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diff --git a/26441.txt b/26441.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3ebd5d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/26441.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4404 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Humanity in the City, by E. H. Chapin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Humanity in the City + +Author: E. H. Chapin + +Release Date: August 27, 2008 [EBook #26441] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUMANITY IN THE CITY *** + + + + +Produced by Julia Miller and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries. + + + + + + + + + +HUMANITY IN THE CITY. + + + * * * * * + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as +faithfully as possible; please see list of printing issues at the end +of the text. + + * * * * * + + +[Illustration: E. H. Chapin] + + + + +HUMANITY IN THE CITY. + +BY THE + +REV. E. H. CHAPIN. + + + NEW YORK: + DE WITT & DAVENPORT, PUBLISHERS, + 160 & 162 NASSAU STREET. + + BOSTON: + ABEL TOMPKINS, 38 & 40 CORNHILL. + + * * * * * + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by +DE WITT & DAVENPORT, + +In the Clerk's Office of the U. S. District Court +for the Southern District of New York + + + G. W. ALEXANDER, + BINDER, + 9 Spruce Street. + + W. H. TINSON. + STEREOTYPER, + 24 Beekman Street. + + TAWS, RUSSELL & CO. + PRINTERS, + No. 26 Beekman Street. + + + * * * * * + + +CONTENTS. + + PAGE + + I. THE LESSONS OF THE STREET 13 + + II. MAN AND MACHINERY 39 + + III. THE STRIFE FOR PRECEDENCE 65 + + IV. THE SYMBOLS OF THE REPUBLIC 93 + + V. THE SPRINGS OF SOCIAL LIFE 123 + + VI. THE ALLIES OF THE TEMPTER 157 + + VII. THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR 187 + + VIII. THE HELP OF RELIGION 223 + + + * * * * * + + + + +PREFACE. + + +A volume like the present hardly requires the formality of a preface. It +is the continuation of a series already published, and, like that, aims +at applying the highest standard of Morality and Religion to the phases +of every-day life. In order, however, that the view with which these +discourses have been prepared may not be misconceived, I wish merely to +say that I am far from supposing that these are the only themes to be +preached, or that they constitute the highest class of practical +subjects, and shall be sorry if in any way they seem to imply a neglect +of that interior and holy life which is the spring not only of right +affections, but of clear perception and sturdy, every-day duty. I hope, +on the contrary, that the very aspects of this busy city life--the very +problems which start out of it--will tend to convince men of the +necessity of this inward and regenerating principle. Nevertheless, I +maintain that these topics have a place in the circle of the preacher's +work, and he need entertain no fear of desecrating his pulpit by secular +themes, who seeks to consecrate all things in any way involving the +action and the welfare of men, by the spirit and aims of His Religion +who, while he preached the Gospel, likewise fed the hungry, healed the +sick, and touched the issues of every temporal want. I may have failed +in the method, I trust I have not in the purpose. + + E. H. C. + +_New York, May, 1854._ + + + + +THE LESSONS OF THE STREET. + +HUMANITY IN THE CITY. + + + + +DISCOURSE I. + +THE LESSONS OF THE STREET. + + Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the + streets.--PROVERBS, i. 20. + + +The great truths of religion may be communicated to the mind and the +heart in two ways--by abstract treatment, and by illustration. It must +be taken up in its absolute connection with God, and with our own souls. +In solitary meditation, in self-examination, and in prayer, we shall +learn the intrinsic claims which Faith and Duty have upon reason and +conscience. But we cannot proceed far before we discover the necessity +of some _symbol_, by which these abstract principles may be made +distinct to us. And, looking around for this purpose, we find that all +the phases of existence are full of spiritual illustration--full of +religious suggestion and argument. Thus our Saviour pronounced his great +doctrines of Eternal Life, and of Personal Religion, and then turned to +the world for a commentary. Under his teaching nature became an +illuminated missal, lettered by the lilies of the field, and pencilled +with hues that played through the leaves of Olivet. The wild birds, in +their flight, bore upward the beautiful lesson of Providence, and the +significance of the Kingdom of Heaven was contained in a mustard-seed. +By no abstruse reasoning did he make his instructions so vivid to his +disciples, and so fresh to ourselves. But he awoke the conviction of +moral need, and repentance, and Divine Love, by drawing from instances +with which they had been familiar all their lives--the procedures of +government, the transactions of business, the labors of the husbandman, +and the incidents of home. And the result is essentially the same, +whether we start with the religious truth to find some illustration in +the world around us, or from some aspect of human life, or nature, +extract a religious truth. Nor need this always be sharply obvious. It +is only necessary that our point of view be sufficiently elevated to +throw a spiritual light upon things, and to reveal their moral +relations; for, often, our understandings are cleared, and our hearts +made better, by the mere scope and tendency of such observations. + +With this conviction, I called your attention, last winter, to some of +the "Aspects of City Life," and with the same view, I wish now to +address you, for a few Sunday evenings, on the Conditions of Humanity in +the City, in which series I shall endeavor not only to present new +topics of interest, but to urge more explicitly some points, which, in +the afore-mentioned discourses, I merely touched upon. + +The essential meaning of the personification in the text is in +accordance, I think, with the general tenor of remark which I have just +been making. For I understand it to mean, that everything is +instructive, that even in the common ways of life the most important +truths, and the profoundest moral and religious significance, are +contained. And the words before us, also, specifically indicate the +subject upon which I wish to speak this evening, for they declare that +"Wisdom... uttereth her voice in the streets." + +The street through which you walk every day; with whose sights and +sounds you have been familiar, perhaps, all your lives; is it all so +common-place that it yields you no deep lessons,--deep and fresh, it may +be, if you would only look around with discerning eyes? Engaged with +your own special interests, and busy with monotonous details, you may +not heed it; and yet there is something finer than the grandest poetry, +even in the mere spectacle of these multitudinous billows of life, +rolling down the long, broad, avenue. It is an inspiring lyric, this +inexhaustible procession, in the misty perspective ever lost, ever +renewed, sweeping onward between its architectural banks to the music of +innumerable wheels; the rainbow colors, the silks, the velvets, the +jewels, the tatters, the plumes, the faces--no two alike--shooting out +from unknown depths, and passing away for ever--perpetually sweeping +onward in the fresh air of morning, under the glare of noon, under the +fading, flickering light, until the shadow climbs the tallest spire, and +night comes with revelations and mysteries of its own. + +And yet this changeful tide of activity is no mere lyric. It is an epic, +rather, unfolding in its progress the contrasts, the conflicts, the +heroisms, the failures,--in one word, the great and solemn issues of +human life. And a few comprehensive lessons from that "Wisdom which +uttereth her voice in the streets," may prove a fitting introduction, +from which we can pass to consider more specific conditions of humanity +in the city. + +Taking up the subject in this light, I observe that the first lesson of +the street is in the illustration which it affords us of the +_diversities of human conditions_. The most superficial eye recognizes +this. A city is, in one respect, like a high mountain; the latter is an +epitome of the physical globe; for its sides are belted by products of +every zone, from the tropical luxuriance that clusters around its base, +to its arctic summit far up in the sky. So is the city an epitome of +the social world. All the belts of civilization intersect along its +avenues. It contains the products of every moral zone. It is +cosmopolitan, not only in a national, but in a spiritual, sense. Here +you may find not only the finest Saxon culture, but the grossest +barbaric degradation. There you pass a form of Caucasian development, +the fine-cut features, the imperial forehead, the intelligent eye, the +confident tread, the true port and stature of a man. But who is this +that follows in his track; under the same national sky, surrounded by +the same institutions, and yet with those pinched features, that stunted +form, that villainous look; is it Papuan, Bushman, or Carib? Fitly +representing either of these, though born in a Christian city, and +bearing about not only the stamp of violated physical law, but of moral +neglect and baseness. And no one needs to be told that there are savages +in New York, as well as in the islands of the sea. Savages, not in +gloomy forests, but under the strength of gas-light, and the eyes of +policemen; with war-whoops and clubs very much the same, and garments as +fantastic, and souls as brutal, as any of their kindred at the +antipodes. China, India, Africa, will you not find their features in +some circles of the social world right around you? Idolatry! you cannot +find any more gross, any more cruel, on the broad earth, than within the +area of a mile around this pulpit. Dark minds from which God is +obscured; deluded souls, whose fetish is the dice-box or the bottle; +apathetic spirits, steeped in sensual abomination, unmoved by a moral +ripple, soaking in the slump of animal vitality. False gods, more +hideous, more awful, than Moloch or Baal; worshipped with shrieks, +worshipped with curses, with the hearth-stone for the bloody altar, and +the drunken husband for the immolating priest, and women and children +for the victims. I have no terms of respect too high for the brave and +conscientious men who carry the gospel, and their own lives, in their +hands to distant shores. But, surely, they need not go thus far to +_seek_ for the benighted and the debased. They may find there a wider +extent of heathenism, but none more intense than that which prevails +close by the school and the church. The richest products of modern +progress and Christian culture grow on the verge of barren wastes, and +jungles of violence, and "the region of the shadow of death." + +In the street, however, not only do we behold these different degrees of +civilization, but those problems of diversity, which the highest form of +existing civilization developes--the diversities of extreme poverty, and +extreme wealth, for instance. Here sits the beggar, sick and pinched +with cold; and there goes a man of no better flesh and blood, and no +more authentic charter of soul, wrapped in comfort, and actually bloated +with luxury. There issues the whine of distress, beside the glittering +carriage-wheels. There, amidst the rush of gaiety; the busy, selfish +whirl; half naked, shivering, with her bare feet on the icy pavement, +stands the little girl, with the shadow of an experience upon her that +has made her preternaturally old, and it may be, driven the angel from +her face. Still, we cannot believe that above that wintry heaven which +stretches over her, there is less regard for the poor, neglected child, +than for that rosy belt of infant happiness which girdles and gladdens +ten thousand hearths. + +And here, too, through the brilliant street, and the broad light of day, +walks Purity, enshrined in the loveliest form of womanhood. And along +that same street by night, attended by fitting shadows, strolls +womanhood discrowned, clothed with painted shame, yet, even in the +springs of that guilty heart not utterly quenched. We render just homage +to the one, we pour scorn upon the other; but, could we trace back the +lines of circumstance, and inquire why the one stands guarded with such +sweet respect, and why the other has fallen, we might raise problems +with which we cannot tax Providence, which we may not lay altogether to +the charge of the condemned, but for which we might challenge an answer +from society. + +And, if we would ascertain the practical purport of this lesson of human +diversity which is so conspicuous in the street--the meaning of these +sharp contrasts of refinement and grossness, intelligence and ignorance, +respectability and guilt--we only ask a question that thousands have +asked before us. And yet, it is possible to surmise the purpose of these +diversities. We know, for one thing, that out of them come some of the +noblest instances of character and of achievement. Ignorance and crime +and poverty and vice, stand in fearful contrast to knowledge and +integrity and wealth and purity; but they likewise constitute the dark +background against which the virtues of human life stand out in radiant +relief; virtues developed by the struggle which they create; virtues +which seem impossible without their co-existence. For, whence issues any +such thing as _virtue_, except out of the temptation and antagonism of +vice? How could _Charity_ ever have appeared in the world, were there no +dark ways to be trodden by its bright feet, and no suffering and sadness +to require its aid? I look at these asylums, these hospitals, these +ragged schools--a zodiac of beautiful charities, girdling all this +selfishness and sin--I look at these monuments which humanity will honor +when war shall be but a legend, and laurels have withered to dust; and +when I think what they have grown out of, and why they stand here, I +regard them as so many sublime way-marks by which Providence unfolds its +purposes among men, and by which men trace out the plan of God. + +And then, again, perhaps this problem of human diversity presses +heaviest where civilization is the most advanced, in order that men may +be more sharply aroused to seek some practical solution. It is an +encouraging sign when an evil begins to be intensely felt, and the +demand for relief becomes desperate. The civilization of our time is +imperfect; involves many incongruities; perhaps creates some evils; but +that it is an improved civilization, is evinced by the fact that it is +_self-conscious_; for perception is the necessary antecedent of endeavor +and success. The contrasts of human condition, then, that unfold +themselves in the crowded street, may teach us our duty and our +responsibility in lessening social inequality and need. + +But a solution of this problem, clearer perhaps than any other, appears +when we consider another lesson of the street; a lesson which requires +us to look a little deeper, but which, when we do look, is no less +evident than these diversities. That lesson unfolds the essential +_unity_ of humanity. For, we find that the differences between men are +_formal_ rather than _real_; that, with various outward conditions, they +pass through the same great trials; and that the scales which seem to +hang uneven at the surface, and to be tipped this way and that by the +currents of worldly fortune, are very nearly balanced in the depths of +the inner life. We are shallow judges of the happiness or the misery of +others, if we estimate it by any marks that distinguish them from +ourselves; if, for instance, we say that because they have more money +they are happier, or because they live more meagrely they are more +wretched. For, men are allied by much more than they differ. The rich +man, rolling by in his chariot, and the beggar, shivering in his rags, +are allied by much more than they differ. It is safer, therefore, to +estimate our neighbor's real condition by what we find in our own lot, +than by what we do not find there. And now, see into what an essential +unity this criterion draws the jostling, divergent masses in yonder +street! Each man there, like all the rest, finds life to be a +discipline. Each has his separate form of discipline; but it bears upon +the kindred spirit that is in every one of us, and strikes upon motives, +sympathies, faculties, that run through the common humanity. Surely, you +will not calculate any _essential_ difference from mere appearances; for +the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over brackish +depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that +covers a divine peace. You know that the bosom _can_ ache beneath +diamond brooches, and how many blithe hearts dance under coarse wool. +But I do not allude merely to these accidental contrasts. I mean that +about equal measures of trial, equal measures of what men call good and +evil, are allotted to all; enough, at least, to prove the identity of +our humanity, and to show that we are all subjects of the same great +plan. You say that the poor man who passes yonder, carrying his burden, +has a hard lot of it, and it may be he has; but the rich man who brushes +by him has a hard lot of it too--just as hard for _him_, just as well +fitted to discipline him for the great ends of life. He has his money +to take care of; a pleasant occupation, you may think; but, after all, +an _occupation_, with all the strain and anxiety of labor, making more +hard work for him, day and night, perhaps, than his neighbor has who +digs ditches or thumps a lapstone. And it is quite likely that he feels +poorer than the poor man, and, if he ever becomes self-conscious, has +great reason to feel meaner. And then, he has his rivalries, his +competitions, his troubles of caste and etiquette, so that the merchant, +in his sumptuous apartments, comes to the same essential point, "sweats, +and bears fardels," as well as his brother in the garret; tosses on his +bed with surfeit, or perplexity, while the other is wrapped in peaceful +slumber; and, if he is one who recognizes the moral ends of life, finds +himself called upon to contend with his own heart, and to fight with +peculiar temptations. And thus the rich man and the poor man, who seem +so unequal in the street, would find but a thin partition between them, +could they, as they might, detect one another kneeling on the same +platform of spiritual endeavor, and sending up the same prayers to the +same eternal throne. + +But, say you, "here is one who is returning to a home of destitution, of +misery; where the light of the natural day is almost shut out, but in +which brood the deeper shadows of despair." And yet, in many a splendid +mansion you will find a more fearful destitution, a dearth of +affections, killed by envy, jealousy, distrust; stifled by glittering +formalities; a brood of evil passions that mock the splendor, and darken +the magnificent walls. The measure of joy, too, is distributed with the +same impartiality as the measure of woe. The child's grief throbs +against the round of its little heart as heavily as the man's sorrow; +and the one finds as much delight in his kite or drum, as the other in +striking the springs of enterprise or soaring on the wings of fame. +After all, happiness is the rule, not the exception, even in the hearts +that beat in the crowded city; and its great elements are as common as +the air, and the sunshine, and free movement, and good health. And what +the fortunate may seem to gain in variety of methods, may only be +unconscious devices to simulate or recover that natural relish which +others have never lost. And no one doubts that the great dispensations +of life, the events that make epochs in our fleeting years, cleave +through all the strata of outward difference, and lay bare the core of +our one humanity. Sickness! does it not make Dives look very much like +Lazarus, and show our common weakness, and reveal the common marvel of +this "harp of thousand strings?" And sorrow! it veils all faces, and +bows all forms alike, and sends the same shudder through the frame, and +casts the same darkness upon the walls, and peals forth in the same +dirge of maternal agony by the dead boy's cradle in the sumptuous +chamber, and the baby's last sleep on its bed of straw. And Death! how +wonderfully it makes them all alike who in the street wore such various +garments, and had such distinct aims, and were whirled apart in such +different orbits! Ah! our essential humanity comes out in those composed +forms and still features. Those divergent currents have carried them out +upon the same placid sea at last; and the same solemn light streams +upon the clasped hands and the uplifted faces. We don't mind the drapery +so much then. It seems a very superficial matter beside the silent and +starless mystery that enfolds them all. + +In what I have thus said I do not mean to maintain that outward +conditions are nothing. I think they are a great deal; and we do right +in striving to improve them; in escaping the evil, and seeking to secure +the good that pertains to them. But, I repeat, when we come to the +essential humanity, to the real discipline and substance of life, we +find the same great features; and so this lesson of the street may help +explain the problem suggested by the other; may reconcile each of us to +our condition in the crowd, and direct our attention to substantial +results. + +But, again, the street, with its processions and activities, teaches us +that much in human life is merely _phenomenal_, merely _appears_. We +enter into this truth by a very common train of observation. We know how +much is put on purposely for the public gaze, and has no other intention +than to be seen; how hollow are many of the smiles, and gay looks, and +smooth decencies. And even the complexion of some, with its red and +white, is more unsubstantial than all the rest; for it is in danger of +being washed away by the first shower. It is strange to meet people +whose personal significance in life is that of a shop window exhibiting +lace and jewelry; strange to encounter men in whose place we might +substitute a well-dressed effigy, and they would hardly be missed. Of +course appearances should be attended to, and are good in their place. +It is right that we should honor society by our best looks and ways. But +it is not merely ridiculous, it is sad, to think how much in the street, +where humanity exhibits all its phases, is appearance and but little +else. + +But dress and manners are not all that is phenomenal in human life. +These men and women themselves, this streaming crowd, these brick walls +and stately pinnacles, those that pursue and the things that are +pursued, are only appearances. It may be profitable for us to stand +apart from this multitude, this river of living forms, and think in how +short a time it all will have passed away; how short a time since, and +it was not! A little while ago, and this rich and populous city was a +green island, and our beautiful bay clasped it in its silver arms like +an emerald. The wilderness stood here, and the child of the forest +thought of it as a prepared abiding place for himself and for his people +for ever. The red man has gone; the wild woods have vanished; and these +structures, and vehicles, and busy crowds, have come into their places +magically, like the new picture in a dissolving view. But are these +forms of life, is your presence here or mine, any more substantial than +those that have sunk away? Nay, all this splendid civilization, what is +it but a sparkling ripple in the calm eternity of God? Dwellings, +stores, banks, churches, streets, and the restless multitudes, are but +forms of life,--as it were a rack of cloud drifting across the mirror of +absolute being. That which seems to you substantial is only spectral. +And as the dress of the fop, and the smile of the coquette, is merely an +appearance; so the wealth for which men strain in eager chase, and the +fabrics which pride builds up, the anvils on which labor strikes its +mighty blows, and the body to which so much is devoted, and which +absorbs so much care, are but appearances also. While that which may +seem to you as a shadow--the spiritual substratum of life, the basis of +those spiritual laws which run through all our conditions--is the only +abiding substance. + +If we only look in this light, my friends, upon the continuous spectacle +of human movement and human change, we shall find that "Wisdom... +uttereth her voice in the streets." Old as the thought may be, in the +rush of the great crowd it will come to us fresh and impressively, that +all this is but a form of spiritual and eternal being. A day in the city +is like life itself. Out of unconscious slumber into the brilliant +morning and the thick activity we come. But, by-and-by, the heaving mass +breaks into units, and one by one dissolves into the shadow of the +night. Two cities grow up side by side--the city in which men appear, +the city into which they vanish; the city whose houses and goods they +possess for a little while and then leave behind them, and the city +whose white monuments just show us the pinnacles of their estates in the +eternal world. The busy, diversified crowd that rolls through the +streets--it is only an appearance! It is a ceaseless march of +emigration. In a little while, the names in this year's Directory may be +read in Greenwood. + +But we must not rest with this as the final lesson of the street. It is +only the form of Life that is transient and phenomenal; but the _Life_ +itself is here, also--here, in these flashing eyes, and heaving breasts, +and active limbs. These conditions, however transient, involve the great +interest of Humanity; and that lends the deepest significance to these +conditions. The interest of Humanity! which gives importance to all it +touches, and transforms nature into history; which imparts dignity to +the rudest workshop, and the most barren shore, and the humblest +grave--this permits us to draw no mean or discouraging conclusions from +the achievements and the changes of the multitudes around us. It may do +for the skeptic, who sees nothing in existence but these forms of +things; who sees nothing but the limited phenomena of our present state, +and thinks that includes all; it may do for him to croak over the +transitoriness of life, and call it a trivial game. But it is _not_ +trivial; and there is no spot where man acts, there is nothing that he +does, that is insignificant. Perhaps you have a quick eye for the +foibles of people, and can detect their vanities, and meannesses, and +laughable conceits. If you employ this gift to correct a bad habit, or +expose a falsehood, it is well enough. But if it induces you to look +upon things merely with the skill of a satirist, then let me say, there +is no "ludicrous side" to life; there is nothing in human conduct that +is simply absurd. The least transaction has a moral cast, and every word +and act reveals spiritual relations. The interest of man can never be +thrown into insignificance by his conditions; these draw interest from +him. And, whatever his post in the world, however limited or broad his +sphere of observation, for _him_ life is real, and has intense +relations. We must not stand so far apart from the crowd as to occupy +the position of mere spectators, and regard these men and women as so +many mechanical figures in a panorama. We must look through the depths +of their experience into their own souls, and through the depths of that +experience again upon the world, beholding it as it appears to the +beggar, and the lonely woman, and the child of vice and crime, and the +hero, and the saint, and as it falls with intense yet diverse +refractions upon all these multiform angles of personality. So shall we +learn to cherish a solemn and tender interest in the dear humanity +around us, and feel the arteries of sympathy which connect it, in all +its conditions, with our own hearts. And, as we return homeward from our +study of the street, it may be with our irritation, and prejudice, and +selfishness softened down; with a larger love flowing out towards the +least, and even the worst; realizing the spiritual ties that make us +one, and the Infinite Fatherhood that encircles us all; perhaps +suggestions will come to us that have been best expressed in the words +of the poet-- + + "Let us move slowly through the street, + Filled with an ever-shifting train, + Amid the sound of steps that beat + The murmuring walks like autumn rain. + + "How fast the flitting figures come! + The mild, the fierce, the stony face; + Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some + Where secret tears have left their trace. + + * * * * * + + "Each, where his tasks or pleasures call + They pass, and heed each other not. + There is, Who heeds, Who holds them all, + In His large love and boundless thought. + + "These struggling tides of life that seem, + In wayward, aimless course to tend, + Are eddies of the mighty stream + That rolls to its appointed end." + + + + +MAN AND MACHINERY. + + + + +DISCOURSE II. + +MAN AND MACHINERY. + + For the spirit of the living creature was in the + wheels.