diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:01:54 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:01:54 -0700 |
| commit | f8273655e2d07f49de7eb3823b1868b198c7436c (patch) | |
| tree | 52536a306bf9e5dd8a39e04afd101a7216c49c9c | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 34573-8.txt | 10073 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 34573-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 238556 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 34573-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 250987 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 34573-h/34573-h.htm | 10207 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 34573.txt | 10073 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 34573.zip | bin | 0 -> 238512 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
9 files changed, 30369 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/34573-8.txt b/34573-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed61cce --- /dev/null +++ b/34573-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10073 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional +Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3), by Theodore Parker + +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: Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3) + +Author: Theodore Parker + +Release Date: December 5, 2010 [EBook #34573] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPEECHES *** + + + + +Produced by Julia Miller, Josephine Paolucci 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.) + + + + + + + +SPEECHES, ADDRESSES, + +AND + +OCCASIONAL SERMONS, + +BY + +THEODORE PARKER, + +MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN BOSTON. + +IN THREE VOLUMES. + +VOL. I. + +BOSTON: +HORACE B. FULLER, +(SUCCESSOR TO WALKER, FULLER, AND COMPANY,) +245, WASHINGTON STREET. +1867. + + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by +THEODORE PARKER, +in the Clerk's Office of the District Court +of the District of Massachusetts. + + +TO + +FRANCIS JACKSON, + +THE FOE 'GAINST EVERY FORM OF WRONG, +THE FRIEND OF JUSTICE, +WHOSE WIDE HUMANITY CONTENDS +FOR WOMAN'S NATURAL AND UNALIENABLE RIGHT; AGAINST +HIS NATION'S CRUELTY PROTECTS THE SLAVE; +IN THE CRIMINAL BEHOLDS A BROTHER TO BE REFORMED; +GOES TO MEN FALLEN AMONG THIEVES,-- +WHOM PRIESTS AND LEVITES SACRAMENTALLY PASS BY,-- +AND SEEKS TO SOOTHE AND HEAL AND BLESS THEM THAT ARE +READY TO PERISH: +WITH ADMIRATION FOR HIS UNSURPASSED INTEGRITY, +HIS COURAGE WHICH NOTHING SCARES, +AND HIS TRUE RELIGION +THAT WOULD BRING PEACE ON EARTH AND GOOD-WILL TO MAN, +THESE VOLUMES +ARE THANKFULLY DEDICATED +BY HIS MINISTER AND FRIEND, + +THEODORE PARKER. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +I have collected in these volumes several Speeches, Addresses and +occasional Sermons, which I have delivered at various times during the +last seven years. Most of them were prepared for some special emergency: +only two papers, that on "The Relation of Jesus to his Age and the +Ages," and that on "Immortal Life," were written without reference to +some such emergency. All of them have been printed before, excepting the +sermon "Of General Taylor," and the address on "The American Scholar;" +some have been several times reprinted. I do not know that they are +worthy of republication in this permanent form, but the leading ideas of +these volumes are very dear to me, and are sure to live as long as the +human race shall continue. So I have published a small edition, hoping +that the truths which I know are contained in these pages will do a +service long after the writer, and the occasion of their utterance, have +passed off and been forgot. I offer them to whom they may concern. + +THEODORE PARKER. + +AUGUST 24, 1851. + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. + + +I. + +THE RELATION OF JESUS TO HIS AGE AND THE AGES.--A +Sermon preached at the Thursday Lecture, in Boston, +December 26, 1844 PAGE 1 + +II. + +THE TRUE IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH.--A Discourse +at the Installation of Theodore Parker as Minister of the +Twenty-Eighth Congregational Church in Boston, on Sunday, +January 4, 1846 23 + +III. + +A SERMON OF WAR.--Preached at the Melodeon, on Sunday, +June 7, 1846 63 + +IV. + +A SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE ANTI-WAR MEETING IN +FANUEIL HALL, February 4, 1847 113 + +V. + +A SERMON OF THE MEXICAN WAR.--Preached at the +Melodeon, on Sunday, June 25, 1848 127 + +VI. + +A SERMON OF THE PERISHING CLASSES IN BOSTON.--Preached +at the Melodeon on Sunday, August 30, 1846 185 + +VII. + +A SERMON OF MERCHANTS.--Preached at the Melodeon, +on Sunday, November 22, 1846 227 + +VIII. + +A SERMON OF THE DANGEROUS CLASSES IN SOCIETY.--Preached +at the Melodeon, on Sunday, January 31, 1847 279 + +IX. + +A SERMON OF POVERTY.--Preached at the Melodeon, on +Sunday, January 14, 1849 333 + +X. + +A SERMON OF THE MORAL CONDITION OF BOSTON.--Preached +at the Melodeon, on Sunday, February 11, 1849 364 + + + + +I. + +THE RELATION OF JESUS TO HIS AGE AND THE AGES.--A SERMON PREACHED AT THE +THURSDAY LECTURE, IN BOSTON, DECEMBER 26, 1844. + +JOHN VII. 48. + + "Have any of the Rulers, or of the Pharisees, believed on + him?" + + +In all the world there is nothing so remarkable as a great man; nothing +so rare; nothing which so well repays study. Human nature is loyal at +its heart, and is, always and everywhere, looking for this its true +earthly sovereign. We sometimes say that our institutions, here in +America, do not require great men; that we get along better without than +with such. But let a real, great man light on our quarter of the planet; +let us understand him, and straightway these democratic hearts of ours +burn with admiration and with love. We wave in his words, like corn in +the harvest wind. We should rejoice to obey him, for he would speak what +we need to hear. Men are always half expecting such a man. But when he +comes, the real, great man that God has been preparing,--men are +disappointed; they do not recognize him. He does not enter the city +through the gates which expectants had crowded. He is a fresh fact, +brand new; not exactly like any former fact. Therefore men do not +recognize nor acknowledge him. His language is strange, and his form +unusual. He looks revolutionary, and pulls down ancient walls to build +his own temple, or, at least, splits old rocks asunder, and quarries +anew fresh granite and marble. + +There are two classes of great men. Now and then some arise whom all +acknowledge to be great, soon as they appear. Such men have what is true +in relation to the wants and expectations of to-day. They say, what many +men wished but had not words for; they translate into thought what, as a +dim sentiment, lay a burning in many a heart, but could not get entirely +written out into consciousness. These men find a welcome. Nobody +misunderstands them. The world follows at their chariot-wheels, and +flings up its cap and shouts its huzzas,--for the world is loyal, and +follows its king when it sees and knows him. The good part of the world +follows the highest man it comprehends; the bad, whoever serves its +turn. + +But there is another class of men so great, that all cannot see their +greatness. They are in advance of men's conjectures, higher than their +dreams; too good to be actual, think some. Therefore, say many, there +must be some mistake; this man is not so great as he seems; nay, he is +no great man at all, but an impostor. These men have what is true not +merely in relation to the wants and expectations of men here and to-day; +but what is true in relation to the Universe, to Eternity, to God. They +do not speak what you and I have been trying to say, and cannot; but +what we shall one day years hence, wish to say, after we have improved +and grown up to man's estate. + +Now it seems to me, the men of this latter class, when they come, can +never meet the approbation of the censors and guides of public opinion. +Such as wished for a new great man had a superstition of the last one in +their minds. They expected the new to be just like the old, but he is +altogether unlike. Nature is rich, but not rich enough to waste any +thing. So there are never two great men very strongly similar. Nay, this +new great man, perhaps, begins by destroying much that the old one built +up with tears and prayers. He shows, at first, the limitations and +defects of the former great man; calls in question his authority. He +refuses all masters; bows not to tradition; and with seeming +irreverence, laughs in the face of the popular idols. How will the +"respectable men," the men of a few good rules and those derived from +their fathers "the best of men and the wisest,"--how will they regard +this new great man? They will see nothing remarkable in him except that +he is fluent and superficial, dangerous and revolutionary. He disturbs +their notions of order; he shows that the institutions of society are +not perfect; that their imperfections are not of granite or marble, but +only of words written on soft wax, which may be erased and others +written thereon anew. He shows that such imperfect institutions are less +than one great man. The guides and censors of public opinion will not +honor such a man, they will hate him. Why not? Some others not half so +well bred, nor well furnished with precedents, welcome the new great +man; welcome his ideas; welcome his person. They say, "Behold a +Prophet." + + * * * * * + +When Jesus, the son of Mary, a poor woman, wife of Joseph the carpenter, +in the little town of Nazareth, when he "began to be about thirty years +old," and began also to open his mouth in the synagogues and the +highways, nobody thought him a great man at all, as it seems. "Who are +you?" said the guardians of public opinion. He found men expecting a +great man. This, it seems, was the common opinion, that a great man was +to arise, and save the Church, and save the State. They looked back to +Moses, a divine man of antiquity, whose great life had passed into the +world, and to whom men had done honor, in various ways; amongst others, +by telling all sorts of wonders he wrought, and declaring that none +could be so great again; none get so near to God. They looked back also +to the prophets, a long line of divine men, so they reckoned, but less +than the awful Moses; his stature was far above the nation, who hid +themselves in his shadow. Now the well-instructed children of Abraham +thought the next great man must be only a copy of the last, repeat his +ideas, and work in the old fashion. Sick men like to be healed by the +medicine which helped them the last time; at least, by the customary +drugs which are popular. + +In Judea, there were then parties of men, distinctly marked. There were +the Conservatives,--they represented the church, tradition, +ecclesiastical or theocratical authority. They adhered to the words of +the old books, the forms of the old rites, the tradition of the elders. +"Nobody but a Jew can be saved," said they; "he only by circumcision, +and the keeping of the old formal law; God likes that, He accepts +nothing else." These were the Pharisees, with their servants the +Scribes. Of this class were the Priests and the Levites in the main, the +National party, the Native-Hebrew party of that time. They had +tradition, Moses and the prophets; they believed in tradition, Moses and +the prophets, at least in public; what they believed in private God +knew, and so did they. I know nothing of that. + +Then there was the indifferent party; the Sadducees, the State. They had +wealth, and they believed in it, both in public and private too. They +had a more generous and extensive cultivation than the Pharisees. They +had intercourse with foreigners, and understood the writers of Ionia and +Athens which the Pharisee held in abhorrence. These were sleek +respectable men, who, in part, disbelieved the Jewish theology. It is no +very great merit to disbelieve even in the devil, unless you have a +positive faith in God to take up your affections. The Sadducee believed +neither in angel nor resurrection--not at all in the immortality of the +soul. He believed in the state, in the laws, the constables, the prisons +and the axe. In religious matters, it seems the Pharisee had a positive +belief, only it was a positive belief in a great mistake. In religious +matters the Sadducee had no positive belief at all; not even in an +error: at least, some think so. His distinctive affirmation was but a +denial. He believed what he saw with his eyes, touched with his fingers, +tasted with his tongue. He never saw, felt, nor tasted immortal life; he +had no belief therein. There was once a heathen Sadducee who said, "My +right arm is my God!" + +There was likewise a party of Come-outers. They despaired of the State +and the Church too, and turned off into the wilderness, "where the wild +asses quench their thirst," building up their organizations free, as +they hoped, from all ancient tyrannies. The Bible says nothing directly +of these men in its canonical books. It is a curious omission; but two +Jews, each acquainted with foreign writers, Josephus and Philo, give an +account of these. These were the Essenes, an ascetic sect, hostile to +marriage, at least, many of them, who lived in a sort of association by +themselves, and had all things in common. + +The Pharisees and the Sadducees had no great living and ruling ideas; +none I mean which represented man, his hopes, wishes, affections, his +aspirations and power of progress. That is no very rare case, perhaps, +you will say, for a party in the Church or the State to have no such +ideas, but they had not even a plausible substitute for such ideas. They +seemed to have no faith in man, in his divine nature, his power of +improvement. The Essenes had ideas; had a positive belief; had faith in +man, but it was weakened in a great measure by their machinery. They, +like the Pharisee and the Sadducee, were imprisoned in their +organization, and probably saw no good out of their own party lines. + +It is a plain thing that no one of these three parties would accept, +acknowledge, or even perceive the greatness of Jesus of Nazareth. His +ideas were not their notions. He was not the man they were looking for; +not at all the Messiah, the anointed one of God, which they wanted. The +Sadducee expected no new great man unless it was a Roman quæstor, or +procurator; the Pharisees looked for a Pharisee stricter than Gamaliel; +the Essenes for an Ascetic. It is so now. Some seem to think that if +Jesus were to come back to the earth, he would preach Unitarian +sermons, from a text out of the Bible, and prove his divine mission and +the everlasting truths, the truths of necessity that he taught, in the +Unitarian way, by telling of the miracles he wrought eighteen hundred +years ago; that he would prove the immortality of the soul by the fact +of his own corporeal resurrection. Others seem to think that he would +deliver homilies of a severer character; would rate men roundly about +total depravity, and tell of unconditional election, salvation without +works, and imputed righteousness, and talk of hell till the women and +children fainted, and the knees of men smote together for trembling. +Perhaps both would be mistaken. + +So it was then. All these three classes of men, imprisoned in their +prejudices and superstitions, were hostile. The Pharisees said, "We know +that God spake unto Moses; but as for this fellow, we know not whence he +is. He blasphemeth Moses and the prophets; yea, he hath a devil, and is +mad, why hear him?" The Sadducees complained that "he stirred up the +people;" so he did. The Essenes, no doubt, would have it that he was "a +gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." +Tried by these three standards, the judgment was true; what could he do +to please these three parties? Nothing! nothing that he would do. So +they hated him; all hated him, and sought to destroy him. The cause is +plain. He was so deep they could not see his profoundness; too high for +their comprehension; too far before them for their sympathy. He was not +the great man of the day. He found all organizations against him; Church +and State. Even John the Baptist, a real prophet, but not the prophet, +doubted if Jesus was the one to be followed. If Jesus had spoken for the +Pharisees, they would have accepted his speech and the speaker too. Had +he favored the Sadducees, he had been a great man in their camp, and +Herod would gladly have poured wine for the eloquent Galilean, and have +satisfied the carpenter's son with purple and fine linen. Had he praised +the Essenes, uttering their Shibboleth, they also would have paid him +his price, have made him the head of their association perhaps, at +least, have honored him in their way. He spoke for none of these. Why +should they honor or even tolerate him? It were strange had they done +so. Was it through any fault or deficiency of Jesus, that these men +refused him? quite the reverse. The rain falls and the sun shines on the +evil and the good; the work of infinite power, wisdom and goodness is +before all men, revealing the invisible things, yet the fool hath said, +ay, said in his heart, "There is no God!" + +Jesus spoke not for the prejudices of such, and therefore they rejected +him. But as he spoke truths for man, truths from God, truths adapted to +man's condition there, to man's condition everywhere and always, when +the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes went away, their lips curling +with scorn; when they gnashed on one another with their teeth, there +were noble men and humble women, who had long awaited the consolation of +Israel, and they heard him, heard him gladly. Yes, they left all to +follow him. Him! no, it was not him they followed; it was God in him +they obeyed, the God of truth, the God of love. + +There were men not counted in the organized sects; men weary of +absurdities; thirsting for the truth; sick, they knew not why nor of +what, yet none the less sick, and waiting for the angel who should heal +them, though by troubled waters and remedies unknown. These men had not +the prejudices of a straightly organized and narrow sect. Perhaps they +had not its knowledge, or its good manners. They were "unlearned and +ignorant men," those early followers of Christ. Nay, Jesus himself had +no extraordinary culture, as the world judges of such things. His +townsmen wondered, on a famous occasion, how he had learned to read. He +knew little of theologies, it would seem; the better for him, perhaps. +No doubt the better for us that he insisted on none. He knew they were +not religion. The men of Galilee did not need theology. The youngest +scribe in the humblest theological school at Jerusalem, if such a thing +were in those days, could have furnished theology enough to believe in +a life-time. They did need religion; they did see it as Jesus unfolded +its loveliness; they did welcome it when they saw; welcome it in their +hearts. + +If I were a poet as some are born, and skilled to paint with words what +shall stand out as real, to live before the eye, and then dwell in the +affectionate memory for ever, I would tell of the audience which heard +the Sermon on the mount, which listened to the parables, the rebukes, +the beautiful beatitudes. They were plain men, and humble women; many of +them foolish like you and me; some of them sinners. But they all had +hearts; had souls, all of them--hearts made to love, souls expectant of +truth. When he spoke, some said, no doubt, "That is a new thing, that +The true worshipper shall worship in spirit and in truth, as well here +as in Jerusalem, now as well as any time; that also is a hard saying, +Love your enemies; forgive them, though seventy times seven they smite +and offend you; that notion that the law and the prophets are contained, +all that is essentially religious thereof, in one precept, Love men as +yourself, and God with all your might. This differs a good deal from the +Pharisaic orthodoxy of the synagogue. That is a bold thing, presumptuous +and revolutionary to say, I am greater than the temple, wiser than +Solomon, a better symbol of God than both." But there was something +deeper than Jewish orthodoxy in their hearts; something that Jewish +orthodoxy could not satisfy, and what was yet more troublesome to +ecclesiastical guides, something that Jewish orthodoxy could not keep +down, nor even cover up. Sinners were converted at his reproof. They +felt he rebuked whom he loved. Yet his pictures of sin and sinners too, +were any thing but flattering. There was small comfort in them. Still it +was not the publicans and harlots who laid their hands on the place +where their hearts should be, saying, "You hurt our feelings," and "we +can't bear you!" Nay, they pondered his words, repenting in tears. He +showed them their sin; its cause, its consequence, its cure. To them he +came as a Saviour, and they said, "Thou art well-come," those penitent +Magdalens weeping at his feet. + +It would be curious could we know the mingled emotions that swayed the +crowd which rolled up around Jesus, following him, as the tides obey the +moon, wherever he went; curious to see how faces looked doubtful at +first as he began to speak at Tabor or Gennesareth, Capernaum or +Gischala, then how the countenance of some lowered and grew black with +thunder suppressed but cherished, while the face of others shone as a +branch of stars seen through some disparted cloud in a night of fitful +storms, a moment seen and then withdrawn. It were curious to see how +gradually many discordant feelings, passion, prejudice and pride were +hushed before the tide of melodious religion he poured out around him, +baptizing anew saint and sinner, and old and young, into one brotherhood +of a common soul, into one immortal service of the universal God; to see +how this young Hebrew maid, deep-hearted, sensitive, enthusiastic, +self-renouncing, intuitive of heavenly truth, rich as a young vine, with +clustering affections just purpling into ripeness,--how she seized, +first and all at once, the fair ideal, and with generous bosom +confidingly embraced it too; how that old man, gray-bearded, with +baldness on his head, full of precepts and precedents, the lore of his +fathers, the experience of a hard life, logical, slow, calculating, +distrustful, remembering much and fearing much, but hoping little, +confiding only in the fixed, his reverence for the old deepening as he +himself became of less use,--to see how he received the glad +inspirations of the joiner's son, and wondering felt his youth steal +slowly back upon his heart, reviving aspirations, long ago forgot, and +then the crimson tide of early hope come gushing, tingling on through +every limb; to see how the young man halting between principle and +passion, not yet petrified into worldliness, but struggling, uncertain, +half reluctant, with those two serpents, Custom and Desire, that +beautifully twined about his arms and breast and neck, their wormy +folds, concealing underneath their burnished scales the dragon's awful +strength, the viper's poison fang, the poor youth caressing their snaky +crests, and toying with their tongues of flame--to see how he slowly, +reluctantly, amid great questionings of heart, drank in the words of +truth, and then, obedient to the angel in his heart, shook off, as ropes +of sand, that hideous coil and trod the serpents underneath his feet. +All this, it were curious, ay, instructive too, could we but see. + +They heard him with welcome various as their life. The old men said, "It +is Moses or Elias; it is Jeremiah, one of the old prophets arisen from +the dead, for God makes none such, now-a-days, in the sterile dotage of +mankind." The young men and maidens doubtless it was that said, "This is +the Christ; the desire of the nations; the hope of the world, the great +new prophet; the Son of David; the Son of Man; yes, the Son of God. He +shall be our king." Human nature is loyal, and follows its king soon as +it knows him. Poor lost sheep! the children of men look always for their +guide, though so often they look in vain. + +How he spoke, words deep and piercing; rebukes for the wicked, doubly +rebuking, because felt to have come out from a great, deep, loving +heart. His first word was, perhaps, "Repent," but with the assurance +that the kingdom of God was here and now, within reach of all. How his +doctrines, those great truths of nature, commended themselves to the +heart of each, of all simple-souled men looking for the truth! He spoke +out of his experience; of course into theirs. He spoke great doctrines, +truths vast as the soul, eternal as God, winged with beauty from the +loveliness of his own life. Had he spoken for the Jews alone, his words +had perished with that people; for that time barely, the echo of his +name had died away in his native hamlet; for the Pharisees, the +Sadducees, the Essence, you and I had heard of him but as a Rabbi; nay, +had never been blest by him at all. Words for a nation, an age, a sect, +are of use in their place, yet they soon come to nought. But as he spoke +for eternity, his truths ride on the wings of time; as he spoke for man, +they are welcome, beautiful and blessing, wherever man is found, and so +must be till man and time shall cease. + +He looked not back, as the Pharisee, save for illustrations and +examples. He looked forward for his direction. He looked around for his +work. There it lay, the harvest plenteous, the laborers few. It is +always so. He looked not to men for his idea, his word to speak; as +little for their applause. He looked in to God, for guidance, wisdom, +strength, and as water in the wilderness, at the stroke of Moses, in the +Hebrew legend, so inspiration came at his call, a mighty stream of truth +for the nation, faint, feeble, afraid, and wandering for the promised +land; drink for the thirsty, and cleansing for the unclean. + +But he met opposition; O, yes, enough of it. How could it be otherwise? +It must be so. The very soul of peace, he brought a sword. His word was +a consuming fire. The Pharisees wanted to be applauded, commended; to +have their sect, their plans, their traditions praised and flattered. +His word to them was, "Repent;" of them, to the people, "Such +righteousness admits no man to the kingdom of heaven; they are a +deceitful prophecy, blind guides, hypocrites; not sons of Abraham, but +children of the devil." They could not bear him; no wonder at it. He was +the aggressor; had carried the war into the very heart of their system. +They turned out of their company a man whose blindness he healed, +because he confessed that fact. They made a law that all who believed on +him, should also be cast out. Well they might hate him, those old +Pharisees. His existence was their reproach; his preaching their trial; +his life with its outward goodness, his piety within, was their +condemnation. The man was their ruin, and they knew it. The cunning can +see their own danger, but it is only men wise in mind, or men simple of +heart, that can see their real, permanent safety and defence; never the +cunning, neither then, neither now. + +Jesus looked to God for his truth, his great doctrines not his own, +private, personal, depending on his idiosyncracies, and therefore only +subjectively true,--but God's, universal, everlasting, the absolute +religion. I do not know that he did not teach some errors also, along +with it. I care not if he did. It is by his truths that I know him, the +absolute religion he taught and lived; by his highest sentiments that +he is to be appreciated. He had faith in God and obeyed God; hence his +inspiration, great, in proportion to the greater endowment, moral and +religious, which God gave him, great likewise in proportion to his +perfect obedience. He had faith in man none the less. Who ever yet had +faith in God that had none in man? I know not. Surely no inspired +prophet. As Jesus had faith in man, so he spoke to men. Never yet, in +the wide world, did a prophet arise, appealing with a noble heart and a +noble life to the soul of goodness in man, but that soul answered to the +call. It was so most eminently with Jesus. The Scribes and Pharisees +could not understand by what authority he taught. Poor Pharisees! how +could they? His phylacteries were no broader than those of another man; +nay, perhaps he had no phylacteries at all, nor even a broad-bordered +garment. Men did not salute him in the market-place, sandals in hand, +with their "Rabbi! Rabbi!" Could such men understand by what authority +he taught? no more than they dared answer his questions. They that knew +him, felt he had authority quite other than that claimed by the Scribes; +the authority of true words, the authority of a noble life; yes, the +authority which God gives a great moral and religious man. God delegates +authority to men just in proportion to their power of truth, and their +power of goodness; to their being and their life. So God spoke in +Jesus, as he taught the perfect religion, anticipated, developed, but +never yet transcended. + + * * * * * + +This then was the relation of Jesus to his age: the sectarians cursed +him; cursed him by their gods; rejected him, abused him, persecuted him; +sought his life. Yes, they condemned him in the name of God. All evil +says the proverb, begins in that name; much continues to claim it. The +religionists, the sects, the sectarian leaders rejected him, condemned +and slew him at the last, hanging his body on a tree. Poor priests of +the people, they hoped thereby to stifle that awful soul! they only +stilled the body; that soul spoke with a thousand tongues. So in the +times of old when the Saturnian day began to dawn, it might be fabled +that the old Titanic race, lovers of darkness and haters of the light, +essayed to bar the rising morning from the world, and so heaped Pelion +upon Ossa, and Olympus on Pelion; but first the day sent up his crimson +flush upon the cloud, and then his saffron tinge, and next the sun came +peering o'er the loftiest height, magnificently fair--and down the +mountain's slanting ridge poured the intolerable day; meanwhile those +triple hills, laboriously piled, came toppling, tumbling down, with +lumbering crush, and underneath their ruin hid the helpless giants' +grave. So was it with men who sat in Moses' seat. But this people, that +"knew not the Law," and were counted therefore accursed, they welcomed +Jesus as they never welcomed the Pharisee, the Sadducee or the Scribe. +Ay, hence were their tears. The hierarchical fire burnt not so bright +contrasted with the sun. That people had a Simon Peter, a James, and a +John, men not free from faults no doubt, the record shows it, but with +hearts in their bosoms, which could be kindled, and then could light +other hearts. Better still, there were Marthas and Marys among that +people who "knew not the law" and were cursed. They were the mothers of +many a church. + + * * * * * + +The character of Jesus has not changed; his doctrines are still the +same; but what a change in his relation to the age, nay to the ages. The +stone that the builders rejected is indeed become the head of the +corner, and its foundation too. He is worshipped as a God. That is the +rank assigned him by all but a fraction of the Christian world. It is no +wonder. Good men worship the best thing they know, and call it God. What +was taught to the mass of men, in those days, better than the character +of Christ? Should they rather worship the Grecian Jove, or the Jehovah +of the Jews? To me it seems the moral attainment of Jesus was above the +hierarchical conception of God, as taught at Athens, Rome, Jerusalem. +Jesus was the prince of peace, the king of truth, praying for his +enemies--"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" The +Jehovah of the Old Testament, was awful and stern, a man of war, hating +the wicked. The sacerdotal conception of God at Rome and Athens was +lower yet. No wonder then, that men soon learned to honor Jesus as a +God, and then as God himself. Apostolical and other legends tell of his +divine birth, his wondrous power that healed the sick, palsied and +crippled, deaf and dumb and blind; created bread; turned water into +wine, and bid obedient devils come and go, a power that raised the dead. +They tell that nature felt with him, and at his death the strongly +sympathizing sun paused at high noon, and for three hours withheld the +day; that rocks were rent, and opening graves gave up their sainted +dead, who trod once more the streets of Zion, the first fruits of them +that slept; they tell too how disappointed Death gave back his prey, and +spirit-like, Jesus restored, in flesh and shape the same, passed through +the doors shut up, and in a bodily form was taken up to heaven before +the face of men! Believe men of these things as they will. To me they +are not truth and fact, but mythic symbols and poetry; the psalm of +praise with which the world's rude heart extols and magnifies its King. +It is for his truth and his life, his wisdom, goodness, piety, that he +is honored in my heart; yes, in the world's heart. It is for this that +in his name churches are built, and prayers are prayed; for this that +the best things we know, we honor with his name. + +He is the greatest person of the ages; the proudest achievement of the +human race. He taught the absolute religion, love to God and man. That +God has yet greater men in store I doubt not; to say this is not to +detract from the majestic character of Christ, but to affirm the +omnipotence of God. When they come, the old contest will be renewed, the +living prophet stoned; the dead one worshipped. Be that as it may, there +are duties he teaches us far different from those most commonly taught. +He was the greatest fact in the whole history of man. Had he conformed +to what was told him of men; had he counselled only with flesh and +blood; he had been nothing but a poor Jew--the world had lost that rich +endowment of religious genius, that richest treasure of religious life, +the glad tidings of the one religion, absolute and true. What if he had +said, as others, "None can be greater than Moses, none so great?" He had +been a dwarf; the spirit of God had faded from his soul! But he +conferred with God, not men; took counsel of his hopes, not his fears. +Working for men, with men, by men, trusting in God, and pure as truth, +he was not scared at the little din of church or state, and trembled +not, though Pilate and Herod were made friends only to crucify him that +was a born King of the world. Methinks I hear that lofty spirit say to +you or me, poor brother, fear not, nor despair. The goodness actual in +me is possible for all. God is near thee now as then to me; rich as ever +in truth, as able to create, as willing to inspire. Daily and nightly He +showers down his infinitude of light. Open thine eyes to see, thy heart +to live. Lo, God is here. + + + + +II. + +THE TRUE IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH.--A DISCOURSE AT THE INSTALLATION OF +THEODORE PARKER AS MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH +IN BOSTON, JANUARY 4, 1846. + + +For nearly a year we have assembled within these walls from week to +week,--I think not idly; I know you have not come for any trivial end. +You have recently made a formal organization of yourselves for religious +action. To-day, at your request, I enter regularly on a ministry in the +midst of you. What are we doing; what do we design to do? We are here to +establish a Christian church; and a Christian church, as I understand +it, is a body of men and women united together in a common desire of +religious excellence and with a common regard for Jesus of Nazareth, +regarding him as the noblest example of morality and religion,--as the +model, therefore, in this respect for us. Such a church may have many +rites, as our Catholic brothers, or but few rites, as our Protestant +brothers, or no rites at all, as our brothers, the Friends. It may be, +nevertheless, a Christian church; for the essential of substance, which +makes it a religious body, is the union for the purpose of cultivating +love to God and man; and the essential of form, which makes it a +Christian body, is the common regard for Jesus, considered as the +highest representative of God that we know. It is not the form, either +of ritual or of doctrine, but the spirit which constitutes a Christian +church. A staff may sustain an old man, or a young man may bear it in +his hands as a toy, but walking is walking, though the man have no staff +for ornament or support. A Christian spirit may exist under rituals and +doctrines the most diverse. It were hard to say a man is not a +Christian, because he believes in the doctrine of the Trinity, or the +Pope, while Jesus taught no such doctrine; foolish to say one is no +Christian because he denies the existence of a Devil, though Jesus +believed it. To make a man's Christian name depend on a belief of all +that is related by the numerous writers in the Bible, is as absurd as to +make that depend on a belief in all the words of Luther, or Calvin, or +St. Augustine. It is not for me to say a man is not theoretically a +Christian because he believes that Slavery is a Divine and Christian +institution; that War is grateful to God--saying, with the Old +Testament, that God himself "is a man of war," who teaches men to fight, +and curses such as refuse;--or because he believes that all men are +born totally depraved, and the greater part of them are to be damned +everlastingly by "a jealous God," who is "angry with the wicked every +day," and that the few are to be "saved" only because God unjustly +punished an innocent man for their sake. I will not say a man is not a +Christian though he believe all the melancholy things related of God in +some parts of the Old Testament, yet I know few doctrines so hostile to +real religion as these have proved themselves. In our day it has +strangely come to pass that a little sect, themselves hooted at and +called "Infidels" by the rest of Christendom, deny the name of Christian +to such as publicly reject the miracles of the Bible. Time will +doubtless correct this error. Fire is fire, and ashes ashes, say what we +may; each will work after its kind. Now if Christianity be the absolute +religion, it must allow all beliefs that are true, and it may exist and +be developed in connection with all forms consistent with the absolute +religion, and the degree thereof represented by Jesus. + +The action of a Christian church seems to be twofold: first on its own +members, and then, through their means, on others out of its pale. Let a +word be said of each in its order. If I were to ask you why you came +here to-day; why you have often come to this house hitherto?--the +serious amongst you would say: That we might become better; more manly; +upright before God and downright before men; that we might be +Christians, men good and pious after the fashion Jesus spoke of. The +first design of such a church then is to help ourselves become +Christians. Now the substance of Christianity is Piety--Love to God, and +Goodness--Love to men. It is a religion, the germs whereof are born in +your heart, appearing in your earliest childhood; which are developed +just in proportion as you become a man, and are indeed the standard +measure of your life. As the primeval rock lies at the bottom of the sea +and appears at the top of the loftiest mountains, so in a finished +character religion underlies all and crowns all. Christianity, to be +perfect and entire, demands a complete manliness; the development of the +whole man, mind, conscience, heart and soul. It aims not to destroy the +sacred peculiarities of individual character. It cherishes and develops +them in their perfection, leaving Paul to be Paul, not Peter, and John +to be John, not Jude nor James. We are born different, into a world +where unlike things are gathered together, that there may be a special +work for each. Christianity respects this diversity in men, aiming not +to undo but further God's will; not fashioning all men after one +pattern, to think alike, act alike, be alike, even look alike. It is +something far other than Christianity which demands that. A Christian +church then should put no fetters on the man; it should have unity of +purpose, but with the most entire freedom for the individual. When you +sacrifice the man to the mass in church or state, church or state +becomes an offence, a stumbling-block in the way of progress, and must +end or mend. The greater the variety of individualities in church or +state, the better is it, so long as all are really manly, humane and +accordant. A church must needs be partial, not catholic, where all men +think alike, narrow and little. Your church-organ, to have compass and +volume, must have pipes of various sound, and the skilful artist +destroys none, but tunes them all to harmony; if otherwise, he does not +understand his work. In becoming Christians let us not cease to be men; +nay, we cannot be Christians unless we are men first. It were +unchristian to love Christianity better than the truth, or Christ better +than man. + +But Christianity is not only the absolute religion; it has also the +ideal-man. In Jesus of Nazareth it gives us, in a certain sense, the +model of religious excellence. It is a great thing to have the perfect +idea of religion; to have also that idea made real, satisfactory to the +wants of any age, were a yet further greatness. A Christian church +should aim to have its members Christians as Jesus was the Christ; sons +of man as he was; sons of God as much as he. To be that it is not +needful to observe all the forms he complied with, only such forms as +help you; not needful to have all the thoughts that he had, only such +thoughts as are true. If Jesus were ever mistaken, as the Evangelists +make it appear, then it is a part of Christianity to avoid his mistakes +as well as to accept his truths. It is the part of a Christian church to +teach men so; to stop at no man's limitations; to prize no word so high +as truth; no man so dear as God. Jesus came not to fetter men, but free +them. + +Jesus is a model-man in this respect: that he stands in a true relation +to men, that of forgiveness for their ill-treatment, service for their +needs, trust in their nature, and constant love towards them,--towards +even the wicked and hypocritical; in a true relation to God, that of +entire obedience to Him, of perfect trust in Him, of love towards Him +with the whole mind, heart and soul; and love of God is also love of +truth, goodness, usefulness, love of Love itself. Obedience to God and +trust in God is obedience to these things, and trust in them. If Jesus +had loved any opinion better than truth, then had he lost that relation +to God, and so far ceased to be inspired by Him; had he allowed any +partial feeling to overcome the spirit of universal love, then also he +had sundered himself from God, and been at discord, not in harmony with +the Infinite. + +If Jesus be the model-man, then should a Christian church teach its +members to hold the same relation to God that Christ held; to be one +with Him; incarnations of God, as much and as far as Jesus was one with +God, and an incarnation thereof, a manifestation of God in the flesh. +It is Christian to receive all the truths of the Bible; all the truths +that are not in the Bible just as much. It is Christian also to reject +all the errors that come to us from without the Bible or from within the +Bible. The Christian man, or the Christian church, is to stop at no +man's limitation; at the limit of no book. God is not dead, nor even +asleep, but awake and alive as ever of old; He inspires men now no less +than beforetime; is ready to fill your mind, heart and soul with truth, +love, life, as to fill Moses and Jesus, and that on the same terms; for +inspiration comes by universal laws, and not by partial exceptions. Each +point of spirit, as each atom of space, is still bathed in the tides of +Deity. But all good men, all Christian men, all inspired men will be no +more alike than all wicked men. It is the same light which is blue in +the sky and golden in the sun. "All nature's difference makes all +nature's peace." + +We can attain this relation to man and God only on condition that we are +free. If a church cannot allow freedom it were better not to allow +itself, but cease to be. Unity of purpose, with entire freedom for the +individual, should be the motto. It is only free men that can find the +truth, love the truth, live the truth. As much freedom as you shut out, +so much falsehood do you shut in. It is a poor thing to purchase unity +of church-action at the cost of individual freedom. The Catholic church +tried it, and you see what came thereof: science forsook it, calling it +a den of lies. Morality forsook it, as the mystery of iniquity, and +religion herself protested against it, as the mother of abominations. +The Protestant churches are trying the same thing, and see whither they +tend and what foes rise up against them,--Philosophy with its Bible of +nature, and Religion with its Bible of man, both the hand-writing of +God. The great problem of church and state is this: To produce unity of +action and yet leave individual freedom not disturbed; to balance into +harmonious proportions the mass and the man, the centripetal and +centrifugal powers, as, by God's wondrous, living mechanism, they are +balanced in the worlds above. In the state we have done this more wisely +than any nation heretofore. In the churches it remains yet to do. But +man is equal to all which God appoints for him. His desires are ever +proportionate to his duty and his destinies. The strong cry of the +nations for liberty, a craving as of hungry men for bread and water, +shows what liberty is worth, and what it is destined to do. Allow +freedom to think, and there will be truth; freedom to act, and we shall +have heroic works; freedom to live and be, and we shall have love to men +and love to God. The world's history proves that, and our own history. +Jesus, our model-man, was the freest the world ever saw! + +Let it be remembered that every truth is of God, and will lead to good +and good only. Truth is the seed whereof welfare is the fruit; for every +grain thereof we plant some one shall reap a whole harvest of welfare. A +lie is "of the Devil," and must lead to want and woe and death, ending +at last in a storm where it rains tears and perhaps blood. Have freedom, +and you will sow new truth to reap its satisfaction; submit to thraldom, +and you sow lies to reap the death they bear. A Christian church should +be the home of the soul, where it enjoys the largest liberty of the sons +of God. If fettered elsewhere, here let us be free. Christ is the +liberator; he came not to drive slaves, but to set men free. The +churches of old did their greatest work, when there was most freedom in +those churches. + +Here too should the spirit of devotion be encouraged; the soul of man +communing with his God in aspirations after purity and truth, in +resolutions for goodness, and piety, and a manly life. These are a +prayer. The fact that men freely hold truths in common, great truths and +universal; that unitedly they lift up their souls to God seeking +instruction of Him, this will prove the strongest bond between man and +man. It seems to me that the Protestant churches have not fully done +justice to the sentiment of worship; that in taking care of the head we +have forgotten the heart. To think truth is the worship of the head; to +do noble works of usefulness and charity the worship of the will; to +feel love and trust in man and God, is the glad worship of the heart. A +Christian church should be broad enough for all; should seek truth and +promote piety, that both together might toil in good works. + +Here should be had the best instruction which can be commanded; the +freest, truest, and most manly voice; the mind most conversant with +truth; the eloquence of a heart that runs over with goodness, whose +faith is unfaltering in truth, justice, purity, and love; a faith in +God, whose charity is living love to men, even the sinful and the base. +Teaching is the breathing of one man's inspiration into another, a most +real thing amongst real men. In a church there should be instruction for +the young. God appoints the father and mother the natural teachers of +children; above all is it so in their religious culture. But there are +some who cannot, many who will not fulfil this trust. Hence it has been +found necessary for wise and good men to offer their instruction to +such. In this matter it is religion we need more than theology, and of +this it is not mere traditions and mythologies we are to teach, the +anile tales of a rude people in a dark age, things our pupils will do +well to forget soon as they are men, and which they will have small +reason to thank us for obscuring their minds withal; but it is the +great, everlasting truths of religion which should be taught, enforced +by examples of noble men, which tradition tells of, or the present age +affords, all this to be suited to the tender years of the child. +Christianity should be represented as human, as man's nature in its true +greatness; religion shown to be beautiful, a real duty corresponding to +man's deepest desire, that as religion affords the deepest satisfaction +to man, so it is man's most universal want. Christ should be shown to +men as he was, the manliest of men, the most divine because the most +human. Children should be taught to respect their nature; to consider it +as the noblest of all God's works; to know that perfect truth and +goodness are demanded of them, and by that only can they be worthy men; +taught to feel that God is present in Boston and to-day, as much as ever +in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. They should be taught to abhor the +public sins of our times, but to love and imitate its great examples of +nobleness, and practical religion, which stand out amid the mob of +worldly pretenders in this day. + +Then, too, if one of our members falls into unworthy ways, is it not the +duty of some one to speak with him, not as with authority to command, +but with affection to persuade? Did any one of you ever address an +erring brother on the folly of his ways with manly tenderness, and try +to charm him back, and find a cold repulse? If a man is in error he will +be grateful to one that tells him so; will learn most from men who make +him ashamed of his littleness of life. In this matter it seems many a +good man comes short of his duty. + +There is yet another way in which a church should act on its own +household, and that is by direct material help in time of need. There is +the eternal distinction of the strong and the weak, which cannot be +changed. But as things now go there is another inequality not of God's +appointment, but of man's perversity, the distinction of rich and +poor--of men bloated by superfluous wealth and men starving and freezing +from want. You know and I know how often the strong abuse their +strength, exerting it solely for themselves and to the ruin of the weak; +we all know that such are reckoned great in the world, though they may +have grown rich solely by clutching at what others earned. In +Christianity, and before the God of justice, all men are brothers; the +strong are so that they may help the weak. As a nation chooses its +wisest men to manage its affairs for the nation's good, and not barely +their own, so God endows Charles or Samuel with great gifts that they +may also bless all men thereby. If they use those powers solely for +their pleasure then are they false before men; false before God. It is +said of the church of the Friends that no one of their number has ever +received the charity of an almshouse, or for a civil offence been shut +up in a jail. If the poor forsake a church, be sure that the church +forsook God long before. + + * * * * * + +But the church must have an action on others out of its pale. If a man +or a society of men have a truth, they hold it not for themselves alone, +but for all men. The solitary thinker, who in a moment of ecstatic +action in his closet at midnight discovers a truth, discovers it for all +the world and for eternity. A Christian church ought to love to see its +truths extend; so it should put them in contact with the opinions of the +world, not with excess of zeal or lack of charity. + +A Christian church should be a means of reforming the world, of forming +it after the pattern of Christian ideas. It should therefore bring up +the sentiments of the times, the ideas of the times, and the actions of +the times, to judge them by the universal standard. In this way it will +learn much and be a living church, that grows with the advance of men's +sentiments, ideas and actions, and while it keeps the good of the past +will lose no brave spirit of the present day. It can teach much; now +moderating the fury of men, then quickening their sluggish steps. We +expect the sins of commerce to be winked at in the street; the sins of +the state to be applauded on election days and in a Congress, or on the +fourth of July; we are used to hear them called the righteousness of the +nation. There they are often measured by the avarice or the ambition of +greedy men. You expect them to be tried by passion, which looks only to +immediate results and partial ends. Here they are to be measured by +Conscience and Reason, which look to permanent results and universal +ends; to be looked at with reference to the Laws of God, the everlasting +ideas on which alone is based the welfare of the world. Here they are to +be examined in the light of Christianity itself. If the church be true, +many things which seem gainful in the street and expedient in the +senate-house, will here be set down as wrong, and all gain which comes +therefrom seen to be but a loss. If there be a public sin in the land, +if a lie invade the state, it is for the church to give the alarm; it is +here that it may war on lies and sins; the more widely they are believed +in and practised, the more are they deadly, the more to be opposed. Here +let no false idea or false action of the public go without exposure and +rebuke. But let no noble heroism of the times, no noble man pass by +without due honor. If it is a good thing to honor dead saints and the +heroism of our fathers; it is a better thing to honor the saints of +to-day, the live heroism of men who do the battle, when that battle is +all around us. I know a few such saints; here and there a hero of that +stamp, and I will not wait till they are dead and classic before I call +them so and honor them as such, for + + "To side with truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, + Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just; + Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, + Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, + And the multitude make virtue of the faith they once denied; + For Humanity sweeps onward; where to-day the martyr stands, + On the morrow crouches Judas, with the silver in his hands; + Far in front the cross stands ready, and the crackling fagots burn, + While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return + To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn." + +Do you not see that if a man have a new truth, it must be reformatory +and so create an outcry? It will seem destructive as the farmer's +plough; like that, it is so to tares and thistles, but the herald of the +harvest none the less. In this way a Christian church should be a +society for promoting true sentiments and ideas. If it would lead, it +must go before men; if it would be looked up to, it must stand high. + +That is not all: it should be a society for the promotion of good works. +We are all beneath our idea, and therefore transgressors before God. Yet +He gives us the rain, the snow and the sun. It falls on me as well as on +the field of my neighbor, who is a far juster man. How can we repent, +cast our own sins behind us, outgrow and forget them better, than by +helping others to work out their salvation? We are all brothers before +God. Mutually needful we must be; mutually helpful we should be. Here +are the ignorant that ask our instruction, not with words only, but with +the prayer of their darkness, far more suppliant than speech. I never +see an ignorant man younger than myself, without a feeling of +self-reproach, for I ask: "What have I been doing to suffer him to grow +up in nakedness of mind?" Every man, born in New England, who does not +share the culture of this age, is a reproach to more than himself, and +will at last actively curse those who began by deserting him. The +Christian church should lead the movement for the public education of +the people. + +Here are the needy who ask not so much your gold, your bread, or your +cloth, as they ask also your sympathy, respect and counsel; that you +assist them to help themselves, that they may have gold won by their +industry, not begged out of your benevolence. It is justice more than +charity they ask. Every beggar, every pauper, born and bred amongst us, +is a reproach to us, and condemns our civilization. For how has it come +to pass that in a land of abundance here are men, for no fault of their +own, born into want, living in want, and dying of want? and that, while +we pretend to a religion which says all men are brothers! There is a +horrid wrong somewhere. + +Here too are the drunkard, the criminal, the abandoned person, sometimes +the foe of society, but far oftener the victim of society. Whence come +the tenants of our almshouses, jails, the victims of vice in all our +towns? Why, from the lowest rank of the people; from the poorest and +most ignorant! Say rather from the most neglected, and the public sin +is confessed, and the remedy hinted at. What have the strong been doing +all this while, that the weak have come to such a state? Let them answer +for themselves. + +Now for all these ought a Christian church to toil. It should be a +church of good works; if it is a church of good faith it will be so. +Does not Christianity say the strong should help the weak? Does not that +mean something? It once did. Has the Christian fire faded out from those +words, once so marvellously bright? Look round you, in the streets of +your own Boston! See the ignorant, men and women with scarce more than +the stature of men and women; boys and girls growing up in ignorance and +the low civilization which comes thereof, the barbarians of Boston. +Their character will one day be a blot and a curse to the nation, and +who is to blame? Why, the ablest and best men, who might have had it +otherwise if they would. Look at the poor, men of small ability, weak by +nature, born into a weak position, therefore doubly weak; men whom the +strong use for their purpose, and then cast them off as we throw away +the rind of an orange after we have drunk its generous juice. Behold the +wicked, so we call the weak men that are publicly caught in the cobweb +of the law; ask why they became wicked; how we have aimed to reform +them; what we have done to make them respect themselves, to believe in +goodness, in man and God? and then say if there is not something for +Christian men to do, something for a Christian church to do! Every +almshouse in Massachusetts shows that the churches have not done their +duty, that the Christians lie lies when they call Jesus "master" and men +"brothers!" Every jail is a monument, on which it is writ in letters of +iron that we are still heathens, and the gallows, black and hideous, the +embodiment of death, the last argument a "Christian" State offers to the +poor wretches it trained up to be criminals, stands there, a sign of our +infamy, and while it lifts its horrid arm to crush the life out of some +miserable man, whose blood cries to God against Cain in the nineteenth +century, it lifts that same arm as an index of our shame. + +Is that all? Oh, no! Did not Jesus say, resist not evil--with evil? Is +not war the worst form of that evil; and is there on earth a nation so +greedy of war; a nation more reckless of provoking it; one where the +war-horse so soon conducts his foolish rider into fame and power? The +"Heathen" Chinese might send their missionaries to America, and teach us +to love men! Is that all? Far from it. Did not Christ say, whatsoever +you would that men should do unto you, do you even so unto them; and are +there not three million brothers of yours and mine in bondage here, the +hopeless sufferers of a savage doom; debarred from the civilization of +our age, the barbarians of the nineteenth century; shut out from the +pretended religion of Christendom, the heathens of a Christian land; +chained down from the liberty unalienable in man, the slaves of a +Christian republic? Does not a cry of indignation ring out from every +legislature in the North; does not the press war with its million +throats, and a voice of indignation go up from East and West, out from +the hearts of freemen? Oh, no. There is none of that cry against the +mightiest sin of this age. The rock of Plymouth, sanctified by the feet +which led a nation's way to freedom's large estate, provokes no more +voice than the rottenest stone in all the mountains of the West. The few +that speak a manly word for truth and everlasting right, are called +fanatics; bid be still, lest they spoil the market! Great God! and has +it come to this, that men are silent over such a sin? 'Tis even so. Then +it must be that every church which dares assume the name of Christ, that +dearest name to men, thunders and lightens on this hideous wrong! That +is not so. The church is dumb, while the state is only silent; while the +servants of the people are only asleep, "God's ministers" are dead! + +In the midst of all these wrongs and sins, the crimes of men, society +and the state, amid popular ignorance, pauperism, crime, and war, and +slavery too--is the church to say nothing, do nothing; nothing for the +good of such as feel the wrong, nothing to save them who do the wrong? +Men tell us so, in word and deed; that way alone is "safe!" If I thought +so, I would never enter the church but once again, and then to bow my +shoulders to their manliest work, to heave down its strong pillars, arch +and dome, and roof, and wall, steeple and tower, though like Samson I +buried myself under the ruins of that temple which profaned the worship +of God most high, of God most loved. I would do this in the name of man; +in the name of Christ I would do it; yes, in the dear and blessed name +of God. + +It seems to me that a church which dares name itself Christian, the +Church of the Redeemer, which aspires to be a true church, must set +itself about all this business, and be not merely a church of theology, +but of religion; not of faith only, but of works; a just church by its +faith bringing works into life. It should not be a church termagant, +which only peevishly scolds at sin, in its anile way; but a church +militant against every form of evil, which not only censures, but writes +out on the walls of the world the brave example of a Christian life, +that all may take pattern therefrom. Thus only can it become the church +triumphant. If a church were to waste less time in building its palaces +of theological speculation, palaces mainly of straw, and based upon the +chaff, erecting air-castles and fighting battles to defend those palaces +of straw, it would surely have more time to use in the practical good +works of the day. If it thus made a city free from want and ignorance +and crime, I know I vent a heresy, I think it would be quite as +Christian an enterprise, as though it restored all the theology of the +dark ages; quite as pleasing to God. A good sermon is a good thing, no +doubt, but its end is not answered by its being preached; even by its +being listened to and applauded; only by its awakening a deeper life in +the hearers. But in the multitude of sermons there is danger lest the +bare hearing thereof be thought a religious duty, not a means, but an +end, and so our Christianity vanish in words. What if every Sunday +afternoon the most pious and manly of our number, who saw fit, resolved +themselves into a committee of the whole for practical religion, and +held not a formal meeting, but one more free, sometimes for the purpose +of devotion, the practical work of making ourselves better Christians, +nearer to one another, and sometimes that we might find means to help +such as needed help, the poor, the ignorant, the intemperate and the +wicked? Would it not be a work profitable to ourselves, and useful to +others weaker than we? For my own part I think there are no ordinances +of religion like good works; no day too sacred to help my brother in; no +Christianity like a practical love of God shown by a practical love of +men. Christ told us that if we had brought our gift to the very altar, +and there remembered our brother had cause of complaint against us, we +must leave the divine service, and pay the human service first! If my +brother be in slavery, in want, in ignorance, in sin, and I can aid him +and do not, he has much against me, and God can better wait for my +prayer than my brother for my help! + +The saints of olden time perished at the stake; they hung on gibbets; +they agonized upon the rack; they died under the steel of the tormentor. +It was the heroism of our fathers' day that swam the unknown seas; froze +in the woods; starved with want and cold; fought battles with the red +right hand. It is the sainthood and heroism of our day that toils for +the ignorant, the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the wicked. Yes, it is +our saints and heroes who fight fighting; who contend for the slave, and +his master too, for the drunkard, the criminal; yes, for the wicked or +the weak in all their forms. It is they that with weapons of heavenly +proof fight the great battle for the souls of men. Though I detest war +in each particular fibre of my heart, yet I honor the heroes among our +fathers who fought with bloody hand; peace-makers in a savage way, they +were faithful to the light; the most inspired can be no more, and we, +with greater light, do, it may be, far less. I love and venerate the +saints of old; men who dared step in front of their age; accepted +Christianity when it cost something to be a Christian, because it meant +something; they applied Christianity, so far as they knew it, to the +lies and sins of their times, and won a sudden and a fiery death. But +the saints and the heroes of this day, who draw no sword, whose right +hand is never bloody, who burn in no fires of wood or sulphur, nor +languish briefly on the hasty cross; the saints and heroes who, in a +worldly world, dare to be men; in an age of conformity and selfishness, +speak for Truth and Man, living for noble aims; men who will swear to no +lies howsoever popular; who will honor no sins, though never so +profitable, respected and ancient; men who count Christ not their +master, but teacher, friend, brother, and strive like him to practise +all they pray; to incarnate and make real the Word of God, these men I +honor far more than the saints of old. I know their trials, I see their +dangers, I appreciate their sufferings, and since the day when the man +on Calvary bowed his head, bidding persecution farewell with his +"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," I find no such +saints and heroes as live now! They win hard fare, and hard toil. They +lay up shame and obloquy. Theirs is the most painful of martyrdoms. +Racks and fagots soon waft the soul of God, stern messengers but swift. +A boy could bear that passage, the martyrdom of death. But the +temptation of a long life of neglect, and scorn, and obloquy, and shame, +and want, and desertion by false friends; to live blameless though +blamed, cut off from human sympathy, that is the martyrdom of to-day. I +shed no tears for such martyrs. I shout when I see one; I take courage +and thank God for the real saints, prophets and heroes of to-day. In +another age, men shall be proud of these puritans and pilgrims of this +day. Churches shall glory in their names and celebrate their praise in +sermon and in song. Yea, though now men would steal the rusty sword from +underneath the bones of a saint or hero long deceased, to smite off +therewith the head of a new prophet, that ancient hero's son; though +they would gladly crush the heart out of him with the tomb-stones they +piled up for great men, dead and honored now, yet in some future day, +that mob, penitent, baptized with a new spirit, like drunken men +returned to sanity once more, shall search through all this land for +marble white enough to build a monument to that prophet whom their +fathers slew; they shall seek through all the world for gold of fineness +fit to chronicle such names! I cannot wait; but I will honor such men +now, not adjourn the warning of their voice, and the glory of their +example, till another age! The church may cast out such men; burn them +with the torments of an age too refined in its cruelty to use coarse +fagots and the vulgar axe! It is no less to these men; but the ruin of +the church. I say the Christian church of the nineteenth century must +honor such men, if it would do a church's work; must take pains to make +such men as these, or it is a dead church, with no claim on us, except +that we bury it. A true church will always be the church of martyrs. The +ancients commenced every great work with a victim! We do not call it so; +but the sacrifice is demanded, got ready, and offered by unconscious +priests long ere the enterprise succeeds. Did not Christianity begin +with a martyrdom? + + * * * * * + +In this way, by gaining all the truth of the age in thought or action, +by trying public opinions with its own brave ideas, by promoting good +works, applying a new truth to an old error, and with unpopular +righteousness overcoming each popular sin, the Christian church should +lead the civilization of the age. The leader looks before, goes before, +and knows where he is going; knows the way thither. It is only on this +condition that he leads at all. If the church by looking after truth, +and receiving it when it comes, be in unison with God, it will be in +unison with all science, which is only the thought of God translated +from the facts of nature into the words of men. In such a case, the +church will not fear philosophy, nor in the face of modern science aim +to reëstablish the dreams and fables of a ruder day. It will not lack +new truth, daring only to quote, nor be obliged to sneak behind the +inspired words of old saints as its only fortress, for it will have +words just as truly inspired, dropping from the golden mouths of saints +and prophets now. For leaders it will look not back, but forth; will fan +the first faint sparkles of that noble fire just newly kindled from the +skies; not smother them in the ashes of fires long spent; not quench +them with holy water from Jordan or the Nile. A church truly Christian, +professing Christ as its model-man, and aiming to stand in the relation +he stood, must lead the way in moral enterprises, in every work which +aims directly at the welfare of man. There was a time when the Christian +churches, as a whole, held that rank. Do they now? Not even the +Quakers--perhaps the last sect that abandoned it. A prophet, filled with +love of man and love of God, is not therein at home. I speak a sad +truth, and I say it in sorrow. But look at the churches of this city: do +they lead the Christian movements of this city--the temperance movement, +the peace movement, the movement for the freedom of men, for education, +the movement to make society more just, more wise and good, the great +religious movement of these times--for, hold down our eyelids as we +will, there is a religious movement at this day on foot, such as even +New England never saw before;--do they lead in these things? Oh, no, not +at all. That great Christian orator, one of the noblest men New England +has seen in this century, whose word has even now gone forth to the +nations beyond the sea, while his spirit has gone home to his Father, +when he turned his attention to the practical evils of our time and our +land, and our civilization, vigorously applying Christianity to life, +why he lost favor in his own little sect! They feared him, soon as his +spirit looked over their narrow walls, aspiring to lead men to a better +work. I know men can now make sectarian capital out of the great name of +Channing, so he is praised; perhaps praised loudest by the very men who +then cursed him by their gods. Ay, by their gods he was accursed! The +churches lead the Christian movements of these times?--why, has there +not just been driven out of this city, and out of this State, a man +conspicuous in all these movements, after five and twenty years of noble +toil; driven out because he was conspicuous in them! You know it is so, +and you know how and by whom he is thus driven out![1] + +Christianity is humanity; Christ is the Son of man; the manliest of men; +humane as a woman; pious and hopeful as a prayer; but brave as man's +most daring thought. He has led the world in morals and religion for +eighteen hundred years, only because he was the manliest man in it; the +humanest and bravest man in it, and hence the divinest. He may lead it +eighteen hundred years more, for we are bid believe that God can never +make again a greater man; no, none so great. But the churches do not +lead men therein, for they have not his spirit; neither that womanliness +which wept over Jerusalem, nor that manliness which drew down fire +enough from heaven to light the world's altars for well-nigh two +thousand years. + +There are many ways in which Christ may be denied:--one is that of the +bold blasphemer, who, out of a base and haughty heart mocks, scoffing at +that manly man, and spits upon the nobleness of Christ! There are few +such deniers: my heart mourns for them. But they do little harm. +Religion is so dear to men, no scoffing word can silence that, and the +brave soul of this young Nazarene has made itself so deeply felt that +scorn and mockery of him are but an icicle held up against the summer's +sun. There is another way to deny him, and that is:--to call him Lord, +and never do his bidding; to stifle free minds with his words; and with +the authority of his name to cloak, to mantle, screen and consecrate the +follies, errors, sins of men! From this we have much to fear. + +The church that is to lead this century will not be a church creeping on +all fours; mewling and whining, its face turned down, its eyes turned +back. It must be full of the brave, manly spirit of the day, keeping +also the good of times past. There is a terrific energy in this age, for +man was never so much developed, so much the master of himself before. +Great truths, moral and political, have come to light. They fly quickly. +The iron prophet of types publishes his visions, of weal or woe, to the +near and far. This marvellous age has invented steam, and the magnetic +telegraph, apt symbols of itself, before which the miracles of fable are +but an idle tale. It demands, as never before, freedom for itself, +usefulness in its institutions; truth in its teachings, and beauty in +its deeds. Let a church have that freedom, that usefulness, truth, and +beauty, and the energy of this age will be on its side. But the church +which did for the fifth century, or the fifteenth, will not do for this. +What is well enough at Rome, Oxford or Berlin, is not well enough for +Boston. It must have our ideas, the smell of our ground, and have grown +out of the religion in our soul. The freedom of America must be there +before this energy will come; the wisdom of the nineteenth century +before its science will be on the churches' side, else that science will +go over to the "infidels." + +Our churches are not in harmony with what is best in the present age. +Men call their temples after their old heroes and saints--John, Paul, +Peter, and the like. But we call nothing else after the old names; a +school of philosophy would be condemned if called Aristotelian, +Platonic, or even Baconian. We out-travel the past in all but this. In +the church it seems taught there is no progress unless we have all the +past on our back; so we despair of having men fit to call churches by. +We look back and not forward. We think the next saint must talk Hebrew +like the old ones, and repeat the same mythology. So when a new prophet +comes we only stone him. + +A church that believes only in past inspiration will appeal to old books +as the standard of truth and source of light; will be antiquarian in its +habits; will call its children by the old names; and war on the new age, +not understanding the man-child born to rule the world. A church that +believes in inspiration now will appeal to God; try things by reason and +conscience; aim to surpass the old heroes; baptize its children with a +new spirit, and using the present age will lead public opinion, and not +follow it. Had Christ looked back for counsel, he might have founded a +church fit for Abraham or Isaac to worship in, not for the ages to come, +or the age then. He that feels he is near to God, does not fear to be +far from men; if before, he helps lead them on; if above, to lift them +up. Let us get all we can from the Hebrews and others of old time, and +that is much; but still let us be God's free men, not the Gibeonites of +the past. + +Let us have a church that dares imitate the heroism of Jesus; seek +inspiration as he sought it; judge the past as he; act on the present +like him; pray as he prayed; work as he wrought; live as he lived. Let +our doctrines and our forms fit the soul, as the limbs fit the body, +growing out of it, growing with it. Let us have a church for the whole +man: truth for the mind; good works for the hands; love for the heart; +and for the soul, that aspiring after perfection, that unfaltering faith +in God which, like lightning in the clouds, shines brightest, when +elsewhere it is most dark. Let our church fit man, as the heavens fit +the earth! + + * * * * * + +In our day men have made great advances in science, commerce, +manufactures, in all the arts of life. We need, therefore, a development +of religion corresponding thereto. The leading minds of the age ask +freedom to inquire; not merely to believe, but to know; to rest on +facts. A great spiritual movement goes swiftly forward. The best men see +that religion is religion; theology is theology, and not religion; that +true religion is a very simple affair, and the popular theology a very +foolish one; that the Christianity of Christ is not the Christianity of +the street, or the state, or the churches; that Christ is not their +model-man, only "imputed" as such. These men wish to apply good sense to +matters connected with religion; to apply Christianity to life, and make +the world a better place, men and women fitter to live in it. In this +way they wish to get a theology that is true; a mode of religion that +works, and works well. If a church can answer these demands, it will be +a live church; leading the civilization of the times, living with all +the mighty life of this age, and nation. Its prayers will be a lifting +up of the hearts in noble men towards God, in search of truth, goodness, +piety. Its sacraments will be great works of reform, institutions for +the comfort and the culture of men. Let us have a church in which +religion, goodness towards men, and piety towards God, shall be the main +thing; let us have a degree of that suited to the growth and demands of +this age. In the middle ages, men had erroneous conceptions of religion, +no doubt; yet the church led the world. When she wrestled with the +state, the state came undermost to the ground. See the results of that +supremacy--all over Europe there arose the cloister, halls of learning +for the chosen few, minster, dome, cathedral, miracles of art, each +costing the wealth of a province. Such was the embodiment of their ideas +of religion, the prayers of a pious age done in stone, a psalm petrified +as it rose from the world's mouth; a poor sacrifice, no doubt, but the +best they knew how to offer. Now if men were to engage in religion as in +politics, commerce, arts; if the absolute religion, the Christianity of +Christ, were applied to life with all the might of this age, as the +Christianity of the church was then applied, what a result should we not +behold! We should build up a great state with unity in the nation, and +freedom in the people; a state where there was honorable work for every +hand, bread for all mouths, clothing for all backs, culture for every +mind, and love and faith in every heart. Truth would be our sermon, +drawn from the oldest of Scriptures, God's writing there in nature, here +in man; works of daily duty would be our sacrament; prophets inspired of +God would minister the word, and piety send up her psalm of prayer, +sweet in its notes, and joyfully prolonged. The noblest monument to +Christ, the fairest trophy of religion, is a noble people, where all are +well fed and clad, industrious, free, educated, manly, pious, wise and +good. + + * * * * * + +Some of you may now remember, how ten months and more ago, I first came +to this house to speak. I shall remember it forever. In those rainy +Sundays the very skies looked dark. Some came doubtingly, uncertain, +looking around, and hoping to find courage in another's hope. Others +came with clear glad face; openly, joyfully, certain they were right; +not fearing to meet the issue; not afraid to be seen meeting it. Some +came, perhaps, not used to worship in a church, but not the less welcome +here; some mistaking me for a destroyer, a doubter, a denier of all +truth, a scoffer, an enemy to man and God! I wonder not at that. +Misguided men had told you so, in sermon and in song; in words publicly +printed and published without shame; in the covert calumny, slyly +whispered in the dark! Need I tell you my feelings; how I felt at coming +to the town made famous by great men, Mayhew, Chauncy, Buckminster, +Kirkland, Holley, Pierpont, Channing, Ware--names dear and honored in my +boyish heart! Need I tell you how I felt at sight of the work which +stretched out before me? Do you wonder that I asked: Who is sufficient +for these things? and said: Alas, not I, Thou knowest, Lord! But some of +you told me you asked not the wisdom of a wiser man, the ability of one +stronger, but only that I should do what I could. I came, not doubting +that I had some truths to say; not distrusting God, nor man, nor you; +distrustful only of myself. I feared I had not the power, amid the dust +and noises of the day, to help you see and hear the great realities of +religion as they appeared to me; to help you feel the life of real +religion, as in my better moments I have felt its truth! But let that +pass. As I came here from Sunday to Sunday, when I began to feel your +spirits prayed with mine a prayer for truth and life; as I looked down +into your faces, thoughtful and almost breathless, I forgot my +self-distrust; I saw the time was come; that, feebly as I know I speak, +my best thoughts were ever the most welcome! I saw that the harvest was +plenteous indeed: but the preacher, I feel it still, was all unworthy of +his work! + + * * * * * + +Brothers and Sisters: let us be true to our sentiments and ideas. Let us +not imitate another's form unless it symbolize a truth to us. We must +not affect to be singular, but not fear to be alone. Let us not +foolishly separate from our brothers elsewhere. Truth is yet before us, +not only springing up out of the manly words of this Bible, but out of +the ground; out of the heavens; out of man and God. Whole firmaments of +truth hang ever o'er our heads, waiting the telescopic eye of the +true-hearted see-er. Let us follow truth, in form, thought or sentiment, +wherever she may call. God's daughter cannot lead us from the path. The +further on we go, the more we find. Had Columbus turned back only the +day before he saw the land, the adventure had been worse than lost. + +We must practise a manly self-denial. Religion always demands that, but +never more than when our brothers separate from us, and we stand alone. +By our mutual love and mutual forbearance, we shall stand strong. With +zeal for our common work, let us have charity for such as dislike us, +such as oppose and would oppress us. Let us love our enemies, bless them +that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for such as +despitefully use us. Let us overcome their evil speech with our own +goodness. If others have treated us ill, called us unholy names, and +mocked at us, let us forgive it all, here and now, and help them also to +forget and outgrow that temper which bade them treat us so. A kind +answer is fittest rebuke to an unkind word. + +If we have any truth it will not be kept hid. It will run over the brim +of our urn and water our brother's field. Were any truth to come down +to us in advance from God, it were not that we might forestall the +light, but shed it forth for all His children to walk by and rejoice in. +"One candle will light a thousand" if it be itself lighted. Let our +light shine before men so that they may see our good deeds, and +themselves praise God by a manly life. This we owe to them as to +ourselves. A noble thought and a mean man make a sorry union. Let our +idea show itself in our life--that is preaching, right eloquent. Do +this, we begin to do good to men, and though they should oppose us, and +our work should fail, we shall have yet the approval of our own heart, +the approval of God, be whole within ourselves, and one with Him. + + * * * * * + +Some of you are venerable men. I have wondered that a youthful ardor +should have brought you here. Your silvery heads have seemed a +benediction to my work. But most of you are young. I know it is no aping +of a fashion that has brought you here. I have no eloquence to charm or +please you with; I only speak right on. I have no reputation but a bad +name in the churches. I know you came not idly, but seeking after truth. +Give a great idea to an old man, and he carries it to his grave; give it +to a young man, and he carries it to his life. It will bear both young +and old through the grave and into eternal Heaven beyond. + +Young men and women, the duties of the world fall eminently on you. God +confides to your hands the ark which holds the treasures of the age. On +young shoulders He lays the burden of life. Yours is the period of +passion; the period of enterprise and of work. It is by successive +generations that mankind goes forward. The old, stepping into honorable +graves, leave their places and the results they won to you. But +departing they seem to say, as they linger and look back: Do ye greater +than we have done! The young just coming into your homes seem to say: +Instruct us to be nobler than yourselves! Your life is the answer to +your children and your sires. The next generation will be as you make +it. It is not the schools but the people's character that educates the +child. Amid the trials, duties, dangers of your life, religion alone can +guide you. It is not the world's eye that is on you, but God's; it is +not the world's religion that will suffice you, but the religion of a +Man, which unites you with truth, justice, piety, goodness; yes, which +makes you one with God! + +Young men and women--you can make this church a fountain of life to +thousands of fainting souls. Yes, you can make this city nobler than +city ever was before. A manly life is the best gift you can leave +mankind; that can be copied forever. Architects of your own weal or woe, +your destiny is mainly in your own hands. It is no great thing to +reject the popular falsehoods; little and perhaps not hard. But to +receive the great sentiments and lofty truths of real religion, the +Christianity of Christ; to love them, to live them in your business and +your home, that is the greatest work of man. Thereby you partake of the +spirit and nature of God; you achieve the true destiny for yourself; you +help your brothers do the same. + +When my own life is measured by the ideal of that young Nazarene, I know +how little I deserve the name of Christian; none knows that fact so well +as I. But you have been denied the name of Christian because you came +here, asking me to come. Let men see that you have the reality, though +they withhold the name. Your words are the least part of what you say to +men. The foolish only will judge you by your talk; wise men by the +general tenor of your life. Let your religion appear in your work and +your play. Pray in your strongest hours. Practise your prayers. By +fair-dealing, justice, kindness, self-control, and the great work of +helping others while you help yourself, let your life prove a worship. +These are the real sacraments and Christian communion with God, to which +water and wine are only helps. Criticize the world not by censure only, +but by the example of a great life. Shame men out of their littleness, +not by making mouths, but by walking great and beautiful amongst them. +You love God best when you love men most. Let your prayers be an +uplifting of the soul in thought, resolution, love, and the light +thereof shall shine through the darkest hour of trouble. Have not the +Christianity of the street; but carry Christ's Christianity there. Be +noble men, then your works must needs be great and manly. + + * * * * * + +This is the first Sunday of a new year. What an hour for resolutions; +what a moment for prayer! If you have sins in your bosom, cast them +behind you now. In the last year, God has blessed us; blessed us all. On +some his angels waited, robed in white, and brought new joys; here a +wife, to bind men closer yet to Providence; and there a child, a new +Messiah, sent to tell of innocence and heaven. To some his angels came +clad in dark livery, veiling a joyful countenance with unpropitious +wings, and bore away child, father, sister, wife, or friend. Still were +they angels of good Providence, all God's own; and he who looks aright +finds that they also brought a blessing, but concealed, and left it, +though they spoke no word of joy. One day our weeping brother shall find +that gift and wear it as a diamond on his breast. + +The hours are passing over us, and with them the day. What shall the +future Sundays be, and what the year? What we make them both. God gives +us time. We weave it into life, such figures as we may, and wear it as +we will. Age slowly rots away the gold we are set in, but the +adamantine soul lives on, radiant every way in the light streaming down +from God. The genius of eternity, star-crowned, beautiful, and with +prophetic eyes, leads us again to the gates of time, and gives us one +more year, bidding us fill that golden cup with water as we can or will. +There stand the dirty, fetid pools of worldliness and sin; curdled, and +mantled, film-covered, streaked and striped with many a hue, they shine +there, in the slanting light of new-born day. Around them stand the sons +of earth and cry: Come hither; drink thou and be saved! Here fill thy +golden cup! There you may seek to fill your urn; to stay your thirst. +The deceitful element, roping in your hands, shall mock your lip. It is +water only to the eye. Nay, show-water only unto men half-blind. But +there, hard by, runs down the stream of life, its waters never frozen, +never dry; fed by perennial dews falling unseen from God. Fill there +thine urn, oh, brother-man, and thou shalt thirst no more for +selfishness and crime, and faint no more amid the toil and heat of day; +wash there, and the leprosy of sin, its scales of blindness, shall fall +off, and thou be clean for ever. Kneel there and pray; God shall inspire +thy heart with truth and love, and fill thy cup with never-ending +joy![2] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Rev. John Pierpont. + +[2] See note at the end of this volume. + + + + +III. + +A SERMON OF WAR, PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JUNE 7, 1846. + +EXODUS XV. 3. + + "The Lord is a Man of War." + +1 JOHN IV. 8. + + "God is Love." + + +I ask your attention to a Sermon of War. I have waited some time before +treating this subject at length, till the present hostilities should +assume a definite form, and the designs of the Government become more +apparent. I wished to be able to speak coolly and with knowledge of the +facts, that we might understand the comparative merits of the present +war. Besides, I have waited for others, in the churches, of more +experience to speak, before I ventured to offer my counsel; but I have +thus far waited almost in vain! I did not wish to treat the matter last +Sunday, for that was the end of our week of Pentecost, when cloven +tongues of flame descend on the city, and some are thought to be full of +new wine, and others of the Holy Spirit. The heat of the meetings, good +and bad, of that week, could not wholly have passed away from you or me, +and we ought to come coolly and consider a subject like this. So the +last Sunday I only sketched the back-ground of the picture, to-day +intending to paint the horrors of war in front of that "Presence of +Beauty in Nature," to which with its "Meanings" and its "Lessons," I +then asked you to attend. + + * * * * * + +It seems to me that an idea of God as the Infinite is given to us in our +nature itself. But men create a more definite conception of God in their +own image. Thus a rude savage man, who has learned only the presence of +power in Nature, conceives of God mainly as a force, and speaks of Him +as a God of power. Such, though not without beautiful exceptions, is the +character ascribed to Jehovah in the Old Testament. "The Lord is a man +of war." He is "the Lord of Hosts." He kills men, and their cattle. If +there is trouble in the enemies' city, it is the Lord who hath caused +it. He will "whet his glittering sword and render vengeance to his +enemies. He will make his arrows drunk with blood, and his sword shall +devour flesh!" It is with the sword that God pleads with all men. He +encourages men to fight, and says, "Cursed be he that keepeth back his +sword from blood." He sends blood into the streets; he waters the land +with blood, and in blood he dissolves the mountains. He brandishes his +sword before kings, and they tremble at every moment. He treads nations +as grapes in a wine-press, and his garments are stained with their +life's blood.[3] + +A man who has grown up to read the Older Testament of God revealed in +the beauty of the universe, and to feel the goodness of God therein set +forth, sees him not as force only, or in chief, but as love. He worships +in love the God of goodness and of peace. Such is the prevalent +character ascribed to God in the New Testament, except in the book of +"Revelation." He is the "God of love and peace;" "our Father," "kind to +the unthankful and the unmerciful." In one word, God is love. He loves +us all, Jew and Gentile, bond and free. All are his children, each of +priceless value in His sight. He is no God of battles; no Lord of hosts; +no man of war. He has no sword, nor arrows; He does not water the earth +nor melt the mountains in blood, but "He maketh His sun to rise on the +evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust." He +has no garments dyed in blood; curses no man for refusing to fight. He +is spirit, to be worshipped in spirit and in truth! The commandment is: +Love one another; resist not evil with evil; forgive seventy times +seven; overcome evil with good; love your enemies; bless them that +curse you; do good to them that hate you; pray for them that +despitefully use you and persecute you.[4] There is no nation to shut +its ports against another, all are men; no caste to curl its lip at +inferiors, all are brothers, members of one body, united in the Christ, +the ideal man and head of all. The most useful is the greatest. No man +is to be master, for the Christ is our teacher. We are to fear no man, +for God is our Father. + +These precepts are undeniably the precepts of Christianity. Equally +plain is it that they are the dictates of man's nature, only developed +and active; a part of God's universal revelation; His law writ on the +soul of man, established in the nature of things; true after all +experience, and true before all experience. The man of real insight into +spiritual things sees and knows them to be true. + +Do not believe it the part of a coward to think so. I have known many +cowards; yes, a great many; some very cowardly, pusillanimous and +faint-hearted cowards; but never one who thought so, or pretended to +think so. It requires very little courage to fight with sword and +musket, and that of a cheap kind. Men of that stamp are plenty as grass +in June. Beat your drum, and they will follow; offer them but eight +dollars a month, and they will come--fifty thousand of them, to smite +and kill.[5] Every male animal, or reptile, will fight. It requires +little courage to kill; but it takes much to resist evil with good, +holding obstinately out, active or passive, till you overcome it. Call +that non-resistance, if you will; it is the stoutest kind of combat, +demanding all the manhood of a man. + +I will not deny that war is inseparable from a low stage of +civilization; so is polygamy, slavery, cannibalism. Taking men as they +were, savage and violent, there have been times when war was +unavoidable. I will not deny that it has helped forward the civilization +of the race, for God often makes the folly and the sin of men contribute +to the progress of mankind. It is none the less a folly or a sin. In a +civilized nation like ourselves, it is far more heinous than in the +Ojibeways or the Camanches. + +War is in utter violation of Christianity. If war be right, then +Christianity is wrong, false, a lie. But if Christianity be true, if +reason, conscience, the religious sense, the highest faculties of man, +are to be trusted, then war is the wrong, the falsehood, the lie. I +maintain that aggressive war is a sin; that it is national infidelity, +a denial of Christianity and of God. Every man who understands +Christianity by heart, in its relations to man, to society, the nation, +the world, knows that war is a wrong. At this day, with all the +enlightenment of our age, after the long peace of the nations, war is +easily avoided. Whenever it occurs, the very fact of its occurrence +convicts the rulers of a nation either of entire incapacity as +statesmen, or else of the worst form of treason; treason to the people, +to mankind, to God! There is no other alternative. The very fact of an +aggressive war shows that the men who cause it must be either fools or +traitors. I think lightly of what is called treason against a +government. That may be your duty to-day, or mine. Certainly it was our +fathers' duty not long ago; now it is our boast and their title to +honor. But treason against the people, against mankind, against God, is +a great sin, not lightly to be spoken of. The political authors of the +war on this continent, and at this day, are either utterly incapable of +a statesman's work, or else guilty of that sin. Fools they are, or +traitors they must be. + + * * * * * + +Let me speak, and in detail, of the Evils of War. I wish this were not +necessary. But we have found ourselves in a war; the Congress has voted +our money and our men to carry it on; the Governors call for volunteers; +the volunteers come when they are called for. No voice of indignation +goes forth from the heart of the eight hundred thousand souls of +Massachusetts; of the seventeen million freemen of the land how few +complain; only a man here and there! The Press is well-nigh silent. And +the Church, so far from protesting against this infidelity in the name +of Christ, is little better than dead. The man of blood shelters himself +behind its wall, silent, dark, dead and emblematic. These facts show +that it is necessary to speak of the evils of war. I am speaking in a +city, whose fairest, firmest, most costly buildings are warehouses and +banks; a city whose most popular Idol is Mammon, the God of Gold; whose +Trinity is a Trinity of Coin! I shall speak intelligibly, therefore, if +I begin by considering war as a waste of property. It paralyzes +industry. The very fear of it is a mildew upon commerce. Though the +present war is but a skirmish, only a few random shots between a squad +of regulars and some strolling battalions, a quarrel which in Europe +would scarcely frighten even the Pope; yet see the effect of it upon +trade. Though the fighting be thousands of miles from Boston, your +stocks fall in the market; the rate of insurance is altered; your dealer +in wood piles his boards and his timber on his wharf, not finding a +market. There are few ships in the great Southern mart to take the +freight of many; exchange is disturbed. The clergyman is afraid to buy a +book, lest his children want bread. It is so with all departments of +industry and trade. In war the capitalist is uncertain and slow to +venture, so the laborer's hand will be still, and his child ill-clad and +hungry. + +In the late war with England, many of you remember the condition of your +fisheries, of your commerce; how the ships lay rotting at the wharf. The +dearness of cloth, of provisions, flour, sugar, tea, coffee, salt, the +comparative lowness of wages, the stagnation of business, the scarcity +of money, the universal sullenness and gloom--all this is well +remembered now. So is the ruin it brought on many a man. + +Yet but few weeks ago some men talked boastingly of a war with England. +There are some men who seem to have no eyes nor ears, only a mouth; +whose chief function is talk. Of their talk I will say nothing; we look +for dust in dry places. But some men thus talked of war, and seemed +desirous to provoke it, who can scarce plead ignorance, and I fear not +folly, for their excuse. I leave such to the just resentment sure to +fall on them from sober, serious men, who dare to be so unpopular as to +think before they speak, and then say what comes of thinking. Perhaps +such a war was never likely to take place, and now, thanks to a few wise +men, all danger thereof seems at an end. But suppose it had +happened--what would become of your commerce, of your fishing smacks on +the Banks or along the shore? what of your coasting vessels, doubling +the headlands all the way from the St. John's to the Nueces? what of +your whale ships in the Pacific? what of your Indiamen, deep freighted +with oriental wealth? what of that fleet which crowds across the +Atlantic sea, trading with east and west and north and south? I know +some men care little for the rich, but when the owners keep their craft +in port, where can the "hands" find work or their mouths find bread? The +shipping of the United States amounts nearly to 2,500,000 tons. At $40 a +ton, its value is nearly $100,000,000. This is the value only of those +sea-carriages; their cargoes I cannot compute. Allowing one sailor for +every twenty tons burden, here will be 125,000 seamen. They and their +families amount to 500,000 souls. In war, what will become of them? A +capital of more than $13,000,000 is invested in the fisheries of +Massachusetts alone. More than 19,000 men find profitable employment +therein. If each man have but four others in his family, a small number +for that class, here are more than 95,000 persons in this State alone, +whose daily bread depends on this business. They cannot fish in troubled +waters, for they are fishermen, not politicians. Where could they find +bread or cloth in time of war? In Dartmoor prison? Ask that of your +demagogues who courted war! + +Then, too, the positive destruction of property in war is monstrous. A +ship of the line costs from $500,000 to $1,000,000. The loss of a fleet +by capture, by fire, or by decay, is a great loss. You know at what cost +a fort is built, if you have counted the sums successively voted for +Fort Adams in Rhode Island, or those in our own harbor. The destruction +of forts is another item in the cost of war. The capture or destruction +of merchant ships with their freight, creates a most formidable loss. In +1812 the whole tonnage of the United States was scarce half what it is +now. Yet the loss of ships and their freight, in "the late war," brief +as it was, is estimated at $100,000,000. Then the loss by plunder and +military occupation is monstrous. The soldier, like the savage, cuts +down the tree to gather its fruit. I cannot calculate the loss by +burning towns and cities. But suppose Boston were bombarded and laid in +ashes. Calculate the loss if you can. You may say "This could not be," +for it is as easy to say No, as Yes. But remember what befell us in the +last war; remember how recently the best defended capitals of Europe, +Vienna, Paris, Antwerp, have fallen into hostile hands. Consider how +often a strong place, like Coblentz, Mentz, Malta, Gibraltar, St. Juan +d'Ulloa, has been declared impregnable, and then been taken; calculate +the force which might be brought against this town, and you will see +that in eight and forty hours, or half that time, it might be left +nothing but a heap of ruins smoking in the sun! I doubt not the valor +of American soldiers, the skill of their engineers, nor the ability of +their commanders. I am ready to believe all this is greater than we are +told. Still, such are the contingencies of war. If some not very +ignorant men had their way, this would be a probability and perhaps a +fact. If we should burn every town from the Tweed to the Thames, it +would not rebuild our own city. + +But on the supposition that nothing is destroyed, see the loss which +comes from the misdirection of productive industry. Your fleets, forts, +dock-yards, arsenals, cannons, muskets, swords and the like, are +provided at great cost, and yet are unprofitable. They do not pay. They +weave no cloth; they bake no bread; they produce nothing. Yet from 1791 +to 1832, in forty-two years we expended in these things, $303,242,576, +namely, for the navy, etc., $112,703,933; for the army, etc., +190,538,643. For the same time, all other expenses of the nation came to +but $37,158,047. More than eight ninths of the whole revenue of the +nation was spent for purposes of war. In four years, from 1812 to 1815, +we paid in this way, $92,350,519.37. In six years, from 1835 to 1840, we +paid annually on the average $21,328,903; in all $127,973,418. Our +Congress has just voted $17,000,000, as a special grant for the army +alone. The 175,118 muskets at Springfield, are valued at $3,000,000; we +pay annually $200,000 to support that arsenal. The navy-yard at +Charlestown, with its stores, etc., has cost $4,741,000. And, for all +profitable returns, this money might as well be sunk in the bottom of +the sea. In some countries it is yet worse. There are towns and cities +in which the fortifications have cost more than all the houses, +churches, shops, and other property therein. This happens not among the +Sacs and Foxes, but in "Christian" Europe. + +Then your soldier is the most unprofitable animal you can keep. He makes +no railroads; clears no land; raises no corn. No, he can make neither +cloth nor clocks! He does not raise his own bread, mend his own shoes, +make his shoulder-knot of glory, nor hammer out his own sword. Yet he is +a costly animal, though useless. If the President gets his fifty +thousand volunteers, a thing likely to happen--for though Irish lumpers +and hod-men want a dollar or a dollar and a half a day, your free +American of Boston will enlist for twenty-seven cents, only having his +livery, his feathers, and his "glory" thrown in--then at $8 a month, +their wages amount to $400,000 a month. Suppose the present Government +shall actually make advantageous contracts, and the subsistence of the +soldier cost no more than in England, or $17 a month, this amounts to +$850,000. Here are $1,250,000 a month to begin with. Then, if each man +would be worth a dollar a day at any productive work, and there are 26 +work days in the month, here are $1,300,000 more to be added, making +$2,550,000 a month for the new army of occupation. This is only for the +rank and file of the army. The officers, the surgeons, and the +chaplains, who teach the soldiers to _wad_ their muskets with the leaves +of the Bible, will perhaps cost as much more; or, in all, something more +than $5,000,000 a month. This of course does not include the cost of +their arms, tents, ammunition, baggage, horses, and hospital stores, nor +the 65,000 gallons of whiskey which the government has just advertised +for! What do they give in return? They will give us three things, valor, +glory, and--talk; which, as they are not in the price current, I must +estimate as I can, and set them all down in one figure = 0; not worth +the whiskey they cost. + +New England is quite a new country. Seven generations ago it was a +wilderness; now it contains about 2,500,000 souls. If you were to pay +all the public debts of these States, and then, in fancy, divide all the +property therein by the population, young as we are, I think you would +find a larger amount of value for each man than in any other country in +the world, not excepting England. The civilization of Europe is old; the +nations old, England, France, Spain, Austria, Italy, Greece; but they +have wasted their time, their labor and their wealth in war, and so are +poorer than we upstarts of a wilderness. We have fewer fleets, forts, +cannon and soldiers for the population, than any other "Christian" +country in the world. This is one main reason why we have no national +debt; why the women need not toil in the hardest labor of the fields, +the quarries and the mines; this is the reason that we are well fed, +well clad, well housed; this is the reason that Massachusetts can afford +to spend $1,000,000 a year for her public schools! War, wasting a +nation's wealth, depresses the great mass of the people, but serves to +elevate a few to opulence and power. Every despotism is established and +sustained by war. This is the foundation of all the aristocracies of the +old world, aristocracies of blood. Our famous men are often ashamed that +their wealth was honestly got by working, or peddling, and foolishly +copy the savage and bloody emblems of ancient heraldry in their assumed +coats of arms, industrious men seeking to have a griffin on their seal! +Nothing is so hostile to a true democracy as war. It elevates a few, +often bold, bad men, at the expense of the many, who pay the money and +furnish the blood for war. + +War is a most expensive folly. The revolutionary war cost the General +Government directly and in specie $135,000,000. It is safe to estimate +the direct cost to the individual States also at the same sum, +$135,000,000; making a total of $270,000,000. Considering the +interruption of business, the waste of time, property and life, it is +plain that this could not have been a fourth part of the whole. But +suppose it was a third, then the whole pecuniary cost of the war would +be $810,000,000. At the beginning of the Revolution the population was +about 3,000,000; so that war, lasting about eight years, cost $270 for +each person. To meet the expenses of the war each year there would have +been required a tax of $33.75 on each man, woman and child! + +In the Florida war we spent between $30,000,000 and $40,000,000, as an +eminent statesman once said, in fighting five hundred invisible Indians! +It is estimated that the fortifications of the city of Paris, when +completely furnished, will cost more than the whole taxable property of +Massachusetts, with her 800,000 souls. Why, this year our own grant for +the army is $17,000,000. The estimate for the navy is $6,000,000 more; +in all $23,000,000. Suppose, which is most unlikely, that we should pay +no more, why, that sum alone would support public schools, as good and +as costly as those of Massachusetts, all over the United States, +offering each boy and girl, bond or free, as good a culture as they get +here in Boston, and then leave a balance of $3,000,000 in our hands! We +pay more for ignorance than we need for education! But $23,000,000 is +not all we must pay this year. A great statesman has said, in the +Senate, that our war expenses at present are nearly $500,000 a day, and +the President informs your Congress that $22,952,904 more will be wanted +for the army and navy before next June! + +For several years we spent directly more than $21,000,000 for war +purposes, though in time of peace. If a railroad cost $30,000 a mile, +then we might build 700 miles a year for that sum, and in five years +could build a railroad therewith from Boston to the further side of +Oregon. For the war money we paid in forty-two years, we could have had +more than 10,000 miles of railroad, and, with dividends at seven per +cent., a yearly income of $21,210,000. For military and naval affairs, +in eight years, from 1835 to 1843, we paid $163,336,717. This alone +would have made 5,444 miles of railroad, and would produce at seven per +cent., an annual income of $11,433,569.19. + +In Boston there are nineteen public grammar schools, a Latin and English +High school. The buildings for these schools twenty in number, have cost +$653,208. There are also 135 primary schools, in as many houses or +rooms. I know not their value, as I think they are not all owned by the +city. But suppose them to be worth $150,000. Then all the school-houses +of this city have cost $803,208. The cost of these 156 schools for this +year is estimated at $172,000. The number of scholars in them is 16,479. +Harvard University, the most expensive college in America, costs about +$46,000 a year. Now the ship Ohio, lying here in our harbor, has cost +$834,845, and we pay for it each year $220,000 more. That is, it has +cost $31,637 more than these 155 school-houses of this city, and costs +every year $2,000 more than Harvard University, and all the public +schools of Boston! + +The military academy at West Point contains two hundred and thirty-six +cadets; the appropriation for it last year, was $138,000, a sum greater +I think, than the cost of all the colleges in Maine, New Hampshire, +Vermont and Massachusetts, with their 1,445 students. + +The navy-yard at Charlestown, with its ordnance, stores, etc., cost +$4,741,000. The cost of the 78 churches in Boston is $3,246,500; the +whole property of Harvard University is $703,175; the 155 school-houses +of Boston are worth $803,208; in all $4,752,883. Thus the navy-yard at +Charlestown has cost almost as much as the 78 churches and the 155 +school-houses of Boston, with Harvard College, its halls, libraries, all +its wealth thrown in. Yet what does it teach? + +Our country is singularly destitute of public libraries. You must go +across the ocean to read the history of the Church or State; all the +public libraries in America cannot furnish the books referred to in +Gibbon's Rome, or Gieseler's History of the Church. I think there is no +public library in Europe which has cost three dollars a volume. There +are six: the Vatican, at Rome; the Royal, at Paris; the British Museum, +at London; the Bodleian, at Oxford; the University Libraries at +Gottingen and Berlin--which contain, it is said, about 4,500,000 +volumes. The recent grant of $17,000,000 for the army is $3,500,000 more +than the cost of those magnificent collections! + +There have been printed about 3,000,000 different volumes, great and +little, within the last 400 years. If the Florida war cost but +$30,000,000, it is ten times more than enough to have purchased one copy +of each book ever printed, at one dollar a volume, which is more than +the average cost. + +Now all these sums are to be paid by the people, "the dear people," whom +our republican demagogues love so well, and for whom they spend their +lives, rising early, toiling late, those self-denying heroes, those +sainted martyrs of the republic, eating the bread of carefulness for +them alone! But how are they to be paid? By a direct tax levied on all +the property of the nation, so that the poor man pays according to his +little, and the rich man in proportion to his much, each knowing when he +pays and what he pays for? No such thing; nothing like it. The people +must pay and not know it; must be deceived a little, or they would not +pay after this fashion! You pay for it in every pound of sugar, copper, +coal, in every yard of cloth; and if the counsel of some lovers of the +people be followed, you will soon pay for it in each pound of coffee and +tea. In this way the rich man always pays relatively less than the poor; +often a positively smaller sum. Even here I think that three-fourths of +all the property is owned by one-fourth of the people, yet that +three-fourths by no means pays a third of the national revenue. The tax +is laid on things men cannot do without,--sugar, cloth, and the like. +The consumption of these articles is not in proportion to wealth but +persons. Now the poor man, as a general rule, has more children than the +rich, and the tax being more in proportion to persons than property, the +poor man pays more than the rich. So a tax is really laid on the poor +man's children to pay for the war which makes him poor and keeps him +poor. I think your captains and colonels, those sons of thunder and +heirs of glory, will not tell you so. They tell you so! They know it! +Poor brothers, how could they? I think your party newspapers, penny or +pound, will not tell you so; nor the demagogues, all covered with glory +and all forlorn, who tell the people when to hurrah and for what! But if +you cipher the matter out for yourself you will find it so, and not +otherwise. Tell the demagogues, whig or democrat, that. It was an old +Roman maxim, "The people wished to be deceived; let them." Now it is +only practised on; not repeated--in public. + +Let us deal justly even with war, giving that its due. There is one +class of men who find their pecuniary advantage in it. I mean army +contractors, when they chance to be favorites of the party in power; men +who let steamboats to lie idle at $500 a day. This class of men rejoice +in a war. The country may become poor, they are sure to be rich. Yet +another class turn war to account, get the "glory," and become important +in song and sermon. I see it stated in a newspaper that the Duke of +Wellington has received, as gratuities for his military services, +$5,400,000, and $40,000 a year in pensions! + + * * * * * + +But the waste of property is the smallest part of the evil. The waste of +life in war is yet more terrible. Human life is a sacred thing. Go out +into the lowest street of Boston; take the vilest and most squalid man +in that miserable lane, and he is dear to some one. He is called +brother; perhaps husband; it may be father; at least, son. A human +heart, sadly joyful, beat over him before he was born. He has been +pressed fondly to his mother's arms. Her tears and her smiles have been +for him; perhaps also her prayers. His blood may be counted mean and +vile by the great men of the earth who love nothing so well as the dear +people, for he has no "coat of arms," no liveried servant to attend him, +but it has run down from the same first man. His family is ancient as +that of the most long descended king. God made him; made this splendid +universe to wait on him and teach him; sent his Christ to save him. He +is an immortal soul. Needlessly to spill that man's blood is an awful +sin. It will cry against you out of the ground--Cain! where is thy +brother? Now in war you bring together 50,000 men like him on one side, +and 50,000 of a different nation on the other. They have no natural +quarrel with one another. The earth is wide enough for both; neither +hinders the sun from the other. Many come unwillingly; many not knowing +what they fight for. It is but accident that determines on which side +the man shall fight. The cannons pour their shot--round, grape, +canister; the howitzers scatter their bursting shells; the muskets rain +their leaden death; the sword, the bayonet, the horses' iron hoof, the +wheels of the artillery, grind the men down into trodden dust. There +they lie, the two masses of burning valor, extinguished, quenched, and +grimly dead, each covering with his body the spot he defended with his +arms. They had no quarrel; yet they lie there, slain by a brother's +hand. It is not old and decrepid men, but men of the productive age, +full of lusty life. + +But it is only the smallest part that perish in battle. Exposure to +cold, wet, heat; unhealthy climates, unwholesome food, rum, and forced +marches, bring on diseases which mow down the poor soldiers worse than +musketry and grape. Others languish of wounds, and slowly procrastinate +a dreadful and a tenfold death. Far away, there are widows, orphans, +childless old fathers, who pore over the daily news to learn at random +the fate of a son, a father, or a husband! They crowd disconsolate into +the churches, seeking of God the comfort men took from them, praying in +the bitterness of a broken heart, while the priest gives thanks for "a +famous victory," and hangs up the bloody standard over his pulpit! + +When ordinary disease cuts off a man, when he dies at his duty, there is +some comfort in that loss. "It was the ordinance of God," you say. You +minister to his wants; you smoothe down the pillow for the aching head; +your love beguiles the torment of disease, and your own bosom gathers +half the darts of death. He goes in his time and God takes him. But when +he dies in such a war, in battle, it is man who has robbed him of life. +It is a murderer that is butchered. Nothing alleviates that bitter, +burning smart! + +Others not slain are maimed for life. This has no eyes; that no hands; +another no feet nor legs. This has been pierced by lances, and torn with +the shot, till scarce any thing human is left. The wreck of a body is +crazed with pains God never meant for man. The mother that bore him +would not know her child. Count the orphan asylums in Germany and +Holland; go into the hospital at Greenwich, that of the invalids in +Paris, you see the "trophies" of Napoleon and Wellington. Go to the +arsenal at Toulon, see the wooden legs piled up there for men now active +and whole, and you will think a little of the physical horrors of war. + +In Boston there are perhaps about 25,000 able-bodied men between 18 and +45. Suppose them all slain in battle, or mortally hurt, or mown down by +the camp-fever, vomito, or other diseases of war, and then fancy the +distress, the heart-sickness amid wives, mothers, daughters, sons and +fathers, here! Yet 25,000 is a small number to be murdered in "a famous +victory;" a trifle for a whole "glorious campaign" in a great war. The +men of Boston are no better loved than the men of Tamaulipas. There is +scarce an old family, of the middle class, in all New England, which did +not thus smart in the Revolution; many, which have not, to this day, +recovered from the bloody blow then falling on them. Think, wives, of +the butchery of your husbands; think, mothers, of the murder of your +sons! + +Here, too, the burden of battle falls mainly on the humble class. They +pay the great tribute of money; they pay also the horrid tax of blood. +It was not your rich men who fought even the Revolution; not they. Your +men of property and standing were leaguing with the British, or fitting +out privateers when that offered a good investment, or buying up the +estates of more consistent tories; making money out of the nation's dire +distress! True, there were most honorable exceptions; but such, I think, +was the general rule. Let this be distinctly remembered, that the burden +of battle is borne by the humble classes of men; they pay the vast +tribute of money; the awful tax of blood! The "glory" is got by a few; +poverty, wounds, death, are for the people! + +Military glory is the poorest kind of distinction, but the most +dangerous passion. It is an honor to man to be able to mould iron; to be +skilful at working in cloth, wood, clay, leather. It is man's vocation +to raise corn, to subdue the rebellious fibre of cotton and convert it +into beautiful robes, full of comfort for the body. They are the heroes +of the race who abridge the time of human toil and multiply its results; +they who win great truths from God, and send them to a people's heart; +they who balance the many and the one into harmonious action, so that +all are united and yet each left free. But the glory which comes of +epaulets and feathers; that strutting glory which is dyed in blood--what +shall we say of it? In this day it is not heroism; it is an imitation of +barbarism long ago passed by. Yet it is marvellous how many men are +taken with a red coat! You expect it in Europe, a land of soldiers and +blood. You are disappointed to find that here the champions of force +should be held in honor, and that even the lowest should voluntarily +enroll themselves as butchers of men! + + * * * * * + +Yet more: aggressive war is a sin; a corruption of the public morals. It +is a practical denial of Christianity; a violation of God's eternal law +of love. This is so plain that I shall say little upon it to-day. Your +savagest and most vulgar captain would confess he does not fight as a +Christian--but as a soldier; your magistrate calls for volunteers--not +as a man loving Christianity, and loyal to God; only as Governor, under +oath to keep the Constitution, the tradition of the elders; not under +oath to keep the commandment of God! In war the laws are suspended, +violence and cunning rule everywhere. The battle of Yorktown was gained +by a lie, though a Washington told it. As a soldier it was his duty. Men +"emulate the tiger;" the hand is bloody, and the heart hard. Robbery and +murder are the rule, the glory of men. "Good men look sad, but ruffians +dance and leap." Men are systematically trained to burn towns, to murder +fathers and sons; taught to consider it "glory" to do so. The Government +collects ruffians and cut-throats. It compels better men to serve with +these and become cut-throats. It appoints chaplains to blaspheme +Christianity; teaching the ruffians how to pray for the destruction of +the enemy, the burning of his towns; to do this in the name of Christ +and God. I do not censure all the men who serve: some of them know no +better; they have heard that a man would "perish everlastingly" if he +did not believe the Athanasian creed; that if he questioned the story of +Jonah, or the miraculous birth of Jesus, he was in danger of hell-fire, +and if he doubted damnation was sure to be damned. They never heard +that such a war was a sin; that to create a war was treason, and to +fight in it wrong. They never thought of thinking for themselves; their +thinking was to read a newspaper, or sleep through a sermon. They +counted it their duty to obey the Government without thinking if that +Government be right or wrong. I deny not the noble, manly character of +many a soldier, his heroism, self-denial and personal sacrifice. + +Still, after all proper allowance is made for a few individuals, the +whole system of war is unchristian and sinful. It lives only by evil +passions. It can be defended only by what is low, selfish, and animal. +It absorbs the scum of the cities, pirates, robbers, murderers. It makes +them worse, and better men like them. To take one man's life is murder; +what is it to practise killing as an art, a trade; to do it by +thousands? Yet I think better of the hands that do the butchering than +of the ambitious heads, the cold, remorseless hearts, which plunge the +nation into war. + +In war the State teaches men to lie, to steal, to kill. It calls for +privateers, who are commonly pirates with a national charter, and +pirates are privateers with only a personal charter. Every camp is a +school of profanity, violence, licentiousness, and crimes too foul to +name. It is so without sixty-five thousand gallons of whiskey. This is +unavoidable. It was so with Washington's army, with Cornwallis's, with +that of Gustavus Adolphus, perhaps the most moral army the world ever +saw. The soldier's life generally unfits a man for the citizen's! When +he returns from a camp, from a war, back to his native village, he +becomes a curse to society and a shame to the mother that bore him. Even +the soldiers of the Revolution, who survived the war, were mostly ruined +for life, debauched, intemperate, vicious and vile. What loathsome +creatures so many of them were! They bore our burden, for such were the +real martyrs of that war, not the men who fell under the shot! How many +men of the rank and file in the late war have since become respectable +citizens? + +To show how incompatible are War and Christianity, suppose that he who +is deemed the most Christian of Christ's disciples, the well-beloved +John, were made a navy-chaplain, and some morning, when a battle is +daily looked for, should stand on the gun-deck, amid lockers of shot, +his Bible resting on a cannon, and expound Christianity to men with +cutlasses by their side! Let him read for the morning lesson the Sermon +on the Mount, and for text take words from his own Epistle, so sweet, so +beautiful, so true: "Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth +God, for God is love." Suppose he tells his strange audience that all +men are brothers; that God is their common father; that Christ loved us +all, showing us how to live the life of love; and then, when he had +melted all those savage hearts by words so winsome and so true, let him +conclude, "Blessed are the men-slayers! Seek first the glory which +cometh of battle. Be fierce as tigers. Mar God's image in which your +brothers are made. Be not like Christ, but Cain who slew his brother! +When you meet the enemy, fire into their bosoms; kill them in the dear +name of Christ; butcher them in the spirit of God. Give them no quarter, +for we ought not to lay down our lives for the brethren; only the +murderer hath eternal life!" + + * * * * * + +Yet great as are these three-fold evils, there are times when the +soberest men and the best men have welcomed war, coolly and in their +better moments. Sometimes a people, long oppressed, has "petitioned, +remonstrated, cast itself at the feet of the throne," with only insult +for answer to its prayer. Sometimes there is a contest between a +falsehood and a great truth; a self-protecting war for freedom of mind, +heart and soul; yes, a war for a man's body, his wife's and children's +body, for what is dearer to men than life itself, for the unalienable +rights of man, for the idea that all are born free and equal. It was so +in the American Revolution; in the English, in the French Revolution. In +such cases men say, "Let it come." They take down the firelock in +sorrow; with a prayer they go forth to battle, asking that the Right +may triumph. Much as I hate war I cannot but honor such men. Were they +better, yet more heroic, even war of that character might be avoided. +Still it is a colder heart than mine which does not honor such men, +though it believes them mistaken. Especially do we honor them, when it +is the few, the scattered, the feeble, contending with the many and the +mighty; the noble fighting for a great idea, and against the base and +tyrannical. Then most men think the gain, the triumph of a great idea, +is worth the price it costs, the price of blood. + +I will not stop to touch that question, If man may ever shed the blood +of man. But it is plain that an aggressive war like this is wholly +unchristian, and a reproach to the nation and the age. + + * * * * * + +Now, to make the evils of war still clearer, and to bring them home to +your door, let us suppose there was war between the counties of Suffolk, +on the one side, and Middlesex on the other--this army at Boston, that +at Cambridge. Suppose the subject in dispute was the boundary line +between the two, Boston claiming a pitiful acre of flat land, which the +ocean at low tide disdained to cover. To make sure of this, Boston +seizes whole miles of flats, unquestionably not its own. The rulers on +one side are fools, and traitors on the other. The two commanders have +issued their proclamations; the money is borrowed; the whiskey +provided; the soldiers--Americans, Negroes, Irishmen, all the +able-bodied men--are enlisted. Prayers are offered in all the churches, +and sermons preached, showing that God is a man of war, and Cain his +first saint, an early Christian, a Christian before Christ. The +Bostonians wish to seize Cambridge, burn the houses, churches, +college-halls, and plunder the library. The men of Cambridge wish to +seize Boston, burn its houses and ships, plundering its wares and its +goods. Martial law is proclaimed on both sides. The men of Cambridge cut +asunder the bridges, and make a huge breach in the mill-dam, planting +cannon to enfilade all those avenues. Forts crown the hilltops, else so +green. Men, madder than lunatics, are crowded into the Asylum. The +Bostonians rebuild the old fortifications on the Neck; replace the forts +on Beacon-hill, Fort-hill, Copps-hill, levelling houses to make room for +redoubts and bastions. The batteries are planted, the mortars got ready; +the furnaces and magazines are all prepared. The three hills are grim +with war. From Copps-hill men look anxious to that memorable height the +other side of the water. Provisions are cut off in Boston; no man may +pass the lines; the aqueduct refuses its genial supply; children cry for +their expected food. The soldiers parade, looking somewhat tremulous and +pale; all the able-bodied have come, the vilest most willingly; some are +brought by force of drink, some by force of arms. Some are in brilliant +dresses, some in their working frocks. The banners are consecrated by +solemn words.[6] Your church-towers are military posts of observation. +There are Old Testament prayers to the "God of Hosts" in all the +churches of Boston; prayers that God would curse the men of Cambridge, +make their wives widows, their children fatherless, their houses a ruin, +the men corpses, meat for the beast of the field and the bird of the +air. Last night the Bostonians made a feint of attacking Charlestown, +raining bombs and red-hot cannon-balls from Copps-hill, till they have +burnt a thousand houses, where the British burnt not half so many. Women +and children fled screaming from the blazing rafters of their homes. The +men of Middlesex crowd into Charlestown. + +In the mean time the Bostonians hastily repair a bridge or two; some +pass that way, some over the Neck; all stealthily by night, and while +the foe expect them at Bunker's, amid the blazing town, they have stolen +a march and rush upon Cambridge itself. The Cambridge men turn back. The +battle is fiercely joined. You hear the cannon, the sharp report of +musketry. You crowd the hills, the house-tops; you line the Common, you +cover the shore, yet you see but little in the sulphurous cloud. Now +the Bostonians yield a little, a reinforcement goes over. All the men +are gone; even the gray-headed who can shoulder a firelock. They plunge +into battle mad with rage, madder with rum. The chaplains loiter behind. + + "Pious men, whom duty brought, + To dubious verge of battle fought, + To shrive the dying, bless the dead!" + +The battle hangs long in even scale. At length it turns. The Cambridge +men retreat, they run, they fly. The houses burn. You see the churches +and the colleges go up, a stream of fire. That library--founded amid +want and war and sad sectarian strife, slowly gathered by the saving of +two centuries, the hope of the poor scholar, the boast of the rich +one--is scattered to the winds and burnt with fire, for the solid +granite is blasted by powder, and the turrets fall. Victory is ours. Ten +thousand men of Cambridge lie dead; eight thousand of Boston. There +writhe the wounded; men who but few hours before were poured over the +battle-field a lava flood of fiery valor--fathers, brothers, husbands, +sons. There they lie, torn and mangled; black with powder; red with +blood; parched with thirst; cursing the load of life they now must bear +with bruised frames and mutilated limbs. Gather them into hasty +hospitals--let this man's daughter come to-morrow and sit by him, +fanning away the flies; he shall linger out a life of wretched anguish +unspoken and unspeakable, and when he dies his wife religiously will +keep the shot which tore his limbs. There is the battle-field! Here the +horse charged; there the howitzers scattered their shells, pregnant with +death; here the murderous canister and grape mowed down the crowded +ranks; there the huge artillery, teeming with murder, was dragged o'er +heaps of men--wounded friends who just now held its ropes, men yet +curling with anguish, like worms in the fire. Hostile and friendly, head +and trunk are crushed beneath those dreadful wheels. Here the infantry +showered their murdering shot. That ghastly face was beautiful the day +before--a sabre hewed its half away. + + "The earth is covered thick with other clay, + Which her own clay must cover, heaped and pent, + Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent." + +Again it is night. Oh, what a night, and after what a day! Yet the pure +tide of woman's love, which never ebbs since earth began, flows on in +spite of war and battle. Stealthily, by the pale moonlight, a mother of +Boston treads the weary miles to reach that bloody spot; a widow +she--seeking among the slain her only son. The arm of power drove him +forth reluctant to the fight. A friendly soldier guides her way. Now +she turns over this face, whose mouth is full of purple dust, bit out of +the ground in his extremest agony, the last sacrament offered him by +Earth herself; now she raises that form, cold, stiff, stony and ghastly +as a dream of hell. But, lo! another comes, she too a woman, younger and +fairer, yet not less bold, a maiden from the hostile town to seek her +lover. They meet, two women among the corpses; two angels come to +Golgotha, seeking to raise a man. There he lies before them; they look. +Yes it is he you seek; the same dress, form, features too; it is he, the +son, the lover. Maid and mother could tell that face in any light. The +grass is wet with his blood. The ground is muddy with the life of men. +The mother's innocent robe is drabbled in the blood her bosom bore. +Their kisses, groans, and tears, recall the wounded man. He knows the +mother's voice; that voice yet more beloved. His lips move only, for +they cannot speak. He dies! The waxing moon moves high in heaven, +walking in beauty amid the clouds, and murmurs soft her cradle song unto +the slumbering earth. The broken sword reflects her placid beams. A star +looks down and is imaged back in a pool of blood. The cool night wind +plays in the branches of the trees shivered with shot. Nature is +beautiful--that lovely grass underneath their feet; those pendulous +branches of the leafy elm; the stars and that romantic moon lining the +clouds with silver light! A groan of agony, hopeless and prolonged, +wails out from that bloody ground. But in yonder farm the whippoorwill +sings to her lover all night long; the rising tide ripples melodious +against the shores. So wears the night away,--Nature, all sinless, round +that field of woe. + + "The morn is up again, the dewy morn, + With breath all incense and with cheek all bloom, + Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, + And living as if earth contained no tomb, + And glowing into day." + +What a scene that morning looks upon! I will not turn again. Let the +dead bury their dead. But their blood cries out of the ground against +the rulers who shed it,--"Cain! where are thy brothers?" What shall the +fool answer; what the traitor say? + +Then comes thanksgiving in all the churches of Boston. The consecrated +banners, stiff with blood and "glory," are hung over the altar. The +minister preaches and the singer sings: "The Lord hath been on our side. +He treadeth the people under me. He teacheth my hands to war, my fingers +to fight. Yea, He giveth me the necks of mine enemies; for the Lord is +his name;" and "It was a famous victory!" Boston seizes miles square of +land; but her houses are empty; her wives widows; her children +fatherless. Rachel weeps for the murder of her innocents, yet dares not +rebuke the rod. + +I know there is no fighting across Charles River, as in this poor +fiction; but there was once, and instead of Charles say Rio Grande; for +Cambridge read Metamoras, and it is what your President recommended; +what your Congress enacted; what your Governor issued his proclamation +for; what your volunteers go to accomplish: yes, what they fired cannon +for on Boston Common the other day. I wish that were a fiction of mine! + + * * * * * + +We are waging a most iniquitous war--so it seems to me. I know I may be +wrong, but I am no partisan, and if I err, it is not wilfully, not +rashly. I know the Mexicans are a wretched people; wretched in their +origin, history, and character. I know but two good things of them as a +people--they abolished negro slavery, not long ago; they do not covet +the lands of their neighbors. True, they have not paid all their debts, +but it is scarcely decent in a nation, with any repudiating States, to +throw the first stone at Mexico for that! + +I know the Mexicans cannot stand before this terrible Anglo-Saxon race, +the most formidable and powerful the world ever saw; a race which has +never turned back; which, though it number less than forty millions, yet +holds the Indies, almost the whole of North America; which rules the +commerce of the world; clutches at New Holland, China, New Zealand, +Borneo, and seizes island after island in the furthest seas; the race +which invented steam as its awful type. The poor, wretched Mexicans can +never stand before us. How they perished in battle! They must melt away +as the Indians before the white man. Considering how we acquired +Louisiana, Florida, Oregon, I cannot forbear thinking that this people +will possess the whole of the continent before many years; perhaps +before the century ends. But this may be had fairly; with no injustice +to any one; by the steady advance of a superior race, with superior +ideas and a better civilization; by commerce, trade, arts, by being +better than Mexico, wiser, humaner, more free and manly. Is it not +better to acquire it by the schoolmaster than the cannon; by peddling +cloth, tin, any thing rather than bullets? It may not all belong to this +Government, and yet to this race. It would be a gain to mankind if we +could spread over that country the Idea of America--that all men are +born free and equal in rights, and establish there political, social, +and individual freedom. But to do that, we must first make real these +ideas at home. + +In the general issue between this race and that, we are in the right. +But in this special issue, and this particular war, it seems to me that +we are wholly in the wrong; that our invasion of Mexico is as bad as the +partition of Poland in the last century and in this. If I understand the +matter, the whole movement, the settlement of Texas, the Texan +revolution, the annexation of Texas, the invasion of Mexico, has been a +movement hostile to the American idea, a movement to extend slavery. I +do not say such was the design on the part of the people, but on the +part of the politicians who pulled the strings. I think the papers of +the Government and the debates of Congress prove that. The annexation +has been declared unconstitutional in its mode, a virtual dissolution of +the Union, and that by very high and well-known authority. It was +expressly brought about for the purpose of extending slavery. An attempt +is now made to throw the shame of this on the democrats. I think the +democrats deserve the shame; but I could never see that the whigs, on +the whole, deserved it any less; only they were not quite so open. +Certainly, their leaders did not take ground against it, never as +against a modification of the tariff! When we annexed Texas we of course +took her for better or worse, debts and all, and annexed her war along +with her. I take it everybody knew that; though now some seem to pretend +a decent astonishment at the result. Now one party is ready to fight for +it as the other! The North did not oppose the annexation of Texas. Why +not? They knew they could make money by it. The eyes of the North are +full of cotton; they see nothing else, for a web is before them; their +ears are full of cotton, and they hear nothing but the buzz of their +mills; their mouth is full of cotton, and they can speak audibly but +two words--Tariff, Tariff, Dividends, Dividends. The talent of the North +is blinded, deafened, gagged with its own cotton. The North clamored +loudly when the nation's treasure was removed from the United States +Bank; it is almost silent at the annexation of a slave territory big as +the kingdom of France, encumbered with debts, loaded with the entailment +of war! Northern Governors call for soldiers; our men volunteer to fight +in a most infamous war for the extension of slavery! Tell it not in +Boston, whisper it not in Faneuil Hall, lest you weaken the slumbers of +your fathers, and they curse you as cowards and traitors unto men! Not +satisfied with annexing Texas and a war, we next invaded a territory +which did not belong to Texas, and built a fort on the Rio Grande, +where, I take it, we had no more right than the British, in 1841, had on +the Penobscot or the Saco. Now the Government and its Congress would +throw the blame on the innocent, and say war exists "by the act of +Mexico!" If a lie was ever told, I think this is one. Then the "dear +people" must be called on for money and men, for "the soil of this free +republic is invaded," and the Governor of Massachusetts, one of the men +who declared the annexation of Texas unconstitutional, recommends the +war he just now told us to pray against, and appeals to our +"patriotism," and "humanity," as arguments for butchering the Mexicans, +when they are in the right and we in the wrong! The maxim is held up, +"Our country, right or wrong;" "Our country, howsoever bounded;" and it +might as well be, "Our country, howsoever governed." It seems popularly +and politically forgotten that there is such a thing as Right. The +nation's neck invites a tyrant. I am not at all astonished that northern +representatives voted for all this work of crime. They are no better +than southern representatives; scarcely less in favor of slavery, and +not half so open. They say: Let the North make money, and you may do +what you please with the nation; and we will choose governors that dare +not oppose you, for, though we are descended from the Puritans we have +but one article in our creed we never flinch from following, and that +is--to make money; honestly, if we can; if not, as we can! + +Look through the action of your Government, and your Congress. You see +that no reference has been had in this affair to Christian ideas; none +to justice and the eternal right. Nay, none at all! In the churches, and +among the people, how feeble has been the protest against this great +wrong. How tamely the people yield their necks--and say: "Take our sons +for the war--we care not, right or wrong." England butchers the Sikhs in +India--her generals are elevated to the peerage, and the head of her +church writes a form of thanksgiving for the victory, to be read in all +the churches of that Christian land.[7] To make it still more +abominable, the blasphemy is enacted on Easter Sunday, the great holiday +of men who serve the Prince of Peace. We have not had prayers in the +churches, for we have no political Archbishop. But we fired cannon in +joy that we had butchered a few wretched men--half starved, and forced +into the ranks by fear of death! Your peace societies, and your +churches, what can they do? What dare they? Verily, we are a faithless +and perverse generation. God be merciful to us, sinners as we are! + + * * * * * + +But why talk for ever? What shall we do? In regard to this present war, +we can refuse to take any part in it; we can encourage others to do the +same; we can aid men, if need be, who suffer because they refuse. Men +will call us traitors: what then? That hurt nobody in '76! We are a +rebellious nation; our whole history is treason; our blood was attainted +before we were born; our creeds are infidelity to the mother-church; our +Constitution treason to our father-land. What of that? Though all the +governors in the world bid us commit treason against man, and set the +example, let us never submit. Let God only be a master to control our +conscience! + +We can hold public meetings in favor of peace, in which what is wrong +shall be exposed and condemned. It is proof of our cowardice that this +has not been done before now. We can show in what the infamy of a nation +consists; in what its real glory. One of your own men, the last summer, +startled the churches out of their sleep,[8] by his manly trumpet, +talking with us, and telling that the true grandeur of a nation was +justice, not glory; peace, not war. + +We can work now for future times, by taking pains to spread abroad the +sentiments of peace, the ideas of peace, among the people in schools, +churches--everywhere. At length we can diminish the power of the +national Government, so that the people alone shall have the power to +declare war, by a direct vote, the Congress only to recommend it. We can +take from the Government the means of war by raising only revenue enough +for the nation's actual wants, and raising that directly, so that each +man knows what he pays, and when he pays it, and then he will take care +that it is not paid to make him poor and keep him so. We can diffuse a +real practical Christianity among the people, till the mass of men have +courage enough to overcome evil with good, and look at aggressive war as +the worst of treason and the foulest infidelity! + +Now is the time to push and be active. War itself gives weight to words +of peace. There will never be a better time till we make the times +better. It is not a day for cowardice, but for heroism. Fear not that +the "honor of the nation" will suffer from Christian movements for +peace. What if your men of low degree are a vanity, and your men of high +degree are a lie? That is no new thing. Let true men do their duty, and +the lie and the vanity will pass each to its reward. Wait not for the +churches to move, or the State to become Christian. Let us bear our +testimony like men, not fearing to be called traitors, infidels; fearing +only to be such. + +I would call on Americans, by their love of our country, its great +ideas, its real grandeur, its hopes, and the memory of its fathers--to +come and help save that country from infamy and ruin. I would call on +Christians, who believe that Christianity is a truth, to lift up their +voice, public and private, against the foulest violation of God's law, +this blasphemy of the Holy Spirit of Christ, this worst form of +infidelity to man and God. I would call on all men, by the one nature +that is in you, by the great human heart beating alike in all your +bosoms, to protest manfully against this desecration of the earth, this +high treason against both man and God. Teach your rulers that you are +Americans, not slaves; Christians, not heathen; men, not murderers, to +kill for hire! You may effect little in this generation, for its head +seems crazed and its heart rotten. But there will be a day after to-day. +It is for you and me to make it better; a day of peace, when nation +shall no longer lift up sword against nation; when all shall indeed be +brothers, and all blest. Do this, you shall be worthy to dwell in this +beautiful land; Christ will be near you; God work with you, and bless +you for ever! + +This present trouble with Mexico may be very brief; surely it might be +even now brought to an end with no unusual manhood in your rulers. Can +we say we have not deserved it? Let it end, but let us remember that +war, horrid as it is, is not the worst calamity which ever befalls a +people. It is far worse for a people to lose all reverence for right, +for truth, all respect for man and God; to care more for the freedom of +trade than the freedom of men; more for a tariff than millions of souls. +This calamity came upon us gradually, long before the present war, and +will last long after that has died away. Like people like ruler, is a +true word. Look at your rulers, representatives, and see our own +likeness! We reverence force, and have forgot there is any right beyond +the vote of a Congress or a people; any good beside dollars; any God but +majorities and force, I think the present war, though it should cost +50,000 men and $50,000,000, the smallest part of our misfortune. Abroad +we are looked on as a nation of swindlers and men-stealers! What can we +say in our defence? Alas, the nation is a traitor to its great +idea,--that all men are born equal, each with the same unalienable +rights. We are infidels to Christianity. We have paid the price of our +shame. + +There have been dark days in this nation before now. It was gloomy when +Washington with his little army fled through the Jerseys. It was a long +dark day from '83 to '89. It was not so dark as now; the nation never so +false. There was never a time when resistance to tyrants was so rare a +virtue; when the people so tamely submitted to a wrong. Now you can feel +the darkness. The sack of this city and the butchery of its people were +a far less evil than the moral deadness of the nation. Men spring up +again like the mown grass; but to raise up saints and heroes in a dead +nation corrupting beside its golden tomb, what shall do that for us? We +must look not to the many for that, but to the few who are faithful unto +God and man. + +I know the hardy vigor of our men, the stalwart intellect of this +people. Would to God they could learn to love the right and true. Then +what a people should we be, spreading from the Madawaska to the +Sacramento, diffusing our great idea, and living our religion, the +Christianity of Christ! Oh, Lord! make the vision true; waken thy +prophets and stir thy people till righteousness exalt us! No wonders +will be wrought for that. But the voice of conscience speaks to you and +me, and all of us: The right shall prosper; the wicked States shall die, +and History responds her long amen. + +What lessons come to us from the past! The Genius of the old +civilization, solemn and sad, sits there on the Alps, his classic beard +descending o'er his breast. Behind him arise the new nations, bustling +with romantic life. He bends down over the midland sea, and counts up +his children--Assyria, Egypt, Tyre, Carthage, Troy, Etruria, Corinth, +Athens, Rome--once so renowned, now gathered with the dead, their giant +ghosts still lingering pensive o'er the spot. He turns westward his +face, too sad to weep, and raising from his palsied knee his trembling +hand, looks on his brother genius of the new civilization. That young +giant, strong and mocking, sits there on the Alleghanies. Before him lie +the waters, covered with ships; behind him he hears the roar of the +Mississippi and the far distant Oregon--rolling their riches to the sea. +He bends down, and that far ocean murmurs pacific in his ear. On his +left, are the harbors, shops and mills of the East, and a five-fold +gleam of light goes up from Northern lakes. On his right, spread out the +broad savannahs of the South, waiting to be blessed; and far off that +Mexique bay bends round her tropic shores. A crown of stars is on that +giant's head, some glorious with flashing, many-colored light; some +bloody red; some pale and faint, of most uncertain hue. His right hand +lies folded in his robe; the left rests on the Bible's opened page, and +holds these sacred words--All men are equal, born with equal rights from +God. The old says to the young: "Brother, beware!" and Alps and Rocky +Mountains say "Beware!" That stripling giant, ill-bred and scoffing, +shouts amain: "My feet are red with the Indians' blood; my hand has +forged the negro's chain. I am strong; who dares assail me? I will drink +his blood, for I have made my covenant of lies, and leagued with hell +for my support. There is no right, no truth; Christianity is false, and +God a name." His left hand rends those sacred scrolls, casting his +Bibles underneath his feet, and in his right he brandishes the +negro-driver's whip, crying again--"Say, who is God, and what is Right." +And all his mountains echo--Right. But the old genius sadly says again: +"Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not prosper." The hollow +tomb of Egypt, Athens, Rome, of every ancient State, with all their +wandering ghosts, replies, "AMEN." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] Isaiah lxiii. 1-6. _Noyes's_ Version. + + _The People._ + + 1. Who is this that cometh from Edom? + In scarlet garments from Bozrah? + This, that is glorious in his apparel, + Proud in the greatness of his strength? + + _Jehovah._ + + I, that proclaim deliverance, + And am mighty to save. + + _The People._ + + 2. Wherefore is thine apparel red, + And thy garments like those of one that treadeth the wine-vat? + + _Jehovah._ + + 3. I have trodden the wine-vat alone, + And of the nations there was none with me. + And I trod them in mine anger, + And I trampled them in my fury, + So that their life-blood was sprinkled upon my garments, + And I have stained all my apparel. + 4. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, + And the year of my deliverance was come. + 5. And I looked, and there was none to help, + And I wondered, that there was none to uphold, + Therefore my own arm wrought salvation for me, + And my fury, it sustained me. + 6. I trod down the nations in my anger; + I crushed them in my fury, + And spilled their blood upon the ground. + +[4] To show the differences between the Old and New Testament, and to +serve as introduction to this discourse, the following passages were +read as the morning lesson: Exodus, xv. 1-6; 2 Sam. xxii. 32, 35-43, 48; +xlv. 3-5; Isa. lxvi. 15, 16; Joel, iii. 9-17, and Matt. v. 3-11, 38-39, +43-45. + +[5] Such was the price offered, and such the number of soldiers then +called for. + +[6] See the appropriate forms of prayer for that service by the present +Bishop of Oxford, in Jay's Address before the American Peace Society, in +1845. + +[7] _Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God._ + +"O Lord God of Hosts, in whose hand is power and might irresistible, we, +thine unworthy servants, most humbly acknowledge thy goodness in the +victories lately vouchsafed to the armies of our Sovereign over a host +of barbarous invaders, who sought to spread desolation over fruitful and +populous provinces, enjoying the blessings of peace, under the +protection of the British Crown. We bless Thee, O merciful Lord, for +having brought to a speedy and prosperous issue a war to which no +occasion had been given by injustice on our part, or apprehension of +injury at our hands! To Thee, O Lord, we ascribe the glory! It was Thy +wisdom which guided the counsel! Thy power which strengthened the hands +of those whom it pleased Thee to use as Thy instruments in the +discomfiture of the lawless aggressor, and the frustration of his +ambitious designs! From Thee, alone, cometh the victory, and the spirit +of moderation and mercy in the day of success. Continue, we beseech +Thee, to go forth with our armies, whensoever they are called into +battle in a righteous cause; and dispose the hearts of their leaders to +exact nothing more from the vanquished than is necessary for the +maintenance of peace and security against violence and rapine. + +"Above all, give Thy grace to those who preside in the councils of our +Sovereign, and administer the concerns of her widely extended dominions, +that they may apply all their endeavors to the purposes designed by Thy +good Providence, in committing such power to their hands, the temporal +and spiritual benefit of the nations intrusted to their care. + +"And whilst Thou preservest our distant possessions from the horrors of +war, give us peace and plenty at home, that the earth may yield her +increase, and that we, Thy servants, receiving Thy blessings with +thankfulness and gladness of heart, may dwell together in unity, and +faithfully serve Thee, to Thy honor and glory, through Jesus Christ our +Lord, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, belong all dominion and +power, both in heaven and earth, now and for ever. Amen."--See a defence +of this prayer, in the London "Christian Observer" for May, p. 319, _et +seq._, and for June, p. 346, _et seq._ + +Would you know what he gave thanks for on Easter Sunday? Here is the +history of the battle: + +"This battle had begun at six, and was over at eleven o'clock; the +hand-to-hand combat commenced at nine, and lasted scarcely two hours. +The river was full of sinking men. For two hours, volley after volley +was poured in upon the human mass--the stream being literally red with +blood, and covered with the bodies of the slain. At last, the musket +ammunition becoming exhausted, the infantry fell to the rear, the horse +artillery plying grape till not a man was visible within range. No +compassion was felt or mercy shown." But "'twas a famous victory!" + +[8] Mr. Charles Sumner. + + + + +IV. + +SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE ANTI-WAR MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL, FEBRUARY 4, +1847. + + +Mr. Chairman,--We have come here to consult for the honor of our +country. The honor and dignity of the United States are in danger. I +love my country; I love her honor. It is dear to me almost as my own. I +have seen stormy meetings in Faneuil Hall before now, and am not easily +disturbed by a popular tumult. But never before did I see a body of +armed soldiers attempting to overawe the majesty of the people, when met +to deliberate on the people's affairs. Yet the meetings of the people of +Boston have been disturbed by soldiers before now, by British bayonets; +but never since the Boston massacre on the 5th of March, 1770! Our +fathers hated a standing army. This is a new one, but behold the effect! +Here are soldiers with bayonets to overawe the majesty of the people! +They went to our meeting last Monday night, the hireling soldiers of +President Polk, to overawe and disturb the meetings of honest men. Here +they are now, and in arms! + +We are in a war; the signs of war are seen here in Boston. Men, needed +to hew wood and honestly serve society, are marching about your streets; +they are learning to kill men, men who never harmed us, nor them; +learning to kill their brothers. It is a mean and infamous war we are +fighting. It is a great boy fighting a little one, and that little one +feeble and sick. What makes it worse is, the little boy is in the right, +and the big boy is in the wrong, and tells solemn lies to make his side +seem right. He wants, besides, to make the small boy pay the expenses of +the quarrel. + +The friends of the war say "Mexico has invaded our territory!" When it +is shown that it is we who have invaded hers, then it is said, "Ay, but +she owes us money." Better say outright, "Mexico has land, and we want +to steal it!" + +This war is waged for a mean and infamous purpose, for the extension of +slavery. It is not enough that there are fifteen Slave States, and +3,000,000 men here who have no legal rights--not so much as the horse +and the ox have in Boston: it is not enough that the slaveholders +annexed Texas, and made slavery perpetual therein, extending even north +of Mason and Dixon's line, covering a territory forty-five times as +large as the State of Massachusetts. Oh, no; we must have yet more land +to whip negroes in! + +The war had a mean and infamous beginning. It began illegally, +unconstitutionally. The Whigs say, "the President made the war." Mr. +Webster says so! It went on meanly and infamously. Your Congress lied +about it. Do not lay the blame on the democrats; the whigs lied just as +badly. Your Congress has seldom been so single-mouthed before. Why, only +sixteen voted against the war, or the lie. I say this war is mean and +infamous all the more, because waged by a people calling itself +democratic and Christian. I know but one war so bad in modern times, +between civilized nations, and that was the war for the partition of +Poland. Even for that there was more excuse. + +We have come to Faneuil Hall to talk about the war; to work against the +war. It is rather late, but "better late than never." We have let two +opportunities for work pass unemployed. One came while the annexation of +Texas was pending. Then was the time to push and be active. Then was the +time for Massachusetts and all the North, to protest as one man against +the extension of slavery. Everybody knew all about the matter, the +democrats and the whigs. But how few worked against that gross mischief! +One noble man lifted up his warning voice;[9] a man noble in his +father,--and there he stands in marble; noble in himself--and there he +stands yet higher up--and I hope time will show him yet nobler in his +son, and there he stands, not in marble, but in man! He talked against +it, worked against it, fought against it. But Massachusetts did little. +Her tonguey men said little; her handymen did little. Too little could +not be done or said. True, we came here to Faneuil Hall and passed +resolutions; good resolutions they were, too. Daniel Webster wrote them, +it is said. They did the same in the State House; but nothing came of +them. They say "Hell is paved with resolutions;" these were of that sort +of resolutions; which resolve nothing because they are of words, not +works! + +Well, we passed the resolutions; you know who opposed them; who hung +back and did nothing, nothing good I mean; quite enough not good. Then +we thought all the danger was over; that the resolutions settled the +matter. But then was the time to confound at once the enemies of your +country; to show an even front hostile to slavery. + +But the chosen time passed over, and nothing was done. Do not lay the +blame on the democrats; a whig Senate annexed Texas, and so annexed a +war. We ought to have told our delegation in Congress, if Texas were +annexed, to come home, and we would breathe upon it and sleep upon it, +and then see what to do next. Had our resolutions, taken so warmly here +in Faneuil Hall in 1845, been but as warmly worked out, we had now been +as terrible to the slave power as the slave power, since extended, now +is to us! + +Why was it that we did nothing? That is a public secret. Perhaps I ought +not to tell it to the people. (Cries of "Tell it.") + +The annexation of Texas, a slave territory big as the kingdom of France, +would not furl a sail on the ocean; would not stop a mill-wheel at +Lowell! Men thought so. + +That time passed by, and there came another. The Government had made +war; the Congress voted the dollars, voted the men, voted a lie. Your +representative, men of Boston, voted for all three; the lie, the +dollars, and the men; all three, in obedience to the slave power! Let +him excuse that to the conscience of his party; it is an easy matter. I +do not believe he can excuse it to his own conscience. To the conscience +of the world it admits of no excuse. Your President called for +volunteers, 50,000 of them. Then came an opportunity such as offers not +once in one hundred years, an opportunity to speak for freedom and the +rights of mankind! Then was the time for Massachusetts to stand up in +the spirit of '76, and say, "We won't send a man, from Cape Ann to +Williamstown--not one Yankee man, for this wicked war." Then was the +time for your Governor to say, "Not a volunteer for this wicked war." +Then was the time for your merchants to say, "Not a ship, not a dollar +for this wicked war;" for your manufacturers to say, "We will not make +you a cannon, nor a sword, nor a kernel of powder, nor a soldier's +shirt, for this wicked war." Then was the time for all good men to say, +"This is a war for slavery, a mean and infamous war; an aristocratic +war, a war against the best interests of mankind. If God please, we will +die a thousand times, but never draw blade in this wicked war." (Cries +of "Throw him over," etc.) Throw him over, what good would that do? What +would you do next, after you have thrown him over? ("Drag you out of the +hall!") What good would that do? It would not wipe off the infamy of +this war! would not make it less wicked! + +That is what a democratic nation, a Christian people ought to have said, +ought to have done. But we did not say so; the Bay State did not say so, +nor your Governor, nor your merchants, nor your manufacturers, nor your +good men; the Governor accepted the President's decree, issued his +proclamation calling for soldiers, recommended men to enlist, appealing +to their "patriotism" and "humanity." + +Governor Briggs is a good man, and so far I honor him. He is a +temperance man, strong and consistent; I honor him for that. He is a +friend of education; a friend of the people. I wish there were more +such. Like many other New England men, he started from humble +beginnings; but unlike many such successful men of New England, he is +not ashamed of the lowest round he ever trod on. I honor him for all +this. But that was a time which tried men's souls, and his soul could +not stand the rack. I am sorry for him. He did as the President told +him. + +What was the reason for all this? Massachusetts did not like the war, +even then; yet she gave her consent to it. Why so? There are two words +which can drive the blood out of the cheeks of cowardly men in +Massachusetts any time. They are "Federalism" and "Hartford Convention!" +The fear of those words palsied the conscience of Massachusetts, and so +her Governor did as he was told. I feel no fear of either. The +Federalists did not see all things; who ever did? They had not the ideas +which were destined to rule this nation; they looked back when the age +looked forward. But to their own ideas they were true; and if ever a +nobler body of men held state in any nation, I have yet to learn when or +where. If we had had the shadow of Caleb Strong in the Governor's chair, +not a volunteer for this war had gone out of Massachusetts. + +I have not told quite all the reasons why Massachusetts did nothing. Men +knew the war would cost money; that the dollars would in the end be +raised, not by a direct tax, of which the poor man paid according to his +little, and the rich man in proportion to his much, but by a tariff +which presses light on property, and hard on the person; by a tax on the +backs and mouths of the people. Some of the Whigs were glad last Spring, +when the war came, for they hoped thereby to save the child of their old +age, the tariff of '42. There are always some rich men, who say "No +matter what sort of a Government we have, so long as we get our +dividends;" always some poor men, who say "No matter how much the nation +suffers, if we fill our hungry purses thereby." Well, they lost their +virtue, lost their tariff, and gained just nothing; what they deserved +to gain. + +Now a third opportunity has come; no, it has not come; we have brought +it. The President wants a war tax on tea and coffee. Is that democratic, +to tax every man's breakfast and supper, for the sake of getting more +territory to whip negroes in? (Numerous cries of "Yes.") Then what do +you think despotism would be? He asks a loan of $28,000,000 for this +war. He wants $3,000,000 to spend privately for this war. In eight +months past, he has asked I am told for $74,000,000. Seventy-four +millions of dollars to conquer slave territory! Is that democratic too? +He wants to increase the standing army, to have ten regiments more! A +pretty business that. Ten regiments to gag the people in Faneuil Hall. +Do you think that is democratic? Some men have just asked Massachusetts +for $20,000 for the volunteers! It is time for the people to rebuke all +this wickedness. + + * * * * * + +I think there is a good deal to excuse the volunteers. I blame them, for +some of them know what they are about. Yet I pity them more, for most of +them, I am told, are low, ignorant men; some of them drunken and brutal. +From the uproar they make here to-night, arms in their hands, I think +what was told me is true! I say I pity them! They are my brothers; not +the less brothers because low and misguided. If they are so needy that +they are forced to enlist by poverty, surely I pity them. If they are of +good families, and know better, I pity them still more! I blame most the +men that have duped the rank and file! I blame the captains and +colonels, who will have least of the hardships, most of the pay, and all +of the "glory." I blame the men that made the war; the men that make +money out of it. I blame the great party men of the land. Did not Mr. +Clay say he hoped he could slay a Mexican? (Cries, "No, he didn't.") +Yes, he did; said it on Forefather's day! Did not Mr. Webster, in the +streets of Philadelphia, bid the volunteers, misguided young men, go and +uphold the stars of their country? (Voices, "He did right!") No, he +should have said the stripes of his country, for every volunteer to this +wicked war is a stripe on the nation's back! Did not he declare this +war unconstitutional, and threaten to impeach the President who made it, +and then go and invest a son in it? Has it not been said here, "Our +country, howsoever bounded," bounded by robbery or bounded by right +lines! Has it not been said, all round, "Our country, right or wrong!" + +I say I blame not so much the volunteers as the famous men who deceive +the nation! (Cries of "Throw him over, kill him, kill him," and a +flourish of bayonets.) Throw him over! you will not throw him over. Kill +him! I shall walk home unarmed and unattended, and not a man of you will +hurt one hair of my head. + +I say again it is time for the people to take up this matter. Your +Congress will do nothing till you tell them what and how! Your 29th +Congress can do little good. Its sands are nearly run, God be thanked! +It is the most infamous Congress we ever had. We began with the Congress +that declared Independence, and swore by the Eternal Justice of God. We +have come down to the 29th Congress, which declared war existed by the +act of Mexico, declared a lie; the Congress that swore by the Baltimore +Convention! We began with George Washington, and have got down to James +K. Polk. + +It is time for the people of Massachusetts to instruct their servants in +Congress to oppose this war; to refuse all supplies for it; to ask for +the recall of the army into our own land. It is time for us to tell +them that not an inch of slave territory shall ever be added to the +realm. Let us remonstrate; let us petition; let us command. If any class +of men have hitherto been remiss, let them come forward now and give us +their names--the merchants, the manufacturers, the whigs and the +democrats. If men love their country better than their party or their +purse, now let them show it. + +Let us ask the General Court of Massachusetts to cancel every commission +which the Governor has given to the officers of the volunteers. Let us +ask them to disband the companies not yet mustered into actual service; +and then, if you like that, ask them to call a convention of the people +of Massachusetts, to see what we shall do in reference to the war; in +reference to the annexation of more territory; in reference to the +violation of the Constitution! (Loud groans from crowds of rude fellows +in several parts of the hall.) That was a tory groan; they never dared +groan so in Faneuil Hall before; not even the British tories, when they +had no bayonets to back them up! I say, let us ask for these things! + +Your President tells us it is treason to talk so! Treason is it? treason +to discuss a war which the government made, and which the people are +made to pay for? If it be treason to speak against the war, what was it +to make the war, to ask for 50,000 men and $74,000,000 for the war? Why, +if the people cannot discuss the war they have got to fight and to pay +for, who under heaven can? Whose business is it, if it is not yours and +mine? If my country is in the wrong, and I know it, and hold my peace, +then I am guilty of treason, moral treason. Why, a wrong,--it is only +the threshold of ruin. I would not have my country take the next step. +Treason is it, to show that this war is wrong and wicked! Why, what if +George III., any time from '75 to '83, had gone down to Parliament and +told them it was treason to discuss the war then waging against these +colonies! What do you think the Commons would have said? What would the +Lords say? Why, that King, foolish as he was, would have been lucky, if +he had not learned there was a joint in his neck, and, stiff as he bore +him, that the people knew how to find it. + +I do not believe in killing kings, or any other men; but I do say, in a +time when the nation was not in danger, that no British king, for two +hundred years past, would have dared call it treason to discuss the +war--its cause, its progress, or its termination! + +Now is the time to act! Twice we have let the occasion slip; beware of +the third time! Let it be infamous for a New England man to enlist; for +a New-England merchant to loan his dollars, or to let his ships in aid +of this wicked war; let it be infamous for a manufacturer to make a +cannon, a sword, or a kernel of powder, to kill our brothers with, +while we all know that they are in the right, and we in the wrong. + +I know my voice is a feeble one in Massachusetts. I have no mountainous +position from whence to look down and overawe the multitude; I have no +back-ground of political reputation to echo my words; I am but a plain +humble man; but I have a back-ground of Truth to sustain me, and the +Justice of Heaven arches over my head! For your sakes, I wish I had that +oceanic eloquence whose tidal flow should bear on its bosom the +drift-weed which politicians have piled together, and sap and sweep away +the sand hillocks of soldiery blown together by the idle wind; that +oceanic eloquence which sweeps all before it, and leaves the shore hard, +smooth and clean! But feeble as I am, let me beg of you, fellow-citizens +of Boston, men and brothers, to come forward and protest against this +wicked war, and the end for which it is waged. I call on the whigs, who +love their country better than they love the tariff of '42; I call on +the democrats, who think Justice is greater than the Baltimore +Convention,--I call on the whigs and democrats to come forward and join +with me in opposing this wicked war! I call on the men of Boston, on the +men of the old Bay State, to act worthy of their fathers, worthy of +their country, worthy of themselves! Men and brothers, I call on you all +to protest against this most infamous war, in the name of the State, in +the name of the country, in the name of man, yes, in the name of God: +Leave not your children saddled with a war debt, to cripple the nation's +commerce for years to come. Leave not your land cursed with slavery, +extended and extending, palsying the nation's arm and corrupting the +nation's heart. Leave not your memory infamous among the nations, +because you feared men, feared the Government; because you loved money +got by crime, land plundered in war, loved land unjustly bounded; +because you debased your country by defending the wrong she dared to do; +because you loved slavery; loved war, but loved not the Eternal Justice +of all-judging God. If my counsel is weak and poor, follow one stronger +and more manly. I am speaking to men; think of these things, and then +act like men. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] John Quincy Adams. + + + + +V. + +A SERMON OF THE MEXICAN WAR.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JUNE +25, 1848. + + +Soon after the commencement of the war against Mexico, I said something +respecting it in this place. But while I was printing the sermon, I was +advised to hasten the compositors in their work, or the war would be +over before the sermon was out. The advice was like a good deal of the +counsel that is given to a man who thinks for himself, and honestly +speaks what he unavoidably thinks. It is now more than two years since +the war began; I have hoped to live long enough to see it ended, and +hoped to say a word about it when over. A month ago, this day, the 25th +of May, the treaty of peace, so much talked of, was ratified by the +Mexican Congress. A few days ago, it was officially announced by +telegraph to your collector in Boston, that the war with Mexico was at +an end. + +There are two things about this war quite remarkable. The first is, the +manner of its commencement. It was begun illegally, without the action +of the constitutional authorities; begun by the command of the President +of the United States, who ordered the American army into a territory +which the Mexicans claimed as their own. The President says "It is +ours," but the Mexicans also claimed it, and were in possession thereof +until forcibly expelled. This is a plain case, and as I have elsewhere +treated at length of this matter,[10] I will not dwell upon it again, +except to mention a single fact but recently divulged. It is well known +that Mr. Polk claimed the territory west of the Nueces and east of the +Rio Grande, as forming a part of Texas, and therefore as forming part of +the United States after the annexation of Texas. He contends that Mexico +began the war by attacking the American army while in that territory and +near the Rio Grande. But, from the correspondence laid before the +American Senate, in its secret session for considering the treaty, it +now appears that on the 10th of November, 1845, Mr. Polk instructed Mr. +Slidell to offer a relinquishment of American claims against Mexico, +amounting to $5,000,000 or $6,000,000, for the sake of having the Rio +Grande as the western boundary of Texas; yes, for that very territory +which he says was ours without paying a cent. When it was conquered, a +military government was established there, as in other places in Mexico. + +The other remarkable thing about the war is, the manner of its +conclusion. The treaty of peace which has just been ratified by the +Mexican authorities, and which puts an end to the war, was negotiated by +a man who had no more legal authority than any one of us has to do it. +Mr. Polk made the war, without consulting Congress, and that body +adopted the war by a vote almost unanimous. Mr. Nicholas P. Trist made +the treaty, without consulting the President; yes, even after the +President had ordered him to return home. As the Congress adopted Mr. +Polk's war, so Mr. Polk adopted Mr. Trist's treaty, and the war +illegally begun is brought informally to a close. Mr. Polk is now in the +President's chair, seated on the throne of the Union, although he made +the war; and Mr. Trist, it is said, is under arrest for making the +treaty, meddling with what was none of his business. + + * * * * * + +When the war began, there was a good deal of talk about it here; talk +against it. But, as things often go in Boston, it ended in talk. The +news-boys made money out of the war. Political parties were true to +their wonted principles, or their wonted prejudices. The friends of the +party in power could see no informality in the beginning of hostilities; +no injustice in the war itself; not even an impolicy. They were +offended if an obscure man preached against it of a Sunday. The +political opponents of the party in power talked against the war, as a +matter of course; but, when the elections came, supported the men that +made it with unusual alacrity--their deeds serving as commentary upon +their words, and making further remark thereon, in this place, quite +superfluous. Many men,--who, whatever other parts of Scripture they may +forget, never cease to remember that "Money answereth all +things,"--diligently set themselves to make money out of the war and the +new turn it gave to national affairs. Others thought that "glory" was a +good thing, and so engaged in the war itself, hoping to return, in due +time, all glittering with its honors. + +So what with the one political party that really praised the war, and +the other who affected to oppose it, and with the commercial party, who +looked only for a market--this for merchandise and that for +"patriotism"--the friends of peace, who seriously and heartily opposed +the war, were very few in number. True, the "sober second thought" of +the people has somewhat increased their number; but they are still few, +mostly obscure men. + +Now peace has come, nobody talks much about it; the news-boys have +scarce made a cent by the news. They fired cannons, a hundred guns on +the Common, for joy at the victory of Monterey; at Philadelphia, +Baltimore, Washington, New York, men illuminated their houses in honor +of the battle of Buena Vista, I think it was; the custom-house was +officially illuminated at Boston for that occasion. But we hear of no +cannons to welcome the peace. Thus far, it does not seem that a single +candle has been burnt in rejoicing for that. The newspapers are full of +talk, as usual; flags are flying in the streets; the air is a little +noisy with hurrahs, but it is all talk about the conventions at +Baltimore and Philadelphia; hurrahs for Taylor and Cass. Nobody talks of +the peace. Flags enough flap in the wind, with the names of rival +candidates; but nowhere do the stripes and stars bear Peace as their +motto. The peace now secured is purchased with such conditions imposed +on Mexico, that while every one will be glad of it, no man, that loves +justice, can be proud of it. Very little is said about the treaty. The +distinguished senator from Massachusetts did himself honor, it seems to +me, in voting against it on the ground that it enabled us to plunder +Mexico of her land. But the treaty contains some things highly honorable +to the character of the nation, of which we may well enough be proud, if +ever of any thing. I refer to the twenty-second and twenty-third +articles, which provide for arbitration between the nations, if future +difficulties should occur; and to the pains taken, in case of actual +hostilities, for the security of all unarmed persons, for the protection +of private property, and for the humane treatment of all prisoners +taken in war. These ideas, and the language of these articles, are +copied from the celebrated treaty between the United States and Prussia, +the treaty of 1785. It is scarcely needful to add, that they were then +introduced by that great and good man, Benjamin Franklin, one of the +negotiators of the treaty. They made a new epoch in diplomacy, and +introduced a principle previously unknown in the law of nations. The +insertion of these articles in the new treaty is, perhaps, the only +thing connected with the war, which an American can look upon with +satisfaction. Yet this fact excites no attention.[11] + +Still, while so little notice is taken of this matter, in public and +private, it may be worth while for a minister, on Sunday, to say a word +about the peace; and, now the war is over, to look back upon it, to see +what it has cost, in money and in men, and what we have got by it; what +its consequences have been, thus far, and are likely to be for the +future; what new dangers and duties come from this cause interpolated +into our nation. We have been long promised "indemnity for the past, and +security for the future:" let us see what we are to be indemnified for, +and what secured against. The natural justice of the war I will not look +at now. + + * * * * * + +First, then, of the cost of the war. Money is the first thing with a +good many men; the only thing with some; and an important thing with +all. So, first of all, let me speak of the cost of the war in dollars. +It is a little difficult to determine the actual cost of the war, thus +far--even its direct cost; for the bills are not all in the hands of +Government; and then, as a matter of political party-craft, the +Government, of course, is unwilling to let the full cost become known +before the next election is over. So it is to be expected that the +Government will keep the facts from the people as long as possible. Most +Governments would do the same. But Truth has a right of way everywhere, +and will recover it at last, spite of the adverse possession of a +political party. The indirect cost of the war must be still more +difficult to come at, and will long remain a matter of calculation, in +which it is impossible to reach certainty. We do not know yet the entire +cost of the Florida war, or the late war with England; the complete cost +of the Revolutionary war must forever be unknown. + +It is natural for most men to exaggerate what favors their argument; but +when I cannot obtain the exact figures, I will come a good deal within +the probable amount. The military and naval appropriations for the year +ending in June, 1847, were $40,865,155.96; for the next year, +$31,377,679.92; the sum asked for the present year, till next June, +$42,224,000; making a whole of $114,466,835.88. It is true that all this +appropriation is not for the Mexican war, but it is also true that this +sum does not include all the appropriations for the war. Estimating the +sums already paid by the Government, the private claims presented and to +be presented, the $15,000,000 to be paid Mexico as purchase-money for +the territory we take from her, the $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 to be paid +our own citizens for their claims against her,--I think I am a good deal +within the mark when I say the war will have cost $150,000,000 before +the soldiers are at home, discharged, and out of the pay of the state. +In this sum I do not include the bounty-lands to be given to the +soldiers and officers, nor the pensions to be paid them, their widows +and orphans, for years to come. I will estimate that at $50,000,000 +more, making a whole of $200,000,000 which has been paid or must be. +This is the direct cost to the Federal Government, and of course does +not include the sums paid by individual States, or bestowed by private +generosity, to feed and clothe the volunteers before they were mustered +into service. This may seem extravagant; but, fifty years hence, when +party spirit no longer blinds men's eyes, and when the whole is a +matter of history, I think it will be thought moderate, and be found a +good deal within the actual and direct cost. Some of this cost will +appear as a public debt. Statements recently made respecting it can +hardly be trusted, notwithstanding the authority on which they rest. +Part of this war debt is funded already, part not yet funded. When the +outstanding demands are all settled, and the treasury notes redeemed, +there will probably be a war debt of not less than $125,000,000. At +least, such is the estimate of an impartial and thoroughly competent +judge. But, not to exaggerate, let us call it only $100,000,000. + +It will, perhaps, be said: Part of this money, all that is paid in +pensions, is a charity, and therefore no loss. But it is a charity paid +to men who, except for the war, would have needed no such aid; and, +therefore, a waste. Of the actual cost of the war, some three or four +millions have been spent in extravagant prices for hiring or purchasing +ships, in buying provisions and various things needed by the army, and +supplied by political favorites at exorbitant rates. This is the only +portion of the cost which is not a sheer waste; here the money has only +changed hands; nothing has been destroyed, except the honesty of the +parties concerned in such transactions. If a farmer hires men to help +him till the soil, the men earn their subsistence and their wages, and +leave, besides, a profit to their employer; when the season is over, he +has his crops and his improvements as the return for their pay and +subsistence. But for all that the soldier has consumed, for his wages, +his clothes, his food and drink, the fighting tools he has worn out, and +the ammunition he has expended, there is no available return to show; +all that is a clear waste. The beef is eaten up, the cloth worn away, +the powder is burnt, and what is there to show for it all? Nothing but +the "glory." You sent out sound men, and they come back, many of them, +sick and maimed; some of them are slain. + +The indirect pecuniary cost of the war is caused, first, by diverting +some 150,000 men, engaged in the war directly or remotely, from the +works of productive industry, to the labors of war, which produce +nothing; and, secondly, by disturbing the regular business of the +country, first by the withdrawal of men from their natural work; then, +by withdrawing large quantities of money from the active capital of the +nation; and, finally, by the general uncertainty which it causes all +over the land, thus hindering men from undertaking or prosecuting +successfully their various productive enterprises. If 150,000 men earn +on the average but $200 apiece, that alone amounts to $30,000,000. The +withdrawal of such an amount of labor from the common industry of the +country must be seriously felt. At any rate, the nation has earned +$30,000,000 less than it would have done, if these men had kept about +their common work. + +But the diversion of capital from its natural and pacific direction is a +greater evil in this case. America is rich, but her wealth consists +mainly in land, in houses, cattle, ships, and various things needed for +human comfort and industry. In money, we are poor. The amount of money +is small in proportion to the actual wealth of the nation, and also in +proportion to its activity which is indicated by the business of the +nation. In actual wealth, the free States of America are probably the +richest people in the world; but in money we are poorer than many other +nations. This is plain enough, though perhaps not very well known, and +is shown by the fact that interest, in European States, is from two to +four per cent. a year, and in America from six to nine. The active +capital of America is small. Now in this war, a national debt has +accumulated, which probably is or will soon be $100,000,000 or +$125,000,000. All this great sum of money has, of course, been taken +from the active capital of the country, and there has been so much less +for the use of the farmer, the manufacturer, and the merchant. But for +this war, these 150,000 men and these $100,000,000 would have been +devoted to productive industry; and the result would have been shown by +the increase of our annual earnings, in increased wealth and comfort. + +Then war produced uncertainty, and that distrust amongst men. Therefore +many were hindered from undertaking new works, and others found their +old enterprises ruined at once. In this way there has been a great loss, +which cannot be accurately estimated. I think no man, familiar with +American industry, would rate this indirect loss lower than +$100,000,000; some, perhaps, at twice as much; but to avoid all +possibility of exaggeration, let us call it half the smallest of these +sums, or $50,000,000, as the complete pecuniary cost of the Mexican war, +direct and indirect. + +What have we got to show for all this money? We have a large tract of +territory, containing, in all, both east and west of the Rio Grande, I +am told, between 700,000 and 800,000 square miles. Accounts differ as to +its value. But it appears, from the recent correspondence of Mr. +Slidell, that in 1845 the President offered Mexico, in money, +$25,000,000 for that territory which we now acquire under this new +treaty. Suppose it is worth more, suppose it is worth twice as much, or +all the indirect cost of the war ($50,000,000), then the $200,000,000 +are thrown away. + +Now, for this last sum, we could have built a sufficient railroad across +the Isthmus of Panama, and another across the continent, from the +Mississippi to the Pacific. If such a road, with its suitable equipment, +cost $100,000 a mile, and the distance should amount to 2,000 miles, +then the $200,000,000 would just pay the bills. That would have been the +greatest national work of productive industry in the world. In +comparison with it, the Lake Moeris and the Pyramids of Egypt, and the +Wall of China seem but the works of a child. It might be a work to be +proud of till the world ends; one, too, which would advance the +industry, the welfare, and general civilization of mankind to a great +degree, diminishing, by half, the distance round the globe; saving +millions of property and many lives each year; besides furnishing, it is +thought, a handsome income from the original outlay. But, perhaps, that +would not be the best use which might be made of the money; perhaps it +would not have been wise to undertake that work. I do not pretend to +judge of such matters, only to show what might be done with that sum of +money, if we were disposed to construct works of such a character. At +any rate, two Pacific railroads would be better than one Mexican war. We +are seldom aware of the cost of war. If a single regiment of dragoons +cost only $700,000 a year, which is a good deal less than the actual +cost, that is considerably more than the cost of twelve colleges like +Harvard University, with its schools for theology, law, and medicine; +its scientific school, observatory, and all. We are, taken as a whole, a +very ignorant people; and while we waste our school-money and +school-time, must continue so. + +A great man, who towers far above the common heads, full of creative +thought, of the ideas which move the world, able to organize that +thought into institutions, laws, practical works; a man of a million, a +million-minded man, at the head of a nation, putting his thought into +them; ruling not barely by virtue of his position, but by the +intellectual and moral power to fill it; ruling not over men's heads, +but in their minds and hearts, and leading them to new fields of toil, +increasing their numbers, wealth, intelligence, comfort, morals, +piety--such a man is a noble sight; a Charlemagne, or a Genghis Khan, a +Moses leading his nation up from Egyptian bondage to freedom and the +promised land. How have the eyes of the world been fixed on Washington! +In darker days than ours, when all was violence, it is easy to excuse +such men if they were warriors also, and made, for the time, their +nation but a camp. There have been ages when the most lasting ink was +human blood. In our day, when war is the exception, and that commonly +needless, such a man, so getting the start of the majestic world, were a +far grander sight. And with such a man at the head of this nation, a +great man at the head of a free nation, able and energetic, and +enterprising as we are, what were too much to hope? As it is, we have +wasted our money, and got, the honor of fighting such a war. + + * * * * * + +Let me next speak of the direct cost of the war in men. In April, 1846, +the entire army of the United States, consisted of 7,244 men; the naval +force of about 7,500. We presented the gratifying spectacle of a nation +20,000,000 strong, with a sea-coast of 3,000 or 4,000 miles, and only +7,000 or 8,000 soldiers, and as many armed men on the sea, or less than +15,000 in all! Few things were more grateful to an American than this +thought, that his country was so nearly free from the terrible curse of +a standing army. At that time, the standing army of France was about +480,000 men; that of Russia nearly 800,000 it is said. Most of the +officers in the American army and navy, and most of the rank and file, +had probably entered the service with no expectation of ever shedding +the blood of men. The navy and army were looked on as instruments of +peace; as much so as the police of a city. + +The first of last January, there was, in Mexico, an American army of +23,695 regular soldiers, and a little more than 50,000 volunteers, the +number cannot now be exactly determined, making an army of invasion of +about 75,000 men. The naval forces, also, had been increased to 10,000. +Estimating all the men engaged in the service of the army and navy; in +making weapons of war and ammunition; in preparing food and clothing; in +transporting those things and the soldiers from place to place, by land +or sea, and in performing the various other works incident to military +operations, it is within bounds to say that there were 80,000 or 90,000 +men engaged indirectly in the works of war. But not to exaggerate, it is +safe to say that 150,000 men were directly or indirectly engaged in the +Mexican war. This estimate will seem moderate, when you remember that +there were about 5,000 teamsters connected with the army in Mexico. + +Here, then, were 150,000 men whose attention and toil were diverted from +the great business of productive industry to merely military operations, +or preparations for them. Of course, all the labor of these men was of +no direct value to the human race. The food and clothing and labor of a +man who earns nothing by productive work of hand or head, is food, +clothing, and labor thrown away; labor in vain. There is nothing to show +for the things he has consumed. So all the work spent in preparing +ammunition and weapons of war is labor thrown away, an absolute loss, as +much as if it had been spent in making earthen pitchers and then in +dashing them to pieces. A country is the richer for every serviceable +plough and spade made in it, and the world the richer; they are to be +used in productive work, and when worn out, there is the improved soil +and the crops that have been gathered, to show for the wear and tear of +the tools. So a country is the richer for every industrious shoemaker +and blacksmith it contains; for his time and toil go to increase the sum +of human comfort, creating actual wealth. The world also is better off, +and becomes better through their influence. But a country is the poorer +for every soldier it maintains, and the world poorer, as he adds nothing +to the actual wealth of mankind; so is it the poorer for each sword and +cannon made within its borders, and the world poorer, for these +instruments cannot be used in any productive work, only for works of +destruction. + +So much for the labor of these 150,000 men; labor wasted in vain. Let us +now look at the cost of life. It is not possible to ascertain the exact +loss suffered up to this time, in killed, deceased by ordinary diseases, +and in wounded; for some die before they are mustered into the service +of the United States, and parts of the army are so far distant from the +seat of Government that their recent losses are still unknown. I rely +for information on the last report of the Secretary of War, read before +the Senate, April 10, 1848, and recently printed. That gives the losses +of parts of the army up to December last; other accounts are made up +only till October, or till August. Recent losses will of course swell +the amount of destruction. According to that report, on the American +side there had been killed in battle, or died of wounds received +therein, 1,689 persons; there had died of diseases and accidents, 6,173; +3,743 have been wounded in battle, who were not known to be dead at the +date of the report. + +This does not include the deaths in the navy, nor the destruction of +men connected with the army in various ways, as furnishing supplies and +the like. Considering the sickness and accidents that have happened in +the present year, and others which may be expected before the troops +reach home, I may set down the total number of deaths on the American +side, caused by the war, at 15,000, and the number of wounded men at +4,000. Suppose the army on the average to have consisted of 50,000 men +for two years, this gives a mortality of fifteen per cent. each year, +which is an enormous loss even for times of war, and one seldom equalled +in modern warfare. + +Now, most of the men who have thus died or been maimed were in the prime +of life, able-bodied and hearty men. Had they remained at home in the +works of peace, it is not likely that more than 500 of the number would +have died. So then 14,500 lives may be set down at once to the account +of the war. The wounded men are of course to thank the war, and that +alone, for their smart and the life-long agony which they are called on +to endure. + +Such is the American loss. The loss of the Mexicans we cannot now +determine. But they have been many times more numerous than the +Americans; have been badly armed, badly commanded, badly trained, and +besides have been beaten in every battle; their number seemed often the +cause of their ruin, making them confident before battle and hindering +their retreat after they were beaten. Still more, they have been ill +provided with surgeons and nurses to care for the wounded, and were +destitute of medicines. They must have lost in battle five or six times +more than we have done, and have had a proportionate number of wounded. +To "lie like a military bulletin" is a European proverb; and it is not +necessary to trust reports which tell of 600 or 900 Mexicans left dead +on the ground, while the Americans lost but five or six. But when we +remember that only twelve Americans were killed during the bombardment +of Vera Cruz, which lasted five days; that the citadel contained more +than 5,000 soldiers and over 400 pieces of cannon, we may easily believe +the Mexican losses on the whole have been 10,000 men killed and perished +of their wounds. Their loss by sickness would probably be smaller than +our own, for the Mexicans were in their native climate, though often ill +furnished with clothes, with shelter and provisions: so I will put down +their loss by ordinary diseases at only 5,000, making a total of 15,000 +deaths. Suppose their number of wounded was four times as great as our +own, or 20,000. I should not be surprised if this were only half the +number. + +Put all together and we have in total, Americans and Mexicans, 24,000 +men wounded, more or less, and the greater part maimed for life; and we +have 30,000 men killed on the field of battle, or perished by the slow +torture of their wounds, or deceased of diseases caused by +extraordinary exposures; 24,000 men maimed; 30,000 dead! + + * * * * * + +You all remember the bill which so hastily passed Congress in May, 1846, +and authorized the war previously begun. You perhaps have not forgot the +preamble, "Whereas war exists by the act of Mexico." Well, that bill +authorized the waste of $200,000,000 of American treasure, money enough +to have built a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama, and another to +connect the Mississippi and the Pacific ocean; it demanded the +disturbance of industry and commerce all over the land, caused by +withdrawing $100,000,000 from peaceful investments, and diverting +150,000 Americans from their productive and peaceful works; it demanded +a loss yet greater of the treasure of Mexicans; it commanded the maiming +of 24,000 men for life, and the death of 30,000 men in the prime and +vigor of manhood. Yet such was the state of feeling, I will not say of +thought, in the Congress, that out of both houses only sixteen men voted +against it. If a prophet had stood there he might have said to the +representative of Boston, "You have just voted for the wasting of +200,000,000 of the very dollars you were sent there to represent; for +the maiming of 24,000 men and the killing of 30,000 more--part by +disease, part by the sword, part by the slow and awful lingerings of a +wounded frame! Sir, that is the English of your vote." Suppose the +prophet, before the vote was taken, could have gone round and told each +member of Congress, "If there comes a war, you will perish in it;" +perhaps the vote would have been a little different. It is easy to vote +away blood, if it is not your own! + + * * * * * + +Such is the cost of the war in money and in men. Yet it has not been a +very cruel war. It has been conducted with as much gentleness as a war +of invasion can be. There is no agreeable way of butchering men. You +cannot make it a pastime. The Americans have always been a brave people; +they were never cruel. They always treated their prisoners kindly--in +the Revolutionary war, in the late war with England. True, they have +seized the Mexican ports, taken military possession of the +custom-houses, and collected such duties as they saw fit; true, they +sometimes made the army of invasion self-subsisting, and to that end +have levied contributions on the towns they have taken; true, they have +seized provisions which were private property, snatching them out of the +hands of men who needed them; true, they have robbed the rich and the +poor; true, they have burned and bombarded towns, have murdered men and +violated women. All this must of course take place in any war. There +will be the general murder and robbery committed on account of the +nation, and the particular murder and robbery on account of the special +individual. This also is to be expected. You cannot set a town on fire +and burn down just half of it, making the flames stop exactly where you +will. You cannot take the most idle, ignorant, drunken, and vicious men +out of the low population in our cities and large towns, get them drunk +enough or foolish enough to enlist, train them to violence, theft, +robbery, murder, and then stop the man from exercising his rage or lust +on his own private account. If it is hard to make a dog understand that +he must kill a hare for his master, but never for himself, it is not +much easier to teach a volunteer that it is a duty, a distinction, and a +glory to rob and murder the Mexican people for the nation's sake, but a +wrong, a shame, and a crime to rob or murder a single Mexican for his +own sake. There have been instances of wanton cruelty, occasioned by +private licentiousness and individual barbarity. Of these I shall take +no further notice, but come to such as have been commanded by the +American authorities, and which were the official acts of the nation. + +One was the capture of Tabasco. Tabasco is a small town several hundred +miles from the theatre of war, situated on a river about eighty miles +from the sea, in the midst of a fertile province. The army did not need +it, nor the navy. It did not lie in the way of the American operations; +its possession would be wholly useless. But one Sunday afternoon, while +the streets were full of men, women, and children, engaged in their +Sunday business, a part of the naval force of America swept by; the +streets running at right angles with the river, were enfiladed by the +hostile cannon, and men, women, and children, unarmed and unresisting, +were mowed down by the merciless shot. The city was taken, but soon +abandoned, for its possession was of no use. The killing of those men, +women, and children was as much a piece of murder, as it would be to +come and shoot us to-day, and in this house. No valid excuse has been +given for this cold-blooded massacre; none can be given. It was not +battle, but wanton butchery. None but a Pequod Indian could excuse it. +The theological newspapers in New England thought it a wicked thing in +Dr. Palfrey to write a letter on Sunday, though he hoped thereby to help +end the war. How many of them had any fault to find with this national +butchery on the Lord's day? Fighting is bad enough any day; fighting for +mere pay, or glory, or the love of fighting, is a wicked thing; but to +fight on that day when the whole Christian world kneels to pray in the +name of the Peacemaker; to butcher men and women and children, when they +are coming home from church, with prayer-books in their hands, seems an +aggravation even of murder; a cowardly murder, which a Hessian would +have been ashamed of. "But 'twas a famous victory." + +One other instance, of at least apparent wantonness, took place at the +bombardment of Vera Cruz. After the siege had gone on for a while, the +foreign consuls in the town, "moved," as they say, "by the feeling of +humanity excited in their hearts by the frightful results of the +bombardment of the city," requested that the women and children might be +allowed to leave the city, and not stay to be shot. The American General +refused; they must stay and be shot. + +Perhaps you have not an adequate conception of the effect produced by +bombarding a town. Let me interest you a little in the details thereof. +Vera Cruz is about as large as Boston was in 1810; it contains about +30,000 inhabitants. In addition it is protected by a castle, the +celebrated fortress of St. Juan d' Ulloa, furnished with more than 5,000 +soldiers and over 400 cannons. Imagine to yourself Boston as it was +forty years ago, invested with a fleet on one side, and an army of +15,000 men on the land, both raining cannon-balls and bomb-shells upon +your houses; shattering them to fragments, exploding in your streets, +churches, houses, cellars, mingling men, women, and children in one +promiscuous murder. Suppose this to continue five days and nights; +imagine the condition of the city; the ruins, the flames; the dead, the +wounded, the widows, the orphans; think of the fears of the men +anticipating the city would be sacked by a merciless soldiery; think of +the women! Thus you will have a faint notion of the picture of Vera +Cruz at the end of March, 1847. Do you know the meaning of the name of +the city? Vera Cruz is the True Cross. "See how these Christians love +one another." The Americans are followers of the Prince of Peace; they +have more missionaries amongst the "heathen" than any other nation, and +the President, in his last message, says, "No country has been so much +favored, or should acknowledge with deeper reverence the manifestations +of the Divine protection." The Americans were fighting Mexico to +dismember her territory, to plunder her soil, and plant thereon the +institution of slavery, "the necessary back-ground of freedom." + +Few of us have ever seen a battle, and without that none can have a +complete notion of the ferocious passions which it excites. Let me help +your fancy a little by relating an anecdote which seems to be very well +authenticated, and requires but little external testimony to render it +credible. At any rate, it was abundantly believed a year ago; but times +change, and what was then believed all round may now be "the most +improbable thing in the world." At the battle of Buena Vista, a Kentucky +regiment began to stagger under the heavy charge of the Mexicans. The +American commander-in-chief turned to one who stood near him, and +exclaimed, "By God, this will not do. This is not the way for +Kentuckians to behave when called on to make good a battle. It will not +answer, sir." So the General clenched his fist, knit his brows, and set +his teeth hard together. However, the Kentuckians presently formed in +good order and gave a deadly fire, which altered the battle. Then the +old General broke out with a loud hurrah. "Hurrah for old Kentuck," he +exclaimed, rising in his stirrups; "that's the way to do it. Give 'em +hell, damn 'em," and tears of exultation rolled down his cheeks as he +said it. You find the name of this General at the head of most of the +whig newspapers in the United States. He is one of the most popular +candidates for the Presidency. Cannons were fired for him, a hundred +guns on Boston Common, not long ago, in honor of his nomination for the +highest office in the gift of a free and Christian people. Soon we shall +probably have clerical certificates, setting forth, to the people of the +North, that he is an exemplary Christian. You know how Faneuil Hall, the +old "Cradle of Liberty," rang with "Hurrah for Taylor," but a few days +ago. The seven wise men of Greece were famous in their day; but now +nothing is known of them except a single pungent aphorism from each, +"Know thyself," and the like. The time may come when our great men shall +have suffered this same reduction descending, all their robes of glory +having vanished save a single thread. Then shall Franklin be known only +as having said, "Don't give too much for the Whistle;" Patrick Henry for +his "Give me Liberty or give me Death;" Washington for his "In Peace +prepare for War;" Jefferson for his "All men are created equal;" and +General Taylor shall be known only by his attributes rough and ready, +and for his aphorism, "Give 'em hell, damn 'em." Yet he does not seem to +be a ferocious man, but generous and kindly, it is said, and strongly +opposed to this particular war, whose "natural justice" it seems he +looked at, and which he thought was wicked at the beginning, though, on +that account, he was none the less ready to fight it. + +One thing more I must mention in speaking of the cost of men. According +to the Report quoted just now, 4,966 American soldiers had deserted in +Mexico. Some of them had joined the Mexican army. When the American +commissioners, who were sent to secure the ratification of the treaty, +went to Queretaro, they found there a body of 200 American soldiers, and +800 more were at no great distance, mustered into the Mexican service. +These men, it seems, had served out their time in the American camp, and +notwithstanding they had, as the President says in his message, "covered +themselves with imperishable honors," by fighting men who never injured +them, they were willing to go and seek a yet thicker mantle of this +imperishable honor, by fighting against their own country! Why should +they not? If it were right to kill Mexicans for a few dollars a month, +why was it not also right to kill Americans, especially when it pays the +most? Perhaps it is not an American habit to inquire into the justice +of a war, only into the profit which it may bring. If the Mexicans pay +best, in money, these 1,000 soldiers made a good speculation. No doubt +in Mexico military glory is at a premium, though it could hardly command +a greater price just now than in America, where, however, the supply +seems equal to the demand. + +The numerous desertions and the readiness with which the soldiers joined +the "foe," show plainly the moral character of the men, and the degree +of "patriotism" and "humanity" which animated them in going to war. You +know the severity of military discipline; the terrible beatings men are +subjected to before they can become perfect in the soldier's art; the +horrible and revolting punishments imposed on them for drunkenness, +though little pains were taken to keep the temptation from their eyes, +and for disobedience of general orders. You have read enough of this in +the newspapers. The officers of the volunteers, I am told, have +generally been men of little education, men of strong passions and bad +habits; many of them abandoned men, who belonged to the refuse of +society. Such men run into an army as the wash of the street runs into +the sewers. When such a man gets clothed with a little authority, in +time of peace, you know what use he makes of it; but when he covers +himself with the "imperishable honors" of his official coat, gets an +epaulette on his shoulder, a sword by his side, a commission in his +pocket, and visions of "glory" in his head, you may easily judge how he +will use his authority, or may read in the newspapers how he has used +it. When there are brutal soldiers, commanded by brutal captains, it is +to be supposed that much brutality is to be suffered. + +Now desertion is a great offence in a soldier; in this army it is one of +the most common; for nearly ten per cent of the American army has +deserted in Mexico, not to mention the desertions before the army +reached that country. It is related that forty-eight men were hanged at +once for desertion; not hanged as you judicially murder men in time of +peace, privately, as if ashamed of the deed, in the corner of a jail, +and by a contrivance which shortens the agony, and makes death humane as +possible. These forty-eight men were hanged slowly; put to death with +painful procrastinations, their agony wilfully prolonged, and death +embittered by needless ferocity. But that is not all: it is related, +that these men were doomed to be thus murdered on the day when the +battle of Churubusco took place. These men, awaiting their death, were +told they should not suffer till the American flag should wave its +stripes over the hostile walls. So they were kept in suspense an hour, +and then slowly hanged one by one. You know the name of the officer on +whom this barbarity rests: it was Colonel Harney, a man whose +reputation was black enough and base enough before. His previous deeds, +however, require no mention here. But this man is now a General, and so +on the high road to the Presidency, whenever it shall please our +Southern masters to say the word. Some accounts say there were more than +forty-eight who thus were hanged. I only give the number of those whose +names lie printed before me as I write. Perhaps the number was less; it +is impossible to obtain exact information in respect to the matter, for +the Government has not yet published an account of the punishments +inflicted in this war. The information can only be obtained by a +"Resolution" of either house of Congress, and so is not likely to be had +before the election. But at the same time with the execution, other +deserters were scourged with fifty lashes each, branded with a letter D, +a perpetual mark of infamy on their cheek, compelled to wear an iron +yoke, weighing eight pounds, about their neck. Six men were made to dig +the grave of their companions, and were then flogged with two hundred +lashes each. + +I wish this hanging of forty-eight men could have taken place in State +street, and the respectable citizens of Boston, who like this war, had +been made to look on and see it all; that they had seen those poor +culprits bid farewell to father, mother, wife, or child, looking +wistfully for the hour which was to end their torment, and then, one by +one, have seen them slowly hanged to death; that your representative, +ye men of Boston, had put on all the halters! He did help put them on; +that infamous vote, I speak not of the motive, it may have been as +honorable as the vote itself was infamous, doomed these eight and forty +men to be thus murdered. + +Yes, I wish all this killing of the 2,000 Americans on the field of +battle, and the 10,000 Mexicans; all this slashing of the bodies of +24,000 wounded men; all the agony of the other 18,000 that have died of +disease, could have taken place in some spot where the President of the +United States and his Cabinet, where all the Congress who voted for the +war, with the Baltimore conventions of '44 and '48, and the Whig +convention of Philadelphia, and the controlling men of both political +parties, who care nothing for this bloodshed and misery they have idly +caused, could have stood and seen it all; and then that the voice of the +whole nation had come up to them and said, "This is your work, not ours. +Certainly we will not shed our blood, nor our brothers' blood, to get +never so much slave territory. It was bad enough to fight in the cause +of freedom. In the cause of slavery--God forgive us for that! We have +trusted you thus far, but please God we never will trust you again." + + * * * * * + +Let us now look at the effect of this war on the morals of the nation. +The Revolutionary war was the contest for a great idea. If there were +ever a just war it was that, a contest for national existence. Yet it +brought out many of the worst qualities of human nature on both sides, +as well as some of the best. It helped make a Washington, it is true, +but a Benedict Arnold likewise. A war with a powerful nation, terrible +as it must be, yet develops the energy of the people, promotes +self-denial, and helps the growth of some qualities of a high order. It +had this effect in England from 1798 to 1815. True, England for that +time became a despotism, but the self-consciousness of the nation, its +self-denial and energy were amazingly stimulated; the moral effect of +that series of wars was doubtless far better than of the infamous +contest which she has kept up against Ireland for many years. Let us +give even war its due: when a great boy fights with an equal, it may +develop his animal courage and strength--for he gets as bad as he gives, +but when he only beats a little boy that cannot pay back his blows, it +is cowardly as well as cruel, and doubly debasing to the conqueror. +Mexico was no match for America. We all knew that very well before the +war begun. When a nation numbering 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 of people can +be successfully invaded by an army of 75,000 men, two thirds of them +volunteers, raw, and undisciplined; when the invaders with less than +15,000 can march two hundred miles into the very heart of the hostile +country, and with less than 6,000 can take and hold the capital of the +nation, a city of 100,000 or 200,000 inhabitants, and dictate a peace, +taking as much territory as they will--it is hardly fair to dignify such +operations with the name of war. The little good which a long contest +with an equal might produce in the conqueror, is wholly lost. Had Mexico +been a strong nation we should never have had this conflict. A few years +ago, when General Cass wanted a war with England, "an old-fashioned +war," and declared it "unavoidable," all the men of property trembled. +The northern men thought of their mills and their ships; they thought +how Boston and New York would look after a war with our sturdy old +father over the sea; they thought we should lose many millions of +dollars and gain nothing. The men of the South, who have no mills and no +ships and no large cities to be destroyed, thought of their "peculiar +institution;" they thought of a servile war; they thought what might +become of their slaves, if a nation which gave $100,000,000 to +emancipate her bondmen should send a large army with a few black +soldiers from Jamaica; should offer money, arms, and freedom to all who +would leave their masters and claim their unalienable rights. They knew +the southern towns would be burnt to ashes, and the whole South, from +Virginia to the Gulf, would be swept with fire, and they said, "Don't." +The North said so, and the South; they feared such a war, with such a +foe. Everybody knows the effect which this fear had on southern +politicians, in the beginning of this century, and how gladly they made +peace with England soon as she was at liberty to turn her fleet and her +army against the most vulnerable part of the nation. I am not blind to +the wickedness of England more than ignorant of the good things she has +done and is doing; a Paradise for the rich and strong, she is still a +Purgatory for the wise and the good, and the Hell of the poor and the +weak. I have no fondness for war anywhere, and believe it needless and +wanton in this age of the world, surely needless and wicked between +Father England and Daughter America; but I do solemnly believe that the +moral effect of such an old-fashioned war as Mr. Cass in 1845 thought +unavoidable, would have been better than that of this Mexican war. It +would have ended slavery; ended it in blood no doubt, the worst thing to +blot out an evil with, but ended it and for ever. God grant it may yet +have a more peaceful termination. We should have lost millions of +property and thousands of men, and then, when peace came, we should know +what it was worth; and as the burnt child dreads the fire, no future +President, or Congress, or Convention, or Party would talk much in favor +of war for some years to come. + +The moral effect of this war is thoroughly bad. It was unjust in the +beginning. Mexico did not pay her debts; but though the United States, +in 1783, acknowledged the British claims against ourselves, they were +not paid till 1803. Our claims against England, for her depredations in +1793, were not paid till 1804; our claims against France, for her +depredations in 1806-13, were not paid us till 1834. The fact that +Mexico refused to receive the resident Minister which the United States +sent to settle the disputes, when a commissioner was expected--this was +no ground of war. We have lately seen a British ambassador ordered to +leave Spain within eight and forty hours, and yet the English Minister +of foreign affairs, Lord Palmerston, no new hand at diplomacy, declares +that this does not interrupt the concord of the two nations! We treated +Mexico contemptuously before hostilities began; and when she sent troops +into a territory which she had always possessed, though Texas had +claimed it, we declared that that was an act of war, and ourselves sent +an army to invade her soil, to capture her cities, and seize her +territory. It has been a war of plunder, undertaken for the purpose of +seizing Mexican territory, and extending over it that dismal curse which +blackens, impoverishes, and barbarizes half the Union now, and swiftly +corrupts the other half. It was not enough to have Louisiana a slave +territory; not enough to make that institution perpetual in Florida; not +enough to extend this blight over Texas--we must have yet more slave +soil, one day to be carved into Slave States, to bind the Southern yoke +yet more securely on the Northern neck; to corrupt yet more the +politics, literature, and morals of the North. The war was unjust at its +beginning; mean in its motives, a war without honorable cause; a war for +plunder; a quarrel between a great boy and a little puny weakling who +could not walk alone, and could hardly stand. We have treated Mexico as +the three Northern powers treated Poland in the last century--stooped to +conquer. Nay, our contest has been like the English seizure of Ireland. +All the justice was on one side, the force, skill, and wealth on the +other. + +I know men say the war has shown us that Americans could fight. Could +fight!