the end.
With such opposite views the scholar must expect nothing
from Society, but may deem himself happy, if for the day-
labor, which necessity imposes, Society will give him his
hire, and beyond that leave him free to follow his proper


1840.]
179
The Art of Life.
calling, which he must either pursue with exclusive devo-
tion, or wholly abandon. The more needful is it that he
bring to the conflict the Prometheus spirit of endurance,
which belongs of old to his work and line.
Besides this voluntary abstinence from temporal advan-
tages and public affairs, the business of self-culture requires
a renunciation of present notoriety, and a seclusion more or
less rigorous from the public eye. The world is too much
with us. We live out of doors. An all-present publicity
attends our steps. Our life is in print. At every turn we
are gazetted and shown up to ourselves. Society has be-
come a chamber of mirrors, where our slightest movement
is brought home to us with thousandfold reflections. The
consequence is a morbid consciousness, a habit of living for
effect, utterly incompatible with wholesome effort and an
earnest mind. No heroic character, no depth of feeling,
or clearness of insight can ever come of such a life. All
that is best in human attainments springs from retirement.
Whoso has conceived within himself any sublime and fruitful
thought, or proposed to himself any great work or life, has
been guided thereto by solitary musing. In the ruins of
the capitol, Gibbon conceived his immortal “Rome.” In a
cavern on the banks of the Saale, Klopstock meditated his
“Messiah.” In the privacy of Woolsthorpe, Newton sur-
mised the law which pervades the All. In the solitude of
Erfurt, Luther received into his soul the new evangile of faith
and freedom.
“ And if we would say true
Much to the man is due
Who from his private gardens, where
He lived reserved and austere
As if his highest plot
To plant the bergamot
Could by industrious valor climb
To ruin the great work of time
And cast the Kingdoms old
Into another mould.”
In retirement we first become acquainted with ourselves,
our means, and ends. There no strange form interposes
between us and the truth. No paltry vanity cheats us with
false shows and aims. The film drops from our eyes.
While we gaze the vision brightens ; while we muse the fire
burnsRetirement, too, is the parent of freedom. From


180
[Oct,
The Art of Life.
living much among men we come to ape their views and
faiths, and order our principles, our lives, as we do our coats,
by the fashion of the times. Let him who aspires to pop-
ular favor and the suffrage of his contemporaries court the
public eye. But whoso would perfect himself and bless the
world with any great work or example, must hide his young
days in “ some reclusive and religious life out of all eyes,
tongues, minds, and injuries.”
Whatever selfishness there may seem to be in such a dis-
cipline as this, exists only in appearance. The influence it
would have upon Society would, in fact, be hardly less ben-
eficial than its influence on the individual himself. In self-
culture lies the ground and condition of all culture. Not
those, who seem most earnest in promoting the culture of
Society, do most effectually promote it. We have reform-
ers in abundance, but few who, in the end, will be found to
have aided essentially the cause of human improvement;
either because they have failed to illustrate in them-
selves the benefits they wished to confer, and the lesson they
wished to inculcate, or because there is a tendency in man-
kind to resist overt efforts to guide and control them. The
silent influence of example, where no influence is intended,
is the true reformer. The only efficient power, in the mor-
al world, is attraction. Society are more benefited by one
sincere life, by seeing how one man has helped himself,
than by all the projects that human policy has devised for
their salvation. The Christian church — the mightiest in-
fluence the world has known — was the product of a great
example.
Every period has its own wants, and different epochs re-
quire a different discipline. There are times when man-
kind are served by conformity; and there are times when
a sterner discipline is required to revive the heroic spirit in
a puny and servile age. When the Athenian mind, emas-
culated by the luxury which succeeded the Persian wars,
and corrupted by the mischievous doctrines of the Sophists,
had lost its fine sense of justice and truth; then arose, with
austere front and wholesome defiance, the Cynics and the
Stoics, whose fan was in their hands, and whose lives went
deeper than Plato's words. That the present is a period
when examples like these would not be unprofitable, no one,
I think, can doubt, who has considered well its characteris-


1840.]
181
The Art of Life.
tic tendencies and wants — the want of courage, the want
of faith, the hollowness of Church and State, the shallow-
ness of teachers,
" Whose lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw,"
the hunger of the taught, who “look up and are not fed,"
and the frequent protest, which he who listens may hear
from all the better spirits in the land. The time has come
when good words are no longer of any avail. Book-teaching
has become effete. No man teaches with authority. All
are eager to speak, none are willing to hear. What the age
requires is not books, but example, high, heroic example;
not words but deeds ; not societies but men, - men who
shall have their root in themselves, and attract and convert
the world by the beauty of their fruits. All truth must be liv-
ed before it can be adequately known or taught. Men are
anterior to systems. Great doctrines are not the origin, but
the product, of great lives. The Cynic practice must pre-
cede the Stoic philosophy, and out of Diogenes's tub came
forth in the end the wisdom of Epictetus, the eloquence of
Seneca, and the piety of Antonine.
On this ground I am disposed to rejoice in those radical
movements, which are everywhere springing up in the discon-
tented spirits and misguided efforts of modern reform. Per-
fectionism, Grahamism, Nonresistance, and all the forms of
ultraism, blind and headlong as they seem, have yet a meaning
which, if it cannot command assent, must at least preclude
contempt. They are the gropings of men who have waked
too soon, while the rest of mankind are yet wrapt in sleep,
and the new day still tarries in the East. The philosopher
sees through these efforts, and knows that they are not the
light that is to come; but he feels that they are sent to
bear witness of the light, and hails them as the welcome to.
kens of approaching day. However our reason may disal-
low, however our taste may reject them, the thoughtful
mind will perceive there the symptoms of a vitality which ap-
pears nowhere else. They are the life, however spasmodic, of
this generation. There, or nowhere, beats the heart of the
century. Thus the new in Church and State is always pre-
ceded by a cynical, radical spirit, which wages war with the
old. Every genuine reform has its preacher in the wilder-


182
(Oct.
The Art of Life.
ness. First the Cynic John with hair cloth and fasts, then
- the God-man Jesus with the bread of life.
Meanwhile the scholar has his function, too, in this bap-
tism of repentance. For him, too, the age has its problem
and its task. What other reformers are to the moral culture,
he must be to the mind of his age. By taste averse, by
calling exempt, from the practical movements around him, to
him is committed the movement of thought. He must be
a radical in speculation, an ascetic in devotion, a Cynic in
independence, an anchorite in his habits, a perfectionist in
discipline. Secluded from without, and nourished from
within, self-sustained and self-sufficing, careless of praise or
blame, intent always on the highest, he must rebuke the
superficial attainments, the hollow pretensions, the feeble ef-
forts, and trivial productions, of his contemporaries, with
the thoroughness of his acquisitions, the reach of his views,
the grandeur of his aims, the earnestness of his endeavor.
It is to such efforts and to such men that we must look for the
long expected literature of this nation. Hitherto our literature
has been but an echo of other voices and climes. Generally,
in the history of nations, song has preceded science, and the
feeling of a people has been sooner developed than its un-
derstanding. With us this order has been reversed. The
national understanding is fully ripe, but the feeling, the
imagination of the people, has found as yet no adequate
expression. We have our men of science, our Franklins,
our Bowditches, our Cleavelands; we have our orators,
our statesmen; but the American poet, the American thinker
is yet to come. A deeper culture must lay the foundation
for him, who shall worthily represent the genius and utter
the life of this continent. A severer discipline must pre-
pare the way for our Dantes, our Shakspeares, our Miltons.
“He who would write an epic,” said one of these, “must
make his life an epic.” This touches our infirmity. We
have no practical poets, — no epic lives. Let us but have
sincere livers, earnest, whole-hearted, heroic men, and we
shall not want for writers and for literary fame. Then
shall we see springing up, in every part of these Republics,
a literature, such as the ages have not known, - a literature,
commensurate with our idea, vast as our destiny and varied
as our clime.


1840.]
1
Letter to a Theological Student.
183
LETTER TO A THEOLOGICAL STUDENT.
that he
your minor in heart
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I was somewhat surprised at the information, that you
had commenced the study of theology ; but not sorry, I
assure you. I supposed that you had looked at all the at-
tractions which the study holds out, and had found that
you were made for something else. On that account, I
always avoided saying anything which might look like
tempting you to engage in it; being persuaded that a
taste for our profession must be born in the heart, and not
awakened by any external persuasion or influence. But
now that you have made up your mind to devote yourself
to its duties, I cannot but rejoice with you in your deter-
mination, and wish you the blessing of God on your pros-
pects. You enter on the study with the advantages of an
ardent temperament, a vigorous will, no slight experience
of the world, and, I trust, with a pure purpose of yielding
to the inspirations of your higher nature. With a spirit of
earnest and glowing piety, with a true sympathy with Christ
and with your fellow-men, and with a rational zeal for the
progress of Humanity, the promotion of light, truth, and
joy in the world, (and all these qualities will be more and
more developed, as you go on, if true to yourself, you can-
not fail of being happy in your studies and in your pro-
fession, should it please God to spare your life to enter it.
I need not tell how sincerely my best wishes are given to
you at this moment, how earnestly I pray that you may be
a faithful student and a happy pastor.
Let me guard you against one almost fatal error, into
which I have observed our young men are too apt to fall,
and that is, the habit of studying in order to find supports,
wherewith to maintain prevailing opinions, rather than to
attain to a clear and living system of truth, which shall be
to the soul what the blood is to the body, — a flowing
fountain of inward strength, and giving beauty, activity,
and the glow of health to every outward manifestation.
You may think the day is past for any fear of this error.
You may suppose that our age and our community are
too free and independent, to present any temptations to
such a course. But I am compelled to believe, that this is


184
[Oct.
Letter to a Theological Student.
not yet the case with us. A young man commences study
with a view to the Orthodox ministry. But he is well aware
of what he is expected to learn, to believe, and to preach.
He knows that, if he deviates by a perceptible hair's
breadth from this established line, he will gain neither
a parish nor a hearing. He must either change his plan
of life altogether, or take good care to see no truth and
listen to no arguments, (except to refute them,) which
could tempt him to swerve from the old path. You may
say that you are in no danger from this, because you have
your eye fixed on the liberal ministry. But let me here
tell you a secret, — which on second thought is no secret,
after all, — young as you are, I dare say, you have long ago
found it out for yourself. I allude to the fact, that al-
though, as liberal Christians, we have renounced the Ortho-
dox doctrines, we still cherish too much of the exclusive
spirit. We are too desirous of uniformity of faith, too
fearful of future progress, too anxious for the success of
our party. We do not maintain, as we should, a generous
confidence in Truth, and in Humanity. Now this spirit
easily gains possession of the soul. It grows upon it
while we are asleep. It creeps over a character, which, in
other respects, is bright with many virtues. But call it
Orthodox or what you will, this spirit in its worst form is
more at war with the spirit of Christ, with the essence of
Protestantism, and the noblest interests of piety, than the
darkest doctrines of Orthodoxy. A bad doctrine is often
sanctified and made harmless by a true spirit; whereas a
cowardly, time-serving, selfish spirit cannot be redeemed
from its intrinsic degradation, by an alliance with the pur-
est doctrines that ever fell from mortal lips. God pre-
serve us from the most distant approach to such a spirit,
or we are as good as dead. But we are too much exposed
to this in our present state of society. A young man
commences study with a view to the liberal ministry. But
here, too, he knows what is expected of him. A strait
path is marked out for his feet; but while he is told to use
his freedom, and think for himself, woe to him if he dare
to choose any other. He must avoid, as he would the
gates of Hades, everything like the old dogmatics. He
must take care not to speak too much of sin, or of the
need of a new heart, not to use too frequently or too fer-


1840.] Letter to a Theological Student. 185
vently the name of Christ or of the Holy Ghost, not to
press too warmly the reality of religious experience, and
the heights and depths of the Christian life, lest he should
be accused of too much zeal, lest he should be thought not
to be sound, lest he should be suspected of some faint shad-
ow of approach to the gloom and darkness of Orthodoxy.
But then he must also take good care not to fall into the
gulf on the opposite side. He must hold on to all the ideas
which, by a sort of vague, unwritten common law, have be-
come part and parcel of liberal Christianity. If he ven-
ture to differ much from his teachers, if he wishes to wipe
off the dust of centuries from some dark nook in the Goth-
ic temple of our faith, if he speak out from the fulness
of his own heart and in the strength of severe conviction, in
dissonance with the prevailing echoes of departed voices,
he will be certain to raise a cry, by no means musical,
against his presumption and independence. He will be
thought to compromise the interests of his party ; and of
course perils his own reputation. A man must have un-
common moral courage, united with a truly ingenuous and
transparent mind, to consent to run such a risk. He there-
fore seeks for a safe and approved path, rather than one
which suits his own ideas; he loves rather to ride in a troop
on the dusty highway, than to search out for himself those
green and shady avenues of truth, which are “so full of
goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side, that
the harp of Orpheus was not more charming.” Hence the
dulness of sermons which is so much complained of. No
man can preach well, unless he coins his own flesh and blood,
the living, palpitating fibres of his very heart, into the words
which he utters from the pulpit. If he speaks what he has
learned from others, what he finds in books, what he thinks
it decorous and seemly that a man should say in his place, he
may indeed be a good mechanic in the pulpit, he may help
to hand down a worm-eaten, stereotyped system of theology,
to those who have no more heart for it than he lias himself;
but a true prophet of God, a man baptized with the Holy
Ghost and with fire, he can never be. And for the want of
such men how much are religion and the Church now suffer-
ing. Compare the science of Theology (for it is a science)
with that of Astronomy, Chemistry, Political Economy, even
with pure Mathematics, in short with any science that pre-
VOL. I. —NO. II.
24