--EZEKIEL, i. 20. + + +Whatever may have been the significance of the sublime vision from which +I have extracted those words, I do not think that their essential +meaning is perverted when I apply them to the subject which comes before +us this evening. I am not aware of any sentence that expresses more +concisely the relation which I would indicate between _Man_ and +_Machinery_; between those great agents of human achievement and the +living intelligence which works in them and by them. And though a Divine +Spirit moved in those flashing splendors which burned before the eyes of +the prophet, is it not also a divine spirit that mingles in every great +manifestation of humanity, and that moves even in the action of man, +the worker, toiling among innumerable wheels? + +Perhaps if we were called upon to name some one feature of the present +age which distinguishes it from all other ages, and endows it with a +special wonder and glory, we should call it the Age of Machinery. We +trust our age is unfolding something better than material triumphs. The +results of past thought and past endeavor are pouring through it in +expanding currents of knowledge, liberty, and brotherhood. But the great +_agents_ in this diffusion of ideas and principles are those vehicles of +iron, and those messengers of lightning, which compress the huge globe +into a neighborhood, and bring all its interests within the system of a +daily newspaper. Like the generations which have preceded us, we enter +into the labors of others, and inherit the fruits of their effort. But +these powerful instruments, condensing time and space, endow a single +half-century with the possibilities of a cycle. If we take the period +comprehending the American and the French revolutions as a dividing +line, and look both sides the chasm, we shall discover the difference +of a thousand years. Remarkable for brilliant achievements in every +department of physics, ours well deserves to be called the Age of +_Science_, also. But it is still more remarkable, for the application of +the most majestic and subtle constituents of the universe to the most +familiar uses; the wild forces of matter have been caught and harnessed. +Go into any factory, and see what fine workmen we have made of the great +elements around us. See how magnificent nature has humbled itself, and +works in shirt-sleeves. Without food, without sweat, without weariness, +it toils all day at the loom, and shouts lustily in the sounding wheels. +How diligently the iron fingers pick and sort, and the muscles of steel +retain their faithful gripe, and enormous energies run to and fro with +an obedient click; while forces that tear the arteries of the earth and +heave volcanoes, spin the fabric of an infant's robe, and weave the +flowers in a lady's brocade. + +I think, then, we may appropriately call it--The Age of Machinery. It is +not a peculiarity of the city, but, rather, seeks room to stretch +itself out; and so you may perceive its smoky signals hovering over a +thousand vallies, and the echo of its mighty pulses throbbing among the +loneliest hills. Nevertheless, it is sufficiently developed here to +illustrate the Conditions of Humanity in the City, and this fact, +together with the general interest of the subject, is my warrant for +taking it up in the present discourse. And my remarks must necessarily +be of a general cast, as I have no room for the statistics, and details, +and various discussions which grow out of the theme. + +And the key-note of all that I shall say, at the present time, is really +in the text itself--"For the spirit of the living creature was in the +wheels." + +In the first place, these words suggest the relations of _Use_ and +_Help_ between Man and Machinery. Upon surveying these numerous and +complicated instruments, the thought that most readily occurs, perhaps, +is that of the _necessity_ of machinery. The very first step that man +takes, out of the condition of infant weakness and animal rudeness, must +be accomplished by the aid of some implement. He alone, of all beings +upon the face of the earth, is obliged to _invent_, and is capable of +endless invention. The necessity for this springs out, and is a prophecy +of, his destiny. The moment he was seen fashioning the first tool, +however imperfect, that moment was indicated the difference between +himself and the brute, and the control he was destined to gain over the +world about him. To fulfil this destiny, he confronts nature with naked +hands; and yet, there is the earth to plough, the harvest to reap, the +torrent to bridge, the ocean to cross; there are all the results to +achieve which constitute the difference between the primitive man, and +the civilization of the nineteenth century. The Machine, then--the agent +which links the gratification to the want--is born of necessity. But we +must make a distinction between those instruments which are positively +essential, and those, for instance, which merely answer the demands of +luxury or indolence. + +And this brings up the question of the _comparative_ uses of +Machinery--the foremost place being assigned to those implements which +are absolutely indispensable to man's existence upon the earth. But +between this absolute degree, and that of frivolous invention, there are +countless grades of utility. And the question of usefulness must be +decided according to the _standard_ of utility which we apply. If bare +subsistence is assumed to be the end of man upon the earth, most of our +modern inventions are useless. We can travel without a locomotive, and +procure a meal without a cooking-range. The moment we rise above the +grossest conception of human existence, the test of usefulness becomes +enlarged, and we can make a safe decision upon whatever increases man's +comfort, adds to his ability, or inspires his culture. In this way, new +things _become_ indispensable. That which was not necessary _a priori_, +_is_ necessary now, in a fresh stage of development, and in connection +with circumstances that have sprung up and formed around it. That which +was not necessary to man the savage, living on roots and raw fish, is +necessary to man the civilized, with new possibilities opening before +him, and new faculties unfolded within him. The printing-press was not +absolutely necessary to Nimrod, or to Julius Caesar, but is it not +absolutely necessary now? Strike it out of existence to-day, and what +would be the condition of the world to-morrow? You would have to tear +away with it all that has grown up around it, and become assimilated to +it--the textures of the world's growth for three hundred years. Paul +moved the old world without a telegraph, and Columbus found a new one +without a steamship. But see how essential these agents are to the +present condition of civilization. How many derangements among the +wheels of business, and the plans of affection, if merely a snow-drift +blocks the cars, or a thunder-storm snaps the wires! Our estimate of +necessity, and, therefore, of utility, must be formed according to +present conditions, and the legitimate demand that rises out of them; +these conditions themselves being the necessary developments of society +and of the individual. + +But some of these, you may say, are the demands of luxury, of indolent +ease, of man setting nature to work and lapsing in self-indulgence. To +some degree this result may grow out of the present state of things; as +some portion of evil will follow in the sweep of an immense good. But +what is the precise sentence to be passed upon this prevalent luxury? Of +course, admitting the evil--which is apparent--I maintain that there is +a great deal of good in it; that it is inextricably associated with much +real refinement and progress. Men are accustomed to speak of the +simplicity and purity of past times, and to compare, with a sigh, the +good old era of the stage-coach and the spinning-wheel with these days +of whizzing machinery, Aladdin palaces, and California gold. But the +core of logic that lies within this rind of sentiment forces a +conclusion that I can by no means admit, the conclusion that the world +is going backward. I never knew of an epoch that was not thought by some +then living to be the worst that ever was, and which did not seem to +stand in humiliating contrast with some blessed period gone by. But the +golden age of Christianity is in the future, not in the past. Those old +ages are like the landscape that shows best in purple distance, all +verdant and smooth and bathed in mellow light. But could we go back and +touch the reality, we should find many a swamp of disease, and rough +and grimy paths of rock and mire. Those were good old times, it may be +thought, when baron and peasant feasted together. But the one could not +read, and made his mark with a sword-pommel; and the other was not held +so dear as a favorite dog. Pure and simple times were those of our +grandfathers,--it may be. Possibly not so pure as we may think, however, +and with a simplicity ingrained with some bigotry and a good deal of +conceit. The fact is, we are bad enough, imperfect, not because we are +growing worse, but because we are yet far from the best. I think, +however, with Lord Bacon, that _these_ are "the old times." The world is +older now than it ever was, and it contains the best life and fruition +of the past. And this special condition of luxury is a growth out of the +past, and is the necessary concomitant of much that is good. Opening new +channels for industry, it furnishes occupation for thousands; while, in +many of its phases, it indicates a refined culture, and a sphere +elevated above the imperative wants of existence. It is no proof of the +disadvantages of machinery, therefore, to say that it ministers to +something beside absolute bodily need, and delivers man from a slow and +exhausting drudgery. So far as it helps us to control nature, and +increases the facilities of human intercourse, and diffuses general +comfort and elegance, and affords a respite from incessant physical +toil, so far it is an agent and a sign of progress. + +But, it may be said again, that it is the agent of a selfish and +exclusive power, enriching a few and injuring many. And it cannot be +denied that grave problems grow out of the relations between Machinery +and the laboring classes. Every little while, some new invention is +thrust forward, which takes a portion of labor out of the hands of flesh +and transfers it to hands of iron. It is not enough to say that mankind +in general is benefited by these inanimate agents, which do the work of +the world so much more rapidly and powerfully. This may answer as an +argument against a monopoly of any one kind of mechanical force. It may +be a reason for using cars instead of steamboats, and balloons rather +than railroads. The general good must be advanced, whatever the damage +to private interests. But the present case brings up the question +whether machinery is a general good at all; whether the effect of its +introduction into almost every department of labor, will not be felt in +the destitution of millions. And, upon this point, I observe, that, like +all other great revolutions, the immediate effect may be such as has +been suggested. But the final result will be beneficial, and such a +result may be traced out even now. For instance, this clogging of old +departments of labor will precipitate men upon fresh ones, and upon +those that have been too much neglected. It will tend to introduce woman +to branches of industry perfectly suited to her, but which have been too +exclusively occupied by the other sex, and to turn the attention of +robust men to those great fields of productive toil which are as yet but +little improved. It may drive them from the dependence, the crowded +competition, the unwholesome life of the city, into the broad fields and +open air and the sovereignty of the soil. And if this immense intrusion +of machinery has only this result, of equalizing the balance against +production, we shall have one solution of the problem. And there will be +another solution, if this phalanx of mechanism shall lift the mass of +men above the occasions of coarse material drudgery into other +activities, which doubtless will be thrown open, and shall allow more +leisure for spiritual culture. But in this, and all other great +questions affecting human welfare, I throw myself back, finally, upon +the tokens of Providential Design. The world moves forward, not +backward; and the great developments of time are for good, not evil. By +machinery, man proceeds with his dominion over nature. He assimilates it +to himself; it becomes, so to speak, a part of himself. Every great +invention is the enlargement of his own personality. Iron and fire +become blood and muscle, and gravitation flows in the current of his +will. His pulses beat in the steamship, throbbing through the deep, +while the fibres of his heart and brain inclose the earth in an electric +network of thought and sympathy. That which was given to help man, will +not hinder nor hurt him. "For the spirit of the living creature is in +the wheels." + +I observe, in the second place, that the words of the text accord with +the testimony which machinery bears to the _dignity of man_. All these +great inventions--these implements of marvellous skill and power--prove +that the inventor, or the worker, himself is _not_ a machine. I know of +nothing which gives me so forcible an impression of the worth and +superiority of mind, of its alliance with the Creative Intelligence, as +the exhibition of an ingenious piece of mechanism. I have stood with +wonder before such a specimen, and seen it work with all the precision +of a reflecting creature. Lifting the most tremendous weights, cleaving +the most solid masses, performing the nicest tasks, as though a living +intellect were in it, informing it and directing its power. I hardly +know of any achievement that stands as a higher witness for the human +mind. The great poem that bursts in a flood of inspiration upon the soul +of genius, and opens the realms of immortal beauty, may lift us to a +nobler plane of endeavor. The heroic act of toil or martyrdom for +principle, certainly has a loftier, because it is a moral, grandeur. But +as an illustration of the _creativeness_ of man's intellect--of its +wondrous capability--of its alliance with that attribute of the Divine +Nature which is evident in the fibres of the grass-blade and the march +of the galaxy--I know of nothing more striking than this piece of +mechanism, which is the product of the most profound and patient +thought, the harmonizing of antagonistic forces, the combination of the +most abstruse details, fitted to the remotest exigencies, and working +just as the inventive mind meant it should, and just as it was set +a-going, as if that mind were presiding over it, were in it, though it +is now far distant, or has vanished from the earth. That mind is +immortal! that nature, which is common to all men, transcends any shape +of matter and is superior to mechanism. And it may be necessary to say +this, necessary to say that man, who is helped by machinery, is +_separate_ from it. It is mind that is thus involved with matter. The +spirit of a living creature that is in the wheels. + +It may be necessary to say this, my friends, and to say it frequently, +lest the vast mechanical achievements of our time seduce us into a mere +mechanical life. I do not think that the deepest question is, whether +machinery will multiply to such an extent as to snatch the bread from +the mouths of living men; but whether men, with all the possibilities of +their nature, will not become absorbed in that which supplies them with +bread alone? I have just expressed my admiration for the genius of the +great inventor. Nor can I honor too highly the faithful and industrious +mechanic--the man who fills up his chink in the great economy by +patiently using his hammer or his wheel. For, he _does_ something. If he +only sews a welt, or planes a knot, he helps build up the solid pyramid +of this world's welfare. While there are those who, exhibiting but +little use while living, might, if embalmed, serve the same purpose as +those forms of ape and ibis _inside_ the Egyptian caverns--serve to +illustrate the shapes and idolatries of human conceit. At any rate, +there is no doubt of the essential nobility of that man who pours into +life the honest vigor of his toil, over those who compose this feathery +foam of fashion that sweeps along Broadway; who consider the insignia of +honor to consist in wealth and indolence; and who, ignoring the family +history, paint coats of arms to cover up the leather aprons of their +grandfathers. + +I shall not be misunderstood then, when, making a distinction in behalf +of the mechanic by profession, I say that no man should be a mere +mechanic in _soul_. In other words, no man should be bound up in a +routine of material ends and uses. He should not be a mechanic, working +exclusively in a dead system, but always the architect of a living +ideal. And surrounded, astonished, served and enriched as we are by +these splendid legions of mechanism, the danger is that material +achievement will seem to us the _supreme_ achievement; that all life +will become machinery; and the higher interests of being, and the great +firmament of immortality, be eclipsed by these flashing wheels. We are +in danger of being drawn away from the sanctities of the inner life and +the still work of the soul, by this maelstrom of excitement and power. +No religious man can help asking, and asking anxiously, whether the +spirit of devotion is as deep and fresh, whether spiritual communion +with God is as direct and constant, in this whirl and roar, and +marvellous achievement, as they were in times bearing less evidently the +signs of material progress. For, that which merely gives us a stronger +grasp of the world around us, and sends us along the level of nature, is +not the most genuine element of progress; but that which elevates our +moral plane and enriches the great deep of our spiritual being. The +steamship and telegraph are not absolute tokens of this progress, but +the moral earnestness and the Christian charity that work through them +are; and these must spring up in hearts that are not merely adjusted to +the world, but lifted above it--that are not so occupied by mere +machinery as to neglect the living streams of an inward and devout +culture. + +But, for another reason,--or as an extension of the same reason,--we +need to realize the truth that man is separate from and superior to +machinery. It is because, upon a practical recognition of this truth +depends the just action of all who control the interests of labor, and, +so to speak, the lives and souls of the laborers. If we should beware of +an influence that would render us _mere_ mechanics in our own higher +nature, we should likewise remove anything that makes others mere +machines, presenting for us no other consideration than the amount of +work they can perform for us, and with how little care and cost. I +cannot now enter into the great questions that spring up here concerning +the relations of capital and labor, and of the employer and the +employed. I only observe that these are among the deepest questions of +the time: questions which will be heard, which must be discussed, and +practically answered. And they who by plans and experiments, however +visionary they may seem, however abortive they may prove, are trying to +solve this problem, are much wiser in their generation than those who +content themselves with cutaneous palliatives and a stolid conservatism. +But I maintain now, that back of all these considerations stands this +truism,--that man is not a machine; that the being who toils in the +factory, the furnace, the dark mine underground, is one who needs and +hopes and suffers and dies, as sinews of iron and fabrics of brass +cannot. "The spirit of a living creature is in the wheels." A cry for +justice, for free action, for spiritual opportunity, comes not from the +roaring engine or the dizzy loom, but out from the midst of those who +are endowed with the sensitiveness and the moral possibilities that +belong to humanity, and humanity alone. Set in motion the grandest piece +of mechanism ever conceived by human genius, and still there is infinite +difference between it and the poorest drudge that bears God's +image,--between it and any human claim. + +It must have been a noble spectacle, a few weeks since, to have seen +that great ship[A] sail out of port, stretching its proud beak over the +sea, and with thundering exultation trampling its sapphire floor. One +might have followed its wake with a glistening eye, and said to +himself--"There is the great symbol of human progress, there is the +consummation of man's triumph over nature! The long results of ages are +condensed in that fabric of strength and beauty. Man has compelled the +forest, and ravished the mine, and converted the stream, and chained the +fire; and now, with the eye of science and the hand of skill, he rides +in this triumphal chariot, making a swift, obedient pathway of the +deep!" But when that dark day burst upon them, and nature with one angry +sweep transformed that splendid palace into a floating death-chamber; +when ocean lifted up this triumph of man's skill, and shook it like a +toy; the interest which hung over that awful desolation--the interest to +which your hearts flow out with painful sympathy to-night--was in +nothing that man had achieved, but in humanity itself. All the +workmanship, all the material splendor, all the skill, were nothing +compared with one heart beating amidst that tempest; compared with one +groan that rose from that sea of agony, and then was silent for ever. + + [Footnote A: This discourse was delivered just after the tidings + of the loss of the San Francisco, in December, 1853.] + +And, again, when I consider the conduct of that gallant captain who, day +by day, rode by the side of the shuddering wreck, and in slippery peril +maintained the royalty of his manhood, and sent a brother's cheer and a +brother's help through the storm; when I think of that noble achievement +where the Stars and Stripes and the Cross of St. George were lost and +blended in the light of universal humanity; I say to myself--how does an +act like this shed light upon a thousand instances of human depravity! +What is any material triumph compared to this moral beauty! And what is +the great distinction between rags and coronets, between senates and +workshops, when in the breast of every man, and everywhere, there is the +possibility of such heroism, such charity, and such splendid +performance! + +And so, my friends, turning from this specific illustration, and looking +through the wards of cities, the busy factories, the dim attics and +cellars, they all become glorious by the reflected light of the humanity +that toils and suffers within them. Man is greater than any achievement +of mechanism, any interest of capital, and all the questions which these +involve must be brought to the test of his moral capabilities, and his +spiritual as well as earthly wants. + +But I observe, finally, that the words of the text suggest the +_Providential design_ and the _Divine agency_ that are involved in the +great mechanical achievements of our age. As the Divine Spirit flowed +through those living creatures and moved those wheels, so God's +influence is in the movement of humanity, and in the instruments of that +movement. We get only a narrow, and often an inexplicable conception of +things, until we behold them encircled by this horizon of a Providential +design. And if humanity, with all its claims and possibilities, is +involved in this network of mechanism, so doubtless are the processes of +Infinite Wisdom. Something more than material greatness, or ends limited +merely to this earth, is to be wrought out by it. Indications of this +appear already. The telegraph and steamship, for instance, serve not +only the interests of trade and commerce, but of liberty, and +brotherhood, and of Christian influence. + +It is beautiful to see how the most selfish agents presently become +converted to the broadest uses, and matter is transformed into the +vehicle of spirit. For God is in history. It is a Divine dispensation, +and has miracles of its own. And, because they come by natural +development let us not fail to recognize the benevolence and the +significance involved with them. Is not the effect of miracle in the +electric wire? The printing-press, is it not the gift of tongues? It is +atheistic to suppose that all these wondrous agents have only a narrow +and material purpose, and play no part in the highest scheme of the +world. Like the prophet by the river Chebar, we may behold them as the +symbols in a sublime vision. These wheels within wheels, full of eyes, +full of intelligence, and full of human destiny and vast purpose, we +know not all their meaning yet. But they have a great meaning. +Beneficent intention runs through their swift motions--voices of promise +rise in their multitudinous sounds. A living spirit is in these +wheels--the influence of God; the spirit of man. And, in due time, out +of them will evolve the incalculable issues of human welfare and the +Divine glory. + + + + +THE STRIFE FOR PRECEDENCE. + + + + +DISCOURSE III. + +THE STRIFE FOR PRECEDENCE. + + And if a man strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned + except he strive lawfully.--II. TIMOTHY, ii. 5. + + +In walking the streets of the city, there rises the interesting +question--What are the various motives which animate these restless +people, and send them to and fro? As a French author has well +observed,--"The necessaries of life do not occasion, at most, a third +part of the hurry." They are comparatively few who struggle among these +busy waves for a bare subsistence. There are others who are impelled by +some of the deepest affections of the human heart, and who toil day +after day with noble self-sacrifice for the comfort of dependent +parents, and helpless children. While others still run on errands of +mercy, and work in the harness of unrelaxing duty. But when we have +taken all these influences into the account, and made the most of them, +there remains a large quantity of activity which, as we trace it to its +spring, we shall find issuing from a desire for influence, for +notoriety, for some kind of personal distinction. The city,--in this +instance, as in many others, representing the world at large,--is +essentially a race-course, or battle-field, in which, through forms of +ambitious effort, and cunning method, and plodding labor, and +ostentation, the aspirations of thousands appear and carry on a _Strife +for Precedence_. + +And, in selecting this phase of human life as the theme of the present +discourse, I observe in the first place--that the desire for precedence +is one of the _deepest_ and most _subtle_ motives in the soul of man. It +is prolific of disguises. It is not merely under the mask which we may +put on before other people, but it glides through various +transformations of self-deceit; like the evil genius in the fairy tale, +now dwindling to a mere seed, now bursting into a devouring fire. When, +with an honest purpose, we probe it and pluck at it, still we may +detect it in the lowest socket of the heart. Often it is most vital when +we feel most sure that it is vanquished. It delights in the garb of +humility, and finds its food in the profession of self-renunciation. See +its grossest expression in the desire for physical superiority--the +glory of the victor in the Grecian games, or the modern pugilist with +the champion's belt. This is the reason why men, priding themselves upon +qualities in which they are equalled by any mastiff and excelled by any +horse, will stand up and batter one another into a mass of blood and +bruises. And if we analyze the merit of some conqueror upon a hundred +battle-fields, we shall find ingredients almost as coarse. Only there +was a larger impulse, and more genius to light the way; so that _his_ +combat in the ring became _achievement_, and his success _fame_. The +outside difference was in the value of the stakes; but the huzzas did +not rise much nearer to heaven in the one instance than in the other. +And when we get at the real centre of all those plaudits, we find only a +little throbbing atom, a little human heart, all on fire with the lust +for supremacy. + +But these are the more palpable shapes of this desire for Precedence. It +works more covertly, but with no less energy. I need not--for I +cannot--specify all the instances in which it acts. It would constitute +a more concise statement to affirm where it does _not_ act. It is +sufficiently apparent in the scramble of the market and the parade of +the street; at the toilette of beauty; in the etiquette of the +drawing-room, where people sit as if in a cavern of icicles; in the +spurious patriotism of politics; and too often, it is to be feared, in +the highest seats of the synagogue, and where men lift holy hands of +prayer. It is the scholar's inspiration. When he comes to the steep and +rugged way, it helps him to make a foot-hold, and the thorns blossom +into roses as he climbs. Sometimes, even, it saturates the plan of the +philanthropist, and peppers the milk of his charity with an inconsistent +wrath. + +It seems an unhappy, as it must often be an unjust method, to attribute +any appearance of good conduct to the meanest possible motive. It is a +policy that makes a man afraid of his best friends. He feels that every +draft he makes upon human honor, or affection, is liable to be cashed +with counterfeit bills. If there were no alternative between the +cleverness that suspects everybody, and the credulity that trusts +everybody, I think I had rather be one of the dupes than one of the +oracles. For, really, there is less misery in being cheated than in that +kind of wisdom which perceives, or thinks it perceives, that all mankind +are cheats. But, while simple fact forbids our assuming either of these +extremes, we must, nevertheless, in reasoning upon the phenomena of +human conduct, allow large scope for the influence of which I am now +treating. For, as I have already intimated, we shall find it lurking +under numerous forms. In discussing the question of Slavery, for +instance, it is often said--that it is for the interest of the master to +take good care of his human as he does of his brute stock--to see that +they are well-fed, clothed, &c. And so it is for his _interest_ to do +this. But how often does the lust for supremacy over-ride interest +itself! How often does an imperious personality thrust itself forward +in the most absurd ways, damaging its own property and welfare, just as +a boy breaks his top, or a balked rider shoots his horse, or an +independent congregationalist locks his pew-door, as much as to +say--"There, the world knows one thing about me, at least. It knows that +I am _master_ and _owner_ here!" + +But I observe, further, that, while this desire for Precedence is common +among men of all conditions, there are some modes of its expression +which are peculiarly excited in a democratic form of society. That which +is the open glory of a community like ours, is with many a secret +vexation and shame. People boast here of the equality of our +institutions, and then try their best to break up the social level. In a +genuine Aristocracy, where they have endeavored to preserve a +gulf-stream of noble blood in the midst of the plebeian Atlantic, and a +man holds his distinction by the color of the bark on his family tree, +and the kind of sap that circulates through it, there is no danger of +any unpleasant mistakes. The hard palm of Labor may cross the gloved +hand of Leisure, and nobody will suspect that the select is too +familiar with the vulgar. Consequently, there is a good deal of +affability and prime manliness, besides those associations of sentiment +and imagination which, if there must be an aristocracy, lend it an +artistic consistency. But here, where everybody says that all men are +equal, and everybody is afraid they _will_ be; where there are no +adamantine barriers of birth and caste; people are anxiously exclusive. +And though the forms of aristocracy flourish more gorgeously in their +native soil, the genuine _virus_ can be found in New York almost as +readily as in London, or Vienna. And the virus breaks out in the most +absurd shapes of liveries and titles. And these forms of aspiration are +not only absurd because they are inconsistent, but because they +illustrate no real ground of precedence. They are