--almost every male beast will fight, the more brutal the better. +The long war of the Revolution, when Connecticut, for seven years, kept +5,000 men in the field, showed that Americans could fight; Bunker Hill +and Lexington showed that they could fight, even without previous +discipline. If such valor be a merit, I am ready to believe that the +Americans, in a great cause like that of Mexico, to resist wicked +invasion, would fight as men never fought before. A republic like our +own, where every free man feels an interest in the welfare of the +nation, is full of the elements that make soldiers. Is that a praise? +Most men think so, but it is the smallest honor of a nation. Of all +glories, military glory, at its best estate, seems the poorest. + +Men tell us it shows the strength of the nation and some writers quote +the opinions of European kings who, when hearing of the battles of +Monterey, Buena Vista, and Vera Cruz, became convinced that we were "a +great people." Remembering the character of these kings, one can easily +believe that such was their judgment, and will not sigh many times at +their fate, but will hope to see the day when the last king who can +estimate a nation's strength only by its battles, has passed on to +impotence and oblivion. The power of America--do we need proof of that? +I see it in the streets of Boston and New York; in Lowell and in +Lawrence; I see it in our mills and our ships; I read it in those +letters of iron written all over the North, where he may read that runs; +I see it in the unconquered energy which tames the forest, the rivers, +and the ocean; in the school-houses which lift their modest roof in +every village of the North; in the churches that rise all over the +freeman's land: would God that they rose higher, pointing down to man +and to human duties, and up to God and immortal life! I see the strength +of America in that tide of population which spreads over the prairies of +the West, and, beating on the Rocky Mountains, dashes its peaceful spray +to the very shores of the Pacific sea. Had we taken 150,000 men and +$200,000,000, and built two railroads across the continent, that would +have been a worthy sign of the nation's strength. Perhaps those kings +could not see it; but sensible men could see it and be glad. This waste +of treasure and this waste of blood is only a proof of weakness. War is +a transient weakness of the nation, but slavery a permanent imbecility. + +What falsehood has this war produced in the executive and legislative +power; in both parties, whigs and democrats! I always thought that here +in Massachusetts the whigs were the most to blame; they tried to put the +disgrace of the war on the others, while the democratic party coolly +faced the wickedness. Did far-sighted men know that there would be a war +on Mexico, or else on the tariff or the currency, and prefer the first +as the least evil? + +See to what the war has driven two of the most famous men of the nation: +one wished to "capture or slay a Mexican;"[12] the other could encourage +the volunteers to fight a war which he had denounced as needless, "a war +of pretexts," and place the men of Monterey before the men of Bunker +Hill;[13] each could invest a son in that unholy cause. You know the +rest: the fathers ate sour grapes, and the children's teeth were set on +edge. When a man goes on board an emigrant ship, reeking with filth and +fever, not for gain, not for "glory," but in brotherly love, catches the +contagion, and dies a martyr to his heroic benevolence, men speak of it +in corners, and it is soon forgot; there is no parade in the streets; +society takes little pains to do honor to the man. How rarely is a +pension given to his widow or his child; only once in the whole land, +and then but a small sum.[14] But when a volunteer officer--for of the +humbler and more excusable men that fall we take no heed, war may mow +that crop of "vulgar deaths" with what scythe he will--falls or dies in +the quarrel which he had no concern in, falls in a broil between the two +nations, your newspapers extol the man, and with martial pomp, "sonorous +metal blowing martial sounds," with all the honors of the most honored +dead, you lay away his body in the tomb. Thus is it that the nation +teaches these little ones, that it is better to kill than to make alive. + +I know there are men in the army, honorable and high-minded men, +Christian men, who dislike war in general, and this war in special, but +such is their view of official duty, that they obeyed the summons of +battle, though with pain and reluctance. They knew not how to avoid +obedience. I am willing to believe there are many such. But with +volunteers, who, of their own accord, came forth to enlist, men not +blinded by ignorance, not driven by poverty to the field, but only by +hope of reward--what shall be said of them! Much may be said to excuse +the rank and file, ignorant men, many of them in want--but for the +leaders, what can be said? Had I a brother who, in the day of the +nation's extremity, came forward with a good conscience, and perilled +his life on the battle field, and lost it "in the sacred cause of God +and his country," I would honor the man, and when his dust came home, I +would lay it away with his fathers'; with sorrow indeed, but with +thankfulness of heart, that for conscience' sake he was ready even to +die. But had I a brother who, merely for his pay, or hope of fame, had +voluntarily gone down to fight innocent men, to plunder their territory, +and lost his life in that felonious essay--in sorrow and in silence, and +in secrecy would I lay down his body in the grave; I would not court +display, nor mark it with a single stone. + +See how this war has affected public opinion. How many of your +newspapers have shown its true atrocity; how many of the pulpits? Yet, +if any one is appointed to tell of public wrongs, it is the minister of +religion. The Governor of Massachusetts[15] is an officer of a Christian +church; a man distinguished for many excellences, some of them by no +means common: it is said, he is opposed to the war in private, and +thinks it wicked; but no man has lent himself as a readier tool to +promote it. The Christian and the man seem lost in the office, in the +Governor! What a lesson of falseness does all this teach to that large +class of persons who look no higher than the example of eminent men for +their instruction. You know what complaints have been made, by the +highest authority in the nation, because a few men dared to speak +against the war. It was "affording aid and comfort to the enemy." If the +war-party had been stronger, and feared no public opinion, we should +have had men hanged for treason, because they spoke of this national +iniquity! Nothing would have been easier. A "gag law" is not wholly +unknown in America. + +If you will take all the theft, all the assaults, all the cases of +arson, ever committed in time of peace in the United States since the +settlement of Jamestown in 1608, and add to them all the cases of +violence offered to woman, with all the murders, they will not amount to +half the wrongs committed in this war for the plunder of Mexico. Yet the +cry has been and still is, "You must not say a word against it; if you +do, you 'afford aid and comfort to the enemy.'" Not tell the nation that +she is doing wrong? What a miserable saying is that; let it come from +what high authority it may, it is a miserable saying. Make the case your +own. Suppose the United States were invaded by a nation ten times abler +for war than we are, with a cause no more just, intentions equally bad; +invaded for the purpose of dismembering our territory and making our +own New England the soil of slaves; would you be still? would you stand +and look on tamely while the hostile hosts, strangers in language, +manners, and religion, crossed your rivers, seized your ports, burnt +your towns? No, surely not. Though the men of New England would not be +able to resist with most celestial love, they would contend with most +manly vigor; and I should rather see every house swept clean off the +land, and the ground sheeted with our own dead; rather see every man, +woman, and child in the land slain, than see them tamely submit to such +a wrong: and so would you. No, sacred as life is and dear as it is, +better let it be trodden out by the hoof of war, rather than yield +tamely to a wrong. But while you were doing your utmost to repel such +formidable injustice, if in the midst of your invaders men rose up and +said, "America is in the right, and brothers, you are wrong, you should +not thus kill men to steal their land; shame on you!" how should you +feel towards such? Nay, in the struggle with England, when our fathers +perilled every thing but honor, and fought for the unalienable rights of +man, you all remember, how in England herself there stood up noble men, +and with a voice that was heard above the roar of the populace, and an +authority higher than the majesty of the throne they said, "You do a +wrong; you may ravage, but you cannot conquer. If I were an American, +while a foreign troop remained in my land, I would never lay down my +arms; no, never, never, never!" + +But I wander a little from my theme, the effect of the war on the morals +of the nation. Here are 50,000 or 75,000 men trained to kill. Hereafter +they will be of little service in any good work. Many of them were the +off-scouring of the people at first. Now these men have tasted the +idleness, the intemperance, the debauchery of a camp; tasted of its +riot, tasted of its blood! They will come home before long, hirelings of +murder. What will their influence be as fathers, husbands? The nation +taught them to fight and plunder the Mexicans for the nation's sake; the +Governor of Massachusetts called on them in the name of "patriotism" and +"humanity" to enlist for that work: but if, with no justice on our side, +it is humane and patriotic to fight and plunder the Mexicans on the +nation's account, why not for the soldier to fight and plunder an +American on his own account? Ay, why not?--that is a distinction too +nice for common minds; by far too nice for mine. + +See the effect on the nation. We have just plundered Mexico; taken a +piece of her territory larger than the thirteen states which fought the +Revolution, a hundred times as large as Massachusetts; we have burnt her +cities, have butchered her men, have been victorious in every contest. +The Mexicans were as unprotected women, we, armed men. See how the lust +of conquest will increase. Soon it will be the ambition of the next +President to extend the "area of freedom" a little further south; the +lust of conquest will increase. Soon we must have Yucatan, Central +America, all of Mexico, Cuba, Porto Rico, Hayti, Jamaica,--all the +islands of the Gulf. Many men would gladly, I doubt not, extend the +"area of freedom" so as to include the free blacks of those islands. We +have long looked with jealous eyes on West Indian emancipation--hoping +the scheme would not succeed. How pleasant it would be to reëstablish +slavery in Hayti and Jamaica, in all the islands whence the gold of +England or the ideas of France have driven it out. If the South wants +this, would the North object? The possession of the West Indies would +bring much money to New England, and what is the value of freedom +compared to coffee and sugar and cotton? + +I must say one word of the effect this war has had on political parties. +By the parties I mean the leaders thereof, the men that control the +parties. The effect on the democratic party, on the majority of +Congress, on the most prominent men of the nation, has been mentioned +before. It has shut their eyes to truth and justice; it has filled their +mouths with injustice and falsehood. It has made one man "available" for +the Presidency who was only known before as a sagacious general, that +fought against the Indians in Florida, and acquired a certain +reputation by the use of bloodhounds, a reputation which was rather +unenviable even in America. The battles in northern Mexico made him +conspicuous, and now he is seized on as an engine to thrust one corrupt +party out of power, and to lift in another party, I will not say less +corrupt, I wish I could; it were difficult to think it more so. This +latter party has been conspicuous for its opposition to a military man +as ruler of a free people; recently it has been smitten with sudden +admiration for military men, and military success, and tells the people, +without a blush, that a military man fresh from a fight which he +disapproved of, is most likely to restore peace, "because most familiar +with the evils of war!" In Massachusetts the prevalent political party, +as such, for some years seems to have had no moral principle; however, +it had a prejudice in favor of decency: now it has thrown that +overboard, and has not even its respectability left. Where are its +"Resolutions?" Some men knew what they were worth long ago; now all men +can see what they are worth. + +The cost of the war in money and men I have tried to calculate, but the +effect on the morals of the people, on the press, the pulpit, and the +parties, and through them on the rising generation, it is impossible to +tell. I have only faintly sketched the outline of that. The effect of +the war on Mexico herself, we can dimly see in the distance. The +Government of the United States has wilfully, wantonly broken the peace +of the continent. The Revolutionary war was unavoidable; but for this +invasion there is no excuse. That God, whose providence watches over the +falling nation as the falling sparrow, and whose comprehensive plans are +now advanced by the righteousness and now by the wrath of man, He who +stilleth the waves of the sea and the tumult of the people, will turn +all this wickedness to account in the history of man,--of that I have no +doubt. But that is no excuse for American crime. A greater good lay +within our grasp, and we spurned it away. + +Well, before long the soldiers will come back, such as shall ever +come--the regulars and volunteers, the husbands of the women whom your +charity fed last winter, housed and clad and warmed. They will come +back. Come, New England, with your posterity of States, go forth to meet +your sons returning all "covered with imperishable honors." Come, men, +to meet your fathers, brothers. Come, women, to your husbands and your +lovers; come. But what! is that the body of men who a year or two ago +went forth, so full of valor and of rum? Are these rags the imperishable +honors that cover them? Here is not half the whole. Where is the wealth +they hoped from the spoil of churches? But the men--"Where is my +husband?" says one; "And my son?" says another. "They fell at Jalapa, +one, and one at Cerro Gordo; but they fell covered with imperishable +honor, for 'twas a famous victory." "Where is my lover?" screams a +woman whom anguish makes respectable spite of her filth and +ignorance;--"And our father, where is he?" scream a troop of +half-starved children, staring through their dirt and rags. "One died of +the vomit at Vera Cruz. Your father, little ones, we scourged the naked +man to death at Mixcoac." + +But that troop which is left, who are in the arms of wife and child, +they are the best sermon against war; this has lost an arm and that a +leg; half are maimed in battle, or sickened with the fever; all polluted +with the drunkenness, idleness, debauchery, lust, and murder of a camp. +Strip off this man's coat, and count the stripes welted into his flesh, +stripes laid on by demagogues that love the people, "the dear people!" +See how affectionately the war-makers branded the "dear soldiers" with a +letter D, with a red-hot iron, in the cheek. The flesh will quiver as +the irons burn; no matter: it is only for love of the people that all +this is done, and we are all of us covered with imperishable honors! D +stands for deserter,--aye, and for demagogue--yes, and for demon too. +Many a man shall come home with but half of himself, half his body, less +than half his soul. + + "Alas, the mother that him bare, + If she could stand in presence there, + In that wan cheek and wasted air, + She would not know her child." + +"Better," you say, "for us better, and for themselves better by far, if +they had left that remnant of a body in the common ditch where the +soldier finds his 'bed of honor;' better have fed therewith the vultures +of a foreign soil, than thus come back." No, better come back, and live +here, mutilated, scourged, branded, a cripple, a pauper, a drunkard, and +a felon; better darken the windows of the jail and blot the gallows with +unusual shame, to teach us all that such is war, and such the results of +every "famous victory," such the imperishable honors that it brings, and +how the war-makers love the men they rule! + +O Christian America! O New England, child of the Puritans! Cradled in +the wilderness, thy swaddling garments stained with martyrs' blood, +hearing in thy youth the warwhoop of the savage and thy mother's sweet +and soul-composing hymn: + + "Hush, my child, lie still and slumber, + Holy angels guard thy bed; + Heavenly blessings, without number, + Rest upon thine infant head:" + +Come, New England, take the old banners of thy conquering host, the +standards borne at Monterey, Palo Alto, Buena Vista, Vera Cruz, the +"glorious stripes and stars" that waved over the walls of Churubusco, +Contreras, Puebla, Mexico herself, flags blackened with battle and +stiffened with blood, pierced by the lances and torn with the shot; +bring them into thy churches, hang them up over altar and pulpit, and +let little children, clad in white raiment and crowned with flowers, +come and chant their lessons for the day: + +"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. + +"Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of +God." + +Then let the priest say, "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a +reproach unto any people. Blessed is the Lord my strength, which +teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. Happy is that people +that is in such a case. Yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord, +and Jesus Christ their Saviour." + +Then let the soldiers who lost their limbs and the women who lost their +husbands and their lovers in the strife, and the men--wiser than the +children of light--who made money out of the war; let all the people, +like people and like priest, say "Amen." + + * * * * * + +But suppose these men were to come back to Boston on a day when, in +civil style, as having never sinned yourself, and never left a man in +ignorance and want to be goaded into crime, you were about to hang three +men--one for murder, one for robbery with the armed hand, and one for +burning down a house. Suppose, after the fashion of "the good old +times," you were to hang those men in public, and lead them in long +procession through your streets, and while you were welcoming these +returned soldiers and taking their officers to feast in "the Cradle of +Liberty," they should meet the sheriff's procession escorting those +culprits to the gallows. Suppose the warriors should ask, "Why, what is +that?" What would you say? Why, this: "These men, they broke the law of +God, by violence, by fire and blood, and we shall hang them for the +public good, and especially for the example, to teach the ignorant, the +low, and the weak." Suppose those three felons, the halters round their +neck, should ask also, "Why, what is that?" You would say, "They are the +soldiers just come back from war. For two long years they have been hard +at work, burning cities, plundering a nation, and butchering whole +armies of men. Sometimes they killed a thousand in a day. By their help, +the nation has stolen seven hundred thousand square miles of land!" +Suppose the culprits ask, "Where will you hang so many?" "Hang them!" is +the answer, "we shall only hang you. It is written in our Bible that one +murder makes a villain, millions a hero. We shall feast these men full +of bread and wine; shall take their leader, a rough man and a ready, one +who by perpetual robbery holds a hundred slaves and more, and make him a +king over all the land. But as you only burnt, robbed, and murdered on +so small a scale, and without the command of the President or the +Congress, we shall hang you by the neck. Our Governor ordered these men +to go and burn and rob and kill; now he orders you to be hanged, and you +must not ask any more questions, for the hour is already come." + +To make the whole more perfect--suppose a native of Loo-Choo, converted +to Christianity by your missionaries in his native land, had come hither +to have "the way of God" "expounded unto him more perfectly," that he +might see how these Christians love one another. Suppose he should be +witness to a scene like this! + + * * * * * + +To men who know the facts of war, the wickedness of this particular +invasion and its wide-extending consequences, I fear that my words will +seem poor and cold and tame. I have purposely mastered my emotion, +telling only my thought. I have uttered no denunciation against the men +who caused this destruction of treasure, this massacre of men, this +awful degradation of the moral sense. The respectable men of +Boston--"the men of property and standing" all over the State, the men +that commonly control the politics of New England, tell you that they +dislike the war. But they reëlect the men who made it. Has a single man +in all New England lost his seat in any office because he favored the +war? Not a man. Have you ever known a northern merchant who would not +let his ship for the war, because the war was wicked and he a Christian? +Have you ever known a northern manufacturer who would not sell a kernel +of powder, nor a cannon-ball, nor a coat, nor a shirt for the war? Have +you ever known a capitalist, a man who lives by letting money, refuse to +lend money for the war because the war was wicked? Not a merchant, not a +manufacturer, not a capitalist. A little money--it can buy up whole +hosts of men. Virginia sells her negroes; what does New England sell? +There was once a man in Boston, a rich man too, not a very great man, +only a good one who loved his country, and there was another poor man +here, in the times that tried men's souls,--but there was not money +enough in all England, not enough promise of honors, to make Hancock and +Adams false to their sense of right. Is our soil degenerate, and have we +lost the breed of noble men? + +No, I have not denounced the men who directly made the war, or +indirectly edged the people on. Pardon me, thou prostrate Mexico, robbed +of more than half thy soil, that America may have more slaves; thy +cities burned, thy children slain, the streets of thy capital trodden by +the alien foot, but still smoking with thy children's blood: pardon me +if I seem to have forgotten thee! And you, ye butchered Americans, slain +by the vomito, the gallows, and the sword; you, ye maimed and mutilated +men, who shall never again join hands in prayer, never kneel to God once +more upon the limbs he made you; you, ye widows, orphans of these +butchered men, far off in that more sunny South, here in our own fair +land, pardon me that I seem to forget your wrongs! And thou, my Country, +my own, my loved, my native land, thou child of great ideas and mother +of many a noble son, dishonored now, thy treasure wasted, thy children +killed or else made murderers, thy peaceful glory gone, thy Government +made to pimp and pander for lust of crime, forgive me that I seem +over-gentle to the men who did and do the damning deed which wastes thy +treasure, spills thy blood, and stains thine honor's sacred fold! And +you, ye sons of men everywhere, thou child of God, Mankind, whose +latest, fairest hope is planted here in this new world,--forgive me if I +seem gentle to thy enemies, and to forget the crime that so dishonors +man, and makes this ground a slaughter-yard of men--slain, too, in +furtherance of the basest wish! I have no words to tell the pity that I +feel for them that did the deed. I only say, "Father, forgive them, for +they know full well the sin they do!" + +A sectarian church could censure a General for holding his candle in a +Catholic cathedral; it was "a candle to the Pope"; yet never dared to +blame the war. While we loaded a ship of war with corn and sent off the +Macedonian to Cork, freighted by private bounty to feed the starving +Irishman, the State sent her ships to Vera Cruz, in a cause most unholy, +to bombard, to smite, and to kill. Father! forgive the State; forgive +the church. It was an ignorant State. It was a silent church--a poor, +dumb dog, that dared not bark at the wolf who prowls about the fold, but +only at the lamb. + +Yet ye leaders of the land, know this,--that the blood of thirty +thousand men cries out of the ground against you. Be it your folly or +your crime, still cries the voice, "Where is thy brother?" That thirty +thousand--in the name of humanity I ask, "Where are they?" In the name +of justice I answer, "You slew them!" + +It was not the people who made this war. They have often enough done a +foolish thing. But it was not they who did this wrong. It was they who +led the people; it was demagogues that did it. Whig demagogues and +demagogues of the democrats; men that flatter the ignorance, the folly, +or the sin of the people, that they might satisfy their own base +purposes. In May, 1846, if the facts of the case could have been stated +to the voters, and the question put to the whole mass of the people, +"Shall we go down and fight Mexico, spending two hundred million of +dollars, maiming four and twenty thousand men, and butchering thirty +thousand; shall we rob her of half her territory?"--the lowest and most +miserable part of the nation would have said as they did say, "Yes;" +the demagogues of the nation would have said as they did say, "Yes;" +perhaps a majority of the men of the South would have said so, for the +humanity of the nation lies not there; but if it had been brought to the +great mass of the people at the North,--whose industry and skill so +increase the national wealth, whose intelligence and morals have given +the nation its character abroad,--then they, the great majority of the +land, would have said "No. We will have no war! If we want more land, we +will buy it in the open market, and pay for it honestly. But we are not +thieves, nor murderers, thank God, and will not butcher a nation to make +a slave-field out of her soil." The people would not have made this war. + + * * * * * + +Well, we have got a new territory, enough to make one hundred States of +the size of Massachusetts. That is not all. We have beaten the armies of +Mexico, destroyed the little strength she had left, the little +self-respect, else she would not so have yielded and given up half her +soil for a few miserable dollars. Soon we shall take the rest of her +possessions. How can Mexico hold them now--weakened, humiliated, divided +worse than ever within herself. Before many years, all of this northern +continent will doubtless be in the hands of the Anglo Saxon race. That +of itself is not a thing to mourn at. Could we have extended our empire +there by trade, by the Christian arts of peace, it would be a blessing +to us and to Mexico; a blessing to the world. But we have done it in the +worst way, by fraud and blood; for the worst purpose, to steal soil and +convert the cities of men into the shambles for human flesh; have done +it at the bidding of men whose counsels long have been a scourge and a +curse--at the bidding of slaveholders. They it is that rule the land, +fill the offices, buy up the North with the crumbs that fall from their +political table, make the laws, declare hostilities, and leave the North +to pay the bill. Shall we ever waken out of our sleep; shall we ever +remember the duties we owe to the world and to God, who put us here on +this new continent? Let us not despair. + +Soon we shall have all the southern part of the continent, perhaps half +the islands of the Gulf. One thing remains to do--that is, with the new +soil we have taken, to extend order, peace, education, religion; to keep +it from the blight, the crime, and the sin of slavery. That is for the +nation to do; for the North to do. God knows the South will never do it. +Is there manliness enough left in the North to do that? Has the soil +forgot its wonted faith, and borne a different race of men from those +who struggled eight long years for freedom? Do we forget our sires, +forget our God? In the day when the monarchs of Europe are shaken from +their thrones; when the Russian and the Turk abolish slavery; when +cowardly Naples awakes from her centuries of sleep, and will have +freedom; when France prays to become a Republic, and in her agony sweats +great drops of blood; while the Tories of the world look on and mock and +wag their heads; and while the Angel of Hope descends with trusting +words to comfort her,--shall America extend slavery? butcher a nation to +get soil to make a field for slaves? I know how easily the South can buy +office-hunters; whig or democrat, the price is still the same. The same +golden eagle blinds the eyes of each. But can she buy the people of the +North? Is honesty gone, and honor gone, your love of country gone, +religion gone, and nothing manly left; not even shame? Then let us +perish; let the Union perish! No, let that stand firm, and let the +Northern men themselves be slaves; and let us go to our masters and say, +"You are very few, we are very many; we have the wealth, the numbers, +the intelligence, the religion of the land; but you have the power, do +not be hard upon us; pray give us a little something, some humble +offices, or if not these at least a tariff, and we will be content." + +Slavery has already been the blight of this nation, the curse of the +North and the curse of the South. It has hindered commerce, +manufactures, agriculture. It confounds your politics. It has silenced +your ablest men. It has muzzled the pulpit, and stifled the better life +out of the press. It has robbed three million men of what is dearer +than life; it has kept back the welfare of seventeen millions more. You +ask, O Americans, where is the harmony of the Union? It was broken by +slavery. Where is the treasure we have wasted? It was squandered by +slavery. Where are the men we sent to Mexico? They were murdered by +slavery; and now the slave power comes forward to put her new minions, +her thirteenth President, upon the nation's neck! Will the North say +"Yes?" + +But there is a Providence which rules the world,--a plan in His affairs. +Shall all this war, this aggression of the slave power be for nothing? +Surely not. Let it teach us two things: Everlasting hostility to +slavery; everlasting love of Justice and of its Eternal Right. Then, +dear as we may pay for it, it may be worth what it has cost--the money +and the men. I call on you, ye men--fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, +to learn this lesson, and, when duty calls, to show that you know +it--know it by heart and at your fingers' ends! And you, ye +women--mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, I call on you to teach this +lesson to your children, and let them know that such a war is sin, and +slavery sin, and, while you teach them to hate both, teach them to be +men, and do the duties of noble, Christian, and manly men! Behind +injustice there is ruin, and above man there is the everlasting God. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[10] In the Massachusetts Quarterly Review, Vol. I. Article I. See also +the paper on the administration of Mr. Polk, in Vol. III. Art. VIII. + +[11] Mr. Trist introduced these articles into the treaty, without having +instructions from the American Government to do so; the honor, +therefore, is wholly due to him. There were some in the Senate who +opposed these articles. + +[12] See Mr. Clay's speech at the dinner in New Orleans on Forefathers' +day. + +[13] See Mr. Webster's speech to the volunteers at Philadelphia. + +[14] A case of this sort had just occurred in Boston. + +[15] Mr. George N. Briggs. + + + + +VI. + +A SERMON OF THE PERISHING CLASSES IN BOSTON.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, +ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 1846. + +MATTHEW XVIII. 14. + + It is not the will of our Father which is in heaven, that one + of these little ones should perish. + + +There are two classes of men who are weak and little: one is little by +nature, consisting of such as are born with feeble powers, not strongly +capable of self-help; the other is little by position, comprising men +that are permanently poor and ignorant. When Jesus said, It is not God's +will that one of these little ones should perish, I take it he included +both these classes--men little by nature, and men little by position. +Furthermore, I take it he said what is true, that it is not God's will +one of these little ones should perish. Now, a man may be said to perish +when he is ruined, or even when he fails to attain the degree of manhood +he might attain under the average circumstances of this present age, and +these present men. In a society like ours, and that of all nations at +this time, as hitherto, with such a history, a history of blood and +violence, cunning and fraud; resting on such a basis--a basis of +selfishness; a society wherein there is a preference of the mighty, and +a postponement of the righteous, where power is worshipped and justice +little honored, though much talked of, it comes to pass that a great +many little ones from both these classes actually perish. If Jesus spoke +the truth, then they perish contrary to the will of God, and, of course, +by some other will adverse to the will of God. In a society where the +natural laws of the body are constantly violated, where many men are +obliged by circumstances to violate them, it follows unavoidably that +many are born little by nature, and they transmit their feebleness to +their issue. The other class, men little by position, are often so +hedged about with difficulties, so neglected, that they cannot change +their condition; they bequeath also their littleness to their children. +Thus the number of little ones enlarges with the increase of society. +This class becomes perpetual; a class of men mainly abandoned by the +Christians. + +In all forms of social life hitherto devised these classes have +appeared, and it has been a serious question, What shall be done with +them? Seldom has it been the question, What shall be done for them? In +olden time the Spartans took children born with a weak or imperfect +body, children who would probably be a hinderance to the nation, and +threw them into a desert place to be devoured by the wild beasts, and so +settled that question. At this day, the Chinese, I am told, expose such +children in the streets and beside the rivers, to the humanity of +passers by; and not only such, but sound, healthy children, none the +less, who, though strong by nature, are born into a weak position. Many +of them are left to die, especially the boys. But some are saved, those +mainly girls. I will not say they are saved by the humanity of wealthier +men. They become slaves, devoted by their masters to a most base and +infamous purpose. With the exception of criminals, these abandoned +daughters of the poor, form, it is said, the only class of slaves in +that great country. + +Neither the Chinese nor the Spartan method is manly or human. It does +with the little ones, not for them. It does away with them, and that is +all. I will not decide which is the worst of the two modes, the Chinese +or the Spartan. We are accustomed to call both these nations heathen, +and take it for granted they do not know it is God's will that not one +of these little ones should perish. Be that as it may, we do not call +ourselves heathen; we pretend to know the will of God in this +particular. Let us look, therefore, and see how we have disposed of the +little ones in Boston, what we are doing for them or with them. + +Let me begin with neglected and abandoned children. We all know how +large and beautiful a provision is made for the public education of the +people. About a fourth part of the city taxes are for the public +schools. Yet one not familiar with this place is astonished at the +number of idle, vagrant boys and girls in the streets. It appears from +the late census of Boston, that there are 4,948 children between four +and fifteen who attend no school. I am not speaking of truants, +occasional absentees, but of children whose names are not registered at +school, permanent absentees. If we allow that 1,948 of these are kept in +some sort of restraint by their parents, and have, or have had, some +little pains taken with their culture at home; that they are feeble and +do not begin to attend school so early as most, or that they are +precocious, and complete their studies before fifteen, or for some other +good reason are taken from school, and put to some useful business, +there still remain 3,000 children who never attend any school, turned +loose into your streets! Suppose there is some error in the counting, +that the number is overstated one third, still there are left 2,000 +young vagrants in the streets of Boston! + +What will be the fate of these 2,000 children? Some men are superior to +circumstances; so well born they defy ill breeding. There may be +children so excellent and strong they cannot be spoiled. Surely there +are some who will learn with no school; boys of vast genius, whom you +cannot keep from learning. Others there are of wonderful moral gifts, +whom no circumstances can make vulgar; they will live in the midst of +corruption and keep clean through the innate refinement of a wondrous +soul. Out of these 2,000 children there may be two of this sort; it were +foolish to look for more than one in a thousand. The 1,997 depend mainly +on circumstances to help them; yes, to make their character. Send them +to school and they will learn. Give them good precepts, good examples, +they will also become good. Give them bad precepts, bad examples, and +they become wicked. Send them half clad and uncared for into your +streets, and they grow up hungry savages greedy for crime. + +What have these abandoned children to help them? Nothing, literally +nothing! They are idle, though their bodies crave activity. They are +poor, ill-clad, and ill-fed. There is nothing about them to foster +self-respect; nothing to call forth their conscience, to awaken and +cultivate their sense of religion. They find themselves beggars in the +wealth of a city; idlers in the midst of its work. Yes, savages in the +midst of civilization. Their consciousness is that of an outcast, one +abandoned and forsaken of men. In cities, life is intense amongst all +classes. So the passions and appetites of such children are strong and +violent. Their taste is low; their wants clamorous. Are religion and +conscience there to abate the fever of passion and regulate desire? The +moral class and the cultivated shun these poor wretches, or look on with +stupid wonder. Our rule is that the whole need the physician, not the +sick. They are left almost entirely to herd and consort with the basest +of men; they are exposed early and late to the worst influences, and +their only comrades are men whom the children of the rich are taught to +shun as the pestilence. To be poor is hard enough in the country, where +artificial wants are few, and those easily met, where all classes are +humbly clad, and none fare sumptuously every day. But to be poor in the +city, where a hundred artificial desires daily claim satisfaction, and +where, too, it is difficult for the poor to satisfy the natural and +unavoidable wants of food and raiment; to be hungry, ragged, dirty, amid +luxury, wantonness and refinement; to be miserable in the midst of +abundance, that is hard beyond all power of speech. Look, I will not say +at the squalid dress of these children, as you see them prowling about +the markets and wharves, or contending in the dirty lanes and by-places +into which the pride of Boston has elbowed so much of her misery; look +at their faces! Haggard as they are, meagre and pale and wan, want is +not the worst thing written there, but cunning, fraud, violence and +obscenity, and worst of all, fear! + +Amid all the science and refined culture of the nineteenth century, +these children learn little; little that is good, much that is bad. In +the intense life around them, they unavoidably become vicious, obscene, +deceitful and violent. They will lie, steal, be drunk. How can it be +otherwise? + +If you could know the life of one of those poor lepers of Boston, you +would wonder, and weep. Let me take one of them at random out of the +mass. He was born, unwelcome, amid wretchedness and want. His coming +increased both. Miserably he struggles through his infancy, less tended +than the lion's whelp. He becomes a boy. He is covered only with rags, +and those squalid with long accumulated filth. He wanders about your +streets, too low even to seek employment, now snatching from a gutter +half rotten fruit which the owner flings away. He is ignorant; he has +never entered a school-house; to him even the alphabet is a mystery. He +is young in years, yet old in misery. There is no hope in his face. He +herds with others like himself, low, ragged, hungry and idle. If misery +loves company, he finds that satisfaction. Follow him to his home at +night; he herds in a cellar; in the same sty with father, mother, +brothers, sisters, and perhaps yet other families of like degree. What +served him for dress by day, is his only bed by night. + +Well, this boy steals some trifle, a biscuit, a bit of rope, or a knife +from a shop-window; he is seized and carried to jail. The day comes for +trial. He is marched through the streets in handcuffs, the companion of +drunkards and thieves, thus deadening the little self-respect which +Nature left even in an outcast's bosom. He sits there chained like a +beast; a boy in irons! the sport and mockery of men vulgar as the common +sewer. His trial comes. Of course he is convicted. The show of his +countenance is witness against him. His rags and dirt, his ignorance, +his vagrant habits, his idleness, all testify against him. That face so +young, and yet so impudent, so sly, so writ all over with embryo +villany, is evidence enough. The jury are soon convinced, for they see +his temptations in his look, and surely know that in such a condition +men will steal: yes, they themselves would steal. The judge represents +the law, and that practically regards it a crime even for a boy to be +weak and poor. Much of our common law, it seems to me, is based on +might, not right. So he is hurried off to jail at a tender age, and made +legally the companion of felons. Now the State has him wholly in her +power; by that rough adoption, has made him her own child, and sealed +the indenture with the jailer's key. His handcuffs are the symbol of his +sonship to the State. She shuts him in her college for the Little. What +does that teach him; science, letters; even morals and religion? Little +enough of this, even in Boston, and in most counties of Massachusetts, I +think, nothing at all, not even a trade which he can practise when his +term expires! I have been told a story, and I wish it might be falsely +told, of a boy, in this city, of sixteen, sent to the house of +correction for five years because he stole a bunch of keys, and coming +out of that jail at twenty-one, unable to write, or read, or calculate, +and with no trade but that of picking oakum. Yet he had been five years +the child of the State, and in that college for the poor! Who would +employ such a youth; with such a reputation; with the smell of the jail +in his very breath? Not your shrewd men of business, they know the risk; +not your respectable men, members of churches and all that; not they! +Why it would hurt a man's reputation for piety to do good in that way. +Besides, the risk is great, and it argues a great deal more Christianity +than it is popular to have, for a respectable man to employ such a +youth. He is forced back into crime again. I say, forced, for honest men +will not employ him when the State shoves him out of the jail. Soon you +will have him in the court again, to be punished more severely. Then he +goes to the State Prison, and then again, and again, till death +mercifully ends his career! + +Who is to blame for all that? I will ask the best man among the best of +you, what he would have become, if thus abandoned, turned out in +childhood, and with no culture, into the streets, to herd with the +wickedest of men! Somebody says, there are "organic sins" in society +which nobody is to blame for. But by this sin organized in society, +these vagrant children are training up to become thieves, pirates and +murderers. I cannot blame them. But there is a terrible blame somewhere, +for it is not the will of God that one of these little ones should +perish. Who is it that organizes the sin of society? + + * * * * * + +Let us next look at the parents of these vagrants, at the adult poor. It +is not easy or needed for this purpose, to define very nicely the limits +of a class, and tell where the rich end, and the poor begin. However, +men may, in reference to this matter, be divided into three classes. The +first acts on society mainly by their capital; the second mainly by +their skill, mental and manual, by educated labor; and the third by +their muscles, by brute force with little or no skill, uneducated labor. +The poor, I take it, come mainly from this latter class. Education of +head or hand, a profession or a trade, is wealth in possibility; yes, +wealth in prospect, wealth in its process of accumulation, for wealth +itself is only accumulated labor, as learning is accumulated thought. +Most of our rich men have come out of this class which acts by its +skill, and their children in a few years will return to it. I am not now +to speak of men transiently poor, who mend their condition as the hours +go by, who may gain enough, and perhaps become rich; but of men +permanently poor, whom one year finds wanting, and the next leaves no +better off; men that live, as we say, from hand to mouth, but whose +hand and mouth are often empty. Even here in Boston, there is little of +the justice that removes causes of poverty, though so much of the +charity which alleviates its effects. Those men live, if you can call it +life, crowded together more densely, I am told, than in Naples or Paris, +in London or Liverpool. Boston has its ghetto, not for the Jews as at +Prague and at Rome, but for brother Christians. In the quarters +inhabited mainly by the poor, you find a filthiness and squalor which +would astonish a stranger. The want of comfort, of air, of water, is +terrible. Cold is a stern foe in our winters, but in these places, I am +told that men suffer more from want of water in summer, than want of +fire in winter.[16] If your bills of mortality were made out so as to +show the deaths in each ward of the city, I think all would be +astonished at the results. Disease and death are the result of causes, +causes too that may for a long time be avoided, and in the more favored +classes are avoided. It is not God's will that the rich be spared and +the poor die. Yet the greatest mortality is always among the poor. Out +of each hundred Catholics who died in Boston, from 1833 to 1838, more +than sixty-one were less than five years of age. The result for the last +six years is no better. Of one hundred children born amongst them, only +thirty-eight live five years; only eleven become fifty! Gray-haired +Irishmen we seldom see. Yet they are not worse off than others equally +poor, only we can more distinctly get at the facts. In the war with +disease which mankind is waging, the poor stand in front of the fire, +and are mowed down without pity! + +Of late years, in Boston, there has been a gradual increase in the +mortality of children.[17] I think we shall find the increase only among +the children of the poor. Of course it depends on causes which may be +removed, at least modified, for the average life of mankind is on the +increase. I am told, I know not if the authority be good, that mortality +among the poor is greater in Boston than in any city of Europe. + +Of old times the rich man rode into battle, shirted with mail, covered +and shielded with iron from head to foot. Arrows glanced from him as +from a stone. He came home unhurt and covered with "glory." But the +poor, in his leathern jerkin or his linen frock, confronted the war, +where every weapon tore his unprotected flesh. In the modern, perennial +battle with disease, the same thing takes place; the poor fall and die. + +The destruction of the poor is their poverty. They are ignorant, not +from choice but necessity. They cannot, therefore, look round and see +the best way of doing things, of saving their strength, and sparing +their means. They can have little of what we call thrift, the brain in +the hand for which our people are so remarkable. Some of them are also +little by nature, ill-born; others well born enough, were abandoned in +childhood, and have not since been able to make up the arrears of a +neglected youth. They are to fight the great battle of life, for battle +it is to them, with feeble arms. Look at the houses they live in, +without comfort or convenience, without sun, or air, or water; damp, +cold, filthy and crowded to excess. In one section of the city there are +thirty-seven persons on an average in each house. + +Consider the rents paid by this class of our brothers. It is they who +pay the highest rate for their dwellings. The worth of the house is +often little more than nothing, the ground it covers making the only +value. I am told that twelve or fifteen per cent a year on a large +valuation is quite commonly paid, and over thirty per cent on the actual +value, is not a strange thing. I wish this might not prove true. + +But the misery of the poor does not end with their wretched houses and +exorbitant rent. Having neither capital nor store-room, they must +purchase articles of daily need in the smallest quantities. They buy, +therefore, at the greatest disadvantage, and yet at the dearest rates. I +am told it is not a rare thing for them to buy inferior qualities of +flour at six cents a pound, or $11.88 a barrel, while another man buys +a month's supply at a time for $4 or $5 a barrel. This may be an extreme +case, but I know that in some places in this city, an inferior article +is now retailed to them at $7.92 the barrel. So it is with all kinds of +food; they are bought in the smallest quantities, and at a rate which a +rich man would think ruinous. Is not the poor man, too, most often +cheated in the weight and the measure? So it is whispered. "He has no +friends," says the sharper; "others have broken him to fragments, I will +grind him to powder!" And the grinding comes. + +Such being the case, the poor man finds it difficult to get a cent +beforehand. I know rich men tell us that capital is at the mercy of +labor. That may be prophecy; it is not history; not fact. Uneducated +labor, brute force without skill, is wholly at the mercy of capital. The +capitalist can control the market for labor, which is all the poor man +has to part with. The poor cannot combine as the rich. True, a mistake +is sometimes made, and the demand for labor is greater than the supply, +and the poor man's wages are increased. This result was doubtless God's +design, but was it man's intention? The condition of the poor has +hitherto been bettered, not so much by the design of the strong, as by +God making their wrath and cupidity serve the weak. + +Under such circumstances, what marvel that the poor man becomes +unthrifty, reckless and desperate? I know how common it is to complain +of the extravagance of the poor. Often there is reason for the +complaint. It is a wrong thing, and immoral, for a man with a dependent +family to spend all his earnings, if it be possible to live with less. I +think many young men are much to be blamed, for squandering all their +wages to please a dainty palate, or to dress as fine as a richer man, +making only the heart of their tailor foolishly glad. Such men may not +be poor now, but destine themselves to be the fathers of poor children. +After making due allowance, it must be confessed that much of the +recklessness of the poor comes unavoidably from their circumstances; +from their despair of ever being comfortable, except for a moment at a +time. Every one knows that unmerited wealth tempts a man to squander, +while few men know, what is just as true, that hopeless poverty does the +same thing. As the tortured Indian will sleep, if his tormentor pause +but a moment, so the poor man, grown reckless and desperate, forgets the +future storms, and wastes in revel the solitary gleam of sunlight which +falls on him. It is nature speaking through his soul. + +Now consider the moral temptations before such men. Here is wealth, +food, clothing, comfort, luxury, gold, the great enchanter of this age, +and but a plank betwixt it and them. Nay, they are shut from it only by +a pane of glass thin as popular justice, and scarcely less brittle! They +feel the natural wants of man; the artificial wants of men in cities. +They are indignant at their social position, thrust into the mews and +the kennels of the land. They think some one is to blame for it. A man +in New England does not believe it God's will he should toil for ever, +stinting and sparing only to starve the more slowly to death, overloaded +with work, with no breathing time but the blessed Sunday. They see +others doing nothing, idle as Solomon's lilies, yet wasting the unearned +bread God made to feed the children of the poor. They see crowds of idle +women elegantly clad, a show of loveliness, a rainbow in the streets, +and think of the rag which does not hide their daughter's shame. They +hear of thousands of baskets of costly wine imported in a single ship, +not brought to recruit the feeble, but to poison the palate of the +strong. They begin to ask if wealthy men and wise men have not forgotten +their brothers, in thinking of their own pleasure! It is not the poor +alone who ask that. In the midst of all this, what wonder is it if they +feel desirous of revenge; what wonder that stores and houses are broken +into, and stables set afire! Such is the natural effect of misery like +that; it is but the voice of our brother's blood crying to God against +us all. I wonder not that it cries in robbery and fire. The jail and the +gallows will not still that voice, nor silence the answer. I wonder at +the fewness of crimes, not their multitude. I must say that, if goodness +and piety did not bear a greater proportion to the whole development of +the poor than the rich, their crimes would be tenfold. The nation sets +the poor an example of fraud, by making them pay highest on all local +taxes; of theft, by levying the national revenue on persons, not +property. Our navy and army set them the lesson of violence; and, to +complete their schooling, at this very moment we are robbing another +people of cities and lands, stealing, burning, and murdering, for lust +of power and gold. Everybody knows that the political action of a nation +is the mightiest educational influence in that nation. But such is the +doctrine the State preaches to them, a constant lesson of fraud, theft, +violence and crime. The literature of the nation mocks at the poor, +laughing in the popular journals at the poor man's inevitable crime. Our +trade deals with the poor as tools, not men. What wonder they feel +wronged! Some city missionary may dawdle the matter as he will; tell +them it is God's will they should be dirty and ignorant, hungry, cold +and naked. Now and then a poor woman starving with cold and hunger may +think it true. But the poor know better; ignorant as they are, they know +better. Great Nature speaks when you and I are still. They feel +neglected, wronged, and oppressed. What hinders them from following the +example set by the nation, by society, by the strong? Their inertness, +their cowardice, and, what does not always restrain abler men, their +fear of God! With cultivated men, the intellect is often developed at +the expense of conscience and religion. With the poor this is more +seldom the case. + +The misfortunes of the poor do not end here. To make their degradation +total, their name infamous, we have shut them out of our churches. Once +in our Puritan meeting-houses, there were "body seats" for the poor; for +a long time free galleries, where men sat and were not ashamed. Now it +is not so. A Christian society about to build a church, and having +$50,000, does not spend $40,000 for that, making it a church for all, +and keep $10,000 as a fund for the poor. No, it borrows $30,000 more, +and then shuts the poor out of its bankrupt aisles. A high tower, or a +fine-toned bell, yes, marble and mahogany, are thought better than the +presence of these little ones whom God wills not to perish. I have heard +ministers boast of the great men, and famous, who sat under their +preaching; never one who boasted that the poor came into his church, and +were fed, body and soul! You go to our churches--the poor are not in +them. They are idling and lounging away their day of rest, like the +horse and the ox. Alas me, that the apostles, that the Christ himself +could not worship in our churches, till he sold his garment and bought a +pew! Many of our houses of public worship would be well named, "Churches +for the affluent." Yet religion is more to the poor man than to the +rich. What wonder then, if the poor lose self-respect, when driven from +the only churches where it is thought respectable to pray! + +This class of men are perishing; yes, perishing in the nineteenth +century; perishing in Boston, wealthy, charitable Boston; perishing soul +and body, contrary to God's will; and perishing all the worse because +they die slow, and corrupt by inches. As things now are, their mortality +is hardly a curse. The Methodists are right in telling them this world +is a valley of tears; it is almost wholly so to them; and Heaven a long +June day, full of rest and plenty. To die is their only gain; their only +hope. Think of that, you who murmur because money is "tight," because +your investment gives only twenty per cent. a year, or because you are +taxed for half your property, meaning to move off next season; think of +that, you who complain because the democrats are in power to-day, and +you who tremble lest the whigs shall be in '49; think of that, you who +were never hungry, nor athirst; who are sick, because you have nothing +else to do, and grumble against God, from mere emptiness of soul, and +for amusement's sake; think of men, who, if wise, do not dare to raise +the human prayer for life, but for death, as the only gain, the only +hope, and you will give over your complaint, your hands stopping your +mouth. + +What shall become of the children of such men? They stand in the +fore-front of the battle, all unprotected as they are; a people +scattered and peeled, only a miserable remnant reaches the age of ten! +Look about your streets, and see what does become of such as live, +vagrant and idle boys. Ask the police, the constables, the jails; they +shall tell you what becomes of the sons. Will a white lily grow in a +common sewer; can you bleach linen in a tan-pit? Yes, as soon as you can +rear a virtuous population, under such circumstances. Go to any State +Prison in the land, and you shall find that seven-eighths of the +convicts came from this class, brought there by crimes over which they +had no control; crimes which would have made you and me thieves and +pirates. The characters of such men are made for them, far more than by +them. There is no more vice, perhaps, born into that class; they have no +more "inherited sin" than any other class in the land; all the +difference, then, between the morals and manners of rich and poor, is +the result of education and circumstances. + +The fate of the daughters of the poor is yet worse. Many of them are +doomed to destruction by the lust of men, their natural guardians and +protectors. Think of an able, "respectable" man, comfortable, educated +and "Christian," helping debase a woman, degrade her in his eyes, her +eyes, the eyes of the world! Why it is bad enough to enslave a man, but +thus to enslave a woman--I have no words to speak of that. The crime +and sin, foul, polluting and debasing all it touches, has come here to +curse man and woman, the married and the single, and the babe unborn! It +seems to me as if I saw the Genius of this city stand before God, +lifting his hands in agony to heaven, crying for mercy on woman, +insulted and trodden down, for vengeance on man, who treads her thus +infamously into the dust. The vengeance comes, not the mercy. Misery in +woman is the strongest inducement to crime. Where self-respect is not +fostered; where severe toil hardly holds her soul and body together amid +the temptations of a city, and its heated life, it is no marvel to me +that this sin should slay its victims, finding woman an easy prey. + +Let me follow the children of the poor a step further--I mean to the +jail. Few men seem aware of the frightful extent of crime amongst us, +and the extent of the remedy, more awful yet. In less than one year, +namely, from the 9th of June, 1845, to the 2d of June, 1846, there were +committed to your House of Correction, in this city, 1,228 persons, a +little more than one out of every fifty-six in the whole population that +is more than ten years old. Of these 377 were women; 851 men. Five were +sentenced for an indefinite period, and forty-seven for an additional +period of solitary imprisonment. In what follows, I make no account of +that. But the whole remaining period of their sentences amounts to more +than 544 years, or 198,568 days. In addition to this, in the year ending +with June 9, 1846, we sent from Boston to the State Prison, thirty-five +more, and for a period of 18,595 days, of which 205 were solitary. Thus +it appears that the illegal and convicted crime of Boston, in one year, +was punished by imprisonment for 217,163 days. Now as Boston contains +but 114,366 persons of all ages, and only 69,112 that are over ten years +of age, it follows that the imprisonment of citizens of Boston for crime +in one year, amounts to more than one day and twenty-one hours, for each +man, woman, and child, or to more than three days and three hours, for +each one over ten years of age. This seems beyond belief, yet in making +the estimate, I have not included the time spent in jail before +sentence; I have left out the solitary imprisonment in the House of +Correction; I have said nothing of the 169 children, sentenced for crime +to the House of Reformation in the same period. + +What is the effect of this punishment on society at large? I will not +now attempt to answer that question. What is it on the criminals +themselves? Let the jail-books answer. Of the whole number, 202 were +sentenced for the second time; 131 for the third; 101 for the fourth; +thirty-eight for the fifth; forty for the sixth; twenty-nine for the +seventh; twenty-three for the eighth; twelve for the ninth; fifty for +the tenth time, or more; and of the criminals punished for the tenth +time, thirty-one were women! Of the thirty-five sent to the State +Prison, fourteen had been there before; of the 1,228 sent to the House +of Correction, only 626 were sent for the first time. + +There are two classes, the victims of society, and the foes of society, +the men that organize its sins, and then tell us nobody is to blame. May +God deal mercifully with the foes; I had rather take my part with the +victims. Yet is there one who wishes to be a foe to mankind? + +Here are the sons of the poor, vagrant in your streets, shut out by +their misery from the culture of the age; growing up to fill your jails, +to be fathers of a race like themselves, and to be huddled into an +infamous grave. Here are the daughters of the poor, cast out and +abandoned, the pariahs of our civilization, training up for a life of +shame and pollution, and coming early to a miserable end. Here are the +poor, daughters and sons, excluded from the refining influences of +modern life, shut out of the very churches by that bar of gold, +ignorant, squalid, hungry and hopeless, wallowing in their death! Are +these the results of modern civilization; this in the midst of the +nineteenth century, in a Christian city full of churches and gold; this +in Boston, which adds $13,000,000 a year to her actual wealth? Is that +the will of God? Tell it not in China; whisper it not in New Holland, +lest the heathen turn pale with horror, and send back your +missionaries, fearing they shall pollute the land! + + * * * * * + +There is yet another class of little ones. I mean the intemperate. +Within the last few years it seems that drunkenness has increased. I +know this is sometimes doubted. But if this fact is not shown by the +increased number of legal convictions for the crime, it is by the sight +of drunken men in public and not arrested. I think I have not visited +the city five times in the last ten months without seeing more or less +men drunk in the streets. The cause of this increase it seems to me is +not difficult to discover. All great movements go forward by +undulations, as the waves of the rising tide come up the beach. Now +comes a great wave reaching far up the shore, and then recedes. The +next, and the next, and the next falls short of the highest mark; yet +the tide is coming in all the while. You see this same undulation in +other popular movements; for example, in politics. Once the great wave +of democracy broke over the central power, washing it clean. Now the +water lies submissive beneath that rock, and humbly licks its feet. In +some other day the popular wave shall break with purifying roar clean +over that haughty stone and wash off the lazy barnacles, heaps of +corrupting drift-weed, and deadly monsters of the deep. By such +seemingly unsteady movements do popular affairs get forward. The +reformed drunkards, it is said, were violent, ill-bred, theatrical, and +only touched the surface. Many respectable men withdrew from the work +soon as the Washingtonians came to it. It was a pity they did so; but +they did. I think the conscience of New England did not trust the +reformed men; that also is a pity. They seem now to have relaxed their +efforts in a great measure, perhaps discouraged at the coldness with +which they have in some quarters been treated. I know not why it is, but +they do not continue so ably the work they once begun. Besides, the +State, it was thought, favored intemperance. It was for a long time +doubted if the license-laws were constitutional; so they were openly set +at nought, for wicked men seize on doubtful opportunities. Then, too, +temperance had gone, a few years ago, as far as it could be expected to +go until certain great obstacles were removed. Many leading men in the +land were practically hostile to temperance, and, with some remarkable +exceptions, still are. The sons of the pilgrims, last Forefathers' day, +could not honor the self-denial of the Puritans without wine! The Alumni +of Harvard University could never, till this season, keep their holidays +without strong drink.[18] If rich men continue to drink without need, +the poor will long continue to be drunk. Vices, like decayed furniture, +go down. They keep their shape, but become more frightful. In this way +the refined man who often drinks, but is never drunk, corrupts hundreds +of men whom he never saw, and without intending it becomes a foe to +society. + +Then, too, some of our influential temperance men aid us no longer. +Beecher is not here; Channing and Ware have gone to their reward. That +other man,[19] benevolent and indefatigable, where is he? He trod the +worm of the still under his feet, but the worm of the pulpit stung him, +and he too is gone; that champion of temperance, that old man eloquent, +driven out of Boston. Why should I not tell an open secret?--driven out +by rum and the Unitarian clergy of Boston. + +Whatsoever the causes may be, I think you see proofs enough of the fact, +that drunkenness has increased within the last few years. You see it in +the men drunken in the streets, in the numerous shops built to gratify +the intemperate man. Some of these are elegant and costly, only for the +rich; others so mean and dirty, that one must be low indeed to wallow +therein. But the same thing is there in both, rum, poison-drink. Many of +these latter are kept by poor men, and the spider's web of the law now +and then catches one of them, though latterly but seldom here. +Sometimes they are kept, and, perhaps, generally owned, by rich men who +drive through the net. I know how hard it is to see through a dollar, +though misery stand behind it, if the dollar be your own, and the misery +belong to your brother. I feel pity for the man who helps ruin his race, +who scatters firebrands and death throughout society, scathing the heads +of rich and poor, and old and young. I would speak charitably of such an +one as of a fellow-sinner. How he can excuse it to his own conscience is +his affair, not mine. I speak only of the fact. For a poor man there may +be some excuse; he has no other calling whereby to gain his bread; he +would not see his own children beg, nor starve, nor steal! To see his +neighbor go to ruin and drag thither his children and wife, was not so +hard. But it is not the shops of the poor men that do most harm! Had +there been none but these, they had long ago been shut, and intemperance +done with. It is not poor men that manufacture this poison; nor they who +import it, or sell by the wholesale. If there were no rich men in this +trade there would soon be no poor ones! But how does the rich man +reconcile it to his conscience? I cannot answer that. + +It is difficult to find out the number of drink-shops in the city. The +assessors say there are eight hundred and fifty; another authority makes +the number twelve hundred. Let us suppose there are but one thousand. I +think that much below the real number, for the assistant assessors +found three hundred in a single ward! These shops are open morning and +night. More is sold on Sunday, it is said, than any other day in the +week! While you are here to worship your Father, some of your brothers +are making themselves as beasts; yes, lower. You shall probably see them +at the doors of these shops as you go home; drunk in the streets this +day! To my mind, the retailers are committing a great offence. I am no +man's judge, and cannot condemn even them. There is one that judgeth. I +cannot stand in the place of any man's conscience. I know well enough +what is sin; God, only, who is a sinner. Yet I cannot think the poor man +that retails, half so bad as the rich man who distils, imports, or sells +by wholesale the infamous drug. He knew better, and cannot plead poverty +as the excuse of his crime. + +Let me mention some of the statistics of this trade before I speak of +its effects. If there are one thousand drink-shops, and each sells +liquor to the amount of only six dollars a day, which is the price of +only one hundred drams, or two hundred at the lowest shops, then we have +the sum of $2,190,000 paid for liquor to be drunk on the spot every +year. This sum is considerably more than double the amount paid for the +whole public education of the people in the entire State of +Massachusetts! In Boston alone, last year, there were distilled, +2,873,623 gallons of spirit. In five years, from 1840 to 1845, Boston +exported 2,156,990, and imported 2,887,993 gallons. They burnt up a man +the other day, at the distillery in Merrimack street. You read the story +in the daily papers, and remember how the by-standers looked on with +horror to see the wounded man attempting with his hands to fend off the +flames from his naked head! Great Heaven! It was not the first man that +distillery has burned up! No, not by thousands. You see men about your +streets, all afire; some half-burnt down; some with all the soul burned +out, only the cinders left of the man, the shell and wall, and that +tumbling and tottering, ready to fall. Who of you has not lost a +relative, at least a friend, in that withering flame, that terrible +_Auto da fe_, that hell-fire on earth? + +Let us look away from that. I wish we could look on something to efface +that ghastly sight. But see the results of this trade. Do you wonder at +the poverty just now spoken of; at the vagrant children? In the Poor +House at Albany, at one time, there were 633 persons, and of them 615 +were intemperate! Ask your city authorities how many of the poor are +brought to their Almshouse directly or remotely by intemperance! Do you +wonder at the crime which fills your jails, and swells the tax of county +and city? Three fourths of the petty crime in the State comes from this +source directly or remotely. Your jails were never so full before! When +the parents are there, what is left for the children? In Prussia, the +Government which imprisons the father takes care of the children, and +sends them to school. Here they are forced into crime. + +As I gave some statistics of the cause, let me also give some of the +effects. Two years ago your Grand Jury reports that one of the city +police, on Sunday morning, between the hours of twelve and two, in +walking from Cornhill square to Cambridge street, passed more than one +hundred persons more or less drunk! In 1844 there were committed to your +House of Correction, for drunkenness, 453 persons; in 1845, 595; in +1846, up to the 24th of August, that is, in seven months and twenty-four +days, 446. Besides there have been already in this year, 396 complained +of at the Police Court and fined, but not sent to the House of +Correction. Thus, in seven months and twenty-four days, 842 persons have +been legally punished for public drunkenness. In the last two months and +a half 445 persons were thus punished. In the first twenty-four days of +this month, ninety-four! In the last year there were 4,643 persons +committed to your watch-houses, more than the twenty-fifth of the whole +population. The thousand drink-shops levy a direct tax of more than +$2,000,000. That is only the first outlay. The whole ultimate cost in +idleness, sickness, crime, death and broken hearts--I leave you to +calculate that! The men who live in the lower courts, familiar with the +sinks of iniquity, speak of this crime as "most awful!" Yet in this +month and the last, there were but nine persons indicted for the illegal +sale of the poison which so wastes the people's life! The head of your +Police and the foreman of your last Grand Jury are prominent in that +trade. + +Does the Government know of these things; know of their cause? One would +hope not. The last Grand Jury in their public report, after speaking +manfully of some actual evils, instead of pointing at drunkenness and +bar-rooms, direct your attention "to the increased number of omnibuses +and other large carriages in the streets." + + * * * * * + +These are sad things to think of in a Christian church. What shall we do +for all these little ones that are perishing? "Do nothing," say some. +"Am I my brother's keeper?" asked the first Cain, after killing that +brother. He thought the answer would be, "No! you are not." But he was +his brother's keeper, and Abel's blood cried from the ground for +justice, and God heard it. Some say we can do nothing. I will never +believe that a city which in twelve years can build near a thousand +miles of railroad, hedge up the Merrimack and the lakes of New +Hampshire; I will never believe that a city, so full of the hardiest +enterprise and the noblest charity, cannot keep these little ones from +perishing. Why the nation can annex new States and raise armies at +uncounted cost. Can it not extirpate pauperism, prevent intemperance, +pluck up the causes of the present crime? All that is lacking is the +prudent will! + +It seems as if something could easily be done to send the vagrant +children to school; at least to give them employment, and so teach them +some useful art. If some are Catholics, and will not attend the +Protestant schools, perhaps it would be as possible to have a special +and separate school for the Irish as for the Africans. It was recently +proposed in a Protestant assembly to found Sunday Schools, with Catholic +teachers for Catholic children. The plan is large and noble, and +indicates a liberality which astonishes one even here, where some men +are ceasing to be sectarian and becoming human. Much may be done to +bring many of the children to our Sunday and week-day schools, as they +now are, and so brands be snatched from the burning. The State Farm +School for juvenile offenders, which a good man last winter suggested to +your Legislature, will doubtless do much for these idle boys, and may be +the beginning of a greater and better work. Could the State also take +care of the children when it locks the parents in a jail, there would be +a nearer approach to justice and greater likelihood of obtaining its +end. Still the laws act cumbrously and slow. The great work must be done +by good men, acting separately or in concert, in their private way. You +are your brother's keeper; God made you so. If you are rich, +intelligent, refined and religious, why you are all the more a keeper to +the poor, the weak, the vulgar and the wicked. In the pauses of your +work there will be time to do something. In the unoccupied hours of the +Sunday there is yet leisure to help a brother's need. If there are times +when you are disposed to murmur at your own hard lot, though it is not +hard; or hours when grief presses heavy on your heart, go and look after +these children, find them employment, and help them to start in life; +you will find your murmurings are ended, and your sorrow forgot. + +It does not seem difficult to do something for the poor. It would be +easy to provide comfortable and convenient houses and at a reasonable +rate. The experiment has been tried by one noble-hearted man, and thus +far works well. I trust the same plan, or one better, if possible, will +soon be tried on a larger scale, and so repeated, till we are free from +that crowding together of miserable persons, which now disgraces our +city. It seems to me that a store might be established where articles of +good quality should be furnished to the poor at cost. Something has +already been done in this way, by the "Trade's Union," who need it much +less. A practical man could easily manage the details of such a scheme. +All reform and elevation of this class of men must begin by mending +their circumstances, though of course it must not end there. Expect no +improvement of men that are hungry, naked, and cold. Few men respect +themselves in that condition. Hope not of others what would be +impossible for you! + +You may give better pay when that is possible. I can hardly think it the +boast of a man, that he has paid less for his labor than any other in +his calling. But it is a common boast, though to me it seems the glory +of a pirate! I cannot believe there is that sharp distinction between +week-day religion and Sunday religion, or between justice and charity, +that is sometimes pretended. A man both just and charitable would find +his charity run over into his justice, and the mixture improve its +quality. When I remember that all value is the result of work, and see +likewise that no man gets rich by his own work, I cannot help thinking +that labor is often wickedly underpaid, and capital sometimes as grossly +over-fed. I shall believe that capital is at the mercy of labor, when +the two extremes of society change places. Is it Christian or manly to +reduce wages in hard times, and not raise them in fair times? and not +raise them again in extraordinary times? Is it God's will that large +dividends and small wages should be paid at the same time? The duty of +the employer is not over, when he has paid "the hands" their wages. +Abraham is a special providence for Eliezer, as God, the universal +providence, for both. The usages of society make a sharp distinction +between the rich and poor; but I cannot believe the churches have done +wisely, by making that distinction appear through separating the two, in +their worship. The poor are, undesignedly, driven out of the respectable +churches. They lose self-respect; lose religion. Those that remain, what +have they gained by this expulsion of their brothers? A beautiful and +costly house, but a church without the poor. The Catholics were wiser +and more humane than that. I cannot believe the mightiest abilities and +most exquisite culture were ever too great to preach and apply +Christianity among the poor; and that "the best sermons would be wasted +on them." Yet such has not been the practical decision here! I trust we +shall yet be able to say of all our churches, however costly, "There the +rich and poor meet together." They are now equally losers by the +separation. The seventy ministers of Boston--how much they can do for +this class of little ones, if they will! + +It has been suggested by some kindly and wise men, that there should be +a Prisoners' Home established, where the criminal, on being released +from jail, could go and find a home and work. As the case now is, there +is almost no hope for the poor offender. "Legal justice" proves often +legal vengeance, and total ruin to the poor wretch on whom it falls; it +grinds him to powder! All reform of criminals, without such a place, +seems to me worse than hopeless. If possible, such an institution seems +more needed for the women, than even for the men: but I have not now +time to dwell on this theme. You know the efforts of two good men +amongst us, who, with slender means, and no great encouragement from the +public, are indeed the friends of the prisoner.[20] God bless them in +their labors. + +We can do something in all these schemes for helping the poor. Each of +us can do something in his own sphere, and now and then step out of that +sphere to do something more. I know there are many amongst you, who only +require a word before they engage in this work, and some who do not +require even that, but are more competent than I to speak that word. +Your Committee of Benevolent Action have not been idle. Their works +speak for them. + + * * * * * + +For the suppression of intemperance, redoubled efforts must be made. Men +of wealth, education and influence must use their strength of nature, or +position, to protect their brothers, not drive them down to ruin. +Temperance cannot advance much further among the people, until this +class of men lend their aid; at least, until they withdraw the obstacles +they have hitherto and so often opposed to its progress. They must +forbear the use, as well as the traffic. I cannot but think the time is +coming, when he who makes or sells this poison as a drink, will be +legally ranked with other poisoners, with thieves, robbers, and +house-burners; when a fortune acquired by such means will be thought +infamous, as one now would be if acquired by piracy! I know good men +have formerly engaged in this trade; they did it ignorantly. Now, we +know the unavoidable effects thereof. I trust the excellent example +lately set by the Government of the University, will be followed at all +public festivals. + +We must still have a watchful eye on the sale of this poison. It is not +the low shops which do the most harm, but the costly tippling-houses +which keep the low ones in countenance, and thus shield them from the +law and public feeling. It seems as if a law were needed, making the +owner of a tippling-house responsible for the illegal sale of liquors +there. Then the real offender might be reached, who now escapes the +meshes of the law. + +It has long ago been suggested that a Temperance Home was needed for the +reformation of the unfortunate drunkard. It is plain that the jail does +not reform him. Those sent to jail for drunkenness are, on the average, +sentenced no less than five times; some of them, fifteen or twenty +times! Of what use to shut a man in a jail, and release him with the +certainty that he will come out no better, and soon return for the same +offence? When as much zeal and ability are directed to cure this +terrible public malady, as now go to increase it, we shall not thus +foolishly waste our strength. You all know how much has been done by one +man in this matter;[21] that in four years he saved three hundred +drunkards from the prison, two hundred of whom have since done well! If +it be the duty of the State to prevent crime, not avenge it, is it not +plain what is the way? + +However, a reform in this matter will be permanent only through a deeper +and wider reform elsewhere. Drunkenness and theft in its various illegal +forms, are confined almost wholly to the poorest class. So long as there +is unavoidable misery, like the present, pauperism and popular +ignorance; so long as thirty-seven are crowded into one house, and that +not large; so long as men are wretched and without hope, there will be +drunkenness. I know much has been done already; I think drunkenness will +never be respectable again, or common amongst refined and cultivated +men; it will be common among the ignorant, the outcast and the +miserable, so long as the present causes of poverty, ignorance and +misery continue. For that continuance, and the want, the crime, the +unimaginable wretchedness and death of heart which comes thereof, it is +not these perishing little ones, but the strong that are responsible +before God! It will not do for your grand juries to try and hide the +matter by indicting "omnibuses and other large carriages;" the voice of +God cries, Where is thy brother?--and that brother's blood answers from +the ground. + +What I have suggested only palliates effects; it removes no cause;--of +that another time. These little ones are perishing here in the midst of +us. Society has never seriously sought to prevent it, perhaps has not +been conscious of the fact. It has not so much legislated for them as +against them. Its spirit is hostile to them. If the mass of able-headed +men were in earnest about this, think you they would allow such +unthrifty ways, such a waste of man's productive energies? Never! no, +never. They would repel the causes of this evil as now an invading army. +The removal of these troubles must be brought about by a great change in +the spirit of society. Society is not Christian in form or spirit. So +there are many who do not love to hear Christianity preached and +applied, but to have some halting theology set upon its crutches. They +like, on Sundays, to hear of the sacrifice, not to have mercy and +goodness demanded of them. A Christian State after the pattern of that +divine man, Jesus--how different it would be from this in spirit and in +form! + +Taking all this whole State into account, things, on the whole, are +better here, than in any similar population, after all these evils. I +think there can be no doubt of that; better now, on the whole, than +ever before. A day's work will produce a greater quantity of needful +things than hitherto. So the number of little ones that perish is +smaller than heretofore, in proportion to the whole mass. I do not +believe the world can show such examples of public charity as this city +has afforded in the last fifty years. Alas! we want the justice which +prevents causes no less than the charity which palliates effects. See +yet the unnatural disparity in man's condition: bloated opulence and +starving penury in the same street! See the pauperism, want, +licentiousness, intemperance and crime in the midst of us; see the havoc +made of woman; see the poor deserted by their elder brother, while it is +their sweat which enriches your ground, builds your railroads, and piles +up your costly houses. The tall gallows stands in the back-ground of +society, overlooking it all; where it should be the blessed gospel of +the living God. + +What we want to remove the cause of all this is the application of +Christianity to social life. Nothing less will do the work. Each of us +can help forward that by doing the part which falls in his way. +Christianity, like the eagle's flight, begins at home. We can go +further, and do something for each of these classes of little ones. Then +we shall help others do the same. Some we may encourage to practical +Christianity by our example; some we may perhaps shame. Still more, we +can ourselves be pure, manly, Christian; each of us that, in heart and +life. We can build up a company of such, men of perpetual growth. Then +we shall be ready not only for this special work now before us, to +palliate effects, but for every Christian and manly duty when it comes. +Then, if ever some scheme is offered which is nobler and yet more +Christian than what we now behold, it will find us booted, and girded, +and road-ready. + +I look to you to do something in this matter. You are many; most of you +are young. I look to you to set an example of a noble life, human, clean +and Christian, not debasing these little ones, but lifting them up. Will +you cause them to perish; you? I know you will not. Will you let them +perish? I cannot believe it. Will you not prevent their perishing? +Nothing less is your duty. + +Some men say they will do nothing to help liberate the slave, because he +is afar off, and "our mission is silence!" Well--here are sufferers in a +nearer need. Do you say, I can do but little to Christianize society! +Very well, do that little, and see if it does not amount to much, and +bring its own blessing--the thought that you have given a cup of cold +water to one of the little ones. Did not Jesus say, "Inasmuch as ye have +done it unto one of the least of these ye have done it unto me?" + +Since last we met, one of our number[22] has taken that step in life +commonly called death. He was deeply interested and active in the +movement for the perishing classes of men. After his spirit had passed +on, a woman whom he had rescued, and her children with her, from +intemperance and ruin, came and laid her hand on that cold forehead +whence the kindly soul had fled, and mourning that her failures had +often grieved his heart before, vowed solemnly to keep steadfast +forever, and go back to evil ways no more! Who would not wish his +forehead the altar for such a vow? what nobler monument to a good man's +memory! The blessing of those ready to perish fell on him. If his hand +cannot help us, his example may. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[16] This evil is now happily removed, and all men rejoice in a cheap +and abundant supply of pure water. + +[17] See the valuable tables and remarks, by Mr. Shattuck, in his Census +of Boston, pp. 136-177. + +[18] For this much needed reform at the academical table, we are +indebted to the Hon. Edward Everett, the President of Harvard College. +For this he deserves the hearty thanks of the whole community. + +[19] Rev. John Pierpont. + +[20] The editors of the "Prisoners' Friend." + +[21] Mr. John Augustus. + +[22] Nathaniel F. Thayer, aged 29. + + + + +VII. + +A SERMON OF MERCHANTS.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER +22, 1846. + +ECCLESIASTICUS XXVII. 2. + + As a nail sticketh fast between the joinings of the stones; + so doth sin stick close between buying and selling. + + +I ask your attention to a Sermon of Merchants, their Position, +Temptations, Opportunities, Influence and Duty. For the present purpose, +men may be distributed into four classes. + +I. Men who create new material for human use, either by digging it out +of mines and quarries, fishing it out of the sea, or raising it out of +the land. These are direct producers. + +II. Men who apply their head and hands to this material and transform it +into other shapes, fitting it for human use; men that make grain into +flour and bread, cotton into cloth, iron into needles or knives, and the +like. These are indirect producers; they create not the material, but +its fitness, use, or beauty. They are manufacturers. + +III. Men who simply use these things, when thus produced and +manufactured. They are consumers. + +IV. Men who buy and sell: who buy to sell, and sell to buy the more. +They fetch and carry between the other classes. These are distributors; +they are the Merchants. Under this name I include the whole class who +live by buying and selling, and not merely those conventionally called +merchants, to distinguish them from small dealers. This term comprises +traders behind counters and traders behind desks; traders neither behind +counters nor desks. + +There are various grades of merchants. They might be classed and +symbolized according as they use a basket, a wheelbarrow, a cart, a +stall, a booth, a shop, a warehouse, counting-room, or bank. Still all +are the same thing--men who live by buying and selling. A ship is only a +large basket, a warehouse, a costly stall. Your peddler is a small +merchant going round from house to house with his basket to mediate +between persons; your merchant only a great peddler sending round from +land to land with his ships to mediate between nations. The Israelitish +woman who sits behind a bench in her stall on the Rialto at Venice, +changing gold into silver and copper, or loaning money to him who leaves +hat, coat, and other collaterals in pledge, is a small banker. The +Israelitish man who sits at Frankfort on the Maine, changes drafts into +specie, and lends millions to men who leave in pledge a mortgage on the +States of the Church, Austria or Russia--is a pawnbroker and +money-changer on a large scale. By this arithmetic, for present +convenience, all grades of merchants are reduced to one +denomination--men who live by buying and selling. + +All these four classes run into one another. The same man may belong to +all at the same time. All are needed. At home a merchant is a mediator +to go between the producer and the manufacturer; between both and the +consumer. On a large scale he is the mediator who goes between +continents, between producing and manufacturing States, between both and +consuming countries. The calling is founded in the state of society, as +that in a compromise between man's permanent nature and transient +condition. So long as there are producers and consumers, there must be +distributors. The value of the calling depends on its importance; its +usefulness is the measure of its respectability. The most useful calling +must be the noblest. If it is difficult, demanding great ability and +self-sacrifice, it is yet more noble. A useless calling is disgraceful; +one that injures mankind--infamous. Tried by this standard, the +producers seem nobler than the distributors; they than the mere +consumers. This may not be the popular judgment now, but must one day +become so, for mankind is slowly learning to judge by the natural law +published by Jesus--that he who would be greatest of all, must be most +effectively the servant of all. + +There are some who do not seem to belong to any of the active classes, +who are yet producers, manufacturers, and distributors by their head, +more than their hand; men who have fertile heads, producers, +manufacturers, and distributors of thought, active in the most creative +way. Here, however, the common rule is inverted: the producers are +few--men of genius; the manufacturers many--men of talent; the +distributors--men of tact, men who remember, and talk with tongue or +pen, their name is legion. I will not stop to distribute them into their +classes, but return to the merchant. + +The calling of the merchant acquires a new importance in modern times. +Once nations were cooped up, each in its own country and language. Then +war was the only mediator between them. They met but on the +battle-field, or in solemn embassies to treat for peace. Now trade is +the mediator. They meet on the exchange. To the merchant, no man who can +trade is a foreigner. His wares prove him a citizen. Gold and silver are +cosmopolitan. Once, in some of the old governments, the magistrates +swore, "I will be evil-minded towards the people, and will devise +against them the worst thing I can." Now they swear to keep the laws +which the people have made. Once the great question was, How large is +the standing army? Now, What is the amount of the national earnings? +Statesmen ask less about the ships of the line, than about the ships of +trade. They fear an over-importation oftener than a war, and settle +their difficulties in gold and silver, not as before with iron. All +ancient states were military; the modern mercantile. War is getting out +of favor as property increases and men get their eyes open. Once every +man feared death, captivity, or at least robbery in war; now the worst +fear is of bankruptcy and pauperism. + +This is a wonderful change. Look at some of the signs thereof. Once +castles and forts were the finest buildings; now exchanges, shops, +custom-houses, and banks. Once men built a Chinese wall to keep out the +strangers--for stranger and foe were the same; now men build railroads +and steamships to bring them in. England was once a strong-hold of +robbers, her four seas but so many castle-moats; now she is a great +harbor with four ship-channels. Once her chief must be a bold, cunning +fighter; now a good steward and financier. Not to strike a hard blow, +but to make a good bargain is the thing. Formerly the most enterprising +and hopeful young men sought fame and fortune in deeds of arms; now an +army is only a common sewer, and most of those who go to the war, if +they never return, "have left their country for their country's good." +In days gone by, constructive art could build nothing better than +hanging gardens, and the pyramids--foolishly sublime; now it makes +docks, canals, iron roads and magnetic telegraphs. Saint Louis, in his +old age, got up a crusade, and saw his soldiers die of the fever at +Tunis; now the King of the French sets up a factory, and will clothe his +people in his own cottons and woollens. The old Douglas and Percy were +clad in iron, and harried the land on both sides of the Tweed; their +descendants now are civil-suited men who keep the peace. No girl +trembles, though "All the blue bonnets are over the border." The warrior +has become a shopkeeper. + + "Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt; + The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt, + The Douglas in red herrings; + And noble name and cultured land, + Palace and park, and vassal band, + Are powerless to the notes of hand + Of Rothschild or the Barings." + +Of merchants there are three classes. + +I. Merchant-producers, who deal in labor applied to the direct creation +of new material. They buy labor and land, to sell them in corn, cotton, +coal, timber, salt, and iron. + +II. Merchant-manufacturers, who deal in labor applied to transforming +that material. They buy labor, wool, cotton, silk, water-privileges and +steam-power, to sell them all in finished cloth. + +III. Merchant-traders, who simply distribute the article raised or +manufactured. These three divisions I shall speak of as one body. +Property is accumulated labor; wealth or riches a great deal of +accumulated labor. As a general rule, merchants are the only men who +become what we call rich. There are exceptions, but they are rare, and +do not affect the remarks which are to follow. It is seldom that a man +becomes rich by his own labor employed in producing or manufacturing. It +is only by using other men's labor that any one becomes rich. A man's +hands will give him sustenance, not affluence. In the present condition +of society this is unavoidable; I do not say in a normal condition, but +in the present condition. + + * * * * * + +Here in America the position of this class is the most powerful and +commanding in society. They own most of the property of the nation. The +wealthy men are of this class; in practical skill, administrative +talent, in power to make use of the labor of other men, they surpass all +others. Now, wealth is power, and skill is power--both to a degree +unknown before. This skill and wealth are more powerful with us than any +other people, for there is no privileged caste, priest, king, or noble, +to balance against them. The strong hand has given way to the able and +accomplished head. Once head armor was worn on the outside, and of +brass, now it is internal and of brains. + +To this class belongs the power both of skill and of wealth, and all the +advantages which they bring. It was never so before in the whole history +of man. It is more so in the United States than in any other place. I +know the high position of the merchants in Venice, Pisa, Florence, +Nuremberg and Basel, in the middle ages and since. Those cities were +gardens in a wilderness, but a fringe of soldiers hung round their +turreted walls; the trader was dependent on the fighter, and though +their merchants became princes, they were yet indebted to the sword, and +not entirely to their calling, for defence. Their palaces were half +castles, and their ships full of armed men. Besides those were little +States. Here the merchant's power is wholly in his gold and skill. Rome +is the city of priests; Vienna for nobles; Berlin for scholars; the +American cities for merchants. In Italy the roads are poor, the +banking-houses humble; the cots of the laborer mean and bare, but +churches and palaces are beautiful and rich. God is painted as a pope. +Generally in Europe, the clergy, the soldiers, and the nobles are the +controlling class. The finest works of art belong to them, represent +them, and have come from the corporation of priests, or the corporation +of fighters. Here a new era is getting symbolized in our works of art. +They are banks, exchanges, custom-houses, factories, railroads. These +come of the corporation of merchants; trade is the great thing. Nobody +tries to secure the favor of the army or navy--but of the merchants. + +Once there was a permanent class of fighters. Their influence was +supreme. They had the power of strong arms, of disciplined valor, and +carried all before them. They made the law and broke it. Men complained, +grumbling in their beard, but got no redress. They it was that possessed +the wealth of the land. The producer, the manufacturer, the distributor +could not get rich: only the soldier, the armed thief, the robber. With +wealth they got its power; by practice gained knowledge, and so the +power thereof; or, when that failed, bought it of the clergy, the only +class possessing literary and scientific skill. They made their calling +"noble," and founded the aristocracy of soldiers. Young men of talent +took to arms. Trade was despised and labor was menial. Their science is +at this day the science of kings. When graziers travel they look at +cattle; weavers at factories; philanthropists at hospitals; dandies at +their equals and coadjutors; and kings at armies. Those fighters made +the world think that soldiers were our first men, and murder of their +brothers the noblest craft in the world; the only honorable and manly +calling. The butcher of swine and oxen was counted vulgar--the butcher +of men and women great and honorable. Foolish men of the past think so +now; hence their terror at orations against war; hence their admiration +for a red coat; their zeal for some symbol of blood in their family +arms; hence their ambition for military titles when abroad. Most foolish +men are more proud of their ambiguous Norman ancestor who fought at the +battle of Hastings--or fought not--than of all the honest mechanics and +farmers who have since ripened on the family tree. The day of the +soldiers is well-nigh over. The calling brings low wages and no honor. +It opens with us no field for ambition. A passage of arms is a passage +that leads to nothing. That class did their duty at that time. They +founded the aristocracy of soldiers--their symbol the sword. Mankind +would not stop there. Then came a milder age and established the +aristocracy of birth--its symbol the cradle, for the only merit of that +sort of nobility, and so its only distinction, is to have been born. But +mankind who stopped not at the sword, delays but little longer at the +cradle; leaping forward it founds a third order of nobility, the +aristocracy of gold, its symbol the purse. We have got no further on. +Shall we stop there? There comes a to-morrow after every to-day, and no +child of time is just like the last. The aristocracy of gold has faults +enough, no doubt, this feudalism of the nineteenth century. But it is +the best thing of its kind we have had yet; the wisest, the most human. +We are going forward and not back. God only knows when we shall stop, +and where. Surely not now, nor here. + +Now the merchants in America occupy the place which was once held by the +fighters and next by the nobles. In our country we have balanced into +harmony the centripetal power of the government, and the centrifugal +power of the people: so have national unity of action, and individual +variety of action--personal freedom. Therefore a vast amount of talent +is active here which lies latent in other countries, because that +harmony is not established there. Here the army and navy offer few +inducements to able and aspiring young men. They are fled to as the last +resort of the desperate, or else sought for their traditional glory, not +their present value. In Europe, the army, the navy, the parliament or +the court, the church and the learned professions offer brilliant prizes +to ambitious men. Thither flock the able and the daring. Here such men +go into trade. It is better for a man to have set up a mill than to have +won a battle. I deny not the exceptions. I speak only of the general +rule. Commerce and manufactures offer the most brilliant +rewards--wealth, and all it brings. Accordingly the ablest men go into +the class of merchants. The strongest men in Boston, taken as a body, +are not lawyers, doctors, clergymen, book-wrights, but merchants. I deny +not the presence of distinguished ability in each of those professions; +I am now again only speaking of the general rule. I deny not the +presence of very weak men, exceedingly weak in this class; their money +their only source of power. + +The merchants then are the prominent class; the most respectable, the +most powerful. They know their power, but are not yet fully aware of +their formidable and noble position at the head of the nation. Hence +they are often ashamed of their calling; while their calling is the +source of their wealth, their knowledge, and their power, and should be +their boast and their glory. You see signs of this ignorance and this +shame: there must not be shops under your Athenæum, it would not be in +good taste; you may store tobacco, cider, rum, under the churches, out +of sight, you must have no shop there; it would be vulgar. It is not +thought needful, perhaps not proper, for the merchant's wife and +daughter to understand business, it would not be becoming. Many are +ashamed of their calling, and, becoming rich, paint on the doors of +their coach, and engrave on their seal, some lion, griffin, or unicorn, +with partisans and maces to suit; arms they have no right to, perhaps +have stolen out of some book of heraldry. No man paints thereon a box of +sugar, or figs, or candles couchant; a bale of cotton rampant; an axe, a +lapstone, or a shoe hammer saltant. Yet these would be noble, and +Christian withal. The fighters gloried in their horrid craft, and so +made it pass for noble, but with us a great many men would be thought +"the tenth transmitter of a foolish face," rather than honest artists of +their own fortune; prouder of being born than of having lived never so +manfully. + +In virtue of its strength and position, this class is the controlling +one in politics. It mainly enacts the laws of this State and the nation; +makes them serve its turn. Acting consciously or without consciousness, +it buys up legislators when they are in the market; breeds them when the +market is bare. It can manufacture governors, senators, judges, to suit +its purposes, as easily as it can make cotton cloth. It pays them money +and honors; pays them for doing its work, not another's. It is fairly +and faithfully represented by them. Our popular legislators are made in +its image; represent its wisdom, foresight, patriotism and conscience. +Your Congress is its mirror. + +This class is the controlling one in the churches, none the less, for +with us fortunately the churches have no existence independent of the +wealth and knowledge of the people. In the same way it buys up the +clergymen, hunting them out all over the land; the clergymen who will do +its work, putting them in comfortable places. It drives off such as +interfere with its work, saying, "Go starve, you and your children!" It +raises or manufactures others to suit its taste. + +The merchants build mainly the churches, endow theological schools; they +furnish the material sinews of the church. Hence the metropolitan +churches are in general as much commercial as the shops. + + * * * * * + +Now from this position, there come certain peculiar temptations. One is +to an extravagant desire of wealth. They see that money is power, the +most condensed and flexible form thereof. It is always ready; it will +turn any way. They see that it gives advantages to their children which +nothing else will give. The poor man's son, however well born, +struggling for a superior education, obtains his culture at a monstrous +cost; with the sacrifice of pleasure, comfort, the joys of youth, often +of eyesight and health. He must do two men's work at once--learn and +teach at the same time. He learns all by his soul, nothing from his +circumstances. If he have not an iron body as well as an iron head, he +dies in that experiment of the cross. The land is full of poor men who +have attained a superior culture, but carry a crippled body through all +their life. The rich man's son needs not that terrible trial. He learns +from his circumstances, not his soul. The air about him contains a +diffused element of thought. He learns without knowing it. Colleges open +their doors; accomplished teachers stand ready; science and art, music +and literature, come at the rich man's call. All the outward means of +educating, refining, elevating a child, are to be had for money, and for +money alone. + +Then, too, wealth gives men a social position, which nothing else save +the rarest genius can obtain, and which that, in the majority of cases +lacking the commercial conscience, is sure not to get. Many men prize +this social rank above every thing else, even above justice and a life +unstained. + +Since it thus gives power, culture for one's children, and a +distinguished social position, rank amongst men, for the man and his +child after him, there is a temptation to regard money as the great +object of life, not a means but an end; the thing a man is to get even +at the risk of getting nothing else. It "answereth all things." Here and +there you find a man who has got nothing else. Men say of such an one, +"He is worth a million!" There is a terrible sarcasm in common speech, +which all do not see. He is "worth a million," and that is all; not +worth truth, goodness, piety; not worth a man. I must say, I cannot but +think there are many such amongst us. Most rich men, I am told, have +mainly gained wealth by skill, foresight, industry, economy, by +honorable painstaking, not by trick. It may be so. I hope it is. Still +there is a temptation to count wealth the object of life--the thing to +be had if they have nothing else. + +The next temptation is to think any means justifiable which lead to that +end,--the temptation to fraud, deceit, to lying in its various forms, +active and passive; the temptation to abuse the power of this natural +strength, or acquired position, to tyrannize over the weak, to get and +not give an equivalent for what they get. If a man get from the world +more than he gives an equivalent for, to that extent he is a beggar and +gets charity, or a thief and steals; at any rate, the rest of the world +is so much the poorer for him. The temptation to fraud of this sort, in +some of its many forms, is very great. I do not believe that all trade +must be gambling or trickery, the merchant a knave or a gambler. I know +some men say so. But I do not believe it. I know it is not so now; all +actual trade, and profitable too, is not knavery. I know some become +rich by deceit. I cannot but think these are the exceptions; that the +most successful have had the average honesty and benevolence, with more +than the average industry, foresight, prudence and skill. A man foresees +future wants of his fellows, and provides for them; sees new resources +hitherto undeveloped, anticipates new habits and wants; turns wood, +stone, iron, coal, rivers and mountains to human use, and honestly earns +what he takes. I am told, by some of their number, that the merchants of +this place rank high as men of integrity and honor, above mean cunning, +but enterprising, industrious and far-sighted. In comparison with some +other places, I suppose it is true. Still I must admit the temptation to +fraud is a great one; that it is often yielded to. Few go to a great +extreme of deceit--they are known and exposed: but many to a +considerable degree. He that makes haste to be rich is seldom innocent. +Young men say it is hard to be honest; to do by others as you would wish +them to do by you. I know it need not be so. Would not a reputation for +uprightness and truth be a good capital for any man, old or young? + +This class owns the machinery of society, in great measure,--the ships, +factories, shops, water privileges, houses and the like. This brings +into their employment large masses of working men, with no capital but +muscles or skill. The law leaves the employed at the employer's mercy. +Perhaps this is unavoidable. One wishes to sell his work dear, the other +to get it cheap as he can. It seems to me no law can regulate this +matter, only conscience, reason, the Christianity of the two parties. +One class is strong, the other weak. In all encounters of these two, on +the field of battle, or in the market-place, we know the result: the +weaker is driven to the wall. When the earthen and iron vessel strike +together, we know beforehand which will go to pieces. The weaker class +can seldom tell their tale, so their story gets often suppressed in the +world's literature, and told only in outbreaks and revolutions. Still +the bold men who wrote the Bible, Old Testament and New, have told +truths on this theme which others dared not tell--terrible words which +it will take ages of Christianity to expunge from the world's memory. + +There is a strong temptation to use one's power of nature or position to +the disadvantage of the weak. This may be done consciously or +unconsciously. There are examples enough of both. Here the merchant +deals in the labor of men. This is a legitimate article of traffic, and +dealing in it is quite indispensable in the present condition of +affairs. In the Southern States, the merchant, whether producer, +manufacturer or trader, owns men and deals in their labor, or their +bodies. He uses their labor, giving them just enough of the result of +that labor to keep their bodies in the most profitable working state; +the rest of that result he steals for his own use, and by that residue +becomes rich and famous. He owns their persons and gets their labor by +direct violence, though sanctioned by law. That is slavery. He steals +the man and his labor. Here it is possible to do a similar thing: I mean +it is possible to employ men and give them just enough of the result of +their labor to keep up a miserable life, and yourself take all the rest +of the result of that labor. This may be done consciously or otherwise, +but legally, without direct violence, and without owning the person. +This is not slavery, though only one remove from it. This is the tyranny +of the strong over the weak; the feudalism of money; stealing a man's +work, and not his person. The merchants as a class are exposed to this +very temptation. Sometimes it is yielded to. Some large fortunes have +been made in this way. Let me mention some extreme cases; one from +abroad, one near at home. In Belgium the average wages of men in +manufactories is less than twenty-seven cents a day. The most skilful +women in that calling can earn only twenty cents a day, and many very +much less.[23] In that country almost every seventh man receives charity +from the public: the mortality of operatives, in some of the cities, is +ten per cent. a year! Perhaps that is the worst case which you can find +on a large scale even in Europe. How much better off are many women in +Boston who gain their bread by the needle? yes a large class of women in +all our great cities? The ministers of the poor can answer that; your +police can tell of the direful crime to which necessity sometimes drives +women whom honest labor cannot feed! + +I know it will be said, "Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the +dearest; get work at the lowest wages." Still there is another view of +the case, and I am speaking to men whose professed religion declares +that all are brothers, and demands that the strong help the weak. +Oppression of this sort is one fertile source of pauperism and crime. +How much there is of it I know not, but I think men seldom cry unless +they are hurt. When men are gathered together in large masses, as in the +manufacturing towns, if there is any oppression of this sort, it is sure +to get told of, especially in New England. But when a small number are +employed, and they isolated from one another, the case is much harder. +Perhaps no class of laborers in New England is worse treated than the +hired help of small proprietors. + +Then, too, there is a temptation to abuse their political power to the +injury of the nation, to make laws which seem good for themselves, but +are baneful to the people; to control the churches, so that they shall +not dare rebuke the actual sins of the nation, or the sins of trade, and +so the churches be made apologizers for lowness, practising infidelity +as their sacrament, but in the name of Christ and God. The ruling power +in England once published a volume of sermons, as well as a book of +prayers, which the clergy were commanded to preach. What sort of a +gospel got recommended therein, you may easily guess; and what is +recommended by the class of merchants in New England, you may as easily +hear. + + * * * * * + +But if their temptations are great, the opportunities of this class for +doing good are greater still. Their power is more readily useful for +good than ill, as all power is. In their calling they direct and +control the machinery, the capital, and thereby the productive labor of +the whole community. They can as easily direct that well as ill; for the +benefit of all, easier than to the injury of any one. They can discover +new sources of wealth for themselves, and so for the nation; they can +set on foot new enterprises, which shall increase the comfort and +welfare of man to a vast degree, and not only that, but enlarge also the +number of men, for that always greatens in a nation, as the means of +living are made easy. They can bind the rivers, teaching them to weave +and spin. The introduction of manufactures into England, and the +application of machinery to that purpose, I doubt not has added some +millions of new lives to her population in the present century--millions +that otherwise would never have lived at all. The introduction of +manufactures into the United States, the application of water-power and +steam-power to human work, the construction of canals and railroads, has +vastly increased the comforts of the living. It helps civilize, educate +and refine men; yes, leads to an increase of the number of lives. There +are men to whom the public owes a debt which no money could pay, for it +is a debt of life. What adequate sum of gold, or what honors could +mankind give to Columbus, to Faustus, to Fulton, for their works? He +that did the greatest service ever done to mankind got from his age a +bad name and a cross for his reward. There are men whom mankind are to +thank for thousands of lives; yet men who hold no lofty niche in the +temple of fame. + +By their control of the Legislature the merchants can fashion more +wisely the institutions of the land, promote the freedom of all, break +off traditionary yokes, help forward the public education of the people +by the establishment of public schools, public academies, and public +colleges. They can frame particular statutes which help and encourage +the humble and the weak, laws which prevent the causes of poverty and +crime, which facilitate for the poor man the acquisition of property, +enabling him to invest his earnings in the most profitable stocks,--laws +which bless the living, and so increase the number of lives. They can +thus help organize society after the Christian idea, and promote the +kingdom of heaven. They can make our jails institutions which really +render their inmates better, and send them out whole men, safe and +sound. We have seen them do this with lunatics, why not with those poor +wretches whom now we murder? They too can found houses of cure for +drunkards, and men yet more unfortunate when released from our prisons. + +By their control of the churches, and all our seminaries, public and +private, they can encourage freedom of thought; can promote the public +morals by urging the clergy to point out and rebuke the sins of the +nation, of society, the actual sins of men now living; can encourage +them to separate theology from mythology, religion from theology, and +then apply that religion to the State, to society and the individual; +can urge them to preach both parts of religion--morality, the love of +man, and piety, the love of God, setting off both by an appeal to that +great soul who was Christianity in one person. In this way they have an +opportunity of enlarging tenfold the practical value of the churches, +and helping weed licentiousness, intemperance, want, and ignorance and +sin, clean out of man's garden here. With their encouragement, the +clergy would form a noble army contending for the welfare of men--the +church militant, but preparing to be soon triumphant. Thus laboring, +they can put an end to slavery, abolish war, and turn all the nation's +creative energies to production--their legitimate work. + +Then they can promote the advance of science, of literature, of the +arts--the useful and the beautiful. We see what their famed progenitors +did in this way at Venice, Florence, Genoa. I know men say that art +cannot thrive in a republic. An opportunity is offered now to prove the +falsehood of that speech, to adorn our strength with beauty. A great +amount of creative, artistic talent is rising here and seeks employment. + +They can endow hospitals, colleges, normal schools, found libraries and +establish lectures for the welfare of all. He that has the wealth of a +king may spend it like a king, not for ostentation, but for use. They +can set before men examples of industry, economy, truth, justice, +honesty, charity, of religion at her daily work, of manliness in +life--all this as no other men. Their charities need not stare you in +the face; like violets their fragrance may reach you before you see +them. The bare mention of these things recalls the long list of +benefactors, names familiar to you all--for there is one thing which +this city was once more famous for than her enterprise, and that is her +Charity--the charity which flows in public;--the noiseless stream that +shows itself only in the greener growth which marks its path. + + * * * * * + +Such are the position, temptations, opportunities of this class. What is +their practical influence on Church and State--on the economy of +mankind? what are they doing in the nation? I must judge them by the +highest standard that I know, the standard of justice, of absolute +religion, not out of my own caprice. Bear with me while I attempt to +tell the truth, which I have seen. If I see it not, pity me and seek +better instruction where you can find it. But if I see a needed truth, +and for my own sake refuse to speak, bear with me no more. Bid me then +repent. I am speaking of men, strong men too, and shall not spare the +truth. + +There is always a conservative element in society; yes, an element +which resists the further application of Christianity to public affairs. +Once the fighters and their children were uppermost, and represented +that element. Then the merchants were reformatory, radical, in collision +with the nobles. They were "Whigs"--the nobles were "Tories." The +merchants formed themselves into companies, and got power from the crown +to protect themselves against the nobles, whom the crown also feared. It +is so in England now. The great revolution in the laws of trade lately +effected there, was brought about by the merchants, though opposed by +the lords. The anti-corn law league was a trades-union of merchants +contending against the owners of the soil. There the lord of land, and +by birth, is slowly giving way to the lord of money, who is powerful by +his knowledge or his wealth. There will always be such an element in +society. Here I think it is represented by the merchants. They are +backward in all reforms, excepting such as their own interest demands. +Thus they are blind to the evils of slavery, at least silent about them. +How few commercial or political newspapers in the land ever seriously +oppose this great national wickedness! Nay, how many of them favor its +extension and preservation! A few years ago, in this very city, a mob of +men, mainly from this class, it is said, insulted honest women peaceably +met to consult for the welfare of Christian slaves in a Christian +land--met to pray for them! A merchant of this city says publicly, that +a large majority of his brethren would kidnap a fugitive slave in +Boston; says it with no blush and without contradiction.[24] It was men +of this class who opposed the abolition of the slave-trade, and had it +guaranteed them for twenty years after the formation of the +Constitution; through their instigation that this foul blot was left to +defile the Republic and gather blackness from age to age; through their +means that the nation stands before the world pledged to maintain it. +They could end slavery at once, at least could end the national +connection with it, but it is through their support that it continues; +that it acquires new strength, new boldness, new territory, darkens the +nation's fame and hope, delays all other reformations in Church and +State and the mass of the people. Yes, it is through their influence +that the chivalry, the wisdom, patriotism, eloquence, yea, religion of +the free States, are all silent when the word slavery is pronounced. + +The Senate of Massachusetts represents this more than any other class. +But all last winter it could not say one word against the wickedness of +this sin, allowed to live and grow greater in the land.[25] Just before +the last election something could be said! Do speech and silence mean +the same thing? + +This class opposed abolishing imprisonment for debt, thinking it +endangered trade. They now oppose the progress of temperance and the +abolition of the gallows. They see the evils of war; they cannot see its +sin; will sustain men who help plunge the nation into its present +disgraceful and cowardly conflict; will encourage foolish young men to +go and fight in this wicked war. A great man said, or is reported to +have said, that perhaps it is not an American habit to consider the +natural justice of a war, but to count its cost! A terrible saying that! +There is a Power which considers its Justice, and will demand of us the +blood we have wickedly poured out; blood of Americans, blood of the +Mexicans! They favor indirect taxation, which is taxing the poor for +the benefit of the rich; they continue to support the causes of poverty; +as a class they are blind to this great evil of popular ignorance--the +more terrible evils of licentiousness, drunkenness and crime! They can +enrich themselves by demoralizing their brothers. I wish it was an +American habit to count the cost of that. Some "fanatic" will consider +its justice. If they see these evils they look not for their cause; at +least, strive not to remove that cause. They have long known that every +year more money is paid in Boston for poison drink to be swallowed on +the spot, a drink which does no man any good, which fills your asylums +with paupers, your jails with criminals, and houses with unutterable +misery in father, mother, wife and child,--more money every year than it +would take to build your new aqueduct and bring abundance of water fresh +to every house![26] If they have not known it, why it was their fault, +for the fact was there crying to Heaven against us all. As they are the +most powerful class, the elder brothers, American nobles if you will, it +was their duty to look out for their weaker brother. No man has strength +for himself alone. To use it for one's self alone, that is a sin. I do +not think they are conscious of the evil they do, or the evils they +allow. I speak not of motives, only of facts. + +This class controls the State. The effects of that control appear in our +legislation. I know there are some noble men in political life, who have +gone there with the loftiest motives, men that ask only after what is +right. I honor such men--honor them all the more because they seem +exceptions to a general rule; men far above the spirit of any class. I +must speak of what commonly takes place. Our politics are chiefly +mercantile, politics in which money is preferred, and man postponed. +When the two come into collision, the man goes to the wall and the +street is left clear for the dollars. A few years ago in monarchical +France a report was made of the condition of the working population in +the large manufacturing towns--a truthful report, but painful to read, +for it told of strong men oppressing the weak.[27] I do not believe that +such an undisguised statement of the good and ill could be tolerated in +democratic America; no, not of the condition of men in New England; and +what would be thought of a book setting forth the condition of the +laboring men and women of the South? I know very well what is thought of +the few men who attempt to tell the truth on this subject. I think there +is no nation in Europe, except Russia and Turkey, which cares so little +for the class which reaps down its harvests and does the hard work. +When you protect the rights of all, you protect also the property of +each and by that very act. To begin the other way is quite contrary to +nature. But our politicians cannot say too little for men, nor too much +for money. Take the politicians most famous and honored at this day, and +what have they done? They have labored for a tariff, or for free trade; +but what have they done for man? nay, what have they attempted?--to +restore natural rights to men notoriously deprived of them; +progressively to elevate their material, moral, social condition? I +think no one pretends it. Even in proclamations for Thanksgiving and +days of prayer, it is not the most needy we are bid remember. Public +sins are not pointed out to be repented of. Slaveholding States shut up +in their jails our colored seamen soon as they arrive in a southern +port. A few years ago, at a time of considerable excitement here on the +slavery question, a petition was sent from this place by some merchants +and others, to one of our Senators, praying Congress to abate that evil. +For a long time that Senator could find no opportunity to present the +petition. You know how much was said and what was done! Had the South +demanded every tenth or twentieth bale of "domestics" coming from the +North; had a petition relative to that grievance been sent to Congress, +and a Senator unreasonably delayed to present it--how much more would +have been said and done; when he came back he would have been hustled +out of Boston! When South Carolina and Louisiana sent home our +messengers--driving them off with reproach, insult, and danger of their +lives--little is said and nothing done. But if the barbarous natives of +Sumatra interfere with our commerce, why, we send a ship and lay their +towns in ruins and murder the men and women! We all know that for some +years Congress refused to receive petitions relative to slavery; and we +know how tamely that was borne by the class who commonly control +political affairs! What if Congress had refused to receive petitions +relative to a tariff, or free trade, to the shipping interest, or the +manufacturing interest? When the rights of men were concerned, three +million men, only the "fanatics" complained. The political newspapers +said "Hush!" + +The merchant-manufacturers want a protective tariff; the +merchant-importers, free trade; and so the national politics hinge upon +that question. When Massachusetts was a carrying State, she wanted free +trade; now a manufacturing State, she desires protection. That is all +natural enough; men wish to protect their interests, whatsoever they may +be. But no talk is made about protecting the labor of the rude man, who +has no capital, nor skill, nothing but his natural force of muscles. The +foreigner underbids him, monopolizing most of the brute labor of our +large towns and internal improvements. There is no protection, no talk +of protection for the carpenter, or the bricklayer. I do not complain of +that. I rejoice to see the poor wretches of the old world finding a home +where our fathers found one before. Yet if we cared for men more than +for money, and were consistent with our principles of protection, why, +we should exclude all foreign workmen, as well as their work, and so +raise the wages of the native hands. That would doubtless be very +foolish legislation--but perhaps not, on that account, very strange. I +know we are told that without protection, our hand-worker, whose capital +is his skill, cannot compete with the operative of Manchester and +Brussels, because that operative is paid but little. I know not if it be +true, or a mistake. But who ever told us such men could not compete with +the slave of South Carolina who is paid nothing? We have legislation to +protect our own capital against foreign capital; perhaps our own labor +against the "pauper of Europe;" why not against the slave labor of the +Southern States? Because the controlling class prefers money and +postpones man. Yet the slave-breeder is protected. He has, I think, the +only real monopoly in the land. No importer can legally spoil his +market, for the foreign slave is contraband. If I understand the matter, +the importation of slaves was allowed, until such men as pleased could +accumulate their stock. The reason why it was afterwards forbidden I +think was chiefly a mercantile reason: the slave-breeder wanted a +monopoly, for God knows and you know that it is no worse to steal grown +men in Africa than to steal new born babies in Maryland, to have them +born for the sake of stealing them. Free labor may be imported, for it +helps the merchant-producer and the merchant-manufacturer. Slave labor +is declared contraband, for the merchant-slave-breeders want a monopoly. + +This same preference of money over men appears in many special statutes. +In most of our manufacturing companies the capital is divided into +shares so large that a poor man cannot invest therein! This could easily +be avoided. A man steals a candlestick out of a church, and goes to the +State Prison for a year and a day. Another quarrels with a man, maims +him for life, and is sent to the common jail for six months. A bounty is +paid, or was until lately, on every gallon of intoxicating drink +manufactured here and sent out of the country. If we begin with taking +care of the rights of man, it seems easy to take care of the rights of +labor and of capital. To begin the other way is quite another thing. A +nation making laws for the nation is a noble sight. The Government of +all, by all, and for all, is a democracy. When that Government follows +the eternal laws of God, it is founding what Christ called the kingdom +of heaven. But the predominating class making laws not for the nation's +good, but only for its own, is a sad spectacle; no reasoning can make +it other than a sorry sight. To see able men prostituting their talents +to such a work, that is one of the saddest sights! I know all other +nations have set us the example, yet it is painful to see it followed, +and here. + +Our politics, being mainly controlled by this class, are chiefly +mercantile, the politics of peddlers. So political management often +becomes a trick. Hence we have many politicians, and raise a harvest of +them every year, that crop never failing, party-men who can legislate +for a class; but we have scarce one great statesman who can step before +his class, beyond his age, and legislate for a whole nation, leading the +people and giving us new ideas to incarnate in the multitude, his word +becoming flesh. We have not planters, but trimmers! A great statesman +never came of mercantile politics, only of politics considered as the +national application of religion to life. Our political morals, you all +know what they are, the morals of a huckster. This is no new thing; the +same game was played long ago in Venice, Pisa, Florence, and the result +is well known. A merely mercantile politician is very sharp-sighted and +perhaps far-sighted, but a dollar will cover the whole field of his +vision and he can never see through it. The number of slaves in the +United States is considerably greater than our whole population when we +declared Independence, yet how much talk will a tariff make, or a +public dinner; how little the welfare of three million men! Said I not +truly, our most famous politicians are, in the general way, only +mercantile party-men? Which of these men has shown the most interest in +those three million slaves? The man who in the Senate of a Christian +Republic valued them at twelve hundred million dollars! Shall +respectable men say, "We do not care what sort of a Government the +people have, so long as we get our dividends." Some say so; many men do +not say that, but think so and act accordingly! The Government, +therefore, must be so arranged that they get their dividends. + +This class of men buys up legislators, consciously or not, and pays +them, for value received. Yes, so great is its daring and its conscious +power, that we have recently seen our most famous politician bought up, +the stoutest understanding that one finds now extant in this whole +nineteenth century, perhaps the ablest head since Napoleon. None can +deny his greatness, his public services in times past, nor his awful +power of intellect. I say we have seen him, a Senator of the United +States, pensioned by this class, or a portion thereof, and thereby put +mainly in their hands! When a whole nation rises up and publicly throws +its treasures at the feet of a great man who has stood forth manfully +contending for the nation, and bids him take their honors and their gold +as a poor pay for noble works, why that sight is beautiful, the +multitude shouting hosanna to their King, and spreading their garments +underneath his feet! Man is loyal, and such honors so paid, and to such, +are doubly gracious; becoming alike to him that takes and those who +give. Yes, when a single class, to whom some man has done a great +service, goes openly and makes a memorial thereof in gold and honors +paid to him, why that also is noble and beautiful. But when a single +class, in a country where political doings are more public than +elsewhere in the whole world, secretly buys up a man, in high place and +world-famous, giving him a retaining fee for life, why the deed is one I +do not wish to call by name! Could such men do this without a secret +shame? I will never believe it of my countrymen.[28] A gift blinds a +wise man's eyes, perverts the words even of the righteous, stopping his +mouth with gold so that he cannot reprove a wrong! But there is an +absolute justice which is neither bought nor sold! I know other nations +have done the same and with like effect. Fight with silver weapons, said +the Delphic oracle, and you'll conquer all. It has always been the craft +of despots to buy up aspiring talent; some with a title; some with gold. +Allegiance to the sovereign is the same thing on both sides of the +water, whether the sovereign be an eagle or a guinea. Some American, it +is said, wrote the Lord's Prayer on one side of a dime, and the Ten +Commandments on the other. The Constitution and a considerable +commentary might perhaps be written on the two sides of a dollar! + +This class controls the Churches, as the State. Let me show the effect +of that control. I am not to try men in a narrow way, by my own +theological standard, but by the standard of manliness and Christianity. +As a general rule, the clergy are on the side of power. All history +proves this, our own most abundantly. The clergy also are unconsciously +bought up, their speech paid for, or their silence. As a class, did they +ever denounce a public sin? a popular sin? Perhaps they have. Do they do +it now and here? Take Boston for the last ten years, and I think there +has been more clerical preaching against the abolitionists than against +slavery; perhaps more preaching against the temperance movement than in +its favor. With the exception of disbelieving the popular theology, your +evangelical alliance knows no sin but "original sin," unless indeed it +be "organic sins," which no one is to blame for; no sinner but Adam and +the devil; no saving righteousness but the "imputed." I know there are +exceptions, and I would go far to do them honor, pious men who lift up a +warning, yes, bear Christian testimony against public sins. I am +speaking of the mass of the clergy. Christ said the priests of his time +had made a den of thieves out of God's house of prayer. Now they conform +to the public sins and apologize for popular crime. It is a good thing +to forgive an offence: who does not need that favor and often? But to +forgive the theory of crime, to have a theory which does that, is quite +another thing. Large cities are alike the court and camp of the +mercantile class, and what I have just said is more eminently true of +the clergy in such towns. Let me give an example. Not long ago the +Unitarian clergy published a protest against American slavery. It was +moderate, but firm, and manly. Almost all the clergy in the country +signed it. In the large towns few: they mainly young men and in the +least considerable churches. The young men seemed not to understand +their contract, for the essential part of an ecclesiastical contract is +sometimes written between the lines and in sympathetic ink. Is a +steamboat burned or lost on the waters, how many preach on that +affliction! Yet how few preached against the war? A preacher may say he +hates it as a man, no words could describe his loathing at it, but as a +minister of Christ, he dares not say a word! What clergymen tell of the +sins of Boston,--of intemperance, licentiousness; who of the ignorance +of the people; who of them lays bare our public sin as Christ of old; +who tells the causes of poverty, and thousand-handed crime; who aims to +apply Christianity to business, to legislation, politics, to all the +nation's life? Once the church was the bride of Christ, living by his +creative, animating love; her children were apostles, prophets, men by +the same spirit, variously inspired with power to heal, to help, to +guide mankind. Now she seems the widow of Christ, poorly living on the +dower of other times. Nay, the Christ is not dead, and 'tis her alimony, +not her dower. Her children--no such heroic sons gather about her table +as before. In her dotage she blindly shoves them off, not counting men +as sons of Christ. Is her day gone by? The clergy answer the end they +were bred for, paid for. Will they say, "We should lose our influence +were we to tell of this and do these things?"[29] It is not true. Their +ancient influence is already gone! Who asks, "What do the clergy think +of the tariff, or free trade, of annexation, or the war, of slavery, or +the education movement?" Why no man. It is sad to say these things. +Would God they were not true. Look round you, and if you can, come tell +me they are false. + +We are not singular in this. In all lands the clergy favors the +controlling class. Bossuet would make the monarchy swallow up all other +institutions, as in history he sacrificed all nations to the Jews. In +England the established clergy favors the nobility, the crown, not the +people; opposes all freedom of trade, all freedom in religion, all +generous education of the people: its gospel is the gospel for a class, +not Christ's gospel for mankind. Here also the sovereign is the head of +the church, it favors the prevailing power, represents the morality, the +piety which chances to be popular, nor less nor more; the Christianity +of the street, not of Christ. + +Here trade takes the place of the army, navy, and court in other lands. +That is well, but it takes also the place in great measure of science, +art and literature. So we become vulgar, and have little but trade to +show. The rich man's son seldom devotes himself to literature, science, +or art; only to getting more money, or to living in idleness on what he +has inherited. When money is the end, what need to look for any thing +more? He degenerates into the class of consumers, and thinks it an +honor. He is ashamed of his father's blood, proud of his gold. A good +deal of scientific labor meets with no reward, but itself. In our +country this falls almost wholly upon poor men. Literature, science and +art are mainly in their hands, yet are controlled by the prevalent +spirit of the nation. Here and there an exceptional man differs from +that, but the mass of writers conform. In England, the national +literature favors the church, the crown, the nobility, the prevailing +class. Another literature is rising, but is not yet national, still less +canonized. We have no American literature which is permanent. Our +scholarly books are only an imitation of a foreign type; they do not +reflect our morals, manners, politics, or religion, not even our rivers, +mountains, sky. They have not the smell of our ground in their breath. +The real American literature is found only in newspapers and speeches, +perhaps in some novel, hot, passionate, but poor, and extemporaneous. +That is our national literature. Does that favor man--represent man? +Certainly not. All is the reflection of this most powerful class. The +truths that are told are for them, and the lies. Therein the prevailing +sentiment is getting into the form of thought. Politics represent the +morals of the controlling class, the morals and manners of rich Peter +and David on a large scale. Look at that index, you would sometimes +think you were not in the Senate of a great nation, but in a board of +brokers, angry and higgling about stocks. Once in the nation's loftiest +hour, she rose inspired and said: "All men are born equal, each with +unalienable rights; that is self-evident." Now she repents her of the +vision and the saying. It does not appear in her literature, nor church, +nor state. Instead of that, through this controlling class, the nation +says: "All dollars are equal, however got; each has unalienable rights. +Let no man question that!" This appears in literature and legislation, +church and state. The morals of a nation, of its controlling class, +always get summed up in its political action. That is the barometer of +the moral weather. The voters are always fairly represented. + + * * * * * + +The wicked baron, bad of heart, and bloody of hand, has passed off with +the ages which gave birth to such a brood, but the bad merchant still +lives. He cheats in his trade; sometimes against the law, commonly with +it. His truth is never wholly true, nor his lie wholly false. He +overreaches the ignorant; makes hard bargains with men in their trouble, +for he knows that a falling man will catch at red-hot iron. He takes the +pound of flesh, though that bring away all the life-blood with it. He +loves private contracts, digging through walls in secret. No interest is +illegal if he can get it. He cheats the nation with false invoices, and +swears lies at the custom-house; will not pay his taxes, but moves out +of town on the last of April.[30] He oppresses the men who sail his +ships, forcing them to be temperate, only that he may consume the value +of their drink. He provides for them unsuitable bread and meat. He would +not engage in the African slave-trade, for he might lose his ships and +perhaps more; but he is always ready to engage in the American +slave-trade, and calls you a "fanatic" if you tell him it is the worse +of the two. He cares not whether he sells cotton or the man who wears +it, if he only gets the money; cotton or negro, it is the same to him. +He would not keep a drink-hole in Ann Street, only own and rent it. He +will bring or make whole cargoes of the poison that deals "damnation +round the land." He thinks it vulgar to carry rum about in a jug, +respectable in a ship. He makes paupers, and leaves others to support +them. Tell not him of the misery of the poor, he knows better; nor of +our paltry way of dealing with public crime, he wants more jails and a +speedier gallows. You see his character in letting his houses, his +houses for the poor. He is a stone in the lame man's shoe. He is the +poor man's devil. The Hebrew devil that so worried Job is gone; so is +the brutal devil that awed our fathers. Nobody fears them; they vanish +before cock-crowing. But this devil of the nineteenth century is still +extant. He has gone into trade, and advertises in the papers; his name +is "good" in the street. He "makes money;" the world is poorer by his +wealth. He spends it as he made it, like a devil, on himself, his family +alone, or worse yet, for show. He can build a church out of his gains, +to have his morality, his Christianity preached in it, and call that the +gospel, as Aaron called a calf--God. He sends rum and missionaries to +the same barbarians, the one to damn, the other to "save," both for his +own advantage, for his patron saint is Judas, the first saint who made +money out of Christ. Ask not him to do a good deed in private, "men +would not know it," and "the example would be lost;" so he never lets a +dollar slip out between his thumb and finger without leaving his mark on +both sides of it. He is not forecasting to discern effects in causes, +nor skilful to create new wealth, only spry in the scramble for what +others have made. It is easy to make a bargain with him, hard to settle. +In politics he wants a Government that will insure his dividends; so +asks what is good for him, but ill for the rest. He knows no right, only +power; no man but self; no God but his calf of gold. + +What effect has he on young men? They had better touch poison. If he +takes you to his heart, he takes you in. What influence on society? To +taint and corrupt it all round. He contaminates trade; corrupts +politics, making abusive laws, not asking for justice but only +dividends. To the church he is the Anti-Christ. Yes, the very Devil, +and frightens the poor minister into shameful silence, or, more +shameless yet, into an apology for crime; makes him pardon the theory of +crime! Let us look on that monster--look and pass by, not without +prayer. + +The good merchant tells the truth and thrives by that; is upright and +downright; his word good as his Bible-oath. He pays for all he takes; +though never so rich he owns no wicked dollar; all is openly, honestly, +manfully earned, and a full equivalent paid for it. He owns money and is +worth a man. He is just in business with the strong; charitable in +dealing with the weak. His counting-room or his shop is the sanctuary of +fairness, justice, a school of uprightness as well as thrift. Industry +and honor go hand in hand with him. He gets rich by industry and +forecast, not by slight of hand and shuffling his cards to another's +loss. No men become the poorer because he is rich. He would sooner hurt +himself than wrong another, for he is a man, not a fox. He entraps no +man with lies, active or passive. His honesty is better capital than a +sharper's cunning. Yet he makes no more talk about justice and honesty +than the sun talks of light and heat; they do their own talking. His +profession of religion is all practice. He knows that a good man is just +as near heaven in his shop as in his church, at work as at prayer; so he +makes all work sacramental; he communes with God and man in buying and +selling--communion in both kinds. He consecrates his week-day and his +work. Christianity appears more divine in this man's deeds than in the +holiest words of apostle or saint. He treats every man as he wishes all +to treat him, and thinks no more of that than of carrying one for every +ten. It is the rule of his arithmetic. You know this man is a saint, not +by his creed, but by the letting of his houses, his treatment of all +that depend on him. He is a father to defend the weak, not a pirate to +rob them. He looks out for the welfare of all that he employs; if they +are his help he is theirs, and as he is the strongest so the greater +help. His private prayer appears in his public work, for in his devotion +he does not apologize for his sin, but asking to outgrow that, +challenges himself to new worship and more piety. He sets on foot new +enterprises which develop the nation's wealth and help others while they +help him. He wants laws that take care of man's rights, knowing that +then he can take care of himself and of his own, but hurt no man by so +doing. He asks laws for the weak, not against them. He would not take +vengeance on the wicked, but correct them. His justice tastes of +charity. He tries to remove the causes of poverty, licentiousness, of +all crime, and thinks that is alike the duty of Church and State. Ask +not him to make a statesman a party-man, or the churches an apology for +his lowness. He knows better; he calls that infidelity. He helps the +weak help themselves. He is a moral educator, a church of Christ gone +into business, a saint in trade. The Catholic saint who stood on a +pillar's top, or shut himself into a den and fed on grass, is gone to +his place--that Christian Nebuchadnezzar. He got fame in his day. No man +honors him now; nobody even imitates him. But the saint of the +nineteenth century is the good merchant; he is wisdom for the foolish, +strength for the weak, warning to the wicked, and a blessing to all. +Build him a shrine in bank and church, in the market and the exchange, +or build it not, no saint stands higher than this saint of trade. There +are such men, rich and poor, young and old; such men in Boston. I have +known more than one such, and far greater and better than I have told +of, for I purposely under-color this poor sketch. They need no word of +mine for encouragement or sympathy. Have they not Christ and God to aid +and bless them? Would that some word of mine might stir the heart of +others to be such; your hearts, young men. They rise there clean amid +the dust of commerce and the mechanic's busy life, and stand there like +great square pyramids in the desert amongst the Arabians' shifting +tents. Look at them, ye young men, and be healed of your folly. It is +not the calling which corrupts the man, but the men the calling. The +most experienced will tell you so. I know it demands manliness to make a +man, but God sent you here to do that work. + +The duty of this class is quite plain. They control the wealth, the +physical strength, the intellectual vigor of the nation. They now +display an energy new and startling. No ocean is safe from their canvas; +they fill the valleys; they level the hills; they chain the rivers; they +urge the willing soil to double harvests. Nature opens all her stores to +them; like the fabled dust of Egypt her fertile bosom teems with new +wonders, new forces to toil for man. No race of men in times of peace +ever displayed so manly an enterprise, an energy so vigorous as this +class here in America. Nothing seems impossible to them. The instinct of +production was never so strong and creative before. They are proving +that peace can stimulate more than war. + +Would that my words could reach all of this class. Think not I love to +speak hard words, and so often; say not that I am setting the poor +against the rich. It is no such thing. I am trying to set the strong in +favor of the weak. I speak for man. Are you not all brothers, rich or +poor? I am here to gratify no vulgar ambition, but in Religion's name to +tell their duty to the most powerful class in all this land. I must +speak the truth I know, though I may recoil with trembling at the words +I speak; yes, though their flame should scorch my own lips. Some of the +evils I complain of are your misfortune, not your fault. Perhaps the +best hearts in the land, no less than the ablest heads, are yours. If +the evils be done unconsciously, then it will be greatness to be higher +than society, and with your good overcome its evil. All men see your +energy, your honor, your disciplined intellect. Let them see your +goodness, justice, Christianity. The age demands of you a development of +religion proportionate with the vigor of your mind and arms. Trade is +silently making a wonderful revolution. We live in the midst of it, and +therefore see it not. All property has become movable, and therefore +power departs from the family of the first-born, and comes to the family +of mankind. God only controls this revolution, but you can help it +forward, or retard it. The freedom of labor, and the freedom of trade, +will work wonders little dreamed of yet; one is now uniting all men of +the same nation; the other, some day, will weave all tribes together +into one mighty family. Then who shall dare break its peace? I cannot +now stop to tell half the proud achievements I foresee resulting from +the fierce energy that animates your yet unconscious hearts. Men live +faster than ever before. Life, like money, like mechanical power, is +getting intensified and condensed. The application of science to the +arts, the use of wind, water, steam, electricity, for human works, is a +wonderful fact, far greater than the fables of old time. The modern +Cadmus has yoked fire and water in an iron bond. The new Prometheus +sends the fire of heaven from town to town to run his errands. We talk +by lightning. Even now these new achievements have greatly multiplied +the powers of men. They belong to no class; like air and water they are +the property of mankind. It is for you, who own the machinery of +society, to see that no class appropriates to itself what God meant for +all. Remember it is as easy to tyrannize by machinery as by armies, and +as wicked; that it is greater now to bless mankind thereby, than it was +of old to conquer new realms. Let men not curse you, as the old +nobility, and shake you off, smeared with blood and dust. Turn your +power to goodness, its natural transfiguration, and men shall bless your +name, and God bless your soul. If you control the nation's politics, +then it is your duty to legislate for the nation,--for man. You may +develop the great national idea, the equality of all men; may frame a +government which shall secure man's unalienable rights. It is for you to +organize the rights of man, thus balancing into harmony the man and the +many, to organize the rights of the hand, the head, and the heart. If +this be not done, the fault is yours. If the nation play the tyrant over +her weakest child, if she plunder and rob the feeble Indian, the feebler +Mexican, the Negro, feebler yet, why the blame is yours. Remember there +is a God who deals justly with strong and weak. The poor and the weak +have loitered behind in the march of man; our cities yet swarm with men +half-savage. It is for you, ye elder brothers, to lead forth the weak +and poor! If you do the national duty that devolves on you, then are you +the saviors of your country, and shall bless not that alone, but all the +thousand million sons of men. Toil then for that. If the church is in +your hands, then make it preach the Christian truth. Let it help the +free development of religion in the self-consciousness of man, with +Jesus for its pattern. It is for you to watch over this work, promote +it, not retard. Help build the American church. The Roman church has +been, we know what it was, and what men it bore; the English church yet +stands, we know what it is. But the church of America--which shall +represent American vigor aspiring to realize the ideas of Christianity, +of absolute religion,--that is not yet. No man has come with pious +genius fit to conceive its litany, to chant its mighty creed, and sing +its beauteous psalm. The church of America, the church of freedom, of +absolute religion, the church of mankind, where Truth, Goodness, Piety, +form one trinity of beauty, strength, and grace--when shall it come? +Soon as we will. It is yours to help it come. + +For these great works you may labor; yes, you are laboring, when you +help forward justice, industry, when you promote the education of the +people; when you practise, public and private, the virtues of a +Christian man; when you hinder these seemingly little things, you hinder +also the great. You are the nation's head, and if the head be wilful +and wicked, what shall its members do and be? To this class let me say: +Remember your Position at the head of the nation; use it not as pirates, +but Americans, Christians, men. Remember your Temptations, and be warned +in time. Remember your opportunities--such as no men ever had before. +God and man alike call on you to do your duty. Elevate your calling +still more; let its nobleness appear in you. Scorn a mean thing. Give +the world more than you take. You are to serve the nation, not it you; +to build the church, not make it a den of thieves, nor allow it to +apologize for your crime, or sloth. Try this experiment and see what +comes of it. In all things govern yourselves by the eternal law of +right. You shall build up not a military despotism, nor a mercantile +oligarchy, but a State, where the government is of all, by all, and for +all; you shall found not a feudal theocracy, nor a beggarly sect, but +the church of mankind, and that Christ which is the same yesterday, +to-day and for ever, will dwell in it, to guide, to warn, to inspire, +and to bless all men. And you, my brothers, what shall you become? Not +knaves, higgling rather than earn; not tyrants, to be feared whilst +living, and buried at last amid popular hate; but men, who thrive best +by justice, reason, conscience, and have now the blessedness of just men +making themselves perfect. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[23] I gather these facts from a Review of Major Poussin's _Belgique et +les Belges, depuis 1830_, in a foreign journal. The condition of the +merchant manufacturer I know not. + +[24] Subsequent events (in 1850 and 1851) show that he was right in his +statement. What was thought calumny then has become history since, and +is now the glory and boast of Boston. + +[25] Mr. _Robert J. Walker_ published a letter in favor of the +annexation of Texas. In it he said: "Upon the refusal of re-annexation +... THE TARIFF AS A PRACTICAL MEASURE FALLS WHOLLY AND FOR EVER, and we +shall thereafter be compelled to resort to direct taxes to support the +Government." Notwithstanding this foolish threat, a large number of +citizens of Massachusetts remonstrated against annexation. The House of +Representatives, by a large majority, passed a resolve declaring that +Massachusetts "announces her uncompromising opposition to the further +extension of American slavery," and "declares her earnest and +unalterable purpose to use every lawful and constitutional measure for +its overthrow and entire extinction," etc. But the Senate voted that the +resistance of the State was already sufficient! The passage in the text +refers to these circumstances. + +[26] It was then thought that the aqueduct would cost but $2,000,000. + +[27] I refer to the Report of M. Villerme, in the _Mémoires de +l'Institut, Tom._ lxxi. + +[28] This was printed in 1846. In 1850, and since, these men have +publicly gloried in a similar act even more atrocious. + +[29] Keble, in one of his poems, represents a mother seeing her sportive +son "enacting holy rites," and thus describes her emotions: + + "She sees in heart an empty throne, + And falling, falling far away, + Him whom the Lord hath placed thereon: + She hears the dread Proclaimer say, + 'Cast ye the lot, in trembling cast, + The traitor to his place hath past,-- + Strive ye with prayer and fast to guide + The dangerous glory where it shall abide.'" + + +[30] It is the custom in Massachusetts to tax men in the place where +they reside, on the first day of May; as the taxes differ very much in +different towns of the same State, it is easy for a man to escape the +burden of taxation. + + + + +VIII. + +A SERMON OF THE DANGEROUS CLASSES IN SOCIETY.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, +ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 1847. + +MATTHEW XVIII. 12. + + If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone + astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into + the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? + + +We are first babies, then children, then youths, then men. It is so with +the nation; so with mankind. The human race started with no culture, no +religion, no morals, even no manners, having only desires and faculties +within, and the world without. Now we have attained much more. But it +has taken many centuries for mankind to pass from primeval barbarism to +the present stage of comfort, science, civilization, and refinement. It +has been the work of two hundred generations; perhaps of more. But each +new child is born at the foot of the ladder, as much as the first child; +with only desires and faculties. He may have a better physical +organization than the first child; he certainly has better teachers; +but he, in like manner, is born with no culture, no religion, no morals, +even with no manners; born into them, not with them; born bare of these +things and naked as the first child. He must himself toil up the ladder +which mankind have been so long in constructing and climbing up. To +attain the present civilization he must pass over every point which the +race passed through. The child of the civilized man, born with a good +organization and under favorable circumstances, can do this rapidly, and +in thirty or forty years attains the height of development which it took +the whole human race sixty centuries or more to arrive at. He has the +aid of past experience and the examples of noble men; he travels a road +already smooth and beaten. The world's cultivation, so slowly and +painfully achieved, helps civilize him. He may then go further on, and +cultivate himself; may transcend the development of mankind, adding new +rounds to the ladder. So doing he aids future children, who will one day +climb above his head, he possibly crying against them,--that they climb +only to fall, and thereby sweep off him and all below; that no new +rounds can be added to the old ladder. + +Still, after all the helps which our fathers have provided, every future +child must go through the same points which we and our predecessors +passed through, only more swiftly. Every boy has his animal period, +when he can only eat and sleep, intelligence slowly dawning on his mind. +Then comes his savage period, when he knows nothing of rights, when all +thine is mine to him, if he can get it. Then comes his barbarous period, +when he is ignorant and dislikes to learn; study and restraint are +irksome. He hates the school, disobeys his mother; has reverence for +nobody. Nothing is sacred to him--no time, nor place, nor person. He +would grow up wild. The greater part of children travel beyond this +stage. The unbearable boy becomes a tolerable youth; then a powerful +man. He loves his duty; outstrips the men that once led him so unwilling +and reluctant, and will set hard lessons for his grandsire which that +grandsire, perhaps, will not learn. The young learns of the old, mounts +the ladder they mounted and the ladder they made. The reverse is seldom +true, that the old climbs the ladder which the young have made, and over +that storms new heights. Now and then you see it, but such are +extraordinary and marvellous men. In the old story Saturn did not take +pains to understand his children, nor learn thereof; he only devoured +them up, till some outgrew and overmastered him. Did the generation that +is passing from the stage ever comprehend and fairly judge the new +generation coming on? In the world, the barbarian passes on and becomes +the civilized, then the enlightened. + +In the physical process of growth from the baby to the man, there is no +direct intervention of the will. Therefore the process goes on +regularly, and we do not see abortive men who have advanced in years, +but stopped growth in their babyhood, or boyhood. But as the will is the +soul of personality, so to say, the heart of intellect, morals and +religion, so the force thereof may promote, retard, disturb, and perhaps +for a time completely arrest the progress of intellectual, moral and +religious growth. Still more, this spiritual development of men is +hindered or promoted by subtle causes hitherto little appreciated. +Hence, by reason of these outward or internal hinderances, you find +persons and classes of men who do not attain the average culture of +mankind, but stop at some lower stage of this spiritual development, or +else loiter behind the rest. You even find whole nations whose progress +is so slow, that they need the continual aid of the more civilized to +quicken their growth. Outward circumstances have a powerful influence on +this development. If a single class in a nation lingers behind the rest, +the cause thereof will commonly be found in some outward hinderance. +They move in a resisting medium, and therefore with abated speed. No one +expects the same progress from a Russian serf and a free man of New +England. I do not deny that in the case of some men personal will is +doubtless the disturbing force. I am not now to go beyond that fact, and +inquire how the will became as it is. Here is a man who, from whatever +cause, is bodily ill-born, with defective organs. He stops in the animal +period; is incapable of any considerable degree of development, +intellectual, moral, or religious. The defect is in his body. Others +disturbed by more occult causes do not attain their proper growth. This +man wishes to stop in his savage period, he would be a freebooter, a +privateer against society, having universal letters-of-marque and +reprisal; a perpetual Arab, his rule is to get what he can, as he will +and where he pleases, to keep what he gets. Another stops at the +barbarous age. He is lazy and will not work, others must bear his share +of the general burden of mankind. He claims letters patent to make all +men serve him. He is not only indolent, constitutionally lazy, but lazy, +consciously and wilfully idle. He will not work, but in one form or +another will beg or steal. Yet a fourth stops in the half-civilized +period. He will work with his hands, but no more. He cannot discover; he +will not study to learn; he will not even be taught what has been +invented and taught before. None can teach him. The horse is led to the +water, or the water brought to the horse, but the beast will not drink. +"The idle fool is whipt at school," but to no purpose. He is always an +oaf. No college or tutor mends him. The wild ass will go out free, wild, +and an ass. + +These four, the idiot, the pirate, the thief, and the clown are +exceptional men. They remain stationary. Meanwhile, mankind advances, +continually, but not with an even front. The human race moves not by +column or line, but by _échelon_ as it were. We go up by stairs, not by +slopes. Now comes a great man, of far-reaching and prospective sight, a +Moses, and he tells men that there is a land of promise, which they have +a right to who have skill to win it. Then lesser men, the Calebs and +Joshuas, go and search it out, bringing back therefrom new wine in the +cluster and alluring tales. Next troops of pioneers advance, yet lesser +men; then a few bold men who love adventure. Then comes the army, the +people with their flocks and herds, the priesthood with their ark of the +covenant and the tabernacle, the title-deeds of the new lands which they +have heard of but not seen. At last there comes the mixed multitude, +following in no order, but not without shouting and tumult, men treading +one another under foot, cowards looking back and refusing to march, old +men dying without seeing their consolation. If you will lie down on the +ground and take the profile of a great city, and see how hill, steeple, +dome, tower, the roof of the tall house, gain on the sky, and then come +whole streets of warehouses and shops, then common dwellings, then +cheap, low tenements, you will have a good profile of man's march to +gain new conquests in science, art, morals, religion, and general +development. It is so in the family, a bright boy shooting before all +the rest, and taking the thunder out of the adverse cloud for his +brothers and sisters, who follow and grow rich with unscathed forehead. +It is so in the nation, a few great men bearing the brunt of the storm, +and wading through the surges to set their weaker brothers, screaming +and struggling, with dry feet, in safety, on the firm land of science or +religion. It is so in the world, a tall nation achieving art, science, +law, morals, religion, and by the fact revealing their beauty to the +barbarian race. + +In all departments of human concern there are such pioneers for the +family, the nation or mankind. It is instructive to study this law of +human progress, to see the De Gamas and Columbuses, aspiring men who +dream of worlds to come and lead the perilous van; to see the Vespuccis, +the Cortezes, the Pizarros, who get rank and fame by following in their +track; to see next the merchant adventurers, soldiers, sutlers and the +like, who make money out of the new conquest, while the great +discoverers had for meet reward the joy of their genius, the nobleness +of their work, a sight of the world's future welfare from the prophet's +mountain--a hard life, a bad name, and a grave unknown. + +Now while there are those men in the van of society, who aspire at more, +chiding and taxing mankind with idleness, cowardice, and even sin, there +are yet those others who loiter on the way, from weakness or wilfulness, +refusing to advance--idlers, cowards, sinners. If born in the rear, +afar from civilization, they are left to die--the savages, the inferior +races, the perishing classes of the world. If born in the centre of +civilization, for a while they impede the march by actively hindering +others, by standing in their way, or by plundering the rest--the +dangerous classes of society. They too are slain and trodden under foot +of men, and likewise perish. + +In most large families there is a bad boy, a black sheep in the flock, +an Ishmael whom Abraham will drive out into the wilderness, to meet an +angel if he can find one. That story of Hagar and her son is very old, +but verified anew each year in families and nations. So in society there +are criminals who do not keep up with the moral advance of the mass, +stragglers from the march, whom society treats as Abraham his base-born +boy, but sending them off with no loaf or skin of water, not even a +blessing, but a curse; sending them off as Cain went, with a bad name +and a mark on their forehead! So in the world there are inferior +nations, savage, barbarous, half-civilized; some are inferior in nature, +some perhaps only behind us in development; on a lower form in the great +school of Providence--Negroes, Indians, Mexicans, Irish, and the like, +whom the world treats as Ishmael and the Gibeonites got treated: now +their land is stolen from them in war; their children, or their persons, +are annexed to the strong as slaves. The civilized continually preys on +the savage, reannexing their territory and stealing their +persons--owning them or claiming their work. Esau is rough and hungry, +Jacob smooth and well fed. The smooth man overreaches the rough; buys +his birthright for a mess of pottage; takes the ground from underneath +his feet, thereby supplanting his brother. So the elder serves the +younger, and the fresh civilization, strong, and sometimes it may be +wicked also, overmasters the ruder age that is contented to stop. The +young man now a barbarian will come up one day and take all our places, +making us seem ridiculous, nothing but timid conservatives! + +All these three, the reputed pests of the family, society, and the +world, are but loiterers from the march, bad boys, or dull ones. +Criminals are a class of such; savages are nations thereof--classes or +nations that for some cause do not keep up with the movement of mankind. +The same human nature is in us all, only there it is not so highly +developed. Yet the bad boy, who to-day is a curse to the mother that +bore him, would perhaps have been accounted brave and good in the days +of the Conqueror; the dangerous class might have fought in the Crusades +and been reckoned soldiers of the Lord whose chance for heaven was most +auspicious. The savage nations would have been thought civilized in the +days when "there was no smith in Israel." David would make a sorry +figure among the present kings of Europe, and Abraham would be judged +of by a standard not known in his time. There have been many centuries +in which the pirate, the land-robber and the murderer were thought the +greatest of men. + +Now it becomes a serious question, What shall be done for these +stragglers, or even with them? It is sometimes a terrible question to +the father and mother what they shall do for their reprobate son who is +an offence to the neighborhood, a shame, a reproach and a heart-burning +to them. It is a sad question to society, What shall be done with the +criminals--thieves, housebreakers, pirates, murderers? It is a serious +question to the world, What is to become of the humbler nations--Irish, +Mexicans, Malays, Indians, Negroes? + +In the world and in society the question is answered in about the same +way. In a low civilization, the instinct of self-preservation is the +strongest of all. They are done with, not for; are done away with. It is +the Old Testament answer:--The inferior nation is hewn to pieces, the +strong possess their lands, their cities, their cattle, their persons, +also, if they will; the class of criminals gets the prophet's curse: the +two bears, the jail and the gallows, eat them up. In the family alone is +the Christian answer given; the good shepherd goes forth to seek the one +sheep that has strayed and gone, lost upon the mountains; the father +goes out after the poor prodigal, whom the swine's meat could not feed +nor fill.[31] The world, which is the society of nations, and society, +which is the family of classes, still belong mainly to the "old +dispensation," Heathen or Hebrew, the period of force. In the family +there is a certain instinctive love binding the parent to the child, and +therefore a certain unity of action, growing out of that love. So the +father feels his kinship to his boy, though a reprobate; looks for the +causes of his son's folly or sin, and strives to cure him; at least to +do something for him, not merely with him. The spirit of Christianity +comes into the family, but the recognition of human brotherhood stops +mainly there. It does not reach throughout society; it has little +influence on national politics or international law--on the affairs of +the world taken as a whole. I know the idea of human brotherhood has +more influence now than hitherto; I think in New England it has a wider +scope, a higher range, and works with more power than elsewhere. Our +hearts bleed for the starving thousands of Ireland, whom we only read +of; for the down-trodden slave, though of another race and dyed by +Heaven with another hue; yes, for the savage and the suffering +everywhere. The hand of our charity goes through every land. If there is +one quality for which the men of New England may be proud it is this, +their sympathy with suffering man. Still we are far from the Christian +ideal. We still drive out of society the Ishmaels and Esaus. This we do +not so much from ill-will as want of thought, but thereby we lose the +strength of these outcasts. So much water runs over the dam--wasted and +wasting! + + * * * * * + +In all these melancholy cases what is it best to do? what shall the +parents do to mend their dull boy, or their wicked one? There are two +methods which may be tried. One is the method of force, sometimes +referred to Solomon, and recommended by the maxim, "Spare not the rod +and spoil the child." That is the Old Testament way, "Stripes are +prepared for the fool's back." The mischief is, they leave it no wiser +than they found it. By the law of the Hebrews, a man brought his +stubborn and rebellious son before the magistrates and deposed: "This +our son is stubborn and rebellious: he will not obey our voice. He is a +glutton and a drunkard." Thereupon, the men of the city stoned him with +stones and so "put away the evil from amongst them!" That was the method +of force. It may bruise the body; it may fill men with fear; it may +kill. I think it never did any other good. It belonged to a rude and +bloody age. I may ask intelligent men who have tried it, and I think +they will confess it was a mistake. I think I may ask intelligent men +on whom it has been tried, and they will say, "It was a mistake on my +father's part, but a curse to me!" I know there are exceptions to that +reply; still I think it will be general. A man is seldom elevated by an +appeal to low motives; always by addressing what is high and manly +within him. Is fear of physical pain the highest element you can appeal +to in a child; the most effectual? I do not see how Satan can be cast +out by Satan. I think a Saviour never tries it. Yet this method of force +is brief and compact. It requires no patience, no thought, no wisdom for +its application, and but a moment's time. For this reason, I think, it +is still retained in some families and many schools, to the injury alike +of all concerned. Blows and violent words are not correction, often but +an adjournment of correction: sometimes only an actual confession of +inability to correct. + +The other is the method of love, and of wisdom not the less. Force may +hide, and even silence effects for a time; it removes not the real +causes of evil. By the method of love and wisdom the parents remove the +causes; they do not kill the demoniac, they cast out the demon, not by +letting in Beelzebub, the chief devil, but by the finger of God. They +redress the child's folly and evil birth by their own wisdom and good +breeding. The day drives out and off the night. + +Sometimes you see that worthy parents have a weak and sickly child, +feeble in body. No pains are too great for them to take in behalf of the +faint and feeble one. What self-denial of the father; what sacrifice on +the mother's part! The best of medical skill is procured; the tenderest +watching is not spared. No outlay of money, time, or sacrifice is +thought too much to save the child's life; to insure a firm constitution +and make that life a blessing. The able-bodied children can take care of +themselves, but not the weak. So the affection of father and mother +centres on this sickly child. By extraordinary attention the feeble +becomes strong; the deformed is transformed, and the grown man, strong +and active, blesses his mother for health not less than life. + +Did you ever see a robin attend to her immature and callow child which +some heedless or wicked boy had stolen from the nest, wounded and left +on the ground, half living; left to perish? Patiently she brings food +and water, gives it kind nursing. Tenderly she broods over it all night +upon the ground, sheltering its tortured body from the cold air of night +and morning's penetrating dew. She perils herself; never leaves it--not +till life is gone. That is nature; the strong protecting the feeble. +Human nature may pause and consider the fowls of the air, whence the +Greatest once drew his lessons. Human history, spite of all its tears +and blood, is full of beauty and majestic worth. But it shows few things +so fair as the mother watching thus over her sickly and deformed child, +feeding him with her own life. What if she forewent her native instinct +and the mother said, "My boy is deformed, a cripple--let him die?" Where +would be the more hideous deformity? + +If his child be dull, slow-witted, what pains will a good father take to +instruct him; still more if he is vicious, born with a low organization, +with bad propensities--what admonitions will he administer; what +teachers will he consult; what expedients will he try; what prayers will +he not pray for his stubborn and rebellious son! Though one experiment +fail, he tries another, and then again, reluctant to give over. Did it +never happen to one of you to be such a child, to have outgrown that +rebellion and wickedness? Remember the pains taken with you; remember +the agony your mother felt; the shame that bowed your father's head so +oft, and brought such bitter tears adown those venerable cheeks. You +cannot pay for that agony, that shame, not pay the hearts which burst +with both--yet uttering only a prayer for you. Pay it back then, if you +can, to others like yourself, stubborn and rebellious sons. + +Has none of you ever been such a father or mother? You know then the sad +yearnings of heart which tried you. The world condemned you and your +wicked child, and said, "Let the elders stone him with stones. The +gallows waiteth for its own!" Not so you! You said: "Nay, now, wait a +little. Perchance the boy will mend. Come, I will try again. Crush him +not utterly and a father's heart besides!" The more he was wicked, the +more assiduous were you for his recovery, for his elevation. You saw +that he would not keep up with the moral march of men; that he was a +barbarian, a savage, yes, almost a beast amongst men. You saw this; yes, +felt it too as none others felt. Yet you could not condemn him wholly +and without hope. You saw some good mixed with his evil; some causes for +the evil and excuses for it which others were blind to. Because you +mourned most you pitied most--all from the abundance of your love. +Though even in your highest hour of prayer, the sad conviction came that +work or prayer was all in vain--you never gave him over to the world's +reproach, but interposed your fortune, character, yes, your own person, +to take the blows which the severe and tyrannous world kept laying on. +At last if he would not repent, you hid him away, the best you could, +from the mocking sight of other men, but never shut him from your heart; +never from remembrance in your deepest prayers. How the whole family +suffers for the prodigal till he returns. When he comes back, you +rejoice over one recovered olive-plant more than over all the trees of +your field which no storm has ever broke or bowed. How you went forth to +meet him; with what joy rejoiced! "For this my son was lost and is +found," says the old man; "he was dead and is alive once more. Let us +pray and be glad!" With what a serene and hallowed countenance you met +your friends and neighbors, as their glad hearts smiled up in their +faces when the prodigal came home from riot and swine's-bread, a new man +safe and sound! Many such things have I seen, and hearts long cold grew +bright and warm again. Towards evening the clouds broke asunder; Simeon +saw his consolation and went home in sunlight and in peace. + +The general result of this treatment in the family is, that the dull boy +learns by degrees, learns what he is fit for: the straggler joins the +troop, and keeps step with the rest, nay, sometimes becomes the leader +of the march: the vicious boy is corrected; even the faults of his +organization get overcome, not suddenly, but at length. The rejected +stone finds its place on the wall, and its use. Such is not always the +result. Some will not be mended. I stop not now to ask the cause. Some +will not return, though you go out to meet them a great way off. What +then? Will you refuse to go? Can you wholly abandon a friend or a child +who thus deserts himself? Is he so bad that he cannot be made better? +Perhaps it is so. Can you not hinder him from being worse? Are you so +good that you must forsake him? Did not God send his greatest, noblest, +purest Son to seek and save the lost? send him to call sinners to +repent? When sinners slew him, did God forsake mankind? Not one of +those sinners did his love forget. + +Does the good physician spend the night in feasting with the sound, or +in watching with the sick? Nay, though the sick man be past all hope, he +will look in to soothe affliction which he cannot cure; at least to +speak a word of friendly cheer. The wise teacher spends most pains with +backward boys, and is most bountiful himself where Nature seems most +niggard in her gifts. What would you say if a teacher refused to help a +boy because the boy was slow to learn; because he now and then broke +through the rules? What if the mother said: "My boy is a sickly dunce, +not worth the pains of rearing. Let him die!" What if the father said: +"He is a born villain, to be bred only for the gallows; what use to toil +or pray for him! Let the hangman take my son!" + + * * * * * + +What shall be done for Criminals, the backward children of society, who +refuse to keep up with the moral or legal advance of mankind? They are a +dangerous class. There are three things which are sometimes confounded: +there is Error, an unintentional violation of a natural law. Sometimes +this comes from abundance of life and energy; sometimes from ignorance, +general or special; sometimes from heedlessness, which is ignorance for +the time. Next there is Crime, the violation of a human statute. +Suppose the statute also represents a law of God; the violation thereof +may be the result of ignorance, or of design, it may come from a bad +heart. Then it becomes a Sin--the wilful violation of a known law of +God. There are many errors which are not crimes; and the best men often +commit them innocently, but not without harm, violating laws of the body +or the soul, which they have not grown up to understand. There have been +many crimes; yes, conscious violations of man's law which were not sins, +but rather a keeping of God's law. There are still a great many sins not +forbidden by any human statute, not considered as crimes. It is no crime +to go and fight in a wicked war; nay, it is thought a virtue. It was a +crime in the heroes of the American Revolution to demand the unalienable +rights of man--they were "traitors" who did it; a crime in Jesus to sum +up the "Law and the Prophets," in one word, Love; he was reckoned an +"infidel," guilty of blasphemy against Moses! Now to punish an error as +a crime, a crime as a sin, leads to confusion at the first, and to much +worse than confusion in the end. + +But there are crimes which are a violation of the eternal principles of +justice. It is of such, and the men who commit them, that I am now to +speak. What shall be done for the dangerous classes, the criminals? + +The first question is, What end shall we aim at in dealing with them? +The means must be suited to accomplish that end. We may desire +vengeance; then the hurt inflicted on the criminal will be proportioned +to the loss or hurt sustained by society. A man has stolen my goods, +injured my person, traduced my good name, sought to take my life. I will +not ask for the motive of his deeds, or the cause of that motive. I will +only consider my own damage, and will make him smart for that. I will +use violence--having an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I will +deliver him over to the tormentors till my vengeance is satisfied. If he +slew my friend, or sought to slay but lacked the power, as I have the +ability I will kill him! This desire of vengeance, of paying a hurt with +a hurt, has still very much influence on our treatment of criminals. I +fear it is still the chief aim of our penal jurisprudence. When +vengeance is the aim, violence is the most suitable method; jails and +the gallows most appropriate instruments! But is it right to take +vengeance; for me to hurt a man to-day solely because he hurt me +yesterday? If so, the proof of that right must be found in my nature, in +the law of God; a man can make a statute, God only a right. As I study +my nature, I find no such right; reason gives me none; conscience none; +religion quite as little. Doubtless I have a right to defend myself by +all manly means; to protect myself for the future no less than for the +present. In doing that, it may be needful that I should restrain, and +in restraining seize and hold, and in holding incidentally hurt my +opponent. But I cannot see what right I have in cold blood wilfully to +hurt a man because he once hurt me, and does not intend to repeat the +wrong. Do I look to the authority of the greatest Son of man? I find no +allusion to such a right. I find no law of God which allows vengeance. +In his providence I find justice everywhere as beautiful as certain; but +vengeance nowhere. I know this is not the common notion entertained of +God and his providence. I shudder to think at the barbarism which yet +prevails under the guise of Christianity; the vengeance which is sought +for in the name of God! + +The aim may be not to revenge a crime, but to prevent it; to deter the +offender from repeating the deed, and others from the beginning thereof. +In all modern legislation the vindictive spirit is slowly yielding to +the design of preventing crime. The method is to inflict certain uniform +and specific penalties for each offence, proportionate to the damage +which the criminal has done; to make the punishment so certain, so +severe, or so infamous, that the offender shall forbear for the future, +and innocent men be deterred from crime. But have we a right to punish a +man for the example's sake? I may give up my life to save a thousand +lives, or one if I will. But society has no right to take it, without my +consent, to save the whole human race! I admit that society has the +right of eminent domain over my property, and may take my land for a +street; may destroy my house to save the town; perhaps seize on my store +of provisions in time of famine. It can render me an equivalent for +those things. I have not the same lien on any portion of the universe as +on my life, my person. To these I have rights which none can alienate +except myself, which no man has given, which all men can never justly +take away. For any injustice wilfully done to me, the human race can +render me no equivalent. + +I know society claims the right of eminent domain over person and life +not less than over house and land--to take both for the Commonwealth. I +deny the right--certainly it has never been shown. Hence to me, resting +on the broad ground of natural justice, the law of God, capital +punishment seems wholly inadmissible, homicide with the pomp and +formality of law. It is a relic of the old barbarism--paying hurt for +hurt. No one will contend that it is inflicted for the offender's good. +For the good of others I contend we have no right to inflict it without +the sufferer's consent. To put a criminal to death seems to me as +foolish as for the child to beat the stool it has stumbled over, and as +useless too. I am astonished that nations with the name of Christian +ever on their lips, continue to disgrace themselves by killing men, +formally and in cold blood; to do this with prayers--"Forgive us as we +forgive;" doing it in the name of God! I do not wonder that in the +codes of nations, Hebrew or heathen, far lower than ourselves in +civilization, we should find laws enforcing this punishment; laws too +enacted in the name of God. But it fills me with amazement that worthy +men in these days should go back to such sources for their wisdom; +should walk dry-shod through the Gospels and seek in records of a +barbarous people to justify this atrocious act! Famine, pestilence, war, +are terrible evils, but no one is so dreadful in its effects as the +general prevalence of a great theological idea that is false. + +It makes me shudder to recollect that out of the twenty-eight States of +this Union twenty-seven should still continue the gallows as a part of +the furniture of a Christian Government. I hope our own State, dignified +already by so many noble acts, will soon rid herself of the stain. Let +us try the experiment of abolishing this penalty, if we will, for twenty +years, or but ten, and I am confident we shall never return to that +punishment. If a man be incapable of living in society, so ill-born or +ill-bred that you cannot cure or mend him, why, hide him away out of +society. Let him do no harm, but treat him kindly, not like a wolf but a +man. Make him work, to be useful to himself, to society, but do not kill +him. Or if you do, never say again, "Forgive us our trespasses as we +forgive those that trespass against us." What if He should take you at +your word! What would you think of a father who to-morrow should take +the Old Testament for his legal warrant, and bring his son before your +Mayor and Aldermen because he was "stubborn and rebellious, a drunkard +and a glutton," and they should stone him to death in front of the City +Hall! But there is quite as good a warrant in the Old Testament for that +as for hanging a man. The law is referred to Jehovah as its author. How +much better is it to choke the life out of a man behind the prison wall? +Is not society the father of us all, our protector and defender? Hanging +is vengeance; nothing but vengeance. I can readily conceive of that +great Son of man, whom the loyal world so readily adores, performing all +needful human works with manly dignity. Artists once loved to paint the +Saviour in the lowly toil of lowly men, his garments covered with the +dust of common life; his soul sullied by no pollution. But paint him to +your fancy as an executioner; legally killing a man; the halter in his +hands, hanging Judas for high treason! You see the relation which that +punishment bears to Christianity. Yet what was unchristian in Jesus does +not become Christian in the sheriff. We call ourselves Christians; we +often repeat the name, the words of Christ,--but his prayer? oh no--not +that. + +There are now in this land, I think, sixteen men under sentence of +death; sixteen men to be hanged till they are dead! Is there not in the +nation skill to heal these men? Perhaps it is so. I have known hearts +which seemed to me cold stones, so hard, so dry. No kindly steel had +alchemy to win a spark from them. Yet their owners went about the +streets and smiled their hollow smiles; the ghastly brother cast his +shadow in the sun, or wrapped his cloak about him in the wintry hour, +and still the world went on though the worst of men remained unhanged. +Perhaps you cannot cure these men!--is there not power enough to keep +them from doing harm; to make them useful? Shame on us that we know no +better than thus to pour out life upon the dust, and then with reeking +hands turn to the poor and weak and say, "Ye shall not kill." + +But if the prevention of crime be the design of the punishment, then we +must not only seek to hinder the innocent from vice, but we must reform +the criminal. Do our methods of punishment effect that object? During +the past year we have committed to the various prisons in Massachusetts +five thousand six hundred sixty-nine persons for crime. How many of them +will be reformed and cured by this treatment, and so live honest and +useful lives hereafter? I think very few. The facts show that a great +many criminals are never reformed by their punishment. Thus in France, +taking the average of four years, it seems that twenty-two out of each +hundred criminals were punished oftener than once; in Scotland +thirty-six out of the hundred. Of the seventy-eight received at your +State's prison the last year--seventeen have been sent to that very +prison before. How many of them have been tenants of other institutions +I know not, but as only twenty-three of the seventy-eight are natives of +this State, it is plain that many, under other names, may have been +confined in jail before. Yet of these seventy-eight, ten are less than +twenty years old.[32] Of thirty-five men sent from Boston to the State's +prison in one year, fourteen had been there before. More than half the +inmates of the House of Correction in this city are punished oftener +than once! These facts show that if we aim at the reformation of the +offender we fail most signally. Yet every criminal not reformed lives +mainly at the charge of society; and lives too in the most costly way, +for the articles he steals have seldom the same value to him as to the +lawful owner. + +It seems to me that our whole method of punishing crimes is a false one; +that but little good comes of it, or can come. We beat the stool which +we have stumbled over. We punish a man in proportion to the loss or the +fear of society; not in proportion to the offender's state of mind; not +with a careful desire to improve that state of mind. This is wise if +vengeance be the aim; if reformation, it seems sheer folly. I know our +present method is the result of six thousand years' experience of +mankind; I know how easy it is to find fault--how difficult to devise a +better mode. Still the facts are so plain that one with half an eye +cannot fail to see the falseness of the present methods. To remove the +evil, we must remove its cause,--so let us look a little into this +matter, and see from what quarter our criminals proceed. + +Here are two classes. + +I. There are the foes of society; men that are criminals in soul, born +criminals, who have a bad nature. The cause of their crime therefore is +to be found in their nature itself, in their organization if you will. +All experience shows that some men are born with a depraved +organization, an excess of animal passions, or a deficiency of other +powers to balance them. + +II. There are the victims of society; men that become criminals by +circumstances, made criminals, not born; men who become criminals, not +so much from strength of evil in their soul, or excess of evil +propensities in their organization, as from strength of evil in their +circumstances. I do not say that a man's character is wholly determined +by the circumstances in which he is placed, but all experience shows +that circumstances, such as exposure in youth to good men or bad men, +education, intellectual, moral, and religious, or neglect thereof entire +or partial, have a vast influence in forming the character of men, +especially of men not well endowed by nature. + +Now the criminals in soul are the most dangerous of men, the born foes +of society. I will not at this moment undertake to go behind their +organization and ask, "How comes it that they are so ill-born?" I stop +now at that fact. The cause of their crime is in their bodily +constitution itself. This is always a small class. There are in New +England perhaps five hundred men born blind or deaf. Apart from the +idiots, I think there are not half so many who by nature and bodily +constitution are incapable of attaining the average morality of the race +at this day; not so many born foes of society as are born blind or deaf. + +The criminals from circumstances become what they are by the action of +causes which may be ascertained, guarded against, mitigated, and at last +overcome and removed. These men are born of poor parents, and find it +difficult to satisfy the natural wants of food, clothing, and shelter. +They get little culture, intellectual or moral. The school-house is +open, but the parent does not send the children, he wants their +services, to beg for him, perhaps to steal, it may be to do little +services which lie within their power. Besides, the child must be +ill-clad, and so a mark is set on him. The boy of the perishing classes, +with but common endowments, cannot learn at school as one of the thrifty +or abounding class. Then he receives no stimulus at home; there every +thing discourages his attempts. He cannot share the pleasure and sport +of his youthful fellows. His dress, his uncleanly habits, the result of +misery, forbid all that. So the children of the perishing herd together, +ignorant, ill-fed, and miserably clad. You do not find the sons of this +class in your colleges, in your high schools where all is free for the +people; few even in the grammar schools; few in the churches. Though +born into the nineteenth century after Christ, they grow up almost in +the barbarism of the nineteenth century before him. Children that are +blind and deaf, though born with a superior organization, if left to +themselves become only savages, little more than animals. What are we to +expect of children, born indeed with eyes and ears, but yet shut out +from the culture of the age they live in? In the corruption of a city, +in the midst of its intenser life, what wonder that they associate with +crime, that the moral instinct, baffled and cheated of its due, becomes +so powerless in the boy or girl; what wonder that reason never gets +developed there, nor conscience, nor that blessed religious sense learns +ever to assert its power? Think of the temptations that beset the boy; +those yet more revolting which address the other sex. Opportunities for +crime continually offer. Want impels, desire leagues with opportunity, +and the result we know. Add to all this the curse that creates so much +disease, poverty, wretchedness, and so perpetually begets crime; I mean +intemperance! That is almost the only pleasure of the perishing class. +What recognized amusement have they but this, of drinking themselves +drunk? Do you wonder at this? with no air, nor light, nor water, with +scanty food and a miserable dress, with no culture, living in a cellar +or a garret, crowded, stifling, and offensive even to the rudest sense, +do you wonder that man or woman seeks a brief vacation of misery in the +dram-shop and in its drunkenness? I wonder not. Under such circumstances +how many of you would have done better? To suffer continually from lack +of what is needful for the natural bodily wants of food, of shelter, of +warmth, that suffering is misery. It is not too much to say, there are +always in this city thousands of persons who smart under that misery. +They are indeed a perishing class. + +Almost all our criminals, victims and foes, come from this portion of +society. Most of those born with an organization that is predisposed to +crime are born there. The laws of nature are unavoidably violated from +generation to generation. Unnatural results must follow. The misfortunes +of the father are visited on his miserable child. Cows and sheep +degenerate when the demands of nature are not met, and men degenerate +not less. Only the low, animal instincts, those of self-defence and +self-perpetuation get developed; these with preternatural force. The +animal man wakes, becomes brutish, while the spiritual element sleeps +within him. Unavoidably then the perishing is mother of the dangerous +class. + +I deny not that a portion of criminals come from other sources, but at +least nine tenths thereof proceed from this quarter. Of two hundred and +seventy-three thousand, eight hundred and eighteen criminals punished in +France from 1825 to 1839, more than half were wholly unable even to +read, and had been brought up subject to no family affections. Out of +seventy criminals in one prison at Glasgow who were under eighteen, +fifty were orphans having lost one or both parents, and nearly all the +rest had parents of bad character and reputation. Taking all the +criminals in England and Wales in 1841, there were not eight in a +hundred that could read and write well. In our country, where everybody +gets a mouthful of education, though scarce any one a full meal, the +result is a little different. Thus of the seven hundred and ninety +prisoners in the Mount Pleasant State's Prison in New York, one hundred +it is said could read and understand. Yet of all our criminals only a +very small proportion have been in a condition to obtain the average +intellectual and moral culture of our times. + +Our present mode of treating criminals does no good to this class of +men, these victims of circumstances. I do not know that their +improvement is even contemplated. We do not ask what causes made this +man a criminal, and then set ourselves to remove those causes. We look +only at the crime; so we punish practically a man because he had a +wicked father; because his education was neglected, and he exposed to +the baneful influence of unholy men. In the main we treat all criminals +alike if guilty of the same offence, though the same act denotes very +different degrees of culpability in the different men, and the same +punishment is attended with quite opposite results. Two men commit +similar crimes, we sentence them both to the State Prison for ten years. +At the expiration of one year let us suppose one man has thoroughly +reformed, and has made strict and solemn resolutions to pursue an honest +and useful life. I do not say such a result is to be expected from such +treatment; still it is possible, and I think has happened, perhaps many +times. We do not discharge the man; we care nothing for his penitence; +nothing for his improvement; we keep him nine years more. That is an +injustice to him; we have robbed him of nine years of time which he +might have converted into life. It is unjust also to society, which +needs the presence and the labor of all that can serve. The man has been +a burden to himself and to us. Suppose at the expiration of his ten +years the other man is not reformed at all; this result, I fear, happens +in the great majority of cases. He is no better for what he has +suffered; we know that he will return to his career of crime, with new +energy and with even malice. Still he is discharged. This is unjust to +him, for he cannot bear the fresh exposure to circumstances which +corrupted him at first, and he will fall lower still. It is unjust to +society, for the property and the persons of all are exposed to his +passions just as much as before. He feels indignant as if he had +suffered a wrong. He says, "Society has taken vengeance on me, when I +was to be pitied more than blamed. Now I will have my turn. They will +not allow me to live by honest toil. I will learn their lesson. I will +plunder their wealth, their roof shall blaze!" He will live at the +expense of society, and in the way least profitable and most costly to +mankind. This idle savage will levy destructive contributions on the +rich, the thrifty, and the industrious. Yes, he will help teach others +the wickedness which himself once, and perhaps unavoidably learned. So +in the very bosom of society there is a horde of marauders waging +perpetual war against mankind. + +Do not say my sympathies are with the wicked, not the industrious and +good. It is not so. My sympathies are not confined to one class, +honorable or despised. But it seems to me this whole method of keeping a +criminal a definite time and then discharging him, whether made better +or worse is a mistake. Certainly it is so if we aim at his reformation. +What if a shepherd made it a rule to look one hour for each lost sheep, +and then return with or without the wanderer? What if a smith decreed +that one hour and no more should be spent in shoeing a horse, and so +worked that time on each, though half that time were enough--or sent +home the beast with but three shoes, or two, or one, because the hour +passed by? What if the physicians decreed, that all men sick of some +contagious disease, should spend six weeks in the hospital, then, if the +patient were found well the next day after admission, still kept him the +other forty; or, if not mended at the last day, sent him out sick to the +world? Such a course would be less unjust, less inhuman, only the wrong +is more obvious. + +To aggravate the matter still more, we have made the punishment more +infamous than the crime. A man may commit great crimes which indicate +deep depravity; may escape the legal punishment thereof by gold, by +flight, by further crimes, and yet hold up his head unblushing and +unrepentant amongst mankind. Let him commit a small crime, which shall +involve no moral guilt, and be legally punished--who respects him again? +What years of noble life are deemed enough to wipe the stain out of his +reputation? Nay, his children after him, to the third generation, must +bear the curse! + +The evil does not stop with the infamy. A guilty man has served out his +time. He is thoroughly resolved on industry and a moral life. Perhaps he +has not learned that crime is wrong, but found it unprofitable. He will +live away from the circumstances which before led him to crime. He comes +out of prison, and the jail-mark is on him. He now suffers the severest +part of his punishment. Friends and relations shun him. He is doomed and +solitary in the midst of the crowd. Honest men will seldom employ him. +The thriving class look on him with shuddering pity; the abounding +loathe the convict's touch. He is driven among the dangerous and the +perishing; they open their arms and offer him their destructive +sympathy. They minister to his wants; they exaggerate his wrongs; they +nourish his indignation. His direction is no longer in his own hands. +His good resolutions--he knows they were good, but only impossible. He +looks back, and sees nothing but crime and the vengeance society takes +for the crime. He looks around, and the world seems thrusting at him +from all quarters. He looks forward, and what prospect is there? "Hope +never comes that comes to all." He must plunge afresh into that miry +pit, which at last is sure to swallow him up. He plunges anew, and the +jail awaits him; again; deeper yet; the gallows alone can swing him +clear from that pestilent ditch. But he is a man and a brother, our +companion in weakness. With his education, exposure, temptation, outward +and from within, how much better would the best of you become? + +No better result is to be looked for from such a course. Of the one +thousand five hundred and ninety-two persons in the State's prison of +New York, four hundred have been there more than once. In five years, +from 1841 to 1847, there were punished in the House of Correction in +this city, five thousand seven hundred and forty-eight persons; of these +three thousand one hundred and forty-six received such a sentence +oftener than once. Yes, in five years, three hundred and thirteen were +sent thither, each ten times or more! How many found a place in other +jails I know not. + +What if fathers treated dull or vicious boys in this manner at +home--making them infamous for the first offence, or the first dulness, +and then refusing to receive them back again? What if the father sent +out his son with bad boys, and when he erred and fell, said: "You did +mischief with bad boys once; I know they enticed you. I knew you were +feeble and could not resist their seductions. But I shall punish you. Do +as well as you please, I will not forgive you. If you err again, I will +punish you afresh. If you do never so well, you shall be infamous for +ever!" What if a public teacher never took back to college a boy who +once had broke the academic law--but made him infamous for ever? What if +the physicians had kept a patient the requisite time in the hospital, +and discharged him as wholly cured, but bid men beware of him and shun +him for ever? That is just what we are doing with this class of +criminals; not intentionally, not consciously--but doing none the less! + +Let us look a moment more carefully, though I have already touched on +this subject, at the proximate causes of crime in this class of men. The +first cause is obvious--poverty. Most of the criminals are from the +lowest ranks of society. If you distribute men into three classes, the +abounding, the thriving, the perishing, you will find the inmates of +your prisons come almost wholly from the latter class. The perishing +fill the sink of society, and the dangerous the sink of the +perishing--for in that "lowest deep there is a lower depth." Of three +thousand one hundred and eighty-eight persons confined in the House of +Correction in this city, one thousand six hundred and fifty-seven were +foreigners; of the five hundred and fifty sent from this city in five +years to the State's Prison, one hundred and eighty-five were +foreigners. Of five hundred and forty-seven females in the Prison on +Blackwell's Island at one time--five hundred and nineteen were committed +for "vagrancy;" women with no capital but their person, with no friend, +no shelter. Examine minutely, you shall find that more than nine tenths +of all criminals come from the perishing class of men. There all +cultivation, intellectual, moral, religious, is at the lowest ebb. They +are a class of barbarians; yes, of savages, living in the midst of +civilization, but not of it. The fact, that most criminals come from +this class, shows that the causes of the crime lie out of them more than +in them; that they are victims of society, not foes. The effect of +property in elevating and moralizing a class of men is seldom +appreciated. Historically the animal man comes before the spiritual. +Animal wants are imperious; they must be supplied. The lower you go in +the social scale, the more is man subordinated to his animal appetites +and demonized by them. Nature aims to preserve the individual and repeat +the species--so all passions relative to these two designs are +preëminently powerful. If a man is born into the intense life of an +American city, and grows up, having no contact with the loftier culture +which naturally belongs to that intense life, why the man becomes mainly +an animal, all the more violent for the atmosphere he breathes in. What +shall restrain him? He has not the normal check of reason, conscience, +religion, these sleep in the man; nor the artificial and conventional +check of honor, of manners. The public opinion which he bows to favors +obscenity, drunkenness, and violence. He is doubly a savage. His wants +cannot be legally satisfied. He breaks the law, the law which covers +property, then goes on to higher crimes. + +The next cause is the result of the first--education is neglected, +intellectual, moral, and religious. Now and then a boy in whom the soul +of genius is covered with the beggar's rags, struggles through the +terrible environment of modern poverty to die, the hero of misery, in +the attempt at education! His expiring light only makes visible the +darkness out of which it shone. Boys born into this condition find at +home nothing to aid them, nothing to encourage a love of excellence, or +a taste for even the rudiments of learning. What is unavoidably the lot +of such? The land has been the schoolmaster of the human race--but the +perishing class scarce sees its face. Poverty brings privations, misery, +and that a deranged state of the system; then unnatural appetites goad +and burn the man. The destruction of the poor is their poverty. They see +wealth about them, but have none; so none of what it brings; neither the +cleanliness, nor health, nor self-respect, nor cultivation of mind, and +heart, and soul. I am told that no Quaker has ever been confined in any +jail in New England for any real crime. Are the Quakers better born than +other men? Nay, but they are looked after in childhood. Who ever saw a +Quaker in an almshouse? Not a fiftieth part of the people of New York +are negroes, yet more than a sixth part of all the criminals in her four +State's Prisons are men of color. These facts show plainly the causes of +crime. + +It is almost impossible to exaggerate the temptations of the perishing +class in our great cities. In Boston at this moment there are more than +four hundred boys employed about the various bowling-alleys of the +city, exposed to the intemperance, the coarseness, the general +corruption of the men who mainly frequent those places. What will be +their fate? Shall I speak of their sisters; of the education they are +receiving; the end that awaits them? Poverty brings misery with its +family of vices. + +A third cause of crime comes with the rest--intemperance, the destroying +angel that lays waste the household of the poor. In our country, misery +in a healthy man is almost proof of vice; but the vice may belong to one +alone, and the misery it brings be shared by the whole family. A large +proportion of the perishing class are intemperate, and a great majority +of all our criminals. + +Now, our present method is wholly inadequate to reform men exposed to +such circumstances. You may punish the man, but it does no good. You can +seldom frighten men out of a fever. Can you frighten them from crime, +when they know little of the internal distinction between right and +wrong; when all the circumstances about them impel to crime? Can you +frighten a starving girl into chastity? You cannot keep men from +lewdness, theft and violence, when they have no self-respect, no +culture, no development of mind, heart, and soul. The jail will not take +the place of the church, of the school-house, of home. It will not +remove the causes which are making new criminals. It does not reform +the old ones. Shall we shut men in a jail, and when there treat them +with all manner of violence, crush out the little self-respect yet left, +give them a degrading dress, and send them into the world cursed with an +infamous name, and all that because they were born in the low places of +society and caught the stain thereof? The jail does not alter the +circumstances which occasioned the crime, and till these causes are +removed a fresh crop will spring out of the festering soil. Some men +teach dogs and horses things unnatural to these animals; they use +violence and blows as their instrument of instruction. But to teach man +what is conformable to his nature, something more is required. + +To return to the other class, who are born criminals. Bare confinement +in the prison alters no man's constitutional tendencies; it can no more +correct moral or mental weakness or obliquity than it can correct a +deficiency of the organs of sensation. You all know the former treatment +of men born with defective or deranged intellectual faculties--of madmen +and fools. We still pursue the same course towards men born with +defective or deranged moral faculties, idiots and madmen of a more +melancholy class, and with a like result. + +I know how easy it is to find fault, and how difficult to propose a +better way; how easy to misunderstand all that I have said, how easy to +misrepresent it all. But it seems to me that hitherto we have set out +wrong in this undertaking; have gone on wrong, and, by the present +means, can never remove the causes of crime nor much improve the +criminals as a class. Let me modestly set down my thoughts on this +subject, in hopes that other men, wiser and more practical, will find +out a way yet better still. A jail, as a mere house of punishment for +offenders, ought to have no place in an enlightened people. It ought to +be a moral hospital where the offender is kept till he is cured. That +his crime is great or little, is comparatively of but small concern. It +is wrong to detain a man against his will after he is cured; wrong to +send him out before he is cured, for he will rob and corrupt society, +and at last miserably perish. We shall find curable cases and incurable. + +I would treat the small class of born criminals, the foes of society, as +maniacs. I would not kill them more than madmen; I would not inflict +needless pain on them. I would not try to shame, to whip, or to starve +into virtue men morally insane. I would not torture a man because born +with a defective organization. Since he could not live amongst men, I +would shut him out from society; would make him work for his own good +and the good of society. The thought of punishment for its own sake, or +as a compensation for the evil which a man has done, I would not harbor +for a moment. If a man has done me a wrong, calumniated, insulted, +abused me with all his power, it renders the matter no better that I +turn round and make him smart for it. If he has burned my house over my +head, and I kill him in return, it does not rebuild my house. I cannot +leave him at large to burn other men's houses. He must be restrained. +But if I cure the man perhaps he will rebuild it, at any rate, will be +of some service to the world, and others gain much while I lose nothing. + +When the victims of society violated its laws, I would not torture a man +for his misfortune, because his father was poor, his mother a brute; +because his education was neglected. I would shut him out from society +for a time. I would make him work for his own good and the good of +others. The evil he had caught from the world I would overcome by the +good that I would present to him. I would not clothe him with an +infamous dress, crowd him with other men whom society had made infamous, +leaving them to ferment and rot together. I would not set him up as a +show to the public, for his enemy, or his rival, or some miserable fop +to come and stare at with merciless and tormenting eye. I would not load +him with chains, nor tear his flesh with a whip. I would not set +soldiers with loaded gun to keep watch over him, insulting their brother +by mocking and threats. I would treat the man with firmness, but with +justice, with pity, with love. I would teach the man; what his family +could not do for him, what society and the church had failed of, the +jail should do, for the jail should be a manual labor school, not a +dungeon of torture. I would take the most gifted, the most cultivated, +the wisest and most benevolent, yes, the most Christian man in the +State, and set him to train up these poor savages of civilization. The +best man is the natural physician of the wicked. A violent man, angry, +cruel, remorseless, should never enter the jail except as a criminal. +You have already taken one of the greatest, wisest, and best men of this +Commonwealth, and set him to watch over the public education of the +people.