156
(Oct.
Letter to a Theological Student.
tends to go alone; and see the decrepit, the worn and
withered figure of the one, in contrast with the fresh and
buoyant movements of the others. The latter breathing
the free mountain air, where all the winds of doctrine are
let loose, with health in every feature and life in every mo-
tion, inspired with the joy of youth and the consciousness of
power ; the former lagging behind the magnificent proces-
sion, in which all Sciences and Arts are pressing forward to
truth, clad in the weeds of widowhood and poverty, with
sunken eye and wasted brow, and no hope, but that of de-
cent burial, when the last asthmatic breath shall have been
sent forth.
In Europe a new life has sprung up from the ashes of a
departed faith; a hag-like, scholastic theology has given
up the ghost, upon being brought out of darkness into
daylight; and a virgin form appears radiant with beauty,
and already uttering the same words with which angel
voices heralded the birth of Christ. It is for our young
men to welcome this glorious visitant to their bosoms. It is
for them to naturalize a truly liberal and generous theology on
our own blessed soil. Their mission is arduous, but it cannot
fail of its completion. I rejoice that you have commenced the
study of theology, just at this epoch in our progress. I
know you have a free mind which will never blench from
inquiry, and a bold one, which will not fear to utter its
thoughts. Let it be filled and consecrated with the heaven-
ly spirit of Christ, let your youthful energy be blended with
the meekness and gentleness and wisdom of your Divine
Master, and you will have everything to hope and little to
fear.
I sincerely congratulate you on the advantages you will
enjoy, under the guidance of so frank and healthy a mind
as his, whom you have chosen for a teacher. I am certain
(for I know him well) that he will never prescribe to you ar-
ticles to be believed, but will only direct you to the great lights
above and within, which you must see for yourself. You
will do well to imbibe bis spirit of perfect tolerance.
A minister must be wretched without this. It will secure
him from all the little disgusts, which a various intercourse
is apt to engender; it will enable him to bear with every di-
versity of expression and of character, as well as of faith ;
and to enter with strong heart and hope into all the practical


1840.]
187
The Poor Rich Man.
.
details of his profession, which are usually so irksome to the
man, whose dainty fastidiousness has no sympathy with
what he deems vulgar or common-place.
If you read German, let me recommend to you “ Herder's
Letters on the Study of Theology." You will find them a
fruitful source of noble and glorious thoughts; and can nev-
er read them without feeling your heart elevated and made
better, though they may not impart much positive and exact
instruction. If you do not read German, the perusal of
that book alone, would repay you for the six months' study
of leisure hours, which it would cost to acquire the lan-
guage.
I am sure you will not take ill of me the freedom with
which I have answered your letter. I have no fancy for giv-
ing advice, and I do not intend for such what I have now
written. It is rather the expression of sympathy, which I
know from experience is always welcome to a young man,
from those who are a few years in advance of him, in the
path which he is about to enter.
December, 1836.
Raling
“THE POOR RICH MAN.”
How in my youth I longed and prayed to have
Communion with a wise and perfect soul,
And flung away the things that fortune gave,
And over which she claimed to have control.
How my heart stiffened to the world of sense,
And, dying, sought a life far more intense.
And how the treasure I so dearly won,
And spent my life to seek, in riper age,
I long to pour out on some needy son
Of time, that he may have fair heritage.
Alas, that once I languished to be fed,
And now have none to whom to give my bread!
Why askest thou, friend, for new thoughts never said?
On the same olden lore are all fair spirits fed.


188
(Oct
Musings of a Recluse.
MUSINGS OF A RECLUSE.
I.
I have seen, after three or four days of still summer rain
and gray sky, a most glorious lighting up, though gradual, for
the clouds had so long hung together that they were slow and
loth to part, and they lingered in the heavens all day, roll-
ing here and there their silvery white masses, or floating
lazily through space, dark, heavy, and dull together; when
parted they became bright glorified bodies. What a moral
might be drawn from them for dull, low-hanging, heavy clus-
ters of human beings.
II.
How often do we hear enforced the necessity of watch-
ing, guarding, and arranging our actions ; our duty illustra-
ted by that of military men, who cannot gain a battle
by merely grand general views of victory without attending
to minute details, or by the agriculturist, who is watching the
growth of various portions of the soil he cultivates, and so
forth. Is not the difference between spiritual and material
things just this; that in the one case we must watch details,
in the other keep alive the high resolve, and the details will
take care of themselves ? Keep the sacred central fire burn-
ing, and throughout the system in each of its acts will be
warmth and glow enough.
III.
How like an imprisoned bird is Christianity! The teach-
ers of Humanity have been, and always are, gilding and a-
dorning its cage, cleansing and sprinkling it with perfume,
improving its drinking vessels, and calling us around it to
gaze and see how beautiful the captive is, and admonishing
us to plume our wings just so ; not for flight, but that they
may look decorous. Though one of delicate perception may
delect something sweet and soothing in the poor bird's gentle
note, and something cheering in its bolder melody; yet there
is an unhealthy moaning in its music, and a lifelessness in its
drooping wing, which separate it from its free and exulting
mates of the woods and hills. Where is he who, with pious
but not limid hand, may gently unlock its prison-house and
say,“ Go forth, patient sufferer, and cheer the world with thy
free and joyous song. Warble it in the ear of the young and


1840.]
189
Musings .
M
.
RecluseRecluse.
.
of a happy, chant it melodiously at the window of the sufferer,
till an answering strain is heard throughout the universe.”
IV.
Jean Paul has said, “our convictions can never be
so firm that they may not become firmer by their beautiful
correspondence with those of another mind. The rain is
not less reviving to water plants in the midst of their stream
than to those growing on the bank.” Not to him who
awakens new thoughts, but to him who confirms, us in the
convictions which are the result of our thinking do we feel
ourselves most indebted. When this confirmation of be-
lief extends over a wide range of subjects, and is uttered
in a few select words of deepest wisdom, we no longer ac-
cept it as cheering sympathy, but bow to it as high au-
thority. When after years of careful observation and deep
study of incongruous things, we have detected a principle
that ranges them all in beautiful order around its centre, and
are rewarded for our toil by the discovery, and we attempt
to unfold this principle to others in the selectest language
we can command, how are we impressed by finding in
one short sentence of a sage or bard of far off ages, our
slowly obtained experience uttered as the every-day thought
of his deeper wisdom. Could we find any record crowded
with such oracles, it would be to us divine, it would be to us
revelation. Such revelations do we find in the Gospels of
Christianity. However earnestly each may contend that
the evidence most convincing to his own mind is the only
true testimony; so surely as each mind conceives a God of
its own, so surely must each individual mind find its own ev-
idence and its corresponding faith. Do I need a miracle to
prove the divinity of the teachings I am listening to, I take
a miracle for my evidence and my faith itself is a miracle,
not the simple growth of my unfolding powers ; if confirma-
tion of my own experience, and deeper penetration into life
than I have yet attained, be the evidence I demand, I glad-
ly welcome that higher teaching, and exclaim with as heart-
felt joy as the shepherds, who received the angelic visiters,
“ Glory to God in the highest !"
Amid all the bewilderments of this bewildering life, noth-
ing perplexed me so long as to find the right place for its
trifles ; tinsel, gewgaws as one class terms them ; its elegan-


190
Musings of a Recluse. - [Oct.
cies, luxuries as they are named by the other. I nev-
er had any affinity with those undraped souls, who, stern
in principle, reject all that cannot at once be transmuted
into their own granite formation, and frown incessantly on
all the graceful shapes of minor form in which life flows out.
Neither do I join that other company, who value every
lighter grace of intellect, and every fair form that wit cre-
ates, but prune away those slighter and more common man-
ifestations of beauty which lend a charm to every-day life.
I was sure these trifles had their meaning, and if their
meaning, their place; too deep a meaning for those to in-
terpret, who live and move and have their being in them.
A few years passed, and the love of perfection became my
religion, the quiet striving for it my aim; then all things in
Heaven and earth took their true proportions. The tri-
fling elegancies of life assumed an importance, not dreamed
of by those who live in them. They became expressions
of a thirst for beauty that nature alone can satisfy. The
rose-colored curtain of my boudoir was a reflection of the
evening cloud, my velvet couch in winter became my sum-
mer's bank of turf, perfumes my flowers, jewels my stars,
the more brilliant the more star-like. The shade of my
ribband, the proportion of my shoe-tie, had to do with the
harmony and order of the Universe, which I had no right
to mar. Nothing was mean, and with this self-discovered
truth came interpreted to me the command, often lightly
passed over before, “Make to yourselves friends of the
mammon of unrighteousness,” and when these minor tem-
porary charms of life have faded, the spirit, which they
have helped to enrich, will open to you everlasting habi-
tations.
Yesterday was to me a most glorious day of revelling. Wea-
ried and perturbed by dusty every-day cares and turmoils,
I stole from them for a while, for a good long reading in
Bettina's journal. For hours I bathed and floated in the sea
of her beautiful thoughts; rather in the flood of her gush-
ing rapture-feelings, from amid whose golden or moon-light
waves arose thoughts like green islands thickly scattered.
Bettina is a most rare creature, expanding from her earliest
years generously and freely, without hindrance from out-


1840.]
191
Musings of a Recluse.
ward obstacle or inward strife; one who was born to tell
us the secrets of nature, and reveal to us what she may be-
come to every childlike, loving soul. Bettina grew up in
her lap like a pet infant, kept apart from every other in-
fluence, that we might see how wise are the teachings of
our mother. This is the first time I have ever seen writ-
ten out in poetry or prose the best that can yet be said of
this Universe, that lies about us, or even my own narrow
experience of its inexhausted power, and yet this is only the
beginning of its many-sided history. This little heroine is
the first I have ever known, who thoroughly understood, and
used what we all enjoy. Nature was the loving nurse fo her
infancy, and though she sometimes showed to her favorite her
sterner features they were mantled in a smile, for her which
won a confiding trust; she was the playmate of her youth and
the companion of her early begun womanhood, when she felt
that her circle of life was incomplete, till she met the kindred
mind from whose fulness the richness of her own might be
doubled, and who might teach her with his elder wisdom
more than she yet had learned of the universe and of herself.
Not as interpreter of nature within and without her, did
she adopt him, for before the unclouded vision of her
innocence no awful mysteries presented themselves with-
out, and within all was clear and bright. Goethe was to
her the expression of the divine soul in humanity. It
might have been another, perhaps Novalis, perhaps some
one else, for it was not an individual, it was being in a form
which charmed that she demanded. Nothing could be more
original and yet more natural than her passion for her Ju-
piter, Apollo all in one. It was a perfectly pure and sanc-
tifying feeling of worship. In him was concentrated the
spirit of the universe, life, as it had looked out to her be-
fore from trees and brooks and flowers, and spoken to her
in the hum of insect and song of bird. He was the light
of life to her, and she expanded in it. It asked no return,
it could not be returned, it would have been disturbed and
limited by an answering fervor; it only needed a protect-
ing benignity, a placid, grateful permission to be. He was
human and with the hope and expectation of return would
have come disappointment, perhaps despair, at best incom-
pleteness. The stream must flow at its own sweet will into all
the nooks and crevices of the flowery, grassy bank it bathes,


192
[Oct.
Musings of a Recluse.
and fill it to the brim with its own fulness, and flow back
again laden with sweet odors and dancing with livelier
joy ; but if the bank move to meet it, it repels and hems
it in, and changes it from a calm flowing river to a wild
torrent. · With a little more of trust and kindness there
would be something almost as beautiful in Goethe's calm
way of encouraging Bettina's passion, as in the passion itself.
He met it in the only way it could be met, and most gently
breathed upon it. The profound wisdom of the little maid
is as striking as her ardor. She never raves, and her ex-
travagance is of the most healthy kind. She revels in the
universe and in her love, but accepts the conditions to
which the Infinite has subjected the finite, understands the
limitations of humanity, and unrepiningly submits, know-
ing that what she most cherishes is illimitable in its nature
and will presently burst its fetters. Perhaps it were well
if many ardent natures should expand under such influen-
ces as Bettina's. It is certainly most favorable for a noble
free spirit to be attracted by the noblest it can find, and un-
disturbed by any restless craving for sympathy, love and
admire at too great a distance from its object to perceive
imperfections, but near enough to feel the sunlight of what
glory it may possess, and thrive therein. Then the condi-
tion of hopeless love, from being the most degrading into
which innocence can fall, would become the noblest. To
be uncomplaining but ardent was Bettina's high praise, and
her love was so generalizing, so little occupied with the de-
tails of admiration, that its dignity is sustained, and we hard-
ly feel it to be a delusion.
No one should read this journal, who is not at once so
deeply interested in the unfolding of Bettina's rich nature
as to lose sight of the thought, that after years had passed
she could translate the record of her love into a foreign
language, and spread it abroad over the world. Yet when
we have learned to love her, this thought becomes less
revolting. We reverence the youthful trust that still clings
to her, and permits her to expose her intimate heart's history
to the multitude, for the sake of the kind ones who will
welcome it. She is so absorbed in the object of her pas-
sion, that perhaps she did not regard the tale as her own
history, but rather as a worthy monument to him who in-
spired it.


