juvenile man expands and develops himself into all the maturity of age. What is trueof the individual is true also of the community in general; it is required to traverse all the phases and successive conditions of life, in order to arrive in the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to the state of perfected humanity (Eph. iv. 13), at that grand era which the apostle termed the age of the fullness of Christ; and which, consummated through sublunary discipline as far as is possible, will reinstate us in the possession of those primitive rights and sacred liberties under the favor of which we shall realize that regenerated nature which the divine Saviour came to produce.
We have no occasion to despair of Providence. Having found God abundant in goodness and mercy as it respects all that has preceded us, we may expect that he will be found yet more manifest in what is to follow. To use the expression of a great German poet, in judgment and heart, "We are citizens of the time to come!" Firmly believing in the wise disposal of all events by the great and only Sovereign, the faith of confiding Christians survives the despair of the boldest secular heroes, knowing that the stream as it passes only goes nearer to the sea. The astronomer loses no confidence in a star at the time of an eclipse. The destiny of man is often determined by the very passions which seem designed to reverse it. Augustine went to Milan, intending to teach rhetoric, but it was to be converted by Ambrose, and thus to verify the saying of Anselm, that we are led "through vanity to truth." But let us not forget that neither the holiness nor heroism of former times will avail us and our posterity, if a lofty spirit, dignity, and innocence be not transmitted; that vain and worthless will be self-applause, and the most abundant material prosperity, if the grace of that Being is forfeited, who can pull down the mighty, confound the proud, and in the balance of unerring justice determine the fame and destiny of nations.
The leaven may seem lost in the lump for a while, but it will come at length in full force to the outer edge, and will be all the mightier for the purification it has wrought within. The profounder the renovation, the more protracted the time required. Truth stereotyped in blood lasts longer, and is more impressively read than when published by any other means. Fire burns brighter and wider when all the winds are let loose upon it. If kindled byoppression, the ashes of martyrs will sow the whole earth for a Cadmean harvest of indomitable heroes.
When the tongues of emancipating, and not destroying, flames sat in splendid freedom upon the brows of primitive Christians, they were equally crowned with a part of the sovereignty conquered by the great Deliverer, and spake with power because they respired spontaneously the free and vital air given to regenerate our fallen race. Such will be the condition of the church in the end, as it was in the beginning. The perfection of the social order depends upon the perfection of spiritual adoration. A well organized society, based upon and imbued with true religion, is the most beautiful temple that can be elevated to the supreme Deity. Liberty, Law, Peace, these three words were engraved upon the entrance to the chief shrine at Delphi; they will yet be written along the entire circumference of our globe; and radiate with the glory of Christ from pole to equator, and from equator to pole.
THE END.