[33] True, you give him little money, and no honor; he brings the +honor to you, not asking but giving that. You begin to see the result of +setting such a man to such a work, though unhonored and ill paid. Soon +you will see it more plainly in the increase of temperance, industry, +thrift, of good morals and sound religion! I would set such a man, if I +could find such another, to look after the dangerous classes of society. +I would pay him for it; honor him for it. I would have a Board of Public +Morals to look after this matter of crime, a Secretary of Public Morals, +a Christian Censor, whose business it should be to attend to this class, +to look after the jails and make them houses of refuge, of instruction, +which should do for the perishing class what the school-house and the +church do for others. I would send missionaries amongst the most exposed +portions of mankind as well as amongst the savages of New Holland. I +would send wise men, good men. There are already some such engaged in +this work. I would strengthen their hands. I would make crime infamous. +If there are men whose crime is to be traced not to a defective +organization of body, not to the influence of circumstances, but only to +voluntary and self-conscious wickedness,--I would make these men +infamous. It should be impossible for such a man, a voluntary foe of +mankind, to live in society. I would have the jail such a place that the +friends of a criminal of either class should take him as now they take a +lunatic or a sick man, and bring him to the Court that he might be +healed if curable, or if not might be kept from harm and hid away out of +sight. Crime and sin should be infamous; not its correction, least of +all its cure. I would not loathe and abhor a man who had been corrected +and reformed by the jail more than a boy who had been reformed by his +teacher, or a man cured of lunacy. I would have society a father who +goes out to meet the prodigal while yet a great way off; yes, goes and +brings him away from his riotous living, washes him, clothes him, and +restores him to a right mind. There is a prosecuting attorney for the +State; I would have also a defending attorney for the accused, that +justice might be done all round. Is the State only a step-mother? Then +is she not a Christian Commonwealth but a barbarous despotism, fitly +represented by that uplifted sword on her public seal, and that motto of +barbarous and bloody Latin. I would have the State aid men and direct +them after they have been discharged from the jail, not leave them to +perish; not force them to perish. Society is the natural guardian of the +weak. + +I cannot think the method here suggested would be so costly as the +present. It seems to me that institutions of this character might be +made not only to support themselves, but be so managed as to leave a +balance of income considerably beyond the expense. This might be made +use of for the advantage of the criminal when he returned to society; or +with it he might help make restitution of what he had once stolen. +Besides being less costly, it would cure the offender and send back +valuable men into society. + +It seems to me that our whole criminal legislation is based on a false +principle--force and not love; that it is eminently well adapted to +revenge, not at all to correct, to teach, to cure. The whole apparatus +for the punishment of offenders, from the gallows down to the House of +Correction, seems to me wrong; wholly wrong, unchristian, and even +inhuman. We teach crime while we punish it. Is it consistent for the +State to take vengeance when I may not? Is it better for the State to +kill a man in cold blood, than for me to kill my brother when in a rage? +I cannot help thinking that the gallows and even the jail, as now +administered, are practical teachers of violence and wrong! I cannot +think it will always be so. Hitherto we have looked on criminals as +voluntary enemies of mankind. We have treated them as wild beasts, not +as dull or loitering boys. We have sought to destroy by death, to +disable by mutilation or imprisonment, to terrify and subdue, not to +convince, to reform, encourage, and bless. + +The history of the past is full of prophecy for the future. Not many +years ago we shut up our lunatics in jails, in dungeons, in cages; we +chained the maniac with iron; we gave him a bottle of water and a sack +of straw; we left him in filth, in cold and nakedness. We set strong and +brutal men to watch him. When he cried, when he gnashed his teeth and +tore his hair, we beat him all the more! They do so yet in some places, +for they think a madman is not a brother but a devil. What was the +result? Madness was found incurable. Now lunacy is a disease, to be +prescribed for as fever or rheumatism; when we find an incurable case we +do not kill the man, nor chain him, nor count him a devil. Yet lunacy is +not curable by force, by jails, dungeons, and cages; only by the +medicine of wise men and good men. What if Christ had met one demoniac +with a whip and another with chains! + +You know how we once treated criminals! with what scourgings and +mutilations, what brandings, what tortures with fire and red-hot iron! +Death was not punishment enough, it must be protracted amid the most +cruel torments that quivering flesh could bear. The multitude looked on +and learned a lesson of deadly wickedness. A judicial murder was a +holiday! It is but little more than two hundred years since a man was +put to death in the most enlightened country of Europe for eating meat +on Friday; not two hundred since men and women were hanged in +Massachusetts for a crime now reckoned impossible! It is not a hundred +years since two negro slaves were judicially burned alive in this very +city! These facts make us shudder, but hope also. In a hundred years +from this day will not men look on our gallows, jails, and penal law as +we look on the racks, the torture-chambers of the middle ages, and the +bloody code of remorseless inquisitors? + +We need only to turn our attention to this subject to find a better way. +We shall soon see that punishment as such is an evil to the criminal, +and so swells the sum of suffering with which society runs over; that it +is an evil also to the community at large by abstracting valuable force +from profitable work, and so a loss.[34] We shall one day remember that +the offender is a man, and so his good also is to be consulted. He may +be a bad man, voluntarily bad if you will. Still we are to be economical +even of his suffering, for the least possible punishment is the best. +Already a good many men think that error is better refuted by truth than +by fagots and axes. How long will it be before we apply good sense and +Christianity to the prevention of crime? One day we must see that a +jail, as it is now conducted, is no more likely to cure a crime than a +lunacy or a fever! Hitherto we have not seen the application of the +great doctrines of Christianity; not felt that all men are brothers. So +our remedies for social evils have been bad almost as the disease; +remedies which remedied nothing, but hid the patient out of sight. All +great criminals have been thought incurable, and then killed. What if +the doctors found a patient sick of a disease which he had foolishly or +wickedly brought upon himself, and then, by the advice of twelve other +doctors, professionally killed him for justice or example's sake? They +would do what all the States in Christendom have done these thousand +years. I cannot see why the Legislature has not as good right to +authorize the medical college thus to kill men, as to authorize the +present forms of destroying life! + +We do not look the facts of crime fairly in the face. We do not see what +heathens we are. Why, there is not a Christian nation in the world that +has not a Secretary of War, armies, soldiers, and the terrible apparatus +of destruction. But there is not one that has a Secretary of Peace, not +one that takes half the pains to improve its own criminals which it +takes to build forts and fleets! Yet it seems to me that a Christian +State should be a great peace society, a society for mutual advancement +in the qualities of a man! + +Do we not see that by our present course we are teaching men violence, +fraud, deceit, and murder? What is the educational effect of our present +political conduct, of our invasions, our battles, our victories; of the +speeches of "our great men?" You all know that this teaches the poor, +the low, and the weak that murder and robbery are good things when done +on a large scale; that they give wealth, fame, power, and honors. The +ignorant man, ill-born and ill-bred, asks: "Why not when done on a small +scale; why not good for me?" If it is right in the President of the +United States to rob and murder, why not for the President of the United +States Bank? Do famous men say, "Our country however bounded," and vote +to plunder a sister State? then why shall not the poor man, hungry and +cold, say, "My purse however bounded," and seize on all he can get? Give +one a seat in Congress if you will, and the other a noose of hemp, there +is a God before whom seats in Congress and hempen halters are of equal +value, but who does justice to great and little! + + * * * * * + +To reform the dangerous classes of society, to advance those who loiter +behind our civilization, we need a special work designed directly for +the good of the criminals and such as stand on that perilous ground +which slopes towards crime. Some good men undertook this work long ago. +They found much to do; a good deal to encourage them. Some of them are +well known to you, are laboring here in the midst of us. They need +counsel, encouragement, and aid. We must not look coldly on their +enterprise nor on them. They can tell far better than I what specific +plans are best for their specific work. Already have they accomplished +much in this noble enterprise. The society for aiding discharged +convicts is a prophecy of yet better things. Soon I trust it will extend +its kind offices to all the prisons, and its work be made the affair of +the State. The plan now before your Legislature for a "State Manual +Labor School," designed to reform vicious children, is also full of +promise. The wise and anonymous charity which so beautifully and in +silence has dropped its gold into the chest for these poor outcasts, is +itself its hundred-fold reward. Institutions like that which we +contemplate have been found successful in England, Germany, and France. +They actually reform the juvenile delinquent and bring up useful men, +not hardened criminals.[35] We are beginning to attend to this special +work of removing the causes of crime, and restoring at least the young +offenders. + +However, the greater portion of this work is not special and for the +criminal, but general and for society. To change the treatment of +criminals, we must change every thing else. The dangerous class is the +unavoidable result of our present civilization; of our present ideas of +man and social life. To reform and elevate the class of criminals, we +must reform and elevate all other classes. To do that, we must educate +and refine men. We must learn to treat all men as brothers. This is a +great work and one of slow achievement. It cannot be brought about by +legislation, nor any mechanical contrivance and reorganization alone. +There is no remedy for this evil and its kindred but keeping the laws of +God; in one word, none but Christianity, goodness, and piety felt in the +heart, applied in all the works of life, individually, socially, and +politically. While educated and abounding men acknowledge no rule of +conduct but self-interest, what can you expect of the ignorant and the +perishing? While great men say without rebuke that we do not look at +"the natural justice of a war," do you expect men in the lowest places +of society, ignorant and brutish, pinched by want, to look at the +natural justice of theft, of murder? It were a vain expectation. We must +improve all classes to improve one; perhaps the highest first. +Different men acting in the most various directions, without concert, +often jealous one of another, and all partial in their aims, are helping +forward this universal result. While we are contending against slavery, +war, intemperance, or party rage, while we are building up hospitals, +colleges, schools, while we are contending for freedom of conscience, or +teaching abstractly the love of man and love of God, we are all working +for the welfare of this neglected class. The gallows of the barbarian +and the Gospel of Christianity cannot exist together. The times are full +of promise. Mankind slowly fulfils what a man of genius prophesies; God +grants what a good man asks, and when it comes, it is better than what +he prayed for. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] The allusion is to the following passages of Scripture, which were +read as the lesson for the day: Numb. xiv.; 2 Kings, ii. 23-25; and +Luke, xv. + +[32] See other statistics in "Sermon of the Perishing Classes," pp. 205, +206. + +[33] Mr. Horace Mann. + +[34] The period of confinement in our States' Prisons differs a good +deal in the various States, as will appear from the following Table. + + Whole No. + in prison. Average sentence. +In Conn. 189, March 31, 1841, 7 yrs. 3 mos. + Va. 181, Sept 30, 1839, 6 " 10 " + Mass. 322, Sept. 30, 1840, 5 " 9 " + La. 68, Sept 30, 1839, 5 " 1 " + N. J. 152, Sept. 30, 1840, 4 " 7 " + Ky. 162, Sept. 30, 1839, 4 " + D. C. 79, Nov. 30, 1840, 3 " 8 " + Md. 104, 3 " + Phila. 129, Sept. 30, 1840, 2 " 5 " + +The difference between the average term of punishment in Connecticut and +Philadelphia is 300 per cent! If the same result is effected by each, +there has then been a great amount of gratuitous suffering in one case. + +[35] I refer to the prisons at Stretton-upon-Dunmore in Warwickshire, +that at Horn near Hamburg, and the one at Mettray near Tours in France. +The French penal code allows the guardian or relatives of an offender +under age to take him from prison on giving bonds for his good behavior. +While these pages were first passing through the press, I learned the +happy effect which followed the execution of the license laws in this +city. In 1846, from the 10th of March to the 24th of April, there were +sent to the House of Correction for intemperance one hundred eighty-nine +persons. During the same period of the year 1847, only eighty-four have +been thus punished! But alas, in 1851 the evil has returned, and the +demon of drunkenness mows down the wretched in Boston with unrestricted +scythe. + + + + +IX. + +A SERMON OF POVERTY.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 14, +1849. + +PROVERBS X. 15. + + The destruction of the poor is their poverty. + + +Last Sunday something was said of riches. To-day I ask your attention to +a sermon of poverty. By poverty, I mean the state in which a man does +not have enough to satisfy the natural wants of food, raiment, shelter, +warmth and the like. From the earliest times that we know of, there have +been two classes of men, the rich who had more than enough, the poor who +had less. In one of the earliest books which treats of the condition of +men, we find that Abraham, a rich man, owns the bodies of three hundred +men that are poor. In four thousand years, the difference between rich +and poor in our part of America is a good deal lessened, not done away +with. In New England property is more uniformly distributed than in +most countries, perhaps more equally than in any land as highly +civilized. But even here the old distinction remains in a painful form +and extended to a pitiful degree. + +At one extreme of society is a body called the rich, men who have +abundance, not a very numerous body, but powerful, first through the +energy which accumulates money, and secondly, through the money itself. +Then there is a body of men who are comfortable. This class comprises +the mass of the people in all the callings of life. Out of this class +the rich men come, and into it their children or grandchildren commonly +return. Few of the rich men of Boston were sons of rich men; still fewer +grandsons; few of them perhaps will be fathers of men equally rich; +still fewer grandfathers of such. Then there is the class that is +miserable. Some of them are supported by public charity, some by +private, some of them by their toil alone--but altogether they form a +mass of men who only stay in the world, and do not live in the best +sense of that word. + +Such are the great divisions of society in respect to property. However, +the lines between these three classes are not sharp and distinctly +drawn. There are no sharp divisions in nature; but for our convenience, +we distinguish classes by their centre where they are most unlike, and +not by their circumference where they intermix and resemble each other. +The line between the miserable and comfortable, between the comfortable +and rich, is not distinctly drawn. The centre of each class is obvious +enough while the limits thereof are a dissolving view. + +The poor are miserable. Their food is the least that will sustain +nature, not agreeable, not healthy; their clothing scanty and mean, +their dwellings inconvenient and uncomfortable, with roof and walls that +let in the cold and the rain--dwellings that are painful and unhealthy; +in their personal habits they are commonly unclean. Then they are +ignorant; they have no time to attend school in childhood, no time to +read or to think in manhood, even if they have learned to do either +before that. If they have the time, few men can think to any profit +while the body is uncomfortable. The cold man thinks only of the cold; +the wretched of his misery. Besides this they are frequently vicious. I +do not mean to say they are wicked in the sight of God. I never see a +poor man carried to jail for some petty crime, or even for a great one, +without thinking that probably, in God's eye, the man is far better than +I am, and from the State's prison or scaffold, will ascend into heaven +and take rank a great ways before me. I do not mean to say they are +wicked before God; but it is they who commit the minor crimes, against +decency, sobriety, against property and person, and most of the major +crimes, against human life. I mean that they commit the crimes that get +punished by law. They crowd your courts, they tenant your jails; they +occupy your gallows. If some man would write a book describing the life +of all the men hanged in Massachusetts for fifty years past, or tried +for some capital offence, and show what class of society they were from, +how they were bred, what influences were about them in childhood, how +they passed their Sundays, and also describe the configuration of their +bodies, it would help us to a valuable chapter in the philosophy of +crime, and furnish mighty argument against the injustice of our mode of +dealing with offenders. + +Poverty is the dark side of modern society. I say modern society, though +poverty is not modern, for ancient society had poverty worse than ours +and a side still darker yet. Cannibalism, butchery of captives after +battle, frequent or continual wars for the sake of plunder, and the +slavery of the weak--these were the dark side of society in four great +periods of human history, the savage, the barbarous, the classic and the +feudal. Poverty is the best of these five bad things, each of which, +however, has grimly done its service in its day. + +There is no poverty among the Gaboon negroes. Put them in our latitude, +and it soon comes. Nay, as they get to learn the wants of cultivated +men, there will be a poorer class even in the torrid zone. Poverty +prevails in every civilized nation on earth; yes, in every savage nation +in austere climes. Let us look at some examples. England is the richest +country in Europe. I mean she has more wealth in proportion to her +population than any other in a similar climate. Look at her possessions +in every corner of the globe; at her armies which Europe cannot conquer; +at her ships which weave the great commercial web that spreads all round +about the world; at home what factories, what farms, what houses, what +towns, what a vast and wealthy metropolis; what an aristocracy--so rich, +so cultivated, so able, so daring, and so unconquered. + +But in that very English nation the most frightful poverty exists. Look +at the two sister islands: this the queen, and that the beggar of all +nations; the rose and the shamrock; the one throned in royal beauty, the +other bowed to the dust, torn and trampled under foot. In that capital +of the world's wealth, in that centre of power far greater than the +power of all the Cæsars, there is the most squalid poverty. Look at St. +Giles and St. James--that the earthly hell of want and crime, this the +worldly heaven of luxury and power! Put on the one side the stately +nobility of England, well born, well bred, armed with the power of +manners, the power of money, the power of culture and the power of +place, and on the other side put the beggary of England, the two million +paupers who are kept wholly on public or private charity; the three +million laborers who formerly fed on potatoes, God knows what they feed +on now, and all the other hungry sons of want who are kept in awe only +by the growling lion who guards the British throne; and you see at once +the result of modern civilization in the ablest, the foremost, the +freest, the most practical and the richest nation in the old world. + +Even here in New England, a country not two hundred and fifty years old, +a little patch of cleared land on the edge of the continent, we hear of +poverty which is frightful to think of. It is a serious question what +shall be done for the poor; there are few that can tell what shall be +done with them, or what is to become of them. Want is always here in +Boston. Misery is here. Starvation is not unknown. What is now serious +will one day be alarming. Even now it is awful to think of the misery +that lurks in this Christian town. New England in fifty years has +increased vastly in wealth, but poverty increases too. There has been a +great advance in the productiveness of human labor; with our tools a man +can do as much rude work in one day as he could in three days a hundred +years ago. I mean work with the axe, the plough, the spade; of nicer +work, yet more; of the most delicate work, see what machines do for him. +The end is not yet; soon we shall have engines that will whittle +granite, as a gang of saws cleaves logs into broad smooth boards. Yet +with all this advance in the productiveness of human toil, still there +is poverty. A day's work now will bring a man greater proportionate pay +than ever before in New England. I mean to say that the ordinary wages +for an ordinary day's work will support a man comfortably and +respectably longer than they ever would before. On the whole, the price +of things has come down and the price of work has gone up. Yet still +there are the poor; there is want, there is misery, there is starvation. +The community gives more than ever before; a better public provision is +made for the poor, private benevolence is more active and works far more +wisely--yet still there is poverty, want, misery unremoved, unmitigated, +and, many think, immitigable! + +Now I am not going to deny that poverty, like other forms of suffering, +plays a part in the economy of the human race. If God's children will +not work, or will throw away their bread, I do not complain that He +sends them to bed without their supper--to a hard bed and a narrow and a +cold. "Earn your breakfast before you eat it," is not merely the counsel +of Poor Richard, but of Almighty God; it is a just counsel, and not +hard. But is poverty an essential, substantial, integral element in +human civilization, or is it an accidental element thereof, and +transiently present; is it amenable to suppression? For my own part, I +believe that all evil is transient, a thing that belongs to the process +of development, not to the nature of man, or the higher forms of social +life towards which he is advancing. If God be absolutely good, then only +good things are everlasting. This general opinion which comes from my +religion as well as my philosophy, affects my special opinion of the +history and design of poverty. I look on it as on cannibalism, the +butchery of captives, the continual war for the sake of plunder, or on +slavery; yes, as I look on the diseases incident to childhood, things +that mankind live through and outgrow; which, painful as they are, do +not make up the greatest part of the entire life of mankind. If it shall +be said that I cannot know this, that I have not a clear intellectual +perception of the providential design thereof, or the means of its +removal, still I believe it, and if I have not the knowledge which comes +of philosophy, I have still faith, the result of instinctive trust in +God. + + * * * * * + +Let us look a little at the causes of poverty. Some things we see best +on a large scale. So let us look at poverty thus, and then come down to +the smaller forms thereof. + +I. There may be a natural and organic cause. The people of Lapland, +Iceland and Greenland are a poor people compared with the Scotch, the +Danes, or the French. There is a natural and organic cause for their +poverty in the soil and climate of those countries, which cannot be +changed. They must emigrate before they can become rich or comfortable +in our sense of the word. Hence their poverty is to be attributed to +their geographical position. Put the New Englanders there, even they +would be a poor people. Thus the poverty of a nation may depend on the +geographical position of the nation. + +Suppose a race of men has little vigor of body or of mind, and yet the +same natural wants as a vigorous race; put them in favorable +circumstances, in a good climate, on a rich soil, they will be poor on +account of the feebleness of their mind and body; put them in a stern +climate, on a sterile soil, and they will perish. Such is the case with +the Mexicans. Soil and climate are favorable, yet the people are poor. +Suppose a nation had only one third part of the Laplander's ability, and +yet needed the result of all his power, and was put in the Laplander's +position, they would not live through the first winter. Had they been +Mexicans who came to Plymouth in 1620, not one of them, it is probable, +would have seen the next summer. Take away half the sense or bodily +strength of the Bushmans of South Africa, and though they might have +sense enough to dig nuts out of the ground, yet the lions and hyenas +would eventually eat up the whole nation. So the poverty of a nation may +come from want of power of body or of mind. + +Then if a nation increases in numbers more rapidly than in wealth, there +is a corresponding increase of want. Let the number of births in England +for the next ten years be double the number for the last ten, without a +corresponding creation of new wealth, and the English are brought to the +condition of the Irish. Let the number of births in Ireland in like +manner multiply, and one half the population must perish for want of +food. So the poverty of a nation may depend on the disproportionate +increase of its numbers. + +Then an able race, under favorable outward circumstances, without an +over-rapid increase of numbers, if its powers are not much developed, +will be poor in comparison with a similar race under similar +circumstances, but highly developed. Thus England, under Egbert in the +ninth century, was poor compared with England under Victoria in the +nineteenth century. The single town of Liverpool, Manchester, +Birmingham, or even Sheffield, is probably worth many times the wealth +of all England in the ninth century. So the poverty of a nation may +depend on its want of development. + +Old England and New England are rich, partly through the circumstances +of climate and soil, partly and chiefly through the great vigor of the +race, with only a normal increase of numbers, and partly through a more +complete development of the nations. Such are the chief natural and +organic causes of poverty on a large scale in a nation. + +II. The causes may be political. By political, I mean such as are +brought about by the laws, either the fundamental laws, the +constitution, or the minor laws, statutes. Sometimes the laws tend to +make the whole nation poor. Such are the laws which force the industry +of the people out of the natural channel, restricting commerce, +agriculture, manufactures, industry in general. Sometimes this is done +by promoting war, by keeping up armies and navies, by putting the +destructive work of fighting, or the merely conservative work of ruling, +before the creative works of productive industry. France was an example +of that a hundred years ago. Spain yet continues such, as she has been +for two centuries. + +Sometimes this is done by hindering the general development of the +nation, by retarding education, by forbidding all freedom of thought. +The States of the Church are an example of this when compared with +Tuscany; all Italy and Austria, when compared with England; Spain, when +compared with Germany, France, and Holland. + +Sometimes this is brought about by keeping up an unnatural +institution--as slavery, for example. South Carolina is an instance of +this, when compared with Massachusetts. South Carolina has many +advantages over us, yet South Carolina is poor while Massachusetts is +rich. + +Sometimes this political action primarily affects only the distribution +of wealth, and so makes one class rich and another poor. Such is the +case with laws which give all the real estate to the oldest son, laws +which allow property to be entailed for a long time or forever, laws +which cut men off from the land. These laws at first seem only to make +one class rich and the others poor, and merely to affect the +distribution of wealth in a nation, but they are unnatural and retard +the industry of the people, and diminish their productive power, and +make the whole nation less rich. Legislation may favor wealth and not +men--property which is accumulated labor, rather than labor which is the +power that accumulates property. Such legislation always endangers +wealth in the end, lessening its quantity and making its tenure +uncertain. + +Two things may be said of European legislation in general, and +especially of English legislation. First, That it has aimed to +concentrate wealth in the hands of a few and keep it there. Hence it +favors primogeniture, entails monopolies of posts of profit and of +honor. Second, It has always looked out for the proprietor and his +property, and cared little for the man without property; hence it always +wanted the price of things high, the wages of men low, and in addition +to natural and organic obstacles it continually put social impediments +in the poor man's way. In England no son of a laborer could rise to +eminence in the law or in medicine, scarcely in the church; no, not even +in the army or navy. + +These two statements will bear examination. The genius of England has +demanded these two things. The genius of America demands neither, but +rejects both; demands the distribution of property, puts the rights of +man first, the rights of things last. Such are the political causes, and +such their effects. + +III. Then there are social causes which make a nation poor. Such are the +prevalence of an opinion that industry is not respectable; that it is +honorable to consume, disgraceful to create; that much must be spent, +though little earned. The Spanish nation is poor in part through the +prevalence of this opinion. + +Sometimes social causes seem only to affect a class. The Pariahs in +India must not fill any office that is well paid. They are despised, and +of course they are poor and miserable. The blacks in New England are +despised and frowned down, not admitted to the steamboat, the omnibus, +to the school-houses in Boston, or even to the meeting-house with white +men; not often allowed to work in company with the whites; and so they +are kept in poverty. In Europe the Jews have been equally despised and +treated in the same way, but not made poor, because they are in many +respects a superior race of men, and because they have the advantage of +belonging to a nation whose civilization is older than any other in +Europe; a nation specially gifted with the faculty of thrift; a tribe +whom none but other Jews, Scotchmen, or New Englanders, could outwit, +over-reach, and make poor. No Ferdinand and Isabella, no inquisition +could so completely expel them from any country, as the superior craft +and cunning of the Yankee has driven them out of New England. There are +Jews in every country of Europe, everywhere despised and maltreated, and +forced into the corners of society, but everywhere superior to the men +who surround them. Such are the social causes which produce poverty. + + * * * * * + +Now let us look at the matter on a smaller scale, and see the cause of +poverty in New-England, of poverty in Broad street and Sea street. From +the great mass let me take out a class who are accidentally poor. There +are the widows and orphan children who inherit no estate; the able men +reduced by sickness before they have accumulated enough to sustain them. +Then let me take out a class of men transiently poor, men who start with +nothing, but have vigor and will to make their own way in the world. The +majority of the poor still remain--the class who are permanently poor. +The accidentally poor can easily be taken care of by public or private +charity; the transient poor will soon take care of themselves. The young +man who lives on six cents a day while studying medicine in Boston, is +doubtless a poor man, but will soon repay society for the slight aid it +has lent him, and in time will take care of other poor men. So these two +classes, the accidental and the transient poor, can easily be disposed +of. + +What causes have produced the class that is permanently poor? What has +just been said of nations, is true also of individuals. + +First, there are natural and organic causes of poverty. Some men are +born into the midst of want, ignorance, idleness, filthiness, +intemperance, vice, crime; their earliest associations are debasing, +their companions bad. They are born into the Iceland of society, into +the frigid zone, some of them under the very pole-star of want. Such men +are born and bred under the greatest disadvantages. Every star in their +horoscope has a malignant aspect, and sheds disastrous influence. I do +not remember five men in New England, from that class, becoming +distinguished in any manly pursuit,--not five. Almost all of our great +men and our rich men came from the comfortable class, none from the +miserable. The old poverty is parent of new poverty. It takes at least +two generations to outgrow the pernicious influence of such +circumstances. + +Then much of the permanent poverty comes from the lack of ability, power +of body and of mind. In that Iceland of society men are commonly born +with a feeble organization, and bred under every physical disadvantage; +the man is physically weak, or else runs to muscle and not brain, and so +is mentally weak. His feebleness is the result of the poverty of his +fathers, and his own want in childhood. The oak tree grows tall and +large in a rich valley, stunted, small, and scrubby on the barren sand. + +Again this class of men increase most rapidly in numbers. When the poor +man has not half enough to fill his own mouth, and clothe his own back, +other backs are added, other mouths opened. He abounds in nothing but +naked and hungry children. + +Further still, he has not so good a chance as the comfortable to get +education and general development. A rude man, with superior abilities, +in this century, will often be distanced by the well-trained man who +started at birth with inferior powers. But if the rude man begin with +inferior abilities, inferior circumstances, encumbered also with a load +becoming rapidly more burdensome, you see under what accumulated +disadvantages he labors all his life. So to the first natural and +organic cause of poverty, his untoward position in society; to the +second, his inferior ability; and to the third, the increase of his +family, excessively rapid, we must add a fourth cause, his inferior +development. An ignorant man, who is also weak in body, and besides +that, starts with every disadvantage, his burdens annually increasing, +may be expected to continue a poor man. It is only in most extraordinary +cases that it turns out otherwise. + +To these causes we must add what comes therefrom as their joint result: +idleness, by which the poor waste their time; thriftlessness and +improvidence, by which they lose their opportunities and squander their +substance. The poor are seldom so economical as the rich; it is so with +children, they spoil the furniture, soil and rend their garments, put +things to a wasteful use, consume heedlessly and squander, careless of +to-morrow. The poor are the children of society. + +To these five causes I must add intemperance, the great bane of the +miserable class. I feel no temptation to be drunken, but if I were +always miserable, cold, hungry, naked, so ignorant that I did not know +the result of violating God's laws, had I been surrounded from youth +with the worst examples, not respected by other men, but a loathsome +object in their sight, not even respecting myself, I can easily +understand how the temporary madness of strong drink would be a most +welcome thing. The poor are the prey of the rum-seller. As the lion in +the Hebrew wilderness eateth up the wild ass, so in modern society the +rum-seller and rum-maker suck the bones of the miserable poor. I never +hear of a great fortune made in the liquor trade, but I think of the +wives that have been made widows thereby, of the children bereft of +their parents, of the fathers and mothers whom strong drink has brought +down to shame, to crime, and to ruin. The history of the first barrel of +rum that ever visited New England is well known. It brought some forty +men before the bar of the court. The history of the last barrel can +scarcely be much better. + +Such are the natural and organic causes which make poverty. + +With the exception of laws which allow the sale of intoxicating drink, I +think there are few political causes of poverty in New England, and they +are too inconsiderable to mention in so brief a sketch as this. However, +there are some social causes of our permanent poverty. I do not think we +have much respect for the men who do the rude work of life, however +faithfully and well--little respect for work itself. The rich man is +ashamed to have begun to make his fortune with his own hard hands; even +if the rich man is not, his daughter is for him. I do not think we have +cared much to respect the humble efforts of feeble men; not cared much +to have men dear, and things cheap. It has not been thought the part of +political economy, of sound legislation, or of pure Christianity, to +hinder the increase of pauperism, to remove the causes of poverty, yes, +the causes of crime--only to take vengeance on it when committed! + +Boston is a strange place; here is energy enough to conquer half the +continent in ten years; power of thought to seize and tame the +Connecticut and the Merrimack; charity enough to send missionaries all +over the world; but not justice enough to found a high school for her +own daughters, or to forbid her richest citizens from letting bar-rooms +as nurseries of poverty and crime, from opening wide gates which lead to +the almshouse, the jail, the gallows, and earthly hell! + + * * * * * + +Such are the causes of poverty, organic, political, social. You may see +families pass from the comfortable to the miserable class, by +intemperance, idleness, wastefulness, even by feebleness of body and of +mind; yet while it is common for the rich to descend into the +comfortable class, solely by lack of the eminent thrift which raised +their fathers thence, or because they lack the common stimulus to toil +and save, it is not common for the comfortable to fall into the pit of +misery in New England, except through wickedness, through idleness, or +intemperance. + +It is not easy to study poverty in Boston. But take a little inland +town, which few persons migrate into, you will find the miserable +families have commonly been so, for a hundred years; that many of them +are descended from the "servants," or white slaves, brought here by our +fathers; that such as fall from the comfortable classes, are commonly +made miserable by their own fault, sometimes by idleness, which is +certainly a sin, for any man who will not work, and persists in living, +eats the bread of some other man, either begged or stolen--but chiefly +by intemperance. Three fourths of the poverty of this character, is to +be attributed to this cause. + +Now there is a tendency in poverty to drive the ablest men to work, and +so get rid of the poverty, and this I take it is the providential design +thereof. Poverty, like an armed man, stalks in the rear of the social +march, huge and haggard, and gaunt and grim, to scare the lazy, to goad +the idle with his sword, to trample and slay the obstinate sluggard. But +he treads also the feeble under his feet, for no fault of theirs, only +for the misfortune of being born in the rear of society. But in poverty +there is also a tendency to intimidate, to enfeeble, to benumb. The +poverty of the strong man compels him to toil; but with the weak, the +destruction of the poor is his poverty. An active man is awakened from +his sleep by the cold; he arises and seeks more covering; the indolent, +or the feeble, shiver on till morning, benumbed and enfeebled by the +cold. So weakness begets weakness; poverty, poverty; intemperance, +intemperance; crime, crime. + +Every thing is against the poor man; he pays the dearest tax, the +highest rent for his house, the dearest price for all he eats or wears. +The poor cannot watch their opportunity, and take advantage of the +markets, as other men. They have the most numerous temptations to +intemperance and crime; they have the poorest safeguards from these +evils. If the chief value of wealth, as a rich man tells us, be +this--that "it renders its owner independent of others," then on what +shall the poor men lean, neglected and despised by others, looked on as +loathsome, and held in contempt, shut out even from the sermons and the +prayers of respectable men? It is no marvel if they cease to respect +themselves. + +The poor are the most obnoxious to disease; their children are not only +most numerous, but most unhealthy. More than half of the children of +that class, perish at the age of five. Amongst the poor, infectious +diseases rage with frightful violence. The mortality in that class is +amazing. If things are to continue as now, I thank God it is so. If +Death is their only guardian, he is at least powerful, and does not +scorn his work. + +In addition to the poor, whom these causes have made and kept in +poverty, the needy of other lands flock hither. The nobility of old +England, so zealous in pursuing their game, in keeping their entails +unbroken, and primogeniture safe, have sent their beggary to New +England, to be supported by the crumbs that fall from our table. So, in +the same New England city, the extremes of society are brought together. +Here is health, elegance, cultivation, sobriety, decency, refinement--I +wish there was more of it; there is poverty, ignorance, drunkenness, +violence, crime, in most odious forms--starvation! We have our St. +Giles's and St. James's; our nobility, not a whit less noble than the +noblest of other lands, and our beggars, both in a Christian city. Amid +the needy population, Misery and Death have found their parish. Who +shall dare stop his ears, when they preach their awful denunciation of +want and woe? + +Good men ask, What shall we do? Foreign poverty has had this good +effect; it has shamed or frightened the American beggar into industry +and thrift. + +Poverty will not be removed till the causes thereof are removed. There +are some who look for a great social revolution. So do I; only I do not +look for it to come about suddenly, or by mechanical means. We are in a +social revolution, and do not know it. While I cannot accept the +peculiar doctrines of the Associationists, I rejoice in their existence. +I sympathize with their hope. They point out the evils of society, and +that is something. They propose a method of removing its evils. I do not +believe in that method, but mankind will probably make many experiments +before we hit upon the right one. For my own part, I confess I do not +see any way of removing poverty wholly or entirely, in one or two, or in +four or five generations. I think it will linger for some ages to come. +Like the snow, it is to be removed by a general elevation of the +temperature of the air, not all at once, and will long hang about the +dark and cold places of the world. But I do think it will at last be +overcome, so that a man who cannot subsist, will be as rare as a +cannibal. "Ye have the poor with you always," said Jesus, and many who +remember this, forget that he also said, "and when soever ye will, ye +may do them good." I expect to see a mitigation of poverty in this +country, and that before long. + +It is likely that the legal theory of property in Europe will undergo a +great change before many years; that the right to bequeathe enormous +estates to individuals will be cut off; that primogeniture will cease, +and entailments be broken, and all monopolies of rank and power come to +an end, and so a great change take place in the social condition of +Europe, and especially of England. That change will bring many of the +comfortable into the rich class, and eventually many of the miserable +into the comfortable class. But I do not expect such a radical change +here, where we have not such enormous abuses to surmount. + +I think something will be done in Europe for the organization of labor, +I do not know what; I do not know how; I have not the ability to know; +and will not pretend to criticize what I know I cannot create, and do +not at present understand. I think there will be a great change in the +form of society; that able men will endeavor to remove the causes of +crime, not merely to make money out of that crime; that intemperance +will be diminished; that idleness in rich or poor will be counted a +disgrace; that labor will be more respected; education more widely +diffused; and that institutions will be founded, which will tend to +produce these results. But I do not pretend to devise those +institutions, and certainly shall not throw obstacles in the way of such +as can or will try. It seems likely that something will be first done in +Europe, where the need is greatest. There a change must come. By and by, +if it does not come peaceably, the continent will not furnish "special +constables" enough to put down human nature. If the white republicans +cannot make a revolution peacefully, wait a little, and the red +republicans will make it in blood. "Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we +must," says mankind, first in a whisper, then in a voice of thunder. If +powerful men will not write justice with black ink, on white paper, +ignorant and violent men will write it on the soil, in letters of blood, +and illuminate their rude legislation with burning castles, palaces and +towns. While the social change is taking place never so peacefully, men +will think the world is going to ruin. But it is an old world, pretty +well put together, and, with all these changes, will probably last some +time longer. Human society is like one of those enormous boulders, so +nicely poised on another rock, that a man may move it with a single +hand. You are afraid to come under its sides, lest it fall. When the +wind blows, it rocks with formidable noise, and men say it will soon be +down upon us. Now and then a rude boy undertakes to throw it over, but +all the men who can get their shoulders under, cannot raise the +ponderous mass from its solid and firm-set base. + +Still, after all these changes have taken place, there remains the +difference between the strong and the weak, the active and the idle, the +thrifty and the spendthrift, the temperate and the intemperate, and +though the term poverty ceases to be so dreadful, and no longer denotes +want of the natural necessaries of the body, there will still remain the +relatively rich and the relatively poor. + +But now something can be done directly, to remove the causes of poverty, +something to mitigate their effects; we need both the palliative +charity, and the remedial justice. Tenements for the poor can be +provided at a cheap rent, that shall yet pay their owner a reasonable +income. This has been proved by actual experiment, and, after all that +has been said about it, I am amazed that no more is done. I will not +exhort the churches to this in the name of religion--they have other +matters to attend to; but if capitalists will not, in a place like +Boston, it seems to me the City should see that this class of the +population is provided with tenements, at a rate not ruinous. It would +be good economy to do it, in the pecuniary sense of good economy; +certainly to hire money at six per cent., and rent the houses built +therewith, at eight per cent., would cost less than to support the poor +entirely in almshouses, and punish them in jails. + +Something yet more may be done, in the way of furnishing them with work, +or of directing them to it; something towards enabling them to purchase +food and other articles cheap. + +Something might be done to prevent street beggary, and begging from +house to house, which is rather a new thing in this town. The +indiscriminate charity, which it is difficult to withhold from a needy +and importunate beggar, does more harm than good. + +Much may be done to promote temperance; much more, I fear, than is +likely to be done; that is plainly the duty of society. Intemperance is +bad enough with the comfortable and the rich; with the poor it is +ruin--sheer, blank and swift ruin. The example of the rich, of the +comfortable, goes down there like lightning, to shatter, to blast, and +to burn. It is marvellous, that in Christian Boston, men of wealth, and +so above the temptation which lurks behind a dollar, men of character +otherwise thought to be elevated, can yet continue a traffic which leads +to the ruin and slow butchery of such masses of men. I know not what can +be done by means of the public law. I do know what can be done by +private self-denial, by private diligence. + +Something also may be done to promote religion amongst the poor, at +least something to make it practicable for a poor man to come to church +on Sunday, with his fellow-creatures who are not miserable--and to hear +the best things that the ablest men in the church have to offer. We are +very democratic in our State, not at all so in our church. In this +matter the Catholics put us quite to shame. If, as some men still +believe, it be a manly calling and a noble, to preach Christianity, then +to preach it to men who stand in the worst and most dangerous positions +in society; to take the highest truths of human consciousness, the +loftiest philosophy, the noblest piety, and bring them down into the +daily life of poor men, rude men, men obscure, unfriended, ready to +perish; surely this is the noblest part of that calling, and demands the +noblest gifts, the fairest and the largest culture, the loftiest powers. + +It is no hard thing to reason with reasoning men, and be intelligible to +the intelligent; to talk acceptably and even movingly to scholars and +men well read, is no hard thing if you are yourself well read and a +scholar. But to be intelligible to the ignorant, to reason with men who +reason not, to speak acceptably and movingly with such men, to inspire +them with wisdom, with goodness and with piety, that is the task only +for some men of rare genius who can stride over the great gulf betwixt +the thrones of creative power, and the humble positions of men ignorant, +poor and forgot! Yet such men there are, and here is their work. + +Something can be done for the children of the poor--to promote their +education, to find them employment, to snatch these little ones from +underneath the feet of that grim Poverty. It is not less than awful, to +think while there are more children born in Boston of Catholic parents +than of Protestant, that yet more than three fifths thereof die before +the sun of their fifth year shines on their luckless heads. I thank God +that thus they die. If there be not wisdom enough in society, nor enough +of justice there to save them from their future long-protracted +suffering, then I thank God that Death comes down betimes, and moistens +his sickle while his crop is green. I pity not the miserable babes who +fall early before that merciful arm of Death. They are at rest. Poverty +cannot touch them. Let the mothers who bore them rejoice, but weep only +for those that are left--left to ignorance, to misery, to intemperance, +to vice that I shall not name; left to the mercies of the jail, and +perhaps the gallows at the last. Yet Boston is a Christian city--and it +is eighteen hundred years since one great Son of Man came to seek and to +save that which was lost! + +I see not what more can be done directly, and I see not why these things +should not be done. Still some will suffer: the idle, the lazy, the +proud who will not work, the careless who will voluntarily waste their +time, their strength, or their goods--they must suffer, they ought to +suffer. Want is the only schoolmaster to teach them industry and +thrift. Such as are merely unable, who are poor not by their fault--we +do wrong to let them suffer; we do wickedly to leave them to perish. The +little children who survive--are they to be left to become barbarians in +the midst of our civilization? + +Want is not an absolutely needful thing, but very needful for the +present distress, to teach us industry, economy, thrift and its creative +arts. There is nature--the whole material world--waiting to serve. "What +would you have thereof?" says God. "Pay for it and take it, as you will; +only pay as you go!" There are hands to work, heads to think; strong +hands, hard heads. God is an economist: He economizes suffering; there +is never too much of it in the world for the purpose it is to serve, +though it often falls where it should not fall. It is here to teach us +industry, thrift, justice. It will be here no more when we have learned +its lesson. Want is here on sufferance; misery on sufferance; and +mankind can eject them if we will. Poverty, like all evils, is amenable +to suppression. + +Can we not end this poverty--the misery and crime it brings? No, not +to-day. Can we not lessen it? Soon as we will. Think how much ability +there is in this town, cool, far-sighted talent. If some of the ablest +men directed their thoughts to the reform of this evil, how much might +be done in a single generation; and in a century--what could not they +do in a hundred years? What better work is there for able men? I would +have it written on my tombstone: "This man had but little wit, and less +fame, yet he helped remove the causes of poverty, making men better off +and better," rather by far than this: "Here lies a great man; he had a +great place in the world, and great power, and great fame, and made +nothing of it, leaving the world no better for his stay therein, and no +man better off." + + * * * * * + +After all the special efforts to remove poverty, the great work is to be +done by the general advance of mankind. We shall outgrow this as +cannibalism, butchery of captives, war for plunder, and other kindred +miseries have been outgrown. God has general remedies in abundance, but +few specific. Something will be done by diffusing throughout the +community principles and habits of economy, industry, temperance; by +diffusing ideas of justice, sentiments of brotherly love, sentiments and +ideas of religion. I hope every thing from that--the noiseless and +steady progress of Christianity; the snow melts, not by sunlight, or +that alone, but as the whole air becomes warm. You may in cold weather +melt away a little before your own door, but that makes little +difference till the general temperature rises. Still while the air is +getting warm, you facilitate the process by breaking up the obdurate +masses of ice and putting them where the sun shines with direct and +unimpeded light. So must we do with poverty. + +It is only a little that any of us can do--for any thing. Still we can +do a little; we can each do by helping towards raising the general tone +of society: first, by each man raising himself; by industry, economy, +charity, justice, piety; by a noble life. So doing, we raise the moral +temperature of the whole world, and just in proportion thereto. Next, by +helping those who come in our way; nay, by going out of our way to help +them. In each of these modes, it is our duty to work. To a certain +extent each man is his brother's keeper. Of the powers we possess we are +but trustees under Providence, to use them for the benefit of men, and +render continually an account of our stewardship to God. Each man can do +a little directly to help convince the world of its wrong, a little in +the way of temporizing charity, a little in the way of remedial justice; +so doing, he works with God, and God works with him. + + + + +X. + +A SERMON OF THE MORAL CONDITION OF BOSTON.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON +SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1849. + +1 SAMUEL VII. 12. + + Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. + + +A man who has only the spirit of his age can easily be a popular man; if +he have it in an eminent degree, he must be a popular man in it: he has +its hopes and its fears; his trumpet gives a certain and well-known +sound; his counsel is readily appreciated; the majority is on his side. +But he cannot be a wise magistrate, a just judge, a competent critic, or +a profitable preacher. A man who has only the spirit of a former age can +be none of these four things; and not even a popular man. He remembers +when he ought to forecast, and compares when he ought to act; he cannot +appreciate the age he lives in, nor have a fellow-feeling with it. He +may easily obtain the pity of his age, not its sympathy or its +confidence. The man who has the spirit of his own, and also that of +some future age, is alone capable of becoming a wise magistrate, a just +judge, a competent critic, and a profitable preacher. Such a man looks +on passing events somewhat as the future historian will do, and sees +them in their proportions, not distorted; sees them in their connection +with great general laws, and judges of the falling rain not merely by +the bonnets it may spoil and the pastime it disturbs, but by the grass +and corn it shall cause to grow. He has hopes and fears of his own, but +they are not the hopes and fears of men about him; his trumpet cannot +give a welcome or well-known sound, nor his counsel be presently heeded. +Majorities are not on his side, nor can he be a popular man. + +To understand our present moral condition, to be able to give good +counsel thereon, you must understand the former generation, and have +potentially the spirit of the future generation; must appreciate the +past, and yet belong to the future. Who is there that can do this? No +man will say, "I can." Conscious of the difficulty, and aware of my own +deficiencies in all these respects, I will yet endeavor to speak of the +moral condition of Boston. + + * * * * * + +First, I will speak of the actual moral condition of Boston, as +indicated by the morals of Trade. In a city like Rome, you must first +feel the pulse of the church, in St. Petersburg that of the court, to +determine the moral condition of those cities. Now trade is to Boston +what the church is to Rome and the imperial court to St. Petersburg: it +is the pendulum which regulates all the common and authorized machinery +of the place; it is an organization of the public conscience. We care +little for any Pius the Ninth, or Nicholas the First; the dollar is our +emperor and pope, above all the parties in the State, all sects in the +church, lord paramount over both, its spiritual and temporal power not +likely to be called in question; revolt from what else we may, we are +loyal still to that. + +A little while ago, in a sermon of riches, speaking of the character of +trade in Boston, I suggested that men were better than their reputation +oftener than worse; that there were a hundred honest bargains to one +that was dishonest. I have heard severe strictures from friendly +tongues, on that statement, which gave me more pain than any criticism I +have received before. The criticism was, that I overrated the honesty of +men in trade. Now, it is a small thing to be convicted of an error--a +just thing and a profitable to have it detected and exposed; but it is a +painful thing to find you have overrated the moral character of your +townsmen. However, if what I said be not true as history, I hope it will +become so as prophecy; I doubt not my critics will help that work. + +Love of money is out of proportion to love of better things--to love of +justice, of truth, of a manly character developing itself in a manly +life. Wealth is often made the end to live for; not the means to live +by, and attain a manly character. The young man of good abilities does +not commonly propose it to himself to be a noble man, equipped with all +the intellectual and moral qualities which belong to that, and capable +of the duties which come thereof. He is satisfied if he can become a +rich man. It is the highest ambition of many a youth in this town to +become one of the rich men of Boston; to have the social position which +wealth always gives, and nothing else in this country can commonly +bestow. Accordingly, our young men that are now poor, will sacrifice +every thing to this one object; will make wealth the end, and will +become rich without becoming noble. But wealth without nobleness of +character is always vulgar. I have seen a clown staring at himself in +the gorgeous mirror of a French palace, and thought him no bad emblem of +many an ignoble man at home, surrounded by material riches which only +reflected back the vulgarity of their owner. + +Other young men inherit wealth, but seldom regard it as a means of power +for high and noble ends, only as the means of selfish indulgence; +unneeded means to elevate yet more their self-esteem. Now and then you +find a man who values wealth only as an instrument to serve mankind +withal. I know some such men; their money is a blessing akin to genius, +a blessing to mankind, a means of philanthropic power. But such men are +rare in all countries, perhaps a little less so in Boston than in most +other large trading towns; still, exceeding rare. They are sure to meet +with neglect, abuse, and perhaps with scorn; if they are men of eminent +ability, superior culture, and most elevated moral aims, set off, too, +with a noble and heroic life, they are sure of meeting with eminent +hatred. I fear the man most hated in this town would be found to be some +one who had only sought to do mankind some great good, and stepped +before his age too far for its sympathy. Truth, Justice, Humanity, are +not thought in Boston to have come of good family; their followers are +not respectable. I am not speaking to blame men, only to show the fact; +we may meddle with things too high for us, but not understand nor +appreciate. + +Now this disproportionate love of money appears in various ways. You see +it in the advantage that is taken of the feeblest, the most ignorant, +and the most exposed classes in the community. It is notorious that they +pay the highest prices, the dearest rents, and are imposed upon in their +dealings oftener than any other class of men; so the raven and the +hooded crow, it is said, seek out the sickliest sheep to pounce upon. +The fact that a man is ignorant, poor, and desperate, furnishes to many +men an argument for defrauding the man. It is bad enough to injure any +man; but to wrong an ignorant man, a poor and friendless man; to take +advantage of his poverty or his ignorance, and to get his services or +his money for less than a fair return--that is petty baseness under +aggravated circumstances, and as cowardly as it is mean. You are now and +then shocked at rich men telling of the arts by which they got their +gold--sometimes of their fraud at home, sometimes abroad, and a good man +almost thinks there must be a curse on money meanly got at first, though +it falls to him by honest inheritance. + +This same disproportionate love of money appears in the fact that men, +not driven by necessity, engage in the manufacture, the importation, and +the sale of an article which corrupts and ruins men by hundreds; which +has done more to increase poverty, misery, and crime than any other one +cause whatever; and, as some think, more than all other causes whatever. +I am not speaking of men who aid in any just and proper use of that +article, but in its ruinous use. Yet such men, by such a traffic, never +lose their standing in society, their reputation in trade, their +character in the church. A good many men will think worse of you for +being an Abolitionist; men have lost their place in society by that +name; even Dr. Channing "hurt his usefulness" and "injured his +reputation" by daring to speak against that sin of the nation; but no +man loses caste in Boston by making, importing, and selling the cause +of ruin to hundreds of families--though he does it with his eyes open, +knowing that he ministers to crime and to ruin! I am told that large +quantities of New England rum have already been sent from this city to +California; it is notorious that much of it is sent to the nations of +Africa--if not from Boston, at least from New England--as an auxiliary +in the slave-trade. You know with what feelings of grief and indignation +a clergyman of this city saw that characteristic manufacture of his town +on the wharves of a Mahometan city. I suppose there are not ten +ministers in Boston who would not "get into trouble," as the phrase is, +if they were to preach against intemperance, and the causes that produce +intemperance, with half so much zeal as they innocently preach +"regeneration" and a "form of piety" which will never touch a single +corner of the earth. As the minister came down, the Spirit of Trade +would meet him on the pulpit stairs to warn him: "Business is business; +religion is religion; business is ours, religion yours; but if you make +or even allow religion to interfere with our business, then it will be +the worse for you--that is all!" You know it is not a great while since +we drove out of Boston the one Unitarian minister who was a fearless +apostle of temperance.[36] His presence here was a grief to that "form +of piety;" a disturbance to trade. Since then the peace of the churches +has not been much disturbed by the preaching of temperance. The effect +has been salutary; no Unitarian minister has risen up to fill that +place! + +This same disproportionate love of money appears in the fact, that the +merchants of Boston still allow colored seamen to be taken from their +ships and shut up in the jails of another State. If they cared as much +for the rights of man as for money, as much for the men who sail the +ship as for the cargo it carries, I cannot think there would be brass +enough in South Carolina, or all the South, to hold another freeman of +Massachusetts in bondage, merely for the color of his skin. No doubt, a +merchant would lose his reputation in this city by engaging directly in +the slave-trade, for it is made piracy by the law of the land.[37] But +did any one ever lose his reputation by taking a mortgage on slaves as +security for a debt; by becoming, in that way or by inheritance, the +owner of slaves, and still keeping them in bondage? + +You shall take the whole trading community of Boston, rich and poor, +good and bad, study the phenomena of trade as astronomers the phenomena +of the heavens, and from the observed facts, by the inductive method of +philosophy, construct the ethics of trade, and you will find one great +maxim to underlie the whole: Money must be made. Money-making is to the +ethics of trade what attraction is to the material world; what truth is +to the intellect, and justice in morals. Other things must yield to +that; that to nothing. In the effort to comply with this universal law +of trade, many a character gives way; many a virtue gets pushed aside; +the higher, nobler qualities of a man are held in small esteem. + +This characteristic of the trading class appears in the thought of the +people as well as their actions. You see it in the secular literature of +our times; in the laws, even in the sermons; nobler things give way to +love of gold. So in an ill-tended garden, in some bed where violets +sought to open their fragrant bosoms to the sun, have I seen a cabbage +come up and grow apace, with thick and vulgar stalk, with coarse and +vulgar leaves, with rank unsavory look; it thrust aside the little +violet, which, underneath that impenetrable leaf, lacking the morning +sunshine and the dew of night, faded and gave up its tender life; but +above the grave of the violet there stood the cabbage, green, +expanding, triumphant, and all fearless of the frost. Yet the cabbage +also had its value and its use. + +There are men in Boston, some rich, some poor, old and young, who are +free from this reproach; men that have a well-proportioned love of +money, and make the pursuit thereof an effort for all the noble +qualities of a man. I know some such men, not very numerous anywhere, +men who show that the common business of life is the place to mature +great virtues in; that the pursuit of wealth, successful or not, need +hinder the growth of no excellence, but may promote all manly life. Such +men stand here as violets among the cabbages, making a fragrance and a +loveliness all their own; attractive anywhere, but marvellous in such a +neighborhood as that. + + * * * * * + +Look next on the morals of Boston, as indicated by the Newspapers, the +daily and the weekly press. Take the whole newspaper literature of +Boston, cheap and costly, good and bad, study it all as a whole, and by +the inductive method construct the ethics of the press, and here you +find no signs of a higher morality in general than you found in trade. +It is the same centre about which all things gravitate here as there. +But in the newspapers the want of great principles is more obvious, and +more severely felt than in trade--the want of justice, of truth, of +humanity, of sympathy with man. In trade you meet with signs of great +power; the highway of commerce bears marks of giant feet. Our newspapers +seem chiefly in the hands of little men, whose cunning is in a large +ratio to their wisdom or their justice. You find here little ability, +little sound learning, little wise political economy; of lofty morals +almost nothing at all. Here, also, the dollar is both Pope and King; +right and truth are vassals, not much esteemed, nor over-often called to +pay service to their Lord, who has other soldiers with more pliant neck +and knee. + +A newspaper is an instrument of great importance; all men read it; many +read nothing else; some it serves as reason and conscience too: in lack +of better, why not? It speaks to thousands every day on matters of great +moment--on matters of morals, of politics, of finance. It relates daily +the occurrences of our land, and of all the world. All men are affected +by it; hindered or helped. To many a man his morning paper represents +more reality than his morning prayer. There are many in a community like +this who do not know what to say--I do not mean what to think, +thoughtful men know what to think--about any thing till somebody tells +them; yet they must talk, for "the mouth goes always." To such a man a +newspaper is invaluable; as the idolater in the Judges had "a Levite to +his priest," so he has a newspaper to his reason or his conscience, and +can talk to the day's end. An able and humane newspaper would get this +class of persons into good habits of speech, and do them a service, +inasmuch as good habits of speech are better than bad. + +One portion of this literature is degrading; it seems purposely so, as +if written by base men, for base readers, to serve base ends. I know not +which is most depraved thereby, the taste or the conscience. Obscene +advertisements are there, meant for the licentious eye; there are +loathsome details of vice, of crime, of depravity, related with the +design to attract, yet so disgusting that any but a corrupt man must +revolt from them; there are accounts of the appearance of culprits in +the lower courts, of their crime, of their punishment; these are related +with an impudent flippancy, and a desire to make sport of human +wretchedness and perhaps depravity, which amaze a man of only the +average humanity. We read of Judge Jeffreys and the bloody assizes in +England, one hundred and sixty years ago, but never think there are in +the midst of us men who, like that monster, can make sport of human +misery; but for a cent you can find proof that the race of such is not +extinct. If a penny-a-liner were to go into a military hospital, and +make merry at the sights he saw there, at the groans he heard, and the +keen smart his eye witnessed, could he publish his fiendish joy at that +spectacle--you would not say he was a man. If one mock at the crimes of +men, perhaps at their sins, at the infamous punishments they +suffer--what can you say of him? + +It is a significant fact that the commercial newspapers, which of course +in such a town are the controlling newspapers, in reporting the European +news, relate first the state of the markets abroad, the price of cotton, +of consols, and of corn; then the health of the English queen, and the +movements of the nations. This is loyal and consistent; at Rome, the +journal used to announce first some tidings of the Pope, then of the +lesser dignitaries of the church, then of the discovery of new antiques, +and other matters of great pith and moment; at St. Petersburg, it was +first of the Emperor that the journal spoke; at Boston, it is legitimate +that the health of the dollar should be reported first of all. + +The political newspapers are a melancholy proof of the low morality of +this town. You know what they will say of any party movement; that +measures and men are judged on purely party grounds. The country is +commonly put before mankind, and the party before the country. Which of +them in political matters pursues a course that is fair and just; how +many of them have ever advanced a great idea, or been constantly true to +a great principle of natural justice; how many resolutely oppose a great +wrong; how many can be trusted to expose the most notorious blunders of +their party; how many of them aim to promote the higher interests of +mankind? What servility is there in some of these journals, a cringing +to the public opinion of the party; a desire that "our efforts may be +appreciated!" In our politics every thing which relates to money is +pretty carefully looked after, though not always well looked after; but +what relates to the moral part of politics is commonly passed over with +much less heed. Men would compliment a senator who understood finance in +all its mysteries, and sneer at one who had studied as faithfully the +mysteries of war, or of slavery. The Mexican War tested the morality of +Boston, as it appears both in the newspapers and in trade, and showed +its true value. + +There are some few exceptions to this statement; here and there is a +journal which does set forth the great ideas of this age, and is +animated by the spirit of humanity. But such exceptions only remind one +of the general rule. + +In the sectarian journals the same general morality appears, but in a +worse form. What would have been political hatred in the secular prints, +becomes theological odium in the sectarian journals; not a mere hatred +in the name of party, but hatred in the name of God and Christ. Here is +less fairness, less openness, and less ability than there, but more +malice; the form, too, is less manly. What is there a strut or a +swagger, is here only a snivel. They are the last places in which you +need look for the spirit of true morality. Which of the sectarian +journals of Boston advocates any of the great reforms of the day? nay, +which is not an obstacle in the path of all manly reform? But let us not +dwell upon this, only look and pass by. + +I am not about to censure the conductors of these journals, commercial, +political, or theological. I am no judge of any man's conscience. No +doubt they write as they can or must. This literature is as honest and +as able as "the circumstances will admit of." I look on it as an index +of our moral condition, for a newspaper literature always represents the +general morals of its readers. Grocers and butchers purchase only such +articles as their customers will buy; the editors of newspapers reveal +the moral character of their subscribers as well as their +correspondents. The transient literature of any age is always a good +index of the moral taste of the age. These two witnesses attest the +moral condition of the better part of the city; but there are men a good +deal lower than the general morals of trade and the press. Other +witnesses testify to their moral character. + + * * * * * + +Let me now speak of your moral condition as indicated by the Poverty in +this city. I have so recently spoken on the subject of poverty in +Boston, and printed the sermon, that I will not now mention the misery +it brings. I will only speak of the moral condition which it indicates, +and the moral effect it has upon us. + +In this age, poverty tends to barbarize men; it shuts them out from the +educational influences of our times. The sons of the miserable class +cannot obtain the intellectual, moral, and religious education which is +the birthright of the comfortable and the rich. There is a great gulf +between them and the culture of our times. How hard it must be to climb +up from a cellar in Cove Place to wisdom, to honesty, to piety. I know +how comfortable pharisaic self-righteousness can say, "I thank thee I am +not wicked like one of these," and God knows which is the best before +His eyes, the scorner, or the man he loathes and leaves to dirt and +destruction. I know this poverty belongs to the state of transition we +are now in, and can only be ended by our passing through this into a +better. I see the medicinal effect of poverty, that with cantharidian +sting it drives some men to work, to frugality and thrift; that the +Irish has driven the American beggar out of the streets, and will shame +him out of the almshouse ere long. But there are men who have not force +enough to obey this stimulus; they only cringe and smart under its +sting. Such men are made barbarians by poverty, barbarians in body, in +mind and conscience, in heart and soul. There is a great amount of this +barbarism in Boston; it lowers the moral character of the place, as +icebergs in your harbor next June would chill the air all day. + +The fact that such poverty is here, that so little is done by public +authority, or by the ablest men in the land, to remove the evil tree and +dig up its evil root; that amid all the wealth of Boston and all its +charity, there are not even comfortable tenements for the poor to be had +at any but a ruinous rent--that is a sad fact, and bears a sad testimony +to our moral state! Sometimes the spectacle of misery does good, +quickening the moral sense and touching the electric tie which binds all +human hearts into one great family; but when it does not lead to this +result, then it debases the looker-on. To know of want, of misery, of +all the complicated and far-extended ill they bring; to hear of this, +and to see it in the streets; to have the money to alleviate, and yet +not to alleviate; the wisdom to devise a cure therefor, and yet make no +effort towards it--that is to be yourself debased and barbarized. I have +often thought, in seeing the poverty of London, that the daily spectacle +of such misery did more in a year to debauch the British heart than all +the slaughter at Waterloo. I know that misery has called out heroic +virtue in some men and women, and made philanthropists of such as +otherwise had been only getters and keepers of gain. We have noble +examples of that in the midst of us; but how many men has poverty trod +down into the mire; how many has this sight of misery hardened into cold +worldliness, the man frozen into mere respectability, its thin smile on +his lips, its ungodly contempt in his heart! + + * * * * * + +Out of this barbarism of poverty there come three other forms of evil +which indicate the moral condition of Boston; of that portion named just +now as below the morals of trade and the press. These also I will call +up to testify. + + * * * * * + +One is Intemperance. This is a crime against the body; it is felony +against your own frame. It makes a schism amongst your own members. The +amount of it is fearfully great in this town. Some of our most wealthy +citizens, who rent their buildings for the unlawful sale of rum to be +applied to an intemperate abuse, are directly concerned in promoting +this intemperance; others, rich but less wealthy, have sucked their +abundance out of the bones of the poor, and are actual manufacturers of +the drunkard and the criminal. Here are numerous distilleries owned, and +some of them conducted, I am told, by men of wealth. The fire thereof is +not quenched at all by day, and there is no night there; the worm dieth +not. There out of the sweetest plant which God has made to grow under a +tropic sun, men distil a poison the most baneful to mankind which the +world has ever known. The poison of the Borgias was celebrated once; +cold-hearted courtiers shivered at its name. It never killed many; those +with merciful swiftness. The poison of rum is yet worse; it yearly +murders thousands; kills them by inches, body and soul. Here are +respectable and wealthy men, men who this day sit down in a Christian +church and thank God for his goodness, with contrite hearts praise him +for that Son of Man who gave his life for mankind, and would gladly give +it to mankind; yet these men have ships on the sea to bring the poor +man's poison here, or bear it hence to other men as poor; have +distilleries on the land to make still yet more for the ruin of their +fellow Christians; have warehouses full of this plague, which "outvenoms +all the worms of Nile;" have shops which they rent for the illegal and +murderous sale of this terrible scourge. Do they not know the ruin which +they work; are they the only men in the land who have not heard of the +effects of intemperance? I judge them not, great God! I only judge +myself. I wish I could say, "They know not what they do;" but at this +day who does not know the effect of intemperance in Boston? + +I speak not of the sale of ardent spirits to be used in the arts, to be +used for medicine, but of the needless use thereof; of their use to +damage the body and injure the soul of man. The chief of your police +informs me there are twelve hundred places in Boston, where this article +is sold to be drunk on the spot; illegally sold. The Charitable +Association of Mechanics, in this city, have taken the accumulated +savings of more than fifty years, and therewith built a costly +establishment, where intoxicating drink is needlessly but abundantly +sold! Low as the moral standard of Boston is, low as are the morals of +the press and trade, I had hoped better things of these men, who live in +the midst of hard-working laborers, and see the miseries of intemperance +all about them. But the dollar was too powerful for their temperance. + +Here are splendid houses, where the rich man or the thrifty needlessly +drinks. Let me leave them; the evil Demon of Intemperance appears not +there; he is there, but under well-made garments, amongst educated men, +who are respected and still respect themselves. Amid merriment and song +the Demon appears not. He is there, gaunt, bony, and destructive, but so +elegantly clad, with manners so unoffending, you do not mark his face, +nor fear his steps. But go down to that miserable lane, where men +mothered by Misery and sired by Crime, where the sons of Poverty and the +daughters of Wretchedness, are huddled thick together, and you see this +Demon of Intemperance in all his ugliness. Let me speak soberly: +exaggeration is a figure of speech I would always banish from my +rhetoric, here, above all, where the fact is more appalling than any +fiction I could devise. In the low parts of Boston, where want abounds, +where misery abounds, intemperance abounds yet more, to multiply want, +to aggravate misery, to make savage what poverty has only made +barbarian; to stimulate passion into crime. Here it is not music and the +song which crown the bowl; it is crowned by obscenity, by oaths, by +curses, by violence, sometimes by murder. These twine the ivy round the +poor man's bowl; no, it is the Upas that they twine. Think of the +sufferings of the drunkard himself, of his poverty, his hunger and his +nakedness, his cold; think of his battered body; of his mind and +conscience, how they are gone. But is that all? Far from it. These +curses shall become blows upon his wife; that savage violence shall be +expended on his child. In his senses this man was a barbarian; there are +centuries of civilization betwixt him and cultivated men. But the man of +wealth, adorned with respectability and armed with science, harbors a +Demon in the street, a profitable Demon to the rich man who rents his +houses for such a use. The Demon enters our barbarian, who straightway +becomes a savage. In his fury he tears his wife and child. The law, +heedless of the greater culprits, the Demon, and the demon-breeder, +seizes our savage man and shuts him in the jail. Now he is out of the +tempter's reach; let us leave him; let us go to his home. His wife and +children still are there, freed from their old tormentor. Enter: look +upon the squalor, the filth, the want, the misery still left behind. +Respectability halts at the door with folded arms, and can no further +go. But charity, the love of man which never fails, enters even there; +enters to lift up the fallen, to cheer the despairing, to comfort and to +bless. Let us leave her there, loving the unlovely, and turn to other +sights. + +In the streets, there are about nine hundred needy boys, and about two +hundred needy girls, the sons and daughters mainly of the intemperate; +too idle or too thriftless to work; too low and naked for the public +school. They roam about--the nomadic tribes of this town, the gipsies of +Boston--doing some chance work for a moment, committing some petty +theft. The temptations of a great city are before them.[38] Soon they +will be impressed into the regular army of crime, to be stationed in +your jails, perhaps to die on your gallows. Such is the fate of the sons +of intemperance; but the daughters! their fate--let me not tell of that. + +In your Legislature they have just been discussing a law against dogs, +for now and then a man is bitten and dies of hydrophobia. Perhaps there +are ten mad dogs in the State at this moment, and it may be that one man +in a year dies from the bite of such. Do the legislators know how many +shops there are in this town, in this State, which all the day and all +the year sell to intemperate men a poison that maddens with a +hydrophobia still worse? If there were a thousand mad dogs in the land, +if wealthy men had embarked a large capital in the importation or the +production of mad dogs, and if they bit and maddened and slew ten +thousand men in a year, do you believe your Legislature would discuss +that evil with such fearless speech? Then you are very young, and know +little of the tyranny of public opinion, and the power of money to +silence speech, while justice still comes in, with feet of wool, but +iron hands.[39] + +There is yet another witness to the moral condition of Boston. I mean +Crime. Where there is such poverty and intemperance, crime may be +expected to follow. I will not now dwell upon this theme, only let me +say, that in 1848, three thousand four hundred and thirty-five grown +persons, and six hundred and seventy-one minors were lawfully sentenced +to your jail and House of Correction; in all, four thousand one hundred +and six; three thousand four hundred and forty-four persons were +arrested by the night police, and eleven thousand one hundred and +seventy-eight were taken into custody by the watch; at one time there +were one hundred and forty-four in the common jail. I have already +mentioned that more than a thousand boys and girls, between six and +sixteen, wander as vagrants about your streets; two hundred and +thirty-eight of these are children of widows, fifty-four have neither +parent living. It is a fact known to your police, that about one +thousand two hundred shops are unlawfully open for retailing the means +of intemperance. These are most thickly strown in the haunts of poverty. +On a single Sunday the police found three hundred and thirteen shops in +the full experiment of unblushing and successful crime. These rum-shops +are the factories of crime; the raw material is furnished by poverty; it +passes into the hands of the rum-seller, and is soon ready for delivery +at the mouth of the jail, or the foot of the gallows. It is notorious +that intemperance is the proximate cause of three fourths of the crime +in Boston; yet it is very respectable to own houses and rent them for +the purpose of making men intemperate; nobody loses his standing by +that. I am not surprised to hear of women armed with knives, and boys +with six-barrelled revolvers in their pockets; not surprised at the +increase of capital trials. + + * * * * * + +One other matter let me name--I call it the Crime against Woman. Let us +see the evil in its type, its most significant form. Look at that thing +of corruption and of shame, almost without shame, whom the judge, with +brief words, despatches to the jail. That was a woman once. No! At +least, she was once a girl. She had a mother; perhaps, beyond the hills, +a mother, in her evening prayer, remembers still this one child more +tenderly than all the folded flowers that slept the sleep of infancy +beneath her roof; remembers, with a prayer, her child, whom the world +curses after it has made corrupt! Perhaps she had no such mother, but +was born in the filth of some reeking cellar, and turned into the mire +of the streets, in her undefended innocence, to mingle with the +coarseness, the intemperance, and the crime of a corrupt metropolis. In +either case, her blood is on our hands. The crime which is so terribly +avenged on woman--think you that God will hold men innocent of that? But +on this sign of our moral state, I will not long delay. + + * * * * * + +Put all these things together: the character of trade, of the press; +take the evidence of poverty, intemperance, and crime--it all reveals a +sad state of things. I call your attention to these facts. We are all +affected by them more or less; all more or less accountable for them. + + * * * * * + +Hitherto I have only stated facts, without making comparisons. Let me +now compare the present condition of Boston with that in former times. +Every man has an ideal, which is better than the actual facts about him. +Some men amongst us put that ideal in times past, and maintain it was +then an historical fact; they are commonly men who have little knowledge +of the past, and less hope for the future; a good deal of reverence for +old precedents, little for justice, truth, humanity; little confidence +in mankind, and a great deal of fear of new things. Such men love to +look back and do homage to the past, but it is only a past of fancy, not +of fact, they do homage to. They tell us we have fallen; that the golden +age is behind us, and the garden of Eden; ours are degenerate days; the +men are inferior, the women less winning, less witty, and less wise, and +the children are an untoward generation, a disgrace, not so much to +their fathers, but certainly to their grandsires. Sometimes this is the +complaint of men who have grown old; sometimes of such as seem to be old +without growing so, who seem born to the gift of age, without the grace +of youth. + +Other men have a similar ideal, commonly a higher one, but they place +it in the future, not as an historical reality, which has been, and is +therefore to be worshipped, but one which is to be made real by dint of +thought, of work. I have known old persons who stoutly maintained that +the pears and the plums and the peaches, are not half so luscious as +they were many years ago; so they bewailed the existing race of fruits, +complaining of "the general decay" of sweetness, and brought over to +their way of speech some aged juveniles. Meanwhile, men born young, set +themselves to productive work, and, instead of bewailing an old fancy, +realized a new ideal in new fruits, bigger, fairer, and better than the +old. It is to men of this latter stamp, that we must look for criticism +and for counsel. The others can afford us a warning, if not by their +speech, at least by their example. + +It is very plain, that the people of New England are advancing in +wealth, in intelligence, and in morality; but in this general march, +there are little apparent pauses, slight waverings from side to side; +some virtues seem to straggle from the troop; some to lag behind, for it +is not always the same virtue that leads the van. It is with the flock +of virtues, as with wild fowl--the leaders alternate. It is probable +that the morals of New England in general, and of Boston in special, did +decline somewhat from 1775 to 1790; there were peculiar but well-known +causes, which no longer exist, to work that result. In the previous +fifteen years, it seems probable that there had been a rapid increase of +morality, through the agency of causes equally peculiar and transient. +To estimate the moral growth or decline of this town, we must not take +either period as a standard. But take the history of Boston, from 1650 +to 1700, from 1700 to 1750, thence to 1800, and you will see a gradual, +but a decided progress in morality in each of these periods. It is not +easy to prove this in a short sermon; I can only indicate the points of +comparison, and state the general fact. From 1800 to 1849, this progress +is well marked, indisputable, and very great. Let us look at this a +little in detail, pursuing the same order of thought as before. + +It is generally conceded that the moral character of trade has improved +a good deal within fifty or sixty years. It was formerly a common +saying, that "If a Yankee merchant were to sell salt water at high-tide, +he would yet cheat in the measure." The saying was founded on the +conduct of American traders abroad, in the West Indies and elsewhere. +Now things have changed for the better. I have been told by competent +authority, that two of the most eminent merchants of Boston, fifty or +sixty years ago, who conducted each a large business, and left very +large fortunes, were notoriously guilty of such dishonesty in trade, as +would now drive any man from the Exchange. The facility with which notes +are collected by the banks, compared to the former method of +collection, is itself a proof of an increase of practical honesty; the +law for settling the affairs of a bankrupt tells the same thing. Now +this change has not come from any special effort, made to produce this +particular effect, and, accordingly, it indicates the general moral +progress of the community. + +The general character of the press, since the end of the last century, +has decidedly improved, as any one may convince himself of, by comparing +the newspapers of that period, with the present; yet a publicity is +now-a-days given to certain things which were formerly kept more closely +from the public eye and ear. This circumstance sometimes produces an +apparent increase of wrong-doing, while it is only an increased +publicity thereof. Political servility, and political rancor, are +certainly bad enough, and base enough, at this day, but not long ago +both were baser and worse; to show this, I need only appeal to the +memories of men before me, who can recollect the beginning of the +present century. Political controversies are conducted with less +bitterness than before; honesty is more esteemed; private worth is more +respected. It is not many years since the Federal party, composed of men +who certainly were an honor to their age, supported Aaron Burr, for the +office of President of the United States; a man whose character, both +public and private, was notoriously marked with the deepest infamy. +Political parties are not very puritanical in their virtue at this day; +but I think no party would now for a moment accept such a man as Mr. +Burr, for such a post.[40] There is another pleasant sign of this +improvement in political parties: last autumn the victorious party, in +two wards of this city, made a beautiful demonstration of joy, at their +success in the Presidential election, and on Thanksgiving day, and on +Christmas, gave a substantial dinner to each poor person in their +section of the town. It was a trifle, but one pleasant to remember. + +Even the theological journals have improved within a few years. I know +it has been said that some of them are not only behind their times, +which is true, "but behind all times." It is not so. Compared with the +sectarian writings--tracts, pamphlets, and hard-bound volumes of an +earlier day--they are human, enlightened, and even liberal. + +In respect to poverty, there has been a great change for the better. +However, it may be said in general, that a good deal of the poverty, +intemperance, and crime, is of foreign origin; we are to deal with it, +to be blamed if we allow it to continue; not at all to be blamed for its +origin. I know it is often said, "The poor are getting poorer, and soon +will become the mere vassals of the rich;" that "The past is full of +discouragement; the future full of fear." I cannot think so. I feel +neither the discouragement nor the fear. It should be remembered that +many of the Fathers of New England owned the bodies of their laborers +and domestics! The condition of the working man has improved, relatively +to the wealth of the land, ever since. The wages of any kind of labor, +at this day, bear a higher proportion to the things needed for comfort +and convenience, than ever before for two hundred years. + +If you go back one hundred years, I think you will find that, in +proportion to the population and wealth of this town or this State, +there was considerably more suffering from native poverty then than now. +I have not, however, before me the means of absolute proof of this +statement; but this is plain, that now public charity is more extended, +more complete, works in a wiser mode, and with far more beneficial +effect; and that pains are now taken to uproot the causes of +poverty--pains which our fathers never thought of. In proof of this +increase of charity, and even of the existence of justice, I need only +refer to the numerous benevolent societies of modern origin, and to the +establishment of the ministry at large, in this city--the latter the +work of Unitarian philanthropy. Some other churches have done a little +in this good work. But none have done much. I am told the Catholic +clergy of this city do little to remove the great mass of poverty, +intemperance, and crime among their followers. I know there are some few +honorable exceptions, and how easy it is for Protestant hostility to +exaggerate matters; still, I fear the reproach is but too well founded, +that the Catholic clergy are not vigilant shepherds, who guard their +sacred flock against the terrible wolves which prowl about the fold. I +wish to find myself mistaken here. + +Some of you remember the "Old Almshouse" in Park-street; the condition +and character of its inmates; the effect of the treatment they there +received. I do not say that our present attention to the subject of +poverty is any thing to boast of--certainly we have done little in +comparison with what common sense demands; very little in comparison +with what Christianity enjoins; still it is something; in comparison +with "the good old times," it is much that we are doing. + +There has been a great change for the better in the matter of +intemperance in drinking. Within thirty years, the progress towards +sobriety is surprising, and so well marked and obvious that to name it +is enough. Probably there is not a "respectable" man in Boston who would +not be ashamed to have been seen drunk yesterday; even to have been +drunk in ever so private a manner; not one who would willingly get a +friend or a guest in that condition to-day! Go back a few years, and it +brought no public reproach, and, I fear, no private shame. A few years +further back, it was not a rare thing, on great occasions, for the +fathers of the town to reel and stagger from their intemperance--the +magistrates of the land voluntarily furnishing the warning which a +romantic historian says the Spartans forced upon their slaves. + +It is easy to praise the Fathers of New England; easier to praise them +for virtues they did not possess, than to discriminate, and fairly judge +those remarkable men. I admire and venerate their characters, but they +were rather hard drinkers; certainly a love of cold water was not one of +their loves. Let me mention a fact or two: it is recorded in the Probate +office, that in 1678, at the funeral of Mrs. Mary Norton, widow of the +celebrated John Norton, one of the ministers of the first church in +Boston, fifty-one gallons and a half of the best Malaga wine were +consumed by the "mourners;" in 1685, at the funeral of the Rev. Thomas +Cobbett, minister at Ipswich, there were consumed one barrel of wine and +two barrels of cider--"and as it was cold," there was "some spice and +ginger for the cider." You may easily judge of the drunkenness and riot +on occasions less solemn than the funeral of an old and beloved +minister. Towns provided intoxicating drink at the funeral of their +paupers; in Salem, in 1728, at the funeral of a pauper, a gallon of wine +and another of cider are charged as "incidental;" the next year, six +gallons of rum on a similar occasion; in Lynn, in 1711, the town +furnished "half a barrel of cider for the Widow Dispaw's funeral." +Affairs had come to such a pass, that in 1742, the General Court forbade +the use of wine and rum at funerals. In 1673, Increase Mather published +his "Wo unto Drunkards." Governor Winthrop complains, in 1630, that "The +young folk gave themselves to drink hot waters very immoderately."[41] + +But I need not go back so far. Who that is fifty years of age, does not +remember the aspect of Boston on public days; on the evening of such +days? Compare the "Election day," or the Fourth of July, as they were +kept thirty or forty years ago, with such days in our time. Some of you +remember the celebration of Peace, in 1783; many of you can recollect +the similar celebration in 1815. On each of those days the inhabitants +from the country towns came here to rejoice with the citizens of this +town. Compare the riot, the confusion, the drunkenness then, with the +order, decorum, and sobriety of the celebration at the introduction of +water last autumn, and you see what has been done in sixty or seventy +years for temperance. + +A great deal of the crime in Boston is of foreign origin: of the one +thousand and sixty-six children vagrant in your streets, only one +hundred and three had American parents; of the nine hundred and +thirty-three persons in the House of Correction here, six hundred and +sixteen were natives of other countries; I know not how many were the +children of Irishmen, who had not enjoyed the advantages of our +institutions. I cannot tell how many rum-shops are kept by +foreigners.[42] Now in Ireland no pains have been taken with the +education of the people by the Government; very little by the Catholic +church; indeed, the British government for a long time rendered it +impossible for the church to do any thing in this way. For more than +seventy years, in that Catholic country, none but a Protestant could +keep a school or even be a tutor in a private family. A Catholic +schoolmaster was to be transported, and, if he returned, adjudged guilty +of high treason, barbarously put to death, drawn and quartered. A +Protestant schoolmaster is as repulsive to a Catholic, as a Mahometan +schoolmaster or an Atheist would be to you. It is not surprising, +therefore, that the Irish are ignorant, and, as a consequence thereof, +are idle, thriftless, poor, intemperate, and barbarian; not to be +wondered at if they conduct like wild beasts when they are set loose in +a land where we think the individual must be left free to the greatest +extent. Of course they will violate our laws, those wild bisons leaping +over the fences which easily restrain the civilized domestic cattle; +will commit the great crimes of violence, even capital offences, which +certainly have increased rapidly of late. This increase of foreigners is +prodigious: more than half the children in your public schools are +children of foreigners; there are more Catholic than Protestant children +born in Boston. + +With the general and unquestionable advance of morality, some offences +are regarded as crimes which were not noticed a few years ago. +Drunkenness is an example of this. An Irishman in his native country +thinks little of beating another or being beaten; he brings his habits +of violence with him, and does not at once learn to conform to our laws. +Then, too, a good deal of crime which was once concealed is now brought +to light by the press, by the superior activity of the police; and yet, +after all that is said, it seems quite clear that what is legally called +crime and committed by Americans, has diminished a good deal in fifty +years. Such crime, I think, never bore so small a proportion to the +population, wealth, and activity of Boston, as now. Even if we take all +the offences committed by these strangers who have come amongst us, it +does not compare so very unfavorably as some allege with the "good old +times." I know men often look on the fathers of this colony as saints; +but in 1635, at a time when the whole State contained less than one +tenth of the present population of Boston, and they were scattered from +Weymouth Fore-River to the Merrimack, the first grand jury ever +impanelled at Boston "found" a hundred bills of indictment at their +first coming together. + +If you consider the circumstances of the class who commit the greater +part of the crimes which get punished, you will not wonder at the +amount. The criminal court is their school of morals; the constable and +judge are their teachers; but under this rude tuition I am told that the +Irish improve and actually become better. The children who receive the +instruction of our public schools, imperfect as they are, will be better +than their fathers; and their grandchildren will have lost all trace of +their barbarian descent. + +I have often spoken of our penal law as wrong in its principle, taking +it for granted that the ignorant and miserable men who commit crime do +it always from wickedness, and not from the pressure of circumstances +which have brutalized the man; wrong in its aim, which is to take +vengeance on the offender, and not to do him a good in return for the +evil he has done; wrong in its method, which is to inflict a punishment +that is wholly arbitrary, and then to send the punished man, overwhelmed +with new disgrace, back to society, often made worse than before,--not +to keep him till we can correct, cure, and send him back a reformed man. +I would retract nothing of what I have often said of that; but not long +ago all this was worse; the particular statutes were often terribly +unjust; the forms of trial afforded the accused but little chance of +justice; the punishments were barbarous and terrible. The plebeian +tyranny of the Lord Brethren in New England was not much lighter than +the patrician despotism of the Lord Bishops in the old world, and was +more insulting. Let me mention a few facts, to refresh the memories of +those who think we are going to ruin, and can only save ourselves by +holding to the customs of our fathers, and of the "good old times." In +1631, a man was fined forty pounds, whipped on the naked back, both his +ears cut off, and then banished this colony, for uttering hard speeches +against the government and the church at Salem. In the first century of +the existence of this town, the magistrates could banish a woman because +she did not like the preaching, nor all the ministers, and told the +people why; they could whip women naked in the streets, because they +spoke reproachfully of the magistrates; they could fine men twenty +pounds, and then banish them, for comforting a man in jail before his +trial; they could pull down, with legal formality, the house of a man +they did not like; they could whip women at a cart's tail from Salem to +Rhode Island, for fidelity to their conscience; they could beat, +imprison, and banish men out of the land, simply for baptizing one +another in a stream of water, instead of sprinkling them from a dish; +they could crop the ears, and scourge the backs, and bore the tongues of +men, for being Quakers; yes, they could shut them in jails, could banish +them out of the colony, could sell them as slaves, could hang them on a +gallows, solely for worshipping God after their own conscience; they +could convulse the whole land, and hang some thirty or forty men for +witchcraft, and do all this in the name of God, and then sing psalms, +with most nasal twang, and pray by the hour, and preach--I will not say +how long, nor what, nor how! It is not yet one hundred years since two +slaves were judicially burnt alive, on Boston Neck, for poisoning their +master. + +But why talk of days so old? Some of you remember when the pillory and +the whipping-post were a part of the public furniture of the law, and +occupied a prominent place in the busiest street in town. Some of you +have seen men and women scourged, naked, and bleeding, in State street; +have seen men judicially branded in the forehead with a hot iron, their +ears clipped off by the sheriff, and held up to teach humanity to the +gaping crowd of idle boys and vulgar men. A magistrate was once brought +into odium in Boston, for humanely giving back to his victim a part of +the ear he had officially shorn off, that the mutilated member might be +restored and made whole. How long is it since men sent their servants to +the "Workhouse," to be beaten "for disobedience," at the discretion of +the master? It is not long since the gallows was a public spectacle here +in the midst of us, and a hanging made a holiday for the rabble of this +city and the neighboring towns; even women came to see the +death-struggle of a fellow-creature, and formed the larger part of the +mob; many of you remember the procession of the condemned man sitting on +his coffin, a procession from the jail to the gallows, from one end of +the city to the other. I remember a public execution some fourteen or +fifteen years ago, and some of the students of theology at Cambridge, of +undoubted soundness in the Unitarian faith, came here to see men kill a +fellow-man! + +Who can think of these things, and not see that a great progress has +been made in no long time. But if these things be not proof enough, then +consider what has been done here in this century for the reformation of +juvenile offenders; for the discharged convict; for the blind, the deaf, +and the dumb; for the insane, and now even for the idiot. Think of the +numerous Societies for the widows and orphans; for the seamen; the +Temperance Societies; the Peace Societies; the Prison Discipline +Society; the mighty movement against slavery, which, beginning with a +few heroic men who took the roaring lion of public opinion by the beard, +fearless of his roar, has gone on now, till neither the hardest nor the +softest courage in the State dares openly defend the unholy +institution. A philanthropic female physician delivers gratuitous +lectures on physiology to the poor of this city, to enable them to take +better care of their houses and their bodies; an unpretending man, for +years past, responsible to none but God, has devoted all his time and +his toil to the most despised class of men, and has saved hundreds from +the jail, from crime and ruin at the last. Here are many men and women +not known to the public, but known to the poor, who are daily +ministering to the wants of the body and the mind. Consider all these +things, and who can doubt that a great moral progress has been made? It +is not many years since we had white slaves, and a Scotch boy was +invoiced at fourteen pounds lawful money, in the inventory of an estate +in Boston. In 1630, Governor Dudley complains that some of the founders +of New England, in consequence of a famine, were obliged to set free one +hundred and eighty servants, "to our extreme loss," for they had cost +sixteen or twenty pounds apiece. Seventy years since, negro slavery +prevailed in Massachusetts, and men did not blush at the institution. +Think of the treatment which the leaders of the anti-slavery reform met +with but a few years ago, and you see what a progress has been made![43] + +I have extenuated nothing of our condition; I have said the morals of +trade are low morals, and the morals of the press are low; that poverty +is a terrible evil to deal with, and we do not deal with it manfully; +that intemperance is a mournful curse, all the more melancholy when rich +men purposely encourage it; that here is an amount of crime which makes +us shudder to think of; that the voice of human blood cries out of the +ground against us. I disguise nothing of all this; let us confess the +fact, and, ugly as it is, look it fairly in the face. Still, our moral +condition is better than ever before. I know there are men who seem born +with their eyes behind, their hopes all running into memory; some who +wish they had been born long ago: they might as well; sure it is no +fault of theirs that they were not. I hear what they have to tell us. +Still, on the whole, the aspect of things is most decidedly encouraging; +for if so much has been done when men understood the matter less than +we, both cause and cure, how much more can be done for the future? + + * * * * * + +What can we do to make things better? + +I have so recently spoken of poverty that I shall say little now. A +great change will doubtless take place before many years in the +relations between capital and labor; a great change in the spirit of +society. I do not believe the disparity now existing between the wealth +of men has its origin in human nature, and therefore is to last for +ever; I do not believe it is just and right that less than one +twentieth of the people in the nation should own more than ten +twentieths of the property of the nation, unless by their own head, or +hands, or heart, they do actually create and earn that amount. I am not +now blaming any class of men; only stating a fact. There is a profound +conviction in the hearts of many good men, rich as well as poor, that +things are wrong; that there is an ideal right for the actual wrong; but +I think no man yet has risen up with ability to point out for us the +remedy of these evils, and deliver us from what has not badly been named +the Feudalism of Capital. Still, without waiting for the great man to +arise, we can do something with our littleness even now; the truant +children may be snatched from vagrancy, beggary, and ruin; tenements can +be built for the poor, and rented at a reasonable rate. It seems to me +that something more can be done in the way of providing employment for +the poor, or helping them to employment. + +In regard to intemperance, I will not say we can end it by direct +efforts. So long as there is misery there will be continued provocation +to that vice, if the means thereof are within reach. I do not believe +there will be much more intemperance amongst well-bred men; among the +poor and wretched it will doubtless long continue. But if we cannot end, +we can diminish it, fast as we will. If rich men did not manufacture, +nor import, nor sell; if they would not rent their buildings for the +sale of intoxicating liquor for improper uses; if they did not by their +example favor the improper use thereof, how long do you think your +police would arrest and punish one thousand drunkards in the year? how +long would twelve hundred rum-shops disgrace your town? Boston is far +more sober, at least in appearance, than other large cities of America, +but it is still the headquarters of intemperance for the State of +Massachusetts. In arresting intemperance, two thirds of the poverty, +three fourths of the crime of this city would end at once, and an amount +of misery and sin which I have not the skill to calculate. Do you say we +cannot diminish intemperance, neither by law, nor by righteous efforts +without law? Oh, fie upon such talk. Come, let us be honest, and say we +do not wish to, not that we cannot. It is plain that in sixteen years we +can build seven great railroads radiating out of Boston, three or four +hundred miles long; that we can conquer the Connecticut and the +Merrimack, and all the lesser streams of New England; can build up +Lowell, and Chicopee, and Lawrence; why, in four years Massachusetts can +invest eight and fifty millions of dollars in railroads and +manufactures, and cannot prevent intemperance; cannot diminish it in +Boston! So there are no able men in this town! I am amazed at such talk, +in such a place, full of such men, surrounded by such trophies of their +work! When the churches preach and men believe that Mammon is not the +only God we are practically to serve; that it is more reputable to keep +men sober, temperate, comfortable, intelligent, and thriving, than it is +to make money out of other men's misery; more Christian, than to sell +and manufacture rum, to rent houses for the making of drunkards and +criminals, then we shall set about this business with the energy that +shows we are in earnest, and by a method which will do the work. + +In the matter of crime, something can be done to give efficiency to the +laws. No doubt a thorough change must be made in the idea of criminal +legislation; vengeance must give way to justice, policemen become moral +missionaries, and jails moral hospitals, that discharge no criminal +until he is cured. It will take long to get the idea into men's minds. +You must encounter many a doubt, many a sneer, and expect many a +failure, too. Men who think they "know the world," because they know +that most men are selfish, will not believe you. We must wait for new +facts to convince such men. After the idea is established, it will take +long to organize it fittingly. + +Much can be done for juvenile offenders, much for discharged convicts, +even now. We can pull down the gallows, and with it that loathsome +theological idea on which it rests,--the idea of a vindictive God. A +remorseless court, and careful police, can do much to hinder crime;[44] +but they cannot remove the causes thereof. + +Last year, a good man, to whom the State was deeply indebted before, +suggested that a moral police should be appointed to look after +offenders; to see why they committed their crime; and if only necessity +compelled them, to seek out for them some employment, and so remove the +causes of crime in detail. The thought was worthy of the age, and of the +man. In the hands of a practical man, this thought might lead to good +results. A beginning has already been made in the right direction, by +establishing the State Reform School for Boys. It will be easy to +improve on this experiment, and conduct prisons for men on the same +scheme of correction and cure, not merely of punishment, in the name of +vengeance. But, after all, so long as poverty, misery, intemperance, and +ignorance continue, no civil police, no moral police, can keep such +causes from creating crime. What keeps you from a course of crime? Your +morality, your religion? Is it? Take away your property, your home, your +friends, the respect of respectable men; take away what you have +received from education, intellectual, moral, and religious, and how +much better would the best of us be than the men who will to-morrow be +huddled off to jail, for crimes committed in a dram-shop to-day? The +circumstances which have kept you temperate, industrious, respectable, +would have made nine tenths of the men in jail as good men as you are. + +It is not pleasant to think that there are no amusements which lie level +to the poor, in this country. In Paris, Naples, Rome, Vienna, Berlin, +there are cheap pleasures for poor men, which yet are not low pleasures. +Here there are amusements for the comfortable and the rich, not too +numerous, rather too rare, perhaps, but none for the poor, save only the +vice of drunkenness; that is hideously cheap; the inward temptation +powerful; the outward occasion always at hand. Last summer, some +benevolent men treated the poor children of the city to a day of +sunshine, fresh air, and frolic in the fields. Once a year the children, +gathered together by another benevolent man, have a floral procession in +the streets; some of them have charitably been taught to dance. These +things are beautiful to think of; signs of our progress, from "The good +old times," and omens of a brighter day, when Christianity shall bear +more abundantly flowers and fruit even yet more fair. + +The morals of the current literature, of the daily press--you can change +when you will. If there is not in us a demand for low morals, there +will be no supply. The morals of trade, and of politics, the handmaid +thereof, we can make better soon as we wish. + + * * * * * + +It has been my aim to give suggestions, rather than propose distinct +plans of action; I do not know that I am capable of that. But some of +you are rich men, some able men; many of you, I think, are good men. I +appeal to you to do something to raise the moral character of this town. +All that has been done in fifty years, or a hundred and fifty, seems +very little, while so much still remains to do; only a hint and an +encouragement. You cannot do much, nor I much: that is true. But, after +all, every thing must begin with individual men and women. You can at +least give the example of what a good man ought to be and to do, to-day; +to-morrow you will yourself be the better man for it. So far as that +goes, you will have done something to mend the morals of Boston. You can +tell of actual evils, and tell of your remedy for them; can keep clear +from committing the evils yourself: that also is something. + +Here are two things that are certain: We are all brothers, rich and +poor, American and foreign; put here by the same God, for the same end, +and journeying towards the same heaven, owing mutual help. Then, too, +the wise men and good men are the natural guardians of society, and God +will not hold them guiltless, if they leave their brothers to perish. I +know our moral condition is a reproach to us; I will not deny that, nor +try to abate the shame and grief we should feel. When I think of the +poverty and misery in the midst of us, and all the consequences thereof, +I hardly dare feel grateful for the princely fortunes some men have +gathered together. Certainly it is not a Christian society, where such +extremes exist; we are only in the process of conversion; proselytes of +the gate, and not much more. There are noble men in this city, who have +been made philanthropic, by the sight of wrong, of intemperance, and +poverty, and crime. Let mankind honor great conquerors, who only rout +armies, and "plant fresh laurels where they kill;" I honor most the men +who contend against misery, against crime and sin; men that are the +soldiers of humanity, and in a low age, amidst the mean and sordid +spirits of a great trading town, lift up their serene foreheads, and +tell us of the right, the true, first good, first perfect, and first +fair. From such men I hear the prophecy of the better time to come. In +their example I see proofs of the final triumph of good over evil. +Angels are they, who keep the tree of life, not with flaming sword, +repelling men, but, with friendly hand, plucking therefrom, and giving +unto all the leaves, the flower, and the fruit of life, for the healing +of the nations. A single good man, kindling his early flame, wakens the +neighbors with his words of cheer; they, at his lamp, shall light their +torch and household fire, anticipating the beamy warmth of day. Soon it +will be morning, warm and light; we shall be up and a-doing, and the +lighted lamp, which seemed at first too much for eyes to bear, will look +ridiculous, and cast no shadow in the noonday sun. A hundred years +hence, men will stand here as I do now, and speak of the evils of these +times as things past and gone, and wonder that able men could ever be +appalled by our difficulties, and think them not to be surpassed. Still, +all depends on the faithfulness of men--your faithfulness and mine. + +The last election has shown us what resolute men can do on a trifling +occasion, if they will. You know the efforts of the three parties--what +meetings they held, what money they raised, what talent was employed, +what speeches made, what ideas set forth: not a town was left +unattempted; scarce a man who had wit to throw a vote, but his vote was +solicited. You see the revolution which was wrought by that vigorous +style of work. When such men set about reforming the evils of society, +with such a determined soul, what evil can stand against mankind? We can +leave nothing to the next generation worth so much as ideas of truth, +justice, and religion, organized into fitting institutions; such we can +leave, and, if true men, such we shall. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[36] Rev. John Pierpont + +[37] This statement was made in 1849; subsequent events have shown that +I was mistaken. It is now thought respectable and patriotic not only to +engage in the slave-trade, but to kidnap men and women in Boston. Most +of the prominent newspapers, and several of the most prominent clergy, +defend the kidnapping. Attempts have repeatedly been made to kidnap my +own parishioners. Kidnapping is not even a matter of church discipline +in Boston in 1851. + +[38] The conduct of public magistrates who are paid for serving the +people, is not what it should be in respect to temperance. The city +authorities allow the laws touching the sale of the great instrument of +demoralization to be violated continually. There is no serious effort +made to enforce these laws. Nor is this all: the shameless conduct of +conspicuous men at the supper given in this city after the funeral of +John Quincy Adams, and the debauchery on that occasion, are well known +and will long be remembered. + +At the next festival (in September, 1851), it is notorious, that the +city authorities, at the expense of the citizens, provided a large +quantity of intoxicating drink for the entertainment of our guests +during the excursion in the harbor. It is also a matter of great +notoriety, that many were drunk on that occasion. I need hardly add, +that on board one of the crowded steamboats, three cheers were given for +the "Fugitive Slave Law," by men who it is hoped will at length become +sober enough to "forget" it. When the magistrates of Boston do such +deeds, and are not even officially friends of temperance, what shall we +expect of the poor and the ignorant and the miserable? "Cain, where is +thy Brother?" may be asked here and now as well as in the Bible story. + +[39] The statistics of intemperance are instructive and surprising. Of +the one thousand two hundred houses in Boston where intoxicating drink +is retailed to be drunken on the premises, suppose that two hundred are +too insignificant to be noticed, or else are large hotels to be +considered presently; then there are one thousand common retail +groggeries. Suppose they are in operation three hundred and thirteen +days in the year, twelve hours each day; that they sell one glass in a +little less than ten minutes, or one hundred glasses in the day, and +that five cents is the price of a glass. Then each groggery receives $5 +a day, or $1,565 (313 × 5) in a year, and the one thousand groggeries +receive $1,565,000. Let us suppose that each sells drink for really +useful purposes to the amount of $65 per annum, or all to the amount of +$65,000; there still remains the sum of $1,500,000 spent for +intemperance in these one thousand groggeries. This is about twice the +sum raised by taxation for the public education of all the children in +the State of Massachusetts! But this calculation does not equal the cost +of intemperance in these places; the receipts of these retail houses +cannot be less than $2,000 per annum, or in the aggregate, $2,000,000. +This sum in two years would pay for the new Aqueduct. Suppose the amount +paid for the needless, nay, for the injurious use of intoxicating drink +in private families, in boarding houses and hotels, is equal to the +smallest sum above named ($1,500,000), then it appears that the city of +Boston spends ($1,500,000 + $1,500,000 =) $3,000,000 annually for an +article that does no good to any but harm to all, and brings ruin on +thousands each year. But if a school-house or a school costs a little +money, a complaint is soon made. + +[40] It must be remembered that this was written, not in 1851, but in +1849. + +[41] In 1679, "The Reforming Synod," assembled at Boston, thus +complained of intemperance, amongst other sins of the times: "That +heathenish and idolatrous practice of health-drinking is too frequent. +That shameful iniquity of sinful drinking is become too general a +provocation. Days of training and other public solemnities have been +abused in this respect: and not only English but Indians have been +debauched by those that call themselves Christians.... This is a crying +sin, and the more aggravated in that the first planters of this colony +did ... come into this land with a design to convert the heathen unto +Christ, but if instead of that they be taught wickedness ... the Lord +may well punish by them.... There are more temptations and occasions +unto that sin publicly allowed of, than any necessity doth require. The +proper end of taverns, &c., being for the entertainment of strangers ... +a far less number would suffice," etc. + +Cotton Mather says of intemperance in his time: "To see ... a drunken +man become a drowned man, is to see but a most retaliating hand of God. +Why we have seen this very thing more than threescore times in our land. +And I remember the drowning of one drunkard, so oddly circumstanced; it +was in the hold of a vessel that lay full of water near the shore. We +have seen it so often, that I am amazed at you, O ye drunkards of New +England; I am amazed that you can harden your hearts in your sin, +without expecting to be destroyed suddenly and without remedy. Yea, and +we have seen the devil that has possessed the drunkard, throwing him +into fire, and then kept shrieking Fire! Fire! till they have gone down +to the fire that never shall be quenched. Yea, more than one or two +drunken women in this very town, have, while in their drink, fallen into +the fire, and so they have tragically gone roaring out of one fire into +another. O ye daughters of Belial, hear and fear and do wickedly no +more." + +The history of the first barrel of rum which was brought to Plymouth has +been carefully traced out to a considerable extent. Nearly forty of the +"Pilgrims" or their descendants were publicly punished for the +drunkenness it occasioned. + +[42] Over eight hundred in 1851. + +[43] This statement appears somewhat exaggerated in 1851. + +[44] In 1847, the amount of goods stolen in Boston, and reported to the +police, beyond what was received, was more than $37,000; in 1848, less +than $11,000. In 1849, the police were twice as numerous as in the +former year, and organized and directed with new and remarkable skill. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +NOTE TO p. 62. + +SOME ACCOUNT OF THE INSTALLATION OF MR. PARKER. + +LETTER OF THE COMMITTEE TO MR. PARKER. + + BOSTON, November 28, 1845. + +DEAR SIR:-- + +Among your friends and congregation at the Melodeon, a Society has been +organized according to law; and we have been instructed, as the Standing +Committee, to invite you to become its Minister. + +It gives us great pleasure to be the means to forward, in this small +degree, the end proposed, and we cordially extend you the invitation, +with the sincere hope that it will meet a favorable answer. + +We are, truly and respectfully, + + Your friends, + + MARK HEALEY, + JOHN FLINT, + LEVI B. MERIAM, + AMOS COOLIDGE, + JOHN G. KING, + SIDNEY HOMER, + HENRY SMITH, + GEO. W. ROBINSON, + C. M. ELLIS. + + TO THE REV. THEODORE PARKER, + + _West Roxbury, Mass_. + + +MR. PARKER'S REPLY. + + TO MARK HEALEY, JOHN FLINT, LEVI B. MERIAM, AMOS COOLIDGE, + JOHN G. KING, SIDNEY HOMER, HENRY SMITH, GEORGE W. ROBINSON, + AND C. M. ELLIS, ESQUIRES. + +DEAR FRIENDS:-- + +When I received your communication of the 28th ult. I did not hesitate +in my decision, but I have delayed giving you a formal reply, in order +that I might confer with my friends in this place, whom it becomes my +painful duty to leave. I accept your invitation; but wish it to be +provided that our connection may at any time be dissolved, by either +party giving notice to the other of a desire to that effect, six months +before such a separation is to take place. + +It is now nearly a year since I began to preach at the Melodeon. I came +at the request of some of you; but I did not anticipate the present +result. Far from it. I thought but few would come and listen to what was +so widely denounced. But I took counsel of my hopes and not of my fears. +It seems to me now that, if we are faithful to our duty, we shall in a +few years build up a society which shall be not only a joy to our own +hearts, but a blessing also to others, now strangers and perhaps hostile +to us. I feel that we have begun a good work. With earnest desires for +the success of our common enterprise, and a willingness to labor for the +advancement of real Christianity, I am, + + Faithfully, your friend, + + THEODORE PARKER. + + _West Roxbury, 12th Dec., 1845._ + + * * * * * + +On Sunday, January 4, 1846, REV. THEODORE PARKER was installed as Pastor +of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society in Boston. The exercises on +the occasion were as follows:-- + + INTRODUCTORY HYMN. + + PRAYER. + + VOLUNTARY ON THE ORGAN. + +The Chairman of the Standing Committee then addressed the Congregation +as follows:-- + +By the instructions of the Society, the Committee have made an +arrangement with Mr. Parker, by which the services of this Society, +under its new organization, should commence with the new year; and this +being our first meeting, it has been set apart for such introductory +services as may seem fitting for our position and prospects. + +The circumstances under which this Society has been formed, and its +progress hitherto, are familiar to most of those present. It first began +from certain influences which seemed hostile to the cause of religious +freedom. It was the opinion of many of those now present, that a +minister of the Gospel, truly worthy of that name, was proscribed on +account of his opinions, branded as a heretic, and shut out from the +pulpits of this city. + +At a meeting of gentlemen held January 22, 1845, the following +Resolution was passed:-- + +"_Resolved_, That the Rev. Theodore Parker shall have a chance to be +heard in Boston." + +To carry this into effect, this Hall was secured for a place of meeting, +and the numbers who have met here from Sunday to Sunday, have fully +answered our most sanguine expectations. Our meetings have proved that +though our friend was shut out from the temples, yet "the people heard +him gladly." Of the effects of his preaching among us I need not speak. +The warm feelings of gratitude and respect expressed on every side, are +the best evidences of the efficacy of his words, and of his life. + +Out of these meetings our Society has naturally sprung. It became +necessary to assume some permanent form--the labor of preaching to two +Societies, would of course be too much for Mr. Parker's health and +strength--the conviction that his settlement in Boston would be not only +important for ourselves, but also for the cause of liberal Christianity +and religious freedom--these were some of the reasons which induced us +to form a Society, and invite him to become its minister. To this he has +consented; with the understanding that the connection may be dissolved +by either party, on giving six months notice to that effect. + +At his suggestion, and with the warm approval of the Committee, we have +determined to adopt the old Congregational form of settling our +minister; without the aid of bishop, churches, or ministers. + +As to our Choice, we are, upon mature reflection, and after a year's +trial, fully persuaded that we have found our minister, and we ask no +ecclesiastical council to ratify our decision. + +As to the Charge usually given on such occasions, we prefer to do +without it, and trust to the conscience of our minister for his +faithfulness. + +As to the Right Hand of Fellowship, there are plenty of us ready and +willing to give that, and warm hearts with it. + +And for such of the other ceremonies usual on such occasions, as Mr. +Parker chooses to perform, we gladly accept the substitution of his +services for those of any stranger. + +The old Puritan form of settling a minister is, for the people to do it +themselves; and this let us now proceed to do. + +In adopting this course, we are strongly supported both by principle and +precedent. Congregationalism is the Republicanism of the Church; and it +is fitting that the people themselves should exercise their right of +self-government in that most important particular, the choice and +settlement of a minister. For examples, I need only remind you of the +settlement of the first minister in New England, on which occasion this +form was used, and that it is also used at this day by one of the most +respectable churches in this city. + + * * * * * + +The Society then ratified the proceedings by an unanimous vote; and Mr. +Parker publicly signified that he adhered to his consent to become the +Minister of this Society, and the organization of the Society was thus +completed. + + OCCASIONAL HYMN. + + DISCOURSE, BY MR. PARKER. + + ANTHEM. + + BENEDICTION. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional +Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3), by Theodore Parker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPEECHES *** + +***** This file should be named 34573-8.txt or 34573-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/5/7/34573/ + +Produced by Julia Miller, Josephine Paolucci 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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/34573-8.zip b/34573-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3e2330b --- /dev/null +++ b/34573-8.zip diff --git a/34573-h.zip b/34573-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0dc5154 --- /dev/null +++ b/34573-h.zip diff --git a/34573-h/34573-h.htm b/34573-h/34573-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..371cdba --- /dev/null +++ b/34573-h/34573-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10207 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons by Theodore Parker. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .tocnum {position: absolute; top: auto; right: 15%;} + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + + + .center {text-align: center;} + .right {text-align: right;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .sig {margin-left: 30em} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i3 {display: block; margin-left: 1.5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional +Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3), by Theodore Parker + +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: Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3) + +Author: Theodore Parker + +Release Date: December 5, 2010 [EBook #34573] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPEECHES *** + + + + +Produced by Julia Miller, Josephine Paolucci 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.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1>SPEECHES, ADDRESSES,<br /> + +AND<br /> + +OCCASIONAL SERMONS,</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>THEODORE PARKER,</h2> + +<h4>MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN BOSTON.</h4> + +<h3>IN THREE VOLUMES.</h3> + +<h3>VOL. I.</h3> + +<p class="center"> +BOSTON:<br /> +HORACE B. FULLER,<br /> +(<span class="smcap">Successor to Walker, Fuller, and Company</span>,)<br /> +245, WASHINGTON STREET.<br /> +1867.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by<br /> +THEODORE PARKER,<br /> +in the Clerk's Office of the District Court +of the District of Massachusetts.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"> +TO<br /> +<br /> +FRANCIS JACKSON,<br /> +<br /> +THE FOE 'GAINST EVERY FORM OF WRONG,<br /> +THE FRIEND OF JUSTICE,<br /> +WHOSE WIDE HUMANITY CONTENDS<br /> +FOR WOMAN'S NATURAL AND UNALIENABLE RIGHT; AGAINST<br /> +HIS NATION'S CRUELTY PROTECTS THE SLAVE;<br /> +IN THE CRIMINAL BEHOLDS A BROTHER TO BE REFORMED;<br /> +GOES TO MEN FALLEN AMONG THIEVES,—<br /> +WHOM PRIESTS AND LEVITES SACRAMENTALLY PASS BY,—<br /> +AND SEEKS TO SOOTHE AND HEAL AND BLESS THEM THAT ARE<br /> +READY TO PERISH:<br /> +WITH ADMIRATION FOR HIS UNSURPASSED INTEGRITY,<br /> +HIS COURAGE WHICH NOTHING SCARES,<br /> +AND HIS TRUE RELIGION<br /> +THAT WOULD BRING PEACE ON EARTH AND GOOD-WILL TO MAN,<br /> +THESE VOLUMES<br /> +ARE THANKFULLY DEDICATED<br /> +BY HIS MINISTER AND FRIEND,<br /> +<br /> +THEODORE PARKER.<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>I have collected in these volumes several Speeches, Addresses and +occasional Sermons, which I have delivered at various times during the +last seven years. Most of them were prepared for some special emergency: +only two papers, that on "The Relation of Jesus to his Age and the +Ages," and that on "Immortal Life," were written without reference to +some such emergency. All of them have been printed before, excepting the +sermon "Of General Taylor," and the address on "The American Scholar;" +some have been several times reprinted. I do not know that they are +worthy of republication in this permanent form, but the leading ideas of +these volumes are very dear to me, and are sure to live as long as the +human race shall continue. So I have published a small edition, hoping +that the truths which I know are contained in these pages will do a +service long after the writer, and the occasion of their utterance, have +passed off and been forgot. I offer them to whom they may concern.</p> + +<p class="right"> +THEODORE PARKER.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">August 24, 1851.</span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.</h2> + +<p> +I.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Relation of Jesus to his Age and the Ages.</span>—A<br /> +Sermon preached at the Thursday Lecture, in Boston,<br /> +December 26, 1844 PAGE <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></span><br /> +<br /> +II.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">The True Idea of a Christian Church.</span>—A Discourse<br /> +at the Installation of Theodore Parker as Minister of the<br /> +Twenty-Eighth Congregational Church in Boston, on Sunday,<br /> +January 4, 1846 <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_23'>23</a></span><br /> +<br /> +III.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">A Sermon of War.</span>—Preached at the Melodeon, on Sunday,<br /> +June 7, 1846 <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_63'>63</a></span><br /> +<br /> +IV.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">A Speech Delivered at the Anti-War Meeting in<br /> +Fanueil Hall</span>, February 4, 1847 <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_113'>113</a></span><br /> +<br /> +V.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">A Sermon of the Mexican War.</span>—Preached at the<br /> +Melodeon, on Sunday, June 25, 1848 <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_127'>127</a></span><br /> +<br /> +VI.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">A Sermon of the Perishing Classes in Boston.</span>—Preached<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>at the Melodeon on Sunday, August 30, 1846 <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_185'>185</a></span><br /> +<br /> +VII.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">A Sermon of Merchants.</span>—Preached at the Melodeon,<br /> +on Sunday, November 22, 1846 <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_227'>227</a></span><br /> +<br /> +VIII.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">A Sermon of the Dangerous Classes in Society.</span>—Preached<br /> +at the Melodeon, on Sunday, January 31, 1847 <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_279'>279</a></span><br /> +<br /> +IX.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">A Sermon of Poverty.</span>—Preached at the Melodeon, on<br /> +Sunday, January 14, 1849 <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_333'>333</a></span><br /> +<br /> +X.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">A Sermon of the Moral Condition of Boston.</span>—Preached<br /> +at the Melodeon, on Sunday, February 11, 1849 <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_364'>364</a></span><br /> +: </p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2>I.</h2> + +<h3>THE RELATION OF JESUS TO HIS AGE AND THE AGES.—A SERMON PREACHED AT THE +THURSDAY LECTURE, IN BOSTON, DECEMBER 26, 1844.</h3> +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> +<h4>JOHN VII. 48.</h4> + +<h4>"Have any of the Rulers, or of the Pharisees, believed on +him?"</h4> + + +<p>In all the world there is nothing so remarkable as a great man; nothing +so rare; nothing which so well repays study. Human nature is loyal at +its heart, and is, always and everywhere, looking for this its true +earthly sovereign. We sometimes say that our institutions, here in +America, do not require great men; that we get along better without than +with such. But let a real, great man light on our quarter of the planet; +let us understand him, and straightway these democratic hearts of ours +burn with admiration and with love. We wave in his words, like corn in +the harvest wind. We should rejoice to obey him, for he would speak what +we need to hear. Men are always half expecting such a man. But when he +comes, the real, great man that God has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> been preparing,—men are +disappointed; they do not recognize him. He does not enter the city +through the gates which expectants had crowded. He is a fresh fact, +brand new; not exactly like any former fact. Therefore men do not +recognize nor acknowledge him. His language is strange, and his form +unusual. He looks revolutionary, and pulls down ancient walls to build +his own temple, or, at least, splits old rocks asunder, and quarries +anew fresh granite and marble.</p> + +<p>There are two classes of great men. Now and then some arise whom all +acknowledge to be great, soon as they appear. Such men have what is true +in relation to the wants and expectations of to-day. They say, what many +men wished but had not words for; they translate into thought what, as a +dim sentiment, lay a burning in many a heart, but could not get entirely +written out into consciousness. These men find a welcome. Nobody +misunderstands them. The world follows at their chariot-wheels, and +flings up its cap and shouts its huzzas,—for the world is loyal, and +follows its king when it sees and knows him. The good part of the world +follows the highest man it comprehends; the bad, whoever serves its +turn.</p> + +<p>But there is another class of men so great, that all cannot see their +greatness. They are in advance of men's conjectures, higher than their +dreams; too good to be actual, think some. Therefore, say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> many, there +must be some mistake; this man is not so great as he seems; nay, he is +no great man at all, but an impostor. These men have what is true not +merely in relation to the wants and expectations of men here and to-day; +but what is true in relation to the Universe, to Eternity, to God. They +do not speak what you and I have been trying to say, and cannot; but +what we shall one day years hence, wish to say, after we have improved +and grown up to man's estate.</p> + +<p>Now it seems to me, the men of this latter class, when they come, can +never meet the approbation of the censors and guides of public opinion. +Such as wished for a new great man had a superstition of the last one in +their minds. They expected the new to be just like the old, but he is +altogether unlike. Nature is rich, but not rich enough to waste any +thing. So there are never two great men very strongly similar. Nay, this +new great man, perhaps, begins by destroying much that the old one built +up with tears and prayers. He shows, at first, the limitations and +defects of the former great man; calls in question his authority. He +refuses all masters; bows not to tradition; and with seeming +irreverence, laughs in the face of the popular idols. How will the +"respectable men," the men of a few good rules and those derived from +their fathers "the best of men and the wisest,"—how will they regard +this new great man? They will see nothing remarkable in him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> except that +he is fluent and superficial, dangerous and revolutionary. He disturbs +their notions of order; he shows that the institutions of society are +not perfect; that their imperfections are not of granite or marble, but +only of words written on soft wax, which may be erased and others +written thereon anew. He shows that such imperfect institutions are less +than one great man. The guides and censors of public opinion will not +honor such a man, they will hate him. Why not? Some others not half so +well bred, nor well furnished with precedents, welcome the new great +man; welcome his ideas; welcome his person. They say, "Behold a +Prophet."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When Jesus, the son of Mary, a poor woman, wife of Joseph the carpenter, +in the little town of Nazareth, when he "began to be about thirty years +old," and began also to open his mouth in the synagogues and the +highways, nobody thought him a great man at all, as it seems. "Who are +you?" said the guardians of public opinion. He found men expecting a +great man. This, it seems, was the common opinion, that a great man was +to arise, and save the Church, and save the State. They looked back to +Moses, a divine man of antiquity, whose great life had passed into the +world, and to whom men had done honor, in various ways; amongst others, +by telling all sorts of wonders he wrought, and declaring that none +could be so great again; none get so near to God.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> They looked back also +to the prophets, a long line of divine men, so they reckoned, but less +than the awful Moses; his stature was far above the nation, who hid +themselves in his shadow. Now the well-instructed children of Abraham +thought the next great man must be only a copy of the last, repeat his +ideas, and work in the old fashion. Sick men like to be healed by the +medicine which helped them the last time; at least, by the customary +drugs which are popular.</p> + +<p>In Judea, there were then parties of men, distinctly marked. There were +the Conservatives,—they represented the church, tradition, +ecclesiastical or theocratical authority. They adhered to the words of +the old books, the forms of the old rites, the tradition of the elders. +"Nobody but a Jew can be saved," said they; "he only by circumcision, +and the keeping of the old formal law; God likes that, He accepts +nothing else." These were the Pharisees, with their servants the +Scribes. Of this class were the Priests and the Levites in the main, the +National party, the Native-Hebrew party of that time. They had +tradition, Moses and the prophets; they believed in tradition, Moses and +the prophets, at least in public; what they believed in private God +knew, and so did they. I know nothing of that.</p> + +<p>Then there was the indifferent party; the Sadducees, the State. They had +wealth, and they believed in it, both in public and private too. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +had a more generous and extensive cultivation than the Pharisees. They +had intercourse with foreigners, and understood the writers of Ionia and +Athens which the Pharisee held in abhorrence. These were sleek +respectable men, who, in part, disbelieved the Jewish theology. It is no +very great merit to disbelieve even in the devil, unless you have a +positive faith in God to take up your affections. The Sadducee believed +neither in angel nor resurrection—not at all in the immortality of the +soul. He believed in the state, in the laws, the constables, the prisons +and the axe. In religious matters, it seems the Pharisee had a positive +belief, only it was a positive belief in a great mistake. In religious +matters the Sadducee had no positive belief at all; not even in an +error: at least, some think so. His distinctive affirmation was but a +denial. He believed what he saw with his eyes, touched with his fingers, +tasted with his tongue. He never saw, felt, nor tasted immortal life; he +had no belief therein. There was once a heathen Sadducee who said, "My +right arm is my God!"</p> + +<p>There was likewise a party of Come-outers. They despaired of the State +and the Church too, and turned off into the wilderness, "where the wild +asses quench their thirst," building up their organizations free, as +they hoped, from all ancient tyrannies. The Bible says nothing directly +of these men in its canonical books. It is a curious omission; but two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +Jews, each acquainted with foreign writers, Josephus and Philo, give an +account of these. These were the Essenes, an ascetic sect, hostile to +marriage, at least, many of them, who lived in a sort of association by +themselves, and had all things in common.</p> + +<p>The Pharisees and the Sadducees had no great living and ruling ideas; +none I mean which represented man, his hopes, wishes, affections, his +aspirations and power of progress. That is no very rare case, perhaps, +you will say, for a party in the Church or the State to have no such +ideas, but they had not even a plausible substitute for such ideas. They +seemed to have no faith in man, in his divine nature, his power of +improvement. The Essenes had ideas; had a positive belief; had faith in +man, but it was weakened in a great measure by their machinery. They, +like the Pharisee and the Sadducee, were imprisoned in their +organization, and probably saw no good out of their own party lines.</p> + +<p>It is a plain thing that no one of these three parties would accept, +acknowledge, or even perceive the greatness of Jesus of Nazareth. His +ideas were not their notions. He was not the man they were looking for; +not at all the Messiah, the anointed one of God, which they wanted. The +Sadducee expected no new great man unless it was a Roman quæstor, or +procurator; the Pharisees looked for a Pharisee stricter than Gamaliel; +the Essenes for an Ascetic. It is so now. Some seem to think that if +Jesus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> were to come back to the earth, he would preach Unitarian +sermons, from a text out of the Bible, and prove his divine mission and +the everlasting truths, the truths of necessity that he taught, in the +Unitarian way, by telling of the miracles he wrought eighteen hundred +years ago; that he would prove the immortality of the soul by the fact +of his own corporeal resurrection. Others seem to think that he would +deliver homilies of a severer character; would rate men roundly about +total depravity, and tell of unconditional election, salvation without +works, and imputed righteousness, and talk of hell till the women and +children fainted, and the knees of men smote together for trembling. +Perhaps both would be mistaken.</p> + +<p>So it was then. All these three classes of men, imprisoned in their +prejudices and superstitions, were hostile. The Pharisees said, "We know +that God spake unto Moses; but as for this fellow, we know not whence he +is. He blasphemeth Moses and the prophets; yea, he hath a devil, and is +mad, why hear him?" The Sadducees complained that "he stirred up the +people;" so he did. The Essenes, no doubt, would have it that he was "a +gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." +Tried by these three standards, the judgment was true; what could he do +to please these three parties? Nothing! nothing that he would do. So +they hated him; all hated him, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> sought to destroy him. The cause is +plain. He was so deep they could not see his profoundness; too high for +their comprehension; too far before them for their sympathy. He was not +the great man of the day. He found all organizations against him; Church +and State. Even John the Baptist, a real prophet, but not the prophet, +doubted if Jesus was the one to be followed. If Jesus had spoken for the +Pharisees, they would have accepted his speech and the speaker too. Had +he favored the Sadducees, he had been a great man in their camp, and +Herod would gladly have poured wine for the eloquent Galilean, and have +satisfied the carpenter's son with purple and fine linen. Had he praised +the Essenes, uttering their Shibboleth, they also would have paid him +his price, have made him the head of their association perhaps, at +least, have honored him in their way. He spoke for none of these. Why +should they honor or even tolerate him? It were strange had they done +so. Was it through any fault or deficiency of Jesus, that these men +refused him? quite the reverse. The rain falls and the sun shines on the +evil and the good; the work of infinite power, wisdom and goodness is +before all men, revealing the invisible things, yet the fool hath said, +ay, said in his heart, "There is no God!"</p> + +<p>Jesus spoke not for the prejudices of such, and therefore they rejected +him. But as he spoke truths for man, truths from God, truths adapted to +man's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> condition there, to man's condition everywhere and always, when +the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes went away, their lips curling +with scorn; when they gnashed on one another with their teeth, there +were noble men and humble women, who had long awaited the consolation of +Israel, and they heard him, heard him gladly. Yes, they left all to +follow him. Him! no, it was not him they followed; it was God in him +they obeyed, the God of truth, the God of love.</p> + +<p>There were men not counted in the organized sects; men weary of +absurdities; thirsting for the truth; sick, they knew not why nor of +what, yet none the less sick, and waiting for the angel who should heal +them, though by troubled waters and remedies unknown. These men had not +the prejudices of a straightly organized and narrow sect. Perhaps they +had not its knowledge, or its good manners. They were "unlearned and +ignorant men," those early followers of Christ. Nay, Jesus himself had +no extraordinary culture, as the world judges of such things. His +townsmen wondered, on a famous occasion, how he had learned to read. He +knew little of theologies, it would seem; the better for him, perhaps. +No doubt the better for us that he insisted on none. He knew they were +not religion. The men of Galilee did not need theology. The youngest +scribe in the humblest theological school at Jerusalem, if such a thing +were in those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> days, could have furnished theology enough to believe in +a life-time. They did need religion; they did see it as Jesus unfolded +its loveliness; they did welcome it when they saw; welcome it in their +hearts.</p> + +<p>If I were a poet as some are born, and skilled to paint with words what +shall stand out as real, to live before the eye, and then dwell in the +affectionate memory for ever, I would tell of the audience which heard +the Sermon on the mount, which listened to the parables, the rebukes, +the beautiful beatitudes. They were plain men, and humble women; many of +them foolish like you and me; some of them sinners. But they all had +hearts; had souls, all of them—hearts made to love, souls expectant of +truth. When he spoke, some said, no doubt, "That is a new thing, that +The true worshipper shall worship in spirit and in truth, as well here +as in Jerusalem, now as well as any time; that also is a hard saying, +Love your enemies; forgive them, though seventy times seven they smite +and offend you; that notion that the law and the prophets are contained, +all that is essentially religious thereof, in one precept, Love men as +yourself, and God with all your might. This differs a good deal from the +Pharisaic orthodoxy of the synagogue. That is a bold thing, presumptuous +and revolutionary to say, I am greater than the temple, wiser than +Solomon, a better symbol of God than both." But there was something +deeper than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> Jewish orthodoxy in their hearts; something that Jewish +orthodoxy could not satisfy, and what was yet more troublesome to +ecclesiastical guides, something that Jewish orthodoxy could not keep +down, nor even cover up. Sinners were converted at his reproof. They +felt he rebuked whom he loved. Yet his pictures of sin and sinners too, +were any thing but flattering. There was small comfort in them. Still it +was not the publicans and harlots who laid their hands on the place +where their hearts should be, saying, "You hurt our feelings," and "we +can't bear you!" Nay, they pondered his words, repenting in tears. He +showed them their sin; its cause, its consequence, its cure. To them he +came as a Saviour, and they said, "Thou art well-come," those penitent +Magdalens weeping at his feet.</p> + +<p>It would be curious could we know the mingled emotions that swayed the +crowd which rolled up around Jesus, following him, as the tides obey the +moon, wherever he went; curious to see how faces looked doubtful at +first as he began to speak at Tabor or Gennesareth, Capernaum or +Gischala, then how the countenance of some lowered and grew black with +thunder suppressed but cherished, while the face of others shone as a +branch of stars seen through some disparted cloud in a night of fitful +storms, a moment seen and then withdrawn. It were curious to see how +gradually many discordant feelings, passion, prejudice and pride were +hushed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> before the tide of melodious religion he poured out around him, +baptizing anew saint and sinner, and old and young, into one brotherhood +of a common soul, into one immortal service of the universal God; to see +how this young Hebrew maid, deep-hearted, sensitive, enthusiastic, +self-renouncing, intuitive of heavenly truth, rich as a young vine, with +clustering affections just purpling into ripeness,—how she seized, +first and all at once, the fair ideal, and with generous bosom +confidingly embraced it too; how that old man, gray-bearded, with +baldness on his head, full of precepts and precedents, the lore of his +fathers, the experience of a hard life, logical, slow, calculating, +distrustful, remembering much and fearing much, but hoping little, +confiding only in the fixed, his reverence for the old deepening as he +himself became of less use,—to see how he received the glad +inspirations of the joiner's son, and wondering felt his youth steal +slowly back upon his heart, reviving aspirations, long ago forgot, and +then the crimson tide of early hope come gushing, tingling on through +every limb; to see how the young man halting between principle and +passion, not yet petrified into worldliness, but struggling, uncertain, +half reluctant, with those two serpents, Custom and Desire, that +beautifully twined about his arms and breast and neck, their wormy +folds, concealing underneath their burnished scales the dragon's awful +strength, the viper's poison fang, the poor youth caressing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> their snaky +crests, and toying with their tongues of flame—to see how he slowly, +reluctantly, amid great questionings of heart, drank in the words of +truth, and then, obedient to the angel in his heart, shook off, as ropes +of sand, that hideous coil and trod the serpents underneath his feet. +All this, it were curious, ay, instructive too, could we but see.</p> + +<p>They heard him with welcome various as their life. The old men said, "It +is Moses or Elias; it is Jeremiah, one of the old prophets arisen from +the dead, for God makes none such, now-a-days, in the sterile dotage of +mankind." The young men and maidens doubtless it was that said, "This is +the Christ; the desire of the nations; the hope of the world, the great +new prophet; the Son of David; the Son of Man; yes, the Son of God. He +shall be our king." Human nature is loyal, and follows its king soon as +it knows him. Poor lost sheep! the children of men look always for their +guide, though so often they look in vain.</p> + +<p>How he spoke, words deep and piercing; rebukes for the wicked, doubly +rebuking, because felt to have come out from a great, deep, loving +heart. His first word was, perhaps, "Repent," but with the assurance +that the kingdom of God was here and now, within reach of all. How his +doctrines, those great truths of nature, commended themselves to the +heart of each, of all simple-souled men looking for the truth! He spoke +out of his experience; of course<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> into theirs. He spoke great doctrines, +truths vast as the soul, eternal as God, winged with beauty from the +loveliness of his own life. Had he spoken for the Jews alone, his words +had perished with that people; for that time barely, the echo of his +name had died away in his native hamlet; for the Pharisees, the +Sadducees, the Essence, you and I had heard of him but as a Rabbi; nay, +had never been blest by him at all. Words for a nation, an age, a sect, +are of use in their place, yet they soon come to nought. But as he spoke +for eternity, his truths ride on the wings of time; as he spoke for man, +they are welcome, beautiful and blessing, wherever man is found, and so +must be till man and time shall cease.</p> + +<p>He looked not back, as the Pharisee, save for illustrations and +examples. He looked forward for his direction. He looked around for his +work. There it lay, the harvest plenteous, the laborers few. It is +always so. He looked not to men for his idea, his word to speak; as +little for their applause. He looked in to God, for guidance, wisdom, +strength, and as water in the wilderness, at the stroke of Moses, in the +Hebrew legend, so inspiration came at his call, a mighty stream of truth +for the nation, faint, feeble, afraid, and wandering for the promised +land; drink for the thirsty, and cleansing for the unclean.</p> + +<p>But he met opposition; O, yes, enough of it. How could it be otherwise? +It must be so. The very soul of peace, he brought a sword. His word<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> was +a consuming fire. The Pharisees wanted to be applauded, commended; to +have their sect, their plans, their traditions praised and flattered. +His word to them was, "Repent;" of them, to the people, "Such +righteousness admits no man to the kingdom of heaven; they are a +deceitful prophecy, blind guides, hypocrites; not sons of Abraham, but +children of the devil." They could not bear him; no wonder at it. He was +the aggressor; had carried the war into the very heart of their system. +They turned out of their company a man whose blindness he healed, +because he confessed that fact. They made a law that all who believed on +him, should also be cast out. Well they might hate him, those old +Pharisees. His existence was their reproach; his preaching their trial; +his life with its outward goodness, his piety within, was their +condemnation. The man was their ruin, and they knew it. The cunning can +see their own danger, but it is only men wise in mind, or men simple of +heart, that can see their real, permanent safety and defence; never the +cunning, neither then, neither now.</p> + +<p>Jesus looked to God for his truth, his great doctrines not his own, +private, personal, depending on his idiosyncracies, and therefore only +subjectively true,—but God's, universal, everlasting, the absolute +religion. I do not know that he did not teach some errors also, along +with it. I care not if he did. It is by his truths that I know him, the +absolute religion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> he taught and lived; by his highest sentiments that +he is to be appreciated. He had faith in God and obeyed God; hence his +inspiration, great, in proportion to the greater endowment, moral and +religious, which God gave him, great likewise in proportion to his +perfect obedience. He had faith in man none the less. Who ever yet had +faith in God that had none in man? I know not. Surely no inspired +prophet. As Jesus had faith in man, so he spoke to men. Never yet, in +the wide world, did a prophet arise, appealing with a noble heart and a +noble life to the soul of goodness in man, but that soul answered to the +call. It was so most eminently with Jesus. The Scribes and Pharisees +could not understand by what authority he taught. Poor Pharisees! how +could they? His phylacteries were no broader than those of another man; +nay, perhaps he had no phylacteries at all, nor even a broad-bordered +garment. Men did not salute him in the market-place, sandals in hand, +with their "Rabbi! Rabbi!" Could such men understand by what authority +he taught? no more than they dared answer his questions. They that knew +him, felt he had authority quite other than that claimed by the Scribes; +the authority of true words, the authority of a noble life; yes, the +authority which God gives a great moral and religious man. God delegates +authority to men just in proportion to their power of truth, and their +power of goodness; to their being and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> their life. So God spoke in +Jesus, as he taught the perfect religion, anticipated, developed, but +never yet transcended.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>This then was the relation of Jesus to his age: the sectarians cursed +him; cursed him by their gods; rejected him, abused him, persecuted him; +sought his life. Yes, they condemned him in the name of God. All evil +says the proverb, begins in that name; much continues to claim it. The +religionists, the sects, the sectarian leaders rejected him, condemned +and slew him at the last, hanging his body on a tree. Poor priests of +the people, they hoped thereby to stifle that awful soul! they only +stilled the body; that soul spoke with a thousand tongues. So in the +times of old when the Saturnian day began to dawn, it might be fabled +that the old Titanic race, lovers of darkness and haters of the light, +essayed to bar the rising morning from the world, and so heaped Pelion +upon Ossa, and Olympus on Pelion; but first the day sent up his crimson +flush upon the cloud, and then his saffron tinge, and next the sun came +peering o'er the loftiest height, magnificently fair—and down the +mountain's slanting ridge poured the intolerable day; meanwhile those +triple hills, laboriously piled, came toppling, tumbling down, with +lumbering crush, and underneath their ruin hid the helpless giants' +grave. So was it with men who sat in Moses' seat. But this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> people, that +"knew not the Law," and were counted therefore accursed, they welcomed +Jesus as they never welcomed the Pharisee, the Sadducee or the Scribe. +Ay, hence were their tears. The hierarchical fire burnt not so bright +contrasted with the sun. That people had a Simon Peter, a James, and a +John, men not free from faults no doubt, the record shows it, but with +hearts in their bosoms, which could be kindled, and then could light +other hearts. Better still, there were Marthas and Marys among that +people who "knew not the law" and were cursed. They were the mothers of +many a church.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The character of Jesus has not changed; his doctrines are still the +same; but what a change in his relation to the age, nay to the ages. The +stone that the builders rejected is indeed become the head of the +corner, and its foundation too. He is worshipped as a God. That is the +rank assigned him by all but a fraction of the Christian world. It is no +wonder. Good men worship the best thing they know, and call it God. What +was taught to the mass of men, in those days, better than the character +of Christ? Should they rather worship the Grecian Jove, or the Jehovah +of the Jews? To me it seems the moral attainment of Jesus was above the +hierarchical conception of God, as taught at Athens, Rome, Jerusalem. +Jesus was the prince of peace,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> the king of truth, praying for his +enemies—"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" The +Jehovah of the Old Testament, was awful and stern, a man of war, hating +the wicked. The sacerdotal conception of God at Rome and Athens was +lower yet. No wonder then, that men soon learned to honor Jesus as a +God, and then as God himself. Apostolical and other legends tell of his +divine birth, his wondrous power that healed the sick, palsied and +crippled, deaf and dumb and blind; created bread; turned water into +wine, and bid obedient devils come and go, a power that raised the dead. +They tell that nature felt with him, and at his death the strongly +sympathizing sun paused at high noon, and for three hours withheld the +day; that rocks were rent, and opening graves gave up their sainted +dead, who trod once more the streets of Zion, the first fruits of them +that slept; they tell too how disappointed Death gave back his prey, and +spirit-like, Jesus restored, in flesh and shape the same, passed through +the doors shut up, and in a bodily form was taken up to heaven before +the face of men! Believe men of these things as they will. To me they +are not truth and fact, but mythic symbols and poetry; the psalm of +praise with which the world's rude heart extols and magnifies its King. +It is for his truth and his life, his wisdom, goodness, piety, that he +is honored in my heart; yes, in the world's heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> It is for this that +in his name churches are built, and prayers are prayed; for this that +the best things we know, we honor with his name.</p> + +<p>He is the greatest person of the ages; the proudest achievement of the +human race. He taught the absolute religion, love to God and man. That +God has yet greater men in store I doubt not; to say this is not to +detract from the majestic character of Christ, but to affirm the +omnipotence of God. When they come, the old contest will be renewed, the +living prophet stoned; the dead one worshipped. Be that as it may, there +are duties he teaches us far different from those most commonly taught. +He was the greatest fact in the whole history of man. Had he conformed +to what was told him of men; had he counselled only with flesh and +blood; he had been nothing but a poor Jew—the world had lost that rich +endowment of religious genius, that richest treasure of religious life, +the glad tidings of the one religion, absolute and true. What if he had +said, as others, "None can be greater than Moses, none so great?" He had +been a dwarf; the spirit of God had faded from his soul! But he +conferred with God, not men; took counsel of his hopes, not his fears. +Working for men, with men, by men, trusting in God, and pure as truth, +he was not scared at the little din of church or state, and trembled +not, though Pilate and Herod were made friends only to crucify him that +was a born King of the world.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> Methinks I hear that lofty spirit say to +you or me, poor brother, fear not, nor despair. The goodness actual in +me is possible for all. God is near thee now as then to me; rich as ever +in truth, as able to create, as willing to inspire. Daily and nightly He +showers down his infinitude of light. Open thine eyes to see, thy heart +to live. Lo, God is here.: </p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> +<h2>II.</h2> + +<h3>THE TRUE IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH.—A DISCOURSE AT THE INSTALLATION OF +THEODORE PARKER AS MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH +IN BOSTON, JANUARY 4, 1846.</h3> + + +<p>For nearly a year we have assembled within these walls from week to +week,—I think not idly; I know you have not come for any trivial end. +You have recently made a formal organization of yourselves for religious +action. To-day, at your request, I enter regularly on a ministry in the +midst of you. What are we doing; what do we design to do? We are here to +establish a Christian church; and a Christian church, as I understand +it, is a body of men and women united together in a common desire of +religious excellence and with a common regard for Jesus of Nazareth, +regarding him as the noblest example of morality and religion,—as the +model, therefore, in this respect for us. Such a church may have many +rites, as our Catholic brothers, or but few rites, as our Protestant +brothers, or no rites at all, as our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> brothers, the Friends. It may be, +nevertheless, a Christian church; for the essential of substance, which +makes it a religious body, is the union for the purpose of cultivating +love to God and man; and the essential of form, which makes it a +Christian body, is the common regard for Jesus, considered as the +highest representative of God that we know. It is not the form, either +of ritual or of doctrine, but the spirit which constitutes a Christian +church. A staff may sustain an old man, or a young man may bear it in +his hands as a toy, but walking is walking, though the man have no staff +for ornament or support. A Christian spirit may exist under rituals and +doctrines the most diverse. It were hard to say a man is not a +Christian, because he believes in the doctrine of the Trinity, or the +Pope, while Jesus taught no such doctrine; foolish to say one is no +Christian because he denies the existence of a Devil, though Jesus +believed it. To make a man's Christian name depend on a belief of all +that is related by the numerous writers in the Bible, is as absurd as to +make that depend on a belief in all the words of Luther, or Calvin, or +St. Augustine. It is not for me to say a man is not theoretically a +Christian because he believes that Slavery is a Divine and Christian +institution; that War is grateful to God—saying, with the Old +Testament, that God himself "is a man of war," who teaches men to fight, +and curses such as refuse;—or because he believes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> that all men are +born totally depraved, and the greater part of them are to be damned +everlastingly by "a jealous God," who is "angry with the wicked every +day," and that the few are to be "saved" only because God unjustly +punished an innocent man for their sake. I will not say a man is not a +Christian though he believe all the melancholy things related of God in +some parts of the Old Testament, yet I know few doctrines so hostile to +real religion as these have proved themselves. In our day it has +strangely come to pass that a little sect, themselves hooted at and +called "Infidels" by the rest of Christendom, deny the name of Christian +to such as publicly reject the miracles of the Bible. Time will +doubtless correct this error. Fire is fire, and ashes ashes, say what we +may; each will work after its kind. Now if Christianity be the absolute +religion, it must allow all beliefs that are true, and it may exist and +be developed in connection with all forms consistent with the absolute +religion, and the degree thereof represented by Jesus.</p> + +<p>The action of a Christian church seems to be twofold: first on its own +members, and then, through their means, on others out of its pale. Let a +word be said of each in its order. If I were to ask you why you came +here to-day; why you have often come to this house hitherto?—the +serious amongst you would say: That we might become better; more manly; +upright before God and downright<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> before men; that we might be +Christians, men good and pious after the fashion Jesus spoke of. The +first design of such a church then is to help ourselves become +Christians. Now the substance of Christianity is Piety—Love to God, and +Goodness—Love to men. It is a religion, the germs whereof are born in +your heart, appearing in your earliest childhood; which are developed +just in proportion as you become a man, and are indeed the standard +measure of your life. As the primeval rock lies at the bottom of the sea +and appears at the top of the loftiest mountains, so in a finished +character religion underlies all and crowns all. Christianity, to be +perfect and entire, demands a complete manliness; the development of the +whole man, mind, conscience, heart and soul. It aims not to destroy the +sacred peculiarities of individual character. It cherishes and develops +them in their perfection, leaving Paul to be Paul, not Peter, and John +to be John, not Jude nor James. We are born different, into a world +where unlike things are gathered together, that there may be a special +work for each. Christianity respects this diversity in men, aiming not +to undo but further God's will; not fashioning all men after one +pattern, to think alike, act alike, be alike, even look alike. It is +something far other than Christianity which demands that. A Christian +church then should put no fetters on the man; it should have unity of +purpose, but with the most entire freedom for the individual.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> When you +sacrifice the man to the mass in church or state, church or state +becomes an offence, a stumbling-block in the way of progress, and must +end or mend. The greater the variety of individualities in church or +state, the better is it, so long as all are really manly, humane and +accordant. A church must needs be partial, not catholic, where all men +think alike, narrow and little. Your church-organ, to have compass and +volume, must have pipes of various sound, and the skilful artist +destroys none, but tunes them all to harmony; if otherwise, he does not +understand his work. In becoming Christians let us not cease to be men; +nay, we cannot be Christians unless we are men first. It were +unchristian to love Christianity better than the truth, or Christ better +than man.</p> + +<p>But Christianity is not only the absolute religion; it has also the +ideal-man. In Jesus of Nazareth it gives us, in a certain sense, the +model of religious excellence. It is a great thing to have the perfect +idea of religion; to have also that idea made real, satisfactory to the +wants of any age, were a yet further greatness. A Christian church +should aim to have its members Christians as Jesus was the Christ; sons +of man as he was; sons of God as much as he. To be that it is not +needful to observe all the forms he complied with, only such forms as +help you; not needful to have all the thoughts that he had, only such +thoughts as are true. If Jesus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> were ever mistaken, as the Evangelists +make it appear, then it is a part of Christianity to avoid his mistakes +as well as to accept his truths. It is the part of a Christian church to +teach men so; to stop at no man's limitations; to prize no word so high +as truth; no man so dear as God. Jesus came not to fetter men, but free +them.</p> + +<p>Jesus is a model-man in this respect: that he stands in a true relation +to men, that of forgiveness for their ill-treatment, service for their +needs, trust in their nature, and constant love towards them,—towards +even the wicked and hypocritical; in a true relation to God, that of +entire obedience to Him, of perfect trust in Him, of love towards Him +with the whole mind, heart and soul; and love of God is also love of +truth, goodness, usefulness, love of Love itself. Obedience to God and +trust in God is obedience to these things, and trust in them. If Jesus +had loved any opinion better than truth, then had he lost that relation +to God, and so far ceased to be inspired by Him; had he allowed any +partial feeling to overcome the spirit of universal love, then also he +had sundered himself from God, and been at discord, not in harmony with +the Infinite.</p> + +<p>If Jesus be the model-man, then should a Christian church teach its +members to hold the same relation to God that Christ held; to be one +with Him; incarnations of God, as much and as far as Jesus was one with +God, and an incarnation thereof,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> a manifestation of God in the flesh. +It is Christian to receive all the truths of the Bible; all the truths +that are not in the Bible just as much. It is Christian also to reject +all the errors that come to us from without the Bible or from within the +Bible. The Christian man, or the Christian church, is to stop at no +man's limitation; at the limit of no book. God is not dead, nor even +asleep, but awake and alive as ever of old; He inspires men now no less +than beforetime; is ready to fill your mind, heart and soul with truth, +love, life, as to fill Moses and Jesus, and that on the same terms; for +inspiration comes by universal laws, and not by partial exceptions. Each +point of spirit, as each atom of space, is still bathed in the tides of +Deity. But all good men, all Christian men, all inspired men will be no +more alike than all wicked men. It is the same light which is blue in +the sky and golden in the sun. "All nature's difference makes all +nature's peace."</p> + +<p>We can attain this relation to man and God only on condition that we are +free. If a church cannot allow freedom it were better not to allow +itself, but cease to be. Unity of purpose, with entire freedom for the +individual, should be the motto. It is only free men that can find the +truth, love the truth, live the truth. As much freedom as you shut out, +so much falsehood do you shut in. It is a poor thing to purchase unity +of church-action at the cost of individual freedom. The Catholic church +tried it,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> and you see what came thereof: science forsook it, calling it +a den of lies. Morality forsook it, as the mystery of iniquity, and +religion herself protested against it, as the mother of abominations. +The Protestant churches are trying the same thing, and see whither they +tend and what foes rise up against them,—Philosophy with its Bible of +nature, and Religion with its Bible of man, both the hand-writing of +God. The great problem of church and state is this: To produce unity of +action and yet leave individual freedom not disturbed; to balance into +harmonious proportions the mass and the man, the centripetal and +centrifugal powers, as, by God's wondrous, living mechanism, they are +balanced in the worlds above. In the state we have done this more wisely +than any nation heretofore. In the churches it remains yet to do. But +man is equal to all which God appoints for him. His desires are ever +proportionate to his duty and his destinies. The strong cry of the +nations for liberty, a craving as of hungry men for bread and water, +shows what liberty is worth, and what it is destined to do. Allow +freedom to think, and there will be truth; freedom to act, and we shall +have heroic works; freedom to live and be, and we shall have love to men +and love to God. The world's history proves that, and our own history. +Jesus, our model-man, was the freest the world ever saw!</p> + +<p>Let it be remembered that every truth is of God,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> and will lead to good +and good only. Truth is the seed whereof welfare is the fruit; for every +grain thereof we plant some one shall reap a whole harvest of welfare. A +lie is "of the Devil," and must lead to want and woe and death, ending +at last in a storm where it rains tears and perhaps blood. Have freedom, +and you will sow new truth to reap its satisfaction; submit to thraldom, +and you sow lies to reap the death they bear. A Christian church should +be the home of the soul, where it enjoys the largest liberty of the sons +of God. If fettered elsewhere, here let us be free. Christ is the +liberator; he came not to drive slaves, but to set men free. The +churches of old did their greatest work, when there was most freedom in +those churches.</p> + +<p>Here too should the spirit of devotion be encouraged; the soul of man +communing with his God in aspirations after purity and truth, in +resolutions for goodness, and piety, and a manly life. These are a +prayer. The fact that men freely hold truths in common, great truths and +universal; that unitedly they lift up their souls to God seeking +instruction of Him, this will prove the strongest bond between man and +man. It seems to me that the Protestant churches have not fully done +justice to the sentiment of worship; that in taking care of the head we +have forgotten the heart. To think truth is the worship of the head; to +do noble works of usefulness and charity the worship of the will; to +feel love and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> trust in man and God, is the glad worship of the heart. A +Christian church should be broad enough for all; should seek truth and +promote piety, that both together might toil in good works.</p> + +<p>Here should be had the best instruction which can be commanded; the +freest, truest, and most manly voice; the mind most conversant with +truth; the eloquence of a heart that runs over with goodness, whose +faith is unfaltering in truth, justice, purity, and love; a faith in +God, whose charity is living love to men, even the sinful and the base. +Teaching is the breathing of one man's inspiration into another, a most +real thing amongst real men. In a church there should be instruction for +the young. God appoints the father and mother the natural teachers of +children; above all is it so in their religious culture. But there are +some who cannot, many who will not fulfil this trust. Hence it has been +found necessary for wise and good men to offer their instruction to +such. In this matter it is religion we need more than theology, and of +this it is not mere traditions and mythologies we are to teach, the +anile tales of a rude people in a dark age, things our pupils will do +well to forget soon as they are men, and which they will have small +reason to thank us for obscuring their minds withal; but it is the +great, everlasting truths of religion which should be taught, enforced +by examples of noble men, which tradition tells of, or the present age +affords, all this to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> suited to the tender years of the child. +Christianity should be represented as human, as man's nature in its true +greatness; religion shown to be beautiful, a real duty corresponding to +man's deepest desire, that as religion affords the deepest satisfaction +to man, so it is man's most universal want. Christ should be shown to +men as he was, the manliest of men, the most divine because the most +human. Children should be taught to respect their nature; to consider it +as the noblest of all God's works; to know that perfect truth and +goodness are demanded of them, and by that only can they be worthy men; +taught to feel that God is present in Boston and to-day, as much as ever +in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. They should be taught to abhor the +public sins of our times, but to love and imitate its great examples of +nobleness, and practical religion, which stand out amid the mob of +worldly pretenders in this day.</p> + +<p>Then, too, if one of our members falls into unworthy ways, is it not the +duty of some one to speak with him, not as with authority to command, +but with affection to persuade? Did any one of you ever address an +erring brother on the folly of his ways with manly tenderness, and try +to charm him back, and find a cold repulse? If a man is in error he will +be grateful to one that tells him so; will learn most from men who make +him ashamed of his littleness of life. In this matter it seems many a +good man comes short of his duty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p>There is yet another way in which a church should act on its own +household, and that is by direct material help in time of need. There is +the eternal distinction of the strong and the weak, which cannot be +changed. But as things now go there is another inequality not of God's +appointment, but of man's perversity, the distinction of rich and +poor—of men bloated by superfluous wealth and men starving and freezing +from want. You know and I know how often the strong abuse their +strength, exerting it solely for themselves and to the ruin of the weak; +we all know that such are reckoned great in the world, though they may +have grown rich solely by clutching at what others earned. In +Christianity, and before the God of justice, all men are brothers; the +strong are so that they may help the weak. As a nation chooses its +wisest men to manage its affairs for the nation's good, and not barely +their own, so God endows Charles or Samuel with great gifts that they +may also bless all men thereby. If they use those powers solely for +their pleasure then are they false before men; false before God. It is +said of the church of the Friends that no one of their number has ever +received the charity of an almshouse, or for a civil offence been shut +up in a jail. If the poor forsake a church, be sure that the church +forsook God long before.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But the church must have an action on others out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> of its pale. If a man +or a society of men have a truth, they hold it not for themselves alone, +but for all men. The solitary thinker, who in a moment of ecstatic +action in his closet at midnight discovers a truth, discovers it for all +the world and for eternity. A Christian church ought to love to see its +truths extend; so it should put them in contact with the opinions of the +world, not with excess of zeal or lack of charity.</p> + +<p>A Christian church should be a means of reforming the world, of forming +it after the pattern of Christian ideas. It should therefore bring up +the sentiments of the times, the ideas of the times, and the actions of +the times, to judge them by the universal standard. In this way it will +learn much and be a living church, that grows with the advance of men's +sentiments, ideas and actions, and while it keeps the good of the past +will lose no brave spirit of the present day. It can teach much; now +moderating the fury of men, then quickening their sluggish steps. We +expect the sins of commerce to be winked at in the street; the sins of +the state to be applauded on election days and in a Congress, or on the +fourth of July; we are used to hear them called the righteousness of the +nation. There they are often measured by the avarice or the ambition of +greedy men. You expect them to be tried by passion, which looks only to +immediate results and partial ends. Here they are to be measured by +Conscience<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> and Reason, which look to permanent results and universal +ends; to be looked at with reference to the Laws of God, the everlasting +ideas on which alone is based the welfare of the world. Here they are to +be examined in the light of Christianity itself. If the church be true, +many things which seem gainful in the street and expedient in the +senate-house, will here be set down as wrong, and all gain which comes +therefrom seen to be but a loss. If there be a public sin in the land, +if a lie invade the state, it is for the church to give the alarm; it is +here that it may war on lies and sins; the more widely they are believed +in and practised, the more are they deadly, the more to be opposed. Here +let no false idea or false action of the public go without exposure and +rebuke. But let no noble heroism of the times, no noble man pass by +without due honor. If it is a good thing to honor dead saints and the +heroism of our fathers; it is a better thing to honor the saints of +to-day, the live heroism of men who do the battle, when that battle is +all around us. I know a few such saints; here and there a hero of that +stamp, and I will not wait till they are dead and classic before I call +them so and honor them as such, for</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"To side with truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the multitude make virtue of the faith they once denied;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For Humanity sweeps onward; where to-day the martyr stands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the morrow crouches Judas, with the silver in his hands;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far in front the cross stands ready, and the crackling fagots burn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Do you not see that if a man have a new truth, it must be reformatory +and so create an outcry? It will seem destructive as the farmer's +plough; like that, it is so to tares and thistles, but the herald of the +harvest none the less. In this way a Christian church should be a +society for promoting true sentiments and ideas. If it would lead, it +must go before men; if it would be looked up to, it must stand high.</p> + +<p>That is not all: it should be a society for the promotion of good works. +We are all beneath our idea, and therefore transgressors before God. Yet +He gives us the rain, the snow and the sun. It falls on me as well as on +the field of my neighbor, who is a far juster man. How can we repent, +cast our own sins behind us, outgrow and forget them better, than by +helping others to work out their salvation? We are all brothers before +God. Mutually needful we must be; mutually helpful we should be. Here +are the ignorant that ask our instruction, not with words only, but with +the prayer of their darkness, far more suppliant than speech. I never +see an ignorant man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> younger than myself, without a feeling of +self-reproach, for I ask: "What have I been doing to suffer him to grow +up in nakedness of mind?" Every man, born in New England, who does not +share the culture of this age, is a reproach to more than himself, and +will at last actively curse those who began by deserting him. The +Christian church should lead the movement for the public education of +the people.</p> + +<p>Here are the needy who ask not so much your gold, your bread, or your +cloth, as they ask also your sympathy, respect and counsel; that you +assist them to help themselves, that they may have gold won by their +industry, not begged out of your benevolence. It is justice more than +charity they ask. Every beggar, every pauper, born and bred amongst us, +is a reproach to us, and condemns our civilization. For how has it come +to pass that in a land of abundance here are men, for no fault of their +own, born into want, living in want, and dying of want? and that, while +we pretend to a religion which says all men are brothers! There is a +horrid wrong somewhere.</p> + +<p>Here too are the drunkard, the criminal, the abandoned person, sometimes +the foe of society, but far oftener the victim of society. Whence come +the tenants of our almshouses, jails, the victims of vice in all our +towns? Why, from the lowest rank of the people; from the poorest and +most ignorant!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> Say rather from the most neglected, and the public sin +is confessed, and the remedy hinted at. What have the strong been doing +all this while, that the weak have come to such a state? Let them answer +for themselves.</p> + +<p>Now for all these ought a Christian church to toil. It should be a +church of good works; if it is a church of good faith it will be so. +Does not Christianity say the strong should help the weak? Does not that +mean something? It once did. Has the Christian fire faded out from those +words, once so marvellously bright? Look round you, in the streets of +your own Boston! See the ignorant, men and women with scarce more than +the stature of men and women; boys and girls growing up in ignorance and +the low civilization which comes thereof, the barbarians of Boston. +Their character will one day be a blot and a curse to the nation, and +who is to blame? Why, the ablest and best men, who might have had it +otherwise if they would. Look at the poor, men of small ability, weak by +nature, born into a weak position, therefore doubly weak; men whom the +strong use for their purpose, and then cast them off as we throw away +the rind of an orange after we have drunk its generous juice. Behold the +wicked, so we call the weak men that are publicly caught in the cobweb +of the law; ask why they became wicked; how we have aimed to reform +them; what we have done to make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> them respect themselves, to believe in +goodness, in man and God? and then say if there is not something for +Christian men to do, something for a Christian church to do! Every +almshouse in Massachusetts shows that the churches have not done their +duty, that the Christians lie lies when they call Jesus "master" and men +"brothers!" Every jail is a monument, on which it is writ in letters of +iron that we are still heathens, and the gallows, black and hideous, the +embodiment of death, the last argument a "Christian" State offers to the +poor wretches it trained up to be criminals, stands there, a sign of our +infamy, and while it lifts its horrid arm to crush the life out of some +miserable man, whose blood cries to God against Cain in the nineteenth +century, it lifts that same arm as an index of our shame.</p> + +<p>Is that all? Oh, no! Did not Jesus say, resist not evil—with evil? Is +not war the worst form of that evil; and is there on earth a nation so +greedy of war; a nation more reckless of provoking it; one where the +war-horse so soon conducts his foolish rider into fame and power? The +"Heathen" Chinese might send their missionaries to America, and teach us +to love men! Is that all? Far from it. Did not Christ say, whatsoever +you would that men should do unto you, do you even so unto them; and are +there not three million brothers of yours and mine in bondage here, the +hopeless sufferers of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> savage doom; debarred from the civilization of +our age, the barbarians of the nineteenth century; shut out from the +pretended religion of Christendom, the heathens of a Christian land; +chained down from the liberty unalienable in man, the slaves of a +Christian republic? Does not a cry of indignation ring out from every +legislature in the North; does not the press war with its million +throats, and a voice of indignation go up from East and West, out from +the hearts of freemen? Oh, no. There is none of that cry against the +mightiest sin of this age. The rock of Plymouth, sanctified by the feet +which led a nation's way to freedom's large estate, provokes no more +voice than the rottenest stone in all the mountains of the West. The few +that speak a manly word for truth and everlasting right, are called +fanatics; bid be still, lest they spoil the market! Great God! and has +it come to this, that men are silent over such a sin? 'Tis even so. Then +it must be that every church which dares assume the name of Christ, that +dearest name to men, thunders and lightens on this hideous wrong! That +is not so. The church is dumb, while the state is only silent; while the +servants of the people are only asleep, "God's ministers" are dead!</p> + +<p>In the midst of all these wrongs and sins, the crimes of men, society +and the state, amid popular ignorance, pauperism, crime, and war, and +slavery too—is the church to say nothing, do nothing;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> nothing for the +good of such as feel the wrong, nothing to save them who do the wrong? +Men tell us so, in word and deed; that way alone is "safe!" If I thought +so, I would never enter the church but once again, and then to bow my +shoulders to their manliest work, to heave down its strong pillars, arch +and dome, and roof, and wall, steeple and tower, though like Samson I +buried myself under the ruins of that temple which profaned the worship +of God most high, of God most loved. I would do this in the name of man; +in the name of Christ I would do it; yes, in the dear and blessed name +of God.</p> + +<p>It seems to me that a church which dares name itself Christian, the +Church of the Redeemer, which aspires to be a true church, must set +itself about all this business, and be not merely a church of theology, +but of religion; not of faith only, but of works; a just church by its +faith bringing works into life. It should not be a church termagant, +which only peevishly scolds at sin, in its anile way; but a church +militant against every form of evil, which not only censures, but writes +out on the walls of the world the brave example of a Christian life, +that all may take pattern therefrom. Thus only can it become the church +triumphant. If a church were to waste less time in building its palaces +of theological speculation, palaces mainly of straw, and based upon the +chaff, erecting air-castles and fighting battles to defend those palaces +of straw, it would surely have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> more time to use in the practical good +works of the day. If it thus made a city free from want and ignorance +and crime, I know I vent a heresy, I think it would be quite as +Christian an enterprise, as though it restored all the theology of the +dark ages; quite as pleasing to God. A good sermon is a good thing, no +doubt, but its end is not answered by its being preached; even by its +being listened to and applauded; only by its awakening a deeper life in +the hearers. But in the multitude of sermons there is danger lest the +bare hearing thereof be thought a religious duty, not a means, but an +end, and so our Christianity vanish in words. What if every Sunday +afternoon the most pious and manly of our number, who saw fit, resolved +themselves into a committee of the whole for practical religion, and +held not a formal meeting, but one more free, sometimes for the purpose +of devotion, the practical work of making ourselves better Christians, +nearer to one another, and sometimes that we might find means to help +such as needed help, the poor, the ignorant, the intemperate and the +wicked? Would it not be a work profitable to ourselves, and useful to +others weaker than we? For my own part I think there are no ordinances +of religion like good works; no day too sacred to help my brother in; no +Christianity like a practical love of God shown by a practical love of +men. Christ told us that if we had brought our gift to the very altar, +and there remembered our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> brother had cause of complaint against us, we +must leave the divine service, and pay the human service first! If my +brother be in slavery, in want, in ignorance, in sin, and I can aid him +and do not, he has much against me, and God can better wait for my +prayer than my brother for my help!</p> + +<p>The saints of olden time perished at the stake; they hung on gibbets; +they agonized upon the rack; they died under the steel of the tormentor. +It was the heroism of our fathers' day that swam the unknown seas; froze +in the woods; starved with want and cold; fought battles with the red +right hand. It is the sainthood and heroism of our day that toils for +the ignorant, the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the wicked. Yes, it is +our saints and heroes who fight fighting; who contend for the slave, and +his master too, for the drunkard, the criminal; yes, for the wicked or +the weak in all their forms. It is they that with weapons of heavenly +proof fight the great battle for the souls of men. Though I detest war +in each particular fibre of my heart, yet I honor the heroes among our +fathers who fought with bloody hand; peace-makers in a savage way, they +were faithful to the light; the most inspired can be no more, and we, +with greater light, do, it may be, far less. I love and venerate the +saints of old; men who dared step in front of their age; accepted +Christianity when it cost something to be a Christian, because it meant +something; they applied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> Christianity, so far as they knew it, to the +lies and sins of their times, and won a sudden and a fiery death. But +the saints and the heroes of this day, who draw no sword, whose right +hand is never bloody, who burn in no fires of wood or sulphur, nor +languish briefly on the hasty cross; the saints and heroes who, in a +worldly world, dare to be men; in an age of conformity and selfishness, +speak for Truth and Man, living for noble aims; men who will swear to no +lies howsoever popular; who will honor no sins, though never so +profitable, respected and ancient; men who count Christ not their +master, but teacher, friend, brother, and strive like him to practise +all they pray; to incarnate and make real the Word of God, these men I +honor far more than the saints of old. I know their trials, I see their +dangers, I appreciate their sufferings, and since the day when the man +on Calvary bowed his head, bidding persecution farewell with his +"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," I find no such +saints and heroes as live now! They win hard fare, and hard toil. They +lay up shame and obloquy. Theirs is the most painful of martyrdoms. +Racks and fagots soon waft the soul of God, stern messengers but swift. +A boy could bear that passage, the martyrdom of death. But the +temptation of a long life of neglect, and scorn, and obloquy, and shame, +and want, and desertion by false friends; to live blameless though +blamed, cut<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> off from human sympathy, that is the martyrdom of to-day. I +shed no tears for such martyrs. I shout when I see one; I take courage +and thank God for the real saints, prophets and heroes of to-day. In +another age, men shall be proud of these puritans and pilgrims of this +day. Churches shall glory in their names and celebrate their praise in +sermon and in song. Yea, though now men would steal the rusty sword from +underneath the bones of a saint or hero long deceased, to smite off +therewith the head of a new prophet, that ancient hero's son; though +they would gladly crush the heart out of him with the tomb-stones they +piled up for great men, dead and honored now, yet in some future day, +that mob, penitent, baptized with a new spirit, like drunken men +returned to sanity once more, shall search through all this land for +marble white enough to build a monument to that prophet whom their +fathers slew; they shall seek through all the world for gold of fineness +fit to chronicle such names! I cannot wait; but I will honor such men +now, not adjourn the warning of their voice, and the glory of their +example, till another age! The church may cast out such men; burn them +with the torments of an age too refined in its cruelty to use coarse +fagots and the vulgar axe! It is no less to these men; but the ruin of +the church. I say the Christian church of the nineteenth century must +honor such men, if it would do a church's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> work; must take pains to make +such men as these, or it is a dead church, with no claim on us, except +that we bury it. A true church will always be the church of martyrs. The +ancients commenced every great work with a victim! We do not call it so; +but the sacrifice is demanded, got ready, and offered by unconscious +priests long ere the enterprise succeeds. Did not Christianity begin +with a martyrdom?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In this way, by gaining all the truth of the age in thought or action, +by trying public opinions with its own brave ideas, by promoting good +works, applying a new truth to an old error, and with unpopular +righteousness overcoming each popular sin, the Christian church should +lead the civilization of the age. The leader looks before, goes before, +and knows where he is going; knows the way thither. It is only on this +condition that he leads at all. If the church by looking after truth, +and receiving it when it comes, be in unison with God, it will be in +unison with all science, which is only the thought of God translated +from the facts of nature into the words of men. In such a case, the +church will not fear philosophy, nor in the face of modern science aim +to reëstablish the dreams and fables of a ruder day. It will not lack +new truth, daring only to quote, nor be obliged to sneak behind the +inspired words of old saints as its only fortress, for it will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> have +words just as truly inspired, dropping from the golden mouths of saints +and prophets now. For leaders it will look not back, but forth; will fan +the first faint sparkles of that noble fire just newly kindled from the +skies; not smother them in the ashes of fires long spent; not quench +them with holy water from Jordan or the Nile. A church truly Christian, +professing Christ as its model-man, and aiming to stand in the relation +he stood, must lead the way in moral enterprises, in every work which +aims directly at the welfare of man. There was a time when the Christian +churches, as a whole, held that rank. Do they now? Not even the +Quakers—perhaps the last sect that abandoned it. A prophet, filled with +love of man and love of God, is not therein at home. I speak a sad +truth, and I say it in sorrow. But look at the churches of this city: do +they lead the Christian movements of this city—the temperance movement, +the peace movement, the movement for the freedom of men, for education, +the movement to make society more just, more wise and good, the great +religious movement of these times—for, hold down our eyelids as we +will, there is a religious movement at this day on foot, such as even +New England never saw before;—do they lead in these things? Oh, no, not +at all. That great Christian orator, one of the noblest men New England +has seen in this century, whose word has even now gone forth to the +nations beyond the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> sea, while his spirit has gone home to his Father, +when he turned his attention to the practical evils of our time and our +land, and our civilization, vigorously applying Christianity to life, +why he lost favor in his own little sect! They feared him, soon as his +spirit looked over their narrow walls, aspiring to lead men to a better +work. I know men can now make sectarian capital out of the great name of +Channing, so he is praised; perhaps praised loudest by the very men who +then cursed him by their gods. Ay, by their gods he was accursed! The +churches lead the Christian movements of these times?—why, has there +not just been driven out of this city, and out of this State, a man +conspicuous in all these movements, after five and twenty years of noble +toil; driven out because he was conspicuous in them! You know it is so, +and you know how and by whom he is thus driven out!<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>Christianity is humanity; Christ is the Son of man; the manliest of men; +humane as a woman; pious and hopeful as a prayer; but brave as man's +most daring thought. He has led the world in morals and religion for +eighteen hundred years, only because he was the manliest man in it; the +humanest and bravest man in it, and hence the divinest. He may lead it +eighteen hundred years more, for we are bid believe that God can never +make again a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> greater man; no, none so great. But the churches do not +lead men therein, for they have not his spirit; neither that womanliness +which wept over Jerusalem, nor that manliness which drew down fire +enough from heaven to light the world's altars for well-nigh two +thousand years.</p> + +<p>There are many ways in which Christ may be denied:—one is that of the +bold blasphemer, who, out of a base and haughty heart mocks, scoffing at +that manly man, and spits upon the nobleness of Christ! There are few +such deniers: my heart mourns for them. But they do little harm. +Religion is so dear to men, no scoffing word can silence that, and the +brave soul of this young Nazarene has made itself so deeply felt that +scorn and mockery of him are but an icicle held up against the summer's +sun. There is another way to deny him, and that is:—to call him Lord, +and never do his bidding; to stifle free minds with his words; and with +the authority of his name to cloak, to mantle, screen and consecrate the +follies, errors, sins of men! From this we have much to fear.</p> + +<p>The church that is to lead this century will not be a church creeping on +all fours; mewling and whining, its face turned down, its eyes turned +back. It must be full of the brave, manly spirit of the day, keeping +also the good of times past. There is a terrific energy in this age, for +man was never so much developed, so much the master of himself before.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +Great truths, moral and political, have come to light. They fly quickly. +The iron prophet of types publishes his visions, of weal or woe, to the +near and far. This marvellous age has invented steam, and the magnetic +telegraph, apt symbols of itself, before which the miracles of fable are +but an idle tale. It demands, as never before, freedom for itself, +usefulness in its institutions; truth in its teachings, and beauty in +its deeds. Let a church have that freedom, that usefulness, truth, and +beauty, and the energy of this age will be on its side. But the church +which did for the fifth century, or the fifteenth, will not do for this. +What is well enough at Rome, Oxford or Berlin, is not well enough for +Boston. It must have our ideas, the smell of our ground, and have grown +out of the religion in our soul. The freedom of America must be there +before this energy will come; the wisdom of the nineteenth century +before its science will be on the churches' side, else that science will +go over to the "infidels."</p> + +<p>Our churches are not in harmony with what is best in the present age. +Men call their temples after their old heroes and saints—John, Paul, +Peter, and the like. But we call nothing else after the old names; a +school of philosophy would be condemned if called Aristotelian, +Platonic, or even Baconian. We out-travel the past in all but this. In +the church it seems taught there is no progress unless we have all the +past on our back; so we despair of having<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> men fit to call churches by. +We look back and not forward. We think the next saint must talk Hebrew +like the old ones, and repeat the same mythology. So when a new prophet +comes we only stone him.</p> + +<p>A church that believes only in past inspiration will appeal to old books +as the standard of truth and source of light; will be antiquarian in its +habits; will call its children by the old names; and war on the new age, +not understanding the man-child born to rule the world. A church that +believes in inspiration now will appeal to God; try things by reason and +conscience; aim to surpass the old heroes; baptize its children with a +new spirit, and using the present age will lead public opinion, and not +follow it. Had Christ looked back for counsel, he might have founded a +church fit for Abraham or Isaac to worship in, not for the ages to come, +or the age then. He that feels he is near to God, does not fear to be +far from men; if before, he helps lead them on; if above, to lift them +up. Let us get all we can from the Hebrews and others of old time, and +that is much; but still let us be God's free men, not the Gibeonites of +the past.</p> + +<p>Let us have a church that dares imitate the heroism of Jesus; seek +inspiration as he sought it; judge the past as he; act on the present +like him; pray as he prayed; work as he wrought; live as he lived. Let +our doctrines and our forms fit the soul, as the limbs fit the body, +growing out of it, growing with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> it. Let us have a church for the whole +man: truth for the mind; good works for the hands; love for the heart; +and for the soul, that aspiring after perfection, that unfaltering faith +in God which, like lightning in the clouds, shines brightest, when +elsewhere it is most dark. Let our church fit man, as the heavens fit +the earth!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In our day men have made great advances in science, commerce, +manufactures, in all the arts of life. We need, therefore, a development +of religion corresponding thereto. The leading minds of the age ask +freedom to inquire; not merely to believe, but to know; to rest on +facts. A great spiritual movement goes swiftly forward. The best men see +that religion is religion; theology is theology, and not religion; that +true religion is a very simple affair, and the popular theology a very +foolish one; that the Christianity of Christ is not the Christianity of +the street, or the state, or the churches; that Christ is not their +model-man, only "imputed" as such. These men wish to apply good sense to +matters connected with religion; to apply Christianity to life, and make +the world a better place, men and women fitter to live in it. In this +way they wish to get a theology that is true; a mode of religion that +works, and works well. If a church can answer these demands, it will be +a live church; leading the civilization of the times, living with all +the mighty life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> of this age, and nation. Its prayers will be a lifting +up of the hearts in noble men towards God, in search of truth, goodness, +piety. Its sacraments will be great works of reform, institutions for +the comfort and the culture of men. Let us have a church in which +religion, goodness towards men, and piety towards God, shall be the main +thing; let us have a degree of that suited to the growth and demands of +this age. In the middle ages, men had erroneous conceptions of religion, +no doubt; yet the church led the world. When she wrestled with the +state, the state came undermost to the ground. See the results of that +supremacy—all over Europe there arose the cloister, halls of learning +for the chosen few, minster, dome, cathedral, miracles of art, each +costing the wealth of a province. Such was the embodiment of their ideas +of religion, the prayers of a pious age done in stone, a psalm petrified +as it rose from the world's mouth; a poor sacrifice, no doubt, but the +best they knew how to offer. Now if men were to engage in religion as in +politics, commerce, arts; if the absolute religion, the Christianity of +Christ, were applied to life with all the might of this age, as the +Christianity of the church was then applied, what a result should we not +behold! We should build up a great state with unity in the nation, and +freedom in the people; a state where there was honorable work for every +hand, bread for all mouths, clothing for all backs, culture for every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +mind, and love and faith in every heart. Truth would be our sermon, +drawn from the oldest of Scriptures, God's writing there in nature, here +in man; works of daily duty would be our sacrament; prophets inspired of +God would minister the word, and piety send up her psalm of prayer, +sweet in its notes, and joyfully prolonged. The noblest monument to +Christ, the fairest trophy of religion, is a noble people, where all are +well fed and clad, industrious, free, educated, manly, pious, wise and +good.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Some of you may now remember, how ten months and more ago, I first came +to this house to speak. I shall remember it forever. In those rainy +Sundays the very skies looked dark. Some came doubtingly, uncertain, +looking around, and hoping to find courage in another's hope. Others +came with clear glad face; openly, joyfully, certain they were right; +not fearing to meet the issue; not afraid to be seen meeting it. Some +came, perhaps, not used to worship in a church, but not the less welcome +here; some mistaking me for a destroyer, a doubter, a denier of all +truth, a scoffer, an enemy to man and God! I wonder not at that. +Misguided men had told you so, in sermon and in song; in words publicly +printed and published without shame; in the covert calumny, slyly +whispered in the dark! Need I tell you my feelings; how I felt at coming +to the town made famous by great men, Mayhew, Chauncy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> Buckminster, +Kirkland, Holley, Pierpont, Channing, Ware—names dear and honored in my +boyish heart! Need I tell you how I felt at sight of the work which +stretched out before me? Do you wonder that I asked: Who is sufficient +for these things? and said: Alas, not I, Thou knowest, Lord! But some of +you told me you asked not the wisdom of a wiser man, the ability of one +stronger, but only that I should do what I could. I came, not doubting +that I had some truths to say; not distrusting God, nor man, nor you; +distrustful only of myself. I feared I had not the power, amid the dust +and noises of the day, to help you see and hear the great realities of +religion as they appeared to me; to help you feel the life of real +religion, as in my better moments I have felt its truth! But let that +pass. As I came here from Sunday to Sunday, when I began to feel your +spirits prayed with mine a prayer for truth and life; as I looked down +into your faces, thoughtful and almost breathless, I forgot my +self-distrust; I saw the time was come; that, feebly as I know I speak, +my best thoughts were ever the most welcome! I saw that the harvest was +plenteous indeed: but the preacher, I feel it still, was all unworthy of +his work!