1840.]
193
The Wood-Fire.
THE WOOD-FIRE.
This bright wood-fire
So like to that which warmed and lit
My youthful days - how doth it flit
Back on the periods nigher,
Relighting and rewarming with its glow
The bright scenes of my youth — all gone out now.
How eagerly its flickering blaze doth catch
On every point now wrapped in time's deep shade,
Into what wild grotesqueness by its flash
And fitful checquering is the picture made!
When I am glad or gay,
Let me walk forth into the brilliant sun,
And with congenial rays be shone upon;
When I am sad, or thought-bewitched would be,
Let me glide forth in moonlight's mystery,
But never, while I live this changeful life,
This past and future with all wonders rife,
Never, bright flame, may be denied to me,
Thy dear, life-imaging, close sympathy.
What but my hopes shot upward e'er so bright?
What but my fortunes sank so low in night?
Why art thou banished from our hearth and hall,
Thou who art welcomed and beloved by all ?
Was thy existence then too fanciful
For our life's common light, who are so dull ?
Did thy bright gleam mysterious converse hold
With our congenial souls? secrets too bold ?
Well, we are safe and strong, for now we sit
Beside a hearth where no dim shadows flit,
Where nothing cheers nor saddens, but a fire
Warms feet and hands — nor does to more aspire;
By whose compact, utilitarian heap,
The present may sit down and go to sleep,
Nor fear the ghosts who from the dim past walked,
And with us by the unequal light of the old wood-fire talked.
THE DAY BREAKS.
LITTLE child! little child! seeking a home,
To the Great Spirit trustfully come,
It is no miser holding back treasure,
'T will lavish upon you gifts without measure,
If you will but receive. Hold forth your hand,
And it is filled with the streaming light,
Open your eyes, look out o'er the land,
Behold! it is day, and you thought it was night.
2.
VOL. 1. —NO. II.
25


194
[Oct.
The Poet.
THE POET.
He touched the earth, a soul of flame,
His bearing proud, his spirit high,
Filled with the heavens from whence he came,
He smiled upon man's destiny.
Yet smiled as one who knew no fear,
And felt a secret strength within,
Who wondered at the pitying tear
Shed over human loss and sin.
Lit by an inward brighter light
Than aught that round about him shone,
He walked erect through shades of night,
Clear was his pathway — but how lone!
Men gaze in wonder and in awe
Upon a form so like to theirs,
Worship the presence, yet withdraw,
And carry elsewhere warmer prayers.
Yet when the glorious pilgrim guest,
Forgetting once his strange estate,
Unloosed the lyre from off his breast
And strung its chords to human fate;
And gaily snatching some rude air,
Carrolled by idle passing tongue,
Gave back the notes that lingered there,
And in Heaven's tones earth's low lay sung;
Then warmly grasped the hand that sought
To thank him with a brother's soul,
And when the generous wine was brought,
Shared in the feast and quaffed the bowl; -
Men laid their hearts low at his feet,
And sunned their being in his light,
Pressed on his way his steps to greet,
And in his love forgot his might.
And when, a wanderer long on earth,
On him its shadow also fell,
And dimmed the lustre of a birth,
Whose day-spring was from heaven's own well;
They cherished even the tears he shed,
Their woes were hallowed by his woe,
Humanity, half cold and dead,
Had been revived in genius' glow.


1840.)
195
Life. — Evening.
LIFE.
GREATLY to Be
Is enough for me,
Is enough for thee.
Why for work art thou striving,
Why seek'st thou for aught ?
To the soul that is living
All things shall be brought.
What thou art thou wilt do,
And thy work will be true.
But how can I Be
Without labor or love?
Life comes not to me
As to calm gods above.
Not only above
May spirit be found,
The sunshine of love
Streams all around.
The sun does not say,
“I will not shine
Unless every ray
Fall on planets divine.”
He shines upon dust,
Upon things mean and low,
His own inward thought
Maketh him glow.
EVENING.
A SMALL brook murmurs with a silver tone,
An echo to the wind that softly sighs ;
The birds into their moonlit nests have flown;
Through dews the flowers look up with tearful eyes.
Beautiful trees wave gently in that wood,
The moonlight stealeth in among the boughs.
Let no vain step within those aisles intrude, -
It is a holy place, and full of heavenly vows.


196
(Oct.
A Lesson for the Day.
A LESSON FOR THE DAY;
OR
THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST, OF THE CHURCH,
AND OF SOCIETY.
" Hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches, .... I know thy
works, that thou hast a name, that thou livest, and art dead.” — BIBLE.
Every man has at times in his mind the Ideal of what
he should be, but is not. This ideal may be high and
complete, or it may be quite low and insufficient; yet in
all men, that really seek to improve, it is better than the
actual character. Perhaps no one is satisfied with him-
self, so that he never wishes to be wiser, better, and more
holy. Man never falls so low, that he can see nothing
higher than himself. This ideal man which we project, as
it were, out of ourselves, and seek to make real; this
Wisdom, Goodness, and Holiness, which we aim to trans-
fer from our thoughts to our life, has an action, more or
less powerful, on each man, rendering him dissatisfied
with present attainments, and restless, unless he is becom-
ing better. With some men it takes the rose out of the
cheek, and forces them to wander a long pilgrimage of
temptations, before they reach the delectable mountains of
Tranquillity, and find - Rest for the Soul,” under the Tree
of Life.
Now there is likewise an ideal of perfection floating
before the eyes of a community or nation; and that ideal
which hovers, lofty or low, above the heads of our nation,
is the Christian ideal, “ the stature of the perfect man in
Christ Jesus.” Christianity then is the ideal our nation
is striving to realize in life; the sublime prophecy we are
laboring to fulfil. Of course, some part thereof is made
real and actual, but by no means the whole ; for if it were,
some higher ideal must immediately take its place. Hence
there exists a difference between the actual state in which
our countrymen are, and the ideal state in which they
should be ; just as there is a great gulf between what each
man is, and what he knows he ought to become. But
there is at this day not only a wide difference between the


1840.]
197
A Lesson for the Day.
true Christian ideal, and our actual state, but what is still
worse, there is a great dissimilarity between our ideal, and
the ideal of Christ. The CHRISTIANITY OF Christ is the
highest and most perfect ideal ever presented to the long-
ing eyes of man; but the CHRISTIANITY OF THE CHURCH,
which is the ideal held up to our eyes, at this day, is a
very different thing; and the ChristiaNITY OF Society,
which is that last ideal imperfectly realized, has but the
slightest affinity with Christ's sublime archetype of man.'
Let us look a little more narrowly into the matter.
Many years ago, at a time when all nations were in a
state of deep moral and religious degradation; when the
world lay exhausted and sick with long warfare ; at a time
when Religion was supported by each civilized State ; but
when everywhere the religious form was outgrown and
worn out, though the State yet watched this tattered gar-
ment with the most jealous care, calling each man a blas-
phemer, who complained of its scantiness, or pointed out
its rents; at a time when no wise man, any where, had
the smallest respect for the popular Religion, except so far
as he found it a convenient instrument to keep the mob in
subjection to their lords; and when only the few had any
regard for Religion, into whose generous hearts it is by
nature so deeply sown, that they are born religious; at
such a time, in a little corner of the world, of a people
once pious but then corrupted to the heart; of a nation
well known only to be justly and universally hated - there
was born a man; a right true man. He had no advan-
tage of birth, for he was descended from the poorest of
the people ; none of education, for he was brought up in
a little village, whose inhabitants were wicked to a proverb;
and so little had schools and colleges to do for him, that
his townsmen wondered he had learned to read. He had
no advantage of aid or instruction from the great and the
wise; but grew up and passed his life, mainly, with fishers,
and others of like occupation, the most illiterate of men.
This was a true man; such as had never been seen be-
fore. None such has risen since his time. He was so
true, that he could tolerate nothing false ; so pure and holy,
that he, and perhaps he alone of all men, was justified in
calling others by their proper name; even when that


198
A Lesson for the Day.. [Oct.
proper name was Blind Guide, Fool, Hypocrite, Child of
the Devil. He found men forgetful of God. They
seemed to fancy He was dead. They lived as if there had
once been a God, who had grown old and deceased.
They were mistaken also as to the nature of man. They
saw he had a body ; they forgot he is a Soul, and has
a Soul's Rights, and a Soul's Duties. Accordingly they
believed there had been Revelations, in the days of their
fathers, when God was alive and active. They knew not
there were Revelations every day to faithful Souls ;-
Revelations just as real, just as direct, just as true, just as
sublime, just as valuable, as those of old time ; for the
Holy Spirit has not yet been exhausted, nor the River of
God's inspiration been drunk dry by a few old Hebrews,
great and divine souls though they were.
He found men clinging to tradition, as orphan girls cling
to the robe of their mother dead and buried, hoping to
find life in what had once covered the living. Thus men
stood with their faces nailed to the past ; their eyes fast-
ened to the ground. They dreamed not the sun rose each
morning fresh and anew. So their teachers looked only
at the west, seeking the light amid dark and thundering
clouds, and mocking at such as, turning their faces to the
East, expounded the signs of new morning, and “ wished
for the day."
This true man saw through their sad state, and com-
forting his fellows he said, Poor brother man, you are de-
ceived. God is still alive. His Earth is under your feet.
His Heaven is over your head. He takes care of the
sparrows. Justice, and Wisdom, and Mercy, and Good-
ness, and Virtue, and Religion are not superannuated and
ready to perish. They are young as Hunger and Thirst,
which shall be as fresh in the last man as they were in
the first. God has never withdrawn from the universe,
but he is now present and active in this spot, as ever on
Sinai, and still guides and inspires all who will open their
hearts to admit him there. Men are still men; born pure
as Adam and into no less a sphere. All that Abraham,
Moses, or Isaiah possessed is open unto you, just as it
was to them. If you will, your inspiration may be glori-
ous as theirs, and your life as divine. Yea, far more; for
the least in the New Kingdom is greater than the greatest


1840.]
199
A Lesson for the Day.
in the Old. Trouble not yourselves then with the fringes
and tassels of thread-bare tradition, but be a man on your
own account.
Poor sinful Brother, said he to fallen man, you have
become a fool, an hypocrite, deceiving and deceived. You
live as if there were no God; no soul; as if you were but
a beast. You have made yourself as a ghost, a shadow,
not a man. Rise up and be a man, thou child of God.
Cast off these cumbrous things of old. Let Conscience be
your Lawgiver; Reason your Oracle ; Nature your Tem-
ple; Holiness your High-priest ; and a Divine Life your
Offering. Be your own Prophet ; for the Law and the old
Prophets were the best things men had before John; but
now the Kingdom of Heaven is preached ; leave them, for
their work is done. Live no longer such a mean life as
now. If you would be saved — love God with your
whole heart, and man as yourself. Look not back
for better days and say Abraham is our father ; but live
now, and be not Abrahams, but something better. Look
not forward to the time when your fancied deliverer shall
come; but use the moment now in your hands. Wait not
for the Kingdom of God; but make it within you by a
divine life. What if the Scribes and Pharisees sit in the
seat of authority? Begin your kingdom of the divine life,
and fast as you build it, difficulties will disappear; false
men shall perish, and the true rise up. Set not for your
standard the limit of old times, — for here is one greater
than Jonah or Solomon, — but be perfect as God. Call
no man master. Call none father, save the Infinite Spirit.
Be one with him ; think his thoughts; feel his feelings, and
live his will. Fear not; I have overcome the world, and
you shall do yet greater things; I and the Father will
dwell with you forever. Thus he spoke the word which
men had longed to hear spoken, and others had vainly
essayed to utter. While the great and gifted asked in de-
rision, Art thou greater than our father Jacob — multi-
tudes of the poor in spirit heard him ; their hearts throbbed
with the mighty pulsations of his heart. They were
swayed to and fro by his words, as an elm-branch waves in
the summer wind. They said, this is one of the old
Prophets, Moses, Elias, or even that greater Prophet, the
" desire of all nations.” They shouted with one voice,