superficial and +uncertain. They do not pertain to the man but to his accidents. He gains +by them no intrinsic glory, no permanent good. To employ the language of +the text, by these he strives for masteries; but he does not strive +lawfully, and so he is not crowned. And this leads me to say something +respecting what is false, and what is legitimate, in that strife for +Precedence which is so amply illustrated in the life of the City. + +Let us, then, consider some of the forms which this struggle assumes in +the streets and the dwellings around us. I remark, in the first place, +that it inspires much of the effort for _wealth_. I believe there are +but few, comparatively, who are anxious to make money merely for the +sake of piling it up, and counting it out. There may be a mania of this +kind, in which men become enamored of Mammon for his own sake, and hug +him to their breasts, and kiss his golden lips, with all the ardor of +lovers. Still, I suspect that the genuine miser--that is, one who loves +money for itself alone--is an exceptional man. But every man who is not +absolutely inactive and useless in the world, is moved by some kind of +passion. For, it is not correct to speak of _outliving_ our passions. We +may outlive the passion of young, fresh love, that makes the world a +May-time of blossoms and of roses. We may outlive the passion for +selfish fame, because some transcendent claim of duty snatches us up to +a sublimer level. We may change these earlier forms for the passion of +philanthropy, the passion for truth, the passion of holy conviction. But +so long as we live at all, we do not outlive passion. And with many the +most persistent desire is for that precedence which attends the +possession of wealth. That miser, as you call him, with a face like +parchment, and in whose nature all the springs of emotion seem to have +grown rusty with long disuse, is animated by a secret flame that keeps +him all a-glow. It is the consciousness of power--the mightiest power of +the present age--the power of money. Those figures which he scrawls at +his writing-desk involve a more potent magic than the cabalistic cyphers +of Doctor Dee, or Cornelius Agrippa. His hand presses the spring of an +influence that casts midnight or sunshine over the World of Traffic, and +shakes entire blocks of real estate with a speculative earthquake. It is +not the Czar or the Sultan, but the Capitalist, that makes war or +preserves peace. The destinies of the time are enacted not in Congress +or Parliament, but in the Bank of England and in Wall street. It is a +mighty power that sits on 'Change, and inspires the great movements of +the world; sending its messengers panting through the deep and feeling +around the globe with telegraphic nerves. And one may well be more +ambitious to wield a portion of this power than to speak in senates, or +to sit upon a throne. Here is something that will raise him above the +common level; will pay him for long years of sacrifice and contumely; +will hide meanness of birth, and scantiness of education, and paint over +the stains of damaged character. Here is the most feasible way of +distinction in a democracy. The doors of respectability and honor turn +on silver hinges. Gravity relaxes, fashion gives way, beauty smiles, and +talent defers, before the man of money. He may be an ignoramus, but he +possesses the golden alphabet. He may be a boor, but Plutus lends a +charm which eclipses the grace of Apollo. He may have accumulated his +wealth in a way which would make an intelligent hyena ashamed of +himself, but he _has_ accumulated it, and the past is forgotten. I do +not mean to say that, as the general rule, wealth is thus associated, +but I believe that one great motive for money-getting, is the +consciousness of the power and the distinction that accompany its +possession; and so, many a man in the thick dust of the mart--though it +may not always be clear to himself--is really engaged in a strife for +Precedence. + +Again, consider the illustrations of this strife in the _Style_ of +_Living_. It is really a battle of chairs and mirrors, of plate and +equipage, and is the spring of the monstrous extravagance that +characterizes our city life. For I suppose there is no place on the +earth where people have run into such gorgeous nonsense as here--turning +home into a Parisian toy-shop, absorbing the price of a good farm in the +ornaments of a parlor, and hanging up a judge's salary in a single +chandelier. Not that I accept the standard of absolute necessity, or +agree with those who cry out--"Have nothing but what is absolutely +_useful_!" For, if the universe had been cast after their type, there +would have been no embroidery on the wings of the butterfly, and the +awful summit of Mont Blanc would have yielded fire-wood. There is an +instinct of beauty and grace implanted in our nature, which demands +elegance and even luxury, and the bare necessaries of life do _not_ +answer every purpose. And, to say nothing of the employment which these +accessories of refinement afford for thousands--for I have spoken of +this in the previous series--the most sturdy utilitarian is not +consistent with his theory. He defers to the social condition around him +to such an extent that he sleeps on a bed instead of a bench, and wears +broadcloth instead of untanned sheepskin. And, therefore, others might +say, and say truly, that a good deal that is actually superfluous is the +fruit of certain social proprieties which cannot, with any consistency, +be violated. Our style of living may lawfully run from the bare +necessaries of existence, through the stages of comfort and convenience, +even into luxury, according to our condition and means. But in some of +the style of living in this very city, there is neither good taste, +social propriety, nor common sense. It is an apoplectic splendor; a +melo-dramatic glitter; in one word, a vulgar spirit of social rivalry +blossoming in lace, brocade, gilding, and fresco. It is one way of +getting a head taller than another upon this democratic level. It is a +carpet contest for the mastery in what is called "society." And if one +mourns over the exuberant selfishness that lifts its pinnacles out of +this dreary sea of hunger and despair, and wonders that so many live +wrapped in the idea that they were created merely to be gratified; he +can hardly help being amused, on the other hand, at this fashionable +strife for precedence, and the methods which it developes. + +But enough has been said to illustrate the false element in the great +struggle for Human Precedence. This vicious principle is most +comprehensively stated in the proposition, that there is no substantial +ground of supremacy in anything that is merely accidental or external to +a man. These things may sometimes stand as symbols of true merit and +greatness, but they are not themselves proofs of precedence. A man's +wealth may be the fruit of noble energy and honest toil, and he may +exert a wide influence by virtue of that intrinsic ability of which his +good fortune is the sign. Indeed, the more I study the world the more I +acquire a respect for these kings of enterprise--these heroes of +practical effort--who, feeling that they have been sent into the world +to do something, do not fold their hands and shut their eyes in ideal +dreams, or stumble at discrepancies, but lay hold of what lies about +them--rough stone, timber, iron, brass,--and become what it is really a +noble compliment to say of any man--"the architects of their own +fortune." I have great respect for these men who drive the wheels, and +kindle the furnaces, and launch the ships, and build the edifices, and +keep this sea of every-day action perpetually agitated by the keels of +their endeavor. Their claims to precedence, however, consist not in +their wealth, but in that which accumulates the wealth. But the man who +rests merely upon what he _has_, occupies no substantial ground of +supremacy. And if this is the case with those whose claim hangs merely +upon what they are worth in the world of money, it is at least equally +so with those who set their title to precedence upon their style of +dress or living. For how uncertain are all these things! depending upon +the fickle currents of fortune; throwing the honors into our hands +to-day, and transferring them to our neighbor to-morrow! How tantalizing +this conflict, in which victory changes with the fashion, and we feel +weak or strong according to the verdict of a clique! And all these +rivalries and envies and aspirations, what a confession of personal +feebleness they really are! How slightly a true man feels them, who +knows that he is not mere silk or furniture, and never frets about his +place in the world; but just slides into it by the gravitation of his +nature, and swings there as easily as a star! But the mere leader of +fashion has no genuine claim to supremacy; at least, no abiding +assurance of it. He has embroidered his title upon his waistcoat, and +carries his worth in his watch-chain; and if he is allowed any real +precedence for this it is almost a moral swindle,--a way of obtaining +goods under false pretences. But without running into more minute +discussion, I say again--that there is no substantial ground of +supremacy in aught that is merely accidental or external; and he who +rests upon such claims stands upon a pedestal as uncertain as it is +spurious. + +"If a man strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive +lawfully." This was the old rule of the Grecian games, which would not +permit the prize to be gained by any unfair or incomplete methods. It +was applied by the apostle to a specific work--the great work of the +Christian ministry. But it is a law which prevails in all human action. +And, while it suggests that spurious precedence for which there is so +much striving, it also indicates the fact that there _is_ a real +difference of degree among men, and that there are proper methods of +obtaining supremacy. + +And, as I look around in the populous city, in order to illustrate the +grounds of this lawful precedence, I observe, in the first place, that +there are men who occupy the higher places by ordinance of nature so to +speak; or, more properly, by the purpose of God. It is a fact in nature +that all men are created equal, and it is also a fact in nature that +all men are not equal. All men are created equal as to the essential +rights and privileges of humanity. They have a claim to live; they have +an impartial share in the Divine Love; they have a right to liberty, to +freedom of thought and of limb, by a constitution older than any +historical document, drawn up in the court of God's decrees and +authenticated by His handwriting in the soul. Thus far all men are +_created_ equal, and, if it turns out otherwise with them, it ensues +from what is _made_ by man, not what is commanded by Heaven. But so far +as quantity of nature is concerned--original capacity and spiritual +gifts--men are not equal. And if it is asked--"Why are they not equal?" +I answer, it is by appointment of the same Sovereign Mind which has +ordained that "one star shall differ from another star in glory." But +each form of being has its own capacities, and if these are filled the +moral harmony is secured. Through all prevails the law of compensation, +balancing the vicissitudes of experience. And, among these diversities +of human capacity, some must of necessity occupy the highest place--men +whose native genius carries them up in a splendid orbit, and endows them +with control. And the world at large always acknowledges the rectitude +of this appointment. It cherishes no envy toward men of this kind, but +renders them spontaneous homage. + +But, although this genius, this original power, rises to a natural +supremacy, it does not involve the most legitimate element of +precedence. There is no real ground of merit in the natural talents of a +man, any more than there is a ground of merit in personal beauty, or +family descent. He has nothing but what has been given him--the five +talents instead of his neighbor's one talent--and, so long as he does +not use them to their best purpose, there is only an admirable +possibility, no merit of achievement. + +And all genuine merit--that which entitles one to some ground of human +precedence--comes from personal achievement in life; substantially, from +the stock of actual benefit which one has contributed to the world, and +which has become assimilated to his own spiritual nature. The ground of +precedence--so far as it is lawful for man to think of anything like +precedence at all--is not in outward possessions, not in gifts, but in +_uses_. And here is thrown open a broad and noble field, depending not +upon genius or station, but upon _will_, and therefore accessible to +every man. Here is an arena where one may strive lawfully, emulous to +build up his own inner nature, emulous to let such power as he possesses +go out in blessings for the world. A field for all of us, my friends, +right here in the dense city, amidst the hurrying feet, the clang of +machinery, and the roar of wheels. And the condition of the game is, not +large capacity but good purpose and loyal endeavor; not to strive +greatly but to strive lawfully. + +And, I observe once more, that the real claim to precedence is not +eagerly snatched by us, but _comes_ to us. It is not in _seeming_ but in +_being_, and it makes no essential difference whether the world +confesses it or not, so long as we actually have it, working in our +consciousness of duty and drawing our consolation from inward resources. +Here, my friend, is your work--here is the field of opportunity, which, +however broad and rich absolutely, is for you great and pregnant with +incalculable possibilities. And though men may not see its best results, +they are nevertheless real, and develop in your own soul a light and +power, a ground and fabric of precedence that cannot be shaken, and will +never vanish away. + +And yet, to a large extent, the world does confess this true supremacy. +For, let me ask, who among these crowds of citizens are really honored? +Not those who are so eagerly and vainly striving in their narrow, +conventional circle, heedful merely of the rules of their own little +game. But those who actually fill an honorable place in life. How much +acknowledged dignity is there in that man who just accepts his station +and makes the most of it, filling it with patience and self-sacrifice +and achieving the victory of principle and affection! How much genuine +nobleness in the quiet, unconscious discharge of duty! The field for +precedence is it not a broad one, and close at hand? And is there no +alternative between a frivolous and outside distinction, and some great +theatre of action large enough to fill and dazzle the world's eye? +Daily, right around us, there are occasions that summon up all the +energies of manhood as with a trumpet-peal. See yonder! where the +conflagration, bursting through marble walls, casts a terrible splendor +down the street and reddens the midnight sky. What an enemy has broken +loose among us, devouring the achievements of human skill and the hopes +of enterprise! What shall stay it? With a triumphant shout it snaps the +fetters of stone; it roars with victory; it bends its flaming crest +towards peaceful homes where men and mothers and babes lie in +unconscious slumber. The bell beats; and what old bugle-strain, what +pibroch, what rattling drum, ever sounded a more perilous call? And on +what battle-field that you have read of was there ever displayed a +loftier heroism, a more dauntless energy, than that man displays who, +with the unconscious courage of duty, plunges into the furnace, mounts +the quivering walls, and, making his own body a barrier between his +fellow-men and the flame, stands there scorched, bruised, bleeding, and +beats the red terror back and beats it down, with that irresistible +energy which always springs from the human will bent upon a noble +purpose? + +And so, in other forms, more quiet and more sacred, where the +anticipation of public applause does not furnish its motive, men are +exercising a heroism, and working achievements, that make dim and pale +the trophies that are plucked from fields of war and in lists of +glittering renown. And when these things are known the hearts of men +render a spontaneous honor, and admit the genuine titles of supremacy. +Yet, if this true achievement in life is not known or confessed by the +world, its results really exist, and impart their inalienable strength +and blessing to the soul, while as the grounds of false supremacy +dissolve all gives way. + +And, my friends, the tendency of things is to bring out more and more +these real claims to human precedence, and to throw all spurious titles +into the shade. This is the radical purport of true democracy, which I +take to be the social synonym of _Christianity_. I have shown what +inconsistencies and false distinctions swarm here in our midst, under +the profession of republican equality. This, however, is because names +are _not_ things. I don't call that "democracy" which is simply the +domineering spirit of self-exaltation in a new shape. For there is no +_essential_ difference whether we call the social order a monarchy or a +commonwealth; whether its leading men are Charles and Louis, or +Robespierre and Cromwell. If we must have the old social fallacies, they +appear more attractive with the old symbols. In that case, I would +rather not have them changed. For, when I look merely at the +_sentimental_ side of things, I feel sorry when the so-called "Royal +Martyr," with a dignity which contrasts with his past conduct, stretches +his head upon the block; or when the pitiless insults of a Parisian mob +are hurled upon the head of the beautiful Marie Antoinette. A poetic +regret and enthusiasm is awakened by the associations that cluster about +the Golden Lion and the Bourbon Lilies. And, when I turn to those grim +Ironsides, or those frantic Jacobins, the work they are doing looks +savage enough. But, with a more discriminating vision, I perceive that +that rude popular storm, which desolates palaces and shatters crowns, +embosoms a rectifying process which, tumbling all false distinctions +from their pedestals, shall by-and-by heave up the platform of social +justice, and reveal the true dignity of man. The essential work of +democracy is not the destruction of forms; is not the giant arm of +revolution, striking the hours of human progress by the crash of falling +thrones. But its great work is _construction_--is in changing the very +_spirit_ of institutions--and it asserts its legitimacy and bases its +claims upon the Christian doctrine of the human soul. + +Therefore, I regard these spurious claims to precedence--these endeavors +after social distinction by virtue of riches, and equipage, and +wardrobes--as only evidences of a transition-state. Men, letting go the +feudal forms, and still assuming that there is some ground of human +precedence, as there really is, have adopted these false expressions of +it. They will in turn pass away, and give place to more genuine +methods. + +But let it be remembered, that these false forms of precedence are not +only inconsistent with our social professions and institutions, but they +are futile because they are contrary to the Divine Law. Our endeavors in +life have a twofold operation, and we must count not only their effect +upon others but their reaction upon the fabric of our own inner being. +For, whatever honor _men_ may attribute to us, we know that there is no +real, substantial ground of supremacy except in the excellence and power +of our own spiritual nature. And this is acquired not in ostentatious +and selfish striving, but when self is least thought of; in the calm +work of duty, and when all conception of human merit fades into the +Glory of God. And this is the great end to be desired--this strength and +exaltation of the soul. This imparts the profoundest significance to +that great life-struggle which goes on in these crowded streets. The +city! what is it but a vast amphitheatre, filled with racers, with +charioteers, with eager competitors; surrounded by an unseen and awful +array of witnesses? And here, daily, the lists are opened, and men +contend for success, for station, for power. But these are meretricious +and perishable awards. The real prize is a spiritual gain, a crown that +"fadeth not away." And, if we comprehend the great purpose of existence +at all--if we look with any eagerness to its intrinsic issues and its +final result; we shall heed that decree of Divine Wisdom and Justice +that comes down to us through all the vicissitude of life--through all +the hurry and turmoil and contention. "If a man strive for masteries, +yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully." + + + + +THE SYMBOLS OF THE REPUBLIC. + + + + +DISCOURSE IV. + +THE SYMBOLS OF THE REPUBLIC. + + Thou art a great people, and hast great power.--JOSHUA, xvii. 17. + + +These words, originally addressed by the Hebrew Leader to the children +of Joseph--the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh--have been applicable to +many nations which, since that time, have risen, and flourished, and +fallen. But when we consider the circumstances of its origin, its +marvellous growth in all the attributes of civilization, and especially +the immense _possibilities_ which it involves; without even being +chargeable with a natural vanity, we may say, that to no country on the +face of the earth have they ever been more fitted than to this. For, my +friends, we know that it _is_ a dictate of our nature to magnify that +which is our own. However insignificant it really is, man spreads an +ideal glory over the land of his birth. Perhaps its historical +importance compensates for its geographical narrowness, or its material +poverty is hidden by its intellectual wealth. From its stock of mighty +men--its heroes, and bards, and sages--who have brightened the roll of +fame; or from its memorable battle-fields, on rude heath and in mountain +defile; or from its achievements which have swelled the tides of human +enterprise, and made the world its debtor; he draws the inspiration, he +carries away the conviction of greatness--so that wherever its emblems +come before his eyes, they touch the deep springs of reverence and +pride. Nor let us condemn this feeling as merely a selfish and +exaggerating one. This spirit of nationality exists for wise purposes, +embosoms the richest elements of loyalty and faith, and is one of those +profound _sentiments_ of our nature that cannot be driven out by any +process of logic. + +But, if a nation really inherits the description in the text, it must +possess something more than an illustrious history and an ideal glory. +We must determine its greatness by its symbols; yet these must be not +merely signs of things, but instruments of achievement; not merely the +illustrations of dead works or patriotic enthusiasm, but the agents of +actual power and of living performance. Now, in looking over the world +at the present time, there are other nations to which the words of +Joshua might be applied as well as to our own, and with as little +assumption of national vanity. Other people are great and have great +power, by virtue of political importance, vast possessions, and strong +institutions. To say nothing of the rest, consider that huge domain +which at this hour confronts the troubled principalities of Europe. It +stretches itself out over three continents. The waves of three oceans +chafe against its shaggy sides. The energies of innumerable tribes are +throbbing in its breast. It clasps regions yet raw in history as well as +those that are grey with tradition, and incloses in one empire the bones +of the Siberian mammoth and the valleys of Circassian flowers. And it is +great not only by geographical extent, but by political purpose--great +by the idea which is involved with its destiny--an idea austere as the +climate, tremendous as the forces, indomitable as the will of the +gigantic north. It would set the inheritance of the Byzantine Emperors +in the diadem of Peter the Great. It would make the Sea of Marmara and +the ridges of the Caucasus, paths to illimitable empire and +uncompromising despotism. It moves down the map of the world, as a +glacier moves down the Alps, patient and relentless, startling the +jealous rivals that watch its course, and granting contemptuous peace to +the allies that shiver in its shadow. + +In considering, therefore, the symbols which prove that we also are a +great people, having great power, we should select those which indicate +the possession of a _peculiar_ power. This peculiarity is not in our +geographical extent or material greatness. But it _is_, I think, in our +institutions, in the tendency of our national ideas, and in the +legitimate result of these. It is in conceptions and elements the direct +opposite of those that work in the destiny of the mighty empire just +referred to--and for this reason I _have_ referred to it. + +In taking up a subject, then, which is especially connected with the +conditions of humanity in the city, because in the city the conception +of a people--of a public--is especially illustrated, let us +inquire--What _are_ the symbols of our republic; the signs and agents of +our greatness as a nation? And, for the sake of avoiding too many +specifications, I propose to consider these under two or three general +classes. + +In the first place, then, I would select as a symbol of the Republic, +_Whatever represents the privilege of Free Thought_. As to whatever +gives full play to the intellect, whatever diffuses the intelligence, +whatever wakes up and assists the entire spiritual nature of individuals +and communities, I think there is really more opportunity here than +anywhere else on the face of the earth. And, as a sign and instrument of +this, I would point to some _District School-house_; rough, +weather-worn, standing in some bleak corner of New York or New +Hampshire; through whose closed windows the passer-by catches the +confused hum of recitation, or at whose door he sees children of all +conditions mingling in motley play. Of all conditions, so far as +external peculiarities go; for the laws of nature and the ordinances of +Providence cannot be dispensed with even here; but of one condition as +the recognized possessors of immortal _mind_. Those who have helped +mould the Republic have clearly seen that, although intelligence is not +the foundation of national greatness--for there is something deeper than +that--still it is the discerning and directing power upon which depends +the right use even of moral elements. They have scouted the notion that +there is any ultimate evil in diffused knowledge; any such thing as "a +dangerous truth;" and have affirmed that the best way to winnow the +false from the true, is to equip and set a-going the intellectual +machine by which God has ordained that the work shall be done. It has +been felt, that, if the State can properly extend its influence anywhere +beyond the restrictive limits of evil, or the punishment of overt wrong; +if anywhere it may exercise a positive ministration for good; it is +here, where it does not interfere on the one hand with those outward +pursuits which should be left to individual choice and aptitude, nor on +the other, with those inward sanctities which pertain to conscience and +to God; it is here, in that region of our personality from which we can +best discern our duty and fill our place. For the intellect is the most +neutral of all our qualities. Man is swayed by the animal propensities +of his nature; he is swayed by the moral and religious elements of his +nature; but the intellect, by itself, is not a motive power. It is a +_light_; and no one will object to its being kindled except those who, +by that objection, virtually confess that they fear the light. And this +work of kindling is just what the state purposes to do for a child; +leaving his religious convictions to such helps as conscience has +chosen, and his position in life to the decision of circumstances. And +there is no way in which it can show so much impartiality, and exercise +practically the most essential conception of freedom. For thus, as I +have already said, it recognizes a common inheritance--something which +all have--the possession of _mind_--something which is of more +importance than any external condition, for it influences external +condition; (whoever saw an educated community of which anything like a +large fraction were paupers and criminals?) something on which rests the +claim of human freedom; for the charter of man's liberty is in his soul, +not his estate. It says to the poorest child--"You are rich in this one +endowment, before which all external possessions grow dim. No piled-up +wealth, no social station, no throne, reaches as high as that spiritual +plane upon which every human being stands by virtue of his humanity; and +from that plane, mingling now in the Common School with the lowliest and +the lordliest, we give you the opportunity to ascend as high as you may. +We put into your hands the key of knowledge; leaving your religious +convictions, with which we dare not interfere, to your chosen guides. So +far as the intellectual path may lead, it is open to you.