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Brothers and Sisters: let us be true to our sentiments and ideas. Let us +not imitate another's form unless it symbolize a truth to us. We must +not affect to be singular, but not fear to be alone. Let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> us not +foolishly separate from our brothers elsewhere. Truth is yet before us, +not only springing up out of the manly words of this Bible, but out of +the ground; out of the heavens; out of man and God. Whole firmaments of +truth hang ever o'er our heads, waiting the telescopic eye of the +true-hearted see-er. Let us follow truth, in form, thought or sentiment, +wherever she may call. God's daughter cannot lead us from the path. The +further on we go, the more we find. Had Columbus turned back only the +day before he saw the land, the adventure had been worse than lost.</p> + +<p>We must practise a manly self-denial. Religion always demands that, but +never more than when our brothers separate from us, and we stand alone. +By our mutual love and mutual forbearance, we shall stand strong. With +zeal for our common work, let us have charity for such as dislike us, +such as oppose and would oppress us. Let us love our enemies, bless them +that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for such as +despitefully use us. Let us overcome their evil speech with our own +goodness. If others have treated us ill, called us unholy names, and +mocked at us, let us forgive it all, here and now, and help them also to +forget and outgrow that temper which bade them treat us so. A kind +answer is fittest rebuke to an unkind word.</p> + +<p>If we have any truth it will not be kept hid. It will run over the brim +of our urn and water our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> brother's field. Were any truth to come down +to us in advance from God, it were not that we might forestall the +light, but shed it forth for all His children to walk by and rejoice in. +"One candle will light a thousand" if it be itself lighted. Let our +light shine before men so that they may see our good deeds, and +themselves praise God by a manly life. This we owe to them as to +ourselves. A noble thought and a mean man make a sorry union. Let our +idea show itself in our life—that is preaching, right eloquent. Do +this, we begin to do good to men, and though they should oppose us, and +our work should fail, we shall have yet the approval of our own heart, +the approval of God, be whole within ourselves, and one with Him.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Some of you are venerable men. I have wondered that a youthful ardor +should have brought you here. Your silvery heads have seemed a +benediction to my work. But most of you are young. I know it is no aping +of a fashion that has brought you here. I have no eloquence to charm or +please you with; I only speak right on. I have no reputation but a bad +name in the churches. I know you came not idly, but seeking after truth. +Give a great idea to an old man, and he carries it to his grave; give it +to a young man, and he carries it to his life. It will bear both young +and old through the grave and into eternal Heaven beyond.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>Young men and women, the duties of the world fall eminently on you. God +confides to your hands the ark which holds the treasures of the age. On +young shoulders He lays the burden of life. Yours is the period of +passion; the period of enterprise and of work. It is by successive +generations that mankind goes forward. The old, stepping into honorable +graves, leave their places and the results they won to you. But +departing they seem to say, as they linger and look back: Do ye greater +than we have done! The young just coming into your homes seem to say: +Instruct us to be nobler than yourselves! Your life is the answer to +your children and your sires. The next generation will be as you make +it. It is not the schools but the people's character that educates the +child. Amid the trials, duties, dangers of your life, religion alone can +guide you. It is not the world's eye that is on you, but God's; it is +not the world's religion that will suffice you, but the religion of a +Man, which unites you with truth, justice, piety, goodness; yes, which +makes you one with God!</p> + +<p>Young men and women—you can make this church a fountain of life to +thousands of fainting souls. Yes, you can make this city nobler than +city ever was before. A manly life is the best gift you can leave +mankind; that can be copied forever. Architects of your own weal or woe, +your destiny is mainly in your own hands. It is no great thing to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +reject the popular falsehoods; little and perhaps not hard. But to +receive the great sentiments and lofty truths of real religion, the +Christianity of Christ; to love them, to live them in your business and +your home, that is the greatest work of man. Thereby you partake of the +spirit and nature of God; you achieve the true destiny for yourself; you +help your brothers do the same.</p> + +<p>When my own life is measured by the ideal of that young Nazarene, I know +how little I deserve the name of Christian; none knows that fact so well +as I. But you have been denied the name of Christian because you came +here, asking me to come. Let men see that you have the reality, though +they withhold the name. Your words are the least part of what you say to +men. The foolish only will judge you by your talk; wise men by the +general tenor of your life. Let your religion appear in your work and +your play. Pray in your strongest hours. Practise your prayers. By +fair-dealing, justice, kindness, self-control, and the great work of +helping others while you help yourself, let your life prove a worship. +These are the real sacraments and Christian communion with God, to which +water and wine are only helps. Criticize the world not by censure only, +but by the example of a great life. Shame men out of their littleness, +not by making mouths, but by walking great and beautiful amongst them. +You love God best when you love men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> most. Let your prayers be an +uplifting of the soul in thought, resolution, love, and the light +thereof shall shine through the darkest hour of trouble. Have not the +Christianity of the street; but carry Christ's Christianity there. Be +noble men, then your works must needs be great and manly.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>This is the first Sunday of a new year. What an hour for resolutions; +what a moment for prayer! If you have sins in your bosom, cast them +behind you now. In the last year, God has blessed us; blessed us all. On +some his angels waited, robed in white, and brought new joys; here a +wife, to bind men closer yet to Providence; and there a child, a new +Messiah, sent to tell of innocence and heaven. To some his angels came +clad in dark livery, veiling a joyful countenance with unpropitious +wings, and bore away child, father, sister, wife, or friend. Still were +they angels of good Providence, all God's own; and he who looks aright +finds that they also brought a blessing, but concealed, and left it, +though they spoke no word of joy. One day our weeping brother shall find +that gift and wear it as a diamond on his breast.</p> + +<p>The hours are passing over us, and with them the day. What shall the +future Sundays be, and what the year? What we make them both. God gives +us time. We weave it into life, such figures as we may, and wear it as +we will. Age slowly rots away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> the gold we are set in, but the +adamantine soul lives on, radiant every way in the light streaming down +from God. The genius of eternity, star-crowned, beautiful, and with +prophetic eyes, leads us again to the gates of time, and gives us one +more year, bidding us fill that golden cup with water as we can or will. +There stand the dirty, fetid pools of worldliness and sin; curdled, and +mantled, film-covered, streaked and striped with many a hue, they shine +there, in the slanting light of new-born day. Around them stand the sons +of earth and cry: Come hither; drink thou and be saved! Here fill thy +golden cup! There you may seek to fill your urn; to stay your thirst. +The deceitful element, roping in your hands, shall mock your lip. It is +water only to the eye. Nay, show-water only unto men half-blind. But +there, hard by, runs down the stream of life, its waters never frozen, +never dry; fed by perennial dews falling unseen from God. Fill there +thine urn, oh, brother-man, and thou shalt thirst no more for +selfishness and crime, and faint no more amid the toil and heat of day; +wash there, and the leprosy of sin, its scales of blindness, shall fall +off, and thou be clean for ever. Kneel there and pray; God shall inspire +thy heart with truth and love, and fill thy cup with never-ending +joy!<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Rev. John Pierpont.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> See note at the end of this volume.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> +<h2>III.</h2> + +<h3>A SERMON OF WAR, PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JUNE 7, 1846.</h3> +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> +<h4>EXODUS XV. 3.</h4> + +<h4>"The Lord is a Man of War."</h4> + +<h4>1 JOHN IV. 8.</h4> +<h4> +"God is Love."</h4> + + +<p>I ask your attention to a Sermon of War. I have waited some time before +treating this subject at length, till the present hostilities should +assume a definite form, and the designs of the Government become more +apparent. I wished to be able to speak coolly and with knowledge of the +facts, that we might understand the comparative merits of the present +war. Besides, I have waited for others, in the churches, of more +experience to speak, before I ventured to offer my counsel; but I have +thus far waited almost in vain! I did not wish to treat the matter last +Sunday, for that was the end of our week of Pentecost, when cloven +tongues of flame descend on the city, and some are thought to be full of +new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> wine, and others of the Holy Spirit. The heat of the meetings, good +and bad, of that week, could not wholly have passed away from you or me, +and we ought to come coolly and consider a subject like this. So the +last Sunday I only sketched the back-ground of the picture, to-day +intending to paint the horrors of war in front of that "Presence of +Beauty in Nature," to which with its "Meanings" and its "Lessons," I +then asked you to attend.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It seems to me that an idea of God as the Infinite is given to us in our +nature itself. But men create a more definite conception of God in their +own image. Thus a rude savage man, who has learned only the presence of +power in Nature, conceives of God mainly as a force, and speaks of Him +as a God of power. Such, though not without beautiful exceptions, is the +character ascribed to Jehovah in the Old Testament. "The Lord is a man +of war." He is "the Lord of Hosts." He kills men, and their cattle. If +there is trouble in the enemies' city, it is the Lord who hath caused +it. He will "whet his glittering sword and render vengeance to his +enemies. He will make his arrows drunk with blood, and his sword shall +devour flesh!" It is with the sword that God pleads with all men. He +encourages men to fight, and says, "Cursed be he that keepeth back his +sword from blood." He sends blood into the streets; he waters the land +with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> blood, and in blood he dissolves the mountains. He brandishes his +sword before kings, and they tremble at every moment. He treads nations +as grapes in a wine-press, and his garments are stained with their +life's blood.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> +<p>A man who has grown up to read the Older Testament of God revealed in +the beauty of the universe, and to feel the goodness of God therein set +forth, sees him not as force only, or in chief, but as love. He worships +in love the God of goodness and of peace. Such is the prevalent +character ascribed to God in the New Testament, except in the book of +"Revelation." He is the "God of love and peace;" "our Father," "kind to +the unthankful and the unmerciful." In one word, God is love. He loves +us all, Jew and Gentile, bond and free. All are his children, each of +priceless value in His sight. He is no God of battles; no Lord of hosts; +no man of war. He has no sword, nor arrows; He does not water the earth +nor melt the mountains in blood, but "He maketh His sun to rise on the +evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust." He +has no garments dyed in blood; curses no man for refusing to fight. He +is spirit, to be worshipped in spirit and in truth! The commandment is: +Love one another; resist not evil with evil; forgive seventy times +seven; overcome evil with good; love<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> your enemies; bless them that +curse you; do good to them that hate you; pray for them that +despitefully use you and persecute you.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> There is no nation to shut +its ports against another, all are men; no caste to curl its lip at +inferiors, all are brothers, members of one body, united in the Christ, +the ideal man and head of all. The most useful is the greatest. No man +is to be master, for the Christ is our teacher. We are to fear no man, +for God is our Father.</p> + +<p>These precepts are undeniably the precepts of Christianity. Equally +plain is it that they are the dictates of man's nature, only developed +and active; a part of God's universal revelation; His law writ on the +soul of man, established in the nature of things; true after all +experience, and true before all experience. The man of real insight into +spiritual things sees and knows them to be true.</p> + +<p>Do not believe it the part of a coward to think so. I have known many +cowards; yes, a great many; some very cowardly, pusillanimous and +faint-hearted cowards; but never one who thought so, or pretended to +think so. It requires very little courage to fight with sword and +musket, and that of a cheap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> kind. Men of that stamp are plenty as grass +in June. Beat your drum, and they will follow; offer them but eight +dollars a month, and they will come—fifty thousand of them, to smite +and kill.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Every male animal, or reptile, will fight. It requires +little courage to kill; but it takes much to resist evil with good, +holding obstinately out, active or passive, till you overcome it. Call +that non-resistance, if you will; it is the stoutest kind of combat, +demanding all the manhood of a man.</p> + +<p>I will not deny that war is inseparable from a low stage of +civilization; so is polygamy, slavery, cannibalism. Taking men as they +were, savage and violent, there have been times when war was +unavoidable. I will not deny that it has helped forward the civilization +of the race, for God often makes the folly and the sin of men contribute +to the progress of mankind. It is none the less a folly or a sin. In a +civilized nation like ourselves, it is far more heinous than in the +Ojibeways or the Camanches.</p> + +<p>War is in utter violation of Christianity. If war be right, then +Christianity is wrong, false, a lie. But if Christianity be true, if +reason, conscience, the religious sense, the highest faculties of man, +are to be trusted, then war is the wrong, the falsehood, the lie. I +maintain that aggressive war is a sin; that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> is national infidelity, +a denial of Christianity and of God. Every man who understands +Christianity by heart, in its relations to man, to society, the nation, +the world, knows that war is a wrong. At this day, with all the +enlightenment of our age, after the long peace of the nations, war is +easily avoided. Whenever it occurs, the very fact of its occurrence +convicts the rulers of a nation either of entire incapacity as +statesmen, or else of the worst form of treason; treason to the people, +to mankind, to God! There is no other alternative. The very fact of an +aggressive war shows that the men who cause it must be either fools or +traitors. I think lightly of what is called treason against a +government. That may be your duty to-day, or mine. Certainly it was our +fathers' duty not long ago; now it is our boast and their title to +honor. But treason against the people, against mankind, against God, is +a great sin, not lightly to be spoken of. The political authors of the +war on this continent, and at this day, are either utterly incapable of +a statesman's work, or else guilty of that sin. Fools they are, or +traitors they must be.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Let me speak, and in detail, of the Evils of War. I wish this were not +necessary. But we have found ourselves in a war; the Congress has voted +our money and our men to carry it on; the Governors call for volunteers; +the volunteers come when they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> are called for. No voice of indignation +goes forth from the heart of the eight hundred thousand souls of +Massachusetts; of the seventeen million freemen of the land how few +complain; only a man here and there! The Press is well-nigh silent. And +the Church, so far from protesting against this infidelity in the name +of Christ, is little better than dead. The man of blood shelters himself +behind its wall, silent, dark, dead and emblematic. These facts show +that it is necessary to speak of the evils of war. I am speaking in a +city, whose fairest, firmest, most costly buildings are warehouses and +banks; a city whose most popular Idol is Mammon, the God of Gold; whose +Trinity is a Trinity of Coin! I shall speak intelligibly, therefore, if +I begin by considering war as a waste of property. It paralyzes +industry. The very fear of it is a mildew upon commerce. Though the +present war is but a skirmish, only a few random shots between a squad +of regulars and some strolling battalions, a quarrel which in Europe +would scarcely frighten even the Pope; yet see the effect of it upon +trade. Though the fighting be thousands of miles from Boston, your +stocks fall in the market; the rate of insurance is altered; your dealer +in wood piles his boards and his timber on his wharf, not finding a +market. There are few ships in the great Southern mart to take the +freight of many; exchange is disturbed. The clergyman is afraid to buy a +book, lest his children want bread. It is so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> with all departments of +industry and trade. In war the capitalist is uncertain and slow to +venture, so the laborer's hand will be still, and his child ill-clad and +hungry.</p> + +<p>In the late war with England, many of you remember the condition of your +fisheries, of your commerce; how the ships lay rotting at the wharf. The +dearness of cloth, of provisions, flour, sugar, tea, coffee, salt, the +comparative lowness of wages, the stagnation of business, the scarcity +of money, the universal sullenness and gloom—all this is well +remembered now. So is the ruin it brought on many a man.</p> + +<p>Yet but few weeks ago some men talked boastingly of a war with England. +There are some men who seem to have no eyes nor ears, only a mouth; +whose chief function is talk. Of their talk I will say nothing; we look +for dust in dry places. But some men thus talked of war, and seemed +desirous to provoke it, who can scarce plead ignorance, and I fear not +folly, for their excuse. I leave such to the just resentment sure to +fall on them from sober, serious men, who dare to be so unpopular as to +think before they speak, and then say what comes of thinking. Perhaps +such a war was never likely to take place, and now, thanks to a few wise +men, all danger thereof seems at an end. But suppose it had +happened—what would become of your commerce, of your fishing smacks on +the Banks or along<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> the shore? what of your coasting vessels, doubling +the headlands all the way from the St. John's to the Nueces? what of +your whale ships in the Pacific? what of your Indiamen, deep freighted +with oriental wealth? what of that fleet which crowds across the +Atlantic sea, trading with east and west and north and south? I know +some men care little for the rich, but when the owners keep their craft +in port, where can the "hands" find work or their mouths find bread? The +shipping of the United States amounts nearly to 2,500,000 tons. At $40 a +ton, its value is nearly $100,000,000. This is the value only of those +sea-carriages; their cargoes I cannot compute. Allowing one sailor for +every twenty tons burden, here will be 125,000 seamen. They and their +families amount to 500,000 souls. In war, what will become of them? A +capital of more than $13,000,000 is invested in the fisheries of +Massachusetts alone. More than 19,000 men find profitable employment +therein. If each man have but four others in his family, a small number +for that class, here are more than 95,000 persons in this State alone, +whose daily bread depends on this business. They cannot fish in troubled +waters, for they are fishermen, not politicians. Where could they find +bread or cloth in time of war? In Dartmoor prison? Ask that of your +demagogues who courted war!</p> + +<p>Then, too, the positive destruction of property in war is monstrous. A +ship of the line costs from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> $500,000 to $1,000,000. The loss of a fleet +by capture, by fire, or by decay, is a great loss. You know at what cost +a fort is built, if you have counted the sums successively voted for +Fort Adams in Rhode Island, or those in our own harbor. The destruction +of forts is another item in the cost of war. The capture or destruction +of merchant ships with their freight, creates a most formidable loss. In +1812 the whole tonnage of the United States was scarce half what it is +now. Yet the loss of ships and their freight, in "the late war," brief +as it was, is estimated at $100,000,000. Then the loss by plunder and +military occupation is monstrous. The soldier, like the savage, cuts +down the tree to gather its fruit. I cannot calculate the loss by +burning towns and cities. But suppose Boston were bombarded and laid in +ashes. Calculate the loss if you can. You may say "This could not be," +for it is as easy to say No, as Yes. But remember what befell us in the +last war; remember how recently the best defended capitals of Europe, +Vienna, Paris, Antwerp, have fallen into hostile hands. Consider how +often a strong place, like Coblentz, Mentz, Malta, Gibraltar, St. Juan +d'Ulloa, has been declared impregnable, and then been taken; calculate +the force which might be brought against this town, and you will see +that in eight and forty hours, or half that time, it might be left +nothing but a heap of ruins smoking in the sun! I doubt not the valor +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> American soldiers, the skill of their engineers, nor the ability of +their commanders. I am ready to believe all this is greater than we are +told. Still, such are the contingencies of war. If some not very +ignorant men had their way, this would be a probability and perhaps a +fact. If we should burn every town from the Tweed to the Thames, it +would not rebuild our own city.</p> + +<p>But on the supposition that nothing is destroyed, see the loss which +comes from the misdirection of productive industry. Your fleets, forts, +dock-yards, arsenals, cannons, muskets, swords and the like, are +provided at great cost, and yet are unprofitable. They do not pay. They +weave no cloth; they bake no bread; they produce nothing. Yet from 1791 +to 1832, in forty-two years we expended in these things, $303,242,576, +namely, for the navy, etc., $112,703,933; for the army, etc., +190,538,643. For the same time, all other expenses of the nation came to +but $37,158,047. More than eight ninths of the whole revenue of the +nation was spent for purposes of war. In four years, from 1812 to 1815, +we paid in this way, $92,350,519.37. In six years, from 1835 to 1840, we +paid annually on the average $21,328,903; in all $127,973,418. Our +Congress has just voted $17,000,000, as a special grant for the army +alone. The 175,118 muskets at Springfield, are valued at $3,000,000; we +pay annually $200,000 to support that arsenal. The navy-yard at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +Charlestown, with its stores, etc., has cost $4,741,000. And, for all +profitable returns, this money might as well be sunk in the bottom of +the sea. In some countries it is yet worse. There are towns and cities +in which the fortifications have cost more than all the houses, +churches, shops, and other property therein. This happens not among the +Sacs and Foxes, but in "Christian" Europe.</p> + +<p>Then your soldier is the most unprofitable animal you can keep. He makes +no railroads; clears no land; raises no corn. No, he can make neither +cloth nor clocks! He does not raise his own bread, mend his own shoes, +make his shoulder-knot of glory, nor hammer out his own sword. Yet he is +a costly animal, though useless. If the President gets his fifty +thousand volunteers, a thing likely to happen—for though Irish lumpers +and hod-men want a dollar or a dollar and a half a day, your free +American of Boston will enlist for twenty-seven cents, only having his +livery, his feathers, and his "glory" thrown in—then at $8 a month, +their wages amount to $400,000 a month. Suppose the present Government +shall actually make advantageous contracts, and the subsistence of the +soldier cost no more than in England, or $17 a month, this amounts to +$850,000. Here are $1,250,000 a month to begin with. Then, if each man +would be worth a dollar a day at any productive work, and there are 26 +work days in the month, here are $1,300,000 more to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> added, making +$2,550,000 a month for the new army of occupation. This is only for the +rank and file of the army. The officers, the surgeons, and the +chaplains, who teach the soldiers to <i>wad</i> their muskets with the leaves +of the Bible, will perhaps cost as much more; or, in all, something more +than $5,000,000 a month. This of course does not include the cost of +their arms, tents, ammunition, baggage, horses, and hospital stores, nor +the 65,000 gallons of whiskey which the government has just advertised +for! What do they give in return? They will give us three things, valor, +glory, and—talk; which, as they are not in the price current, I must +estimate as I can, and set them all down in one figure = 0; not worth +the whiskey they cost.</p> + +<p>New England is quite a new country. Seven generations ago it was a +wilderness; now it contains about 2,500,000 souls. If you were to pay +all the public debts of these States, and then, in fancy, divide all the +property therein by the population, young as we are, I think you would +find a larger amount of value for each man than in any other country in +the world, not excepting England. The civilization of Europe is old; the +nations old, England, France, Spain, Austria, Italy, Greece; but they +have wasted their time, their labor and their wealth in war, and so are +poorer than we upstarts of a wilderness. We have fewer fleets, forts, +cannon and soldiers for the population, than any other "Christian"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +country in the world. This is one main reason why we have no national +debt; why the women need not toil in the hardest labor of the fields, +the quarries and the mines; this is the reason that we are well fed, +well clad, well housed; this is the reason that Massachusetts can afford +to spend $1,000,000 a year for her public schools! War, wasting a +nation's wealth, depresses the great mass of the people, but serves to +elevate a few to opulence and power. Every despotism is established and +sustained by war. This is the foundation of all the aristocracies of the +old world, aristocracies of blood. Our famous men are often ashamed that +their wealth was honestly got by working, or peddling, and foolishly +copy the savage and bloody emblems of ancient heraldry in their assumed +coats of arms, industrious men seeking to have a griffin on their seal! +Nothing is so hostile to a true democracy as war. It elevates a few, +often bold, bad men, at the expense of the many, who pay the money and +furnish the blood for war.</p> + +<p>War is a most expensive folly. The revolutionary war cost the General +Government directly and in specie $135,000,000. It is safe to estimate +the direct cost to the individual States also at the same sum, +$135,000,000; making a total of $270,000,000. Considering the +interruption of business, the waste of time, property and life, it is +plain that this could not have been a fourth part of the whole. But +suppose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> it was a third, then the whole pecuniary cost of the war would +be $810,000,000. At the beginning of the Revolution the population was +about 3,000,000; so that war, lasting about eight years, cost $270 for +each person. To meet the expenses of the war each year there would have +been required a tax of $33.75 on each man, woman and child!</p> + +<p>In the Florida war we spent between $30,000,000 and $40,000,000, as an +eminent statesman once said, in fighting five hundred invisible Indians! +It is estimated that the fortifications of the city of Paris, when +completely furnished, will cost more than the whole taxable property of +Massachusetts, with her 800,000 souls. Why, this year our own grant for +the army is $17,000,000. The estimate for the navy is $6,000,000 more; +in all $23,000,000. Suppose, which is most unlikely, that we should pay +no more, why, that sum alone would support public schools, as good and +as costly as those of Massachusetts, all over the United States, +offering each boy and girl, bond or free, as good a culture as they get +here in Boston, and then leave a balance of $3,000,000 in our hands! We +pay more for ignorance than we need for education! But $23,000,000 is +not all we must pay this year. A great statesman has said, in the +Senate, that our war expenses at present are nearly $500,000 a day, and +the President informs your Congress that $22,952,904 more will be wanted +for the army and navy before next June!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p>For several years we spent directly more than $21,000,000 for war +purposes, though in time of peace. If a railroad cost $30,000 a mile, +then we might build 700 miles a year for that sum, and in five years +could build a railroad therewith from Boston to the further side of +Oregon. For the war money we paid in forty-two years, we could have had +more than 10,000 miles of railroad, and, with dividends at seven per +cent., a yearly income of $21,210,000. For military and naval affairs, +in eight years, from 1835 to 1843, we paid $163,336,717. This alone +would have made 5,444 miles of railroad, and would produce at seven per +cent., an annual income of $11,433,569.19.</p> + +<p>In Boston there are nineteen public grammar schools, a Latin and English +High school. The buildings for these schools twenty in number, have cost +$653,208. There are also 135 primary schools, in as many houses or +rooms. I know not their value, as I think they are not all owned by the +city. But suppose them to be worth $150,000. Then all the school-houses +of this city have cost $803,208. The cost of these 156 schools for this +year is estimated at $172,000. The number of scholars in them is 16,479. +Harvard University, the most expensive college in America, costs about +$46,000 a year. Now the ship Ohio, lying here in our harbor, has cost +$834,845, and we pay for it each year $220,000 more. That is, it has +cost $31,637 more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> than these 155 school-houses of this city, and costs +every year $2,000 more than Harvard University, and all the public +schools of Boston!</p> + +<p>The military academy at West Point contains two hundred and thirty-six +cadets; the appropriation for it last year, was $138,000, a sum greater +I think, than the cost of all the colleges in Maine, New Hampshire, +Vermont and Massachusetts, with their 1,445 students.</p> + +<p>The navy-yard at Charlestown, with its ordnance, stores, etc., cost +$4,741,000. The cost of the 78 churches in Boston is $3,246,500; the +whole property of Harvard University is $703,175; the 155 school-houses +of Boston are worth $803,208; in all $4,752,883. Thus the navy-yard at +Charlestown has cost almost as much as the 78 churches and the 155 +school-houses of Boston, with Harvard College, its halls, libraries, all +its wealth thrown in. Yet what does it teach?</p> + +<p>Our country is singularly destitute of public libraries. You must go +across the ocean to read the history of the Church or State; all the +public libraries in America cannot furnish the books referred to in +Gibbon's Rome, or Gieseler's History of the Church. I think there is no +public library in Europe which has cost three dollars a volume. There +are six: the Vatican, at Rome; the Royal, at Paris; the British Museum, +at London; the Bodleian, at Oxford; the University Libraries at +Gottingen and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> Berlin—which contain, it is said, about 4,500,000 +volumes. The recent grant of $17,000,000 for the army is $3,500,000 more +than the cost of those magnificent collections!</p> + +<p>There have been printed about 3,000,000 different volumes, great and +little, within the last 400 years. If the Florida war cost but +$30,000,000, it is ten times more than enough to have purchased one copy +of each book ever printed, at one dollar a volume, which is more than +the average cost.</p> + +<p>Now all these sums are to be paid by the people, "the dear people," whom +our republican demagogues love so well, and for whom they spend their +lives, rising early, toiling late, those self-denying heroes, those +sainted martyrs of the republic, eating the bread of carefulness for +them alone! But how are they to be paid? By a direct tax levied on all +the property of the nation, so that the poor man pays according to his +little, and the rich man in proportion to his much, each knowing when he +pays and what he pays for? No such thing; nothing like it. The people +must pay and not know it; must be deceived a little, or they would not +pay after this fashion! You pay for it in every pound of sugar, copper, +coal, in every yard of cloth; and if the counsel of some lovers of the +people be followed, you will soon pay for it in each pound of coffee and +tea. In this way the rich man always pays relatively less than the poor; +often a positively smaller sum. Even here I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> think that three-fourths of +all the property is owned by one-fourth of the people, yet that +three-fourths by no means pays a third of the national revenue. The tax +is laid on things men cannot do without,—sugar, cloth, and the like. +The consumption of these articles is not in proportion to wealth but +persons. Now the poor man, as a general rule, has more children than the +rich, and the tax being more in proportion to persons than property, the +poor man pays more than the rich. So a tax is really laid on the poor +man's children to pay for the war which makes him poor and keeps him +poor. I think your captains and colonels, those sons of thunder and +heirs of glory, will not tell you so. They tell you so! They know it! +Poor brothers, how could they? I think your party newspapers, penny or +pound, will not tell you so; nor the demagogues, all covered with glory +and all forlorn, who tell the people when to hurrah and for what! But if +you cipher the matter out for yourself you will find it so, and not +otherwise. Tell the demagogues, whig or democrat, that. It was an old +Roman maxim, "The people wished to be deceived; let them." Now it is +only practised on; not repeated—in public.</p> + +<p>Let us deal justly even with war, giving that its due. There is one +class of men who find their pecuniary advantage in it. I mean army +contractors, when they chance to be favorites of the party in power; men +who let steamboats to lie idle at $500<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> a day. This class of men rejoice +in a war. The country may become poor, they are sure to be rich. Yet +another class turn war to account, get the "glory," and become important +in song and sermon. I see it stated in a newspaper that the Duke of +Wellington has received, as gratuities for his military services, +$5,400,000, and $40,000 a year in pensions!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But the waste of property is the smallest part of the evil. The waste of +life in war is yet more terrible. Human life is a sacred thing. Go out +into the lowest street of Boston; take the vilest and most squalid man +in that miserable lane, and he is dear to some one. He is called +brother; perhaps husband; it may be father; at least, son. A human +heart, sadly joyful, beat over him before he was born. He has been +pressed fondly to his mother's arms. Her tears and her smiles have been +for him; perhaps also her prayers. His blood may be counted mean and +vile by the great men of the earth who love nothing so well as the dear +people, for he has no "coat of arms," no liveried servant to attend him, +but it has run down from the same first man. His family is ancient as +that of the most long descended king. God made him; made this splendid +universe to wait on him and teach him; sent his Christ to save him. He +is an immortal soul. Needlessly to spill that man's blood is an awful +sin. It will cry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> against you out of the ground—Cain! where is thy +brother? Now in war you bring together 50,000 men like him on one side, +and 50,000 of a different nation on the other. They have no natural +quarrel with one another. The earth is wide enough for both; neither +hinders the sun from the other. Many come unwillingly; many not knowing +what they fight for. It is but accident that determines on which side +the man shall fight. The cannons pour their shot—round, grape, +canister; the howitzers scatter their bursting shells; the muskets rain +their leaden death; the sword, the bayonet, the horses' iron hoof, the +wheels of the artillery, grind the men down into trodden dust. There +they lie, the two masses of burning valor, extinguished, quenched, and +grimly dead, each covering with his body the spot he defended with his +arms. They had no quarrel; yet they lie there, slain by a brother's +hand. It is not old and decrepid men, but men of the productive age, +full of lusty life.</p> + +<p>But it is only the smallest part that perish in battle. Exposure to +cold, wet, heat; unhealthy climates, unwholesome food, rum, and forced +marches, bring on diseases which mow down the poor soldiers worse than +musketry and grape. Others languish of wounds, and slowly procrastinate +a dreadful and a tenfold death. Far away, there are widows, orphans, +childless old fathers, who pore over the daily news to learn at random +the fate of a son, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> father, or a husband! They crowd disconsolate into +the churches, seeking of God the comfort men took from them, praying in +the bitterness of a broken heart, while the priest gives thanks for "a +famous victory," and hangs up the bloody standard over his pulpit!</p> + +<p>When ordinary disease cuts off a man, when he dies at his duty, there is +some comfort in that loss. "It was the ordinance of God," you say. You +minister to his wants; you smoothe down the pillow for the aching head; +your love beguiles the torment of disease, and your own bosom gathers +half the darts of death. He goes in his time and God takes him. But when +he dies in such a war, in battle, it is man who has robbed him of life. +It is a murderer that is butchered. Nothing alleviates that bitter, +burning smart!</p> + +<p>Others not slain are maimed for life. This has no eyes; that no hands; +another no feet nor legs. This has been pierced by lances, and torn with +the shot, till scarce any thing human is left. The wreck of a body is +crazed with pains God never meant for man. The mother that bore him +would not know her child. Count the orphan asylums in Germany and +Holland; go into the hospital at Greenwich, that of the invalids in +Paris, you see the "trophies" of Napoleon and Wellington. Go to the +arsenal at Toulon, see the wooden legs piled up there for men now active +and whole, and you will think a little of the physical horrors of war.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> + +<p>In Boston there are perhaps about 25,000 able-bodied men between 18 and +45. Suppose them all slain in battle, or mortally hurt, or mown down by +the camp-fever, vomito, or other diseases of war, and then fancy the +distress, the heart-sickness amid wives, mothers, daughters, sons and +fathers, here! Yet 25,000 is a small number to be murdered in "a famous +victory;" a trifle for a whole "glorious campaign" in a great war. The +men of Boston are no better loved than the men of Tamaulipas. There is +scarce an old family, of the middle class, in all New England, which did +not thus smart in the Revolution; many, which have not, to this day, +recovered from the bloody blow then falling on them. Think, wives, of +the butchery of your husbands; think, mothers, of the murder of your +sons!</p> + +<p>Here, too, the burden of battle falls mainly on the humble class. They +pay the great tribute of money; they pay also the horrid tax of blood. +It was not your rich men who fought even the Revolution; not they. Your +men of property and standing were leaguing with the British, or fitting +out privateers when that offered a good investment, or buying up the +estates of more consistent tories; making money out of the nation's dire +distress! True, there were most honorable exceptions; but such, I think, +was the general rule. Let this be distinctly remembered, that the burden +of battle is borne by the humble classes of men; they pay the vast +tribute of money;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> the awful tax of blood! The "glory" is got by a few; +poverty, wounds, death, are for the people!</p> + +<p>Military glory is the poorest kind of distinction, but the most +dangerous passion. It is an honor to man to be able to mould iron; to be +skilful at working in cloth, wood, clay, leather. It is man's vocation +to raise corn, to subdue the rebellious fibre of cotton and convert it +into beautiful robes, full of comfort for the body. They are the heroes +of the race who abridge the time of human toil and multiply its results; +they who win great truths from God, and send them to a people's heart; +they who balance the many and the one into harmonious action, so that +all are united and yet each left free. But the glory which comes of +epaulets and feathers; that strutting glory which is dyed in blood—what +shall we say of it? In this day it is not heroism; it is an imitation of +barbarism long ago passed by. Yet it is marvellous how many men are +taken with a red coat! You expect it in Europe, a land of soldiers and +blood. You are disappointed to find that here the champions of force +should be held in honor, and that even the lowest should voluntarily +enroll themselves as butchers of men!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Yet more: aggressive war is a sin; a corruption of the public morals. It +is a practical denial of Christianity; a violation of God's eternal law +of love. This is so plain that I shall say little upon it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> to-day. Your +savagest and most vulgar captain would confess he does not fight as a +Christian—but as a soldier; your magistrate calls for volunteers—not +as a man loving Christianity, and loyal to God; only as Governor, under +oath to keep the Constitution, the tradition of the elders; not under +oath to keep the commandment of God! In war the laws are suspended, +violence and cunning rule everywhere. The battle of Yorktown was gained +by a lie, though a Washington told it. As a soldier it was his duty. Men +"emulate the tiger;" the hand is bloody, and the heart hard. Robbery and +murder are the rule, the glory of men. "Good men look sad, but ruffians +dance and leap." Men are systematically trained to burn towns, to murder +fathers and sons; taught to consider it "glory" to do so. The Government +collects ruffians and cut-throats. It compels better men to serve with +these and become cut-throats. It appoints chaplains to blaspheme +Christianity; teaching the ruffians how to pray for the destruction of +the enemy, the burning of his towns; to do this in the name of Christ +and God. I do not censure all the men who serve: some of them know no +better; they have heard that a man would "perish everlastingly" if he +did not believe the Athanasian creed; that if he questioned the story of +Jonah, or the miraculous birth of Jesus, he was in danger of hell-fire, +and if he doubted damnation was sure to be damned. They never heard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +that such a war was a sin; that to create a war was treason, and to +fight in it wrong. They never thought of thinking for themselves; their +thinking was to read a newspaper, or sleep through a sermon. They +counted it their duty to obey the Government without thinking if that +Government be right or wrong. I deny not the noble, manly character of +many a soldier, his heroism, self-denial and personal sacrifice.</p> + +<p>Still, after all proper allowance is made for a few individuals, the +whole system of war is unchristian and sinful. It lives only by evil +passions. It can be defended only by what is low, selfish, and animal. +It absorbs the scum of the cities, pirates, robbers, murderers. It makes +them worse, and better men like them. To take one man's life is murder; +what is it to practise killing as an art, a trade; to do it by +thousands? Yet I think better of the hands that do the butchering than +of the ambitious heads, the cold, remorseless hearts, which plunge the +nation into war.</p> + +<p>In war the State teaches men to lie, to steal, to kill. It calls for +privateers, who are commonly pirates with a national charter, and +pirates are privateers with only a personal charter. Every camp is a +school of profanity, violence, licentiousness, and crimes too foul to +name. It is so without sixty-five thousand gallons of whiskey. This is +unavoidable. It was so with Washington's army, with Cornwallis's,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> with +that of Gustavus Adolphus, perhaps the most moral army the world ever +saw. The soldier's life generally unfits a man for the citizen's! When +he returns from a camp, from a war, back to his native village, he +becomes a curse to society and a shame to the mother that bore him. Even +the soldiers of the Revolution, who survived the war, were mostly ruined +for life, debauched, intemperate, vicious and vile. What loathsome +creatures so many of them were! They bore our burden, for such were the +real martyrs of that war, not the men who fell under the shot! How many +men of the rank and file in the late war have since become respectable +citizens?</p> + +<p>To show how incompatible are War and Christianity, suppose that he who +is deemed the most Christian of Christ's disciples, the well-beloved +John, were made a navy-chaplain, and some morning, when a battle is +daily looked for, should stand on the gun-deck, amid lockers of shot, +his Bible resting on a cannon, and expound Christianity to men with +cutlasses by their side! Let him read for the morning lesson the Sermon +on the Mount, and for text take words from his own Epistle, so sweet, so +beautiful, so true: "Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth +God, for God is love." Suppose he tells his strange audience that all +men are brothers; that God is their common father; that Christ loved us +all, showing us how to live the life of love;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> and then, when he had +melted all those savage hearts by words so winsome and so true, let him +conclude, "Blessed are the men-slayers! Seek first the glory which +cometh of battle. Be fierce as tigers. Mar God's image in which your +brothers are made. Be not like Christ, but Cain who slew his brother! +When you meet the enemy, fire into their bosoms; kill them in the dear +name of Christ; butcher them in the spirit of God. Give them no quarter, +for we ought not to lay down our lives for the brethren; only the +murderer hath eternal life!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Yet great as are these three-fold evils, there are times when the +soberest men and the best men have welcomed war, coolly and in their +better moments. Sometimes a people, long oppressed, has "petitioned, +remonstrated, cast itself at the feet of the throne," with only insult +for answer to its prayer. Sometimes there is a contest between a +falsehood and a great truth; a self-protecting war for freedom of mind, +heart and soul; yes, a war for a man's body, his wife's and children's +body, for what is dearer to men than life itself, for the unalienable +rights of man, for the idea that all are born free and equal. It was so +in the American Revolution; in the English, in the French Revolution. In +such cases men say, "Let it come." They take down the firelock in +sorrow; with a prayer they go forth to battle, asking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> that the Right +may triumph. Much as I hate war I cannot but honor such men. Were they +better, yet more heroic, even war of that character might be avoided. +Still it is a colder heart than mine which does not honor such men, +though it believes them mistaken. Especially do we honor them, when it +is the few, the scattered, the feeble, contending with the many and the +mighty; the noble fighting for a great idea, and against the base and +tyrannical. Then most men think the gain, the triumph of a great idea, +is worth the price it costs, the price of blood.</p> + +<p>I will not stop to touch that question, If man may ever shed the blood +of man. But it is plain that an aggressive war like this is wholly +unchristian, and a reproach to the nation and the age.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Now, to make the evils of war still clearer, and to bring them home to +your door, let us suppose there was war between the counties of Suffolk, +on the one side, and Middlesex on the other—this army at Boston, that +at Cambridge. Suppose the subject in dispute was the boundary line +between the two, Boston claiming a pitiful acre of flat land, which the +ocean at low tide disdained to cover. To make sure of this, Boston +seizes whole miles of flats, unquestionably not its own. The rulers on +one side are fools, and traitors on the other. The two commanders have +issued their proclamations; the money is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> borrowed; the whiskey +provided; the soldiers—Americans, Negroes, Irishmen, all the +able-bodied men—are enlisted. Prayers are offered in all the churches, +and sermons preached, showing that God is a man of war, and Cain his +first saint, an early Christian, a Christian before Christ. The +Bostonians wish to seize Cambridge, burn the houses, churches, +college-halls, and plunder the library. The men of Cambridge wish to +seize Boston, burn its houses and ships, plundering its wares and its +goods. Martial law is proclaimed on both sides. The men of Cambridge cut +asunder the bridges, and make a huge breach in the mill-dam, planting +cannon to enfilade all those avenues. Forts crown the hilltops, else so +green. Men, madder than lunatics, are crowded into the Asylum. The +Bostonians rebuild the old fortifications on the Neck; replace the forts +on Beacon-hill, Fort-hill, Copps-hill, levelling houses to make room for +redoubts and bastions. The batteries are planted, the mortars got ready; +the furnaces and magazines are all prepared. The three hills are grim +with war. From Copps-hill men look anxious to that memorable height the +other side of the water. Provisions are cut off in Boston; no man may +pass the lines; the aqueduct refuses its genial supply; children cry for +their expected food. The soldiers parade, looking somewhat tremulous and +pale; all the able-bodied have come, the vilest most willingly; some are +brought by force of drink,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> some by force of arms. Some are in brilliant +dresses, some in their working frocks. The banners are consecrated by +solemn words.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> Your church-towers are military posts of observation. +There are Old Testament prayers to the "God of Hosts" in all the +churches of Boston; prayers that God would curse the men of Cambridge, +make their wives widows, their children fatherless, their houses a ruin, +the men corpses, meat for the beast of the field and the bird of the +air. Last night the Bostonians made a feint of attacking Charlestown, +raining bombs and red-hot cannon-balls from Copps-hill, till they have +burnt a thousand houses, where the British burnt not half so many. Women +and children fled screaming from the blazing rafters of their homes. The +men of Middlesex crowd into Charlestown.</p> + +<p>In the mean time the Bostonians hastily repair a bridge or two; some +pass that way, some over the Neck; all stealthily by night, and while +the foe expect them at Bunker's, amid the blazing town, they have stolen +a march and rush upon Cambridge itself. The Cambridge men turn back. The +battle is fiercely joined. You hear the cannon, the sharp report of +musketry. You crowd the hills, the house-tops; you line the Common, you +cover the shore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> yet you see but little in the sulphurous cloud. Now +the Bostonians yield a little, a reinforcement goes over. All the men +are gone; even the gray-headed who can shoulder a firelock. They plunge +into battle mad with rage, madder with rum. The chaplains loiter behind.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Pious men, whom duty brought,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To dubious verge of battle fought,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To shrive the dying, bless the dead!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The battle hangs long in even scale. At length it turns. The Cambridge +men retreat, they run, they fly. The houses burn. You see the churches +and the colleges go up, a stream of fire. That library—founded amid +want and war and sad sectarian strife, slowly gathered by the saving of +two centuries, the hope of the poor scholar, the boast of the rich +one—is scattered to the winds and burnt with fire, for the solid +granite is blasted by powder, and the turrets fall. Victory is ours. Ten +thousand men of Cambridge lie dead; eight thousand of Boston. There +writhe the wounded; men who but few hours before were poured over the +battle-field a lava flood of fiery valor—fathers, brothers, husbands, +sons. There they lie, torn and mangled; black with powder; red with +blood; parched with thirst; cursing the load of life they now must bear +with bruised frames and mutilated limbs. Gather them into hasty +hospitals—let this man's daughter come to-morrow and sit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> by him, +fanning away the flies; he shall linger out a life of wretched anguish +unspoken and unspeakable, and when he dies his wife religiously will +keep the shot which tore his limbs. There is the battle-field! Here the +horse charged; there the howitzers scattered their shells, pregnant with +death; here the murderous canister and grape mowed down the crowded +ranks; there the huge artillery, teeming with murder, was dragged o'er +heaps of men—wounded friends who just now held its ropes, men yet +curling with anguish, like worms in the fire. Hostile and friendly, head +and trunk are crushed beneath those dreadful wheels. Here the infantry +showered their murdering shot. That ghastly face was beautiful the day +before—a sabre hewed its half away.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The earth is covered thick with other clay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which her own clay must cover, heaped and pent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Again it is night. Oh, what a night, and after what a day! Yet the pure +tide of woman's love, which never ebbs since earth began, flows on in +spite of war and battle. Stealthily, by the pale moonlight, a mother of +Boston treads the weary miles to reach that bloody spot; a widow +she—seeking among the slain her only son. The arm of power drove him +forth reluctant to the fight. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> friendly soldier guides her way. Now +she turns over this face, whose mouth is full of purple dust, bit out of +the ground in his extremest agony, the last sacrament offered him by +Earth herself; now she raises that form, cold, stiff, stony and ghastly +as a dream of hell. But, lo! another comes, she too a woman, younger and +fairer, yet not less bold, a maiden from the hostile town to seek her +lover. They meet, two women among the corpses; two angels come to +Golgotha, seeking to raise a man. There he lies before them; they look. +Yes it is he you seek; the same dress, form, features too; it is he, the +son, the lover. Maid and mother could tell that face in any light. The +grass is wet with his blood. The ground is muddy with the life of men. +The mother's innocent robe is drabbled in the blood her bosom bore. +Their kisses, groans, and tears, recall the wounded man. He knows the +mother's voice; that voice yet more beloved. His lips move only, for +they cannot speak. He dies! The waxing moon moves high in heaven, +walking in beauty amid the clouds, and murmurs soft her cradle song unto +the slumbering earth. The broken sword reflects her placid beams. A star +looks down and is imaged back in a pool of blood. The cool night wind +plays in the branches of the trees shivered with shot. Nature is +beautiful—that lovely grass underneath their feet; those pendulous +branches of the leafy elm; the stars and that romantic moon lining<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> the +clouds with silver light! A groan of agony, hopeless and prolonged, +wails out from that bloody ground. But in yonder farm the whippoorwill +sings to her lover all night long; the rising tide ripples melodious +against the shores. So wears the night away,—Nature, all sinless, round +that field of woe.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The morn is up again, the dewy morn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With breath all incense and with cheek all bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And living as if earth contained no tomb,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And glowing into day."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>What a scene that morning looks upon! I will not turn again. Let the +dead bury their dead. But their blood cries out of the ground against +the rulers who shed it,—"Cain! where are thy brothers?" What shall the +fool answer; what the traitor say?</p> + +<p>Then comes thanksgiving in all the churches of Boston. The consecrated +banners, stiff with blood and "glory," are hung over the altar. The +minister preaches and the singer sings: "The Lord hath been on our side. +He treadeth the people under me. He teacheth my hands to war, my fingers +to fight. Yea, He giveth me the necks of mine enemies; for the Lord is +his name;" and "It was a famous victory!" Boston seizes miles square of +land; but her houses are empty; her wives widows; her children +fatherless. Rachel weeps for the murder of her innocents, yet dares not +rebuke the rod.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<p>I know there is no fighting across Charles River, as in this poor +fiction; but there was once, and instead of Charles say Rio Grande; for +Cambridge read Metamoras, and it is what your President recommended; +what your Congress enacted; what your Governor issued his proclamation +for; what your volunteers go to accomplish: yes, what they fired cannon +for on Boston Common the other day. I wish that were a fiction of mine!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We are waging a most iniquitous war—so it seems to me. I know I may be +wrong, but I am no partisan, and if I err, it is not wilfully, not +rashly. I know the Mexicans are a wretched people; wretched in their +origin, history, and character. I know but two good things of them as a +people—they abolished negro slavery, not long ago; they do not covet +the lands of their neighbors. True, they have not paid all their debts, +but it is scarcely decent in a nation, with any repudiating States, to +throw the first stone at Mexico for that!</p> + +<p>I know the Mexicans cannot stand before this terrible Anglo-Saxon race, +the most formidable and powerful the world ever saw; a race which has +never turned back; which, though it number less than forty millions, yet +holds the Indies, almost the whole of North America; which rules the +commerce of the world; clutches at New Holland, China, New Zealand, +Borneo, and seizes island after island in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> furthest seas; the race +which invented steam as its awful type. The poor, wretched Mexicans can +never stand before us. How they perished in battle! They must melt away +as the Indians before the white man. Considering how we acquired +Louisiana, Florida, Oregon, I cannot forbear thinking that this people +will possess the whole of the continent before many years; perhaps +before the century ends. But this may be had fairly; with no injustice +to any one; by the steady advance of a superior race, with superior +ideas and a better civilization; by commerce, trade, arts, by being +better than Mexico, wiser, humaner, more free and manly. Is it not +better to acquire it by the schoolmaster than the cannon; by peddling +cloth, tin, any thing rather than bullets? It may not all belong to this +Government, and yet to this race. It would be a gain to mankind if we +could spread over that country the Idea of America—that all men are +born free and equal in rights, and establish there political, social, +and individual freedom. But to do that, we must first make real these +ideas at home.</p> + +<p>In the general issue between this race and that, we are in the right. +But in this special issue, and this particular war, it seems to me that +we are wholly in the wrong; that our invasion of Mexico is as bad as the +partition of Poland in the last century and in this. If I understand the +matter, the whole movement, the settlement of Texas, the Texan +revolution,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> the annexation of Texas, the invasion of Mexico, has been a +movement hostile to the American idea, a movement to extend slavery. I +do not say such was the design on the part of the people, but on the +part of the politicians who pulled the strings. I think the papers of +the Government and the debates of Congress prove that. The annexation +has been declared unconstitutional in its mode, a virtual dissolution of +the Union, and that by very high and well-known authority. It was +expressly brought about for the purpose of extending slavery. An attempt +is now made to throw the shame of this on the democrats. I think the +democrats deserve the shame; but I could never see that the whigs, on +the whole, deserved it any less; only they were not quite so open. +Certainly, their leaders did not take ground against it, never as +against a modification of the tariff! When we annexed Texas we of course +took her for better or worse, debts and all, and annexed her war along +with her. I take it everybody knew that; though now some seem to pretend +a decent astonishment at the result. Now one party is ready to fight for +it as the other! The North did not oppose the annexation of Texas. Why +not? They knew they could make money by it. The eyes of the North are +full of cotton; they see nothing else, for a web is before them; their +ears are full of cotton, and they hear nothing but the buzz of their +mills; their mouth is full of cotton, and they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> can speak audibly but +two words—Tariff, Tariff, Dividends, Dividends. The talent of the North +is blinded, deafened, gagged with its own cotton. The North clamored +loudly when the nation's treasure was removed from the United States +Bank; it is almost silent at the annexation of a slave territory big as +the kingdom of France, encumbered with debts, loaded with the entailment +of war! Northern Governors call for soldiers; our men volunteer to fight +in a most infamous war for the extension of slavery! Tell it not in +Boston, whisper it not in Faneuil Hall, lest you weaken the slumbers of +your fathers, and they curse you as cowards and traitors unto men! Not +satisfied with annexing Texas and a war, we next invaded a territory +which did not belong to Texas, and built a fort on the Rio Grande, +where, I take it, we had no more right than the British, in 1841, had on +the Penobscot or the Saco. Now the Government and its Congress would +throw the blame on the innocent, and say war exists "by the act of +Mexico!" If a lie was ever told, I think this is one. Then the "dear +people" must be called on for money and men, for "the soil of this free +republic is invaded," and the Governor of Massachusetts, one of the men +who declared the annexation of Texas unconstitutional, recommends the +war he just now told us to pray against, and appeals to our +"patriotism," and "humanity," as arguments for butchering the Mexicans, +when they are in the right<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> and we in the wrong! The maxim is held up, +"Our country, right or wrong;" "Our country, howsoever bounded;" and it +might as well be, "Our country, howsoever governed." It seems popularly +and politically forgotten that there is such a thing as Right. The +nation's neck invites a tyrant. I am not at all astonished that northern +representatives voted for all this work of crime. They are no better +than southern representatives; scarcely less in favor of slavery, and +not half so open. They say: Let the North make money, and you may do +what you please with the nation; and we will choose governors that dare +not oppose you, for, though we are descended from the Puritans we have +but one article in our creed we never flinch from following, and that +is—to make money; honestly, if we can; if not, as we can!</p> + +<p>Look through the action of your Government, and your Congress. You see +that no reference has been had in this affair to Christian ideas; none +to justice and the eternal right. Nay, none at all! In the churches, and +among the people, how feeble has been the protest against this great +wrong. How tamely the people yield their necks—and say: "Take our sons +for the war—we care not, right or wrong." England butchers the Sikhs in +India—her generals are elevated to the peerage, and the head of her +church writes a form of thanksgiving for the victory, to be read in all +the churches of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> Christian land.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> To make it still more +abominable, the blasphemy is enacted on Easter Sunday, the great holiday +of men who serve the Prince of Peace. We have not had prayers in the +churches, for we have no political Archbishop. But we fired cannon in +joy that we had butchered a few wretched men—half starved, and forced +into the ranks by fear of death! Your peace societies, and your +churches, what can they do? What dare they? Verily, we are a faithless +and perverse generation. God be merciful to us, sinners as we are!</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But why talk for ever? What shall we do? In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> regard to this present war, +we can refuse to take any part in it; we can encourage others to do the +same; we can aid men, if need be, who suffer because they refuse. Men +will call us traitors: what then? That hurt nobody in '76! We are a +rebellious nation; our whole history is treason; our blood was attainted +before we were born; our creeds are infidelity to the mother-church; our +Constitution treason to our father-land. What of that? Though all the +governors in the world bid us commit treason against man, and set the +example, let us never submit. Let God only be a master to control our +conscience!</p> + +<p>We can hold public meetings in favor of peace, in which what is wrong +shall be exposed and condemned. It is proof of our cowardice that this +has not been done before now. We can show in what the infamy of a nation +consists; in what its real glory. One of your own men, the last summer, +startled the churches out of their sleep,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> by his manly trumpet, +talking with us, and telling that the true grandeur of a nation was +justice, not glory; peace, not war.</p> + +<p>We can work now for future times, by taking pains to spread abroad the +sentiments of peace, the ideas of peace, among the people in schools, +churches—everywhere. At length we can diminish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> the power of the +national Government, so that the people alone shall have the power to +declare war, by a direct vote, the Congress only to recommend it. We can +take from the Government the means of war by raising only revenue enough +for the nation's actual wants, and raising that directly, so that each +man knows what he pays, and when he pays it, and then he will take care +that it is not paid to make him poor and keep him so. We can diffuse a +real practical Christianity among the people, till the mass of men have +courage enough to overcome evil with good, and look at aggressive war as +the worst of treason and the foulest infidelity!</p> + +<p>Now is the time to push and be active. War itself gives weight to words +of peace. There will never be a better time till we make the times +better. It is not a day for cowardice, but for heroism. Fear not that +the "honor of the nation" will suffer from Christian movements for +peace. What if your men of low degree are a vanity, and your men of high +degree are a lie? That is no new thing. Let true men do their duty, and +the lie and the vanity will pass each to its reward. Wait not for the +churches to move, or the State to become Christian. Let us bear our +testimony like men, not fearing to be called traitors, infidels; fearing +only to be such.</p> + +<p>I would call on Americans, by their love of our country, its great +ideas, its real grandeur, its hopes, and the memory of its fathers—to +come and help<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> save that country from infamy and ruin. I would call on +Christians, who believe that Christianity is a truth, to lift up their +voice, public and private, against the foulest violation of God's law, +this blasphemy of the Holy Spirit of Christ, this worst form of +infidelity to man and God. I would call on all men, by the one nature +that is in you, by the great human heart beating alike in all your +bosoms, to protest manfully against this desecration of the earth, this +high treason against both man and God. Teach your rulers that you are +Americans, not slaves; Christians, not heathen; men, not murderers, to +kill for hire! You may effect little in this generation, for its head +seems crazed and its heart rotten. But there will be a day after to-day. +It is for you and me to make it better; a day of peace, when nation +shall no longer lift up sword against nation; when all shall indeed be +brothers, and all blest. Do this, you shall be worthy to dwell in this +beautiful land; Christ will be near you; God work with you, and bless +you for ever!</p> + +<p>This present trouble with Mexico may be very brief; surely it might be +even now brought to an end with no unusual manhood in your rulers. Can +we say we have not deserved it? Let it end, but let us remember that +war, horrid as it is, is not the worst calamity which ever befalls a +people. It is far worse for a people to lose all reverence for right, +for truth, all respect for man and God; to care more for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> the freedom of +trade than the freedom of men; more for a tariff than millions of souls. +This calamity came upon us gradually, long before the present war, and +will last long after that has died away. Like people like ruler, is a +true word. Look at your rulers, representatives, and see our own +likeness! We reverence force, and have forgot there is any right beyond +the vote of a Congress or a people; any good beside dollars; any God but +majorities and force, I think the present war, though it should cost +50,000 men and $50,000,000, the smallest part of our misfortune. Abroad +we are looked on as a nation of swindlers and men-stealers! What can we +say in our defence? Alas, the nation is a traitor to its great +idea,—that all men are born equal, each with the same unalienable +rights. We are infidels to Christianity. We have paid the price of our +shame.</p> + +<p>There have been dark days in this nation before now. It was gloomy when +Washington with his little army fled through the Jerseys. It was a long +dark day from '83 to '89. It was not so dark as now; the nation never so +false. There was never a time when resistance to tyrants was so rare a +virtue; when the people so tamely submitted to a wrong. Now you can feel +the darkness. The sack of this city and the butchery of its people were +a far less evil than the moral deadness of the nation. Men spring up +again like the mown grass; but to raise up saints and heroes in a dead +nation corrupting beside<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> its golden tomb, what shall do that for us? We +must look not to the many for that, but to the few who are faithful unto +God and man.</p> + +<p>I know the hardy vigor of our men, the stalwart intellect of this +people. Would to God they could learn to love the right and true. Then +what a people should we be, spreading from the Madawaska to the +Sacramento, diffusing our great idea, and living our religion, the +Christianity of Christ! Oh, Lord! make the vision true; waken thy +prophets and stir thy people till righteousness exalt us! No wonders +will be wrought for that. But the voice of conscience speaks to you and +me, and all of us: The right shall prosper; the wicked States shall die, +and History responds her long amen.</p> + +<p>What lessons come to us from the past! The Genius of the old +civilization, solemn and sad, sits there on the Alps, his classic beard +descending o'er his breast. Behind him arise the new nations, bustling +with romantic life. He bends down over the midland sea, and counts up +his children—Assyria, Egypt, Tyre, Carthage, Troy, Etruria, Corinth, +Athens, Rome—once so renowned, now gathered with the dead, their giant +ghosts still lingering pensive o'er the spot. He turns westward his +face, too sad to weep, and raising from his palsied knee his trembling +hand, looks on his brother genius of the new civilization. That young +giant, strong and mocking, sits there on the Alleghanies. Before him lie +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> waters, covered with ships; behind him he hears the roar of the +Mississippi and the far distant Oregon—rolling their riches to the sea. +He bends down, and that far ocean murmurs pacific in his ear. On his +left, are the harbors, shops and mills of the East, and a five-fold +gleam of light goes up from Northern lakes. On his right, spread out the +broad savannahs of the South, waiting to be blessed; and far off that +Mexique bay bends round her tropic shores. A crown of stars is on that +giant's head, some glorious with flashing, many-colored light; some +bloody red; some pale and faint, of most uncertain hue. His right hand +lies folded in his robe; the left rests on the Bible's opened page, and +holds these sacred words—All men are equal, born with equal rights from +God. The old says to the young: "Brother, beware!" and Alps and Rocky +Mountains say "Beware!" That stripling giant, ill-bred and scoffing, +shouts amain: "My feet are red with the Indians' blood; my hand has +forged the negro's chain. I am strong; who dares assail me? I will drink +his blood, for I have made my covenant of lies, and leagued with hell +for my support. There is no right, no truth; Christianity is false, and +God a name." His left hand rends those sacred scrolls, casting his +Bibles underneath his feet, and in his right he brandishes the +negro-driver's whip, crying again—"Say, who is God, and what is Right." +And all his mountains<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> echo—Right. But the old genius sadly says again: +"Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not prosper." The hollow +tomb of Egypt, Athens, Rome, of every ancient State, with all their +wandering ghosts, replies, "<span class="smcap">Amen</span>."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Isaiah lxiii. 1-6. <i>Noyes's</i> Version. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>The People.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"> <br /></span> +<span class="i0">1. Who is this that cometh from Edom?<br /></span> +<span class="i3">In scarlet garments from Bozrah?<br /></span> +<span class="i3">This, that is glorious in his apparel,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Proud in the greatness of his strength?<br /></span> +<span class="i0"> <br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Jehovah.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"> <br /></span> +<span class="i3">I, that proclaim deliverance,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And am mighty to save.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"> <br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The People.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"> <br /></span> +<span class="i0">2. Wherefore is thine apparel red,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And thy garments like those of one that treadeth the wine-vat?<br /></span> +<span class="i0"> <br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Jehovah.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"> <br /></span> +<span class="i0">3. I have trodden the wine-vat alone,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And of the nations there was none with me.<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And I trod them in mine anger,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And I trampled them in my fury,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">So that their life-blood was sprinkled upon my garments,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And I have stained all my apparel.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">4. For the day of vengeance was in my heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And the year of my deliverance was come.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">5. And I looked, and there was none to help,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And I wondered, that there was none to uphold,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Therefore my own arm wrought salvation for me,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And my fury, it sustained me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">6. I trod down the nations in my anger;<br /></span> +<span class="i3">I crushed them in my fury,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And spilled their blood upon the ground.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> To show the differences between the Old and New Testament, +and to serve as introduction to this discourse, the following passages +were read as the morning lesson: Exodus, xv. 1-6; 2 Sam. xxii. 32, +35-43, 48; xlv. 3-5; Isa. lxvi. 15, 16; Joel, iii. 9-17, and Matt. v. +3-11, 38-39, 43-45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Such was the price offered, and such the number of soldiers +then called for.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> See the appropriate forms of prayer for that service by the +present Bishop of Oxford, in Jay's Address before the American Peace +Society, in 1845.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God.</i> +</p><p> +"O Lord God of Hosts, in whose hand is power and might irresistible, we, +thine unworthy servants, most humbly acknowledge thy goodness in the +victories lately vouchsafed to the armies of our Sovereign over a host +of barbarous invaders, who sought to spread desolation over fruitful and +populous provinces, enjoying the blessings of peace, under the +protection of the British Crown. We bless Thee, O merciful Lord, for +having brought to a speedy and prosperous issue a war to which no +occasion had been given by injustice on our part, or apprehension of +injury at our hands! To Thee, O Lord, we ascribe the glory! It was Thy +wisdom which guided the counsel! Thy power which strengthened the hands +of those whom it pleased Thee to use as Thy instruments in the +discomfiture of the lawless aggressor, and the frustration of his +ambitious designs! From Thee, alone, cometh the victory, and the spirit +of moderation and mercy in the day of success. Continue, we beseech +Thee, to go forth with our armies, whensoever they are called into +battle in a righteous cause; and dispose the hearts of their leaders to +exact nothing more from the vanquished than is necessary for the +maintenance of peace and security against violence and rapine. +</p><p> +"Above all, give Thy grace to those who preside in the councils of our +Sovereign, and administer the concerns of her widely extended dominions, +that they may apply all their endeavors to the purposes designed by Thy +good Providence, in committing such power to their hands, the temporal +and spiritual benefit of the nations intrusted to their care. +</p><p> +"And whilst Thou preservest our distant possessions from the horrors of +war, give us peace and plenty at home, that the earth may yield her +increase, and that we, Thy servants, receiving Thy blessings with +thankfulness and gladness of heart, may dwell together in unity, and +faithfully serve Thee, to Thy honor and glory, through Jesus Christ our +Lord, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, belong all dominion and +power, both in heaven and earth, now and for ever. Amen."—See a defence +of this prayer, in the London "Christian Observer" for May, p. 319, <i>et +seq.</i>, and for June, p. 346, <i>et seq.</i> +</p><p> +Would you know what he gave thanks for on Easter Sunday? Here is the +history of the battle: +</p><p> +"This battle had begun at six, and was over at eleven o'clock; the +hand-to-hand combat commenced at nine, and lasted scarcely two hours. +The river was full of sinking men. For two hours, volley after volley +was poured in upon the human mass—the stream being literally red with +blood, and covered with the bodies of the slain. At last, the musket +ammunition becoming exhausted, the infantry fell to the rear, the horse +artillery plying grape till not a man was visible within range. No +compassion was felt or mercy shown." But "'twas a famous victory!"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Mr. Charles Sumner.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> +<h2>IV.</h2> + +<h3>SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE ANTI-WAR MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL, FEBRUARY 4, +1847.</h3> + + +<p>Mr. Chairman,—We have come here to consult for the honor of our +country. The honor and dignity of the United States are in danger. I +love my country; I love her honor. It is dear to me almost as my own. I +have seen stormy meetings in Faneuil Hall before now, and am not easily +disturbed by a popular tumult. But never before did I see a body of +armed soldiers attempting to overawe the majesty of the people, when met +to deliberate on the people's affairs. Yet the meetings of the people of +Boston have been disturbed by soldiers before now, by British bayonets; +but never since the Boston massacre on the 5th of March, 1770! Our +fathers hated a standing army. This is a new one, but behold the effect! +Here are soldiers with bayonets to overawe the majesty of the people! +They went to our meeting last Monday night, the hireling soldiers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> of +President Polk, to overawe and disturb the meetings of honest men. Here +they are now, and in arms!</p> + +<p>We are in a war; the signs of war are seen here in Boston. Men, needed +to hew wood and honestly serve society, are marching about your streets; +they are learning to kill men, men who never harmed us, nor them; +learning to kill their brothers. It is a mean and infamous war we are +fighting. It is a great boy fighting a little one, and that little one +feeble and sick. What makes it worse is, the little boy is in the right, +and the big boy is in the wrong, and tells solemn lies to make his side +seem right. He wants, besides, to make the small boy pay the expenses of +the quarrel.</p> + +<p>The friends of the war say "Mexico has invaded our territory!" When it +is shown that it is we who have invaded hers, then it is said, "Ay, but +she owes us money." Better say outright, "Mexico has land, and we want +to steal it!"</p> + +<p>This war is waged for a mean and infamous purpose, for the extension of +slavery. It is not enough that there are fifteen Slave States, and +3,000,000 men here who have no legal rights—not so much as the horse +and the ox have in Boston: it is not enough that the slaveholders +annexed Texas, and made slavery perpetual therein, extending even north +of Mason and Dixon's line, covering a territory forty-five times as +large as the State of Massachusetts. Oh,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> no; we must have yet more land +to whip negroes in!</p> + +<p>The war had a mean and infamous beginning. It began illegally, +unconstitutionally. The Whigs say, "the President made the war." Mr. +Webster says so! It went on meanly and infamously. Your Congress lied +about it. Do not lay the blame on the democrats; the whigs lied just as +badly. Your Congress has seldom been so single-mouthed before. Why, only +sixteen voted against the war, or the lie. I say this war is mean and +infamous all the more, because waged by a people calling itself +democratic and Christian. I know but one war so bad in modern times, +between civilized nations, and that was the war for the partition of +Poland. Even for that there was more excuse.</p> + +<p>We have come to Faneuil Hall to talk about the war; to work against the +war. It is rather late, but "better late than never." We have let two +opportunities for work pass unemployed. One came while the annexation of +Texas was pending. Then was the time to push and be active. Then was the +time for Massachusetts and all the North, to protest as one man against +the extension of slavery. Everybody knew all about the matter, the +democrats and the whigs. But how few worked against that gross mischief! +One noble man lifted up his warning voice;<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> a man noble in his +father,—and there he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> stands in marble; noble in himself—and there he +stands yet higher up—and I hope time will show him yet nobler in his +son, and there he stands, not in marble, but in man! He talked against +it, worked against it, fought against it. But Massachusetts did little. +Her tonguey men said little; her handymen did little. Too little could +not be done or said. True, we came here to Faneuil Hall and passed +resolutions; good resolutions they were, too. Daniel Webster wrote them, +it is said. They did the same in the State House; but nothing came of +them. They say "Hell is paved with resolutions;" these were of that sort +of resolutions; which resolve nothing because they are of words, not +works!</p> + +<p>Well, we passed the resolutions; you know who opposed them; who hung +back and did nothing, nothing good I mean; quite enough not good. Then +we thought all the danger was over; that the resolutions settled the +matter. But then was the time to confound at once the enemies of your +country; to show an even front hostile to slavery.</p> + +<p>But the chosen time passed over, and nothing was done. Do not lay the +blame on the democrats; a whig Senate annexed Texas, and so annexed a +war. We ought to have told our delegation in Congress, if Texas were +annexed, to come home, and we would breathe upon it and sleep upon it, +and then see what to do next. Had our resolutions, taken so warmly here +in Faneuil Hall in 1845, been but as warmly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> worked out, we had now been +as terrible to the slave power as the slave power, since extended, now +is to us!</p> + +<p>Why was it that we did nothing? That is a public secret. Perhaps I ought +not to tell it to the people. (Cries of "Tell it.")</p> + +<p>The annexation of Texas, a slave territory big as the kingdom of France, +would not furl a sail on the ocean; would not stop a mill-wheel at +Lowell! Men thought so.</p> + +<p>That time passed by, and there came another. The Government had made +war; the Congress voted the dollars, voted the men, voted a lie. Your +representative, men of Boston, voted for all three; the lie, the +dollars, and the men; all three, in obedience to the slave power! Let +him excuse that to the conscience of his party; it is an easy matter. I +do not believe he can excuse it to his own conscience. To the conscience +of the world it admits of no excuse. Your President called for +volunteers, 50,000 of them. Then came an opportunity such as offers not +once in one hundred years, an opportunity to speak for freedom and the +rights of mankind! Then was the time for Massachusetts to stand up in +the spirit of '76, and say, "We won't send a man, from Cape Ann to +Williamstown—not one Yankee man, for this wicked war." Then was the +time for your Governor to say, "Not a volunteer for this wicked war." +Then was the time for your merchants<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> to say, "Not a ship, not a dollar +for this wicked war;" for your manufacturers to say, "We will not make +you a cannon, nor a sword, nor a kernel of powder, nor a soldier's +shirt, for this wicked war." Then was the time for all good men to say, +"This is a war for slavery, a mean and infamous war; an aristocratic +war, a war against the best interests of mankind. If God please, we will +die a thousand times, but never draw blade in this wicked war." (Cries +of "Throw him over," etc.) Throw him over, what good would that do? What +would you do next, after you have thrown him over? ("Drag you out of the +hall!") What good would that do? It would not wipe off the infamy of +this war! would not make it less wicked!</p> + +<p>That is what a democratic nation, a Christian people ought to have said, +ought to have done. But we did not say so; the Bay State did not say so, +nor your Governor, nor your merchants, nor your manufacturers, nor your +good men; the Governor accepted the President's decree, issued his +proclamation calling for soldiers, recommended men to enlist, appealing +to their "patriotism" and "humanity."</p> + +<p>Governor Briggs is a good man, and so far I honor him. He is a +temperance man, strong and consistent; I honor him for that. He is a +friend of education; a friend of the people. I wish there were more +such. Like many other New England men, he started from humble +beginnings; but unlike<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> many such successful men of New England, he is +not ashamed of the lowest round he ever trod on. I honor him for all +this. But that was a time which tried men's souls, and his soul could +not stand the rack. I am sorry for him. He did as the President told +him.</p> + +<p>What was the reason for all this? Massachusetts did not like the war, +even then; yet she gave her consent to it. Why so? There are two words +which can drive the blood out of the cheeks of cowardly men in +Massachusetts any time. They are "Federalism" and "Hartford Convention!" +The fear of those words palsied the conscience of Massachusetts, and so +her Governor did as he was told. I feel no fear of either. The +Federalists did not see all things; who ever did? They had not the ideas +which were destined to rule this nation; they looked back when the age +looked forward. But to their own ideas they were true; and if ever a +nobler body of men held state in any nation, I have yet to learn when or +where. If we had had the shadow of Caleb Strong in the Governor's chair, +not a volunteer for this war had gone out of Massachusetts.</p> + +<p>I have not told quite all the reasons why Massachusetts did nothing. Men +knew the war would cost money; that the dollars would in the end be +raised, not by a direct tax, of which the poor man paid according to his +little, and the rich man in proportion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> to his much, but by a tariff +which presses light on property, and hard on the person; by a tax on the +backs and mouths of the people. Some of the Whigs were glad last Spring, +when the war came, for they hoped thereby to save the child of their old +age, the tariff of '42. There are always some rich men, who say "No +matter what sort of a Government we have, so long as we get our +dividends;" always some poor men, who say "No matter how much the nation +suffers, if we fill our hungry purses thereby." Well, they lost their +virtue, lost their tariff, and gained just nothing; what they deserved +to gain.</p> + +<p>Now a third opportunity has come; no, it has not come; we have brought +it. The President wants a war tax on tea and coffee. Is that democratic, +to tax every man's breakfast and supper, for the sake of getting more +territory to whip negroes in? (Numerous cries of "Yes.") Then what do +you think despotism would be? He asks a loan of $28,000,000 for this +war. He wants $3,000,000 to spend privately for this war. In eight +months past, he has asked I am told for $74,000,000. Seventy-four +millions of dollars to conquer slave territory! Is that democratic too? +He wants to increase the standing army, to have ten regiments more! A +pretty business that. Ten regiments to gag the people in Faneuil Hall. +Do you think that is democratic? Some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> men have just asked Massachusetts +for $20,000 for the volunteers! It is time for the people to rebuke all +this wickedness.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I think there is a good deal to excuse the volunteers. I blame them, for +some of them know what they are about. Yet I pity them more, for most of +them, I am told, are low, ignorant men; some of them drunken and brutal. +From the uproar they make here to-night, arms in their hands, I think +what was told me is true! I say I pity them! They are my brothers; not +the less brothers because low and misguided. If they are so needy that +they are forced to enlist by poverty, surely I pity them. If they are of +good families, and know better, I pity them still more! I blame most the +men that have duped the rank and file! I blame the captains and +colonels, who will have least of the hardships, most of the pay, and all +of the "glory." I blame the men that made the war; the men that make +money out of it. I blame the great party men of the land. Did not Mr. +Clay say he hoped he could slay a Mexican? (Cries, "No, he didn't.") +Yes, he did; said it on Forefather's day! Did not Mr. Webster, in the +streets of Philadelphia, bid the volunteers, misguided young men, go and +uphold the stars of their country? (Voices, "He did right!") No, he +should have said the stripes of his country, for every volunteer to this +wicked war is a stripe on the nation's back! Did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> not he declare this +war unconstitutional, and threaten to impeach the President who made it, +and then go and invest a son in it? Has it not been said here, "Our +country, howsoever bounded," bounded by robbery or bounded by right +lines! Has it not been said, all round, "Our country, right or wrong!"</p> + +<p>I say I blame not so much the volunteers as the famous men who deceive +the nation! (Cries of "Throw him over, kill him, kill him," and a +flourish of bayonets.) Throw him over! you will not throw him over. Kill +him! I shall walk home unarmed and unattended, and not a man of you will +hurt one hair of my head.</p> + +<p>I say again it is time for the people to take up this matter. Your +Congress will do nothing till you tell them what and how! Your 29th +Congress can do little good. Its sands are nearly run, God be thanked! +It is the most infamous Congress we ever had. We began with the Congress +that declared Independence, and swore by the Eternal Justice of God. We +have come down to the 29th Congress, which declared war existed by the +act of Mexico, declared a lie; the Congress that swore by the Baltimore +Convention! We began with George Washington, and have got down to James +K. Polk.</p> + +<p>It is time for the people of Massachusetts to instruct their servants in +Congress to oppose this war; to refuse all supplies for it; to ask for +the recall of the army into our own land. It is time for us to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> tell +them that not an inch of slave territory shall ever be added to the +realm. Let us remonstrate; let us petition; let us command. If any class +of men have hitherto been remiss, let them come forward now and give us +their names—the merchants, the manufacturers, the whigs and the +democrats. If men love their country better than their party or their +purse, now let them show it.</p> + +<p>Let us ask the General Court of Massachusetts to cancel every commission +which the Governor has given to the officers of the volunteers. Let us +ask them to disband the companies not yet mustered into actual service; +and then, if you like that, ask them to call a convention of the people +of Massachusetts, to see what we shall do in reference to the war; in +reference to the annexation of more territory; in reference to the +violation of the Constitution! (Loud groans from crowds of rude fellows +in several parts of the hall.) That was a tory groan; they never dared +groan so in Faneuil Hall before; not even the British tories, when they +had no bayonets to back them up! I say, let us ask for these things!</p> + +<p>Your President tells us it is treason to talk so! Treason is it? treason +to discuss a war which the government made, and which the people are +made to pay for? If it be treason to speak against the war, what was it +to make the war, to ask for 50,000 men and $74,000,000 for the war? Why, +if the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> people cannot discuss the war they have got to fight and to pay +for, who under heaven can? Whose business is it, if it is not yours and +mine? If my country is in the wrong, and I know it, and hold my peace, +then I am guilty of treason, moral treason. Why, a wrong,—it is only +the threshold of ruin. I would not have my country take the next step. +Treason is it, to show that this war is wrong and wicked! Why, what if +George III., any time from '75 to '83, had gone down to Parliament and +told them it was treason to discuss the war then waging against these +colonies! What do you think the Commons would have said? What would the +Lords say? Why, that King, foolish as he was, would have been lucky, if +he had not learned there was a joint in his neck, and, stiff as he bore +him, that the people knew how to find it.</p> + +<p>I do not believe in killing kings, or any other men; but I do say, in a +time when the nation was not in danger, that no British king, for two +hundred years past, would have dared call it treason to discuss the +war—its cause, its progress, or its termination!</p> + +<p>Now is the time to act! Twice we have let the occasion slip; beware of +the third time! Let it be infamous for a New England man to enlist; for +a New-England merchant to loan his dollars, or to let his ships in aid +of this wicked war; let it be infamous for a manufacturer to make a +cannon, a sword, or a kernel of powder, to kill our brothers with,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> +while we all know that they are in the right, and we in the wrong.</p> + +<p>I know my voice is a feeble one in Massachusetts. I have no mountainous +position from whence to look down and overawe the multitude; I have no +back-ground of political reputation to echo my words; I am but a plain +humble man; but I have a back-ground of Truth to sustain me, and the +Justice of Heaven arches over my head! For your sakes, I wish I had that +oceanic eloquence whose tidal flow should bear on its bosom the +drift-weed which politicians have piled together, and sap and sweep away +the sand hillocks of soldiery blown together by the idle wind; that +oceanic eloquence which sweeps all before it, and leaves the shore hard, +smooth and clean! But feeble as I am, let me beg of you, fellow-citizens +of Boston, men and brothers, to come forward and protest against this +wicked war, and the end for which it is waged. I call on the whigs, who +love their country better than they love the tariff of '42; I call on +the democrats, who think Justice is greater than the Baltimore +Convention,—I call on the whigs and democrats to come forward and join +with me in opposing this wicked war! I call on the men of Boston, on the +men of the old Bay State, to act worthy of their fathers, worthy of +their country, worthy of themselves! Men and brothers, I call on you all +to protest against this most infamous war, in the name of the State, in +the name of the country,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> in the name of man, yes, in the name of God: +Leave not your children saddled with a war debt, to cripple the nation's +commerce for years to come. Leave not your land cursed with slavery, +extended and extending, palsying the nation's arm and corrupting the +nation's heart. Leave not your memory infamous among the nations, +because you feared men, feared the Government; because you loved money +got by crime, land plundered in war, loved land unjustly bounded; +because you debased your country by defending the wrong she dared to do; +because you loved slavery; loved war, but loved not the Eternal Justice +of all-judging God. If my counsel is weak and poor, follow one stronger +and more manly. I am speaking to men; think of these things, and then +act like men.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> John Quincy Adams.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> +<h2>V.</h2> + +<h3>A SERMON OF THE MEXICAN WAR.—PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JUNE +25, 1848.</h3> + + +<p>Soon after the commencement of the war against Mexico, I said something +respecting it in this place. But while I was printing the sermon, I was +advised to hasten the compositors in their work, or the war would be +over before the sermon was out. The advice was like a good deal of the +counsel that is given to a man who thinks for himself, and honestly +speaks what he unavoidably thinks. It is now more than two years since +the war began; I have hoped to live long enough to see it ended, and +hoped to say a word about it when over. A month ago, this day, the 25th +of May, the treaty of peace, so much talked of, was ratified by the +Mexican Congress. A few days ago, it was officially announced by +telegraph to your collector in Boston, that the war with Mexico was at +an end.</p> + +<p>There are two things about this war quite remarkable. The first is, the +manner of its commencement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> It was begun illegally, without the action +of the constitutional authorities; begun by the command of the President +of the United States, who ordered the American army into a territory +which the Mexicans claimed as their own. The President says "It is +ours," but the Mexicans also claimed it, and were in possession thereof +until forcibly expelled. This is a plain case, and as I have elsewhere +treated at length of this matter,<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> I will not dwell upon it again, +except to mention a single fact but recently divulged. It is well known +that Mr. Polk claimed the territory west of the Nueces and east of the +Rio Grande, as forming a part of Texas, and therefore as forming part of +the United States after the annexation of Texas. He contends that Mexico +began the war by attacking the American army while in that territory and +near the Rio Grande. But, from the correspondence laid before the +American Senate, in its secret session for considering the treaty, it +now appears that on the 10th of November, 1845, Mr. Polk instructed Mr. +Slidell to offer a relinquishment of American claims against Mexico, +amounting to $5,000,000 or $6,000,000, for the sake of having the Rio +Grande as the western boundary of Texas; yes, for that very territory +which he says was ours without paying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> a cent. When it was conquered, a +military government was established there, as in other places in Mexico.</p> + +<p>The other remarkable thing about the war is, the manner of its +conclusion. The treaty of peace which has just been ratified by the +Mexican authorities, and which puts an end to the war, was negotiated by +a man who had no more legal authority than any one of us has to do it. +Mr. Polk made the war, without consulting Congress, and that body +adopted the war by a vote almost unanimous. Mr. Nicholas P. Trist made +the treaty, without consulting the President; yes, even after the +President had ordered him to return home. As the Congress adopted Mr. +Polk's war, so Mr. Polk adopted Mr. Trist's treaty, and the war +illegally begun is brought informally to a close. Mr. Polk is now in the +President's chair, seated on the throne of the Union, although he made +the war; and Mr. Trist, it is said, is under arrest for making the +treaty, meddling with what was none of his business.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When the war began, there was a good deal of talk about it here; talk +against it. But, as things often go in Boston, it ended in talk. The +news-boys made money out of the war. Political parties were true to +their wonted principles, or their wonted prejudices. The friends of the +party in power could see no informality in the beginning of hostilities; +no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> injustice in the war itself; not even an impolicy. They were +offended if an obscure man preached against it of a Sunday. The +political opponents of the party in power talked against the war, as a +matter of course; but, when the elections came, supported the men that +made it with unusual alacrity—their deeds serving as commentary upon +their words, and making further remark thereon, in this place, quite +superfluous. Many men,—who, whatever other parts of Scripture they may +forget, never cease to remember that "Money answereth all +things,"—diligently set themselves to make money out of the war and the +new turn it gave to national affairs. Others thought that "glory" was a +good thing, and so engaged in the war itself, hoping to return, in due +time, all glittering with its honors.</p> + +<p>So what with the one political party that really praised the war, and +the other who affected to oppose it, and with the commercial party, who +looked only for a market—this for merchandise and that for +"patriotism"—the friends of peace, who seriously and heartily opposed +the war, were very few in number. True, the "sober second thought" of +the people has somewhat increased their number; but they are still few, +mostly obscure men.</p> + +<p>Now peace has come, nobody talks much about it; the news-boys have +scarce made a cent by the news. They fired cannons, a hundred guns on +the Common, for joy at the victory of Monterey; at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> Philadelphia, +Baltimore, Washington, New York, men illuminated their houses in honor +of the battle of Buena Vista, I think it was; the custom-house was +officially illuminated at Boston for that occasion. But we hear of no +cannons to welcome the peace. Thus far, it does not seem that a single +candle has been burnt in rejoicing for that. The newspapers are full of +talk, as usual; flags are flying in the streets; the air is a little +noisy with hurrahs, but it is all talk about the conventions at +Baltimore and Philadelphia; hurrahs for Taylor and Cass. Nobody talks of +the peace. Flags enough flap in the wind, with the names of rival +candidates; but nowhere do the stripes and stars bear Peace as their +motto. The peace now secured is purchased with such conditions imposed +on Mexico, that while every one will be glad of it, no man, that loves +justice, can be proud of it. Very little is said about the treaty. The +distinguished senator from Massachusetts did himself honor, it seems to +me, in voting against it on the ground that it enabled us to plunder +Mexico of her land. But the treaty contains some things highly honorable +to the character of the nation, of which we may well enough be proud, if +ever of any thing. I refer to the twenty-second and twenty-third +articles, which provide for arbitration between the nations, if future +difficulties should occur; and to the pains taken, in case of actual +hostilities, for the security of all unarmed persons, for the protection +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> private property, and for the humane treatment of all prisoners +taken in war. These ideas, and the language of these articles, are +copied from the celebrated treaty between the United States and Prussia, +the treaty of 1785. It is scarcely needful to add, that they were then +introduced by that great and good man, Benjamin Franklin, one of the +negotiators of the treaty. They made a new epoch in diplomacy, and +introduced a principle previously unknown in the law of nations. The +insertion of these articles in the new treaty is, perhaps, the only +thing connected with the war, which an American can look upon with +satisfaction. Yet this fact excites no attention.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>Still, while so little notice is taken of this matter, in public and +private, it may be worth while for a minister, on Sunday, to say a word +about the peace; and, now the war is over, to look back upon it, to see +what it has cost, in money and in men, and what we have got by it; what +its consequences have been, thus far, and are likely to be for the +future; what new dangers and duties come from this cause interpolated +into our nation. We have been long promised "indemnity for the past, and +security for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> the future:" let us see what we are to be indemnified for, +and what secured against. The natural justice of the war I will not look +at now.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>First, then, of the cost of the war. Money is the first thing with a +good many men; the only thing with some; and an important thing with +all. So, first of all, let me speak of the cost of the war in dollars. +It is a little difficult to determine the actual cost of the war, thus +far—even its direct cost; for the bills are not all in the hands of +Government; and then, as a matter of political party-craft, the +Government, of course, is unwilling to let the full cost become known +before the next election is over. So it is to be expected that the +Government will keep the facts from the people as long as possible. Most +Governments would do the same. But Truth has a right of way everywhere, +and will recover it at last, spite of the adverse possession of a +political party. The indirect cost of the war must be still more +difficult to come at, and will long remain a matter of calculation, in +which it is impossible to reach certainty. We do not know yet the entire +cost of the Florida war, or the late war with England; the complete cost +of the Revolutionary war must forever be unknown.</p> + +<p>It is natural for most men to exaggerate what favors their argument; but +when I cannot obtain the exact figures, I will come a good deal within +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> probable amount. The military and naval appropriations for the year +ending in June, 1847, were $40,865,155.96; for the next year, +$31,377,679.92; the sum asked for the present year, till next June, +$42,224,000; making a whole of $114,466,835.88. It is true that all this +appropriation is not for the Mexican war, but it is also true that this +sum does not include all the appropriations for the war. Estimating the +sums already paid by the Government, the private claims presented and to +be presented, the $15,000,000 to be paid Mexico as purchase-money for +the territory we take from her, the $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 to be paid +our own citizens for their claims against her,—I think I am a good deal +within the mark when I say the war will have cost $150,000,000 before +the soldiers are at home, discharged, and out of the pay of the state. +In this sum I do not include the bounty-lands to be given to the +soldiers and officers, nor the pensions to be paid them, their widows +and orphans, for years to come. I will estimate that at $50,000,000 +more, making a whole of $200,000,000 which has been paid or must be. +This is the direct cost to the Federal Government, and of course does +not include the sums paid by individual States, or bestowed by private +generosity, to feed and clothe the volunteers before they were mustered +into service. This may seem extravagant; but, fifty years hence, when +party spirit no longer blinds men's eyes, and when the whole is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> a +matter of history, I think it will be thought moderate, and be found a +good deal within the actual and direct cost. Some of this cost will +appear as a public debt. Statements recently made respecting it can +hardly be trusted, notwithstanding the authority on which they rest. +Part of this war debt is funded already, part not yet funded. When the +outstanding demands are all settled, and the treasury notes redeemed, +there will probably be a war debt of not less than $125,000,000. At +least, such is the estimate of an impartial and thoroughly competent +judge. But, not to exaggerate, let us call it only $100,000,000.</p> + +<p>It will, perhaps, be said: Part of this money, all that is paid in +pensions, is a charity, and therefore no loss. But it is a charity paid +to men who, except for the war, would have needed no such aid; and, +therefore, a waste. Of the actual cost of the war, some three or four +millions have been spent in extravagant prices for hiring or purchasing +ships, in buying provisions and various things needed by the army, and +supplied by political favorites at exorbitant rates. This is the only +portion of the cost which is not a sheer waste; here the money has only +changed hands; nothing has been destroyed, except the honesty of the +parties concerned in such transactions. If a farmer hires men to help +him till the soil, the men earn their subsistence and their wages, and +leave, besides, a profit to their employer; when the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> season is over, he +has his crops and his improvements as the return for their pay and +subsistence. But for all that the soldier has consumed, for his wages, +his clothes, his food and drink, the fighting tools he has worn out, and +the ammunition he has expended, there is no available return to show; +all that is a clear waste. The beef is eaten up, the cloth worn away, +the powder is burnt, and what is there to show for it all? Nothing but +the "glory." You sent out sound men, and they come back, many of them, +sick and maimed; some of them are slain.</p> + +<p>The indirect pecuniary cost of the war is caused, first, by diverting +some 150,000 men, engaged in the war directly or remotely, from the +works of productive industry, to the labors of war, which produce +nothing; and, secondly, by disturbing the regular business of the +country, first by the withdrawal of men from their natural work; then, +by withdrawing large quantities of money from the active capital of the +nation; and, finally, by the general uncertainty which it causes all +over the land, thus hindering men from undertaking or prosecuting +successfully their various productive enterprises. If 150,000 men earn +on the average but $200 apiece, that alone amounts to $30,000,000. The +withdrawal of such an amount of labor from the common industry of the +country must be seriously felt. At any rate, the nation has earned +$30,000,000 less than it would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> have done, if these men had kept about +their common work.</p> + +<p>But the diversion of capital from its natural and pacific direction is a +greater evil in this case. America is rich, but her wealth consists +mainly in land, in houses, cattle, ships, and various things needed for +human comfort and industry. In money, we are poor. The amount of money +is small in proportion to the actual wealth of the nation, and also in +proportion to its activity which is indicated by the business of the +nation. In actual wealth, the free States of America are probably the +richest people in the world; but in money we are poorer than many other +nations. This is plain enough, though perhaps not very well known, and +is shown by the fact that interest, in European States, is from two to +four per cent. a year, and in America from six to nine. The active +capital of America is small. Now in this war, a national debt has +accumulated, which probably is or will soon be $100,000,000 or +$125,000,000. All this great sum of money has, of course, been taken +from the active capital of the country, and there has been so much less +for the use of the farmer, the manufacturer, and the merchant. But for +this war, these 150,000 men and these $100,000,000 would have been +devoted to productive industry; and the result would have been shown by +the increase of our annual earnings, in increased wealth and comfort.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then war produced uncertainty, and that distrust amongst men. Therefore +many were hindered from undertaking new works, and others found their +old enterprises ruined at once. In this way there has been a great loss, +which cannot be accurately estimated. I think no man, familiar with +American industry, would rate this indirect loss lower than +$100,000,000; some, perhaps, at twice as much; but to avoid all +possibility of exaggeration, let us call it half the smallest of these +sums, or $50,000,000, as the complete pecuniary cost of the Mexican war, +direct and indirect.</p> + +<p>What have we got to show for all this money? We have a large tract of +territory, containing, in all, both east and west of the Rio Grande, I +am told, between 700,000 and 800,000 square miles. Accounts differ as to +its value. But it appears, from the recent correspondence of Mr. +Slidell, that in 1845 the President offered Mexico, in money, +$25,000,000 for that territory which we now acquire under this new +treaty. Suppose it is worth more, suppose it is worth twice as much, or +all the indirect cost of the war ($50,000,000), then the $200,000,000 +are thrown away.</p> + +<p>Now, for this last sum, we could have built a sufficient railroad across +the Isthmus of Panama, and another across the continent, from the +Mississippi to the Pacific. If such a road, with its suitable equipment, +cost $100,000 a mile, and the distance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> should amount to 2,000 miles, +then the $200,000,000 would just pay the bills. That would have been the +greatest national work of productive industry in the world. In +comparison with it, the Lake Mœris and the Pyramids of Egypt, and the +Wall of China seem but the works of a child. It might be a work to be +proud of till the world ends; one, too, which would advance the +industry, the welfare, and general civilization of mankind to a great +degree, diminishing, by half, the distance round the globe; saving +millions of property and many lives each year; besides furnishing, it is +thought, a handsome income from the original outlay. But, perhaps, that +would not be the best use which might be made of the money; perhaps it +would not have been wise to undertake that work. I do not pretend to +judge of such matters, only to show what might be done with that sum of +money, if we were disposed to construct works of such a character. At +any rate, two Pacific railroads would be better than one Mexican war. We +are seldom aware of the cost of war. If a single regiment of dragoons +cost only $700,000 a year, which is a good deal less than the actual +cost, that is considerably more than the cost of twelve colleges like +Harvard University, with its schools for theology, law, and medicine; +its scientific school, observatory, and all. We are, taken as a whole, a +very ignorant people; and while we waste our school-money and +school-time, must continue so.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<p>A great man, who towers far above the common heads, full of creative +thought, of the ideas which move the world, able to organize that +thought into institutions, laws, practical works; a man of a million, a +million-minded man, at the head of a nation, putting his thought into +them; ruling not barely by virtue of his position, but by the +intellectual and moral power to fill it; ruling not over men's heads, +but in their minds and hearts, and leading them to new fields of toil, +increasing their numbers, wealth, intelligence, comfort, morals, +piety—such a man is a noble sight; a Charlemagne, or a Genghis Khan, a +Moses leading his nation up from Egyptian bondage to freedom and the +promised land. How have the eyes of the world been fixed on Washington! +In darker days than ours, when all was violence, it is easy to excuse +such men if they were warriors also, and made, for the time, their +nation but a camp. There have been ages when the most lasting ink was +human blood. In our day, when war is the exception, and that commonly +needless, such a man, so getting the start of the majestic world, were a +far grander sight. And with such a man at the head of this nation, a +great man at the head of a free nation, able and energetic, and +enterprising as we are, what were too much to hope? As it is, we have +wasted our money, and got, the honor of fighting such a war.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Let me next speak of the direct cost of the war in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> men. In April, 1846, +the entire army of the United States, consisted of 7,244 men; the naval +force of about 7,500. We presented the gratifying spectacle of a nation +20,000,000 strong, with a sea-coast of 3,000 or 4,000 miles, and only +7,000 or 8,000 soldiers, and as many armed men on the sea, or less than +15,000 in all! Few things were more grateful to an American than this +thought, that his country was so nearly free from the terrible curse of +a standing army. At that time, the standing army of France was about +480,000 men; that of Russia nearly 800,000 it is said. Most of the +officers in the American army and navy, and most of the rank and file, +had probably entered the service with no expectation of ever shedding +the blood of men. The navy and army were looked on as instruments of +peace; as much so as the police of a city.</p> + +<p>The first of last January, there was, in Mexico, an American army of +23,695 regular soldiers, and a little more than 50,000 volunteers, the +number cannot now be exactly determined, making an army of invasion of +about 75,000 men. The naval forces, also, had been increased to 10,000. +Estimating all the men engaged in the service of the army and navy; in +making weapons of war and ammunition; in preparing food and clothing; in +transporting those things and the soldiers from place to place, by land +or sea, and in performing the various other works incident to military +operations, it is within bounds to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> say that there were 80,000 or 90,000 +men engaged indirectly in the works of war. But not to exaggerate, it is +safe to say that 150,000 men were directly or indirectly engaged in the +Mexican war. This estimate will seem moderate, when you remember that +there were about 5,000 teamsters connected with the army in Mexico.</p> + +<p>Here, then, were 150,000 men whose attention and toil were diverted from +the great business of productive industry to merely military operations, +or preparations for them. Of course, all the labor of these men was of +no direct value to the human race. The food and clothing and labor of a +man who earns nothing by productive work of hand or head, is food, +clothing, and labor thrown away; labor in vain. There is nothing to show +for the things he has consumed. So all the work spent in preparing +ammunition and weapons of war is labor thrown away, an absolute loss, as +much as if it had been spent in making earthen pitchers and then in +dashing them to pieces. A country is the richer for every serviceable +plough and spade made in it, and the world the richer; they are to be +used in productive work, and when worn out, there is the improved soil +and the crops that have been gathered, to show for the wear and tear of +the tools. So a country is the richer for every industrious shoemaker +and blacksmith it contains; for his time and toil go to increase the sum +of human comfort, creating actual wealth. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> world also is better off, +and becomes better through their influence. But a country is the poorer +for every soldier it maintains, and the world poorer, as he adds nothing +to the actual wealth of mankind; so is it the poorer for each sword and +cannon made within its borders, and the world poorer, for these +instruments cannot be used in any productive work, only for works of +destruction.</p> + +<p>So much for the labor of these 150,000 men; labor wasted in vain. Let us +now look at the cost of life. It is not possible to ascertain the exact +loss suffered up to this time, in killed, deceased by ordinary diseases, +and in wounded; for some die before they are mustered into the service +of the United States, and parts of the army are so far distant from the +seat of Government that their recent losses are still unknown. I rely +for information on the last report of the Secretary of War, read before +the Senate, April 10, 1848, and recently printed. That gives the losses +of parts of the army up to December last; other accounts are made up +only till October, or till August. Recent losses will of course swell +the amount of destruction. According to that report, on the American +side there had been killed in battle, or died of wounds received +therein, 1,689 persons; there had died of diseases and accidents, 6,173; +3,743 have been wounded in battle, who were not known to be dead at the +date of the report.</p> + +<p>This does not include the deaths in the navy, nor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> the destruction of +men connected with the army in various ways, as furnishing supplies and +the like. Considering the sickness and accidents that have happened in +the present year, and others which may be expected before the troops +reach home, I may set down the total number of deaths on the American +side, caused by the war, at 15,000, and the number of wounded men at +4,000. Suppose the army on the average to have consisted of 50,000 men +for two years, this gives a mortality of fifteen per cent. each year, +which is an enormous loss even for times of war, and one seldom equalled +in modern warfare.</p> + +<p>Now, most of the men who have thus died or been maimed were in the prime +of life, able-bodied and hearty men. Had they remained at home in the +works of peace, it is not likely that more than 500 of the number would +have died. So then 14,500 lives may be set down at once to the account +of the war. The wounded men are of course to thank the war, and that +alone, for their smart and the life-long agony which they are called on +to endure.</p> + +<p>Such is the American loss. The loss of the Mexicans we cannot now +determine. But they have been many times more numerous than the +Americans; have been badly armed, badly commanded, badly trained, and +besides have been beaten in every battle; their number seemed often the +cause of their ruin, making them confident before battle and hindering +their retreat after they were beaten. Still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> more, they have been ill +provided with surgeons and nurses to care for the wounded, and were +destitute of medicines. They must have lost in battle five or six times +more than we have done, and have had a proportionate number of wounded. +To "lie like a military bulletin" is a European proverb; and it is not +necessary to trust reports which tell of 600 or 900 Mexicans left dead +on the ground, while the Americans lost but five or six. But when we +remember that only twelve Americans were killed during the bombardment +of Vera Cruz, which lasted five days; that the citadel contained more +than 5,000 soldiers and over 400 pieces of cannon, we may easily believe +the Mexican losses on the whole have been 10,000 men killed and perished +of their wounds. Their loss by sickness would probably be smaller than +our own, for the Mexicans were in their native climate, though often ill +furnished with clothes, with shelter and provisions: so I will put down +their loss by ordinary diseases at only 5,000, making a total of 15,000 +deaths. Suppose their number of wounded was four times as great as our +own, or 20,000. I should not be surprised if this were only half the +number.</p> + +<p>Put all together and we have in total, Americans and Mexicans, 24,000 +men wounded, more or less, and the greater part maimed for life; and we +have 30,000 men killed on the field of battle, or perished by the slow +torture of their wounds, or deceased of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> diseases caused by +extraordinary exposures; 24,000 men maimed; 30,000 dead!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>You all remember the bill which so hastily passed Congress in May, 1846, +and authorized the war previously begun. You perhaps have not forgot the +preamble, "Whereas war exists by the act of Mexico." Well, that bill +authorized the waste of $200,000,000 of American treasure, money enough +to have built a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama, and another to +connect the Mississippi and the Pacific ocean; it demanded the +disturbance of industry and commerce all over the land, caused by +withdrawing $100,000,000 from peaceful investments, and diverting +150,000 Americans from their productive and peaceful works; it demanded +a loss yet greater of the treasure of Mexicans; it commanded the maiming +of 24,000 men for life, and the death of 30,000 men in the prime and +vigor of manhood. Yet such was the state of feeling, I will not say of +thought, in the Congress, that out of both houses only sixteen men voted +against it. If a prophet had stood there he might have said to the +representative of Boston, "You have just voted for the wasting of +200,000,000 of the very dollars you were sent there to represent; for +the maiming of 24,000 men and the killing of 30,000 more—part by +disease, part by the sword, part by the slow and awful lingerings of a +wounded frame! Sir, that is the English<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> of your vote." Suppose the +prophet, before the vote was taken, could have gone round and told each +member of Congress, "If there comes a war, you will perish in it;" +perhaps the vote would have been a little different. It is easy to vote +away blood, if it is not your own!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Such is the cost of the war in money and in men. Yet it has not been a +very cruel war. It has been conducted with as much gentleness as a war +of invasion can be. There is no agreeable way of butchering men. You +cannot make it a pastime. The Americans have always been a brave people; +they were never cruel. They always treated their prisoners kindly—in +the Revolutionary war, in the late war with England. True, they have +seized the Mexican ports, taken military possession of the +custom-houses, and collected such duties as they saw fit; true, they +sometimes made the army of invasion self-subsisting, and to that end +have levied contributions on the towns they have taken; true, they have +seized provisions which were private property, snatching them out of the +hands of men who needed them; true, they have robbed the rich and the +poor; true, they have burned and bombarded towns, have murdered men and +violated women. All this must of course take place in any war. There +will be the general murder and robbery committed on account of the +nation, and the particular murder and robbery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> on account of the special +individual. This also is to be expected. You cannot set a town on fire +and burn down just half of it, making the flames stop exactly where you +will. You cannot take the most idle, ignorant, drunken, and vicious men +out of the low population in our cities and large towns, get them drunk +enough or foolish enough to enlist, train them to violence, theft, +robbery, murder, and then stop the man from exercising his rage or lust +on his own private account. If it is hard to make a dog understand that +he must kill a hare for his master, but never for himself, it is not +much easier to teach a volunteer that it is a duty, a distinction, and a +glory to rob and murder the Mexican people for the nation's sake, but a +wrong, a shame, and a crime to rob or murder a single Mexican for his +own sake. There have been instances of wanton cruelty, occasioned by +private licentiousness and individual barbarity. Of these I shall take +no further notice, but come to such as have been commanded by the +American authorities, and which were the official acts of the nation.</p> + +<p>One was the capture of Tabasco. Tabasco is a small town several hundred +miles from the theatre of war, situated on a river about eighty miles +from the sea, in the midst of a fertile province. The army did not need +it, nor the navy. It did not lie in the way of the American operations; +its possession would be wholly useless. But one Sunday afternoon, while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> +the streets were full of men, women, and children, engaged in their +Sunday business, a part of the naval force of America swept by; the +streets running at right angles with the river, were enfiladed by the +hostile cannon, and men, women, and children, unarmed and unresisting, +were mowed down by the merciless shot. The city was taken, but soon +abandoned, for its possession was of no use. The killing of those men, +women, and children was as much a piece of murder, as it would be to +come and shoot us to-day, and in this house. No valid excuse has been +given for this cold-blooded massacre; none can be given. It was not +battle, but wanton butchery. None but a Pequod Indian could excuse it. +The theological newspapers in New England thought it a wicked thing in +Dr. Palfrey to write a letter on Sunday, though he hoped thereby to help +end the war. How many of them had any fault to find with this national +butchery on the Lord's day? Fighting is bad enough any day; fighting for +mere pay, or glory, or the love of fighting, is a wicked thing; but to +fight on that day when the whole Christian world kneels to pray in the +name of the Peacemaker; to butcher men and women and children, when they +are coming home from church, with prayer-books in their hands, seems an +aggravation even of murder; a cowardly murder, which a Hessian would +have been ashamed of. "But 'twas a famous victory."</p> + +<p>One other instance, of at least apparent wantonness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> took place at the +bombardment of Vera Cruz. After the siege had gone on for a while, the +foreign consuls in the town, "moved," as they say, "by the feeling of +humanity excited in their hearts by the frightful results of the +bombardment of the city," requested that the women and children might be +allowed to leave the city, and not stay to be shot. The American General +refused; they must stay and be shot.</p> + +<p>Perhaps you have not an adequate conception of the effect produced by +bombarding a town. Let me interest you a little in the details thereof. +Vera Cruz is about as large as Boston was in 1810; it contains about +30,000 inhabitants. In addition it is protected by a castle, the +celebrated fortress of St. Juan d' Ulloa, furnished with more than 5,000 +soldiers and over 400 cannons. Imagine to yourself Boston as it was +forty years ago, invested with a fleet on one side, and an army of +15,000 men on the land, both raining cannon-balls and bomb-shells upon +your houses; shattering them to fragments, exploding in your streets, +churches, houses, cellars, mingling men, women, and children in one +promiscuous murder. Suppose this to continue five days and nights; +imagine the condition of the city; the ruins, the flames; the dead, the +wounded, the widows, the orphans; think of the fears of the men +anticipating the city would be sacked by a merciless soldiery; think of +the women! Thus you will have a faint notion of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> the picture of Vera +Cruz at the end of March, 1847. Do you know the meaning of the name of +the city? Vera Cruz is the True Cross. "See how these Christians love +one another." The Americans are followers of the Prince of Peace; they +have more missionaries amongst the "heathen" than any other nation, and +the President, in his last message, says, "No country has been so much +favored, or should acknowledge with deeper reverence the manifestations +of the Divine protection." The Americans were fighting Mexico to +dismember her territory, to plunder her soil, and plant thereon the +institution of slavery, "the necessary back-ground of freedom."</p> + +<p>Few of us have ever seen a battle, and without that none can have a +complete notion of the ferocious passions which it excites. Let me help +your fancy a little by relating an anecdote which seems to be very well +authenticated, and requires but little external testimony to render it +credible. At any rate, it was abundantly believed a year ago; but times +change, and what was then believed all round may now be "the most +improbable thing in the world." At the battle of Buena Vista, a Kentucky +regiment began to stagger under the heavy charge of the Mexicans. The +American commander-in-chief turned to one who stood near him, and +exclaimed, "By God, this will not do. This is not the way for +Kentuckians to behave when called on to make good a battle. It will not +answer, sir." So<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> the General clenched his fist, knit his brows, and set +his teeth hard together. However, the Kentuckians presently formed in +good order and gave a deadly fire, which altered the battle. Then the +old General broke out with a loud hurrah. "Hurrah for old Kentuck," he +exclaimed, rising in his stirrups; "that's the way to do it. Give 'em +hell, damn 'em," and tears of exultation rolled down his cheeks as he +said it. You find the name of this General at the head of most of the +whig newspapers in the United States. He is one of the most popular +candidates for the Presidency. Cannons were fired for him, a hundred +guns on Boston Common, not long ago, in honor of his nomination for the +highest office in the gift of a free and Christian people. Soon we shall +probably have clerical certificates, setting forth, to the people of the +North, that he is an exemplary Christian. You know how Faneuil Hall, the +old "Cradle of Liberty," rang with "Hurrah for Taylor," but a few days +ago. The seven wise men of Greece were famous in their day; but now +nothing is known of them except a single pungent aphorism from each, +"Know thyself," and the like. The time may come when our great men shall +have suffered this same reduction descending, all their robes of glory +having vanished save a single thread. Then shall Franklin be known only +as having said, "Don't give too much for the Whistle;" Patrick Henry for +his "Give me Liberty or give me Death;" Washington<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> for his "In Peace +prepare for War;" Jefferson for his "All men are created equal;" and +General Taylor shall be known only by his attributes rough and ready, +and for his aphorism, "Give 'em hell, damn 'em." Yet he does not seem to +be a ferocious man, but generous and kindly, it is said, and strongly +opposed to this particular war, whose "natural justice" it seems he +looked at, and which he thought was wicked at the beginning, though, on +that account, he was none the less ready to fight it.</p> + +<p>One thing more I must mention in speaking of the cost of men. According +to the Report quoted just now, 4,966 American soldiers had deserted in +Mexico. Some of them had joined the Mexican army. When the American +commissioners, who were sent to secure the ratification of the treaty, +went to Queretaro, they found there a body of 200 American soldiers, and +800 more were at no great distance, mustered into the Mexican service. +These men, it seems, had served out their time in the American camp, and +notwithstanding they had, as the President says in his message, "covered +themselves with imperishable honors," by fighting men who never injured +them, they were willing to go and seek a yet thicker mantle of this +imperishable honor, by fighting against their own country! Why should +they not? If it were right to kill Mexicans for a few dollars a month, +why was it not also right to kill Americans, especially when it pays the +most?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> Perhaps it is not an American habit to inquire into the justice +of a war, only into the profit which it may bring. If the Mexicans pay +best, in money, these 1,000 soldiers made a good speculation. No doubt +in Mexico military glory is at a premium, though it could hardly command +a greater price just now than in America, where, however, the supply +seems equal to the demand.</p> + +<p>The numerous desertions and the readiness with which the soldiers joined +the "foe," show plainly the moral character of the men, and the degree +of "patriotism" and "humanity" which animated them in going to war. You +know the severity of military discipline; the terrible beatings men are +subjected to before they can become perfect in the soldier's art; the +horrible and revolting punishments imposed on them for drunkenness, +though little pains were taken to keep the temptation from their eyes, +and for disobedience of general orders. You have read enough of this in +the newspapers. The officers of the volunteers, I am told, have +generally been men of little education, men of strong passions and bad +habits; many of them abandoned men, who belonged to the refuse of +society. Such men run into an army as the wash of the street runs into +the sewers. When such a man gets clothed with a little authority, in +time of peace, you know what use he makes of it; but when he covers +himself with the "imperishable honors" of his official coat, gets an +epaulette<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> on his shoulder, a sword by his side, a commission in his +pocket, and visions of "glory" in his head, you may easily judge how he +will use his authority, or may read in the newspapers how he has used +it. When there are brutal soldiers, commanded by brutal captains, it is +to be supposed that much brutality is to be suffered.</p> + +<p>Now desertion is a great offence in a soldier; in this army it is one of +the most common; for nearly ten per cent of the American army has +deserted in Mexico, not to mention the desertions before the army +reached that country. It is related that forty-eight men were hanged at +once for desertion; not hanged as you judicially murder men in time of +peace, privately, as if ashamed of the deed, in the corner of a jail, +and by a contrivance which shortens the agony, and makes death humane as +possible. These forty-eight men were hanged slowly; put to death with +painful procrastinations, their agony wilfully prolonged, and death +embittered by needless ferocity. But that is not all: it is related, +that these men were doomed to be thus murdered on the day when the +battle of Churubusco took place. These men, awaiting their death, were +told they should not suffer till the American flag should wave its +stripes over the hostile walls. So they were kept in suspense an hour, +and then slowly hanged one by one. You know the name of the officer on +whom this barbarity rests: it was Colonel Harney, a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> whose +reputation was black enough and base enough before. His previous deeds, +however, require no mention here. But this man is now a General, and so +on the high road to the Presidency, whenever it shall please our +Southern masters to say the word. Some accounts say there were more than +forty-eight who thus were hanged. I only give the number of those whose +names lie printed before me as I write. Perhaps the number was less; it +is impossible to obtain exact information in respect to the matter, for +the Government has not yet published an account of the punishments +inflicted in this war. The information can only be obtained by a +"Resolution" of either house of Congress, and so is not likely to be had +before the election. But at the same time with the execution, other +deserters were scourged with fifty lashes each, branded with a letter D, +a perpetual mark of infamy on their cheek, compelled to wear an iron +yoke, weighing eight pounds, about their neck. Six men were made to dig +the grave of their companions, and were then flogged with two hundred +lashes each.</p> + +<p>I wish this hanging of forty-eight men could have taken place in State +street, and the respectable citizens of Boston, who like this war, had +been made to look on and see it all; that they had seen those poor +culprits bid farewell to father, mother, wife, or child, looking +wistfully for the hour which was to end their torment, and then, one by +one, have seen them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> slowly hanged to death; that your representative, +ye men of Boston, had put on all the halters! He did help put them on; +that infamous vote, I speak not of the motive, it may have been as +honorable as the vote itself was infamous, doomed these eight and forty +men to be thus murdered.</p> + +<p>Yes, I wish all this killing of the 2,000 Americans on the field of +battle, and the 10,000 Mexicans; all this slashing of the bodies of +24,000 wounded men; all the agony of the other 18,000 that have died of +disease, could have taken place in some spot where the President of the +United States and his Cabinet, where all the Congress who voted for the +war, with the Baltimore conventions of '44 and '48, and the Whig +convention of Philadelphia, and the controlling men of both political +parties, who care nothing for this bloodshed and misery they have idly +caused, could have stood and seen it all; and then that the voice of the +whole nation had come up to them and said, "This is your work, not ours. +Certainly we will not shed our blood, nor our brothers' blood, to get +never so much slave territory. It was bad enough to fight in the cause +of freedom. In the cause of slavery—God forgive us for that! We have +trusted you thus far, but please God we never will trust you again."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Let us now look at the effect of this war on the morals of the nation. +The Revolutionary war was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> the contest for a great idea. If there were +ever a just war it was that, a contest for national existence. Yet it +brought out many of the worst qualities of human nature on both sides, +as well as some of the best. It helped make a Washington, it is true, +but a Benedict Arnold likewise. A war with a powerful nation, terrible +as it must be, yet develops the energy of the people, promotes +self-denial, and helps the growth of some qualities of a high order. It +had this effect in England from 1798 to 1815. True, England for that +time became a despotism, but the self-consciousness of the nation, its +self-denial and energy were amazingly stimulated; the moral effect of +that series of wars was doubtless far better than of the infamous +contest which she has kept up against Ireland for many years. Let us +give even war its due: when a great boy fights with an equal, it may +develop his animal courage and strength—for he gets as bad as he gives, +but when he only beats a little boy that cannot pay back his blows, it +is cowardly as well as cruel, and doubly debasing to the conqueror. +Mexico was no match for America. We all knew that very well before the +war begun. When a nation numbering 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 of people can +be successfully invaded by an army of 75,000 men, two thirds of them +volunteers, raw, and undisciplined; when the invaders with less than +15,000 can march two hundred miles into the very heart of the hostile +country, and with less than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> 6,000 can take and hold the capital of the +nation, a city of 100,000 or 200,000 inhabitants, and dictate a peace, +taking as much territory as they will—it is hardly fair to dignify such +operations with the name of war. The little good which a long contest +with an equal might produce in the conqueror, is wholly lost. Had Mexico +been a strong nation we should never have had this conflict. A few years +ago, when General Cass wanted a war with England, "an old-fashioned +war," and declared it "unavoidable," all the men of property trembled. +The northern men thought of their mills and their ships; they thought +how Boston and New York would look after a war with our sturdy old +father over the sea; they thought we should lose many millions of +dollars and gain nothing. The men of the South, who have no mills and no +ships and no large cities to be destroyed, thought of their "peculiar +institution;" they thought of a servile war; they thought what might +become of their slaves, if a nation which gave $100,000,000 to +emancipate her bondmen should send a large army with a few black +soldiers from Jamaica; should offer money, arms, and freedom to all who +would leave their masters and claim their unalienable rights. They knew +the southern towns would be burnt to ashes, and the whole South, from +Virginia to the Gulf, would be swept with fire, and they said, "Don't." +The North said so, and the South; they feared such a war, with such a +foe. Everybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> knows the effect which this fear had on southern +politicians, in the beginning of this century, and how gladly they made +peace with England soon as she was at liberty to turn her fleet and her +army against the most vulnerable part of the nation. I am not blind to +the wickedness of England more than ignorant of the good things she has +done and is doing; a Paradise for the rich and strong, she is still a +Purgatory for the wise and the good, and the Hell of the poor and the +weak. I have no fondness for war anywhere, and believe it needless and +wanton in this age of the world, surely needless and wicked between +Father England and Daughter America; but I do solemnly believe that the +moral effect of such an old-fashioned war as Mr. Cass in 1845 thought +unavoidable, would have been better than that of this Mexican war. It +would have ended slavery; ended it in blood no doubt, the worst thing to +blot out an evil with, but ended it and for ever. God grant it may yet +have a more peaceful termination. We should have lost millions of +property and thousands of men, and then, when peace came, we should know +what it was worth; and as the burnt child dreads the fire, no future +President, or Congress, or Convention, or Party would talk much in favor +of war for some years to come.</p> + +<p>The moral effect of this war is thoroughly bad. It was unjust in the +beginning. Mexico did not pay her debts; but though the United States, +in 1783,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> acknowledged the British claims against ourselves, they were +not paid till 1803. Our claims against England, for her depredations in +1793, were not paid till 1804; our claims against France, for her +depredations in 1806-13, were not paid us till 1834. The fact that +Mexico refused to receive the resident Minister which the United States +sent to settle the disputes, when a commissioner was expected—this was +no ground of war. We have lately seen a British ambassador ordered to +leave Spain within eight and forty hours, and yet the English Minister +of foreign affairs, Lord Palmerston, no new hand at diplomacy, declares +that this does not interrupt the concord of the two nations! We treated +Mexico contemptuously before hostilities began; and when she sent troops +into a territory which she had always possessed, though Texas had +claimed it, we declared that that was an act of war, and ourselves sent +an army to invade her soil, to capture her cities, and seize her +territory. It has been a war of plunder, undertaken for the purpose of +seizing Mexican territory, and extending over it that dismal curse which +blackens, impoverishes, and barbarizes half the Union now, and swiftly +corrupts the other half. It was not enough to have Louisiana a slave +territory; not enough to make that institution perpetual in Florida; not +enough to extend this blight over Texas—we must have yet more slave +soil, one day to be carved into Slave States, to bind the Southern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> yoke +yet more securely on the Northern neck; to corrupt yet more the +politics, literature, and morals of the North. The war was unjust at its +beginning; mean in its motives, a war without honorable cause; a war for +plunder; a quarrel between a great boy and a little puny weakling who +could not walk alone, and could hardly stand. We have treated Mexico as +the three Northern powers treated Poland in the last century—stooped to +conquer. Nay, our contest has been like the English seizure of Ireland. +All the justice was on one side, the force, skill, and wealth on the +other.</p> + +<p>I know men say the war has shown us that Americans could fight. Could +fight!—almost every male beast will fight, the more brutal the better. +The long war of the Revolution, when Connecticut, for seven years, kept +5,000 men in the field, showed that Americans could fight; Bunker Hill +and Lexington showed that they could fight, even without previous +discipline. If such valor be a merit, I am ready to believe that the +Americans, in a great cause like that of Mexico, to resist wicked +invasion, would fight as men never fought before. A republic like our +own, where every free man feels an interest in the welfare of the +nation, is full of the elements that make soldiers. Is that a praise? +Most men think so, but it is the smallest honor of a nation. Of all +glories, military glory, at its best estate, seems the poorest.</p> + +<p>Men tell us it shows the strength of the nation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> and some writers quote +the opinions of European kings who, when hearing of the battles of +Monterey, Buena Vista, and Vera Cruz, became convinced that we were "a +great people." Remembering the character of these kings, one can easily +believe that such was their judgment, and will not sigh many times at +their fate, but will hope to see the day when the last king who can +estimate a nation's strength only by its battles, has passed on to +impotence and oblivion. The power of America—do we need proof of that? +I see it in the streets of Boston and New York; in Lowell and in +Lawrence; I see it in our mills and our ships; I read it in those +letters of iron written all over the North, where he may read that runs; +I see it in the unconquered energy which tames the forest, the rivers, +and the ocean; in the school-houses which lift their modest roof in +every village of the North; in the churches that rise all over the +freeman's land: would God that they rose higher, pointing down to man +and to human duties, and up to God and immortal life! I see the strength +of America in that tide of population which spreads over the prairies of +the West, and, beating on the Rocky Mountains, dashes its peaceful spray +to the very shores of the Pacific sea. Had we taken 150,000 men and +$200,000,000, and built two railroads across the continent, that would +have been a worthy sign of the nation's strength. Perhaps those kings +could not see it; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> sensible men could see it and be glad. This waste +of treasure and this waste of blood is only a proof of weakness. War is +a transient weakness of the nation, but slavery a permanent imbecility.</p> + +<p>What falsehood has this war produced in the executive and legislative +power; in both parties, whigs and democrats! I always thought that here +in Massachusetts the whigs were the most to blame; they tried to put the +disgrace of the war on the others, while the democratic party coolly +faced the wickedness. Did far-sighted men know that there would be a war +on Mexico, or else on the tariff or the currency, and prefer the first +as the least evil?</p> + +<p>See to what the war has driven two of the most famous men of the nation: +one wished to "capture or slay a Mexican;"<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> the other could encourage +the volunteers to fight a war which he had denounced as needless, "a war +of pretexts," and place the men of Monterey before the men of Bunker +Hill;<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> each could invest a son in that unholy cause. You know the +rest: the fathers ate sour grapes, and the children's teeth were set on +edge. When a man goes on board an emigrant ship, reeking with filth and +fever, not for gain, not for "glory," but in brotherly love, catches the +contagion, and dies a martyr to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> heroic benevolence, men speak of it +in corners, and it is soon forgot; there is no parade in the streets; +society takes little pains to do honor to the man. How rarely is a +pension given to his widow or his child; only once in the whole land, +and then but a small sum.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> But when a volunteer officer—for of the +humbler and more excusable men that fall we take no heed, war may mow +that crop of "vulgar deaths" with what scythe he will—falls or dies in +the quarrel which he had no concern in, falls in a broil between the two +nations, your newspapers extol the man, and with martial pomp, "sonorous +metal blowing martial sounds," with all the honors of the most honored +dead, you lay away his body in the tomb. Thus is it that the nation +teaches these little ones, that it is better to kill than to make alive.</p> + +<p>I know there are men in the army, honorable and high-minded men, +Christian men, who dislike war in general, and this war in special, but +such is their view of official duty, that they obeyed the summons of +battle, though with pain and reluctance. They knew not how to avoid +obedience. I am willing to believe there are many such. But with +volunteers, who, of their own accord, came forth to enlist, men not +blinded by ignorance, not driven by poverty to the field, but only by +hope of reward—what shall be said of them! Much may be said to excuse +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> rank and file, ignorant men, many of them in want—but for the +leaders, what can be said? Had I a brother who, in the day of the +nation's extremity, came forward with a good conscience, and perilled +his life on the battle field, and lost it "in the sacred cause of God +and his country," I would honor the man, and when his dust came home, I +would lay it away with his fathers'; with sorrow indeed, but with +thankfulness of heart, that for conscience' sake he was ready even to +die. But had I a brother who, merely for his pay, or hope of fame, had +voluntarily gone down to fight innocent men, to plunder their territory, +and lost his life in that felonious essay—in sorrow and in silence, and +in secrecy would I lay down his body in the grave; I would not court +display, nor mark it with a single stone.</p> + +<p>See how this war has affected public opinion. How many of your +newspapers have shown its true atrocity; how many of the pulpits? Yet, +if any one is appointed to tell of public wrongs, it is the minister of +religion. The Governor of Massachusetts<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> is an officer of a Christian +church; a man distinguished for many excellences, some of them by no +means common: it is said, he is opposed to the war in private, and +thinks it wicked; but no man has lent himself as a readier tool to +promote it. The Christian and the man seem lost in the office, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +Governor! What a lesson of falseness does all this teach to that large +class of persons who look no higher than the example of eminent men for +their instruction. You know what complaints have been made, by the +highest authority in the nation, because a few men dared to speak +against the war. It was "affording aid and comfort to the enemy." If the +war-party had been stronger, and feared no public opinion, we should +have had men hanged for treason, because they spoke of this national +iniquity! Nothing would have been easier. A "gag law" is not wholly +unknown in America.</p> + +<p>If you will take all the theft, all the assaults, all the cases of +arson, ever committed in time of peace in the United States since the +settlement of Jamestown in 1608, and add to them all the cases of +violence offered to woman, with all the murders, they will not amount to +half the wrongs committed in this war for the plunder of Mexico. Yet the +cry has been and still is, "You must not say a word against it; if you +do, you 'afford aid and comfort to the enemy.'" Not tell the nation that +she is doing wrong? What a miserable saying is that; let it come from +what high authority it may, it is a miserable saying. Make the case your +own. Suppose the United States were invaded by a nation ten times abler +for war than we are, with a cause no more just, intentions equally bad; +invaded for the purpose of dismembering our territory and making<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> our +own New England the soil of slaves; would you be still? would you stand +and look on tamely while the hostile hosts, strangers in language, +manners, and religion, crossed your rivers, seized your ports, burnt +your towns? No, surely not. Though the men of New England would not be +able to resist with most celestial love, they would contend with most +manly vigor; and I should rather see every house swept clean off the +land, and the ground sheeted with our own dead; rather see every man, +woman, and child in the land slain, than see them tamely submit to such +a wrong: and so would you. No, sacred as life is and dear as it is, +better let it be trodden out by the hoof of war, rather than yield +tamely to a wrong. But while you were doing your utmost to repel such +formidable injustice, if in the midst of your invaders men rose up and +said, "America is in the right, and brothers, you are wrong, you should +not thus kill men to steal their land; shame on you!" how should you +feel towards such? Nay, in the struggle with England, when our fathers +perilled every thing but honor, and fought for the unalienable rights of +man, you all remember, how in England herself there stood up noble men, +and with a voice that was heard above the roar of the populace, and an +authority higher than the majesty of the throne they said, "You do a +wrong; you may ravage, but you cannot conquer. If I were an American, +while a foreign troop remained in my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> land, I would never lay down my +arms; no, never, never, never!"</p> + +<p>But I wander a little from my theme, the effect of the war on the morals +of the nation. Here are 50,000 or 75,000 men trained to kill. Hereafter +they will be of little service in any good work. Many of them were the +off-scouring of the people at first. Now these men have tasted the +idleness, the intemperance, the debauchery of a camp; tasted of its +riot, tasted of its blood! They will come home before long, hirelings of +murder. What will their influence be as fathers, husbands? The nation +taught them to fight and plunder the Mexicans for the nation's sake; the +Governor of Massachusetts called on them in the name of "patriotism" and +"humanity" to enlist for that work: but if, with no justice on our side, +it is humane and patriotic to fight and plunder the Mexicans on the +nation's account, why not for the soldier to fight and plunder an +American on his own account? Ay, why not?—that is a distinction too +nice for common minds; by far too nice for mine.</p> + +<p>See the effect on the nation. We have just plundered Mexico; taken a +piece of her territory larger than the thirteen states which fought the +Revolution, a hundred times as large as Massachusetts; we have burnt her +cities, have butchered her men, have been victorious in every contest. +The Mexicans were as unprotected women, we, armed men. See how the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> lust +of conquest will increase. Soon it will be the ambition of the next +President to extend the "area of freedom" a little further south; the +lust of conquest will increase. Soon we must have Yucatan, Central +America, all of Mexico, Cuba, Porto Rico, Hayti, Jamaica,—all the +islands of the Gulf. Many men would gladly, I doubt not, extend the +"area of freedom" so as to include the free blacks of those islands. We +have long looked with jealous eyes on West Indian emancipation—hoping +the scheme would not succeed. How pleasant it would be to reëstablish +slavery in Hayti and Jamaica, in all the islands whence the gold of +England or the ideas of France have driven it out. If the South wants +this, would the North object? The possession of the West Indies would +bring much money to New England, and what is the value of freedom +compared to coffee and sugar and cotton?</p> + +<p>I must say one word of the effect this war has had on political parties. +By the parties I mean the leaders thereof, the men that control the +parties. The effect on the democratic party, on the majority of +Congress, on the most prominent men of the nation, has been mentioned +before. It has shut their eyes to truth and justice; it has filled their +mouths with injustice and falsehood. It has made one man "available" for +the Presidency who was only known before as a sagacious general, that +fought against the Indians in Florida, and acquired a certain +reputation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> by the use of bloodhounds, a reputation which was rather +unenviable even in America. The battles in northern Mexico made him +conspicuous, and now he is seized on as an engine to thrust one corrupt +party out of power, and to lift in another party, I will not say less +corrupt, I wish I could; it were difficult to think it more so. This +latter party has been conspicuous for its opposition to a military man +as ruler of a free people; recently it has been smitten with sudden +admiration for military men, and military success, and tells the people, +without a blush, that a military man fresh from a fight which he +disapproved of, is most likely to restore peace, "because most familiar +with the evils of war!" In Massachusetts the prevalent political party, +as such, for some years seems to have had no moral principle; however, +it had a prejudice in favor of decency: now it has thrown that +overboard, and has not even its respectability left. Where are its +"Resolutions?" Some men knew what they were worth long ago; now all men +can see what they are worth.</p> + +<p>The cost of the war in money and men I have tried to calculate, but the +effect on the morals of the people, on the press, the pulpit, and the +parties, and through them on the rising generation, it is impossible to +tell. I have only faintly sketched the outline of that. The effect of +the war on Mexico herself, we can dimly see in the distance. The +Government of the United States has wilfully, wantonly broken the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> peace +of the continent. The Revolutionary war was unavoidable; but for this +invasion there is no excuse. That God, whose providence watches over the +falling nation as the falling sparrow, and whose comprehensive plans are +now advanced by the righteousness and now by the wrath of man, He who +stilleth the waves of the sea and the tumult of the people, will turn +all this wickedness to account in the history of man,—of that I have no +doubt. But that is no excuse for American crime. A greater good lay +within our grasp, and we spurned it away.</p> + +<p>Well, before long the soldiers will come back, such as shall ever +come—the regulars and volunteers, the husbands of the women whom your +charity fed last winter, housed and clad and warmed. They will come +back. Come, New England, with your posterity of States, go forth to meet +your sons returning all "covered with imperishable honors." Come, men, +to meet your fathers, brothers. Come, women, to your husbands and your +lovers; come. But what! is that the body of men who a year or two ago +went forth, so full of valor and of rum? Are these rags the imperishable +honors that cover them? Here is not half the whole. Where is the wealth +they hoped from the spoil of churches? But the men—"Where is my +husband?" says one; "And my son?" says another. "They fell at Jalapa, +one, and one at Cerro Gordo; but they fell covered with imperishable +honor, for 'twas a famous victory."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> "Where is my lover?" screams a +woman whom anguish makes respectable spite of her filth and +ignorance;—"And our father, where is he?" scream a troop of +half-starved children, staring through their dirt and rags. "One died of +the vomit at Vera Cruz. Your father, little ones, we scourged the naked +man to death at Mixcoac."</p> + +<p>But that troop which is left, who are in the arms of wife and child, +they are the best sermon against war; this has lost an arm and that a +leg; half are maimed in battle, or sickened with the fever; all polluted +with the drunkenness, idleness, debauchery, lust, and murder of a camp. +Strip off this man's coat, and count the stripes welted into his flesh, +stripes laid on by demagogues that love the people, "the dear people!" +See how affectionately the war-makers branded the "dear soldiers" with a +letter D, with a red-hot iron, in the cheek. The flesh will quiver as +the irons burn; no matter: it is only for love of the people that all +this is done, and we are all of us covered with imperishable honors! D +stands for deserter,—aye, and for demagogue—yes, and for demon too. +Many a man shall come home with but half of himself, half his body, less +than half his soul.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Alas, the mother that him bare,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If she could stand in presence there,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In that wan cheek and wasted air,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">She would not know her child."<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>"Better," you say, "for us better, and for themselves better by far, if +they had left that remnant of a body in the common ditch where the +soldier finds his 'bed of honor;' better have fed therewith the vultures +of a foreign soil, than thus come back." No, better come back, and live +here, mutilated, scourged, branded, a cripple, a pauper, a drunkard, and +a felon; better darken the windows of the jail and blot the gallows with +unusual shame, to teach us all that such is war, and such the results of +every "famous victory," such the imperishable honors that it brings, and +how the war-makers love the men they rule!</p> + +<p>O Christian America! O New England, child of the Puritans! Cradled in +the wilderness, thy swaddling garments stained with martyrs' blood, +hearing in thy youth the warwhoop of the savage and thy mother's sweet +and soul-composing hymn:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Hush, my child, lie still and slumber,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Holy angels guard thy bed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heavenly blessings, without number,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rest upon thine infant head:"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Come, New England, take the old banners of thy conquering host, the +standards borne at Monterey, Palo Alto, Buena Vista, Vera Cruz, the +"glorious stripes and stars" that waved over the walls of Churubusco, +Contreras, Puebla, Mexico herself, flags blackened with battle and +stiffened with blood,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> pierced by the lances and torn with the shot; +bring them into thy churches, hang them up over altar and pulpit, and +let little children, clad in white raiment and crowned with flowers, +come and chant their lessons for the day:</p> + +<p>"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.</p> + +<p>"Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of +God."</p> + +<p>Then let the priest say, "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a +reproach unto any people. Blessed is the Lord my strength, which +teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. Happy is that people +that is in such a case. Yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord, +and Jesus Christ their Saviour."</p> + +<p>Then let the soldiers who lost their limbs and the women who lost their +husbands and their lovers in the strife, and the men—wiser than the +children of light—who made money out of the war; let all the people, +like people and like priest, say "Amen."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But suppose these men were to come back to Boston on a day when, in +civil style, as having never sinned yourself, and never left a man in +ignorance and want to be goaded into crime, you were about to hang three +men—one for murder, one for robbery with the armed hand, and one for +burning down a house. Suppose, after the fashion of "the good old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +times," you were to hang those men in public, and lead them in long +procession through your streets, and while you were welcoming these +returned soldiers and taking their officers to feast in "the Cradle of +Liberty," they should meet the sheriff's procession escorting those +culprits to the gallows. Suppose the warriors should ask, "Why, what is +that?" What would you say? Why, this: "These men, they broke the law of +God, by violence, by fire and blood, and we shall hang them for the +public good, and especially for the example, to teach the ignorant, the +low, and the weak." Suppose those three felons, the halters round their +neck, should ask also, "Why, what is that?" You would say, "They are the +soldiers just come back from war. For two long years they have been hard +at work, burning cities, plundering a nation, and butchering whole +armies of men. Sometimes they killed a thousand in a day. By their help, +the nation has stolen seven hundred thousand square miles of land!" +Suppose the culprits ask, "Where will you hang so many?" "Hang them!" is +the answer, "we shall only hang you. It is written in our Bible that one +murder makes a villain, millions a hero. We shall feast these men full +of bread and wine; shall take their leader, a rough man and a ready, one +who by perpetual robbery holds a hundred slaves and more, and make him a +king over all the land. But as you only burnt, robbed, and murdered on +so small a scale, and without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> the command of the President or the +Congress, we shall hang you by the neck. Our Governor ordered these men +to go and burn and rob and kill; now he orders you to be hanged, and you +must not ask any more questions, for the hour is already come."</p> + +<p>To make the whole more perfect—suppose a native of Loo-Choo, converted +to Christianity by your missionaries in his native land, had come hither +to have "the way of God" "expounded unto him more perfectly," that he +might see how these Christians love one another. Suppose he should be +witness to a scene like this!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>To men who know the facts of war, the wickedness of this particular +invasion and its wide-extending consequences, I fear that my words will +seem poor and cold and tame. I have purposely mastered my emotion, +telling only my thought. I have uttered no denunciation against the men +who caused this destruction of treasure, this massacre of men, this +awful degradation of the moral sense. The respectable men of +Boston—"the men of property and standing" all over the State, the men +that commonly control the politics of New England, tell you that they +dislike the war. But they reëlect the men who made it. Has a single man +in all New England lost his seat in any office because he favored the +war? Not a man. Have you ever known a northern merchant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> who would not +let his ship for the war, because the war was wicked and he a Christian? +Have you ever known a northern manufacturer who would not sell a kernel +of powder, nor a cannon-ball, nor a coat, nor a shirt for the war? Have +you ever known a capitalist, a man who lives by letting money, refuse to +lend money for the war because the war was wicked? Not a merchant, not a +manufacturer, not a capitalist. A little money—it can buy up whole +hosts of men. Virginia sells her negroes; what does New England sell? +There was once a man in Boston, a rich man too, not a very great man, +only a good one who loved his country, and there was another poor man +here, in the times that tried men's souls,—but there was not money +enough in all England, not enough promise of honors, to make Hancock and +Adams false to their sense of right. Is our soil degenerate, and have we +lost the breed of noble men?</p> + +<p>No, I have not denounced the men who directly made the war, or +indirectly edged the people on. Pardon me, thou prostrate Mexico, robbed +of more than half thy soil, that America may have more slaves; thy +cities burned, thy children slain, the streets of thy capital trodden by +the alien foot, but still smoking with thy children's blood: pardon me +if I seem to have forgotten thee! And you, ye butchered Americans, slain +by the vomito, the gallows, and the sword; you, ye maimed and mutilated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> +men, who shall never again join hands in prayer, never kneel to God once +more upon the limbs he made you; you, ye widows, orphans of these +butchered men, far off in that more sunny South, here in our own fair +land, pardon me that I seem to forget your wrongs! And thou, my Country, +my own, my loved, my native land, thou child of great ideas and mother +of many a noble son, dishonored now, thy treasure wasted, thy children +killed or else made murderers, thy peaceful glory gone, thy Government +made to pimp and pander for lust of crime, forgive me that I seem +over-gentle to the men who did and do the damning deed which wastes thy +treasure, spills thy blood, and stains thine honor's sacred fold! And +you, ye sons of men everywhere, thou child of God, Mankind, whose +latest, fairest hope is planted here in this new world,—forgive me if I +seem gentle to thy enemies, and to forget the crime that so dishonors +man, and makes this ground a slaughter-yard of men—slain, too, in +furtherance of the basest wish! I have no words to tell the pity that I +feel for them that did the deed. I only say, "Father, forgive them, for +they know full well the sin they do!"</p> + +<p>A sectarian church could censure a General for holding his candle in a +Catholic cathedral; it was "a candle to the Pope"; yet never dared to +blame the war. While we loaded a ship of war with corn and sent off the +Macedonian to Cork, freighted by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> private bounty to feed the starving +Irishman, the State sent her ships to Vera Cruz, in a cause most unholy, +to bombard, to smite, and to kill. Father! forgive the State; forgive +the church. It was an ignorant State. It was a silent church—a poor, +dumb dog, that dared not bark at the wolf who prowls about the fold, but +only at the lamb.</p> + +<p>Yet ye leaders of the land, know this,—that the blood of thirty +thousand men cries out of the ground against you. Be it your folly or +your crime, still cries the voice, "Where is thy brother?" That thirty +thousand—in the name of humanity I ask, "Where are they?" In the name +of justice I answer, "You slew them!"</p> + +<p>It was not the people who made this war. They have often enough done a +foolish thing. But it was not they who did this wrong. It was they who +led the people; it was demagogues that did it. Whig demagogues and +demagogues of the democrats; men that flatter the ignorance, the folly, +or the sin of the people, that they might satisfy their own base +purposes. In May, 1846, if the facts of the case could have been stated +to the voters, and the question put to the whole mass of the people, +"Shall we go down and fight Mexico, spending two hundred million of +dollars, maiming four and twenty thousand men, and butchering thirty +thousand; shall we rob her of half her territory?"—the lowest and most +miserable part of the nation would have said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> as they did say, "Yes;" +the demagogues of the nation would have said as they did say, "Yes;" +perhaps a majority of the men of the South would have said so, for the +humanity of the nation lies not there; but if it had been brought to the +great mass of the people at the North,—whose industry and skill so +increase the national wealth, whose intelligence and morals have given +the nation its character abroad,—then they, the great majority of the +land, would have said "No. We will have no war! If we want more land, we +will buy it in the open market, and pay for it honestly. But we are not +thieves, nor murderers, thank God, and will not butcher a nation to make +a slave-field out of her soil." The people would not have made this war.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Well, we have got a new territory, enough to make one hundred States of +the size of Massachusetts. That is not all. We have beaten the armies of +Mexico, destroyed the little strength she had left, the little +self-respect, else she would not so have yielded and given up half her +soil for a few miserable dollars. Soon we shall take the rest of her +possessions. How can Mexico hold them now—weakened, humiliated, divided +worse than ever within herself. Before many years, all of this northern +continent will doubtless be in the hands of the Anglo Saxon race. That +of itself is not a thing to mourn at. Could we have extended our empire +there by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> trade, by the Christian arts of peace, it would be a blessing +to us and to Mexico; a blessing to the world. But we have done it in the +worst way, by fraud and blood; for the worst purpose, to steal soil and +convert the cities of men into the shambles for human flesh; have done +it at the bidding of men whose counsels long have been a scourge and a +curse—at the bidding of slaveholders. They it is that rule the land, +fill the offices, buy up the North with the crumbs that fall from their +political table, make the laws, declare hostilities, and leave the North +to pay the bill. Shall we ever waken out of our sleep; shall we ever +remember the duties we owe to the world and to God, who put us here on +this new continent? Let us not despair.</p> + +<p>Soon we shall have all the southern part of the continent, perhaps half +the islands of the Gulf. One thing remains to do—that is, with the new +soil we have taken, to extend order, peace, education, religion; to keep +it from the blight, the crime, and the sin of slavery. That is for the +nation to do; for the North to do. God knows the South will never do it. +Is there manliness enough left in the North to do that? Has the soil +forgot its wonted faith, and borne a different race of men from those +who struggled eight long years for freedom? Do we forget our sires, +forget our God? In the day when the monarchs of Europe are shaken from +their thrones; when the Russian and the Turk abolish slavery; when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +cowardly Naples awakes from her centuries of sleep, and will have +freedom; when France prays to become a Republic, and in her agony sweats +great drops of blood; while the Tories of the world look on and mock and +wag their heads; and while the Angel of Hope descends with trusting +words to comfort her,—shall America extend slavery? butcher a nation to +get soil to make a field for slaves? I know how easily the South can buy +office-hunters; whig or democrat, the price is still the same. The same +golden eagle blinds the eyes of each. But can she buy the people of the +North? Is honesty gone, and honor gone, your love of country gone, +religion gone, and nothing manly left; not even shame? Then let us +perish; let the Union perish! No, let that stand firm, and let the +Northern men themselves be slaves; and let us go to our masters and say, +"You are very few, we are very many; we have the wealth, the numbers, +the intelligence, the religion of the land; but you have the power, do +not be hard upon us; pray give us a little something, some humble +offices, or if not these at least a tariff, and we will be content."</p> + +<p>Slavery has already been the blight of this nation, the curse of the +North and the curse of the South. It has hindered commerce, +manufactures, agriculture. It confounds your politics. It has silenced +your ablest men. It has muzzled the pulpit, and stifled the better life +out of the press. It has robbed three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> million men of what is dearer +than life; it has kept back the welfare of seventeen millions more. You +ask, O Americans, where is the harmony of the Union? It was broken by +slavery. Where is the treasure we have wasted? It was squandered by +slavery. Where are the men we sent to Mexico? They were murdered by +slavery; and now the slave power comes forward to put her new minions, +her thirteenth President, upon the nation's neck! Will the North say +"Yes?"</p> + +<p>But there is a Providence which rules the world,—a plan in His affairs. +Shall all this war, this aggression of the slave power be for nothing? +Surely not. Let it teach us two things: Everlasting hostility to +slavery; everlasting love of Justice and of its Eternal Right. Then, +dear as we may pay for it, it may be worth what it has cost—the money +and the men. I call on you, ye men—fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, +to learn this lesson, and, when duty calls, to show that you know +it—know it by heart and at your fingers' ends! And you, ye +women—mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, I call on you to teach this +lesson to your children, and let them know that such a war is sin, and +slavery sin, and, while you teach them to hate both, teach them to be +men, and do the duties of noble, Christian, and manly men! Behind +injustice there is ruin, and above man there is the everlasting God.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> In the Massachusetts Quarterly Review, Vol. I. Article I. +See also the paper on the administration of Mr. Polk, in Vol. III. Art. +VIII.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Mr. Trist introduced these articles into the treaty, +without having instructions from the American Government to do so; the +honor, therefore, is wholly due to him. There were some in the Senate +who opposed these articles.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> See Mr. Clay's speech at the dinner in New Orleans on +Forefathers' day.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> See Mr. Webster's speech to the volunteers at +Philadelphia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> A case of this sort had just occurred in Boston.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Mr. George N. Briggs.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> +<h2>VI.</h2> + +<h3>A SERMON OF THE PERISHING CLASSES IN BOSTON.—PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, +ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 1846.</h3> +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> +<h4>MATTHEW XVIII. 14.</h4> + +<h4>It is not the will of our Father which is in heaven, that one of these +little ones should perish. +</h4> + +<p>There are two classes of men who are weak and little: one is little by +nature, consisting of such as are born with feeble powers, not strongly +capable of self-help; the other is little by position, comprising men +that are permanently poor and ignorant. When Jesus said, It is not God's +will that one of these little ones should perish, I take it he included +both these classes—men little by nature, and men little by position. +Furthermore, I take it he said what is true, that it is not God's will +one of these little ones should perish. Now, a man may be said to perish +when he is ruined, or even when he fails to attain the degree of manhood +he might attain under the average circumstances of this present age, and +these present men. In a society like ours, and that of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> nations at +this time, as hitherto, with such a history, a history of blood and +violence, cunning and fraud; resting on such a basis—a basis of +selfishness; a society wherein there is a preference of the mighty, and +a postponement of the righteous, where power is worshipped and justice +little honored, though much talked of, it comes to pass that a great +many little ones from both these classes actually perish. If Jesus spoke +the truth, then they perish contrary to the will of God, and, of course, +by some other will adverse to the will of God. In a society where the +natural laws of the body are constantly violated, where many men are +obliged by circumstances to violate them, it follows unavoidably that +many are born little by nature, and they transmit their feebleness to +their issue. The other class, men little by position, are often so +hedged about with difficulties, so neglected, that they cannot change +their condition; they bequeath also their littleness to their children. +Thus the number of little ones enlarges with the increase of society. +This class becomes perpetual; a class of men mainly abandoned by the +Christians.</p> + +<p>In all forms of social life hitherto devised these classes have +appeared, and it has been a serious question, What shall be done with +them? Seldom has it been the question, What shall be done for them? In +olden time the Spartans took children born with a weak or imperfect +body, children who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> would probably be a hinderance to the nation, and +threw them into a desert place to be devoured by the wild beasts, and so +settled that question. At this day, the Chinese, I am told, expose such +children in the streets and beside the rivers, to the humanity of +passers by; and not only such, but sound, healthy children, none the +less, who, though strong by nature, are born into a weak position. Many +of them are left to die, especially the boys. But some are saved, those +mainly girls. I will not say they are saved by the humanity of wealthier +men. They become slaves, devoted by their masters to a most base and +infamous purpose. With the exception of criminals, these abandoned +daughters of the poor, form, it is said, the only class of slaves in +that great country.</p> + +<p>Neither the Chinese nor the Spartan method is manly or human. It does +with the little ones, not for them. It does away with them, and that is +all. I will not decide which is the worst of the two modes, the Chinese +or the Spartan. We are accustomed to call both these nations heathen, +and take it for granted they do not know it is God's will that not one +of these little ones should perish. Be that as it may, we do not call +ourselves heathen; we pretend to know the will of God in this +particular. Let us look, therefore, and see how we have disposed of the +little ones in Boston, what we are doing for them or with them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> + +<p>Let me begin with neglected and abandoned children. We all know how +large and beautiful a provision is made for the public education of the +people. About a fourth part of the city taxes are for the public +schools. Yet one not familiar with this place is astonished at the +number of idle, vagrant boys and girls in the streets. It appears from +the late census of Boston, that there are 4,948 children between four +and fifteen who attend no school. I am not speaking of truants, +occasional absentees, but of children whose names are not registered at +school, permanent absentees. If we allow that 1,948 of these are kept in +some sort of restraint by their parents, and have, or have had, some +little pains taken with their culture at home; that they are feeble and +do not begin to attend school so early as most, or that they are +precocious, and complete their studies before fifteen, or for some other +good reason are taken from school, and put to some useful business, +there still remain 3,000 children who never attend any school, turned +loose into your streets! Suppose there is some error in the counting, +that the number is overstated one third, still there are left 2,000 +young vagrants in the streets of Boston!</p> + +<p>What will be the fate of these 2,000 children? Some men are superior to +circumstances; so well born they defy ill breeding. There may be +children so excellent and strong they cannot be spoiled. Surely there +are some who will learn with no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> school; boys of vast genius, whom you +cannot keep from learning. Others there are of wonderful moral gifts, +whom no circumstances can make vulgar; they will live in the midst of +corruption and keep clean through the innate refinement of a wondrous +soul. Out of these 2,000 children there may be two of this sort; it were +foolish to look for more than one in a thousand. The 1,997 depend mainly +on circumstances to help them; yes, to make their character. Send them +to school and they will learn. Give them good precepts, good examples, +they will also become good. Give them bad precepts, bad examples, and +they become wicked. Send them half clad and uncared for into your +streets, and they grow up hungry savages greedy for crime.</p> + +<p>What have these abandoned children to help them? Nothing, literally +nothing! They are idle, though their bodies crave activity. They are +poor, ill-clad, and ill-fed. There is nothing about them to foster +self-respect; nothing to call forth their conscience, to awaken and +cultivate their sense of religion. They find themselves beggars in the +wealth of a city; idlers in the midst of its work. Yes, savages in the +midst of civilization. Their consciousness is that of an outcast, one +abandoned and forsaken of men. In cities, life is intense amongst all +classes. So the passions and appetites of such children are strong and +violent. Their taste is low; their wants clamorous. Are religion and +conscience there to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> abate the fever of passion and regulate desire? The +moral class and the cultivated shun these poor wretches, or look on with +stupid wonder. Our rule is that the whole need the physician, not the +sick. They are left almost entirely to herd and consort with the basest +of men; they are exposed early and late to the worst influences, and +their only comrades are men whom the children of the rich are taught to +shun as the pestilence. To be poor is hard enough in the country, where +artificial wants are few, and those easily met, where all classes are +humbly clad, and none fare sumptuously every day. But to be poor in the +city, where a hundred artificial desires daily claim satisfaction, and +where, too, it is difficult for the poor to satisfy the natural and +unavoidable wants of food and raiment; to be hungry, ragged, dirty, amid +luxury, wantonness and refinement; to be miserable in the midst of +abundance, that is hard beyond all power of speech. Look, I will not say +at the squalid dress of these children, as you see them prowling about +the markets and wharves, or contending in the dirty lanes and by-places +into which the pride of Boston has elbowed so much of her misery; look +at their faces! Haggard as they are, meagre and pale and wan, want is +not the worst thing written there, but cunning, fraud, violence and +obscenity, and worst of all, fear!</p> + +<p>Amid all the science and refined culture of the nineteenth century, +these children learn little; little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> that is good, much that is bad. In +the intense life around them, they unavoidably become vicious, obscene, +deceitful and violent. They will lie, steal, be drunk. How can it be +otherwise?</p> + +<p>If you could know the life of one of those poor lepers of Boston, you +would wonder, and weep. Let me take one of them at random out of the +mass. He was born, unwelcome, amid wretchedness and want. His coming +increased both. Miserably he struggles through his infancy, less tended +than the lion's whelp. He becomes a boy. He is covered only with rags, +and those squalid with long accumulated filth. He wanders about your +streets, too low even to seek employment, now snatching from a gutter +half rotten fruit which the owner flings away. He is ignorant; he has +never entered a school-house; to him even the alphabet is a mystery. He +is young in years, yet old in misery. There is no hope in his face. He +herds with others like himself, low, ragged, hungry and idle. If misery +loves company, he finds that satisfaction. Follow him to his home at +night; he herds in a cellar; in the same sty with father, mother, +brothers, sisters, and perhaps yet other families of like degree. What +served him for dress by day, is his only bed by night.</p> + +<p>Well, this boy steals some trifle, a biscuit, a bit of rope, or a knife +from a shop-window; he is seized and carried to jail. The day comes for +trial. He is marched through the streets in handcuffs, the companion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> of +drunkards and thieves, thus deadening the little self-respect which +Nature left even in an outcast's bosom. He sits there chained like a +beast; a boy in irons! the sport and mockery of men vulgar as the common +sewer. His trial comes. Of course he is convicted. The show of his +countenance is witness against him. His rags and dirt, his ignorance, +his vagrant habits, his idleness, all testify against him. That face so +young, and yet so impudent, so sly, so writ all over with embryo +villany, is evidence enough. The jury are soon convinced, for they see +his temptations in his look, and surely know that in such a condition +men will steal: yes, they themselves would steal. The judge represents +the law, and that practically regards it a crime even for a boy to be +weak and poor. Much of our common law, it seems to me, is based on +might, not right. So he is hurried off to jail at a tender age, and made +legally the companion of felons. Now the State has him wholly in her +power; by that rough adoption, has made him her own child, and sealed +the indenture with the jailer's key. His handcuffs are the symbol of his +sonship to the State. She shuts him in her college for the Little. What +does that teach him; science, letters; even morals and religion? Little +enough of this, even in Boston, and in most counties of Massachusetts, I +think, nothing at all, not even a trade which he can practise when his +term expires! I have been told a story, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> wish it might be falsely +told, of a boy, in this city, of sixteen, sent to the house of +correction for five years because he stole a bunch of keys, and coming +out of that jail at twenty-one, unable to write, or read, or calculate, +and with no trade but that of picking oakum. Yet he had been five years +the child of the State, and in that college for the poor! Who would +employ such a youth; with such a reputation; with the smell of the jail +in his very breath? Not your shrewd men of business, they know the risk; +not your respectable men, members of churches and all that; not they! +Why it would hurt a man's reputation for piety to do good in that way. +Besides, the risk is great, and it argues a great deal more Christianity +than it is popular to have, for a respectable man to employ such a +youth. He is forced back into crime again. I say, forced, for honest men +will not employ him when the State shoves him out of the jail. Soon you +will have him in the court again, to be punished more severely. Then he +goes to the State Prison, and then again, and again, till death +mercifully ends his career!</p> + +<p>Who is to blame for all that? I will ask the best man among the best of +you, what he would have become, if thus abandoned, turned out in +childhood, and with no culture, into the streets, to herd with the +wickedest of men! Somebody says, there are "organic sins" in society +which nobody is to blame for. But by this sin organized in society, +these vagrant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> children are training up to become thieves, pirates and +murderers. I cannot blame them. But there is a terrible blame somewhere, +for it is not the will of God that one of these little ones should +perish. Who is it that organizes the sin of society?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Let us next look at the parents of these vagrants, at the adult poor. It +is not easy or needed for this purpose, to define very nicely the limits +of a class, and tell where the rich end, and the poor begin. However, +men may, in reference to this matter, be divided into three classes. The +first acts on society mainly by their capital; the second mainly by +their skill, mental and manual, by educated labor; and the third by +their muscles, by brute force with little or no skill, uneducated labor. +The poor, I take it, come mainly from this latter class. Education of +head or hand, a profession or a trade, is wealth in possibility; yes, +wealth in prospect, wealth in its process of accumulation, for wealth +itself is only accumulated labor, as learning is accumulated thought. +Most of our rich men have come out of this class which acts by its +skill, and their children in a few years will return to it. I am not now +to speak of men transiently poor, who mend their condition as the hours +go by, who may gain enough, and perhaps become rich; but of men +permanently poor, whom one year finds wanting, and the next leaves no +better off; men that live, as we say, from hand to mouth, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> whose +hand and mouth are often empty. Even here in Boston, there is little of +the justice that removes causes of poverty, though so much of the +charity which alleviates its effects. Those men live, if you can call it +life, crowded together more densely, I am told, than in Naples or Paris, +in London or Liverpool. Boston has its ghetto, not for the Jews as at +Prague and at Rome, but for brother Christians. In the quarters +inhabited mainly by the poor, you find a filthiness and squalor which +would astonish a stranger. The want of comfort, of air, of water, is +terrible. Cold is a stern foe in our winters, but in these places, I am +told that men suffer more from want of water in summer, than want of +fire in winter.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> If your bills of mortality were made out so as to +show the deaths in each ward of the city, I think all would be +astonished at the results. Disease and death are the result of causes, +causes too that may for a long time be avoided, and in the more favored +classes are avoided. It is not God's will that the rich be spared and +the poor die. Yet the greatest mortality is always among the poor. Out +of each hundred Catholics who died in Boston, from 1833 to 1838, more +than sixty-one were less than five years of age. The result for the last +six years is no better. Of one hundred children born amongst them, only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> +thirty-eight live five years; only eleven become fifty! Gray-haired +Irishmen we seldom see. Yet they are not worse off than others equally +poor, only we can more distinctly get at the facts. In the war with +disease which mankind is waging, the poor stand in front of the fire, +and are mowed down without pity!</p> + +<p>Of late years, in Boston, there has been a gradual increase in the +mortality of children.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> I think we shall find the increase only among +the children of the poor. Of course it depends on causes which may be +removed, at least modified, for the average life of mankind is on the +increase. I am told, I know not if the authority be good, that mortality +among the poor is greater in Boston than in any city of Europe.</p> + +<p>Of old times the rich man rode into battle, shirted with mail, covered +and shielded with iron from head to foot. Arrows glanced from him as +from a stone. He came home unhurt and covered with "glory." But the +poor, in his leathern jerkin or his linen frock, confronted the war, +where every weapon tore his unprotected flesh. In the modern, perennial +battle with disease, the same thing takes place; the poor fall and die.</p> + +<p>The destruction of the poor is their poverty. They are ignorant, not +from choice but necessity. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> cannot, therefore, look round and see +the best way of doing things, of saving their strength, and sparing +their means. They can have little of what we call thrift, the brain in +the hand for which our people are so remarkable. Some of them are also +little by nature, ill-born; others well born enough, were abandoned in +childhood, and have not since been able to make up the arrears of a +neglected youth. They are to fight the great battle of life, for battle +it is to them, with feeble arms. Look at the houses they live in, +without comfort or convenience, without sun, or air, or water; damp, +cold, filthy and crowded to excess. In one section of the city there are +thirty-seven persons on an average in each house.</p> + +<p>Consider the rents paid by this class of our brothers. It is they who +pay the highest rate for their dwellings. The worth of the house is +often little more than nothing, the ground it covers making the only +value. I am told that twelve or fifteen per cent a year on a large +valuation is quite commonly paid, and over thirty per cent on the actual +value, is not a strange thing. I wish this might not prove true.</p> + +<p>But the misery of the poor does not end with their wretched houses and +exorbitant rent. Having neither capital nor store-room, they must +purchase articles of daily need in the smallest quantities. They buy, +therefore, at the greatest disadvantage, and yet at the dearest rates. I +am told it is not a rare thing for them to buy inferior qualities of +flour at six cents<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> a pound, or $11.88 a barrel, while another man buys +a month's supply at a time for $4 or $5 a barrel. This may be an extreme +case, but I know that in some places in this city, an inferior article +is now retailed to them at $7.92 the barrel. So it is with all kinds of +food; they are bought in the smallest quantities, and at a rate which a +rich man would think ruinous. Is not the poor man, too, most often +cheated in the weight and the measure? So it is whispered. "He has no +friends," says the sharper; "others have broken him to fragments, I will +grind him to powder!" And the grinding comes.</p> + +<p>Such being the case, the poor man finds it difficult to get a cent +beforehand. I know rich men tell us that capital is at the mercy of +labor. That may be prophecy; it is not history; not fact. Uneducated +labor, brute force without skill, is wholly at the mercy of capital. The +capitalist can control the market for labor, which is all the poor man +has to part with. The poor cannot combine as the rich. True, a mistake +is sometimes made, and the demand for labor is greater than the supply, +and the poor man's wages are increased. This result was doubtless God's +design, but was it man's intention? The condition of the poor has +hitherto been bettered, not so much by the design of the strong, as by +God making their wrath and cupidity serve the weak.</p> + +<p>Under such circumstances, what marvel that the poor man becomes +unthrifty, reckless and desperate?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> I know how common it is to complain +of the extravagance of the poor. Often there is reason for the +complaint. It is a wrong thing, and immoral, for a man with a dependent +family to spend all his earnings, if it be possible to live with less. I +think many young men are much to be blamed, for squandering all their +wages to please a dainty palate, or to dress as fine as a richer man, +making only the heart of their tailor foolishly glad. Such men may not +be poor now, but destine themselves to be the fathers of poor children. +After making due allowance, it must be confessed that much of the +recklessness of the poor comes unavoidably from their circumstances; +from their despair of ever being comfortable, except for a moment at a +time. Every one knows that unmerited wealth tempts a man to squander, +while few men know, what is just as true, that hopeless poverty does the +same thing. As the tortured Indian will sleep, if his tormentor pause +but a moment, so the poor man, grown reckless and desperate, forgets the +future storms, and wastes in revel the solitary gleam of sunlight which +falls on him. It is nature speaking through his soul.</p> + +<p>Now consider the moral temptations before such men. Here is wealth, +food, clothing, comfort, luxury, gold, the great enchanter of this age, +and but a plank betwixt it and them. Nay, they are shut from it only by +a pane of glass thin as popular justice, and scarcely less brittle! They +feel the natural<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> wants of man; the artificial wants of men in cities. +They are indignant at their social position, thrust into the mews and +the kennels of the land. They think some one is to blame for it. A man +in New England does not believe it God's will he should toil for ever, +stinting and sparing only to starve the more slowly to death, overloaded +with work, with no breathing time but the blessed Sunday. They see +others doing nothing, idle as Solomon's lilies, yet wasting the unearned +bread God made to feed the children of the poor. They see crowds of idle +women elegantly clad, a show of loveliness, a rainbow in the streets, +and think of the rag which does not hide their daughter's shame. They +hear of thousands of baskets of costly wine imported in a single ship, +not brought to recruit the feeble, but to poison the palate of the +strong. They begin to ask if wealthy men and wise men have not forgotten +their brothers, in thinking of their own pleasure! It is not the poor +alone who ask that. In the midst of all this, what wonder is it if they +feel desirous of revenge; what wonder that stores and houses are broken +into, and stables set afire! Such is the natural effect of misery like +that; it is but the voice of our brother's blood crying to God against +us all. I wonder not that it cries in robbery and fire. The jail and the +gallows will not still that voice, nor silence the answer. I wonder at +the fewness of crimes, not their multitude. I must say that, if goodness +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> piety did not bear a greater proportion to the whole development of +the poor than the rich, their crimes would be tenfold. The nation sets +the poor an example of fraud, by making them pay highest on all local +taxes; of theft, by levying the national revenue on persons, not +property. Our navy and army set them the lesson of violence; and, to +complete their schooling, at this very moment we are robbing another +people of cities and lands, stealing, burning, and murdering, for lust +of power and gold. Everybody knows that the political action of a nation +is the mightiest educational influence in that nation. But such is the +doctrine the State preaches to them, a constant lesson of fraud, theft, +violence and crime. The literature of the nation mocks at the poor, +laughing in the popular journals at the poor man's inevitable crime. Our +trade deals with the poor as tools, not men. What wonder they feel +wronged! Some city missionary may dawdle the matter as he will; tell +them it is God's will they should be dirty and ignorant, hungry, cold +and naked. Now and then a poor woman starving with cold and hunger may +think it true. But the poor know better; ignorant as they are, they know +better. Great Nature speaks when you and I are still. They feel +neglected, wronged, and oppressed. What hinders them from following the +example set by the nation, by society, by the strong? Their inertness, +their cowardice, and, what does not always restrain abler men,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> their +fear of God! With cultivated men, the intellect is often developed at +the expense of conscience and religion. With the poor this is more +seldom the case.</p> + +<p>The misfortunes of the poor do not end here. To make their degradation +total, their name infamous, we have shut them out of our churches. Once +in our Puritan meeting-houses, there were "body seats" for the poor; for +a long time free galleries, where men sat and were not ashamed. Now it +is not so. A Christian society about to build a church, and having +$50,000, does not spend $40,000 for that, making it a church for all, +and keep $10,000 as a fund for the poor. No, it borrows $30,000 more, +and then shuts the poor out of its bankrupt aisles. A high tower, or a +fine-toned bell, yes, marble and mahogany, are thought better than the +presence of these little ones whom God wills not to perish. I have heard +ministers boast of the great men, and famous, who sat under their +preaching; never one who boasted that the poor came into his church, and +were fed, body and soul! You go to our churches—the poor are not in +them. They are idling and lounging away their day of rest, like the +horse and the ox. Alas me, that the apostles, that the Christ himself +could not worship in our churches, till he sold his garment and bought a +pew! Many of our houses of public worship would be well named, "Churches +for the affluent." Yet religion is more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> to the poor man than to the +rich. What wonder then, if the poor lose self-respect, when driven from +the only churches where it is thought respectable to pray!</p> + +<p>This class of men are perishing; yes, perishing in the nineteenth +century; perishing in Boston, wealthy, charitable Boston; perishing soul +and body, contrary to God's will; and perishing all the worse because +they die slow, and corrupt by inches. As things now are, their mortality +is hardly a curse. The Methodists are right in telling them this world +is a valley of tears; it is almost wholly so to them; and Heaven a long +June day, full of rest and plenty. To die is their only gain; their only +hope. Think of that, you who murmur because money is "tight," because +your investment gives only twenty per cent. a year, or because you are +taxed for half your property, meaning to move off next season; think of +that, you who complain because the democrats are in power to-day, and +you who tremble lest the whigs shall be in '49; think of that, you who +were never hungry, nor athirst; who are sick, because you have nothing +else to do, and grumble against God, from mere emptiness of soul, and +for amusement's sake; think of men, who, if wise, do not dare to raise +the human prayer for life, but for death, as the only gain, the only +hope, and you will give over your complaint, your hands stopping your +mouth.</p> + +<p>What shall become of the children of such men?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> They stand in the +fore-front of the battle, all unprotected as they are; a people +scattered and peeled, only a miserable remnant reaches the age of ten! +Look about your streets, and see what does become of such as live, +vagrant and idle boys. Ask the police, the constables, the jails; they +shall tell you what becomes of the sons. Will a white lily grow in a +common sewer; can you bleach linen in a tan-pit? Yes, as soon as you can +rear a virtuous population, under such circumstances. Go to any State +Prison in the land, and you shall find that seven-eighths of the +convicts came from this class, brought there by crimes over which they +had no control; crimes which would have made you and me thieves and +pirates. The characters of such men are made for them, far more than by +them. There is no more vice, perhaps, born into that class; they have no +more "inherited sin" than any other class in the land; all the +difference, then, between the morals and manners of rich and poor, is +the result of education and circumstances.</p> + +<p>The fate of the daughters of the poor is yet worse. Many of them are +doomed to destruction by the lust of men, their natural guardians and +protectors. Think of an able, "respectable" man, comfortable, educated +and "Christian," helping debase a woman, degrade her in his eyes, her +eyes, the eyes of the world! Why it is bad enough to enslave a man, but +thus to enslave a woman—I have no words to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> speak of that. The crime +and sin, foul, polluting and debasing all it touches, has come here to +curse man and woman, the married and the single, and the babe unborn! It +seems to me as if I saw the Genius of this city stand before God, +lifting his hands in agony to heaven, crying for mercy on woman, +insulted and trodden down, for vengeance on man, who treads her thus +infamously into the dust. The vengeance comes, not the mercy. Misery in +woman is the strongest inducement to crime. Where self-respect is not +fostered; where severe toil hardly holds her soul and body together amid +the temptations of a city, and its heated life, it is no marvel to me +that this sin should slay its victims, finding woman an easy prey.</p> + +<p>Let me follow the children of the poor a step further—I mean to the +jail. Few men seem aware of the frightful extent of crime amongst us, +and the extent of the remedy, more awful yet. In less than one year, +namely, from the 9th of June, 1845, to the 2d of June, 1846, there were +committed to your House of Correction, in this city, 1,228 persons, a +little more than one out of every fifty-six in the whole population that +is more than ten years old. Of these 377 were women; 851 men. Five were +sentenced for an indefinite period, and forty-seven for an additional +period of solitary imprisonment. In what follows, I make no account of +that. But the whole remaining period of their sentences<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> amounts to more +than 544 years, or 198,568 days. In addition to this, in the year ending +with June 9, 1846, we sent from Boston to the State Prison, thirty-five +more, and for a period of 18,595 days, of which 205 were solitary. Thus +it appears that the illegal and convicted crime of Boston, in one year, +was punished by imprisonment for 217,163 days. Now as Boston contains +but 114,366 persons of all ages, and only 69,112 that are over ten years +of age, it follows that the imprisonment of citizens of Boston for crime +in one year, amounts to more than one day and twenty-one hours, for each +man, woman, and child, or to more than three days and three hours, for +each one over ten years of age. This seems beyond belief, yet in making +the estimate, I have not included the time spent in jail before +sentence; I have left out the solitary imprisonment in the House of +Correction; I have said nothing of the 169 children, sentenced for crime +to the House of Reformation in the same period.</p> + +<p>What is the effect of this punishment on society at large? I will not +now attempt to answer that question. What is it on the criminals +themselves? Let the jail-books answer. Of the whole number, 202 were +sentenced for the second time; 131 for the third; 101 for the fourth; +thirty-eight for the fifth; forty for the sixth; twenty-nine for the +seventh; twenty-three for the eighth; twelve for the ninth; fifty for +the tenth time, or more; and of the criminals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> punished for the tenth +time, thirty-one were women! Of the thirty-five sent to the State +Prison, fourteen had been there before; of the 1,228 sent to the House +of Correction, only 626 were sent for the first time.</p> + +<p>There are two classes, the victims of society, and the foes of society, +the men that organize its sins, and then tell us nobody is to blame. May +God deal mercifully with the foes; I had rather take my part with the +victims. Yet is there one who wishes to be a foe to mankind?</p> + +<p>Here are the sons of the poor, vagrant in your streets, shut out by +their misery from the culture of the age; growing up to fill your jails, +to be fathers of a race like themselves, and to be huddled into an +infamous grave. Here are the daughters of the poor, cast out and +abandoned, the pariahs of our civilization, training up for a life of +shame and pollution, and coming early to a miserable end. Here are the +poor, daughters and sons, excluded from the refining influences of +modern life, shut out of the very churches by that bar of gold, +ignorant, squalid, hungry and hopeless, wallowing in their death! Are +these the results of modern civilization; this in the midst of the +nineteenth century, in a Christian city full of churches and gold; this +in Boston, which adds $13,000,000 a year to her actual wealth? Is that +the will of God? Tell it not in China; whisper it not in New Holland, +lest the heathen turn pale with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> horror, and send back your +missionaries, fearing they shall pollute the land!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>There is yet another class of little ones. I mean the intemperate. +Within the last few years it seems that drunkenness has increased. I +know this is sometimes doubted. But if this fact is not shown by the +increased number of legal convictions for the crime, it is by the sight +of drunken men in public and not arrested. I think I have not visited +the city five times in the last ten months without seeing more or less +men drunk in the streets. The cause of this increase it seems to me is +not difficult to discover. All great movements go forward by +undulations, as the waves of the rising tide come up the beach. Now +comes a great wave reaching far up the shore, and then recedes. The +next, and the next, and the next falls short of the highest mark; yet +the tide is coming in all the while. You see this same undulation in +other popular movements; for example, in politics. Once the great wave +of democracy broke over the central power, washing it clean. Now the +water lies submissive beneath that rock, and humbly licks its feet. In +some other day the popular wave shall break with purifying roar clean +over that haughty stone and wash off the lazy barnacles, heaps of +corrupting drift-weed, and deadly monsters of the deep. By such +seemingly unsteady movements do popular affairs get forward. The +reformed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> drunkards, it is said, were violent, ill-bred, theatrical, and +only touched the surface. Many respectable men withdrew from the work +soon as the Washingtonians came to it. It was a pity they did so; but +they did. I think the conscience of New England did not trust the +reformed men; that also is a pity. They seem now to have relaxed their +efforts in a great measure, perhaps discouraged at the coldness with +which they have in some quarters been treated. I know not why it is, but +they do not continue so ably the work they once begun. Besides, the +State, it was thought, favored intemperance. It was for a long time +doubted if the license-laws were constitutional; so they were openly set +at nought, for wicked men seize on doubtful opportunities. Then, too, +temperance had gone, a few years ago, as far as it could be expected to +go until certain great obstacles were removed. Many leading men in the +land were practically hostile to temperance, and, with some remarkable +exceptions, still are. The sons of the pilgrims, last Forefathers' day, +could not honor the self-denial of the Puritans without wine! The Alumni +of Harvard University could never, till this season, keep their holidays +without strong drink.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> If rich men continue to drink without need,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +the poor will long continue to be drunk. Vices, like decayed furniture, +go down. They keep their shape, but become more frightful. In this way +the refined man who often drinks, but is never drunk, corrupts hundreds +of men whom he never saw, and without intending it becomes a foe to +society.</p> + +<p>Then, too, some of our influential temperance men aid us no longer. +Beecher is not here; Channing and Ware have gone to their reward. That +other man,<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> benevolent and indefatigable, where is he? He trod the +worm of the still under his feet, but the worm of the pulpit stung him, +and he too is gone; that champion of temperance, that old man eloquent, +driven out of Boston. Why should I not tell an open secret?—driven out +by rum and the Unitarian clergy of Boston.