200
[Oct.
A Lesson for the Day.
He shall be our King; for human nature is always loyal
at its heart, and never fails of allegiance, when it really sees
a real hero of the Soul, in whose heroism of Holiness
there is nothing sham. As the carnal pay a shallow wor-
ship to rich men, and conquering chiefs, and other heroes
of the Flesh, so do men of the spirit revere a faithful Hero
of the Soul, with whatever in them is deepest, truest, and
most divine.
Before this man had seen five and thirty summers, he
was put to death by such men as thought old things were
new enough, and false things sufficiently true, and like
owls and bats shriek fearfully when morning comes, be-
cause their day is the night, and their power, like the spec-
tres of fable, vanishes as the cock-crowing ushers the
morning in. Scarce had this divine youth begun to spread
forth his brightness, men had seen but the twilight of his
reason and inspiration, the full noon must have come at a
later period of life, when experience and long contempla-
tion had matured the divine giſts, never before nor since so
prodigally bestowed, nor used so faithfully. But his doc-
trine was ripe, though he was young. The truth he re-
ceived at first hand from God required no age to render it
mature. So he perished. But, as the oak the woodman
fells in Autumn on the mountain side scatters ripe acorns
over many a rood, some falling perchance into the bosom
of a stream, to be cast up on distant fertile shores, so his
words sprung up a host of men ; living men like himself,
only feebler and of smaller stature. They were quickened
by his words, electrified by his love, and enchanted by his
divine life. He who has never seen the Sun can learn
nothing of it from all our words ; but he who has once
looked thereon can never forget its burning brilliance.
Thus these men, “ who had been with Jesus," were lit up
by him. His spirit passed into them, as the Sun into the
air, with light and heat. They were possessed and over-
mastered by the new spirit they had drunken in. They
cared only for truth and the welfare of their brother men.
Pleasure and ease, the endearments of quiet life and the
dalliance of home, were all but a bubble to them, as they
sought the priceless pearls of a divine life. Their heart's
best blood — what was it to these men? They poured it
joyfully as festal wine was spent at the marriage in Cana


1810.]
201
A Lesson for the Day.
of Galilee ; for, as their teacher's life had taught them to
live, so had his death taught them to die to the body,
that the soul might live greater and more. In their hearts
burned a living consciousness of God; a living love of
man. Thus they became rare men, such as the world but
seldom sees. Some of them had all of woman's tender-
ness, and more than man's will and strength of endurance,
which earth and hell cannot force from the right course.
Thus they were fitted for all work. So the Damascus
steel, we are told, has a temper so exquisite, it can trim a
feather and cleave iron bars.
Forth to the world are sent these willing seedsmen of
God; bearing in their bosom the Christianity of Christ,
desiring to scatter this precious seed in every land of the
wide world. The Priest, the Philosopher, the Poet, and
the King, — all who had love for the past, or an interest
in present delusions, — join forces to cast down and tread
into dust these Jewish fishermen and tent-makers. They
ſetter the limbs; they murder the body; but the word of
God is not bound, and the soul goes free. The seed, sown
broadcast with faith and prayers, springs up and grows
night and day, while men wake and while they sleep.
Well it might, beneath the hot sun of persecution, and
mojstened by the dew that martyrs shed. The mailed
Roman, hard as iron from his hundred battles, saw the he-
roism of Christian flesh, and beginning to worship that,
saw with changed heart, the heroism of the Christian
soul; the spear dropped from his hand, and the man, new-
born, prayed greater and stronger than before. Hard-
hearted Roman men, and barbarians from the fabulous
Hydaspis, stood round in the Forum, while some Christian
was burned with many tortures for his faith. They saw
his gentle meekness, far stronger than the insatiate steel or
flame, that never says enough. They whispered to one
another - those hard-hearted men – in the rude speech of
common life, more persuasive than eloquence, That young
man has a dependent and feeble father, a wife, and a little
babe, newly born, but a day old. He leaves them all to
uncertain trouble, worse perhaps than his own, yet neither
the love of young and blissful life, nor the care of parent,
and wife, and child can make him swerve an inch from the
truth. Is there not God in this ? And so when the winds
VOL. I. —NO. II.
26


202
[Oct.
A Lesson for the Day.
scattered wide the eloquent ashes of the uncomplaining vic-
tim to regal or priestly pride, the symbolical dust, which
Moses cast towards Heaven, was less prolific and less pow-
erful than his.
So the world went for two ages. But in less than three
centuries the faith of that lowly youth, and so untimely
slain, proclaimed by the fearless voice of those trusting
apostles, written in the blood of their hearts, and illumina-
ted by the divine life they lived - this faith goes from its
low beginning on the Galilean lake, through Jerusalem,
Ephesus, Antioch, Corinth, and Alexandria ; ascends the
throne of the Cæsars, and great men, and temples, and
towers, and rich cities, and broad kingdoms lie at its feet.
What wrought this wondrous change so suddenly ; in the
midst of such deadly peril; against such fearful odds?
We are sometimes told it was because that divine youth
had an unusual entrance into life; because he cured a few
sick men, or fed many hungry men, by unwonted means.
Believe it you who may, it matters not. Was it not rather
because his doctrine was felt to be true, real, divine, satis-
fying to the soul; proclaimed by real men, true men, who
felt what they said, and lived what they felt? Man was
told there was a God still alive, and that God a Father;
that man had lost none of that high nature which shone in
Moses, Solomon, or Isaiah, or Theseus, or Solon, but was
still capable of Virtue, Thought, Religion, to a degree,
those sages not only never realized, but never dreamed of.
He was told there were Laws for his nature, - laws to be
kept: Duties for his nature, — duties to be done:
Rights for his nature, — rights to be enjoyed : Hopes
for his nature, — hopes to be realized, and more than
realized, as man goes forward to his destiny, with per-
petual increase of stature. It needs no miracle but a
man to spread such doctrines. You shall as soon stay
Niagara with a straw ; or hold in the swelling surges of
an Atlantic storm, with the “ spider's most attenuated
thread," as prevent the progress of God's truth, with all
the Kings, Poets, Priests, and Philosophers, the world has
ever seen; and for this plain reason, that Truth and God
are on the same side. Well said the ancient, “ Above all
things Truth beareth away the victory.”
Such was the nature, such the origin of the CHRISTIAN-
that mene, was a Gand lived Whreal, men
Rights fouties for the Laws for


1840.)
203
A Lesson for the Day.
ITY OF CHRIST; the true ideal of a divine life; such its
history for three hundred years. It is true that, soon as it
was organized into a church, there were divisions therein,
and fierce controversies, Paul withstanding fickle Peter to
the face. It is true, hirelings came from time to time to
live upon the flock; indolent men wished to place their
arm-chair in the church and sleep undisturbed ; ambitious
men sought whom they might devour. But in spite of all
this, there was still a real religious life. Christianity was
something men felt, and felt at home, and in the market-
place, by fire-side and field-side, no less than in the tem-
ple. It was something they would make sacrifice for,
leaving father and mother and child and wife, if needful ;
something they would die for, thanking God they were ac-
counted worthy of so great an end. Still more it was
something they lived every day; their religion and their
life were the same.
Such was Christianity as it was made real in the lives of
the early Christians. But now, the CHRISTIANITY OF THE
CHURCH, by which is meant that somewhat which is taught
in our religious books, and preached in our pulpits, is a
thing quite different, nay, almost opposite. It often fetters
and enslaves men. It tells them they must assent to all
the doctrines and stories of the Old Testament, and to all
the doctrines and stories of the New Testament; that they
must ascribe a particular and well-defined character to
God; must believe as they are bid respecting Christ and
the Bible, or they cannot be saved. If they disbelieve,
then is the anathema uttered against them; true, the
anathema is but mouthfuls of spoken wind ; yet still it is
uttered as though it could crush and kill. The church in-
sists less on the divine life, than on the doctrines a man
believes. It measures a man's religion by his creed, and
calls him a Heathen or a Christian, as that creed is short
or long. Now in the Christianity of Christ, there is no
creed essential, unless it be that lofty desire to become
perfect as God; no form essential, but love to man and
love to God. In a word, a divine life on the earth is the
all in all with the Christianity of Christ. This and this
only was the Kingdoin of God, and eternal life. Now the
church, as keeper of God's Kingdom, bids you assent to
arbitrary creeds of its own device, and bow the knee to


204
(Oct.
A Lesson for the Day.
its forms. Thus the Christianity of the Church, as it is
set forth at this day, insults the soul, and must beliule a
man before it can bless him. The church is too small for
the soul; “ the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch
himself on it, and the covering narrower than that he can
wrap himself in it.” Some writer tells us of a statue of
Olympian Jove, majestic and awful in its exquisite beauty,
but seated under a roof so low, and within walls so nar-
row, that should the statue rise to its feet, and spread the
arms, it must demolish its temple, roof and wall. Thus
sits Man in the Christian church at this day. Let him
think in what image he is made ; let him feel his immor-
tal nature, and rising, take a single step towards the divine
life — then where is the church ?
The range of subjects the church deigns to treat of is
quite narrow; its doctrines abstract; and thus Chris-
tianity is made a letter and not a life; an occasional affair
of the understanding, not the daily business of the heart.
The ideal now held up to the public, as the highest word
ever spoken to man, is not the ideal of Christ, the meas-
ure of a perfect man, not even the ideal of the Apostles
and early Christians. Anointed teachers confess without
shame, that Goodness is beiter than Christianity. True
alas, it is better in degree, yes different in kind from the
Christianity of the church. Hence in our pulpits, we hear
but little of the great doctrines of Jesus ; the worth of
the soul; the value of the present moment; the brother-
hood of all men, and their equality before God; the ne-
cessity of obeying that perfect law God has written on the
soul; the consequences which follow necessarily from diso-
beying ; consequences which even Omnipotence cannot re-
move; and the blessed results for now and forever, that
arise from obedience, and the all importance of a divine
life. The power of the soul to receive the Holy Ghost;
the divine might of a regenerate man; the presence of
God and Christ now in faithful hearts; the inspiration of
good men ; the Kingdom of God on the Earth — these
form not the substance of the church's preaching. Still
less are they applied to life, and the duties which come of
them shown and enforced. The church is quick to dis-
cover and denounce the smallest deviation from the belief
of dark ages, and to condemn vices no longer popular ; it


1840.]
205
A Lesson for the Day.
is conveniently blind to the great fictions which lie at the
foundation of Church and State ; sees not the rents, daily
yawning more wide, in the bowing walls of old institutions ;
and never dreams of those causes, which, like the drugs of
the Prophet in the fable, are rending asunder the Idol of
Brass and Clay men have set up to worship. So the mole,
it has been said, within the tithe of an inch its vision ex-
tends over, is keener of insight than the lynx or the eagle ;
but to all beyond that narrow range is stone blind.
Alas, what men call Christianity, and adore as the best
thing they see, has been degraded ; so that if men should
be all that the pulpit commonly demands of them, they
would by no means be Christians. To such a pass have
matters reached, that if Paul should come upon the Earth
now, as of old, it is quite doubtful that he could be ad-
mitted to the Christian church; for though Felix thought
much knowledge had made the Apostle mad, yet Paul
ventured no opinion on points respecting the nature of
God, and the history of Christ, where our pulpits utter dog-
matic and arbitrary decisions, condemning as infidels and
accursed all such as disagree therewith, be their life never
so godly. These things are notorious. Still more, it may
be set down as quite certain, that if Jesus could return from
the other world, and bring to New England that same bold-
ness of inquiry, which he brought to Judea ; that same
love of living truth, and scorn of dead letters ; could he
speak as he then spoke, and live again as he lived before,
he also would be called an infidel by the church; be
abused in our newspapers, for such is our wont, and only
not stoned in the streets, because that is not our way of
treating such men as tell us the truth.
Such is the Christianity of the church in our times. It
does not look forward but backward. It does not ask
truth at first hand from God; seeks not to lead men di-
rectly to Him, through the divine life, but only to make
them walk in the old paths trodden by some good pious
Jews, who, were they to come back to earth, could as little
understand our circumstances as we theirs. The church
expresses more concern that men should walk in these pe-
culiar paths, than that they should reach the goal. Thus
the means are made the end. It enslaves men to the Bi-
ble ; makes it the soul's master, not its servant; forgetting