--Go free!" And +when we consider the great principles which are thus practically +confessed; when we consider the vast consequences which grow out of +this; I think that little District School-house dilates, grows +splendid, makes our hearts beat with admiration and gratitude, makes us +resolve that at all events, _that_ must stand; for, indeed, it is one of +the noblest symbols of the Republic--a sign and an instrument of a great +people, having great power. + +Or, if you would behold another of these symbols, go through this city, +and pause wherever you hear the rumbling of the _Printing-Press_. As I +have dwelt upon the characteristics of this great power in another +place, I only allude to it here as a vehicle of that _expression_ which +is so essential to all genuine freedom of thought. Mere education is no +evidence of this freedom. It may be made, it has been made in one of the +most intelligent but despotic countries in Europe, an instrument for +drilling the human mind into an absolute routine of state policy. Mere +liberty of speculation is nothing, though it has the boundless firmament +of abstraction for its own, so long as it is not allowed to strike the +solid ground of fact or touch one organized abuse. Let us be thankful +for a free-press--the electric tongue of thought, which at every stroke +is felt throughout a continent, which no dictator dares to chain, and +over whose issues no censor sits in judgment--or only that great censor, +public opinion. Everybody is aware of its evil as well as its good--the +errors, the crudities, the abominations it sends out. But we must +remember that it is only the representative, the voice, of elements that +actually exist in human minds and bosoms; and, surely, it is better that +they should come out into the free air, and be sprinkled by the chloride +of truth, than to work darkly and infectiously out of sight. It is the +hidden, not the open evil that is dangerous. + +Or, still again, you might have seen a true symbol of the Republic in +the spectacle which has been presented this very day--the spectacle of a +_Free Worship_. The great stream of religious impulse has poured through +these streets, and separated into its rills of distinctive opinion, +without trepidation and without challenge. Every man has had the +opportunity to commune with his God, and approach the Cross of his +Redeemer, with no established barriers between. Neither the cathedral +nor the chapel rest upon the patronage of the state, but in the deep +foundations of individual conviction. To be sure, here and there, there +is a little assumption; but it is dramatic rather than substantial, and +does not amount to much. Here and there breaks out an unjust prejudice +or a spiteful calumny, but it shames the source more than the object, +and soon dies away in the atmosphere of tolerance and investigation. It +looks doubtful sometimes, but I verily believe that the real spirit, as +well as the mere form of Religious equality, is beginning to prevail. +Every day, it is more and more practically acknowledged that +Christianity is profounder than any name, and exists under strange and +despised names; that there really is decent observance in every church, +and holy living in every communion; and a man finds that his neighbor +has the same essence of righteousness as himself, though he has not half +so many links in his creed. And something more than tolerance grows out +of this practical liberty. It is not easy to measure the moral +sincerity, the moral principle, which results from it; which is far more +precious than mere intelligence; which is the perennial spring and +assurance of national welfare. + +But I proceed to observe, in the second place, that we may select as a +symbol of the Republic--a sign and an instrument of a great people, +having great power--whatever illustrates the principle of _Political +Equality_. I am speaking, at present, not of our deficiencies, but of +our possessions; not of the instances in which this doctrine of equality +is practically contradicted, but of those in which it is practically +acknowledged. The sovereignty of every man is a fundamental principle in +our institutions; it is essential to the conception of a Republic; and +so far as it _is_ legitimately a Republic, we shall find this principle +in operation. And, looking around for some extant symbol of this, let me +select that which is the object of so much strife and agitation--the +_Presidential Chair_. I do not, by any means, consider this the most +comfortable seat in the nation, or that the most deserving man is sure +to get there; but, as an emblem, I believe it illustrates the noblest +privileges, and the proudest supremacy, on the face of the globe. And I +refer to it as a _possibility_ for the poorest and humblest child in the +land. No hereditary gallery leads to it--only the broad road of the +people. And, as the highest seat in the nation, it illustrates all the +honors of the nation. They are possible to anybody. And I trust the time +has not yet arrived when this can be said only by way of satire; can be +true only because the waves of political corruption carry the meanest +and unworthiest into office; but as a grand fact, a fact with which are +involved the springs of our national greatness and power, it may be said +that here there are no barriers of caste, no terms of descent, no depths +so low that enterprise cannot rise out of them, no heights so exalted +that genius cannot attain them; for, on a platform as level to the +peasant's threshold as to the nabob's door, stand the judge's bench, the +senator's seat, and the President's chair. + +As another symbol of this political equality, I would name the +_Ballot-Box_. I am aware that this is not everywhere a consistent +symbol; but to a large degree it is so. I know what miserable +associations cluster around this instrument of popular power. I know +that the arena in which it stands is trodden into mire by the feet of +reckless ambition and selfish greed. The wire-pulling and the bribing, +the pitiful truckling and the grotesque compromises, the exaggeration +and the detraction, the melo-dramatic issues and the sham patriotism, +the party watch-words and the party nick-names, the schemes of the few +paraded as the will of the many, the elevation of men whose only worth +is in the votes they command--vile men, whose hands you would not grasp +in friendship, whose presence you would not tolerate by your +fireside--incompetent men, whose fitness is not in their capacity as +functionaries, or legislators, but as organ pipes; the snatching at the +slices and offal of office, the intemperance and the violence, the +finesse and the falsehood, the gin and the glory; these are indeed but +too closely identified with that political agitation which circles +around the Ballot-Box. But, after all, they are not essential to it. +They are only the masks of a genuine grandeur and importance. For it +_is_ a grand thing--something which involves profound doctrines of +Right--something which has cost ages of effort and sacrifice--it _is_ a +grand thing that here, at last, each voter has just the weight of one +man; no more, no less; and the weakest, by virtue of his recognized +manhood, is as strong as the mightiest. And consider, for a moment, what +it is to cast a vote. It is the token of inestimable privileges, and +involves the responsibilities of an hereditary trust. It has passed into +your hands as a right, reaped from fields of suffering and blood. The +grandeur of History is represented in your act. Men have wrought with +pen and tongue, and pined in dungeons, and died on scaffolds, that you +might obtain this symbol of freedom, and enjoy this consciousness of a +sacred individuality. To the ballot have been transmitted, as it were, +the dignity of the sceptre and the potency of the sword. And that which +is so potent as a right, is also pregnant as a duty; a duty for the +present and for the future. If you will, that folded leaf becomes a +tongue of justice, a voice of order, a force of imperial law; securing +rights, abolishing abuses, erecting new institutions of truth and love. +And, _however_ you will, it is the expression of a solemn +responsibility, the exercise of an immeasurable power for good or for +evil, now and hereafter. It is the medium through which you act upon +your country--the organic nerve which incorporates you with its life and +welfare. There is no agent with which the possibilities of the Republic +are more intimately involved, none upon which we can fall back with more +confidence, than the Ballot-Box. + +But there is a symbol which represents the power and greatness of a +Republic more significantly than all the rest, and is comprehensive of +all the rest. It is the fruit of unfettered thought and political +equality, of intelligence and virtue, of private sovereignty and public +duty--it is a free, true, harmonious _Man_. As the crown or the sceptre +is the symbol of a Monarchy; as heraldic honors are the symbols of an +Oligarchy; so, I repeat, the most expressive symbol of a Republic is a +man--a man free in limb and soul, a man intelligent and self-governed, a +man whose spiritual vision is clear, and in whose breast the voice of +conscience is peremptory, with whom the conception of duties is deeper +even than the conception of rights; in short, a man who embodies all the +elements, and represents to the world the best results of Liberty. Laws +are nothing, institutions are nothing, national power and greatness are +nothing, save as they assist the Moral purpose of God in the development +of humanity. To this test we must bring the symbols of the Republic, and +judge whether they are fitting and consistent. No matter what else they +accomplish, no matter what else they signify, if they do not serve this +end they are either incomplete instruments, or vain forms. For, Man is +of more worth than Institutions; Religion is greater than politics; and +the designs of Providence are wider than the cycles of National destiny. + +I turn, then, to the signs of our own national greatness; I turn to +these symbols of spiritual freedom and political equality; and I +ask--how completely do they develop this most significant symbol of +all--how completely do they serve the purposes of God in History--by +securing the welfare, the culture, the moral elevation of humanity? And +the reply is--that, by our institutions and our endeavors, these ends +have been served in various ways. There is here, to-day, a more +enlightened, free, self-governed humanity--and we say it without +arrogance--than anywhere else on the globe. Our benefits are of the kind +that are not realized, because they are so great and familiar--like the +light and the air; but take them away, or transfer us to some other +atmosphere, and how we should miss them, and pine and dwindle! Let no +man, in his zeal for bold rebuke or needed reform, overlook what has +been done, and what is enjoyed here, as to the noblest results of +national greatness and power. + +But every sincere man must say likewise that, with us, the +_possibilities_ are far greater than the _performance_; that these +symbols are the splendid tokens of what _may be_, rather than what _is_. +And, that I may bring this discourse to a practical conclusion, let me +say that two things, at least, are necessary to convert these +possibilities into the noblest achievement. + +In the first place, it is essential that every citizen of the republic +should recognize his own manhood; the sacredness of his own personality; +and should recognize this especially in relation to his duties, which +are inextricably involved with his rights. For here it is true in a +special sense, that the mass is but an aggregate of personalities--that +public sin is but the projection of your sin and mine. A man will often +say that he is responsible to his country, and responsible to his +constituents; but upon no claim, by no sophistry, should he suffer +himself to forget that he is also responsible to his God. He does forget +this, when he acts for political interests, and as one of a party, as he +never would act in his private affairs. And does he suppose that there +is a corporate vice, or virtue, differing from his private vice or +virtue, as a gentleman's purse differs from the public fund? There is no +such distinction in moral qualities. It is your own coin that helps +swell the amount; it bears your stamp, and you are responsible for the +product. If the party lies, then _you_ are guilty of falsehood. If the +party--as is very likely--does a mean thing, then _you_ do it. It is +surely so, so far as you are one of the party, and go with it in its +action. God does not take account of parties; party names are not known +in that court of Divine Judgment; but your name and mine are on the +books there. There is no such thing--and this is true, perhaps, in more +senses than one--there is no such thing as a party conscience. It is +individual conscience that is implicated. Party! Party! Ah! my friends, +here is the influence which, it is to be feared, balks and falsifies +many of these glorious symbols. Men rally round musty epithets. They +take up issues which have no more relation to the deep, vital, throbbing +interest of the time, than they have to the fashions of our +grandfathers. They parade high-sounding principles to cover selfish +ends; interpret the Constitution by a doctrine of loaves and fishes; +while individual independence and private conviction are whirled away in +the political maelstrom, and the party-badge is reverenced and hugged as +the African reverences and hugs his fetish. And surely it is a case for +congratulation, when some great, exciting question breaks out and jars +these conventional idols, and so sweeps and shatters these party +organizations and turns them topsy-turvy, that a man is shaken out of +his harness, does not know exactly what party he _does_ belong to, and +begins to feel that he has a soul of his own. I am not denying the use +and the necessity of parties as instruments, but protest against them as +ends, especially when principle is smothered under their platforms, and +they absorb the moral personality of a man. + +It may not seem so strange that the political field should so often be +the field of a lax and depressed morality, when we consider that here is +the great theatre where human ambition struggles for its aims; here are +enlisted the strongest passions of the soul; here throng some of its +fiercest temptations; here the stakes played for are the kingdoms of +this world, and the glory of them. And this, I suppose, is the reason +why the most authentic type of human depravity is a thoroughly +unprincipled politician. Such an instance, at least, may strike us more +forcibly, because we see the perversion of great faculties, and +capabilities are contrasted with performance; while, on the other hand +he may be confirmed in his moral bankruptcy by the fact that, in playing +upon the passions of men he sees the worst side of humanity. But, +surely, there have been those who passed this ordeal, and came out with +brighter lustre; who have kept the eye of conscience elevated above the +ecliptic of political routine; who have made politics identical with +lofty duties and great principles; whose patriotism was not a clamorous +catch-word, but a breathing inspiration, a silent heart-fire. In private +life they have felt the great privilege of their citizenship; the +magnitude of the obligation which bound them to virtue and to +consistency; while, in public life, they have kept their trust firm as +steel, bright as gold; have felt, with due balance on either side, the +beatings of the popular heart and the dictates of the everlasting Right; +and in themselves have represented the union of liberty and law, the +real greatness of a nation. Without such men, the nation has no +greatness; for its significance and its power are in the moral worth of +its citizens. + +The second condition necessary to the fulfilment of the great results +indicated by these symbols, is consistent action upon the ideas that +constitute the basis of our own institutions. If many of the privileges +and peculiarities which I have specified in this discourse are possessed +by other nations, in one respect we differ from them all. These +privileges and peculiarities are _legitimately_ ours. They have not been +grafted on hereditary antagonisms. They have not grown up in _spite_ of +our institutions, but as the _fruit_ of our institutions. These ideas, +entwined with the very roots of our Republic, shooting through every +fibre, running into every limb, bind us to a recognition of human +brotherhood; to sympathy with Liberty wherever it struggles; and to +stedfast opposition to whatever crushes the rights, hinders the +development, or denies the humanity of man. If these symbols of the +Republic mean anything, they mean just this; and whatever is +inconsistent with this, is inconsistent with the terms of our national +birthright. Depend upon it, not the assertion of Liberty, but whatever +is opposed to Liberty, is the innovating and agitating element in this +country. It interrupts the legitimate current of our destiny. It shocks +the popular heart with inconsistency. It becomes mixed with the ashes of +the old heroes, and the land keeps heaving with the fermentation. One +assumption is too impudent, too nakedly in contradiction with the +fundamental ideas of our Republic ever to be admitted--the assumption +that the man who speaks for freedom, who sympathizes with the broadest +doctrine of human rights, and sets around these the eternal barriers of +justice, is an innovator and an agitator. I ask--what made our +Revolution legitimate? What were the central ideas that throbbed in the +breasts of its heroes and martyrs? Take down the old muskets bent in the +hot encounter, and printed with many a death-gripe; take down the old +uniforms, clipped by Hessian sabres and torn by British bullets; take +down the dusty muster-rolls, scrawled with those venerable names--names +that now "are graven on the stone," names that are buried in the sod, +names that have gone up to immortality--and ask, for what was this great +struggle? Was it not for freedom, based upon the conception of the right +and supremacy of freedom? And is _this_ the legitimate conclusion of +that sublime postulate--this other Fact which, never retreating, always +advancing, follows the steps of Freedom over the continent like a +shadow, looms up like a phantom against the Rocky Mountains, and darkens +the fairest waters? On the contrary, is not Freedom that old truth, that +conceded premise that does _not_ agitate? Liberty, Human Rights, +Universal Brotherhood, was it not for these ideas ye fought--was it not +these ye planted in the soil, and laid with the corner-stone of our +institutions? My friends, I know, and you know, could those men give +palpable sign and representation, the answer that would come, as in one +quick flash from bayonet to bayonet, in one long roll of drums, from +Lexington to Yorktown. + +These peculiar privileges, then, to which I have referred, differ from +those of other nations inasmuch as they are not grafted expedients, but +legitimate fruits. Unless we change the premises of our Republic, and +shift the foils in our historical argument, these are necessary +conclusions. They are necessary conclusions, if our symbols represent +realities. Russia is consistent with its national idea. It pours forth +its legions and moves to its work with a terrible consistency. And if +we--also a great people, having great power--are equally consistent, we +shall fall back upon no selfish conservatism, but aid whatever tends to +fulfil the Providential purpose of our existence, and whatever helps and +advances man. + +One thing is certain. So long as any nation truly lives, it unfolds its +specific idea and lives according to its original type. When it fails to +do this, the sentence of decay is already written upon it. If it fails +to illustrate God's purpose in its obedience, it illustrates His control +in retribution. For there is nothing supreme, nothing finally +triumphant, nothing of the last importance, but His Law. It penetrates, +and oversweeps, and survives all charters and institutions and +nationalities, like the infinite space that encompasses Alps and Andes, +and planets and systems. It is this that successive generations +illustrate. It is this that all history vindicates. If a nation runs +parallel to this Divine Law, it is well; if false to its purpose and its +control, down it goes. The prophet Isaiah, in one of the most terrific +and sublime passages of the Bible, represents the king of Babylon, while +passing into the under-world, saluted by departed rulers, by dead kings, +rising from their shadowy thrones, and exclaiming, "Art thou become weak +as we? Art thou become like unto us?" Thus has many a nation gone down +to its doom. Shall it be so with this Republic, because false to its +ideal? Shall it descend to the shades of perished pomp and greatness, +and see Nineveh with dusty, hieroglyphic robes rising up to meet it; and +Persia, with the empty wine-cup of its luxury; and Rome, with the shadow +of universal empire on its discrowned head; and hear them say--"Art thou +become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?" + +My friends, I look at the eager enterprise, the young, hopeful vigor, +the tides of possibility that flow through this great city; I look at +the symbols of this Republic; and I cannot believe that such is to be +the result. I look back upon our history, and cannot argue such a future +from such a past. A great light lay upon the wake of those frail ships +that bore our fathers hither; the wake of past ages, the following of +good men's prayers and brave men's deeds, the mingling currents of +martyr-blood and prophet-fire. And methinks, as they struck the shore, +and met the savage wilderness, a Voice saluted them; a voice not of +profane ambition and of selfish hope, but of Divine promise, intending +Divine results--proclaiming, "Thou art a great people, and hast great +power." And He will fulfil this prophecy, Who leads the course of +history over the broad deep and through mysterious ways, and Who unfolds +His own glory in the destinies of men. + + + + +THE SPRINGS OF SOCIAL LIFE. + + + + +DISCOURSE V. + +THE SPRINGS OF SOCIAL LIFE. + + Let them learn first to show piety at home.--I. TIMOTHY, v. 4. + + +The text--which I purpose to employ not as a specific precept, but as +the illustration of a general principle--indicates those Springs of +Social Life which constitute the subject of the present discourse. + +The crowd in a city affords comparatively little interest, when we +contemplate it merely as a crowd. But, when we resolve it into its +individual particles, and consider each of these as endued with the +attributes and involved with the conditions of humanity, our deepest +sympathies are touched. Every drop of that great stream is a conscious +personality. In some shape, the universe is reflected in it. In some +way, it takes hold of the reality of life: and the living organism of +which it is composed both acts and suffers, receives from the world +around it and contributes to it. That entire mass of people involves +nothing more than the interest of humanity, and the same interest +pertains to the least unit of that mass. + +And, doubtless, you have sometimes busied yourself with the +speculation--"Where do all these people come from? And whither do they +retire at night?" Now, this is really a very suggestive question, and to +follow it out to a practical answer would yield results of the +profoundest importance. For out of hidden channels, here and there, _do_ +spring all these struggling activities, these human diversities, these +various influences good and evil, that make up the crowd and spectacle +of city life. And night after night, with the rarest exceptions, into +some retreat they all disappear. Some spot--whether it seem the veriest +mockery to style it so, or whether it be a synonym for the sweetest +sanctities--some spot each of this living multitude calls by the name of +"Home." + +For some that name is associated with a more than oriental +magnificence. Man and nature wait upon them there in every conceivable +form of service. There is no method of convenience or luxury which +ingenuity can devise; no bounty that earth can yield from her many-zoned +bosom; no shape which art can summon from the regions of the beautiful, +that is not possible there. Lifting its palatial walls, and kindling +with brilliant lights, it stands there as the completest symbol of +material refinement and civilization. It is arctic winter without. The +snow chokes up the dreary street, and the whistling wind cuts the +beggar's rags. But it is Italy, it is Ceylon, it is tropic gorgeousness +within. And these are the abodes of the children of fortune, whose +wishes require no talisman but expression, who, all their lives long, +have been used to such indulgence, or who accept it now as the fruit of +their own effort. This is the hospitality which some men find in life, +and out of which they constitute a home. + +But none the less enviable, and perhaps much more so, are those retreats +where comfort waits on moderate means, while contentment imparts to +these an unpurchasable efficacy; where, blended with those infirmities +and liabilities which are common to palace and cottage, the domestic +affections flourish, and the dearest treasures of life are kept. +Thousands of homes like this there are, all around us. It describes the +largest class of homes, we may believe. And who can estimate their +influence over these busy tides of action, all day long? That world of +traffic, that world of toil, that looks so hard and gross and +sordid,--is it not transformed somewhat, does it not grow beautiful +even, when you think how many of its energies have their spring by the +infant's cradle and the mother's chair? And what lights, what shadows, +unseen by you, fall upon the speculative eyes, fall upon the hearts, of +thousands in that homeward-streaming crowd! Light of welcoming +hearth-fires, shadows of children's play upon the walls; light of +affections in which there are no decay and no deceit; shadows of sacred +retirement where God alone is; light of joys which this world's storms +cannot utterly quench; shadows of sorrow around sick-beds, and in vacant +places, that still make home the dearer as the arena of earth's purest +discipline and of its most triumphant faith! + +And why delineate the features of that other class of homes, whose most +significant word is "_Privation_?" Where cheerlessness, and hunger, and +desponding toil, or hopeless apathy, brood continually. Let your own +sympathies, let your own imaginations that cannot exaggerate the +reality, call up the vision of such. Think how many such abodes there +are this very night, which winter besieges with all his terrors, and +into which he sends his invading frost! Think what Home is to hundreds, +and, therefore, how life looks to them, seen through this atmosphere of +disease and want, with starvation by the hearth, and death at the door, +and misery everywhere! Think, when the cold pierces even through all +your wrappages of comfort, and scarcity almost pinches, what forms of +humanity, with lungs, and nerves, and hearts, and every capacity for +suffering, are scraping the moss of subsistence from the barest rocks of +life, and struggling every day through an avalanche! Think what this +Sabbath has been in the dwellings of the poor, you who have had time to +listen to the Gospel, and have heard it comfortably--so comfortably, +perhaps, that you have fallen asleep under it--think what this Sabbath +has been in the dwellings of the poor! And yet, when I consider what, +doubtless, the Sabbath has been in some of those places, I am thankful +that the highest ideal, the richest sanctities of Home, are not +dependent upon outward conditions; for even there, unfaltering duty and +true love have made the bare walls beautiful, and prayer has set the +desolate chamber on the steps of the Divine throne; and before the eye +of faith the cold arch of the winter night, that looks in through hole +and cranny, has burst into a revelation of heaven, and a path for those +ministering angels that come to help the sufferer and to comfort God's +poor. + +With more unqualified sadness, therefore, our thoughts must rest upon +still another group of dwellings, where deprivation and ignorance are +mingled with vice and crime--where want and guilt strip away the masks +of civilization, and bring out the essential savage in man's nature. +These also we must call "_homes_!" These breathing-holes of abomination, +these moral tombs, where huddle the demons of violence, and cunning, and +debauchery, and from which they issue. That vast Hades of social evil +opening downward from our streets, where the best ideals have no type, +and the purest sentiments scarce a name; where God is but a dark cloud +of muttering thunder in the soul; where all that is fair in womanhood is +dishevelled and transformed; and where childhood is baptized in infamy, +trained to sin, canopied with curses, and rocked to sleep by the +convulsive hell of passions all around it. + +The Homes of the Metropolis! Thus diversified are they in their general +types, and more numerous in their individual conditions than can be +specified. And, surely, it is no vain speculation that inquires--"What +are they? Into what retreats do the elements of this busy crowd +dissolve, night after night?" Whatever they may be, a common interest +envelopes them and links them all together--the interest of humanity. +They have vanished from the streets. One great shadow covers them, and +hides their distinctions. For a time they are all equal. They have +fallen asleep--poor, tired humanity at the best!