</p> + +<p>Whatsoever the causes may be, I think you see proofs enough of the fact, +that drunkenness has increased within the last few years. You see it in +the men drunken in the streets, in the numerous shops built to gratify +the intemperate man. Some of these are elegant and costly, only for the +rich; others so mean and dirty, that one must be low indeed to wallow +therein. But the same thing is there in both, rum, poison-drink. Many of +these latter are kept by poor men, and the spider's web of the law now +and then catches one of them, though latterly but seldom here.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> +Sometimes they are kept, and, perhaps, generally owned, by rich men who +drive through the net. I know how hard it is to see through a dollar, +though misery stand behind it, if the dollar be your own, and the misery +belong to your brother. I feel pity for the man who helps ruin his race, +who scatters firebrands and death throughout society, scathing the heads +of rich and poor, and old and young. I would speak charitably of such an +one as of a fellow-sinner. How he can excuse it to his own conscience is +his affair, not mine. I speak only of the fact. For a poor man there may +be some excuse; he has no other calling whereby to gain his bread; he +would not see his own children beg, nor starve, nor steal! To see his +neighbor go to ruin and drag thither his children and wife, was not so +hard. But it is not the shops of the poor men that do most harm! Had +there been none but these, they had long ago been shut, and intemperance +done with. It is not poor men that manufacture this poison; nor they who +import it, or sell by the wholesale. If there were no rich men in this +trade there would soon be no poor ones! But how does the rich man +reconcile it to his conscience? I cannot answer that.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to find out the number of drink-shops in the city. The +assessors say there are eight hundred and fifty; another authority makes +the number twelve hundred. Let us suppose there are but one thousand. I +think that much below the real number,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> for the assistant assessors +found three hundred in a single ward! These shops are open morning and +night. More is sold on Sunday, it is said, than any other day in the +week! While you are here to worship your Father, some of your brothers +are making themselves as beasts; yes, lower. You shall probably see them +at the doors of these shops as you go home; drunk in the streets this +day! To my mind, the retailers are committing a great offence. I am no +man's judge, and cannot condemn even them. There is one that judgeth. I +cannot stand in the place of any man's conscience. I know well enough +what is sin; God, only, who is a sinner. Yet I cannot think the poor man +that retails, half so bad as the rich man who distils, imports, or sells +by wholesale the infamous drug. He knew better, and cannot plead poverty +as the excuse of his crime.</p> + +<p>Let me mention some of the statistics of this trade before I speak of +its effects. If there are one thousand drink-shops, and each sells +liquor to the amount of only six dollars a day, which is the price of +only one hundred drams, or two hundred at the lowest shops, then we have +the sum of $2,190,000 paid for liquor to be drunk on the spot every +year. This sum is considerably more than double the amount paid for the +whole public education of the people in the entire State of +Massachusetts! In Boston alone, last year, there were distilled, +2,873,623 gallons of spirit. In five years, from 1840 to 1845, Boston +exported<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> 2,156,990, and imported 2,887,993 gallons. They burnt up a man +the other day, at the distillery in Merrimack street. You read the story +in the daily papers, and remember how the by-standers looked on with +horror to see the wounded man attempting with his hands to fend off the +flames from his naked head! Great Heaven! It was not the first man that +distillery has burned up! No, not by thousands. You see men about your +streets, all afire; some half-burnt down; some with all the soul burned +out, only the cinders left of the man, the shell and wall, and that +tumbling and tottering, ready to fall. Who of you has not lost a +relative, at least a friend, in that withering flame, that terrible +<i>Auto da fe</i>, that hell-fire on earth?</p> + +<p>Let us look away from that. I wish we could look on something to efface +that ghastly sight. But see the results of this trade. Do you wonder at +the poverty just now spoken of; at the vagrant children? In the Poor +House at Albany, at one time, there were 633 persons, and of them 615 +were intemperate! Ask your city authorities how many of the poor are +brought to their Almshouse directly or remotely by intemperance! Do you +wonder at the crime which fills your jails, and swells the tax of county +and city? Three fourths of the petty crime in the State comes from this +source directly or remotely. Your jails were never so full before! When +the parents are there, what is left for the children?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> In Prussia, the +Government which imprisons the father takes care of the children, and +sends them to school. Here they are forced into crime.</p> + +<p>As I gave some statistics of the cause, let me also give some of the +effects. Two years ago your Grand Jury reports that one of the city +police, on Sunday morning, between the hours of twelve and two, in +walking from Cornhill square to Cambridge street, passed more than one +hundred persons more or less drunk! In 1844 there were committed to your +House of Correction, for drunkenness, 453 persons; in 1845, 595; in +1846, up to the 24th of August, that is, in seven months and twenty-four +days, 446. Besides there have been already in this year, 396 complained +of at the Police Court and fined, but not sent to the House of +Correction. Thus, in seven months and twenty-four days, 842 persons have +been legally punished for public drunkenness. In the last two months and +a half 445 persons were thus punished. In the first twenty-four days of +this month, ninety-four! In the last year there were 4,643 persons +committed to your watch-houses, more than the twenty-fifth of the whole +population. The thousand drink-shops levy a direct tax of more than +$2,000,000. That is only the first outlay. The whole ultimate cost in +idleness, sickness, crime, death and broken hearts—I leave you to +calculate that! The men who live in the lower courts, familiar with the +sinks of iniquity, speak of this crime as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> "most awful!" Yet in this +month and the last, there were but nine persons indicted for the illegal +sale of the poison which so wastes the people's life! The head of your +Police and the foreman of your last Grand Jury are prominent in that +trade.</p> + +<p>Does the Government know of these things; know of their cause? One would +hope not. The last Grand Jury in their public report, after speaking +manfully of some actual evils, instead of pointing at drunkenness and +bar-rooms, direct your attention "to the increased number of omnibuses +and other large carriages in the streets."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>These are sad things to think of in a Christian church. What shall we do +for all these little ones that are perishing? "Do nothing," say some. +"Am I my brother's keeper?" asked the first Cain, after killing that +brother. He thought the answer would be, "No! you are not." But he was +his brother's keeper, and Abel's blood cried from the ground for +justice, and God heard it. Some say we can do nothing. I will never +believe that a city which in twelve years can build near a thousand +miles of railroad, hedge up the Merrimack and the lakes of New +Hampshire; I will never believe that a city, so full of the hardiest +enterprise and the noblest charity, cannot keep these little ones from +perishing. Why the nation can annex new States and raise armies at +uncounted cost. Can it not extirpate pauperism,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> prevent intemperance, +pluck up the causes of the present crime? All that is lacking is the +prudent will!</p> + +<p>It seems as if something could easily be done to send the vagrant +children to school; at least to give them employment, and so teach them +some useful art. If some are Catholics, and will not attend the +Protestant schools, perhaps it would be as possible to have a special +and separate school for the Irish as for the Africans. It was recently +proposed in a Protestant assembly to found Sunday Schools, with Catholic +teachers for Catholic children. The plan is large and noble, and +indicates a liberality which astonishes one even here, where some men +are ceasing to be sectarian and becoming human. Much may be done to +bring many of the children to our Sunday and week-day schools, as they +now are, and so brands be snatched from the burning. The State Farm +School for juvenile offenders, which a good man last winter suggested to +your Legislature, will doubtless do much for these idle boys, and may be +the beginning of a greater and better work. Could the State also take +care of the children when it locks the parents in a jail, there would be +a nearer approach to justice and greater likelihood of obtaining its +end. Still the laws act cumbrously and slow. The great work must be done +by good men, acting separately or in concert, in their private way. You +are your brother's keeper; God made you so. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> you are rich, +intelligent, refined and religious, why you are all the more a keeper to +the poor, the weak, the vulgar and the wicked. In the pauses of your +work there will be time to do something. In the unoccupied hours of the +Sunday there is yet leisure to help a brother's need. If there are times +when you are disposed to murmur at your own hard lot, though it is not +hard; or hours when grief presses heavy on your heart, go and look after +these children, find them employment, and help them to start in life; +you will find your murmurings are ended, and your sorrow forgot.</p> + +<p>It does not seem difficult to do something for the poor. It would be +easy to provide comfortable and convenient houses and at a reasonable +rate. The experiment has been tried by one noble-hearted man, and thus +far works well. I trust the same plan, or one better, if possible, will +soon be tried on a larger scale, and so repeated, till we are free from +that crowding together of miserable persons, which now disgraces our +city. It seems to me that a store might be established where articles of +good quality should be furnished to the poor at cost. Something has +already been done in this way, by the "Trade's Union," who need it much +less. A practical man could easily manage the details of such a scheme. +All reform and elevation of this class of men must begin by mending +their circumstances, though of course it must not end there. Expect no +improvement of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> men that are hungry, naked, and cold. Few men respect +themselves in that condition. Hope not of others what would be +impossible for you!</p> + +<p>You may give better pay when that is possible. I can hardly think it the +boast of a man, that he has paid less for his labor than any other in +his calling. But it is a common boast, though to me it seems the glory +of a pirate! I cannot believe there is that sharp distinction between +week-day religion and Sunday religion, or between justice and charity, +that is sometimes pretended. A man both just and charitable would find +his charity run over into his justice, and the mixture improve its +quality. When I remember that all value is the result of work, and see +likewise that no man gets rich by his own work, I cannot help thinking +that labor is often wickedly underpaid, and capital sometimes as grossly +over-fed. I shall believe that capital is at the mercy of labor, when +the two extremes of society change places. Is it Christian or manly to +reduce wages in hard times, and not raise them in fair times? and not +raise them again in extraordinary times? Is it God's will that large +dividends and small wages should be paid at the same time? The duty of +the employer is not over, when he has paid "the hands" their wages. +Abraham is a special providence for Eliezer, as God, the universal +providence, for both. The usages of society make a sharp distinction +between the rich and poor; but I cannot believe the churches have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> done +wisely, by making that distinction appear through separating the two, in +their worship. The poor are, undesignedly, driven out of the respectable +churches. They lose self-respect; lose religion. Those that remain, what +have they gained by this expulsion of their brothers? A beautiful and +costly house, but a church without the poor. The Catholics were wiser +and more humane than that. I cannot believe the mightiest abilities and +most exquisite culture were ever too great to preach and apply +Christianity among the poor; and that "the best sermons would be wasted +on them." Yet such has not been the practical decision here! I trust we +shall yet be able to say of all our churches, however costly, "There the +rich and poor meet together." They are now equally losers by the +separation. The seventy ministers of Boston—how much they can do for +this class of little ones, if they will!</p> + +<p>It has been suggested by some kindly and wise men, that there should be +a Prisoners' Home established, where the criminal, on being released +from jail, could go and find a home and work. As the case now is, there +is almost no hope for the poor offender. "Legal justice" proves often +legal vengeance, and total ruin to the poor wretch on whom it falls; it +grinds him to powder! All reform of criminals, without such a place, +seems to me worse than hopeless. If possible, such an institution seems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> +more needed for the women, than even for the men: but I have not now +time to dwell on this theme. You know the efforts of two good men +amongst us, who, with slender means, and no great encouragement from the +public, are indeed the friends of the prisoner.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> God bless them in +their labors.</p> + +<p>We can do something in all these schemes for helping the poor. Each of +us can do something in his own sphere, and now and then step out of that +sphere to do something more. I know there are many amongst you, who only +require a word before they engage in this work, and some who do not +require even that, but are more competent than I to speak that word. +Your Committee of Benevolent Action have not been idle. Their works +speak for them.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>For the suppression of intemperance, redoubled efforts must be made. Men +of wealth, education and influence must use their strength of nature, or +position, to protect their brothers, not drive them down to ruin. +Temperance cannot advance much further among the people, until this +class of men lend their aid; at least, until they withdraw the obstacles +they have hitherto and so often opposed to its progress. They must +forbear the use, as well as the traffic. I cannot but think the time is +coming, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> he who makes or sells this poison as a drink, will be +legally ranked with other poisoners, with thieves, robbers, and +house-burners; when a fortune acquired by such means will be thought +infamous, as one now would be if acquired by piracy! I know good men +have formerly engaged in this trade; they did it ignorantly. Now, we +know the unavoidable effects thereof. I trust the excellent example +lately set by the Government of the University, will be followed at all +public festivals.</p> + +<p>We must still have a watchful eye on the sale of this poison. It is not +the low shops which do the most harm, but the costly tippling-houses +which keep the low ones in countenance, and thus shield them from the +law and public feeling. It seems as if a law were needed, making the +owner of a tippling-house responsible for the illegal sale of liquors +there. Then the real offender might be reached, who now escapes the +meshes of the law.</p> + +<p>It has long ago been suggested that a Temperance Home was needed for the +reformation of the unfortunate drunkard. It is plain that the jail does +not reform him. Those sent to jail for drunkenness are, on the average, +sentenced no less than five times; some of them, fifteen or twenty +times! Of what use to shut a man in a jail, and release him with the +certainty that he will come out no better, and soon return for the same +offence? When as much zeal and ability are directed to cure this +terrible public<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> malady, as now go to increase it, we shall not thus +foolishly waste our strength. You all know how much has been done by one +man in this matter;<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> that in four years he saved three hundred +drunkards from the prison, two hundred of whom have since done well! If +it be the duty of the State to prevent crime, not avenge it, is it not +plain what is the way?</p> + +<p>However, a reform in this matter will be permanent only through a deeper +and wider reform elsewhere. Drunkenness and theft in its various illegal +forms, are confined almost wholly to the poorest class. So long as there +is unavoidable misery, like the present, pauperism and popular +ignorance; so long as thirty-seven are crowded into one house, and that +not large; so long as men are wretched and without hope, there will be +drunkenness. I know much has been done already; I think drunkenness will +never be respectable again, or common amongst refined and cultivated +men; it will be common among the ignorant, the outcast and the +miserable, so long as the present causes of poverty, ignorance and +misery continue. For that continuance, and the want, the crime, the +unimaginable wretchedness and death of heart which comes thereof, it is +not these perishing little ones, but the strong that are responsible +before God! It will not do for your grand juries to try and hide the +matter by indicting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> "omnibuses and other large carriages;" the voice of +God cries, Where is thy brother?—and that brother's blood answers from +the ground.</p> + +<p>What I have suggested only palliates effects; it removes no cause;—of +that another time. These little ones are perishing here in the midst of +us. Society has never seriously sought to prevent it, perhaps has not +been conscious of the fact. It has not so much legislated for them as +against them. Its spirit is hostile to them. If the mass of able-headed +men were in earnest about this, think you they would allow such +unthrifty ways, such a waste of man's productive energies? Never! no, +never. They would repel the causes of this evil as now an invading army. +The removal of these troubles must be brought about by a great change in +the spirit of society. Society is not Christian in form or spirit. So +there are many who do not love to hear Christianity preached and +applied, but to have some halting theology set upon its crutches. They +like, on Sundays, to hear of the sacrifice, not to have mercy and +goodness demanded of them. A Christian State after the pattern of that +divine man, Jesus—how different it would be from this in spirit and in +form!</p> + +<p>Taking all this whole State into account, things, on the whole, are +better here, than in any similar population, after all these evils. I +think there can be no doubt of that; better now, on the whole, than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> +ever before. A day's work will produce a greater quantity of needful +things than hitherto. So the number of little ones that perish is +smaller than heretofore, in proportion to the whole mass. I do not +believe the world can show such examples of public charity as this city +has afforded in the last fifty years. Alas! we want the justice which +prevents causes no less than the charity which palliates effects. See +yet the unnatural disparity in man's condition: bloated opulence and +starving penury in the same street! See the pauperism, want, +licentiousness, intemperance and crime in the midst of us; see the havoc +made of woman; see the poor deserted by their elder brother, while it is +their sweat which enriches your ground, builds your railroads, and piles +up your costly houses. The tall gallows stands in the back-ground of +society, overlooking it all; where it should be the blessed gospel of +the living God.</p> + +<p>What we want to remove the cause of all this is the application of +Christianity to social life. Nothing less will do the work. Each of us +can help forward that by doing the part which falls in his way. +Christianity, like the eagle's flight, begins at home. We can go +further, and do something for each of these classes of little ones. Then +we shall help others do the same. Some we may encourage to practical +Christianity by our example; some we may perhaps shame. Still more, we +can ourselves be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> pure, manly, Christian; each of us that, in heart and +life. We can build up a company of such, men of perpetual growth. Then +we shall be ready not only for this special work now before us, to +palliate effects, but for every Christian and manly duty when it comes. +Then, if ever some scheme is offered which is nobler and yet more +Christian than what we now behold, it will find us booted, and girded, +and road-ready.</p> + +<p>I look to you to do something in this matter. You are many; most of you +are young. I look to you to set an example of a noble life, human, clean +and Christian, not debasing these little ones, but lifting them up. Will +you cause them to perish; you? I know you will not. Will you let them +perish? I cannot believe it. Will you not prevent their perishing? +Nothing less is your duty.</p> + +<p>Some men say they will do nothing to help liberate the slave, because he +is afar off, and "our mission is silence!" Well—here are sufferers in a +nearer need. Do you say, I can do but little to Christianize society! +Very well, do that little, and see if it does not amount to much, and +bring its own blessing—the thought that you have given a cup of cold +water to one of the little ones. Did not Jesus say, "Inasmuch as ye have +done it unto one of the least of these ye have done it unto me?"</p> + +<p>Since last we met, one of our number<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> has taken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> that step in life +commonly called death. He was deeply interested and active in the +movement for the perishing classes of men. After his spirit had passed +on, a woman whom he had rescued, and her children with her, from +intemperance and ruin, came and laid her hand on that cold forehead +whence the kindly soul had fled, and mourning that her failures had +often grieved his heart before, vowed solemnly to keep steadfast +forever, and go back to evil ways no more! Who would not wish his +forehead the altar for such a vow? what nobler monument to a good man's +memory! The blessing of those ready to perish fell on him. If his hand +cannot help us, his example may.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> This evil is now happily removed, and all men rejoice in a +cheap and abundant supply of pure water.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> See the valuable tables and remarks, by Mr. Shattuck, in +his Census of Boston, pp. 136-177.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> For this much needed reform at the academical table, we +are indebted to the Hon. Edward Everett, the President of Harvard +College. For this he deserves the hearty thanks of the whole community.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Rev. John Pierpont.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> The editors of the "Prisoners' Friend."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Mr. John Augustus.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Nathaniel F. Thayer, aged 29.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> +<h2>VII.</h2> + +<h3>A SERMON OF MERCHANTS.—PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER +22, 1846.</h3> +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> +<h4>ECCLESIASTICUS XXVII. 2.</h4> + +<h4>As a nail sticketh fast between the joinings of the stones; so doth sin +stick close between buying and selling.</h4> + + +<p>I ask your attention to a Sermon of Merchants, their Position, +Temptations, Opportunities, Influence and Duty. For the present purpose, +men may be distributed into four classes.</p> + +<p>I. Men who create new material for human use, either by digging it out +of mines and quarries, fishing it out of the sea, or raising it out of +the land. These are direct producers.</p> + +<p>II. Men who apply their head and hands to this material and transform it +into other shapes, fitting it for human use; men that make grain into +flour and bread, cotton into cloth, iron into needles or knives, and the +like. These are indirect producers; they create not the material, but +its fitness, use, or beauty. They are manufacturers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p> + +<p>III. Men who simply use these things, when thus produced and +manufactured. They are consumers.</p> + +<p>IV. Men who buy and sell: who buy to sell, and sell to buy the more. +They fetch and carry between the other classes. These are distributors; +they are the Merchants. Under this name I include the whole class who +live by buying and selling, and not merely those conventionally called +merchants, to distinguish them from small dealers. This term comprises +traders behind counters and traders behind desks; traders neither behind +counters nor desks.</p> + +<p>There are various grades of merchants. They might be classed and +symbolized according as they use a basket, a wheelbarrow, a cart, a +stall, a booth, a shop, a warehouse, counting-room, or bank. Still all +are the same thing—men who live by buying and selling. A ship is only a +large basket, a warehouse, a costly stall. Your peddler is a small +merchant going round from house to house with his basket to mediate +between persons; your merchant only a great peddler sending round from +land to land with his ships to mediate between nations. The Israelitish +woman who sits behind a bench in her stall on the Rialto at Venice, +changing gold into silver and copper, or loaning money to him who leaves +hat, coat, and other collaterals in pledge, is a small banker. The +Israelitish man who sits at Frankfort on the Maine, changes drafts into +specie, and lends millions to men who leave in pledge a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> mortgage on the +States of the Church, Austria or Russia—is a pawnbroker and +money-changer on a large scale. By this arithmetic, for present +convenience, all grades of merchants are reduced to one +denomination—men who live by buying and selling.</p> + +<p>All these four classes run into one another. The same man may belong to +all at the same time. All are needed. At home a merchant is a mediator +to go between the producer and the manufacturer; between both and the +consumer. On a large scale he is the mediator who goes between +continents, between producing and manufacturing States, between both and +consuming countries. The calling is founded in the state of society, as +that in a compromise between man's permanent nature and transient +condition. So long as there are producers and consumers, there must be +distributors. The value of the calling depends on its importance; its +usefulness is the measure of its respectability. The most useful calling +must be the noblest. If it is difficult, demanding great ability and +self-sacrifice, it is yet more noble. A useless calling is disgraceful; +one that injures mankind—infamous. Tried by this standard, the +producers seem nobler than the distributors; they than the mere +consumers. This may not be the popular judgment now, but must one day +become so, for mankind is slowly learning to judge by the natural law +published by Jesus—that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> who would be greatest of all, must be most +effectively the servant of all.</p> + +<p>There are some who do not seem to belong to any of the active classes, +who are yet producers, manufacturers, and distributors by their head, +more than their hand; men who have fertile heads, producers, +manufacturers, and distributors of thought, active in the most creative +way. Here, however, the common rule is inverted: the producers are +few—men of genius; the manufacturers many—men of talent; the +distributors—men of tact, men who remember, and talk with tongue or +pen, their name is legion. I will not stop to distribute them into their +classes, but return to the merchant.</p> + +<p>The calling of the merchant acquires a new importance in modern times. +Once nations were cooped up, each in its own country and language. Then +war was the only mediator between them. They met but on the +battle-field, or in solemn embassies to treat for peace. Now trade is +the mediator. They meet on the exchange. To the merchant, no man who can +trade is a foreigner. His wares prove him a citizen. Gold and silver are +cosmopolitan. Once, in some of the old governments, the magistrates +swore, "I will be evil-minded towards the people, and will devise +against them the worst thing I can." Now they swear to keep the laws +which the people have made. Once the great question was, How large is +the standing army? Now, What is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> the amount of the national earnings? +Statesmen ask less about the ships of the line, than about the ships of +trade. They fear an over-importation oftener than a war, and settle +their difficulties in gold and silver, not as before with iron. All +ancient states were military; the modern mercantile. War is getting out +of favor as property increases and men get their eyes open. Once every +man feared death, captivity, or at least robbery in war; now the worst +fear is of bankruptcy and pauperism.</p> + +<p>This is a wonderful change. Look at some of the signs thereof. Once +castles and forts were the finest buildings; now exchanges, shops, +custom-houses, and banks. Once men built a Chinese wall to keep out the +strangers—for stranger and foe were the same; now men build railroads +and steamships to bring them in. England was once a strong-hold of +robbers, her four seas but so many castle-moats; now she is a great +harbor with four ship-channels. Once her chief must be a bold, cunning +fighter; now a good steward and financier. Not to strike a hard blow, +but to make a good bargain is the thing. Formerly the most enterprising +and hopeful young men sought fame and fortune in deeds of arms; now an +army is only a common sewer, and most of those who go to the war, if +they never return, "have left their country for their country's good." +In days gone by, constructive art could build nothing better than +hanging gardens, and the pyramids—foolishly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> sublime; now it makes +docks, canals, iron roads and magnetic telegraphs. Saint Louis, in his +old age, got up a crusade, and saw his soldiers die of the fever at +Tunis; now the King of the French sets up a factory, and will clothe his +people in his own cottons and woollens. The old Douglas and Percy were +clad in iron, and harried the land on both sides of the Tweed; their +descendants now are civil-suited men who keep the peace. No girl +trembles, though "All the blue bonnets are over the border." The warrior +has become a shopkeeper.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Douglas in red herrings;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And noble name and cultured land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Palace and park, and vassal band,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are powerless to the notes of hand<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of Rothschild or the Barings."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Of merchants there are three classes.</p> + +<p>I. Merchant-producers, who deal in labor applied to the direct creation +of new material. They buy labor and land, to sell them in corn, cotton, +coal, timber, salt, and iron.</p> + +<p>II. Merchant-manufacturers, who deal in labor applied to transforming +that material. They buy labor, wool, cotton, silk, water-privileges and +steam-power, to sell them all in finished cloth.</p> + +<p>III. Merchant-traders, who simply distribute the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> article raised or +manufactured. These three divisions I shall speak of as one body. +Property is accumulated labor; wealth or riches a great deal of +accumulated labor. As a general rule, merchants are the only men who +become what we call rich. There are exceptions, but they are rare, and +do not affect the remarks which are to follow. It is seldom that a man +becomes rich by his own labor employed in producing or manufacturing. It +is only by using other men's labor that any one becomes rich. A man's +hands will give him sustenance, not affluence. In the present condition +of society this is unavoidable; I do not say in a normal condition, but +in the present condition.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Here in America the position of this class is the most powerful and +commanding in society. They own most of the property of the nation. The +wealthy men are of this class; in practical skill, administrative +talent, in power to make use of the labor of other men, they surpass all +others. Now, wealth is power, and skill is power—both to a degree +unknown before. This skill and wealth are more powerful with us than any +other people, for there is no privileged caste, priest, king, or noble, +to balance against them. The strong hand has given way to the able and +accomplished head. Once head armor was worn on the outside, and of +brass, now it is internal and of brains.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> + +<p>To this class belongs the power both of skill and of wealth, and all the +advantages which they bring. It was never so before in the whole history +of man. It is more so in the United States than in any other place. I +know the high position of the merchants in Venice, Pisa, Florence, +Nuremberg and Basel, in the middle ages and since. Those cities were +gardens in a wilderness, but a fringe of soldiers hung round their +turreted walls; the trader was dependent on the fighter, and though +their merchants became princes, they were yet indebted to the sword, and +not entirely to their calling, for defence. Their palaces were half +castles, and their ships full of armed men. Besides those were little +States. Here the merchant's power is wholly in his gold and skill. Rome +is the city of priests; Vienna for nobles; Berlin for scholars; the +American cities for merchants. In Italy the roads are poor, the +banking-houses humble; the cots of the laborer mean and bare, but +churches and palaces are beautiful and rich. God is painted as a pope. +Generally in Europe, the clergy, the soldiers, and the nobles are the +controlling class. The finest works of art belong to them, represent +them, and have come from the corporation of priests, or the corporation +of fighters. Here a new era is getting symbolized in our works of art. +They are banks, exchanges, custom-houses, factories, railroads. These +come of the corporation of merchants; trade is the great thing. Nobody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> +tries to secure the favor of the army or navy—but of the merchants.</p> + +<p>Once there was a permanent class of fighters. Their influence was +supreme. They had the power of strong arms, of disciplined valor, and +carried all before them. They made the law and broke it. Men complained, +grumbling in their beard, but got no redress. They it was that possessed +the wealth of the land. The producer, the manufacturer, the distributor +could not get rich: only the soldier, the armed thief, the robber. With +wealth they got its power; by practice gained knowledge, and so the +power thereof; or, when that failed, bought it of the clergy, the only +class possessing literary and scientific skill. They made their calling +"noble," and founded the aristocracy of soldiers. Young men of talent +took to arms. Trade was despised and labor was menial. Their science is +at this day the science of kings. When graziers travel they look at +cattle; weavers at factories; philanthropists at hospitals; dandies at +their equals and coadjutors; and kings at armies. Those fighters made +the world think that soldiers were our first men, and murder of their +brothers the noblest craft in the world; the only honorable and manly +calling. The butcher of swine and oxen was counted vulgar—the butcher +of men and women great and honorable. Foolish men of the past think so +now; hence their terror at orations against war; hence their admiration +for a red coat;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> their zeal for some symbol of blood in their family +arms; hence their ambition for military titles when abroad. Most foolish +men are more proud of their ambiguous Norman ancestor who fought at the +battle of Hastings—or fought not—than of all the honest mechanics and +farmers who have since ripened on the family tree. The day of the +soldiers is well-nigh over. The calling brings low wages and no honor. +It opens with us no field for ambition. A passage of arms is a passage +that leads to nothing. That class did their duty at that time. They +founded the aristocracy of soldiers—their symbol the sword. Mankind +would not stop there. Then came a milder age and established the +aristocracy of birth—its symbol the cradle, for the only merit of that +sort of nobility, and so its only distinction, is to have been born. But +mankind who stopped not at the sword, delays but little longer at the +cradle; leaping forward it founds a third order of nobility, the +aristocracy of gold, its symbol the purse. We have got no further on. +Shall we stop there? There comes a to-morrow after every to-day, and no +child of time is just like the last. The aristocracy of gold has faults +enough, no doubt, this feudalism of the nineteenth century. But it is +the best thing of its kind we have had yet; the wisest, the most human. +We are going forward and not back. God only knows when we shall stop, +and where. Surely not now, nor here.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now the merchants in America occupy the place which was once held by the +fighters and next by the nobles. In our country we have balanced into +harmony the centripetal power of the government, and the centrifugal +power of the people: so have national unity of action, and individual +variety of action—personal freedom. Therefore a vast amount of talent +is active here which lies latent in other countries, because that +harmony is not established there. Here the army and navy offer few +inducements to able and aspiring young men. They are fled to as the last +resort of the desperate, or else sought for their traditional glory, not +their present value. In Europe, the army, the navy, the parliament or +the court, the church and the learned professions offer brilliant prizes +to ambitious men. Thither flock the able and the daring. Here such men +go into trade. It is better for a man to have set up a mill than to have +won a battle. I deny not the exceptions. I speak only of the general +rule. Commerce and manufactures offer the most brilliant +rewards—wealth, and all it brings. Accordingly the ablest men go into +the class of merchants. The strongest men in Boston, taken as a body, +are not lawyers, doctors, clergymen, book-wrights, but merchants. I deny +not the presence of distinguished ability in each of those professions; +I am now again only speaking of the general rule. I deny not the +presence of very weak men, exceedingly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> weak in this class; their money +their only source of power.</p> + +<p>The merchants then are the prominent class; the most respectable, the +most powerful. They know their power, but are not yet fully aware of +their formidable and noble position at the head of the nation. Hence +they are often ashamed of their calling; while their calling is the +source of their wealth, their knowledge, and their power, and should be +their boast and their glory. You see signs of this ignorance and this +shame: there must not be shops under your Athenæum, it would not be in +good taste; you may store tobacco, cider, rum, under the churches, out +of sight, you must have no shop there; it would be vulgar. It is not +thought needful, perhaps not proper, for the merchant's wife and +daughter to understand business, it would not be becoming. Many are +ashamed of their calling, and, becoming rich, paint on the doors of +their coach, and engrave on their seal, some lion, griffin, or unicorn, +with partisans and maces to suit; arms they have no right to, perhaps +have stolen out of some book of heraldry. No man paints thereon a box of +sugar, or figs, or candles couchant; a bale of cotton rampant; an axe, a +lapstone, or a shoe hammer saltant. Yet these would be noble, and +Christian withal. The fighters gloried in their horrid craft, and so +made it pass for noble, but with us a great many men would be thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> +"the tenth transmitter of a foolish face," rather than honest artists of +their own fortune; prouder of being born than of having lived never so +manfully.</p> + +<p>In virtue of its strength and position, this class is the controlling +one in politics. It mainly enacts the laws of this State and the nation; +makes them serve its turn. Acting consciously or without consciousness, +it buys up legislators when they are in the market; breeds them when the +market is bare. It can manufacture governors, senators, judges, to suit +its purposes, as easily as it can make cotton cloth. It pays them money +and honors; pays them for doing its work, not another's. It is fairly +and faithfully represented by them. Our popular legislators are made in +its image; represent its wisdom, foresight, patriotism and conscience. +Your Congress is its mirror.</p> + +<p>This class is the controlling one in the churches, none the less, for +with us fortunately the churches have no existence independent of the +wealth and knowledge of the people. In the same way it buys up the +clergymen, hunting them out all over the land; the clergymen who will do +its work, putting them in comfortable places. It drives off such as +interfere with its work, saying, "Go starve, you and your children!" It +raises or manufactures others to suit its taste.</p> + +<p>The merchants build mainly the churches, endow theological schools; they +furnish the material sinews<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> of the church. Hence the metropolitan +churches are in general as much commercial as the shops.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Now from this position, there come certain peculiar temptations. One is +to an extravagant desire of wealth. They see that money is power, the +most condensed and flexible form thereof. It is always ready; it will +turn any way. They see that it gives advantages to their children which +nothing else will give. The poor man's son, however well born, +struggling for a superior education, obtains his culture at a monstrous +cost; with the sacrifice of pleasure, comfort, the joys of youth, often +of eyesight and health. He must do two men's work at once—learn and +teach at the same time. He learns all by his soul, nothing from his +circumstances. If he have not an iron body as well as an iron head, he +dies in that experiment of the cross. The land is full of poor men who +have attained a superior culture, but carry a crippled body through all +their life. The rich man's son needs not that terrible trial. He learns +from his circumstances, not his soul. The air about him contains a +diffused element of thought. He learns without knowing it. Colleges open +their doors; accomplished teachers stand ready; science and art, music +and literature, come at the rich man's call. All the outward means of +educating, refining, elevating a child, are to be had for money, and for +money alone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then, too, wealth gives men a social position, which nothing else save +the rarest genius can obtain, and which that, in the majority of cases +lacking the commercial conscience, is sure not to get. Many men prize +this social rank above every thing else, even above justice and a life +unstained.</p> + +<p>Since it thus gives power, culture for one's children, and a +distinguished social position, rank amongst men, for the man and his +child after him, there is a temptation to regard money as the great +object of life, not a means but an end; the thing a man is to get even +at the risk of getting nothing else. It "answereth all things." Here and +there you find a man who has got nothing else. Men say of such an one, +"He is worth a million!" There is a terrible sarcasm in common speech, +which all do not see. He is "worth a million," and that is all; not +worth truth, goodness, piety; not worth a man. I must say, I cannot but +think there are many such amongst us. Most rich men, I am told, have +mainly gained wealth by skill, foresight, industry, economy, by +honorable painstaking, not by trick. It may be so. I hope it is. Still +there is a temptation to count wealth the object of life—the thing to +be had if they have nothing else.</p> + +<p>The next temptation is to think any means justifiable which lead to that +end,—the temptation to fraud, deceit, to lying in its various forms, +active and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> passive; the temptation to abuse the power of this natural +strength, or acquired position, to tyrannize over the weak, to get and +not give an equivalent for what they get. If a man get from the world +more than he gives an equivalent for, to that extent he is a beggar and +gets charity, or a thief and steals; at any rate, the rest of the world +is so much the poorer for him. The temptation to fraud of this sort, in +some of its many forms, is very great. I do not believe that all trade +must be gambling or trickery, the merchant a knave or a gambler. I know +some men say so. But I do not believe it. I know it is not so now; all +actual trade, and profitable too, is not knavery. I know some become +rich by deceit. I cannot but think these are the exceptions; that the +most successful have had the average honesty and benevolence, with more +than the average industry, foresight, prudence and skill. A man foresees +future wants of his fellows, and provides for them; sees new resources +hitherto undeveloped, anticipates new habits and wants; turns wood, +stone, iron, coal, rivers and mountains to human use, and honestly earns +what he takes. I am told, by some of their number, that the merchants of +this place rank high as men of integrity and honor, above mean cunning, +but enterprising, industrious and far-sighted. In comparison with some +other places, I suppose it is true. Still I must admit the temptation to +fraud is a great one; that it is often yielded to. Few go to a great +extreme<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> of deceit—they are known and exposed: but many to a +considerable degree. He that makes haste to be rich is seldom innocent. +Young men say it is hard to be honest; to do by others as you would wish +them to do by you. I know it need not be so. Would not a reputation for +uprightness and truth be a good capital for any man, old or young?</p> + +<p>This class owns the machinery of society, in great measure,—the ships, +factories, shops, water privileges, houses and the like. This brings +into their employment large masses of working men, with no capital but +muscles or skill. The law leaves the employed at the employer's mercy. +Perhaps this is unavoidable. One wishes to sell his work dear, the other +to get it cheap as he can. It seems to me no law can regulate this +matter, only conscience, reason, the Christianity of the two parties. +One class is strong, the other weak. In all encounters of these two, on +the field of battle, or in the market-place, we know the result: the +weaker is driven to the wall. When the earthen and iron vessel strike +together, we know beforehand which will go to pieces. The weaker class +can seldom tell their tale, so their story gets often suppressed in the +world's literature, and told only in outbreaks and revolutions. Still +the bold men who wrote the Bible, Old Testament and New, have told +truths on this theme which others dared not tell—terrible words which +it will take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> ages of Christianity to expunge from the world's memory.</p> + +<p>There is a strong temptation to use one's power of nature or position to +the disadvantage of the weak. This may be done consciously or +unconsciously. There are examples enough of both. Here the merchant +deals in the labor of men. This is a legitimate article of traffic, and +dealing in it is quite indispensable in the present condition of +affairs. In the Southern States, the merchant, whether producer, +manufacturer or trader, owns men and deals in their labor, or their +bodies. He uses their labor, giving them just enough of the result of +that labor to keep their bodies in the most profitable working state; +the rest of that result he steals for his own use, and by that residue +becomes rich and famous. He owns their persons and gets their labor by +direct violence, though sanctioned by law. That is slavery. He steals +the man and his labor. Here it is possible to do a similar thing: I mean +it is possible to employ men and give them just enough of the result of +their labor to keep up a miserable life, and yourself take all the rest +of the result of that labor. This may be done consciously or otherwise, +but legally, without direct violence, and without owning the person. +This is not slavery, though only one remove from it. This is the tyranny +of the strong over the weak; the feudalism of money; stealing a man's +work, and not his person. The merchants as a class<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> are exposed to this +very temptation. Sometimes it is yielded to. Some large fortunes have +been made in this way. Let me mention some extreme cases; one from +abroad, one near at home. In Belgium the average wages of men in +manufactories is less than twenty-seven cents a day. The most skilful +women in that calling can earn only twenty cents a day, and many very +much less.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> In that country almost every seventh man receives charity +from the public: the mortality of operatives, in some of the cities, is +ten per cent. a year! Perhaps that is the worst case which you can find +on a large scale even in Europe. How much better off are many women in +Boston who gain their bread by the needle? yes a large class of women in +all our great cities? The ministers of the poor can answer that; your +police can tell of the direful crime to which necessity sometimes drives +women whom honest labor cannot feed!</p> + +<p>I know it will be said, "Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the +dearest; get work at the lowest wages." Still there is another view of +the case, and I am speaking to men whose professed religion declares +that all are brothers, and demands that the strong help the weak. +Oppression of this sort is one fertile source of pauperism and crime. +How much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> there is of it I know not, but I think men seldom cry unless +they are hurt. When men are gathered together in large masses, as in the +manufacturing towns, if there is any oppression of this sort, it is sure +to get told of, especially in New England. But when a small number are +employed, and they isolated from one another, the case is much harder. +Perhaps no class of laborers in New England is worse treated than the +hired help of small proprietors.</p> + +<p>Then, too, there is a temptation to abuse their political power to the +injury of the nation, to make laws which seem good for themselves, but +are baneful to the people; to control the churches, so that they shall +not dare rebuke the actual sins of the nation, or the sins of trade, and +so the churches be made apologizers for lowness, practising infidelity +as their sacrament, but in the name of Christ and God. The ruling power +in England once published a volume of sermons, as well as a book of +prayers, which the clergy were commanded to preach. What sort of a +gospel got recommended therein, you may easily guess; and what is +recommended by the class of merchants in New England, you may as easily +hear.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But if their temptations are great, the opportunities of this class for +doing good are greater still. Their power is more readily useful for +good than ill,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> as all power is. In their calling they direct and +control the machinery, the capital, and thereby the productive labor of +the whole community. They can as easily direct that well as ill; for the +benefit of all, easier than to the injury of any one. They can discover +new sources of wealth for themselves, and so for the nation; they can +set on foot new enterprises, which shall increase the comfort and +welfare of man to a vast degree, and not only that, but enlarge also the +number of men, for that always greatens in a nation, as the means of +living are made easy. They can bind the rivers, teaching them to weave +and spin. The introduction of manufactures into England, and the +application of machinery to that purpose, I doubt not has added some +millions of new lives to her population in the present century—millions +that otherwise would never have lived at all. The introduction of +manufactures into the United States, the application of water-power and +steam-power to human work, the construction of canals and railroads, has +vastly increased the comforts of the living. It helps civilize, educate +and refine men; yes, leads to an increase of the number of lives. There +are men to whom the public owes a debt which no money could pay, for it +is a debt of life. What adequate sum of gold, or what honors could +mankind give to Columbus, to Faustus, to Fulton, for their works? He +that did the greatest service ever done to mankind got from his age a +bad name<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> and a cross for his reward. There are men whom mankind are to +thank for thousands of lives; yet men who hold no lofty niche in the +temple of fame.</p> + +<p>By their control of the Legislature the merchants can fashion more +wisely the institutions of the land, promote the freedom of all, break +off traditionary yokes, help forward the public education of the people +by the establishment of public schools, public academies, and public +colleges. They can frame particular statutes which help and encourage +the humble and the weak, laws which prevent the causes of poverty and +crime, which facilitate for the poor man the acquisition of property, +enabling him to invest his earnings in the most profitable stocks,—laws +which bless the living, and so increase the number of lives. They can +thus help organize society after the Christian idea, and promote the +kingdom of heaven. They can make our jails institutions which really +render their inmates better, and send them out whole men, safe and +sound. We have seen them do this with lunatics, why not with those poor +wretches whom now we murder? They too can found houses of cure for +drunkards, and men yet more unfortunate when released from our prisons.</p> + +<p>By their control of the churches, and all our seminaries, public and +private, they can encourage freedom of thought; can promote the public +morals by urging the clergy to point out and rebuke the sins<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> of the +nation, of society, the actual sins of men now living; can encourage +them to separate theology from mythology, religion from theology, and +then apply that religion to the State, to society and the individual; +can urge them to preach both parts of religion—morality, the love of +man, and piety, the love of God, setting off both by an appeal to that +great soul who was Christianity in one person. In this way they have an +opportunity of enlarging tenfold the practical value of the churches, +and helping weed licentiousness, intemperance, want, and ignorance and +sin, clean out of man's garden here. With their encouragement, the +clergy would form a noble army contending for the welfare of men—the +church militant, but preparing to be soon triumphant. Thus laboring, +they can put an end to slavery, abolish war, and turn all the nation's +creative energies to production—their legitimate work.</p> + +<p>Then they can promote the advance of science, of literature, of the +arts—the useful and the beautiful. We see what their famed progenitors +did in this way at Venice, Florence, Genoa. I know men say that art +cannot thrive in a republic. An opportunity is offered now to prove the +falsehood of that speech, to adorn our strength with beauty. A great +amount of creative, artistic talent is rising here and seeks employment.</p> + +<p>They can endow hospitals, colleges, normal schools, found libraries and +establish lectures for the welfare<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> of all. He that has the wealth of a +king may spend it like a king, not for ostentation, but for use. They +can set before men examples of industry, economy, truth, justice, +honesty, charity, of religion at her daily work, of manliness in +life—all this as no other men. Their charities need not stare you in +the face; like violets their fragrance may reach you before you see +them. The bare mention of these things recalls the long list of +benefactors, names familiar to you all—for there is one thing which +this city was once more famous for than her enterprise, and that is her +Charity—the charity which flows in public;—the noiseless stream that +shows itself only in the greener growth which marks its path.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Such are the position, temptations, opportunities of this class. What is +their practical influence on Church and State—on the economy of +mankind? what are they doing in the nation? I must judge them by the +highest standard that I know, the standard of justice, of absolute +religion, not out of my own caprice. Bear with me while I attempt to +tell the truth, which I have seen. If I see it not, pity me and seek +better instruction where you can find it. But if I see a needed truth, +and for my own sake refuse to speak, bear with me no more. Bid me then +repent. I am speaking of men, strong men too, and shall not spare the +truth.</p> + +<p>There is always a conservative element in society;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> yes, an element +which resists the further application of Christianity to public affairs. +Once the fighters and their children were uppermost, and represented +that element. Then the merchants were reformatory, radical, in collision +with the nobles. They were "Whigs"—the nobles were "Tories." The +merchants formed themselves into companies, and got power from the crown +to protect themselves against the nobles, whom the crown also feared. It +is so in England now. The great revolution in the laws of trade lately +effected there, was brought about by the merchants, though opposed by +the lords. The anti-corn law league was a trades-union of merchants +contending against the owners of the soil. There the lord of land, and +by birth, is slowly giving way to the lord of money, who is powerful by +his knowledge or his wealth. There will always be such an element in +society. Here I think it is represented by the merchants. They are +backward in all reforms, excepting such as their own interest demands. +Thus they are blind to the evils of slavery, at least silent about them. +How few commercial or political newspapers in the land ever seriously +oppose this great national wickedness! Nay, how many of them favor its +extension and preservation! A few years ago, in this very city, a mob of +men, mainly from this class, it is said, insulted honest women peaceably +met to consult for the welfare of Christian slaves in a Christian +land—met to pray for them! A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> merchant of this city says publicly, that +a large majority of his brethren would kidnap a fugitive slave in +Boston; says it with no blush and without contradiction.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> It was men +of this class who opposed the abolition of the slave-trade, and had it +guaranteed them for twenty years after the formation of the +Constitution; through their instigation that this foul blot was left to +defile the Republic and gather blackness from age to age; through their +means that the nation stands before the world pledged to maintain it. +They could end slavery at once, at least could end the national +connection with it, but it is through their support that it continues; +that it acquires new strength, new boldness, new territory, darkens the +nation's fame and hope, delays all other reformations in Church and +State and the mass of the people. Yes, it is through their influence +that the chivalry, the wisdom, patriotism, eloquence, yea, religion of +the free States, are all silent when the word slavery is pronounced.</p> + +<p>The Senate of Massachusetts represents this more than any other class. +But all last winter it could not say one word against the wickedness of +this sin, allowed to live and grow greater in the land.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> before +the last election something could be said! Do speech and silence mean +the same thing?</p> + +<p>This class opposed abolishing imprisonment for debt, thinking it +endangered trade. They now oppose the progress of temperance and the +abolition of the gallows. They see the evils of war; they cannot see its +sin; will sustain men who help plunge the nation into its present +disgraceful and cowardly conflict; will encourage foolish young men to +go and fight in this wicked war. A great man said, or is reported to +have said, that perhaps it is not an American habit to consider the +natural justice of a war, but to count its cost! A terrible saying that! +There is a Power which considers its Justice, and will demand of us the +blood we have wickedly poured out; blood of Americans, blood of the +Mexicans! They favor indirect taxation, which is taxing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> the poor for +the benefit of the rich; they continue to support the causes of poverty; +as a class they are blind to this great evil of popular ignorance—the +more terrible evils of licentiousness, drunkenness and crime! They can +enrich themselves by demoralizing their brothers. I wish it was an +American habit to count the cost of that. Some "fanatic" will consider +its justice. If they see these evils they look not for their cause; at +least, strive not to remove that cause. They have long known that every +year more money is paid in Boston for poison drink to be swallowed on +the spot, a drink which does no man any good, which fills your asylums +with paupers, your jails with criminals, and houses with unutterable +misery in father, mother, wife and child,—more money every year than it +would take to build your new aqueduct and bring abundance of water fresh +to every house!<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> If they have not known it, why it was their fault, +for the fact was there crying to Heaven against us all. As they are the +most powerful class, the elder brothers, American nobles if you will, it +was their duty to look out for their weaker brother. No man has strength +for himself alone. To use it for one's self alone, that is a sin. I do +not think they are conscious of the evil they do, or the evils they +allow. I speak not of motives, only of facts.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> +<p>This class controls the State. The effects of that control appear in our +legislation. I know there are some noble men in political life, who have +gone there with the loftiest motives, men that ask only after what is +right. I honor such men—honor them all the more because they seem +exceptions to a general rule; men far above the spirit of any class. I +must speak of what commonly takes place. Our politics are chiefly +mercantile, politics in which money is preferred, and man postponed. +When the two come into collision, the man goes to the wall and the +street is left clear for the dollars. A few years ago in monarchical +France a report was made of the condition of the working population in +the large manufacturing towns—a truthful report, but painful to read, +for it told of strong men oppressing the weak.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> I do not believe that +such an undisguised statement of the good and ill could be tolerated in +democratic America; no, not of the condition of men in New England; and +what would be thought of a book setting forth the condition of the +laboring men and women of the South? I know very well what is thought of +the few men who attempt to tell the truth on this subject. I think there +is no nation in Europe, except Russia and Turkey, which cares so little +for the class which reaps down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> its harvests and does the hard work. +When you protect the rights of all, you protect also the property of +each and by that very act. To begin the other way is quite contrary to +nature. But our politicians cannot say too little for men, nor too much +for money. Take the politicians most famous and honored at this day, and +what have they done? They have labored for a tariff, or for free trade; +but what have they done for man? nay, what have they attempted?—to +restore natural rights to men notoriously deprived of them; +progressively to elevate their material, moral, social condition? I +think no one pretends it. Even in proclamations for Thanksgiving and +days of prayer, it is not the most needy we are bid remember. Public +sins are not pointed out to be repented of. Slaveholding States shut up +in their jails our colored seamen soon as they arrive in a southern +port. A few years ago, at a time of considerable excitement here on the +slavery question, a petition was sent from this place by some merchants +and others, to one of our Senators, praying Congress to abate that evil. +For a long time that Senator could find no opportunity to present the +petition. You know how much was said and what was done! Had the South +demanded every tenth or twentieth bale of "domestics" coming from the +North; had a petition relative to that grievance been sent to Congress, +and a Senator unreasonably delayed to present it—how much more would +have been said and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> done; when he came back he would have been hustled +out of Boston! When South Carolina and Louisiana sent home our +messengers—driving them off with reproach, insult, and danger of their +lives—little is said and nothing done. But if the barbarous natives of +Sumatra interfere with our commerce, why, we send a ship and lay their +towns in ruins and murder the men and women! We all know that for some +years Congress refused to receive petitions relative to slavery; and we +know how tamely that was borne by the class who commonly control +political affairs! What if Congress had refused to receive petitions +relative to a tariff, or free trade, to the shipping interest, or the +manufacturing interest? When the rights of men were concerned, three +million men, only the "fanatics" complained. The political newspapers +said "Hush!"</p> + +<p>The merchant-manufacturers want a protective tariff; the +merchant-importers, free trade; and so the national politics hinge upon +that question. When Massachusetts was a carrying State, she wanted free +trade; now a manufacturing State, she desires protection. That is all +natural enough; men wish to protect their interests, whatsoever they may +be. But no talk is made about protecting the labor of the rude man, who +has no capital, nor skill, nothing but his natural force of muscles. The +foreigner underbids him, monopolizing most of the brute labor of our +large towns and internal improvements. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> is no protection, no talk +of protection for the carpenter, or the bricklayer. I do not complain of +that. I rejoice to see the poor wretches of the old world finding a home +where our fathers found one before. Yet if we cared for men more than +for money, and were consistent with our principles of protection, why, +we should exclude all foreign workmen, as well as their work, and so +raise the wages of the native hands. That would doubtless be very +foolish legislation—but perhaps not, on that account, very strange. I +know we are told that without protection, our hand-worker, whose capital +is his skill, cannot compete with the operative of Manchester and +Brussels, because that operative is paid but little. I know not if it be +true, or a mistake. But who ever told us such men could not compete with +the slave of South Carolina who is paid nothing? We have legislation to +protect our own capital against foreign capital; perhaps our own labor +against the "pauper of Europe;" why not against the slave labor of the +Southern States? Because the controlling class prefers money and +postpones man. Yet the slave-breeder is protected. He has, I think, the +only real monopoly in the land. No importer can legally spoil his +market, for the foreign slave is contraband. If I understand the matter, +the importation of slaves was allowed, until such men as pleased could +accumulate their stock. The reason why it was afterwards forbidden I +think was chiefly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> a mercantile reason: the slave-breeder wanted a +monopoly, for God knows and you know that it is no worse to steal grown +men in Africa than to steal new born babies in Maryland, to have them +born for the sake of stealing them. Free labor may be imported, for it +helps the merchant-producer and the merchant-manufacturer. Slave labor +is declared contraband, for the merchant-slave-breeders want a monopoly.</p> + +<p>This same preference of money over men appears in many special statutes. +In most of our manufacturing companies the capital is divided into +shares so large that a poor man cannot invest therein! This could easily +be avoided. A man steals a candlestick out of a church, and goes to the +State Prison for a year and a day. Another quarrels with a man, maims +him for life, and is sent to the common jail for six months. A bounty is +paid, or was until lately, on every gallon of intoxicating drink +manufactured here and sent out of the country. If we begin with taking +care of the rights of man, it seems easy to take care of the rights of +labor and of capital. To begin the other way is quite another thing. A +nation making laws for the nation is a noble sight. The Government of +all, by all, and for all, is a democracy. When that Government follows +the eternal laws of God, it is founding what Christ called the kingdom +of heaven. But the predominating class making laws not for the nation's +good, but only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> for its own, is a sad spectacle; no reasoning can make +it other than a sorry sight. To see able men prostituting their talents +to such a work, that is one of the saddest sights! I know all other +nations have set us the example, yet it is painful to see it followed, +and here.</p> + +<p>Our politics, being mainly controlled by this class, are chiefly +mercantile, the politics of peddlers. So political management often +becomes a trick. Hence we have many politicians, and raise a harvest of +them every year, that crop never failing, party-men who can legislate +for a class; but we have scarce one great statesman who can step before +his class, beyond his age, and legislate for a whole nation, leading the +people and giving us new ideas to incarnate in the multitude, his word +becoming flesh. We have not planters, but trimmers! A great statesman +never came of mercantile politics, only of politics considered as the +national application of religion to life. Our political morals, you all +know what they are, the morals of a huckster. This is no new thing; the +same game was played long ago in Venice, Pisa, Florence, and the result +is well known. A merely mercantile politician is very sharp-sighted and +perhaps far-sighted, but a dollar will cover the whole field of his +vision and he can never see through it. The number of slaves in the +United States is considerably greater than our whole population when we +declared Independence, yet how much talk will a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> tariff make, or a +public dinner; how little the welfare of three million men! Said I not +truly, our most famous politicians are, in the general way, only +mercantile party-men? Which of these men has shown the most interest in +those three million slaves? The man who in the Senate of a Christian +Republic valued them at twelve hundred million dollars! Shall +respectable men say, "We do not care what sort of a Government the +people have, so long as we get our dividends." Some say so; many men do +not say that, but think so and act accordingly! The Government, +therefore, must be so arranged that they get their dividends.</p> + +<p>This class of men buys up legislators, consciously or not, and pays +them, for value received. Yes, so great is its daring and its conscious +power, that we have recently seen our most famous politician bought up, +the stoutest understanding that one finds now extant in this whole +nineteenth century, perhaps the ablest head since Napoleon. None can +deny his greatness, his public services in times past, nor his awful +power of intellect. I say we have seen him, a Senator of the United +States, pensioned by this class, or a portion thereof, and thereby put +mainly in their hands! When a whole nation rises up and publicly throws +its treasures at the feet of a great man who has stood forth manfully +contending for the nation, and bids him take their honors and their gold +as a poor pay for noble works, why that sight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> is beautiful, the +multitude shouting hosanna to their King, and spreading their garments +underneath his feet! Man is loyal, and such honors so paid, and to such, +are doubly gracious; becoming alike to him that takes and those who +give. Yes, when a single class, to whom some man has done a great +service, goes openly and makes a memorial thereof in gold and honors +paid to him, why that also is noble and beautiful. But when a single +class, in a country where political doings are more public than +elsewhere in the whole world, secretly buys up a man, in high place and +world-famous, giving him a retaining fee for life, why the deed is one I +do not wish to call by name! Could such men do this without a secret +shame? I will never believe it of my countrymen.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> A gift blinds a +wise man's eyes, perverts the words even of the righteous, stopping his +mouth with gold so that he cannot reprove a wrong! But there is an +absolute justice which is neither bought nor sold! I know other nations +have done the same and with like effect. Fight with silver weapons, said +the Delphic oracle, and you'll conquer all. It has always been the craft +of despots to buy up aspiring talent; some with a title; some with gold. +Allegiance to the sovereign is the same thing on both sides of the +water, whether the sovereign be an eagle or a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> guinea. Some American, it +is said, wrote the Lord's Prayer on one side of a dime, and the Ten +Commandments on the other. The Constitution and a considerable +commentary might perhaps be written on the two sides of a dollar!</p> + +<p>This class controls the Churches, as the State. Let me show the effect +of that control. I am not to try men in a narrow way, by my own +theological standard, but by the standard of manliness and Christianity. +As a general rule, the clergy are on the side of power. All history +proves this, our own most abundantly. The clergy also are unconsciously +bought up, their speech paid for, or their silence. As a class, did they +ever denounce a public sin? a popular sin? Perhaps they have. Do they do +it now and here? Take Boston for the last ten years, and I think there +has been more clerical preaching against the abolitionists than against +slavery; perhaps more preaching against the temperance movement than in +its favor. With the exception of disbelieving the popular theology, your +evangelical alliance knows no sin but "original sin," unless indeed it +be "organic sins," which no one is to blame for; no sinner but Adam and +the devil; no saving righteousness but the "imputed." I know there are +exceptions, and I would go far to do them honor, pious men who lift up a +warning, yes, bear Christian testimony against public sins. I am +speaking of the mass of the clergy. Christ said the priests of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> time +had made a den of thieves out of God's house of prayer. Now they conform +to the public sins and apologize for popular crime. It is a good thing +to forgive an offence: who does not need that favor and often? But to +forgive the theory of crime, to have a theory which does that, is quite +another thing. Large cities are alike the court and camp of the +mercantile class, and what I have just said is more eminently true of +the clergy in such towns. Let me give an example. Not long ago the +Unitarian clergy published a protest against American slavery. It was +moderate, but firm, and manly. Almost all the clergy in the country +signed it. In the large towns few: they mainly young men and in the +least considerable churches. The young men seemed not to understand +their contract, for the essential part of an ecclesiastical contract is +sometimes written between the lines and in sympathetic ink. Is a +steamboat burned or lost on the waters, how many preach on that +affliction! Yet how few preached against the war? A preacher may say he +hates it as a man, no words could describe his loathing at it, but as a +minister of Christ, he dares not say a word! What clergymen tell of the +sins of Boston,—of intemperance, licentiousness; who of the ignorance +of the people; who of them lays bare our public sin as Christ of old; +who tells the causes of poverty, and thousand-handed crime; who aims to +apply Christianity to business, to legislation, politics, to all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +nation's life? Once the church was the bride of Christ, living by his +creative, animating love; her children were apostles, prophets, men by +the same spirit, variously inspired with power to heal, to help, to +guide mankind. Now she seems the widow of Christ, poorly living on the +dower of other times. Nay, the Christ is not dead, and 'tis her alimony, +not her dower. Her children—no such heroic sons gather about her table +as before. In her dotage she blindly shoves them off, not counting men +as sons of Christ. Is her day gone by? The clergy answer the end they +were bred for, paid for. Will they say, "We should lose our influence +were we to tell of this and do these things?"<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> It is not true. Their +ancient influence is already gone! Who asks, "What do the clergy think +of the tariff, or free trade, of annexation, or the war, of slavery, or +the education movement?" Why no man. It is sad to say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> these things. +Would God they were not true. Look round you, and if you can, come tell +me they are false.</p> + +<p>We are not singular in this. In all lands the clergy favors the +controlling class. Bossuet would make the monarchy swallow up all other +institutions, as in history he sacrificed all nations to the Jews. In +England the established clergy favors the nobility, the crown, not the +people; opposes all freedom of trade, all freedom in religion, all +generous education of the people: its gospel is the gospel for a class, +not Christ's gospel for mankind. Here also the sovereign is the head of +the church, it favors the prevailing power, represents the morality, the +piety which chances to be popular, nor less nor more; the Christianity +of the street, not of Christ.</p> + +<p>Here trade takes the place of the army, navy, and court in other lands. +That is well, but it takes also the place in great measure of science, +art and literature. So we become vulgar, and have little but trade to +show. The rich man's son seldom devotes himself to literature, science, +or art; only to getting more money, or to living in idleness on what he +has inherited. When money is the end, what need to look for any thing +more? He degenerates into the class of consumers, and thinks it an +honor. He is ashamed of his father's blood, proud of his gold. A good +deal of scientific labor meets with no reward, but itself. In our +country this falls almost wholly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> upon poor men. Literature, science and +art are mainly in their hands, yet are controlled by the prevalent +spirit of the nation. Here and there an exceptional man differs from +that, but the mass of writers conform. In England, the national +literature favors the church, the crown, the nobility, the prevailing +class. Another literature is rising, but is not yet national, still less +canonized. We have no American literature which is permanent. Our +scholarly books are only an imitation of a foreign type; they do not +reflect our morals, manners, politics, or religion, not even our rivers, +mountains, sky. They have not the smell of our ground in their breath. +The real American literature is found only in newspapers and speeches, +perhaps in some novel, hot, passionate, but poor, and extemporaneous. +That is our national literature. Does that favor man—represent man? +Certainly not. All is the reflection of this most powerful class. The +truths that are told are for them, and the lies. Therein the prevailing +sentiment is getting into the form of thought. Politics represent the +morals of the controlling class, the morals and manners of rich Peter +and David on a large scale. Look at that index, you would sometimes +think you were not in the Senate of a great nation, but in a board of +brokers, angry and higgling about stocks. Once in the nation's loftiest +hour, she rose inspired and said: "All men are born equal, each with +unalienable rights; that is self-evident."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> Now she repents her of the +vision and the saying. It does not appear in her literature, nor church, +nor state. Instead of that, through this controlling class, the nation +says: "All dollars are equal, however got; each has unalienable rights. +Let no man question that!" This appears in literature and legislation, +church and state. The morals of a nation, of its controlling class, +always get summed up in its political action. That is the barometer of +the moral weather. The voters are always fairly represented.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The wicked baron, bad of heart, and bloody of hand, has passed off with +the ages which gave birth to such a brood, but the bad merchant still +lives. He cheats in his trade; sometimes against the law, commonly with +it. His truth is never wholly true, nor his lie wholly false. He +overreaches the ignorant; makes hard bargains with men in their trouble, +for he knows that a falling man will catch at red-hot iron. He takes the +pound of flesh, though that bring away all the life-blood with it. He +loves private contracts, digging through walls in secret. No interest is +illegal if he can get it. He cheats the nation with false invoices, and +swears lies at the custom-house; will not pay his taxes, but moves out +of town on the last of April.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> He oppresses the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> men who sail his +ships, forcing them to be temperate, only that he may consume the value +of their drink. He provides for them unsuitable bread and meat. He would +not engage in the African slave-trade, for he might lose his ships and +perhaps more; but he is always ready to engage in the American +slave-trade, and calls you a "fanatic" if you tell him it is the worse +of the two. He cares not whether he sells cotton or the man who wears +it, if he only gets the money; cotton or negro, it is the same to him. +He would not keep a drink-hole in Ann Street, only own and rent it. He +will bring or make whole cargoes of the poison that deals "damnation +round the land." He thinks it vulgar to carry rum about in a jug, +respectable in a ship. He makes paupers, and leaves others to support +them. Tell not him of the misery of the poor, he knows better; nor of +our paltry way of dealing with public crime, he wants more jails and a +speedier gallows. You see his character in letting his houses, his +houses for the poor. He is a stone in the lame man's shoe. He is the +poor man's devil. The Hebrew devil that so worried Job is gone; so is +the brutal devil that awed our fathers. Nobody fears them; they vanish +before cock-crowing. But this devil of the nineteenth century is still +extant. He has gone into trade, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> advertises in the papers; his name +is "good" in the street. He "makes money;" the world is poorer by his +wealth. He spends it as he made it, like a devil, on himself, his family +alone, or worse yet, for show. He can build a church out of his gains, +to have his morality, his Christianity preached in it, and call that the +gospel, as Aaron called a calf—God. He sends rum and missionaries to +the same barbarians, the one to damn, the other to "save," both for his +own advantage, for his patron saint is Judas, the first saint who made +money out of Christ. Ask not him to do a good deed in private, "men +would not know it," and "the example would be lost;" so he never lets a +dollar slip out between his thumb and finger without leaving his mark on +both sides of it. He is not forecasting to discern effects in causes, +nor skilful to create new wealth, only spry in the scramble for what +others have made. It is easy to make a bargain with him, hard to settle. +In politics he wants a Government that will insure his dividends; so +asks what is good for him, but ill for the rest. He knows no right, only +power; no man but self; no God but his calf of gold.</p> + +<p>What effect has he on young men? They had better touch poison. If he +takes you to his heart, he takes you in. What influence on society? To +taint and corrupt it all round. He contaminates trade; corrupts +politics, making abusive laws, not asking for justice but only +dividends. To the church<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> he is the Anti-Christ. Yes, the very Devil, +and frightens the poor minister into shameful silence, or, more +shameless yet, into an apology for crime; makes him pardon the theory of +crime! Let us look on that monster—look and pass by, not without +prayer.</p> + +<p>The good merchant tells the truth and thrives by that; is upright and +downright; his word good as his Bible-oath. He pays for all he takes; +though never so rich he owns no wicked dollar; all is openly, honestly, +manfully earned, and a full equivalent paid for it. He owns money and is +worth a man. He is just in business with the strong; charitable in +dealing with the weak. His counting-room or his shop is the sanctuary of +fairness, justice, a school of uprightness as well as thrift. Industry +and honor go hand in hand with him. He gets rich by industry and +forecast, not by slight of hand and shuffling his cards to another's +loss. No men become the poorer because he is rich. He would sooner hurt +himself than wrong another, for he is a man, not a fox. He entraps no +man with lies, active or passive. His honesty is better capital than a +sharper's cunning. Yet he makes no more talk about justice and honesty +than the sun talks of light and heat; they do their own talking. His +profession of religion is all practice. He knows that a good man is just +as near heaven in his shop as in his church, at work as at prayer; so he +makes all work sacramental; he communes with God and man in buying and +selling—communion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> in both kinds. He consecrates his week-day and his +work. Christianity appears more divine in this man's deeds than in the +holiest words of apostle or saint. He treats every man as he wishes all +to treat him, and thinks no more of that than of carrying one for every +ten. It is the rule of his arithmetic. You know this man is a saint, not +by his creed, but by the letting of his houses, his treatment of all +that depend on him. He is a father to defend the weak, not a pirate to +rob them. He looks out for the welfare of all that he employs; if they +are his help he is theirs, and as he is the strongest so the greater +help. His private prayer appears in his public work, for in his devotion +he does not apologize for his sin, but asking to outgrow that, +challenges himself to new worship and more piety. He sets on foot new +enterprises which develop the nation's wealth and help others while they +help him. He wants laws that take care of man's rights, knowing that +then he can take care of himself and of his own, but hurt no man by so +doing. He asks laws for the weak, not against them. He would not take +vengeance on the wicked, but correct them. His justice tastes of +charity. He tries to remove the causes of poverty, licentiousness, of +all crime, and thinks that is alike the duty of Church and State. Ask +not him to make a statesman a party-man, or the churches an apology for +his lowness. He knows better; he calls that infidelity. He helps the +weak<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> help themselves. He is a moral educator, a church of Christ gone +into business, a saint in trade. The Catholic saint who stood on a +pillar's top, or shut himself into a den and fed on grass, is gone to +his place—that Christian Nebuchadnezzar. He got fame in his day. No man +honors him now; nobody even imitates him. But the saint of the +nineteenth century is the good merchant; he is wisdom for the foolish, +strength for the weak, warning to the wicked, and a blessing to all. +Build him a shrine in bank and church, in the market and the exchange, +or build it not, no saint stands higher than this saint of trade. There +are such men, rich and poor, young and old; such men in Boston. I have +known more than one such, and far greater and better than I have told +of, for I purposely under-color this poor sketch. They need no word of +mine for encouragement or sympathy. Have they not Christ and God to aid +and bless them? Would that some word of mine might stir the heart of +others to be such; your hearts, young men. They rise there clean amid +the dust of commerce and the mechanic's busy life, and stand there like +great square pyramids in the desert amongst the Arabians' shifting +tents. Look at them, ye young men, and be healed of your folly. It is +not the calling which corrupts the man, but the men the calling. The +most experienced will tell you so. I know it demands manliness to make a +man, but God sent you here to do that work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p> + +<p>The duty of this class is quite plain. They control the wealth, the +physical strength, the intellectual vigor of the nation. They now +display an energy new and startling. No ocean is safe from their canvas; +they fill the valleys; they level the hills; they chain the rivers; they +urge the willing soil to double harvests. Nature opens all her stores to +them; like the fabled dust of Egypt her fertile bosom teems with new +wonders, new forces to toil for man. No race of men in times of peace +ever displayed so manly an enterprise, an energy so vigorous as this +class here in America. Nothing seems impossible to them. The instinct of +production was never so strong and creative before. They are proving +that peace can stimulate more than war.</p> + +<p>Would that my words could reach all of this class. Think not I love to +speak hard words, and so often; say not that I am setting the poor +against the rich. It is no such thing. I am trying to set the strong in +favor of the weak. I speak for man. Are you not all brothers, rich or +poor? I am here to gratify no vulgar ambition, but in Religion's name to +tell their duty to the most powerful class in all this land. I must +speak the truth I know, though I may recoil with trembling at the words +I speak; yes, though their flame should scorch my own lips. Some of the +evils I complain of are your misfortune, not your fault. Perhaps the +best hearts in the land, no less than the ablest heads, are yours. If +the evils be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> done unconsciously, then it will be greatness to be higher +than society, and with your good overcome its evil. All men see your +energy, your honor, your disciplined intellect. Let them see your +goodness, justice, Christianity. The age demands of you a development of +religion proportionate with the vigor of your mind and arms. Trade is +silently making a wonderful revolution. We live in the midst of it, and +therefore see it not. All property has become movable, and therefore +power departs from the family of the first-born, and comes to the family +of mankind. God only controls this revolution, but you can help it +forward, or retard it. The freedom of labor, and the freedom of trade, +will work wonders little dreamed of yet; one is now uniting all men of +the same nation; the other, some day, will weave all tribes together +into one mighty family. Then who shall dare break its peace? I cannot +now stop to tell half the proud achievements I foresee resulting from +the fierce energy that animates your yet unconscious hearts. Men live +faster than ever before. Life, like money, like mechanical power, is +getting intensified and condensed. The application of science to the +arts, the use of wind, water, steam, electricity, for human works, is a +wonderful fact, far greater than the fables of old time. The modern +Cadmus has yoked fire and water in an iron bond. The new Prometheus +sends the fire of heaven from town to town to run his errands. We talk +by lightning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> Even now these new achievements have greatly multiplied +the powers of men. They belong to no class; like air and water they are +the property of mankind. It is for you, who own the machinery of +society, to see that no class appropriates to itself what God meant for +all. Remember it is as easy to tyrannize by machinery as by armies, and +as wicked; that it is greater now to bless mankind thereby, than it was +of old to conquer new realms. Let men not curse you, as the old +nobility, and shake you off, smeared with blood and dust. Turn your +power to goodness, its natural transfiguration, and men shall bless your +name, and God bless your soul. If you control the nation's politics, +then it is your duty to legislate for the nation,—for man. You may +develop the great national idea, the equality of all men; may frame a +government which shall secure man's unalienable rights. It is for you to +organize the rights of man, thus balancing into harmony the man and the +many, to organize the rights of the hand, the head, and the heart. If +this be not done, the fault is yours. If the nation play the tyrant over +her weakest child, if she plunder and rob the feeble Indian, the feebler +Mexican, the Negro, feebler yet, why the blame is yours. Remember there +is a God who deals justly with strong and weak. The poor and the weak +have loitered behind in the march of man; our cities yet swarm with men +half-savage. It is for you, ye elder brothers, to lead forth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> the weak +and poor! If you do the national duty that devolves on you, then are you +the saviors of your country, and shall bless not that alone, but all the +thousand million sons of men. Toil then for that. If the church is in +your hands, then make it preach the Christian truth. Let it help the +free development of religion in the self-consciousness of man, with +Jesus for its pattern. It is for you to watch over this work, promote +it, not retard. Help build the American church. The Roman church has +been, we know what it was, and what men it bore; the English church yet +stands, we know what it is. But the church of America—which shall +represent American vigor aspiring to realize the ideas of Christianity, +of absolute religion,—that is not yet. No man has come with pious +genius fit to conceive its litany, to chant its mighty creed, and sing +its beauteous psalm. The church of America, the church of freedom, of +absolute religion, the church of mankind, where Truth, Goodness, Piety, +form one trinity of beauty, strength, and grace—when shall it come? +Soon as we will. It is yours to help it come.</p> + +<p>For these great works you may labor; yes, you are laboring, when you +help forward justice, industry, when you promote the education of the +people; when you practise, public and private, the virtues of a +Christian man; when you hinder these seemingly little things, you hinder +also the great. You are the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> nation's head, and if the head be wilful +and wicked, what shall its members do and be? To this class let me say: +Remember your Position at the head of the nation; use it not as pirates, +but Americans, Christians, men. Remember your Temptations, and be warned +in time. Remember your opportunities—such as no men ever had before. +God and man alike call on you to do your duty. Elevate your calling +still more; let its nobleness appear in you. Scorn a mean thing. Give +the world more than you take. You are to serve the nation, not it you; +to build the church, not make it a den of thieves, nor allow it to +apologize for your crime, or sloth. Try this experiment and see what +comes of it. In all things govern yourselves by the eternal law of +right. You shall build up not a military despotism, nor a mercantile +oligarchy, but a State, where the government is of all, by all, and for +all; you shall found not a feudal theocracy, nor a beggarly sect, but +the church of mankind, and that Christ which is the same yesterday, +to-day and for ever, will dwell in it, to guide, to warn, to inspire, +and to bless all men. And you, my brothers, what shall you become? Not +knaves, higgling rather than earn; not tyrants, to be feared whilst +living, and buried at last amid popular hate; but men, who thrive best +by justice, reason, conscience, and have now the blessedness of just men +making themselves perfect.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> I gather these facts from a Review of Major Poussin's +<i>Belgique et les Belges, depuis 1830</i>, in a foreign journal. The +condition of the merchant manufacturer I know not.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Subsequent events (in 1850 and 1851) show that he was +right in his statement. What was thought calumny then has become history +since, and is now the glory and boast of Boston.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Mr. <i>Robert J. Walker</i> published a letter in favor of the +annexation of Texas. In it he said: "Upon the refusal of re-annexation +... <span class="smcap">the Tariff as a practical measure falls wholly and for ever</span>, and we +shall thereafter be compelled to resort to direct taxes to support the +Government." Notwithstanding this foolish threat, a large number of +citizens of Massachusetts remonstrated against annexation. The House of +Representatives, by a large majority, passed a resolve declaring that +Massachusetts "announces her uncompromising opposition to the further +extension of American slavery," and "declares her earnest and +unalterable purpose to use every lawful and constitutional measure for +its overthrow and entire extinction," etc. But the Senate voted that the +resistance of the State was already sufficient! The passage in the text +refers to these circumstances.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> It was then thought that the aqueduct would cost but +$2,000,000.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> I refer to the Report of M. Villerme, in the <i>Mémoires de +l'Institut, Tom.</i> lxxi.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> This was printed in 1846. In 1850, and since, these men +have publicly gloried in a similar act even more atrocious.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Keble, in one of his poems, represents a mother seeing her +sportive son "enacting holy rites," and thus describes her emotions: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"She sees in heart an empty throne,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And falling, falling far away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Him whom the Lord hath placed thereon:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">She hears the dread Proclaimer say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Cast ye the lot, in trembling cast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The traitor to his place hath past,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strive ye with prayer and fast to guide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dangerous glory where it shall abide.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> It is the custom in Massachusetts to tax men in the place +where they reside, on the first day of May; as the taxes differ very +much in different towns of the same State, it is easy for a man to +escape the burden of taxation.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> +<h2>VIII.</h2> + +<h3>A SERMON OF THE DANGEROUS CLASSES IN SOCIETY.—PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, +ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 1847.</h3> +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> +<h4>MATTHEW XVIII. 12.</h4> + +<h4>If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he +not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh +that which is gone astray?</h4> + + +<p>We are first babies, then children, then youths, then men. It is so with +the nation; so with mankind. The human race started with no culture, no +religion, no morals, even no manners, having only desires and faculties +within, and the world without. Now we have attained much more. But it +has taken many centuries for mankind to pass from primeval barbarism to +the present stage of comfort, science, civilization, and refinement. It +has been the work of two hundred generations; perhaps of more. But each +new child is born at the foot of the ladder, as much as the first child; +with only desires and faculties. He may have a better physical +organization<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> than the first child; he certainly has better teachers; +but he, in like manner, is born with no culture, no religion, no morals, +even with no manners; born into them, not with them; born bare of these +things and naked as the first child. He must himself toil up the ladder +which mankind have been so long in constructing and climbing up. To +attain the present civilization he must pass over every point which the +race passed through. The child of the civilized man, born with a good +organization and under favorable circumstances, can do this rapidly, and +in thirty or forty years attains the height of development which it took +the whole human race sixty centuries or more to arrive at. He has the +aid of past experience and the examples of noble men; he travels a road +already smooth and beaten. The world's cultivation, so slowly and +painfully achieved, helps civilize him. He may then go further on, and +cultivate himself; may transcend the development of mankind, adding new +rounds to the ladder. So doing he aids future children, who will one day +climb above his head, he possibly crying against them,—that they climb +only to fall, and thereby sweep off him and all below; that no new +rounds can be added to the old ladder.</p> + +<p>Still, after all the helps which our fathers have provided, every future +child must go through the same points which we and our predecessors +passed through, only more swiftly. Every boy has his animal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> period, +when he can only eat and sleep, intelligence slowly dawning on his mind. +Then comes his savage period, when he knows nothing of rights, when all +thine is mine to him, if he can get it. Then comes his barbarous period, +when he is ignorant and dislikes to learn; study and restraint are +irksome. He hates the school, disobeys his mother; has reverence for +nobody. Nothing is sacred to him—no time, nor place, nor person. He +would grow up wild. The greater part of children travel beyond this +stage. The unbearable boy becomes a tolerable youth; then a powerful +man. He loves his duty; outstrips the men that once led him so unwilling +and reluctant, and will set hard lessons for his grandsire which that +grandsire, perhaps, will not learn. The young learns of the old, mounts +the ladder they mounted and the ladder they made. The reverse is seldom +true, that the old climbs the ladder which the young have made, and over +that storms new heights. Now and then you see it, but such are +extraordinary and marvellous men. In the old story Saturn did not take +pains to understand his children, nor learn thereof; he only devoured +them up, till some outgrew and overmastered him. Did the generation that +is passing from the stage ever comprehend and fairly judge the new +generation coming on? In the world, the barbarian passes on and becomes +the civilized, then the enlightened.</p> + +<p>In the physical process of growth from the baby to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> the man, there is no +direct intervention of the will. Therefore the process goes on +regularly, and we do not see abortive men who have advanced in years, +but stopped growth in their babyhood, or boyhood. But as the will is the +soul of personality, so to say, the heart of intellect, morals and +religion, so the force thereof may promote, retard, disturb, and perhaps +for a time completely arrest the progress of intellectual, moral and +religious growth. Still more, this spiritual development of men is +hindered or promoted by subtle causes hitherto little appreciated. +Hence, by reason of these outward or internal hinderances, you find +persons and classes of men who do not attain the average culture of +mankind, but stop at some lower stage of this spiritual development, or +else loiter behind the rest. You even find whole nations whose progress +is so slow, that they need the continual aid of the more civilized to +quicken their growth. Outward circumstances have a powerful influence on +this development. If a single class in a nation lingers behind the rest, +the cause thereof will commonly be found in some outward hinderance. +They move in a resisting medium, and therefore with abated speed. No one +expects the same progress from a Russian serf and a free man of New +England. I do not deny that in the case of some men personal will is +doubtless the disturbing force. I am not now to go beyond that fact, and +inquire how the will became as it is. Here is a man who, from whatever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> +cause, is bodily ill-born, with defective organs. He stops in the animal +period; is incapable of any considerable degree of development, +intellectual, moral, or religious. The defect is in his body. Others +disturbed by more occult causes do not attain their proper growth. This +man wishes to stop in his savage period, he would be a freebooter, a +privateer against society, having universal letters-of-marque and +reprisal; a perpetual Arab, his rule is to get what he can, as he will +and where he pleases, to keep what he gets. Another stops at the +barbarous age. He is lazy and will not work, others must bear his share +of the general burden of mankind. He claims letters patent to make all +men serve him. He is not only indolent, constitutionally lazy, but lazy, +consciously and wilfully idle. He will not work, but in one form or +another will beg or steal. Yet a fourth stops in the half-civilized +period. He will work with his hands, but no more. He cannot discover; he +will not study to learn; he will not even be taught what has been +invented and taught before. None can teach him. The horse is led to the +water, or the water brought to the horse, but the beast will not drink. +"The idle fool is whipt at school," but to no purpose. He is always an +oaf. No college or tutor mends him. The wild ass will go out free, wild, +and an ass.</p> + +<p>These four, the idiot, the pirate, the thief, and the clown are +exceptional men. They remain stationary.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> Meanwhile, mankind advances, +continually, but not with an even front. The human race moves not by +column or line, but by <i>échelon</i> as it were. We go up by stairs, not by +slopes. Now comes a great man, of far-reaching and prospective sight, a +Moses, and he tells men that there is a land of promise, which they have +a right to who have skill to win it. Then lesser men, the Calebs and +Joshuas, go and search it out, bringing back therefrom new wine in the +cluster and alluring tales. Next troops of pioneers advance, yet lesser +men; then a few bold men who love adventure. Then comes the army, the +people with their flocks and herds, the priesthood with their ark of the +covenant and the tabernacle, the title-deeds of the new lands which they +have heard of but not seen. At last there comes the mixed multitude, +following in no order, but not without shouting and tumult, men treading +one another under foot, cowards looking back and refusing to march, old +men dying without seeing their consolation. If you will lie down on the +ground and take the profile of a great city, and see how hill, steeple, +dome, tower, the roof of the tall house, gain on the sky, and then come +whole streets of warehouses and shops, then common dwellings, then +cheap, low tenements, you will have a good profile of man's march to +gain new conquests in science, art, morals, religion, and general +development. It is so in the family, a bright boy shooting before all +the rest, and taking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> the thunder out of the adverse cloud for his +brothers and sisters, who follow and grow rich with unscathed forehead. +It is so in the nation, a few great men bearing the brunt of the storm, +and wading through the surges to set their weaker brothers, screaming +and struggling, with dry feet, in safety, on the firm land of science or +religion. It is so in the world, a tall nation achieving art, science, +law, morals, religion, and by the fact revealing their beauty to the +barbarian race.</p> + +<p>In all departments of human concern there are such pioneers for the +family, the nation or mankind. It is instructive to study this law of +human progress, to see the De Gamas and Columbuses, aspiring men who +dream of worlds to come and lead the perilous van; to see the Vespuccis, +the Cortezes, the Pizarros, who get rank and fame by following in their +track; to see next the merchant adventurers, soldiers, sutlers and the +like, who make money out of the new conquest, while the great +discoverers had for meet reward the joy of their genius, the nobleness +of their work, a sight of the world's future welfare from the prophet's +mountain—a hard life, a bad name, and a grave unknown.</p> + +<p>Now while there are those men in the van of society, who aspire at more, +chiding and taxing mankind with idleness, cowardice, and even sin, there +are yet those others who loiter on the way, from weakness or wilfulness, +refusing to advance—idlers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> cowards, sinners. If born in the rear, +afar from civilization, they are left to die—the savages, the inferior +races, the perishing classes of the world. If born in the centre of +civilization, for a while they impede the march by actively hindering +others, by standing in their way, or by plundering the rest—the +dangerous classes of society. They too are slain and trodden under foot +of men, and likewise perish.</p> + +<p>In most large families there is a bad boy, a black sheep in the flock, +an Ishmael whom Abraham will drive out into the wilderness, to meet an +angel if he can find one. That story of Hagar and her son is very old, +but verified anew each year in families and nations. So in society there +are criminals who do not keep up with the moral advance of the mass, +stragglers from the march, whom society treats as Abraham his base-born +boy, but sending them off with no loaf or skin of water, not even a +blessing, but a curse; sending them off as Cain went, with a bad name +and a mark on their forehead! So in the world there are inferior +nations, savage, barbarous, half-civilized; some are inferior in nature, +some perhaps only behind us in development; on a lower form in the great +school of Providence—Negroes, Indians, Mexicans, Irish, and the like, +whom the world treats as Ishmael and the Gibeonites got treated: now +their land is stolen from them in war; their children, or their persons, +are annexed to the strong as slaves. The civilized continually preys on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +the savage, reannexing their territory and stealing their +persons—owning them or claiming their work. Esau is rough and hungry, +Jacob smooth and well fed. The smooth man overreaches the rough; buys +his birthright for a mess of pottage; takes the ground from underneath +his feet, thereby supplanting his brother. So the elder serves the +younger, and the fresh civilization, strong, and sometimes it may be +wicked also, overmasters the ruder age that is contented to stop. The +young man now a barbarian will come up one day and take all our places, +making us seem ridiculous, nothing but timid conservatives!</p> + +<p>All these three, the reputed pests of the family, society, and the +world, are but loiterers from the march, bad boys, or dull ones. +Criminals are a class of such; savages are nations thereof—classes or +nations that for some cause do not keep up with the movement of mankind. +The same human nature is in us all, only there it is not so highly +developed. Yet the bad boy, who to-day is a curse to the mother that +bore him, would perhaps have been accounted brave and good in the days +of the Conqueror; the dangerous class might have fought in the Crusades +and been reckoned soldiers of the Lord whose chance for heaven was most +auspicious. The savage nations would have been thought civilized in the +days when "there was no smith in Israel." David would make a sorry +figure among the present kings of Europe,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> and Abraham would be judged +of by a standard not known in his time. There have been many centuries +in which the pirate, the land-robber and the murderer were thought the +greatest of men.</p> + +<p>Now it becomes a serious question, What shall be done for these +stragglers, or even with them? It is sometimes a terrible question to +the father and mother what they shall do for their reprobate son who is +an offence to the neighborhood, a shame, a reproach and a heart-burning +to them. It is a sad question to society, What shall be done with the +criminals—thieves, housebreakers, pirates, murderers? It is a serious +question to the world, What is to become of the humbler nations—Irish, +Mexicans, Malays, Indians, Negroes?</p> + +<p>In the world and in society the question is answered in about the same +way. In a low civilization, the instinct of self-preservation is the +strongest of all. They are done with, not for; are done away with. It is +the Old Testament answer:—The inferior nation is hewn to pieces, the +strong possess their lands, their cities, their cattle, their persons, +also, if they will; the class of criminals gets the prophet's curse: the +two bears, the jail and the gallows, eat them up. In the family alone is +the Christian answer given; the good shepherd goes forth to seek the one +sheep that has strayed and gone, lost upon the mountains; the father +goes out after the poor prodigal, whom the swine's meat could not feed +nor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> fill.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> The world, which is the society of nations, and society, +which is the family of classes, still belong mainly to the "old +dispensation," Heathen or Hebrew, the period of force. In the family +there is a certain instinctive love binding the parent to the child, and +therefore a certain unity of action, growing out of that love. So the +father feels his kinship to his boy, though a reprobate; looks for the +causes of his son's folly or sin, and strives to cure him; at least to +do something for him, not merely with him. The spirit of Christianity +comes into the family, but the recognition of human brotherhood stops +mainly there. It does not reach throughout society; it has little +influence on national politics or international law—on the affairs of +the world taken as a whole. I know the idea of human brotherhood has +more influence now than hitherto; I think in New England it has a wider +scope, a higher range, and works with more power than elsewhere. Our +hearts bleed for the starving thousands of Ireland, whom we only read +of; for the down-trodden slave, though of another race and dyed by +Heaven with another hue; yes, for the savage and the suffering +everywhere. The hand of our charity goes through every land. If there is +one quality for which the men of New<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> England may be proud it is this, +their sympathy with suffering man. Still we are far from the Christian +ideal. We still drive out of society the Ishmaels and Esaus. This we do +not so much from ill-will as want of thought, but thereby we lose the +strength of these outcasts. So much water runs over the dam—wasted and +wasting!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In all these melancholy cases what is it best to do? what shall the +parents do to mend their dull boy, or their wicked one? There are two +methods which may be tried. One is the method of force, sometimes +referred to Solomon, and recommended by the maxim, "Spare not the rod +and spoil the child." That is the Old Testament way, "Stripes are +prepared for the fool's back." The mischief is, they leave it no wiser +than they found it. By the law of the Hebrews, a man brought his +stubborn and rebellious son before the magistrates and deposed: "This +our son is stubborn and rebellious: he will not obey our voice. He is a +glutton and a drunkard." Thereupon, the men of the city stoned him with +stones and so "put away the evil from amongst them!" That was the method +of force. It may bruise the body; it may fill men with fear; it may +kill. I think it never did any other good. It belonged to a rude and +bloody age. I may ask intelligent men who have tried it, and I think +they will confess it was a mistake. I think I may ask<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> intelligent men +on whom it has been tried, and they will say, "It was a mistake on my +father's part, but a curse to me!" I know there are exceptions to that +reply; still I think it will be general. A man is seldom elevated by an +appeal to low motives; always by addressing what is high and manly +within him. Is fear of physical pain the highest element you can appeal +to in a child; the most effectual? I do not see how Satan can be cast +out by Satan. I think a Saviour never tries it. Yet this method of force +is brief and compact. It requires no patience, no thought, no wisdom for +its application, and but a moment's time. For this reason, I think, it +is still retained in some families and many schools, to the injury alike +of all concerned. Blows and violent words are not correction, often but +an adjournment of correction: sometimes only an actual confession of +inability to correct.</p> + +<p>The other is the method of love, and of wisdom not the less. Force may +hide, and even silence effects for a time; it removes not the real +causes of evil. By the method of love and wisdom the parents remove the +causes; they do not kill the demoniac, they cast out the demon, not by +letting in Beelzebub, the chief devil, but by the finger of God. They +redress the child's folly and evil birth by their own wisdom and good +breeding. The day drives out and off the night.</p> + +<p>Sometimes you see that worthy parents have a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> weak and sickly child, +feeble in body. No pains are too great for them to take in behalf of the +faint and feeble one. What self-denial of the father; what sacrifice on +the mother's part! The best of medical skill is procured; the tenderest +watching is not spared. No outlay of money, time, or sacrifice is +thought too much to save the child's life; to insure a firm constitution +and make that life a blessing. The able-bodied children can take care of +themselves, but not the weak. So the affection of father and mother +centres on this sickly child. By extraordinary attention the feeble +becomes strong; the deformed is transformed, and the grown man, strong +and active, blesses his mother for health not less than life.</p> + +<p>Did you ever see a robin attend to her immature and callow child which +some heedless or wicked boy had stolen from the nest, wounded and left +on the ground, half living; left to perish? Patiently she brings food +and water, gives it kind nursing. Tenderly she broods over it all night +upon the ground, sheltering its tortured body from the cold air of night +and morning's penetrating dew. She perils herself; never leaves it—not +till life is gone. That is nature; the strong protecting the feeble. +Human nature may pause and consider the fowls of the air, whence the +Greatest once drew his lessons. Human history, spite of all its tears +and blood, is full of beauty and majestic worth. But it shows few things +so fair as the mother watching thus over her sickly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> and deformed child, +feeding him with her own life. What if she forewent her native instinct +and the mother said, "My boy is deformed, a cripple—let him die?" Where +would be the more hideous deformity?</p> + +<p>If his child be dull, slow-witted, what pains will a good father take to +instruct him; still more if he is vicious, born with a low organization, +with bad propensities—what admonitions will he administer; what +teachers will he consult; what expedients will he try; what prayers will +he not pray for his stubborn and rebellious son! Though one experiment +fail, he tries another, and then again, reluctant to give over. Did it +never happen to one of you to be such a child, to have outgrown that +rebellion and wickedness? Remember the pains taken with you; remember +the agony your mother felt; the shame that bowed your father's head so +oft, and brought such bitter tears adown those venerable cheeks. You +cannot pay for that agony, that shame, not pay the hearts which burst +with both—yet uttering only a prayer for you. Pay it back then, if you +can, to others like yourself, stubborn and rebellious sons.</p> + +<p>Has none of you ever been such a father or mother? You know then the sad +yearnings of heart which tried you. The world condemned you and your +wicked child, and said, "Let the elders stone him with stones. The +gallows waiteth for its own!" Not so you! You said: "Nay, now, wait a +little.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> Perchance the boy will mend. Come, I will try again. Crush him +not utterly and a father's heart besides!" The more he was wicked, the +more assiduous were you for his recovery, for his elevation. You saw +that he would not keep up with the moral march of men; that he was a +barbarian, a savage, yes, almost a beast amongst men. You saw this; yes, +felt it too as none others felt. Yet you could not condemn him wholly +and without hope. You saw some good mixed with his evil; some causes for +the evil and excuses for it which others were blind to. Because you +mourned most you pitied most—all from the abundance of your love. +Though even in your highest hour of prayer, the sad conviction came that +work or prayer was all in vain—you never gave him over to the world's +reproach, but interposed your fortune, character, yes, your own person, +to take the blows which the severe and tyrannous world kept laying on. +At last if he would not repent, you hid him away, the best you could, +from the mocking sight of other men, but never shut him from your heart; +never from remembrance in your deepest prayers. How the whole family +suffers for the prodigal till he returns. When he comes back, you +rejoice over one recovered olive-plant more than over all the trees of +your field which no storm has ever broke or bowed. How you went forth to +meet him; with what joy rejoiced! "For this my son was lost and is +found," says the old man; "he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> dead and is alive once more. Let us +pray and be glad!" With what a serene and hallowed countenance you met +your friends and neighbors, as their glad hearts smiled up in their +faces when the prodigal came home from riot and swine's-bread, a new man +safe and sound! Many such things have I seen, and hearts long cold grew +bright and warm again. Towards evening the clouds broke asunder; Simeon +saw his consolation and went home in sunlight and in peace.</p> + +<p>The general result of this treatment in the family is, that the dull boy +learns by degrees, learns what he is fit for: the straggler joins the +troop, and keeps step with the rest, nay, sometimes becomes the leader +of the march: the vicious boy is corrected; even the faults of his +organization get overcome, not suddenly, but at length. The rejected +stone finds its place on the wall, and its use. Such is not always the +result. Some will not be mended. I stop not now to ask the cause. Some +will not return, though you go out to meet them a great way off. What +then? Will you refuse to go? Can you wholly abandon a friend or a child +who thus deserts himself? Is he so bad that he cannot be made better? +Perhaps it is so. Can you not hinder him from being worse? Are you so +good that you must forsake him? Did not God send his greatest, noblest, +purest Son to seek and save the lost? send him to call sinners to +repent? When sinners slew him, did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> God forsake mankind? Not one of +those sinners did his love forget.</p> + +<p>Does the good physician spend the night in feasting with the sound, or +in watching with the sick? Nay, though the sick man be past all hope, he +will look in to soothe affliction which he cannot cure; at least to +speak a word of friendly cheer. The wise teacher spends most pains with +backward boys, and is most bountiful himself where Nature seems most +niggard in her gifts. What would you say if a teacher refused to help a +boy because the boy was slow to learn; because he now and then broke +through the rules? What if the mother said: "My boy is a sickly dunce, +not worth the pains of rearing. Let him die!" What if the father said: +"He is a born villain, to be bred only for the gallows; what use to toil +or pray for him! Let the hangman take my son!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>What shall be done for Criminals, the backward children of society, who +refuse to keep up with the moral or legal advance of mankind? They are a +dangerous class. There are three things which are sometimes confounded: +there is Error, an unintentional violation of a natural law. Sometimes +this comes from abundance of life and energy; sometimes from ignorance, +general or special; sometimes from heedlessness, which is ignorance for +the time. Next there is Crime, the violation of a human statute.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> +Suppose the statute also represents a law of God; the violation thereof +may be the result of ignorance, or of design, it may come from a bad +heart. Then it becomes a Sin—the wilful violation of a known law of +God. There are many errors which are not crimes; and the best men often +commit them innocently, but not without harm, violating laws of the body +or the soul, which they have not grown up to understand. There have been +many crimes; yes, conscious violations of man's law which were not sins, +but rather a keeping of God's law. There are still a great many sins not +forbidden by any human statute, not considered as crimes. It is no crime +to go and fight in a wicked war; nay, it is thought a virtue. It was a +crime in the heroes of the American Revolution to demand the unalienable +rights of man—they were "traitors" who did it; a crime in Jesus to sum +up the "Law and the Prophets," in one word, Love; he was reckoned an +"infidel," guilty of blasphemy against Moses! Now to punish an error as +a crime, a crime as a sin, leads to confusion at the first, and to much +worse than confusion in the end.</p> + +<p>But there are crimes which are a violation of the eternal principles of +justice. It is of such, and the men who commit them, that I am now to +speak. What shall be done for the dangerous classes, the criminals?</p> + +<p>The first question is, What end shall we aim at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> in dealing with them? +The means must be suited to accomplish that end. We may desire +vengeance; then the hurt inflicted on the criminal will be proportioned +to the loss or hurt sustained by society. A man has stolen my goods, +injured my person, traduced my good name, sought to take my life. I will +not ask for the motive of his deeds, or the cause of that motive. I will +only consider my own damage, and will make him smart for that. I will +use violence—having an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I will +deliver him over to the tormentors till my vengeance is satisfied. If he +slew my friend, or sought to slay but lacked the power, as I have the +ability I will kill him! This desire of vengeance, of paying a hurt with +a hurt, has still very much influence on our treatment of criminals. I +fear it is still the chief aim of our penal jurisprudence. When +vengeance is the aim, violence is the most suitable method; jails and +the gallows most appropriate instruments! But is it right to take +vengeance; for me to hurt a man to-day solely because he hurt me +yesterday? If so, the proof of that right must be found in my nature, in +the law of God; a man can make a statute, God only a right. As I study +my nature, I find no such right; reason gives me none; conscience none; +religion quite as little. Doubtless I have a right to defend myself by +all manly means; to protect myself for the future no less than for the +present. In doing that, it may be needful that I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> should restrain, and +in restraining seize and hold, and in holding incidentally hurt my +opponent. But I cannot see what right I have in cold blood wilfully to +hurt a man because he once hurt me, and does not intend to repeat the +wrong. Do I look to the authority of the greatest Son of man? I find no +allusion to such a right. I find no law of God which allows vengeance. +In his providence I find justice everywhere as beautiful as certain; but +vengeance nowhere. I know this is not the common notion entertained of +God and his providence. I shudder to think at the barbarism which yet +prevails under the guise of Christianity; the vengeance which is sought +for in the name of God!</p> + +<p>The aim may be not to revenge a crime, but to prevent it; to deter the +offender from repeating the deed, and others from the beginning thereof. +In all modern legislation the vindictive spirit is slowly yielding to +the design of preventing crime. The method is to inflict certain uniform +and specific penalties for each offence, proportionate to the damage +which the criminal has done; to make the punishment so certain, so +severe, or so infamous, that the offender shall forbear for the future, +and innocent men be deterred from crime. But have we a right to punish a +man for the example's sake? I may give up my life to save a thousand +lives, or one if I will. But society has no right to take it, without my +consent, to save the whole human race! I admit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> that society has the +right of eminent domain over my property, and may take my land for a +street; may destroy my house to save the town; perhaps seize on my store +of provisions in time of famine. It can render me an equivalent for +those things. I have not the same lien on any portion of the universe as +on my life, my person. To these I have rights which none can alienate +except myself, which no man has given, which all men can never justly +take away. For any injustice wilfully done to me, the human race can +render me no equivalent.</p> + +<p>I know society claims the right of eminent domain over person and life +not less than over house and land—to take both for the Commonwealth. I +deny the right—certainly it has never been shown. Hence to me, resting +on the broad ground of natural justice, the law of God, capital +punishment seems wholly inadmissible, homicide with the pomp and +formality of law. It is a relic of the old barbarism—paying hurt for +hurt. No one will contend that it is inflicted for the offender's good. +For the good of others I contend we have no right to inflict it without +the sufferer's consent. To put a criminal to death seems to me as +foolish as for the child to beat the stool it has stumbled over, and as +useless too. I am astonished that nations with the name of Christian +ever on their lips, continue to disgrace themselves by killing men, +formally and in cold blood; to do this with prayers—"Forgive us as we +forgive;" doing it in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> the name of God! I do not wonder that in the +codes of nations, Hebrew or heathen, far lower than ourselves in +civilization, we should find laws enforcing this punishment; laws too +enacted in the name of God. But it fills me with amazement that worthy +men in these days should go back to such sources for their wisdom; +should walk dry-shod through the Gospels and seek in records of a +barbarous people to justify this atrocious act! Famine, pestilence, war, +are terrible evils, but no one is so dreadful in its effects as the +general prevalence of a great theological idea that is false.</p> + +<p>It makes me shudder to recollect that out of the twenty-eight States of +this Union twenty-seven should still continue the gallows as a part of +the furniture of a Christian Government. I hope our own State, dignified +already by so many noble acts, will soon rid herself of the stain. Let +us try the experiment of abolishing this penalty, if we will, for twenty +years, or but ten, and I am confident we shall never return to that +punishment. If a man be incapable of living in society, so ill-born or +ill-bred that you cannot cure or mend him, why, hide him away out of +society. Let him do no harm, but treat him kindly, not like a wolf but a +man. Make him work, to be useful to himself, to society, but do not kill +him. Or if you do, never say again, "Forgive us our trespasses as we +forgive those that trespass against us." What if He should take you at +your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> word! What would you think of a father who to-morrow should take +the Old Testament for his legal warrant, and bring his son before your +Mayor and Aldermen because he was "stubborn and rebellious, a drunkard +and a glutton," and they should stone him to death in front of the City +Hall! But there is quite as good a warrant in the Old Testament for that +as for hanging a man. The law is referred to Jehovah as its author. How +much better is it to choke the life out of a man behind the prison wall? +Is not society the father of us all, our protector and defender? Hanging +is vengeance; nothing but vengeance. I can readily conceive of that +great Son of man, whom the loyal world so readily adores, performing all +needful human works with manly dignity. Artists once loved to paint the +Saviour in the lowly toil of lowly men, his garments covered with the +dust of common life; his soul sullied by no pollution. But paint him to +your fancy as an executioner; legally killing a man; the halter in his +hands, hanging Judas for high treason! You see the relation which that +punishment bears to Christianity. Yet what was unchristian in Jesus does +not become Christian in the sheriff. We call ourselves Christians; we +often repeat the name, the words of Christ,—but his prayer? oh no—not +that.</p> + +<p>There are now in this land, I think, sixteen men under sentence of +death; sixteen men to be hanged till they are dead! Is there not in the +nation skill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> to heal these men? Perhaps it is so. I have known hearts +which seemed to me cold stones, so hard, so dry. No kindly steel had +alchemy to win a spark from them. Yet their owners went about the +streets and smiled their hollow smiles; the ghastly brother cast his +shadow in the sun, or wrapped his cloak about him in the wintry hour, +and still the world went on though the worst of men remained unhanged. +Perhaps you cannot cure these men!—is there not power enough to keep +them from doing harm; to make them useful? Shame on us that we know no +better than thus to pour out life upon the dust, and then with reeking +hands turn to the poor and weak and say, "Ye shall not kill."</p> + +<p>But if the prevention of crime be the design of the punishment, then we +must not only seek to hinder the innocent from vice, but we must reform +the criminal. Do our methods of punishment effect that object? During +the past year we have committed to the various prisons in Massachusetts +five thousand six hundred sixty-nine persons for crime. How many of them +will be reformed and cured by this treatment, and so live honest and +useful lives hereafter? I think very few. The facts show that a great +many criminals are never reformed by their punishment. Thus in France, +taking the average of four years, it seems that twenty-two out of each +hundred criminals were punished oftener than once; in Scotland +thirty-six out of the hundred. Of the seventy-eight received<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> at your +State's prison the last year—seventeen have been sent to that very +prison before. How many of them have been tenants of other institutions +I know not, but as only twenty-three of the seventy-eight are natives of +this State, it is plain that many, under other names, may have been +confined in jail before. Yet of these seventy-eight, ten are less than +twenty years old.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> Of thirty-five men sent from Boston to the State's +prison in one year, fourteen had been there before. More than half the +inmates of the House of Correction in this city are punished oftener +than once! These facts show that if we aim at the reformation of the +offender we fail most signally. Yet every criminal not reformed lives +mainly at the charge of society; and lives too in the most costly way, +for the articles he steals have seldom the same value to him as to the +lawful owner.</p> + +<p>It seems to me that our whole method of punishing crimes is a false one; +that but little good comes of it, or can come. We beat the stool which +we have stumbled over. We punish a man in proportion to the loss or the +fear of society; not in proportion to the offender's state of mind; not +with a careful desire to improve that state of mind. This is wise if +vengeance be the aim; if reformation, it seems sheer folly. I know our +present method is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> the result of six thousand years' experience of +mankind; I know how easy it is to find fault—how difficult to devise a +better mode. Still the facts are so plain that one with half an eye +cannot fail to see the falseness of the present methods. To remove the +evil, we must remove its cause,—so let us look a little into this +matter, and see from what quarter our criminals proceed.</p> + +<p>Here are two classes.</p> + +<p>I. There are the foes of society; men that are criminals in soul, born +criminals, who have a bad nature. The cause of their crime therefore is +to be found in their nature itself, in their organization if you will. +All experience shows that some men are born with a depraved +organization, an excess of animal passions, or a deficiency of other +powers to balance them.</p> + +<p>II. There are the victims of society; men that become criminals by +circumstances, made criminals, not born; men who become criminals, not +so much from strength of evil in their soul, or excess of evil +propensities in their organization, as from strength of evil in their +circumstances. I do not say that a man's character is wholly determined +by the circumstances in which he is placed, but all experience shows +that circumstances, such as exposure in youth to good men or bad men, +education, intellectual, moral, and religious, or neglect thereof entire +or partial, have a vast influence in forming the character<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> of men, +especially of men not well endowed by nature.</p> + +<p>Now the criminals in soul are the most dangerous of men, the born foes +of society. I will not at this moment undertake to go behind their +organization and ask, "How comes it that they are so ill-born?" I stop +now at that fact. The cause of their crime is in their bodily +constitution itself. This is always a small class. There are in New +England perhaps five hundred men born blind or deaf. Apart from the +idiots, I think there are not half so many who by nature and bodily +constitution are incapable of attaining the average morality of the race +at this day; not so many born foes of society as are born blind or deaf.</p> + +<p>The criminals from circumstances become what they are by the action of +causes which may be ascertained, guarded against, mitigated, and at last +overcome and removed. These men are born of poor parents, and find it +difficult to satisfy the natural wants of food, clothing, and shelter. +They get little culture, intellectual or moral. The school-house is +open, but the parent does not send the children, he wants their +services, to beg for him, perhaps to steal, it may be to do little +services which lie within their power. Besides, the child must be +ill-clad, and so a mark is set on him. The boy of the perishing classes, +with but common endowments, cannot learn at school as one of the thrifty +or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> abounding class. Then he receives no stimulus at home; there every +thing discourages his attempts. He cannot share the pleasure and sport +of his youthful fellows. His dress, his uncleanly habits, the result of +misery, forbid all that. So the children of the perishing herd together, +ignorant, ill-fed, and miserably clad. You do not find the sons of this +class in your colleges, in your high schools where all is free for the +people; few even in the grammar schools; few in the churches. Though +born into the nineteenth century after Christ, they grow up almost in +the barbarism of the nineteenth century before him. Children that are +blind and deaf, though born with a superior organization, if left to +themselves become only savages, little more than animals. What are we to +expect of children, born indeed with eyes and ears, but yet shut out +from the culture of the age they live in? In the corruption of a city, +in the midst of its intenser life, what wonder that they associate with +crime, that the moral instinct, baffled and cheated of its due, becomes +so powerless in the boy or girl; what wonder that reason never gets +developed there, nor conscience, nor that blessed religious sense learns +ever to assert its power? Think of the temptations that beset the boy; +those yet more revolting which address the other sex. Opportunities for +crime continually offer. Want impels, desire leagues with opportunity, +and the result we know. Add to all this the curse that creates so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> much +disease, poverty, wretchedness, and so perpetually begets crime; I mean +intemperance! That is almost the only pleasure of the perishing class. +What recognized amusement have they but this, of drinking themselves +drunk? Do you wonder at this? with no air, nor light, nor water, with +scanty food and a miserable dress, with no culture, living in a cellar +or a garret, crowded, stifling, and offensive even to the rudest sense, +do you wonder that man or woman seeks a brief vacation of misery in the +dram-shop and in its drunkenness? I wonder not. Under such circumstances +how many of you would have done better? To suffer continually from lack +of what is needful for the natural bodily wants of food, of shelter, of +warmth, that suffering is misery. It is not too much to say, there are +always in this city thousands of persons who smart under that misery. +They are indeed a perishing class.</p> + +<p>Almost all our criminals, victims and foes, come from this portion of +society. Most of those born with an organization that is predisposed to +crime are born there. The laws of nature are unavoidably violated from +generation to generation. Unnatural results must follow. The misfortunes +of the father are visited on his miserable child. Cows and sheep +degenerate when the demands of nature are not met, and men degenerate +not less. Only the low, animal instincts, those of self-defence and +self-perpetuation get developed; these with preternatural force. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> +animal man wakes, becomes brutish, while the spiritual element sleeps +within him. Unavoidably then the perishing is mother of the dangerous +class.</p> + +<p>I deny not that a portion of criminals come from other sources, but at +least nine tenths thereof proceed from this quarter. Of two hundred and +seventy-three thousand, eight hundred and eighteen criminals punished in +France from 1825 to 1839, more than half were wholly unable even to +read, and had been brought up subject to no family affections. Out of +seventy criminals in one prison at Glasgow who were under eighteen, +fifty were orphans having lost one or both parents, and nearly all the +rest had parents of bad character and reputation. Taking all the +criminals in England and Wales in 1841, there were not eight in a +hundred that could read and write well. In our country, where everybody +gets a mouthful of education, though scarce any one a full meal, the +result is a little different. Thus of the seven hundred and ninety +prisoners in the Mount Pleasant State's Prison in New York, one hundred +it is said could read and understand. Yet of all our criminals only a +very small proportion have been in a condition to obtain the average +intellectual and moral culture of our times.</p> + +<p>Our present mode of treating criminals does no good to this class of +men, these victims of circumstances. I do not know that their +improvement is even contemplated. We do not ask what causes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> made this +man a criminal, and then set ourselves to remove those causes. We look +only at the crime; so we punish practically a man because he had a +wicked father; because his education was neglected, and he exposed to +the baneful influence of unholy men. In the main we treat all criminals +alike if guilty of the same offence, though the same act denotes very +different degrees of culpability in the different men, and the same +punishment is attended with quite opposite results. Two men commit +similar crimes, we sentence them both to the State Prison for ten years. +At the expiration of one year let us suppose one man has thoroughly +reformed, and has made strict and solemn resolutions to pursue an honest +and useful life. I do not say such a result is to be expected from such +treatment; still it is possible, and I think has happened, perhaps many +times. We do not discharge the man; we care nothing for his penitence; +nothing for his improvement; we keep him nine years more. That is an +injustice to him; we have robbed him of nine years of time which he +might have converted into life. It is unjust also to society, which +needs the presence and the labor of all that can serve. The man has been +a burden to himself and to us. Suppose at the expiration of his ten +years the other man is not reformed at all; this result, I fear, happens +in the great majority of cases. He is no better for what he has +suffered; we know that he will return to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> career of crime, with new +energy and with even malice. Still he is discharged. This is unjust to +him, for he cannot bear the fresh exposure to circumstances which +corrupted him at first, and he will fall lower still. It is unjust to +society, for the property and the persons of all are exposed to his +passions just as much as before. He feels indignant as if he had +suffered a wrong. He says, "Society has taken vengeance on me, when I +was to be pitied more than blamed. Now I will have my turn. They will +not allow me to live by honest toil. I will learn their lesson. I will +plunder their wealth, their roof shall blaze!" He will live at the +expense of society, and in the way least profitable and most costly to +mankind. This idle savage will levy destructive contributions on the +rich, the thrifty, and the industrious. Yes, he will help teach others +the wickedness which himself once, and perhaps unavoidably learned. So +in the very bosom of society there is a horde of marauders waging +perpetual war against mankind.</p> + +<p>Do not say my sympathies are with the wicked, not the industrious and +good. It is not so. My sympathies are not confined to one class, +honorable or despised. But it seems to me this whole method of keeping a +criminal a definite time and then discharging him, whether made better +or worse is a mistake. Certainly it is so if we aim at his reformation. +What if a shepherd made it a rule to look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> one hour for each lost sheep, +and then return with or without the wanderer? What if a smith decreed +that one hour and no more should be spent in shoeing a horse, and so +worked that time on each, though half that time were enough—or sent +home the beast with but three shoes, or two, or one, because the hour +passed by? What if the physicians decreed, that all men sick of some +contagious disease, should spend six weeks in the hospital, then, if the +patient were found well the next day after admission, still kept him the +other forty; or, if not mended at the last day, sent him out sick to the +world? Such a course would be less unjust, less inhuman, only the wrong +is more obvious.</p> + +<p>To aggravate the matter still more, we have made the punishment more +infamous than the crime. A man may commit great crimes which indicate +deep depravity; may escape the legal punishment thereof by gold, by +flight, by further crimes, and yet hold up his head unblushing and +unrepentant amongst mankind. Let him commit a small crime, which shall +involve no moral guilt, and be legally punished—who respects him again? +What years of noble life are deemed enough to wipe the stain out of his +reputation? Nay, his children after him, to the third generation, must +bear the curse!</p> + +<p>The evil does not stop with the infamy. A guilty man has served out his +time. He is thoroughly resolved on industry and a moral life. Perhaps he +has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> not learned that crime is wrong, but found it unprofitable. He will +live away from the circumstances which before led him to crime. He comes +out of prison, and the jail-mark is on him. He now suffers the severest +part of his punishment. Friends and relations shun him. He is doomed and +solitary in the midst of the crowd. Honest men will seldom employ him. +The thriving class look on him with shuddering pity; the abounding +loathe the convict's touch. He is driven among the dangerous and the +perishing; they open their arms and offer him their destructive +sympathy. They minister to his wants; they exaggerate his wrongs; they +nourish his indignation. His direction is no longer in his own hands. +His good resolutions—he knows they were good, but only impossible. He +looks back, and sees nothing but crime and the vengeance society takes +for the crime. He looks around, and the world seems thrusting at him +from all quarters. He looks forward, and what prospect is there? "Hope +never comes that comes to all." He must plunge afresh into that miry +pit, which at last is sure to swallow him up. He plunges anew, and the +jail awaits him; again; deeper yet; the gallows alone can swing him +clear from that pestilent ditch. But he is a man and a brother, our +companion in weakness. With his education, exposure, temptation, outward +and from within, how much better would the best of you become?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p> + +<p>No better result is to be looked for from such a course. Of the one +thousand five hundred and ninety-two persons in the State's prison of +New York, four hundred have been there more than once. In five years, +from 1841 to 1847, there were punished in the House of Correction in +this city, five thousand seven hundred and forty-eight persons; of these +three thousand one hundred and forty-six received such a sentence +oftener than once. Yes, in five years, three hundred and thirteen were +sent thither, each ten times or more! How many found a place in other +jails I know not.</p> + +<p>What if fathers treated dull or vicious boys in this manner at +home—making them infamous for the first offence, or the first dulness, +and then refusing to receive them back again? What if the father sent +out his son with bad boys, and when he erred and fell, said: "You did +mischief with bad boys once; I know they enticed you. I knew you were +feeble and could not resist their seductions. But I shall punish you. Do +as well as you please, I will not forgive you. If you err again, I will +punish you afresh. If you do never so well, you shall be infamous for +ever!" What if a public teacher never took back to college a boy who +once had broke the academic law—but made him infamous for ever? What if +the physicians had kept a patient the requisite time in the hospital, +and discharged him as wholly cured, but bid men beware of him and shun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> +him for ever? That is just what we are doing with this class of +criminals; not intentionally, not consciously—but doing none the less!</p> + +<p>Let us look a moment more carefully, though I have already touched on +this subject, at the proximate causes of crime in this class of men. The +first cause is obvious—poverty. Most of the criminals are from the +lowest ranks of society. If you distribute men into three classes, the +abounding, the thriving, the perishing, you will find the inmates of +your prisons come almost wholly from the latter class. The perishing +fill the sink of society, and the dangerous the sink of the +perishing—for in that "lowest deep there is a lower depth." Of three +thousand one hundred and eighty-eight persons confined in the House of +Correction in this city, one thousand six hundred and fifty-seven were +foreigners; of the five hundred and fifty sent from this city in five +years to the State's Prison, one hundred and eighty-five were +foreigners. Of five hundred and forty-seven females in the Prison on +Blackwell's Island at one time—five hundred and nineteen were committed +for "vagrancy;" women with no capital but their person, with no friend, +no shelter. Examine minutely, you shall find that more than nine tenths +of all criminals come from the perishing class of men. There all +cultivation, intellectual, moral, religious, is at the lowest ebb. They +are a class of barbarians; yes, of savages, living in the midst of +civilization,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> but not of it. The fact, that most criminals come from +this class, shows that the causes of the crime lie out of them more than +in them; that they are victims of society, not foes. The effect of +property in elevating and moralizing a class of men is seldom +appreciated. Historically the animal man comes before the spiritual. +Animal wants are imperious; they must be supplied. The lower you go in +the social scale, the more is man subordinated to his animal appetites +and demonized by them. Nature aims to preserve the individual and repeat +the species—so all passions relative to these two designs are +preëminently powerful. If a man is born into the intense life of an +American city, and grows up, having no contact with the loftier culture +which naturally belongs to that intense life, why the man becomes mainly +an animal, all the more violent for the atmosphere he breathes in. What +shall restrain him? He has not the normal check of reason, conscience, +religion, these sleep in the man; nor the artificial and conventional +check of honor, of manners. The public opinion which he bows to favors +obscenity, drunkenness, and violence. He is doubly a savage. His wants +cannot be legally satisfied. He breaks the law, the law which covers +property, then goes on to higher crimes.</p> + +<p>The next cause is the result of the first—education is neglected, +intellectual, moral, and religious. Now and then a boy in whom the soul +of genius is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> covered with the beggar's rags, struggles through the +terrible environment of modern poverty to die, the hero of misery, in +the attempt at education! His expiring light only makes visible the +darkness out of which it shone. Boys born into this condition find at +home nothing to aid them, nothing to encourage a love of excellence, or +a taste for even the rudiments of learning. What is unavoidably the lot +of such? The land has been the schoolmaster of the human race—but the +perishing class scarce sees its face. Poverty brings privations, misery, +and that a deranged state of the system; then unnatural appetites goad +and burn the man. The destruction of the poor is their poverty. They see +wealth about them, but have none; so none of what it brings; neither the +cleanliness, nor health, nor self-respect, nor cultivation of mind, and +heart, and soul. I am told that no Quaker has ever been confined in any +jail in New England for any real crime. Are the Quakers better born than +other men? Nay, but they are looked after in childhood. Who ever saw a +Quaker in an almshouse? Not a fiftieth part of the people of New York +are negroes, yet more than a sixth part of all the criminals in her four +State's Prisons are men of color. These facts show plainly the causes of +crime.</p> + +<p>It is almost impossible to exaggerate the temptations of the perishing +class in our great cities. In Boston at this moment there are more than +four<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> hundred boys employed about the various bowling-alleys of the +city, exposed to the intemperance, the coarseness, the general +corruption of the men who mainly frequent those places. What will be +their fate? Shall I speak of their sisters; of the education they are +receiving; the end that awaits them? Poverty brings misery with its +family of vices.</p> + +<p>A third cause of crime comes with the rest—intemperance, the destroying +angel that lays waste the household of the poor. In our country, misery +in a healthy man is almost proof of vice; but the vice may belong to one +alone, and the misery it brings be shared by the whole family. A large +proportion of the perishing class are intemperate, and a great majority +of all our criminals.</p> + +<p>Now, our present method is wholly inadequate to reform men exposed to +such circumstances. You may punish the man, but it does no good. You can +seldom frighten men out of a fever. Can you frighten them from crime, +when they know little of the internal distinction between right and +wrong; when all the circumstances about them impel to crime? Can you +frighten a starving girl into chastity? You cannot keep men from +lewdness, theft and violence, when they have no self-respect, no +culture, no development of mind, heart, and soul. The jail will not take +the place of the church, of the school-house, of home. It will not +remove the causes which are making new criminals. It does<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> not reform +the old ones. Shall we shut men in a jail, and when there treat them +with all manner of violence, crush out the little self-respect yet left, +give them a degrading dress, and send them into the world cursed with an +infamous name, and all that because they were born in the low places of +society and caught the stain thereof? The jail does not alter the +circumstances which occasioned the crime, and till these causes are +removed a fresh crop will spring out of the festering soil. Some men +teach dogs and horses things unnatural to these animals; they use +violence and blows as their instrument of instruction. But to teach man +what is conformable to his nature, something more is required.</p> + +<p>To return to the other class, who are born criminals. Bare confinement +in the prison alters no man's constitutional tendencies; it can no more +correct moral or mental weakness or obliquity than it can correct a +deficiency of the organs of sensation. You all know the former treatment +of men born with defective or deranged intellectual faculties—of madmen +and fools. We still pursue the same course towards men born with +defective or deranged moral faculties, idiots and madmen of a more +melancholy class, and with a like result.</p> + +<p>I know how easy it is to find fault, and how difficult to propose a +better way; how easy to misunderstand all that I have said, how easy to +misrepresent it all. But it seems to me that hitherto we have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> set out +wrong in this undertaking; have gone on wrong, and, by the present +means, can never remove the causes of crime nor much improve the +criminals as a class. Let me modestly set down my thoughts on this +subject, in hopes that other men, wiser and more practical, will find +out a way yet better still. A jail, as a mere house of punishment for +offenders, ought to have no place in an enlightened people. It ought to +be a moral hospital where the offender is kept till he is cured. That +his crime is great or little, is comparatively of but small concern. It +is wrong to detain a man against his will after he is cured; wrong to +send him out before he is cured, for he will rob and corrupt society, +and at last miserably perish. We shall find curable cases and incurable.</p> + +<p>I would treat the small class of born criminals, the foes of society, as +maniacs. I would not kill them more than madmen; I would not inflict +needless pain on them. I would not try to shame, to whip, or to starve +into virtue men morally insane. I would not torture a man because born +with a defective organization. Since he could not live amongst men, I +would shut him out from society; would make him work for his own good +and the good of society. The thought of punishment for its own sake, or +as a compensation for the evil which a man has done, I would not harbor +for a moment. If a man has done me a wrong, calumniated, insulted, +abused me with all his power, it renders the matter no better that I +turn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> round and make him smart for it. If he has burned my house over my +head, and I kill him in return, it does not rebuild my house. I cannot +leave him at large to burn other men's houses. He must be restrained. +But if I cure the man perhaps he will rebuild it, at any rate, will be +of some service to the world, and others gain much while I lose nothing.</p> + +<p>When the victims of society violated its laws, I would not torture a man +for his misfortune, because his father was poor, his mother a brute; +because his education was neglected. I would shut him out from society +for a time. I would make him work for his own good and the good of +others. The evil he had caught from the world I would overcome by the +good that I would present to him. I would not clothe him with an +infamous dress, crowd him with other men whom society had made infamous, +leaving them to ferment and rot together. I would not set him up as a +show to the public, for his enemy, or his rival, or some miserable fop +to come and stare at with merciless and tormenting eye. I would not load +him with chains, nor tear his flesh with a whip. I would not set +soldiers with loaded gun to keep watch over him, insulting their brother +by mocking and threats. I would treat the man with firmness, but with +justice, with pity, with love. I would teach the man; what his family +could not do for him, what society and the church had failed of, the +jail<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> should do, for the jail should be a manual labor school, not a +dungeon of torture. I would take the most gifted, the most cultivated, +the wisest and most benevolent, yes, the most Christian man in the +State, and set him to train up these poor savages of civilization. The +best man is the natural physician of the wicked. A violent man, angry, +cruel, remorseless, should never enter the jail except as a criminal. +You have already taken one of the greatest, wisest, and best men of this +Commonwealth, and set him to watch over the public education of the +people.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> True, you give him little money, and no honor; he brings the +honor to you, not asking but giving that. You begin to see the result of +setting such a man to such a work, though unhonored and ill paid. Soon +you will see it more plainly in the increase of temperance, industry, +thrift, of good morals and sound religion! I would set such a man, if I +could find such another, to look after the dangerous classes of society. +I would pay him for it; honor him for it. I would have a Board of Public +Morals to look after this matter of crime, a Secretary of Public Morals, +a Christian Censor, whose business it should be to attend to this class, +to look after the jails and make them houses of refuge, of instruction, +which should do for the perishing class what the school-house and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> the +church do for others. I would send missionaries amongst the most exposed +portions of mankind as well as amongst the savages of New Holland. I +would send wise men, good men. There are already some such engaged in +this work. I would strengthen their hands. I would make crime infamous. +If there are men whose crime is to be traced not to a defective +organization of body, not to the influence of circumstances, but only to +voluntary and self-conscious wickedness,—I would make these men +infamous. It should be impossible for such a man, a voluntary foe of +mankind, to live in society. I would have the jail such a place that the +friends of a criminal of either class should take him as now they take a +lunatic or a sick man, and bring him to the Court that he might be +healed if curable, or if not might be kept from harm and hid away out of +sight. Crime and sin should be infamous; not its correction, least of +all its cure. I would not loathe and abhor a man who had been corrected +and reformed by the jail more than a boy who had been reformed by his +teacher, or a man cured of lunacy. I would have society a father who +goes out to meet the prodigal while yet a great way off; yes, goes and +brings him away from his riotous living, washes him, clothes him, and +restores him to a right mind. There is a prosecuting attorney for the +State; I would have also a defending attorney for the accused,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> that +justice might be done all round. Is the State only a step-mother? Then +is she not a Christian Commonwealth but a barbarous despotism, fitly +represented by that uplifted sword on her public seal, and that motto of +barbarous and bloody Latin. I would have the State aid men and direct +them after they have been discharged from the jail, not leave them to +perish; not force them to perish. Society is the natural guardian of the +weak.</p> + +<p>I cannot think the method here suggested would be so costly as the +present. It seems to me that institutions of this character might be +made not only to support themselves, but be so managed as to leave a +balance of income considerably beyond the expense. This might be made +use of for the advantage of the criminal when he returned to society; or +with it he might help make restitution of what he had once stolen. +Besides being less costly, it would cure the offender and send back +valuable men into society.</p> + +<p>It seems to me that our whole criminal legislation is based on a false +principle—force and not love; that it is eminently well adapted to +revenge, not at all to correct, to teach, to cure. The whole apparatus +for the punishment of offenders, from the gallows down to the House of +Correction, seems to me wrong; wholly wrong, unchristian, and even +inhuman. We teach crime while we punish it. Is it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> consistent for the +State to take vengeance when I may not? Is it better for the State to +kill a man in cold blood, than for me to kill my brother when in a rage? +I cannot help thinking that the gallows and even the jail, as now +administered, are practical teachers of violence and wrong! I cannot +think it will always be so. Hitherto we have looked on criminals as +voluntary enemies of mankind. We have treated them as wild beasts, not +as dull or loitering boys. We have sought to destroy by death, to +disable by mutilation or imprisonment, to terrify and subdue, not to +convince, to reform, encourage, and bless.</p> + +<p>The history of the past is full of prophecy for the future. Not many +years ago we shut up our lunatics in jails, in dungeons, in cages; we +chained the maniac with iron; we gave him a bottle of water and a sack +of straw; we left him in filth, in cold and nakedness. We set strong and +brutal men to watch him. When he cried, when he gnashed his teeth and +tore his hair, we beat him all the more! They do so yet in some places, +for they think a madman is not a brother but a devil. What was the +result? Madness was found incurable. Now lunacy is a disease, to be +prescribed for as fever or rheumatism; when we find an incurable case we +do not kill the man, nor chain him, nor count him a devil. Yet lunacy is +not curable by force, by jails, dungeons,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> and cages; only by the +medicine of wise men and good men. What if Christ had met one demoniac +with a whip and another with chains!</p> + +<p>You know how we once treated criminals! with what scourgings and +mutilations, what brandings, what tortures with fire and red-hot iron! +Death was not punishment enough, it must be protracted amid the most +cruel torments that quivering flesh could bear. The multitude looked on +and learned a lesson of deadly wickedness. A judicial murder was a +holiday! It is but little more than two hundred years since a man was +put to death in the most enlightened country of Europe for eating meat +on Friday; not two hundred since men and women were hanged in +Massachusetts for a crime now reckoned impossible! It is not a hundred +years since two negro slaves were judicially burned alive in this very +city! These facts make us shudder, but hope also. In a hundred years +from this day will not men look on our gallows, jails, and penal law as +we look on the racks, the torture-chambers of the middle ages, and the +bloody code of remorseless inquisitors?</p> + +<p>We need only to turn our attention to this subject to find a better way. +We shall soon see that punishment as such is an evil to the criminal, +and so swells the sum of suffering with which society runs over; that it +is an evil also to the community at large by abstracting valuable force +from profitable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> work, and so a loss.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> We shall one day remember that +the offender is a man, and so his good also is to be consulted. He may +be a bad man, voluntarily bad if you will. Still we are to be economical +even of his suffering, for the least possible punishment is the best. +Already a good many men think that error is better refuted by truth than +by fagots and axes. How long will it be before we apply good sense and +Christianity to the prevention of crime? One day we must see that a +jail, as it is now conducted, is no more likely to cure a crime than a +lunacy or a fever! Hitherto we have not seen the application of the +great doctrines of Christianity; not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> felt that all men are brothers. So +our remedies for social evils have been bad almost as the disease; +remedies which remedied nothing, but hid the patient out of sight. All +great criminals have been thought incurable, and then killed. What if +the doctors found a patient sick of a disease which he had foolishly or +wickedly brought upon himself, and then, by the advice of twelve other +doctors, professionally killed him for justice or example's sake? They +would do what all the States in Christendom have done these thousand +years. I cannot see why the Legislature has not as good right to +authorize the medical college thus to kill men, as to authorize the +present forms of destroying life!</p> + +<p>We do not look the facts of crime fairly in the face. We do not see what +heathens we are. Why, there is not a Christian nation in the world that +has not a Secretary of War, armies, soldiers, and the terrible apparatus +of destruction. But there is not one that has a Secretary of Peace, not +one that takes half the pains to improve its own criminals which it +takes to build forts and fleets! Yet it seems to me that a Christian +State should be a great peace society, a society for mutual advancement +in the qualities of a man!</p> + +<p>Do we not see that by our present course we are teaching men violence, +fraud, deceit, and murder? What is the educational effect of our present +political conduct, of our invasions, our battles, our victories;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> of the +speeches of "our great men?" You all know that this teaches the poor, +the low, and the weak that murder and robbery are good things when done +on a large scale; that they give wealth, fame, power, and honors. The +ignorant man, ill-born and ill-bred, asks: "Why not when done on a small +scale; why not good for me?" If it is right in the President of the +United States to rob and murder, why not for the President of the United +States Bank? Do famous men say, "Our country however bounded," and vote +to plunder a sister State? then why shall not the poor man, hungry and +cold, say, "My purse however bounded," and seize on all he can get? Give +one a seat in Congress if you will, and the other a noose of hemp, there +is a God before whom seats in Congress and hempen halters are of equal +value, but who does justice to great and little!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>To reform the dangerous classes of society, to advance those who loiter +behind our civilization, we need a special work designed directly for +the good of the criminals and such as stand on that perilous ground +which slopes towards crime. Some good men undertook this work long ago. +They found much to do; a good deal to encourage them. Some of them are +well known to you, are laboring here in the midst of us. They need +counsel, encouragement, and aid. We must not look coldly on their +enterprise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> nor on them. They can tell far better than I what specific +plans are best for their specific work. Already have they accomplished +much in this noble enterprise. The society for aiding discharged +convicts is a prophecy of yet better things. Soon I trust it will extend +its kind offices to all the prisons, and its work be made the affair of +the State. The plan now before your Legislature for a "State Manual +Labor School," designed to reform vicious children, is also full of +promise. The wise and anonymous charity which so beautifully and in +silence has dropped its gold into the chest for these poor outcasts, is +itself its hundred-fold reward. Institutions like that which we +contemplate have been found successful in England, Germany, and France. +They actually reform the juvenile delinquent and bring up useful men, +not hardened criminals.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> We are beginning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> to attend to this special +work of removing the causes of crime, and restoring at least the young +offenders.</p> + +<p>However, the greater portion of this work is not special and for the +criminal, but general and for society. To change the treatment of +criminals, we must change every thing else. The dangerous class is the +unavoidable result of our present civilization; of our present ideas of +man and social life. To reform and elevate the class of criminals, we +must reform and elevate all other classes. To do that, we must educate +and refine men. We must learn to treat all men as brothers. This is a +great work and one of slow achievement. It cannot be brought about by +legislation, nor any mechanical contrivance and reorganization alone. +There is no remedy for this evil and its kindred but keeping the laws of +God; in one word, none but Christianity, goodness, and piety felt in the +heart, applied in all the works of life, individually, socially, and +politically. While educated and abounding men acknowledge no rule of +conduct but self-interest, what can you expect of the ignorant and the +perishing? While great men say without rebuke that we do not look at +"the natural justice of a war," do you expect men in the lowest places +of society, ignorant and brutish, pinched by want, to look at the +natural justice of theft, of murder? It were a vain expectation. We must +improve all classes to improve one; perhaps the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> highest first. +Different men acting in the most various directions, without concert, +often jealous one of another, and all partial in their aims, are helping +forward this universal result. While we are contending against slavery, +war, intemperance, or party rage, while we are building up hospitals, +colleges, schools, while we are contending for freedom of conscience, or +teaching abstractly the love of man and love of God, we are all working +for the welfare of this neglected class. The gallows of the barbarian +and the Gospel of Christianity cannot exist together. The times are full +of promise. Mankind slowly fulfils what a man of genius prophesies; God +grants what a good man asks, and when it comes, it is better than what +he prayed for.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> The allusion is to the following passages of Scripture, +which were read as the lesson for the day: Numb. xiv.; 2 Kings, ii. +23-25; and Luke, xv.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> See other statistics in "Sermon of the Perishing Classes," +pp. 205, 206.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Mr. Horace Mann.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> The period of confinement in our States' Prisons differs a +good deal in the various States, as will appear from the following +Table.</p> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>Whole No. in prison.</td><td colspan="5">Average sentence.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>In</td><td align='left'> Conn.</td><td align='center'>189,</td><td align='left'>March 31, 1841,</td><td align='left'>7</td><td align='left'>yrs.</td><td align='left'> 3</td><td align='left'>mos.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'>Va.</td><td align='center'>181,</td><td align='left'>Sept 30, 1839,</td><td align='left'>6</td><td align='left'>"</td><td align='left'>10</td><td align='left'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'>Mass.</td><td align='center'>322,</td><td align='left'>Sept. 30, 1840,</td><td align='left'>5</td><td align='left'>"</td><td align='left'>9</td><td align='left'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'>La.</td><td align='center'>68,</td><td align='left'>Sept 30, 1839,</td><td align='left'>5</td><td align='left'>"</td><td align='left'>1</td><td align='left'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'>N. J.</td><td align='center'>152,</td><td align='left'>Sept. 30, 1840,</td><td align='left'>4</td><td align='left'>"</td><td align='left'>7</td><td align='left'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'>Ky.</td><td align='center'>162,</td><td align='left'>Sept. 30, 1839,</td><td align='left'>4</td><td align='left'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'>D. C.</td><td align='center'>79,</td><td align='left'>Nov. 30, 1840,</td><td align='left'>3</td><td align='left'>"</td><td align='left'>8</td><td align='left'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'>Md.</td><td align='center'>104,</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'>3</td><td align='left'>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='left'>Phila.</td><td align='center'>129,</td><td align='left'>Sept. 30, 1840,</td><td align='left'>2</td><td align='left'>"</td><td align='left'>5</td><td align='left'>"</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p>The difference between the average term of punishment in Connecticut and +Philadelphia is 300 per cent! If the same result is effected by each, +there has then been a great amount of gratuitous suffering in one case.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> I refer to the prisons at Stretton-upon-Dunmore in +Warwickshire, that at Horn near Hamburg, and the one at Mettray near +Tours in France. The French penal code allows the guardian or relatives +of an offender under age to take him from prison on giving bonds for his +good behavior. While these pages were first passing through the press, I +learned the happy effect which followed the execution of the license +laws in this city. In 1846, from the 10th of March to the 24th of April, +there were sent to the House of Correction for intemperance one hundred +eighty-nine persons. During the same period of the year 1847, only +eighty-four have been thus punished! But alas, in 1851 the evil has +returned, and the demon of drunkenness mows down the wretched in Boston +with unrestricted scythe.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p> +<h2>IX.</h2> + +<h3>A SERMON OF POVERTY.—PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 14, +1849.</h3> +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> +<h4>PROVERBS X. 15.</h4> + +<h4>The destruction of the poor is their poverty.</h4> + + +<p>Last Sunday something was said of riches. To-day I ask your attention to +a sermon of poverty. By poverty, I mean the state in which a man does +not have enough to satisfy the natural wants of food, raiment, shelter, +warmth and the like. From the earliest times that we know of, there have +been two classes of men, the rich who had more than enough, the poor who +had less. In one of the earliest books which treats of the condition of +men, we find that Abraham, a rich man, owns the bodies of three hundred +men that are poor. In four thousand years, the difference between rich +and poor in our part of America is a good deal lessened, not done away +with. In New England property is more uniformly distributed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> than in +most countries, perhaps more equally than in any land as highly +civilized. But even here the old distinction remains in a painful form +and extended to a pitiful degree.</p> + +<p>At one extreme of society is a body called the rich, men who have +abundance, not a very numerous body, but powerful, first through the +energy which accumulates money, and secondly, through the money itself. +Then there is a body of men who are comfortable. This class comprises +the mass of the people in all the callings of life. Out of this class +the rich men come, and into it their children or grandchildren commonly +return. Few of the rich men of Boston were sons of rich men; still fewer +grandsons; few of them perhaps will be fathers of men equally rich; +still fewer grandfathers of such. Then there is the class that is +miserable. Some of them are supported by public charity, some by +private, some of them by their toil alone—but altogether they form a +mass of men who only stay in the world, and do not live in the best +sense of that word.</p> + +<p>Such are the great divisions of society in respect to property. However, +the lines between these three classes are not sharp and distinctly +drawn. There are no sharp divisions in nature; but for our convenience, +we distinguish classes by their centre where they are most unlike, and +not by their circumference where they intermix and resemble each other. +The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> line between the miserable and comfortable, between the comfortable +and rich, is not distinctly drawn. The centre of each class is obvious +enough while the limits thereof are a dissolving view.</p> + +<p>The poor are miserable. Their food is the least that will sustain +nature, not agreeable, not healthy; their clothing scanty and mean, +their dwellings inconvenient and uncomfortable, with roof and walls that +let in the cold and the rain—dwellings that are painful and unhealthy; +in their personal habits they are commonly unclean. Then they are +ignorant; they have no time to attend school in childhood, no time to +read or to think in manhood, even if they have learned to do either +before that. If they have the time, few men can think to any profit +while the body is uncomfortable. The cold man thinks only of the cold; +the wretched of his misery. Besides this they are frequently vicious. I +do not mean to say they are wicked in the sight of God. I never see a +poor man carried to jail for some petty crime, or even for a great one, +without thinking that probably, in God's eye, the man is far better than +I am, and from the State's prison or scaffold, will ascend into heaven +and take rank a great ways before me. I do not mean to say they are +wicked before God; but it is they who commit the minor crimes, against +decency, sobriety, against property and person, and most of the major +crimes, against human life. I mean that they commit the crimes that get +punished by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> law. They crowd your courts, they tenant your jails; they +occupy your gallows. If some man would write a book describing the life +of all the men hanged in Massachusetts for fifty years past, or tried +for some capital offence, and show what class of society they were from, +how they were bred, what influences were about them in childhood, how +they passed their Sundays, and also describe the configuration of their +bodies, it would help us to a valuable chapter in the philosophy of +crime, and furnish mighty argument against the injustice of our mode of +dealing with offenders.</p> + +<p>Poverty is the dark side of modern society. I say modern society, though +poverty is not modern, for ancient society had poverty worse than ours +and a side still darker yet. Cannibalism, butchery of captives after +battle, frequent or continual wars for the sake of plunder, and the +slavery of the weak—these were the dark side of society in four great +periods of human history, the savage, the barbarous, the classic and the +feudal. Poverty is the best of these five bad things, each of which, +however, has grimly done its service in its day.</p> + +<p>There is no poverty among the Gaboon negroes. Put them in our latitude, +and it soon comes. Nay, as they get to learn the wants of cultivated +men, there will be a poorer class even in the torrid zone. Poverty +prevails in every civilized nation on earth; yes, in every savage nation +in austere climes. Let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> us look at some examples. England is the richest +country in Europe. I mean she has more wealth in proportion to her +population than any other in a similar climate. Look at her possessions +in every corner of the globe; at her armies which Europe cannot conquer; +at her ships which weave the great commercial web that spreads all round +about the world; at home what factories, what farms, what houses, what +towns, what a vast and wealthy metropolis; what an aristocracy—so rich, +so cultivated, so able, so daring, and so unconquered.</p> + +<p>But in that very English nation the most frightful poverty exists. Look +at the two sister islands: this the queen, and that the beggar of all +nations; the rose and the shamrock; the one throned in royal beauty, the +other bowed to the dust, torn and trampled under foot. In that capital +of the world's wealth, in that centre of power far greater than the +power of all the Cæsars, there is the most squalid poverty. Look at St. +Giles and St. James—that the earthly hell of want and crime, this the +worldly heaven of luxury and power! Put on the one side the stately +nobility of England, well born, well bred, armed with the power of +manners, the power of money, the power of culture and the power of +place, and on the other side put the beggary of England, the two million +paupers who are kept wholly on public or private charity; the three +million laborers who formerly fed on potatoes, God knows what they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> feed +on now, and all the other hungry sons of want who are kept in awe only +by the growling lion who guards the British throne; and you see at once +the result of modern civilization in the ablest, the foremost, the +freest, the most practical and the richest nation in the old world.</p> + +<p>Even here in New England, a country not two hundred and fifty years old, +a little patch of cleared land on the edge of the continent, we hear of +poverty which is frightful to think of. It is a serious question what +shall be done for the poor; there are few that can tell what shall be +done with them, or what is to become of them. Want is always here in +Boston. Misery is here. Starvation is not unknown. What is now serious +will one day be alarming. Even now it is awful to think of the misery +that lurks in this Christian town. New England in fifty years has +increased vastly in wealth, but poverty increases too. There has been a +great advance in the productiveness of human labor; with our tools a man +can do as much rude work in one day as he could in three days a hundred +years ago. I mean work with the axe, the plough, the spade; of nicer +work, yet more; of the most delicate work, see what machines do for him. +The end is not yet; soon we shall have engines that will whittle +granite, as a gang of saws cleaves logs into broad smooth boards. Yet +with all this advance in the productiveness of human toil, still there +is poverty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> A day's work now will bring a man greater proportionate pay +than ever before in New England. I mean to say that the ordinary wages +for an ordinary day's work will support a man comfortably and +respectably longer than they ever would before. On the whole, the price +of things has come down and the price of work has gone up. Yet still +there are the poor; there is want, there is misery, there is starvation. +The community gives more than ever before; a better public provision is +made for the poor, private benevolence is more active and works far more +wisely—yet still there is poverty, want, misery unremoved, unmitigated, +and, many think, immitigable!</p> + +<p>Now I am not going to deny that poverty, like other forms of suffering, +plays a part in the economy of the human race. If God's children will +not work, or will throw away their bread, I do not complain that He +sends them to bed without their supper—to a hard bed and a narrow and a +cold. "Earn your breakfast before you eat it," is not merely the counsel +of Poor Richard, but of Almighty God; it is a just counsel, and not +hard. But is poverty an essential, substantial, integral element in +human civilization, or is it an accidental element thereof, and +transiently present; is it amenable to suppression? For my own part, I +believe that all evil is transient, a thing that belongs to the process +of development, not to the nature of man, or the higher forms of social<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> +life towards which he is advancing. If God be absolutely good, then only +good things are everlasting. This general opinion which comes from my +religion as well as my philosophy, affects my special opinion of the +history and design of poverty. I look on it as on cannibalism, the +butchery of captives, the continual war for the sake of plunder, or on +slavery; yes, as I look on the diseases incident to childhood, things +that mankind live through and outgrow; which, painful as they are, do +not make up the greatest part of the entire life of mankind. If it shall +be said that I cannot know this, that I have not a clear intellectual +perception of the providential design thereof, or the means of its +removal, still I believe it, and if I have not the knowledge which comes +of philosophy, I have still faith, the result of instinctive trust in +God.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Let us look a little at the causes of poverty. Some things we see best +on a large scale. So let us look at poverty thus, and then come down to +the smaller forms thereof.</p> + +<p>I. There may be a natural and organic cause. The people of Lapland, +Iceland and Greenland are a poor people compared with the Scotch, the +Danes, or the French. There is a natural and organic cause for their +poverty in the soil and climate of those countries, which cannot be +changed. They must emigrate before they can become rich or comfortable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> +in our sense of the word. Hence their poverty is to be attributed to +their geographical position. Put the New Englanders there, even they +would be a poor people. Thus the poverty of a nation may depend on the +geographical position of the nation.</p> + +<p>Suppose a race of men has little vigor of body or of mind, and yet the +same natural wants as a vigorous race; put them in favorable +circumstances, in a good climate, on a rich soil, they will be poor on +account of the feebleness of their mind and body; put them in a stern +climate, on a sterile soil, and they will perish. Such is the case with +the Mexicans. Soil and climate are favorable, yet the people are poor. +Suppose a nation had only one third part of the Laplander's ability, and +yet needed the result of all his power, and was put in the Laplander's +position, they would not live through the first winter. Had they been +Mexicans who came to Plymouth in 1620, not one of them, it is probable, +would have seen the next summer. Take away half the sense or bodily +strength of the Bushmans of South Africa, and though they might have +sense enough to dig nuts out of the ground, yet the lions and hyenas +would eventually eat up the whole nation. So the poverty of a nation may +come from want of power of body or of mind.</p> + +<p>Then if a nation increases in numbers more rapidly than in wealth, there +is a corresponding increase of want. Let the number of births in England +for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> next ten years be double the number for the last ten, without a +corresponding creation of new wealth, and the English are brought to the +condition of the Irish. Let the number of births in Ireland in like +manner multiply, and one half the population must perish for want of +food. So the poverty of a nation may depend on the disproportionate +increase of its numbers.</p> + +<p>Then an able race, under favorable outward circumstances, without an +over-rapid increase of numbers, if its powers are not much developed, +will be poor in comparison with a similar race under similar +circumstances, but highly developed. Thus England, under Egbert in the +ninth century, was poor compared with England under Victoria in the +nineteenth century. The single town of Liverpool, Manchester, +Birmingham, or even Sheffield, is probably worth many times the wealth +of all England in the ninth century. So the poverty of a nation may +depend on its want of development.</p> + +<p>Old England and New England are rich, partly through the circumstances +of climate and soil, partly and chiefly through the great vigor of the +race, with only a normal increase of numbers, and partly through a more +complete development of the nations. Such are the chief natural and +organic causes of poverty on a large scale in a nation.</p> + +<p>II. The causes may be political. By political, I mean such as are +brought about by the laws, either<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> the fundamental laws, the +constitution, or the minor laws, statutes. Sometimes the laws tend to +make the whole nation poor. Such are the laws which force the industry +of the people out of the natural channel, restricting commerce, +agriculture, manufactures, industry in general. Sometimes this is done +by promoting war, by keeping up armies and navies, by putting the +destructive work of fighting, or the merely conservative work of ruling, +before the creative works of productive industry. France was an example +of that a hundred years ago. Spain yet continues such, as she has been +for two centuries.</p> + +<p>Sometimes this is done by hindering the general development of the +nation, by retarding education, by forbidding all freedom of thought. +The States of the Church are an example of this when compared with +Tuscany; all Italy and Austria, when compared with England; Spain, when +compared with Germany, France, and Holland.</p> + +<p>Sometimes this is brought about by keeping up an unnatural +institution—as slavery, for example. South Carolina is an instance of +this, when compared with Massachusetts. South Carolina has many +advantages over us, yet South Carolina is poor while Massachusetts is +rich.</p> + +<p>Sometimes this political action primarily affects only the distribution +of wealth, and so makes one class rich and another poor. Such is the +case with laws which give all the real estate to the oldest son,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> laws +which allow property to be entailed for a long time or forever, laws +which cut men off from the land. These laws at first seem only to make +one class rich and the others poor, and merely to affect the +distribution of wealth in a nation, but they are unnatural and retard +the industry of the people, and diminish their productive power, and +make the whole nation less rich. Legislation may favor wealth and not +men—property which is accumulated labor, rather than labor which is the +power that accumulates property. Such legislation always endangers +wealth in the end, lessening its quantity and making its tenure +uncertain.</p> + +<p>Two things may be said of European legislation in general, and +especially of English legislation. First, That it has aimed to +concentrate wealth in the hands of a few and keep it there. Hence it +favors primogeniture, entails monopolies of posts of profit and of +honor. Second, It has always looked out for the proprietor and his +property, and cared little for the man without property; hence it always +wanted the price of things high, the wages of men low, and in addition +to natural and organic obstacles it continually put social impediments +in the poor man's way. In England no son of a laborer could rise to +eminence in the law or in medicine, scarcely in the church; no, not even +in the army or navy.</p> + +<p>These two statements will bear examination. The genius of England has +demanded these two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> things. The genius of America demands neither, but +rejects both; demands the distribution of property, puts the rights of +man first, the rights of things last. Such are the political causes, and +such their effects.</p> + +<p>III. Then there are social causes which make a nation poor. Such are the +prevalence of an opinion that industry is not respectable; that it is +honorable to consume, disgraceful to create; that much must be spent, +though little earned. The Spanish nation is poor in part through the +prevalence of this opinion.</p> + +<p>Sometimes social causes seem only to affect a class. The Pariahs in +India must not fill any office that is well paid. They are despised, and +of course they are poor and miserable. The blacks in New England are +despised and frowned down, not admitted to the steamboat, the omnibus, +to the school-houses in Boston, or even to the meeting-house with white +men; not often allowed to work in company with the whites; and so they +are kept in poverty. In Europe the Jews have been equally despised and +treated in the same way, but not made poor, because they are in many +respects a superior race of men, and because they have the advantage of +belonging to a nation whose civilization is older than any other in +Europe; a nation specially gifted with the faculty of thrift; a tribe +whom none but other Jews, Scotchmen, or New Englanders, could outwit, +over-reach,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> and make poor. No Ferdinand and Isabella, no inquisition +could so completely expel them from any country, as the superior craft +and cunning of the Yankee has driven them out of New England. There are +Jews in every country of Europe, everywhere despised and maltreated, and +forced into the corners of society, but everywhere superior to the men +who surround them. Such are the social causes which produce poverty.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Now let us look at the matter on a smaller scale, and see the cause of +poverty in New-England, of poverty in Broad street and Sea street. From +the great mass let me take out a class who are accidentally poor. There +are the widows and orphan children who inherit no estate; the able men +reduced by sickness before they have accumulated enough to sustain them. +Then let me take out a class of men transiently poor, men who start with +nothing, but have vigor and will to make their own way in the world. The +majority of the poor still remain—the class who are permanently poor. +The accidentally poor can easily be taken care of by public or private +charity; the transient poor will soon take care of themselves. The young +man who lives on six cents a day while studying medicine in Boston, is +doubtless a poor man, but will soon repay society for the slight aid it +has lent him, and in time will take care of other poor men. So these two +classes, the accidental<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> and the transient poor, can easily be disposed +of.</p> + +<p>What causes have produced the class that is permanently poor? What has +just been said of nations, is true also of individuals.</p> + +<p>First, there are natural and organic causes of poverty. Some men are +born into the midst of want, ignorance, idleness, filthiness, +intemperance, vice, crime; their earliest associations are debasing, +their companions bad. They are born into the Iceland of society, into +the frigid zone, some of them under the very pole-star of want. Such men +are born and bred under the greatest disadvantages. Every star in their +horoscope has a malignant aspect, and sheds disastrous influence. I do +not remember five men in New England, from that class, becoming +distinguished in any manly pursuit,—not five. Almost all of our great +men and our rich men came from the comfortable class, none from the +miserable. The old poverty is parent of new poverty. It takes at least +two generations to outgrow the pernicious influence of such +circumstances.</p> + +<p>Then much of the permanent poverty comes from the lack of ability, power +of body and of mind. In that Iceland of society men are commonly born +with a feeble organization, and bred under every physical disadvantage; +the man is physically weak, or else runs to muscle and not brain, and so +is mentally weak. His feebleness is the result of the poverty of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> his +fathers, and his own want in childhood. The oak tree grows tall and +large in a rich valley, stunted, small, and scrubby on the barren sand.</p> + +<p>Again this class of men increase most rapidly in numbers. When the poor +man has not half enough to fill his own mouth, and clothe his own back, +other backs are added, other mouths opened. He abounds in nothing but +naked and hungry children.</p> + +<p>Further still, he has not so good a chance as the comfortable to get +education and general development. A rude man, with superior abilities, +in this century, will often be distanced by the well-trained man who +started at birth with inferior powers. But if the rude man begin with +inferior abilities, inferior circumstances, encumbered also with a load +becoming rapidly more burdensome, you see under what accumulated +disadvantages he labors all his life. So to the first natural and +organic cause of poverty, his untoward position in society; to the +second, his inferior ability; and to the third, the increase of his +family, excessively rapid, we must add a fourth cause, his inferior +development. An ignorant man, who is also weak in body, and besides +that, starts with every disadvantage, his burdens annually increasing, +may be expected to continue a poor man. It is only in most extraordinary +cases that it turns out otherwise.</p> + +<p>To these causes we must add what comes therefrom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> as their joint result: +idleness, by which the poor waste their time; thriftlessness and +improvidence, by which they lose their opportunities and squander their +substance. The poor are seldom so economical as the rich; it is so with +children, they spoil the furniture, soil and rend their garments, put +things to a wasteful use, consume heedlessly and squander, careless of +to-morrow. The poor are the children of society.</p> + +<p>To these five causes I must add intemperance, the great bane of the +miserable class. I feel no temptation to be drunken, but if I were +always miserable, cold, hungry, naked, so ignorant that I did not know +the result of violating God's laws, had I been surrounded from youth +with the worst examples, not respected by other men, but a loathsome +object in their sight, not even respecting myself, I can easily +understand how the temporary madness of strong drink would be a most +welcome thing. The poor are the prey of the rum-seller. As the lion in +the Hebrew wilderness eateth up the wild ass, so in modern society the +rum-seller and rum-maker suck the bones of the miserable poor. I never +hear of a great fortune made in the liquor trade, but I think of the +wives that have been made widows thereby, of the children bereft of +their parents, of the fathers and mothers whom strong drink has brought +down to shame, to crime, and to ruin. The history of the first barrel of +rum that ever visited New England is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> well known. It brought some forty +men before the bar of the court. The history of the last barrel can +scarcely be much better.</p> + +<p>Such are the natural and organic causes which make poverty.</p> + +<p>With the exception of laws which allow the sale of intoxicating drink, I +think there are few political causes of poverty in New England, and they +are too inconsiderable to mention in so brief a sketch as this. However, +there are some social causes of our permanent poverty. I do not think we +have much respect for the men who do the rude work of life, however +faithfully and well—little respect for work itself. The rich man is +ashamed to have begun to make his fortune with his own hard hands; even +if the rich man is not, his daughter is for him. I do not think we have +cared much to respect the humble efforts of feeble men; not cared much +to have men dear, and things cheap. It has not been thought the part of +political economy, of sound legislation, or of pure Christianity, to +hinder the increase of pauperism, to remove the causes of poverty, yes, +the causes of crime—only to take vengeance on it when committed!</p> + +<p>Boston is a strange place; here is energy enough to conquer half the +continent in ten years; power of thought to seize and tame the +Connecticut and the Merrimack; charity enough to send missionaries all +over the world; but not justice enough to found a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> high school for her +own daughters, or to forbid her richest citizens from letting bar-rooms +as nurseries of poverty and crime, from opening wide gates which lead to +the almshouse, the jail, the gallows, and earthly hell!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Such are the causes of poverty, organic, political, social. You may see +families pass from the comfortable to the miserable class, by +intemperance, idleness, wastefulness, even by feebleness of body and of +mind; yet while it is common for the rich to descend into the +comfortable class, solely by lack of the eminent thrift which raised +their fathers thence, or because they lack the common stimulus to toil +and save, it is not common for the comfortable to fall into the pit of +misery in New England, except through wickedness, through idleness, or +intemperance.</p> + +<p>It is not easy to study poverty in Boston. But take a little inland +town, which few persons migrate into, you will find the miserable +families have commonly been so, for a hundred years; that many of them +are descended from the "servants," or white slaves, brought here by our +fathers; that such as fall from the comfortable classes, are commonly +made miserable by their own fault, sometimes by idleness, which is +certainly a sin, for any man who will not work, and persists in living, +eats the bread of some other man, either begged or stolen—but chiefly +by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> intemperance. Three fourths of the poverty of this character, is to +be attributed to this cause.</p> + +<p>Now there is a tendency in poverty to drive the ablest men to work, and +so get rid of the poverty, and this I take it is the providential design +thereof. Poverty, like an armed man, stalks in the rear of the social +march, huge and haggard, and gaunt and grim, to scare the lazy, to goad +the idle with his sword, to trample and slay the obstinate sluggard. But +he treads also the feeble under his feet, for no fault of theirs, only +for the misfortune of being born in the rear of society. But in poverty +there is also a tendency to intimidate, to enfeeble, to benumb. The +poverty of the strong man compels him to toil; but with the weak, the +destruction of the poor is his poverty. An active man is awakened from +his sleep by the cold; he arises and seeks more covering; the indolent, +or the feeble, shiver on till morning, benumbed and enfeebled by the +cold. So weakness begets weakness; poverty, poverty; intemperance, +intemperance; crime, crime.</p> + +<p>Every thing is against the poor man; he pays the dearest tax, the +highest rent for his house, the dearest price for all he eats or wears. +The poor cannot watch their opportunity, and take advantage of the +markets, as other men. They have the most numerous temptations to +intemperance and crime; they have the poorest safeguards from these +evils. If the chief value of wealth, as a rich man tells us, be +this—that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> "it renders its owner independent of others," then on what +shall the poor men lean, neglected and despised by others, looked on as +loathsome, and held in contempt, shut out even from the sermons and the +prayers of respectable men? It is no marvel if they cease to respect +themselves.</p> + +<p>The poor are the most obnoxious to disease; their children are not only +most numerous, but most unhealthy. More than half of the children of +that class, perish at the age of five. Amongst the poor, infectious +diseases rage with frightful violence. The mortality in that class is +amazing. If things are to continue as now, I thank God it is so. If +Death is their only guardian, he is at least powerful, and does not +scorn his work.</p> + +<p>In addition to the poor, whom these causes have made and kept in +poverty, the needy of other lands flock hither. The nobility of old +England, so zealous in pursuing their game, in keeping their entails +unbroken, and primogeniture safe, have sent their beggary to New +England, to be supported by the crumbs that fall from our table. So, in +the same New England city, the extremes of society are brought together. +Here is health, elegance, cultivation, sobriety, decency, refinement—I +wish there was more of it; there is poverty, ignorance, drunkenness, +violence, crime, in most odious forms—starvation! We have our St. +Giles's and St. James's; our nobility, not a whit less noble than the +noblest of other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> lands, and our beggars, both in a Christian city. Amid +the needy population, Misery and Death have found their parish. Who +shall dare stop his ears, when they preach their awful denunciation of +want and woe?</p> + +<p>Good men ask, What shall we do? Foreign poverty has had this good +effect; it has shamed or frightened the American beggar into industry +and thrift.</p> + +<p>Poverty will not be removed till the causes thereof are removed. There +are some who look for a great social revolution. So do I; only I do not +look for it to come about suddenly, or by mechanical means. We are in a +social revolution, and do not know it. While I cannot accept the +peculiar doctrines of the Associationists, I rejoice in their existence. +I sympathize with their hope. They point out the evils of society, and +that is something. They propose a method of removing its evils. I do not +believe in that method, but mankind will probably make many experiments +before we hit upon the right one. For my own part, I confess I do not +see any way of removing poverty wholly or entirely, in one or two, or in +four or five generations. I think it will linger for some ages to come. +Like the snow, it is to be removed by a general elevation of the +temperature of the air, not all at once, and will long hang about the +dark and cold places of the world. But I do think it will at last be +overcome, so that a man who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> cannot subsist, will be as rare as a +cannibal. "Ye have the poor with you always," said Jesus, and many who +remember this, forget that he also said, "and when soever ye will, ye +may do them good." I expect to see a mitigation of poverty in this +country, and that before long.</p> + +<p>It is likely that the legal theory of property in Europe will undergo a +great change before many years; that the right to bequeathe enormous +estates to individuals will be cut off; that primogeniture will cease, +and entailments be broken, and all monopolies of rank and power come to +an end, and so a great change take place in the social condition of +Europe, and especially of England. That change will bring many of the +comfortable into the rich class, and eventually many of the miserable +into the comfortable class. But I do not expect such a radical change +here, where we have not such enormous abuses to surmount.</p> + +<p>I think something will be done in Europe for the organization of labor, +I do not know what; I do not know how; I have not the ability to know; +and will not pretend to criticize what I know I cannot create, and do +not at present understand. I think there will be a great change in the +form of society; that able men will endeavor to remove the causes of +crime, not merely to make money out of that crime; that intemperance +will be diminished; that idleness in rich or poor will be counted a +disgrace;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> that labor will be more respected; education more widely +diffused; and that institutions will be founded, which will tend to +produce these results. But I do not pretend to devise those +institutions, and certainly shall not throw obstacles in the way of such +as can or will try. It seems likely that something will be first done in +Europe, where the need is greatest. There a change must come. By and by, +if it does not come peaceably, the continent will not furnish "special +constables" enough to put down human nature. If the white republicans +cannot make a revolution peacefully, wait a little, and the red +republicans will make it in blood. "Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we +must," says mankind, first in a whisper, then in a voice of thunder. If +powerful men will not write justice with black ink, on white paper, +ignorant and violent men will write it on the soil, in letters of blood, +and illuminate their rude legislation with burning castles, palaces and +towns. While the social change is taking place never so peacefully, men +will think the world is going to ruin. But it is an old world, pretty +well put together, and, with all these changes, will probably last some +time longer. Human society is like one of those enormous boulders, so +nicely poised on another rock, that a man may move it with a single +hand. You are afraid to come under its sides, lest it fall. When the +wind blows, it rocks with formidable noise, and men say it will soon be +down upon us. Now and then a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> rude boy undertakes to throw it over, but +all the men who can get their shoulders under, cannot raise the +ponderous mass from its solid and firm-set base.</p> + +<p>Still, after all these changes have taken place, there remains the +difference between the strong and the weak, the active and the idle, the +thrifty and the spendthrift, the temperate and the intemperate, and +though the term poverty ceases to be so dreadful, and no longer denotes +want of the natural necessaries of the body, there will still remain the +relatively rich and the relatively poor.</p> + +<p>But now something can be done directly, to remove the causes of poverty, +something to mitigate their effects; we need both the palliative +charity, and the remedial justice. Tenements for the poor can be +provided at a cheap rent, that shall yet pay their owner a reasonable +income. This has been proved by actual experiment, and, after all that +has been said about it, I am amazed that no more is done. I will not +exhort the churches to this in the name of religion—they have other +matters to attend to; but if capitalists will not, in a place like +Boston, it seems to me the City should see that this class of the +population is provided with tenements, at a rate not ruinous. It would +be good economy to do it, in the pecuniary sense of good economy; +certainly to hire money at six per cent., and rent the houses built +therewith, at eight per cent., would cost less than to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> support the poor +entirely in almshouses, and punish them in jails.</p> + +<p>Something yet more may be done, in the way of furnishing them with work, +or of directing them to it; something towards enabling them to purchase +food and other articles cheap.</p> + +<p>Something might be done to prevent street beggary, and begging from +house to house, which is rather a new thing in this town. The +indiscriminate charity, which it is difficult to withhold from a needy +and importunate beggar, does more harm than good.</p> + +<p>Much may be done to promote temperance; much more, I fear, than is +likely to be done; that is plainly the duty of society. Intemperance is +bad enough with the comfortable and the rich; with the poor it is +ruin—sheer, blank and swift ruin. The example of the rich, of the +comfortable, goes down there like lightning, to shatter, to blast, and +to burn. It is marvellous, that in Christian Boston, men of wealth, and +so above the temptation which lurks behind a dollar, men of character +otherwise thought to be elevated, can yet continue a traffic which leads +to the ruin and slow butchery of such masses of men. I know not what can +be done by means of the public law. I do know what can be done by +private self-denial, by private diligence.</p> + +<p>Something also may be done to promote religion amongst the poor, at +least something to make it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> practicable for a poor man to come to church +on Sunday, with his fellow-creatures who are not miserable—and to hear +the best things that the ablest men in the church have to offer. We are +very democratic in our State, not at all so in our church. In this +matter the Catholics put us quite to shame. If, as some men still +believe, it be a manly calling and a noble, to preach Christianity, then +to preach it to men who stand in the worst and most dangerous positions +in society; to take the highest truths of human consciousness, the +loftiest philosophy, the noblest piety, and bring them down into the +daily life of poor men, rude men, men obscure, unfriended, ready to +perish; surely this is the noblest part of that calling, and demands the +noblest gifts, the fairest and the largest culture, the loftiest powers.</p> + +<p>It is no hard thing to reason with reasoning men, and be intelligible to +the intelligent; to talk acceptably and even movingly to scholars and +men well read, is no hard thing if you are yourself well read and a +scholar. But to be intelligible to the ignorant, to reason with men who +reason not, to speak acceptably and movingly with such men, to inspire +them with wisdom, with goodness and with piety, that is the task only +for some men of rare genius who can stride over the great gulf betwixt +the thrones of creative power, and the humble positions of men ignorant, +poor and forgot! Yet such men there are, and here is their work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p> + +<p>Something can be done for the children of the poor—to promote their +education, to find them employment, to snatch these little ones from +underneath the feet of that grim Poverty. It is not less than awful, to +think while there are more children born in Boston of Catholic parents +than of Protestant, that yet more than three fifths thereof die before +the sun of their fifth year shines on their luckless heads. I thank God +that thus they die. If there be not wisdom enough in society, nor enough +of justice there to save them from their future long-protracted +suffering, then I thank God that Death comes down betimes, and moistens +his sickle while his crop is green. I pity not the miserable babes who +fall early before that merciful arm of Death. They are at rest. Poverty +cannot touch them. Let the mothers who bore them rejoice, but weep only +for those that are left—left to ignorance, to misery, to intemperance, +to vice that I shall not name; left to the mercies of the jail, and +perhaps the gallows at the last. Yet Boston is a Christian city—and it +is eighteen hundred years since one great Son of Man came to seek and to +save that which was lost!</p> + +<p>I see not what more can be done directly, and I see not why these things +should not be done. Still some will suffer: the idle, the lazy, the +proud who will not work, the careless who will voluntarily waste their +time, their strength, or their goods—they must suffer, they ought to +suffer. Want is the only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> schoolmaster to teach them industry and +thrift. Such as are merely unable, who are poor not by their fault—we +do wrong to let them suffer; we do wickedly to leave them to perish. The +little children who survive—are they to be left to become barbarians in +the midst of our civilization?</p> + +<p>Want is not an absolutely needful thing, but very needful for the +present distress, to teach us industry, economy, thrift and its creative +arts. There is nature—the whole material world—waiting to serve. "What +would you have thereof?" says God. "Pay for it and take it, as you will; +only pay as you go!" There are hands to work, heads to think; strong +hands, hard heads. God is an economist: He economizes suffering; there +is never too much of it in the world for the purpose it is to serve, +though it often falls where it should not fall. It is here to teach us +industry, thrift, justice. It will be here no more when we have learned +its lesson. Want is here on sufferance; misery on sufferance; and +mankind can eject them if we will. Poverty, like all evils, is amenable +to suppression.</p> + +<p>Can we not end this poverty—the misery and crime it brings? No, not +to-day. Can we not lessen it? Soon as we will. Think how much ability +there is in this town, cool, far-sighted talent. If some of the ablest +men directed their thoughts to the reform of this evil, how much might +be done in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> single generation; and in a century—what could not they +do in a hundred years? What better work is there for able men? I would +have it written on my tombstone: "This man had but little wit, and less +fame, yet he helped remove the causes of poverty, making men better off +and better," rather by far than this: "Here lies a great man; he had a +great place in the world, and great power, and great fame, and made +nothing of it, leaving the world no better for his stay therein, and no +man better off."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>After all the special efforts to remove poverty, the great work is to be +done by the general advance of mankind. We shall outgrow this as +cannibalism, butchery of captives, war for plunder, and other kindred +miseries have been outgrown. God has general remedies in abundance, but +few specific. Something will be done by diffusing throughout the +community principles and habits of economy, industry, temperance; by +diffusing ideas of justice, sentiments of brotherly love, sentiments and +ideas of religion. I hope every thing from that—the noiseless and +steady progress of Christianity; the snow melts, not by sunlight, or +that alone, but as the whole air becomes warm. You may in cold weather +melt away a little before your own door, but that makes little +difference till the general temperature rises. Still while the air is +getting warm, you facilitate the process<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> by breaking up the obdurate +masses of ice and putting them where the sun shines with direct and +unimpeded light. So must we do with poverty.