206
[Oct.
A Lesson for the Day.
that the Bible, like the Sabbath, was made for man, not
man for the Bible. It makes man the less and the Bible
the greater. The Saviour said, Search the Scriptures; the
Apostle recommended them as profitable reading; the
church says, Believe the Scriptures, if not with the consent
of reason and conscience, why without that consent or
against it. It rejects all attempts to humanize the Bible,
and separate its fictions from its facts; and would fain wash
its hands in the heart's blood of those, who strip the robe of
human art, ignorance, or folly, from the celestial form of
divine Truth. It trusts the imperfect Scripture of the
Word, more than the Word itself, writ by God's finger on
the living heart." Where the spirit of the Lord is, there
is liberty,” says the Apostle. But where the spirit of the
church is, there is slavery. It would make all men think
the same thoughts; feel the same feelings; worship by the
same form.
The church itself worships not God, who is all in all,
but Jesus, a man born of woman. Grave teachers, in
defiance of his injunction, bid us pray to Christ. It sup-
poses the Soul of all our souls cannot hear, or will not ac-
cept a prayer, unless offered formally in the church's
phrase, forgetting that we also are men, and God takes
care of oxen and sparrows, and hears the young ravens
when they cry, though they pray not in any form or
phrase. Still, called by whatever name, called by an idol's
name, the true God hears the living prayer. And yet per-
haps the best feature of Christianity, as it is now preached,
is its idolatrous worship of Christ. Jesus was the brother
of all. He had more in common with all men, than they
have with one another. But he, the brother of all, has
been made to appear as the master of all; to speak with
an authority greater than that of Reason, Conscience, and
Faith ; - an office his sublime and Godlike spirit would
revolt at. But yet, since he lived divine on the earth, and
was a hero of the soul, and the noblest and largest hero
the world has ever seen, perhaps the idolatry that is paid
him is the nearest approach to true worship, which the
mass of men can readily make in these days. Reverence
for heroes has its place in history; and though worship of
the greatest soul ever swathed in the flesh, however much
he is idealized and represented as incapable of sin, is


1840.]
A Lesson for the Day.
207
without measure below the worship of the ineffable God;
still it is the purest and best of our many idolatries in the
nineteenth century. Practically speaking, its worst feature
is, that it mars and destroys the highest ideal of man, and
makes us beings of very small discourse, that look only
backward.
The influence of real Christianity is to disenthral the
man; to restore him to his nature, until he obeys Con-
science, Reason, and Religion, and is made free by that
obedience. It gives him the largest liberty of the Sons of
God, so that as faith in truth, becomes deeper, the man
is greater and more divine. But now those pious souls
who accept the church's Christianity are, in the main,
crushed and degraded by their faith. They dwindle daily
in the church's keeping. Their worship is not faith, but
fear; and bondage is written legibly on their forehead, like
the mark set upon Cain. They resemble the dwarfed
creed they accept. Their mind is encrusted with unin-
telligible dogmas. They fear to love man, lest they offend
God. Artificial in their anxiety, and morbid in their self-
examination, their life is sickly and wretched. Conscience
cannot speak its mother tongue to them ; Reason does not
utter its oracles; nor Love cast out fear. Alas, the church
speaks not to the hearty and the strong; and the little and
the weak who accept its doctrines become weaker and less
thereby. Thus woman's holier heart is often abased and
defiled, and the deep-thoughted and true of soul forsake
the church, as righteous Lot, guided by an angel, fled out
of Sodom. There will always be wicked men who scorn
a pure church, and perhaps great men too high to need
its instructions. But what shall we say when the church
as it is impoverishes those it was designed to enrich, and
debilitates so often the trusting souls that seek shelter in
its arms?
Alas for us, we see the Christianity of the Church is a
very poor thing; a very little better than Heathenism.
It takes God out of the world of nature and of man, and
hides him in the church. Nay, it does worse ; it liinits
God, who possesseth heaven and earth, and is from ever-
lasting to everlasting, restricting his influence and inspira-
tion to a little corner of the world, and a few centuries of
history, dark and uncertain. Even in this narrow range,


208
[Oct.
A Lesson for the Day.
it makes a deity like itself, and gives us not God, but Jeho-
vah. It takes the living Christ out of the heart, and
transfigures him in the clouds, till he becomes an anoma-
lous being, not God, and not man; but a creature, whose
holiness is not the divine image, he has sculptured for
himself out of the rock of life, but something placed over
him, entirely by God's hand, and without his own effort.
It has taken away our Lord, and left us a being whom
we know not; severed from us by his prodigious birth,
and his alleged relation to God, such as none can share.
What have we in common with such an one, raised above
all chance of error, all possibility of sin, and still more sur-
rounded by God at each moment, as no other man bas
been? It has transferred him to the clouds. It makes
Christianity a Belief, not a Life. It takes Religion out of the
world, and shuts it up in old books, whence, from time to
time, on Sabbaths and fast-days and feast-days — it seeks to
evoke the divine spirit, as the witch of Endor is fabled to have
called up Samuel from the dead. It tells you with grave
countenance, to believe every word spoken by the Apos-
tles, — weak, Jewish, fallible, prejudiced, mistaken as they
sometimes were — for this reason, because forsooth Peter's
shadow, and Paul's pocket-handkerchief cured the lame
and the blind. It never tells you, Be faithful to the spirit
God has given ; open your soul and you also shall be in-
spired, beyond Peter and Paul it may be, for great though
they were, they saw not all things and have not absorbed
the Godhead. No doubt the Christian church has been
the ark of the world; no doubt some individual churches
are now free from these disgraces; still the picture is true
as a whole.
Alas, it is true that men are profited by such pitiful
teachings ; for the church is above the community, and
the CHRISTIANITY OF Society is far below that of the
church; even in that deep there is a lower deep. This is
a hard saying no doubt. But let us look the facts in the
face, and see how matters are. It is written in traveller's
journals and taught in our school-books, that the Ameri-
cans are Christians! It is said in courts of justice that
Christianity is part of the law of the land. With the inno-
cent meaning, it is likely, that the Law of the Land is part
of Christianity. But what proofs have we that the men of


1840.]
A Lesson for the Day.
209
autiful day, of spristian life.hanting symmeekly
New England are Christians? We point to our churches.
Lovely emblems they are of devotion. In city and vil-
lage, by road-side and stream-side, they point meekly
their taper finger to the sky, the enchanting symbol of
Christian aspiration and a Christian life. Through all our
land of hill and valley, of springs and brooks, they stand,
and most beautiful do they make it, catching the earliest
beam of day, and burning in the last flickering rays of the
long-lingering sun. Sweet 100 is the breath of the Sab-
bath bell; dear to the hearts of New England; it floats
undulating on the tranquil air, like a mother's brooding
note calling her children to their home. We mention our
Bibles and religious books, found in the houses of the rich,
and read with blissful welcome beside the hearth-stone of
the poor. We point to our learned clergy, the appointed
defenders of the letter of Christianity. All this proves
nothing. The Apostles could point to no long series of
learned scribes ; only to a few rough fishermen in sheep-
skins and goat-skins. They had no multitude of Bibles
and religious books, for they cast behind them the Old
Testament, as a law of sin and death, and the New Tes-
tament was not then written, save in the heart; they had
no piles of marble and mortar ; no silvery and sweet-noted
bell to rouse for them the slumbering morn. Yet were
those men Christians. They did not gather of a Lord's-
day, in costly temples, to keep an old form, or kill the
long-delaying hours ; - but in small upper rooms; on the
sea-shore ; beneath a tree ; in caves of the desert moun-
tains; or the tombs of dead men in cities, met those no-
ble hearts, to worship God at first hand, and exhort one
another to a manly life, and a martyr's death, if need were.
We see indeed an advance in our people above all an-
cient time; we fondly say, the mantle of a more liberal cul-
ture is thrown over us all. The improved state of society
brings many a blessing in its train. The arts diffuse com-
fort ; industry and foresight afford us, in general, a compe-
tence; schools and the printing-press, which works inde-
fatigable with its iron hand, day and night, spread know-
ledge wide. Our hospitals, our asylums, and churches for
the poor give some signs of a Christian spirit. Crimes
against man's person are less frequent than of old, and the
legal punishments less frightful and severe. The rich do
VOL. I. — NO. 11.
27


210
Oct.
A Lesson for the Day.
ough-shodden overcome what. They of Love, the
not ride rough-shodden over the poor. These things prove
that the age has advanced somewhat. They do not prove
that the spirit of Religion, of Christianity, of Love, the
spirit of Christ, of God, are present among us and active;
for enlightened prudence, the most selfish of selfishness
'would lead to the same results; and who has the hardi-
hood to look facts in the face, and call our society spirit-
ual and Christian ? The social spirit of Christianity de-
mands that the strong assist the weak.
We appeal as proofs of our Christianity to our attempts
at improving ruder tribes, to our Bibles and Missionaries,
sent with much self-denial and sacrifice to sa vage races.
Admitting the nobleness of the design, granting the
Christian Spirit is shown in these enterprises, — for this at
least must be allowed, and all heathen antiquity is vainly
challenged for a similar case, — there is still a most melan-
choly reverse to this flattering picture. Where shall we
find a savage nation on the wide world that has, on the
whole, been blessed by its intercourse with Christians ?
Where one that has not most manifestly been polluted and
cursed by the Christian foot ? Let this question be asked
from Siberia to Patagonia, from the ninth century to the
nineteenth ; let it be put to the nations we defraud of
their spices and their furs, leaving them in return our Re-
ligion and our Sin ; let it be asked of the Red-man, whose
bones we have broken to fragments, and trodden into
bloody mire on the very spot where his mother bore him ;
let it be asked of the Black-man, torn by our cupidity
from his native soil, whose sweat, exacted by Christian
stripes, fattens our fields of cotton and corn, and brims
the wine-cup of national wealth ; whose chained hands
are held vainly up as his spirit strives to God, with great,
overmastering prayers for vengeance, and seem to clutch at
the volleyed thunders of just, but terrible retribution, pen-
dent over our heads. Let it be asked of all these, and
who dares stay to hear the reply, and learn what report
of our Christianity goes up to God ?
We need not compare ourselves with our fathers, and
say we are more truly religious than they were. Shame
on us if we are not. Shame on us if we are always to
be babes in religion, and whipped reluctant into decent
goodness by fear, never growing up to spiritual manhood.


1840.]
211
A Lesson for the Day.
Admitting we are a more Christian people than our
fathers, let us measure ourselves with the absolute stan-
dard. What is religion amongst us? Is it the senti-
ment of the Infinite penetrating us with such depth of
power, that we would, if need were, leave father and
mother and child and wife, to dwell in friendless solitudes,
so that we might worship God in peace? O no, we were
very fools to make such a sacrifice, when called on for
the sake of such a religion as that commonly preached,
commonly accepted and lived. It is not worth that cost ;
so mean and degraded is religion among us. Religion
does not possess us as the sun possesses the violets, giving
them warmth, and fragrance, and color, and beauty. It
does not lead to a divine character. One would fancy the
bans of wedlock were forbidden between Christianity and
Life, also, as we are significantly told, they have been be-
tween Religion and Philosophy; so that the feeling and the
thought, like sterile monks and nuns, never approach to
clasp hands, but dwell joyless, each in a several cell. Re-
ligion has become chiefly, and with the well clad mass of
men, a matter of convention, and they write Christian with
their name as they write “Mr.," because it is respectable;
their fathers did so before them. Thus to be Christian
comes to nothing, it is true, but it costs nothing, and is
fairly worth what it costs.
Religion should be “a thousand-voiced psalm,” from
the heart of man to man's God, who is the original of
Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, and is revealed in all that is
good, true, and beautiful. But religion is amongst us, in
general, but a compliance with custom ; a prudential calcu-
lation ; a matter of expediency; whereby men hope,
through giving up a few dollars in the shape of pew-tax,
and a little time in the form of church-going, to gain the
treasures of heaven and eternal life. Thus Religion has
become Profit; not Reverence of the Highest, but vulgar
hope and vulgar fear; a working for wages, to be estimated
by the rules of loss and gain. Men love religion as the
mercenary worldling his well-endowed wife ; not for her-
self, but for what she brings. They think religion is use-
ful to the old, the sick, and the poor, to charm them with
a comfortable delusion through the cloudy land of this
earthly life; they wish themselves to keep some running