--they have fallen +asleep on the bosom of a common Providence, that bears them all up, as +it bears the planet on which they now repose, through the orbit of its +great purpose and the immensities of its love. But in the morning all +these diversities will break forth again, each pouring its influence +into the general stream. And who does not perceive how much the +character of that influence must depend upon the condition of those +homes? Who does not see that not only the interest of the common +humanity in its most intimate experiences attaches to them, but the +interest of community? Not only are they the reservoirs of individual +power and peculiarity, but they are the Springs of Social Life. And this +the apostle indicated, when he directed that certain, who bore intimate +relations to the early church, should "first learn to show piety at +home." + +Keeping this conclusion in mind, let me ask you to consider, for a +little while, what Home _must_ be. + +In the first place--it is the _earliest and the most influential +school_. Nowhere else is the character so moulded; nowhere else is so +much infused into our entire being. For, whatever it may be, it is the +nursery of childhood; and "the child is father to the man." Here dawns +upon the human mind the conception of life. Here, when the nature is +uninscribed and plastic, it takes its first impressions. I suppose it to +be true, that more is learnt, more that is elementary and a key to all +the rest, in the first few years of childhood than in all after time. I +do not deny, of course, that much is corrected and overcome under +another class of influences. But the deepest impressions, the seeds of +the most stubborn habits, are planted at home. Hence the peculiar +anxiety of good men to rescue _children_ from the influences of a bad +home. And, even then, with what obstacles do they have to contend! How +radical are the prejudices already formed in that young mind! How +obstinate the customs, how opaque the ignorance, how rank the growth of +error! Nay, into what complete fruition have all these grown, simply in +the neglect of home-culture, to say nothing of influences positively +evil! Really, the color and current of a man's destiny are indicated +here, unless a shock of wonderful transformation comes over him. I do +not mean to say that anybody is wholly the creature of circumstances; +but he is the _subject_ of circumstances. If they do not entirely make +_him_, they furnish the occasion out of which he makes something; and, +viewed either from the platform of the inward or the outward, they +furnish an important key to his life. And, although the path of +reformation is more difficult than the descent into evil, and demands an +effort which too few are inclined to put forth; though by the conditions +of our nature the good is more easily swept away than the bad; still, it +is encouraging to estimate the permanence and the power of those _good_ +influences which are received at home. Everybody knows, when he is +pitched into this whirlpool of evil that rolls around him in the world, +how those old home-restraints lie upon him like a magic chain, hard to +be forced away--perhaps never utterly forced away. And, seeking for +those who should stand up in this boisterous sweep of sin, you would +look and I would look to those who had received the best impressions +under the domestic roof. If I were alone, poor, compelled to ask charity +somewhere in this selfish world, I would go, not to the man who has +learnt most of what he calls his "wisdom" from the experience of mature +life, but to him in whose heart there evidently remains something of +childhood's tenderness, kept warm by the remembered pressures of his +mother's breast. If I were seeking to restore some wild prodigal, +brazen-fronted by his own wicked will and by the scorn with which men +have battered him--if I were looking for some gleam of promise in his +turbulent nature, and sounding its depths to find some spring of +repentance--I should never despair if I could discover one gentle pulse +that beat with the memories of a good and happy home. Why, who needs to +be told of the potency of this our earliest school, to say nothing of +other influences, if only a faithful _mother_ presides there? O! mother, +mother, name for the earliest relationship, symbol of the divine +tenderness; kindling a love that we never blush to confess, and a +veneration that we cannot help rendering; how does your mystic +influence, imparted from the soft pressure and the undying smile, weave +itself through all the brightness through all the darkness of our after +life. The mould of character set on the front of the world's great men, +and gladly confessed by them, bears your stamp. Your inspiration burns +along the poet's line. It is your true courage, more than man's rude +daring, that makes the force of heroes. The statesman, when treason to +humanity wears the garb of power, and duty calls him like a trumpet, +hears your voice. The philanthropist, when he feels that the most +efficient service is to be patient and to wait, imbibes the strength of +your fortitude. The sailor, "on the high and giddy mast," mingles your +name close to God's. And thousands in life's great claims, in life's +great perils, trace back the influences of the hour to some early time, +some calm moment, when,--little, timid children,--they knelt by your +side, and from tones of reverence and looks of love and simple words of +prayer, they first learnt piety at home. + +But I observe again, that Home is the sphere where are most clearly +displayed _the real elements of character_. The world furnishes +occasions of trial, but it also furnishes prudential considerations. +Without any absolute hypocrisy, one measures his speech and restrains +his action in the street and the market. And it is easy to conceive how +small men may perform great deeds, and mean men seem philanthropic, and +cowards flourish as heroes, with the tremendous motive of publicity to +urge them. But at home all masks are thrown aside, and the true +proportions of the man appear. Here he can find his actual moral +standard, and measure himself accordingly. If he is irritable, here +breaks forth his repressed fretfulness. If he is selfish, here are the +sordid tokens. If he passes in any way for more than he is worth, here +you may detect the counterfeit in the ring of his natural voice and the +superscription of his undisguised life. No, the world is not the place +to prove the moral stature and quality of a man. There are too many +props and stimulants. Nor, on the other hand, can he himself determine +his actual character merely by looking into his own solitary heart. +Therein he may discover _possibilities_, but it needs actuality to make +up the estimate of a complete life. He must _do_ something as well as be +something; he must do something in order that he may be something. For, +what he thinks is in his heart may be exaggerated by self-flattery, or +darkened by morbid self-distrust. It needs some occasion to prove what +is really there. And Home is precisely that sphere which is sufficiently +removed from the factitious motives of publicity on the one extreme, and +the unexercised possibilities of the human heart on the other, to afford +a genuine test. What a man really is, therefore, will appear in the +truest light under his own roof and by his own fireside. I can believe +that he is a Christian, when I know that he faithfully takes up the +daily duties, and bears the crosses, that cluster within his own doors. +I shall think that the world rightly calls him a philanthropist, when, +notwithstanding common faults and infirmities, he receives the +spontaneous award of the good husband and father, and the kindness of +his nature is reflected in the very air and light of his dwelling. +And,--talk of noble deeds!--where will you find occasions for, where +will you behold manifestations of, a more beautiful self-sacrifice, a +more generous heroism, than in the labors and in the endurance of +thousands of men and women, shut out from the world's observation in +silent nooks and corners of this very city, amidst the relationships and +cares and struggles of home? But whether it be in forms of good or evil, +we know that the real elements of character, the genuine moral qualities +of people, must be expressed there. + +And, I remark once more, that at Home we must find _the most essential +happiness or misery of life_. The same conditions apply here as those +which relate to character. The world is a theatre of _seeming_, and we +can hardly tell by what we notice there who is, or who is not, happy. We +know that gaiety is often the reckless ripple over depths of despair; +and that men will bear up with a smile while untold agony is gnawing at +their heart-strings, and will die laughing, in an agony of defiance, +under the sword-strokes of fortune. On the other hand we may count some +as unfortunate, in whose bosoms, all the while, there are flowing +inexhaustible springs of peace, and who derive real joy from what we +suppose to be a hard and pitiable lot. But amidst the undisguised +realities of home we can form the most correct estimate of a man's +condition. In the first place because, as has been remarked, he is there +most truly himself. He gains opportunity for reflection, and gives vent +to the secret burden of his heart. There he empties the load of his +envies, his rivalries, his disappointments; which he has carried before +the world muffled in courtesy or pride. These, it may be, meet and are +re-acted upon by kindred elements; engendered, perhaps, by the very +atmosphere which he himself, in the first place, created. Oh! how many +rich dwellings there are, crowded with every appointment of luxury, that +are only glittering ice-caverns of selfishness and discontent; +pavilions of misery, where jangling discord mars the show, and a chill +of mutual distrust breathes through the sumptuous apartments, and +heartless ostentation presides like a robed skeleton at the feast. You +feel that nothing is genial or spontaneous there. The courtesy is dreary +etiquette, and the laughter forced music. You would dine as happily with +the forms on the canvas, with the cold marbles in the hall. For all this +magnificence is nothing more than a gorgeous pall over dead +affections--nothing more than the coronation of a living woe. + +"Better is a dinner of herbs," says the wise man, "where love is, than a +stalled ox and hatred therewith." And many a home exists where there +_is_ but little more than a dinner of herbs, which affection and mutual +loyalty, and sweet dispositions, convert into a palace. And there are +fixed boundaries of peace, that society cannot encroach upon, while the +processions of ambition and pleasure and ceaseless pursuit, pass by its +windows and disturb it not. Here the good man and the brave man--the +man who has nobly discharged his duty at whatever cost--is respected and +understood. Hither he can retreat beyond the shots of calumny which have +torn the ensign of his good name; beyond the deceit of men, which halts +at the threshold. Here he can look calmly out upon the changes of +fortune and the frowns of the world. Here his perplexed spirit finds +inspirations of strength, and space for rest. There is no happiness in +life, there is no misery, like that growing out of the dispositions +which consecrate or desecrate a Home. + +Moreover, the elements of profoundest joy or suffering are there, +because there are unfolded the deepest experiences of our mortal lot. +There transpire those events which constitute the _eras_ of our +existence. There, day by day, grows the sentiment of filial veneration +and love. There is the joy of wedded felicity. There wells up in the +heart the first strange gush of parental affection. There comes the +intimation of awful change staring upon us with the face of death. +There falls the shadow of the funeral train, passing across the +threshold. There breaks in upon us the sense of bereavement, in the +vacant chambers; where the familiar foot-step patters, where the +familiar voice is heard no more. From the very nature of things, the +profoundest happiness and misery of human life must be experienced among +the conditions of Home. + +Having thus in some respects considered what Home _must_ be, I have +virtually anticipated whatever may be said in the second division of +this discourse respecting what Home _ought_ to be. + +Thus, as it is the earliest and most influential school, it behoves +every one who is bound by its responsibilities to make it an agent of +the _best culture_. The great subject of Home Education, is of itself +enough for a series of discourses; and I have not room to lay down even +the general propositions which belong to it, much less for +specifications. But I would remind you--and I think the suggestion is +especially needed amidst the whirl of city life--that there _is_ such a +thing as Home Education, and it presses its claims upon everybody who +inhabits a Home. There is such a thing as Home Education, differing from +school education, whether of the week day or the Sabbath, and therefore +it is a matter we ought to attend to, and not suppose we have done +enough when we patronize an academy, or help fill a class on Sunday. To +every parent--to every influential member of a household--there is +committed a charge which can be shifted to no one else; there is an +opportunity which no outside teacher possesses. There are some duties in +life that we have to look for and to go after; there are others which +are passed right into our hands, whether we will or not. And this duty +of Home Education is of the latter kind. Now, I have just said that I +cannot specify here, and even if there were room I am not sure that it +would be advisable. For I doubt whether we can give any manual of +methods and instruments in this respect, any more than there can be a +manual of religious exercises suited to every spiritual peculiarity. +Dispositions, capacities, circumstances, must create their own methods. +And perhaps the poorest method of all would be some system of domestic +education, which the experimenter thinks will do the work exactly. I am +somewhat suspicious of systems. I am more than suspicious of any +constrained formal method, bringing up children in a mere manual drill, +crimping them into a mould of mincing proprieties, and making them speak +with an automaton click. Perhaps the most headlong young men that can be +found, are those who spent their early days in a sort of strait jacket +with a clock-work movement. They were wound up so tight when they were +boys, that now they take great pleasure in going fast, and running down. +In other words, having felt their early training to be mere _training_, +the moment they strip off the constraint, they plunge into the opposite +extreme of _no_ constraint. Nay, I believe that even children who are +left to their own instincts, and shoved out into the world to take care +of themselves, are generally better balanced, and go with steadier +motion than these. Of course, however, neither extreme is right. There +is such a thing, I say once more, as Home Education, involving all +necessary training and true constraint; and yet not oppressively felt as +such, because it is free, informal, and respects the spontaneity of the +childish nature. But, whether our Home Education be formal or informal, +direct or indirect, there is one kind of education which we are sure to +impart. It is the education of example, silent, effective, stronger and +more easily apprehended than any set of maxims. I would we were all duly +impressed with the responsibilities of Home as they appear in this +light; might feel, however we may be absorbed in business or in +pleasure, that the young mind and heart are receiving influences, and +growing into expressions that in some way will surprise us. + +In the next place I observe, that if we display our real dispositions +and characters at home, we should recognize it practically as _a sphere +of moral discipline_. The family is a divine ordinance--the Home is an +institution of God, forecast in the peculiarities of our very nature. +History shows no period when it did not exist, and we discover no tribe +so barbarous as to be without it. It is the foundation of all society. +It embosoms the germ and ideal of the State. According to the purity of +its relations, the intensity of its sympathies, the inviolability of its +rights, a nation's life is high or low, feeble or strong, fickle or +enduring. And if it is thus rooted in the nature and the history of man, +we may well believe that it affords some of the profoundest occasions +for that moral discipline which is the great purpose of our existence +upon the earth. + +It is certainly the great sphere in which our affections are to be +cultivated. Of course I do not mean that this is the limit of their +cultivation. But here they are nurtured, and out of this they grow. As +love is the Infinite Nature itself, so is it the prevalent sentiment of +all life. It has been ordained that this great element should flow +through every form of being, linking them together by a common feeling, +and lending some interest to the most insignificant. And man has been +set in the family relation that this sentiment might be developed. +There is no one in whose heart it does not exist. You cannot find me a +being so defaced, so alienated from the common stock of humanity, as to +cherish in his bosom no secret fount of love, no fibril of affection +linking him to something else. But of this love there are numerous +degrees; and the highest forms of it, that go forth in expressions of +self-sacrifice and worldwide sympathy, are only developed by culture. +And for this culture there are rich opportunities amidst the relations +and sanctities of Home. + +And there is opportunity among these relations also, for active duty, +and in its daily tasks and responsibilities, is often illustrated that +practical lesson which society so much needs--the lesson of mutual help. +It is a school where we may learn endurance and charity. Out of its +trials is developed the sense of religious need; and under the shadow of +its bereavements we appreciate the glorious vision of Faith. There are +other issues in life, where we need these divine helps; none where we +feel the need of them more. Those who have stood by the sick-bed and +taken the last look of the dearest earthly objects, and yet have lifted +hearts of trust, and eyes of transcendent hope, are able to meet the +intensest sorrows of the world, and to come out like refined gold. Home, +then, should be regarded especially in this light, as a sphere where the +richest elements of our moral culture are supplied. + +Finally, if at home we find the most essential happiness or misery of +life, of course each should do his best to make it the most _attractive_ +of all places. He should bring not his worst, but his best temper there. +How many are there who bottle up their wrath all the day long, and +uncork it when they get home! They had better reverse the process. If +you must chafe under disappointment, and indulge angry passion, let it +out in the excitement of the world, where the rough friction of business +will help you to get rid of it, or where nobody has time to care whether +you get rid of it or not. + +And let _business_ stay where it belongs. Do not interrupt social claims +with its speculations; nor drag the counting-room into the parlor. +There are some men with whom business is a disease; they are never easy +with it and never rid of it. Thus, perhaps, they acquire a reputation +for smartness and enterprise; but they do it, it is to be feared, by +putting aside other and more sacred claims. + +Nor let him who is the genial companion abroad, be the morose boarder in +his own house, reserving his vivacity for society and the lees for the +fireside. It is a great deal better to be like the stream that is good +and welcome wherever it flows, but is sure to be fresh at its source. +Indeed, there are men who are made up of foam, and sparkle, and who +circulate in society, but contribute nothing to the necessaries of life, +and are returned empty. It is an unfortunate gift that cheers the world +outdoors, but casts only a dreary shadow inside. + +Of course, in speaking of the influence of dispositions in making home +attractive, I would include the duty of those who stay at home as well +as of those who go abroad, and that self-sacrifice and kind hearts +should be found as well as brought there. Indeed, if time would allow me +to make a theme of what now can be only a hint, I should dwell largely +upon _woman's_ influence in this matter. + +But home is to be rendered attractive not only by the disposition, but +by the customs of its inmates. It must be a place to live, not merely to +eat and sleep in; a place where we can find entertainment, and not +always leave in search of it. It is really a monstrous folly, this +fashionable treatment of home, which leads people to abandon it almost +every night in pursuit of pleasure, or else to sweep it with a rout, +which considers a household evening very dull, and makes Sunday a day +for sleeping and yawning. The central idea of home is _stability_, and +this has much less chance to be realized in the city than in the +country. In the latter, old forms and landmarks are not so liable to +interruption, and the slow process of time works instead of the hand of +innovation. But in a city, where a man emigrates before he has fairly +settled, and where many move with every May-day, the idea of a homestead +is almost obsolete. Elegance, solidity, venerable associations, none of +these can resist the march of improvement, and the rapid tide of +business enterprise. The main streets of a great city in this country, +may almost be termed so many dissolving views of perpetual change and +renewal. But, perhaps, there is hardly one of us who does not feel that +by his or her own exertions the essential element of Home can be made +far more abiding than it now is; and where we hear of frivolous +daughters and dissipated sons, many a parent may ask the question, "What +have I done to cheer and consecrate the household world, and make it +more abiding?" + +My friends, when I consider the magnitude and importance of the subject +now before us, and how many topics of discussion grow out of it--when I +think how much must be left entirely unsaid--I entreat you not to +suppose that I offer this discourse as anything more than a +_suggestion_--a suggestion meant to turn your attention to this subject +of Home in the City, and leaving it to the elaboration of your own +thoughts. Remember, here abide the deepest springs of social life. The +noblest privileges, the greatest duties, find their basis here; and we +are taught first "to show piety at Home." And the influence of this +institution upon all other fields of human action, private or public, is +too obvious to mention. All life flows from the centre, outwards; and +the citizen who desires the order and purity of the community in which +he lives; the philanthropist, who, under all conditions, regards the +highest welfare of his race; the Christian, who urges the secret culture +of the soul, must look with peculiar solicitude to this institution. It +is one whose impotence is demonstrated by the strength of the instinct +which creates it and clings to it--an instinct which associates the most +genuine happiness with its sacred enclosure of affection, however rude +or poor that spot may be--which, while a man has such a place to call +his own, makes him feel that he is somebody, and has some tie and claim +in the world; and which, on the other hand, associated the most bitter +destitution, the dreariest isolation, with that one word--"Homeless." + +How this instinct abides, how long and how far it goes with us, is +beautifully illustrated in the lines of Goldsmith. + + "In all my wand'rings round this world of care, + In all my griefs--and God has giv'n my share, + I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, + Amidst these humble bow'rs to lay me down; + To husband out life's taper at the close, + And keep the flame from wasting by repose. + + * * * * * + + Around my fire an ev'ning group to draw, + And tell of all I felt, and all I saw; + And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue, + Pants to the place from whence at first he flew, + I still had hopes, my long vexations past, + Here to return--and die at Home at last." + +Hopes, my friends, which I think glow in the breasts of most of us, and +burst spontaneously from our lips. "Let us," we say, "if our lot may be +so ordered--if the lines of duty run not otherwise--let us live at +Home." Here, amidst those darkened and brightened associations which are +woven in the warp and woof of our deepest experience. Here, where gentle +memories steal upon us with the shadows of the twilight, and for ever +tapestry the walls. Here, where we have held delightful intercourse with +man, and secret communion with God. Here, where we have tried to do our +duty, and exercise our love, and to drink with patience the sweet and +bitter which our Father mingles in life's mysterious cup. Here, where +old friends are always cherished and new ones gladly come. Here, where +the dearest ties of earth have bound us in a family circle; and though +here and there we find broken links, we still keep hold of them, and +they draw us up. + +And when on this familiar hearth our own vital lamp burns low, and the +golden bowl begins to shudder and the silver cord to untwine, let our +last look be upon faces that we best love; let the gates that open into +the celestial City be these well-known doors--and thus may we also +_die_ at Home! + +And this instinct of Home is not attached merely to earthly conditions, +but mingles with those aspirations which flow into the illimitable +future. As in the vast city we seek some enclosure of our own--some +place of shelter for our heads, of sympathy for our hearts; so, +respecting the destiny of the soul. In spite of all our philosophy, we +cannot be satisfied with the conception of a mere immaterial essence +floating hither and thither in immensity. The intellect looks eagerly +forward to a boundless and excursive state; but the affections, the +sentiments, yearn for some locality--some spot of residence and repose. +We cannot help cherishing the conception of a place where our friends +are grouped together, and whither we shall go, though to be united in +wider and more glorious relations. And, knowing no better name for it, +with eyes of hope and tearful rapture, we look up and call it "Home." + + + + +THE ALLIES OF THE TEMPTER. + + + + +DISCOURSE VI. + +THE ALLIES OF THE TEMPTER. + + He that is not with me is against me.--MATTHEW xii. 30. + + +One of the discourses of the preceding series was devoted to a +consideration of the vices--especially the three prominent vices--of +great cities. I propose at the present time to speak of the +_Influences_, more or less direct, by which these and kindred evils are +encouraged. Vice, and moral corruption of any kind, no doubt has its +roots in the gross hearts and in the perverted appetites of men. But the +most superficial observer must see that these are nourished not merely +by their native soil, but by the social atmosphere which spreads around. +Of course character constitutes the man, and, however this may be +affected by circumstances, it enfolds the consciousness of an original +personality acting upon and through and in spite of its conditions. +Nevertheless, the ingredients of this very personality are assimilated +out of these conditions, and it is difficult to limit or define the +subtile elements that blend in the deepest currents of a man's nature. +It is, at least, a simple truism that he differs in one state of society +from what he is in another. And, therefore, among the forces which help +make up his moral condition, we must calculate the social forces. His +virtues are not all self-sustained, and his vices draw nutriment from +fine and remote channels. It would be an interesting process to analyze +our own habits and temper and cast of thought, and find how much of this +is involved with our physical relations. The air we breathe, the house +in which we dwell, the very way in which it fronts the sun, the degrees +of light and of shade that fall upon us with the flying hours, all weave +their delicate influences into the tissues of our being. And how much +that we do not suspect comes to us, day by day, in social intercourse, +in the bearing of friends, in the tone and air of conversation, in the +mere magnetism of the parlor or the street! How much to strengthen or +to weaken us; to clear or to cloud our moral atmosphere; to make us +fresh and decisive, or to slowly sap our virtue! But it is a more solemn +task to compute the influences that proceed _from_ us, and to discover +how, unknown to ourselves, we are swaying the circles of other lives. +Why, the mightiest forces go silently. You do not see the gases that +compose the vital air. You do not feel the aroma that steals along +loaded with poison, or wafts a blessing through the sick man's window. +You do not hear the electric pulse that beats in the summer light and in +the drop of dew. Neither can you estimate the mysterious attraction that +plays all through this network of social relations, nor the energy of +good or of evil with which it is charged not merely from your words and +deeds, but from the still reservoir of your example. + +When I look around at the prevalent vices of the city, then, and at its +various forms of corruption, I am not willing to rest with the mere +assertion, that all this is the fruit of personal sin and folly on the +part of those who have yielded to temptation. It _is_ the fruit of +personal sin and folly. And we, perhaps, in our serene respectabilities, +shrink back and wonder at it. It _is_ strange--is it not?