</p> + +<p>It is only a little that any of us can do—for any thing. Still we can +do a little; we can each do by helping towards raising the general tone +of society: first, by each man raising himself; by industry, economy, +charity, justice, piety; by a noble life. So doing, we raise the moral +temperature of the whole world, and just in proportion thereto. Next, by +helping those who come in our way; nay, by going out of our way to help +them. In each of these modes, it is our duty to work. To a certain +extent each man is his brother's keeper. Of the powers we possess we are +but trustees under Providence, to use them for the benefit of men, and +render continually an account of our stewardship to God. Each man can do +a little directly to help convince the world of its wrong, a little in +the way of temporizing charity, a little in the way of remedial justice; +so doing, he works with God, and God works with him.: </p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p> +<h2>X.</h2> + +<h3>A SERMON OF THE MORAL CONDITION OF BOSTON.—PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON +SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1849.</h3> +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> +<h4>1 SAMUEL VII. 12.</h4> + +<h4>Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.</h4> + + +<p>A man who has only the spirit of his age can easily be a popular man; if +he have it in an eminent degree, he must be a popular man in it: he has +its hopes and its fears; his trumpet gives a certain and well-known +sound; his counsel is readily appreciated; the majority is on his side. +But he cannot be a wise magistrate, a just judge, a competent critic, or +a profitable preacher. A man who has only the spirit of a former age can +be none of these four things; and not even a popular man. He remembers +when he ought to forecast, and compares when he ought to act; he cannot +appreciate the age he lives in, nor have a fellow-feeling with it. He +may easily obtain the pity of his age, not its sympathy or its +confidence. The man who has the spirit of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> own, and also that of +some future age, is alone capable of becoming a wise magistrate, a just +judge, a competent critic, and a profitable preacher. Such a man looks +on passing events somewhat as the future historian will do, and sees +them in their proportions, not distorted; sees them in their connection +with great general laws, and judges of the falling rain not merely by +the bonnets it may spoil and the pastime it disturbs, but by the grass +and corn it shall cause to grow. He has hopes and fears of his own, but +they are not the hopes and fears of men about him; his trumpet cannot +give a welcome or well-known sound, nor his counsel be presently heeded. +Majorities are not on his side, nor can he be a popular man.</p> + +<p>To understand our present moral condition, to be able to give good +counsel thereon, you must understand the former generation, and have +potentially the spirit of the future generation; must appreciate the +past, and yet belong to the future. Who is there that can do this? No +man will say, "I can." Conscious of the difficulty, and aware of my own +deficiencies in all these respects, I will yet endeavor to speak of the +moral condition of Boston.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>First, I will speak of the actual moral condition of Boston, as +indicated by the morals of Trade. In a city like Rome, you must first +feel the pulse of the church, in St. Petersburg that of the court, to +determine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> the moral condition of those cities. Now trade is to Boston +what the church is to Rome and the imperial court to St. Petersburg: it +is the pendulum which regulates all the common and authorized machinery +of the place; it is an organization of the public conscience. We care +little for any Pius the Ninth, or Nicholas the First; the dollar is our +emperor and pope, above all the parties in the State, all sects in the +church, lord paramount over both, its spiritual and temporal power not +likely to be called in question; revolt from what else we may, we are +loyal still to that.</p> + +<p>A little while ago, in a sermon of riches, speaking of the character of +trade in Boston, I suggested that men were better than their reputation +oftener than worse; that there were a hundred honest bargains to one +that was dishonest. I have heard severe strictures from friendly +tongues, on that statement, which gave me more pain than any criticism I +have received before. The criticism was, that I overrated the honesty of +men in trade. Now, it is a small thing to be convicted of an error—a +just thing and a profitable to have it detected and exposed; but it is a +painful thing to find you have overrated the moral character of your +townsmen. However, if what I said be not true as history, I hope it will +become so as prophecy; I doubt not my critics will help that work.</p> + +<p>Love of money is out of proportion to love of better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> things—to love of +justice, of truth, of a manly character developing itself in a manly +life. Wealth is often made the end to live for; not the means to live +by, and attain a manly character. The young man of good abilities does +not commonly propose it to himself to be a noble man, equipped with all +the intellectual and moral qualities which belong to that, and capable +of the duties which come thereof. He is satisfied if he can become a +rich man. It is the highest ambition of many a youth in this town to +become one of the rich men of Boston; to have the social position which +wealth always gives, and nothing else in this country can commonly +bestow. Accordingly, our young men that are now poor, will sacrifice +every thing to this one object; will make wealth the end, and will +become rich without becoming noble. But wealth without nobleness of +character is always vulgar. I have seen a clown staring at himself in +the gorgeous mirror of a French palace, and thought him no bad emblem of +many an ignoble man at home, surrounded by material riches which only +reflected back the vulgarity of their owner.</p> + +<p>Other young men inherit wealth, but seldom regard it as a means of power +for high and noble ends, only as the means of selfish indulgence; +unneeded means to elevate yet more their self-esteem. Now and then you +find a man who values wealth only as an instrument to serve mankind +withal. I know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> some such men; their money is a blessing akin to genius, +a blessing to mankind, a means of philanthropic power. But such men are +rare in all countries, perhaps a little less so in Boston than in most +other large trading towns; still, exceeding rare. They are sure to meet +with neglect, abuse, and perhaps with scorn; if they are men of eminent +ability, superior culture, and most elevated moral aims, set off, too, +with a noble and heroic life, they are sure of meeting with eminent +hatred. I fear the man most hated in this town would be found to be some +one who had only sought to do mankind some great good, and stepped +before his age too far for its sympathy. Truth, Justice, Humanity, are +not thought in Boston to have come of good family; their followers are +not respectable. I am not speaking to blame men, only to show the fact; +we may meddle with things too high for us, but not understand nor +appreciate.</p> + +<p>Now this disproportionate love of money appears in various ways. You see +it in the advantage that is taken of the feeblest, the most ignorant, +and the most exposed classes in the community. It is notorious that they +pay the highest prices, the dearest rents, and are imposed upon in their +dealings oftener than any other class of men; so the raven and the +hooded crow, it is said, seek out the sickliest sheep to pounce upon. +The fact that a man is ignorant, poor, and desperate, furnishes to many +men an argument<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> for defrauding the man. It is bad enough to injure any +man; but to wrong an ignorant man, a poor and friendless man; to take +advantage of his poverty or his ignorance, and to get his services or +his money for less than a fair return—that is petty baseness under +aggravated circumstances, and as cowardly as it is mean. You are now and +then shocked at rich men telling of the arts by which they got their +gold—sometimes of their fraud at home, sometimes abroad, and a good man +almost thinks there must be a curse on money meanly got at first, though +it falls to him by honest inheritance.</p> + +<p>This same disproportionate love of money appears in the fact that men, +not driven by necessity, engage in the manufacture, the importation, and +the sale of an article which corrupts and ruins men by hundreds; which +has done more to increase poverty, misery, and crime than any other one +cause whatever; and, as some think, more than all other causes whatever. +I am not speaking of men who aid in any just and proper use of that +article, but in its ruinous use. Yet such men, by such a traffic, never +lose their standing in society, their reputation in trade, their +character in the church. A good many men will think worse of you for +being an Abolitionist; men have lost their place in society by that +name; even Dr. Channing "hurt his usefulness" and "injured his +reputation" by daring to speak against that sin of the nation; but no +man loses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> caste in Boston by making, importing, and selling the cause +of ruin to hundreds of families—though he does it with his eyes open, +knowing that he ministers to crime and to ruin! I am told that large +quantities of New England rum have already been sent from this city to +California; it is notorious that much of it is sent to the nations of +Africa—if not from Boston, at least from New England—as an auxiliary +in the slave-trade. You know with what feelings of grief and indignation +a clergyman of this city saw that characteristic manufacture of his town +on the wharves of a Mahometan city. I suppose there are not ten +ministers in Boston who would not "get into trouble," as the phrase is, +if they were to preach against intemperance, and the causes that produce +intemperance, with half so much zeal as they innocently preach +"regeneration" and a "form of piety" which will never touch a single +corner of the earth. As the minister came down, the Spirit of Trade +would meet him on the pulpit stairs to warn him: "Business is business; +religion is religion; business is ours, religion yours; but if you make +or even allow religion to interfere with our business, then it will be +the worse for you—that is all!" You know it is not a great while since +we drove out of Boston the one Unitarian minister who was a fearless +apostle of temperance.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> His presence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> here was a grief to that "form +of piety;" a disturbance to trade. Since then the peace of the churches +has not been much disturbed by the preaching of temperance. The effect +has been salutary; no Unitarian minister has risen up to fill that +place!</p> + +<p>This same disproportionate love of money appears in the fact, that the +merchants of Boston still allow colored seamen to be taken from their +ships and shut up in the jails of another State. If they cared as much +for the rights of man as for money, as much for the men who sail the +ship as for the cargo it carries, I cannot think there would be brass +enough in South Carolina, or all the South, to hold another freeman of +Massachusetts in bondage, merely for the color of his skin. No doubt, a +merchant would lose his reputation in this city by engaging directly in +the slave-trade, for it is made piracy by the law of the land.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> But +did any one ever lose his reputation by taking a mortgage on slaves as +security for a debt; by becoming, in that way or by inheritance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> the +owner of slaves, and still keeping them in bondage?</p> + +<p>You shall take the whole trading community of Boston, rich and poor, +good and bad, study the phenomena of trade as astronomers the phenomena +of the heavens, and from the observed facts, by the inductive method of +philosophy, construct the ethics of trade, and you will find one great +maxim to underlie the whole: Money must be made. Money-making is to the +ethics of trade what attraction is to the material world; what truth is +to the intellect, and justice in morals. Other things must yield to +that; that to nothing. In the effort to comply with this universal law +of trade, many a character gives way; many a virtue gets pushed aside; +the higher, nobler qualities of a man are held in small esteem.</p> + +<p>This characteristic of the trading class appears in the thought of the +people as well as their actions. You see it in the secular literature of +our times; in the laws, even in the sermons; nobler things give way to +love of gold. So in an ill-tended garden, in some bed where violets +sought to open their fragrant bosoms to the sun, have I seen a cabbage +come up and grow apace, with thick and vulgar stalk, with coarse and +vulgar leaves, with rank unsavory look; it thrust aside the little +violet, which, underneath that impenetrable leaf, lacking the morning +sunshine and the dew of night, faded and gave up its tender life; but +above the grave of the violet there stood the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> cabbage, green, +expanding, triumphant, and all fearless of the frost. Yet the cabbage +also had its value and its use.</p> + +<p>There are men in Boston, some rich, some poor, old and young, who are +free from this reproach; men that have a well-proportioned love of +money, and make the pursuit thereof an effort for all the noble +qualities of a man. I know some such men, not very numerous anywhere, +men who show that the common business of life is the place to mature +great virtues in; that the pursuit of wealth, successful or not, need +hinder the growth of no excellence, but may promote all manly life. Such +men stand here as violets among the cabbages, making a fragrance and a +loveliness all their own; attractive anywhere, but marvellous in such a +neighborhood as that.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Look next on the morals of Boston, as indicated by the Newspapers, the +daily and the weekly press. Take the whole newspaper literature of +Boston, cheap and costly, good and bad, study it all as a whole, and by +the inductive method construct the ethics of the press, and here you +find no signs of a higher morality in general than you found in trade. +It is the same centre about which all things gravitate here as there. +But in the newspapers the want of great principles is more obvious, and +more severely felt than in trade—the want of justice, of truth, of +humanity, of sympathy with man. In trade you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> meet with signs of great +power; the highway of commerce bears marks of giant feet. Our newspapers +seem chiefly in the hands of little men, whose cunning is in a large +ratio to their wisdom or their justice. You find here little ability, +little sound learning, little wise political economy; of lofty morals +almost nothing at all. Here, also, the dollar is both Pope and King; +right and truth are vassals, not much esteemed, nor over-often called to +pay service to their Lord, who has other soldiers with more pliant neck +and knee.</p> + +<p>A newspaper is an instrument of great importance; all men read it; many +read nothing else; some it serves as reason and conscience too: in lack +of better, why not? It speaks to thousands every day on matters of great +moment—on matters of morals, of politics, of finance. It relates daily +the occurrences of our land, and of all the world. All men are affected +by it; hindered or helped. To many a man his morning paper represents +more reality than his morning prayer. There are many in a community like +this who do not know what to say—I do not mean what to think, +thoughtful men know what to think—about any thing till somebody tells +them; yet they must talk, for "the mouth goes always." To such a man a +newspaper is invaluable; as the idolater in the Judges had "a Levite to +his priest," so he has a newspaper to his reason or his conscience, and +can talk to the day's end. An able and humane<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> newspaper would get this +class of persons into good habits of speech, and do them a service, +inasmuch as good habits of speech are better than bad.</p> + +<p>One portion of this literature is degrading; it seems purposely so, as +if written by base men, for base readers, to serve base ends. I know not +which is most depraved thereby, the taste or the conscience. Obscene +advertisements are there, meant for the licentious eye; there are +loathsome details of vice, of crime, of depravity, related with the +design to attract, yet so disgusting that any but a corrupt man must +revolt from them; there are accounts of the appearance of culprits in +the lower courts, of their crime, of their punishment; these are related +with an impudent flippancy, and a desire to make sport of human +wretchedness and perhaps depravity, which amaze a man of only the +average humanity. We read of Judge Jeffreys and the bloody assizes in +England, one hundred and sixty years ago, but never think there are in +the midst of us men who, like that monster, can make sport of human +misery; but for a cent you can find proof that the race of such is not +extinct. If a penny-a-liner were to go into a military hospital, and +make merry at the sights he saw there, at the groans he heard, and the +keen smart his eye witnessed, could he publish his fiendish joy at that +spectacle—you would not say he was a man. If one mock at the crimes of +men, perhaps at their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> sins, at the infamous punishments they +suffer—what can you say of him?</p> + +<p>It is a significant fact that the commercial newspapers, which of course +in such a town are the controlling newspapers, in reporting the European +news, relate first the state of the markets abroad, the price of cotton, +of consols, and of corn; then the health of the English queen, and the +movements of the nations. This is loyal and consistent; at Rome, the +journal used to announce first some tidings of the Pope, then of the +lesser dignitaries of the church, then of the discovery of new antiques, +and other matters of great pith and moment; at St. Petersburg, it was +first of the Emperor that the journal spoke; at Boston, it is legitimate +that the health of the dollar should be reported first of all.</p> + +<p>The political newspapers are a melancholy proof of the low morality of +this town. You know what they will say of any party movement; that +measures and men are judged on purely party grounds. The country is +commonly put before mankind, and the party before the country. Which of +them in political matters pursues a course that is fair and just; how +many of them have ever advanced a great idea, or been constantly true to +a great principle of natural justice; how many resolutely oppose a great +wrong; how many can be trusted to expose the most notorious blunders of +their party; how many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> of them aim to promote the higher interests of +mankind? What servility is there in some of these journals, a cringing +to the public opinion of the party; a desire that "our efforts may be +appreciated!" In our politics every thing which relates to money is +pretty carefully looked after, though not always well looked after; but +what relates to the moral part of politics is commonly passed over with +much less heed. Men would compliment a senator who understood finance in +all its mysteries, and sneer at one who had studied as faithfully the +mysteries of war, or of slavery. The Mexican War tested the morality of +Boston, as it appears both in the newspapers and in trade, and showed +its true value.</p> + +<p>There are some few exceptions to this statement; here and there is a +journal which does set forth the great ideas of this age, and is +animated by the spirit of humanity. But such exceptions only remind one +of the general rule.</p> + +<p>In the sectarian journals the same general morality appears, but in a +worse form. What would have been political hatred in the secular prints, +becomes theological odium in the sectarian journals; not a mere hatred +in the name of party, but hatred in the name of God and Christ. Here is +less fairness, less openness, and less ability than there, but more +malice; the form, too, is less manly. What is there a strut or a +swagger, is here only a snivel. They are the last places in which you +need look for the spirit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> of true morality. Which of the sectarian +journals of Boston advocates any of the great reforms of the day? nay, +which is not an obstacle in the path of all manly reform? But let us not +dwell upon this, only look and pass by.</p> + +<p>I am not about to censure the conductors of these journals, commercial, +political, or theological. I am no judge of any man's conscience. No +doubt they write as they can or must. This literature is as honest and +as able as "the circumstances will admit of." I look on it as an index +of our moral condition, for a newspaper literature always represents the +general morals of its readers. Grocers and butchers purchase only such +articles as their customers will buy; the editors of newspapers reveal +the moral character of their subscribers as well as their +correspondents. The transient literature of any age is always a good +index of the moral taste of the age. These two witnesses attest the +moral condition of the better part of the city; but there are men a good +deal lower than the general morals of trade and the press. Other +witnesses testify to their moral character.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Let me now speak of your moral condition as indicated by the Poverty in +this city. I have so recently spoken on the subject of poverty in +Boston, and printed the sermon, that I will not now mention the misery +it brings. I will only speak of the moral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> condition which it indicates, +and the moral effect it has upon us.</p> + +<p>In this age, poverty tends to barbarize men; it shuts them out from the +educational influences of our times. The sons of the miserable class +cannot obtain the intellectual, moral, and religious education which is +the birthright of the comfortable and the rich. There is a great gulf +between them and the culture of our times. How hard it must be to climb +up from a cellar in Cove Place to wisdom, to honesty, to piety. I know +how comfortable pharisaic self-righteousness can say, "I thank thee I am +not wicked like one of these," and God knows which is the best before +His eyes, the scorner, or the man he loathes and leaves to dirt and +destruction. I know this poverty belongs to the state of transition we +are now in, and can only be ended by our passing through this into a +better. I see the medicinal effect of poverty, that with cantharidian +sting it drives some men to work, to frugality and thrift; that the +Irish has driven the American beggar out of the streets, and will shame +him out of the almshouse ere long. But there are men who have not force +enough to obey this stimulus; they only cringe and smart under its +sting. Such men are made barbarians by poverty, barbarians in body, in +mind and conscience, in heart and soul. There is a great amount of this +barbarism in Boston; it lowers the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> moral character of the place, as +icebergs in your harbor next June would chill the air all day.</p> + +<p>The fact that such poverty is here, that so little is done by public +authority, or by the ablest men in the land, to remove the evil tree and +dig up its evil root; that amid all the wealth of Boston and all its +charity, there are not even comfortable tenements for the poor to be had +at any but a ruinous rent—that is a sad fact, and bears a sad testimony +to our moral state! Sometimes the spectacle of misery does good, +quickening the moral sense and touching the electric tie which binds all +human hearts into one great family; but when it does not lead to this +result, then it debases the looker-on. To know of want, of misery, of +all the complicated and far-extended ill they bring; to hear of this, +and to see it in the streets; to have the money to alleviate, and yet +not to alleviate; the wisdom to devise a cure therefor, and yet make no +effort towards it—that is to be yourself debased and barbarized. I have +often thought, in seeing the poverty of London, that the daily spectacle +of such misery did more in a year to debauch the British heart than all +the slaughter at Waterloo. I know that misery has called out heroic +virtue in some men and women, and made philanthropists of such as +otherwise had been only getters and keepers of gain. We have noble +examples of that in the midst of us; but how many men has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> poverty trod +down into the mire; how many has this sight of misery hardened into cold +worldliness, the man frozen into mere respectability, its thin smile on +his lips, its ungodly contempt in his heart!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Out of this barbarism of poverty there come three other forms of evil +which indicate the moral condition of Boston; of that portion named just +now as below the morals of trade and the press. These also I will call +up to testify.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>One is Intemperance. This is a crime against the body; it is felony +against your own frame. It makes a schism amongst your own members. The +amount of it is fearfully great in this town. Some of our most wealthy +citizens, who rent their buildings for the unlawful sale of rum to be +applied to an intemperate abuse, are directly concerned in promoting +this intemperance; others, rich but less wealthy, have sucked their +abundance out of the bones of the poor, and are actual manufacturers of +the drunkard and the criminal. Here are numerous distilleries owned, and +some of them conducted, I am told, by men of wealth. The fire thereof is +not quenched at all by day, and there is no night there; the worm dieth +not. There out of the sweetest plant which God has made to grow under a +tropic sun, men distil a poison the most baneful to mankind which the +world has ever known. The poison of the Borgias<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> was celebrated once; +cold-hearted courtiers shivered at its name. It never killed many; those +with merciful swiftness. The poison of rum is yet worse; it yearly +murders thousands; kills them by inches, body and soul. Here are +respectable and wealthy men, men who this day sit down in a Christian +church and thank God for his goodness, with contrite hearts praise him +for that Son of Man who gave his life for mankind, and would gladly give +it to mankind; yet these men have ships on the sea to bring the poor +man's poison here, or bear it hence to other men as poor; have +distilleries on the land to make still yet more for the ruin of their +fellow Christians; have warehouses full of this plague, which "outvenoms +all the worms of Nile;" have shops which they rent for the illegal and +murderous sale of this terrible scourge. Do they not know the ruin which +they work; are they the only men in the land who have not heard of the +effects of intemperance? I judge them not, great God! I only judge +myself. I wish I could say, "They know not what they do;" but at this +day who does not know the effect of intemperance in Boston?</p> + +<p>I speak not of the sale of ardent spirits to be used in the arts, to be +used for medicine, but of the needless use thereof; of their use to +damage the body and injure the soul of man. The chief of your police +informs me there are twelve hundred places in Boston, where this article +is sold to be drunk on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> spot; illegally sold. The Charitable +Association of Mechanics, in this city, have taken the accumulated +savings of more than fifty years, and therewith built a costly +establishment, where intoxicating drink is needlessly but abundantly +sold! Low as the moral standard of Boston is, low as are the morals of +the press and trade, I had hoped better things of these men, who live in +the midst of hard-working laborers, and see the miseries of intemperance +all about them. But the dollar was too powerful for their temperance.</p> + +<p>Here are splendid houses, where the rich man or the thrifty needlessly +drinks. Let me leave them; the evil Demon of Intemperance appears not +there; he is there, but under well-made garments, amongst educated men, +who are respected and still respect themselves. Amid merriment and song +the Demon appears not. He is there, gaunt, bony, and destructive, but so +elegantly clad, with manners so unoffending, you do not mark his face, +nor fear his steps. But go down to that miserable lane, where men +mothered by Misery and sired by Crime, where the sons of Poverty and the +daughters of Wretchedness, are huddled thick together, and you see this +Demon of Intemperance in all his ugliness. Let me speak soberly: +exaggeration is a figure of speech I would always banish from my +rhetoric, here, above all, where the fact is more appalling than any +fiction I could devise. In the low parts of Boston, where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> want abounds, +where misery abounds, intemperance abounds yet more, to multiply want, +to aggravate misery, to make savage what poverty has only made +barbarian; to stimulate passion into crime. Here it is not music and the +song which crown the bowl; it is crowned by obscenity, by oaths, by +curses, by violence, sometimes by murder. These twine the ivy round the +poor man's bowl; no, it is the Upas that they twine. Think of the +sufferings of the drunkard himself, of his poverty, his hunger and his +nakedness, his cold; think of his battered body; of his mind and +conscience, how they are gone. But is that all? Far from it. These +curses shall become blows upon his wife; that savage violence shall be +expended on his child. In his senses this man was a barbarian; there are +centuries of civilization betwixt him and cultivated men. But the man of +wealth, adorned with respectability and armed with science, harbors a +Demon in the street, a profitable Demon to the rich man who rents his +houses for such a use. The Demon enters our barbarian, who straightway +becomes a savage. In his fury he tears his wife and child. The law, +heedless of the greater culprits, the Demon, and the demon-breeder, +seizes our savage man and shuts him in the jail. Now he is out of the +tempter's reach; let us leave him; let us go to his home. His wife and +children still are there, freed from their old tormentor. Enter: look +upon the squalor, the filth, the want, the misery still left behind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> +Respectability halts at the door with folded arms, and can no further +go. But charity, the love of man which never fails, enters even there; +enters to lift up the fallen, to cheer the despairing, to comfort and to +bless. Let us leave her there, loving the unlovely, and turn to other +sights.</p> + +<p>In the streets, there are about nine hundred needy boys, and about two +hundred needy girls, the sons and daughters mainly of the intemperate; +too idle or too thriftless to work; too low and naked for the public +school. They roam about—the nomadic tribes of this town, the gipsies of +Boston—doing some chance work for a moment, committing some petty +theft. The temptations of a great city are before them.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> Soon they +will be impressed into the regular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> army of crime, to be stationed in +your jails, perhaps to die on your gallows. Such is the fate of the sons +of intemperance; but the daughters! their fate—let me not tell of that.</p> + +<p>In your Legislature they have just been discussing a law against dogs, +for now and then a man is bitten and dies of hydrophobia. Perhaps there +are ten mad dogs in the State at this moment, and it may be that one man +in a year dies from the bite of such. Do the legislators know how many +shops there are in this town, in this State, which all the day and all +the year sell to intemperate men a poison that maddens with a +hydrophobia still worse? If there were a thousand mad dogs in the land, +if wealthy men had embarked a large capital in the importation or the +production of mad dogs, and if they bit and maddened and slew ten +thousand men in a year, do you believe your Legislature would discuss +that evil with such fearless speech? Then you are very young, and know +little of the tyranny of public opinion, and the power of money to +silence speech, while justice still comes in, with feet of wool, but +iron hands.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span></p> +<p>There is yet another witness to the moral condition of Boston. I mean +Crime. Where there is such poverty and intemperance, crime may be +expected to follow. I will not now dwell upon this theme<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>, only let me +say, that in 1848, three thousand four hundred and thirty-five grown +persons, and six hundred and seventy-one minors were lawfully sentenced +to your jail and House of Correction; in all, four thousand one hundred +and six; three thousand four hundred and forty-four persons were +arrested by the night police, and eleven thousand one hundred and +seventy-eight were taken into custody by the watch; at one time there +were one hundred and forty-four in the common jail. I have already +mentioned that more than a thousand boys and girls, between six and +sixteen, wander as vagrants about your streets; two hundred and +thirty-eight of these are children of widows, fifty-four have neither +parent living. It is a fact known to your police, that about one +thousand two hundred shops are unlawfully open for retailing the means +of intemperance. These are most thickly strown in the haunts of poverty. +On a single Sunday the police found three hundred and thirteen shops in +the full experiment of unblushing and successful crime. These rum-shops +are the factories of crime; the raw material is furnished by poverty; it +passes into the hands of the rum-seller, and is soon ready for delivery +at the mouth of the jail, or the foot of the gallows. It is notorious +that intemperance is the proximate cause of three fourths of the crime +in Boston; yet it is very respectable to own houses and rent them for +the purpose of making men intemperate; nobody loses his standing by +that.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> I am not surprised to hear of women armed with knives, and boys +with six-barrelled revolvers in their pockets; not surprised at the +increase of capital trials.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>One other matter let me name—I call it the Crime against Woman. Let us +see the evil in its type, its most significant form. Look at that thing +of corruption and of shame, almost without shame, whom the judge, with +brief words, despatches to the jail. That was a woman once. No! At +least, she was once a girl. She had a mother; perhaps, beyond the hills, +a mother, in her evening prayer, remembers still this one child more +tenderly than all the folded flowers that slept the sleep of infancy +beneath her roof; remembers, with a prayer, her child, whom the world +curses after it has made corrupt! Perhaps she had no such mother, but +was born in the filth of some reeking cellar, and turned into the mire +of the streets, in her undefended innocence, to mingle with the +coarseness, the intemperance, and the crime of a corrupt metropolis. In +either case, her blood is on our hands. The crime which is so terribly +avenged on woman—think you that God will hold men innocent of that? But +on this sign of our moral state, I will not long delay.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Put all these things together: the character of trade, of the press; +take the evidence of poverty, intemperance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> and crime—it all reveals a +sad state of things. I call your attention to these facts. We are all +affected by them more or less; all more or less accountable for them.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Hitherto I have only stated facts, without making comparisons. Let me +now compare the present condition of Boston with that in former times. +Every man has an ideal, which is better than the actual facts about him. +Some men amongst us put that ideal in times past, and maintain it was +then an historical fact; they are commonly men who have little knowledge +of the past, and less hope for the future; a good deal of reverence for +old precedents, little for justice, truth, humanity; little confidence +in mankind, and a great deal of fear of new things. Such men love to +look back and do homage to the past, but it is only a past of fancy, not +of fact, they do homage to. They tell us we have fallen; that the golden +age is behind us, and the garden of Eden; ours are degenerate days; the +men are inferior, the women less winning, less witty, and less wise, and +the children are an untoward generation, a disgrace, not so much to +their fathers, but certainly to their grandsires. Sometimes this is the +complaint of men who have grown old; sometimes of such as seem to be old +without growing so, who seem born to the gift of age, without the grace +of youth.</p> + +<p>Other men have a similar ideal, commonly a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> higher one, but they place +it in the future, not as an historical reality, which has been, and is +therefore to be worshipped, but one which is to be made real by dint of +thought, of work. I have known old persons who stoutly maintained that +the pears and the plums and the peaches, are not half so luscious as +they were many years ago; so they bewailed the existing race of fruits, +complaining of "the general decay" of sweetness, and brought over to +their way of speech some aged juveniles. Meanwhile, men born young, set +themselves to productive work, and, instead of bewailing an old fancy, +realized a new ideal in new fruits, bigger, fairer, and better than the +old. It is to men of this latter stamp, that we must look for criticism +and for counsel. The others can afford us a warning, if not by their +speech, at least by their example.</p> + +<p>It is very plain, that the people of New England are advancing in +wealth, in intelligence, and in morality; but in this general march, +there are little apparent pauses, slight waverings from side to side; +some virtues seem to straggle from the troop; some to lag behind, for it +is not always the same virtue that leads the van. It is with the flock +of virtues, as with wild fowl—the leaders alternate. It is probable +that the morals of New England in general, and of Boston in special, did +decline somewhat from 1775 to 1790; there were peculiar but well-known +causes, which no longer exist, to work that result.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> In the previous +fifteen years, it seems probable that there had been a rapid increase of +morality, through the agency of causes equally peculiar and transient. +To estimate the moral growth or decline of this town, we must not take +either period as a standard. But take the history of Boston, from 1650 +to 1700, from 1700 to 1750, thence to 1800, and you will see a gradual, +but a decided progress in morality in each of these periods. It is not +easy to prove this in a short sermon; I can only indicate the points of +comparison, and state the general fact. From 1800 to 1849, this progress +is well marked, indisputable, and very great. Let us look at this a +little in detail, pursuing the same order of thought as before.</p> + +<p>It is generally conceded that the moral character of trade has improved +a good deal within fifty or sixty years. It was formerly a common +saying, that "If a Yankee merchant were to sell salt water at high-tide, +he would yet cheat in the measure." The saying was founded on the +conduct of American traders abroad, in the West Indies and elsewhere. +Now things have changed for the better. I have been told by competent +authority, that two of the most eminent merchants of Boston, fifty or +sixty years ago, who conducted each a large business, and left very +large fortunes, were notoriously guilty of such dishonesty in trade, as +would now drive any man from the Exchange. The facility with which notes +are collected by the banks, compared to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> former method of +collection, is itself a proof of an increase of practical honesty; the +law for settling the affairs of a bankrupt tells the same thing. Now +this change has not come from any special effort, made to produce this +particular effect, and, accordingly, it indicates the general moral +progress of the community.</p> + +<p>The general character of the press, since the end of the last century, +has decidedly improved, as any one may convince himself of, by comparing +the newspapers of that period, with the present; yet a publicity is +now-a-days given to certain things which were formerly kept more closely +from the public eye and ear. This circumstance sometimes produces an +apparent increase of wrong-doing, while it is only an increased +publicity thereof. Political servility, and political rancor, are +certainly bad enough, and base enough, at this day, but not long ago +both were baser and worse; to show this, I need only appeal to the +memories of men before me, who can recollect the beginning of the +present century. Political controversies are conducted with less +bitterness than before; honesty is more esteemed; private worth is more +respected. It is not many years since the Federal party, composed of men +who certainly were an honor to their age, supported Aaron Burr, for the +office of President of the United States; a man whose character, both +public and private, was notoriously marked with the deepest infamy. +Political parties are not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> very puritanical in their virtue at this day; +but I think no party would now for a moment accept such a man as Mr. +Burr, for such a post.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> There is another pleasant sign of this +improvement in political parties: last autumn the victorious party, in +two wards of this city, made a beautiful demonstration of joy, at their +success in the Presidential election, and on Thanksgiving day, and on +Christmas, gave a substantial dinner to each poor person in their +section of the town. It was a trifle, but one pleasant to remember.</p> + +<p>Even the theological journals have improved within a few years. I know +it has been said that some of them are not only behind their times, +which is true, "but behind all times." It is not so. Compared with the +sectarian writings—tracts, pamphlets, and hard-bound volumes of an +earlier day—they are human, enlightened, and even liberal.</p> + +<p>In respect to poverty, there has been a great change for the better. +However, it may be said in general, that a good deal of the poverty, +intemperance, and crime, is of foreign origin; we are to deal with it, +to be blamed if we allow it to continue; not at all to be blamed for its +origin. I know it is often said, "The poor are getting poorer, and soon +will become the mere vassals of the rich;" that "The past is full<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> of +discouragement; the future full of fear." I cannot think so. I feel +neither the discouragement nor the fear. It should be remembered that +many of the Fathers of New England owned the bodies of their laborers +and domestics! The condition of the working man has improved, relatively +to the wealth of the land, ever since. The wages of any kind of labor, +at this day, bear a higher proportion to the things needed for comfort +and convenience, than ever before for two hundred years.</p> + +<p>If you go back one hundred years, I think you will find that, in +proportion to the population and wealth of this town or this State, +there was considerably more suffering from native poverty then than now. +I have not, however, before me the means of absolute proof of this +statement; but this is plain, that now public charity is more extended, +more complete, works in a wiser mode, and with far more beneficial +effect; and that pains are now taken to uproot the causes of +poverty—pains which our fathers never thought of. In proof of this +increase of charity, and even of the existence of justice, I need only +refer to the numerous benevolent societies of modern origin, and to the +establishment of the ministry at large, in this city—the latter the +work of Unitarian philanthropy. Some other churches have done a little +in this good work. But none have done much. I am told the Catholic +clergy of this city do little to remove the great mass of poverty,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> +intemperance, and crime among their followers. I know there are some few +honorable exceptions, and how easy it is for Protestant hostility to +exaggerate matters; still, I fear the reproach is but too well founded, +that the Catholic clergy are not vigilant shepherds, who guard their +sacred flock against the terrible wolves which prowl about the fold. I +wish to find myself mistaken here.</p> + +<p>Some of you remember the "Old Almshouse" in Park-street; the condition +and character of its inmates; the effect of the treatment they there +received. I do not say that our present attention to the subject of +poverty is any thing to boast of—certainly we have done little in +comparison with what common sense demands; very little in comparison +with what Christianity enjoins; still it is something; in comparison +with "the good old times," it is much that we are doing.</p> + +<p>There has been a great change for the better in the matter of +intemperance in drinking. Within thirty years, the progress towards +sobriety is surprising, and so well marked and obvious that to name it +is enough. Probably there is not a "respectable" man in Boston who would +not be ashamed to have been seen drunk yesterday; even to have been +drunk in ever so private a manner; not one who would willingly get a +friend or a guest in that condition to-day! Go back a few years, and it +brought no public reproach, and, I fear, no private shame. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> few years +further back, it was not a rare thing, on great occasions, for the +fathers of the town to reel and stagger from their intemperance—the +magistrates of the land voluntarily furnishing the warning which a +romantic historian says the Spartans forced upon their slaves.</p> + +<p>It is easy to praise the Fathers of New England; easier to praise them +for virtues they did not possess, than to discriminate, and fairly judge +those remarkable men. I admire and venerate their characters, but they +were rather hard drinkers; certainly a love of cold water was not one of +their loves. Let me mention a fact or two: it is recorded in the Probate +office, that in 1678, at the funeral of Mrs. Mary Norton, widow of the +celebrated John Norton, one of the ministers of the first church in +Boston, fifty-one gallons and a half of the best Malaga wine were +consumed by the "mourners;" in 1685, at the funeral of the Rev. Thomas +Cobbett, minister at Ipswich, there were consumed one barrel of wine and +two barrels of cider—"and as it was cold," there was "some spice and +ginger for the cider." You may easily judge of the drunkenness and riot +on occasions less solemn than the funeral of an old and beloved +minister. Towns provided intoxicating drink at the funeral of their +paupers; in Salem, in 1728, at the funeral of a pauper, a gallon of wine +and another of cider are charged as "incidental;" the next year, six +gallons of rum on a similar occasion;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> in Lynn, in 1711, the town +furnished "half a barrel of cider for the Widow Dispaw's funeral." +Affairs had come to such a pass, that in 1742, the General Court forbade +the use of wine and rum at funerals. In 1673, Increase Mather published +his "Wo unto Drunkards." Governor Winthrop complains, in 1630, that "The +young folk gave themselves to drink hot waters very immoderately."<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span></p> +<p>But I need not go back so far. Who that is fifty years of age, does not +remember the aspect of Boston on public days; on the evening of such +days? Compare the "Election day," or the Fourth of July, as they were +kept thirty or forty years ago, with such days in our time. Some of you +remember the celebration of Peace, in 1783; many of you can recollect +the similar celebration in 1815. On each of those days the inhabitants +from the country towns came here to rejoice with the citizens of this +town. Compare the riot, the confusion, the drunkenness then, with the +order, decorum, and sobriety of the celebration at the introduction of +water last autumn, and you see what has been done in sixty or seventy +years for temperance.</p> + +<p>A great deal of the crime in Boston is of foreign origin: of the one +thousand and sixty-six children<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> vagrant in your streets, only one +hundred and three had American parents; of the nine hundred and +thirty-three persons in the House of Correction here, six hundred and +sixteen were natives of other countries; I know not how many were the +children of Irishmen, who had not enjoyed the advantages of our +institutions. I cannot tell how many rum-shops are kept by +foreigners.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> Now in Ireland no pains have been taken with the +education of the people by the Government; very little by the Catholic +church; indeed, the British government for a long time rendered it +impossible for the church to do any thing in this way. For more than +seventy years, in that Catholic country, none but a Protestant could +keep a school or even be a tutor in a private family. A Catholic +schoolmaster was to be transported, and, if he returned, adjudged guilty +of high treason, barbarously put to death, drawn and quartered. A +Protestant schoolmaster is as repulsive to a Catholic, as a Mahometan +schoolmaster or an Atheist would be to you. It is not surprising, +therefore, that the Irish are ignorant, and, as a consequence thereof, +are idle, thriftless, poor, intemperate, and barbarian; not to be +wondered at if they conduct like wild beasts when they are set loose in +a land where we think the individual must be left free to the greatest +extent. Of course they will violate our laws, those wild bisons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> leaping +over the fences which easily restrain the civilized domestic cattle; +will commit the great crimes of violence, even capital offences, which +certainly have increased rapidly of late. This increase of foreigners is +prodigious: more than half the children in your public schools are +children of foreigners; there are more Catholic than Protestant children +born in Boston.</p> + +<p>With the general and unquestionable advance of morality, some offences +are regarded as crimes which were not noticed a few years ago. +Drunkenness is an example of this. An Irishman in his native country +thinks little of beating another or being beaten; he brings his habits +of violence with him, and does not at once learn to conform to our laws. +Then, too, a good deal of crime which was once concealed is now brought +to light by the press, by the superior activity of the police; and yet, +after all that is said, it seems quite clear that what is legally called +crime and committed by Americans, has diminished a good deal in fifty +years. Such crime, I think, never bore so small a proportion to the +population, wealth, and activity of Boston, as now. Even if we take all +the offences committed by these strangers who have come amongst us, it +does not compare so very unfavorably as some allege with the "good old +times." I know men often look on the fathers of this colony as saints; +but in 1635, at a time when the whole State contained less than one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> +tenth of the present population of Boston, and they were scattered from +Weymouth Fore-River to the Merrimack, the first grand jury ever +impanelled at Boston "found" a hundred bills of indictment at their +first coming together.</p> + +<p>If you consider the circumstances of the class who commit the greater +part of the crimes which get punished, you will not wonder at the +amount. The criminal court is their school of morals; the constable and +judge are their teachers; but under this rude tuition I am told that the +Irish improve and actually become better. The children who receive the +instruction of our public schools, imperfect as they are, will be better +than their fathers; and their grandchildren will have lost all trace of +their barbarian descent.</p> + +<p>I have often spoken of our penal law as wrong in its principle, taking +it for granted that the ignorant and miserable men who commit crime do +it always from wickedness, and not from the pressure of circumstances +which have brutalized the man; wrong in its aim, which is to take +vengeance on the offender, and not to do him a good in return for the +evil he has done; wrong in its method, which is to inflict a punishment +that is wholly arbitrary, and then to send the punished man, overwhelmed +with new disgrace, back to society, often made worse than before,—not +to keep him till we can correct, cure, and send him back a reformed man. +I would retract<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> nothing of what I have often said of that; but not long +ago all this was worse; the particular statutes were often terribly +unjust; the forms of trial afforded the accused but little chance of +justice; the punishments were barbarous and terrible. The plebeian +tyranny of the Lord Brethren in New England was not much lighter than +the patrician despotism of the Lord Bishops in the old world, and was +more insulting. Let me mention a few facts, to refresh the memories of +those who think we are going to ruin, and can only save ourselves by +holding to the customs of our fathers, and of the "good old times." In +1631, a man was fined forty pounds, whipped on the naked back, both his +ears cut off, and then banished this colony, for uttering hard speeches +against the government and the church at Salem. In the first century of +the existence of this town, the magistrates could banish a woman because +she did not like the preaching, nor all the ministers, and told the +people why; they could whip women naked in the streets, because they +spoke reproachfully of the magistrates; they could fine men twenty +pounds, and then banish them, for comforting a man in jail before his +trial; they could pull down, with legal formality, the house of a man +they did not like; they could whip women at a cart's tail from Salem to +Rhode Island, for fidelity to their conscience; they could beat, +imprison, and banish men out of the land, simply for baptizing one +another in a stream of water, instead of sprinkling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> them from a dish; +they could crop the ears, and scourge the backs, and bore the tongues of +men, for being Quakers; yes, they could shut them in jails, could banish +them out of the colony, could sell them as slaves, could hang them on a +gallows, solely for worshipping God after their own conscience; they +could convulse the whole land, and hang some thirty or forty men for +witchcraft, and do all this in the name of God, and then sing psalms, +with most nasal twang, and pray by the hour, and preach—I will not say +how long, nor what, nor how! It is not yet one hundred years since two +slaves were judicially burnt alive, on Boston Neck, for poisoning their +master.</p> + +<p>But why talk of days so old? Some of you remember when the pillory and +the whipping-post were a part of the public furniture of the law, and +occupied a prominent place in the busiest street in town. Some of you +have seen men and women scourged, naked, and bleeding, in State street; +have seen men judicially branded in the forehead with a hot iron, their +ears clipped off by the sheriff, and held up to teach humanity to the +gaping crowd of idle boys and vulgar men. A magistrate was once brought +into odium in Boston, for humanely giving back to his victim a part of +the ear he had officially shorn off, that the mutilated member might be +restored and made whole. How long is it since men sent their servants to +the "Workhouse," to be beaten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> "for disobedience," at the discretion of +the master? It is not long since the gallows was a public spectacle here +in the midst of us, and a hanging made a holiday for the rabble of this +city and the neighboring towns; even women came to see the +death-struggle of a fellow-creature, and formed the larger part of the +mob; many of you remember the procession of the condemned man sitting on +his coffin, a procession from the jail to the gallows, from one end of +the city to the other. I remember a public execution some fourteen or +fifteen years ago, and some of the students of theology at Cambridge, of +undoubted soundness in the Unitarian faith, came here to see men kill a +fellow-man!</p> + +<p>Who can think of these things, and not see that a great progress has +been made in no long time. But if these things be not proof enough, then +consider what has been done here in this century for the reformation of +juvenile offenders; for the discharged convict; for the blind, the deaf, +and the dumb; for the insane, and now even for the idiot. Think of the +numerous Societies for the widows and orphans; for the seamen; the +Temperance Societies; the Peace Societies; the Prison Discipline +Society; the mighty movement against slavery, which, beginning with a +few heroic men who took the roaring lion of public opinion by the beard, +fearless of his roar, has gone on now, till neither the hardest nor the +softest courage in the State dares openly defend the unholy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> +institution. A philanthropic female physician delivers gratuitous +lectures on physiology to the poor of this city, to enable them to take +better care of their houses and their bodies; an unpretending man, for +years past, responsible to none but God, has devoted all his time and +his toil to the most despised class of men, and has saved hundreds from +the jail, from crime and ruin at the last. Here are many men and women +not known to the public, but known to the poor, who are daily +ministering to the wants of the body and the mind. Consider all these +things, and who can doubt that a great moral progress has been made? It +is not many years since we had white slaves, and a Scotch boy was +invoiced at fourteen pounds lawful money, in the inventory of an estate +in Boston. In 1630, Governor Dudley complains that some of the founders +of New England, in consequence of a famine, were obliged to set free one +hundred and eighty servants, "to our extreme loss," for they had cost +sixteen or twenty pounds apiece. Seventy years since, negro slavery +prevailed in Massachusetts, and men did not blush at the institution. +Think of the treatment which the leaders of the anti-slavery reform met +with but a few years ago, and you see what a progress has been made!<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> + +<p>I have extenuated nothing of our condition; I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> have said the morals of +trade are low morals, and the morals of the press are low; that poverty +is a terrible evil to deal with, and we do not deal with it manfully; +that intemperance is a mournful curse, all the more melancholy when rich +men purposely encourage it; that here is an amount of crime which makes +us shudder to think of; that the voice of human blood cries out of the +ground against us. I disguise nothing of all this; let us confess the +fact, and, ugly as it is, look it fairly in the face. Still, our moral +condition is better than ever before. I know there are men who seem born +with their eyes behind, their hopes all running into memory; some who +wish they had been born long ago: they might as well; sure it is no +fault of theirs that they were not. I hear what they have to tell us. +Still, on the whole, the aspect of things is most decidedly encouraging; +for if so much has been done when men understood the matter less than +we, both cause and cure, how much more can be done for the future?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>What can we do to make things better?</p> + +<p>I have so recently spoken of poverty that I shall say little now. A +great change will doubtless take place before many years in the +relations between capital and labor; a great change in the spirit of +society. I do not believe the disparity now existing between the wealth +of men has its origin in human nature, and therefore is to last for +ever; I do not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> believe it is just and right that less than one +twentieth of the people in the nation should own more than ten +twentieths of the property of the nation, unless by their own head, or +hands, or heart, they do actually create and earn that amount. I am not +now blaming any class of men; only stating a fact. There is a profound +conviction in the hearts of many good men, rich as well as poor, that +things are wrong; that there is an ideal right for the actual wrong; but +I think no man yet has risen up with ability to point out for us the +remedy of these evils, and deliver us from what has not badly been named +the Feudalism of Capital. Still, without waiting for the great man to +arise, we can do something with our littleness even now; the truant +children may be snatched from vagrancy, beggary, and ruin; tenements can +be built for the poor, and rented at a reasonable rate. It seems to me +that something more can be done in the way of providing employment for +the poor, or helping them to employment.</p> + +<p>In regard to intemperance, I will not say we can end it by direct +efforts. So long as there is misery there will be continued provocation +to that vice, if the means thereof are within reach. I do not believe +there will be much more intemperance amongst well-bred men; among the +poor and wretched it will doubtless long continue. But if we cannot end, +we can diminish it, fast as we will. If rich men did not manufacture, +nor import, nor sell; if they would not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> rent their buildings for the +sale of intoxicating liquor for improper uses; if they did not by their +example favor the improper use thereof, how long do you think your +police would arrest and punish one thousand drunkards in the year? how +long would twelve hundred rum-shops disgrace your town? Boston is far +more sober, at least in appearance, than other large cities of America, +but it is still the headquarters of intemperance for the State of +Massachusetts. In arresting intemperance, two thirds of the poverty, +three fourths of the crime of this city would end at once, and an amount +of misery and sin which I have not the skill to calculate. Do you say we +cannot diminish intemperance, neither by law, nor by righteous efforts +without law? Oh, fie upon such talk. Come, let us be honest, and say we +do not wish to, not that we cannot. It is plain that in sixteen years we +can build seven great railroads radiating out of Boston, three or four +hundred miles long; that we can conquer the Connecticut and the +Merrimack, and all the lesser streams of New England; can build up +Lowell, and Chicopee, and Lawrence; why, in four years Massachusetts can +invest eight and fifty millions of dollars in railroads and +manufactures, and cannot prevent intemperance; cannot diminish it in +Boston! So there are no able men in this town! I am amazed at such talk, +in such a place, full of such men, surrounded by such trophies of their +work! When the churches preach<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> and men believe that Mammon is not the +only God we are practically to serve; that it is more reputable to keep +men sober, temperate, comfortable, intelligent, and thriving, than it is +to make money out of other men's misery; more Christian, than to sell +and manufacture rum, to rent houses for the making of drunkards and +criminals, then we shall set about this business with the energy that +shows we are in earnest, and by a method which will do the work.</p> + +<p>In the matter of crime, something can be done to give efficiency to the +laws. No doubt a thorough change must be made in the idea of criminal +legislation; vengeance must give way to justice, policemen become moral +missionaries, and jails moral hospitals, that discharge no criminal +until he is cured. It will take long to get the idea into men's minds. +You must encounter many a doubt, many a sneer, and expect many a +failure, too. Men who think they "know the world," because they know +that most men are selfish, will not believe you. We must wait for new +facts to convince such men. After the idea is established, it will take +long to organize it fittingly.</p> + +<p>Much can be done for juvenile offenders, much for discharged convicts, +even now. We can pull down the gallows, and with it that loathsome +theological idea on which it rests,—the idea of a vindictive God. A +remorseless court, and careful police, can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> do much to hinder crime;<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> +but they cannot remove the causes thereof.</p> + +<p>Last year, a good man, to whom the State was deeply indebted before, +suggested that a moral police should be appointed to look after +offenders; to see why they committed their crime; and if only necessity +compelled them, to seek out for them some employment, and so remove the +causes of crime in detail. The thought was worthy of the age, and of the +man. In the hands of a practical man, this thought might lead to good +results. A beginning has already been made in the right direction, by +establishing the State Reform School for Boys. It will be easy to +improve on this experiment, and conduct prisons for men on the same +scheme of correction and cure, not merely of punishment, in the name of +vengeance. But, after all, so long as poverty, misery, intemperance, and +ignorance continue, no civil police, no moral police, can keep such +causes from creating crime. What keeps you from a course of crime? Your +morality, your religion? Is it? Take away your property, your home, your +friends, the respect of respectable men; take away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> what you have +received from education, intellectual, moral, and religious, and how +much better would the best of us be than the men who will to-morrow be +huddled off to jail, for crimes committed in a dram-shop to-day? The +circumstances which have kept you temperate, industrious, respectable, +would have made nine tenths of the men in jail as good men as you are.</p> + +<p>It is not pleasant to think that there are no amusements which lie level +to the poor, in this country. In Paris, Naples, Rome, Vienna, Berlin, +there are cheap pleasures for poor men, which yet are not low pleasures. +Here there are amusements for the comfortable and the rich, not too +numerous, rather too rare, perhaps, but none for the poor, save only the +vice of drunkenness; that is hideously cheap; the inward temptation +powerful; the outward occasion always at hand. Last summer, some +benevolent men treated the poor children of the city to a day of +sunshine, fresh air, and frolic in the fields. Once a year the children, +gathered together by another benevolent man, have a floral procession in +the streets; some of them have charitably been taught to dance. These +things are beautiful to think of; signs of our progress, from "The good +old times," and omens of a brighter day, when Christianity shall bear +more abundantly flowers and fruit even yet more fair.</p> + +<p>The morals of the current literature, of the daily press—you can change +when you will. If there is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> not in us a demand for low morals, there +will be no supply. The morals of trade, and of politics, the handmaid +thereof, we can make better soon as we wish.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It has been my aim to give suggestions, rather than propose distinct +plans of action; I do not know that I am capable of that. But some of +you are rich men, some able men; many of you, I think, are good men. I +appeal to you to do something to raise the moral character of this town. +All that has been done in fifty years, or a hundred and fifty, seems +very little, while so much still remains to do; only a hint and an +encouragement. You cannot do much, nor I much: that is true. But, after +all, every thing must begin with individual men and women. You can at +least give the example of what a good man ought to be and to do, to-day; +to-morrow you will yourself be the better man for it. So far as that +goes, you will have done something to mend the morals of Boston. You can +tell of actual evils, and tell of your remedy for them; can keep clear +from committing the evils yourself: that also is something.</p> + +<p>Here are two things that are certain: We are all brothers, rich and +poor, American and foreign; put here by the same God, for the same end, +and journeying towards the same heaven, owing mutual help. Then, too, +the wise men and good men are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> the natural guardians of society, and God +will not hold them guiltless, if they leave their brothers to perish. I +know our moral condition is a reproach to us; I will not deny that, nor +try to abate the shame and grief we should feel. When I think of the +poverty and misery in the midst of us, and all the consequences thereof, +I hardly dare feel grateful for the princely fortunes some men have +gathered together. Certainly it is not a Christian society, where such +extremes exist; we are only in the process of conversion; proselytes of +the gate, and not much more. There are noble men in this city, who have +been made philanthropic, by the sight of wrong, of intemperance, and +poverty, and crime. Let mankind honor great conquerors, who only rout +armies, and "plant fresh laurels where they kill;" I honor most the men +who contend against misery, against crime and sin; men that are the +soldiers of humanity, and in a low age, amidst the mean and sordid +spirits of a great trading town, lift up their serene foreheads, and +tell us of the right, the true, first good, first perfect, and first +fair. From such men I hear the prophecy of the better time to come. In +their example I see proofs of the final triumph of good over evil. +Angels are they, who keep the tree of life, not with flaming sword, +repelling men, but, with friendly hand, plucking therefrom, and giving +unto all the leaves, the flower, and the fruit of life, for the healing +of the nations. A single good man, kindling his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> early flame, wakens the +neighbors with his words of cheer; they, at his lamp, shall light their +torch and household fire, anticipating the beamy warmth of day. Soon it +will be morning, warm and light; we shall be up and a-doing, and the +lighted lamp, which seemed at first too much for eyes to bear, will look +ridiculous, and cast no shadow in the noonday sun. A hundred years +hence, men will stand here as I do now, and speak of the evils of these +times as things past and gone, and wonder that able men could ever be +appalled by our difficulties, and think them not to be surpassed. Still, +all depends on the faithfulness of men—your faithfulness and mine.</p> + +<p>The last election has shown us what resolute men can do on a trifling +occasion, if they will. You know the efforts of the three parties—what +meetings they held, what money they raised, what talent was employed, +what speeches made, what ideas set forth: not a town was left +unattempted; scarce a man who had wit to throw a vote, but his vote was +solicited. You see the revolution which was wrought by that vigorous +style of work. When such men set about reforming the evils of society, +with such a determined soul, what evil can stand against mankind? We can +leave nothing to the next generation worth so much as ideas of truth, +justice, and religion, organized into fitting institutions; such we can +leave, and, if true men, such we shall.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Rev. John Pierpont</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> This statement was made in 1849; subsequent events have +shown that I was mistaken. It is now thought respectable and patriotic +not only to engage in the slave-trade, but to kidnap men and women in +Boston. Most of the prominent newspapers, and several of the most +prominent clergy, defend the kidnapping. Attempts have repeatedly been +made to kidnap my own parishioners. Kidnapping is not even a matter of +church discipline in Boston in 1851.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> The conduct of public magistrates who are paid for serving +the people, is not what it should be in respect to temperance. The city +authorities allow the laws touching the sale of the great instrument of +demoralization to be violated continually. There is no serious effort +made to enforce these laws. Nor is this all: the shameless conduct of +conspicuous men at the supper given in this city after the funeral of +John Quincy Adams, and the debauchery on that occasion, are well known +and will long be remembered. +</p><p> +At the next festival (in September, 1851), it is notorious, that the +city authorities, at the expense of the citizens, provided a large +quantity of intoxicating drink for the entertainment of our guests +during the excursion in the harbor. It is also a matter of great +notoriety, that many were drunk on that occasion. I need hardly add, +that on board one of the crowded steamboats, three cheers were given for +the "Fugitive Slave Law," by men who it is hoped will at length become +sober enough to "forget" it. When the magistrates of Boston do such +deeds, and are not even officially friends of temperance, what shall we +expect of the poor and the ignorant and the miserable? "Cain, where is +thy Brother?" may be asked here and now as well as in the Bible story.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> The statistics of intemperance are instructive and +surprising. Of the one thousand two hundred houses in Boston where +intoxicating drink is retailed to be drunken on the premises, suppose +that two hundred are too insignificant to be noticed, or else are large +hotels to be considered presently; then there are one thousand common +retail groggeries. Suppose they are in operation three hundred and +thirteen days in the year, twelve hours each day; that they sell one +glass in a little less than ten minutes, or one hundred glasses in the +day, and that five cents is the price of a glass. Then each groggery +receives $5 a day, or $1,565 (313 × 5) in a year, and the one thousand +groggeries receive $1,565,000. Let us suppose that each sells drink for +really useful purposes to the amount of $65 per annum, or all to the +amount of $65,000; there still remains the sum of $1,500,000 spent for +intemperance in these one thousand groggeries. This is about twice the +sum raised by taxation for the public education of all the children in +the State of Massachusetts! But this calculation does not equal the cost +of intemperance in these places; the receipts of these retail houses +cannot be less than $2,000 per annum, or in the aggregate, $2,000,000. +This sum in two years would pay for the new Aqueduct. Suppose the amount +paid for the needless, nay, for the injurious use of intoxicating drink +in private families, in boarding houses and hotels, is equal to the +smallest sum above named ($1,500,000), then it appears that the city of +Boston spends ($1,500,000 + $1,500,000 =) $3,000,000 annually for an +article that does no good to any but harm to all, and brings ruin on +thousands each year. But if a school-house or a school costs a little +money, a complaint is soon made.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> It must be remembered that this was written, not in 1851, +but in 1849.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> In 1679, "The Reforming Synod," assembled at Boston, thus +complained of intemperance, amongst other sins of the times: "That +heathenish and idolatrous practice of health-drinking is too frequent. +That shameful iniquity of sinful drinking is become too general a +provocation. Days of training and other public solemnities have been +abused in this respect: and not only English but Indians have been +debauched by those that call themselves Christians.... This is a crying +sin, and the more aggravated in that the first planters of this colony +did ... come into this land with a design to convert the heathen unto +Christ, but if instead of that they be taught wickedness ... the Lord +may well punish by them.... There are more temptations and occasions +unto that sin publicly allowed of, than any necessity doth require. The +proper end of taverns, &c., being for the entertainment of strangers ... +a far less number would suffice," etc. +</p><p> +Cotton Mather says of intemperance in his time: "To see ... a drunken +man become a drowned man, is to see but a most retaliating hand of God. +Why we have seen this very thing more than threescore times in our land. +And I remember the drowning of one drunkard, so oddly circumstanced; it +was in the hold of a vessel that lay full of water near the shore. We +have seen it so often, that I am amazed at you, O ye drunkards of New +England; I am amazed that you can harden your hearts in your sin, +without expecting to be destroyed suddenly and without remedy. Yea, and +we have seen the devil that has possessed the drunkard, throwing him +into fire, and then kept shrieking Fire! Fire! till they have gone down +to the fire that never shall be quenched. Yea, more than one or two +drunken women in this very town, have, while in their drink, fallen into +the fire, and so they have tragically gone roaring out of one fire into +another. O ye daughters of Belial, hear and fear and do wickedly no +more." +</p><p> +The history of the first barrel of rum which was brought to Plymouth has +been carefully traced out to a considerable extent. Nearly forty of the +"Pilgrims" or their descendants were publicly punished for the +drunkenness it occasioned.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Over eight hundred in 1851.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> This statement appears somewhat exaggerated in 1851.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> In 1847, the amount of goods stolen in Boston, and +reported to the police, beyond what was received, was more than $37,000; +in 1848, less than $11,000. In 1849, the police were twice as numerous +as in the former year, and organized and directed with new and +remarkable skill.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span></p> +<h2>APPENDIX</h2> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Note to</span> p. 62.</h4> +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> +<h3>SOME ACCOUNT OF THE INSTALLATION OF MR. PARKER.</h3> + +<h4>LETTER OF THE COMMITTEE TO MR. PARKER.</h4> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Boston</span>, November 28, 1845.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>:—</p> + +<p>Among your friends and congregation at the Melodeon, a Society has been +organized according to law; and we have been instructed, as the Standing +Committee, to invite you to become its Minister.</p> + +<p>It gives us great pleasure to be the means to forward, in this small +degree, the end proposed, and we cordially extend you the invitation, +with the sincere hope that it will meet a favorable answer.</p> + +<p class="sig"> +We are, truly and respectfully,<br /> +<br /> +Your friends,<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Mark Healey</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">John Flint</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Levi B. Meriam</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Amos Coolidge</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">John G. King</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Sidney Homer</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Henry Smith</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Geo. W. Robinson</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">C. M. Ellis</span>.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">To the Rev. Theodore Parker</span>,<br /> +<br /> +<i>West Roxbury, Mass</i>.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>MR. PARKER'S REPLY.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">To Mark Healey, John Flint, Levi B. Meriam, Amos Coolidge, +John G. King, Sidney Homer, Henry Smith, George W. Robinson, +and C. M. Ellis, Esquires.</span></p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friends</span>:—</p> + +<p>When I received your communication of the 28th ult. I did not hesitate +in my decision, but I have delayed giving you a formal reply, in order +that I might confer with my friends in this place, whom it becomes my +painful duty to leave. I accept your invitation; but wish it to be +provided that our connection may at any time be dissolved, by either +party giving notice to the other of a desire to that effect, six months +before such a separation is to take place.</p> + +<p>It is now nearly a year since I began to preach at the Melodeon. I came +at the request of some of you; but I did not anticipate the present +result. Far from it. I thought but few would come and listen to what was +so widely denounced. But I took counsel of my hopes and not of my fears. +It seems to me now that, if we are faithful to our duty, we shall in a +few years build up a society which shall be not only a joy to our own +hearts, but a blessing also to others, now strangers and perhaps hostile +to us. I feel that we have begun a good work. With earnest desires for +the success of our common enterprise, and a willingness to labor for the +advancement of real Christianity, I am,</p> + +<p class="sig"> +Faithfully, your friend,<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Theodore Parker</span>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>West Roxbury, 12th Dec., 1845.</i><br /> +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>On Sunday, January 4, 1846, <span class="smcap">Rev. Theodore Parker</span> was installed as Pastor +of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society in Boston. The exercises on +the occasion were as follows:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Introductory Hymn.</span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Prayer.</span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Voluntary on the Organ.</span><br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>The Chairman of the Standing Committee then addressed the Congregation +as follows:—</p> + +<p>By the instructions of the Society, the Committee have made an +arrangement with Mr. Parker, by which the services of this Society, +under its new organization, should commence with the new year; and this +being our first meeting, it has been set apart for such introductory +services as may seem fitting for our position and prospects.</p> + +<p>The circumstances under which this Society has been formed, and its +progress hitherto, are familiar to most of those present. It first began +from certain influences which seemed hostile to the cause of religious +freedom. It was the opinion of many of those now present, that a +minister of the Gospel, truly worthy of that name, was proscribed on +account of his opinions, branded as a heretic, and shut out from the +pulpits of this city.</p> + +<p>At a meeting of gentlemen held January 22, 1845, the following +Resolution was passed:—</p> + +<p>"<i>Resolved</i>, That the Rev. Theodore Parker shall have a chance to be +heard in Boston."</p> + +<p>To carry this into effect, this Hall was secured for a place of meeting, +and the numbers who have met here from Sunday to Sunday, have fully +answered our most sanguine expectations. Our meetings have proved that +though our friend was shut out from the temples, yet "the people heard +him gladly." Of the effects of his preaching among us I need not speak. +The warm feelings of gratitude and respect expressed on every side, are +the best evidences of the efficacy of his words, and of his life.</p> + +<p>Out of these meetings our Society has naturally sprung. It became +necessary to assume some permanent form—the labor of preaching to two +Societies, would of course be too much for Mr. Parker's health and +strength—the conviction that his settlement in Boston would be not only +important for ourselves, but also for the cause of liberal Christianity +and religious freedom—these were some of the reasons which induced us +to form a Society, and invite him to become its minister. To this he has +consented; with the understanding that the connection may be dissolved +by either party, on giving six months notice to that effect.</p> + +<p>At his suggestion, and with the warm approval of the Committee, we have +determined to adopt the old Congregational form of settling our +minister; without the aid of bishop, churches, or ministers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span></p> + +<p>As to our Choice, we are, upon mature reflection, and after a year's +trial, fully persuaded that we have found our minister, and we ask no +ecclesiastical council to ratify our decision.</p> + +<p>As to the Charge usually given on such occasions, we prefer to do +without it, and trust to the conscience of our minister for his +faithfulness.</p> + +<p>As to the Right Hand of Fellowship, there are plenty of us ready and +willing to give that, and warm hearts with it.</p> + +<p>And for such of the other ceremonies usual on such occasions, as Mr. +Parker chooses to perform, we gladly accept the substitution of his +services for those of any stranger.</p> + +<p>The old Puritan form of settling a minister is, for the people to do it +themselves; and this let us now proceed to do.</p> + +<p>In adopting this course, we are strongly supported both by principle and +precedent. Congregationalism is the Republicanism of the Church; and it +is fitting that the people themselves should exercise their right of +self-government in that most important particular, the choice and +settlement of a minister. For examples, I need only remind you of the +settlement of the first minister in New England, on which occasion this +form was used, and that it is also used at this day by one of the most +respectable churches in this city.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The Society then ratified the proceedings by an unanimous vote; and Mr. +Parker publicly signified that he adhered to his consent to become the +Minister of this Society, and the organization of the Society was thus +completed.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Occasional Hymn.</span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Discourse, by Mr. Parker.</span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Anthem.</span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Benediction.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional +Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3), by Theodore Parker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPEECHES *** + +***** This file should be named 34573-h.htm or 34573-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/5/7/34573/ + +Produced by Julia Miller, Josephine Paolucci 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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/34573.txt b/34573.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cae74f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/34573.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10073 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional +Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3), by Theodore Parker + +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: Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3) + +Author: Theodore Parker + +Release Date: December 5, 2010 [EBook #34573] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPEECHES *** + + + + +Produced by Julia Miller, Josephine Paolucci 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.) + + + + + + + +SPEECHES, ADDRESSES, + +AND + +OCCASIONAL SERMONS, + +BY + +THEODORE PARKER, + +MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN BOSTON. + +IN THREE VOLUMES. + +VOL. I. + +BOSTON: +HORACE B. FULLER, +(SUCCESSOR TO WALKER, FULLER, AND COMPANY,) +245, WASHINGTON STREET. +1867. + + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by +THEODORE PARKER, +in the Clerk's Office of the District Court +of the District of Massachusetts. + + +TO + +FRANCIS JACKSON, + +THE FOE 'GAINST EVERY FORM OF WRONG, +THE FRIEND OF JUSTICE, +WHOSE WIDE HUMANITY CONTENDS +FOR WOMAN'S NATURAL AND UNALIENABLE RIGHT; AGAINST +HIS NATION'S CRUELTY PROTECTS THE SLAVE; +IN THE CRIMINAL BEHOLDS A BROTHER TO BE REFORMED; +GOES TO MEN FALLEN AMONG THIEVES,-- +WHOM PRIESTS AND LEVITES SACRAMENTALLY PASS BY,-- +AND SEEKS TO SOOTHE AND HEAL AND BLESS THEM THAT ARE +READY TO PERISH: +WITH ADMIRATION FOR HIS UNSURPASSED INTEGRITY, +HIS COURAGE WHICH NOTHING SCARES, +AND HIS TRUE RELIGION +THAT WOULD BRING PEACE ON EARTH AND GOOD-WILL TO MAN, +THESE VOLUMES +ARE THANKFULLY DEDICATED +BY HIS MINISTER AND FRIEND, + +THEODORE PARKER. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +I have collected in these volumes several Speeches, Addresses and +occasional Sermons, which I have delivered at various times during the +last seven years. Most of them were prepared for some special emergency: +only two papers, that on "The Relation of Jesus to his Age and the +Ages," and that on "Immortal Life," were written without reference to +some such emergency. All of them have been printed before, excepting the +sermon "Of General Taylor," and the address on "The American Scholar;" +some have been several times reprinted. I do not know that they are +worthy of republication in this permanent form, but the leading ideas of +these volumes are very dear to me, and are sure to live as long as the +human race shall continue. So I have published a small edition, hoping +that the truths which I know are contained in these pages will do a +service long after the writer, and the occasion of their utterance, have +passed off and been forgot. I offer them to whom they may concern. + +THEODORE PARKER. + +AUGUST 24, 1851. + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. + + +I. + +THE RELATION OF JESUS TO HIS AGE AND THE AGES.--A +Sermon preached at the Thursday Lecture, in Boston, +December 26, 1844 PAGE 1 + +II. + +THE TRUE IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH.--A Discourse +at the Installation of Theodore Parker as Minister of the +Twenty-Eighth Congregational Church in Boston, on Sunday, +January 4, 1846 23 + +III. + +A SERMON OF WAR.--Preached at the Melodeon, on Sunday, +June 7, 1846 63 + +IV. + +A SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE ANTI-WAR MEETING IN +FANUEIL HALL, February 4, 1847 113 + +V. + +A SERMON OF THE MEXICAN WAR.--Preached at the +Melodeon, on Sunday, June 25, 1848 127 + +VI. + +A SERMON OF THE PERISHING CLASSES IN BOSTON.--Preached +at the Melodeon on Sunday, August 30, 1846 185 + +VII. + +A SERMON OF MERCHANTS.--Preached at the Melodeon, +on Sunday, November 22, 1846 227 + +VIII. + +A SERMON OF THE DANGEROUS CLASSES IN SOCIETY.--Preached +at the Melodeon, on Sunday, January 31, 1847 279 + +IX. + +A SERMON OF POVERTY.--Preached at the Melodeon, on +Sunday, January 14, 1849 333 + +X. + +A SERMON OF THE MORAL CONDITION OF BOSTON.--Preached +at the Melodeon, on Sunday, February 11, 1849 364 + + + + +I. + +THE RELATION OF JESUS TO HIS AGE AND THE AGES.--A SERMON PREACHED AT THE +THURSDAY LECTURE, IN BOSTON, DECEMBER 26, 1844. + +JOHN VII. 48. + + "Have any of the Rulers, or of the Pharisees, believed on + him?" + + +In all the world there is nothing so remarkable as a great man; nothing +so rare; nothing which so well repays study. Human nature is loyal at +its heart, and is, always and everywhere, looking for this its true +earthly sovereign. We sometimes say that our institutions, here in +America, do not require great men; that we get along better without than +with such. But let a real, great man light on our quarter of the planet; +let us understand him, and straightway these democratic hearts of ours +burn with admiration and with love. We wave in his words, like corn in +the harvest wind. We should rejoice to obey him, for he would speak what +we need to hear. Men are always half expecting such a man. But when he +comes, the real, great man that God has been preparing,--men are +disappointed; they do not recognize him. He does not enter the city +through the gates which expectants had crowded. He is a fresh fact, +brand new; not exactly like any former fact. Therefore men do not +recognize nor acknowledge him. His language is strange, and his form +unusual. He looks revolutionary, and pulls down ancient walls to build +his own temple, or, at least, splits old rocks asunder, and quarries +anew fresh granite and marble. + +There are two classes of great men. Now and then some arise whom all +acknowledge to be great, soon as they appear. Such men have what is true +in relation to the wants and expectations of to-day. They say, what many +men wished but had not words for; they translate into thought what, as a +dim sentiment, lay a burning in many a heart, but could not get entirely +written out into consciousness. These men find a welcome. Nobody +misunderstands them. The world follows at their chariot-wheels, and +flings up its cap and shouts its huzzas,--for the world is loyal, and +follows its king when it sees and knows him. The good part of the world +follows the highest man it comprehends; the bad, whoever serves its +turn. + +But there is another class of men so great, that all cannot see their +greatness. They are in advance of men's conjectures, higher than their +dreams; too good to be actual, think some. Therefore, say many, there +must be some mistake; this man is not so great as he seems; nay, he is +no great man at all, but an impostor. These men have what is true not +merely in relation to the wants and expectations of men here and to-day; +but what is true in relation to the Universe, to Eternity, to God. They +do not speak what you and I have been trying to say, and cannot; but +what we shall one day years hence, wish to say, after we have improved +and grown up to man's estate. + +Now it seems to me, the men of this latter class, when they come, can +never meet the approbation of the censors and guides of public opinion. +Such as wished for a new great man had a superstition of the last one in +their minds. They expected the new to be just like the old, but he is +altogether unlike. Nature is rich, but not rich enough to waste any +thing. So there are never two great men very strongly similar. Nay, this +new great man, perhaps, begins by destroying much that the old one built +up with tears and prayers. He shows, at first, the limitations and +defects of the former great man; calls in question his authority. He +refuses all masters; bows not to tradition; and with seeming +irreverence, laughs in the face of the popular idols. How will the +"respectable men," the men of a few good rules and those derived from +their fathers "the best of men and the wisest,"--how will they regard +this new great man? They will see nothing remarkable in him except that +he is fluent and superficial, dangerous and revolutionary. He disturbs +their notions of order; he shows that the institutions of society are +not perfect; that their imperfections are not of granite or marble, but +only of words written on soft wax, which may be erased and others +written thereon anew. He shows that such imperfect institutions are less +than one great man. The guides and censors of public opinion will not +honor such a man, they will hate him. Why not? Some others not half so +well bred, nor well furnished with precedents, welcome the new great +man; welcome his ideas; welcome his person. They say, "Behold a +Prophet." + + * * * * * + +When Jesus, the son of Mary, a poor woman, wife of Joseph the carpenter, +in the little town of Nazareth, when he "began to be about thirty years +old," and began also to open his mouth in the synagogues and the +highways, nobody thought him a great man at all, as it seems. "Who are +you?" said the guardians of public opinion. He found men expecting a +great man. This, it seems, was the common opinion, that a great man was +to arise, and save the Church, and save the State. They looked back to +Moses, a divine man of antiquity, whose great life had passed into the +world, and to whom men had done honor, in various ways; amongst others, +by telling all sorts of wonders he wrought, and declaring that none +could be so great again; none get so near to God. They looked back also +to the prophets, a long line of divine men, so they reckoned, but less +than the awful Moses; his stature was far above the nation, who hid +themselves in his shadow. Now the well-instructed children of Abraham +thought the next great man must be only a copy of the last, repeat his +ideas, and work in the old fashion. Sick men like to be healed by the +medicine which helped them the last time; at least, by the customary +drugs which are popular. + +In Judea, there were then parties of men, distinctly marked. There were +the Conservatives,--they represented the church, tradition, +ecclesiastical or theocratical authority. They adhered to the words of +the old books, the forms of the old rites, the tradition of the elders. +"Nobody but a Jew can be saved," said they; "he only by circumcision, +and the keeping of the old formal law; God likes that, He accepts +nothing else." These were the Pharisees, with their servants the +Scribes. Of this class were the Priests and the Levites in the main, the +National party, the Native-Hebrew party of that time. They had +tradition, Moses and the prophets; they believed in tradition, Moses and +the prophets, at least in public; what they believed in private God +knew, and so did they. I know nothing of that. + +Then there was the indifferent party; the Sadducees, the State. They had +wealth, and they believed in it, both in public and private too. They +had a more generous and extensive cultivation than the Pharisees. They +had intercourse with foreigners, and understood the writers of Ionia and +Athens which the Pharisee held in abhorrence. These were sleek +respectable men, who, in part, disbelieved the Jewish theology. It is no +very great merit to disbelieve even in the devil, unless you have a +positive faith in God to take up your affections. The Sadducee believed +neither in angel nor resurrection--not at all in the immortality of the +soul. He believed in the state, in the laws, the constables, the prisons +and the axe. In religious matters, it seems the Pharisee had a positive +belief, only it was a positive belief in a great mistake. In religious +matters the Sadducee had no positive belief at all; not even in an +error: at least, some think so. His distinctive affirmation was but a +denial. He believed what he saw with his eyes, touched with his fingers, +tasted with his tongue. He never saw, felt, nor tasted immortal life; he +had no belief therein. There was once a heathen Sadducee who said, "My +right arm is my God!" + +There was likewise a party of Come-outers. They despaired of the State +and the Church too, and turned off into the wilderness, "where the wild +asses quench their thirst," building up their organizations free, as +they hoped, from all ancient tyrannies. The Bible says nothing directly +of these men in its canonical books. It is a curious omission; but two +Jews, each acquainted with foreign writers, Josephus and Philo, give an +account of these. These were the Essenes, an ascetic sect, hostile to +marriage, at least, many of them, who lived in a sort of association by +themselves, and had all things in common. + +The Pharisees and the Sadducees had no great living and ruling ideas; +none I mean which represented man, his hopes, wishes, affections, his +aspirations and power of progress. That is no very rare case, perhaps, +you will say, for a party in the Church or the State to have no such +ideas, but they had not even a plausible substitute for such ideas. They +seemed to have no faith in man, in his divine nature, his power of +improvement. The Essenes had ideas; had a positive belief; had faith in +man, but it was weakened in a great measure by their machinery. They, +like the Pharisee and the Sadducee, were imprisoned in their +organization, and probably saw no good out of their own party lines. + +It is a plain thing that no one of these three parties would accept, +acknowledge, or even perceive the greatness of Jesus of Nazareth. His +ideas were not their notions. He was not the man they were looking for; +not at all the Messiah, the anointed one of God, which they wanted. The +Sadducee expected no new great man unless it was a Roman quaestor, or +procurator; the Pharisees looked for a Pharisee stricter than Gamaliel; +the Essenes for an Ascetic. It is so now. Some seem to think that if +Jesus were to come back to the earth, he would preach Unitarian +sermons, from a text out of the Bible, and prove his divine mission and +the everlasting truths, the truths of necessity that he taught, in the +Unitarian way, by telling of the miracles he wrought eighteen hundred +years ago; that he would prove the immortality of the soul by the fact +of his own corporeal resurrection. Others seem to think that he would +deliver homilies of a severer character; would rate men roundly about +total depravity, and tell of unconditional election, salvation without +works, and imputed righteousness, and talk of hell till the women and +children fainted, and the knees of men smote together for trembling. +Perhaps both would be mistaken. + +So it was then. All these three classes of men, imprisoned in their +prejudices and superstitions, were hostile. The Pharisees said, "We know +that God spake unto Moses; but as for this fellow, we know not whence he +is. He blasphemeth Moses and the prophets; yea, he hath a devil, and is +mad, why hear him?" The Sadducees complained that "he stirred up the +people;" so he did. The Essenes, no doubt, would have it that he was "a +gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." +Tried by these three standards, the judgment was true; what could he do +to please these three parties? Nothing! nothing that he would do. So +they hated him; all hated him, and sought to destroy him. The cause is +plain. He was so deep they could not see his profoundness; too high for +their comprehension; too far before them for their sympathy. He was not +the great man of the day. He found all organizations against him; Church +and State. Even John the Baptist, a real prophet, but not the prophet, +doubted if Jesus was the one to be followed. If Jesus had spoken for the +Pharisees, they would have accepted his speech and the speaker too. Had +he favored the Sadducees, he had been a great man in their camp, and +Herod would gladly have poured wine for the eloquent Galilean, and have +satisfied the carpenter's son with purple and fine linen. Had he praised +the Essenes, uttering their Shibboleth, they also would have paid him +his price, have made him the head of their association perhaps, at +least, have honored him in their way. He spoke for none of these. Why +should they honor or even tolerate him? It were strange had they done +so. Was it through any fault or deficiency of Jesus, that these men +refused him? quite the reverse. The rain falls and the sun shines on the +evil and the good; the work of infinite power, wisdom and goodness is +before all men, revealing the invisible things, yet the fool hath said, +ay, said in his heart, "There is no God!" + +Jesus spoke not for the prejudices of such, and therefore they rejected +him. But as he spoke truths for man, truths from God, truths adapted to +man's condition there, to man's condition everywhere and always, when +the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes went away, their lips curling +with scorn; when they gnashed on one another with their teeth, there +were noble men and humble women, who had long awaited the consolation of +Israel, and they heard him, heard him gladly. Yes, they left all to +follow him. Him! no, it was not him they followed; it was God in him +they obeyed, the God of truth, the God of love. + +There were men not counted in the organized sects; men weary of +absurdities; thirsting for the truth; sick, they knew not why nor of +what, yet none the less sick, and waiting for the angel who should heal +them, though by troubled waters and remedies unknown. These men had not +the prejudices of a straightly organized and narrow sect. Perhaps they +had not its knowledge, or its good manners. They were "unlearned and +ignorant men," those early followers of Christ. Nay, Jesus himself had +no extraordinary culture, as the world judges of such things. His +townsmen wondered, on a famous occasion, how he had learned to read. He +knew little of theologies, it would seem; the better for him, perhaps. +No doubt the better for us that he insisted on none. He knew they were +not religion. The men of Galilee did not need theology. The youngest +scribe in the humblest theological school at Jerusalem, if such a thing +were in those days, could have furnished theology enough to believe in +a life-time. They did need religion; they did see it as Jesus unfolded +its loveliness; they did welcome it when they saw; welcome it in their +hearts. + +If I were a poet as some are born, and skilled to paint with words what +shall stand out as real, to live before the eye, and then dwell in the +affectionate memory for ever, I would tell of the audience which heard +the Sermon on the mount, which listened to the parables, the rebukes, +the beautiful beatitudes. They were plain men, and humble women; many of +them foolish like you and me; some of them sinners. But they all had +hearts; had souls, all of them--hearts made to love, souls expectant of +truth. When he spoke, some said, no doubt, "That is a new thing, that +The true worshipper shall worship in spirit and in truth, as well here +as in Jerusalem, now as well as any time; that also is a hard saying, +Love your enemies; forgive them, though seventy times seven they smite +and offend you; that notion that the law and the prophets are contained, +all that is essentially religious thereof, in one precept, Love men as +yourself, and God with all your might. This differs a good deal from the +Pharisaic orthodoxy of the synagogue. That is a bold thing, presumptuous +and revolutionary to say, I am greater than the temple, wiser than +Solomon, a better symbol of God than both." But there was something +deeper than Jewish orthodoxy in their hearts; something that Jewish +orthodoxy could not satisfy, and what was yet more troublesome to +ecclesiastical guides, something that Jewish orthodoxy could not keep +down, nor even cover up. Sinners were converted at his reproof. They +felt he rebuked whom he loved. Yet his pictures of sin and sinners too, +were any thing but flattering. There was small comfort in them. Still it +was not the publicans and harlots who laid their hands on the place +where their hearts should be, saying, "You hurt our feelings," and "we +can't bear you!" Nay, they pondered his words, repenting in tears. He +showed them their sin; its cause, its consequence, its cure. To them he +came as a Saviour, and they said, "Thou art well-come," those penitent +Magdalens weeping at his feet. + +It would be curious could we know the mingled emotions that swayed the +crowd which rolled up around Jesus, following him, as the tides obey the +moon, wherever he went; curious to see how faces looked doubtful at +first as he began to speak at Tabor or Gennesareth, Capernaum or +Gischala, then how the countenance of some lowered and grew black with +thunder suppressed but cherished, while the face of others shone as a +branch of stars seen through some disparted cloud in a night of fitful +storms, a moment seen and then withdrawn. It were curious to see how +gradually many discordant feelings, passion, prejudice and pride were +hushed before the tide of melodious religion he poured out around him, +baptizing anew saint and sinner, and old and young, into one brotherhood +of a common soul, into one immortal service of the universal God; to see +how this young Hebrew maid, deep-hearted, sensitive, enthusiastic, +self-renouncing, intuitive of heavenly truth, rich as a young vine, with +clustering affections just purpling into ripeness,--how she seized, +first and all at once, the fair ideal, and with generous bosom +confidingly embraced it too; how that old man, gray-bearded, with +baldness on his head, full of precepts and precedents, the lore of his +fathers, the experience of a hard life, logical, slow, calculating, +distrustful, remembering much and fearing much, but hoping little, +confiding only in the fixed, his reverence for the old deepening as he +himself became of less use,--to see how he received the glad +inspirations of the joiner's son, and wondering felt his youth steal +slowly back upon his heart, reviving aspirations, long ago forgot, and +then the crimson tide of early hope come gushing, tingling on through +every limb; to see how the young man halting between principle and +passion, not yet petrified into worldliness, but struggling, uncertain, +half reluctant, with those two serpents, Custom and Desire, that +beautifully twined about his arms and breast and neck, their wormy +folds, concealing underneath their burnished scales the dragon's awful +strength, the viper's poison fang, the poor youth caressing their snaky +crests, and toying with their tongues of flame--to see how he slowly, +reluctantly, amid great questionings of heart, drank in the words of +truth, and then, obedient to the angel in his heart, shook off, as ropes +of sand, that hideous coil and trod the serpents underneath his feet. +All this, it were curious, ay, instructive too, could we but see. + +They heard him with welcome various as their life. The old men said, "It +is Moses or Elias; it is Jeremiah, one of the old prophets arisen from +the dead, for God makes none such, now-a-days, in the sterile dotage of +mankind." The young men and maidens doubtless it was that said, "This is +the Christ; the desire of the nations; the hope of the world, the great +new prophet; the Son of David; the Son of Man; yes, the Son of God. He +shall be our king." Human nature is loyal, and follows its king soon as +it knows him. Poor lost sheep! the children of men look always for their +guide, though so often they look in vain. + +How he spoke, words deep and piercing; rebukes for the wicked, doubly +rebuking, because felt to have come out from a great, deep, loving +heart. His first word was, perhaps, "Repent," but with the assurance +that the kingdom of God was here and now, within reach of all. How his +doctrines, those great truths of nature, commended themselves to the +heart of each, of all simple-souled men looking for the truth! He spoke +out of his experience; of course into theirs. He spoke great doctrines, +truths vast as the soul, eternal as God, winged with beauty from the +loveliness of his own life. Had he spoken for the Jews alone, his words +had perished with that people; for that time barely, the echo of his +name had died away in his native hamlet; for the Pharisees, the +Sadducees, the Essence, you and I had heard of him but as a Rabbi; nay, +had never been blest by him at all. Words for a nation, an age, a sect, +are of use in their place, yet they soon come to nought. But as he spoke +for eternity, his truths ride on the wings of time; as he spoke for man, +they are welcome, beautiful and blessing, wherever man is found, and so +must be till man and time shall cease. + +He looked not back, as the Pharisee, save for illustrations and +examples. He looked forward for his direction. He looked around for his +work. There it lay, the harvest plenteous, the laborers few. It is +always so. He looked not to men for his idea, his word to speak; as +little for their applause. He looked in to God, for guidance, wisdom, +strength, and as water in the wilderness, at the stroke of Moses, in the +Hebrew legend, so inspiration came at his call, a mighty stream of truth +for the nation, faint, feeble, afraid, and wandering for the promised +land; drink for the thirsty, and cleansing for the unclean. + +But he met opposition; O, yes, enough of it. How could it be otherwise? +It must be so. The very soul of peace, he brought a sword. His word was +a consuming fire. The Pharisees wanted to be applauded, commended; to +have their sect, their plans, their traditions praised and flattered. +His word to them was, "Repent;" of them, to the people, "Such +righteousness admits no man to the kingdom of heaven; they are a +deceitful prophecy, blind guides, hypocrites; not sons of Abraham, but +children of the devil." They could not bear him; no wonder at it. He was +the aggressor; had carried the war into the very heart of their system. +They turned out of their company a man whose blindness he healed, +because he confessed that fact. They made a law that all who believed on +him, should also be cast out. Well they might hate him, those old +Pharisees. His existence was their reproach; his preaching their trial; +his life with its outward goodness, his piety within, was their +condemnation. The man was their ruin, and they knew it. The cunning can +see their own danger, but it is only men wise in mind, or men simple of +heart, that can see their real, permanent safety and defence; never the +cunning, neither then, neither now. + +Jesus looked to God for his truth, his great doctrines not his own, +private, personal, depending on his idiosyncracies, and therefore only +subjectively true,--but God's, universal, everlasting, the absolute +religion. I do not know that he did not teach some errors also, along +with it. I care not if he did. It is by his truths that I know him, the +absolute religion he taught and lived; by his highest sentiments that +he is to be appreciated. He had faith in God and obeyed God; hence his +inspiration, great, in proportion to the greater endowment, moral and +religious, which God gave him, great likewise in proportion to his +perfect obedience. He had faith in man none the less. Who ever yet had +faith in God that had none in man? I know not. Surely no inspired +prophet. As Jesus had faith in man, so he spoke to men. Never yet, in +the wide world, did a prophet arise, appealing with a noble heart and a +noble life to the soul of goodness in man, but that soul answered to the +call. It was so most eminently with Jesus. The Scribes and Pharisees +could not understand by what authority he taught. Poor Pharisees! how +could they? His phylacteries were no broader than those of another man; +nay, perhaps he had no phylacteries at all, nor even a broad-bordered +garment. Men did not salute him in the market-place, sandals in hand, +with their "Rabbi! Rabbi!" Could such men understand by what authority +he taught? no more than they dared answer his questions. They that knew +him, felt he had authority quite other than that claimed by the Scribes; +the authority of true words, the authority of a noble life; yes, the +authority which God gives a great moral and religious man. God delegates +authority to men just in proportion to their power of truth, and their +power of goodness; to their being and their life. So God spoke in +Jesus, as he taught the perfect religion, anticipated, developed, but +never yet transcended. + + * * * * * + +This then was the relation of Jesus to his age: the sectarians cursed +him; cursed him by their gods; rejected him, abused him, persecuted him; +sought his life. Yes, they condemned him in the name of God. All evil +says the proverb, begins in that name; much continues to claim it. The +religionists, the sects, the sectarian leaders rejected him, condemned +and slew him at the last, hanging his body on a tree. Poor priests of +the people, they hoped thereby to stifle that awful soul! they only +stilled the body; that soul spoke with a thousand tongues. So in the +times of old when the Saturnian day began to dawn, it might be fabled +that the old Titanic race, lovers of darkness and haters of the light, +essayed to bar the rising morning from the world, and so heaped Pelion +upon Ossa, and Olympus on Pelion; but first the day sent up his crimson +flush upon the cloud, and then his saffron tinge, and next the sun came +peering o'er the loftiest height, magnificently fair--and down the +mountain's slanting ridge poured the intolerable day; meanwhile those +triple hills, laboriously piled, came toppling, tumbling down, with +lumbering crush, and underneath their ruin hid the helpless giants' +grave. So was it with men who sat in Moses' seat. But this people, that +"knew not the Law," and were counted therefore accursed, they welcomed +Jesus as they never welcomed the Pharisee, the Sadducee or the Scribe. +Ay, hence were their tears. The hierarchical fire burnt not so bright +contrasted with the sun. That people had a Simon Peter, a James, and a +John, men not free from faults no doubt, the record shows it, but with +hearts in their bosoms, which could be kindled, and then could light +other hearts. Better still, there were Marthas and Marys among that +people who "knew not the law" and were cursed. They were the mothers of +many a church. + + * * * * * + +The character of Jesus has not changed; his doctrines are still the +same; but what a change in his relation to the age, nay to the ages. The +stone that the builders rejected is indeed become the head of the +corner, and its foundation too. He is worshipped as a God. That is the +rank assigned him by all but a fraction of the Christian world. It is no +wonder. Good men worship the best thing they know, and call it God. What +was taught to the mass of men, in those days, better than the character +of Christ? Should they rather worship the Grecian Jove, or the Jehovah +of the Jews? To me it seems the moral attainment of Jesus was above the +hierarchical conception of God, as taught at Athens, Rome, Jerusalem. +Jesus was the prince of peace, the king of truth, praying for his +enemies--"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" The +Jehovah of the Old Testament, was awful and stern, a man of war, hating +the wicked. The sacerdotal conception of God at Rome and Athens was +lower yet. No wonder then, that men soon learned to honor Jesus as a +God, and then as God himself. Apostolical and other legends tell of his +divine birth, his wondrous power that healed the sick, palsied and +crippled, deaf and dumb and blind; created bread; turned water into +wine, and bid obedient devils come and go, a power that raised the dead. +They tell that nature felt with him, and at his death the strongly +sympathizing sun paused at high noon, and for three hours withheld the +day; that rocks were rent, and opening graves gave up their sainted +dead, who trod once more the streets of Zion, the first fruits of them +that slept; they tell too how disappointed Death gave back his prey, and +spirit-like, Jesus restored, in flesh and shape the same, passed through +the doors shut up, and in a bodily form was taken up to heaven before +the face of men! Believe men of these things as they will. To me they +are not truth and fact, but mythic symbols and poetry; the psalm of +praise with which the world's rude heart extols and magnifies its King. +It is for his truth and his life, his wisdom, goodness, piety, that he +is honored in my heart; yes, in the world's heart. It is for this that +in his name churches are built, and prayers are prayed; for this that +the best things we know, we honor with his name. + +He is the greatest person of the ages; the proudest achievement of the +human race. He taught the absolute religion, love to God and man. That +God has yet greater men in store I doubt not; to say this is not to +detract from the majestic character of Christ, but to affirm the +omnipotence of God. When they come, the old contest will be renewed, the +living prophet stoned; the dead one worshipped. Be that as it may, there +are duties he teaches us far different from those most commonly taught. +He was the greatest fact in the whole history of man. Had he conformed +to what was told him of men; had he counselled only with flesh and +blood; he had been nothing but a poor Jew--the world had lost that rich +endowment of religious genius, that richest treasure of religious life, +the glad tidings of the one religion, absolute and true. What if he had +said, as others, "None can be greater than Moses, none so great?" He had +been a dwarf; the spirit of God had faded from his soul! But he +conferred with God, not men; took counsel of his hopes, not his fears. +Working for men, with men, by men, trusting in God, and pure as truth, +he was not scared at the little din of church or state, and trembled +not, though Pilate and Herod were made friends only to crucify him that +was a born King of the world. Methinks I hear that lofty spirit say to +you or me, poor brother, fear not, nor despair. The goodness actual in +me is possible for all. God is near thee now as then to me; rich as ever +in truth, as able to create, as willing to inspire. Daily and nightly He +showers down his infinitude of light. Open thine eyes to see, thy heart +to live. Lo, God is here. + + + + +II. + +THE TRUE IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH.--A DISCOURSE AT THE INSTALLATION OF +THEODORE PARKER AS MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH +IN BOSTON, JANUARY 4, 1846. + + +For nearly a year we have assembled within these walls from week to +week,--I think not idly; I know you have not come for any trivial end. +You have recently made a formal organization of yourselves for religious +action. To-day, at your request, I enter regularly on a ministry in the +midst of you. What are we doing; what do we design to do? We are here to +establish a Christian church; and a Christian church, as I understand +it, is a body of men and women united together in a common desire of +religious excellence and with a common regard for Jesus of Nazareth, +regarding him as the noblest example of morality and religion,--as the +model, therefore, in this respect for us. Such a church may have many +rites, as our Catholic brothers, or but few rites, as our Protestant +brothers, or no rites at all, as our brothers, the Friends. It may be, +nevertheless, a Christian church; for the essential of substance, which +makes it a religious body, is the union for the purpose of cultivating +love to God and man; and the essential of form, which makes it a +Christian body, is the common regard for Jesus, considered as the +highest representative of God that we know. It is not the form, either +of ritual or of doctrine, but the spirit which constitutes a Christian +church. A staff may sustain an old man, or a young man may bear it in +his hands as a toy, but walking is walking, though the man have no staff +for ornament or support. A Christian spirit may exist under rituals and +doctrines the most diverse. It were hard to say a man is not a +Christian, because he believes in the doctrine of the Trinity, or the +Pope, while Jesus taught no such doctrine; foolish to say one is no +Christian because he denies the existence of a Devil, though Jesus +believed it. To make a man's Christian name depend on a belief of all +that is related by the numerous writers in the Bible, is as absurd as to +make that depend on a belief in all the words of Luther, or Calvin, or +St. Augustine. It is not for me to say a man is not theoretically a +Christian because he believes that Slavery is a Divine and Christian +institution; that War is grateful to God--saying, with the Old +Testament, that God himself "is a man of war," who teaches men to fight, +and curses such as refuse;--or because he believes that all men are +born totally depraved, and the greater part of them are to be damned +everlastingly by "a jealous God," who is "angry with the wicked every +day," and that the few are to be "saved" only because God unjustly +punished an innocent man for their sake. I will not say a man is not a +Christian though he believe all the melancholy things related of God in +some parts of the Old Testament, yet I know few doctrines so hostile to +real religion as these have proved themselves. In our day it has +strangely come to pass that a little sect, themselves hooted at and +called "Infidels" by the rest of Christendom, deny the name of Christian +to such as publicly reject the miracles of the Bible. Time will +doubtless correct this error. Fire is fire, and ashes ashes, say what we +may; each will work after its kind. Now if Christianity be the absolute +religion, it must allow all beliefs that are true, and it may exist and +be developed in connection with all forms consistent with the absolute +religion, and the degree thereof represented by Jesus. + +The action of a Christian church seems to be twofold: first on its own +members, and then, through their means, on others out of its pale. Let a +word be said of each in its order. If I were to ask you why you came +here to-day; why you have often come to this house hitherto?--the +serious amongst you would say: That we might become better; more manly; +upright before God and downright before men; that we might be +Christians, men good and pious after the fashion Jesus spoke of. The +first design of such a church then is to help ourselves become +Christians. Now the substance of Christianity is Piety--Love to God, and +Goodness--Love to men. It is a religion, the germs whereof are born in +your heart, appearing in your earliest childhood; which are developed +just in proportion as you become a man, and are indeed the standard +measure of your life. As the primeval rock lies at the bottom of the sea +and appears at the top of the loftiest mountains, so in a finished +character religion underlies all and crowns all. Christianity, to be +perfect and entire, demands a complete manliness; the development of the +whole man, mind, conscience, heart and soul. It aims not to destroy the +sacred peculiarities of individual character. It cherishes and develops +them in their perfection, leaving Paul to be Paul, not Peter, and John +to be John, not Jude nor James. We are born different, into a world +where unlike things are gathered together, that there may be a special +work for each. Christianity respects this diversity in men, aiming not +to undo but further God's will; not fashioning all men after one +pattern, to think alike, act alike, be alike, even look alike. It is +something far other than Christianity which demands that. A Christian +church then should put no fetters on the man; it should have unity of +purpose, but with the most entire freedom for the individual. When you +sacrifice the man to the mass in church or state, church or state +becomes an offence, a stumbling-block in the way of progress, and must +end or mend. The greater the variety of individualities in church or +state, the better is it, so long as all are really manly, humane and +accordant. A church must needs be partial, not catholic, where all men +think alike, narrow and little. Your church-organ, to have compass and +volume, must have pipes of various sound, and the skilful artist +destroys none, but tunes them all to harmony; if otherwise, he does not +understand his work. In becoming Christians let us not cease to be men; +nay, we cannot be Christians unless we are men first. It were +unchristian to love Christianity better than the truth, or Christ better +than man. + +But Christianity is not only the absolute religion; it has also the +ideal-man. In Jesus of Nazareth it gives us, in a certain sense, the +model of religious excellence. It is a great thing to have the perfect +idea of religion; to have also that idea made real, satisfactory to the +wants of any age, were a yet further greatness. A Christian church +should aim to have its members Christians as Jesus was the Christ; sons +of man as he was; sons of God as much as he. To be that it is not +needful to observe all the forms he complied with, only such forms as +help you; not needful to have all the thoughts that he had, only such +thoughts as are true. If Jesus were ever mistaken, as the Evangelists +make it appear, then it is a part of Christianity to avoid his mistakes +as well as to accept his truths. It is the part of a Christian church to +teach men so; to stop at no man's limitations; to prize no word so high +as truth; no man so dear as God. Jesus came not to fetter men, but free +them. + +Jesus is a model-man in this respect: that he stands in a true relation +to men, that of forgiveness for their ill-treatment, service for their +needs, trust in their nature, and constant love towards them,--towards +even the wicked and hypocritical; in a true relation to God, that of +entire obedience to Him, of perfect trust in Him, of love towards Him +with the whole mind, heart and soul; and love of God is also love of +truth, goodness, usefulness, love of Love itself. Obedience to God and +trust in God is obedience to these things, and trust in them. If Jesus +had loved any opinion better than truth, then had he lost that relation +to God, and so far ceased to be inspired by Him; had he allowed any +partial feeling to overcome the spirit of universal love, then also he +had sundered himself from God, and been at discord, not in harmony with +the Infinite. + +If Jesus be the model-man, then should a Christian church teach its +members to hold the same relation to God that Christ held; to be one +with Him; incarnations of God, as much and as far as Jesus was one with +God, and an incarnation thereof, a manifestation of God in the flesh. +It is Christian to receive all the truths of the Bible; all the truths +that are not in the Bible just as much. It is Christian also to reject +all the errors that come to us from without the Bible or from within the +Bible. The Christian man, or the Christian church, is to stop at no +man's limitation; at the limit of no book. God is not dead, nor even +asleep, but awake and alive as ever of old; He inspires men now no less +than beforetime; is ready to fill your mind, heart and soul with truth, +love, life, as to fill Moses and Jesus, and that on the same terms; for +inspiration comes by universal laws, and not by partial exceptions. Each +point of spirit, as each atom of space, is still bathed in the tides of +Deity. But all good men, all Christian men, all inspired men will be no +more alike than all wicked men. It is the same light which is blue in +the sky and golden in the sun. "All nature's difference makes all +nature's peace." + +We can attain this relation to man and God only on condition that we are +free. If a church cannot allow freedom it were better not to allow +itself, but cease to be. Unity of purpose, with entire freedom for the +individual, should be the motto. It is only free men that can find the +truth, love the truth, live the truth. As much freedom as you shut out, +so much falsehood do you shut in. It is a poor thing to purchase unity +of church-action at the cost of individual freedom. The Catholic church +tried it, and you see what came thereof: science forsook it, calling it +a den of lies. Morality forsook it, as the mystery of iniquity, and +religion herself protested against it, as the mother of abominations. +The Protestant churches are trying the same thing, and see whither they +tend and what foes rise up against them,--Philosophy with its Bible of +nature, and Religion with its Bible of man, both the hand-writing of +God. The great problem of church and state is this: To produce unity of +action and yet leave individual freedom not disturbed; to balance into +harmonious proportions the mass and the man, the centripetal and +centrifugal powers, as, by God's wondrous, living mechanism, they are +balanced in the worlds above. In the state we have done this more wisely +than any nation heretofore. In the churches it remains yet to do. But +man is equal to all which God appoints for him. His desires are ever +proportionate to his duty and his destinies. The strong cry of the +nations for liberty, a craving as of hungry men for bread and water, +shows what liberty is worth, and what it is destined to do. Allow +freedom to think, and there will be truth; freedom to act, and we shall +have heroic works; freedom to live and be, and we shall have love to men +and love to God. The world's history proves that, and our own history. +Jesus, our model-man, was the freest the world ever saw! + +Let it be remembered that every truth is of God, and will lead to good +and good only. Truth is the seed whereof welfare is the fruit; for every +grain thereof we plant some one shall reap a whole harvest of welfare. A +lie is "of the Devil," and must lead to want and woe and death, ending +at last in a storm where it rains tears and perhaps blood. Have freedom, +and you will sow new truth to reap its satisfaction; submit to thraldom, +and you sow lies to reap the death they bear. A Christian church should +be the home of the soul, where it enjoys the largest liberty of the sons +of God. If fettered elsewhere, here let us be free. Christ is the +liberator; he came not to drive slaves, but to set men free. The +churches of old did their greatest work, when there was most freedom in +those churches. + +Here too should the spirit of devotion be encouraged; the soul of man +communing with his God in aspirations after purity and truth, in +resolutions for goodness, and piety, and a manly life. These are a +prayer. The fact that men freely hold truths in common, great truths and +universal; that unitedly they lift up their souls to God seeking +instruction of Him, this will prove the strongest bond between man and +man. It seems to me that the Protestant churches have not fully done +justice to the sentiment of worship; that in taking care of the head we +have forgotten the heart. To think truth is the worship of the head; to +do noble works of usefulness and charity the worship of the will; to +feel love and trust in man and God, is the glad worship of the heart. A +Christian church should be broad enough for all; should seek truth and +promote piety, that both together might toil in good works. + +Here should be had the best instruction which can be commanded; the +freest, truest, and most manly voice; the mind most conversant with +truth; the eloquence of a heart that runs over with goodness, whose +faith is unfaltering in truth, justice, purity, and love; a faith in +God, whose charity is living love to men, even the sinful and the base. +Teaching is the breathing of one man's inspiration into another, a most +real thing amongst real men. In a church there should be instruction for +the young. God appoints the father and mother the natural teachers of +children; above all is it so in their religious culture. But there are +some who cannot, many who will not fulfil this trust. Hence it has been +found necessary for wise and good men to offer their instruction to +such. In this matter it is religion we need more than theology, and of +this it is not mere traditions and mythologies we are to teach, the +anile tales of a rude people in a dark age, things our pupils will do +well to forget soon as they are men, and which they will have small +reason to thank us for obscuring their minds withal; but it is the +great, everlasting truths of religion which should be taught, enforced +by examples of noble men, which tradition tells of, or the present age +affords, all this to be suited to the tender years of the child. +Christianity should be represented as human, as man's nature in its true +greatness; religion shown to be beautiful, a real duty corresponding to +man's deepest desire, that as religion affords the deepest satisfaction +to man, so it is man's most universal want. Christ should be shown to +men as he was, the manliest of men, the most divine because the most +human. Children should be taught to respect their nature; to consider it +as the noblest of all God's works; to know that perfect truth and +goodness are demanded of them, and by that only can they be worthy men; +taught to feel that God is present in Boston and to-day, as much as ever +in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. They should be taught to abhor the +public sins of our times, but to love and imitate its great examples of +nobleness, and practical religion, which stand out amid the mob of +worldly pretenders in this day. + +Then, too, if one of our members falls into unworthy ways, is it not the +duty of some one to speak with him, not as with authority to command, +but with affection to persuade? Did any one of you ever address an +erring brother on the folly of his ways with manly tenderness, and try +to charm him back, and find a cold repulse? If a man is in error he will +be grateful to one that tells him so; will learn most from men who make +him ashamed of his littleness of life. In this matter it seems many a +good man comes short of his duty. + +There is yet another way in which a church should act on its own +household, and that is by direct material help in time of need. There is +the eternal distinction of the strong and the weak, which cannot be +changed. But as things now go there is another inequality not of God's +appointment, but of man's perversity, the distinction of rich and +poor--of men bloated by superfluous wealth and men starving and freezing +from want. You know and I know how often the strong abuse their +strength, exerting it solely for themselves and to the ruin of the weak; +we all know that such are reckoned great in the world, though they may +have grown rich solely by clutching at what others earned. In +Christianity, and before the God of justice, all men are brothers; the +strong are so that they may help the weak. As a nation chooses its +wisest men to manage its affairs for the nation's good, and not barely +their own, so God endows Charles or Samuel with great gifts that they +may also bless all men thereby. If they use those powers solely for +their pleasure then are they false before men; false before God. It is +said of the church of the Friends that no one of their number has ever +received the charity of an almshouse, or for a civil offence been shut +up in a jail. If the poor forsake a church, be sure that the church +forsook God long before. + + * * * * * + +But the church must have an action on others out of its pale. If a man +or a society of men have a truth, they hold it not for themselves alone, +but for all men. The solitary thinker, who in a moment of ecstatic +action in his closet at midnight discovers a truth, discovers it for all +the world and for eternity. A Christian church ought to love to see its +truths extend; so it should put them in contact with the opinions of the +world, not with excess of zeal or lack of charity. + +A Christian church should be a means of reforming the world, of forming +it after the pattern of Christian ideas. It should therefore bring up +the sentiments of the times, the ideas of the times, and the actions of +the times, to judge them by the universal standard. In this way it will +learn much and be a living church, that grows with the advance of men's +sentiments, ideas and actions, and while it keeps the good of the past +will lose no brave spirit of the present day. It can teach much; now +moderating the fury of men, then quickening their sluggish steps. We +expect the sins of commerce to be winked at in the street; the sins of +the state to be applauded on election days and in a Congress, or on the +fourth of July; we are used to hear them called the righteousness of the +nation. There they are often measured by the avarice or the ambition of +greedy men. You expect them to be tried by passion, which looks only to +immediate results and partial ends. Here they are to be measured by +Conscience and Reason, which look to permanent results and universal +ends; to be looked at with reference to the Laws of God, the everlasting +ideas on which alone is based the welfare of the world. Here they are to +be examined in the light of Christianity itself. If the church be true, +many things which seem gainful in the street and expedient in the +senate-house, will here be set down as wrong, and all gain which comes +therefrom seen to be but a loss. If there be a public sin in the land, +if a lie invade the state, it is for the church to give the alarm; it is +here that it may war on lies and sins; the more widely they are believed +in and practised, the more are they deadly, the more to be opposed. Here +let no false idea or false action of the public go without exposure and +rebuke. But let no noble heroism of the times, no noble man pass by +without due honor. If it is a good thing to honor dead saints and the +heroism of our fathers; it is a better thing to honor the saints of +to-day, the live heroism of men who do the battle, when that battle is +all around us. I know a few such saints; here and there a hero of that +stamp, and I will not wait till they are dead and classic before I call +them so and honor them as such, for + + "To side with truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, + Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just; + Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, + Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, + And the multitude make virtue of the faith they once denied; + For Humanity sweeps onward; where to-day the martyr stands, + On the morrow crouches Judas, with the silver in his hands; + Far in front the cross stands ready, and the crackling fagots burn, + While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return + To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn." + +Do you not see that if a man have a new truth, it must be reformatory +and so create an outcry? It will seem destructive as the farmer's +plough; like that, it is so to tares and thistles, but the herald of the +harvest none the less. In this way a Christian church should be a +society for promoting true sentiments and ideas. If it would lead, it +must go before men; if it would be looked up to, it must stand high. + +That is not all: it should be a society for the promotion of good works. +We are all beneath our idea, and therefore transgressors before God. Yet +He gives us the rain, the snow and the sun. It falls on me as well as on +the field of my neighbor, who is a far juster man. How can we repent, +cast our own sins behind us, outgrow and forget them better, than by +helping others to work out their salvation? We are all brothers before +God. Mutually needful we must be; mutually helpful we should be. Here +are the ignorant that ask our instruction, not with words only, but with +the prayer of their darkness, far more suppliant than speech. I never +see an ignorant man younger than myself, without a feeling of +self-reproach, for I ask: "What have I been doing to suffer him to grow +up in nakedness of mind?" Every man, born in New England, who does not +share the culture of this age, is a reproach to more than himself, and +will at last actively curse those who began by deserting him. The +Christian church should lead the movement for the public education of +the people. + +Here are the needy who ask not so much your gold, your bread, or your +cloth, as they ask also your sympathy, respect and counsel; that you +assist them to help themselves, that they may have gold won by their +industry, not begged out of your benevolence. It is justice more than +charity they ask. Every beggar, every pauper, born and bred amongst us, +is a reproach to us, and condemns our civilization. For how has it come +to pass that in a land of abundance here are men, for no fault of their +own, born into want, living in want, and dying of want? and that, while +we pretend to a religion which says all men are brothers! There is a +horrid wrong somewhere. + +Here too are the drunkard, the criminal, the abandoned person, sometimes +the foe of society, but far oftener the victim of society. Whence come +the tenants of our almshouses, jails, the victims of vice in all our +towns? Why, from the lowest rank of the people; from the poorest and +most ignorant! Say rather from the most neglected, and the public sin +is confessed, and the remedy hinted at. What have the strong been doing +all this while, that the weak have come to such a state? Let them answer +for themselves. + +Now for all these ought a Christian church to toil. It should be a +church of good works; if it is a church of good faith it will be so. +Does not Christianity say the strong should help the weak? Does not that +mean something? It once did. Has the Christian fire faded out from those +words, once so marvellously bright? Look round you, in the streets of +your own Boston! See the ignorant, men and women with scarce more than +the stature of men and women; boys and girls growing up in ignorance and +the low civilization which comes thereof, the barbarians of Boston. +Their character will one day be a blot and a curse to the nation, and +who is to blame? Why, the ablest and best men, who might have had it +otherwise if they would. Look at the poor, men of small ability, weak by +nature, born into a weak position, therefore doubly weak; men whom the +strong use for their purpose, and then cast them off as we throw away +the rind of an orange after we have drunk its generous juice. Behold the +wicked, so we call the weak men that are publicly caught in the cobweb +of the law; ask why they became wicked; how we have aimed to reform +them; what we have done to make them respect themselves, to believe in +goodness, in man and God? and then say if there is not something for +Christian men to do, something for a Christian church to do! Every +almshouse in Massachusetts shows that the churches have not done their +duty, that the Christians lie lies when they call Jesus "master" and men +"brothers!" Every jail is a monument, on which it is writ in letters of +iron that we are still heathens, and the gallows, black and hideous, the +embodiment of death, the last argument a "Christian" State offers to the +poor wretches it trained up to be criminals, stands there, a sign of our +infamy, and while it lifts its horrid arm to crush the life out of some +miserable man, whose blood cries to God against Cain in the nineteenth +century, it lifts that same arm as an index of our shame. + +Is that all? Oh, no! Did not Jesus say, resist not evil--with evil? Is +not war the worst form of that evil; and is there on earth a nation so +greedy of war; a nation more reckless of provoking it; one where the +war-horse so soon conducts his foolish rider into fame and power? The +"Heathen" Chinese might send their missionaries to America, and teach us +to love men! Is that all? Far from it. Did not Christ say, whatsoever +you would that men should do unto you, do you even so unto them; and are +there not three million brothers of yours and mine in bondage here, the +hopeless sufferers of a savage doom; debarred from the civilization of +our age, the barbarians of the nineteenth century; shut out from the +pretended religion of Christendom, the heathens of a Christian land; +chained down from the liberty unalienable in man, the slaves of a +Christian republic? Does not a cry of indignation ring out from every +legislature in the North; does not the press war with its million +throats, and a voice of indignation go up from East and West, out from +the hearts of freemen? Oh, no. There is none of that cry against the +mightiest sin of this age. The rock of Plymouth, sanctified by the feet +which led a nation's way to freedom's large estate, provokes no more +voice than the rottenest stone in all the mountains of the West. The few +that speak a manly word for truth and everlasting right, are called +fanatics; bid be still, lest they spoil the market! Great God! and has +it come to this, that men are silent over such a sin? 'Tis even so. Then +it must be that every church which dares assume the name of Christ, that +dearest name to men, thunders and lightens on this hideous wrong! That +is not so. The church is dumb, while the state is only silent; while the +servants of the people are only asleep, "God's ministers" are dead! + +In the midst of all these wrongs and sins, the crimes of men, society +and the state, amid popular ignorance, pauperism, crime, and war, and +slavery too--is the church to say nothing, do nothing; nothing for the +good of such as feel the wrong, nothing to save them who do the wrong? +Men tell us so, in word and deed; that way alone is "safe!" If I thought +so, I would never enter the church but once again, and then to bow my +shoulders to their manliest work, to heave down its strong pillars, arch +and dome, and roof, and wall, steeple and tower, though like Samson I +buried myself under the ruins of that temple which profaned the worship +of God most high, of God most loved. I would do this in the name of man; +in the name of Christ I would do it; yes, in the dear and blessed name +of God. + +It seems to me that a church which dares name itself Christian, the +Church of the Redeemer, which aspires to be a true church, must set +itself about all this business, and be not merely a church of theology, +but of religion; not of faith only, but of works; a just church by its +faith bringing works into life. It should not be a church termagant, +which only peevishly scolds at sin, in its anile way; but a church +militant against every form of evil, which not only censures, but writes +out on the walls of the world the brave example of a Christian life, +that all may take pattern therefrom. Thus only can it become the church +triumphant. If a church were to waste less time in building its palaces +of theological speculation, palaces mainly of straw, and based upon the +chaff, erecting air-castles and fighting battles to defend those palaces +of straw, it would surely have more time to use in the practical good +works of the day. If it thus made a city free from want and ignorance +and crime, I know I vent a heresy, I think it would be quite as +Christian an enterprise, as though it restored all the theology of the +dark ages; quite as pleasing to God. A good sermon is a good thing, no +doubt, but its end is not answered by its being preached; even by its +being listened to and applauded; only by its awakening a deeper life in +the hearers. But in the multitude of sermons there is danger lest the +bare hearing thereof be thought a religious duty, not a means, but an +end, and so our Christianity vanish in words. What if every Sunday +afternoon the most pious and manly of our number, who saw fit, resolved +themselves into a committee of the whole for practical religion, and +held not a formal meeting, but one more free, sometimes for the purpose +of devotion, the practical work of making ourselves better Christians, +nearer to one another, and sometimes that we might find means to help +such as needed help, the poor, the ignorant, the intemperate and the +wicked? Would it not be a work profitable to ourselves, and useful to +others weaker than we? For my own part I think there are no ordinances +of religion like good works; no day too sacred to help my brother in; no +Christianity like a practical love of God shown by a practical love of +men. Christ told us that if we had brought our gift to the very altar, +and there remembered our brother had cause of complaint against us, we +must leave the divine service, and pay the human service first! If my +brother be in slavery, in want, in ignorance, in sin, and I can aid him +and do not, he has much against me, and God can better wait for my +prayer than my brother for my help! + +The saints of olden time perished at the stake; they hung on gibbets; +they agonized upon the rack; they died under the steel of the tormentor. +It was the heroism of our fathers' day that swam the unknown seas; froze +in the woods; starved with want and cold; fought battles with the red +right hand. It is the sainthood and heroism of our day that toils for +the ignorant, the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the wicked. Yes, it is +our saints and heroes who fight fighting; who contend for the slave, and +his master too, for the drunkard, the criminal; yes, for the wicked or +the weak in all their forms. It is they that with weapons of heavenly +proof fight the great battle for the souls of men. Though I detest war +in each particular fibre of my heart, yet I honor the heroes among our +fathers who fought with bloody hand; peace-makers in a savage way, they +were faithful to the light; the most inspired can be no more, and we, +with greater light, do, it may be, far less. I love and venerate the +saints of old; men who dared step in front of their age; accepted +Christianity when it cost something to be a Christian, because it meant +something; they applied Christianity, so far as they knew it, to the +lies and sins of their times, and won a sudden and a fiery death. But +the saints and the heroes of this day, who draw no sword, whose right +hand is never bloody, who burn in no fires of wood or sulphur, nor +languish briefly on the hasty cross; the saints and heroes who, in a +worldly world, dare to be men; in an age of conformity and selfishness, +speak for Truth and Man, living for noble aims; men who will swear to no +lies howsoever popular; who will honor no sins, though never so +profitable, respected and ancient; men who count Christ not their +master, but teacher, friend, brother, and strive like him to practise +all they pray; to incarnate and make real the Word of God, these men I +honor far more than the saints of old. I know their trials, I see their +dangers, I appreciate their sufferings, and since the day when the man +on Calvary bowed his head, bidding persecution farewell with his +"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," I find no such +saints and heroes as live now! They win hard fare, and hard toil. They +lay up shame and obloquy. Theirs is the most painful of martyrdoms. +Racks and fagots soon waft the soul of God, stern messengers but swift. +A boy could bear that passage, the martyrdom of death. But the +temptation of a long life of neglect, and scorn, and obloquy, and shame, +and want, and desertion by false friends; to live blameless though +blamed, cut off from human sympathy, that is the martyrdom of to-day. I +shed no tears for such martyrs. I shout when I see one; I take courage +and thank God for the real saints, prophets and heroes of to-day. In +another age, men shall be proud of these puritans and pilgrims of this +day. Churches shall glory in their names and celebrate their praise in +sermon and in song. Yea, though now men would steal the rusty sword from +underneath the bones of a saint or hero long deceased, to smite off +therewith the head of a new prophet, that ancient hero's son; though +they would gladly crush the heart out of him with the tomb-stones they +piled up for great men, dead and honored now, yet in some future day, +that mob, penitent, baptized with a new spirit, like drunken men +returned to sanity once more, shall search through all this land for +marble white enough to build a monument to that prophet whom their +fathers slew; they shall seek through all the world for gold of fineness +fit to chronicle such names! I cannot wait; but I will honor such men +now, not adjourn the warning of their voice, and the glory of their +example, till another age! The church may cast out such men; burn them +with the torments of an age too refined in its cruelty to use coarse +fagots and the vulgar axe! It is no less to these men; but the ruin of +the church. I say the Christian church of the nineteenth century must +honor such men, if it would do a church's work; must take pains to make +such men as these, or it is a dead church, with no claim on us, except +that we bury it. A true church will always be the church of martyrs. The +ancients commenced every great work with a victim! We do not call it so; +but the sacrifice is demanded, got ready, and offered by unconscious +priests long ere the enterprise succeeds. Did not Christianity begin +with a martyrdom? + + * * * * * + +In this way, by gaining all the truth of the age in thought or action, +by trying public opinions with its own brave ideas, by promoting good +works, applying a new truth to an old error, and with unpopular +righteousness overcoming each popular sin, the Christian church should +lead the civilization of the age. The leader looks before, goes before, +and knows where he is going; knows the way thither. It is only on this +condition that he leads at all. If the church by looking after truth, +and receiving it when it comes, be in unison with God, it will be in +unison with all science, which is only the thought of God translated +from the facts of nature into the words of men. In such a case, the +church will not fear philosophy, nor in the face of modern science aim +to reestablish the dreams and fables of a ruder day. It will not lack +new truth, daring only to quote, nor be obliged to sneak behind the +inspired words of old saints as its only fortress, for it will have +words just as truly inspired, dropping from the golden mouths of saints +and prophets now. For leaders it will look not back, but forth; will fan +the first faint sparkles of that noble fire just newly kindled from the +skies; not smother them in the ashes of fires long spent; not quench +them with holy water from Jordan or the Nile. A church truly Christian, +professing Christ as its model-man, and aiming to stand in the relation +he stood, must lead the way in moral enterprises, in every work which +aims directly at the welfare of man. There was a time when the Christian +churches, as a whole, held that rank. Do they now? Not even the +Quakers--perhaps the last sect that abandoned it. A prophet, filled with +love of man and love of God, is not therein at home. I speak a sad +truth, and I say it in sorrow. But look at the churches of this city: do +they lead the Christian movements of this city--the temperance movement, +the peace movement, the movement for the freedom of men, for education, +the movement to make society more just, more wise and good, the great +religious movement of these times--for, hold down our eyelids as we +will, there is a religious movement at this day on foot, such as even +New England never saw before;--do they lead in these things? Oh, no, not +at all. That great Christian orator, one of the noblest men New England +has seen in this century, whose word has even now gone forth to the +nations beyond the sea, while his spirit has gone home to his Father, +when he turned his attention to the practical evils of our time and our +land, and our civilization, vigorously applying Christianity to life, +why he lost favor in his own little sect! They feared him, soon as his +spirit looked over their narrow walls, aspiring to lead men to a better +work. I know men can now make sectarian capital out of the great name of +Channing, so he is praised; perhaps praised loudest by the very men who +then cursed him by their gods. Ay, by their gods he was accursed! The +churches lead the Christian movements of these times?--why, has there +not just been driven out of this city, and out of this State, a man +conspicuous in all these movements, after five and twenty years of noble +toil; driven out because he was conspicuous in them! You know it is so, +and you know how and by whom he is thus driven out![1] + +Christianity is humanity; Christ is the Son of man; the manliest of men; +humane as a woman; pious and hopeful as a prayer; but brave as man's +most daring thought. He has led the world in morals and religion for +eighteen hundred years, only because he was the manliest man in it; the +humanest and bravest man in it, and hence the divinest. He may lead it +eighteen hundred years more, for we are bid believe that God can never +make again a greater man; no, none so great. But the churches do not +lead men therein, for they have not his spirit; neither that womanliness +which wept over Jerusalem, nor that manliness which drew down fire +enough from heaven to light the world's altars for well-nigh two +thousand years. + +There are many ways in which Christ may be denied:--one is that of the +bold blasphemer, who, out of a base and haughty heart mocks, scoffing at +that manly man, and spits upon the nobleness of Christ! There are few +such deniers: my heart mourns for them. But they do little harm. +Religion is so dear to men, no scoffing word can silence that, and the +brave soul of this young Nazarene has made itself so deeply felt that +scorn and mockery of him are but an icicle held up against the summer's +sun. There is another way to deny him, and that is:--to call him Lord, +and never do his bidding; to stifle free minds with his words; and with +the authority of his name to cloak, to mantle, screen and consecrate the +follies, errors, sins of men! From this we have much to fear. + +The church that is to lead this century will not be a church creeping on +all fours; mewling and whining, its face turned down, its eyes turned +back. It must be full of the brave, manly spirit of the day, keeping +also the good of times past. There is a terrific energy in this age, for +man was never so much developed, so much the master of himself before. +Great truths, moral and political, have come to light. They fly quickly. +The iron prophet of types publishes his visions, of weal or woe, to the +near and far. This marvellous age has invented steam, and the magnetic +telegraph, apt symbols of itself, before which the miracles of fable are +but an idle tale. It demands, as never before, freedom for itself, +usefulness in its institutions; truth in its teachings, and beauty in +its deeds. Let a church have that freedom, that usefulness, truth, and +beauty, and the energy of this age will be on its side. But the church +which did for the fifth century, or the fifteenth, will not do for this. +What is well enough at Rome, Oxford or Berlin, is not well enough for +Boston. It must have our ideas, the smell of our ground, and have grown +out of the religion in our soul. The freedom of America must be there +before this energy will come; the wisdom of the nineteenth century +before its science will be on the churches' side, else that science will +go over to the "infidels." + +Our churches are not in harmony with what is best in the present age. +Men call their temples after their old heroes and saints--John, Paul, +Peter, and the like. But we call nothing else after the old names; a +school of philosophy would be condemned if called Aristotelian, +Platonic, or even Baconian. We out-travel the past in all but this. In +the church it seems taught there is no progress unless we have all the +past on our back; so we despair of having men fit to call churches by. +We look back and not forward. We think the next saint must talk Hebrew +like the old ones, and repeat the same mythology. So when a new prophet +comes we only stone him. + +A church that believes only in past inspiration will appeal to old books +as the standard of truth and source of light; will be antiquarian in its +habits; will call its children by the old names; and war on the new age, +not understanding the man-child born to rule the world. A church that +believes in inspiration now will appeal to God; try things by reason and +conscience; aim to surpass the old heroes; baptize its children with a +new spirit, and using the present age will lead public opinion, and not +follow it. Had Christ looked back for counsel, he might have founded a +church fit for Abraham or Isaac to worship in, not for the ages to come, +or the age then. He that feels he is near to God, does not fear to be +far from men; if before, he helps lead them on; if above, to lift them +up. Let us get all we can from the Hebrews and others of old time, and +that is much; but still let us be God's free men, not the Gibeonites of +the past. + +Let us have a church that dares imitate the heroism of Jesus; seek +inspiration as he sought it; judge the past as he; act on the present +like him; pray as he prayed; work as he wrought; live as he lived. Let +our doctrines and our forms fit the soul, as the limbs fit the body, +growing out of it, growing with it. Let us have a church for the whole +man: truth for the mind; good works for the hands; love for the heart; +and for the soul, that aspiring after perfection, that unfaltering faith +in God which, like lightning in the clouds, shines brightest, when +elsewhere it is most dark. Let our church fit man, as the heavens fit +the earth! + + * * * * * + +In our day men have made great advances in science, commerce, +manufactures, in all the arts of life. We need, therefore, a development +of religion corresponding thereto. The leading minds of the age ask +freedom to inquire; not merely to believe, but to know; to rest on +facts. A great spiritual movement goes swiftly forward. The best men see +that religion is religion; theology is theology, and not religion; that +true religion is a very simple affair, and the popular theology a very +foolish one; that the Christianity of Christ is not the Christianity of +the street, or the state, or the churches; that Christ is not their +model-man, only "imputed" as such. These men wish to apply good sense to +matters connected with religion; to apply Christianity to life, and make +the world a better place, men and women fitter to live in it. In this +way they wish to get a theology that is true; a mode of religion that +works, and works well. If a church can answer these demands, it will be +a live church; leading the civilization of the times, living with all +the mighty life of this age, and nation. Its prayers will be a lifting +up of the hearts in noble men towards God, in search of truth, goodness, +piety. Its sacraments will be great works of reform, institutions for +the comfort and the culture of men. Let us have a church in which +religion, goodness towards men, and piety towards God, shall be the main +thing; let us have a degree of that suited to the growth and demands of +this age. In the middle ages, men had erroneous conceptions of religion, +no doubt; yet the church led the world. When she wrestled with the +state, the state came undermost to the ground. See the results of that +supremacy--all over Europe there arose the cloister, halls of learning +for the chosen few, minster, dome, cathedral, miracles of art, each +costing the wealth of a province. Such was the embodiment of their ideas +of religion, the prayers of a pious age done in stone, a psalm petrified +as it rose from the world's mouth; a poor sacrifice, no doubt, but the +best they knew how to offer. Now if men were to engage in religion as in +politics, commerce, arts; if the absolute religion, the Christianity of +Christ, were applied to life with all the might of this age, as the +Christianity of the church was then applied, what a result should we not +behold! We should build up a great state with unity in the nation, and +freedom in the people; a state where there was honorable work for every +hand, bread for all mouths, clothing for all backs, culture for every +mind, and love and faith in every heart. Truth would be our sermon, +drawn from the oldest of Scriptures, God's writing there in nature, here +in man; works of daily duty would be our sacrament; prophets inspired of +God would minister the word, and piety send up her psalm of prayer, +sweet in its notes, and joyfully prolonged. The noblest monument to +Christ, the fairest trophy of religion, is a noble people, where all are +well fed and clad, industrious, free, educated, manly, pious, wise and +good. + + * * * * * + +Some of you may now remember, how ten months and more ago, I first came +to this house to speak. I shall remember it forever. In those rainy +Sundays the very skies looked dark. Some came doubtingly, uncertain, +looking around, and hoping to find courage in another's hope. Others +came with clear glad face; openly, joyfully, certain they were right; +not fearing to meet the issue; not afraid to be seen meeting it. Some +came, perhaps, not used to worship in a church, but not the less welcome +here; some mistaking me for a destroyer, a doubter, a denier of all +truth, a scoffer, an enemy to man and God! I wonder not at that. +Misguided men had told you so, in sermon and in song; in words publicly +printed and published without shame; in the covert calumny, slyly +whispered in the dark! Need I tell you my feelings; how I felt at coming +to the town made famous by great men, Mayhew, Chauncy, Buckminster, +Kirkland, Holley, Pierpont, Channing, Ware--names dear and honored in my +boyish heart! Need I tell you how I felt at sight of the work which +stretched out before me? Do you wonder that I asked: Who is sufficient +for these things? and said: Alas, not I, Thou knowest, Lord! But some of +you told me you asked not the wisdom of a wiser man, the ability of one +stronger, but only that I should do what I could. I came, not doubting +that I had some truths to say; not distrusting God, nor man, nor you; +distrustful only of myself. I feared I had not the power, amid the dust +and noises of the day, to help you see and hear the great realities of +religion as they appeared to me; to help you feel the life of real +religion, as in my better moments I have felt its truth! But let that +pass. As I came here from Sunday to Sunday, when I began to feel your +spirits prayed with mine a prayer for truth and life; as I looked down +into your faces, thoughtful and almost breathless, I forgot my +self-distrust; I saw the time was come; that, feebly as I know I speak, +my best thoughts were ever the most welcome! I saw that the harvest was +plenteous indeed: but the preacher, I feel it still, was all unworthy of +his work! + + * * * * * + +Brothers and Sisters: let us be true to our sentiments and ideas. Let us +not imitate another's form unless it symbolize a truth to us. We must +not affect to be singular, but not fear to be alone. Let us not +foolishly separate from our brothers elsewhere. Truth is yet before us, +not only springing up out of the manly words of this Bible, but out of +the ground; out of the heavens; out of man and God. Whole firmaments of +truth hang ever o'er our heads, waiting the telescopic eye of the +true-hearted see-er. Let us follow truth, in form, thought or sentiment, +wherever she may call. God's daughter cannot lead us from the path. The +further on we go, the more we find. Had Columbus turned back only the +day before he saw the land, the adventure had been worse than lost. + +We must practise a manly self-denial. Religion always demands that, but +never more than when our brothers separate from us, and we stand alone. +By our mutual love and mutual forbearance, we shall stand strong. With +zeal for our common work, let us have charity for such as dislike us, +such as oppose and would oppress us. Let us love our enemies, bless them +that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for such as +despitefully use us. Let us overcome their evil speech with our own +goodness. If others have treated us ill, called us unholy names, and +mocked at us, let us forgive it all, here and now, and help them also to +forget and outgrow that temper which bade them treat us so. A kind +answer is fittest rebuke to an unkind word. + +If we have any truth it will not be kept hid. It will run over the brim +of our urn and water our brother's field. Were any truth to come down +to us in advance from God, it were not that we might forestall the +light, but shed it forth for all His children to walk by and rejoice in. +"One candle will light a thousand" if it be itself lighted. Let our +light shine before men so that they may see our good deeds, and +themselves praise God by a manly life. This we owe to them as to +ourselves. A noble thought and a mean man make a sorry union. Let our +idea show itself in our life--that is preaching, right eloquent. Do +this, we begin to do good to men, and though they should oppose us, and +our work should fail, we shall have yet the approval of our own heart, +the approval of God, be whole within ourselves, and one with Him. + + * * * * * + +Some of you are venerable men. I have wondered that a youthful ardor +should have brought you here. Your silvery heads have seemed a +benediction to my work. But most of you are young. I know it is no aping +of a fashion that has brought you here. I have no eloquence to charm or +please you with; I only speak right on. I have no reputation but a bad +name in the churches. I know you came not idly, but seeking after truth. +Give a great idea to an old man, and he carries it to his grave; give it +to a young man, and he carries it to his life. It will bear both young +and old through the grave and into eternal Heaven beyond. + +Young men and women, the duties of the world fall eminently on you. God +confides to your hands the ark which holds the treasures of the age. On +young shoulders He lays the burden of life. Yours is the period of +passion; the period of enterprise and of work. It is by successive +generations that mankind goes forward. The old, stepping into honorable +graves, leave their places and the results they won to you. But +departing they seem to say, as they linger and look back: Do ye greater +than we have done! The young just coming into your homes seem to say: +Instruct us to be nobler than yourselves! Your life is the answer to +your children and your sires. The next generation will be as you make +it. It is not the schools but the people's character that educates the +child. Amid the trials, duties, dangers of your life, religion alone can +guide you. It is not the world's eye that is on you, but God's; it is +not the world's religion that will suffice you, but the religion of a +Man, which unites you with truth, justice, piety, goodness; yes, which +makes you one with God! + +Young men and women--you can make this church a fountain of life to +thousands of fainting souls. Yes, you can make this city nobler than +city ever was before. A manly life is the best gift you can leave +mankind; that can be copied forever. Architects of your own weal or woe, +your destiny is mainly in your own hands. It is no great thing to +reject the popular falsehoods; little and perhaps not hard. But to +receive the great sentiments and lofty truths of real religion, the +Christianity of Christ; to love them, to live them in your business and +your home, that is the greatest work of man. Thereby you partake of the +spirit and nature of God; you achieve the true destiny for yourself; you +help your brothers do the same. + +When my own life is measured by the ideal of that young Nazarene, I know +how little I deserve the name of Christian; none knows that fact so well +as I. But you have been denied the name of Christian because you came +here, asking me to come. Let men see that you have the reality, though +they withhold the name. Your words are the least part of what you say to +men. The foolish only will judge you by your talk; wise men by the +general tenor of your life. Let your religion appear in your work and +your play. Pray in your strongest hours. Practise your prayers. By +fair-dealing, justice, kindness, self-control, and the great work of +helping others while you help yourself, let your life prove a worship. +These are the real sacraments and Christian communion with God, to which +water and wine are only helps. Criticize the world not by censure only, +but by the example of a great life. Shame men out of their littleness, +not by making mouths, but by walking great and beautiful amongst them. +You love God best when you love men most. Let your prayers be an +uplifting of the soul in thought, resolution, love, and the light +thereof shall shine through the darkest hour of trouble. Have not the +Christianity of the street; but carry Christ's Christianity there. Be +noble men, then your works must needs be great and manly. + + * * * * * + +This is the first Sunday of a new year. What an hour for resolutions; +what a moment for prayer! If you have sins in your bosom, cast them +behind you now. In the last year, God has blessed us; blessed us all. On +some his angels waited, robed in white, and brought new joys; here a +wife, to bind men closer yet to Providence; and there a child, a new +Messiah, sent to tell of innocence and heaven. To some his angels came +clad in dark livery, veiling a joyful countenance with unpropitious +wings, and bore away child, father, sister, wife, or friend. Still were +they angels of good Providence, all God's own; and he who looks aright +finds that they also brought a blessing, but concealed, and left it, +though they spoke no word of joy. One day our weeping brother shall find +that gift and wear it as a diamond on his breast. + +The hours are passing over us, and with them the day. What shall the +future Sundays be, and what the year? What we make them both. God gives +us time. We weave it into life, such figures as we may, and wear it as +we will. Age slowly rots away the gold we are set in, but the +adamantine soul lives on, radiant every way in the light streaming down +from God. The genius of eternity, star-crowned, beautiful, and with +prophetic eyes, leads us again to the gates of time, and gives us one +more year, bidding us fill that golden cup with water as we can or will. +There stand the dirty, fetid pools of worldliness and sin; curdled, and +mantled, film-covered, streaked and striped with many a hue, they shine +there, in the slanting light of new-born day. Around them stand the sons +of earth and cry: Come hither; drink thou and be saved! Here fill thy +golden cup! There you may seek to fill your urn; to stay your thirst. +The deceitful element, roping in your hands, shall mock your lip. It is +water only to the eye. Nay, show-water only unto men half-blind. But +there, hard by, runs down the stream of life, its waters never frozen, +never dry; fed by perennial dews falling unseen from God. Fill there +thine urn, oh, brother-man, and thou shalt thirst no more for +selfishness and crime, and faint no more amid the toil and heat of day; +wash there, and the leprosy of sin, its scales of blindness, shall fall +off, and thou be clean for ever. Kneel there and pray; God shall inspire +thy heart with truth and love, and fill thy cup with never-ending +joy![2] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Rev. John Pierpont. + +[2] See note at the end of this volume. + + + + +III. + +A SERMON OF WAR, PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JUNE 7, 1846. + +EXODUS XV. 3. + + "The Lord is a Man of War." + +1 JOHN IV. 8. + + "God is Love." + + +I ask your attention to a Sermon of War. I have waited some time before +treating this subject at length, till the present hostilities should +assume a definite form, and the designs of the Government become more +apparent. I wished to be able to speak coolly and with knowledge of the +facts, that we might understand the comparative merits of the present +war. Besides, I have waited for others, in the churches, of more +experience to speak, before I ventured to offer my counsel; but I have +thus far waited almost in vain! I did not wish to treat the matter last +Sunday, for that was the end of our week of Pentecost, when cloven +tongues of flame descend on the city, and some are thought to be full of +new wine, and others of the Holy Spirit. The heat of the meetings, good +and bad, of that week, could not wholly have passed away from you or me, +and we ought to come coolly and consider a subject like this. So the +last Sunday I only sketched the back-ground of the picture, to-day +intending to paint the horrors of war in front of that "Presence of +Beauty in Nature," to which with its "Meanings" and its "Lessons," I +then asked you to attend. + + * * * * * + +It seems to me that an idea of God as the Infinite is given to us in our +nature itself. But men create a more definite conception of God in their +own image. Thus a rude savage man, who has learned only the presence of +power in Nature, conceives of God mainly as a force, and speaks of Him +as a God of power. Such, though not without beautiful exceptions, is the +character ascribed to Jehovah in the Old Testament. "The Lord is a man +of war." He is "the Lord of Hosts." He kills men, and their cattle. If +there is trouble in the enemies' city, it is the Lord who hath caused +it. He will "whet his glittering sword and render vengeance to his +enemies. He will make his arrows drunk with blood, and his sword shall +devour flesh!" It is with the sword that God pleads with all men. He +encourages men to fight, and says, "Cursed be he that keepeth back his +sword from blood." He sends blood into the streets; he waters the land +with blood, and in blood he dissolves the mountains. He brandishes his +sword before kings, and they tremble at every moment. He treads nations +as grapes in a wine-press, and his garments are stained with their +life's blood.[3] + +A man who has grown up to read the Older Testament of God revealed in +the beauty of the universe, and to feel the goodness of God therein set +forth, sees him not as force only, or in chief, but as love. He worships +in love the God of goodness and of peace. Such is the prevalent +character ascribed to God in the New Testament, except in the book of +"Revelation." He is the "God of love and peace;" "our Father," "kind to +the unthankful and the unmerciful." In one word, God is love. He loves +us all, Jew and Gentile, bond and free. All are his children, each of +priceless value in His sight. He is no God of battles; no Lord of hosts; +no man of war. He has no sword, nor arrows; He does not water the earth +nor melt the mountains in blood, but "He maketh His sun to rise on the +evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust." He +has no garments dyed in blood; curses no man for refusing to fight. He +is spirit, to be worshipped in spirit and in truth! The commandment is: +Love one another; resist not evil with evil; forgive seventy times +seven; overcome evil with good; love your enemies; bless them that +curse you; do good to them that hate you; pray for them that +despitefully use you and persecute you.[4] There is no nation to shut +its ports against another, all are men; no caste to curl its lip at +inferiors, all are brothers, members of one body, united in the Christ, +the ideal man and head of all. The most useful is the greatest. No man +is to be master, for the Christ is our teacher. We are to fear no man, +for God is our Father. + +These precepts are undeniably the precepts of Christianity. Equally +plain is it that they are the dictates of man's nature, only developed +and active; a part of God's universal revelation; His law writ on the +soul of man, established in the nature of things; true after all +experience, and true before all experience. The man of real insight into +spiritual things sees and knows them to be true. + +Do not believe it the part of a coward to think so. I have known many +cowards; yes, a great many; some very cowardly, pusillanimous and +faint-hearted cowards; but never one who thought so, or pretended to +think so. It requires very little courage to fight with sword and +musket, and that of a cheap kind. Men of that stamp are plenty as grass +in June. Beat your drum, and they will follow; offer them but eight +dollars a month, and they will come--fifty thousand of them, to smite +and kill.[5] Every male animal, or reptile, will fight. It requires +little courage to kill; but it takes much to resist evil with good, +holding obstinately out, active or passive, till you overcome it. Call +that non-resistance, if you will; it is the stoutest kind of combat, +demanding all the manhood of a man. + +I will not deny that war is inseparable from a low stage of +civilization; so is polygamy, slavery, cannibalism. Taking men as they +were, savage and violent, there have been times when war was +unavoidable. I will not deny that it has helped forward the civilization +of the race, for God often makes the folly and the sin of men contribute +to the progress of mankind. It is none the less a folly or a sin. In a +civilized nation like ourselves, it is far more heinous than in the +Ojibeways or the Camanches. + +War is in utter violation of Christianity. If war be right, then +Christianity is wrong, false, a lie. But if Christianity be true, if +reason, conscience, the religious sense, the highest faculties of man, +are to be trusted, then war is the wrong, the falsehood, the lie. I +maintain that aggressive war is a sin; that it is national infidelity, +a denial of Christianity and of God. Every man who understands +Christianity by heart, in its relations to man, to society, the nation, +the world, knows that war is a wrong. At this day, with all the +enlightenment of our age, after the long peace of the nations, war is +easily avoided. Whenever it occurs, the very fact of its occurrence +convicts the rulers of a nation either of entire incapacity as +statesmen, or else of the worst form of treason; treason to the people, +to mankind, to God! There is no other alternative. The very fact of an +aggressive war shows that the men who cause it must be either fools or +traitors. I think lightly of what is called treason against a +government. That may be your duty to-day, or mine. Certainly it was our +fathers' duty not long ago; now it is our boast and their title to +honor. But treason against the people, against mankind, against God, is +a great sin, not lightly to be spoken of. The political authors of the +war on this continent, and at this day, are either utterly incapable of +a statesman's work, or else guilty of that sin. Fools they are, or +traitors they must be. + + * * * * * + +Let me speak, and in detail, of the Evils of War. I wish this were not +necessary. But we have found ourselves in a war; the Congress has voted +our money and our men to carry it on; the Governors call for volunteers; +the volunteers come when they are called for. No voice of indignation +goes forth from the heart of the eight hundred thousand souls of +Massachusetts; of the seventeen million freemen of the land how few +complain; only a man here and there! The Press is well-nigh silent. And +the Church, so far from protesting against this infidelity in the name +of Christ, is little better than dead. The man of blood shelters himself +behind its wall, silent, dark, dead and emblematic. These facts show +that it is necessary to speak of the evils of war. I am speaking in a +city, whose fairest, firmest, most costly buildings are warehouses and +banks; a city whose most popular Idol is Mammon, the God of Gold; whose +Trinity is a Trinity of Coin! I shall speak intelligibly, therefore, if +I begin by considering war as a waste of property. It paralyzes +industry. The very fear of it is a mildew upon commerce. Though the +present war is but a skirmish, only a few random shots between a squad +of regulars and some strolling battalions, a quarrel which in Europe +would scarcely frighten even the Pope; yet see the effect of it upon +trade. Though the fighting be thousands of miles from Boston, your +stocks fall in the market; the rate of insurance is altered; your dealer +in wood piles his boards and his timber on his wharf, not finding a +market. There are few ships in the great Southern mart to take the +freight of many; exchange is disturbed. The clergyman is afraid to buy a +book, lest his children want bread. It is so with all departments of +industry and trade. In war the capitalist is uncertain and slow to +venture, so the laborer's hand will be still, and his child ill-clad and +hungry. + +In the late war with England, many of you remember the condition of your +fisheries, of your commerce; how the ships lay rotting at the wharf. The +dearness of cloth, of provisions, flour, sugar, tea, coffee, salt, the +comparative lowness of wages, the stagnation of business, the scarcity +of money, the universal sullenness and gloom--all this is well +remembered now. So is the ruin it brought on many a man. + +Yet but few weeks ago some men talked boastingly of a war with England. +There are some men who seem to have no eyes nor ears, only a mouth; +whose chief function is talk. Of their talk I will say nothing; we look +for dust in dry places. But some men thus talked of war, and seemed +desirous to provoke it, who can scarce plead ignorance, and I fear not +folly, for their excuse. I leave such to the just resentment sure to +fall on them from sober, serious men, who dare to be so unpopular as to +think before they speak, and then say what comes of thinking. Perhaps +such a war was never likely to take place, and now, thanks to a few wise +men, all danger thereof seems at an end. But suppose it had +happened--what would become of your commerce, of your fishing smacks on +the Banks or along the shore? what of your coasting vessels, doubling +the headlands all the way from the St. John's to the Nueces? what of +your whale ships in the Pacific? what of your Indiamen, deep freighted +with oriental wealth? what of that fleet which crowds across the +Atlantic sea, trading with east and west and north and south? I know +some men care little for the rich, but when the owners keep their craft +in port, where can the "hands" find work or their mouths find bread? The +shipping of the United States amounts nearly to 2,500,000 tons. At $40 a +ton, its value is nearly $100,000,000. This is the value only of those +sea-carriages; their cargoes I cannot compute. Allowing one sailor for +every twenty tons burden, here will be 125,000 seamen. They and their +families amount to 500,000 souls. In war, what will become of them? A +capital of more than $13,000,000 is invested in the fisheries of +Massachusetts alone. More than 19,000 men find profitable employment +therein. If each man have but four others in his family, a small number +for that class, here are more than 95,000 persons in this State alone, +whose daily bread depends on this business. They cannot fish in troubled +waters, for they are fishermen, not politicians. Where could they find +bread or cloth in time of war? In Dartmoor prison? Ask that of your +demagogues who courted war! + +Then, too, the positive destruction of property in war is monstrous. A +ship of the line costs from $500,000 to $1,000,000. The loss of a fleet +by capture, by fire, or by decay, is a great loss. You know at what cost +a fort is built, if you have counted the sums successively voted for +Fort Adams in Rhode Island, or those in our own harbor. The destruction +of forts is another item in the cost of war. The capture or destruction +of merchant ships with their freight, creates a most formidable loss. In +1812 the whole tonnage of the United States was scarce half what it is +now. Yet the loss of ships and their freight, in "the late war," brief +as it was, is estimated at $100,000,000. Then the loss by plunder and +military occupation is monstrous. The soldier, like the savage, cuts +down the tree to gather its fruit. I cannot calculate the loss by +burning towns and cities. But suppose Boston were bombarded and laid in +ashes. Calculate the loss if you can. You may say "This could not be," +for it is as easy to say No, as Yes. But remember what befell us in the +last war; remember how recently the best defended capitals of Europe, +Vienna, Paris, Antwerp, have fallen into hostile hands. Consider how +often a strong place, like Coblentz, Mentz, Malta, Gibraltar, St. Juan +d'Ulloa, has been declared impregnable, and then been taken; calculate +the force which might be brought against this town, and you will see +that in eight and forty hours, or half that time, it might be left +nothing but a heap of ruins smoking in the sun! I doubt not the valor +of American soldiers, the skill of their engineers, nor the ability of +their commanders. I am ready to believe all this is greater than we are +told. Still, such are the contingencies of war. If some not very +ignorant men had their way, this would be a probability and perhaps a +fact. If we should burn every town from the Tweed to the Thames, it +would not rebuild our own city. + +But on the supposition that nothing is destroyed, see the loss which +comes from the misdirection of productive industry. Your fleets, forts, +dock-yards, arsenals, cannons, muskets, swords and the like, are +provided at great cost, and yet are unprofitable. They do not pay. They +weave no cloth; they bake no bread; they produce nothing. Yet from 1791 +to 1832, in forty-two years we expended in these things, $303,242,576, +namely, for the navy, etc., $112,703,933; for the army, etc., +190,538,643. For the same time, all other expenses of the nation came to +but $37,158,047. More than eight ninths of the whole revenue of the +nation was spent for purposes of war. In four years, from 1812 to 1815, +we paid in this way, $92,350,519.37. In six years, from 1835 to 1840, we +paid annually on the average $21,328,903; in all $127,973,418. Our +Congress has just voted $17,000,000, as a special grant for the army +alone. The 175,118 muskets at Springfield, are valued at $3,000,000; we +pay annually $200,000 to support that arsenal. The navy-yard at +Charlestown, with its stores, etc., has cost $4,741,000. And, for all +profitable returns, this money might as well be sunk in the bottom of +the sea. In some countries it is yet worse. There are towns and cities +in which the fortifications have cost more than all the houses, +churches, shops, and other property therein. This happens not among the +Sacs and Foxes, but in "Christian" Europe. + +Then your soldier is the most unprofitable animal you can keep. He makes +no railroads; clears no land; raises no corn. No, he can make neither +cloth nor clocks! He does not raise his own bread, mend his own shoes, +make his shoulder-knot of glory, nor hammer out his own sword. Yet he is +a costly animal, though useless. If the President gets his fifty +thousand volunteers, a thing likely to happen--for though Irish lumpers +and hod-men want a dollar or a dollar and a half a day, your free +American of Boston will enlist for twenty-seven cents, only having his +livery, his feathers, and his "glory" thrown in--then at $8 a month, +their wages amount to $400,000 a month. Suppose the present Government +shall actually make advantageous contracts, and the subsistence of the +soldier cost no more than in England, or $17 a month, this amounts to +$850,000. Here are $1,250,000 a month to begin with. Then, if each man +would be worth a dollar a day at any productive work, and there are 26 +work days in the month, here are $1,300,000 more to be added, making +$2,550,000 a month for the new army of occupation. This is only for the +rank and file of the army. The officers, the surgeons, and the +chaplains, who teach the soldiers to _wad_ their muskets with the leaves +of the Bible, will perhaps cost as much more; or, in all, something more +than $5,000,000 a month. This of course does not include the cost of +their arms, tents, ammunition, baggage, horses, and hospital stores, nor +the 65,000 gallons of whiskey which the government has just advertised +for! What do they give in return? They will give us three things, valor, +glory, and--talk; which, as they are not in the price current, I must +estimate as I can, and set them all down in one figure = 0; not worth +the whiskey they cost. + +New England is quite a new country. Seven generations ago it was a +wilderness; now it contains about 2,500,000 souls. If you were to pay +all the public debts of these States, and then, in fancy, divide all the +property therein by the population, young as we are, I think you would +find a larger amount of value for each man than in any other country in +the world, not excepting England. The civilization of Europe is old; the +nations old, England, France, Spain, Austria, Italy, Greece; but they +have wasted their time, their labor and their wealth in war, and so are +poorer than we upstarts of a wilderness. We have fewer fleets, forts, +cannon and soldiers for the population, than any other "Christian" +country in the world. This is one main reason why we have no national +debt; why the women need not toil in the hardest labor of the fields, +the quarries and the mines; this is the reason that we are well fed, +well clad, well housed; this is the reason that Massachusetts can afford +to spend $1,000,000 a year for her public schools! War, wasting a +nation's wealth, depresses the great mass of the people, but serves to +elevate a few to opulence and power. Every despotism is established and +sustained by war. This is the foundation of all the aristocracies of the +old world, aristocracies of blood. Our famous men are often ashamed that +their wealth was honestly got by working, or peddling, and foolishly +copy the savage and bloody emblems of ancient heraldry in their assumed +coats of arms, industrious men seeking to have a griffin on their seal! +Nothing is so hostile to a true democracy as war. It elevates a few, +often bold, bad men, at the expense of the many, who pay the money and +furnish the blood for war. + +War is a most expensive folly. The revolutionary war cost the General +Government directly and in specie $135,000,000. It is safe to estimate +the direct cost to the individual States also at the same sum, +$135,000,000; making a total of $270,000,000. Considering the +interruption of business, the waste of time, property and life, it is +plain that this could not have been a fourth part of the whole. But +suppose it was a third, then the whole pecuniary cost of the war would +be $810,000,000. At the beginning of the Revolution the population was +about 3,000,000; so that war, lasting about eight years, cost $270 for +each person. To meet the expenses of the war each year there would have +been required a tax of $33.75 on each man, woman and child! + +In the Florida war we spent between $30,000,000 and $40,000,000, as an +eminent statesman once said, in fighting five hundred invisible Indians! +It is estimated that the fortifications of the city of Paris, when +completely furnished, will cost more than the whole taxable property of +Massachusetts, with her 800,000 souls. Why, this year our own grant for +the army is $17,000,000. The estimate for the navy is $6,000,000 more; +in all $23,000,000. Suppose, which is most unlikely, that we should pay +no more, why, that sum alone would support public schools, as good and +as costly as those of Massachusetts, all over the United States, +offering each boy and girl, bond or free, as good a culture as they get +here in Boston, and then leave a balance of $3,000,000 in our hands! We +pay more for ignorance than we need for education! But $23,000,000 is +not all we must pay this year. A great statesman has said, in the +Senate, that our war expenses at present are nearly $500,000 a day, and +the President informs your Congress that $22,952,904 more will be wanted +for the army and navy before next June! + +For several years we spent directly more than $21,000,000 for war +purposes, though in time of peace. If a railroad cost $30,000 a mile, +then we might build 700 miles a year for that sum, and in five years +could build a railroad therewith from Boston to the further side of +Oregon. For the war money we paid in forty-two years, we could have had +more than 10,000 miles of railroad, and, with dividends at seven per +cent., a yearly income of $21,210,000. For military and naval affairs, +in eight years, from 1835 to 1843, we paid $163,336,717. This alone +would have made 5,444 miles of railroad, and would produce at seven per +cent., an annual income of $11,433,569.19. + +In Boston there are nineteen public grammar schools, a Latin and English +High school. The buildings for these schools twenty in number, have cost +$653,208. There are also 135 primary schools, in as many houses or +rooms. I know not their value, as I think they are not all owned by the +city. But suppose them to be worth $150,000. Then all the school-houses +of this city have cost $803,208. The cost of these 156 schools for this +year is estimated at $172,000. The number of scholars in them is 16,479. +Harvard University, the most expensive college in America, costs about +$46,000 a year. Now the ship Ohio, lying here in our harbor, has cost +$834,845, and we pay for it each year $220,000 more. That is, it has +cost $31,637 more than these 155 school-houses of this city, and costs +every year $2,000 more than Harvard University, and all the public +schools of Boston! + +The military academy at West Point contains two hundred and thirty-six +cadets; the appropriation for it last year, was $138,000, a sum greater +I think, than the cost of all the colleges in Maine, New Hampshire, +Vermont and Massachusetts, with their 1,445 students. + +The navy-yard at Charlestown, with its ordnance, stores, etc., cost +$4,741,000. The cost of the 78 churches in Boston is $3,246,500; the +whole property of Harvard University is $703,175; the 155 school-houses +of Boston are worth $803,208; in all $4,752,883. Thus the navy-yard at +Charlestown has cost almost as much as the 78 churches and the 155 +school-houses of Boston, with Harvard College, its halls, libraries, all +its wealth thrown in. Yet what does it teach? + +Our country is singularly destitute of public libraries. You must go +across the ocean to read the history of the Church or State; all the +public libraries in America cannot furnish the books referred to in +Gibbon's Rome, or Gieseler's History of the Church. I think there is no +public library in Europe which has cost three dollars a volume. There +are six: the Vatican, at Rome; the Royal, at Paris; the British Museum, +at London; the Bodleian, at Oxford; the University Libraries at +Gottingen and Berlin--which contain, it is said, about 4,500,000 +volumes. The recent grant of $17,000,000 for the army is $3,500,000 more +than the cost of those magnificent collections! + +There have been printed about 3,000,000 different volumes, great and +little, within the last 400 years. If the Florida war cost but +$30,000,000, it is ten times more than enough to have purchased one copy +of each book ever printed, at one dollar a volume, which is more than +the average cost. + +Now all these sums are to be paid by the people, "the dear people," whom +our republican demagogues love so well, and for whom they spend their +lives, rising early, toiling late, those self-denying heroes, those +sainted martyrs of the republic, eating the bread of carefulness for +them alone! But how are they to be paid? By a direct tax levied on all +the property of the nation, so that the poor man pays according to his +little, and the rich man in proportion to his much, each knowing when he +pays and what he pays for? No such thing; nothing like it. The people +must pay and not know it; must be deceived a little, or they would not +pay after this fashion! You pay for it in every pound of sugar, copper, +coal, in every yard of cloth; and if the counsel of some lovers of the +people be followed, you will soon pay for it in each pound of coffee and +tea. In this way the rich man always pays relatively less than the poor; +often a positively smaller sum. Even here I think that three-fourths of +all the property is owned by one-fourth of the people, yet that +three-fourths by no means pays a third of the national revenue. The tax +is laid on things men cannot do without,--sugar, cloth, and the like. +The consumption of these articles is not in proportion to wealth but +persons. Now the poor man, as a general rule, has more children than the +rich, and the tax being more in proportion to persons than property, the +poor man pays more than the rich. So a tax is really laid on the poor +man's children to pay for the war which makes him poor and keeps him +poor. I think your captains and colonels, those sons of thunder and +heirs of glory, will not tell you so. They tell you so! They know it! +Poor brothers, how could they? I think your party newspapers, penny or +pound, will not tell you so; nor the demagogues, all covered with glory +and all forlorn, who tell the people when to hurrah and for what! But if +you cipher the matter out for yourself you will find it so, and not +otherwise. Tell the demagogues, whig or democrat, that. It was an old +Roman maxim, "The people wished to be deceived; let them." Now it is +only practised on; not repeated--in public. + +Let us deal justly even with war, giving that its due. There is one +class of men who find their pecuniary advantage in it. I mean army +contractors, when they chance to be favorites of the party in power; men +who let steamboats to lie idle at $500 a day. This class of men rejoice +in a war. The country may become poor, they are sure to be rich. Yet +another class turn war to account, get the "glory," and become important +in song and sermon. I see it stated in a newspaper that the Duke of +Wellington has received, as gratuities for his military services, +$5,400,000, and $40,000 a year in pensions! + + * * * * * + +But the waste of property is the smallest part of the evil. The waste of +life in war is yet more terrible. Human life is a sacred thing. Go out +into the lowest street of Boston; take the vilest and most squalid man +in that miserable lane, and he is dear to some one. He is called +brother; perhaps husband; it may be father; at least, son. A human +heart, sadly joyful, beat over him before he was born. He has been +pressed fondly to his mother's arms. Her tears and her smiles have been +for him; perhaps also her prayers. His blood may be counted mean and +vile by the great men of the earth who love nothing so well as the dear +people, for he has no "coat of arms," no liveried servant to attend him, +but it has run down from the same first man. His family is ancient as +that of the most long descended king. God made him; made this splendid +universe to wait on him and teach him; sent his Christ to save him. He +is an immortal soul. Needlessly to spill that man's blood is an awful +sin. It will cry against you out of the ground--Cain! where is thy +brother? Now in war you bring together 50,000 men like him on one side, +and 50,000 of a different nation on the other. They have no natural +quarrel with one another. The earth is wide enough for both; neither +hinders the sun from the other. Many come unwillingly; many not knowing +what they fight for. It is but accident that determines on which side +the man shall fight. The cannons pour their shot--round, grape, +canister; the howitzers scatter their bursting shells; the muskets rain +their leaden death; the sword, the bayonet, the horses' iron hoof, the +wheels of the artillery, grind the men down into trodden dust. There +they lie, the two masses of burning valor, extinguished, quenched, and +grimly dead, each covering with his body the spot he defended with his +arms. They had no quarrel; yet they lie there, slain by a brother's +hand. It is not old and decrepid men, but men of the productive age, +full of lusty life. + +But it is only the smallest part that perish in battle. Exposure to +cold, wet, heat; unhealthy climates, unwholesome food, rum, and forced +marches, bring on diseases which mow down the poor soldiers worse than +musketry and grape. Others languish of wounds, and slowly procrastinate +a dreadful and a tenfold death. Far away, there are widows, orphans, +childless old fathers, who pore over the daily news to learn at random +the fate of a son, a father, or a husband! They crowd disconsolate into +the churches, seeking of God the comfort men took from them, praying in +the bitterness of a broken heart, while the priest gives thanks for "a +famous victory," and hangs up the bloody standard over his pulpit! + +When ordinary disease cuts off a man, when he dies at his duty, there is +some comfort in that loss. "It was the ordinance of God," you say. You +minister to his wants; you smoothe down the pillow for the aching head; +your love beguiles the torment of disease, and your own bosom gathers +half the darts of death. He goes in his time and God takes him. But when +he dies in such a war, in battle, it is man who has robbed him of life. +It is a murderer that is butchered. Nothing alleviates that bitter, +burning smart! + +Others not slain are maimed for life. This has no eyes; that no hands; +another no feet nor legs. This has been pierced by lances, and torn with +the shot, till scarce any thing human is left. The wreck of a body is +crazed with pains God never meant for man. The mother that bore him +would not know her child. Count the orphan asylums in Germany and +Holland; go into the hospital at Greenwich, that of the invalids in +Paris, you see the "trophies" of Napoleon and Wellington. Go to the +arsenal at Toulon, see the wooden legs piled up there for men now active +and whole, and you will think a little of the physical horrors of war. + +In Boston there are perhaps about 25,000 able-bodied men between 18 and +45. Suppose them all slain in battle, or mortally hurt, or mown down by +the camp-fever, vomito, or other diseases of war, and then fancy the +distress, the heart-sickness amid wives, mothers, daughters, sons and +fathers, here! Yet 25,000 is a small number to be murdered in "a famous +victory;" a trifle for a whole "glorious campaign" in a great war. The +men of Boston are no better loved than the men of Tamaulipas. There is +scarce an old family, of the middle class, in all New England, which did +not thus smart in the Revolution; many, which have not, to this day, +recovered from the bloody blow then falling on them. Think, wives, of +the butchery of your husbands; think, mothers, of the murder of your +sons! + +Here, too, the burden of battle falls mainly on the humble class. They +pay the great tribute of money; they pay also the horrid tax of blood. +It was not your rich men who fought even the Revolution; not they. Your +men of property and standing were leaguing with the British, or fitting +out privateers when that offered a good investment, or buying up the +estates of more consistent tories; making money out of the nation's dire +distress! True, there were most honorable exceptions; but such, I think, +was the general rule. Let this be distinctly remembered, that the burden +of battle is borne by the humble classes of men; they pay the vast +tribute of money; the awful tax of blood! The "glory" is got by a few; +poverty, wounds, death, are for the people! + +Military glory is the poorest kind of distinction, but the most +dangerous passion. It is an honor to man to be able to mould iron; to be +skilful at working in cloth, wood, clay, leather. It is man's vocation +to raise corn, to subdue the rebellious fibre of cotton and convert it +into beautiful robes, full of comfort for the body. They are the heroes +of the race who abridge the time of human toil and multiply its results; +they who win great truths from God, and send them to a people's heart; +they who balance the many and the one into harmonious action, so that +all are united and yet each left free. But the glory which comes of +epaulets and feathers; that strutting glory which is dyed in blood--what +shall we say of it? In this day it is not heroism; it is an imitation of +barbarism long ago passed by. Yet it is marvellous how many men are +taken with a red coat! You expect it in Europe, a land of soldiers and +blood. You are disappointed to find that here the champions of force +should be held in honor, and that even the lowest should voluntarily +enroll themselves as butchers of men! + + * * * * * + +Yet more: aggressive war is a sin; a corruption of the public morals. It +is a practical denial of Christianity; a violation of God's eternal law +of love. This is so plain that I shall say little upon it to-day. Your +savagest and most vulgar captain would confess he does not fight as a +Christian--but as a soldier; your magistrate calls for volunteers--not +as a man loving Christianity, and loyal to God; only as Governor, under +oath to keep the Constitution, the tradition of the elders; not under +oath to keep the commandment of God! In war the laws are suspended, +violence and cunning rule everywhere. The battle of Yorktown was gained +by a lie, though a Washington told it. As a soldier it was his duty. Men +"emulate the tiger;" the hand is bloody, and the heart hard. Robbery and +murder are the rule, the glory of men. "Good men look sad, but ruffians +dance and leap." Men are systematically trained to burn towns, to murder +fathers and sons; taught to consider it "glory" to do so. The Government +collects ruffians and cut-throats. It compels better men to serve with +these and become cut-throats. It appoints chaplains to blaspheme +Christianity; teaching the ruffians how to pray for the destruction of +the enemy, the burning of his towns; to do this in the name of Christ +and God. I do not censure all the men who serve: some of them know no +better; they have heard that a man would "perish everlastingly" if he +did not believe the Athanasian creed; that if he questioned the story of +Jonah, or the miraculous birth of Jesus, he was in danger of hell-fire, +and if he doubted damnation was sure to be damned. They never heard +that such a war was a sin; that to create a war was treason, and to +fight in it wrong. They never thought of thinking for themselves; their +thinking was to read a newspaper, or sleep through a sermon. They +counted it their duty to obey the Government without thinking if that +Government be right or wrong. I deny not the noble, manly character of +many a soldier, his heroism, self-denial and personal sacrifice. + +Still, after all proper allowance is made for a few individuals, the +whole system of war is unchristian and sinful. It lives only by evil +passions. It can be defended only by what is low, selfish, and animal. +It absorbs the scum of the cities, pirates, robbers, murderers. It makes +them worse, and better men like them. To take one man's life is murder; +what is it to practise killing as an art, a trade; to do it by +thousands? Yet I think better of the hands that do the butchering than +of the ambitious heads, the cold, remorseless hearts, which plunge the +nation into war. + +In war the State teaches men to lie, to steal, to kill. It calls for +privateers, who are commonly pirates with a national charter, and +pirates are privateers with only a personal charter. Every camp is a +school of profanity, violence, licentiousness, and crimes too foul to +name. It is so without sixty-five thousand gallons of whiskey. This is +unavoidable. It was so with Washington's army, with Cornwallis's, with +that of Gustavus Adolphus, perhaps the most moral army the world ever +saw. The soldier's life generally unfits a man for the citizen's! When +he returns from a camp, from a war, back to his native village, he +becomes a curse to society and a shame to the mother that bore him. Even +the soldiers of the Revolution, who survived the war, were mostly ruined +for life, debauched, intemperate, vicious and vile. What loathsome +creatures so many of them were! They bore our burden, for such were the +real martyrs of that war, not the men who fell under the shot! How many +men of the rank and file in the late war have since become respectable +citizens? + +To show how incompatible are War and Christianity, suppose that he who +is deemed the most Christian of Christ's disciples, the well-beloved +John, were made a navy-chaplain, and some morning, when a battle is +daily looked for, should stand on the gun-deck, amid lockers of shot, +his Bible resting on a cannon, and expound Christianity to men with +cutlasses by their side! Let him read for the morning lesson the Sermon +on the Mount, and for text take words from his own Epistle, so sweet, so +beautiful, so true: "Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth +God, for God is love." Suppose he tells his strange audience that all +men are brothers; that God is their common father; that Christ loved us +all, showing us how to live the life of love; and then, when he had +melted all those savage hearts by words so winsome and so true, let him +conclude, "Blessed are the men-slayers! Seek first the glory which +cometh of battle. Be fierce as tigers. Mar God's image in which your +brothers are made. Be not like Christ, but Cain who slew his brother! +When you meet the enemy, fire into their bosoms; kill them in the dear +name of Christ; butcher them in the spirit of God. Give them no quarter, +for we ought not to lay down our lives for the brethren; only the +murderer hath eternal life!" + + * * * * * + +Yet great as are these three-fold evils, there are times when the +soberest men and the best men have welcomed war, coolly and in their +better moments. Sometimes a people, long oppressed, has "petitioned, +remonstrated, cast itself at the feet of the throne," with only insult +for answer to its prayer. Sometimes there is a contest between a +falsehood and a great truth; a self-protecting war for freedom of mind, +heart and soul; yes, a war for a man's body, his wife's and children's +body, for what is dearer to men than life itself, for the unalienable +rights of man, for the idea that all are born free and equal. It was so +in the American Revolution; in the English, in the French Revolution. In +such cases men say, "Let it come." They take down the firelock in +sorrow; with a prayer they go forth to battle, asking that the Right +may triumph. Much as I hate war I cannot but honor such men. Were they +better, yet more heroic, even war of that character might be avoided. +Still it is a colder heart than mine which does not honor such men, +though it believes them mistaken. Especially do we honor them, when it +is the few, the scattered, the feeble, contending with the many and the +mighty; the noble fighting for a great idea, and against the base and +tyrannical. Then most men think the gain, the triumph of a great idea, +is worth the price it costs, the price of blood. + +I will not stop to touch that question, If man may ever shed the blood +of man. But it is plain that an aggressive war like this is wholly +unchristian, and a reproach to the nation and the age. + + * * * * * + +Now, to make the evils of war still clearer, and to bring them home to +your door, let us suppose there was war between the counties of Suffolk, +on the one side, and Middlesex on the other--this army at Boston, that +at Cambridge. Suppose the subject in dispute was the boundary line +between the two, Boston claiming a pitiful acre of flat land, which the +ocean at low tide disdained to cover. To make sure of this, Boston +seizes whole miles of flats, unquestionably not its own. The rulers on +one side are fools, and traitors on the other. The two commanders have +issued their proclamations; the money is borrowed; the whiskey +provided; the soldiers--Americans, Negroes, Irishmen, all the +able-bodied men--are enlisted. Prayers are offered in all the churches, +and sermons preached, showing that God is a man of war, and Cain his +first saint, an early Christian, a Christian before Christ. The +Bostonians wish to seize Cambridge, burn the houses, churches, +college-halls, and plunder the library. The men of Cambridge wish to +seize Boston, burn its houses and ships, plundering its wares and its +goods. Martial law is proclaimed on both sides. The men of Cambridge cut +asunder the bridges, and make a huge breach in the mill-dam, planting +cannon to enfilade all those avenues. Forts crown the hilltops, else so +green. Men, madder than lunatics, are crowded into the Asylum. The +Bostonians rebuild the old fortifications on the Neck; replace the forts +on Beacon-hill, Fort-hill, Copps-hill, levelling houses to make room for +redoubts and bastions. The batteries are planted, the mortars got ready; +the furnaces and magazines are all prepared. The three hills are grim +with war. From Copps-hill men look anxious to that memorable height the +other side of the water. Provisions are cut off in Boston; no man may +pass the lines; the aqueduct refuses its genial supply; children cry for +their expected food. The soldiers parade, looking somewhat tremulous and +pale; all the able-bodied have come, the vilest most willingly; some are +brought by force of drink, some by force of arms. Some are in brilliant +dresses, some in their working frocks. The banners are consecrated by +solemn words.