212
A Lesson for the Day. (Oct..
account therewith, against the day, when they also shall be
old, and sick, and poor. Christianity has two modes of
action, direct on the heart and life of a man, and indirect
through conventions, institutions, and other machinery, and
in our time the last is almost its sole influence. Hence
men reckon Christianity as valuable to keep men in order ;
it would have been good policy for a shrewd man to have
invented it on speculation, like other contrivances, for the
utility of the thing. In their eyes the church, especially
the church for the poor, is necessary as the Court-house
or the Jail; the minister is a well-educated Sabbath-day
constable; and both are parts of the great property estab-
lishment of the times. They value religion, not because
it is true and divine, but because it serves a purpose.
They deem it needful as the poll-tax, or the militia system,
a national bank, or a sub-treasury. They value it among
other commodities; they might give it a place in their in-
ventories of stock, and hope of Heaven, or faith in Christ,
might be summed up in the same column with money at
one per cent.
The problem of men is not first the Kingdom of God,
that is a perfect life on the earth, lived for its own sake,
but first all other things, and then, if the Kingdom of God
come of itself, or is thrown in to the bargain, like pack-
thread and paper with a parcel of goods, why very well;
they are glad of it. It keeps “ all other things ” from
soiling. Does religion take hold of the heart of us?
Here and there, among rich men and poor men, especially
among women, you shall find a few really religious, whose
life is a prayer; and Christianity their daily breath. They
would have been religious had they been cradled among
cannibals, and before the flood. They are divine men;
of whom the spirit of God seems to take early hold, and
Reason and Religion to weave up, by celestial instinct, the
warp and woof of their daily life. Judge not the age by
its religious geniuses. The mass of men care little for
Christianity; were it not so, the sins of the forum and the
market-place, committed in a single month, would make
the land rock to its centre.. Men think of religion at
church, on the Sabbath ; they make sacrifices, often great
sacrifices, to support public worship, and attend it most
sedulously, these men and women. But here the matter
een religionistianity the really religi, especially
market.pl rock toabbath ; they worship, But here t


1840.]
213
A Lesson for thc Day.
vas. Religion their housindows of How many this will
ends. Religion does not come into their soul; does not
show itself in their housekeeping and trading. It does
not shine out of the windows of morning and evening,
and speak to them at every turn. How many young men
in the thousand say thus to themselves, Of this will I
make sure, a Christian Character and Divine Life, all
other things be as God sends? How many ever set their
hearts on any moral and religious object, on achieving a
perfect character, for example, with a fraction of the inter-
est they take in the next election ? Nay, woman also
must share the same condemnation. Though into her
rich heart God more generously sows the divine germs of
Religion ; though this is her strength, her loveliness, her
primal excellence, yet she also has sold her birthright for
tinsel ornaments, and the admiration of deceitful lips. Men
think of religion when they are sick, old, in trouble, or about
to die, for getting that it is a crown of life at all times;
man's choicest privilege ; his highest possession; the chain
that sweetly links him to Heaven. If good for anything, it is
good to live by. It is a small thing to die religiously ; a
devil could do that; but to live divine is man's work.
Since Religion is thus regarded, or disregarded by men,
we find that talent and genius, getting insight of this,
float off to the market, the workshop, the senate, the
farmer's field, or the court-house, and bring home with
honor the fleece of gold. Meanwhile, anointed dulness,
arrayed in canonicals, his lesson duly conned, presses,
semi-somnous, the consecrated cushions of the pulpit, and
pours forth weekly his impotent drone, to be blest with
bland praises, so long as he disturbs not respectable iniquity
slumbering in his pew, nor touches an actual sin of the
times, nor treads an inch beyond the beaten path of the
church. Well is it for the safety of the actual church,
that genius and talent forsake its rotten walls, to build up
elsewhere the church of the first-born, and pray largely
and like men - Thy kingdom come. There is a con-
cealed skepticism amongst us, all the more deadly because
concealed. It is not a denial of God, — though this it is
whispered to our ear is not rare, —- for men have opened
their eyes too broadly not to notice the fact of God, every-
where apparent, without and within ; still less is it disbe-
lief of the Scriptures; there has always been too much


214
A Lesson for the Day.
[Oct.
belief in their letter, though far too little living of their
Truths. But there is a doubt of man's moral and relig-
ious nature; a doubt if Righteousness be so super-excel-
lent. We distrust Goodness and Religion, as the blind
doubt if the sun be so fine as men tell of; or as the deaf
might jeer at the extatic raptures of a musician. Who
among men trusts conscience as he trusts his eye or ear?
With them the Highest in man is self-interest. When
they come to outside goodness, therefore, they are driven
by fear of hell, as by a scorpion whip; or bribed by the
distant pleasures of Ileaven. Accordingly, if they em-
brace Christianity, they make Jesus, who is the archetype
of a divine life, not a man like his brothers, who had hu-
man appetites and passions ; was tempted in the flesh;
was cold, and hungry, and faint, and tired, and sleepy, and
dull — each in its season — and who needed to work
out his own salvation, as we also must do. But they
make him an unnatural character; passionless ; amphibi-
ous; not man and not God; whose Holiness was poured
on him from some celestial urn, and so was in no sense
his own work, and who, therefore, can be no example for
us, goaded as we are by appetite, and bearing the ark of
our destiny in our own hands. It is not the essential ele-
ment of Christianity, love to man and love to God, men
commonly gather from the New Testament; but some per-
plexing dogma, or some oriental dream. How few relig-
ious men can you find, whom Christianity takes by the
hand, and leads through the Saharas and Siberias of the
world; men whose lives are noble, who can speak of
Christianity as of their trading, and marrying, out of their
own experience, because they have lived it? There is
enough cant of Religion, creeds written on sanctimonious
faces, as signs of that emptiness of heart, “ which passeth
show," but how little real Religion, that comes home to
men's heart and life, let experience decide.
Yet, if he would, man cannot live all to this world. If
not religious, he will be superstitious. If he worship not
the true God, he will have his idols. The web of our
mortal life, with its warp of destiny and its woof of free
will, is most strangely woven up, by the flying shuttles
of time, which rest not, wake we or sleep; but through
this wondrous tissue of the perishing, there runs the gold


1840.]
215
A Lesson for the Day.
thread of eternity, and like the net Peter saw in his vision,
full of strange beasts and creeping things, this web is at
last seen to be caught up to heaven by its four corners,
and its common things become no longer unclean. We
cannot always be false to Religion. It is the deepest
want of man. Satisfy all others, we soon learn, that we
cannot live by bread only, for as an ancient has said, “it
is not the growing of fruits that nourisheth man, but thy
Word, which preserveth them that put their trust in thee.''
Without the divine life we are portionless, bereft of
strength, without the living consciousness of God, we are
orphans, left to the bleakness of the world.
But our paper must end. The Christianity of the
Church is a very poor thing; it is not bread, and it is not
drink. The Christianity of Society is still worse; it is bitter in
the mouth and poison in the blood. Still men are hungering
and thirsting, though not always knowingly, after the true
bread of life. Why shall we perish with hunger ? In our
Father's house is enough and to spare. The Christianity
of Christ is high and noble as ever. The Religion of
Reason, of the Soul, the Word of God, is still strong and
flame-like, as when first it dwelt in Jesus, the chiefest in-
carnation of God, and now the pattern-man. Age has not
dimmed the lustre of this light that lighteneth all, though
they cover their eyes in obstinate perversity, and turn away
their faces from this great sight. Man has lost none of
his God-likeness. He is still the child of God, and the
Father is near to us as to him who dwelt in his bosom.
Conscience has not left us. Faith and Hope still abide;
and Love never fails. The Comforter is with us; and
though the man Jesus no longer blesses the earth, the ideal
Christ, formed in the heart, is with us to the end of the
world. Let us then build on these. Use good words
when we can find them, in the church, or out of it.
Learn to pray, to pray greatly and strong; learn to rev-
erence what is Highest; above all learn to live; to make
Religion daily work, and Christianity our common life. All
days shall then be the Lord's-day ; our homes, the house
of God, and our labor, the ritual of religion. Then we
shall not glory in men, for all things shall be ours; we
shall not be impoverished by success, but enriched by
affliction. Our service shall be worship, not idolatry.


216
(Oct.
Wayfarers. — From Goethe.
The burthens of the Bible shall not overlay and crush us;
its wisdom shall make us strong, and its piety enchant us.
Paul and Jesus shall not be our masters, but elder broth-
ers, who open the pearly gate of Truth and cheer us on,
leading us to the Tree of Life. We shall find the Kingdom
of Heaven and enjoy it now, not waiting till Death fer-
ries us over to the other world. We shall then repose be-
side the rock of ages, smitten by divine hands, and drink
the pure water of life as it flows from the Eternal, to
make earth green and glad. We shall serve no longer
a bond-slave to tradition, in the leprous host of sin, but
become free men, by the Law and Spirit of Life. Thus
like Paul shall we serve the Christ within ; and like Jesus
serving and knowing God directly, with no mediator in-
tervening, become one with Him. Is not this worth
a man's wish ; worth his prayers; worth his work, to seek
the living Christianity ; the Christianity of Christ ? Not
having this, we seem but bubbles, — bubbles on an ocean,
shoreless and without bottom; bubbles that sparkle a mo-
ment in the sun of life, then burst to be no more. But
with it we are men, immortal Souls, heirs of God, and
joint heirs with Christ.
P.
WAYFARERS.
How they go by - those strange and dreamlike men!
One glance on each, one gleam from out each eye,
And that I never looked upon till now,
Has vanished out of sight as instantly.
Yet in it passed there a whole heart and life,
The only key it gave that transient look;
But for this key its great event in time
Of peace or strife to me a sealed book.
FROM GOETHE.
If at a master's work I look,
What has been done with joy I see;
But if I read in mine own book,
I see what should have been done by me.


1840.]
217
Pæan. — Lyric.
PÆAN.
Sing songs of joy by the foaming tide,
Beings of beauty who sit on the shore!
Let the sweeping winds and the waves that glide,
Bear your sweet notes the wide world o'er.
Stag and fawn through the forest bound;
Children are laughing with merry sound;
Sunlight is flashing all around;
Lovers are sitting holy and still;
The old man wanders at his will;
Gold! Gold! is all I can say,
For all is golden on this happy day.
The rushing river is molten gold,
The wealth of the trees could ne'er be told,
The bank is framed of golden ore,
A hundred golden-rods wave on the shore,
The laugh of the children, the lover's glance,
The motes, that mid the sunbeams dance,
The songs of the birds and their eyes of joy,
All are of gold without alloy.
E'en the old man's thoughts like butterfly's wings
Are woven of gold, and he too sings,
“ Joy! oh joy for this golden day,
I know it shall never pass away!"
,
Carrie Sheeran
LYRIC.
The stars coldly glimmer-
And I am alone.
The pale moon grows dimmer,
And now it has gone.
Loud shrieks the owl, night presses round,
The little flowers lie low on the ground
And sadly moan.
Why is the earth so sad?
Why doth she weep?
Methinks she should be glad
Calmly to sleep.
But the dews are falling, heavy and fast,
Sadly sighs the cold night-blast,
Loud roars the deep.
VOL. I. —NO. II.
28


218
(Oct.
Truth against the World.
I press my hands upon my heart, —
'Tis very cold!
And swiftly through the forest dart
With footsteps bold.
What shall I seek? Where shall I go?
Earth and ocean shudder with woe!
Their tale is untold !
9. Z.
TRUTH AGAINST THE WORLD.
A PARABLE OF PAUL.
One day Abdiel found Paul at Tarsus, after his Damas-
cus journey, sitting meek and thoughtful at the door of
his house; his favorite books, and the instruments of his
craft, lying neglected beside him. “ Strange tidings I
hear of you,” said the sleek Rabbi. “You also have be-
come a follower of the Nazarene! What course shall you
pursue after your precious conversion ?” “I shall go and
preach the Gospel to all nations," said the new convert,
gently. “I shall set off to-morrow."
The Rabbi, who felt a sour interest in Paul, looked at
him with affected incredulity and asked, “Do you know
the sacrifice you make? You must leave father and
friends; the society of the Great and the Wise. You will
fare hard and encounter peril. You will be impoverished;
called hard names; persecuted; scourged, perhaps put to
death.” “None of these things move me," said Paul.
“I have counted the cost. I value not life the half so
much as keeping God's Law, and proclaiming the truth,
though all men forbid. I shall walk by God's light, and
fear not. I am no longer a slave to the old Law of sin
and death, but a free man of God, made free by the Law
of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.” “Here,” rejoined
the Rabbi, “ you have ease, and fame ; in your new work
you must meet toil, infamy, and death.” - The voice of
God says Go," exclaimed the Apostle, with firmness, “ I
am ready to spend and be spent in the cause of Truth.”
“ Die then,” roared the Rabbi, “ like a Nazarene fool,
and unbelieving Atheist, as thou art. He that lusts after


1840.]
219
Truth against the World.
swill apostati nekdotal o How
new things, preferring his silly convictions, and that whim
of a conscience, to solid ease, and the advice of his friends,
deserves the cross. Die in thy folly. Henceforth I dis-
claim thee. Call me kinsman no more!”.
Years passed over ; the word of God grew and pre-
vailed. One day it was whispered at Tarsus, and ran
swiftly from mouth to mouth, in the market-place, “ Paul,
the apostate, lies in chains at Rome, daily expecting the
Lions. His next trouble will be his last.” And Abdiel
said to his sacerdotal crones in the synagogue, “ I knew it
would come to this. How much better have kept to his
trade, and the old ways of his fathers and the prophets,
not heeding that whim of a conscience. He might have
lived respectably, to an easy old-age, at Tarsus, the father
of sons and daughters. Men might have called him RABBI
in the streets.”
Thus went it at Tarsus. But meantime, in his dungeon
at Rome, Paul sat comforted. The Lord stood by him in
a vision and said, “ Fear not Paul. Thou hast fought the
good fight. Lo I am with thee to the end of the world.”
The tranquil old man replied, “I know whom I have
served, and am thoroughly persuaded God will keep what
I have committed to him. I have not the spirit of fear,
but of love, and a sound mind. I shall finish my course
with joy, for I see the crown of Righteousness laid up for
me, and now my salvation is more perfect, and my hope is
higher, than when first I believed.”
Then in his heart spoke that voice, which had spoken
before on the mount of Transfiguration ; “ Thou also art
my beloved Son. In thee am I well pleased."
j.P.
WAVES.
With never-ending steps along the beach,
Evermore washed by the sad-swelling sea,
I wandered - Ocean waves what would ye reach?
Waves of my soul, what do ye seek for me?
On the surface by the waves thou shalt be tossed from side to side;
Go down into the depths and with the current calmly glide.