--that the +young, the fair, the gifted, should yield themselves to that arch-deceit +which has allured and ruined men for six thousand years? Is it not the +same old guilt, the same sophistry and foolishness, here in New York, +that it always has been? Did it not bear the same Circean cup through +the halls of Nineveh and Babylon, and fling Caesars and Alexanders to the +ground? Did it not wear the same seductive smile and harlot tinsel when +it walked the streets of Tyre, and reclined in the decorated chambers of +Egypt? And will not its votaries find now, as then, that it entices with +the embrace of death and the fascination of hell? Why should they thus +float upon the very rim of this great whirlpool, and not notice the +groans that come up from its depths; and see that its phosphoric +illusion is mixed with fiery flakes of torment and the foam of despair? +It is indeed wonderful that so many should be thus deluded over and +over again; so many noble energies thrown away, so many sanctions +trampled upon, so many bright hopes quenched for ever. It is wonderful +that any being made in the form of man, should cast down his +prerogatives and wallow like the beast. Sufficient evidence of sin and +folly in those who do this, to be sure; but in what way do these +allurements present themselves? What are the resources and entrenchments +of these vices, by which they act upon human appetite and passion? You +point me to brilliant windows and gay apartments; to sparkling glasses, +and shining heaps, and shapes of painted shame. "These," you say, "are +the forms which the Tempter assumes. Under smiling features and fair +garlands, he hides at first that hideousness which in due time is +revealed to his victims. From the lighted vestibules which open so +easily to the touch, and where all seems only a coronation of youthful +pleasure and natural joy, the feet of men slide downward into those +abysses which are hidden from the public gaze, and over whose depths the +blackness of darkness broods." And all this, again, is true. These are +the ways in which the Tempter works. But is there nothing but this to +explain the power which evil has upon men, in the midst of the great +city? These manifold allurements, these haunts of infamy and shambles of +destruction--I see them standing upon strange foundations. I see them +propped by these very influences to which I have alluded; influences of +social condition and individual example. They would not be so +formidable, they would not stand so long, were it not that +respectability in its daily walk and conversation; and social culture in +thousands of homes; and even justice in its lofty seat; lend them +support. "He that is not with me is against me," said Jesus; and, taking +this proverb as a rule, a good many people may be surprised to find +that, in one way and another, they are _Allies_ of the Tempter. + +The allies of the Tempter, I propose to speak of now--not the forms of +Temptation, which I have already illustrated. Nor do I intend to dwell +upon those _direct_ conditions of moral evil, out of which vice and +crime grow as spontaneously as weeds out of a damp and neglected +soil--those wide seed fields of _ignorance_ and abject _poverty_ which +lie around us. But the more remote and indirect causes it may be +profitable for us to consider; and to these I now proceed. + +I observe, then, in the first place, that the Tempter has one Ally in +_Public Sanction_. There are sources of vice and crime that are +permitted and encouraged by _Law_. I hardly need specify the prominent +instance to which I allude. But I am not aware of a more enormous public +inconsistency than what is termed "the License System"--the system of +permitting the sale of intoxicating drinks in a degree, and of +restricting them in a degree. For, by this method, either a moral wrong +is committed, or else a civil one. If these drinks are an individual and +public injury; if they distribute the seeds of disease, crime, death, +and every form of social misery; then what right have we in any respect +to set upon them the solemn sanction of a Law? If, on the other hand, +they are a benefit to mankind; a good gift of Providence, as some seem +to think; why should we hamper their circulation? Why should we allow +one man the privilege of distributing such a blessing, and forbid +another who, no doubt, is equally zealous for the public good? + +But this very system is a confession by public opinion, in its most +authentic form of expression, that the sale of intoxicating drinks is an +evil. "Only," we are told, "as it is a prevalent and deep-seated evil, +it must be _regulated_." But how can we regulate an irregularity? How +can you regulate an obstruction that is involved with the springs of a +machine, or the works of a clock? The only possible method obvious to +common sense, would be to remove the obstruction; and it would be +thought the most foolish speculation conceivable for one to spend his +ingenuity in contriving some way to keep the obstruction where it is, +and yet to keep the clock going as it ought. If it moved regularly, the +matter referred to would not be an obstruction; and if it did not, the +contrivance to keep it there would be a help to the obstruction. Now, I +consider this great vice of Intemperance a decided obstruction in the +clock-work of an individual man, or the more general mechanism of +society. It transforms a great many faces into bad dial-plates, disturbs +the pendulum of public order, makes people go much too fast, and renders +them liable to strike at all times. Now, if a man, or a community, can +be made to go just as well with it as without it, we certainly need no +legislation, for there _is_ no obstruction. On the other hand, if it is +essentially an irregularity, the only rational method is to get rid of +its accessories altogether. To enact some way in which the irregularity +shall work, is to confirm and sanction the irregularity. And the +license-system--for I wish to be plain and specific here--confirms and +sanctions the agents of intemperance. It indicates a way in which the +irregularity may work. + +And not only is vice thus aided by the Law. The existence of such a +sanction engenders either an error or a moral wrong. For it indicates +that the sale of intoxicating drinks is a public benefit, which is +false; or, on the other hand, that it is lawful to uphold an evil. The +same principle carried out by individuals, would excuse almost any +fault. The man who steals a loaf of bread may contend that it is a +necessary expedient; and he who fills an empty purse at his neighbor's +expense, only endeavors to regulate an irregularity. + +But suppose we make the system a strict one, what process should be +employed? Probably you would say--"break up all these filthy and low +haunts; all these places where the habitually intemperate, the degraded, +the wretchedly poor congregate; and let these beverages be sold only in +respectable places and to respectable people." But is this really the +best plan? On the contrary, it seems quite reasonable to maintain that +it is better to sell to the intemperate than to the sober--to the +degraded than to the respectable--for the same reason that it is better +to burn up an old hulk than to set fire to a new and splendid ship. I +think it worse to put the first glass to a young man's lips, than to +crown with madness an old drunkard's life-long alienation--worse to wake +the fierce appetite in the depths of a generous and promising nature, +than to take the carrion of a man, a mere shell of imbecility, and soak +it in a fresh debauch. Therefore, if I were going to say where the +License should be granted in order to show its efficacy, I would +say--take the worst sinks of intemperance in the city, give them the +sanction of the Law, and let them run to overflowing. But shut up the +gilded apartments where youth takes its first draught, and +respectability just begins to falter from its level. Close the ample +doors through which enters the long train of those who stumble to +destruction and reel into quick graves, and let the flood overwhelm only +the maimed and battered conscripts that remain. Besides, it is better to +see vice as it really is, than as it sometimes appears. The danger of +intemperance is when it assumes this very garb of respectability, and +sits in the radiant circle of fashion attended by wit and beauty and +social delight. Let us see the Tempter, not as he seems when he throws +out his earliest lures, in festal garments and with roses around his +brow; but as he looks when fairly engaged in his work, showing his +genuine expression. Let us see this vice of intemperance in its +_results_, as they teem and darken here in the midst of our city life. +Lay bare its channel--let us see to its very depths--where it flows over +the wrecks of human happiness, and over dead men's bones. Lay bare its +festering heaps of disease, its madness, its despair, its domestic +desolation, its reckless sweep over all order and sanctity; and thus, +tracing it from its sources under glittering chandeliers and in fonts of +crystal, we shall be able to say--"this is the real element which exists +and does its work, by public connivance and with the sanction of Law!" + +If you ask me then, whether I think that a statute of absolute +prohibition would stop this flowing curse, I reply that at least it +would put the influence of authority on the right side. It would lend it +the force of consistent endeavor. As it is, it would be far better if +the public sanction had no expression; for now it only confirms and +guarantees the evil. Its power is exerted not in the right, but in the +wrong direction. It is an ally of the tempter. For the spirit of +everlasting Justice and Benevolence, speaking as it were by the mouth of +Jesus, says--"He that is not with me is against me." + +But I observe, in the second place, that the forces of temptation in the +city are nourished by _public neglect_. In individual experience it will +be found, I think, that sins of _omission_ are more numerous and are +worse than sins of _commission_. If we examine our lives closely, we +shall discover that our moral indebtedness comes even less from what we +have done, than from what we ought to have done. And this individual +experience has a counterpart in social conditions. How many evils among +us grow up under the shadow of inoperative laws--laws which have a voice +and nothing else--nay, hardly a voice, so seldom are they heard even to +speak. They appear to have been enacted merely as a compliment to +decency, and they remain in the statute-book as "idle as painted ships +upon a painted ocean." The dens of debauch keep open doors night and +day; the saloons of profligacy send out their cards of invitation; the +gambler rattles his triumphant dice; but excursive policemen never see, +and vigilant magistrates never hear! Some provision of nature has +imparted a very singular quality to the optic powers of the one, and the +auditory nerves of the other. The laws against this vice, or that +custom, stand fixed and silent; and as for putting them in operation, +one would as soon think of pulling up so many grave-stones. They _are_ +the grave-stones of a dead public sentiment--the stumbling-blocks of a +blind justice, that too often shakes hands with the very guilt which it +professes to condemn. I do not, by any means, believe that everything is +to be accomplished by law. I do not believe that the profoundest results +are to be accomplished by it. But, if it possesses any efficacy at all, +it consists in its power to repress open and shameless wrong; and where +any such wrong _is_ open and shameless, public neglect is the cause, and +such public neglect, therefore, is an Ally of the Tempter. And let us +consider the enormity of such evils. In every great city there are some +omissions of executive duty, which, though grievous to be borne, are +noticed with good humor. But there are moral swamps, sending up their +foul steam to pollute the common light; there are kennels of +uncleanness, running with the waste of human lives, sweeping along with +the death-gurgle of human souls; there is a dry-rot of impurity +infecting the town-air, withering the dearest sanctities of society and +of home--and over this kind of evil we cannot be facetious. Think how +much is risked here, and how much is lost! Domestic happiness, +reputation, honor, health, order, the prospects of the young, the peace +of the old--Fathers, the hopes of your sons! Mothers, the interests of +your daughters! and, though speaking may have little effect, say whether +we ought not to speak, and to speak indignantly, of the neglect which +lets these evils spread with deadly luxuriance, and winks at them as +though they were harmless? + +But, my friends, what do we mean by "public sanction," or "public +neglect?" There are some convenient synonyms which help us to cover up +our personal responsibility--help us to transfer our own sense of duty +to a vague secondary agent, and keep peace with our own consciences. +And yet they are only _synonyms_, after all. Now this term "public" is +but another word for the aggregate of our personal obligations, and does +not for a single moment rid us of our share in the general influence. +The real point of my present topic is this--you and I and every other +individual involved in this network of social relations, are helping or +weakening the force of these prevalent evils. And it may arouse us to +some decision of conduct to consider how the most respectable--those who +would shrink with horror from these foul customs--are, nevertheless, +Allies of the Tempter. And I might state, as a comprehensive +proposition, that every man _is_ an Ally of the Tempter, who does not +put forth a conscious and positive moral energy; who does not habitually +throw his example and his influence in the right direction. It is not +enough that he abstains from wrong himself--that he is chaste, and +temperate, and upright, and unimpeached. For perhaps the most hopeless +people, morally speaking, are those people who, according to their own +confession, "have never done any harm." There is a good prospect for +those who are trying to grow better, however they may slip and flounder. +There is hope, on the other hand, for the desperately wicked--for the +very violence of one extreme precipitates the other; and sometimes the +best and purest souls have been swept by a thunder-shower of sin. But +those who rest upon the fact that they "have never done any harm," by +being so easily contented show but little moral vitality. There is no +aspiration in their natures. They seem to have no particular mission in +the universe; for, if they have never done any harm, they have done +little else. They are poorly fitted for this earth, which demands the +effort of all our faculties; poorly fitted for heaven, whose inhabitants +would not make harmlessness their chief characteristic. Their residence +and their paradise might be a great exhausted receiver, where there is +no gravitation to draw them down, and no air to send them up. But, in +truth, these people deceive themselves. Every man exerts a _positive_ +influence, and cannot, if he would, be a mere negation in the world. In +the great conflict of good and evil there is no middle ground. There +are no compromises in God's government, and neutral men are the devil's +allies. "He that is not with me, is against me." + +Let us see, then, how possible it is that _we_ may contribute to the +force of evil in the City. In other words, let us inquire--in what way +do respectable and harmless people, as they deem themselves, become +Allies of the Tempter? + +In the first place, by their _customs_. And, chief of all, by the custom +of an intense and inconsiderate selfishness. How many there are who +require no other sanction for what they do than "that pleases me," or +"this gratifies me!" It is wonderful what a mighty agent _self_ is, +estimated by its own standards. It is the hero of every exploit, the +centre of every event, and the oracle of all opinions. It interprets the +purpose of the universe; it finds out exactly what the world was made +for. At least, a good many, apparently, have ascertained that the world +was made for them, and that they were sent into it to get what +gratification they can. And it appears sadly out of tune to them, if it +does not serve this end. In anything they do, therefore, they consider +only selfish consequences. They do not apprehend the universe in its +great harmony. They do not trace out its web of mutual relations--a +braid of light held in the hand of Infinite Love. They do not know the +sympathy that shoots in the crystal, and shimmers in the aurora, and +beats in the heart of the ocean, and makes the silent music that rolls +from sphere to sphere along the glittering scale of heaven. If they did, +they would discover, perhaps, that the social world is constructed upon +the same plan; and man cannot be an alien from the common humanity +however hard he may try. Yes: concerning any custom, you have not only +yourself to consider, but the bearings of its influence throughout this +tissue of hearts and minds with which you are involved. You cannot +isolate yourself from your responsibilities. You cannot shut yourself +within comfortable walls, and say--"Here is the limit of my obligations, +and here I will do as I please!" You may _say_ this, but you do not rid +yourself of these claims. Through imperceptible aqueducts your influence +runs abroad; and what you do, and what you are, contributes particles of +disease or health to the social atmosphere that envelopes all. I look +around, then, upon the vices and even the crimes of the City, and I say +that some of them find root in the customs of the respectable and the +fashionable. Profligacy, which we shrink from in its open profession, +and which appears abominable in its avowed haunts, finds encouragement +wherever the libertine receives the smile of beauty, and the guilt of +the meanest sort of a man is excused on account of an agreeable manner. +Thus the poison of the snake, and the blight of his venom on many a +reputation and many a womanly heart, is all forgotten in the +drawing-room, because of the fascination of his hiss and the glitter of +his skin. Again, the Tempter has an Ally in the world of Traffic, +wherever bad things are stamped with respectable names--when, for +instance, swindling is called "smartness," and robbery "per-centage." +Among people of less note in the world these matters are named +"cheating" and "stealing," and some of them may take punishment the more +reluctantly because they cannot perceive the difference. And, still +again, I think that a little use of intoxicating drinks is like the +little matter that kindles a great fire, and that there would not be so +much intemperance if there were not so many "temperate" drinkers. The +sluices of the grog-shop are fed from the wine-glasses in the parlor; +and there is a lineal descent from the gentleman who hiccups at his +elegant dinner-table to the sot who makes a bed of the gutter. + +"Am I my brother's keeper?" asked the first man who reddened his hands +with the violated life of a man; and the answer came crying upward in a +voice of blood from the ground. "Am I my brother's keeper?" _you_ ask, +perhaps, with a tone of surprise or scorn. _You_ ask O! respectable +gentleman or lady; O! man in the thick of business; O! self-indulgent +Epicurean;--and the answer comes to you not from the ground merely, but +from the universal air--the answer of kindred pulses, of confluent +sympathies, of an inseparable humanity--though it swarms in rags, and +riots in shame, and seems far off from you in its hell of debasement and +despair. Nay, perhaps the answer comes very _near_ to you. It may come +from some one of your own household. You may ask--"Who has tempted even +my very child?" Ask _Yourself_--"Need he have gone outside this very +door to find temptation?" Ah! perhaps you are not merely an Ally of the +Tempter, but have furnished conscripts for his vast army. Your children +perhaps will rise up and call you--_not_ "blessed." And see, too, what +kind of conscripts the Tempter draws from the ranks of respectable and +especially of fashionable life. Mere striplings, so dwarfed and dwindled +by precocious dissipation that they look like feeble specimens of +wax-work; whose faculties--the evident product of a thin soil--have been +developed by bottles of wine and fast horses; whose memories are too +short to remember their parents; whose ideas are too artificial to touch +any genuine spring of nature; who are ashamed of true manliness, and +make a miserable farce of what they _call_ "manliness;" and who, as +they parade the streets, make up a sort of bombastic interlude in the +drama of "Young America." + +But, whatever view we may take of this general subject, it is evident +that we cannot easily exaggerate the influence of "respectable and +fashionable" customs upon the forces of temptation. And, surely, it +becomes each of us to consider the tendencies of his own example, and +ask--"Is it toward the right or the wrong? Is it for, or against the +good?" + +Again, the Tempter finds help from our _indifference_. This, indeed, may +be the qualification which should be applied to the remarks I have just +made. It is not to be supposed that the evil influences which go out +from the customs alluded to, are the results of _intention_. They spring +up in a lack of interest and of the consciousness of duty. They grow +rank and luxuriant in neglect. If we were only in earnest as to these +vices and crimes and guilty customs; if we would only wake from our +apathy, to reflection and conviction; how soon would they diminish, and +how many of them would pass away! + +But, as comprehensive of this, and in fact all the rest that may be +said, I observe, finally, that the temptations of a great city are +strong because of a lack of the spirit of _Christian love_. In one +respect, especially, is it true that men in general are not _with_ +Jesus, and therefore are against him. They have not his sympathies, his +spirit of self-sacrifice, his broad, deep, universal charity. Baneful +customs, and cold indifferentism grow up in a soil that is watered by no +living and unselfish love. They show the dryness and the baseness of our +social state. And it is not merely in the lack of active and practical +love that the Tempter grows strong; but in the exercise of a prevalent +_uncharitableness_. Too many of us have no disposition but scorn for the +fallen; see no blessed possibilities in them; do not detect any divine +ray glimmering in the thick darkness--do not discern the precious soul, +like a crown-jewel, in its filthy and battered casket. And if this +paralyzes and kills the springs of our own activity, need I say how the +hearts of the offending are repelled and hardened in such a hostile +atmosphere? Need I say how desperate is the Ishmaelitish conviction; +the sense of isolation and antagonism; and, on the other hand, how +powerful and healing, even for the most distant and hopeless, is the +sweet attraction of sympathy? And what are we, that we dare to cherish +this exclusive horror, this pitiless, unrelenting scorn? When we +consider our own slips, compared with our temptations; the account to +which God may hold us, not the smooth standards of human respectability; +how much higher is our own moral level, that we feel no chords of a +common humanity reaching down even to those fallen ones, and cannot +stoop to touch them? My friends, it may be, after all, that the Tempter +has no surer ally than the averted face of contempt and the word of +unsoftened rebuke, driving the barb of conscious guilt deeper and +despairingly into a brother's soul. + +And, as I look upon this mass of social evil, these steaming wells of +passion, these solid fortifications of habit where the Tempter is +entrenched, I ask how is all this to pass away? And the answer is--only +by the spirit of Christian Love, sweeping these impediments of +selfishness from the heart, and animating us to effort. _With_ Christ +the work certainly can be done. In this Gospel-beating amidst the guilt +and sorrow of the world like the pulsations of a Divine heart--in the +few leaves of this Testament--there is an illimitable power, before +whose inspiration in the purposes and deeds of men no evil thing shall +stand. And the spirit and exercise of this Love _is_ Religion. It is the +up-shot of all that is preached--it is the open and tangible test of +every mystic experience that drifts through the soul--it is so deep, so +broad, and runs so far, that it comprehends all requirements; and they +who cherish it, and practice it in the low and dark and desolate places +of the world, are the true saints. Nothing else will do in its place. +Not Churches, nor creeds, nor rituals, nor respectabilities. Without it +we are not friends of Christ, nor co-workers with God. Without it we +deepen the channels of human woe, and prop the strong-holds of +wickedness. Without it, whatever we may not be, we are Allies of the +Tempter. The Saviour says to each of us to-day, placed amidst these +antagonistic forces of Life--"He that is not with me is against me." + + + + +THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR. + + + + +DISCOURSE VII. + +THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR. + + The young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto + them.--LAMENTATIONS iv., 4. + + +The writer of these words bewailed a state of War and Captivity--a state +of things in which the great relations of human life are broken up and +desecrated. But it is strange to find that the most flourishing forms of +civilization involve conditions very similar to this. For, if any man +will push beyond the circle of his daily associations, and enter the +regions of the abject poor, he will see how the hostile forces of +privation, and hunger, and unguided impulse, have laid waste the +sanctities of existence in the abodes and in the breasts of thousands as +with sword and with fire. There is no essential difference in +starvation, whether it ensues from the ravages of an invading host or +from the lack of means. Temptation is a fierce legion; and death looks +no more terrible under a Babylonian helmet, than it does upon the gaunt +faces of men who die upon the bare floor or wallow in rags. The worst +calamity _in_ a calamity--if I may use such an expression--the most +deplorable thing in any of the great evils of life, occurs when the +selfish instinct within us is aroused, by want or terror, to such a +degree that it overwhelms all social limitations, absorbs every +sympathy, and leaves nothing but an intense individualism. This is the +result in a sudden shock of danger, when the alarmed instinct is the +first that starts to the summons. Sometimes, in protracted peril, it +grows into an actual delirium of selfishness, and drowns even the sense +of fear--as men amidst the horrors of a shipwreck will commit the most +brutal excesses, and even rob the dying. And thus, in the desolation of +Jerusalem as described by Jeremiah, the very yearnings of maternity were +swallowed up by this fierce instinct. + + "The hands of tender-hearted women cooked their own children; + They were their food, in the destruction of the daughter of my people." + +And results as bad as this appear in the conditions of poverty, +suffering, and social degradation. Every fine chord of human nature is +seared, sodden, torn from its sockets, in the darkness of the moral +faculties and by the pressure of animal wants. The poor man is conscious +of nothing but privation and suffering. He gazes at the power and +discipline and pomp of society all about him, not as an ally but as a +captive, or as a savage foe. The whole wears the aspect of a besieging +army, and the Ishmaelitish feeling predominates. In the midst of the +City he becomes an Arab of the desert, a robber of the rock. Now, it +makes little difference whether the circle is wider or narrower, whether +the siege is a moral or a literal one, whether the agent is the sword or +the condition of society. The essential results will be the same. The +civilization of New York may and does hem in a desolation as fearful in +kind as that of Jerusalem, and involves sufferings as keen, and wakes +up instincts as fiercely selfish. And one whose sympathies with the wide +humanity are as fresh and clear as the Prophet's were with the woes of +his people, might draw closer within these various circles of prosperity +and refinement and activity, that lend such attractiveness to the great +city--this magnificent girdle of commerce, embossed with the symbols of +all nations--these arteries of traffic, filled with circulating wealth +and power--these groups of fashion and of beauty, whose cheapest jewels +would open the kingdom of heaven to ten thousand souls; he might pass +within all these bands of "civilization," and in some alley, or "Five +Points," sit down and weep for the calamity of his brethren. He would +behold there War and Captivity enough to fill an entire volume of +Lamentations. Captivity! were men ever bound by a darker chain, or +trampled by a harder heel, than those victims of destitution and of +their own passions? War! did the Jew behold any hosts more terrible +pressing into Jerusalem, than you and I might see if we looked about us? +The entrenched filth that all day long sends its steaming rot through +lane and dwelling, through bone and marrow, and saps away the life. Cold +that encamps itself in the empty fire-place, and blows through the +broken door, and paralyzes the naked limbs. Hunger that takes the strong +man by the throat, and kills the infant in its mother's arms. And still +another traitorous legion that, equipped with the fascinations of the +bottle and the shamelessness of harlotry, appeals to the passions of the +brutal and proffers comfort to the hearts of the sad. War and Captivity +in the midst of peace and refinement--is it not, my friends? And, with +all this, may we not expect that fierce instinct of selfishness which +overwhelms every other impulse, and breaks out in crime? Ah! and do we +not discover a counterpart to that saddest feature of all in such +circumstances--a desecration even of the parental instinct? Fathers, +beating their sons into the career of guilt; and mothers--worse than +those who made horrid food of their own children--offering their +daughters to the Moloch of lust in the shape of some "gentlemanly" +devil with a portable hell in his own breast! + +And it seems to me that if one with a prophet vision and a prophet +heart, widened to the compass of humanity, should thus go into these +waste places, nothing would affect him more; nothing would strike a +deeper and tenderer chord in his bosom; than the condition of these +little ones amidst the siege and terror. And, comprehending all their +need--their moral as well as their physical destitution--he might +exclaim, as describing the most pitiable spectacle of all--"The young +children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them." + +And I think that every one of you who has reflected at all upon this +subject, must feel that, of all the conditions of Humanity in the darker +regions of the City, there is none more sorrowful, more momentous, and +at the same time more hopeful, than the condition of the Children of the +Poor. And I do not call your attention to this subject to-night with the +expectation of proclaiming any fresh doctrine, or offering any novel +suggestion, but because in a series of discourses like the present I +cannot consistently pass by such a prominent phase; and more especially +because I wish to push the old truth from your heads into your hearts, +so that you may be excited to immediate and practical action. + +I purpose then, in regard to the Children of the Poor, to maintain one +or two _principles_, to state a few _facts_, and to consider some +_remedies_; and these will constitute the divisions of my discourse. + +In the first place then, I lay down a general principle which divides +itself into two specific principles. I maintain that we are under +peculiar obligations in regard to children. Of all our duties, except +those which we owe directly to God--of all the ways in which we are +required to _show_ our duty to God--I know of none more peremptory than +this. It is the obligation of an instinct that appears everywhere; that +swells in the breasts of the rudest people; that mingles with the most +tender and beautiful and sacred associations of human life. + +Childhood and Children! is there any heart so sheathed in worldliness, +or benumbed by sorrow, or hardened in its very nature, as to feel no +gentle thrill responding to these terms? Surely, in some way these +little ones have "touched the finer issues" of our being, and given us +an unconscious benediction. Some of you are Mothers, and have acquired +the holiest laws of duty, the sweetest solicitudes, the noblest +inspirations, in the orbit of a child's life. And, however wide the +circle of its wandering, you have held it still, by some tether of the +heart, bound to the centre of a fathomless and unforgetting love. Some +of you are Fathers, and in the opening promise of your sons have built +fresh plans and enjoyed young hopes, and even in the decline of life +have walked its morning paths anew. Many of us have felt our first great +sorrow, and the breaking up of the spiritual deep within us, by the +couch of a dead child. Clasping the little lifeless hand, we have +comprehended, as never before, the _reality_ of death, and through the +gloom, covering all the world about us, have caught sudden glimpses of +the immortal fields. And, all of us, I trust, are thankful that God has +not created merely men and women, crimped into artificial patterns, with +selfish speculation in their eyes, with sadness and weariness and +trouble about many things carving the wrinkles and stealing away the +bloom; but pours in upon us a fresh stream of being that overflows our +rigid conventionalisms with the buoyancy of nature, plays into this +dusty and angular life like the jets of a fountain, like floods of +sunshine, upsets our miserable dignity, meets us with a love that +contains no deceit, a frankness that rebukes our quibbling compliments, +nourishes the poetry of the soul, and, perpetually descending from the +threshold of the Infinite, keeps open an arch-way of mystery and heaven. + +And now, just consider what a child _is_--this being thus fresh from the +unknown realm, tender, plastic, dependent; a bud enfolding the boundless +possibilities of humanity, and growing rank, running to waste, or +opening in beauty, as you turn, neglect, or support it--just consider +what a child is; and he must be far gone in indifference or depravity, +who does not recognize the specific duty growing out of a general +obligation which is forced upon us by the intrinsic claims of that +child's nature. If we were appealed to by nothing else but its drooping +reliance and natural wants, there would be enough to draw our attention +to every phase of childhood that comes within our sphere. + +But our purpose this evening calls us away from these brighter images of +childhood, to consider those who are surrounded with the most savage +aspects and the worst influences of the world. And, beside the absolute +duty which is imposed upon us by their natural position, I observe that +the Children of the Poor create an appeal to _prudential_ +considerations. They form a large proportion of those groups known in +every city as "The _Dangerous_ Classes." For they will be developed +somehow. If they receive not that attention which is demanded by their +position; if they are left to darkness and neglect; still, it is no mere +mass of negative existence that they constitute. There is vitality there +and positive strength, in those lanes and cellars, put forth for evil if +not drawn towards the good. We must not confound ignorance with torpor +of spirit or bluntness of understanding. One of the most remarkable +characteristics of vagrant children is a keen, precocious intellect. A +boy of seven in the streets of a city is more developed in this respect +than one of fourteen in the country--a development, of course, which is +easily accounted for by the antagonisms with which the child has had to +contend, and the devices which have been inspired by the sheer pressure +of want. He has been pitched into the sea of events to sink or swim, and +those sharpened faculties are the tentacles put forth by an effort of +nature in order to secure a hold of life. And there is something very +sad and very fearful in this precocity. The vagrant boy has known +nothing of the stages of childhood, conducting with beautiful simplicity +from one timid step to another, and gradually forming it for the +realities of the world. But the neglected infant has wilted into the +premature man, with his old cunning look, blending so fantastically, so +mournfully, with the unformed features of youth. Knowing the world on +its worst side--knowing its hostility, its knavery, its foulness, its +heartless materialism--knowing it as the man does not know it who has +only breathed the country air, and looked upon the open face of nature. +Is it not very sad, my friends, that the vagrant boy _should_ know so +much; and, without one hour of romance, one step of childish innocence +and imagination, should have gone clear through "the world" which so +many boast that they understand--the knave's world, the libertine's +world, the world of the skeptical, scoffing, Ishmaelitish spirit? And +yet he has so little _real_ knowledge--there is such a cloud of +ignorance and moral stupor resting upon his brain and heart! So much of +him is merely animal, foxy, wolfish, and this sharpened intellect only a +faculty, an instinct, a preternatural organ pushed out to gain +subsistence with. It is a terrible anomaly, and yet, I say, it is none +the less an active power, and shows us that, however neglected, the +child of the abject poor is not dormant or undeveloped. In the first +place, very likely, it has developed itself into a dogged atheism--a +sulky unbelief. The brain of the vagrant boy is active with speculation +as well as with practice--he has some theory of this life in which he +lives, and, as might be expected, a theory woven with the tissues of +his own experience; woven with the shadows and the lurid lights of his +lot. A gentleman passing one day through the streets of Edinboro', saw a +boy, who lived by selling fire-wood, standing with a heavy load upon his +back, looking at a number of boys amusing themselves in a play-ground. +"Sometimes," says the writer, "he laughed aloud, at other times he +looked sad and sorrowful. Stepping up to him I said--'Well, my boy, you +seem to enjoy the fun very much; but why don't you lay down your load of +sticks?'