[6] Your church-towers are military posts of observation. +There are Old Testament prayers to the "God of Hosts" in all the +churches of Boston; prayers that God would curse the men of Cambridge, +make their wives widows, their children fatherless, their houses a ruin, +the men corpses, meat for the beast of the field and the bird of the +air. Last night the Bostonians made a feint of attacking Charlestown, +raining bombs and red-hot cannon-balls from Copps-hill, till they have +burnt a thousand houses, where the British burnt not half so many. Women +and children fled screaming from the blazing rafters of their homes. The +men of Middlesex crowd into Charlestown. + +In the mean time the Bostonians hastily repair a bridge or two; some +pass that way, some over the Neck; all stealthily by night, and while +the foe expect them at Bunker's, amid the blazing town, they have stolen +a march and rush upon Cambridge itself. The Cambridge men turn back. The +battle is fiercely joined. You hear the cannon, the sharp report of +musketry. You crowd the hills, the house-tops; you line the Common, you +cover the shore, yet you see but little in the sulphurous cloud. Now +the Bostonians yield a little, a reinforcement goes over. All the men +are gone; even the gray-headed who can shoulder a firelock. They plunge +into battle mad with rage, madder with rum. The chaplains loiter behind. + + "Pious men, whom duty brought, + To dubious verge of battle fought, + To shrive the dying, bless the dead!" + +The battle hangs long in even scale. At length it turns. The Cambridge +men retreat, they run, they fly. The houses burn. You see the churches +and the colleges go up, a stream of fire. That library--founded amid +want and war and sad sectarian strife, slowly gathered by the saving of +two centuries, the hope of the poor scholar, the boast of the rich +one--is scattered to the winds and burnt with fire, for the solid +granite is blasted by powder, and the turrets fall. Victory is ours. Ten +thousand men of Cambridge lie dead; eight thousand of Boston. There +writhe the wounded; men who but few hours before were poured over the +battle-field a lava flood of fiery valor--fathers, brothers, husbands, +sons. There they lie, torn and mangled; black with powder; red with +blood; parched with thirst; cursing the load of life they now must bear +with bruised frames and mutilated limbs. Gather them into hasty +hospitals--let this man's daughter come to-morrow and sit by him, +fanning away the flies; he shall linger out a life of wretched anguish +unspoken and unspeakable, and when he dies his wife religiously will +keep the shot which tore his limbs. There is the battle-field! Here the +horse charged; there the howitzers scattered their shells, pregnant with +death; here the murderous canister and grape mowed down the crowded +ranks; there the huge artillery, teeming with murder, was dragged o'er +heaps of men--wounded friends who just now held its ropes, men yet +curling with anguish, like worms in the fire. Hostile and friendly, head +and trunk are crushed beneath those dreadful wheels. Here the infantry +showered their murdering shot. That ghastly face was beautiful the day +before--a sabre hewed its half away. + + "The earth is covered thick with other clay, + Which her own clay must cover, heaped and pent, + Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent." + +Again it is night. Oh, what a night, and after what a day! Yet the pure +tide of woman's love, which never ebbs since earth began, flows on in +spite of war and battle. Stealthily, by the pale moonlight, a mother of +Boston treads the weary miles to reach that bloody spot; a widow +she--seeking among the slain her only son. The arm of power drove him +forth reluctant to the fight. A friendly soldier guides her way. Now +she turns over this face, whose mouth is full of purple dust, bit out of +the ground in his extremest agony, the last sacrament offered him by +Earth herself; now she raises that form, cold, stiff, stony and ghastly +as a dream of hell. But, lo! another comes, she too a woman, younger and +fairer, yet not less bold, a maiden from the hostile town to seek her +lover. They meet, two women among the corpses; two angels come to +Golgotha, seeking to raise a man. There he lies before them; they look. +Yes it is he you seek; the same dress, form, features too; it is he, the +son, the lover. Maid and mother could tell that face in any light. The +grass is wet with his blood. The ground is muddy with the life of men. +The mother's innocent robe is drabbled in the blood her bosom bore. +Their kisses, groans, and tears, recall the wounded man. He knows the +mother's voice; that voice yet more beloved. His lips move only, for +they cannot speak. He dies! The waxing moon moves high in heaven, +walking in beauty amid the clouds, and murmurs soft her cradle song unto +the slumbering earth. The broken sword reflects her placid beams. A star +looks down and is imaged back in a pool of blood. The cool night wind +plays in the branches of the trees shivered with shot. Nature is +beautiful--that lovely grass underneath their feet; those pendulous +branches of the leafy elm; the stars and that romantic moon lining the +clouds with silver light! A groan of agony, hopeless and prolonged, +wails out from that bloody ground. But in yonder farm the whippoorwill +sings to her lover all night long; the rising tide ripples melodious +against the shores. So wears the night away,--Nature, all sinless, round +that field of woe. + + "The morn is up again, the dewy morn, + With breath all incense and with cheek all bloom, + Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, + And living as if earth contained no tomb, + And glowing into day." + +What a scene that morning looks upon! I will not turn again. Let the +dead bury their dead. But their blood cries out of the ground against +the rulers who shed it,--"Cain! where are thy brothers?" What shall the +fool answer; what the traitor say? + +Then comes thanksgiving in all the churches of Boston. The consecrated +banners, stiff with blood and "glory," are hung over the altar. The +minister preaches and the singer sings: "The Lord hath been on our side. +He treadeth the people under me. He teacheth my hands to war, my fingers +to fight. Yea, He giveth me the necks of mine enemies; for the Lord is +his name;" and "It was a famous victory!" Boston seizes miles square of +land; but her houses are empty; her wives widows; her children +fatherless. Rachel weeps for the murder of her innocents, yet dares not +rebuke the rod. + +I know there is no fighting across Charles River, as in this poor +fiction; but there was once, and instead of Charles say Rio Grande; for +Cambridge read Metamoras, and it is what your President recommended; +what your Congress enacted; what your Governor issued his proclamation +for; what your volunteers go to accomplish: yes, what they fired cannon +for on Boston Common the other day. I wish that were a fiction of mine! + + * * * * * + +We are waging a most iniquitous war--so it seems to me. I know I may be +wrong, but I am no partisan, and if I err, it is not wilfully, not +rashly. I know the Mexicans are a wretched people; wretched in their +origin, history, and character. I know but two good things of them as a +people--they abolished negro slavery, not long ago; they do not covet +the lands of their neighbors. True, they have not paid all their debts, +but it is scarcely decent in a nation, with any repudiating States, to +throw the first stone at Mexico for that! + +I know the Mexicans cannot stand before this terrible Anglo-Saxon race, +the most formidable and powerful the world ever saw; a race which has +never turned back; which, though it number less than forty millions, yet +holds the Indies, almost the whole of North America; which rules the +commerce of the world; clutches at New Holland, China, New Zealand, +Borneo, and seizes island after island in the furthest seas; the race +which invented steam as its awful type. The poor, wretched Mexicans can +never stand before us. How they perished in battle! They must melt away +as the Indians before the white man. Considering how we acquired +Louisiana, Florida, Oregon, I cannot forbear thinking that this people +will possess the whole of the continent before many years; perhaps +before the century ends. But this may be had fairly; with no injustice +to any one; by the steady advance of a superior race, with superior +ideas and a better civilization; by commerce, trade, arts, by being +better than Mexico, wiser, humaner, more free and manly. Is it not +better to acquire it by the schoolmaster than the cannon; by peddling +cloth, tin, any thing rather than bullets? It may not all belong to this +Government, and yet to this race. It would be a gain to mankind if we +could spread over that country the Idea of America--that all men are +born free and equal in rights, and establish there political, social, +and individual freedom. But to do that, we must first make real these +ideas at home. + +In the general issue between this race and that, we are in the right. +But in this special issue, and this particular war, it seems to me that +we are wholly in the wrong; that our invasion of Mexico is as bad as the +partition of Poland in the last century and in this. If I understand the +matter, the whole movement, the settlement of Texas, the Texan +revolution, the annexation of Texas, the invasion of Mexico, has been a +movement hostile to the American idea, a movement to extend slavery. I +do not say such was the design on the part of the people, but on the +part of the politicians who pulled the strings. I think the papers of +the Government and the debates of Congress prove that. The annexation +has been declared unconstitutional in its mode, a virtual dissolution of +the Union, and that by very high and well-known authority. It was +expressly brought about for the purpose of extending slavery. An attempt +is now made to throw the shame of this on the democrats. I think the +democrats deserve the shame; but I could never see that the whigs, on +the whole, deserved it any less; only they were not quite so open. +Certainly, their leaders did not take ground against it, never as +against a modification of the tariff! When we annexed Texas we of course +took her for better or worse, debts and all, and annexed her war along +with her. I take it everybody knew that; though now some seem to pretend +a decent astonishment at the result. Now one party is ready to fight for +it as the other! The North did not oppose the annexation of Texas. Why +not? They knew they could make money by it. The eyes of the North are +full of cotton; they see nothing else, for a web is before them; their +ears are full of cotton, and they hear nothing but the buzz of their +mills; their mouth is full of cotton, and they can speak audibly but +two words--Tariff, Tariff, Dividends, Dividends. The talent of the North +is blinded, deafened, gagged with its own cotton. The North clamored +loudly when the nation's treasure was removed from the United States +Bank; it is almost silent at the annexation of a slave territory big as +the kingdom of France, encumbered with debts, loaded with the entailment +of war! Northern Governors call for soldiers; our men volunteer to fight +in a most infamous war for the extension of slavery! Tell it not in +Boston, whisper it not in Faneuil Hall, lest you weaken the slumbers of +your fathers, and they curse you as cowards and traitors unto men! Not +satisfied with annexing Texas and a war, we next invaded a territory +which did not belong to Texas, and built a fort on the Rio Grande, +where, I take it, we had no more right than the British, in 1841, had on +the Penobscot or the Saco. Now the Government and its Congress would +throw the blame on the innocent, and say war exists "by the act of +Mexico!" If a lie was ever told, I think this is one. Then the "dear +people" must be called on for money and men, for "the soil of this free +republic is invaded," and the Governor of Massachusetts, one of the men +who declared the annexation of Texas unconstitutional, recommends the +war he just now told us to pray against, and appeals to our +"patriotism," and "humanity," as arguments for butchering the Mexicans, +when they are in the right and we in the wrong! The maxim is held up, +"Our country, right or wrong;" "Our country, howsoever bounded;" and it +might as well be, "Our country, howsoever governed." It seems popularly +and politically forgotten that there is such a thing as Right. The +nation's neck invites a tyrant. I am not at all astonished that northern +representatives voted for all this work of crime. They are no better +than southern representatives; scarcely less in favor of slavery, and +not half so open. They say: Let the North make money, and you may do +what you please with the nation; and we will choose governors that dare +not oppose you, for, though we are descended from the Puritans we have +but one article in our creed we never flinch from following, and that +is--to make money; honestly, if we can; if not, as we can! + +Look through the action of your Government, and your Congress. You see +that no reference has been had in this affair to Christian ideas; none +to justice and the eternal right. Nay, none at all! In the churches, and +among the people, how feeble has been the protest against this great +wrong. How tamely the people yield their necks--and say: "Take our sons +for the war--we care not, right or wrong." England butchers the Sikhs in +India--her generals are elevated to the peerage, and the head of her +church writes a form of thanksgiving for the victory, to be read in all +the churches of that Christian land.[7] To make it still more +abominable, the blasphemy is enacted on Easter Sunday, the great holiday +of men who serve the Prince of Peace. We have not had prayers in the +churches, for we have no political Archbishop. But we fired cannon in +joy that we had butchered a few wretched men--half starved, and forced +into the ranks by fear of death! Your peace societies, and your +churches, what can they do? What dare they? Verily, we are a faithless +and perverse generation. God be merciful to us, sinners as we are! + + * * * * * + +But why talk for ever? What shall we do? In regard to this present war, +we can refuse to take any part in it; we can encourage others to do the +same; we can aid men, if need be, who suffer because they refuse. Men +will call us traitors: what then? That hurt nobody in '76! We are a +rebellious nation; our whole history is treason; our blood was attainted +before we were born; our creeds are infidelity to the mother-church; our +Constitution treason to our father-land. What of that? Though all the +governors in the world bid us commit treason against man, and set the +example, let us never submit. Let God only be a master to control our +conscience! + +We can hold public meetings in favor of peace, in which what is wrong +shall be exposed and condemned. It is proof of our cowardice that this +has not been done before now. We can show in what the infamy of a nation +consists; in what its real glory. One of your own men, the last summer, +startled the churches out of their sleep,[8] by his manly trumpet, +talking with us, and telling that the true grandeur of a nation was +justice, not glory; peace, not war. + +We can work now for future times, by taking pains to spread abroad the +sentiments of peace, the ideas of peace, among the people in schools, +churches--everywhere. At length we can diminish the power of the +national Government, so that the people alone shall have the power to +declare war, by a direct vote, the Congress only to recommend it. We can +take from the Government the means of war by raising only revenue enough +for the nation's actual wants, and raising that directly, so that each +man knows what he pays, and when he pays it, and then he will take care +that it is not paid to make him poor and keep him so. We can diffuse a +real practical Christianity among the people, till the mass of men have +courage enough to overcome evil with good, and look at aggressive war as +the worst of treason and the foulest infidelity! + +Now is the time to push and be active. War itself gives weight to words +of peace. There will never be a better time till we make the times +better. It is not a day for cowardice, but for heroism. Fear not that +the "honor of the nation" will suffer from Christian movements for +peace. What if your men of low degree are a vanity, and your men of high +degree are a lie? That is no new thing. Let true men do their duty, and +the lie and the vanity will pass each to its reward. Wait not for the +churches to move, or the State to become Christian. Let us bear our +testimony like men, not fearing to be called traitors, infidels; fearing +only to be such. + +I would call on Americans, by their love of our country, its great +ideas, its real grandeur, its hopes, and the memory of its fathers--to +come and help save that country from infamy and ruin. I would call on +Christians, who believe that Christianity is a truth, to lift up their +voice, public and private, against the foulest violation of God's law, +this blasphemy of the Holy Spirit of Christ, this worst form of +infidelity to man and God. I would call on all men, by the one nature +that is in you, by the great human heart beating alike in all your +bosoms, to protest manfully against this desecration of the earth, this +high treason against both man and God. Teach your rulers that you are +Americans, not slaves; Christians, not heathen; men, not murderers, to +kill for hire! You may effect little in this generation, for its head +seems crazed and its heart rotten. But there will be a day after to-day. +It is for you and me to make it better; a day of peace, when nation +shall no longer lift up sword against nation; when all shall indeed be +brothers, and all blest. Do this, you shall be worthy to dwell in this +beautiful land; Christ will be near you; God work with you, and bless +you for ever! + +This present trouble with Mexico may be very brief; surely it might be +even now brought to an end with no unusual manhood in your rulers. Can +we say we have not deserved it? Let it end, but let us remember that +war, horrid as it is, is not the worst calamity which ever befalls a +people. It is far worse for a people to lose all reverence for right, +for truth, all respect for man and God; to care more for the freedom of +trade than the freedom of men; more for a tariff than millions of souls. +This calamity came upon us gradually, long before the present war, and +will last long after that has died away. Like people like ruler, is a +true word. Look at your rulers, representatives, and see our own +likeness! We reverence force, and have forgot there is any right beyond +the vote of a Congress or a people; any good beside dollars; any God but +majorities and force, I think the present war, though it should cost +50,000 men and $50,000,000, the smallest part of our misfortune. Abroad +we are looked on as a nation of swindlers and men-stealers! What can we +say in our defence? Alas, the nation is a traitor to its great +idea,--that all men are born equal, each with the same unalienable +rights. We are infidels to Christianity. We have paid the price of our +shame. + +There have been dark days in this nation before now. It was gloomy when +Washington with his little army fled through the Jerseys. It was a long +dark day from '83 to '89. It was not so dark as now; the nation never so +false. There was never a time when resistance to tyrants was so rare a +virtue; when the people so tamely submitted to a wrong. Now you can feel +the darkness. The sack of this city and the butchery of its people were +a far less evil than the moral deadness of the nation. Men spring up +again like the mown grass; but to raise up saints and heroes in a dead +nation corrupting beside its golden tomb, what shall do that for us? We +must look not to the many for that, but to the few who are faithful unto +God and man. + +I know the hardy vigor of our men, the stalwart intellect of this +people. Would to God they could learn to love the right and true. Then +what a people should we be, spreading from the Madawaska to the +Sacramento, diffusing our great idea, and living our religion, the +Christianity of Christ! Oh, Lord! make the vision true; waken thy +prophets and stir thy people till righteousness exalt us! No wonders +will be wrought for that. But the voice of conscience speaks to you and +me, and all of us: The right shall prosper; the wicked States shall die, +and History responds her long amen. + +What lessons come to us from the past! The Genius of the old +civilization, solemn and sad, sits there on the Alps, his classic beard +descending o'er his breast. Behind him arise the new nations, bustling +with romantic life. He bends down over the midland sea, and counts up +his children--Assyria, Egypt, Tyre, Carthage, Troy, Etruria, Corinth, +Athens, Rome--once so renowned, now gathered with the dead, their giant +ghosts still lingering pensive o'er the spot. He turns westward his +face, too sad to weep, and raising from his palsied knee his trembling +hand, looks on his brother genius of the new civilization. That young +giant, strong and mocking, sits there on the Alleghanies. Before him lie +the waters, covered with ships; behind him he hears the roar of the +Mississippi and the far distant Oregon--rolling their riches to the sea. +He bends down, and that far ocean murmurs pacific in his ear. On his +left, are the harbors, shops and mills of the East, and a five-fold +gleam of light goes up from Northern lakes. On his right, spread out the +broad savannahs of the South, waiting to be blessed; and far off that +Mexique bay bends round her tropic shores. A crown of stars is on that +giant's head, some glorious with flashing, many-colored light; some +bloody red; some pale and faint, of most uncertain hue. His right hand +lies folded in his robe; the left rests on the Bible's opened page, and +holds these sacred words--All men are equal, born with equal rights from +God. The old says to the young: "Brother, beware!" and Alps and Rocky +Mountains say "Beware!" That stripling giant, ill-bred and scoffing, +shouts amain: "My feet are red with the Indians' blood; my hand has +forged the negro's chain. I am strong; who dares assail me? I will drink +his blood, for I have made my covenant of lies, and leagued with hell +for my support. There is no right, no truth; Christianity is false, and +God a name." His left hand rends those sacred scrolls, casting his +Bibles underneath his feet, and in his right he brandishes the +negro-driver's whip, crying again--"Say, who is God, and what is Right." +And all his mountains echo--Right. But the old genius sadly says again: +"Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not prosper." The hollow +tomb of Egypt, Athens, Rome, of every ancient State, with all their +wandering ghosts, replies, "AMEN." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] Isaiah lxiii. 1-6. _Noyes's_ Version. + + _The People._ + + 1. Who is this that cometh from Edom? + In scarlet garments from Bozrah? + This, that is glorious in his apparel, + Proud in the greatness of his strength? + + _Jehovah._ + + I, that proclaim deliverance, + And am mighty to save. + + _The People._ + + 2. Wherefore is thine apparel red, + And thy garments like those of one that treadeth the wine-vat? + + _Jehovah._ + + 3. I have trodden the wine-vat alone, + And of the nations there was none with me. + And I trod them in mine anger, + And I trampled them in my fury, + So that their life-blood was sprinkled upon my garments, + And I have stained all my apparel. + 4. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, + And the year of my deliverance was come. + 5. And I looked, and there was none to help, + And I wondered, that there was none to uphold, + Therefore my own arm wrought salvation for me, + And my fury, it sustained me. + 6. I trod down the nations in my anger; + I crushed them in my fury, + And spilled their blood upon the ground. + +[4] To show the differences between the Old and New Testament, and to +serve as introduction to this discourse, the following passages were +read as the morning lesson: Exodus, xv. 1-6; 2 Sam. xxii. 32, 35-43, 48; +xlv. 3-5; Isa. lxvi. 15, 16; Joel, iii. 9-17, and Matt. v. 3-11, 38-39, +43-45. + +[5] Such was the price offered, and such the number of soldiers then +called for. + +[6] See the appropriate forms of prayer for that service by the present +Bishop of Oxford, in Jay's Address before the American Peace Society, in +1845. + +[7] _Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God._ + +"O Lord God of Hosts, in whose hand is power and might irresistible, we, +thine unworthy servants, most humbly acknowledge thy goodness in the +victories lately vouchsafed to the armies of our Sovereign over a host +of barbarous invaders, who sought to spread desolation over fruitful and +populous provinces, enjoying the blessings of peace, under the +protection of the British Crown. We bless Thee, O merciful Lord, for +having brought to a speedy and prosperous issue a war to which no +occasion had been given by injustice on our part, or apprehension of +injury at our hands! To Thee, O Lord, we ascribe the glory! It was Thy +wisdom which guided the counsel! Thy power which strengthened the hands +of those whom it pleased Thee to use as Thy instruments in the +discomfiture of the lawless aggressor, and the frustration of his +ambitious designs! From Thee, alone, cometh the victory, and the spirit +of moderation and mercy in the day of success. Continue, we beseech +Thee, to go forth with our armies, whensoever they are called into +battle in a righteous cause; and dispose the hearts of their leaders to +exact nothing more from the vanquished than is necessary for the +maintenance of peace and security against violence and rapine. + +"Above all, give Thy grace to those who preside in the councils of our +Sovereign, and administer the concerns of her widely extended dominions, +that they may apply all their endeavors to the purposes designed by Thy +good Providence, in committing such power to their hands, the temporal +and spiritual benefit of the nations intrusted to their care. + +"And whilst Thou preservest our distant possessions from the horrors of +war, give us peace and plenty at home, that the earth may yield her +increase, and that we, Thy servants, receiving Thy blessings with +thankfulness and gladness of heart, may dwell together in unity, and +faithfully serve Thee, to Thy honor and glory, through Jesus Christ our +Lord, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, belong all dominion and +power, both in heaven and earth, now and for ever. Amen."--See a defence +of this prayer, in the London "Christian Observer" for May, p. 319, _et +seq._, and for June, p. 346, _et seq._ + +Would you know what he gave thanks for on Easter Sunday? Here is the +history of the battle: + +"This battle had begun at six, and was over at eleven o'clock; the +hand-to-hand combat commenced at nine, and lasted scarcely two hours. +The river was full of sinking men. For two hours, volley after volley +was poured in upon the human mass--the stream being literally red with +blood, and covered with the bodies of the slain. At last, the musket +ammunition becoming exhausted, the infantry fell to the rear, the horse +artillery plying grape till not a man was visible within range. No +compassion was felt or mercy shown." But "'twas a famous victory!" + +[8] Mr. Charles Sumner. + + + + +IV. + +SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE ANTI-WAR MEETING IN FANEUIL HALL, FEBRUARY 4, +1847. + + +Mr. Chairman,--We have come here to consult for the honor of our +country. The honor and dignity of the United States are in danger. I +love my country; I love her honor. It is dear to me almost as my own. I +have seen stormy meetings in Faneuil Hall before now, and am not easily +disturbed by a popular tumult. But never before did I see a body of +armed soldiers attempting to overawe the majesty of the people, when met +to deliberate on the people's affairs. Yet the meetings of the people of +Boston have been disturbed by soldiers before now, by British bayonets; +but never since the Boston massacre on the 5th of March, 1770! Our +fathers hated a standing army. This is a new one, but behold the effect! +Here are soldiers with bayonets to overawe the majesty of the people! +They went to our meeting last Monday night, the hireling soldiers of +President Polk, to overawe and disturb the meetings of honest men. Here +they are now, and in arms! + +We are in a war; the signs of war are seen here in Boston. Men, needed +to hew wood and honestly serve society, are marching about your streets; +they are learning to kill men, men who never harmed us, nor them; +learning to kill their brothers. It is a mean and infamous war we are +fighting. It is a great boy fighting a little one, and that little one +feeble and sick. What makes it worse is, the little boy is in the right, +and the big boy is in the wrong, and tells solemn lies to make his side +seem right. He wants, besides, to make the small boy pay the expenses of +the quarrel. + +The friends of the war say "Mexico has invaded our territory!" When it +is shown that it is we who have invaded hers, then it is said, "Ay, but +she owes us money." Better say outright, "Mexico has land, and we want +to steal it!" + +This war is waged for a mean and infamous purpose, for the extension of +slavery. It is not enough that there are fifteen Slave States, and +3,000,000 men here who have no legal rights--not so much as the horse +and the ox have in Boston: it is not enough that the slaveholders +annexed Texas, and made slavery perpetual therein, extending even north +of Mason and Dixon's line, covering a territory forty-five times as +large as the State of Massachusetts. Oh, no; we must have yet more land +to whip negroes in! + +The war had a mean and infamous beginning. It began illegally, +unconstitutionally. The Whigs say, "the President made the war." Mr. +Webster says so! It went on meanly and infamously. Your Congress lied +about it. Do not lay the blame on the democrats; the whigs lied just as +badly. Your Congress has seldom been so single-mouthed before. Why, only +sixteen voted against the war, or the lie. I say this war is mean and +infamous all the more, because waged by a people calling itself +democratic and Christian. I know but one war so bad in modern times, +between civilized nations, and that was the war for the partition of +Poland. Even for that there was more excuse. + +We have come to Faneuil Hall to talk about the war; to work against the +war. It is rather late, but "better late than never." We have let two +opportunities for work pass unemployed. One came while the annexation of +Texas was pending. Then was the time to push and be active. Then was the +time for Massachusetts and all the North, to protest as one man against +the extension of slavery. Everybody knew all about the matter, the +democrats and the whigs. But how few worked against that gross mischief! +One noble man lifted up his warning voice;[9] a man noble in his +father,--and there he stands in marble; noble in himself--and there he +stands yet higher up--and I hope time will show him yet nobler in his +son, and there he stands, not in marble, but in man! He talked against +it, worked against it, fought against it. But Massachusetts did little. +Her tonguey men said little; her handymen did little. Too little could +not be done or said. True, we came here to Faneuil Hall and passed +resolutions; good resolutions they were, too. Daniel Webster wrote them, +it is said. They did the same in the State House; but nothing came of +them. They say "Hell is paved with resolutions;" these were of that sort +of resolutions; which resolve nothing because they are of words, not +works! + +Well, we passed the resolutions; you know who opposed them; who hung +back and did nothing, nothing good I mean; quite enough not good. Then +we thought all the danger was over; that the resolutions settled the +matter. But then was the time to confound at once the enemies of your +country; to show an even front hostile to slavery. + +But the chosen time passed over, and nothing was done. Do not lay the +blame on the democrats; a whig Senate annexed Texas, and so annexed a +war. We ought to have told our delegation in Congress, if Texas were +annexed, to come home, and we would breathe upon it and sleep upon it, +and then see what to do next. Had our resolutions, taken so warmly here +in Faneuil Hall in 1845, been but as warmly worked out, we had now been +as terrible to the slave power as the slave power, since extended, now +is to us! + +Why was it that we did nothing? That is a public secret. Perhaps I ought +not to tell it to the people. (Cries of "Tell it.") + +The annexation of Texas, a slave territory big as the kingdom of France, +would not furl a sail on the ocean; would not stop a mill-wheel at +Lowell! Men thought so. + +That time passed by, and there came another. The Government had made +war; the Congress voted the dollars, voted the men, voted a lie. Your +representative, men of Boston, voted for all three; the lie, the +dollars, and the men; all three, in obedience to the slave power! Let +him excuse that to the conscience of his party; it is an easy matter. I +do not believe he can excuse it to his own conscience. To the conscience +of the world it admits of no excuse. Your President called for +volunteers, 50,000 of them. Then came an opportunity such as offers not +once in one hundred years, an opportunity to speak for freedom and the +rights of mankind! Then was the time for Massachusetts to stand up in +the spirit of '76, and say, "We won't send a man, from Cape Ann to +Williamstown--not one Yankee man, for this wicked war." Then was the +time for your Governor to say, "Not a volunteer for this wicked war." +Then was the time for your merchants to say, "Not a ship, not a dollar +for this wicked war;" for your manufacturers to say, "We will not make +you a cannon, nor a sword, nor a kernel of powder, nor a soldier's +shirt, for this wicked war." Then was the time for all good men to say, +"This is a war for slavery, a mean and infamous war; an aristocratic +war, a war against the best interests of mankind. If God please, we will +die a thousand times, but never draw blade in this wicked war." (Cries +of "Throw him over," etc.) Throw him over, what good would that do? What +would you do next, after you have thrown him over? ("Drag you out of the +hall!") What good would that do? It would not wipe off the infamy of +this war! would not make it less wicked! + +That is what a democratic nation, a Christian people ought to have said, +ought to have done. But we did not say so; the Bay State did not say so, +nor your Governor, nor your merchants, nor your manufacturers, nor your +good men; the Governor accepted the President's decree, issued his +proclamation calling for soldiers, recommended men to enlist, appealing +to their "patriotism" and "humanity." + +Governor Briggs is a good man, and so far I honor him. He is a +temperance man, strong and consistent; I honor him for that. He is a +friend of education; a friend of the people. I wish there were more +such. Like many other New England men, he started from humble +beginnings; but unlike many such successful men of New England, he is +not ashamed of the lowest round he ever trod on. I honor him for all +this. But that was a time which tried men's souls, and his soul could +not stand the rack. I am sorry for him. He did as the President told +him. + +What was the reason for all this? Massachusetts did not like the war, +even then; yet she gave her consent to it. Why so? There are two words +which can drive the blood out of the cheeks of cowardly men in +Massachusetts any time. They are "Federalism" and "Hartford Convention!" +The fear of those words palsied the conscience of Massachusetts, and so +her Governor did as he was told. I feel no fear of either. The +Federalists did not see all things; who ever did? They had not the ideas +which were destined to rule this nation; they looked back when the age +looked forward. But to their own ideas they were true; and if ever a +nobler body of men held state in any nation, I have yet to learn when or +where. If we had had the shadow of Caleb Strong in the Governor's chair, +not a volunteer for this war had gone out of Massachusetts. + +I have not told quite all the reasons why Massachusetts did nothing. Men +knew the war would cost money; that the dollars would in the end be +raised, not by a direct tax, of which the poor man paid according to his +little, and the rich man in proportion to his much, but by a tariff +which presses light on property, and hard on the person; by a tax on the +backs and mouths of the people. Some of the Whigs were glad last Spring, +when the war came, for they hoped thereby to save the child of their old +age, the tariff of '42. There are always some rich men, who say "No +matter what sort of a Government we have, so long as we get our +dividends;" always some poor men, who say "No matter how much the nation +suffers, if we fill our hungry purses thereby." Well, they lost their +virtue, lost their tariff, and gained just nothing; what they deserved +to gain. + +Now a third opportunity has come; no, it has not come; we have brought +it. The President wants a war tax on tea and coffee. Is that democratic, +to tax every man's breakfast and supper, for the sake of getting more +territory to whip negroes in? (Numerous cries of "Yes.") Then what do +you think despotism would be? He asks a loan of $28,000,000 for this +war. He wants $3,000,000 to spend privately for this war. In eight +months past, he has asked I am told for $74,000,000. Seventy-four +millions of dollars to conquer slave territory! Is that democratic too? +He wants to increase the standing army, to have ten regiments more! A +pretty business that. Ten regiments to gag the people in Faneuil Hall. +Do you think that is democratic? Some men have just asked Massachusetts +for $20,000 for the volunteers! It is time for the people to rebuke all +this wickedness. + + * * * * * + +I think there is a good deal to excuse the volunteers. I blame them, for +some of them know what they are about. Yet I pity them more, for most of +them, I am told, are low, ignorant men; some of them drunken and brutal. +From the uproar they make here to-night, arms in their hands, I think +what was told me is true! I say I pity them! They are my brothers; not +the less brothers because low and misguided. If they are so needy that +they are forced to enlist by poverty, surely I pity them. If they are of +good families, and know better, I pity them still more! I blame most the +men that have duped the rank and file! I blame the captains and +colonels, who will have least of the hardships, most of the pay, and all +of the "glory." I blame the men that made the war; the men that make +money out of it. I blame the great party men of the land. Did not Mr. +Clay say he hoped he could slay a Mexican? (Cries, "No, he didn't.") +Yes, he did; said it on Forefather's day! Did not Mr. Webster, in the +streets of Philadelphia, bid the volunteers, misguided young men, go and +uphold the stars of their country? (Voices, "He did right!") No, he +should have said the stripes of his country, for every volunteer to this +wicked war is a stripe on the nation's back! Did not he declare this +war unconstitutional, and threaten to impeach the President who made it, +and then go and invest a son in it? Has it not been said here, "Our +country, howsoever bounded," bounded by robbery or bounded by right +lines! Has it not been said, all round, "Our country, right or wrong!" + +I say I blame not so much the volunteers as the famous men who deceive +the nation! (Cries of "Throw him over, kill him, kill him," and a +flourish of bayonets.) Throw him over! you will not throw him over. Kill +him! I shall walk home unarmed and unattended, and not a man of you will +hurt one hair of my head. + +I say again it is time for the people to take up this matter. Your +Congress will do nothing till you tell them what and how! Your 29th +Congress can do little good. Its sands are nearly run, God be thanked! +It is the most infamous Congress we ever had. We began with the Congress +that declared Independence, and swore by the Eternal Justice of God. We +have come down to the 29th Congress, which declared war existed by the +act of Mexico, declared a lie; the Congress that swore by the Baltimore +Convention! We began with George Washington, and have got down to James +K. Polk. + +It is time for the people of Massachusetts to instruct their servants in +Congress to oppose this war; to refuse all supplies for it; to ask for +the recall of the army into our own land. It is time for us to tell +them that not an inch of slave territory shall ever be added to the +realm. Let us remonstrate; let us petition; let us command. If any class +of men have hitherto been remiss, let them come forward now and give us +their names--the merchants, the manufacturers, the whigs and the +democrats. If men love their country better than their party or their +purse, now let them show it. + +Let us ask the General Court of Massachusetts to cancel every commission +which the Governor has given to the officers of the volunteers. Let us +ask them to disband the companies not yet mustered into actual service; +and then, if you like that, ask them to call a convention of the people +of Massachusetts, to see what we shall do in reference to the war; in +reference to the annexation of more territory; in reference to the +violation of the Constitution! (Loud groans from crowds of rude fellows +in several parts of the hall.) That was a tory groan; they never dared +groan so in Faneuil Hall before; not even the British tories, when they +had no bayonets to back them up! I say, let us ask for these things! + +Your President tells us it is treason to talk so! Treason is it? treason +to discuss a war which the government made, and which the people are +made to pay for? If it be treason to speak against the war, what was it +to make the war, to ask for 50,000 men and $74,000,000 for the war? Why, +if the people cannot discuss the war they have got to fight and to pay +for, who under heaven can? Whose business is it, if it is not yours and +mine? If my country is in the wrong, and I know it, and hold my peace, +then I am guilty of treason, moral treason. Why, a wrong,--it is only +the threshold of ruin. I would not have my country take the next step. +Treason is it, to show that this war is wrong and wicked! Why, what if +George III., any time from '75 to '83, had gone down to Parliament and +told them it was treason to discuss the war then waging against these +colonies! What do you think the Commons would have said? What would the +Lords say? Why, that King, foolish as he was, would have been lucky, if +he had not learned there was a joint in his neck, and, stiff as he bore +him, that the people knew how to find it. + +I do not believe in killing kings, or any other men; but I do say, in a +time when the nation was not in danger, that no British king, for two +hundred years past, would have dared call it treason to discuss the +war--its cause, its progress, or its termination! + +Now is the time to act! Twice we have let the occasion slip; beware of +the third time! Let it be infamous for a New England man to enlist; for +a New-England merchant to loan his dollars, or to let his ships in aid +of this wicked war; let it be infamous for a manufacturer to make a +cannon, a sword, or a kernel of powder, to kill our brothers with, +while we all know that they are in the right, and we in the wrong. + +I know my voice is a feeble one in Massachusetts. I have no mountainous +position from whence to look down and overawe the multitude; I have no +back-ground of political reputation to echo my words; I am but a plain +humble man; but I have a back-ground of Truth to sustain me, and the +Justice of Heaven arches over my head! For your sakes, I wish I had that +oceanic eloquence whose tidal flow should bear on its bosom the +drift-weed which politicians have piled together, and sap and sweep away +the sand hillocks of soldiery blown together by the idle wind; that +oceanic eloquence which sweeps all before it, and leaves the shore hard, +smooth and clean! But feeble as I am, let me beg of you, fellow-citizens +of Boston, men and brothers, to come forward and protest against this +wicked war, and the end for which it is waged. I call on the whigs, who +love their country better than they love the tariff of '42; I call on +the democrats, who think Justice is greater than the Baltimore +Convention,--I call on the whigs and democrats to come forward and join +with me in opposing this wicked war! I call on the men of Boston, on the +men of the old Bay State, to act worthy of their fathers, worthy of +their country, worthy of themselves! Men and brothers, I call on you all +to protest against this most infamous war, in the name of the State, in +the name of the country, in the name of man, yes, in the name of God: +Leave not your children saddled with a war debt, to cripple the nation's +commerce for years to come. Leave not your land cursed with slavery, +extended and extending, palsying the nation's arm and corrupting the +nation's heart. Leave not your memory infamous among the nations, +because you feared men, feared the Government; because you loved money +got by crime, land plundered in war, loved land unjustly bounded; +because you debased your country by defending the wrong she dared to do; +because you loved slavery; loved war, but loved not the Eternal Justice +of all-judging God. If my counsel is weak and poor, follow one stronger +and more manly. I am speaking to men; think of these things, and then +act like men. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] John Quincy Adams. + + + + +V. + +A SERMON OF THE MEXICAN WAR.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JUNE +25, 1848. + + +Soon after the commencement of the war against Mexico, I said something +respecting it in this place. But while I was printing the sermon, I was +advised to hasten the compositors in their work, or the war would be +over before the sermon was out. The advice was like a good deal of the +counsel that is given to a man who thinks for himself, and honestly +speaks what he unavoidably thinks. It is now more than two years since +the war began; I have hoped to live long enough to see it ended, and +hoped to say a word about it when over. A month ago, this day, the 25th +of May, the treaty of peace, so much talked of, was ratified by the +Mexican Congress. A few days ago, it was officially announced by +telegraph to your collector in Boston, that the war with Mexico was at +an end. + +There are two things about this war quite remarkable. The first is, the +manner of its commencement. It was begun illegally, without the action +of the constitutional authorities; begun by the command of the President +of the United States, who ordered the American army into a territory +which the Mexicans claimed as their own. The President says "It is +ours," but the Mexicans also claimed it, and were in possession thereof +until forcibly expelled. This is a plain case, and as I have elsewhere +treated at length of this matter,[10] I will not dwell upon it again, +except to mention a single fact but recently divulged. It is well known +that Mr. Polk claimed the territory west of the Nueces and east of the +Rio Grande, as forming a part of Texas, and therefore as forming part of +the United States after the annexation of Texas. He contends that Mexico +began the war by attacking the American army while in that territory and +near the Rio Grande. But, from the correspondence laid before the +American Senate, in its secret session for considering the treaty, it +now appears that on the 10th of November, 1845, Mr. Polk instructed Mr. +Slidell to offer a relinquishment of American claims against Mexico, +amounting to $5,000,000 or $6,000,000, for the sake of having the Rio +Grande as the western boundary of Texas; yes, for that very territory +which he says was ours without paying a cent. When it was conquered, a +military government was established there, as in other places in Mexico. + +The other remarkable thing about the war is, the manner of its +conclusion. The treaty of peace which has just been ratified by the +Mexican authorities, and which puts an end to the war, was negotiated by +a man who had no more legal authority than any one of us has to do it. +Mr. Polk made the war, without consulting Congress, and that body +adopted the war by a vote almost unanimous. Mr. Nicholas P. Trist made +the treaty, without consulting the President; yes, even after the +President had ordered him to return home. As the Congress adopted Mr. +Polk's war, so Mr. Polk adopted Mr. Trist's treaty, and the war +illegally begun is brought informally to a close. Mr. Polk is now in the +President's chair, seated on the throne of the Union, although he made +the war; and Mr. Trist, it is said, is under arrest for making the +treaty, meddling with what was none of his business. + + * * * * * + +When the war began, there was a good deal of talk about it here; talk +against it. But, as things often go in Boston, it ended in talk. The +news-boys made money out of the war. Political parties were true to +their wonted principles, or their wonted prejudices. The friends of the +party in power could see no informality in the beginning of hostilities; +no injustice in the war itself; not even an impolicy. They were +offended if an obscure man preached against it of a Sunday. The +political opponents of the party in power talked against the war, as a +matter of course; but, when the elections came, supported the men that +made it with unusual alacrity--their deeds serving as commentary upon +their words, and making further remark thereon, in this place, quite +superfluous. Many men,--who, whatever other parts of Scripture they may +forget, never cease to remember that "Money answereth all +things,"--diligently set themselves to make money out of the war and the +new turn it gave to national affairs. Others thought that "glory" was a +good thing, and so engaged in the war itself, hoping to return, in due +time, all glittering with its honors. + +So what with the one political party that really praised the war, and +the other who affected to oppose it, and with the commercial party, who +looked only for a market--this for merchandise and that for +"patriotism"--the friends of peace, who seriously and heartily opposed +the war, were very few in number. True, the "sober second thought" of +the people has somewhat increased their number; but they are still few, +mostly obscure men. + +Now peace has come, nobody talks much about it; the news-boys have +scarce made a cent by the news. They fired cannons, a hundred guns on +the Common, for joy at the victory of Monterey; at Philadelphia, +Baltimore, Washington, New York, men illuminated their houses in honor +of the battle of Buena Vista, I think it was; the custom-house was +officially illuminated at Boston for that occasion. But we hear of no +cannons to welcome the peace. Thus far, it does not seem that a single +candle has been burnt in rejoicing for that. The newspapers are full of +talk, as usual; flags are flying in the streets; the air is a little +noisy with hurrahs, but it is all talk about the conventions at +Baltimore and Philadelphia; hurrahs for Taylor and Cass. Nobody talks of +the peace. Flags enough flap in the wind, with the names of rival +candidates; but nowhere do the stripes and stars bear Peace as their +motto. The peace now secured is purchased with such conditions imposed +on Mexico, that while every one will be glad of it, no man, that loves +justice, can be proud of it. Very little is said about the treaty. The +distinguished senator from Massachusetts did himself honor, it seems to +me, in voting against it on the ground that it enabled us to plunder +Mexico of her land. But the treaty contains some things highly honorable +to the character of the nation, of which we may well enough be proud, if +ever of any thing. I refer to the twenty-second and twenty-third +articles, which provide for arbitration between the nations, if future +difficulties should occur; and to the pains taken, in case of actual +hostilities, for the security of all unarmed persons, for the protection +of private property, and for the humane treatment of all prisoners +taken in war. These ideas, and the language of these articles, are +copied from the celebrated treaty between the United States and Prussia, +the treaty of 1785. It is scarcely needful to add, that they were then +introduced by that great and good man, Benjamin Franklin, one of the +negotiators of the treaty. They made a new epoch in diplomacy, and +introduced a principle previously unknown in the law of nations. The +insertion of these articles in the new treaty is, perhaps, the only +thing connected with the war, which an American can look upon with +satisfaction. Yet this fact excites no attention.[11] + +Still, while so little notice is taken of this matter, in public and +private, it may be worth while for a minister, on Sunday, to say a word +about the peace; and, now the war is over, to look back upon it, to see +what it has cost, in money and in men, and what we have got by it; what +its consequences have been, thus far, and are likely to be for the +future; what new dangers and duties come from this cause interpolated +into our nation. We have been long promised "indemnity for the past, and +security for the future:" let us see what we are to be indemnified for, +and what secured against. The natural justice of the war I will not look +at now. + + * * * * * + +First, then, of the cost of the war. Money is the first thing with a +good many men; the only thing with some; and an important thing with +all. So, first of all, let me speak of the cost of the war in dollars. +It is a little difficult to determine the actual cost of the war, thus +far--even its direct cost; for the bills are not all in the hands of +Government; and then, as a matter of political party-craft, the +Government, of course, is unwilling to let the full cost become known +before the next election is over. So it is to be expected that the +Government will keep the facts from the people as long as possible. Most +Governments would do the same. But Truth has a right of way everywhere, +and will recover it at last, spite of the adverse possession of a +political party. The indirect cost of the war must be still more +difficult to come at, and will long remain a matter of calculation, in +which it is impossible to reach certainty. We do not know yet the entire +cost of the Florida war, or the late war with England; the complete cost +of the Revolutionary war must forever be unknown. + +It is natural for most men to exaggerate what favors their argument; but +when I cannot obtain the exact figures, I will come a good deal within +the probable amount. The military and naval appropriations for the year +ending in June, 1847, were $40,865,155.96; for the next year, +$31,377,679.92; the sum asked for the present year, till next June, +$42,224,000; making a whole of $114,466,835.88. It is true that all this +appropriation is not for the Mexican war, but it is also true that this +sum does not include all the appropriations for the war. Estimating the +sums already paid by the Government, the private claims presented and to +be presented, the $15,000,000 to be paid Mexico as purchase-money for +the territory we take from her, the $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 to be paid +our own citizens for their claims against her,--I think I am a good deal +within the mark when I say the war will have cost $150,000,000 before +the soldiers are at home, discharged, and out of the pay of the state. +In this sum I do not include the bounty-lands to be given to the +soldiers and officers, nor the pensions to be paid them, their widows +and orphans, for years to come. I will estimate that at $50,000,000 +more, making a whole of $200,000,000 which has been paid or must be. +This is the direct cost to the Federal Government, and of course does +not include the sums paid by individual States, or bestowed by private +generosity, to feed and clothe the volunteers before they were mustered +into service. This may seem extravagant; but, fifty years hence, when +party spirit no longer blinds men's eyes, and when the whole is a +matter of history, I think it will be thought moderate, and be found a +good deal within the actual and direct cost. Some of this cost will +appear as a public debt. Statements recently made respecting it can +hardly be trusted, notwithstanding the authority on which they rest. +Part of this war debt is funded already, part not yet funded. When the +outstanding demands are all settled, and the treasury notes redeemed, +there will probably be a war debt of not less than $125,000,000. At +least, such is the estimate of an impartial and thoroughly competent +judge. But, not to exaggerate, let us call it only $100,000,000. + +It will, perhaps, be said: Part of this money, all that is paid in +pensions, is a charity, and therefore no loss. But it is a charity paid +to men who, except for the war, would have needed no such aid; and, +therefore, a waste. Of the actual cost of the war, some three or four +millions have been spent in extravagant prices for hiring or purchasing +ships, in buying provisions and various things needed by the army, and +supplied by political favorites at exorbitant rates. This is the only +portion of the cost which is not a sheer waste; here the money has only +changed hands; nothing has been destroyed, except the honesty of the +parties concerned in such transactions. If a farmer hires men to help +him till the soil, the men earn their subsistence and their wages, and +leave, besides, a profit to their employer; when the season is over, he +has his crops and his improvements as the return for their pay and +subsistence. But for all that the soldier has consumed, for his wages, +his clothes, his food and drink, the fighting tools he has worn out, and +the ammunition he has expended, there is no available return to show; +all that is a clear waste. The beef is eaten up, the cloth worn away, +the powder is burnt, and what is there to show for it all? Nothing but +the "glory." You sent out sound men, and they come back, many of them, +sick and maimed; some of them are slain. + +The indirect pecuniary cost of the war is caused, first, by diverting +some 150,000 men, engaged in the war directly or remotely, from the +works of productive industry, to the labors of war, which produce +nothing; and, secondly, by disturbing the regular business of the +country, first by the withdrawal of men from their natural work; then, +by withdrawing large quantities of money from the active capital of the +nation; and, finally, by the general uncertainty which it causes all +over the land, thus hindering men from undertaking or prosecuting +successfully their various productive enterprises. If 150,000 men earn +on the average but $200 apiece, that alone amounts to $30,000,000. The +withdrawal of such an amount of labor from the common industry of the +country must be seriously felt. At any rate, the nation has earned +$30,000,000 less than it would have done, if these men had kept about +their common work. + +But the diversion of capital from its natural and pacific direction is a +greater evil in this case. America is rich, but her wealth consists +mainly in land, in houses, cattle, ships, and various things needed for +human comfort and industry. In money, we are poor. The amount of money +is small in proportion to the actual wealth of the nation, and also in +proportion to its activity which is indicated by the business of the +nation. In actual wealth, the free States of America are probably the +richest people in the world; but in money we are poorer than many other +nations. This is plain enough, though perhaps not very well known, and +is shown by the fact that interest, in European States, is from two to +four per cent. a year, and in America from six to nine. The active +capital of America is small. Now in this war, a national debt has +accumulated, which probably is or will soon be $100,000,000 or +$125,000,000. All this great sum of money has, of course, been taken +from the active capital of the country, and there has been so much less +for the use of the farmer, the manufacturer, and the merchant. But for +this war, these 150,000 men and these $100,000,000 would have been +devoted to productive industry; and the result would have been shown by +the increase of our annual earnings, in increased wealth and comfort. + +Then war produced uncertainty, and that distrust amongst men. Therefore +many were hindered from undertaking new works, and others found their +old enterprises ruined at once. In this way there has been a great loss, +which cannot be accurately estimated. I think no man, familiar with +American industry, would rate this indirect loss lower than +$100,000,000; some, perhaps, at twice as much; but to avoid all +possibility of exaggeration, let us call it half the smallest of these +sums, or $50,000,000, as the complete pecuniary cost of the Mexican war, +direct and indirect. + +What have we got to show for all this money? We have a large tract of +territory, containing, in all, both east and west of the Rio Grande, I +am told, between 700,000 and 800,000 square miles. Accounts differ as to +its value. But it appears, from the recent correspondence of Mr. +Slidell, that in 1845 the President offered Mexico, in money, +$25,000,000 for that territory which we now acquire under this new +treaty. Suppose it is worth more, suppose it is worth twice as much, or +all the indirect cost of the war ($50,000,000), then the $200,000,000 +are thrown away. + +Now, for this last sum, we could have built a sufficient railroad across +the Isthmus of Panama, and another across the continent, from the +Mississippi to the Pacific. If such a road, with its suitable equipment, +cost $100,000 a mile, and the distance should amount to 2,000 miles, +then the $200,000,000 would just pay the bills. That would have been the +greatest national work of productive industry in the world. In +comparison with it, the Lake Moeris and the Pyramids of Egypt, and the +Wall of China seem but the works of a child. It might be a work to be +proud of till the world ends; one, too, which would advance the +industry, the welfare, and general civilization of mankind to a great +degree, diminishing, by half, the distance round the globe; saving +millions of property and many lives each year; besides furnishing, it is +thought, a handsome income from the original outlay. But, perhaps, that +would not be the best use which might be made of the money; perhaps it +would not have been wise to undertake that work. I do not pretend to +judge of such matters, only to show what might be done with that sum of +money, if we were disposed to construct works of such a character. At +any rate, two Pacific railroads would be better than one Mexican war. We +are seldom aware of the cost of war. If a single regiment of dragoons +cost only $700,000 a year, which is a good deal less than the actual +cost, that is considerably more than the cost of twelve colleges like +Harvard University, with its schools for theology, law, and medicine; +its scientific school, observatory, and all. We are, taken as a whole, a +very ignorant people; and while we waste our school-money and +school-time, must continue so. + +A great man, who towers far above the common heads, full of creative +thought, of the ideas which move the world, able to organize that +thought into institutions, laws, practical works; a man of a million, a +million-minded man, at the head of a nation, putting his thought into +them; ruling not barely by virtue of his position, but by the +intellectual and moral power to fill it; ruling not over men's heads, +but in their minds and hearts, and leading them to new fields of toil, +increasing their numbers, wealth, intelligence, comfort, morals, +piety--such a man is a noble sight; a Charlemagne, or a Genghis Khan, a +Moses leading his nation up from Egyptian bondage to freedom and the +promised land. How have the eyes of the world been fixed on Washington! +In darker days than ours, when all was violence, it is easy to excuse +such men if they were warriors also, and made, for the time, their +nation but a camp. There have been ages when the most lasting ink was +human blood. In our day, when war is the exception, and that commonly +needless, such a man, so getting the start of the majestic world, were a +far grander sight. And with such a man at the head of this nation, a +great man at the head of a free nation, able and energetic, and +enterprising as we are, what were too much to hope? As it is, we have +wasted our money, and got, the honor of fighting such a war. + + * * * * * + +Let me next speak of the direct cost of the war in men. In April, 1846, +the entire army of the United States, consisted of 7,244 men; the naval +force of about 7,500. We presented the gratifying spectacle of a nation +20,000,000 strong, with a sea-coast of 3,000 or 4,000 miles, and only +7,000 or 8,000 soldiers, and as many armed men on the sea, or less than +15,000 in all! Few things were more grateful to an American than this +thought, that his country was so nearly free from the terrible curse of +a standing army. At that time, the standing army of France was about +480,000 men; that of Russia nearly 800,000 it is said. Most of the +officers in the American army and navy, and most of the rank and file, +had probably entered the service with no expectation of ever shedding +the blood of men. The navy and army were looked on as instruments of +peace; as much so as the police of a city. + +The first of last January, there was, in Mexico, an American army of +23,695 regular soldiers, and a little more than 50,000 volunteers, the +number cannot now be exactly determined, making an army of invasion of +about 75,000 men. The naval forces, also, had been increased to 10,000. +Estimating all the men engaged in the service of the army and navy; in +making weapons of war and ammunition; in preparing food and clothing; in +transporting those things and the soldiers from place to place, by land +or sea, and in performing the various other works incident to military +operations, it is within bounds to say that there were 80,000 or 90,000 +men engaged indirectly in the works of war. But not to exaggerate, it is +safe to say that 150,000 men were directly or indirectly engaged in the +Mexican war. This estimate will seem moderate, when you remember that +there were about 5,000 teamsters connected with the army in Mexico. + +Here, then, were 150,000 men whose attention and toil were diverted from +the great business of productive industry to merely military operations, +or preparations for them. Of course, all the labor of these men was of +no direct value to the human race. The food and clothing and labor of a +man who earns nothing by productive work of hand or head, is food, +clothing, and labor thrown away; labor in vain. There is nothing to show +for the things he has consumed. So all the work spent in preparing +ammunition and weapons of war is labor thrown away, an absolute loss, as +much as if it had been spent in making earthen pitchers and then in +dashing them to pieces. A country is the richer for every serviceable +plough and spade made in it, and the world the richer; they are to be +used in productive work, and when worn out, there is the improved soil +and the crops that have been gathered, to show for the wear and tear of +the tools. So a country is the richer for every industrious shoemaker +and blacksmith it contains; for his time and toil go to increase the sum +of human comfort, creating actual wealth. The world also is better off, +and becomes better through their influence. But a country is the poorer +for every soldier it maintains, and the world poorer, as he adds nothing +to the actual wealth of mankind; so is it the poorer for each sword and +cannon made within its borders, and the world poorer, for these +instruments cannot be used in any productive work, only for works of +destruction. + +So much for the labor of these 150,000 men; labor wasted in vain. Let us +now look at the cost of life. It is not possible to ascertain the exact +loss suffered up to this time, in killed, deceased by ordinary diseases, +and in wounded; for some die before they are mustered into the service +of the United States, and parts of the army are so far distant from the +seat of Government that their recent losses are still unknown. I rely +for information on the last report of the Secretary of War, read before +the Senate, April 10, 1848, and recently printed. That gives the losses +of parts of the army up to December last; other accounts are made up +only till October, or till August. Recent losses will of course swell +the amount of destruction. According to that report, on the American +side there had been killed in battle, or died of wounds received +therein, 1,689 persons; there had died of diseases and accidents, 6,173; +3,743 have been wounded in battle, who were not known to be dead at the +date of the report. + +This does not include the deaths in the navy, nor the destruction of +men connected with the army in various ways, as furnishing supplies and +the like. Considering the sickness and accidents that have happened in +the present year, and others which may be expected before the troops +reach home, I may set down the total number of deaths on the American +side, caused by the war, at 15,000, and the number of wounded men at +4,000. Suppose the army on the average to have consisted of 50,000 men +for two years, this gives a mortality of fifteen per cent. each year, +which is an enormous loss even for times of war, and one seldom equalled +in modern warfare. + +Now, most of the men who have thus died or been maimed were in the prime +of life, able-bodied and hearty men. Had they remained at home in the +works of peace, it is not likely that more than 500 of the number would +have died. So then 14,500 lives may be set down at once to the account +of the war. The wounded men are of course to thank the war, and that +alone, for their smart and the life-long agony which they are called on +to endure. + +Such is the American loss. The loss of the Mexicans we cannot now +determine. But they have been many times more numerous than the +Americans; have been badly armed, badly commanded, badly trained, and +besides have been beaten in every battle; their number seemed often the +cause of their ruin, making them confident before battle and hindering +their retreat after they were beaten. Still more, they have been ill +provided with surgeons and nurses to care for the wounded, and were +destitute of medicines. They must have lost in battle five or six times +more than we have done, and have had a proportionate number of wounded. +To "lie like a military bulletin" is a European proverb; and it is not +necessary to trust reports which tell of 600 or 900 Mexicans left dead +on the ground, while the Americans lost but five or six. But when we +remember that only twelve Americans were killed during the bombardment +of Vera Cruz, which lasted five days; that the citadel contained more +than 5,000 soldiers and over 400 pieces of cannon, we may easily believe +the Mexican losses on the whole have been 10,000 men killed and perished +of their wounds. Their loss by sickness would probably be smaller than +our own, for the Mexicans were in their native climate, though often ill +furnished with clothes, with shelter and provisions: so I will put down +their loss by ordinary diseases at only 5,000, making a total of 15,000 +deaths. Suppose their number of wounded was four times as great as our +own, or 20,000. I should not be surprised if this were only half the +number. + +Put all together and we have in total, Americans and Mexicans, 24,000 +men wounded, more or less, and the greater part maimed for life; and we +have 30,000 men killed on the field of battle, or perished by the slow +torture of their wounds, or deceased of diseases caused by +extraordinary exposures; 24,000 men maimed; 30,000 dead! + + * * * * * + +You all remember the bill which so hastily passed Congress in May, 1846, +and authorized the war previously begun. You perhaps have not forgot the +preamble, "Whereas war exists by the act of Mexico." Well, that bill +authorized the waste of $200,000,000 of American treasure, money enough +to have built a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama, and another to +connect the Mississippi and the Pacific ocean; it demanded the +disturbance of industry and commerce all over the land, caused by +withdrawing $100,000,000 from peaceful investments, and diverting +150,000 Americans from their productive and peaceful works; it demanded +a loss yet greater of the treasure of Mexicans; it commanded the maiming +of 24,000 men for life, and the death of 30,000 men in the prime and +vigor of manhood. Yet such was the state of feeling, I will not say of +thought, in the Congress, that out of both houses only sixteen men voted +against it. If a prophet had stood there he might have said to the +representative of Boston, "You have just voted for the wasting of +200,000,000 of the very dollars you were sent there to represent; for +the maiming of 24,000 men and the killing of 30,000 more--part by +disease, part by the sword, part by the slow and awful lingerings of a +wounded frame! Sir, that is the English of your vote." Suppose the +prophet, before the vote was taken, could have gone round and told each +member of Congress, "If there comes a war, you will perish in it;" +perhaps the vote would have been a little different. It is easy to vote +away blood, if it is not your own! + + * * * * * + +Such is the cost of the war in money and in men. Yet it has not been a +very cruel war. It has been conducted with as much gentleness as a war +of invasion can be. There is no agreeable way of butchering men. You +cannot make it a pastime. The Americans have always been a brave people; +they were never cruel. They always treated their prisoners kindly--in +the Revolutionary war, in the late war with England. True, they have +seized the Mexican ports, taken military possession of the +custom-houses, and collected such duties as they saw fit; true, they +sometimes made the army of invasion self-subsisting, and to that end +have levied contributions on the towns they have taken; true, they have +seized provisions which were private property, snatching them out of the +hands of men who needed them; true, they have robbed the rich and the +poor; true, they have burned and bombarded towns, have murdered men and +violated women. All this must of course take place in any war. There +will be the general murder and robbery committed on account of the +nation, and the particular murder and robbery on account of the special +individual. This also is to be expected. You cannot set a town on fire +and burn down just half of it, making the flames stop exactly where you +will. You cannot take the most idle, ignorant, drunken, and vicious men +out of the low population in our cities and large towns, get them drunk +enough or foolish enough to enlist, train them to violence, theft, +robbery, murder, and then stop the man from exercising his rage or lust +on his own private account. If it is hard to make a dog understand that +he must kill a hare for his master, but never for himself, it is not +much easier to teach a volunteer that it is a duty, a distinction, and a +glory to rob and murder the Mexican people for the nation's sake, but a +wrong, a shame, and a crime to rob or murder a single Mexican for his +own sake. There have been instances of wanton cruelty, occasioned by +private licentiousness and individual barbarity. Of these I shall take +no further notice, but come to such as have been commanded by the +American authorities, and which were the official acts of the nation. + +One was the capture of Tabasco. Tabasco is a small town several hundred +miles from the theatre of war, situated on a river about eighty miles +from the sea, in the midst of a fertile province. The army did not need +it, nor the navy. It did not lie in the way of the American operations; +its possession would be wholly useless. But one Sunday afternoon, while +the streets were full of men, women, and children, engaged in their +Sunday business, a part of the naval force of America swept by; the +streets running at right angles with the river, were enfiladed by the +hostile cannon, and men, women, and children, unarmed and unresisting, +were mowed down by the merciless shot. The city was taken, but soon +abandoned, for its possession was of no use. The killing of those men, +women, and children was as much a piece of murder, as it would be to +come and shoot us to-day, and in this house. No valid excuse has been +given for this cold-blooded massacre; none can be given. It was not +battle, but wanton butchery. None but a Pequod Indian could excuse it. +The theological newspapers in New England thought it a wicked thing in +Dr. Palfrey to write a letter on Sunday, though he hoped thereby to help +end the war. How many of them had any fault to find with this national +butchery on the Lord's day? Fighting is bad enough any day; fighting for +mere pay, or glory, or the love of fighting, is a wicked thing; but to +fight on that day when the whole Christian world kneels to pray in the +name of the Peacemaker; to butcher men and women and children, when they +are coming home from church, with prayer-books in their hands, seems an +aggravation even of murder; a cowardly murder, which a Hessian would +have been ashamed of. "But 'twas a famous victory." + +One other instance, of at least apparent wantonness, took place at the +bombardment of Vera Cruz. After the siege had gone on for a while, the +foreign consuls in the town, "moved," as they say, "by the feeling of +humanity excited in their hearts by the frightful results of the +bombardment of the city," requested that the women and children might be +allowed to leave the city, and not stay to be shot. The American General +refused; they must stay and be shot. + +Perhaps you have not an adequate conception of the effect produced by +bombarding a town. Let me interest you a little in the details thereof. +Vera Cruz is about as large as Boston was in 1810; it contains about +30,000 inhabitants. In addition it is protected by a castle, the +celebrated fortress of St. Juan d' Ulloa, furnished with more than 5,000 +soldiers and over 400 cannons. Imagine to yourself Boston as it was +forty years ago, invested with a fleet on one side, and an army of +15,000 men on the land, both raining cannon-balls and bomb-shells upon +your houses; shattering them to fragments, exploding in your streets, +churches, houses, cellars, mingling men, women, and children in one +promiscuous murder. Suppose this to continue five days and nights; +imagine the condition of the city; the ruins, the flames; the dead, the +wounded, the widows, the orphans; think of the fears of the men +anticipating the city would be sacked by a merciless soldiery; think of +the women! Thus you will have a faint notion of the picture of Vera +Cruz at the end of March, 1847. Do you know the meaning of the name of +the city? Vera Cruz is the True Cross. "See how these Christians love +one another." The Americans are followers of the Prince of Peace; they +have more missionaries amongst the "heathen" than any other nation, and +the President, in his last message, says, "No country has been so much +favored, or should acknowledge with deeper reverence the manifestations +of the Divine protection." The Americans were fighting Mexico to +dismember her territory, to plunder her soil, and plant thereon the +institution of slavery, "the necessary back-ground of freedom." + +Few of us have ever seen a battle, and without that none can have a +complete notion of the ferocious passions which it excites. Let me help +your fancy a little by relating an anecdote which seems to be very well +authenticated, and requires but little external testimony to render it +credible. At any rate, it was abundantly believed a year ago; but times +change, and what was then believed all round may now be "the most +improbable thing in the world." At the battle of Buena Vista, a Kentucky +regiment began to stagger under the heavy charge of the Mexicans. The +American commander-in-chief turned to one who stood near him, and +exclaimed, "By God, this will not do. This is not the way for +Kentuckians to behave when called on to make good a battle. It will not +answer, sir." So the General clenched his fist, knit his brows, and set +his teeth hard together. However, the Kentuckians presently formed in +good order and gave a deadly fire, which altered the battle. Then the +old General broke out with a loud hurrah. "Hurrah for old Kentuck," he +exclaimed, rising in his stirrups; "that's the way to do it. Give 'em +hell, damn 'em," and tears of exultation rolled down his cheeks as he +said it. You find the name of this General at the head of most of the +whig newspapers in the United States. He is one of the most popular +candidates for the Presidency. Cannons were fired for him, a hundred +guns on Boston Common, not long ago, in honor of his nomination for the +highest office in the gift of a free and Christian people. Soon we shall +probably have clerical certificates, setting forth, to the people of the +North, that he is an exemplary Christian. You know how Faneuil Hall, the +old "Cradle of Liberty," rang with "Hurrah for Taylor," but a few days +ago. The seven wise men of Greece were famous in their day; but now +nothing is known of them except a single pungent aphorism from each, +"Know thyself," and the like. The time may come when our great men shall +have suffered this same reduction descending, all their robes of glory +having vanished save a single thread. Then shall Franklin be known only +as having said, "Don't give too much for the Whistle;" Patrick Henry for +his "Give me Liberty or give me Death;" Washington for his "In Peace +prepare for War;" Jefferson for his "All men are created equal;" and +General Taylor shall be known only by his attributes rough and ready, +and for his aphorism, "Give 'em hell, damn 'em." Yet he does not seem to +be a ferocious man, but generous and kindly, it is said, and strongly +opposed to this particular war, whose "natural justice" it seems he +looked at, and which he thought was wicked at the beginning, though, on +that account, he was none the less ready to fight it. + +One thing more I must mention in speaking of the cost of men. According +to the Report quoted just now, 4,966 American soldiers had deserted in +Mexico. Some of them had joined the Mexican army. When the American +commissioners, who were sent to secure the ratification of the treaty, +went to Queretaro, they found there a body of 200 American soldiers, and +800 more were at no great distance, mustered into the Mexican service. +These men, it seems, had served out their time in the American camp, and +notwithstanding they had, as the President says in his message, "covered +themselves with imperishable honors," by fighting men who never injured +them, they were willing to go and seek a yet thicker mantle of this +imperishable honor, by fighting against their own country! Why should +they not? If it were right to kill Mexicans for a few dollars a month, +why was it not also right to kill Americans, especially when it pays the +most? Perhaps it is not an American habit to inquire into the justice +of a war, only into the profit which it may bring. If the Mexicans pay +best, in money, these 1,000 soldiers made a good speculation. No doubt +in Mexico military glory is at a premium, though it could hardly command +a greater price just now than in America, where, however, the supply +seems equal to the demand. + +The numerous desertions and the readiness with which the soldiers joined +the "foe," show plainly the moral character of the men, and the degree +of "patriotism" and "humanity" which animated them in going to war. You +know the severity of military discipline; the terrible beatings men are +subjected to before they can become perfect in the soldier's art; the +horrible and revolting punishments imposed on them for drunkenness, +though little pains were taken to keep the temptation from their eyes, +and for disobedience of general orders. You have read enough of this in +the newspapers. The officers of the volunteers, I am told, have +generally been men of little education, men of strong passions and bad +habits; many of them abandoned men, who belonged to the refuse of +society. Such men run into an army as the wash of the street runs into +the sewers. When such a man gets clothed with a little authority, in +time of peace, you know what use he makes of it; but when he covers +himself with the "imperishable honors" of his official coat, gets an +epaulette on his shoulder, a sword by his side, a commission in his +pocket, and visions of "glory" in his head, you may easily judge how he +will use his authority, or may read in the newspapers how he has used +it. When there are brutal soldiers, commanded by brutal captains, it is +to be supposed that much brutality is to be suffered. + +Now desertion is a great offence in a soldier; in this army it is one of +the most common; for nearly ten per cent of the American army has +deserted in Mexico, not to mention the desertions before the army +reached that country. It is related that forty-eight men were hanged at +once for desertion; not hanged as you judicially murder men in time of +peace, privately, as if ashamed of the deed, in the corner of a jail, +and by a contrivance which shortens the agony, and makes death humane as +possible. These forty-eight men were hanged slowly; put to death with +painful procrastinations, their agony wilfully prolonged, and death +embittered by needless ferocity. But that is not all: it is related, +that these men were doomed to be thus murdered on the day when the +battle of Churubusco took place. These men, awaiting their death, were +told they should not suffer till the American flag should wave its +stripes over the hostile walls. So they were kept in suspense an hour, +and then slowly hanged one by one. You know the name of the officer on +whom this barbarity rests: it was Colonel Harney, a man whose +reputation was black enough and base enough before. His previous deeds, +however, require no mention here. But this man is now a General, and so +on the high road to the Presidency, whenever it shall please our +Southern masters to say the word. Some accounts say there were more than +forty-eight who thus were hanged. I only give the number of those whose +names lie printed before me as I write. Perhaps the number was less; it +is impossible to obtain exact information in respect to the matter, for +the Government has not yet published an account of the punishments +inflicted in this war. The information can only be obtained by a +"Resolution" of either house of Congress, and so is not likely to be had +before the election. But at the same time with the execution, other +deserters were scourged with fifty lashes each, branded with a letter D, +a perpetual mark of infamy on their cheek, compelled to wear an iron +yoke, weighing eight pounds, about their neck. Six men were made to dig +the grave of their companions, and were then flogged with two hundred +lashes each. + +I wish this hanging of forty-eight men could have taken place in State +street, and the respectable citizens of Boston, who like this war, had +been made to look on and see it all; that they had seen those poor +culprits bid farewell to father, mother, wife, or child, looking +wistfully for the hour which was to end their torment, and then, one by +one, have seen them slowly hanged to death; that your representative, +ye men of Boston, had put on all the halters! He did help put them on; +that infamous vote, I speak not of the motive, it may have been as +honorable as the vote itself was infamous, doomed these eight and forty +men to be thus murdered. + +Yes, I wish all this killing of the 2,000 Americans on the field of +battle, and the 10,000 Mexicans; all this slashing of the bodies of +24,000 wounded men; all the agony of the other 18,000 that have died of +disease, could have taken place in some spot where the President of the +United States and his Cabinet, where all the Congress who voted for the +war, with the Baltimore conventions of '44 and '48, and the Whig +convention of Philadelphia, and the controlling men of both political +parties, who care nothing for this bloodshed and misery they have idly +caused, could have stood and seen it all; and then that the voice of the +whole nation had come up to them and said, "This is your work, not ours. +Certainly we will not shed our blood, nor our brothers' blood, to get +never so much slave territory. It was bad enough to fight in the cause +of freedom. In the cause of slavery--God forgive us for that! We have +trusted you thus far, but please God we never will trust you again." + + * * * * * + +Let us now look at the effect of this war on the morals of the nation. +The Revolutionary war was the contest for a great idea. If there were +ever a just war it was that, a contest for national existence. Yet it +brought out many of the worst qualities of human nature on both sides, +as well as some of the best. It helped make a Washington, it is true, +but a Benedict Arnold likewise. A war with a powerful nation, terrible +as it must be, yet develops the energy of the people, promotes +self-denial, and helps the growth of some qualities of a high order. It +had this effect in England from 1798 to 1815. True, England for that +time became a despotism, but the self-consciousness of the nation, its +self-denial and energy were amazingly stimulated; the moral effect of +that series of wars was doubtless far better than of the infamous +contest which she has kept up against Ireland for many years. Let us +give even war its due: when a great boy fights with an equal, it may +develop his animal courage and strength--for he gets as bad as he gives, +but when he only beats a little boy that cannot pay back his blows, it +is cowardly as well as cruel, and doubly debasing to the conqueror. +Mexico was no match for America. We all knew that very well before the +war begun. When a nation numbering 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 of people can +be successfully invaded by an army of 75,000 men, two thirds of them +volunteers, raw, and undisciplined; when the invaders with less than +15,000 can march two hundred miles into the very heart of the hostile +country, and with less than 6,000 can take and hold the capital of the +nation, a city of 100,000 or 200,000 inhabitants, and dictate a peace, +taking as much territory as they will--it is hardly fair to dignify such +operations with the name of war. The little good which a long contest +with an equal might produce in the conqueror, is wholly lost. Had Mexico +been a strong nation we should never have had this conflict. A few years +ago, when General Cass wanted a war with England, "an old-fashioned +war," and declared it "unavoidable," all the men of property trembled. +The northern men thought of their mills and their ships; they thought +how Boston and New York would look after a war with our sturdy old +father over the sea; they thought we should lose many millions of +dollars and gain nothing. The men of the South, who have no mills and no +ships and no large cities to be destroyed, thought of their "peculiar +institution;" they thought of a servile war; they thought what might +become of their slaves, if a nation which gave $100,000,000 to +emancipate her bondmen should send a large army with a few black +soldiers from Jamaica; should offer money, arms, and freedom to all who +would leave their masters and claim their unalienable rights. They knew +the southern towns would be burnt to ashes, and the whole South, from +Virginia to the Gulf, would be swept with fire, and they said, "Don't." +The North said so, and the South; they feared such a war, with such a +foe. Everybody knows the effect which this fear had on southern +politicians, in the beginning of this century, and how gladly they made +peace with England soon as she was at liberty to turn her fleet and her +army against the most vulnerable part of the nation. I am not blind to +the wickedness of England more than ignorant of the good things she has +done and is doing; a Paradise for the rich and strong, she is still a +Purgatory for the wise and the good, and the Hell of the poor and the +weak. I have no fondness for war anywhere, and believe it needless and +wanton in this age of the world, surely needless and wicked between +Father England and Daughter America; but I do solemnly believe that the +moral effect of such an old-fashioned war as Mr. Cass in 1845 thought +unavoidable, would have been better than that of this Mexican war. It +would have ended slavery; ended it in blood no doubt, the worst thing to +blot out an evil with, but ended it and for ever. God grant it may yet +have a more peaceful termination. We should have lost millions of +property and thousands of men, and then, when peace came, we should know +what it was worth; and as the burnt child dreads the fire, no future +President, or Congress, or Convention, or Party would talk much in favor +of war for some years to come. + +The moral effect of this war is thoroughly bad. It was unjust in the +beginning. Mexico did not pay her debts; but though the United States, +in 1783, acknowledged the British claims against ourselves, they were +not paid till 1803. Our claims against England, for her depredations in +1793, were not paid till 1804; our claims against France, for her +depredations in 1806-13, were not paid us till 1834. The fact that +Mexico refused to receive the resident Minister which the United States +sent to settle the disputes, when a commissioner was expected--this was +no ground of war. We have lately seen a British ambassador ordered to +leave Spain within eight and forty hours, and yet the English Minister +of foreign affairs, Lord Palmerston, no new hand at diplomacy, declares +that this does not interrupt the concord of the two nations! We treated +Mexico contemptuously before hostilities began; and when she sent troops +into a territory which she had always possessed, though Texas had +claimed it, we declared that that was an act of war, and ourselves sent +an army to invade her soil, to capture her cities, and seize her +territory. It has been a war of plunder, undertaken for the purpose of +seizing Mexican territory, and extending over it that dismal curse which +blackens, impoverishes, and barbarizes half the Union now, and swiftly +corrupts the other half. It was not enough to have Louisiana a slave +territory; not enough to make that institution perpetual in Florida; not +enough to extend this blight over Texas--we must have yet more slave +soil, one day to be carved into Slave States, to bind the Southern yoke +yet more securely on the Northern neck; to corrupt yet more the +politics, literature, and morals of the North. The war was unjust at its +beginning; mean in its motives, a war without honorable cause; a war for +plunder; a quarrel between a great boy and a little puny weakling who +could not walk alone, and could hardly stand. We have treated Mexico as +the three Northern powers treated Poland in the last century--stooped to +conquer. Nay, our contest has been like the English seizure of Ireland. +All the justice was on one side, the force, skill, and wealth on the +other. + +I know men say the war has shown us that Americans could fight. Could +fight!--almost every male beast will fight, the more brutal the better. +The long war of the Revolution, when Connecticut, for seven years, kept +5,000 men in the field, showed that Americans could fight; Bunker Hill +and Lexington showed that they could fight, even without previous +discipline. If such valor be a merit, I am ready to believe that the +Americans, in a great cause like that of Mexico, to resist wicked +invasion, would fight as men never fought before. A republic like our +own, where every free man feels an interest in the welfare of the +nation, is full of the elements that make soldiers. Is that a praise? +Most men think so, but it is the smallest honor of a nation. Of all +glories, military glory, at its best estate, seems the poorest. + +Men tell us it shows the strength of the nation and some writers quote +the opinions of European kings who, when hearing of the battles of +Monterey, Buena Vista, and Vera Cruz, became convinced that we were "a +great people." Remembering the character of these kings, one can easily +believe that such was their judgment, and will not sigh many times at +their fate, but will hope to see the day when the last king who can +estimate a nation's strength only by its battles, has passed on to +impotence and oblivion. The power of America--do we need proof of that? +I see it in the streets of Boston and New York; in Lowell and in +Lawrence; I see it in our mills and our ships; I read it in those +letters of iron written all over the North, where he may read that runs; +I see it in the unconquered energy which tames the forest, the rivers, +and the ocean; in the school-houses which lift their modest roof in +every village of the North; in the churches that rise all over the +freeman's land: would God that they rose higher, pointing down to man +and to human duties, and up to God and immortal life! I see the strength +of America in that tide of population which spreads over the prairies of +the West, and, beating on the Rocky Mountains, dashes its peaceful spray +to the very shores of the Pacific sea. Had we taken 150,000 men and +$200,000,000, and built two railroads across the continent, that would +have been a worthy sign of the nation's strength. Perhaps those kings +could not see it; but sensible men could see it and be glad. This waste +of treasure and this waste of blood is only a proof of weakness. War is +a transient weakness of the nation, but slavery a permanent imbecility. + +What falsehood has this war produced in the executive and legislative +power; in both parties, whigs and democrats! I always thought that here +in Massachusetts the whigs were the most to blame; they tried to put the +disgrace of the war on the others, while the democratic party coolly +faced the wickedness. Did far-sighted men know that there would be a war +on Mexico, or else on the tariff or the currency, and prefer the first +as the least evil? + +See to what the war has driven two of the most famous men of the nation: +one wished to "capture or slay a Mexican;"[12] the other could encourage +the volunteers to fight a war which he had denounced as needless, "a war +of pretexts," and place the men of Monterey before the men of Bunker +Hill;[13] each could invest a son in that unholy cause. You know the +rest: the fathers ate sour grapes, and the children's teeth were set on +edge. When a man goes on board an emigrant ship, reeking with filth and +fever, not for gain, not for "glory," but in brotherly love, catches the +contagion, and dies a martyr to his heroic benevolence, men speak of it +in corners, and it is soon forgot; there is no parade in the streets; +society takes little pains to do honor to the man. How rarely is a +pension given to his widow or his child; only once in the whole land, +and then but a small sum.[14] But when a volunteer officer--for of the +humbler and more excusable men that fall we take no heed, war may mow +that crop of "vulgar deaths" with what scythe he will--falls or dies in +the quarrel which he had no concern in, falls in a broil between the two +nations, your newspapers extol the man, and with martial pomp, "sonorous +metal blowing martial sounds," with all the honors of the most honored +dead, you lay away his body in the tomb. Thus is it that the nation +teaches these little ones, that it is better to kill than to make alive. + +I know there are men in the army, honorable and high-minded men, +Christian men, who dislike war in general, and this war in special, but +such is their view of official duty, that they obeyed the summons of +battle, though with pain and reluctance. They knew not how to avoid +obedience. I am willing to believe there are many such. But with +volunteers, who, of their own accord, came forth to enlist, men not +blinded by ignorance, not driven by poverty to the field, but only by +hope of reward--what shall be said of them! Much may be said to excuse +the rank and file, ignorant men, many of them in want--but for the +leaders, what can be said? Had I a brother who, in the day of the +nation's extremity, came forward with a good conscience, and perilled +his life on the battle field, and lost it "in the sacred cause of God +and his country," I would honor the man, and when his dust came home, I +would lay it away with his fathers'; with sorrow indeed, but with +thankfulness of heart, that for conscience' sake he was ready even to +die. But had I a brother who, merely for his pay, or hope of fame, had +voluntarily gone down to fight innocent men, to plunder their territory, +and lost his life in that felonious essay--in sorrow and in silence, and +in secrecy would I lay down his body in the grave; I would not court +display, nor mark it with a single stone. + +See how this war has affected public opinion. How many of your +newspapers have shown its true atrocity; how many of the pulpits? Yet, +if any one is appointed to tell of public wrongs, it is the minister of +religion. The Governor of Massachusetts[15] is an officer of a Christian +church; a man distinguished for many excellences, some of them by no +means common: it is said, he is opposed to the war in private, and +thinks it wicked; but no man has lent himself as a readier tool to +promote it. The Christian and the man seem lost in the office, in the +Governor! What a lesson of falseness does all this teach to that large +class of persons who look no higher than the example of eminent men for +their instruction. You know what complaints have been made, by the +highest authority in the nation, because a few men dared to speak +against the war. It was "affording aid and comfort to the enemy." If the +war-party had been stronger, and feared no public opinion, we should +have had men hanged for treason, because they spoke of this national +iniquity! Nothing would have been easier. A "gag law" is not wholly +unknown in America. + +If you will take all the theft, all the assaults, all the cases of +arson, ever committed in time of peace in the United States since the +settlement of Jamestown in 1608, and add to them all the cases of +violence offered to woman, with all the murders, they will not amount to +half the wrongs committed in this war for the plunder of Mexico. Yet the +cry has been and still is, "You must not say a word against it; if you +do, you 'afford aid and comfort to the enemy.'" Not tell the nation that +she is doing wrong? What a miserable saying is that; let it come from +what high authority it may, it is a miserable saying. Make the case your +own. Suppose the United States were invaded by a nation ten times abler +for war than we are, with a cause no more just, intentions equally bad; +invaded for the purpose of dismembering our territory and making our +own New England the soil of slaves; would you be still? would you stand +and look on tamely while the hostile hosts, strangers in language, +manners, and religion, crossed your rivers, seized your ports, burnt +your towns? No, surely not. Though the men of New England would not be +able to resist with most celestial love, they would contend with most +manly vigor; and I should rather see every house swept clean off the +land, and the ground sheeted with our own dead; rather see every man, +woman, and child in the land slain, than see them tamely submit to such +a wrong: and so would you. No, sacred as life is and dear as it is, +better let it be trodden out by the hoof of war, rather than yield +tamely to a wrong. But while you were doing your utmost to repel such +formidable injustice, if in the midst of your invaders men rose up and +said, "America is in the right, and brothers, you are wrong, you should +not thus kill men to steal their land; shame on you!" how should you +feel towards such? Nay, in the struggle with England, when our fathers +perilled every thing but honor, and fought for the unalienable rights of +man, you all remember, how in England herself there stood up noble men, +and with a voice that was heard above the roar of the populace, and an +authority higher than the majesty of the throne they said, "You do a +wrong; you may ravage, but you cannot conquer. If I were an American, +while a foreign troop remained in my land, I would never lay down my +arms; no, never, never, never!" + +But I wander a little from my theme, the effect of the war on the morals +of the nation. Here are 50,000 or 75,000 men trained to kill. Hereafter +they will be of little service in any good work. Many of them were the +off-scouring of the people at first. Now these men have tasted the +idleness, the intemperance, the debauchery of a camp; tasted of its +riot, tasted of its blood! They will come home before long, hirelings of +murder. What will their influence be as fathers, husbands? The nation +taught them to fight and plunder the Mexicans for the nation's sake; the +Governor of Massachusetts called on them in the name of "patriotism" and +"humanity" to enlist for that work: but if, with no justice on our side, +it is humane and patriotic to fight and plunder the Mexicans on the +nation's account, why not for the soldier to fight and plunder an +American on his own account? Ay, why not?--that is a distinction too +nice for common minds; by far too nice for mine. + +See the effect on the nation. We have just plundered Mexico; taken a +piece of her territory larger than the thirteen states which fought the +Revolution, a hundred times as large as Massachusetts; we have burnt her +cities, have butchered her men, have been victorious in every contest. +The Mexicans were as unprotected women, we, armed men. See how the lust +of conquest will increase. Soon it will be the ambition of the next +President to extend the "area of freedom" a little further south; the +lust of conquest will increase. Soon we must have Yucatan, Central +America, all of Mexico, Cuba, Porto Rico, Hayti, Jamaica,--all the +islands of the Gulf. Many men would gladly, I doubt not, extend the +"area of freedom" so as to include the free blacks of those islands. We +have long looked with jealous eyes on West Indian emancipation--hoping +the scheme would not succeed. How pleasant it would be to reestablish +slavery in Hayti and Jamaica, in all the islands whence the gold of +England or the ideas of France have driven it out. If the South wants +this, would the North object? The possession of the West Indies would +bring much money to New England, and what is the value of freedom +compared to coffee and sugar and cotton? + +I must say one word of the effect this war has had on political parties. +By the parties I mean the leaders thereof, the men that control the +parties. The effect on the democratic party, on the majority of +Congress, on the most prominent men of the nation, has been mentioned +before. It has shut their eyes to truth and justice; it has filled their +mouths with injustice and falsehood. It has made one man "available" for +the Presidency who was only known before as a sagacious general, that +fought against the Indians in Florida, and acquired a certain +reputation by the use of bloodhounds, a reputation which was rather +unenviable even in America. The battles in northern Mexico made him +conspicuous, and now he is seized on as an engine to thrust one corrupt +party out of power, and to lift in another party, I will not say less +corrupt, I wish I could; it were difficult to think it more so. This +latter party has been conspicuous for its opposition to a military man +as ruler of a free people; recently it has been smitten with sudden +admiration for military men, and military success, and tells the people, +without a blush, that a military man fresh from a fight which he +disapproved of, is most likely to restore peace, "because most familiar +with the evils of war!" In Massachusetts the prevalent political party, +as such, for some years seems to have had no moral principle; however, +it had a prejudice in favor of decency: now it has thrown that +overboard, and has not even its respectability left. Where are its +"Resolutions?" Some men knew what they were worth long ago; now all men +can see what they are worth. + +The cost of the war in money and men I have tried to calculate, but the +effect on the morals of the people, on the press, the pulpit, and the +parties, and through them on the rising generation, it is impossible to +tell. I have only faintly sketched the outline of that. The effect of +the war on Mexico herself, we can dimly see in the distance. The +Government of the United States has wilfully, wantonly broken the peace +of the continent. The Revolutionary war was unavoidable; but for this +invasion there is no excuse. That God, whose providence watches over the +falling nation as the falling sparrow, and whose comprehensive plans are +now advanced by the righteousness and now by the wrath of man, He who +stilleth the waves of the sea and the tumult of the people, will turn +all this wickedness to account in the history of man,--of that I have no +doubt. But that is no excuse for American crime. A greater good lay +within our grasp, and we spurned it away. + +Well, before long the soldiers will come back, such as shall ever +come--the regulars and volunteers, the husbands of the women whom your +charity fed last winter, housed and clad and warmed. They will come +back. Come, New England, with your posterity of States, go forth to meet +your sons returning all "covered with imperishable honors." Come, men, +to meet your fathers, brothers. Come, women, to your husbands and your +lovers; come. But what! is that the body of men who a year or two ago +went forth, so full of valor and of rum? Are these rags the imperishable +honors that cover them? Here is not half the whole. Where is the wealth +they hoped from the spoil of churches? But the men--"Where is my +husband?" says one; "And my son?" says another. "They fell at Jalapa, +one, and one at Cerro Gordo; but they fell covered with imperishable +honor, for 'twas a famous victory." "Where is my lover?" screams a +woman whom anguish makes respectable spite of her filth and +ignorance;--"And our father, where is he?" scream a troop of +half-starved children, staring through their dirt and rags. "One died of +the vomit at Vera Cruz. Your father, little ones, we scourged the naked +man to death at Mixcoac." + +But that troop which is left, who are in the arms of wife and child, +they are the best sermon against war; this has lost an arm and that a +leg; half are maimed in battle, or sickened with the fever; all polluted +with the drunkenness, idleness, debauchery, lust, and murder of a camp. +Strip off this man's coat, and count the stripes welted into his flesh, +stripes laid on by demagogues that love the people, "the dear people!" +See how affectionately the war-makers branded the "dear soldiers" with a +letter D, with a red-hot iron, in the cheek. The flesh will quiver as +the irons burn; no matter: it is only for love of the people that all +this is done, and we are all of us covered with imperishable honors! D +stands for deserter,--aye, and for demagogue--yes, and for demon too. +Many a man shall come home with but half of himself, half his body, less +than half his soul. + + "Alas, the mother that him bare, + If she could stand in presence there, + In that wan cheek and wasted air, + She would not know her child." + +"Better," you say, "for us better, and for themselves better by far, if +they had left that remnant of a body in the common ditch where the +soldier finds his 'bed of honor;' better have fed therewith the vultures +of a foreign soil, than thus come back." No, better come back, and live +here, mutilated, scourged, branded, a cripple, a pauper, a drunkard, and +a felon; better darken the windows of the jail and blot the gallows with +unusual shame, to teach us all that such is war, and such the results of +every "famous victory," such the imperishable honors that it brings, and +how the war-makers love the men they rule! + +O Christian America! O New England, child of the Puritans! Cradled in +the wilderness, thy swaddling garments stained with martyrs' blood, +hearing in thy youth the warwhoop of the savage and thy mother's sweet +and soul-composing hymn: + + "Hush, my child, lie still and slumber, + Holy angels guard thy bed; + Heavenly blessings, without number, + Rest upon thine infant head:" + +Come, New England, take the old banners of thy conquering host, the +standards borne at Monterey, Palo Alto, Buena Vista, Vera Cruz, the +"glorious stripes and stars" that waved over the walls of Churubusco, +Contreras, Puebla, Mexico herself, flags blackened with battle and +stiffened with blood, pierced by the lances and torn with the shot; +bring them into thy churches, hang them up over altar and pulpit, and +let little children, clad in white raiment and crowned with flowers, +come and chant their lessons for the day: + +"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. + +"Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of +God." + +Then let the priest say, "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a +reproach unto any people. Blessed is the Lord my strength, which +teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. Happy is that people +that is in such a case. Yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord, +and Jesus Christ their Saviour." + +Then let the soldiers who lost their limbs and the women who lost their +husbands and their lovers in the strife, and the men--wiser than the +children of light--who made money out of the war; let all the people, +like people and like priest, say "Amen." + + * * * * * + +But suppose these men were to come back to Boston on a day when, in +civil style, as having never sinned yourself, and never left a man in +ignorance and want to be goaded into crime, you were about to hang three +men--one for murder, one for robbery with the armed hand, and one for +burning down a house. Suppose, after the fashion of "the good old +times," you were to hang those men in public, and lead them in long +procession through your streets, and while you were welcoming these +returned soldiers and taking their officers to feast in "the Cradle of +Liberty," they should meet the sheriff's procession escorting those +culprits to the gallows. Suppose the warriors should ask, "Why, what is +that?" What would you say? Why, this: "These men, they broke the law of +God, by violence, by fire and blood, and we shall hang them for the +public good, and especially for the example, to teach the ignorant, the +low, and the weak." Suppose those three felons, the halters round their +neck, should ask also, "Why, what is that?" You would say, "They are the +soldiers just come back from war. For two long years they have been hard +at work, burning cities, plundering a nation, and butchering whole +armies of men. Sometimes they killed a thousand in a day. By their help, +the nation has stolen seven hundred thousand square miles of land!" +Suppose the culprits ask, "Where will you hang so many?" "Hang them!" is +the answer, "we shall only hang you. It is written in our Bible that one +murder makes a villain, millions a hero. We shall feast these men full +of bread and wine; shall take their leader, a rough man and a ready, one +who by perpetual robbery holds a hundred slaves and more, and make him a +king over all the land. But as you only burnt, robbed, and murdered on +so small a scale, and without the command of the President or the +Congress, we shall hang you by the neck. Our Governor ordered these men +to go and burn and rob and kill; now he orders you to be hanged, and you +must not ask any more questions, for the hour is already come." + +To make the whole more perfect--suppose a native of Loo-Choo, converted +to Christianity by your missionaries in his native land, had come hither +to have "the way of God" "expounded unto him more perfectly," that he +might see how these Christians love one another. Suppose he should be +witness to a scene like this! + + * * * * * + +To men who know the facts of war, the wickedness of this particular +invasion and its wide-extending consequences, I fear that my words will +seem poor and cold and tame. I have purposely mastered my emotion, +telling only my thought. I have uttered no denunciation against the men +who caused this destruction of treasure, this massacre of men, this +awful degradation of the moral sense. The respectable men of +Boston--"the men of property and standing" all over the State, the men +that commonly control the politics of New England, tell you that they +dislike the war. But they reelect the men who made it. Has a single man +in all New England lost his seat in any office because he favored the +war? Not a man. Have you ever known a northern merchant who would not +let his ship for the war, because the war was wicked and he a Christian? +Have you ever known a northern manufacturer who would not sell a kernel +of powder, nor a cannon-ball, nor a coat, nor a shirt for the war? Have +you ever known a capitalist, a man who lives by letting money, refuse to +lend money for the war because the war was wicked? Not a merchant, not a +manufacturer, not a capitalist. A little money--it can buy up whole +hosts of men. Virginia sells her negroes; what does New England sell? +There was once a man in Boston, a rich man too, not a very great man, +only a good one who loved his country, and there was another poor man +here, in the times that tried men's souls,--but there was not money +enough in all England, not enough promise of honors, to make Hancock and +Adams false to their sense of right. Is our soil degenerate, and have we +lost the breed of noble men? + +No, I have not denounced the men who directly made the war, or +indirectly edged the people on. Pardon me, thou prostrate Mexico, robbed +of more than half thy soil, that America may have more slaves; thy +cities burned, thy children slain, the streets of thy capital trodden by +the alien foot, but still smoking with thy children's blood: pardon me +if I seem to have forgotten thee! And you, ye butchered Americans, slain +by the vomito, the gallows, and the sword; you, ye maimed and mutilated +men, who shall never again join hands in prayer, never kneel to God once +more upon the limbs he made you; you, ye widows, orphans of these +butchered men, far off in that more sunny South, here in our own fair +land, pardon me that I seem to forget your wrongs! And thou, my Country, +my own, my loved, my native land, thou child of great ideas and mother +of many a noble son, dishonored now, thy treasure wasted, thy children +killed or else made murderers, thy peaceful glory gone, thy Government +made to pimp and pander for lust of crime, forgive me that I seem +over-gentle to the men who did and do the damning deed which wastes thy +treasure, spills thy blood, and stains thine honor's sacred fold! And +you, ye sons of men everywhere, thou child of God, Mankind, whose +latest, fairest hope is planted here in this new world,--forgive me if I +seem gentle to thy enemies, and to forget the crime that so dishonors +man, and makes this ground a slaughter-yard of men--slain, too, in +furtherance of the basest wish! I have no words to tell the pity that I +feel for them that did the deed. I only say, "Father, forgive them, for +they know full well the sin they do!" + +A sectarian church could censure a General for holding his candle in a +Catholic cathedral; it was "a candle to the Pope"; yet never dared to +blame the war. While we loaded a ship of war with corn and sent off the +Macedonian to Cork, freighted by private bounty to feed the starving +Irishman, the State sent her ships to Vera Cruz, in a cause most unholy, +to bombard, to smite, and to kill. Father! forgive the State; forgive +the church. It was an ignorant State. It was a silent church--a poor, +dumb dog, that dared not bark at the wolf who prowls about the fold, but +only at the lamb. + +Yet ye leaders of the land, know this,--that the blood of thirty +thousand men cries out of the ground against you. Be it your folly or +your crime, still cries the voice, "Where is thy brother?" That thirty +thousand--in the name of humanity I ask, "Where are they?" In the name +of justice I answer, "You slew them!" + +It was not the people who made this war. They have often enough done a +foolish thing. But it was not they who did this wrong. It was they who +led the people; it was demagogues that did it. Whig demagogues and +demagogues of the democrats; men that flatter the ignorance, the folly, +or the sin of the people, that they might satisfy their own base +purposes. In May, 1846, if the facts of the case could have been stated +to the voters, and the question put to the whole mass of the people, +"Shall we go down and fight Mexico, spending two hundred million of +dollars, maiming four and twenty thousand men, and butchering thirty +thousand; shall we rob her of half her territory?"--the lowest and most +miserable part of the nation would have said as they did say, "Yes;" +the demagogues of the nation would have said as they did say, "Yes;" +perhaps a majority of the men of the South would have said so, for the +humanity of the nation lies not there; but if it had been brought to the +great mass of the people at the North,--whose industry and skill so +increase the national wealth, whose intelligence and morals have given +the nation its character abroad,--then they, the great majority of the +land, would have said "No. We will have no war! If we want more land, we +will buy it in the open market, and pay for it honestly. But we are not +thieves, nor murderers, thank God, and will not butcher a nation to make +a slave-field out of her soil." The people would not have made this war. + + * * * * * + +Well, we have got a new territory, enough to make one hundred States of +the size of Massachusetts. That is not all. We have beaten the armies of +Mexico, destroyed the little strength she had left, the little +self-respect, else she would not so have yielded and given up half her +soil for a few miserable dollars. Soon we shall take the rest of her +possessions. How can Mexico hold them now--weakened, humiliated, divided +worse than ever within herself. Before many years, all of this northern +continent will doubtless be in the hands of the Anglo Saxon race. That +of itself is not a thing to mourn at. Could we have extended our empire +there by trade, by the Christian arts of peace, it would be a blessing +to us and to Mexico; a blessing to the world. But we have done it in the +worst way, by fraud and blood; for the worst purpose, to steal soil and +convert the cities of men into the shambles for human flesh; have done +it at the bidding of men whose counsels long have been a scourge and a +curse--at the bidding of slaveholders. They it is that rule the land, +fill the offices, buy up the North with the crumbs that fall from their +political table, make the laws, declare hostilities, and leave the North +to pay the bill. Shall we ever waken out of our sleep; shall we ever +remember the duties we owe to the world and to God, who put us here on +this new continent? Let us not despair. + +Soon we shall have all the southern part of the continent, perhaps half +the islands of the Gulf. One thing remains to do--that is, with the new +soil we have taken, to extend order, peace, education, religion; to keep +it from the blight, the crime, and the sin of slavery. That is for the +nation to do; for the North to do. God knows the South will never do it. +Is there manliness enough left in the North to do that? Has the soil +forgot its wonted faith, and borne a different race of men from those +who struggled eight long years for freedom? Do we forget our sires, +forget our God? In the day when the monarchs of Europe are shaken from +their thrones; when the Russian and the Turk abolish slavery; when +cowardly Naples awakes from her centuries of sleep, and will have +freedom; when France prays to become a Republic, and in her agony sweats +great drops of blood; while the Tories of the world look on and mock and +wag their heads; and while the Angel of Hope descends with trusting +words to comfort her,--shall America extend slavery? butcher a nation to +get soil to make a field for slaves? I know how easily the South can buy +office-hunters; whig or democrat, the price is still the same. The same +golden eagle blinds the eyes of each. But can she buy the people of the +North? Is honesty gone, and honor gone, your love of country gone, +religion gone, and nothing manly left; not even shame? Then let us +perish; let the Union perish! No, let that stand firm, and let the +Northern men themselves be slaves; and let us go to our masters and say, +"You are very few, we are very many; we have the wealth, the numbers, +the intelligence, the religion of the land; but you have the power, do +not be hard upon us; pray give us a little something, some humble +offices, or if not these at least a tariff, and we will be content." + +Slavery has already been the blight of this nation, the curse of the +North and the curse of the South. It has hindered commerce, +manufactures, agriculture. It confounds your politics. It has silenced +your ablest men. It has muzzled the pulpit, and stifled the better life +out of the press. It has robbed three million men of what is dearer +than life; it has kept back the welfare of seventeen millions more. You +ask, O Americans, where is the harmony of the Union? It was broken by +slavery. Where is the treasure we have wasted? It was squandered by +slavery. Where are the men we sent to Mexico? They were murdered by +slavery; and now the slave power comes forward to put her new minions, +her thirteenth President, upon the nation's neck! Will the North say +"Yes?" + +But there is a Providence which rules the world,--a plan in His affairs. +Shall all this war, this aggression of the slave power be for nothing? +Surely not. Let it teach us two things: Everlasting hostility to +slavery; everlasting love of Justice and of its Eternal Right. Then, +dear as we may pay for it, it may be worth what it has cost--the money +and the men. I call on you, ye men--fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, +to learn this lesson, and, when duty calls, to show that you know +it--know it by heart and at your fingers' ends! And you, ye +women--mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, I call on you to teach this +lesson to your children, and let them know that such a war is sin, and +slavery sin, and, while you teach them to hate both, teach them to be +men, and do the duties of noble, Christian, and manly men! Behind +injustice there is ruin, and above man there is the everlasting God. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[10] In the Massachusetts Quarterly Review, Vol. I. Article I. See also +the paper on the administration of Mr. Polk, in Vol. III. Art. VIII. + +[11] Mr. Trist introduced these articles into the treaty, without having +instructions from the American Government to do so; the honor, +therefore, is wholly due to him. There were some in the Senate who +opposed these articles. + +[12] See Mr. Clay's speech at the dinner in New Orleans on Forefathers' +day. + +[13] See Mr. Webster's speech to the volunteers at Philadelphia. + +[14] A case of this sort had just occurred in Boston. + +[15] Mr. George N. Briggs. + + + + +VI. + +A SERMON OF THE PERISHING CLASSES IN BOSTON.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, +ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 1846. + +MATTHEW XVIII. 14. + + It is not the will of our Father which is in heaven, that one + of these little ones should perish. + + +There are two classes of men who are weak and little: one is little by +nature, consisting of such as are born with feeble powers, not strongly +capable of self-help; the other is little by position, comprising men +that are permanently poor and ignorant. When Jesus said, It is not God's +will that one of these little ones should perish, I take it he included +both these classes--men little by nature, and men little by position. +Furthermore, I take it he said what is true, that it is not God's will +one of these little ones should perish. Now, a man may be said to perish +when he is ruined, or even when he fails to attain the degree of manhood +he might attain under the average circumstances of this present age, and +these present men. In a society like ours, and that of all nations at +this time, as hitherto, with such a history, a history of blood and +violence, cunning and fraud; resting on such a basis--a basis of +selfishness; a society wherein there is a preference of the mighty, and +a postponement of the righteous, where power is worshipped and justice +little honored, though much talked of, it comes to pass that a great +many little ones from both these classes actually perish. If Jesus spoke +the truth, then they perish contrary to the will of God, and, of course, +by some other will adverse to the will of God. In a society where the +natural laws of the body are constantly violated, where many men are +obliged by circumstances to violate them, it follows unavoidably that +many are born little by nature, and they transmit their feebleness to +their issue. The other class, men little by position, are often so +hedged about with difficulties, so neglected, that they cannot change +their condition; they bequeath also their littleness to their children. +Thus the number of little ones enlarges with the increase of society. +This class becomes perpetual; a class of men mainly abandoned by the +Christians. + +In all forms of social life hitherto devised these classes have +appeared, and it has been a serious question, What shall be done with +them? Seldom has it been the question, What shall be done for them? In +olden time the Spartans took children born with a weak or imperfect +body, children who would probably be a hinderance to the nation, and +threw them into a desert place to be devoured by the wild beasts, and so +settled that question. At this day, the Chinese, I am told, expose such +children in the streets and beside the rivers, to the humanity of +passers by; and not only such, but sound, healthy children, none the +less, who, though strong by nature, are born into a weak position. Many +of them are left to die, especially the boys. But some are saved, those +mainly girls. I will not say they are saved by the humanity of wealthier +men. They become slaves, devoted by their masters to a most base and +infamous purpose. With the exception of criminals, these abandoned +daughters of the poor, form, it is said, the only class of slaves in +that great country. + +Neither the Chinese nor the Spartan method is manly or human. It does +with the little ones, not for them. It does away with them, and that is +all. I will not decide which is the worst of the two modes, the Chinese +or the Spartan. We are accustomed to call both these nations heathen, +and take it for granted they do not know it is God's will that not one +of these little ones should perish. Be that as it may, we do not call +ourselves heathen; we pretend to know the will of God in this +particular. Let us look, therefore, and see how we have disposed of the +little ones in Boston, what we are doing for them or with them. + +Let me begin with neglected and abandoned children. We all know how +large and beautiful a provision is made for the public education of the +people. About a fourth part of the city taxes are for the public +schools. Yet one not familiar with this place is astonished at the +number of idle, vagrant boys and girls in the streets. It appears from +the late census of Boston, that there are 4,948 children between four +and fifteen who attend no school. I am not speaking of truants, +occasional absentees, but of children whose names are not registered at +school, permanent absentees. If we allow that 1,948 of these are kept in +some sort of restraint by their parents, and have, or have had, some +little pains taken with their culture at home; that they are feeble and +do not begin to attend school so early as most, or that they are +precocious, and complete their studies before fifteen, or for some other +good reason are taken from school, and put to some useful business, +there still remain 3,000 children who never attend any school, turned +loose into your streets! Suppose there is some error in the counting, +that the number is overstated one third, still there are left 2,000 +young vagrants in the streets of Boston! + +What will be the fate of these 2,000 children? Some men are superior to +circumstances; so well born they defy ill breeding. There may be +children so excellent and strong they cannot be spoiled. Surely there +are some who will learn with no school; boys of vast genius, whom you +cannot keep from learning. Others there are of wonderful moral gifts, +whom no circumstances can make vulgar; they will live in the midst of +corruption and keep clean through the innate refinement of a wondrous +soul. Out of these 2,000 children there may be two of this sort; it were +foolish to look for more than one in a thousand. The 1,997 depend mainly +on circumstances to help them; yes, to make their character. Send them +to school and they will learn. Give them good precepts, good examples, +they will also become good. Give them bad precepts, bad examples, and +they become wicked. Send them half clad and uncared for into your +streets, and they grow up hungry savages greedy for crime. + +What have these abandoned children to help them? Nothing, literally +nothing! They are idle, though their bodies crave activity. They are +poor, ill-clad, and ill-fed. There is nothing about them to foster +self-respect; nothing to call forth their conscience, to awaken and +cultivate their sense of religion. They find themselves beggars in the +wealth of a city; idlers in the midst of its work. Yes, savages in the +midst of civilization. Their consciousness is that of an outcast, one +abandoned and forsaken of men. In cities, life is intense amongst all +classes. So the passions and appetites of such children are strong and +violent. Their taste is low; their wants clamorous. Are religion and +conscience there to abate the fever of passion and regulate desire? The +moral class and the cultivated shun these poor wretches, or look on with +stupid wonder. Our rule is that the whole need the physician, not the +sick. They are left almost entirely to herd and consort with the basest +of men; they are exposed early and late to the worst influences, and +their only comrades are men whom the children of the rich are taught to +shun as the pestilence. To be poor is hard enough in the country, where +artificial wants are few, and those easily met, where all classes are +humbly clad, and none fare sumptuously every day. But to be poor in the +city, where a hundred artificial desires daily claim satisfaction, and +where, too, it is difficult for the poor to satisfy the natural and +unavoidable wants of food and raiment; to be hungry, ragged, dirty, amid +luxury, wantonness and refinement; to be miserable in the midst of +abundance, that is hard beyond all power of speech. Look, I will not say +at the squalid dress of these children, as you see them prowling about +the markets and wharves, or contending in the dirty lanes and by-places +into which the pride of Boston has elbowed so much of her misery; look +at their faces! Haggard as they are, meagre and pale and wan, want is +not the worst thing written there, but cunning, fraud, violence and +obscenity, and worst of all, fear! + +Amid all the science and refined culture of the nineteenth century, +these children learn little; little that is good, much that is bad. In +the intense life around them, they unavoidably become vicious, obscene, +deceitful and violent. They will lie, steal, be drunk. How can it be +otherwise? + +If you could know the life of one of those poor lepers of Boston, you +would wonder, and weep. Let me take one of them at random out of the +mass. He was born, unwelcome, amid wretchedness and want. His coming +increased both. Miserably he struggles through his infancy, less tended +than the lion's whelp. He becomes a boy. He is covered only with rags, +and those squalid with long accumulated filth. He wanders about your +streets, too low even to seek employment, now snatching from a gutter +half rotten fruit which the owner flings away. He is ignorant; he has +never entered a school-house; to him even the alphabet is a mystery. He +is young in years, yet old in misery. There is no hope in his face. He +herds with others like himself, low, ragged, hungry and idle. If misery +loves company, he finds that satisfaction. Follow him to his home at +night; he herds in a cellar; in the same sty with father, mother, +brothers, sisters, and perhaps yet other families of like degree. What +served him for dress by day, is his only bed by night. + +Well, this boy steals some trifle, a biscuit, a bit of rope, or a knife +from a shop-window; he is seized and carried to jail. The day comes for +trial. He is marched through the streets in handcuffs, the companion of +drunkards and thieves, thus deadening the little self-respect which +Nature left even in an outcast's bosom. He sits there chained like a +beast; a boy in irons! the sport and mockery of men vulgar as the common +sewer. His trial comes. Of course he is convicted. The show of his +countenance is witness against him. His rags and dirt, his ignorance, +his vagrant habits, his idleness, all testify against him. That face so +young, and yet so impudent, so sly, so writ all over with embryo +villany, is evidence enough. The jury are soon convinced, for they see +his temptations in his look, and surely know that in such a condition +men will steal: yes, they themselves would steal. The judge represents +the law, and that practically regards it a crime even for a boy to be +weak and poor. Much of our common law, it seems to me, is based on +might, not right. So he is hurried off to jail at a tender age, and made +legally the companion of felons. Now the State has him wholly in her +power; by that rough adoption, has made him her own child, and sealed +the indenture with the jailer's key. His handcuffs are the symbol of his +sonship to the State. She shuts him in her college for the Little. What +does that teach him; science, letters; even morals and religion? Little +enough of this, even in Boston, and in most counties of Massachusetts, I +think, nothing at all, not even a trade which he can practise when his +term expires! I have been told a story, and I wish it might be falsely +told, of a boy, in this city, of sixteen, sent to the house of +correction for five years because he stole a bunch of keys, and coming +out of that jail at twenty-one, unable to write, or read, or calculate, +and with no trade but that of picking oakum. Yet he had been five years +the child of the State, and in that college for the poor! Who would +employ such a youth; with such a reputation; with the smell of the jail +in his very breath? Not your shrewd men of business, they know the risk; +not your respectable men, members of churches and all that; not they! +Why it would hurt a man's reputation for piety to do good in that way. +Besides, the risk is great, and it argues a great deal more Christianity +than it is popular to have, for a respectable man to employ such a +youth. He is forced back into crime again. I say, forced, for honest men +will not employ him when the State shoves him out of the jail. Soon you +will have him in the court again, to be punished more severely. Then he +goes to the State Prison, and then again, and again, till death +mercifully ends his career! + +Who is to blame for all that? I will ask the best man among the best of +you, what he would have become, if thus abandoned, turned out in +childhood, and with no culture, into the streets, to herd with the +wickedest of men! Somebody says, there are "organic sins" in society +which nobody is to blame for. But by this sin organized in society, +these vagrant children are training up to become thieves, pirates and +murderers. I cannot blame them. But there is a terrible blame somewhere, +for it is not the will of God that one of these little ones should +perish. Who is it that organizes the sin of society? + + * * * * * + +Let us next look at the parents of these vagrants, at the adult poor. It +is not easy or needed for this purpose, to define very nicely the limits +of a class, and tell where the rich end, and the poor begin. However, +men may, in reference to this matter, be divided into three classes. The +first acts on society mainly by their capital; the second mainly by +their skill, mental and manual, by educated labor; and the third by +their muscles, by brute force with little or no skill, uneducated labor. +The poor, I take it, come mainly from this latter class. Education of +head or hand, a profession or a trade, is wealth in possibility; yes, +wealth in prospect, wealth in its process of accumulation, for wealth +itself is only accumulated labor, as learning is accumulated thought. +Most of our rich men have come out of this class which acts by its +skill, and their children in a few years will return to it. I am not now +to speak of men transiently poor, who mend their condition as the hours +go by, who may gain enough, and perhaps become rich; but of men +permanently poor, whom one year finds wanting, and the next leaves no +better off; men that live, as we say, from hand to mouth, but whose +hand and mouth are often empty. Even here in Boston, there is little of +the justice that removes causes of poverty, though so much of the +charity which alleviates its effects. Those men live, if you can call it +life, crowded together more densely, I am told, than in Naples or Paris, +in London or Liverpool. Boston has its ghetto, not for the Jews as at +Prague and at Rome, but for brother Christians. In the quarters +inhabited mainly by the poor, you find a filthiness and squalor which +would astonish a stranger. The want of comfort, of air, of water, is +terrible. Cold is a stern foe in our winters, but in these places, I am +told that men suffer more from want of water in summer, than want of +fire in winter.[16] If your bills of mortality were made out so as to +show the deaths in each ward of the city, I think all would be +astonished at the results. Disease and death are the result of causes, +causes too that may for a long time be avoided, and in the more favored +classes are avoided. It is not God's will that the rich be spared and +the poor die. Yet the greatest mortality is always among the poor. Out +of each hundred Catholics who died in Boston, from 1833 to 1838, more +than sixty-one were less than five years of age. The result for the last +six years is no better. Of one hundred children born amongst them, only +thirty-eight live five years; only eleven become fifty! Gray-haired +Irishmen we seldom see. Yet they are not worse off than others equally +poor, only we can more distinctly get at the facts. In the war with +disease which mankind is waging, the poor stand in front of the fire, +and are mowed down without pity! + +Of late years, in Boston, there has been a gradual increase in the +mortality of children.[17] I think we shall find the increase only among +the children of the poor. Of course it depends on causes which may be +removed, at least modified, for the average life of mankind is on the +increase. I am told, I know not if the authority be good, that mortality +among the poor is greater in Boston than in any city of Europe. + +Of old times the rich man rode into battle, shirted with mail, covered +and shielded with iron from head to foot. Arrows glanced from him as +from a stone. He came home unhurt and covered with "glory." But the +poor, in his leathern jerkin or his linen frock, confronted the war, +where every weapon tore his unprotected flesh. In the modern, perennial +battle with disease, the same thing takes place; the poor fall and die. + +The destruction of the poor is their poverty. They are ignorant, not +from choice but necessity. They cannot, therefore, look round and see +the best way of doing things, of saving their strength, and sparing +their means. They can have little of what we call thrift, the brain in +the hand for which our people are so remarkable. Some of them are also +little by nature, ill-born; others well born enough, were abandoned in +childhood, and have not since been able to make up the arrears of a +neglected youth. They are to fight the great battle of life, for battle +it is to them, with feeble arms. Look at the houses they live in, +without comfort or convenience, without sun, or air, or water; damp, +cold, filthy and crowded to excess. In one section of the city there are +thirty-seven persons on an average in each house. + +Consider the rents paid by this class of our brothers. It is they who +pay the highest rate for their dwellings. The worth of the house is +often little more than nothing, the ground it covers making the only +value. I am told that twelve or fifteen per cent a year on a large +valuation is quite commonly paid, and over thirty per cent on the actual +value, is not a strange thing. I wish this might not prove true. + +But the misery of the poor does not end with their wretched houses and +exorbitant rent. Having neither capital nor store-room, they must +purchase articles of daily need in the smallest quantities. They buy, +therefore, at the greatest disadvantage, and yet at the dearest rates. I +am told it is not a rare thing for them to buy inferior qualities of +flour at six cents a pound, or $11.88 a barrel, while another man buys +a month's supply at a time for $4 or $5 a barrel. This may be an extreme +case, but I know that in some places in this city, an inferior article +is now retailed to them at $7.92 the barrel. So it is with all kinds of +food; they are bought in the smallest quantities, and at a rate which a +rich man would think ruinous. Is not the poor man, too, most often +cheated in the weight and the measure? So it is whispered. "He has no +friends," says the sharper; "others have broken him to fragments, I will +grind him to powder!" And the grinding comes. + +Such being the case, the poor man finds it difficult to get a cent +beforehand. I know rich men tell us that capital is at the mercy of +labor. That may be prophecy; it is not history; not fact. Uneducated +labor, brute force without skill, is wholly at the mercy of capital. The +capitalist can control the market for labor, which is all the poor man +has to part with. The poor cannot combine as the rich. True, a mistake +is sometimes made, and the demand for labor is greater than the supply, +and the poor man's wages are increased. This result was doubtless God's +design, but was it man's intention? The condition of the poor has +hitherto been bettered, not so much by the design of the strong, as by +God making their wrath and cupidity serve the weak. + +Under such circumstances, what marvel that the poor man becomes +unthrifty, reckless and desperate? I know how common it is to complain +of the extravagance of the poor. Often there is reason for the +complaint. It is a wrong thing, and immoral, for a man with a dependent +family to spend all his earnings, if it be possible to live with less. I +think many young men are much to be blamed, for squandering all their +wages to please a dainty palate, or to dress as fine as a richer man, +making only the heart of their tailor foolishly glad. Such men may not +be poor now, but destine themselves to be the fathers of poor children. +After making due allowance, it must be confessed that much of the +recklessness of the poor comes unavoidably from their circumstances; +from their despair of ever being comfortable, except for a moment at a +time. Every one knows that unmerited wealth tempts a man to squander, +while few men know, what is just as true, that hopeless poverty does the +same thing. As the tortured Indian will sleep, if his tormentor pause +but a moment, so the poor man, grown reckless and desperate, forgets the +future storms, and wastes in revel the solitary gleam of sunlight which +falls on him. It is nature speaking through his soul. + +Now consider the moral temptations before such men. Here is wealth, +food, clothing, comfort, luxury, gold, the great enchanter of this age, +and but a plank betwixt it and them. Nay, they are shut from it only by +a pane of glass thin as popular justice, and scarcely less brittle! They +feel the natural wants of man; the artificial wants of men in cities. +They are indignant at their social position, thrust into the mews and +the kennels of the land. They think some one is to blame for it. A man +in New England does not believe it God's will he should toil for ever, +stinting and sparing only to starve the more slowly to death, overloaded +with work, with no breathing time but the blessed Sunday. They see +others doing nothing, idle as Solomon's lilies, yet wasting the unearned +bread God made to feed the children of the poor. They see crowds of idle +women elegantly clad, a show of loveliness, a rainbow in the streets, +and think of the rag which does not hide their daughter's shame. They +hear of thousands of baskets of costly wine imported in a single ship, +not brought to recruit the feeble, but to poison the palate of the +strong. They begin to ask if wealthy men and wise men have not forgotten +their brothers, in thinking of their own pleasure! It is not the poor +alone who ask that. In the midst of all this, what wonder is it if they +feel desirous of revenge; what wonder that stores and houses are broken +into, and stables set afire! Such is the natural effect of misery like +that; it is but the voice of our brother's blood crying to God against +us all. I wonder not that it cries in robbery and fire. The jail and the +gallows will not still that voice, nor silence the answer. I wonder at +the fewness of crimes, not their multitude. I must say that, if goodness +and piety did not bear a greater proportion to the whole development of +the poor than the rich, their crimes would be tenfold. The nation sets +the poor an example of fraud, by making them pay highest on all local +taxes; of theft, by levying the national revenue on persons, not +property. Our navy and army set them the lesson of violence; and, to +complete their schooling, at this very moment we are robbing another +people of cities and lands, stealing, burning, and murdering, for lust +of power and gold. Everybody knows that the political action of a nation +is the mightiest educational influence in that nation. But such is the +doctrine the State preaches to them, a constant lesson of fraud, theft, +violence and crime. The literature of the nation mocks at the poor, +laughing in the popular journals at the poor man's inevitable crime. Our +trade deals with the poor as tools, not men. What wonder they feel +wronged! Some city missionary may dawdle the matter as he will; tell +them it is God's will they should be dirty and ignorant, hungry, cold +and naked. Now and then a poor woman starving with cold and hunger may +think it true. But the poor know better; ignorant as they are, they know +better. Great Nature speaks when you and I are still. They feel +neglected, wronged, and oppressed. What hinders them from following the +example set by the nation, by society, by the strong? Their inertness, +their cowardice, and, what does not always restrain abler men, their +fear of God! With cultivated men, the intellect is often developed at +the expense of conscience and religion. With the poor this is more +seldom the case. + +The misfortunes of the poor do not end here. To make their degradation +total, their name infamous, we have shut them out of our churches. Once +in our Puritan meeting-houses, there were "body seats" for the poor; for +a long time free galleries, where men sat and were not ashamed. Now it +is not so. A Christian society about to build a church, and having +$50,000, does not spend $40,000 for that, making it a church for all, +and keep $10,000 as a fund for the poor. No, it borrows $30,000 more, +and then shuts the poor out of its bankrupt aisles. A high tower, or a +fine-toned bell, yes, marble and mahogany, are thought better than the +presence of these little ones whom God wills not to perish. I have heard +ministers boast of the great men, and famous, who sat under their +preaching; never one who boasted that the poor came into his church, and +were fed, body and soul! You go to our churches--the poor are not in +them. They are idling and lounging away their day of rest, like the +horse and the ox. Alas me, that the apostles, that the Christ himself +could not worship in our churches, till he sold his garment and bought a +pew! Many of our houses of public worship would be well named, "Churches +for the affluent." Yet religion is more to the poor man than to the +rich. What wonder then, if the poor lose self-respect, when driven from +the only churches where it is thought respectable to pray! + +This class of men are perishing; yes, perishing in the nineteenth +century; perishing in Boston, wealthy, charitable Boston; perishing soul +and body, contrary to God's will; and perishing all the worse because +they die slow, and corrupt by inches. As things now are, their mortality +is hardly a curse. The Methodists are right in telling them this world +is a valley of tears; it is almost wholly so to them; and Heaven a long +June day, full of rest and plenty. To die is their only gain; their only +hope. Think of that, you who murmur because money is "tight," because +your investment gives only twenty per cent. a year, or because you are +taxed for half your property, meaning to move off next season; think of +that, you who complain because the democrats are in power to-day, and +you who tremble lest the whigs shall be in '49; think of that, you who +were never hungry, nor athirst; who are sick, because you have nothing +else to do, and grumble against God, from mere emptiness of soul, and +for amusement's sake; think of men, who, if wise, do not dare to raise +the human prayer for life, but for death, as the only gain, the only +hope, and you will give over your complaint, your hands stopping your +mouth. + +What shall become of the children of such men? They stand in the +fore-front of the battle, all unprotected as they are; a people +scattered and peeled, only a miserable remnant reaches the age of ten! +Look about your streets, and see what does become of such as live, +vagrant and idle boys. Ask the police, the constables, the jails; they +shall tell you what becomes of the sons. Will a white lily grow in a +common sewer; can you bleach linen in a tan-pit? Yes, as soon as you can +rear a virtuous population, under such circumstances. Go to any State +Prison in the land, and you shall find that seven-eighths of the +convicts came from this class, brought there by crimes over which they +had no control; crimes which would have made you and me thieves and +pirates. The characters of such men are made for them, far more than by +them. There is no more vice, perhaps, born into that class; they have no +more "inherited sin" than any other class in the land; all the +difference, then, between the morals and manners of rich and poor, is +the result of education and circumstances. + +The fate of the daughters of the poor is yet worse. Many of them are +doomed to destruction by the lust of men, their natural guardians and +protectors. Think of an able, "respectable" man, comfortable, educated +and "Christian," helping debase a woman, degrade her in his eyes, her +eyes, the eyes of the world! Why it is bad enough to enslave a man, but +thus to enslave a woman--I have no words to speak of that. The crime +and sin, foul, polluting and debasing all it touches, has come here to +curse man and woman, the married and the single, and the babe unborn! It +seems to me as if I saw the Genius of this city stand before God, +lifting his hands in agony to heaven, crying for mercy on woman, +insulted and trodden down, for vengeance on man, who treads her thus +infamously into the dust. The vengeance comes, not the mercy. Misery in +woman is the strongest inducement to crime. Where self-respect is not +fostered; where severe toil hardly holds her soul and body together amid +the temptations of a city, and its heated life, it is no marvel to me +that this sin should slay its victims, finding woman an easy prey. + +Let me follow the children of the poor a step further--I mean to the +jail. Few men seem aware of the frightful extent of crime amongst us, +and the extent of the remedy, more awful yet. In less than one year, +namely, from the 9th of June, 1845, to the 2d of June, 1846, there were +committed to your House of Correction, in this city, 1,228 persons, a +little more than one out of every fifty-six in the whole population that +is more than ten years old. Of these 377 were women; 851 men. Five were +sentenced for an indefinite period, and forty-seven for an additional +period of solitary imprisonment. In what follows, I make no account of +that. But the whole remaining period of their sentences amounts to more +than 544 years, or 198,568 days. In addition to this, in the year ending +with June 9, 1846, we sent from Boston to the State Prison, thirty-five +more, and for a period of 18,595 days, of which 205 were solitary. Thus +it appears that the illegal and convicted crime of Boston, in one year, +was punished by imprisonment for 217,163 days. Now as Boston contains +but 114,366 persons of all ages, and only 69,112 that are over ten years +of age, it follows that the imprisonment of citizens of Boston for crime +in one year, amounts to more than one day and twenty-one hours, for each +man, woman, and child, or to more than three days and three hours, for +each one over ten years of age. This seems beyond belief, yet in making +the estimate, I have not included the time spent in jail before +sentence; I have left out the solitary imprisonment in the House of +Correction; I have said nothing of the 169 children, sentenced for crime +to the House of Reformation in the same period. + +What is the effect of this punishment on society at large? I will not +now attempt to answer that question. What is it on the criminals +themselves? Let the jail-books answer. Of the whole number, 202 were +sentenced for the second time; 131 for the third; 101 for the fourth; +thirty-eight for the fifth; forty for the sixth; twenty-nine for the +seventh; twenty-three for the eighth; twelve for the ninth; fifty for +the tenth time, or more; and of the criminals punished for the tenth +time, thirty-one were women! Of the thirty-five sent to the State +Prison, fourteen had been there before; of the 1,228 sent to the House +of Correction, only 626 were sent for the first time. + +There are two classes, the victims of society, and the foes of society, +the men that organize its sins, and then tell us nobody is to blame. May +God deal mercifully with the foes; I had rather take my part with the +victims. Yet is there one who wishes to be a foe to mankind? + +Here are the sons of the poor, vagrant in your streets, shut out by +their misery from the culture of the age; growing up to fill your jails, +to be fathers of a race like themselves, and to be huddled into an +infamous grave. Here are the daughters of the poor, cast out and +abandoned, the pariahs of our civilization, training up for a life of +shame and pollution, and coming early to a miserable end. Here are the +poor, daughters and sons, excluded from the refining influences of +modern life, shut out of the very churches by that bar of gold, +ignorant, squalid, hungry and hopeless, wallowing in their death! Are +these the results of modern civilization; this in the midst of the +nineteenth century, in a Christian city full of churches and gold; this +in Boston, which adds $13,000,000 a year to her actual wealth? Is that +the will of God? Tell it not in China; whisper it not in New Holland, +lest the heathen turn pale with horror, and send back your +missionaries, fearing they shall pollute the land! + + * * * * * + +There is yet another class of little ones. I mean the intemperate. +Within the last few years it seems that drunkenness has increased. I +know this is sometimes doubted. But if this fact is not shown by the +increased number of legal convictions for the crime, it is by the sight +of drunken men in public and not arrested. I think I have not visited +the city five times in the last ten months without seeing more or less +men drunk in the streets. The cause of this increase it seems to me is +not difficult to discover. All great movements go forward by +undulations, as the waves of the rising tide come up the beach. Now +comes a great wave reaching far up the shore, and then recedes. The +next, and the next, and the next falls short of the highest mark; yet +the tide is coming in all the while. You see this same undulation in +other popular movements; for example, in politics. Once the great wave +of democracy broke over the central power, washing it clean. Now the +water lies submissive beneath that rock, and humbly licks its feet. In +some other day the popular wave shall break with purifying roar clean +over that haughty stone and wash off the lazy barnacles, heaps of +corrupting drift-weed, and deadly monsters of the deep. By such +seemingly unsteady movements do popular affairs get forward. The +reformed drunkards, it is said, were violent, ill-bred, theatrical, and +only touched the surface. Many respectable men withdrew from the work +soon as the Washingtonians came to it. It was a pity they did so; but +they did. I think the conscience of New England did not trust the +reformed men; that also is a pity. They seem now to have relaxed their +efforts in a great measure, perhaps discouraged at the coldness with +which they have in some quarters been treated. I know not why it is, but +they do not continue so ably the work they once begun. Besides, the +State, it was thought, favored intemperance. It was for a long time +doubted if the license-laws were constitutional; so they were openly set +at nought, for wicked men seize on doubtful opportunities. Then, too, +temperance had gone, a few years ago, as far as it could be expected to +go until certain great obstacles were removed. Many leading men in the +land were practically hostile to temperance, and, with some remarkable +exceptions, still are. The sons of the pilgrims, last Forefathers' day, +could not honor the self-denial of the Puritans without wine! The Alumni +of Harvard University could never, till this season, keep their holidays +without strong drink.[18] If rich men continue to drink without need, +the poor will long continue to be drunk. Vices, like decayed furniture, +go down. They keep their shape, but become more frightful. In this way +the refined man who often drinks, but is never drunk, corrupts hundreds +of men whom he never saw, and without intending it becomes a foe to +society. + +Then, too, some of our influential temperance men aid us no longer. +Beecher is not here; Channing and Ware have gone to their reward. That +other man,[19] benevolent and indefatigable, where is he? He trod the +worm of the still under his feet, but the worm of the pulpit stung him, +and he too is gone; that champion of temperance, that old man eloquent, +driven out of Boston. Why should I not tell an open secret?--driven out +by rum and the Unitarian clergy of Boston. + +Whatsoever the causes may be, I think you see proofs enough of the fact, +that drunkenness has increased within the last few years. You see it in +the men drunken in the streets, in the numerous shops built to gratify +the intemperate man. Some of these are elegant and costly, only for the +rich; others so mean and dirty, that one must be low indeed to wallow +therein. But the same thing is there in both, rum, poison-drink. Many of +these latter are kept by poor men, and the spider's web of the law now +and then catches one of them, though latterly but seldom here. +Sometimes they are kept, and, perhaps, generally owned, by rich men who +drive through the net. I know how hard it is to see through a dollar, +though misery stand behind it, if the dollar be your own, and the misery +belong to your brother. I feel pity for the man who helps ruin his race, +who scatters firebrands and death throughout society, scathing the heads +of rich and poor, and old and young. I would speak charitably of such an +one as of a fellow-sinner. How he can excuse it to his own conscience is +his affair, not mine. I speak only of the fact. For a poor man there may +be some excuse; he has no other calling whereby to gain his bread; he +would not see his own children beg, nor starve, nor steal! To see his +neighbor go to ruin and drag thither his children and wife, was not so +hard. But it is not the shops of the poor men that do most harm! Had +there been none but these, they had long ago been shut, and intemperance +done with. It is not poor men that manufacture this poison; nor they who +import it, or sell by the wholesale. If there were no rich men in this +trade there would soon be no poor ones! But how does the rich man +reconcile it to his conscience? I cannot answer that. + +It is difficult to find out the number of drink-shops in the city. The +assessors say there are eight hundred and fifty; another authority makes +the number twelve hundred. Let us suppose there are but one thousand. I +think that much below the real number, for the assistant assessors +found three hundred in a single ward! These shops are open morning and +night. More is sold on Sunday, it is said, than any other day in the +week! While you are here to worship your Father, some of your brothers +are making themselves as beasts; yes, lower. You shall probably see them +at the doors of these shops as you go home; drunk in the streets this +day! To my mind, the retailers are committing a great offence. I am no +man's judge, and cannot condemn even them. There is one that judgeth. I +cannot stand in the place of any man's conscience. I know well enough +what is sin; God, only, who is a sinner. Yet I cannot think the poor man +that retails, half so bad as the rich man who distils, imports, or sells +by wholesale the infamous drug. He knew better, and cannot plead poverty +as the excuse of his crime. + +Let me mention some of the statistics of this trade before I speak of +its effects. If there are one thousand drink-shops, and each sells +liquor to the amount of only six dollars a day, which is the price of +only one hundred drams, or two hundred at the lowest shops, then we have +the sum of $2,190,000 paid for liquor to be drunk on the spot every +year. This sum is considerably more than double the amount paid for the +whole public education of the people in the entire State of +Massachusetts! In Boston alone, last year, there were distilled, +2,873,623 gallons of spirit. In five years, from 1840 to 1845, Boston +exported 2,156,990, and imported 2,887,993 gallons. They burnt up a man +the other day, at the distillery in Merrimack street. You read the story +in the daily papers, and remember how the by-standers looked on with +horror to see the wounded man attempting with his hands to fend off the +flames from his naked head! Great Heaven! It was not the first man that +distillery has burned up! No, not by thousands. You see men about your +streets, all afire; some half-burnt down; some with all the soul burned +out, only the cinders left of the man, the shell and wall, and that +tumbling and tottering, ready to fall. Who of you has not lost a +relative, at least a friend, in that withering flame, that terrible +_Auto da fe_, that hell-fire on earth? + +Let us look away from that. I wish we could look on something to efface +that ghastly sight. But see the results of this trade. Do you wonder at +the poverty just now spoken of; at the vagrant children? In the Poor +House at Albany, at one time, there were 633 persons, and of them 615 +were intemperate! Ask your city authorities how many of the poor are +brought to their Almshouse directly or remotely by intemperance! Do you +wonder at the crime which fills your jails, and swells the tax of county +and city? Three fourths of the petty crime in the State comes from this +source directly or remotely. Your jails were never so full before! When +the parents are there, what is left for the children? In Prussia, the +Government which imprisons the father takes care of the children, and +sends them to school. Here they are forced into crime. + +As I gave some statistics of the cause, let me also give some of the +effects. Two years ago your Grand Jury reports that one of the city +police, on Sunday morning, between the hours of twelve and two, in +walking from Cornhill square to Cambridge street, passed more than one +hundred persons more or less drunk! In 1844 there were committed to your +House of Correction, for drunkenness, 453 persons; in 1845, 595; in +1846, up to the 24th of August, that is, in seven months and twenty-four +days, 446. Besides there have been already in this year, 396 complained +of at the Police Court and fined, but not sent to the House of +Correction. Thus, in seven months and twenty-four days, 842 persons have +been legally punished for public drunkenness. In the last two months and +a half 445 persons were thus punished. In the first twenty-four days of +this month, ninety-four! In the last year there were 4,643 persons +committed to your watch-houses, more than the twenty-fifth of the whole +population. The thousand drink-shops levy a direct tax of more than +$2,000,000. That is only the first outlay. The whole ultimate cost in +idleness, sickness, crime, death and broken hearts--I leave you to +calculate that! The men who live in the lower courts, familiar with the +sinks of iniquity, speak of this crime as "most awful!" Yet in this +month and the last, there were but nine persons indicted for the illegal +sale of the poison which so wastes the people's life! The head of your +Police and the foreman of your last Grand Jury are prominent in that +trade. + +Does the Government know of these things; know of their cause? One would +hope not. The last Grand Jury in their public report, after speaking +manfully of some actual evils, instead of pointing at drunkenness and +bar-rooms, direct your attention "to the increased number of omnibuses +and other large carriages in the streets." + + * * * * * + +These are sad things to think of in a Christian church. What shall we do +for all these little ones that are perishing? "Do nothing," say some. +"Am I my brother's keeper?" asked the first Cain, after killing that +brother. He thought the answer would be, "No! you are not." But he was +his brother's keeper, and Abel's blood cried from the ground for +justice, and God heard it. Some say we can do nothing. I will never +believe that a city which in twelve years can build near a thousand +miles of railroad, hedge up the Merrimack and the lakes of New +Hampshire; I will never believe that a city, so full of the hardiest +enterprise and the noblest charity, cannot keep these little ones from +perishing. Why the nation can annex new States and raise armies at +uncounted cost. Can it not extirpate pauperism, prevent intemperance, +pluck up the causes of the present crime? All that is lacking is the +prudent will! + +It seems as if something could easily be done to send the vagrant +children to school; at least to give them employment, and so teach them +some useful art. If some are Catholics, and will not attend the +Protestant schools, perhaps it would be as possible to have a special +and separate school for the Irish as for the Africans. It was recently +proposed in a Protestant assembly to found Sunday Schools, with Catholic +teachers for Catholic children. The plan is large and noble, and +indicates a liberality which astonishes one even here, where some men +are ceasing to be sectarian and becoming human. Much may be done to +bring many of the children to our Sunday and week-day schools, as they +now are, and so brands be snatched from the burning. The State Farm +School for juvenile offenders, which a good man last winter suggested to +your Legislature, will doubtless do much for these idle boys, and may be +the beginning of a greater and better work. Could the State also take +care of the children when it locks the parents in a jail, there would be +a nearer approach to justice and greater likelihood of obtaining its +end. Still the laws act cumbrously and slow. The great work must be done +by good men, acting separately or in concert, in their private way. You +are your brother's keeper; God made you so. If you are rich, +intelligent, refined and religious, why you are all the more a keeper to +the poor, the weak, the vulgar and the wicked. In the pauses of your +work there will be time to do something. In the unoccupied hours of the +Sunday there is yet leisure to help a brother's need. If there are times +when you are disposed to murmur at your own hard lot, though it is not +hard; or hours when grief presses heavy on your heart, go and look after +these children, find them employment, and help them to start in life; +you will find your murmurings are ended, and your sorrow forgot. + +It does not seem difficult to do something for the poor. It would be +easy to provide comfortable and convenient houses and at a reasonable +rate. The experiment has been tried by one noble-hearted man, and thus +far works well. I trust the same plan, or one better, if possible, will +soon be tried on a larger scale, and so repeated, till we are free from +that crowding together of miserable persons, which now disgraces our +city. It seems to me that a store might be established where articles of +good quality should be furnished to the poor at cost. Something has +already been done in this way, by the "Trade's Union," who need it much +less. A practical man could easily manage the details of such a scheme. +All reform and elevation of this class of men must begin by mending +their circumstances, though of course it must not end there. Expect no +improvement of men that are hungry, naked, and cold. Few men respect +themselves in that condition. Hope not of others what would be +impossible for you! + +You may give better pay when that is possible. I can hardly think it the +boast of a man, that he has paid less for his labor than any other in +his calling. But it is a common boast, though to me it seems the glory +of a pirate! I cannot believe there is that sharp distinction between +week-day religion and Sunday religion, or between justice and charity, +that is sometimes pretended. A man both just and charitable would find +his charity run over into his justice, and the mixture improve its +quality. When I remember that all value is the result of work, and see +likewise that no man gets rich by his own work, I cannot help thinking +that labor is often wickedly underpaid, and capital sometimes as grossly +over-fed. I shall believe that capital is at the mercy of labor, when +the two extremes of society change places. Is it Christian or manly to +reduce wages in hard times, and not raise them in fair times? and not +raise them again in extraordinary times? Is it God's will that large +dividends and small wages should be paid at the same time? The duty of +the employer is not over, when he has paid "the hands" their wages. +Abraham is a special providence for Eliezer, as God, the universal +providence, for both. The usages of society make a sharp distinction +between the rich and poor; but I cannot believe the churches have done +wisely, by making that distinction appear through separating the two, in +their worship. The poor are, undesignedly, driven out of the respectable +churches. They lose self-respect; lose religion. Those that remain, what +have they gained by this expulsion of their brothers? A beautiful and +costly house, but a church without the poor. The Catholics were wiser +and more humane than that. I cannot believe the mightiest abilities and +most exquisite culture were ever too great to preach and apply +Christianity among the poor; and that "the best sermons would be wasted +on them." Yet such has not been the practical decision here! I trust we +shall yet be able to say of all our churches, however costly, "There the +rich and poor meet together." They are now equally losers by the +separation. The seventy ministers of Boston--how much they can do for +this class of little ones, if they will! + +It has been suggested by some kindly and wise men, that there should be +a Prisoners' Home established, where the criminal, on being released +from jail, could go and find a home and work. As the case now is, there +is almost no hope for the poor offender. "Legal justice" proves often +legal vengeance, and total ruin to the poor wretch on whom it falls; it +grinds him to powder! All reform of criminals, without such a place, +seems to me worse than hopeless. If possible, such an institution seems +more needed for the women, than even for the men: but I have not now +time to dwell on this theme. You know the efforts of two good men +amongst us, who, with slender means, and no great encouragement from the +public, are indeed the friends of the prisoner.[20] God bless them in +their labors. + +We can do something in all these schemes for helping the poor. Each of +us can do something in his own sphere, and now and then step out of that +sphere to do something more. I know there are many amongst you, who only +require a word before they engage in this work, and some who do not +require even that, but are more competent than I to speak that word. +Your Committee of Benevolent Action have not been idle. Their works +speak for them. + + * * * * * + +For the suppression of intemperance, redoubled efforts must be made. Men +of wealth, education and influence must use their strength of nature, or +position, to protect their brothers, not drive them down to ruin. +Temperance cannot advance much further among the people, until this +class of men lend their aid; at least, until they withdraw the obstacles +they have hitherto and so often opposed to its progress. They must +forbear the use, as well as the traffic. I cannot but think the time is +coming, when he who makes or sells this poison as a drink, will be +legally ranked with other poisoners, with thieves, robbers, and +house-burners; when a fortune acquired by such means will be thought +infamous, as one now would be if acquired by piracy! I know good men +have formerly engaged in this trade; they did it ignorantly. Now, we +know the unavoidable effects thereof. I trust the excellent example +lately set by the Government of the University, will be followed at all +public festivals. + +We must still have a watchful eye on the sale of this poison. It is not +the low shops which do the most harm, but the costly tippling-houses +which keep the low ones in countenance, and thus shield them from the +law and public feeling. It seems as if a law were needed, making the +owner of a tippling-house responsible for the illegal sale of liquors +there. Then the real offender might be reached, who now escapes the +meshes of the law. + +It has long ago been suggested that a Temperance Home was needed for the +reformation of the unfortunate drunkard. It is plain that the jail does +not reform him. Those sent to jail for drunkenness are, on the average, +sentenced no less than five times; some of them, fifteen or twenty +times! Of what use to shut a man in a jail, and release him with the +certainty that he will come out no better, and soon return for the same +offence? When as much zeal and ability are directed to cure this +terrible public malady, as now go to increase it, we shall not thus +foolishly waste our strength. You all know how much has been done by one +man in this matter;[21] that in four years he saved three hundred +drunkards from the prison, two hundred of whom have since done well! If +it be the duty of the State to prevent crime, not avenge it, is it not +plain what is the way? + +However, a reform in this matter will be permanent only through a deeper +and wider reform elsewhere. Drunkenness and theft in its various illegal +forms, are confined almost wholly to the poorest class. So long as there +is unavoidable misery, like the present, pauperism and popular +ignorance; so long as thirty-seven are crowded into one house, and that +not large; so long as men are wretched and without hope, there will be +drunkenness. I know much has been done already; I think drunkenness will +never be respectable again, or common amongst refined and cultivated +men; it will be common among the ignorant, the outcast and the +miserable, so long as the present causes of poverty, ignorance and +misery continue. For that continuance, and the want, the crime, the +unimaginable wretchedness and death of heart which comes thereof, it is +not these perishing little ones, but the strong that are responsible +before God! It will not do for your grand juries to try and hide the +matter by indicting "omnibuses and other large carriages;" the voice of +God cries, Where is thy brother?--and that brother's blood answers from +the ground. + +What I have suggested only palliates effects; it removes no cause;--of +that another time. These little ones are perishing here in the midst of +us. Society has never seriously sought to prevent it, perhaps has not +been conscious of the fact. It has not so much legislated for them as +against them. Its spirit is hostile to them. If the mass of able-headed +men were in earnest about this, think you they would allow such +unthrifty ways, such a waste of man's productive energies? Never! no, +never. They would repel the causes of this evil as now an invading army. +The removal of these troubles must be brought about by a great change in +the spirit of society. Society is not Christian in form or spirit. So +there are many who do not love to hear Christianity preached and +applied, but to have some halting theology set upon its crutches. They +like, on Sundays, to hear of the sacrifice, not to have mercy and +goodness demanded of them. A Christian State after the pattern of that +divine man, Jesus--how different it would be from this in spirit and in +form! + +Taking all this whole State into account, things, on the whole, are +better here, than in any similar population, after all these evils. I +think there can be no doubt of that; better now, on the whole, than +ever before. A day's work will produce a greater quantity of needful +things than hitherto. So the number of little ones that perish is +smaller than heretofore, in proportion to the whole mass. I do not +believe the world can show such examples of public charity as this city +has afforded in the last fifty years. Alas! we want the justice which +prevents causes no less than the charity which palliates effects. See +yet the unnatural disparity in man's condition: bloated opulence and +starving penury in the same street! See the pauperism, want, +licentiousness, intemperance and crime in the midst of us; see the havoc +made of woman; see the poor deserted by their elder brother, while it is +their sweat which enriches your ground, builds your railroads, and piles +up your costly houses. The tall gallows stands in the back-ground of +society, overlooking it all; where it should be the blessed gospel of +the living God. + +What we want to remove the cause of all this is the application of +Christianity to social life. Nothing less will do the work. Each of us +can help forward that by doing the part which falls in his way. +Christianity, like the eagle's flight, begins at home. We can go +further, and do something for each of these classes of little ones. Then +we shall help others do the same. Some we may encourage to practical +Christianity by our example; some we may perhaps shame. Still more, we +can ourselves be pure, manly, Christian; each of us that, in heart and +life. We can build up a company of such, men of perpetual growth. Then +we shall be ready not only for this special work now before us, to +palliate effects, but for every Christian and manly duty when it comes. +Then, if ever some scheme is offered which is nobler and yet more +Christian than what we now behold, it will find us booted, and girded, +and road-ready. + +I look to you to do something in this matter. You are many; most of you +are young. I look to you to set an example of a noble life, human, clean +and Christian, not debasing these little ones, but lifting them up. Will +you cause them to perish; you? I know you will not. Will you let them +perish? I cannot believe it. Will you not prevent their perishing? +Nothing less is your duty. + +Some men say they will do nothing to help liberate the slave, because he +is afar off, and "our mission is silence!" Well--here are sufferers in a +nearer need. Do you say, I can do but little to Christianize society! +Very well, do that little, and see if it does not amount to much, and +bring its own blessing--the thought that you have given a cup of cold +water to one of the little ones. Did not Jesus say, "Inasmuch as ye have +done it unto one of the least of these ye have done it unto me?" + +Since last we met, one of our number[22] has taken that step in life +commonly called death. He was deeply interested and active in the +movement for the perishing classes of men. After his spirit had passed +on, a woman whom he had rescued, and her children with her, from +intemperance and ruin, came and laid her hand on that cold forehead +whence the kindly soul had fled, and mourning that her failures had +often grieved his heart before, vowed solemnly to keep steadfast +forever, and go back to evil ways no more! Who would not wish his +forehead the altar for such a vow? what nobler monument to a good man's +memory! The blessing of those ready to perish fell on him. If his hand +cannot help us, his example may. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[16] This evil is now happily removed, and all men rejoice in a cheap +and abundant supply of pure water. + +[17] See the valuable tables and remarks, by Mr. Shattuck, in his Census +of Boston, pp. 136-177. + +[18] For this much needed reform at the academical table, we are +indebted to the Hon. Edward Everett, the President of Harvard College. +For this he deserves the hearty thanks of the whole community. + +[19] Rev. John Pierpont. + +[20] The editors of the "Prisoners' Friend." + +[21] Mr. John Augustus. + +[22] Nathaniel F. Thayer, aged 29. + + + + +VII. + +A SERMON OF MERCHANTS.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER +22, 1846. + +ECCLESIASTICUS XXVII. 2. + + As a nail sticketh fast between the joinings of the stones; + so doth sin stick close between buying and selling. + + +I ask your attention to a Sermon of Merchants, their Position, +Temptations, Opportunities, Influence and Duty. For the present purpose, +men may be distributed into four classes. + +I. Men who create new material for human use, either by digging it out +of mines and quarries, fishing it out of the sea, or raising it out of +the land. These are direct producers. + +II. Men who apply their head and hands to this material and transform it +into other shapes, fitting it for human use; men that make grain into +flour and bread, cotton into cloth, iron into needles or knives, and the +like. These are indirect producers; they create not the material, but +its fitness, use, or beauty. They are manufacturers. + +III. Men who simply use these things, when thus produced and +manufactured. They are consumers. + +IV. Men who buy and sell: who buy to sell, and sell to buy the more. +They fetch and carry between the other classes. These are distributors; +they are the Merchants. Under this name I include the whole class who +live by buying and selling, and not merely those conventionally called +merchants, to distinguish them from small dealers. This term comprises +traders behind counters and traders behind desks; traders neither behind +counters nor desks. + +There are various grades of merchants. They might be classed and +symbolized according as they use a basket, a wheelbarrow, a cart, a +stall, a booth, a shop, a warehouse, counting-room, or bank. Still all +are the same thing--men who live by buying and selling. A ship is only a +large basket, a warehouse, a costly stall. Your peddler is a small +merchant going round from house to house with his basket to mediate +between persons; your merchant only a great peddler sending round from +land to land with his ships to mediate between nations. The Israelitish +woman who sits behind a bench in her stall on the Rialto at Venice, +changing gold into silver and copper, or loaning money to him who leaves +hat, coat, and other collaterals in pledge, is a small banker. The +Israelitish man who sits at Frankfort on the Maine, changes drafts into +specie, and lends millions to men who leave in pledge a mortgage on the +States of the Church, Austria or Russia--is a pawnbroker and +money-changer on a large scale. By this arithmetic, for present +convenience, all grades of merchants are reduced to one +denomination--men who live by buying and selling. + +All these four classes run into one another. The same man may belong to +all at the same time. All are needed. At home a merchant is a mediator +to go between the producer and the manufacturer; between both and the +consumer. On a large scale he is the mediator who goes between +continents, between producing and manufacturing States, between both and +consuming countries. The calling is founded in the state of society, as +that in a compromise between man's permanent nature and transient +condition. So long as there are producers and consumers, there must be +distributors. The value of the calling depends on its importance; its +usefulness is the measure of its respectability. The most useful calling +must be the noblest. If it is difficult, demanding great ability and +self-sacrifice, it is yet more noble. A useless calling is disgraceful; +one that injures mankind--infamous. Tried by this standard, the +producers seem nobler than the distributors; they than the mere +consumers. This may not be the popular judgment now, but must one day +become so, for mankind is slowly learning to judge by the natural law +published by Jesus--that he who would be greatest of all, must be most +effectively the servant of all. + +There are some who do not seem to belong to any of the active classes, +who are yet producers, manufacturers, and distributors by their head, +more than their hand; men who have fertile heads, producers, +manufacturers, and distributors of thought, active in the most creative +way. Here, however, the common rule is inverted: the producers are +few--men of genius; the manufacturers many--men of talent; the +distributors--men of tact, men who remember, and talk with tongue or +pen, their name is legion. I will not stop to distribute them into their +classes, but return to the merchant. + +The calling of the merchant acquires a new importance in modern times. +Once nations were cooped up, each in its own country and language. Then +war was the only mediator between them. They met but on the +battle-field, or in solemn embassies to treat for peace. Now trade is +the mediator. They meet on the exchange. To the merchant, no man who can +trade is a foreigner. His wares prove him a citizen. Gold and silver are +cosmopolitan. Once, in some of the old governments, the magistrates +swore, "I will be evil-minded towards the people, and will devise +against them the worst thing I can." Now they swear to keep the laws +which the people have made. Once the great question was, How large is +the standing army? Now, What is the amount of the national earnings? +Statesmen ask less about the ships of the line, than about the ships of +trade. They fear an over-importation oftener than a war, and settle +their difficulties in gold and silver, not as before with iron. All +ancient states were military; the modern mercantile. War is getting out +of favor as property increases and men get their eyes open. Once every +man feared death, captivity, or at least robbery in war; now the worst +fear is of bankruptcy and pauperism. + +This is a wonderful change. Look at some of the signs thereof. Once +castles and forts were the finest buildings; now exchanges, shops, +custom-houses, and banks. Once men built a Chinese wall to keep out the +strangers--for stranger and foe were the same; now men build railroads +and steamships to bring them in. England was once a strong-hold of +robbers, her four seas but so many castle-moats; now she is a great +harbor with four ship-channels. Once her chief must be a bold, cunning +fighter; now a good steward and financier. Not to strike a hard blow, +but to make a good bargain is the thing. Formerly the most enterprising +and hopeful young men sought fame and fortune in deeds of arms; now an +army is only a common sewer, and most of those who go to the war, if +they never return, "have left their country for their country's good." +In days gone by, constructive art could build nothing better than +hanging gardens, and the pyramids--foolishly sublime; now it makes +docks, canals, iron roads and magnetic telegraphs. Saint Louis, in his +old age, got up a crusade, and saw his soldiers die of the fever at +Tunis; now the King of the French sets up a factory, and will clothe his +people in his own cottons and woollens. The old Douglas and Percy were +clad in iron, and harried the land on both sides of the Tweed; their +descendants now are civil-suited men who keep the peace. No girl +trembles, though "All the blue bonnets are over the border." The warrior +has become a shopkeeper. + + "Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt; + The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt, + The Douglas in red herrings; + And noble name and cultured land, + Palace and park, and vassal band, + Are powerless to the notes of hand + Of Rothschild or the Barings." + +Of merchants there are three classes. + +I. Merchant-producers, who deal in labor applied to the direct creation +of new material. They buy labor and land, to sell them in corn, cotton, +coal, timber, salt, and iron. + +II. Merchant-manufacturers, who deal in labor applied to transforming +that material. They buy labor, wool, cotton, silk, water-privileges and +steam-power, to sell them all in finished cloth. + +III. Merchant-traders, who simply distribute the article raised or +manufactured. These three divisions I shall speak of as one body. +Property is accumulated labor; wealth or riches a great deal of +accumulated labor. As a general rule, merchants are the only men who +become what we call rich. There are exceptions, but they are rare, and +do not affect the remarks which are to follow. It is seldom that a man +becomes rich by his own labor employed in producing or manufacturing. It +is only by using other men's labor that any one becomes rich. A man's +hands will give him sustenance, not affluence. In the present condition +of society this is unavoidable; I do not say in a normal condition, but +in the present condition. + + * * * * * + +Here in America the position of this class is the most powerful and +commanding in society. They own most of the property of the nation. The +wealthy men are of this class; in practical skill, administrative +talent, in power to make use of the labor of other men, they surpass all +others. Now, wealth is power, and skill is power--both to a degree +unknown before. This skill and wealth are more powerful with us than any +other people, for there is no privileged caste, priest, king, or noble, +to balance against them. The strong hand has given way to the able and +accomplished head. Once head armor was worn on the outside, and of +brass, now it is internal and of brains. + +To this class belongs the power both of skill and of wealth, and all the +advantages which they bring. It was never so before in the whole history +of man. It is more so in the United States than in any other place. I +know the high position of the merchants in Venice, Pisa, Florence, +Nuremberg and Basel, in the middle ages and since. Those cities were +gardens in a wilderness, but a fringe of soldiers hung round their +turreted walls; the trader was dependent on the fighter, and though +their merchants became princes, they were yet indebted to the sword, and +not entirely to their calling, for defence. Their palaces were half +castles, and their ships full of armed men. Besides those were little +States. Here the merchant's power is wholly in his gold and skill. Rome +is the city of priests; Vienna for nobles; Berlin for scholars; the +American cities for merchants. In Italy the roads are poor, the +banking-houses humble; the cots of the laborer mean and bare, but +churches and palaces are beautiful and rich. God is painted as a pope. +Generally in Europe, the clergy, the soldiers, and the nobles are the +controlling class. The finest works of art belong to them, represent +them, and have come from the corporation of priests, or the corporation +of fighters. Here a new era is getting symbolized in our works of art. +They are banks, exchanges, custom-houses, factories, railroads. These +come of the corporation of merchants; trade is the great thing. Nobody +tries to secure the favor of the army or navy--but of the merchants. + +Once there was a permanent class of fighters. Their influence was +supreme. They had the power of strong arms, of disciplined valor, and +carried all before them. They made the law and broke it. Men complained, +grumbling in their beard, but got no redress. They it was that possessed +the wealth of the land. The producer, the manufacturer, the distributor +could not get rich: only the soldier, the armed thief, the robber. With +wealth they got its power; by practice gained knowledge, and so the +power thereof; or, when that failed, bought it of the clergy, the only +class possessing literary and scientific skill. They made their calling +"noble," and founded the aristocracy of soldiers. Young men of talent +took to arms. Trade was despised and labor was menial. Their science is +at this day the science of kings. When graziers travel they look at +cattle; weavers at factories; philanthropists at hospitals; dandies at +their equals and coadjutors; and kings at armies. Those fighters made +the world think that soldiers were our first men, and murder of their +brothers the noblest craft in the world; the only honorable and manly +calling. The butcher of swine and oxen was counted vulgar--the butcher +of men and women great and honorable. Foolish men of the past think so +now; hence their terror at orations against war; hence their admiration +for a red coat; their zeal for some symbol of blood in their family +arms; hence their ambition for military titles when abroad. Most foolish +men are more proud of their ambiguous Norman ancestor who fought at the +battle of Hastings--or fought not--than of all the honest mechanics and +farmers who have since ripened on the family tree. The day of the +soldiers is well-nigh over. The calling brings low wages and no honor. +It opens with us no field for ambition. A passage of arms is a passage +that leads to nothing. That class did their duty at that time. They +founded the aristocracy of soldiers--their symbol the sword. Mankind +would not stop there. Then came a milder age and established the +aristocracy of birth--its symbol the cradle, for the only merit of that +sort of nobility, and so its only distinction, is to have been born. But +mankind who stopped not at the sword, delays but little longer at the +cradle; leaping forward it founds a third order of nobility, the +aristocracy of gold, its symbol the purse. We have got no further on. +Shall we stop there? There comes a to-morrow after every to-day, and no +child of time is just like the last. The aristocracy of gold has faults +enough, no doubt, this feudalism of the nineteenth century. But it is +the best thing of its kind we have had yet; the wisest, the most human. +We are going forward and not back. God only knows when we shall stop, +and where. Surely not now, nor here. + +Now the merchants in America occupy the place which was once held by the +fighters and next by the nobles. In our country we have balanced into +harmony the centripetal power of the government, and the centrifugal +power of the people: so have national unity of action, and individual +variety of action--personal freedom. Therefore a vast amount of talent +is active here which lies latent in other countries, because that +harmony is not established there. Here the army and navy offer few +inducements to able and aspiring young men. They are fled to as the last +resort of the desperate, or else sought for their traditional glory, not +their present value. In Europe, the army, the navy, the parliament or +the court, the church and the learned professions offer brilliant prizes +to ambitious men. Thither flock the able and the daring. Here such men +go into trade. It is better for a man to have set up a mill than to have +won a battle. I deny not the exceptions. I speak only of the general +rule. Commerce and manufactures offer the most brilliant +rewards--wealth, and all it brings. Accordingly the ablest men go into +the class of merchants. The strongest men in Boston, taken as a body, +are not lawyers, doctors, clergymen, book-wrights, but merchants. I deny +not the presence of distinguished ability in each of those professions; +I am now again only speaking of the general rule. I deny not the +presence of very weak men, exceedingly weak in this class; their money +their only source of power. + +The merchants then are the prominent class; the most respectable, the +most powerful. They know their power, but are not yet fully aware of +their formidable and noble position at the head of the nation. Hence +they are often ashamed of their calling; while their calling is the +source of their wealth, their knowledge, and their power, and should be +their boast and their glory. You see signs of this ignorance and this +shame: there must not be shops under your Athenaeum, it would not be in +good taste; you may store tobacco, cider, rum, under the churches, out +of sight, you must have no shop there; it would be vulgar. It is not +thought needful, perhaps not proper, for the merchant's wife and +daughter to understand business, it would not be becoming. Many are +ashamed of their calling, and, becoming rich, paint on the doors of +their coach, and engrave on their seal, some lion, griffin, or unicorn, +with partisans and maces to suit; arms they have no right to, perhaps +have stolen out of some book of heraldry. No man paints thereon a box of +sugar, or figs, or candles couchant; a bale of cotton rampant; an axe, a +lapstone, or a shoe hammer saltant. Yet these would be noble, and +Christian withal. The fighters gloried in their horrid craft, and so +made it pass for noble, but with us a great many men would be thought +"the tenth transmitter of a foolish face," rather than honest artists of +their own fortune; prouder of being born than of having lived never so +manfully. + +In virtue of its strength and position, this class is the controlling +one in politics. It mainly enacts the laws of this State and the nation; +makes them serve its turn. Acting consciously or without consciousness, +it buys up legislators when they are in the market; breeds them when the +market is bare. It can manufacture governors, senators, judges, to suit +its purposes, as easily as it can make cotton cloth. It pays them money +and honors; pays them for doing its work, not another's. It is fairly +and faithfully represented by them. Our popular legislators are made in +its image; represent its wisdom, foresight, patriotism and conscience. +Your Congress is its mirror. + +This class is the controlling one in the churches, none the less, for +with us fortunately the churches have no existence independent of the +wealth and knowledge of the people. In the same way it buys up the +clergymen, hunting them out all over the land; the clergymen who will do +its work, putting them in comfortable places. It drives off such as +interfere with its work, saying, "Go starve, you and your children!" It +raises or manufactures others to suit its taste. + +The merchants build mainly the churches, endow theological schools; they +furnish the material sinews of the church. Hence the metropolitan +churches are in general as much commercial as the shops. + + * * * * * + +Now from this position, there come certain peculiar temptations. One is +to an extravagant desire of wealth. They see that money is power, the +most condensed and flexible form thereof. It is always ready; it will +turn any way. They see that it gives advantages to their children which +nothing else will give. The poor man's son, however well born, +struggling for a superior education, obtains his culture at a monstrous +cost; with the sacrifice of pleasure, comfort, the joys of youth, often +of eyesight and health. He must do two men's work at once--learn and +teach at the same time. He learns all by his soul, nothing from his +circumstances. If he have not an iron body as well as an iron head, he +dies in that experiment of the cross. The land is full of poor men who +have attained a superior culture, but carry a crippled body through all +their life. The rich man's son needs not that terrible trial. He learns +from his circumstances, not his soul. The air about him contains a +diffused element of thought. He learns without knowing it. Colleges open +their doors; accomplished teachers stand ready; science and art, music +and literature, come at the rich man's call. All the outward means of +educating, refining, elevating a child, are to be had for money, and for +money alone. + +Then, too, wealth gives men a social position, which nothing else save +the rarest genius can obtain, and which that, in the majority of cases +lacking the commercial conscience, is sure not to get. Many men prize +this social rank above every thing else, even above justice and a life +unstained. + +Since it thus gives power, culture for one's children, and a +distinguished social position, rank amongst men, for the man and his +child after him, there is a temptation to regard money as the great +object of life, not a means but an end; the thing a man is to get even +at the risk of getting nothing else. It "answereth all things." Here and +there you find a man who has got nothing else. Men say of such an one, +"He is worth a million!" There is a terrible sarcasm in common speech, +which all do not see. He is "worth a million," and that is all; not +worth truth, goodness, piety; not worth a man. I must say, I cannot but +think there are many such amongst us. Most rich men, I am told, have +mainly gained wealth by skill, foresight, industry, economy, by +honorable painstaking, not by trick. It may be so. I hope it is. Still +there is a temptation to count wealth the object of life--the thing to +be had if they have nothing else. + +The next temptation is to think any means justifiable which lead to that +end,--the temptation to fraud, deceit, to lying in its various forms, +active and passive; the temptation to abuse the power of this natural +strength, or acquired position, to tyrannize over the weak, to get and +not give an equivalent for what they get. If a man get from the world +more than he gives an equivalent for, to that extent he is a beggar and +gets charity, or a thief and steals; at any rate, the rest of the world +is so much the poorer for him. The temptation to fraud of this sort, in +some of its many forms, is very great. I do not believe that all trade +must be gambling or trickery, the merchant a knave or a gambler. I know +some men say so. But I do not believe it. I know it is not so now; all +actual trade, and profitable too, is not knavery. I know some become +rich by deceit. I cannot but think these are the exceptions; that the +most successful have had the average honesty and benevolence, with more +than the average industry, foresight, prudence and skill. A man foresees +future wants of his fellows, and provides for them; sees new resources +hitherto undeveloped, anticipates new habits and wants; turns wood, +stone, iron, coal, rivers and mountains to human use, and honestly earns +what he takes. I am told, by some of their number, that the merchants of +this place rank high as men of integrity and honor, above mean cunning, +but enterprising, industrious and far-sighted. In comparison with some +other places, I suppose it is true. Still I must admit the temptation to +fraud is a great one; that it is often yielded to. Few go to a great +extreme of deceit--they are known and exposed: but many to a +considerable degree. He that makes haste to be rich is seldom innocent. +Young men say it is hard to be honest; to do by others as you would wish +them to do by you. I know it need not be so. Would not a reputation for +uprightness and truth be a good capital for any man, old or young? + +This class owns the machinery of society, in great measure,--the ships, +factories, shops, water privileges, houses and the like. This brings +into their employment large masses of working men, with no capital but +muscles or skill. The law leaves the employed at the employer's mercy. +Perhaps this is unavoidable. One wishes to sell his work dear, the other +to get it cheap as he can. It seems to me no law can regulate this +matter, only conscience, reason, the Christianity of the two parties. +One class is strong, the other weak. In all encounters of these two, on +the field of battle, or in the market-place, we know the result: the +weaker is driven to the wall. When the earthen and iron vessel strike +together, we know beforehand which will go to pieces. The weaker class +can seldom tell their tale, so their story gets often suppressed in the +world's literature, and told only in outbreaks and revolutions. Still +the bold men who wrote the Bible, Old Testament and New, have told +truths on this theme which others dared not tell--terrible words which +it will take ages of Christianity to expunge from the world's memory. + +There is a strong temptation to use one's power of nature or position to +the disadvantage of the weak. This may be done consciously or +unconsciously. There are examples enough of both. Here the merchant +deals in the labor of men. This is a legitimate article of traffic, and +dealing in it is quite indispensable in the present condition of +affairs. In the Southern States, the merchant, whether producer, +manufacturer or trader, owns men and deals in their labor, or their +bodies. He uses their labor, giving them just enough of the result of +that labor to keep their bodies in the most profitable working state; +the rest of that result he steals for his own use, and by that residue +becomes rich and famous. He owns their persons and gets their labor by +direct violence, though sanctioned by law. That is slavery. He steals +the man and his labor. Here it is possible to do a similar thing: I mean +it is possible to employ men and give them just enough of the result of +their labor to keep up a miserable life, and yourself take all the rest +of the result of that labor. This may be done consciously or otherwise, +but legally, without direct violence, and without owning the person. +This is not slavery, though only one remove from it. This is the tyranny +of the strong over the weak; the feudalism of money; stealing a man's +work, and not his person. The merchants as a class are exposed to this +very temptation. Sometimes it is yielded to. Some large fortunes have +been made in this way. Let me mention some extreme cases; one from +abroad, one near at home. In Belgium the average wages of men in +manufactories is less than twenty-seven cents a day. The most skilful +women in that calling can earn only twenty cents a day, and many very +much less.[23] In that country almost every seventh man receives charity +from the public: the mortality of operatives, in some of the cities, is +ten per cent. a year! Perhaps that is the worst case which you can find +on a large scale even in Europe. How much better off are many women in +Boston who gain their bread by the needle? yes a large class of women in +all our great cities? The ministers of the poor can answer that; your +police can tell of the direful crime to which necessity sometimes drives +women whom honest labor cannot feed! + +I know it will be said, "Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the +dearest; get work at the lowest wages." Still there is another view of +the case, and I am speaking to men whose professed religion declares +that all are brothers, and demands that the strong help the weak. +Oppression of this sort is one fertile source of pauperism and crime. +How much there is of it I know not, but I think men seldom cry unless +they are hurt. When men are gathered together in large masses, as in the +manufacturing towns, if there is any oppression of this sort, it is sure +to get told of, especially in New England. But when a small number are +employed, and they isolated from one another, the case is much harder. +Perhaps no class of laborers in New England is worse treated than the +hired help of small proprietors. + +Then, too, there is a temptation to abuse their political power to the +injury of the nation, to make laws which seem good for themselves, but +are baneful to the people; to control the churches, so that they shall +not dare rebuke the actual sins of the nation, or the sins of trade, and +so the churches be made apologizers for lowness, practising infidelity +as their sacrament, but in the name of Christ and God. The ruling power +in England once published a volume of sermons, as well as a book of +prayers, which the clergy were commanded to preach. What sort of a +gospel got recommended therein, you may easily guess; and what is +recommended by the class of merchants in New England, you may as easily +hear. + + * * * * * + +But if their temptations are great, the opportunities of this class for +doing good are greater still. Their power is more readily useful for +good than ill, as all power is. In their calling they direct and +control the machinery, the capital, and thereby the productive labor of +the whole community. They can as easily direct that well as ill; for the +benefit of all, easier than to the injury of any one. They can discover +new sources of wealth for themselves, and so for the nation; they can +set on foot new enterprises, which shall increase the comfort and +welfare of man to a vast degree, and not only that, but enlarge also the +number of men, for that always greatens in a nation, as the means of +living are made easy. They can bind the rivers, teaching them to weave +and spin. The introduction of manufactures into England, and the +application of machinery to that purpose, I doubt not has added some +millions of new lives to her population in the present century--millions +that otherwise would never have lived at all. The introduction of +manufactures into the United States, the application of water-power and +steam-power to human work, the construction of canals and railroads, has +vastly increased the comforts of the living. It helps civilize, educate +and refine men; yes, leads to an increase of the number of lives. There +are men to whom the public owes a debt which no money could pay, for it +is a debt of life. What adequate sum of gold, or what honors could +mankind give to Columbus, to Faustus, to Fulton, for their works? He +that did the greatest service ever done to mankind got from his age a +bad name and a cross for his reward. There are men whom mankind are to +thank for thousands of lives; yet men who hold no lofty niche in the +temple of fame. + +By their control of the Legislature the merchants can fashion more +wisely the institutions of the land, promote the freedom of all, break +off traditionary yokes, help forward the public education of the people +by the establishment of public schools, public academies, and public +colleges. They can frame particular statutes which help and encourage +the humble and the weak, laws which prevent the causes of poverty and +crime, which facilitate for the poor man the acquisition of property, +enabling him to invest his earnings in the most profitable stocks,--laws +which bless the living, and so increase the number of lives. They can +thus help organize society after the Christian idea, and promote the +kingdom of heaven. They can make our jails institutions which really +render their inmates better, and send them out whole men, safe and +sound. We have seen them do this with lunatics, why not with those poor +wretches whom now we murder? They too can found houses of cure for +drunkards, and men yet more unfortunate when released from our prisons. + +By their control of the churches, and all our seminaries, public and +private, they can encourage freedom of thought; can promote the public +morals by urging the clergy to point out and rebuke the sins of the +nation, of society, the actual sins of men now living; can encourage +them to separate theology from mythology, religion from theology, and +then apply that religion to the State, to society and the individual; +can urge them to preach both parts of religion--morality, the love of +man, and piety, the love of God, setting off both by an appeal to that +great soul who was Christianity in one person. In this way they have an +opportunity of enlarging tenfold the practical value of the churches, +and helping weed licentiousness, intemperance, want, and ignorance and +sin, clean out of man's garden here. With their encouragement, the +clergy would form a noble army contending for the welfare of men--the +church militant, but preparing to be soon triumphant. Thus laboring, +they can put an end to slavery, abolish war, and turn all the nation's +creative energies to production--their legitimate work. + +Then they can promote the advance of science, of literature, of the +arts--the useful and the beautiful. We see what their famed progenitors +did in this way at Venice, Florence, Genoa. I know men say that art +cannot thrive in a republic. An opportunity is offered now to prove the +falsehood of that speech, to adorn our strength with beauty. A great +amount of creative, artistic talent is rising here and seeks employment. + +They can endow hospitals, colleges, normal schools, found libraries and +establish lectures for the welfare of all. He that has the wealth of a +king may spend it like a king, not for ostentation, but for use. They +can set before men examples of industry, economy, truth, justice, +honesty, charity, of religion at her daily work, of manliness in +life--all this as no other men. Their charities need not stare you in +the face; like violets their fragrance may reach you before you see +them. The bare mention of these things recalls the long list of +benefactors, names familiar to you all--for there is one thing which +this city was once more famous for than her enterprise, and that is her +Charity--the charity which flows in public;--the noiseless stream that +shows itself only in the greener growth which marks its path. + + * * * * * + +Such are the position, temptations, opportunities of this class. What is +their practical influence on Church and State--on the economy of +mankind? what are they doing in the nation? I must judge them by the +highest standard that I know, the standard of justice, of absolute +religion, not out of my own caprice. Bear with me while I attempt to +tell the truth, which I have seen. If I see it not, pity me and seek +better instruction where you can find it. But if I see a needed truth, +and for my own sake refuse to speak, bear with me no more. Bid me then +repent. I am speaking of men, strong men too, and shall not spare the +truth. + +There is always a conservative element in society; yes, an element +which resists the further application of Christianity to public affairs. +Once the fighters and their children were uppermost, and represented +that element. Then the merchants were reformatory, radical, in collision +with the nobles. They were "Whigs"--the nobles were "Tories." The +merchants formed themselves into companies, and got power from the crown +to protect themselves against the nobles, whom the crown also feared. It +is so in England now. The great revolution in the laws of trade lately +effected there, was brought about by the merchants, though opposed by +the lords. The anti-corn law league was a trades-union of merchants +contending against the owners of the soil. There the lord of land, and +by birth, is slowly giving way to the lord of money, who is powerful by +his knowledge or his wealth. There will always be such an element in +society. Here I think it is represented by the merchants. They are +backward in all reforms, excepting such as their own interest demands. +Thus they are blind to the evils of slavery, at least silent about them. +How few commercial or political newspapers in the land ever seriously +oppose this great national wickedness! Nay, how many of them favor its +extension and preservation! A few years ago, in this very city, a mob of +men, mainly from this class, it is said, insulted honest women peaceably +met to consult for the welfare of Christian slaves in a Christian +land--met to pray for them! A merchant of this city says publicly, that +a large majority of his brethren would kidnap a fugitive slave in +Boston; says it with no blush and without contradiction.[24] It was men +of this class who opposed the abolition of the slave-trade, and had it +guaranteed them for twenty years after the formation of the +Constitution; through their instigation that this foul blot was left to +defile the Republic and gather blackness from age to age; through their +means that the nation stands before the world pledged to maintain it. +They could end slavery at once, at least could end the national +connection with it, but it is through their support that it continues; +that it acquires new strength, new boldness, new territory, darkens the +nation's fame and hope, delays all other reformations in Church and +State and the mass of the people. Yes, it is through their influence +that the chivalry, the wisdom, patriotism, eloquence, yea, religion of +the free States, are all silent when the word slavery is pronounced. + +The Senate of Massachusetts represents this more than any other class. +But all last winter it could not say one word against the wickedness of +this sin, allowed to live and grow greater in the land.[25] Just before +the last election something could be said! Do speech and silence mean +the same thing? + +This class opposed abolishing imprisonment for debt, thinking it +endangered trade. They now oppose the progress of temperance and the +abolition of the gallows. They see the evils of war; they cannot see its +sin; will sustain men who help plunge the nation into its present +disgraceful and cowardly conflict; will encourage foolish young men to +go and fight in this wicked war. A great man said, or is reported to +have said, that perhaps it is not an American habit to consider the +natural justice of a war, but to count its cost! A terrible saying that! +There is a Power which considers its Justice, and will demand of us the +blood we have wickedly poured out; blood of Americans, blood of the +Mexicans! They favor indirect taxation, which is taxing the poor for +the benefit of the rich; they continue to support the causes of poverty; +as a class they are blind to this great evil of popular ignorance--the +more terrible evils of licentiousness, drunkenness and crime! They can +enrich themselves by demoralizing their brothers. I wish it was an +American habit to count the cost of that. Some "fanatic" will consider +its justice. If they see these evils they look not for their cause; at +least, strive not to remove that cause. They have long known that every +year more money is paid in Boston for poison drink to be swallowed on +the spot, a drink which does no man any good, which fills your asylums +with paupers, your jails with criminals, and houses with unutterable +misery in father, mother, wife and child,--more money every year than it +would take to build your new aqueduct and bring abundance of water fresh +to every house![26] If they have not known it, why it was their fault, +for the fact was there crying to Heaven against us all. As they are the +most powerful class, the elder brothers, American nobles if you will, it +was their duty to look out for their weaker brother. No man has strength +for himself alone. To use it for one's self alone, that is a sin. I do +not think they are conscious of the evil they do, or the evils they +allow. I speak not of motives, only of facts. + +This class controls the State. The effects of that control appear in our +legislation. I know there are some noble men in political life, who have +gone there with the loftiest motives, men that ask only after what is +right. I honor such men--honor them all the more because they seem +exceptions to a general rule; men far above the spirit of any class. I +must speak of what commonly takes place. Our politics are chiefly +mercantile, politics in which money is preferred, and man postponed. +When the two come into collision, the man goes to the wall and the +street is left clear for the dollars. A few years ago in monarchical +France a report was made of the condition of the working population in +the large manufacturing towns--a truthful report, but painful to read, +for it told of strong men oppressing the weak.[27] I do not believe that +such an undisguised statement of the good and ill could be tolerated in +democratic America; no, not of the condition of men in New England; and +what would be thought of a book setting forth the condition of the +laboring men and women of the South? I know very well what is thought of +the few men who attempt to tell the truth on this subject. I think there +is no nation in Europe, except Russia and Turkey, which cares so little +for the class which reaps down its harvests and does the hard work. +When you protect the rights of all, you protect also the property of +each and by that very act. To begin the other way is quite contrary to +nature. But our politicians cannot say too little for men, nor too much +for money. Take the politicians most famous and honored at this day, and +what have they done? They have labored for a tariff, or for free trade; +but what have they done for man? nay, what have they attempted?--to +restore natural rights to men notoriously deprived of them; +progressively to elevate their material, moral, social condition? I +think no one pretends it. Even in proclamations for Thanksgiving and +days of prayer, it is not the most needy we are bid remember. Public +sins are not pointed out to be repented of. Slaveholding States shut up +in their jails our colored seamen soon as they arrive in a southern +port. A few years ago, at a time of considerable excitement here on the +slavery question, a petition was sent from this place by some merchants +and others, to one of our Senators, praying Congress to abate that evil. +For a long time that Senator could find no opportunity to present the +petition. You know how much was said and what was done! Had the South +demanded every tenth or twentieth bale of "domestics" coming from the +North; had a petition relative to that grievance been sent to Congress, +and a Senator unreasonably delayed to present it--how much more would +have been said and done; when he came back he would have been hustled +out of Boston! When South Carolina and Louisiana sent home our +messengers--driving them off with reproach, insult, and danger of their +lives--little is said and nothing done. But if the barbarous natives of +Sumatra interfere with our commerce, why, we send a ship and lay their +towns in ruins and murder the men and women! We all know that for some +years Congress refused to receive petitions relative to slavery; and we +know how tamely that was borne by the class who commonly control +political affairs! What if Congress had refused to receive petitions +relative to a tariff, or free trade, to the shipping interest, or the +manufacturing interest? When the rights of men were concerned, three +million men, only the "fanatics" complained. The political newspapers +said "Hush!" + +The merchant-manufacturers want a protective tariff; the +merchant-importers, free trade; and so the national politics hinge upon +that question. When Massachusetts was a carrying State, she wanted free +trade; now a manufacturing State, she desires protection. That is all +natural enough; men wish to protect their interests, whatsoever they may +be. But no talk is made about protecting the labor of the rude man, who +has no capital, nor skill, nothing but his natural force of muscles. The +foreigner underbids him, monopolizing most of the brute labor of our +large towns and internal improvements. There is no protection, no talk +of protection for the carpenter, or the bricklayer. I do not complain of +that. I rejoice to see the poor wretches of the old world finding a home +where our fathers found one before. Yet if we cared for men more than +for money, and were consistent with our principles of protection, why, +we should exclude all foreign workmen, as well as their work, and so +raise the wages of the native hands. That would doubtless be very +foolish legislation--but perhaps not, on that account, very strange. I +know we are told that without protection, our hand-worker, whose capital +is his skill, cannot compete with the operative of Manchester and +Brussels, because that operative is paid but little. I know not if it be +true, or a mistake. But who ever told us such men could not compete with +the slave of South Carolina who is paid nothing? We have legislation to +protect our own capital against foreign capital; perhaps our own labor +against the "pauper of Europe;" why not against the slave labor of the +Southern States? Because the controlling class prefers money and +postpones man. Yet the slave-breeder is protected. He has, I think, the +only real monopoly in the land. No importer can legally spoil his +market, for the foreign slave is contraband. If I understand the matter, +the importation of slaves was allowed, until such men as pleased could +accumulate their stock. The reason why it was afterwards forbidden I +think was chiefly a mercantile reason: the slave-breeder wanted a +monopoly, for God knows and you know that it is no worse to steal grown +men in Africa than to steal new born babies in Maryland, to have them +born for the sake of stealing them. Free labor may be imported, for it +helps the merchant-producer and the merchant-manufacturer. Slave labor +is declared contraband, for the merchant-slave-breeders want a monopoly. + +This same preference of money over men appears in many special statutes. +In most of our manufacturing companies the capital is divided into +shares so large that a poor man cannot invest therein! This could easily +be avoided. A man steals a candlestick out of a church, and goes to the +State Prison for a year and a day. Another quarrels with a man, maims +him for life, and is sent to the common jail for six months. A bounty is +paid, or was until lately, on every gallon of intoxicating drink +manufactured here and sent out of the country. If we begin with taking +care of the rights of man, it seems easy to take care of the rights of +labor and of capital. To begin the other way is quite another thing. A +nation making laws for the nation is a noble sight. The Government of +all, by all, and for all, is a democracy. When that Government follows +the eternal laws of God, it is founding what Christ called the kingdom +of heaven. But the predominating class making laws not for the nation's +good, but only for its own, is a sad spectacle; no reasoning can make +it other than a sorry sight. To see able men prostituting their talents +to such a work, that is one of the saddest sights! I know all other +nations have set us the example, yet it is painful to see it followed, +and here. + +Our politics, being mainly controlled by this class, are chiefly +mercantile, the politics of peddlers. So political management often +becomes a trick. Hence we have many politicians, and raise a harvest of +them every year, that crop never failing, party-men who can legislate +for a class; but we have scarce one great statesman who can step before +his class, beyond his age, and legislate for a whole nation, leading the +people and giving us new ideas to incarnate in the multitude, his word +becoming flesh. We have not planters, but trimmers! A great statesman +never came of mercantile politics, only of politics considered as the +national application of religion to life. Our political morals, you all +know what they are, the morals of a huckster. This is no new thing; the +same game was played long ago in Venice, Pisa, Florence, and the result +is well known. A merely mercantile politician is very sharp-sighted and +perhaps far-sighted, but a dollar will cover the whole field of his +vision and he can never see through it. The number of slaves in the +United States is considerably greater than our whole population when we +declared Independence, yet how much talk will a tariff make, or a +public dinner; how little the welfare of three million men! Said I not +truly, our most famous politicians are, in the general way, only +mercantile party-men? Which of these men has shown the most interest in +those three million slaves? The man who in the Senate of a Christian +Republic valued them at twelve hundred million dollars! Shall +respectable men say, "We do not care what sort of a Government the +people have, so long as we get our dividends." Some say so; many men do +not say that, but think so and act accordingly! The Government, +therefore, must be so arranged that they get their dividends. + +This class of men buys up legislators, consciously or not, and pays +them, for value received. Yes, so great is its daring and its conscious +power, that we have recently seen our most famous politician bought up, +the stoutest understanding that one finds now extant in this whole +nineteenth century, perhaps the ablest head since Napoleon. None can +deny his greatness, his public services in times past, nor his awful +power of intellect. I say we have seen him, a Senator of the United +States, pensioned by this class, or a portion thereof, and thereby put +mainly in their hands! When a whole nation rises up and publicly throws +its treasures at the feet of a great man who has stood forth manfully +contending for the nation, and bids him take their honors and their gold +as a poor pay for noble works, why that sight is beautiful, the +multitude shouting hosanna to their King, and spreading their garments +underneath his feet! Man is loyal, and such honors so paid, and to such, +are doubly gracious; becoming alike to him that takes and those who +give. Yes, when a single class, to whom some man has done a great +service, goes openly and makes a memorial thereof in gold and honors +paid to him, why that also is noble and beautiful. But when a single +class, in a country where political doings are more public than +elsewhere in the whole world, secretly buys up a man, in high place and +world-famous, giving him a retaining fee for life, why the deed is one I +do not wish to call by name! Could such men do this without a secret +shame? I will never believe it of my countrymen.