220
(Oct.
New Poetry.
NEW POETRY.
The tendencies of the times are so democratical, that
we shall soon have not so much as a pulpit or raised
platform in any church or townhouse, but each person,
who is moved to address any public assembly, will speak
from the floor. The like revolution in literature is now
giving importance to the portfolio over the book. Only
one man in the thousand may print a book, but one in ten
or one in five may inscribe his thoughts, or at least with
short commentary his favorite readings in a private journal.
The philosophy of the day has long since broached a more
liberal doctrine of the poetic faculty than our fathers held,
and reckons poetry the right and power of every man to
whose culture justice is done. We own that, though we
were trained in a stricter school of literary faith, and were
in all our youth inclined to the enforcement of the strait-
est restrictions on the admission of candidates to the Par-
nassian fraternity, and denied the name of poetry to every
composition in which the workmanship and the material
were not equally excellent, in our middle age we have
grown lax, and have learned to find pleasure in verses of a
ruder strain, — to enjoy verses of society, or those effu-
sions which in persons of a happy nature are the easy and
unpremeditated translation of their thoughts and feelings
into rhyme. This new taste for a certain private and
household poetry, for somewhat less pretending than the
festal and solemn verses which are written for the nations,
really indicates, we suppose, that a new style of poetry
exists. The number of writers has increased. Every
child has been taught the tongues. The universal com-
munication of the arts of reading and writing has brought
the works of the great poets into every house, and made
all ears familiar with the poetic forms. The progress of
popular institutions has favored self-respect, and broken
down that terror of the great, which once imposed awe and
hesitation on the talent of the masses of society. A wider
epistolary intercourse ministers to the ends of sentiment
and reflection than ever existed before; the practice of
writing diaries is becoming almost general; and every day
witnesses new attempts to throw into verse the experien-
ces of private life.


1840.]
221
New Poetry.
What better omen of true progress can we ask than an
increasing intellectual and moral interest of men in each
other? What can be better for the republic than that the
Capitol, the White House, and the Court House are becom-
ing of less importance than the farm-house and the book-
closet ? If we are losing our interest in public men, and
finding that their spell lay in number and size only, and
acquiring instead a taste for the depths of thought and
emotion, as they may be sounded in the soul of the citizen
or the countryman, does it not replace man for the state,
and character for official power? Men should be treated
with solemnity; and when they come to chant their pri-
vate griefs and doubts and joys, they have a new scale by
which to compute magnitude and relation. Art is the
noblest consolation of calamity. The poet is compensa-
ted for his defects in the street and in society, if in his
chamber he has turned his mischance into noble numbers.
Is there not room then for a new department in poetry,
namely, Verses of the Portfolio? We have fancied that
we drew greater pleasure from some manuscript verses than
from printed ones of equal talent. For there was herein
the charm of character; they were confessions; and the
faults, the imperfect parts, the fragmentary verses, the
halting rhymes, had a worth beyond that of a high finish;
for they testified that the writer was more man than artist,
more earnest than vain; that the thought was too sweet
and sacred to him, than that he should suffer his ears to
hear or his eyes to see a superficial defect in the expres-
sion.
The characteristic of such verses is, that being not writ-
ten for publication, they lack that finish which the conven-
tions of literature require of authors. But if poetry of
this kind has merit, we conceive that the prescription
which demands a rhythmical polish may be easily set aside ;
and when a writer has outgrown the state of thought
which produced the poem, the interest of letters is served
by publishing it imperfect, as we preserve studies, torsos,
and blocked statues of the great masters. For though we
should be loath to see the wholesome conventions, to which
we have alluded, broken down by a general incontinence
of publication, and every man's and woman's diary flying
into the bookstores, yet it is to be considered, on the other


222
[Oct.
New Poetry.
hand, that men of genius are often more incapable than
others of that elaborate execution which criticism exacts.
Men of genius in general are, more than others, incapable
of any perfect exhibition, because, however agreeable it
may be to them to act on the public, it is always a secon-
dary aim. They are humble, self-accusing, moody men,
whose worship is toward the Ideal Beauty, which chooses
to be courted not so often in perfect hymns, as in wild ear-
piercing ejaculations, or in silent musings. Their face is
forward, and their heart is in this heaven. By so much
are they disqualified for a perfect success in any particular
performance to which they can give only a divided affec-
tion. But the man of talents has every advantage in the
competition. He can give that cool and commanding at-
tention to the thing to be done, that shall secure its just
performance. Yet are the failures of genius better than
the victories of talent; and we are sure that some crude
manuscript poems have yielded us a more sustaining and
a more stimulating diet, than many elaborated and classic
productions.
We have been led to these thoughts by reading some
verses, which were lately put into our hands by a friend with
the remark, that they were the production of a youth, who
had long passed out of the mood in which he wrote them,
so that they had become quite dead to him. Our first
feeling on reading them was a lively joy. So then the
Muse is neither dead nor dumb, but has found a voice in
these cold Cisatlantic States. Here is poetry which asks
no aid of magnitude or number, of blood or crime, but
finds theatre enough in the first field or brookside, breadth
and depth enough in the flow of its own thought. Here
is self-repose, which to our mind is stabler than the Pyra-
mids; here is self-respect which leads a man to date from
his heart more proudly than from Rome. Here is love
which sees through surface, and adores the gentle nature
and not the costume. Here is religion, which is not of the
Church of England, nor of the Church of Boston. Here
is the good wise heart, which sees that the end of culture
is strength and cheerfulness. In an age too which tends
with so strong an inclination to the philosophical muse,
here is poetry more purely intellectual than any American
verses we have yet seen, distinguished from all competi-


1840.)
223
New Poetry.
tion by two merits; the fineness of perception; and the
poet's trust in his own genius to that degree, that there is
an absence of all conventional imagery, and a bold use of
that which the moment's mood had made sacred to him,
quite careless that it might be sacred to no other, and
might even be slightly ludicrous to the first reader.
We proceed to give our readers some selections, taken
without much order from this rich pile of manuscript.
We first find the poet in his boat.
BOAT-SONG.
The River calmly flows,
Through shining banks, through lonely glen,
Where the owl shrieks, though ne'er the cheer of men
Has stirred its mute repose,
Still if you should walk there, you would go there again.
The stream is well alive:
Another passive world you see,
Where downward grows the form of every tree;
Like soft light clouds they thrive:
Like them let us in our pure loves reflected be.
A yellow gleam is thrown
Into the secrets of that maze
Of tangled trees, which late shut out our gaze,
Refusing to be known;
It must its privacy unclose, - its glories blaze.
Sweet falls the summer air
Over her frame who sails with me:
Her way like that is beautifully free,
Her nature far more rare,
And is her constant heart of virgin purity.
A quivering star is seen
Keeping his watch above the hill,
Though from the sun's retreat small light is stil)
Poured on earth's saddening mien:-
We all are tranquilly obeying Evening's will.
Thus ever love the POWER;
To simplest thoughts dispose the mind;
In each obscure event a worship find
Like that of this dim hour, —
In lights, and airs, and trees, and in all human kind.
We smoothly glide below
The faintly glimmering worlds of light:
Day has a charm, and this deceptive night
Brings a mysterious show; -
He shadows our dear earth, - but his cool stars are white.


224
(Oct.
New Poetry.
Is there any boat-song like this ? any in which the har-
mony proceeds so manifestly from the poet's mind, giving
to nature more than it receives ? In the following stanzas
the writer betrays a certain habitual worship of genius,
which characterizes many pieces in the collection, breaking
out sometimes into very abrupt expression.
OCTOBER.
Dry leaves with yellow ferns, — they are
Fit wreath of Autumn, while a star
Still, bright, and pure, our frosty air
Shivers in twinkling points
Of thin celestial hair,
And thus one side of heaven anoints.
I am beneath the moon's calm look
Most quiet in this sheltered nook
From trouble of the frosty wind
Which curls the yellow blade;
Though in my covered mind
A grateful sense of change is made.
To wandering men how dear this sight
Of a cold tranquil autumn night,
In its majestic deep repose;
Thus will their genius be
Not buried in high snows,
Though of as mute tranquillity.
An anxious life they will not pass,
Nor, as the shadow on the grass,
Leave no impression there to stay;
To them all things are thought;
The blushing morn's decay,
Our death, our life, by this is taught
O find in every haze that shines,
A brief appearance without lines,
A single word, — no finite joy;
For present is a Power
Which we may not annoy,
Yet love him stronger every hour.
I would not put this sense from me,
If I could some great sovereign be;
Yet will not task a fellow man
To feel the same glad sense,
For no one living can
Feel - save his given influence.


1840.] ·
225
New Poetry.
WILLINGNESS.
An unendeavoring flower, — how still
Its growth from morn to eventime;
Nor signs of hasty anger fill
Its tender form from birth to prime
Of happy will.
And some, who think these simple things
Can bear no goodness to their minds,
May learn to feel how nature brings,
Around a quiet being winds,
And through us sings.
A stream to some is no delight,
Its element diffused around;
Yet in its unobtrusive fight
There trembles from its heart a sound
Like that of night.
So give thy true allotment, — fair;
To children turn a social heart;
And if thy days pass clear as air,
Or friends from thy beseeching part,
O humbly bear.
SONNETS.
The brook is eddying in the forest dell,
All full of untaught merriment, -- the joy
Of breathing life is this green wood's employ.
The wind is feeling through his gentle bell; -
I and my flowers receive this music well.
Why will not man his natural life enjoy ?
Can he then with his ample spirit toy ?
Are human thoughts as wares now baked to sell ?
All up, all round, all down, a thrilling deep,
A holy infinite salutes the sense,
And incommunicable praises leap,
Shooting the entire soul with love intense,
Throughout the All, — and can a man live on to weep?
11.
There never lived a man who with a heart
Resolved, bound up, concentred in the good,
However low or high in rank he stood,
But when from him yourself had chanced to start,
You felt how goodness alway maketh art;
And that an ever venerable mood
VOL. 1. — NO. II. 29


226
[Oct.
New Poetry.
Of sanctity, like the deep worship of a wood,
Of its unconsciousness turns you a part.
Let us live amply in the joyous All;
We surely were not meant to ride the sea,
Skimming the wave in that so prisoned Small,
Reposing our infinite faculties utterly.
Boom like a roaring sunlit waterfall,
Humming to intinite abysms; - speak loud, speak free.
III.
Hearts of eternity, — hearts of the deep!
Proclaim from land to sky your mighty fate;
How that for you no living comes too late;
How ye cannot in Theban labyrinth creep;
How ye great harvests from small surface reap;
Shout, excellent band, in grand primeval strain,
Like midnight winds that foam along the main,
And do all things rather than pause to weep.
A human heart knows nought of littleness,
Suspects no man, compares with no man's ways,
Hath in one hour most glorious length of days,
A recompense, a joy, a loveliness,
Like eaglet keen, shoots into azure far,
And always dwelling nigh is the remotest star.
LINES
WRITTEN IN THE EVENING OF A NOVEMBER DAY.
Tuse, mild autumnal day,
I felt not for myself'; the winds may steal
From any point, and seemn to me alike
Reviving, soothing powers.
Like thee the contrast is
Of a new mood in a decaying man,
Whose idle mind is suddenly revived
With many pleasant thoughts.
Our earth was gratified;
Fresh grass, a stranger in this frosty time,
Peeped from the crumbling mould as welcome as
An unexpected friend.
How glowed the evening star,
As it delights to glow in summer's midst,
When out of ruddy boughs the twilight birds
Sing flowing harmony.
Peace was the will to-day,
Love in bewildering growth our joyous minds
Swelled to their widest bounds; the worldly left
All hearts to sympathize.