... 'I wan't thinking about the burden--I wan't thinking about +the sticks, sir.' 'And may I ask what you were thinking about?' 'Oh, I +was just thinking about what the good missionary said the other day. You +know, sir, I don't go to church, for I have no clothes; but one of the +missionaries comes every week to our stair, and holds a meeting. He was +preaching to us last week, and among other things he said--"Although +there are rich folks and poor folks in this world, yet we are all +brothers." Now, sir, just look at these lads--every one of them has +fine jackets, fine caps, with warm shoes and stockings, but I have +none;--So I was just thinking if those were my brothers, it doesn't look +like it, sir--it doesn't look like it. See, sir, they are all flying +kites, while I am flying in rags--they are running about at kick-ball +and cricket; but I must climb the long, long stairs, with a heavy load, +and an empty stomach, whilst my back is like to break. It doesn't look +like it, sir--it doesn't look like it.'" Or, take the following +instance, which I extract from the Records of one of the Benevolent +Societies of our own city: "Can you read or write? said the visitor to a +poor boy. Marty hung his head. I repeated the question two or three +times before he answered, and the tears dropped on his hands, as he +said, despairingly, and I thought defiantly--'No, sir, I can't read nor +write neither. God don't want me to read, sir. Indeed, so it looks +likely. Didn't He take away my father since before I can remember him? +And haven't I been working all the time to fetch in something to eat, +and for the fire, and for clothes? I went out to pick coal when I could +take a basket in my arms--and I have had no chance for school since.'" +Now this is fallacious and dangerous reasoning, my friends; +nevertheless, it _is_ reasoning, and shows that the mind of the poor boy +is not inactive as to the problems of life. And the intellect which is +so acute in theory will soon drive to practice. Stimulated by that +selfish instinct which, as I have shown, will under pressure absorb +every other consideration, he speedily commences the career of _crime_. +And have you ever looked into this matter of crime? Or do you know it +only as a monstrous fact in the social mechanism, and in the records of +human nature? If so, it would be well for us to consider the way in +which it appears to the violator of right--the way in which things look +to him who works _inside_ the web of guilt. And we may be sure that it +does not look to him as it does to us from the midst of respectabilities +and comforts, or from a high intellectual and moral stand-point. Now I +am not going to justify crime, or to indulge any sentiment upon the +subject. But, really, one of the most practical questions that can be +asked is--"_Why_ is this one, or that one, a criminal?" Do I say that +the guilt should be imputed to the condition--that it is all owing to +circumstances? No: but I _do_ say that, in nine cases out of ten, crime +is no proof of _special_ depravity apart from _general_ depravity, and +that the circumstances have just so much weight as this--that put you or +me in those same circumstances, in nine cases out of ten, we should be +criminals too. In the same circumstances, my friends; and this involves +a great deal. It involves an hereditary taint stamped in the very mould +of birth; it involves physical misery; it involves intellectual and +moral destitution; it involves the worst kind of social influence; it +involves the pressure of all the natural appetites, rioting in this need +of the body and this darkness of the soul. And it implies no suspicion +of a man's moral standard--it is no insult to his self-respect--to tell +him that, under similar conditions, it is extremely probable he would +have been a criminal too. Reasoning in an arm-chair is very proper, and +often very accurate, but the logic of starvation is too peremptory for +syllogisms. There is a sort of compound made up of frost, damp, dirt and +rags, which works double magic: it sometimes converts a thief into a +philosopher, and sometimes a philosopher into a thief. I am not +speaking, however, of the mere impulse of animal want, but of this +condition where the counter-acting forces are dormant. And for this +reason you and I can draw no immoral conclusion from the doctrine of +circumstances. We could not be like the moral leper who infests the dark +regions of the city--we could not be like the child of sin and shame who +broods there--without losing our identity. In contemplating this matter, +the feeling for ourselves should be simply one of humility and +thankfulness. We have grown up in pure light and air, appeased with the +comforts, and braced by at least the current morality of society. But, +concerning those degraded ones, what some call "charity" is no more than +"justice." It is no more than justice to say--all the conditions being +considered--that as to a vast majority of them, crime is no proof of +_special_ depravity. It is the genuine humanity that is there--not base +metal. It came from the common mint--somewhere you will find upon it a +faint scar of the Divine Image--but the coin was pitched into this +bonfire of appetite and blasphemy, and it has come out a cinder. Thus, +proud and happy Mother, might _your_ boy have been a defaced and +distorted being, kicked, cuffed, knotted with frost, blackened with +bruises; a pick-pocket, a wharf-rat, a panel-thief; with his intellect +sharpened to an intense and impish cunning--only knowing that it is a +hard world, and he must get out of it what he can. Thus, fond Father, +might _your_ daughter, whom the very winds must salute with courtesy, +have gone through the streets at night--a painted desolation, a reeling +shame. Do you think these were made of better texture than those who +blacken and fester yonder? Do you think that when these last came into +the world there was no milk in mothers' breasts for them, no Divine +solicitude about them, no tenderness in the heart of Christ; but that +they were the refuse, whirled into existence as the great wheel of Life +shaped the finer mould of the respectable and the happy? I tell you +that God made them complete souls, and stamped His Image upon them--but +they have fallen into the dark and dreary ways; the fierce flames have +hardened them; the foul air has tainted them; and their special +depravity, over and above the common depravity, is the infection of +circumstances. The young boy, the young girl, driven by necessity and +sharpened with cunning, run into crime. They are all _educated_; for +circumstances--not merely books--are education; but this is their +seminary, and the alphabet is spontaneous, and the science of quick +growth. And with the consequences of all this exposure and temptation we +are all mixed up; and, if the claim of the child in its intrinsic +position does not move us, _prudential_ considerations should--the +consideration of what society does suffer, and must suffer, if these +conditions are not changed. + +Such, then, are some of the _principles_ involved with my theme. Let us +in the second place pass to consider, very briefly, a few of the +_facts_. Briefly, because I have no time for details, and because the +general state of the case is but too well known to you. + +It is a fact, then, that there are among us a vast number of children in +the most miserable and perilous condition. In the year 1849, the Chief +of Police reported the destitution and vice among this class of vagrants +as almost "incredible." In that report he says--"The offspring of always +careless, generally intemperate, and oftentimes dishonest parents, they +never see the inside of a school-room, and so far as our excellent +system of public education is concerned, it is to them a nullity." It +appears that, at that time, in 12 wards of the city, there were 2,955 of +these children, of whom two-thirds were females between the ages of 8 +and 16. I am informed, also, by the Chief of Police, that 100 per cent. +should now be added to this estimate; not all attributable, of course, +to growth in depravity, but to the increase of population, especially by +immigration. I understand, moreover, that within the past year there +have been ten thousand arrests, and five thousand commitments of boys +alone between the ages of 5 and 15. + +These are naked statistics, affording you an outline of the actual state +of things. Need I paint the costume and the scenery, and describe the +sad and awful drama in which these children play their parts? I could +not if I would. But think of that vast amount of young life running to +waste, sweeping through the sewers of the social fabric, an +under-current of taint and desolation! Think of them, starved, beaten, +driven into crime not merely by necessity, but by the very hands of +their parents! and think of them this night, cuddling in rags, shivering +on straw, cradled in reeking filth, drinking in blasphemy and obscenity +and cunning policies of sin, under that dark canopy that shuts out +social sympathy, and hides the very Face of God. And if you have, I will +not say parental hearts, but human souls, you will ask if there ought +not to be some remedy, and will say that all who can should help in +administering that remedy. + +And _remedies_ there appear to be, my friends. For, while I said that +there is no condition in the city more sad and momentous than that of +these children of the poor, I said, likewise, that there is none more +_hopeful_. The essential and comprehensive remedy of all I indicated in +the close of the last discourse, and shall have occasion to dwell upon +in the next. That remedy is the practical operation of +Christianity--first of all in our own hearts, and then flowing out in +action. I mean especially the _method_ of Jesus, which consisted not of +mere teaching but of _help_--which touched not only the issues of the +sin-sick soul, but the weakness and want of the body. To the demoniac, +to the leper, to the impotent man by the pool, he brought not abstract +truths, but words of healing and works of practical deliverance. How +striking is the fact that the freshest and noblest charities of this +nineteenth century are only developments of the manner in which the +Redeemer soothed the sorrows and vanquished the evils of the world! For +those institutions which especially excite the public interest at the +present day, are those whose plan it is first to remove the children of +the poor from those wretched and foul _conditions_ upon which I have +laid so much stress, and to lead them to a higher culture by extending, +first, the hand of temporal relief. They aim to break up the sockets of +custom, and to introduce the degraded child to fresh motives of action +and fields of endeavor; to throw around him the atmosphere of a true +home, and to blend intellectual, and moral, and religious training with +that true charity which teaches one how to assert his own manliness, and +support himself by the honest labor of his own hands. Now I do not wish +to be invidious, I am glad that such a constellation of philanthropic +promise has risen upon the dark places of the abject poor. I point with +pleasure to what has been accomplished in the Sahara of the Five Points, +and in what still remains to be done I discern a field broad enough to +prevent collision and dispute--broad enough to employ the means and the +generous energies of thousands. With equal pleasure I refer to that +"Juvenile Asylum," with its noble interposition ere the feet of the +erring boy shall take the _second_ step in crime, and which has recently +rendered still more efficient its system of labor and relief by +extending the benefit to girls. But as I wish this evening to +concentrate your sympathies, I call your attention especially to the +institution known as "The Children's Aid Society," the general character +and the practical results of which I will briefly state. Its main object +is sufficiently indicated by its name. Its machinery is simple, and acts +upon the principle just laid down. It seeks first to remove the poor +child from the coil of evil influences which have been thrown around +him, and which have been daily strengthened by the sharpest pressure of +animal necessities. It comprehends the two-fold benefit of _education_ +and _labor_ in its system of "Industrial Schools." Of these, at the +present time, in this city, there are eight, in which a multitude of +children are educated, taught to work, supplied with a warm dinner +daily, and with such clothing as they can learn to make. In connection +with these there is one shoe-shop, in which thirty or forty boys earn a +livelihood. Another object of this society is to find employment for its +beneficiaries out of the city, and during the past year places in the +country have been found for one hundred and twenty-five, where their +employers treat them as their own children. + +In institutions like these, then, you perceive the indications of a +remedy for the condition of these children of the poor--a system of help +which gives something more than spiritual instruction on the one hand, +something more than mere food and clothing on the other; which combines +measures of relief and nourishment for the demands of our whole nature +in the form of the ignorant and suffering child; and which, better than +all, lifts him out of the humiliating condition of a mere pauper or +dependent, and sets him in a channel of manly exertion, +self-development, and self-support; which not only does the negative +work of removing a mass of evil from society, but makes for it the +positive contribution of an improved and educated humanity. I do not say +that all the relief lies here, that it will do all that is needed, or +that nothing better will be devised. But I think the _tendency_ of these +institutions is the right one, and that they indicate the _way_ in which +this great social problem is to be solved. But it is not necessary to +say that the faith which we cherish in such a system is dead without +works; and that something more is needed than a few model institutions +working here and there. This matter makes a practical claim upon us all, +in the fact that, in one way or another, we may all help forward this +method of relief--we may help it forward as active laborers in the very +midst of the field, as teachers and missionaries, or contributors of our +goods and money. Each knows what he can best do--what is his special, +Providential _call_ in the matter; but let him be assured that he _has_ +a call; and that this spectacle of exposed, needy, suffering childhood +is not a mere spectacle for his sympathies, but a field white with a +harvest that waits for his effort. Have we nothing but sympathies +wherewith to answer the poor woman's prayer--a prayer that echoes +through so many hearts in this great city--"May the Lord spare my Archy +from the bad boys, and from taking to the ways of his father!" + +There is one thing which strikes me as very affecting in the condition +of any child. It is when that condition is necessarily a melancholy +one--when the circumstances which hem it around cast over the surface of +that young life an abiding gloom. A melancholy child! What an anomaly +among the harmonies of the universe; something as incongruous as a bird +drooping in a cage, or a flower in a sepulchre. The musical laughter +muffled and broken; the spontaneous smile transformed to a sad +suspicion; and the austerities of mature life, the fearful speculation, +and forecast of evil, fixed and frozen on a boy's face! And then the +sorrow of a child is so _absorbing_--for he lives only in the present. +In the afflictions which fall upon him, man has the aid of reason and +faith--he looks beyond the present issue, he detects the significance of +his calamity, and strengthened thus a brave heart can vanquish any +sorrow. But, as Richter beautifully says--"the little cradle, or +bed-canopy of the child, is easier darkened than the starry heaven of +man." Surely, then, it is a blessed thing to contribute aught that will +lighten this gloom, and place the child in natural conditions. + +But there is one phase of this subject which, in its appeal to us, is +more eloquent than all the rest. It is where there are children who +stand not merely in the intrinsic claim of their childhood; or in their +touching sadness; or pushing their energies into vice and crime; but +nobly struggling _against_ the tide of evil--struggling to bear up in +their lot--enduring and achieving for the sake of those who, young as +these children are, are dependent on them. If I had time, I think I +could write a "Martyrology;" not following the track of famous men, +whose faces look out upon us from the brutal amphitheatre and from the +fire with a halo of glory around them, and whom we behold, by the vision +of faith, with their gory robes transfigured to celestial whiteness, +waving palms in their hands; but tracing out incidents in the lives of +some of the children here in our city--not dead, but _living_ martyrs! +O! I think I _could_ write such a Martyrology, with blood and tears, +over many a gloomy threshold, on the walls of many a desolate room; and +let future generations come and read it--a fearful record of human +suffering--a sweet memorial of human virtue--when many of these old +woes, we trust, shall have passed away for ever. + +Permit me, in closing, to present two or three incidents illustrative of +this heroism and sacrifice among the Children of the Poor. + +Take, for instance, the account of a writer who tells us that in the +street he "met a little girl, very poor, but with such a sweet sad +expression," adds he, "that I involuntarily stopped and spoke to her. +She answered my questions very clearly, but the heavy, sad look never +left her eyes a moment. She had no father or mother. She took care of +the children herself; she was only _thirteen_; she sewed on check +shirts, and made a living for them." He went to see her. "It is a low, +damp basement her home. She lives there with the three little children, +whom she supports, and the elder sick brother, who sometimes picks up a +trifle. She had been washing for herself and little ones. 'She almost +thought that she could take in washing now,' and the little ones with +their knees to their mouths crouched up before the stove, looked as if +there could not be a doubt of sister's doing anything she tried. 'Well, +Annie, how do you make a living now?' 'I sew on the check shirts, sir, +and the flannel shirts; I get five cents for the checks, and nine cents +for the others; but just now they wont let me have the flannel, because +I can't deposit two dollars.' 'It must be very hard work?' 'O! I don't +mind, sir; but to-day the visitors came, and said we'd better go to the +poor-house, and I said I couldn't like to leave these little ones yet; +and I thought if I only had candles, I could sit up till ten or eleven, +and make the shirts.' ... She had learned everything she knew at the +Industrial School.... She never went to church, for she had no clothes, +but she could read and write.... 'It was very damp there,' she said, +'and then it was so cold nights.'" + +I will, in the next place, introduce you to a garret-room, six feet by +ten. The occupants are a poor mother and her son. The mother works at +making shirts with collars and stitched bosoms, at six shillings and +sixpence per dozen, for a man who pays half in merchandise, and who, +when she is starving for bread, puts her off with calico at a _shilling_ +a yard that is not worth more than fourpence! But _he_ is not the martyr +in the case. When the visitor entered, her son George, about twelve +years old, "was just coming in for dinner, pale and apparently exhausted +by the effort of climbing the stairs, and sank down upon a rough plank +bench near the door." He worked in a glass-factory, earning a bare +subsistence. "He is a little old man at twelve," says the narrator, "the +paleness of his sunken cheeks was relieved by the hectic flush; his +hollow dry eye was moistened by an occasional tear; and his thin white +lip quivered as he told me his simple story; how he was braving hunger +and death--for he cannot live long--to help his mother pay the rent and +buy her bread. 'Half-past ten at night is early for him to return,' said +the mother; 'sometimes it is half-past eleven and I am sitting up for +him.' Sometimes, in the morning, she finds him awake, 'but he don't want +to get up, and he puts his hands on his sides and says, 'Mother, it +hurts me here when I breathe.' I can work, and I do work,' adds she, +'all the time--but I can't make as much as my little boy.'" + +One more account. It is of a beggar-girl who "lives," as the narrative +goes on to say, "in a rear building where full daylight never shines--in +a cellar-room where pure dry air is never breathed. A quick gentle girl +of twelve years, she speaks to the visitor as he enters--'Mother does +not see you, sir, because she's blind.' The mother was an old woman of +sixty-five or seventy years, with six or seven others seated around. +'But you told me you and your mother and little sister lived by +yourselves.' 'Yes, sir--here it is;'" and at the end of the passage the +visitor discovers a narrow place, about five feet by three. The bed was +rolled up in one corner, and nearly filled the room. "'But where is your +stove?' 'We have none, sir. The people in the next room are very kind to +mother, and let her come in there to warm--because, you know, I get half +the coal.' 'But where do you cook your food?' 'We never cook any, sir; +it is already cooked. I go early in the morning to get coal and chips +for the fire, and I must have two baskets of coal and wood to kindle +with by noon. That's mother's half. Then when the people have eaten +dinner, I go round to get the bits they leave. I can get two baskets of +coal every day now; but when it gets cold, and we must have a great +deal, it is hard for me to find any--there's so many poor chaps to pick +it. Sometimes the _ladies_ speak cross to me, and shut the door hard at +me, and sometimes the _gentlemen_ slap me in the face, and kick my +basket, and then I come home, and mother says not to cry, for may be +I'll do better to-morrow. Sometimes I get my basket almost full, and +then put it by for to-morrow; and then, if next day we have enough, I +take this to a poor woman next door. Sometimes I get only a few bits in +my basket for all day, and may be the next day. And then I _fast_, +because, you know, mother is sick and weakly, and can't be able to fast +like me.'" + +These my friends, are some of the "short and simple annals of the poor." +But those of whom Gray spoke rest peacefully in the "country +churchyard;" their spirits are in heaven, and their history is embalmed +in his own immortal Elegy. But _these_ records are of those who yet live +and suffer--"Martyrs _without_ the palm." + +And could I summon them here to-night, and would the Master but enter as +when upon earth, surely he would look upon them in tender pity; would +bless them; would take in his arms those whom the world has cast aside +and overlooked. Nay, perhaps he would transfigure their actuality into +their possibility, and we might see "the angels in their faces," +pleading with us before the Father's throne! + + + + +THE HELP OF RELIGION. + + + + +DISCOURSE VIII. + +THE HELP OF RELIGION. + + For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to + come.