[28] A gift blinds a +wise man's eyes, perverts the words even of the righteous, stopping his +mouth with gold so that he cannot reprove a wrong! But there is an +absolute justice which is neither bought nor sold! I know other nations +have done the same and with like effect. Fight with silver weapons, said +the Delphic oracle, and you'll conquer all. It has always been the craft +of despots to buy up aspiring talent; some with a title; some with gold. +Allegiance to the sovereign is the same thing on both sides of the +water, whether the sovereign be an eagle or a guinea. Some American, it +is said, wrote the Lord's Prayer on one side of a dime, and the Ten +Commandments on the other. The Constitution and a considerable +commentary might perhaps be written on the two sides of a dollar! + +This class controls the Churches, as the State. Let me show the effect +of that control. I am not to try men in a narrow way, by my own +theological standard, but by the standard of manliness and Christianity. +As a general rule, the clergy are on the side of power. All history +proves this, our own most abundantly. The clergy also are unconsciously +bought up, their speech paid for, or their silence. As a class, did they +ever denounce a public sin? a popular sin? Perhaps they have. Do they do +it now and here? Take Boston for the last ten years, and I think there +has been more clerical preaching against the abolitionists than against +slavery; perhaps more preaching against the temperance movement than in +its favor. With the exception of disbelieving the popular theology, your +evangelical alliance knows no sin but "original sin," unless indeed it +be "organic sins," which no one is to blame for; no sinner but Adam and +the devil; no saving righteousness but the "imputed." I know there are +exceptions, and I would go far to do them honor, pious men who lift up a +warning, yes, bear Christian testimony against public sins. I am +speaking of the mass of the clergy. Christ said the priests of his time +had made a den of thieves out of God's house of prayer. Now they conform +to the public sins and apologize for popular crime. It is a good thing +to forgive an offence: who does not need that favor and often? But to +forgive the theory of crime, to have a theory which does that, is quite +another thing. Large cities are alike the court and camp of the +mercantile class, and what I have just said is more eminently true of +the clergy in such towns. Let me give an example. Not long ago the +Unitarian clergy published a protest against American slavery. It was +moderate, but firm, and manly. Almost all the clergy in the country +signed it. In the large towns few: they mainly young men and in the +least considerable churches. The young men seemed not to understand +their contract, for the essential part of an ecclesiastical contract is +sometimes written between the lines and in sympathetic ink. Is a +steamboat burned or lost on the waters, how many preach on that +affliction! Yet how few preached against the war? A preacher may say he +hates it as a man, no words could describe his loathing at it, but as a +minister of Christ, he dares not say a word! What clergymen tell of the +sins of Boston,--of intemperance, licentiousness; who of the ignorance +of the people; who of them lays bare our public sin as Christ of old; +who tells the causes of poverty, and thousand-handed crime; who aims to +apply Christianity to business, to legislation, politics, to all the +nation's life? Once the church was the bride of Christ, living by his +creative, animating love; her children were apostles, prophets, men by +the same spirit, variously inspired with power to heal, to help, to +guide mankind. Now she seems the widow of Christ, poorly living on the +dower of other times. Nay, the Christ is not dead, and 'tis her alimony, +not her dower. Her children--no such heroic sons gather about her table +as before. In her dotage she blindly shoves them off, not counting men +as sons of Christ. Is her day gone by? The clergy answer the end they +were bred for, paid for. Will they say, "We should lose our influence +were we to tell of this and do these things?"[29] It is not true. Their +ancient influence is already gone! Who asks, "What do the clergy think +of the tariff, or free trade, of annexation, or the war, of slavery, or +the education movement?" Why no man. It is sad to say these things. +Would God they were not true. Look round you, and if you can, come tell +me they are false. + +We are not singular in this. In all lands the clergy favors the +controlling class. Bossuet would make the monarchy swallow up all other +institutions, as in history he sacrificed all nations to the Jews. In +England the established clergy favors the nobility, the crown, not the +people; opposes all freedom of trade, all freedom in religion, all +generous education of the people: its gospel is the gospel for a class, +not Christ's gospel for mankind. Here also the sovereign is the head of +the church, it favors the prevailing power, represents the morality, the +piety which chances to be popular, nor less nor more; the Christianity +of the street, not of Christ. + +Here trade takes the place of the army, navy, and court in other lands. +That is well, but it takes also the place in great measure of science, +art and literature. So we become vulgar, and have little but trade to +show. The rich man's son seldom devotes himself to literature, science, +or art; only to getting more money, or to living in idleness on what he +has inherited. When money is the end, what need to look for any thing +more? He degenerates into the class of consumers, and thinks it an +honor. He is ashamed of his father's blood, proud of his gold. A good +deal of scientific labor meets with no reward, but itself. In our +country this falls almost wholly upon poor men. Literature, science and +art are mainly in their hands, yet are controlled by the prevalent +spirit of the nation. Here and there an exceptional man differs from +that, but the mass of writers conform. In England, the national +literature favors the church, the crown, the nobility, the prevailing +class. Another literature is rising, but is not yet national, still less +canonized. We have no American literature which is permanent. Our +scholarly books are only an imitation of a foreign type; they do not +reflect our morals, manners, politics, or religion, not even our rivers, +mountains, sky. They have not the smell of our ground in their breath. +The real American literature is found only in newspapers and speeches, +perhaps in some novel, hot, passionate, but poor, and extemporaneous. +That is our national literature. Does that favor man--represent man? +Certainly not. All is the reflection of this most powerful class. The +truths that are told are for them, and the lies. Therein the prevailing +sentiment is getting into the form of thought. Politics represent the +morals of the controlling class, the morals and manners of rich Peter +and David on a large scale. Look at that index, you would sometimes +think you were not in the Senate of a great nation, but in a board of +brokers, angry and higgling about stocks. Once in the nation's loftiest +hour, she rose inspired and said: "All men are born equal, each with +unalienable rights; that is self-evident." Now she repents her of the +vision and the saying. It does not appear in her literature, nor church, +nor state. Instead of that, through this controlling class, the nation +says: "All dollars are equal, however got; each has unalienable rights. +Let no man question that!" This appears in literature and legislation, +church and state. The morals of a nation, of its controlling class, +always get summed up in its political action. That is the barometer of +the moral weather. The voters are always fairly represented. + + * * * * * + +The wicked baron, bad of heart, and bloody of hand, has passed off with +the ages which gave birth to such a brood, but the bad merchant still +lives. He cheats in his trade; sometimes against the law, commonly with +it. His truth is never wholly true, nor his lie wholly false. He +overreaches the ignorant; makes hard bargains with men in their trouble, +for he knows that a falling man will catch at red-hot iron. He takes the +pound of flesh, though that bring away all the life-blood with it. He +loves private contracts, digging through walls in secret. No interest is +illegal if he can get it. He cheats the nation with false invoices, and +swears lies at the custom-house; will not pay his taxes, but moves out +of town on the last of April.[30] He oppresses the men who sail his +ships, forcing them to be temperate, only that he may consume the value +of their drink. He provides for them unsuitable bread and meat. He would +not engage in the African slave-trade, for he might lose his ships and +perhaps more; but he is always ready to engage in the American +slave-trade, and calls you a "fanatic" if you tell him it is the worse +of the two. He cares not whether he sells cotton or the man who wears +it, if he only gets the money; cotton or negro, it is the same to him. +He would not keep a drink-hole in Ann Street, only own and rent it. He +will bring or make whole cargoes of the poison that deals "damnation +round the land." He thinks it vulgar to carry rum about in a jug, +respectable in a ship. He makes paupers, and leaves others to support +them. Tell not him of the misery of the poor, he knows better; nor of +our paltry way of dealing with public crime, he wants more jails and a +speedier gallows. You see his character in letting his houses, his +houses for the poor. He is a stone in the lame man's shoe. He is the +poor man's devil. The Hebrew devil that so worried Job is gone; so is +the brutal devil that awed our fathers. Nobody fears them; they vanish +before cock-crowing. But this devil of the nineteenth century is still +extant. He has gone into trade, and advertises in the papers; his name +is "good" in the street. He "makes money;" the world is poorer by his +wealth. He spends it as he made it, like a devil, on himself, his family +alone, or worse yet, for show. He can build a church out of his gains, +to have his morality, his Christianity preached in it, and call that the +gospel, as Aaron called a calf--God. He sends rum and missionaries to +the same barbarians, the one to damn, the other to "save," both for his +own advantage, for his patron saint is Judas, the first saint who made +money out of Christ. Ask not him to do a good deed in private, "men +would not know it," and "the example would be lost;" so he never lets a +dollar slip out between his thumb and finger without leaving his mark on +both sides of it. He is not forecasting to discern effects in causes, +nor skilful to create new wealth, only spry in the scramble for what +others have made. It is easy to make a bargain with him, hard to settle. +In politics he wants a Government that will insure his dividends; so +asks what is good for him, but ill for the rest. He knows no right, only +power; no man but self; no God but his calf of gold. + +What effect has he on young men? They had better touch poison. If he +takes you to his heart, he takes you in. What influence on society? To +taint and corrupt it all round. He contaminates trade; corrupts +politics, making abusive laws, not asking for justice but only +dividends. To the church he is the Anti-Christ. Yes, the very Devil, +and frightens the poor minister into shameful silence, or, more +shameless yet, into an apology for crime; makes him pardon the theory of +crime! Let us look on that monster--look and pass by, not without +prayer. + +The good merchant tells the truth and thrives by that; is upright and +downright; his word good as his Bible-oath. He pays for all he takes; +though never so rich he owns no wicked dollar; all is openly, honestly, +manfully earned, and a full equivalent paid for it. He owns money and is +worth a man. He is just in business with the strong; charitable in +dealing with the weak. His counting-room or his shop is the sanctuary of +fairness, justice, a school of uprightness as well as thrift. Industry +and honor go hand in hand with him. He gets rich by industry and +forecast, not by slight of hand and shuffling his cards to another's +loss. No men become the poorer because he is rich. He would sooner hurt +himself than wrong another, for he is a man, not a fox. He entraps no +man with lies, active or passive. His honesty is better capital than a +sharper's cunning. Yet he makes no more talk about justice and honesty +than the sun talks of light and heat; they do their own talking. His +profession of religion is all practice. He knows that a good man is just +as near heaven in his shop as in his church, at work as at prayer; so he +makes all work sacramental; he communes with God and man in buying and +selling--communion in both kinds. He consecrates his week-day and his +work. Christianity appears more divine in this man's deeds than in the +holiest words of apostle or saint. He treats every man as he wishes all +to treat him, and thinks no more of that than of carrying one for every +ten. It is the rule of his arithmetic. You know this man is a saint, not +by his creed, but by the letting of his houses, his treatment of all +that depend on him. He is a father to defend the weak, not a pirate to +rob them. He looks out for the welfare of all that he employs; if they +are his help he is theirs, and as he is the strongest so the greater +help. His private prayer appears in his public work, for in his devotion +he does not apologize for his sin, but asking to outgrow that, +challenges himself to new worship and more piety. He sets on foot new +enterprises which develop the nation's wealth and help others while they +help him. He wants laws that take care of man's rights, knowing that +then he can take care of himself and of his own, but hurt no man by so +doing. He asks laws for the weak, not against them. He would not take +vengeance on the wicked, but correct them. His justice tastes of +charity. He tries to remove the causes of poverty, licentiousness, of +all crime, and thinks that is alike the duty of Church and State. Ask +not him to make a statesman a party-man, or the churches an apology for +his lowness. He knows better; he calls that infidelity. He helps the +weak help themselves. He is a moral educator, a church of Christ gone +into business, a saint in trade. The Catholic saint who stood on a +pillar's top, or shut himself into a den and fed on grass, is gone to +his place--that Christian Nebuchadnezzar. He got fame in his day. No man +honors him now; nobody even imitates him. But the saint of the +nineteenth century is the good merchant; he is wisdom for the foolish, +strength for the weak, warning to the wicked, and a blessing to all. +Build him a shrine in bank and church, in the market and the exchange, +or build it not, no saint stands higher than this saint of trade. There +are such men, rich and poor, young and old; such men in Boston. I have +known more than one such, and far greater and better than I have told +of, for I purposely under-color this poor sketch. They need no word of +mine for encouragement or sympathy. Have they not Christ and God to aid +and bless them? Would that some word of mine might stir the heart of +others to be such; your hearts, young men. They rise there clean amid +the dust of commerce and the mechanic's busy life, and stand there like +great square pyramids in the desert amongst the Arabians' shifting +tents. Look at them, ye young men, and be healed of your folly. It is +not the calling which corrupts the man, but the men the calling. The +most experienced will tell you so. I know it demands manliness to make a +man, but God sent you here to do that work. + +The duty of this class is quite plain. They control the wealth, the +physical strength, the intellectual vigor of the nation. They now +display an energy new and startling. No ocean is safe from their canvas; +they fill the valleys; they level the hills; they chain the rivers; they +urge the willing soil to double harvests. Nature opens all her stores to +them; like the fabled dust of Egypt her fertile bosom teems with new +wonders, new forces to toil for man. No race of men in times of peace +ever displayed so manly an enterprise, an energy so vigorous as this +class here in America. Nothing seems impossible to them. The instinct of +production was never so strong and creative before. They are proving +that peace can stimulate more than war. + +Would that my words could reach all of this class. Think not I love to +speak hard words, and so often; say not that I am setting the poor +against the rich. It is no such thing. I am trying to set the strong in +favor of the weak. I speak for man. Are you not all brothers, rich or +poor? I am here to gratify no vulgar ambition, but in Religion's name to +tell their duty to the most powerful class in all this land. I must +speak the truth I know, though I may recoil with trembling at the words +I speak; yes, though their flame should scorch my own lips. Some of the +evils I complain of are your misfortune, not your fault. Perhaps the +best hearts in the land, no less than the ablest heads, are yours. If +the evils be done unconsciously, then it will be greatness to be higher +than society, and with your good overcome its evil. All men see your +energy, your honor, your disciplined intellect. Let them see your +goodness, justice, Christianity. The age demands of you a development of +religion proportionate with the vigor of your mind and arms. Trade is +silently making a wonderful revolution. We live in the midst of it, and +therefore see it not. All property has become movable, and therefore +power departs from the family of the first-born, and comes to the family +of mankind. God only controls this revolution, but you can help it +forward, or retard it. The freedom of labor, and the freedom of trade, +will work wonders little dreamed of yet; one is now uniting all men of +the same nation; the other, some day, will weave all tribes together +into one mighty family. Then who shall dare break its peace? I cannot +now stop to tell half the proud achievements I foresee resulting from +the fierce energy that animates your yet unconscious hearts. Men live +faster than ever before. Life, like money, like mechanical power, is +getting intensified and condensed. The application of science to the +arts, the use of wind, water, steam, electricity, for human works, is a +wonderful fact, far greater than the fables of old time. The modern +Cadmus has yoked fire and water in an iron bond. The new Prometheus +sends the fire of heaven from town to town to run his errands. We talk +by lightning. Even now these new achievements have greatly multiplied +the powers of men. They belong to no class; like air and water they are +the property of mankind. It is for you, who own the machinery of +society, to see that no class appropriates to itself what God meant for +all. Remember it is as easy to tyrannize by machinery as by armies, and +as wicked; that it is greater now to bless mankind thereby, than it was +of old to conquer new realms. Let men not curse you, as the old +nobility, and shake you off, smeared with blood and dust. Turn your +power to goodness, its natural transfiguration, and men shall bless your +name, and God bless your soul. If you control the nation's politics, +then it is your duty to legislate for the nation,--for man. You may +develop the great national idea, the equality of all men; may frame a +government which shall secure man's unalienable rights. It is for you to +organize the rights of man, thus balancing into harmony the man and the +many, to organize the rights of the hand, the head, and the heart. If +this be not done, the fault is yours. If the nation play the tyrant over +her weakest child, if she plunder and rob the feeble Indian, the feebler +Mexican, the Negro, feebler yet, why the blame is yours. Remember there +is a God who deals justly with strong and weak. The poor and the weak +have loitered behind in the march of man; our cities yet swarm with men +half-savage. It is for you, ye elder brothers, to lead forth the weak +and poor! If you do the national duty that devolves on you, then are you +the saviors of your country, and shall bless not that alone, but all the +thousand million sons of men. Toil then for that. If the church is in +your hands, then make it preach the Christian truth. Let it help the +free development of religion in the self-consciousness of man, with +Jesus for its pattern. It is for you to watch over this work, promote +it, not retard. Help build the American church. The Roman church has +been, we know what it was, and what men it bore; the English church yet +stands, we know what it is. But the church of America--which shall +represent American vigor aspiring to realize the ideas of Christianity, +of absolute religion,--that is not yet. No man has come with pious +genius fit to conceive its litany, to chant its mighty creed, and sing +its beauteous psalm. The church of America, the church of freedom, of +absolute religion, the church of mankind, where Truth, Goodness, Piety, +form one trinity of beauty, strength, and grace--when shall it come? +Soon as we will. It is yours to help it come. + +For these great works you may labor; yes, you are laboring, when you +help forward justice, industry, when you promote the education of the +people; when you practise, public and private, the virtues of a +Christian man; when you hinder these seemingly little things, you hinder +also the great. You are the nation's head, and if the head be wilful +and wicked, what shall its members do and be? To this class let me say: +Remember your Position at the head of the nation; use it not as pirates, +but Americans, Christians, men. Remember your Temptations, and be warned +in time. Remember your opportunities--such as no men ever had before. +God and man alike call on you to do your duty. Elevate your calling +still more; let its nobleness appear in you. Scorn a mean thing. Give +the world more than you take. You are to serve the nation, not it you; +to build the church, not make it a den of thieves, nor allow it to +apologize for your crime, or sloth. Try this experiment and see what +comes of it. In all things govern yourselves by the eternal law of +right. You shall build up not a military despotism, nor a mercantile +oligarchy, but a State, where the government is of all, by all, and for +all; you shall found not a feudal theocracy, nor a beggarly sect, but +the church of mankind, and that Christ which is the same yesterday, +to-day and for ever, will dwell in it, to guide, to warn, to inspire, +and to bless all men. And you, my brothers, what shall you become? Not +knaves, higgling rather than earn; not tyrants, to be feared whilst +living, and buried at last amid popular hate; but men, who thrive best +by justice, reason, conscience, and have now the blessedness of just men +making themselves perfect. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[23] I gather these facts from a Review of Major Poussin's _Belgique et +les Belges, depuis 1830_, in a foreign journal. The condition of the +merchant manufacturer I know not. + +[24] Subsequent events (in 1850 and 1851) show that he was right in his +statement. What was thought calumny then has become history since, and +is now the glory and boast of Boston. + +[25] Mr. _Robert J. Walker_ published a letter in favor of the +annexation of Texas. In it he said: "Upon the refusal of re-annexation +... THE TARIFF AS A PRACTICAL MEASURE FALLS WHOLLY AND FOR EVER, and we +shall thereafter be compelled to resort to direct taxes to support the +Government." Notwithstanding this foolish threat, a large number of +citizens of Massachusetts remonstrated against annexation. The House of +Representatives, by a large majority, passed a resolve declaring that +Massachusetts "announces her uncompromising opposition to the further +extension of American slavery," and "declares her earnest and +unalterable purpose to use every lawful and constitutional measure for +its overthrow and entire extinction," etc. But the Senate voted that the +resistance of the State was already sufficient! The passage in the text +refers to these circumstances. + +[26] It was then thought that the aqueduct would cost but $2,000,000. + +[27] I refer to the Report of M. Villerme, in the _Memoires de +l'Institut, Tom._ lxxi. + +[28] This was printed in 1846. In 1850, and since, these men have +publicly gloried in a similar act even more atrocious. + +[29] Keble, in one of his poems, represents a mother seeing her sportive +son "enacting holy rites," and thus describes her emotions: + + "She sees in heart an empty throne, + And falling, falling far away, + Him whom the Lord hath placed thereon: + She hears the dread Proclaimer say, + 'Cast ye the lot, in trembling cast, + The traitor to his place hath past,-- + Strive ye with prayer and fast to guide + The dangerous glory where it shall abide.'" + + +[30] It is the custom in Massachusetts to tax men in the place where +they reside, on the first day of May; as the taxes differ very much in +different towns of the same State, it is easy for a man to escape the +burden of taxation. + + + + +VIII. + +A SERMON OF THE DANGEROUS CLASSES IN SOCIETY.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, +ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 1847. + +MATTHEW XVIII. 12. + + If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone + astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into + the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? + + +We are first babies, then children, then youths, then men. It is so with +the nation; so with mankind. The human race started with no culture, no +religion, no morals, even no manners, having only desires and faculties +within, and the world without. Now we have attained much more. But it +has taken many centuries for mankind to pass from primeval barbarism to +the present stage of comfort, science, civilization, and refinement. It +has been the work of two hundred generations; perhaps of more. But each +new child is born at the foot of the ladder, as much as the first child; +with only desires and faculties. He may have a better physical +organization than the first child; he certainly has better teachers; +but he, in like manner, is born with no culture, no religion, no morals, +even with no manners; born into them, not with them; born bare of these +things and naked as the first child. He must himself toil up the ladder +which mankind have been so long in constructing and climbing up. To +attain the present civilization he must pass over every point which the +race passed through. The child of the civilized man, born with a good +organization and under favorable circumstances, can do this rapidly, and +in thirty or forty years attains the height of development which it took +the whole human race sixty centuries or more to arrive at. He has the +aid of past experience and the examples of noble men; he travels a road +already smooth and beaten. The world's cultivation, so slowly and +painfully achieved, helps civilize him. He may then go further on, and +cultivate himself; may transcend the development of mankind, adding new +rounds to the ladder. So doing he aids future children, who will one day +climb above his head, he possibly crying against them,--that they climb +only to fall, and thereby sweep off him and all below; that no new +rounds can be added to the old ladder. + +Still, after all the helps which our fathers have provided, every future +child must go through the same points which we and our predecessors +passed through, only more swiftly. Every boy has his animal period, +when he can only eat and sleep, intelligence slowly dawning on his mind. +Then comes his savage period, when he knows nothing of rights, when all +thine is mine to him, if he can get it. Then comes his barbarous period, +when he is ignorant and dislikes to learn; study and restraint are +irksome. He hates the school, disobeys his mother; has reverence for +nobody. Nothing is sacred to him--no time, nor place, nor person. He +would grow up wild. The greater part of children travel beyond this +stage. The unbearable boy becomes a tolerable youth; then a powerful +man. He loves his duty; outstrips the men that once led him so unwilling +and reluctant, and will set hard lessons for his grandsire which that +grandsire, perhaps, will not learn. The young learns of the old, mounts +the ladder they mounted and the ladder they made. The reverse is seldom +true, that the old climbs the ladder which the young have made, and over +that storms new heights. Now and then you see it, but such are +extraordinary and marvellous men. In the old story Saturn did not take +pains to understand his children, nor learn thereof; he only devoured +them up, till some outgrew and overmastered him. Did the generation that +is passing from the stage ever comprehend and fairly judge the new +generation coming on? In the world, the barbarian passes on and becomes +the civilized, then the enlightened. + +In the physical process of growth from the baby to the man, there is no +direct intervention of the will. Therefore the process goes on +regularly, and we do not see abortive men who have advanced in years, +but stopped growth in their babyhood, or boyhood. But as the will is the +soul of personality, so to say, the heart of intellect, morals and +religion, so the force thereof may promote, retard, disturb, and perhaps +for a time completely arrest the progress of intellectual, moral and +religious growth. Still more, this spiritual development of men is +hindered or promoted by subtle causes hitherto little appreciated. +Hence, by reason of these outward or internal hinderances, you find +persons and classes of men who do not attain the average culture of +mankind, but stop at some lower stage of this spiritual development, or +else loiter behind the rest. You even find whole nations whose progress +is so slow, that they need the continual aid of the more civilized to +quicken their growth. Outward circumstances have a powerful influence on +this development. If a single class in a nation lingers behind the rest, +the cause thereof will commonly be found in some outward hinderance. +They move in a resisting medium, and therefore with abated speed. No one +expects the same progress from a Russian serf and a free man of New +England. I do not deny that in the case of some men personal will is +doubtless the disturbing force. I am not now to go beyond that fact, and +inquire how the will became as it is. Here is a man who, from whatever +cause, is bodily ill-born, with defective organs. He stops in the animal +period; is incapable of any considerable degree of development, +intellectual, moral, or religious. The defect is in his body. Others +disturbed by more occult causes do not attain their proper growth. This +man wishes to stop in his savage period, he would be a freebooter, a +privateer against society, having universal letters-of-marque and +reprisal; a perpetual Arab, his rule is to get what he can, as he will +and where he pleases, to keep what he gets. Another stops at the +barbarous age. He is lazy and will not work, others must bear his share +of the general burden of mankind. He claims letters patent to make all +men serve him. He is not only indolent, constitutionally lazy, but lazy, +consciously and wilfully idle. He will not work, but in one form or +another will beg or steal. Yet a fourth stops in the half-civilized +period. He will work with his hands, but no more. He cannot discover; he +will not study to learn; he will not even be taught what has been +invented and taught before. None can teach him. The horse is led to the +water, or the water brought to the horse, but the beast will not drink. +"The idle fool is whipt at school," but to no purpose. He is always an +oaf. No college or tutor mends him. The wild ass will go out free, wild, +and an ass. + +These four, the idiot, the pirate, the thief, and the clown are +exceptional men. They remain stationary. Meanwhile, mankind advances, +continually, but not with an even front. The human race moves not by +column or line, but by _echelon_ as it were. We go up by stairs, not by +slopes. Now comes a great man, of far-reaching and prospective sight, a +Moses, and he tells men that there is a land of promise, which they have +a right to who have skill to win it. Then lesser men, the Calebs and +Joshuas, go and search it out, bringing back therefrom new wine in the +cluster and alluring tales. Next troops of pioneers advance, yet lesser +men; then a few bold men who love adventure. Then comes the army, the +people with their flocks and herds, the priesthood with their ark of the +covenant and the tabernacle, the title-deeds of the new lands which they +have heard of but not seen. At last there comes the mixed multitude, +following in no order, but not without shouting and tumult, men treading +one another under foot, cowards looking back and refusing to march, old +men dying without seeing their consolation. If you will lie down on the +ground and take the profile of a great city, and see how hill, steeple, +dome, tower, the roof of the tall house, gain on the sky, and then come +whole streets of warehouses and shops, then common dwellings, then +cheap, low tenements, you will have a good profile of man's march to +gain new conquests in science, art, morals, religion, and general +development. It is so in the family, a bright boy shooting before all +the rest, and taking the thunder out of the adverse cloud for his +brothers and sisters, who follow and grow rich with unscathed forehead. +It is so in the nation, a few great men bearing the brunt of the storm, +and wading through the surges to set their weaker brothers, screaming +and struggling, with dry feet, in safety, on the firm land of science or +religion. It is so in the world, a tall nation achieving art, science, +law, morals, religion, and by the fact revealing their beauty to the +barbarian race. + +In all departments of human concern there are such pioneers for the +family, the nation or mankind. It is instructive to study this law of +human progress, to see the De Gamas and Columbuses, aspiring men who +dream of worlds to come and lead the perilous van; to see the Vespuccis, +the Cortezes, the Pizarros, who get rank and fame by following in their +track; to see next the merchant adventurers, soldiers, sutlers and the +like, who make money out of the new conquest, while the great +discoverers had for meet reward the joy of their genius, the nobleness +of their work, a sight of the world's future welfare from the prophet's +mountain--a hard life, a bad name, and a grave unknown. + +Now while there are those men in the van of society, who aspire at more, +chiding and taxing mankind with idleness, cowardice, and even sin, there +are yet those others who loiter on the way, from weakness or wilfulness, +refusing to advance--idlers, cowards, sinners. If born in the rear, +afar from civilization, they are left to die--the savages, the inferior +races, the perishing classes of the world. If born in the centre of +civilization, for a while they impede the march by actively hindering +others, by standing in their way, or by plundering the rest--the +dangerous classes of society. They too are slain and trodden under foot +of men, and likewise perish. + +In most large families there is a bad boy, a black sheep in the flock, +an Ishmael whom Abraham will drive out into the wilderness, to meet an +angel if he can find one. That story of Hagar and her son is very old, +but verified anew each year in families and nations. So in society there +are criminals who do not keep up with the moral advance of the mass, +stragglers from the march, whom society treats as Abraham his base-born +boy, but sending them off with no loaf or skin of water, not even a +blessing, but a curse; sending them off as Cain went, with a bad name +and a mark on their forehead! So in the world there are inferior +nations, savage, barbarous, half-civilized; some are inferior in nature, +some perhaps only behind us in development; on a lower form in the great +school of Providence--Negroes, Indians, Mexicans, Irish, and the like, +whom the world treats as Ishmael and the Gibeonites got treated: now +their land is stolen from them in war; their children, or their persons, +are annexed to the strong as slaves. The civilized continually preys on +the savage, reannexing their territory and stealing their +persons--owning them or claiming their work. Esau is rough and hungry, +Jacob smooth and well fed. The smooth man overreaches the rough; buys +his birthright for a mess of pottage; takes the ground from underneath +his feet, thereby supplanting his brother. So the elder serves the +younger, and the fresh civilization, strong, and sometimes it may be +wicked also, overmasters the ruder age that is contented to stop. The +young man now a barbarian will come up one day and take all our places, +making us seem ridiculous, nothing but timid conservatives! + +All these three, the reputed pests of the family, society, and the +world, are but loiterers from the march, bad boys, or dull ones. +Criminals are a class of such; savages are nations thereof--classes or +nations that for some cause do not keep up with the movement of mankind. +The same human nature is in us all, only there it is not so highly +developed. Yet the bad boy, who to-day is a curse to the mother that +bore him, would perhaps have been accounted brave and good in the days +of the Conqueror; the dangerous class might have fought in the Crusades +and been reckoned soldiers of the Lord whose chance for heaven was most +auspicious. The savage nations would have been thought civilized in the +days when "there was no smith in Israel." David would make a sorry +figure among the present kings of Europe, and Abraham would be judged +of by a standard not known in his time. There have been many centuries +in which the pirate, the land-robber and the murderer were thought the +greatest of men. + +Now it becomes a serious question, What shall be done for these +stragglers, or even with them? It is sometimes a terrible question to +the father and mother what they shall do for their reprobate son who is +an offence to the neighborhood, a shame, a reproach and a heart-burning +to them. It is a sad question to society, What shall be done with the +criminals--thieves, housebreakers, pirates, murderers? It is a serious +question to the world, What is to become of the humbler nations--Irish, +Mexicans, Malays, Indians, Negroes? + +In the world and in society the question is answered in about the same +way. In a low civilization, the instinct of self-preservation is the +strongest of all. They are done with, not for; are done away with. It is +the Old Testament answer:--The inferior nation is hewn to pieces, the +strong possess their lands, their cities, their cattle, their persons, +also, if they will; the class of criminals gets the prophet's curse: the +two bears, the jail and the gallows, eat them up. In the family alone is +the Christian answer given; the good shepherd goes forth to seek the one +sheep that has strayed and gone, lost upon the mountains; the father +goes out after the poor prodigal, whom the swine's meat could not feed +nor fill.[31] The world, which is the society of nations, and society, +which is the family of classes, still belong mainly to the "old +dispensation," Heathen or Hebrew, the period of force. In the family +there is a certain instinctive love binding the parent to the child, and +therefore a certain unity of action, growing out of that love. So the +father feels his kinship to his boy, though a reprobate; looks for the +causes of his son's folly or sin, and strives to cure him; at least to +do something for him, not merely with him. The spirit of Christianity +comes into the family, but the recognition of human brotherhood stops +mainly there. It does not reach throughout society; it has little +influence on national politics or international law--on the affairs of +the world taken as a whole. I know the idea of human brotherhood has +more influence now than hitherto; I think in New England it has a wider +scope, a higher range, and works with more power than elsewhere. Our +hearts bleed for the starving thousands of Ireland, whom we only read +of; for the down-trodden slave, though of another race and dyed by +Heaven with another hue; yes, for the savage and the suffering +everywhere. The hand of our charity goes through every land. If there is +one quality for which the men of New England may be proud it is this, +their sympathy with suffering man. Still we are far from the Christian +ideal. We still drive out of society the Ishmaels and Esaus. This we do +not so much from ill-will as want of thought, but thereby we lose the +strength of these outcasts. So much water runs over the dam--wasted and +wasting! + + * * * * * + +In all these melancholy cases what is it best to do? what shall the +parents do to mend their dull boy, or their wicked one? There are two +methods which may be tried. One is the method of force, sometimes +referred to Solomon, and recommended by the maxim, "Spare not the rod +and spoil the child." That is the Old Testament way, "Stripes are +prepared for the fool's back." The mischief is, they leave it no wiser +than they found it. By the law of the Hebrews, a man brought his +stubborn and rebellious son before the magistrates and deposed: "This +our son is stubborn and rebellious: he will not obey our voice. He is a +glutton and a drunkard." Thereupon, the men of the city stoned him with +stones and so "put away the evil from amongst them!" That was the method +of force. It may bruise the body; it may fill men with fear; it may +kill. I think it never did any other good. It belonged to a rude and +bloody age. I may ask intelligent men who have tried it, and I think +they will confess it was a mistake. I think I may ask intelligent men +on whom it has been tried, and they will say, "It was a mistake on my +father's part, but a curse to me!" I know there are exceptions to that +reply; still I think it will be general. A man is seldom elevated by an +appeal to low motives; always by addressing what is high and manly +within him. Is fear of physical pain the highest element you can appeal +to in a child; the most effectual? I do not see how Satan can be cast +out by Satan. I think a Saviour never tries it. Yet this method of force +is brief and compact. It requires no patience, no thought, no wisdom for +its application, and but a moment's time. For this reason, I think, it +is still retained in some families and many schools, to the injury alike +of all concerned. Blows and violent words are not correction, often but +an adjournment of correction: sometimes only an actual confession of +inability to correct. + +The other is the method of love, and of wisdom not the less. Force may +hide, and even silence effects for a time; it removes not the real +causes of evil. By the method of love and wisdom the parents remove the +causes; they do not kill the demoniac, they cast out the demon, not by +letting in Beelzebub, the chief devil, but by the finger of God. They +redress the child's folly and evil birth by their own wisdom and good +breeding. The day drives out and off the night. + +Sometimes you see that worthy parents have a weak and sickly child, +feeble in body. No pains are too great for them to take in behalf of the +faint and feeble one. What self-denial of the father; what sacrifice on +the mother's part! The best of medical skill is procured; the tenderest +watching is not spared. No outlay of money, time, or sacrifice is +thought too much to save the child's life; to insure a firm constitution +and make that life a blessing. The able-bodied children can take care of +themselves, but not the weak. So the affection of father and mother +centres on this sickly child. By extraordinary attention the feeble +becomes strong; the deformed is transformed, and the grown man, strong +and active, blesses his mother for health not less than life. + +Did you ever see a robin attend to her immature and callow child which +some heedless or wicked boy had stolen from the nest, wounded and left +on the ground, half living; left to perish? Patiently she brings food +and water, gives it kind nursing. Tenderly she broods over it all night +upon the ground, sheltering its tortured body from the cold air of night +and morning's penetrating dew. She perils herself; never leaves it--not +till life is gone. That is nature; the strong protecting the feeble. +Human nature may pause and consider the fowls of the air, whence the +Greatest once drew his lessons. Human history, spite of all its tears +and blood, is full of beauty and majestic worth. But it shows few things +so fair as the mother watching thus over her sickly and deformed child, +feeding him with her own life. What if she forewent her native instinct +and the mother said, "My boy is deformed, a cripple--let him die?" Where +would be the more hideous deformity? + +If his child be dull, slow-witted, what pains will a good father take to +instruct him; still more if he is vicious, born with a low organization, +with bad propensities--what admonitions will he administer; what +teachers will he consult; what expedients will he try; what prayers will +he not pray for his stubborn and rebellious son! Though one experiment +fail, he tries another, and then again, reluctant to give over. Did it +never happen to one of you to be such a child, to have outgrown that +rebellion and wickedness? Remember the pains taken with you; remember +the agony your mother felt; the shame that bowed your father's head so +oft, and brought such bitter tears adown those venerable cheeks. You +cannot pay for that agony, that shame, not pay the hearts which burst +with both--yet uttering only a prayer for you. Pay it back then, if you +can, to others like yourself, stubborn and rebellious sons. + +Has none of you ever been such a father or mother? You know then the sad +yearnings of heart which tried you. The world condemned you and your +wicked child, and said, "Let the elders stone him with stones. The +gallows waiteth for its own!" Not so you! You said: "Nay, now, wait a +little. Perchance the boy will mend. Come, I will try again. Crush him +not utterly and a father's heart besides!" The more he was wicked, the +more assiduous were you for his recovery, for his elevation. You saw +that he would not keep up with the moral march of men; that he was a +barbarian, a savage, yes, almost a beast amongst men. You saw this; yes, +felt it too as none others felt. Yet you could not condemn him wholly +and without hope. You saw some good mixed with his evil; some causes for +the evil and excuses for it which others were blind to. Because you +mourned most you pitied most--all from the abundance of your love. +Though even in your highest hour of prayer, the sad conviction came that +work or prayer was all in vain--you never gave him over to the world's +reproach, but interposed your fortune, character, yes, your own person, +to take the blows which the severe and tyrannous world kept laying on. +At last if he would not repent, you hid him away, the best you could, +from the mocking sight of other men, but never shut him from your heart; +never from remembrance in your deepest prayers. How the whole family +suffers for the prodigal till he returns. When he comes back, you +rejoice over one recovered olive-plant more than over all the trees of +your field which no storm has ever broke or bowed. How you went forth to +meet him; with what joy rejoiced! "For this my son was lost and is +found," says the old man; "he was dead and is alive once more. Let us +pray and be glad!" With what a serene and hallowed countenance you met +your friends and neighbors, as their glad hearts smiled up in their +faces when the prodigal came home from riot and swine's-bread, a new man +safe and sound! Many such things have I seen, and hearts long cold grew +bright and warm again. Towards evening the clouds broke asunder; Simeon +saw his consolation and went home in sunlight and in peace. + +The general result of this treatment in the family is, that the dull boy +learns by degrees, learns what he is fit for: the straggler joins the +troop, and keeps step with the rest, nay, sometimes becomes the leader +of the march: the vicious boy is corrected; even the faults of his +organization get overcome, not suddenly, but at length. The rejected +stone finds its place on the wall, and its use. Such is not always the +result. Some will not be mended. I stop not now to ask the cause. Some +will not return, though you go out to meet them a great way off. What +then? Will you refuse to go? Can you wholly abandon a friend or a child +who thus deserts himself? Is he so bad that he cannot be made better? +Perhaps it is so. Can you not hinder him from being worse? Are you so +good that you must forsake him? Did not God send his greatest, noblest, +purest Son to seek and save the lost? send him to call sinners to +repent? When sinners slew him, did God forsake mankind? Not one of +those sinners did his love forget. + +Does the good physician spend the night in feasting with the sound, or +in watching with the sick? Nay, though the sick man be past all hope, he +will look in to soothe affliction which he cannot cure; at least to +speak a word of friendly cheer. The wise teacher spends most pains with +backward boys, and is most bountiful himself where Nature seems most +niggard in her gifts. What would you say if a teacher refused to help a +boy because the boy was slow to learn; because he now and then broke +through the rules? What if the mother said: "My boy is a sickly dunce, +not worth the pains of rearing. Let him die!" What if the father said: +"He is a born villain, to be bred only for the gallows; what use to toil +or pray for him! Let the hangman take my son!" + + * * * * * + +What shall be done for Criminals, the backward children of society, who +refuse to keep up with the moral or legal advance of mankind? They are a +dangerous class. There are three things which are sometimes confounded: +there is Error, an unintentional violation of a natural law. Sometimes +this comes from abundance of life and energy; sometimes from ignorance, +general or special; sometimes from heedlessness, which is ignorance for +the time. Next there is Crime, the violation of a human statute. +Suppose the statute also represents a law of God; the violation thereof +may be the result of ignorance, or of design, it may come from a bad +heart. Then it becomes a Sin--the wilful violation of a known law of +God. There are many errors which are not crimes; and the best men often +commit them innocently, but not without harm, violating laws of the body +or the soul, which they have not grown up to understand. There have been +many crimes; yes, conscious violations of man's law which were not sins, +but rather a keeping of God's law. There are still a great many sins not +forbidden by any human statute, not considered as crimes. It is no crime +to go and fight in a wicked war; nay, it is thought a virtue. It was a +crime in the heroes of the American Revolution to demand the unalienable +rights of man--they were "traitors" who did it; a crime in Jesus to sum +up the "Law and the Prophets," in one word, Love; he was reckoned an +"infidel," guilty of blasphemy against Moses! Now to punish an error as +a crime, a crime as a sin, leads to confusion at the first, and to much +worse than confusion in the end. + +But there are crimes which are a violation of the eternal principles of +justice. It is of such, and the men who commit them, that I am now to +speak. What shall be done for the dangerous classes, the criminals? + +The first question is, What end shall we aim at in dealing with them? +The means must be suited to accomplish that end. We may desire +vengeance; then the hurt inflicted on the criminal will be proportioned +to the loss or hurt sustained by society. A man has stolen my goods, +injured my person, traduced my good name, sought to take my life. I will +not ask for the motive of his deeds, or the cause of that motive. I will +only consider my own damage, and will make him smart for that. I will +use violence--having an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I will +deliver him over to the tormentors till my vengeance is satisfied. If he +slew my friend, or sought to slay but lacked the power, as I have the +ability I will kill him! This desire of vengeance, of paying a hurt with +a hurt, has still very much influence on our treatment of criminals. I +fear it is still the chief aim of our penal jurisprudence. When +vengeance is the aim, violence is the most suitable method; jails and +the gallows most appropriate instruments! But is it right to take +vengeance; for me to hurt a man to-day solely because he hurt me +yesterday? If so, the proof of that right must be found in my nature, in +the law of God; a man can make a statute, God only a right. As I study +my nature, I find no such right; reason gives me none; conscience none; +religion quite as little. Doubtless I have a right to defend myself by +all manly means; to protect myself for the future no less than for the +present. In doing that, it may be needful that I should restrain, and +in restraining seize and hold, and in holding incidentally hurt my +opponent. But I cannot see what right I have in cold blood wilfully to +hurt a man because he once hurt me, and does not intend to repeat the +wrong. Do I look to the authority of the greatest Son of man? I find no +allusion to such a right. I find no law of God which allows vengeance. +In his providence I find justice everywhere as beautiful as certain; but +vengeance nowhere. I know this is not the common notion entertained of +God and his providence. I shudder to think at the barbarism which yet +prevails under the guise of Christianity; the vengeance which is sought +for in the name of God! + +The aim may be not to revenge a crime, but to prevent it; to deter the +offender from repeating the deed, and others from the beginning thereof. +In all modern legislation the vindictive spirit is slowly yielding to +the design of preventing crime. The method is to inflict certain uniform +and specific penalties for each offence, proportionate to the damage +which the criminal has done; to make the punishment so certain, so +severe, or so infamous, that the offender shall forbear for the future, +and innocent men be deterred from crime. But have we a right to punish a +man for the example's sake? I may give up my life to save a thousand +lives, or one if I will. But society has no right to take it, without my +consent, to save the whole human race! I admit that society has the +right of eminent domain over my property, and may take my land for a +street; may destroy my house to save the town; perhaps seize on my store +of provisions in time of famine. It can render me an equivalent for +those things. I have not the same lien on any portion of the universe as +on my life, my person. To these I have rights which none can alienate +except myself, which no man has given, which all men can never justly +take away. For any injustice wilfully done to me, the human race can +render me no equivalent. + +I know society claims the right of eminent domain over person and life +not less than over house and land--to take both for the Commonwealth. I +deny the right--certainly it has never been shown. Hence to me, resting +on the broad ground of natural justice, the law of God, capital +punishment seems wholly inadmissible, homicide with the pomp and +formality of law. It is a relic of the old barbarism--paying hurt for +hurt. No one will contend that it is inflicted for the offender's good. +For the good of others I contend we have no right to inflict it without +the sufferer's consent. To put a criminal to death seems to me as +foolish as for the child to beat the stool it has stumbled over, and as +useless too. I am astonished that nations with the name of Christian +ever on their lips, continue to disgrace themselves by killing men, +formally and in cold blood; to do this with prayers--"Forgive us as we +forgive;" doing it in the name of God! I do not wonder that in the +codes of nations, Hebrew or heathen, far lower than ourselves in +civilization, we should find laws enforcing this punishment; laws too +enacted in the name of God. But it fills me with amazement that worthy +men in these days should go back to such sources for their wisdom; +should walk dry-shod through the Gospels and seek in records of a +barbarous people to justify this atrocious act! Famine, pestilence, war, +are terrible evils, but no one is so dreadful in its effects as the +general prevalence of a great theological idea that is false. + +It makes me shudder to recollect that out of the twenty-eight States of +this Union twenty-seven should still continue the gallows as a part of +the furniture of a Christian Government. I hope our own State, dignified +already by so many noble acts, will soon rid herself of the stain. Let +us try the experiment of abolishing this penalty, if we will, for twenty +years, or but ten, and I am confident we shall never return to that +punishment. If a man be incapable of living in society, so ill-born or +ill-bred that you cannot cure or mend him, why, hide him away out of +society. Let him do no harm, but treat him kindly, not like a wolf but a +man. Make him work, to be useful to himself, to society, but do not kill +him. Or if you do, never say again, "Forgive us our trespasses as we +forgive those that trespass against us." What if He should take you at +your word! What would you think of a father who to-morrow should take +the Old Testament for his legal warrant, and bring his son before your +Mayor and Aldermen because he was "stubborn and rebellious, a drunkard +and a glutton," and they should stone him to death in front of the City +Hall! But there is quite as good a warrant in the Old Testament for that +as for hanging a man. The law is referred to Jehovah as its author. How +much better is it to choke the life out of a man behind the prison wall? +Is not society the father of us all, our protector and defender? Hanging +is vengeance; nothing but vengeance. I can readily conceive of that +great Son of man, whom the loyal world so readily adores, performing all +needful human works with manly dignity. Artists once loved to paint the +Saviour in the lowly toil of lowly men, his garments covered with the +dust of common life; his soul sullied by no pollution. But paint him to +your fancy as an executioner; legally killing a man; the halter in his +hands, hanging Judas for high treason! You see the relation which that +punishment bears to Christianity. Yet what was unchristian in Jesus does +not become Christian in the sheriff. We call ourselves Christians; we +often repeat the name, the words of Christ,--but his prayer? oh no--not +that. + +There are now in this land, I think, sixteen men under sentence of +death; sixteen men to be hanged till they are dead! Is there not in the +nation skill to heal these men? Perhaps it is so. I have known hearts +which seemed to me cold stones, so hard, so dry. No kindly steel had +alchemy to win a spark from them. Yet their owners went about the +streets and smiled their hollow smiles; the ghastly brother cast his +shadow in the sun, or wrapped his cloak about him in the wintry hour, +and still the world went on though the worst of men remained unhanged. +Perhaps you cannot cure these men!--is there not power enough to keep +them from doing harm; to make them useful? Shame on us that we know no +better than thus to pour out life upon the dust, and then with reeking +hands turn to the poor and weak and say, "Ye shall not kill." + +But if the prevention of crime be the design of the punishment, then we +must not only seek to hinder the innocent from vice, but we must reform +the criminal. Do our methods of punishment effect that object? During +the past year we have committed to the various prisons in Massachusetts +five thousand six hundred sixty-nine persons for crime. How many of them +will be reformed and cured by this treatment, and so live honest and +useful lives hereafter? I think very few. The facts show that a great +many criminals are never reformed by their punishment. Thus in France, +taking the average of four years, it seems that twenty-two out of each +hundred criminals were punished oftener than once; in Scotland +thirty-six out of the hundred. Of the seventy-eight received at your +State's prison the last year--seventeen have been sent to that very +prison before. How many of them have been tenants of other institutions +I know not, but as only twenty-three of the seventy-eight are natives of +this State, it is plain that many, under other names, may have been +confined in jail before. Yet of these seventy-eight, ten are less than +twenty years old.[32] Of thirty-five men sent from Boston to the State's +prison in one year, fourteen had been there before. More than half the +inmates of the House of Correction in this city are punished oftener +than once! These facts show that if we aim at the reformation of the +offender we fail most signally. Yet every criminal not reformed lives +mainly at the charge of society; and lives too in the most costly way, +for the articles he steals have seldom the same value to him as to the +lawful owner. + +It seems to me that our whole method of punishing crimes is a false one; +that but little good comes of it, or can come. We beat the stool which +we have stumbled over. We punish a man in proportion to the loss or the +fear of society; not in proportion to the offender's state of mind; not +with a careful desire to improve that state of mind. This is wise if +vengeance be the aim; if reformation, it seems sheer folly. I know our +present method is the result of six thousand years' experience of +mankind; I know how easy it is to find fault--how difficult to devise a +better mode. Still the facts are so plain that one with half an eye +cannot fail to see the falseness of the present methods. To remove the +evil, we must remove its cause,--so let us look a little into this +matter, and see from what quarter our criminals proceed. + +Here are two classes. + +I. There are the foes of society; men that are criminals in soul, born +criminals, who have a bad nature. The cause of their crime therefore is +to be found in their nature itself, in their organization if you will. +All experience shows that some men are born with a depraved +organization, an excess of animal passions, or a deficiency of other +powers to balance them. + +II. There are the victims of society; men that become criminals by +circumstances, made criminals, not born; men who become criminals, not +so much from strength of evil in their soul, or excess of evil +propensities in their organization, as from strength of evil in their +circumstances. I do not say that a man's character is wholly determined +by the circumstances in which he is placed, but all experience shows +that circumstances, such as exposure in youth to good men or bad men, +education, intellectual, moral, and religious, or neglect thereof entire +or partial, have a vast influence in forming the character of men, +especially of men not well endowed by nature. + +Now the criminals in soul are the most dangerous of men, the born foes +of society. I will not at this moment undertake to go behind their +organization and ask, "How comes it that they are so ill-born?" I stop +now at that fact. The cause of their crime is in their bodily +constitution itself. This is always a small class. There are in New +England perhaps five hundred men born blind or deaf. Apart from the +idiots, I think there are not half so many who by nature and bodily +constitution are incapable of attaining the average morality of the race +at this day; not so many born foes of society as are born blind or deaf. + +The criminals from circumstances become what they are by the action of +causes which may be ascertained, guarded against, mitigated, and at last +overcome and removed. These men are born of poor parents, and find it +difficult to satisfy the natural wants of food, clothing, and shelter. +They get little culture, intellectual or moral. The school-house is +open, but the parent does not send the children, he wants their +services, to beg for him, perhaps to steal, it may be to do little +services which lie within their power. Besides, the child must be +ill-clad, and so a mark is set on him. The boy of the perishing classes, +with but common endowments, cannot learn at school as one of the thrifty +or abounding class. Then he receives no stimulus at home; there every +thing discourages his attempts. He cannot share the pleasure and sport +of his youthful fellows. His dress, his uncleanly habits, the result of +misery, forbid all that. So the children of the perishing herd together, +ignorant, ill-fed, and miserably clad. You do not find the sons of this +class in your colleges, in your high schools where all is free for the +people; few even in the grammar schools; few in the churches. Though +born into the nineteenth century after Christ, they grow up almost in +the barbarism of the nineteenth century before him. Children that are +blind and deaf, though born with a superior organization, if left to +themselves become only savages, little more than animals. What are we to +expect of children, born indeed with eyes and ears, but yet shut out +from the culture of the age they live in? In the corruption of a city, +in the midst of its intenser life, what wonder that they associate with +crime, that the moral instinct, baffled and cheated of its due, becomes +so powerless in the boy or girl; what wonder that reason never gets +developed there, nor conscience, nor that blessed religious sense learns +ever to assert its power? Think of the temptations that beset the boy; +those yet more revolting which address the other sex. Opportunities for +crime continually offer. Want impels, desire leagues with opportunity, +and the result we know. Add to all this the curse that creates so much +disease, poverty, wretchedness, and so perpetually begets crime; I mean +intemperance! That is almost the only pleasure of the perishing class. +What recognized amusement have they but this, of drinking themselves +drunk? Do you wonder at this? with no air, nor light, nor water, with +scanty food and a miserable dress, with no culture, living in a cellar +or a garret, crowded, stifling, and offensive even to the rudest sense, +do you wonder that man or woman seeks a brief vacation of misery in the +dram-shop and in its drunkenness? I wonder not. Under such circumstances +how many of you would have done better? To suffer continually from lack +of what is needful for the natural bodily wants of food, of shelter, of +warmth, that suffering is misery. It is not too much to say, there are +always in this city thousands of persons who smart under that misery. +They are indeed a perishing class. + +Almost all our criminals, victims and foes, come from this portion of +society. Most of those born with an organization that is predisposed to +crime are born there. The laws of nature are unavoidably violated from +generation to generation. Unnatural results must follow. The misfortunes +of the father are visited on his miserable child. Cows and sheep +degenerate when the demands of nature are not met, and men degenerate +not less. Only the low, animal instincts, those of self-defence and +self-perpetuation get developed; these with preternatural force. The +animal man wakes, becomes brutish, while the spiritual element sleeps +within him. Unavoidably then the perishing is mother of the dangerous +class. + +I deny not that a portion of criminals come from other sources, but at +least nine tenths thereof proceed from this quarter. Of two hundred and +seventy-three thousand, eight hundred and eighteen criminals punished in +France from 1825 to 1839, more than half were wholly unable even to +read, and had been brought up subject to no family affections. Out of +seventy criminals in one prison at Glasgow who were under eighteen, +fifty were orphans having lost one or both parents, and nearly all the +rest had parents of bad character and reputation. Taking all the +criminals in England and Wales in 1841, there were not eight in a +hundred that could read and write well. In our country, where everybody +gets a mouthful of education, though scarce any one a full meal, the +result is a little different. Thus of the seven hundred and ninety +prisoners in the Mount Pleasant State's Prison in New York, one hundred +it is said could read and understand. Yet of all our criminals only a +very small proportion have been in a condition to obtain the average +intellectual and moral culture of our times. + +Our present mode of treating criminals does no good to this class of +men, these victims of circumstances. I do not know that their +improvement is even contemplated. We do not ask what causes made this +man a criminal, and then set ourselves to remove those causes. We look +only at the crime; so we punish practically a man because he had a +wicked father; because his education was neglected, and he exposed to +the baneful influence of unholy men. In the main we treat all criminals +alike if guilty of the same offence, though the same act denotes very +different degrees of culpability in the different men, and the same +punishment is attended with quite opposite results. Two men commit +similar crimes, we sentence them both to the State Prison for ten years. +At the expiration of one year let us suppose one man has thoroughly +reformed, and has made strict and solemn resolutions to pursue an honest +and useful life. I do not say such a result is to be expected from such +treatment; still it is possible, and I think has happened, perhaps many +times. We do not discharge the man; we care nothing for his penitence; +nothing for his improvement; we keep him nine years more. That is an +injustice to him; we have robbed him of nine years of time which he +might have converted into life. It is unjust also to society, which +needs the presence and the labor of all that can serve. The man has been +a burden to himself and to us. Suppose at the expiration of his ten +years the other man is not reformed at all; this result, I fear, happens +in the great majority of cases. He is no better for what he has +suffered; we know that he will return to his career of crime, with new +energy and with even malice. Still he is discharged. This is unjust to +him, for he cannot bear the fresh exposure to circumstances which +corrupted him at first, and he will fall lower still. It is unjust to +society, for the property and the persons of all are exposed to his +passions just as much as before. He feels indignant as if he had +suffered a wrong. He says, "Society has taken vengeance on me, when I +was to be pitied more than blamed. Now I will have my turn. They will +not allow me to live by honest toil. I will learn their lesson. I will +plunder their wealth, their roof shall blaze!" He will live at the +expense of society, and in the way least profitable and most costly to +mankind. This idle savage will levy destructive contributions on the +rich, the thrifty, and the industrious. Yes, he will help teach others +the wickedness which himself once, and perhaps unavoidably learned. So +in the very bosom of society there is a horde of marauders waging +perpetual war against mankind. + +Do not say my sympathies are with the wicked, not the industrious and +good. It is not so. My sympathies are not confined to one class, +honorable or despised. But it seems to me this whole method of keeping a +criminal a definite time and then discharging him, whether made better +or worse is a mistake. Certainly it is so if we aim at his reformation. +What if a shepherd made it a rule to look one hour for each lost sheep, +and then return with or without the wanderer? What if a smith decreed +that one hour and no more should be spent in shoeing a horse, and so +worked that time on each, though half that time were enough--or sent +home the beast with but three shoes, or two, or one, because the hour +passed by? What if the physicians decreed, that all men sick of some +contagious disease, should spend six weeks in the hospital, then, if the +patient were found well the next day after admission, still kept him the +other forty; or, if not mended at the last day, sent him out sick to the +world? Such a course would be less unjust, less inhuman, only the wrong +is more obvious. + +To aggravate the matter still more, we have made the punishment more +infamous than the crime. A man may commit great crimes which indicate +deep depravity; may escape the legal punishment thereof by gold, by +flight, by further crimes, and yet hold up his head unblushing and +unrepentant amongst mankind. Let him commit a small crime, which shall +involve no moral guilt, and be legally punished--who respects him again? +What years of noble life are deemed enough to wipe the stain out of his +reputation? Nay, his children after him, to the third generation, must +bear the curse! + +The evil does not stop with the infamy. A guilty man has served out his +time. He is thoroughly resolved on industry and a moral life. Perhaps he +has not learned that crime is wrong, but found it unprofitable. He will +live away from the circumstances which before led him to crime. He comes +out of prison, and the jail-mark is on him. He now suffers the severest +part of his punishment. Friends and relations shun him. He is doomed and +solitary in the midst of the crowd. Honest men will seldom employ him. +The thriving class look on him with shuddering pity; the abounding +loathe the convict's touch. He is driven among the dangerous and the +perishing; they open their arms and offer him their destructive +sympathy. They minister to his wants; they exaggerate his wrongs; they +nourish his indignation. His direction is no longer in his own hands. +His good resolutions--he knows they were good, but only impossible. He +looks back, and sees nothing but crime and the vengeance society takes +for the crime. He looks around, and the world seems thrusting at him +from all quarters. He looks forward, and what prospect is there? "Hope +never comes that comes to all." He must plunge afresh into that miry +pit, which at last is sure to swallow him up. He plunges anew, and the +jail awaits him; again; deeper yet; the gallows alone can swing him +clear from that pestilent ditch. But he is a man and a brother, our +companion in weakness. With his education, exposure, temptation, outward +and from within, how much better would the best of you become? + +No better result is to be looked for from such a course. Of the one +thousand five hundred and ninety-two persons in the State's prison of +New York, four hundred have been there more than once. In five years, +from 1841 to 1847, there were punished in the House of Correction in +this city, five thousand seven hundred and forty-eight persons; of these +three thousand one hundred and forty-six received such a sentence +oftener than once. Yes, in five years, three hundred and thirteen were +sent thither, each ten times or more! How many found a place in other +jails I know not. + +What if fathers treated dull or vicious boys in this manner at +home--making them infamous for the first offence, or the first dulness, +and then refusing to receive them back again? What if the father sent +out his son with bad boys, and when he erred and fell, said: "You did +mischief with bad boys once; I know they enticed you. I knew you were +feeble and could not resist their seductions. But I shall punish you. Do +as well as you please, I will not forgive you. If you err again, I will +punish you afresh. If you do never so well, you shall be infamous for +ever!" What if a public teacher never took back to college a boy who +once had broke the academic law--but made him infamous for ever? What if +the physicians had kept a patient the requisite time in the hospital, +and discharged him as wholly cured, but bid men beware of him and shun +him for ever? That is just what we are doing with this class of +criminals; not intentionally, not consciously--but doing none the less! + +Let us look a moment more carefully, though I have already touched on +this subject, at the proximate causes of crime in this class of men. The +first cause is obvious--poverty. Most of the criminals are from the +lowest ranks of society. If you distribute men into three classes, the +abounding, the thriving, the perishing, you will find the inmates of +your prisons come almost wholly from the latter class. The perishing +fill the sink of society, and the dangerous the sink of the +perishing--for in that "lowest deep there is a lower depth." Of three +thousand one hundred and eighty-eight persons confined in the House of +Correction in this city, one thousand six hundred and fifty-seven were +foreigners; of the five hundred and fifty sent from this city in five +years to the State's Prison, one hundred and eighty-five were +foreigners. Of five hundred and forty-seven females in the Prison on +Blackwell's Island at one time--five hundred and nineteen were committed +for "vagrancy;" women with no capital but their person, with no friend, +no shelter. Examine minutely, you shall find that more than nine tenths +of all criminals come from the perishing class of men. There all +cultivation, intellectual, moral, religious, is at the lowest ebb. They +are a class of barbarians; yes, of savages, living in the midst of +civilization, but not of it. The fact, that most criminals come from +this class, shows that the causes of the crime lie out of them more than +in them; that they are victims of society, not foes. The effect of +property in elevating and moralizing a class of men is seldom +appreciated. Historically the animal man comes before the spiritual. +Animal wants are imperious; they must be supplied. The lower you go in +the social scale, the more is man subordinated to his animal appetites +and demonized by them. Nature aims to preserve the individual and repeat +the species--so all passions relative to these two designs are +preeminently powerful. If a man is born into the intense life of an +American city, and grows up, having no contact with the loftier culture +which naturally belongs to that intense life, why the man becomes mainly +an animal, all the more violent for the atmosphere he breathes in. What +shall restrain him? He has not the normal check of reason, conscience, +religion, these sleep in the man; nor the artificial and conventional +check of honor, of manners. The public opinion which he bows to favors +obscenity, drunkenness, and violence. He is doubly a savage. His wants +cannot be legally satisfied. He breaks the law, the law which covers +property, then goes on to higher crimes. + +The next cause is the result of the first--education is neglected, +intellectual, moral, and religious. Now and then a boy in whom the soul +of genius is covered with the beggar's rags, struggles through the +terrible environment of modern poverty to die, the hero of misery, in +the attempt at education! His expiring light only makes visible the +darkness out of which it shone. Boys born into this condition find at +home nothing to aid them, nothing to encourage a love of excellence, or +a taste for even the rudiments of learning. What is unavoidably the lot +of such? The land has been the schoolmaster of the human race--but the +perishing class scarce sees its face. Poverty brings privations, misery, +and that a deranged state of the system; then unnatural appetites goad +and burn the man. The destruction of the poor is their poverty. They see +wealth about them, but have none; so none of what it brings; neither the +cleanliness, nor health, nor self-respect, nor cultivation of mind, and +heart, and soul. I am told that no Quaker has ever been confined in any +jail in New England for any real crime. Are the Quakers better born than +other men? Nay, but they are looked after in childhood. Who ever saw a +Quaker in an almshouse? Not a fiftieth part of the people of New York +are negroes, yet more than a sixth part of all the criminals in her four +State's Prisons are men of color. These facts show plainly the causes of +crime. + +It is almost impossible to exaggerate the temptations of the perishing +class in our great cities. In Boston at this moment there are more than +four hundred boys employed about the various bowling-alleys of the +city, exposed to the intemperance, the coarseness, the general +corruption of the men who mainly frequent those places. What will be +their fate? Shall I speak of their sisters; of the education they are +receiving; the end that awaits them? Poverty brings misery with its +family of vices. + +A third cause of crime comes with the rest--intemperance, the destroying +angel that lays waste the household of the poor. In our country, misery +in a healthy man is almost proof of vice; but the vice may belong to one +alone, and the misery it brings be shared by the whole family. A large +proportion of the perishing class are intemperate, and a great majority +of all our criminals. + +Now, our present method is wholly inadequate to reform men exposed to +such circumstances. You may punish the man, but it does no good. You can +seldom frighten men out of a fever. Can you frighten them from crime, +when they know little of the internal distinction between right and +wrong; when all the circumstances about them impel to crime? Can you +frighten a starving girl into chastity? You cannot keep men from +lewdness, theft and violence, when they have no self-respect, no +culture, no development of mind, heart, and soul. The jail will not take +the place of the church, of the school-house, of home. It will not +remove the causes which are making new criminals. It does not reform +the old ones. Shall we shut men in a jail, and when there treat them +with all manner of violence, crush out the little self-respect yet left, +give them a degrading dress, and send them into the world cursed with an +infamous name, and all that because they were born in the low places of +society and caught the stain thereof? The jail does not alter the +circumstances which occasioned the crime, and till these causes are +removed a fresh crop will spring out of the festering soil. Some men +teach dogs and horses things unnatural to these animals; they use +violence and blows as their instrument of instruction. But to teach man +what is conformable to his nature, something more is required. + +To return to the other class, who are born criminals. Bare confinement +in the prison alters no man's constitutional tendencies; it can no more +correct moral or mental weakness or obliquity than it can correct a +deficiency of the organs of sensation. You all know the former treatment +of men born with defective or deranged intellectual faculties--of madmen +and fools. We still pursue the same course towards men born with +defective or deranged moral faculties, idiots and madmen of a more +melancholy class, and with a like result. + +I know how easy it is to find fault, and how difficult to propose a +better way; how easy to misunderstand all that I have said, how easy to +misrepresent it all. But it seems to me that hitherto we have set out +wrong in this undertaking; have gone on wrong, and, by the present +means, can never remove the causes of crime nor much improve the +criminals as a class. Let me modestly set down my thoughts on this +subject, in hopes that other men, wiser and more practical, will find +out a way yet better still. A jail, as a mere house of punishment for +offenders, ought to have no place in an enlightened people. It ought to +be a moral hospital where the offender is kept till he is cured. That +his crime is great or little, is comparatively of but small concern. It +is wrong to detain a man against his will after he is cured; wrong to +send him out before he is cured, for he will rob and corrupt society, +and at last miserably perish. We shall find curable cases and incurable. + +I would treat the small class of born criminals, the foes of society, as +maniacs. I would not kill them more than madmen; I would not inflict +needless pain on them. I would not try to shame, to whip, or to starve +into virtue men morally insane. I would not torture a man because born +with a defective organization. Since he could not live amongst men, I +would shut him out from society; would make him work for his own good +and the good of society. The thought of punishment for its own sake, or +as a compensation for the evil which a man has done, I would not harbor +for a moment. If a man has done me a wrong, calumniated, insulted, +abused me with all his power, it renders the matter no better that I +turn round and make him smart for it. If he has burned my house over my +head, and I kill him in return, it does not rebuild my house. I cannot +leave him at large to burn other men's houses. He must be restrained. +But if I cure the man perhaps he will rebuild it, at any rate, will be +of some service to the world, and others gain much while I lose nothing. + +When the victims of society violated its laws, I would not torture a man +for his misfortune, because his father was poor, his mother a brute; +because his education was neglected. I would shut him out from society +for a time. I would make him work for his own good and the good of +others. The evil he had caught from the world I would overcome by the +good that I would present to him. I would not clothe him with an +infamous dress, crowd him with other men whom society had made infamous, +leaving them to ferment and rot together. I would not set him up as a +show to the public, for his enemy, or his rival, or some miserable fop +to come and stare at with merciless and tormenting eye. I would not load +him with chains, nor tear his flesh with a whip. I would not set +soldiers with loaded gun to keep watch over him, insulting their brother +by mocking and threats. I would treat the man with firmness, but with +justice, with pity, with love. I would teach the man; what his family +could not do for him, what society and the church had failed of, the +jail should do, for the jail should be a manual labor school, not a +dungeon of torture. I would take the most gifted, the most cultivated, +the wisest and most benevolent, yes, the most Christian man in the +State, and set him to train up these poor savages of civilization. The +best man is the natural physician of the wicked. A violent man, angry, +cruel, remorseless, should never enter the jail except as a criminal. +You have already taken one of the greatest, wisest, and best men of this +Commonwealth, and set him to watch over the public education of the +people.[33] True, you give him little money, and no honor; he brings the +honor to you, not asking but giving that. You begin to see the result of +setting such a man to such a work, though unhonored and ill paid. Soon +you will see it more plainly in the increase of temperance, industry, +thrift, of good morals and sound religion! I would set such a man, if I +could find such another, to look after the dangerous classes of society. +I would pay him for it; honor him for it. I would have a Board of Public +Morals to look after this matter of crime, a Secretary of Public Morals, +a Christian Censor, whose business it should be to attend to this class, +to look after the jails and make them houses of refuge, of instruction, +which should do for the perishing class what the school-house and the +church do for others. I would send missionaries amongst the most exposed +portions of mankind as well as amongst the savages of New Holland. I +would send wise men, good men. There are already some such engaged in +this work. I would strengthen their hands. I would make crime infamous. +If there are men whose crime is to be traced not to a defective +organization of body, not to the influence of circumstances, but only to +voluntary and self-conscious wickedness,--I would make these men +infamous. It should be impossible for such a man, a voluntary foe of +mankind, to live in society. I would have the jail such a place that the +friends of a criminal of either class should take him as now they take a +lunatic or a sick man, and bring him to the Court that he might be +healed if curable, or if not might be kept from harm and hid away out of +sight. Crime and sin should be infamous; not its correction, least of +all its cure. I would not loathe and abhor a man who had been corrected +and reformed by the jail more than a boy who had been reformed by his +teacher, or a man cured of lunacy. I would have society a father who +goes out to meet the prodigal while yet a great way off; yes, goes and +brings him away from his riotous living, washes him, clothes him, and +restores him to a right mind. There is a prosecuting attorney for the +State; I would have also a defending attorney for the accused, that +justice might be done all round. Is the State only a step-mother? Then +is she not a Christian Commonwealth but a barbarous despotism, fitly +represented by that uplifted sword on her public seal, and that motto of +barbarous and bloody Latin. I would have the State aid men and direct +them after they have been discharged from the jail, not leave them to +perish; not force them to perish. Society is the natural guardian of the +weak. + +I cannot think the method here suggested would be so costly as the +present. It seems to me that institutions of this character might be +made not only to support themselves, but be so managed as to leave a +balance of income considerably beyond the expense. This might be made +use of for the advantage of the criminal when he returned to society; or +with it he might help make restitution of what he had once stolen. +Besides being less costly, it would cure the offender and send back +valuable men into society. + +It seems to me that our whole criminal legislation is based on a false +principle--force and not love; that it is eminently well adapted to +revenge, not at all to correct, to teach, to cure. The whole apparatus +for the punishment of offenders, from the gallows down to the House of +Correction, seems to me wrong; wholly wrong, unchristian, and even +inhuman. We teach crime while we punish it. Is it consistent for the +State to take vengeance when I may not? Is it better for the State to +kill a man in cold blood, than for me to kill my brother when in a rage? +I cannot help thinking that the gallows and even the jail, as now +administered, are practical teachers of violence and wrong! I cannot +think it will always be so. Hitherto we have looked on criminals as +voluntary enemies of mankind. We have treated them as wild beasts, not +as dull or loitering boys. We have sought to destroy by death, to +disable by mutilation or imprisonment, to terrify and subdue, not to +convince, to reform, encourage, and bless. + +The history of the past is full of prophecy for the future. Not many +years ago we shut up our lunatics in jails, in dungeons, in cages; we +chained the maniac with iron; we gave him a bottle of water and a sack +of straw; we left him in filth, in cold and nakedness. We set strong and +brutal men to watch him. When he cried, when he gnashed his teeth and +tore his hair, we beat him all the more! They do so yet in some places, +for they think a madman is not a brother but a devil. What was the +result? Madness was found incurable. Now lunacy is a disease, to be +prescribed for as fever or rheumatism; when we find an incurable case we +do not kill the man, nor chain him, nor count him a devil. Yet lunacy is +not curable by force, by jails, dungeons, and cages; only by the +medicine of wise men and good men. What if Christ had met one demoniac +with a whip and another with chains! + +You know how we once treated criminals! with what scourgings and +mutilations, what brandings, what tortures with fire and red-hot iron! +Death was not punishment enough, it must be protracted amid the most +cruel torments that quivering flesh could bear. The multitude looked on +and learned a lesson of deadly wickedness. A judicial murder was a +holiday! It is but little more than two hundred years since a man was +put to death in the most enlightened country of Europe for eating meat +on Friday; not two hundred since men and women were hanged in +Massachusetts for a crime now reckoned impossible! It is not a hundred +years since two negro slaves were judicially burned alive in this very +city! These facts make us shudder, but hope also. In a hundred years +from this day will not men look on our gallows, jails, and penal law as +we look on the racks, the torture-chambers of the middle ages, and the +bloody code of remorseless inquisitors? + +We need only to turn our attention to this subject to find a better way. +We shall soon see that punishment as such is an evil to the criminal, +and so swells the sum of suffering with which society runs over; that it +is an evil also to the community at large by abstracting valuable force +from profitable work, and so a loss.[34] We shall one day remember that +the offender is a man, and so his good also is to be consulted. He may +be a bad man, voluntarily bad if you will. Still we are to be economical +even of his suffering, for the least possible punishment is the best. +Already a good many men think that error is better refuted by truth than +by fagots and axes. How long will it be before we apply good sense and +Christianity to the prevention of crime? One day we must see that a +jail, as it is now conducted, is no more likely to cure a crime than a +lunacy or a fever! Hitherto we have not seen the application of the +great doctrines of Christianity; not felt that all men are brothers. So +our remedies for social evils have been bad almost as the disease; +remedies which remedied nothing, but hid the patient out of sight. All +great criminals have been thought incurable, and then killed. What if +the doctors found a patient sick of a disease which he had foolishly or +wickedly brought upon himself, and then, by the advice of twelve other +doctors, professionally killed him for justice or example's sake? They +would do what all the States in Christendom have done these thousand +years. I cannot see why the Legislature has not as good right to +authorize the medical college thus to kill men, as to authorize the +present forms of destroying life! + +We do not look the facts of crime fairly in the face. We do not see what +heathens we are. Why, there is not a Christian nation in the world that +has not a Secretary of War, armies, soldiers, and the terrible apparatus +of destruction. But there is not one that has a Secretary of Peace, not +one that takes half the pains to improve its own criminals which it +takes to build forts and fleets! Yet it seems to me that a Christian +State should be a great peace society, a society for mutual advancement +in the qualities of a man! + +Do we not see that by our present course we are teaching men violence, +fraud, deceit, and murder? What is the educational effect of our present +political conduct, of our invasions, our battles, our victories; of the +speeches of "our great men?" You all know that this teaches the poor, +the low, and the weak that murder and robbery are good things when done +on a large scale; that they give wealth, fame, power, and honors. The +ignorant man, ill-born and ill-bred, asks: "Why not when done on a small +scale; why not good for me?" If it is right in the President of the +United States to rob and murder, why not for the President of the United +States Bank? Do famous men say, "Our country however bounded," and vote +to plunder a sister State? then why shall not the poor man, hungry and +cold, say, "My purse however bounded," and seize on all he can get? Give +one a seat in Congress if you will, and the other a noose of hemp, there +is a God before whom seats in Congress and hempen halters are of equal +value, but who does justice to great and little! + + * * * * * + +To reform the dangerous classes of society, to advance those who loiter +behind our civilization, we need a special work designed directly for +the good of the criminals and such as stand on that perilous ground +which slopes towards crime. Some good men undertook this work long ago. +They found much to do; a good deal to encourage them. Some of them are +well known to you, are laboring here in the midst of us. They need +counsel, encouragement, and aid. We must not look coldly on their +enterprise nor on them. They can tell far better than I what specific +plans are best for their specific work. Already have they accomplished +much in this noble enterprise. The society for aiding discharged +convicts is a prophecy of yet better things. Soon I trust it will extend +its kind offices to all the prisons, and its work be made the affair of +the State. The plan now before your Legislature for a "State Manual +Labor School," designed to reform vicious children, is also full of +promise. The wise and anonymous charity which so beautifully and in +silence has dropped its gold into the chest for these poor outcasts, is +itself its hundred-fold reward. Institutions like that which we +contemplate have been found successful in England, Germany, and France. +They actually reform the juvenile delinquent and bring up useful men, +not hardened criminals.[35] We are beginning to attend to this special +work of removing the causes of crime, and restoring at least the young +offenders. + +However, the greater portion of this work is not special and for the +criminal, but general and for society. To change the treatment of +criminals, we must change every thing else. The dangerous class is the +unavoidable result of our present civilization; of our present ideas of +man and social life. To reform and elevate the class of criminals, we +must reform and elevate all other classes. To do that, we must educate +and refine men. We must learn to treat all men as brothers. This is a +great work and one of slow achievement. It cannot be brought about by +legislation, nor any mechanical contrivance and reorganization alone. +There is no remedy for this evil and its kindred but keeping the laws of +God; in one word, none but Christianity, goodness, and piety felt in the +heart, applied in all the works of life, individually, socially, and +politically. While educated and abounding men acknowledge no rule of +conduct but self-interest, what can you expect of the ignorant and the +perishing? While great men say without rebuke that we do not look at +"the natural justice of a war," do you expect men in the lowest places +of society, ignorant and brutish, pinched by want, to look at the +natural justice of theft, of murder? It were a vain expectation. We must +improve all classes to improve one; perhaps the highest first. +Different men acting in the most various directions, without concert, +often jealous one of another, and all partial in their aims, are helping +forward this universal result. While we are contending against slavery, +war, intemperance, or party rage, while we are building up hospitals, +colleges, schools, while we are contending for freedom of conscience, or +teaching abstractly the love of man and love of God, we are all working +for the welfare of this neglected class. The gallows of the barbarian +and the Gospel of Christianity cannot exist together. The times are full +of promise. Mankind slowly fulfils what a man of genius prophesies; God +grants what a good man asks, and when it comes, it is better than what +he prayed for. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] The allusion is to the following passages of Scripture, which were +read as the lesson for the day: Numb. xiv.; 2 Kings, ii. 23-25; and +Luke, xv. + +[32] See other statistics in "Sermon of the Perishing Classes," pp. 205, +206. + +[33] Mr. Horace Mann. + +[34] The period of confinement in our States' Prisons differs a good +deal in the various States, as will appear from the following Table. + + Whole No. + in prison. Average sentence. +In Conn. 189, March 31, 1841, 7 yrs. 3 mos. + Va. 181, Sept 30, 1839, 6 " 10 " + Mass. 322, Sept. 30, 1840, 5 " 9 " + La. 68, Sept 30, 1839, 5 " 1 " + N. J. 152, Sept. 30, 1840, 4 " 7 " + Ky. 162, Sept. 30, 1839, 4 " + D. C. 79, Nov. 30, 1840, 3 " 8 " + Md. 104, 3 " + Phila. 129, Sept. 30, 1840, 2 " 5 " + +The difference between the average term of punishment in Connecticut and +Philadelphia is 300 per cent! If the same result is effected by each, +there has then been a great amount of gratuitous suffering in one case. + +[35] I refer to the prisons at Stretton-upon-Dunmore in Warwickshire, +that at Horn near Hamburg, and the one at Mettray near Tours in France. +The French penal code allows the guardian or relatives of an offender +under age to take him from prison on giving bonds for his good behavior. +While these pages were first passing through the press, I learned the +happy effect which followed the execution of the license laws in this +city. In 1846, from the 10th of March to the 24th of April, there were +sent to the House of Correction for intemperance one hundred eighty-nine +persons. During the same period of the year 1847, only eighty-four have +been thus punished! But alas, in 1851 the evil has returned, and the +demon of drunkenness mows down the wretched in Boston with unrestricted +scythe. + + + + +IX. + +A SERMON OF POVERTY.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 14, +1849. + +PROVERBS X. 15. + + The destruction of the poor is their poverty. + + +Last Sunday something was said of riches. To-day I ask your attention to +a sermon of poverty. By poverty, I mean the state in which a man does +not have enough to satisfy the natural wants of food, raiment, shelter, +warmth and the like. From the earliest times that we know of, there have +been two classes of men, the rich who had more than enough, the poor who +had less. In one of the earliest books which treats of the condition of +men, we find that Abraham, a rich man, owns the bodies of three hundred +men that are poor. In four thousand years, the difference between rich +and poor in our part of America is a good deal lessened, not done away +with. In New England property is more uniformly distributed than in +most countries, perhaps more equally than in any land as highly +civilized. But even here the old distinction remains in a painful form +and extended to a pitiful degree. + +At one extreme of society is a body called the rich, men who have +abundance, not a very numerous body, but powerful, first through the +energy which accumulates money, and secondly, through the money itself. +Then there is a body of men who are comfortable. This class comprises +the mass of the people in all the callings of life. Out of this class +the rich men come, and into it their children or grandchildren commonly +return. Few of the rich men of Boston were sons of rich men; still fewer +grandsons; few of them perhaps will be fathers of men equally rich; +still fewer grandfathers of such. Then there is the class that is +miserable. Some of them are supported by public charity, some by +private, some of them by their toil alone--but altogether they form a +mass of men who only stay in the world, and do not live in the best +sense of that word. + +Such are the great divisions of society in respect to property. However, +the lines between these three classes are not sharp and distinctly +drawn. There are no sharp divisions in nature; but for our convenience, +we distinguish classes by their centre where they are most unlike, and +not by their circumference where they intermix and resemble each other. +The line between the miserable and comfortable, between the comfortable +and rich, is not distinctly drawn. The centre of each class is obvious +enough while the limits thereof are a dissolving view. + +The poor are miserable. Their food is the least that will sustain +nature, not agreeable, not healthy; their clothing scanty and mean, +their dwellings inconvenient and uncomfortable, with roof and walls that +let in the cold and the rain--dwellings that are painful and unhealthy; +in their personal habits they are commonly unclean. Then they are +ignorant; they have no time to attend school in childhood, no time to +read or to think in manhood, even if they have learned to do either +before that. If they have the time, few men can think to any profit +while the body is uncomfortable. The cold man thinks only of the cold; +the wretched of his misery. Besides this they are frequently vicious. I +do not mean to say they are wicked in the sight of God. I never see a +poor man carried to jail for some petty crime, or even for a great one, +without thinking that probably, in God's eye, the man is far better than +I am, and from the State's prison or scaffold, will ascend into heaven +and take rank a great ways before me. I do not mean to say they are +wicked before God; but it is they who commit the minor crimes, against +decency, sobriety, against property and person, and most of the major +crimes, against human life. I mean that they commit the crimes that get +punished by law. They crowd your courts, they tenant your jails; they +occupy your gallows. If some man would write a book describing the life +of all the men hanged in Massachusetts for fifty years past, or tried +for some capital offence, and show what class of society they were from, +how they were bred, what influences were about them in childhood, how +they passed their Sundays, and also describe the configuration of their +bodies, it would help us to a valuable chapter in the philosophy of +crime, and furnish mighty argument against the injustice of our mode of +dealing with offenders. + +Poverty is the dark side of modern society. I say modern society, though +poverty is not modern, for ancient society had poverty worse than ours +and a side still darker yet. Cannibalism, butchery of captives after +battle, frequent or continual wars for the sake of plunder, and the +slavery of the weak--these were the dark side of society in four great +periods of human history, the savage, the barbarous, the classic and the +feudal. Poverty is the best of these five bad things, each of which, +however, has grimly done its service in its day. + +There is no poverty among the Gaboon negroes. Put them in our latitude, +and it soon comes. Nay, as they get to learn the wants of cultivated +men, there will be a poorer class even in the torrid zone. Poverty +prevails in every civilized nation on earth; yes, in every savage nation +in austere climes. Let us look at some examples. England is the richest +country in Europe. I mean she has more wealth in proportion to her +population than any other in a similar climate. Look at her possessions +in every corner of the globe; at her armies which Europe cannot conquer; +at her ships which weave the great commercial web that spreads all round +about the world; at home what factories, what farms, what houses, what +towns, what a vast and wealthy metropolis; what an aristocracy--so rich, +so cultivated, so able, so daring, and so unconquered. + +But in that very English nation the most frightful poverty exists. Look +at the two sister islands: this the queen, and that the beggar of all +nations; the rose and the shamrock; the one throned in royal beauty, the +other bowed to the dust, torn and trampled under foot. In that capital +of the world's wealth, in that centre of power far greater than the +power of all the Caesars, there is the most squalid poverty. Look at St. +Giles and St. James--that the earthly hell of want and crime, this the +worldly heaven of luxury and power! Put on the one side the stately +nobility of England, well born, well bred, armed with the power of +manners, the power of money, the power of culture and the power of +place, and on the other side put the beggary of England, the two million +paupers who are kept wholly on public or private charity; the three +million laborers who formerly fed on potatoes, God knows what they feed +on now, and all the other hungry sons of want who are kept in awe only +by the growling lion who guards the British throne; and you see at once +the result of modern civilization in the ablest, the foremost, the +freest, the most practical and the richest nation in the old world. + +Even here in New England, a country not two hundred and fifty years old, +a little patch of cleared land on the edge of the continent, we hear of +poverty which is frightful to think of. It is a serious question what +shall be done for the poor; there are few that can tell what shall be +done with them, or what is to become of them. Want is always here in +Boston. Misery is here. Starvation is not unknown. What is now serious +will one day be alarming. Even now it is awful to think of the misery +that lurks in this Christian town. New England in fifty years has +increased vastly in wealth, but poverty increases too. There has been a +great advance in the productiveness of human labor; with our tools a man +can do as much rude work in one day as he could in three days a hundred +years ago. I mean work with the axe, the plough, the spade; of nicer +work, yet more; of the most delicate work, see what machines do for him. +The end is not yet; soon we shall have engines that will whittle +granite, as a gang of saws cleaves logs into broad smooth boards. Yet +with all this advance in the productiveness of human toil, still there +is poverty. A day's work now will bring a man greater proportionate pay +than ever before in New England. I mean to say that the ordinary wages +for an ordinary day's work will support a man comfortably and +respectably longer than they ever would before. On the whole, the price +of things has come down and the price of work has gone up. Yet still +there are the poor; there is want, there is misery, there is starvation. +The community gives more than ever before; a better public provision is +made for the poor, private benevolence is more active and works far more +wisely--yet still there is poverty, want, misery unremoved, unmitigated, +and, many think, immitigable! + +Now I am not going to deny that poverty, like other forms of suffering, +plays a part in the economy of the human race. If God's children will +not work, or will throw away their bread, I do not complain that He +sends them to bed without their supper--to a hard bed and a narrow and a +cold. "Earn your breakfast before you eat it," is not merely the counsel +of Poor Richard, but of Almighty God; it is a just counsel, and not +hard. But is poverty an essential, substantial, integral element in +human civilization, or is it an accidental element thereof, and +transiently present; is it amenable to suppression? For my own part, I +believe that all evil is transient, a thing that belongs to the process +of development, not to the nature of man, or the higher forms of social +life towards which he is advancing. If God be absolutely good, then only +good things are everlasting. This general opinion which comes from my +religion as well as my philosophy, affects my special opinion of the +history and design of poverty. I look on it as on cannibalism, the +butchery of captives, the continual war for the sake of plunder, or on +slavery; yes, as I look on the diseases incident to childhood, things +that mankind live through and outgrow; which, painful as they are, do +not make up the greatest part of the entire life of mankind. If it shall +be said that I cannot know this, that I have not a clear intellectual +perception of the providential design thereof, or the means of its +removal, still I believe it, and if I have not the knowledge which comes +of philosophy, I have still faith, the result of instinctive trust in +God. + + * * * * * + +Let us look a little at the causes of poverty. Some things we see best +on a large scale. So let us look at poverty thus, and then come down to +the smaller forms thereof. + +I. There may be a natural and organic cause. The people of Lapland, +Iceland and Greenland are a poor people compared with the Scotch, the +Danes, or the French. There is a natural and organic cause for their +poverty in the soil and climate of those countries, which cannot be +changed. They must emigrate before they can become rich or comfortable +in our sense of the word. Hence their poverty is to be attributed to +their geographical position. Put the New Englanders there, even they +would be a poor people. Thus the poverty of a nation may depend on the +geographical position of the nation. + +Suppose a race of men has little vigor of body or of mind, and yet the +same natural wants as a vigorous race; put them in favorable +circumstances, in a good climate, on a rich soil, they will be poor on +account of the feebleness of their mind and body; put them in a stern +climate, on a sterile soil, and they will perish. Such is the case with +the Mexicans. Soil and climate are favorable, yet the people are poor. +Suppose a nation had only one third part of the Laplander's ability, and +yet needed the result of all his power, and was put in the Laplander's +position, they would not live through the first winter. Had they been +Mexicans who came to Plymouth in 1620, not one of them, it is probable, +would have seen the next summer. Take away half the sense or bodily +strength of the Bushmans of South Africa, and though they might have +sense enough to dig nuts out of the ground, yet the lions and hyenas +would eventually eat up the whole nation. So the poverty of a nation may +come from want of power of body or of mind. + +Then if a nation increases in numbers more rapidly than in wealth, there +is a corresponding increase of want. Let the number of births in England +for the next ten years be double the number for the last ten, without a +corresponding creation of new wealth, and the English are brought to the +condition of the Irish. Let the number of births in Ireland in like +manner multiply, and one half the population must perish for want of +food. So the poverty of a nation may depend on the disproportionate +increase of its numbers. + +Then an able race, under favorable outward circumstances, without an +over-rapid increase of numbers, if its powers are not much developed, +will be poor in comparison with a similar race under similar +circumstances, but highly developed. Thus England, under Egbert in the +ninth century, was poor compared with England under Victoria in the +nineteenth century. The single town of Liverpool, Manchester, +Birmingham, or even Sheffield, is probably worth many times the wealth +of all England in the ninth century. So the poverty of a nation may +depend on its want of development. + +Old England and New England are rich, partly through the circumstances +of climate and soil, partly and chiefly through the great vigor of the +race, with only a normal increase of numbers, and partly through a more +complete development of the nations. Such are the chief natural and +organic causes of poverty on a large scale in a nation. + +II. The causes may be political. By political, I mean such as are +brought about by the laws, either the fundamental laws, the +constitution, or the minor laws, statutes. Sometimes the laws tend to +make the whole nation poor. Such are the laws which force the industry +of the people out of the natural channel, restricting commerce, +agriculture, manufactures, industry in general. Sometimes this is done +by promoting war, by keeping up armies and navies, by putting the +destructive work of fighting, or the merely conservative work of ruling, +before the creative works of productive industry. France was an example +of that a hundred years ago. Spain yet continues such, as she has been +for two centuries. + +Sometimes this is done by hindering the general development of the +nation, by retarding education, by forbidding all freedom of thought. +The States of the Church are an example of this when compared with +Tuscany; all Italy and Austria, when compared with England; Spain, when +compared with Germany, France, and Holland. + +Sometimes this is brought about by keeping up an unnatural +institution--as slavery, for example. South Carolina is an instance of +this, when compared with Massachusetts. South Carolina has many +advantages over us, yet South Carolina is poor while Massachusetts is +rich. + +Sometimes this political action primarily affects only the distribution +of wealth, and so makes one class rich and another poor. Such is the +case with laws which give all the real estate to the oldest son, laws +which allow property to be entailed for a long time or forever, laws +which cut men off from the land. These laws at first seem only to make +one class rich and the others poor, and merely to affect the +distribution of wealth in a nation, but they are unnatural and retard +the industry of the people, and diminish their productive power, and +make the whole nation less rich. Legislation may favor wealth and not +men--property which is accumulated labor, rather than labor which is the +power that accumulates property. Such legislation always endangers +wealth in the end, lessening its quantity and making its tenure +uncertain. + +Two things may be said of European legislation in general, and +especially of English legislation. First, That it has aimed to +concentrate wealth in the hands of a few and keep it there. Hence it +favors primogeniture, entails monopolies of posts of profit and of +honor. Second, It has always looked out for the proprietor and his +property, and cared little for the man without property; hence it always +wanted the price of things high, the wages of men low, and in addition +to natural and organic obstacles it continually put social impediments +in the poor man's way. In England no son of a laborer could rise to +eminence in the law or in medicine, scarcely in the church; no, not even +in the army or navy. + +These two statements will bear examination. The genius of England has +demanded these two things. The genius of America demands neither, but +rejects both; demands the distribution of property, puts the rights of +man first, the rights of things last. Such are the political causes, and +such their effects. + +III. Then there are social causes which make a nation poor. Such are the +prevalence of an opinion that industry is not respectable; that it is +honorable to consume, disgraceful to create; that much must be spent, +though little earned. The Spanish nation is poor in part through the +prevalence of this opinion. + +Sometimes social causes seem only to affect a class. The Pariahs in +India must not fill any office that is well paid. They are despised, and +of course they are poor and miserable. The blacks in New England are +despised and frowned down, not admitted to the steamboat, the omnibus, +to the school-houses in Boston, or even to the meeting-house with white +men; not often allowed to work in company with the whites; and so they +are kept in poverty. In Europe the Jews have been equally despised and +treated in the same way, but not made poor, because they are in many +respects a superior race of men, and because they have the advantage of +belonging to a nation whose civilization is older than any other in +Europe; a nation specially gifted with the faculty of thrift; a tribe +whom none but other Jews, Scotchmen, or New Englanders, could outwit, +over-reach, and make poor. No Ferdinand and Isabella, no inquisition +could so completely expel them from any country, as the superior craft +and cunning of the Yankee has driven them out of New England. There are +Jews in every country of Europe, everywhere despised and maltreated, and +forced into the corners of society, but everywhere superior to the men +who surround them. Such are the social causes which produce poverty. + + * * * * * + +Now let us look at the matter on a smaller scale, and see the cause of +poverty in New-England, of poverty in Broad street and Sea street. From +the great mass let me take out a class who are accidentally poor. There +are the widows and orphan children who inherit no estate; the able men +reduced by sickness before they have accumulated enough to sustain them. +Then let me take out a class of men transiently poor, men who start with +nothing, but have vigor and will to make their own way in the world. The +majority of the poor still remain--the class who are permanently poor. +The accidentally poor can easily be taken care of by public or private +charity; the transient poor will soon take care of themselves. The young +man who lives on six cents a day while studying medicine in Boston, is +doubtless a poor man, but will soon repay society for the slight aid it +has lent him, and in time will take care of other poor men. So these two +classes, the accidental and the transient poor, can easily be disposed +of. + +What causes have produced the class that is permanently poor? What has +just been said of nations, is true also of individuals. + +First, there are natural and organic causes of poverty. Some men are +born into the midst of want, ignorance, idleness, filthiness, +intemperance, vice, crime; their earliest associations are debasing, +their companions bad. They are born into the Iceland of society, into +the frigid zone, some of them under the very pole-star of want. Such men +are born and bred under the greatest disadvantages. Every star in their +horoscope has a malignant aspect, and sheds disastrous influence. I do +not remember five men in New England, from that class, becoming +distinguished in any manly pursuit,--not five. Almost all of our great +men and our rich men came from the comfortable class, none from the +miserable. The old poverty is parent of new poverty. It takes at least +two generations to outgrow the pernicious influence of such +circumstances. + +Then much of the permanent poverty comes from the lack of ability, power +of body and of mind. In that Iceland of society men are commonly born +with a feeble organization, and bred under every physical disadvantage; +the man is physically weak, or else runs to muscle and not brain, and so +is mentally weak. His feebleness is the result of the poverty of his +fathers, and his own want in childhood. The oak tree grows tall and +large in a rich valley, stunted, small, and scrubby on the barren sand. + +Again this class of men increase most rapidly in numbers. When the poor +man has not half enough to fill his own mouth, and clothe his own back, +other backs are added, other mouths opened. He abounds in nothing but +naked and hungry children. + +Further still, he has not so good a chance as the comfortable to get +education and general development. A rude man, with superior abilities, +in this century, will often be distanced by the well-trained man who +started at birth with inferior powers. But if the rude man begin with +inferior abilities, inferior circumstances, encumbered also with a load +becoming rapidly more burdensome, you see under what accumulated +disadvantages he labors all his life. So to the first natural and +organic cause of poverty, his untoward position in society; to the +second, his inferior ability; and to the third, the increase of his +family, excessively rapid, we must add a fourth cause, his inferior +development. An ignorant man, who is also weak in body, and besides +that, starts with every disadvantage, his burdens annually increasing, +may be expected to continue a poor man. It is only in most extraordinary +cases that it turns out otherwise. + +To these causes we must add what comes therefrom as their joint result: +idleness, by which the poor waste their time; thriftlessness and +improvidence, by which they lose their opportunities and squander their +substance. The poor are seldom so economical as the rich; it is so with +children, they spoil the furniture, soil and rend their garments, put +things to a wasteful use, consume heedlessly and squander, careless of +to-morrow. The poor are the children of society. + +To these five causes I must add intemperance, the great bane of the +miserable class. I feel no temptation to be drunken, but if I were +always miserable, cold, hungry, naked, so ignorant that I did not know +the result of violating God's laws, had I been surrounded from youth +with the worst examples, not respected by other men, but a loathsome +object in their sight, not even respecting myself, I can easily +understand how the temporary madness of strong drink would be a most +welcome thing. The poor are the prey of the rum-seller. As the lion in +the Hebrew wilderness eateth up the wild ass, so in modern society the +rum-seller and rum-maker suck the bones of the miserable poor. I never +hear of a great fortune made in the liquor trade, but I think of the +wives that have been made widows thereby, of the children bereft of +their parents, of the fathers and mothers whom strong drink has brought +down to shame, to crime, and to ruin. The history of the first barrel of +rum that ever visited New England is well known. It brought some forty +men before the bar of the court. The history of the last barrel can +scarcely be much better. + +Such are the natural and organic causes which make poverty. + +With the exception of laws which allow the sale of intoxicating drink, I +think there are few political causes of poverty in New England, and they +are too inconsiderable to mention in so brief a sketch as this. However, +there are some social causes of our permanent poverty. I do not think we +have much respect for the men who do the rude work of life, however +faithfully and well--little respect for work itself. The rich man is +ashamed to have begun to make his fortune with his own hard hands; even +if the rich man is not, his daughter is for him. I do not think we have +cared much to respect the humble efforts of feeble men; not cared much +to have men dear, and things cheap. It has not been thought the part of +political economy, of sound legislation, or of pure Christianity, to +hinder the increase of pauperism, to remove the causes of poverty, yes, +the causes of crime--only to take vengeance on it when committed! + +Boston is a strange place; here is energy enough to conquer half the +continent in ten years; power of thought to seize and tame the +Connecticut and the Merrimack; charity enough to send missionaries all +over the world; but not justice enough to found a high school for her +own daughters, or to forbid her richest citizens from letting bar-rooms +as nurseries of poverty and crime, from opening wide gates which lead to +the almshouse, the jail, the gallows, and earthly hell! + + * * * * * + +Such are the causes of poverty, organic, political, social. You may see +families pass from the comfortable to the miserable class, by +intemperance, idleness, wastefulness, even by feebleness of body and of +mind; yet while it is common for the rich to descend into the +comfortable class, solely by lack of the eminent thrift which raised +their fathers thence, or because they lack the common stimulus to toil +and save, it is not common for the comfortable to fall into the pit of +misery in New England, except through wickedness, through idleness, or +intemperance. + +It is not easy to study poverty in Boston. But take a little inland +town, which few persons migrate into, you will find the miserable +families have commonly been so, for a hundred years; that many of them +are descended from the "servants," or white slaves, brought here by our +fathers; that such as fall from the comfortable classes, are commonly +made miserable by their own fault, sometimes by idleness, which is +certainly a sin, for any man who will not work, and persists in living, +eats the bread of some other man, either begged or stolen--but chiefly +by intemperance. Three fourths of the poverty of this character, is to +be attributed to this cause. + +Now there is a tendency in poverty to drive the ablest men to work, and +so get rid of the poverty, and this I take it is the providential design +thereof. Poverty, like an armed man, stalks in the rear of the social +march, huge and haggard, and gaunt and grim, to scare the lazy, to goad +the idle with his sword, to trample and slay the obstinate sluggard. But +he treads also the feeble under his feet, for no fault of theirs, only +for the misfortune of being born in the rear of society. But in poverty +there is also a tendency to intimidate, to enfeeble, to benumb. The +poverty of the strong man compels him to toil; but with the weak, the +destruction of the poor is his poverty. An active man is awakened from +his sleep by the cold; he arises and seeks more covering; the indolent, +or the feeble, shiver on till morning, benumbed and enfeebled by the +cold. So weakness begets weakness; poverty, poverty; intemperance, +intemperance; crime, crime. + +Every thing is against the poor man; he pays the dearest tax, the +highest rent for his house, the dearest price for all he eats or wears. +The poor cannot watch their opportunity, and take advantage of the +markets, as other men. They have the most numerous temptations to +intemperance and crime; they have the poorest safeguards from these +evils. If the chief value of wealth, as a rich man tells us, be +this--that "it renders its owner independent of others," then on what +shall the poor men lean, neglected and despised by others, looked on as +loathsome, and held in contempt, shut out even from the sermons and the +prayers of respectable men? It is no marvel if they cease to respect +themselves. + +The poor are the most obnoxious to disease; their children are not only +most numerous, but most unhealthy. More than half of the children of +that class, perish at the age of five. Amongst the poor, infectious +diseases rage with frightful violence. The mortality in that class is +amazing. If things are to continue as now, I thank God it is so. If +Death is their only guardian, he is at least powerful, and does not +scorn his work. + +In addition to the poor, whom these causes have made and kept in +poverty, the needy of other lands flock hither. The nobility of old +England, so zealous in pursuing their game, in keeping their entails +unbroken, and primogeniture safe, have sent their beggary to New +England, to be supported by the crumbs that fall from our table. So, in +the same New England city, the extremes of society are brought together. +Here is health, elegance, cultivation, sobriety, decency, refinement--I +wish there was more of it; there is poverty, ignorance, drunkenness, +violence, crime, in most odious forms--starvation! We have our St. +Giles's and St. James's; our nobility, not a whit less noble than the +noblest of other lands, and our beggars, both in a Christian city. Amid +the needy population, Misery and Death have found their parish. Who +shall dare stop his ears, when they preach their awful denunciation of +want and woe? + +Good men ask, What shall we do? Foreign poverty has had this good +effect; it has shamed or frightened the American beggar into industry +and thrift. + +Poverty will not be removed till the causes thereof are removed. There +are some who look for a great social revolution. So do I; only I do not +look for it to come about suddenly, or by mechanical means. We are in a +social revolution, and do not know it. While I cannot accept the +peculiar doctrines of the Associationists, I rejoice in their existence. +I sympathize with their hope. They point out the evils of society, and +that is something. They propose a method of removing its evils. I do not +believe in that method, but mankind will probably make many experiments +before we hit upon the right one. For my own part, I confess I do not +see any way of removing poverty wholly or entirely, in one or two, or in +four or five generations. I think it will linger for some ages to come. +Like the snow, it is to be removed by a general elevation of the +temperature of the air, not all at once, and will long hang about the +dark and cold places of the world. But I do think it will at last be +overcome, so that a man who cannot subsist, will be as rare as a +cannibal. "Ye have the poor with you always," said Jesus, and many who +remember this, forget that he also said, "and when soever ye will, ye +may do them good." I expect to see a mitigation of poverty in this +country, and that before long. + +It is likely that the legal theory of property in Europe will undergo a +great change before many years; that the right to bequeathe enormous +estates to individuals will be cut off; that primogeniture will cease, +and entailments be broken, and all monopolies of rank and power come to +an end, and so a great change take place in the social condition of +Europe, and especially of England. That change will bring many of the +comfortable into the rich class, and eventually many of the miserable +into the comfortable class. But I do not expect such a radical change +here, where we have not such enormous abuses to surmount. + +I think something will be done in Europe for the organization of labor, +I do not know what; I do not know how; I have not the ability to know; +and will not pretend to criticize what I know I cannot create, and do +not at present understand. I think there will be a great change in the +form of society; that able men will endeavor to remove the causes of +crime, not merely to make money out of that crime; that intemperance +will be diminished; that idleness in rich or poor will be counted a +disgrace; that labor will be more respected; education more widely +diffused; and that institutions will be founded, which will tend to +produce these results. But I do not pretend to devise those +institutions, and certainly shall not throw obstacles in the way of such +as can or will try. It seems likely that something will be first done in +Europe, where the need is greatest. There a change must come. By and by, +if it does not come peaceably, the continent will not furnish "special +constables" enough to put down human nature. If the white republicans +cannot make a revolution peacefully, wait a little, and the red +republicans will make it in blood. "Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we +must," says mankind, first in a whisper, then in a voice of thunder. If +powerful men will not write justice with black ink, on white paper, +ignorant and violent men will write it on the soil, in letters of blood, +and illuminate their rude legislation with burning castles, palaces and +towns. While the social change is taking place never so peacefully, men +will think the world is going to ruin. But it is an old world, pretty +well put together, and, with all these changes, will probably last some +time longer. Human society is like one of those enormous boulders, so +nicely poised on another rock, that a man may move it with a single +hand. You are afraid to come under its sides, lest it fall. When the +wind blows, it rocks with formidable noise, and men say it will soon be +down upon us. Now and then a rude boy undertakes to throw it over, but +all the men who can get their shoulders under, cannot raise the +ponderous mass from its solid and firm-set base. + +Still, after all these changes have taken place, there remains the +difference between the strong and the weak, the active and the idle, the +thrifty and the spendthrift, the temperate and the intemperate, and +though the term poverty ceases to be so dreadful, and no longer denotes +want of the natural necessaries of the body, there will still remain the +relatively rich and the relatively poor. + +But now something can be done directly, to remove the causes of poverty, +something to mitigate their effects; we need both the palliative +charity, and the remedial justice. Tenements for the poor can be +provided at a cheap rent, that shall yet pay their owner a reasonable +income. This has been proved by actual experiment, and, after all that +has been said about it, I am amazed that no more is done. I will not +exhort the churches to this in the name of religion--they have other +matters to attend to; but if capitalists will not, in a place like +Boston, it seems to me the City should see that this class of the +population is provided with tenements, at a rate not ruinous. It would +be good economy to do it, in the pecuniary sense of good economy; +certainly to hire money at six per cent., and rent the houses built +therewith, at eight per cent., would cost less than to support the poor +entirely in almshouses, and punish them in jails. + +Something yet more may be done, in the way of furnishing them with work, +or of directing them to it; something towards enabling them to purchase +food and other articles cheap. + +Something might be done to prevent street beggary, and begging from +house to house, which is rather a new thing in this town. The +indiscriminate charity, which it is difficult to withhold from a needy +and importunate beggar, does more harm than good. + +Much may be done to promote temperance; much more, I fear, than is +likely to be done; that is plainly the duty of society. Intemperance is +bad enough with the comfortable and the rich; with the poor it is +ruin--sheer, blank and swift ruin. The example of the rich, of the +comfortable, goes down there like lightning, to shatter, to blast, and +to burn. It is marvellous, that in Christian Boston, men of wealth, and +so above the temptation which lurks behind a dollar, men of character +otherwise thought to be elevated, can yet continue a traffic which leads +to the ruin and slow butchery of such masses of men. I know not what can +be done by means of the public law. I do know what can be done by +private self-denial, by private diligence. + +Something also may be done to promote religion amongst the poor, at +least something to make it practicable for a poor man to come to church +on Sunday, with his fellow-creatures who are not miserable--and to hear +the best things that the ablest men in the church have to offer. We are +very democratic in our State, not at all so in our church. In this +matter the Catholics put us quite to shame. If, as some men still +believe, it be a manly calling and a noble, to preach Christianity, then +to preach it to men who stand in the worst and most dangerous positions +in society; to take the highest truths of human consciousness, the +loftiest philosophy, the noblest piety, and bring them down into the +daily life of poor men, rude men, men obscure, unfriended, ready to +perish; surely this is the noblest part of that calling, and demands the +noblest gifts, the fairest and the largest culture, the loftiest powers. + +It is no hard thing to reason with reasoning men, and be intelligible to +the intelligent; to talk acceptably and even movingly to scholars and +men well read, is no hard thing if you are yourself well read and a +scholar. But to be intelligible to the ignorant, to reason with men who +reason not, to speak acceptably and movingly with such men, to inspire +them with wisdom, with goodness and with piety, that is the task only +for some men of rare genius who can stride over the great gulf betwixt +the thrones of creative power, and the humble positions of men ignorant, +poor and forgot! Yet such men there are, and here is their work. + +Something can be done for the children of the poor--to promote their +education, to find them employment, to snatch these little ones from +underneath the feet of that grim Poverty. It is not less than awful, to +think while there are more children born in Boston of Catholic parents +than of Protestant, that yet more than three fifths thereof die before +the sun of their fifth year shines on their luckless heads. I thank God +that thus they die. If there be not wisdom enough in society, nor enough +of justice there to save them from their future long-protracted +suffering, then I thank God that Death comes down betimes, and moistens +his sickle while his crop is green. I pity not the miserable babes who +fall early before that merciful arm of Death. They are at rest. Poverty +cannot touch them. Let the mothers who bore them rejoice, but weep only +for those that are left--left to ignorance, to misery, to intemperance, +to vice that I shall not name; left to the mercies of the jail, and +perhaps the gallows at the last. Yet Boston is a Christian city--and it +is eighteen hundred years since one great Son of Man came to seek and to +save that which was lost! + +I see not what more can be done directly, and I see not why these things +should not be done. Still some will suffer: the idle, the lazy, the +proud who will not work, the careless who will voluntarily waste their +time, their strength, or their goods--they must suffer, they ought to +suffer. Want is the only schoolmaster to teach them industry and +thrift. Such as are merely unable, who are poor not by their fault--we +do wrong to let them suffer; we do wickedly to leave them to perish. The +little children who survive--are they to be left to become barbarians in +the midst of our civilization? + +Want is not an absolutely needful thing, but very needful for the +present distress, to teach us industry, economy, thrift and its creative +arts. There is nature--the whole material world--waiting to serve. "What +would you have thereof?" says God. "Pay for it and take it, as you will; +only pay as you go!" There are hands to work, heads to think; strong +hands, hard heads. God is an economist: He economizes suffering; there +is never too much of it in the world for the purpose it is to serve, +though it often falls where it should not fall. It is here to teach us +industry, thrift, justice. It will be here no more when we have learned +its lesson. Want is here on sufferance; misery on sufferance; and +mankind can eject them if we will. Poverty, like all evils, is amenable +to suppression. + +Can we not end this poverty--the misery and crime it brings? No, not +to-day. Can we not lessen it? Soon as we will. Think how much ability +there is in this town, cool, far-sighted talent. If some of the ablest +men directed their thoughts to the reform of this evil, how much might +be done in a single generation; and in a century--what could not they +do in a hundred years? What better work is there for able men? I would +have it written on my tombstone: "This man had but little wit, and less +fame, yet he helped remove the causes of poverty, making men better off +and better," rather by far than this: "Here lies a great man; he had a +great place in the world, and great power, and great fame, and made +nothing of it, leaving the world no better for his stay therein, and no +man better off." + + * * * * * + +After all the special efforts to remove poverty, the great work is to be +done by the general advance of mankind. We shall outgrow this as +cannibalism, butchery of captives, war for plunder, and other kindred +miseries have been outgrown. God has general remedies in abundance, but +few specific. Something will be done by diffusing throughout the +community principles and habits of economy, industry, temperance; by +diffusing ideas of justice, sentiments of brotherly love, sentiments and +ideas of religion. I hope every thing from that--the noiseless and +steady progress of Christianity; the snow melts, not by sunlight, or +that alone, but as the whole air becomes warm. You may in cold weather +melt away a little before your own door, but that makes little +difference till the general temperature rises. Still while the air is +getting warm, you facilitate the process by breaking up the obdurate +masses of ice and putting them where the sun shines with direct and +unimpeded light. So must we do with poverty. + +It is only a little that any of us can do--for any thing. Still we can +do a little; we can each do by helping towards raising the general tone +of society: first, by each man raising himself; by industry, economy, +charity, justice, piety; by a noble life. So doing, we raise the moral +temperature of the whole world, and just in proportion thereto. Next, by +helping those who come in our way; nay, by going out of our way to help +them. In each of these modes, it is our duty to work. To a certain +extent each man is his brother's keeper. Of the powers we possess we are +but trustees under Providence, to use them for the benefit of men, and +render continually an account of our stewardship to God. Each man can do +a little directly to help convince the world of its wrong, a little in +the way of temporizing charity, a little in the way of remedial justice; +so doing, he works with God, and God works with him. + + + + +X. + +A SERMON OF THE MORAL CONDITION OF BOSTON.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON +SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1849. + +1 SAMUEL VII. 12. + + Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. + + +A man who has only the spirit of his age can easily be a popular man; if +he have it in an eminent degree, he must be a popular man in it: he has +its hopes and its fears; his trumpet gives a certain and well-known +sound; his counsel is readily appreciated; the majority is on his side. +But he cannot be a wise magistrate, a just judge, a competent critic, or +a profitable preacher. A man who has only the spirit of a former age can +be none of these four things; and not even a popular man. He remembers +when he ought to forecast, and compares when he ought to act; he cannot +appreciate the age he lives in, nor have a fellow-feeling with it. He +may easily obtain the pity of his age, not its sympathy or its +confidence. The man who has the spirit of his own, and also that of +some future age, is alone capable of becoming a wise magistrate, a just +judge, a competent critic, and a profitable preacher. Such a man looks +on passing events somewhat as the future historian will do, and sees +them in their proportions, not distorted; sees them in their connection +with great general laws, and judges of the falling rain not merely by +the bonnets it may spoil and the pastime it disturbs, but by the grass +and corn it shall cause to grow. He has hopes and fears of his own, but +they are not the hopes and fears of men about him; his trumpet cannot +give a welcome or well-known sound, nor his counsel be presently heeded. +Majorities are not on his side, nor can he be a popular man. + +To understand our present moral condition, to be able to give good +counsel thereon, you must understand the former generation, and have +potentially the spirit of the future generation; must appreciate the +past, and yet belong to the future. Who is there that can do this? No +man will say, "I can." Conscious of the difficulty, and aware of my own +deficiencies in all these respects, I will yet endeavor to speak of the +moral condition of Boston. + + * * * * * + +First, I will speak of the actual moral condition of Boston, as +indicated by the morals of Trade. In a city like Rome, you must first +feel the pulse of the church, in St. Petersburg that of the court, to +determine the moral condition of those cities. Now trade is to Boston +what the church is to Rome and the imperial court to St. Petersburg: it +is the pendulum which regulates all the common and authorized machinery +of the place; it is an organization of the public conscience. We care +little for any Pius the Ninth, or Nicholas the First; the dollar is our +emperor and pope, above all the parties in the State, all sects in the +church, lord paramount over both, its spiritual and temporal power not +likely to be called in question; revolt from what else we may, we are +loyal still to that. + +A little while ago, in a sermon of riches, speaking of the character of +trade in Boston, I suggested that men were better than their reputation +oftener than worse; that there were a hundred honest bargains to one +that was dishonest. I have heard severe strictures from friendly +tongues, on that statement, which gave me more pain than any criticism I +have received before. The criticism was, that I overrated the honesty of +men in trade. Now, it is a small thing to be convicted of an error--a +just thing and a profitable to have it detected and exposed; but it is a +painful thing to find you have overrated the moral character of your +townsmen. However, if what I said be not true as history, I hope it will +become so as prophecy; I doubt not my critics will help that work. + +Love of money is out of proportion to love of better things--to love of +justice, of truth, of a manly character developing itself in a manly +life. Wealth is often made the end to live for; not the means to live +by, and attain a manly character. The young man of good abilities does +not commonly propose it to himself to be a noble man, equipped with all +the intellectual and moral qualities which belong to that, and capable +of the duties which come thereof. He is satisfied if he can become a +rich man. It is the highest ambition of many a youth in this town to +become one of the rich men of Boston; to have the social position which +wealth always gives, and nothing else in this country can commonly +bestow. Accordingly, our young men that are now poor, will sacrifice +every thing to this one object; will make wealth the end, and will +become rich without becoming noble. But wealth without nobleness of +character is always vulgar. I have seen a clown staring at himself in +the gorgeous mirror of a French palace, and thought him no bad emblem of +many an ignoble man at home, surrounded by material riches which only +reflected back the vulgarity of their owner. + +Other young men inherit wealth, but seldom regard it as a means of power +for high and noble ends, only as the means of selfish indulgence; +unneeded means to elevate yet more their self-esteem. Now and then you +find a man who values wealth only as an instrument to serve mankind +withal. I know some such men; their money is a blessing akin to genius, +a blessing to mankind, a means of philanthropic power. But such men are +rare in all countries, perhaps a little less so in Boston than in most +other large trading towns; still, exceeding rare. They are sure to meet +with neglect, abuse, and perhaps with scorn; if they are men of eminent +ability, superior culture, and most elevated moral aims, set off, too, +with a noble and heroic life, they are sure of meeting with eminent +hatred. I fear the man most hated in this town would be found to be some +one who had only sought to do mankind some great good, and stepped +before his age too far for its sympathy. Truth, Justice, Humanity, are +not thought in Boston to have come of good family; their followers are +not respectable. I am not speaking to blame men, only to show the fact; +we may meddle with things too high for us, but not understand nor +appreciate. + +Now this disproportionate love of money appears in various ways. You see +it in the advantage that is taken of the feeblest, the most ignorant, +and the most exposed classes in the community. It is notorious that they +pay the highest prices, the dearest rents, and are imposed upon in their +dealings oftener than any other class of men; so the raven and the +hooded crow, it is said, seek out the sickliest sheep to pounce upon. +The fact that a man is ignorant, poor, and desperate, furnishes to many +men an argument for defrauding the man. It is bad enough to injure any +man; but to wrong an ignorant man, a poor and friendless man; to take +advantage of his poverty or his ignorance, and to get his services or +his money for less than a fair return--that is petty baseness under +aggravated circumstances, and as cowardly as it is mean. You are now and +then shocked at rich men telling of the arts by which they got their +gold--sometimes of their fraud at home, sometimes abroad, and a good man +almost thinks there must be a curse on money meanly got at first, though +it falls to him by honest inheritance. + +This same disproportionate love of money appears in the fact that men, +not driven by necessity, engage in the manufacture, the importation, and +the sale of an article which corrupts and ruins men by hundreds; which +has done more to increase poverty, misery, and crime than any other one +cause whatever; and, as some think, more than all other causes whatever. +I am not speaking of men who aid in any just and proper use of that +article, but in its ruinous use. Yet such men, by such a traffic, never +lose their standing in society, their reputation in trade, their +character in the church. A good many men will think worse of you for +being an Abolitionist; men have lost their place in society by that +name; even Dr. Channing "hurt his usefulness" and "injured his +reputation" by daring to speak against that sin of the nation; but no +man loses caste in Boston by making, importing, and selling the cause +of ruin to hundreds of families--though he does it with his eyes open, +knowing that he ministers to crime and to ruin! I am told that large +quantities of New England rum have already been sent from this city to +California; it is notorious that much of it is sent to the nations of +Africa--if not from Boston, at least from New England--as an auxiliary +in the slave-trade. You know with what feelings of grief and indignation +a clergyman of this city saw that characteristic manufacture of his town +on the wharves of a Mahometan city. I suppose there are not ten +ministers in Boston who would not "get into trouble," as the phrase is, +if they were to preach against intemperance, and the causes that produce +intemperance, with half so much zeal as they innocently preach +"regeneration" and a "form of piety" which will never touch a single +corner of the earth. As the minister came down, the Spirit of Trade +would meet him on the pulpit stairs to warn him: "Business is business; +religion is religion; business is ours, religion yours; but if you make +or even allow religion to interfere with our business, then it will be +the worse for you--that is all!" You know it is not a great while since +we drove out of Boston the one Unitarian minister who was a fearless +apostle of temperance.[36] His presence here was a grief to that "form +of piety;" a disturbance to trade. Since then the peace of the churches +has not been much disturbed by the preaching of temperance. The effect +has been salutary; no Unitarian minister has risen up to fill that +place! + +This same disproportionate love of money appears in the fact, that the +merchants of Boston still allow colored seamen to be taken from their +ships and shut up in the jails of another State. If they cared as much +for the rights of man as for money, as much for the men who sail the +ship as for the cargo it carries, I cannot think there would be brass +enough in South Carolina, or all the South, to hold another freeman of +Massachusetts in bondage, merely for the color of his skin. No doubt, a +merchant would lose his reputation in this city by engaging directly in +the slave-trade, for it is made piracy by the law of the land.[37] But +did any one ever lose his reputation by taking a mortgage on slaves as +security for a debt; by becoming, in that way or by inheritance, the +owner of slaves, and still keeping them in bondage? + +You shall take the whole trading community of Boston, rich and poor, +good and bad, study the phenomena of trade as astronomers the phenomena +of the heavens, and from the observed facts, by the inductive method of +philosophy, construct the ethics of trade, and you will find one great +maxim to underlie the whole: Money must be made. Money-making is to the +ethics of trade what attraction is to the material world; what truth is +to the intellect, and justice in morals. Other things must yield to +that; that to nothing. In the effort to comply with this universal law +of trade, many a character gives way; many a virtue gets pushed aside; +the higher, nobler qualities of a man are held in small esteem. + +This characteristic of the trading class appears in the thought of the +people as well as their actions. You see it in the secular literature of +our times; in the laws, even in the sermons; nobler things give way to +love of gold. So in an ill-tended garden, in some bed where violets +sought to open their fragrant bosoms to the sun, have I seen a cabbage +come up and grow apace, with thick and vulgar stalk, with coarse and +vulgar leaves, with rank unsavory look; it thrust aside the little +violet, which, underneath that impenetrable leaf, lacking the morning +sunshine and the dew of night, faded and gave up its tender life; but +above the grave of the violet there stood the cabbage, green, +expanding, triumphant, and all fearless of the frost. Yet the cabbage +also had its value and its use. + +There are men in Boston, some rich, some poor, old and young, who are +free from this reproach; men that have a well-proportioned love of +money, and make the pursuit thereof an effort for all the noble +qualities of a man. I know some such men, not very numerous anywhere, +men who show that the common business of life is the place to mature +great virtues in; that the pursuit of wealth, successful or not, need +hinder the growth of no excellence, but may promote all manly life. Such +men stand here as violets among the cabbages, making a fragrance and a +loveliness all their own; attractive anywhere, but marvellous in such a +neighborhood as that. + + * * * * * + +Look next on the morals of Boston, as indicated by the Newspapers, the +daily and the weekly press. Take the whole newspaper literature of +Boston, cheap and costly, good and bad, study it all as a whole, and by +the inductive method construct the ethics of the press, and here you +find no signs of a higher morality in general than you found in trade. +It is the same centre about which all things gravitate here as there. +But in the newspapers the want of great principles is more obvious, and +more severely felt than in trade--the want of justice, of truth, of +humanity, of sympathy with man. In trade you meet with signs of great +power; the highway of commerce bears marks of giant feet. Our newspapers +seem chiefly in the hands of little men, whose cunning is in a large +ratio to their wisdom or their justice. You find here little ability, +little sound learning, little wise political economy; of lofty morals +almost nothing at all. Here, also, the dollar is both Pope and King; +right and truth are vassals, not much esteemed, nor over-often called to +pay service to their Lord, who has other soldiers with more pliant neck +and knee. + +A newspaper is an instrument of great importance; all men read it; many +read nothing else; some it serves as reason and conscience too: in lack +of better, why not? It speaks to thousands every day on matters of great +moment--on matters of morals, of politics, of finance. It relates daily +the occurrences of our land, and of all the world. All men are affected +by it; hindered or helped. To many a man his morning paper represents +more reality than his morning prayer. There are many in a community like +this who do not know what to say--I do not mean what to think, +thoughtful men know what to think--about any thing till somebody tells +them; yet they must talk, for "the mouth goes always." To such a man a +newspaper is invaluable; as the idolater in the Judges had "a Levite to +his priest," so he has a newspaper to his reason or his conscience, and +can talk to the day's end. An able and humane newspaper would get this +class of persons into good habits of speech, and do them a service, +inasmuch as good habits of speech are better than bad. + +One portion of this literature is degrading; it seems purposely so, as +if written by base men, for base readers, to serve base ends. I know not +which is most depraved thereby, the taste or the conscience. Obscene +advertisements are there, meant for the licentious eye; there are +loathsome details of vice, of crime, of depravity, related with the +design to attract, yet so disgusting that any but a corrupt man must +revolt from them; there are accounts of the appearance of culprits in +the lower courts, of their crime, of their punishment; these are related +with an impudent flippancy, and a desire to make sport of human +wretchedness and perhaps depravity, which amaze a man of only the +average humanity. We read of Judge Jeffreys and the bloody assizes in +England, one hundred and sixty years ago, but never think there are in +the midst of us men who, like that monster, can make sport of human +misery; but for a cent you can find proof that the race of such is not +extinct. If a penny-a-liner were to go into a military hospital, and +make merry at the sights he saw there, at the groans he heard, and the +keen smart his eye witnessed, could he publish his fiendish joy at that +spectacle--you would not say he was a man. If one mock at the crimes of +men, perhaps at their sins, at the infamous punishments they +suffer--what can you say of him? + +It is a significant fact that the commercial newspapers, which of course +in such a town are the controlling newspapers, in reporting the European +news, relate first the state of the markets abroad, the price of cotton, +of consols, and of corn; then the health of the English queen, and the +movements of the nations. This is loyal and consistent; at Rome, the +journal used to announce first some tidings of the Pope, then of the +lesser dignitaries of the church, then of the discovery of new antiques, +and other matters of great pith and moment; at St. Petersburg, it was +first of the Emperor that the journal spoke; at Boston, it is legitimate +that the health of the dollar should be reported first of all. + +The political newspapers are a melancholy proof of the low morality of +this town. You know what they will say of any party movement; that +measures and men are judged on purely party grounds. The country is +commonly put before mankind, and the party before the country. Which of +them in political matters pursues a course that is fair and just; how +many of them have ever advanced a great idea, or been constantly true to +a great principle of natural justice; how many resolutely oppose a great +wrong; how many can be trusted to expose the most notorious blunders of +their party; how many of them aim to promote the higher interests of +mankind? What servility is there in some of these journals, a cringing +to the public opinion of the party; a desire that "our efforts may be +appreciated!" In our politics every thing which relates to money is +pretty carefully looked after, though not always well looked after; but +what relates to the moral part of politics is commonly passed over with +much less heed. Men would compliment a senator who understood finance in +all its mysteries, and sneer at one who had studied as faithfully the +mysteries of war, or of slavery. The Mexican War tested the morality of +Boston, as it appears both in the newspapers and in trade, and showed +its true value. + +There are some few exceptions to this statement; here and there is a +journal which does set forth the great ideas of this age, and is +animated by the spirit of humanity. But such exceptions only remind one +of the general rule. + +In the sectarian journals the same general morality appears, but in a +worse form. What would have been political hatred in the secular prints, +becomes theological odium in the sectarian journals; not a mere hatred +in the name of party, but hatred in the name of God and Christ. Here is +less fairness, less openness, and less ability than there, but more +malice; the form, too, is less manly. What is there a strut or a +swagger, is here only a snivel. They are the last places in which you +need look for the spirit of true morality. Which of the sectarian +journals of Boston advocates any of the great reforms of the day? nay, +which is not an obstacle in the path of all manly reform? But let us not +dwell upon this, only look and pass by. + +I am not about to censure the conductors of these journals, commercial, +political, or theological. I am no judge of any man's conscience. No +doubt they write as they can or must. This literature is as honest and +as able as "the circumstances will admit of." I look on it as an index +of our moral condition, for a newspaper literature always represents the +general morals of its readers. Grocers and butchers purchase only such +articles as their customers will buy; the editors of newspapers reveal +the moral character of their subscribers as well as their +correspondents. The transient literature of any age is always a good +index of the moral taste of the age. These two witnesses attest the +moral condition of the better part of the city; but there are men a good +deal lower than the general morals of trade and the press. Other +witnesses testify to their moral character. + + * * * * * + +Let me now speak of your moral condition as indicated by the Poverty in +this city. I have so recently spoken on the subject of poverty in +Boston, and printed the sermon, that I will not now mention the misery +it brings. I will only speak of the moral condition which it indicates, +and the moral effect it has upon us. + +In this age, poverty tends to barbarize men; it shuts them out from the +educational influences of our times. The sons of the miserable class +cannot obtain the intellectual, moral, and religious education which is +the birthright of the comfortable and the rich. There is a great gulf +between them and the culture of our times. How hard it must be to climb +up from a cellar in Cove Place to wisdom, to honesty, to piety. I know +how comfortable pharisaic self-righteousness can say, "I thank thee I am +not wicked like one of these," and God knows which is the best before +His eyes, the scorner, or the man he loathes and leaves to dirt and +destruction. I know this poverty belongs to the state of transition we +are now in, and can only be ended by our passing through this into a +better. I see the medicinal effect of poverty, that with cantharidian +sting it drives some men to work, to frugality and thrift; that the +Irish has driven the American beggar out of the streets, and will shame +him out of the almshouse ere long. But there are men who have not force +enough to obey this stimulus; they only cringe and smart under its +sting. Such men are made barbarians by poverty, barbarians in body, in +mind and conscience, in heart and soul. There is a great amount of this +barbarism in Boston; it lowers the moral character of the place, as +icebergs in your harbor next June would chill the air all day. + +The fact that such poverty is here, that so little is done by public +authority, or by the ablest men in the land, to remove the evil tree and +dig up its evil root; that amid all the wealth of Boston and all its +charity, there are not even comfortable tenements for the poor to be had +at any but a ruinous rent--that is a sad fact, and bears a sad testimony +to our moral state! Sometimes the spectacle of misery does good, +quickening the moral sense and touching the electric tie which binds all +human hearts into one great family; but when it does not lead to this +result, then it debases the looker-on. To know of want, of misery, of +all the complicated and far-extended ill they bring; to hear of this, +and to see it in the streets; to have the money to alleviate, and yet +not to alleviate; the wisdom to devise a cure therefor, and yet make no +effort towards it--that is to be yourself debased and barbarized. I have +often thought, in seeing the poverty of London, that the daily spectacle +of such misery did more in a year to debauch the British heart than all +the slaughter at Waterloo. I know that misery has called out heroic +virtue in some men and women, and made philanthropists of such as +otherwise had been only getters and keepers of gain. We have noble +examples of that in the midst of us; but how many men has poverty trod +down into the mire; how many has this sight of misery hardened into cold +worldliness, the man frozen into mere respectability, its thin smile on +his lips, its ungodly contempt in his heart! + + * * * * * + +Out of this barbarism of poverty there come three other forms of evil +which indicate the moral condition of Boston; of that portion named just +now as below the morals of trade and the press. These also I will call +up to testify. + + * * * * * + +One is Intemperance. This is a crime against the body; it is felony +against your own frame. It makes a schism amongst your own members. The +amount of it is fearfully great in this town. Some of our most wealthy +citizens, who rent their buildings for the unlawful sale of rum to be +applied to an intemperate abuse, are directly concerned in promoting +this intemperance; others, rich but less wealthy, have sucked their +abundance out of the bones of the poor, and are actual manufacturers of +the drunkard and the criminal. Here are numerous distilleries owned, and +some of them conducted, I am told, by men of wealth. The fire thereof is +not quenched at all by day, and there is no night there; the worm dieth +not. There out of the sweetest plant which God has made to grow under a +tropic sun, men distil a poison the most baneful to mankind which the +world has ever known. The poison of the Borgias was celebrated once; +cold-hearted courtiers shivered at its name. It never killed many; those +with merciful swiftness. The poison of rum is yet worse; it yearly +murders thousands; kills them by inches, body and soul. Here are +respectable and wealthy men, men who this day sit down in a Christian +church and thank God for his goodness, with contrite hearts praise him +for that Son of Man who gave his life for mankind, and would gladly give +it to mankind; yet these men have ships on the sea to bring the poor +man's poison here, or bear it hence to other men as poor; have +distilleries on the land to make still yet more for the ruin of their +fellow Christians; have warehouses full of this plague, which "outvenoms +all the worms of Nile;" have shops which they rent for the illegal and +murderous sale of this terrible scourge. Do they not know the ruin which +they work; are they the only men in the land who have not heard of the +effects of intemperance? I judge them not, great God! I only judge +myself. I wish I could say, "They know not what they do;" but at this +day who does not know the effect of intemperance in Boston? + +I speak not of the sale of ardent spirits to be used in the arts, to be +used for medicine, but of the needless use thereof; of their use to +damage the body and injure the soul of man. The chief of your police +informs me there are twelve hundred places in Boston, where this article +is sold to be drunk on the spot; illegally sold. The Charitable +Association of Mechanics, in this city, have taken the accumulated +savings of more than fifty years, and therewith built a costly +establishment, where intoxicating drink is needlessly but abundantly +sold! Low as the moral standard of Boston is, low as are the morals of +the press and trade, I had hoped better things of these men, who live in +the midst of hard-working laborers, and see the miseries of intemperance +all about them. But the dollar was too powerful for their temperance. + +Here are splendid houses, where the rich man or the thrifty needlessly +drinks. Let me leave them; the evil Demon of Intemperance appears not +there; he is there, but under well-made garments, amongst educated men, +who are respected and still respect themselves. Amid merriment and song +the Demon appears not. He is there, gaunt, bony, and destructive, but so +elegantly clad, with manners so unoffending, you do not mark his face, +nor fear his steps. But go down to that miserable lane, where men +mothered by Misery and sired by Crime, where the sons of Poverty and the +daughters of Wretchedness, are huddled thick together, and you see this +Demon of Intemperance in all his ugliness. Let me speak soberly: +exaggeration is a figure of speech I would always banish from my +rhetoric, here, above all, where the fact is more appalling than any +fiction I could devise. In the low parts of Boston, where want abounds, +where misery abounds, intemperance abounds yet more, to multiply want, +to aggravate misery, to make savage what poverty has only made +barbarian; to stimulate passion into crime. Here it is not music and the +song which crown the bowl; it is crowned by obscenity, by oaths, by +curses, by violence, sometimes by murder. These twine the ivy round the +poor man's bowl; no, it is the Upas that they twine. Think of the +sufferings of the drunkard himself, of his poverty, his hunger and his +nakedness, his cold; think of his battered body; of his mind and +conscience, how they are gone. But is that all? Far from it. These +curses shall become blows upon his wife; that savage violence shall be +expended on his child. In his senses this man was a barbarian; there are +centuries of civilization betwixt him and cultivated men. But the man of +wealth, adorned with respectability and armed with science, harbors a +Demon in the street, a profitable Demon to the rich man who rents his +houses for such a use. The Demon enters our barbarian, who straightway +becomes a savage. In his fury he tears his wife and child. The law, +heedless of the greater culprits, the Demon, and the demon-breeder, +seizes our savage man and shuts him in the jail. Now he is out of the +tempter's reach; let us leave him; let us go to his home. His wife and +children still are there, freed from their old tormentor. Enter: look +upon the squalor, the filth, the want, the misery still left behind. +Respectability halts at the door with folded arms, and can no further +go. But charity, the love of man which never fails, enters even there; +enters to lift up the fallen, to cheer the despairing, to comfort and to +bless. Let us leave her there, loving the unlovely, and turn to other +sights. + +In the streets, there are about nine hundred needy boys, and about two +hundred needy girls, the sons and daughters mainly of the intemperate; +too idle or too thriftless to work; too low and naked for the public +school. They roam about--the nomadic tribes of this town, the gipsies of +Boston--doing some chance work for a moment, committing some petty +theft. The temptations of a great city are before them.[38] Soon they +will be impressed into the regular army of crime, to be stationed in +your jails, perhaps to die on your gallows. Such is the fate of the sons +of intemperance; but the daughters! their fate--let me not tell of that. + +In your Legislature they have just been discussing a law against dogs, +for now and then a man is bitten and dies of hydrophobia. Perhaps there +are ten mad dogs in the State at this moment, and it may be that one man +in a year dies from the bite of such. Do the legislators know how many +shops there are in this town, in this State, which all the day and all +the year sell to intemperate men a poison that maddens with a +hydrophobia still worse? If there were a thousand mad dogs in the land, +if wealthy men had embarked a large capital in the importation or the +production of mad dogs, and if they bit and maddened and slew ten +thousand men in a year, do you believe your Legislature would discuss +that evil with such fearless speech? Then you are very young, and know +little of the tyranny of public opinion, and the power of money to +silence speech, while justice still comes in, with feet of wool, but +iron hands.[39] + +There is yet another witness to the moral condition of Boston. I mean +Crime. Where there is such poverty and intemperance, crime may be +expected to follow. I will not now dwell upon this theme, only let me +say, that in 1848, three thousand four hundred and thirty-five grown +persons, and six hundred and seventy-one minors were lawfully sentenced +to your jail and House of Correction; in all, four thousand one hundred +and six; three thousand four hundred and forty-four persons were +arrested by the night police, and eleven thousand one hundred and +seventy-eight were taken into custody by the watch; at one time there +were one hundred and forty-four in the common jail. I have already +mentioned that more than a thousand boys and girls, between six and +sixteen, wander as vagrants about your streets; two hundred and +thirty-eight of these are children of widows, fifty-four have neither +parent living. It is a fact known to your police, that about one +thousand two hundred shops are unlawfully open for retailing the means +of intemperance. These are most thickly strown in the haunts of poverty. +On a single Sunday the police found three hundred and thirteen shops in +the full experiment of unblushing and successful crime. These rum-shops +are the factories of crime; the raw material is furnished by poverty; it +passes into the hands of the rum-seller, and is soon ready for delivery +at the mouth of the jail, or the foot of the gallows. It is notorious +that intemperance is the proximate cause of three fourths of the crime +in Boston; yet it is very respectable to own houses and rent them for +the purpose of making men intemperate; nobody loses his standing by +that. I am not surprised to hear of women armed with knives, and boys +with six-barrelled revolvers in their pockets; not surprised at the +increase of capital trials. + + * * * * * + +One other matter let me name--I call it the Crime against Woman. Let us +see the evil in its type, its most significant form. Look at that thing +of corruption and of shame, almost without shame, whom the judge, with +brief words, despatches to the jail. That was a woman once. No! At +least, she was once a girl. She had a mother; perhaps, beyond the hills, +a mother, in her evening prayer, remembers still this one child more +tenderly than all the folded flowers that slept the sleep of infancy +beneath her roof; remembers, with a prayer, her child, whom the world +curses after it has made corrupt! Perhaps she had no such mother, but +was born in the filth of some reeking cellar, and turned into the mire +of the streets, in her undefended innocence, to mingle with the +coarseness, the intemperance, and the crime of a corrupt metropolis. In +either case, her blood is on our hands. The crime which is so terribly +avenged on woman--think you that God will hold men innocent of that? But +on this sign of our moral state, I will not long delay. + + * * * * * + +Put all these things together: the character of trade, of the press; +take the evidence of poverty, intemperance, and crime--it all reveals a +sad state of things. I call your attention to these facts. We are all +affected by them more or less; all more or less accountable for them. + + * * * * * + +Hitherto I have only stated facts, without making comparisons. Let me +now compare the present condition of Boston with that in former times. +Every man has an ideal, which is better than the actual facts about him. +Some men amongst us put that ideal in times past, and maintain it was +then an historical fact; they are commonly men who have little knowledge +of the past, and less hope for the future; a good deal of reverence for +old precedents, little for justice, truth, humanity; little confidence +in mankind, and a great deal of fear of new things. Such men love to +look back and do homage to the past, but it is only a past of fancy, not +of fact, they do homage to. They tell us we have fallen; that the golden +age is behind us, and the garden of Eden; ours are degenerate days; the +men are inferior, the women less winning, less witty, and less wise, and +the children are an untoward generation, a disgrace, not so much to +their fathers, but certainly to their grandsires. Sometimes this is the +complaint of men who have grown old; sometimes of such as seem to be old +without growing so, who seem born to the gift of age, without the grace +of youth. + +Other men have a similar ideal, commonly a higher one, but they place +it in the future, not as an historical reality, which has been, and is +therefore to be worshipped, but one which is to be made real by dint of +thought, of work. I have known old persons who stoutly maintained that +the pears and the plums and the peaches, are not half so luscious as +they were many years ago; so they bewailed the existing race of fruits, +complaining of "the general decay" of sweetness, and brought over to +their way of speech some aged juveniles. Meanwhile, men born young, set +themselves to productive work, and, instead of bewailing an old fancy, +realized a new ideal in new fruits, bigger, fairer, and better than the +old. It is to men of this latter stamp, that we must look for criticism +and for counsel. The others can afford us a warning, if not by their +speech, at least by their example. + +It is very plain, that the people of New England are advancing in +wealth, in intelligence, and in morality; but in this general march, +there are little apparent pauses, slight waverings from side to side; +some virtues seem to straggle from the troop; some to lag behind, for it +is not always the same virtue that leads the van. It is with the flock +of virtues, as with wild fowl--the leaders alternate. It is probable +that the morals of New England in general, and of Boston in special, did +decline somewhat from 1775 to 1790; there were peculiar but well-known +causes, which no longer exist, to work that result. In the previous +fifteen years, it seems probable that there had been a rapid increase of +morality, through the agency of causes equally peculiar and transient. +To estimate the moral growth or decline of this town, we must not take +either period as a standard. But take the history of Boston, from 1650 +to 1700, from 1700 to 1750, thence to 1800, and you will see a gradual, +but a decided progress in morality in each of these periods. It is not +easy to prove this in a short sermon; I can only indicate the points of +comparison, and state the general fact. From 1800 to 1849, this progress +is well marked, indisputable, and very great. Let us look at this a +little in detail, pursuing the same order of thought as before. + +It is generally conceded that the moral character of trade has improved +a good deal within fifty or sixty years. It was formerly a common +saying, that "If a Yankee merchant were to sell salt water at high-tide, +he would yet cheat in the measure." The saying was founded on the +conduct of American traders abroad, in the West Indies and elsewhere. +Now things have changed for the better. I have been told by competent +authority, that two of the most eminent merchants of Boston, fifty or +sixty years ago, who conducted each a large business, and left very +large fortunes, were notoriously guilty of such dishonesty in trade, as +would now drive any man from the Exchange. The facility with which notes +are collected by the banks, compared to the former method of +collection, is itself a proof of an increase of practical honesty; the +law for settling the affairs of a bankrupt tells the same thing. Now +this change has not come from any special effort, made to produce this +particular effect, and, accordingly, it indicates the general moral +progress of the community. + +The general character of the press, since the end of the last century, +has decidedly improved, as any one may convince himself of, by comparing +the newspapers of that period, with the present; yet a publicity is +now-a-days given to certain things which were formerly kept more closely +from the public eye and ear. This circumstance sometimes produces an +apparent increase of wrong-doing, while it is only an increased +publicity thereof. Political servility, and political rancor, are +certainly bad enough, and base enough, at this day, but not long ago +both were baser and worse; to show this, I need only appeal to the +memories of men before me, who can recollect the beginning of the +present century. Political controversies are conducted with less +bitterness than before; honesty is more esteemed; private worth is more +respected. It is not many years since the Federal party, composed of men +who certainly were an honor to their age, supported Aaron Burr, for the +office of President of the United States; a man whose character, both +public and private, was notoriously marked with the deepest infamy. +Political parties are not very puritanical in their virtue at this day; +but I think no party would now for a moment accept such a man as Mr. +Burr, for such a post.[40] There is another pleasant sign of this +improvement in political parties: last autumn the victorious party, in +two wards of this city, made a beautiful demonstration of joy, at their +success in the Presidential election, and on Thanksgiving day, and on +Christmas, gave a substantial dinner to each poor person in their +section of the town. It was a trifle, but one pleasant to remember. + +Even the theological journals have improved within a few years. I know +it has been said that some of them are not only behind their times, +which is true, "but behind all times." It is not so. Compared with the +sectarian writings--tracts, pamphlets, and hard-bound volumes of an +earlier day--they are human, enlightened, and even liberal. + +In respect to poverty, there has been a great change for the better. +However, it may be said in general, that a good deal of the poverty, +intemperance, and crime, is of foreign origin; we are to deal with it, +to be blamed if we allow it to continue; not at all to be blamed for its +origin. I know it is often said, "The poor are getting poorer, and soon +will become the mere vassals of the rich;" that "The past is full of +discouragement; the future full of fear." I cannot think so. I feel +neither the discouragement nor the fear. It should be remembered that +many of the Fathers of New England owned the bodies of their laborers +and domestics! The condition of the working man has improved, relatively +to the wealth of the land, ever since. The wages of any kind of labor, +at this day, bear a higher proportion to the things needed for comfort +and convenience, than ever before for two hundred years. + +If you go back one hundred years, I think you will find that, in +proportion to the population and wealth of this town or this State, +there was considerably more suffering from native poverty then than now. +I have not, however, before me the means of absolute proof of this +statement; but this is plain, that now public charity is more extended, +more complete, works in a wiser mode, and with far more beneficial +effect; and that pains are now taken to uproot the causes of +poverty--pains which our fathers never thought of. In proof of this +increase of charity, and even of the existence of justice, I need only +refer to the numerous benevolent societies of modern origin, and to the +establishment of the ministry at large, in this city--the latter the +work of Unitarian philanthropy. Some other churches have done a little +in this good work. But none have done much. I am told the Catholic +clergy of this city do little to remove the great mass of poverty, +intemperance, and crime among their followers. I know there are some few +honorable exceptions, and how easy it is for Protestant hostility to +exaggerate matters; still, I fear the reproach is but too well founded, +that the Catholic clergy are not vigilant shepherds, who guard their +sacred flock against the terrible wolves which prowl about the fold. I +wish to find myself mistaken here. + +Some of you remember the "Old Almshouse" in Park-street; the condition +and character of its inmates; the effect of the treatment they there +received. I do not say that our present attention to the subject of +poverty is any thing to boast of--certainly we have done little in +comparison with what common sense demands; very little in comparison +with what Christianity enjoins; still it is something; in comparison +with "the good old times," it is much that we are doing. + +There has been a great change for the better in the matter of +intemperance in drinking. Within thirty years, the progress towards +sobriety is surprising, and so well marked and obvious that to name it +is enough. Probably there is not a "respectable" man in Boston who would +not be ashamed to have been seen drunk yesterday; even to have been +drunk in ever so private a manner; not one who would willingly get a +friend or a guest in that condition to-day! Go back a few years, and it +brought no public reproach, and, I fear, no private shame. A few years +further back, it was not a rare thing, on great occasions, for the +fathers of the town to reel and stagger from their intemperance--the +magistrates of the land voluntarily furnishing the warning which a +romantic historian says the Spartans forced upon their slaves. + +It is easy to praise the Fathers of New England; easier to praise them +for virtues they did not possess, than to discriminate, and fairly judge +those remarkable men. I admire and venerate their characters, but they +were rather hard drinkers; certainly a love of cold water was not one of +their loves. Let me mention a fact or two: it is recorded in the Probate +office, that in 1678, at the funeral of Mrs. Mary Norton, widow of the +celebrated John Norton, one of the ministers of the first church in +Boston, fifty-one gallons and a half of the best Malaga wine were +consumed by the "mourners;" in 1685, at the funeral of the Rev. Thomas +Cobbett, minister at Ipswich, there were consumed one barrel of wine and +two barrels of cider--"and as it was cold," there was "some spice and +ginger for the cider." You may easily judge of the drunkenness and riot +on occasions less solemn than the funeral of an old and beloved +minister. Towns provided intoxicating drink at the funeral of their +paupers; in Salem, in 1728, at the funeral of a pauper, a gallon of wine +and another of cider are charged as "incidental;" the next year, six +gallons of rum on a similar occasion; in Lynn, in 1711, the town +furnished "half a barrel of cider for the Widow Dispaw's funeral." +Affairs had come to such a pass, that in 1742, the General Court forbade +the use of wine and rum at funerals. In 1673, Increase Mather published +his "Wo unto Drunkards." Governor Winthrop complains, in 1630, that "The +young folk gave themselves to drink hot waters very immoderately."[41] + +But I need not go back so far. Who that is fifty years of age, does not +remember the aspect of Boston on public days; on the evening of such +days? Compare the "Election day," or the Fourth of July, as they were +kept thirty or forty years ago, with such days in our time. Some of you +remember the celebration of Peace, in 1783; many of you can recollect +the similar celebration in 1815. On each of those days the inhabitants +from the country towns came here to rejoice with the citizens of this +town. Compare the riot, the confusion, the drunkenness then, with the +order, decorum, and sobriety of the celebration at the introduction of +water last autumn, and you see what has been done in sixty or seventy +years for temperance. + +A great deal of the crime in Boston is of foreign origin: of the one +thousand and sixty-six children vagrant in your streets, only one +hundred and three had American parents; of the nine hundred and +thirty-three persons in the House of Correction here, six hundred and +sixteen were natives of other countries; I know not how many were the +children of Irishmen, who had not enjoyed the advantages of our +institutions. I cannot tell how many rum-shops are kept by +foreigners.[42] Now in Ireland no pains have been taken with the +education of the people by the Government; very little by the Catholic +church; indeed, the British government for a long time rendered it +impossible for the church to do any thing in this way. For more than +seventy years, in that Catholic country, none but a Protestant could +keep a school or even be a tutor in a private family. A Catholic +schoolmaster was to be transported, and, if he returned, adjudged guilty +of high treason, barbarously put to death, drawn and quartered. A +Protestant schoolmaster is as repulsive to a Catholic, as a Mahometan +schoolmaster or an Atheist would be to you. It is not surprising, +therefore, that the Irish are ignorant, and, as a consequence thereof, +are idle, thriftless, poor, intemperate, and barbarian; not to be +wondered at if they conduct like wild beasts when they are set loose in +a land where we think the individual must be left free to the greatest +extent. Of course they will violate our laws, those wild bisons leaping +over the fences which easily restrain the civilized domestic cattle; +will commit the great crimes of violence, even capital offences, which +certainly have increased rapidly of late. This increase of foreigners is +prodigious: more than half the children in your public schools are +children of foreigners; there are more Catholic than Protestant children +born in Boston. + +With the general and unquestionable advance of morality, some offences +are regarded as crimes which were not noticed a few years ago. +Drunkenness is an example of this. An Irishman in his native country +thinks little of beating another or being beaten; he brings his habits +of violence with him, and does not at once learn to conform to our laws. +Then, too, a good deal of crime which was once concealed is now brought +to light by the press, by the superior activity of the police; and yet, +after all that is said, it seems quite clear that what is legally called +crime and committed by Americans, has diminished a good deal in fifty +years. Such crime, I think, never bore so small a proportion to the +population, wealth, and activity of Boston, as now. Even if we take all +the offences committed by these strangers who have come amongst us, it +does not compare so very unfavorably as some allege with the "good old +times." I know men often look on the fathers of this colony as saints; +but in 1635, at a time when the whole State contained less than one +tenth of the present population of Boston, and they were scattered from +Weymouth Fore-River to the Merrimack, the first grand jury ever +impanelled at Boston "found" a hundred bills of indictment at their +first coming together. + +If you consider the circumstances of the class who commit the greater +part of the crimes which get punished, you will not wonder at the +amount. The criminal court is their school of morals; the constable and +judge are their teachers; but under this rude tuition I am told that the +Irish improve and actually become better. The children who receive the +instruction of our public schools, imperfect as they are, will be better +than their fathers; and their grandchildren will have lost all trace of +their barbarian descent. + +I have often spoken of our penal law as wrong in its principle, taking +it for granted that the ignorant and miserable men who commit crime do +it always from wickedness, and not from the pressure of circumstances +which have brutalized the man; wrong in its aim, which is to take +vengeance on the offender, and not to do him a good in return for the +evil he has done; wrong in its method, which is to inflict a punishment +that is wholly arbitrary, and then to send the punished man, overwhelmed +with new disgrace, back to society, often made worse than before,--not +to keep him till we can correct, cure, and send him back a reformed man. +I would retract nothing of what I have often said of that; but not long +ago all this was worse; the particular statutes were often terribly +unjust; the forms of trial afforded the accused but little chance of +justice; the punishments were barbarous and terrible. The plebeian +tyranny of the Lord Brethren in New England was not much lighter than +the patrician despotism of the Lord Bishops in the old world, and was +more insulting. Let me mention a few facts, to refresh the memories of +those who think we are going to ruin, and can only save ourselves by +holding to the customs of our fathers, and of the "good old times." In +1631, a man was fined forty pounds, whipped on the naked back, both his +ears cut off, and then banished this colony, for uttering hard speeches +against the government and the church at Salem. In the first century of +the existence of this town, the magistrates could banish a woman because +she did not like the preaching, nor all the ministers, and told the +people why; they could whip women naked in the streets, because they +spoke reproachfully of the magistrates; they could fine men twenty +pounds, and then banish them, for comforting a man in jail before his +trial; they could pull down, with legal formality, the house of a man +they did not like; they could whip women at a cart's tail from Salem to +Rhode Island, for fidelity to their conscience; they could beat, +imprison, and banish men out of the land, simply for baptizing one +another in a stream of water, instead of sprinkling them from a dish; +they could crop the ears, and scourge the backs, and bore the tongues of +men, for being Quakers; yes, they could shut them in jails, could banish +them out of the colony, could sell them as slaves, could hang them on a +gallows, solely for worshipping God after their own conscience; they +could convulse the whole land, and hang some thirty or forty men for +witchcraft, and do all this in the name of God, and then sing psalms, +with most nasal twang, and pray by the hour, and preach--I will not say +how long, nor what, nor how! It is not yet one hundred years since two +slaves were judicially burnt alive, on Boston Neck, for poisoning their +master. + +But why talk of days so old? Some of you remember when the pillory and +the whipping-post were a part of the public furniture of the law, and +occupied a prominent place in the busiest street in town. Some of you +have seen men and women scourged, naked, and bleeding, in State street; +have seen men judicially branded in the forehead with a hot iron, their +ears clipped off by the sheriff, and held up to teach humanity to the +gaping crowd of idle boys and vulgar men. A magistrate was once brought +into odium in Boston, for humanely giving back to his victim a part of +the ear he had officially shorn off, that the mutilated member might be +restored and made whole. How long is it since men sent their servants to +the "Workhouse," to be beaten "for disobedience," at the discretion of +the master? It is not long since the gallows was a public spectacle here +in the midst of us, and a hanging made a holiday for the rabble of this +city and the neighboring towns; even women came to see the +death-struggle of a fellow-creature, and formed the larger part of the +mob; many of you remember the procession of the condemned man sitting on +his coffin, a procession from the jail to the gallows, from one end of +the city to the other. I remember a public execution some fourteen or +fifteen years ago, and some of the students of theology at Cambridge, of +undoubted soundness in the Unitarian faith, came here to see men kill a +fellow-man! + +Who can think of these things, and not see that a great progress has +been made in no long time. But if these things be not proof enough, then +consider what has been done here in this century for the reformation of +juvenile offenders; for the discharged convict; for the blind, the deaf, +and the dumb; for the insane, and now even for the idiot. Think of the +numerous Societies for the widows and orphans; for the seamen; the +Temperance Societies; the Peace Societies; the Prison Discipline +Society; the mighty movement against slavery, which, beginning with a +few heroic men who took the roaring lion of public opinion by the beard, +fearless of his roar, has gone on now, till neither the hardest nor the +softest courage in the State dares openly defend the unholy +institution. A philanthropic female physician delivers gratuitous +lectures on physiology to the poor of this city, to enable them to take +better care of their houses and their bodies; an unpretending man, for +years past, responsible to none but God, has devoted all his time and +his toil to the most despised class of men, and has saved hundreds from +the jail, from crime and ruin at the last. Here are many men and women +not known to the public, but known to the poor, who are daily +ministering to the wants of the body and the mind. Consider all these +things, and who can doubt that a great moral progress has been made? It +is not many years since we had white slaves, and a Scotch boy was +invoiced at fourteen pounds lawful money, in the inventory of an estate +in Boston. In 1630, Governor Dudley complains that some of the founders +of New England, in consequence of a famine, were obliged to set free one +hundred and eighty servants, "to our extreme loss," for they had cost +sixteen or twenty pounds apiece. Seventy years since, negro slavery +prevailed in Massachusetts, and men did not blush at the institution. +Think of the treatment which the leaders of the anti-slavery reform met +with but a few years ago, and you see what a progress has been made![43] + +I have extenuated nothing of our condition; I have said the morals of +trade are low morals, and the morals of the press are low; that poverty +is a terrible evil to deal with, and we do not deal with it manfully; +that intemperance is a mournful curse, all the more melancholy when rich +men purposely encourage it; that here is an amount of crime which makes +us shudder to think of; that the voice of human blood cries out of the +ground against us. I disguise nothing of all this; let us confess the +fact, and, ugly as it is, look it fairly in the face. Still, our moral +condition is better than ever before. I know there are men who seem born +with their eyes behind, their hopes all running into memory; some who +wish they had been born long ago: they might as well; sure it is no +fault of theirs that they were not. I hear what they have to tell us. +Still, on the whole, the aspect of things is most decidedly encouraging; +for if so much has been done when men understood the matter less than +we, both cause and cure, how much more can be done for the future? + + * * * * * + +What can we do to make things better? + +I have so recently spoken of poverty that I shall say little now. A +great change will doubtless take place before many years in the +relations between capital and labor; a great change in the spirit of +society. I do not believe the disparity now existing between the wealth +of men has its origin in human nature, and therefore is to last for +ever; I do not believe it is just and right that less than one +twentieth of the people in the nation should own more than ten +twentieths of the property of the nation, unless by their own head, or +hands, or heart, they do actually create and earn that amount. I am not +now blaming any class of men; only stating a fact. There is a profound +conviction in the hearts of many good men, rich as well as poor, that +things are wrong; that there is an ideal right for the actual wrong; but +I think no man yet has risen up with ability to point out for us the +remedy of these evils, and deliver us from what has not badly been named +the Feudalism of Capital. Still, without waiting for the great man to +arise, we can do something with our littleness even now; the truant +children may be snatched from vagrancy, beggary, and ruin; tenements can +be built for the poor, and rented at a reasonable rate. It seems to me +that something more can be done in the way of providing employment for +the poor, or helping them to employment. + +In regard to intemperance, I will not say we can end it by direct +efforts. So long as there is misery there will be continued provocation +to that vice, if the means thereof are within reach. I do not believe +there will be much more intemperance amongst well-bred men; among the +poor and wretched it will doubtless long continue. But if we cannot end, +we can diminish it, fast as we will. If rich men did not manufacture, +nor import, nor sell; if they would not rent their buildings for the +sale of intoxicating liquor for improper uses; if they did not by their +example favor the improper use thereof, how long do you think your +police would arrest and punish one thousand drunkards in the year? how +long would twelve hundred rum-shops disgrace your town? Boston is far +more sober, at least in appearance, than other large cities of America, +but it is still the headquarters of intemperance for the State of +Massachusetts. In arresting intemperance, two thirds of the poverty, +three fourths of the crime of this city would end at once, and an amount +of misery and sin which I have not the skill to calculate. Do you say we +cannot diminish intemperance, neither by law, nor by righteous efforts +without law? Oh, fie upon such talk. Come, let us be honest, and say we +do not wish to, not that we cannot. It is plain that in sixteen years we +can build seven great railroads radiating out of Boston, three or four +hundred miles long; that we can conquer the Connecticut and the +Merrimack, and all the lesser streams of New England; can build up +Lowell, and Chicopee, and Lawrence; why, in four years Massachusetts can +invest eight and fifty millions of dollars in railroads and +manufactures, and cannot prevent intemperance; cannot diminish it in +Boston! So there are no able men in this town! I am amazed at such talk, +in such a place, full of such men, surrounded by such trophies of their +work! When the churches preach and men believe that Mammon is not the +only God we are practically to serve; that it is more reputable to keep +men sober, temperate, comfortable, intelligent, and thriving, than it is +to make money out of other men's misery; more Christian, than to sell +and manufacture rum, to rent houses for the making of drunkards and +criminals, then we shall set about this business with the energy that +shows we are in earnest, and by a method which will do the work. + +In the matter of crime, something can be done to give efficiency to the +laws. No doubt a thorough change must be made in the idea of criminal +legislation; vengeance must give way to justice, policemen become moral +missionaries, and jails moral hospitals, that discharge no criminal +until he is cured. It will take long to get the idea into men's minds. +You must encounter many a doubt, many a sneer, and expect many a +failure, too. Men who think they "know the world," because they know +that most men are selfish, will not believe you. We must wait for new +facts to convince such men. After the idea is established, it will take +long to organize it fittingly. + +Much can be done for juvenile offenders, much for discharged convicts, +even now. We can pull down the gallows, and with it that loathsome +theological idea on which it rests,--the idea of a vindictive God. A +remorseless court, and careful police, can do much to hinder crime;[44] +but they cannot remove the causes thereof. + +Last year, a good man, to whom the State was deeply indebted before, +suggested that a moral police should be appointed to look after +offenders; to see why they committed their crime; and if only necessity +compelled them, to seek out for them some employment, and so remove the +causes of crime in detail. The thought was worthy of the age, and of the +man. In the hands of a practical man, this thought might lead to good +results. A beginning has already been made in the right direction, by +establishing the State Reform School for Boys. It will be easy to +improve on this experiment, and conduct prisons for men on the same +scheme of correction and cure, not merely of punishment, in the name of +vengeance. But, after all, so long as poverty, misery, intemperance, and +ignorance continue, no civil police, no moral police, can keep such +causes from creating crime. What keeps you from a course of crime? Your +morality, your religion? Is it? Take away your property, your home, your +friends, the respect of respectable men; take away what you have +received from education, intellectual, moral, and religious, and how +much better would the best of us be than the men who will to-morrow be +huddled off to jail, for crimes committed in a dram-shop to-day? The +circumstances which have kept you temperate, industrious, respectable, +would have made nine tenths of the men in jail as good men as you are. + +It is not pleasant to think that there are no amusements which lie level +to the poor, in this country. In Paris, Naples, Rome, Vienna, Berlin, +there are cheap pleasures for poor men, which yet are not low pleasures. +Here there are amusements for the comfortable and the rich, not too +numerous, rather too rare, perhaps, but none for the poor, save only the +vice of drunkenness; that is hideously cheap; the inward temptation +powerful; the outward occasion always at hand. Last summer, some +benevolent men treated the poor children of the city to a day of +sunshine, fresh air, and frolic in the fields. Once a year the children, +gathered together by another benevolent man, have a floral procession in +the streets; some of them have charitably been taught to dance. These +things are beautiful to think of; signs of our progress, from "The good +old times," and omens of a brighter day, when Christianity shall bear +more abundantly flowers and fruit even yet more fair. + +The morals of the current literature, of the daily press--you can change +when you will. If there is not in us a demand for low morals, there +will be no supply. The morals of trade, and of politics, the handmaid +thereof, we can make better soon as we wish. + + * * * * * + +It has been my aim to give suggestions, rather than propose distinct +plans of action; I do not know that I am capable of that. But some of +you are rich men, some able men; many of you, I think, are good men. I +appeal to you to do something to raise the moral character of this town. +All that has been done in fifty years, or a hundred and fifty, seems +very little, while so much still remains to do; only a hint and an +encouragement. You cannot do much, nor I much: that is true. But, after +all, every thing must begin with individual men and women. You can at +least give the example of what a good man ought to be and to do, to-day; +to-morrow you will yourself be the better man for it. So far as that +goes, you will have done something to mend the morals of Boston. You can +tell of actual evils, and tell of your remedy for them; can keep clear +from committing the evils yourself: that also is something. + +Here are two things that are certain: We are all brothers, rich and +poor, American and foreign; put here by the same God, for the same end, +and journeying towards the same heaven, owing mutual help. Then, too, +the wise men and good men are the natural guardians of society, and God +will not hold them guiltless, if they leave their brothers to perish. I +know our moral condition is a reproach to us; I will not deny that, nor +try to abate the shame and grief we should feel. When I think of the +poverty and misery in the midst of us, and all the consequences thereof, +I hardly dare feel grateful for the princely fortunes some men have +gathered together. Certainly it is not a Christian society, where such +extremes exist; we are only in the process of conversion; proselytes of +the gate, and not much more. There are noble men in this city, who have +been made philanthropic, by the sight of wrong, of intemperance, and +poverty, and crime. Let mankind honor great conquerors, who only rout +armies, and "plant fresh laurels where they kill;" I honor most the men +who contend against misery, against crime and sin; men that are the +soldiers of humanity, and in a low age, amidst the mean and sordid +spirits of a great trading town, lift up their serene foreheads, and +tell us of the right, the true, first good, first perfect, and first +fair. From such men I hear the prophecy of the better time to come. In +their example I see proofs of the final triumph of good over evil. +Angels are they, who keep the tree of life, not with flaming sword, +repelling men, but, with friendly hand, plucking therefrom, and giving +unto all the leaves, the flower, and the fruit of life, for the healing +of the nations. A single good man, kindling his early flame, wakens the +neighbors with his words of cheer; they, at his lamp, shall light their +torch and household fire, anticipating the beamy warmth of day. Soon it +will be morning, warm and light; we shall be up and a-doing, and the +lighted lamp, which seemed at first too much for eyes to bear, will look +ridiculous, and cast no shadow in the noonday sun. A hundred years +hence, men will stand here as I do now, and speak of the evils of these +times as things past and gone, and wonder that able men could ever be +appalled by our difficulties, and think them not to be surpassed. Still, +all depends on the faithfulness of men--your faithfulness and mine. + +The last election has shown us what resolute men can do on a trifling +occasion, if they will. You know the efforts of the three parties--what +meetings they held, what money they raised, what talent was employed, +what speeches made, what ideas set forth: not a town was left +unattempted; scarce a man who had wit to throw a vote, but his vote was +solicited. You see the revolution which was wrought by that vigorous +style of work. When such men set about reforming the evils of society, +with such a determined soul, what evil can stand against mankind? We can +leave nothing to the next generation worth so much as ideas of truth, +justice, and religion, organized into fitting institutions; such we can +leave, and, if true men, such we shall. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[36] Rev. John Pierpont + +[37] This statement was made in 1849; subsequent events have shown that +I was mistaken. It is now thought respectable and patriotic not only to +engage in the slave-trade, but to kidnap men and women in Boston. Most +of the prominent newspapers, and several of the most prominent clergy, +defend the kidnapping. Attempts have repeatedly been made to kidnap my +own parishioners. Kidnapping is not even a matter of church discipline +in Boston in 1851. + +[38] The conduct of public magistrates who are paid for serving the +people, is not what it should be in respect to temperance. The city +authorities allow the laws touching the sale of the great instrument of +demoralization to be violated continually. There is no serious effort +made to enforce these laws. Nor is this all: the shameless conduct of +conspicuous men at the supper given in this city after the funeral of +John Quincy Adams, and the debauchery on that occasion, are well known +and will long be remembered. + +At the next festival (in September, 1851), it is notorious, that the +city authorities, at the expense of the citizens, provided a large +quantity of intoxicating drink for the entertainment of our guests +during the excursion in the harbor. It is also a matter of great +notoriety, that many were drunk on that occasion. I need hardly add, +that on board one of the crowded steamboats, three cheers were given for +the "Fugitive Slave Law," by men who it is hoped will at length become +sober enough to "forget" it. When the magistrates of Boston do such +deeds, and are not even officially friends of temperance, what shall we +expect of the poor and the ignorant and the miserable? "Cain, where is +thy Brother?" may be asked here and now as well as in the Bible story. + +[39] The statistics of intemperance are instructive and surprising. Of +the one thousand two hundred houses in Boston where intoxicating drink +is retailed to be drunken on the premises, suppose that two hundred are +too insignificant to be noticed, or else are large hotels to be +considered presently; then there are one thousand common retail +groggeries. Suppose they are in operation three hundred and thirteen +days in the year, twelve hours each day; that they sell one glass in a +little less than ten minutes, or one hundred glasses in the day, and +that five cents is the price of a glass. Then each groggery receives $5 +a day, or $1,565 (313 x 5) in a year, and the one thousand groggeries +receive $1,565,000. Let us suppose that each sells drink for really +useful purposes to the amount of $65 per annum, or all to the amount of +$65,000; there still remains the sum of $1,500,000 spent for +intemperance in these one thousand groggeries. This is about twice the +sum raised by taxation for the public education of all the children in +the State of Massachusetts! But this calculation does not equal the cost +of intemperance in these places; the receipts of these retail houses +cannot be less than $2,000 per annum, or in the aggregate, $2,000,000. +This sum in two years would pay for the new Aqueduct. Suppose the amount +paid for the needless, nay, for the injurious use of intoxicating drink +in private families, in boarding houses and hotels, is equal to the +smallest sum above named ($1,500,000), then it appears that the city of +Boston spends ($1,500,000 + $1,500,000 =) $3,000,000 annually for an +article that does no good to any but harm to all, and brings ruin on +thousands each year. But if a school-house or a school costs a little +money, a complaint is soon made. + +[40] It must be remembered that this was written, not in 1851, but in +1849. + +[41] In 1679, "The Reforming Synod," assembled at Boston, thus +complained of intemperance, amongst other sins of the times: "That +heathenish and idolatrous practice of health-drinking is too frequent. +That shameful iniquity of sinful drinking is become too general a +provocation. Days of training and other public solemnities have been +abused in this respect: and not only English but Indians have been +debauched by those that call themselves Christians.... This is a crying +sin, and the more aggravated in that the first planters of this colony +did ... come into this land with a design to convert the heathen unto +Christ, but if instead of that they be taught wickedness ... the Lord +may well punish by them.... There are more temptations and occasions +unto that sin publicly allowed of, than any necessity doth require. The +proper end of taverns, &c., being for the entertainment of strangers ... +a far less number would suffice," etc. + +Cotton Mather says of intemperance in his time: "To see ... a drunken +man become a drowned man, is to see but a most retaliating hand of God. +Why we have seen this very thing more than threescore times in our land. +And I remember the drowning of one drunkard, so oddly circumstanced; it +was in the hold of a vessel that lay full of water near the shore. We +have seen it so often, that I am amazed at you, O ye drunkards of New +England; I am amazed that you can harden your hearts in your sin, +without expecting to be destroyed suddenly and without remedy. Yea, and +we have seen the devil that has possessed the drunkard, throwing him +into fire, and then kept shrieking Fire! Fire! till they have gone down +to the fire that never shall be quenched. Yea, more than one or two +drunken women in this very town, have, while in their drink, fallen into +the fire, and so they have tragically gone roaring out of one fire into +another. O ye daughters of Belial, hear and fear and do wickedly no +more." + +The history of the first barrel of rum which was brought to Plymouth has +been carefully traced out to a considerable extent. Nearly forty of the +"Pilgrims" or their descendants were publicly punished for the +drunkenness it occasioned. + +[42] Over eight hundred in 1851. + +[43] This statement appears somewhat exaggerated in 1851. + +[44] In 1847, the amount of goods stolen in Boston, and reported to the +police, beyond what was received, was more than $37,000; in 1848, less +than $11,000. In 1849, the police were twice as numerous as in the +former year, and organized and directed with new and remarkable skill. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +NOTE TO p. 62. + +SOME ACCOUNT OF THE INSTALLATION OF MR. PARKER. + +LETTER OF THE COMMITTEE TO MR. PARKER. + + BOSTON, November 28, 1845. + +DEAR SIR:-- + +Among your friends and congregation at the Melodeon, a Society has been +organized according to law; and we have been instructed, as the Standing +Committee, to invite you to become its Minister. + +It gives us great pleasure to be the means to forward, in this small +degree, the end proposed, and we cordially extend you the invitation, +with the sincere hope that it will meet a favorable answer. + +We are, truly and respectfully, + + Your friends, + + MARK HEALEY, + JOHN FLINT, + LEVI B. MERIAM, + AMOS COOLIDGE, + JOHN G. KING, + SIDNEY HOMER, + HENRY SMITH, + GEO. W. ROBINSON, + C. M. ELLIS. + + TO THE REV. THEODORE PARKER, + + _West Roxbury, Mass_. + + +MR. PARKER'S REPLY. + + TO MARK HEALEY, JOHN FLINT, LEVI B. MERIAM, AMOS COOLIDGE, + JOHN G. KING, SIDNEY HOMER, HENRY SMITH, GEORGE W. ROBINSON, + AND C. M. ELLIS, ESQUIRES. + +DEAR FRIENDS:-- + +When I received your communication of the 28th ult. I did not hesitate +in my decision, but I have delayed giving you a formal reply, in order +that I might confer with my friends in this place, whom it becomes my +painful duty to leave. I accept your invitation; but wish it to be +provided that our connection may at any time be dissolved, by either +party giving notice to the other of a desire to that effect, six months +before such a separation is to take place. + +It is now nearly a year since I began to preach at the Melodeon. I came +at the request of some of you; but I did not anticipate the present +result. Far from it. I thought but few would come and listen to what was +so widely denounced. But I took counsel of my hopes and not of my fears. +It seems to me now that, if we are faithful to our duty, we shall in a +few years build up a society which shall be not only a joy to our own +hearts, but a blessing also to others, now strangers and perhaps hostile +to us. I feel that we have begun a good work. With earnest desires for +the success of our common enterprise, and a willingness to labor for the +advancement of real Christianity, I am, + + Faithfully, your friend, + + THEODORE PARKER. + + _West Roxbury, 12th Dec., 1845._ + + * * * * * + +On Sunday, January 4, 1846, REV. THEODORE PARKER was installed as Pastor +of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society in Boston. The exercises on +the occasion were as follows:-- + + INTRODUCTORY HYMN. + + PRAYER. + + VOLUNTARY ON THE ORGAN. + +The Chairman of the Standing Committee then addressed the Congregation +as follows:-- + +By the instructions of the Society, the Committee have made an +arrangement with Mr. Parker, by which the services of this Society, +under its new organization, should commence with the new year; and this +being our first meeting, it has been set apart for such introductory +services as may seem fitting for our position and prospects. + +The circumstances under which this Society has been formed, and its +progress hitherto, are familiar to most of those present. It first began +from certain influences which seemed hostile to the cause of religious +freedom. It was the opinion of many of those now present, that a +minister of the Gospel, truly worthy of that name, was proscribed on +account of his opinions, branded as a heretic, and shut out from the +pulpits of this city. + +At a meeting of gentlemen held January 22, 1845, the following +Resolution was passed:-- + +"_Resolved_, That the Rev. Theodore Parker shall have a chance to be +heard in Boston." + +To carry this into effect, this Hall was secured for a place of meeting, +and the numbers who have met here from Sunday to Sunday, have fully +answered our most sanguine expectations. Our meetings have proved that +though our friend was shut out from the temples, yet "the people heard +him gladly." Of the effects of his preaching among us I need not speak. +The warm feelings of gratitude and respect expressed on every side, are +the best evidences of the efficacy of his words, and of his life. + +Out of these meetings our Society has naturally sprung. It became +necessary to assume some permanent form--the labor of preaching to two +Societies, would of course be too much for Mr. Parker's health and +strength--the conviction that his settlement in Boston would be not only +important for ourselves, but also for the cause of liberal Christianity +and religious freedom--these were some of the reasons which induced us +to form a Society, and invite him to become its minister. To this he has +consented; with the understanding that the connection may be dissolved +by either party, on giving six months notice to that effect. + +At his suggestion, and with the warm approval of the Committee, we have +determined to adopt the old Congregational form of settling our +minister; without the aid of bishop, churches, or ministers. + +As to our Choice, we are, upon mature reflection, and after a year's +trial, fully persuaded that we have found our minister, and we ask no +ecclesiastical council to ratify our decision. + +As to the Charge usually given on such occasions, we prefer to do +without it, and trust to the conscience of our minister for his +faithfulness. + +As to the Right Hand of Fellowship, there are plenty of us ready and +willing to give that, and warm hearts with it. + +And for such of the other ceremonies usual on such occasions, as Mr. +Parker chooses to perform, we gladly accept the substitution of his +services for those of any stranger. + +The old Puritan form of settling a minister is, for the people to do it +themselves; and this let us now proceed to do. + +In adopting this course, we are strongly supported both by principle and +precedent. Congregationalism is the Republicanism of the Church; and it +is fitting that the people themselves should exercise their right of +self-government in that most important particular, the choice and +settlement of a minister. For examples, I need only remind you of the +settlement of the first minister in New England, on which occasion this +form was used, and that it is also used at this day by one of the most +respectable churches in this city. + + * * * * * + +The Society then ratified the proceedings by an unanimous vote; and Mr. +Parker publicly signified that he adhered to his consent to become the +Minister of this Society, and the organization of the Society was thus +completed. + + OCCASIONAL HYMN. + + DISCOURSE, BY MR. PARKER. + + ANTHEM. + + BENEDICTION. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional +Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3), by Theodore Parker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPEECHES *** + +***** This file should be named 34573.txt or 34573.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/5/7/34573/ + +Produced by Julia Miller, Josephine Paolucci 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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/34573.zip b/34573.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f3ab857 --- /dev/null +++ b/34573.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9a5a119 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #34573 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34573) |