--HEBREWS xiii, 14. + + +There are a good many people who, apparently, are never troubled by any +speculations arising out of a comprehensive view of things. They are +keenly alive to all objects within their sphere; but their eyes are +close to the surface, and their experience comes in shocks of sensation, +and shreds of perception. They know the superficial features of the +world and its conventional expressions; are conversant with its business +and its pleasures; with the market, the fashions, the town-talk, the +worldly fortunes of their neighbors. Sometimes, a powerful affliction +startles them in this smooth routine, and for a moment they are +surprised to find how wide the universe is, and among what great +realities we dwell. But, usually, their existence is a narrow revolving +disc, bringing around the same group of incidents and the same +associations, morning, noon, and night. They comprehend Life as they +comprehend the expanse of yonder harbor, dotted with shifting but +familiar forms, ruffled by a passing wind or bright under a summer sun, +and whose tides duly rise and fall. But they little think of the oceanic +vastness which it represents; and how its oscillations come from great +currents that leap out of the Antarctic, and swell around tropical +islands, and sweep the lines of continents, and roll in the Polar Sea. + +These, therefore, are not perplexed by questions such as occur to him +who, looking beyond his own worldly interests and the area of daily +routine, takes into view the scope of being and the profounder phenomena +of human life. For such a view will inevitably engender speculation, nor +can he rest until he obtains some _theory_ of existence. These very +conditions of Humanity in the City, for instance--these conditions of +poverty, and responsibility, and relationship, and privilege, and +strife, and toil--yea, the lessons which come to us from the crowd as it +flows through these streets; constitute a great problem, of which every +thinking man will seek some solution. + +Now, throughout this entire series of discourses--although I have not +deemed it necessary in every instance to make a specific application--I +have assumed that you and I were looking upon these various phases of +Humanity from the Christian stand-point, and therefore I could not fitly +conclude this work without indicating the Help which RELIGION affords +concerning these problems of existence. + +I observe, then, that while it may seem very simple to affirm that a +_theory_ does not, in any case, alter _facts_; yet there is often an +advantage in laying down this proposition. For this leads us to +understand precisely what a theory _may_ do. It does not alter facts, +but it throws them into new relations, and presents them in an entirely +different light. Materialism, for instance, is a theory of Life; and +Christianity--in which term I include not only a system of Doctrines, +but of practical forces--is also a theory of Life. Now, neither of these +gets rid of the great facts of existence. Men sin and suffer and die, +whether we adopt the one system or the other. But, surely, when we +approach these facts from the side of Religion, they appear in very +different lights, and are taken up with very different results, from +their appearance and effect when interpreted by the creed of Unbelief. +It would be very absurd then, because Christianity does not instantly +abolish, or fully explain, all these strange and darker realities, to +fall back upon the opposite ground of skepticism. This is only receding +from the best solution to the worst--or, rather, to no solution at all. +For I maintain that Christianity gives us not merely the best, but the +_only_ solution of these problems. It will be my purpose in this +discourse, at least, to show what kind of help Religion _does_ afford +for Humanity in all these diverse conditions; and, having done this, I +shall leave it to your own convictions to decide whether it is not a +great and practical Help; and whether there _is_ any other help. I +propose to illustrate the influence of Religion to this effect, +first--as a _Conviction_; second, as a _Working Power_; and third, as an +_Interpretation_. + +I say, then, in the first place, that religion furnishes great help for +man in the various issues of life, when he becomes actually convinced +that its truths and sanctions are _genuine_. In other words, the +conception of a moral government, of a directing Providence, and of +eternal realities, vividly apprehended by the intellect, kept fresh in +the heart, and assimilated to the entire spiritual nature, is a personal +inspiration. It elevates the platform of a man's being, so that all +things appear in true proportion. It clears his vision to detect +principles, and endows him with moral courage. I do not know that I can +better suggest its influence as a help here, in the conditions of the +city, than by asking you to imagine what _would_ be the state of things +in the spheres of toil and traffic--in all the multiform relations of +our humanity--if men really apprehended and believed it? _It_, I +say--not some special dogma or institution, but the absolute spirit and +truth of Christianity. For I do not think that, generally, this _is_ +actually credited. I think that, with many professions of religion, and +much outward respect for it, and an extensive circulation of vague +conceptions about it, it is _not_ commonly felt and vitalized--it is not +apprehended in its blessedness and power, and absolute excellence. To +the habits of the soul it does not represent and mean realities as a +written contract does, or a bank-bill--something that men precipitate +themselves upon, and that sways the under-currents of their action. New +York, with its Broadway and its Wall Street; with its proud buildings +and its bristling masts; is a reality--but that city of which the text +makes mention; that city which good men seek, and which in the +Apocalypse of Faith they see; whose splendors glitter through the solemn +twilight; nay, which hems them around for ever, and shines down upon +them brighter than the noonday sun; to thousands, toiling, sinning, and +suffering here, is _not_ a reality. For, I ask you, my friends, if it +_were_ realized, could there be so much abject need among us; so much +stony-hearted selfishness; so much shuffling in trade, and corruption +in politics, and meanness in intercourse, and foolish superficial +living? I know, and you know, that one of the greatest evils is--not +merely that men are worldly, irreligious, bound up in sad conditions and +narrow conceits; but that they are so, because they do not apprehend the +nature and do not feel the reality of religion. For I say once more, +that a conviction of its reality must be a great help in adjusting the +problems of life. And this, because it acts upon the centre of all the +sin, and much of the suffering of the world. This personal application +of religion stands before all other remedies for the removal of these +evils. Others are attempted--others are, in a degree, successful; but +none go so deep and produce results so sure. It seems to me that the +position of humanity in this respect, is illustrated in the narrative of +the Demoniac of Gadara. We are told that he had been bound with chains, +but in his fierce madness had burst them asunder. And then, again, men +had tried various expedients, but they could not tame him. But when the +influence of Jesus fell upon his soul, it took hold of it with sweet +authority; the legion left him, and the poor, wounded, houseless man sat +clothed and in his right mind. So is it with man in society; so is it +with some of these social evils. The power of _law_ has been invoked; +and it has its legitimate sphere of operation. It checks the purposed +violence. It arrests the overt act. It may consistently be summoned to +purify all those channels of social action which it assumes to regulate; +and, instead of patronizing the wrong, to set its face and hand against +it. Thus it may prevent public harm, though it cannot stop self-injury, +and remove occasions of temptation, though it cannot impart moral +strength. It has no efficacy to change the assassin's heart, yet we call +upon it to guard us against murder. We bid it close the den of infamy, +though it does not quench guilty passion. And we may use it to stop the +sale of intoxicating drinks, though it does not destroy the drunkard's +appetite. And this indicates both the function and the limitation of the +law. Thrown over the wild forces that rage in the human heart, and that +afflict community, it is like the fetters on the limbs of the demoniac. +It may restrain for a time; but in some sweep of temptation it is +spurned and snapped asunder. On the other hand, we have the expedients +of the _reformer_. He comes with props and palliatives; soothing some +cutaneous irritation, or removing some foul condition. And let us +recognize the legitimacy of _his_ endeavor. We must approach the human +heart through the web of its external circumstances, as well as +directly. Nay, often this is the only way by which we can get at it at +all. And well may we rejoice over the rescue from specific vices, and +commend the zeal and patience which fasten upon some colossal evil to +batter and drive it from the world. But notwithstanding such noble +achievement, how many have remained among the tombs, or gone back to the +wilderness--demoniacs still! It is an old truth, but I say it as though +it were in the conviction of a fresh fact forced upon me by these great +problems that heave up in the currents of City Life; it is an +unavoidable conclusion that there is only one influence that can make +safe, and pure, and strong in goodness, those recesses out of which +issue so much social evil, and so much personal suffering. And that is +the influence not of the law-giver, nor of the reformer; but of the +Redeemer. It is that power which flows through the soul in a practical +conviction of the reality of religion. It is the help which comes from +its inspiration of divine truth and goodness in the breasts of +individual men, turning them from evil, rendering them strong against +temptation, and sending out from their lives fresh forces of +righteousness and love. + +Indeed, I believe that any man who really thinks and feels, and who has +much experience of Life, will become convinced of the _necessity_ of +Religion. I would leave its claims not to the argument of the Moralist, +or the advocacy of the Pulpit, but as they urge themselves upon us here +out of the whirl, and weariness, and vicissitudes of the City. Surely, +as its calm voice appeals to the sons of men, striving in this heated +atmosphere; chasing phantoms that rise out of the dust; absorbed in the +fickle game of fortune; borne along for a little while on the top-waves +of excitement, and then dying unmarked as a rain-drop that falls into +the sea; surely as its voice appeals to these, saying--"Come unto me, +all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!" it +strikes the deepest chords in thousands of hearts. I will not adopt now +any professional argument to prove the great necessity of Religion as a +Help in Life. But I would take my stand, in imagination, at some corner +of yonder tumultuous street. How multiform the crowds that sweep by me; +how diverse the faces; what a kaleidoscope of human conditions! And yet, +when you attempt to classify them, how few are the actual _types_ of +men--how many fall into a common group; and when you try them by the +profoundest standard--that of a common experience and common wants--how +marvellously alike they all are! How similar in inward expression, the +rich man who walks yonder, to that poor drudging son of toil, who bows +his back and strains his sinews until they ache! How similar in effect +the burdens which they both bear--the burden of wealth, and the burden +of poverty, in the fact that they _are_ burdens upon the heart and the +soul! And are they not both struggling with the realities of life, and +moved by quenchless desires, and looking up into the same infinite +mystery? Ah! my friends, I hardly think it would be the most effectual +way to preach Religion in this church on Sunday, as a matter of +course--but to stand out there on week-days, and strike the deepest +chords throbbing unconsciously in the bosoms of those who pass me by. I +would appeal to you, O disappointed, almost heart-broken man, who for +years have endeavored to earn a competency to lift your head above the +sheer necessities of life, but have failed in the chase, and been beaten +back, and seen others who have exerted themselves not near as much, not +so honorably, perhaps, rise to the very top of the stream and sail clear +ahead;--or to you, O "favorite of fortune," as the world calls you, who +find your palace to be only a stately sepulchre, in which all genuine +feeling and simple enjoyment lies dead and wrapped in cerements of +chilling etiquette--whose daughter, perhaps, has mocked your fondest +plans; or whose son has turned out a miserable weed of dissipation--a +degenerate fopling, a rake, a fool;--or to you, O butterfly of fashion, +sailing with embroidered wings in search of admiration and of pleasure; +or still again, to you who have just gathered together the means of +enjoyment, and ease, and everything, to make life pleasant, and lo! +death has entered, and your hopes are darkened and in the dust; I appeal +to you, O types of this streaming humanity, that wears so many masks, +yet, carries under all a common heart; and ask you, if there is not some +void that no earthly good can fill--that no finite thing can sustain and +satisfy? Can you go on with the common business of the world, discharge +all its obligations, control yourself in its excitements, resist its +evil solicitations, bear up under its trials, and, finally, reach that +period in life when you must ask--"What is all this worth?--these years +of toil, these eager enterprises, this golden accumulation or +unfortunate failure--what are they all worth, and what do they +mean?"--can anybody well get along with all this, without Religion? My +friends, I say to you that, not consciously, perhaps, like the old +saints who wrought and prayed and walked with upward-looking faces--but +really, in the deep yearning and the secret gravitation of the soul--you +_do_ confess that here we have no continuing city, and you are seeking +one to come. At least, it seems to me that without the Help of Religion, +there is only the alternative of moral indifference--a cold, hard +worldliness, or of recklessness and spiritual despair. And is not this +the alternative which is exhibited in the midst of all our +civilization--in the midst of this gorgeous materialism of the +nineteenth century? Thousands, it is to be apprehended, do exhibit one +or the other of those extremes which the poet has so well described: + + "For most men in a brazen prison live, + Where, in the sun's hot eye, + With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly + Their minds to some unmeaning task-work give, + Dreaming of naught beyond their prison wall; + And so, year after year, + Fresh products of their barren labor fall + From their tired hands, and rest + Never yet comes more near. + Gloom settles slowly down over their breast, + And while they try to stem + The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest, + Death in their prison reaches them + Unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest. + + "And the rest, a few, + Escape their prison, and depart + On the wide ocean of life anew. + There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart + Listeth, will sail; + Nor does he know how there prevail + Despotic on life's sea, + Trade-winds that cross it from eternity. + Awhile he holds some false way, undebarred + By thwarting signs, and braves + The freshening wind, and blackening waves, + And then the tempest strikes him, and between + The lightning bursts is seen + Only a driving wreck, + And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck + With anguished face and flying hair, + Grasping the rudder hard, + Still bent to make some port he knows not where, + Still standing for some false impossible shore, + And sterner comes the roar + Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom, + Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom." + +But, before I quit this head of my discourse, let me say that in order +to be accepted as the great Help of Life, Religion must in some way be +_presented_ as a reality. It must not be held forth as a mere +abstraction--it must be precipitated into its concrete relations. +Parting with none of its sanctity, it must be stripped of its vagueness +and technicality, and be spoken in the fresh language of the time. I +feel sure that amidst prevalent irreligion, nothing is so much needed as +a definite statement of _what_ religion is; and that men should learn to +recognize its vascular connection with every department of action. It +must be understood that "being religious" is not a work apart by itself, +but a spirit of faith and righteousness, flowing out from the centre of +a regenerated heart into all the employments and intercourse of the +world. Not merely the preacher in the pulpit, and the saint on his +knees, may do the work of religion, but the mechanic who smites with the +hammer and drives the wheel; the artist seeking to realize his pure +ideal of the beautiful; the mother in the gentle offices of home; the +statesman in the forlorn hope of liberty and justice; and the +philosopher whose thought treads reverently among the splendid mysteries +of the universe. I know that some will deem this a secularization of +religion--a desecration of its holy essence by worldly alliances. But +they are mistaken. It is a _consecration_ of pursuits and spheres that +have been cut off from all sacredness, and devoted to secondary ends. +Are not the just, the useful, the beautiful, from God, as well as the +good and the holy? And, therefore, is not any practice which serves +these, a service of God? It is needed that men should feel that every +lawful pursuit _is_ sacred and not profane; that every position in life +is close to the steps of the divine throne; and that the most beaten and +familiar paths lie under the awful shadow of the Infinite; then they +will go about their daily pursuits, and fill their common relationships, +with hearts of worship and pulses of unselfish love; instead of +regarding religion as an isolated peculiarity for a corner of the closet +and a fraction of the week, and leaving all the rest of time and space +an unconsecrated waste, where lawless passions travel, and selfishness +pitches its tents. O! if religion _were_ thus a diffusive, practical, +every-day reality, there would be a marvellous change in the aspects of +life and the conditions of humanity around us. The great city, now so +gross and profane, would become as a vast cathedral, through whose stony +aisles would flow perpetual service; where labor would discharge its +daily offices, and faith and patience keep their heavenward look, and +love present its offerings. Yea, the very roll of wheels through its +busy streets would be as a litany, and the sound of homeward feet the +chant of its evening psalm. + +But religion is not only a help in and for ourselves; it has a +ministration for others--for this great mass of destitution and +suffering that broods in the midst of the city. Christianity is not +merely a theory of existence--it is a _working-power_. Its precepts are +practical, and enjoin not merely states of mind and heart, but +conditions of activity. There is an entire magazine of working-forces in +that one great law--"Love thy neighbor as thyself." Hear the words of +an apostolical commentator upon it. "If a brother or sister be naked, +and destitute of daily food," says he, "and one of you say unto them, +Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them +not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? +Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." And wherever +Christianity has existed and been apprehended, it has produced +beneficent results for humanity. It has gone over the earth like its +Divine Author, with healing and with help for the woes of the race. +Anybody who takes his stand at the head-waters of modern history, will +see that a mighty energy was then poured into the world, whose influence +is evident in the truest civilization, in the best results, of ages. In +estimating the practical power of Christianity, we must look at the +_positive_ phase of things--we must consider what has actually been +done; not merely what remains to be done. We must adopt proportionate +standards, not the little measures of to-day and yesterday, in which the +tides of human melioration may oscillate, and even seem to flow +backward and at the best to make slight headway. But take up the cycle +of history that preceded the advent of Christianity, and compare it with +the present period; and is there not an entirely different expression on +the face of things, so far as conceptions of humanity and influences of +philanthropy are concerned? Contrast "a Roman holiday," its butchery and +its blood, with a modern anniversary that clasps the round world in its +jubilee, and see if humanity has not been helped by religion. Or look +back upon Grecian art and refinement, and tell me what oration or poem, +or pantheon of marble beauty, is half as glorious as the plain brick +free-school; the asylum of industry; the home for the penitent, the +disabled and the poor? Ah! my friends, these are such familiar things +that we may not think them the great things they really are; and in +gazing upon the colossal evils that yet tower up before us, they may +seem slight achievements. But they _are_ great: and when I see the poor +drunkard return to a renovated home--the demoniac sitting clothed and in +his right mind once more; when I see the dumb write, and hear the blind +read, and little rescued children sing their thankful hymns; I think +humanity _has_ been helped a great deal since that Divine Teacher walked +the earth, and took the lambs to his bosom, and made the foul leper +clean, and partook with publicans and sinners, and bade the guilty go +and sin no more. I think that currents of love and self-sacrifice, from +that heart that was pierced for us upon the cross, have found their way +through the channels of ages, through all the impediments of worldliness +and selfishness, and inspired and blessed men far more than they know. + +But if, turning from the positive achievement, you point to the evils +that still exist--if you lift the coverings of respectability and custom +from the ghastly facts that are embedded here in our so-called +civilization; if you bid me mark the vice, the poverty, the crime, the +oppression, the grinding monopoly, the prejudice, the gigantic +materialism and practical atheism that are mixed up with it, and seem to +be inseparable parts of it; then I ask you--how would it be _without_ +the Help of Religion? What interpretation should we obtain from the +dark creed of the skeptic, what inspiration from the philosophy of +annihilation, and of fate? To say nothing of those forces of Love and +self-sacrifice which it sheds abroad in the world, and to which I have +just alluded,--Religion, in one single proposition, sends pregnant +elements of direction and relief into the midst of these giant evils. +That one proposition is the immortality of man--the priceless +spirituality of every man--the ascription of a nature more glorious and +imperishable than a star. Here is the spring of its perpetual antagonism +to the world, and to the evil of the world. The latter bases its +estimate of man upon outward conditions; estimates his name and his +title, his equipage and his parentage, the bulk of his gold, the color +of his skin, his _apparent_ success or defeat. Christianity points to +that vivid centre of a soul, in whose light all these external +distinctions fade, are fused into dross, become comparatively naught. +All the evil of the world stands upon the assumption of the former +rule--upon the ground of external and material valuation--which, as has +been well observed by another, is a "method of studying the problems of +the universe by fetching rules from the _wider_ sphere (therefore the +_lower_) to import into the _higher_.... So long as this logical +strategy is allowed, the Titans will always conquer the gods; the +ground-forces of the lowest nature will propagate themselves, pulse +after pulse, from the abysses to the skies, and _right_ will exist only +on sufferance from _might_." On the other hand, I say, Religion, +Christianity, starts from the centre outward--starts with the dignity +and sanctity of the human soul--and in this is the great element of all +progress and reform. Out of this have sprung the achievements of modern +freedom. Assuming this inward birthright of every man, men have snapped +feudal fetters, and broken the seals of ancient proscription, and torn +up branching genealogies, and trodden diadems in the dust. It was this +fact that inspired Sidney's speech, and Hampden's effort, and +Washington's calm determination. It is this that erects itself against +majorities, policies, institutions, charters, and will not be beaten +down, and will agitate, and will triumph. It is this that sends +philanthropy upon its mission; and bids it stoop to the most fallen, and +search under the darkest depravity. "Go abroad," it says, "amidst the +guilt and misery of the great city. In the rags, the filth, the +abomination, there are jewels fallen from heaven. There are souls upon +which angels look with solicitude. There are interests for which Christ +died. Search patiently, and deeply, and never give up the endeavor to +find, to lift up, to restore." Is not all the spring of benevolent +effort, then, in this single proposition of Religion? This one great +Truth it utters amidst the suffering and injustice of the world--that +men are heirs of one inheritance; possessors of a birthright by virtue +of which all outward inequalities fade away. It bases a demand for +mutual help and love, upon the fact that we are all on a +pilgrimage--high, low, honored, degraded, master, slave, we go forth +together, and these earthly distinctions all drop away. Rich man with +rows of real-estate, with money safe in bank, with solid securities +walled around you--you will carry no more away than Lazarus yonder--in +God's eyes you are no richer than he. Because here we have no continuing +city. The destinies of our common humanity flow forward into another and +more enduring one. + +And, if still this problem of human degradation and suffering presses +upon us, I say further, that where the constituents of this problem are +most prominent, there religion is the most active. The heaviest poverty +is belted about by the brightest charities; the hot-beds of crime +generate the most radical efforts for its prevention and its cure; and +while oppression is at work, setting its dark types upon virgin soil to +print off its own shame and condemnation, indignant voices expose it and +indignant hearts react against it. And more and more, every day, it is +felt and proclaimed that religion is a working-principle--a practical +power. Never was it more profoundly felt than in this very age that men +must be confessors of Christianity as well as professors. And in the +light of this conception, proffering fresh and willing help, Religion +walks abroad; and lo! waste places grow verdant, and the strongholds of +guilt and misery sink down, and blessed institutions rise up, and +industry takes the place of crime, and cursings are exchanged for songs, +and the poorest sees the immortal light, and is lifted up by the grand +thought--that "here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to +come." + +We have thus seen that Religion is a Help as to the fact of sin, when +men are convinced of it as a great reality; and a help as to the fact of +human suffering, because it is a working-power. But, over and above all +this, there are problems that perplex us, and demand some answer; +problems as to the How, and the Wherefore, and the End. There are times +when our thoughts rise above all specific instances, and we take up +humanity and existence as a whole, and ask--"What means it all?" +Sometimes this question starts out of an individual experience. The +shock of affliction has jarred our hearts; our expectations have come to +naught; bereavement has broken up the routine of our life; or our own +souls have surprised us with sudden revelations. At any rate, we find +our being here involved with mystery. There is something that our +understanding cannot entirely grasp; something that our unassisted eyes +cannot see. And the only help for us in such a case is the Help of +Religion, presenting us, through faith, with an _interpretation_ of +human life--an interpretation which tells us that what we now experience +and behold is only transitional, preliminary, and that we see through a +glass darkly, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. + +And is it necessary for me to dwell upon the strength which has thus +been imparted to sad and wounded spirits, when with perfect trust in +Infinite Goodness they have thus realized that they stand only on one +round of an upward course--only in a little segment of the immense plan? +I will merely say now, that if, through faith, religion is a help to +these by interpreting life in harmony with individual experience, so +through this faith does it help the meditative man troubled by the +general problem of existence and humanity. The meaning of these various +conditions in the city--the meaning of these sins, and sorrows, and +inequalities--the meaning of this tide of life itself that rolls in +endless succession through these stony arteries--does it perplex you? +Accept, then, the help which religion gives by interpreting it as only +preliminary and transitional; only a portion of a wider scheme. + +We commenced this series of discourses by standing, as it were, in the +street, on a level with all these phases of humanity. Ascend now some +lofty post of observation; some high watch-tower. The mottled tide flows +and dashes far below you. The sounds of strife and endeavor rise faintly +to your ears, and are drowned in the upper air. So in the altitude and +comprehensiveness of faith, all this that seemed so huge and startling +dwindles to a little stream in the great ocean of existence, and all +these tumults are swallowed up in the currents of silent but beneficent +design. But, in the meantime, the daylight has gone, the night-shadow +has fallen, this stream of human life has ebbed away, and all these +sounds are still. See, now, how much of your perplexity came from a +deceit of eye-sight--see how the light of this world blinded you to the +immensity and the meaning of existence! See! over your head spreads the +great firmament. There are Sirius, and Orion, and the glittering +Pleiades. How harmoniously they are related; how calmly they roll! And +now, O man! fresh from the reeking dust, and the cry of pained hearts, +and the shadows of the grave, do not the scales of unbelief drop from +your eyes, when you see the width of God's universe, and feel that His +purpose girdles this little planet and steers its freight of souls? You +were deceived by your standards of greatness and duration. You thought +that this material city, with what it contains, was everything. But +_they_ have cherished the true view, who in the spirit of the text have +interpreted these Conditions of Humanity--the conditions of those who +seek and sin and suffer in the busy crowd; of those who rest beneath +yonder gleaming tomb-stones. And, as we read what all wise and good men +have virtually said, our mortal term contracts, our immortal career +opens, our years seem as ticks of a clock, and the entire sum of our +life but a minute-mark on the dial of eternity; and this huge metropolis +becomes a dim veil, a perishable symbol of real and enduring things. + + +THE END. + + + * * * * * + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as +possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious +typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have +been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below: + +page 27: quote typo corrected + + But, say you, '["]here is one who is returning to a home of + destitution, of misery; where the + +page 39: typo corrected + + between those great agents of human achievment[achievement] + and the living intelligence + +page 41: typo corrected + + years. Remarkable for brilliant achievments[achievements] in + every department of physics, ours well deserves + +page 45: hyphen removed + + the old world without a telegraph, and Columbus found a new + one without a steam[-]ship. + +page 49: typo corrected + + open air and the sovreignty[sovereignty] of the soil. And if + this immense intrusion of machinery has + +page 58: duplicate word removed + + stream, and chained the fire; and now, [with] with the eye of + science and the hand of skill, + +page 84: typo corrected + + dignity is there in that man who justs[just] accepts his + station and makes the most of + +page 154: removed quote + + celestial City be these well-known doors--and thus may we + also _die_ at Home!["] + +page 173: typo corrected + + heaven, whose inhabitants would not make + harmlesness[harmlessness] their chief characteristic. Their + +page 195: typo corrected + + and, perpetually descending from the threshold of the + Infinite, keeps open an arch-way of mysstery[mystery] and + heaven. + +page 201: typo corrected + + dangerous reasoning, my friends; neverthless[nevertheless], + it _is_ reasoning, and shows that the mind of the + +page 240: typo corrected + + of life and the conditions of humanity arouud[around] us. The + great city, now so gross and profane, + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Humanity in the City, by E. H. Chapin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUMANITY IN THE CITY *** + +***** This file should be named 26441.txt or 26441.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/4/4/26441/ + +Produced by Julia Miller and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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