1840.)
227
· New Poetry.
I felt for thee, - for thee,
Whose inward, outward life completely moves,
Surrendered to the beauty of the soul
Of this creative day.
OUR BIRTH DAYS.
THESE are the solemnest days of our bright lives,
When memory and hope within exert
Delightful reign ; when sympathy revives,
And that, which late was in the soul inert,
Grows warm and living, and to us alone
Are these a knowledge; nowise may they hurt,
Or cry aloud, or frighten out the tone,
Which we will strive to wear and as calm nature own.
II.
Whatever scenes our eyes once gratified,
Those landscapes couched around our early homes,
To which our tender, peaceful hearts replied,
To those our present happy feeling roams,
And takes a mightier joy than from the tomes
Of the pure scholar; those ten thousand sights
Of constant nature flow in us, as foams
The bubbling spring; these are the true delights
Wherewith this solemn world the sorrowful requites.
These are proper Manuscript inspirations, honest, great,
but crude. They have never been filed or decorated for
the eye that studies surface. The writer was not afraid to
write ill; he had a great meaning too much at heart to
stand for trifles, and wrote lordly for his peers alone.
This is the poetry of hope. Here is no French correctness,
but Hans Sachs and Chaucer rather. But the minstrel
can be sweet and tender also. We select from the sheaf
one leaf, for which we predict a more general popularity.
A POET'S LOVE.
I can remember well
My very early youth,
My sumptuous Isabel,
Who was a girl of truth,
Of golden truth; - we do not often see
Those whose whole lives have only known to be.


228
[Oct.
New Poetry.
So sunlight, very warm,
On harvest fields and trees,
Could not more sweetly form
Rejoicing melodies
For these deep things, than Isabel for me;
I lay beneath her soul as a lit tree.
That cottage where she dwelt
Was all o'er mosses green;
I still forever felt
How nothing stands between
The soul and truth; why, starving poverty
Was nothing - nothing, Isabel, to thee.
Grass beneath her faint tread
Bent pleasantly away;
From her ne'er small birds fled,
But kept at their bright play,
Not fearing her; it was her endless motion,
Just a true swell upon a summer ocean.
Those who conveyed her home,
I mean who led her where
The spirit does not roam, —
Had such small weight to bear,
They scarcely felt; how softly was thy knell
Rung for thee that soft day, girl Isabel.
I am no more below,
My life is raised on high ;
My fantasy was slow
Ere Isabel could die ;
It pressed me down; but now I sail away
Into the regions of exceeding day.
And Isabel and I
Float on the red brown clouds,
That amply multiply
The very constant crowds
Of serene shapes. Play on Mortality!
Thy happiest hour is that when thou may'st die.
The second of the two following verses is of such ex-
treme beauty, that we do not remember anything more
perfect in its kind. Had the poet been looking over a
book of Raffaelle's drawings, or perchance the villas and
temples of Palladio, with the maiden to whom it was ad-
dressed ?


1840.]
229
New Poetry.
TO ****,
My mind obeys the power
That through all persons breathes;
And woods are murinuring,
And fields begin to sing,
And in me nature wreathes.
Thou too art with me here, -
The best of all design; —
Of that strong purity,
Which makes it joy to be
A distant thought of thine.
But here are verses in another vein, - plain, ethical,
human, such as in ancient lands legislators carved on
stone tablets and monuments at the roadside, or in the
precincts of temples. They remind us of the austere
strain in which Milton celebrates the Hebrew prophets.
“ In them is plainest taught and easiest learned
What makes a nation happy and keeps it so."
The Bible is a book worthy to read;
The life of those great Prophets was the life we need,
From all delusive seeming ever freed.
Be not afraid to utter what thou art;
"T is no disgrace to keep an open heart;
A soul free, frank, and loving friends to aid,
Not even does this harm a gentle maid.
Strive as thou canst, thou wilt not value o'er
Thy life. Thou standest on a lighted shore,
And from the waves of an unfathomed sea,
The noblest impulses flow tenderly to thee;
Feel them as they arise, and take them free.
Better live unknown,
No heart but thy own
Beating ever near,
To no mortal dear
In thy hemisphere,


230
[Oct.
New Poetry.
Poor and wanting bread,
Steeped in poverty,
Than to be a dread,
Than to be afraid,
From thyself to flee;
For it is not living
To a soul believing,
To change each noble joy
Which our strength employs,
For a state half rotten
And a life of toys.
Better be forgotten
Than lose equipoise.
How shall I live? In earnestness.
What shall I do? Work earnestly.
What shall I give? A willingness.
What shall I gain? Tranquillity.
But do you mean a quietness
In which I act and no man bless ?
Flash out in action infinite and free,
Action conjoined with deep tranquillity,
Resting upon the soul's true utterance,
And life shall flow as merry as a dance.
Life is too good to waste, enough to prize;
Keep looking round with clear unhooded eyes ;
Love all thy brothers, and for them endure
Many privations; the reward is sure.
A little thing! There is no little thing;
Through all a joyful song is murinuring;
Each leaf, each stem, each sound in winter drear
Has deepest meanings for an anxious ear.
Thou seest life is sad; the father mourns his wife and child;
Keep in the midst of heavy sorrows a fair aspect mild.
A howling fox, a shrieking owl,
A violent distracting Ghoul,
Forms of the most infuriate madness, -
These may not move thy heart to gladness,
But look within the dark outside,
Nought shalt thou hate and nought deride.
Thou meet'st a common man
With a delusive show of can.
His acts are petty forgeries of natural greatness,
That show a dreadful lateness
Of this life's mighty impulses ; a want of truthful earnestness;


1840.]
231
New Poetry.
He seems, not does, and in that shows
No true nobility, -
A poor ductility,
That no proper office knows,
Not even estimation small of human woes.
Be not afraid,
His understanding aid
With thy own pure content,
On highest purpose bent.
Leave him not lonely,
For that his admiration
Fastens on self and seeming only;
Make a right dedication
Of all thy strength to keep
From swelling that so ample heap
Of lives abused, of virtue given for nought,
And thus it shall appear for all in nature hast thou wrought.
If thou unconsciously perform what's good,
Like nature's self thy proper mood.
A life well spent is like a flower,
That had bright sunshine its brief hour;
It flourished in pure willingness;
Discovered strongest earnestness;
Was fragrant for each lightest wind;
Was of its own particular kind;-
Nor knew a tone of discord sharp;
Breathed alway like a silver harp;
And went to immortality
A very proper thing to die.
We will close our extracts from this rare file of blotted
paper with a lighter strain, which, whilst it shows how
gaily a poet can chide, gives us a new insight into his
character and habits.
TORMENTS.
Yes! they torment me
Most exceedingly :-
I would I could flee.
A breeze on a river —
I listen forever;
The yellowish heather
Under cool weather, -
These are pleasures to me.


232
(Oct.
New Poetry.
What do torment me?
Those living vacantly,
Who live but to see;
Indefinite action,
Nothing but motion,
Round stones a rolling,
No inward controlling;
Yes! they torment me.
Some cry all the time,
Even in their prime
Of youth's flushing clime.
0! out on this sorrow!
Fearst thou to-morrow?
Set thy legs going,
Be stamping be rowing, —
This of life is the lime.
Hail, thou mother Earth!
Who gave me thy worth
For my portion at birth:
I walk in thy azure,
Unfond of erasure,
But they who torment me
So most exceedingly
Sit with feet on the hearth.
We have more pages from the same hand lying before
us, marked by the same purity and tenderness and early
wisdom as these we have quoted, but we shall close our
extracts here. May the right hand that has so written
never lose its cunning! may this voice of love and har-
mony teach its songs to the too long silent echoes of the
Western Forest.
ART AND ARTIST.
With dauntless eye the lofty one
Moves on through life;
Majestic as the mighty sun
He knows no strife.
He sees the thought flow to the form,
And rise like bubble bright;
A moment of beauty, and it is gone,
Dissolved in light


1840.)
233
Ernest the Seeker.
ERNEST THE SEEKER.
CHAPTER 11.
" Then let the Good be free to breathe a note
Of elevation - let their odors float
Around these Converts, and their glories blend,
Outshining nightly tapers, or the blaze
Of the noon-day. Nor doubt that golden cords
Of good works, mingling with the visions, raise
The soul to purer worlds." — WORDSWORTH.
As Ernest entered the boudoir, Edith hastily closed her
portfolio, and wiping away a tear, rose gracefully to greet
him.
“Ah! Ernest! Is it you? How glad I am it is no
stranger. I would not have an indifferent eye see me thus
moved. My Saint has gone to join the blessed. Sister
Luise died last night;" and after a moment gazing at him
she added, “ You shall see this sketch in which I have
hinted to myself the lesson of her life.”
Ernest took her hand, and seating himself at the table,
they looked together at the three pencilled outlines. The
first represented a cavern's mouth, on the edge of a garden,
where in the distance dancing groupes were visible.
Entering the vault, his face veiled, one arm wrapped in his
heavy robe, extending behind him, an aged man seemed
slowly drawing on a beautiful girl, — whose feet followed
willingly; — while the averted head, the straining eye,
the parted lips told, that the heart was with one of the
rejoicers behind, who stood watching her. The second
sketch was of a chamber in the rock, lighted only from a
cleft, — and on the floor, as in a swoon, the female form
alone, — her face hidden in her mantle, with one hand
cast forward, grasping the crucifix. In the third was
again a garden, and a cavern's mouth, but now reversed ;
and near and far, under shading branches, placid figures
seemed conversing. In the fore-ground his back to the
beholder, stood with light, triumphant air a youth, from
whose presence glory seemed to beam, while lowly in ges-
ture, but with upraised and assured face, glided forth from
the dark prison the Virgin.
“ And so she has cast off her earthly dross," said Ern-
VOL. I. - NO, II.
30


234
(Oct.
Ernest the Seeker.
est. “I know not whether the bishop was right, however,
in persuading her to enter the convent. God does not
fear liberty ; why should the Church?”
“Not right! Why her lover was unworthy. Would
you have had her thrown away, - a priceless treasure, to
be trampled down by neglect and scorn ? O! how
beautifully maternal is the Church, that she thus gathers to
her quiet breast the poor foot-sore wanderers. Think
Ernest! She had loved, guilelessly, fully, one who could
never have known her worth. The blossom opened on the
dusty road, and drooped. Would you have bad her live
on, desolate, her secret whispered everywhere, each coarse
eye scanning her pale face? The world offered nothing.
And by the very entireness of her love was she fitted
to be a bride of heaven! O, surely our good father was
right! But it is nearly the hour! Will you attend me
to the funeral !”.
“ The world offered much, Edith! Many a blighted
stalk yields support to the vine, that otherwise would have
trailed in the dust. The crowds are rich in occasions for
sounding forth harmoniously, in the experience of others,
the song we have marred in our own life-rehearsal. But
peace to her slumbers! Let us go!”
The Church was in entire silence as they entered ; and
only a few poor people present, — who had heard the sad
news, that their benefactress was dead. Edith was at
once absorbed in her devotions; and Ernest gave himself
to the study of his favorite altar-piece. The copy was
poor; and yet the divine aura still pervaded it. With
pliant, unexhausted strength, the radiant angel, his golden
locks tossed back by the wind, his fine indignant face
turned downward on the writhing monster, seemed with
his light foot to crush the demon as he smote him, and
stood victorious, the impersonation of Purity intolerant of
passion.
“ Terribly just,” thought Ernest, “it is so! Forever,
forever, must each angel spurn and oppose the foul, the
selfish. Yet what an instinct of compassion have we! I
cannot abandon that monster - though neither can I bear
with him. Oh! surely, surely, evil is as unnatural to us as it
is hateful. But the world is a poisonous atmosphere.
The best grow sickly in it. Is not the Church right then


1840.]
235
Ernest the Seeker.
to sanctify some green circles, within whose borders devils
dare not enter ? "
His thoughts were broken by the entrance of the priest,
and the murmured sound of those few words, so freshly
pathetic, however monotonously chanted —
“Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam
tuam."
The service proceeded as usual, till through the grating
of the side chapel rose the soft mellow voices of the nuns,
echoed from the opposite grating by the clear high tones of
the children.
“And from the latticed gallery came a chant
Of psalıns, most saint-like, most angelical,
Verse after verse sung out so holily,
The strain returning, and still, still returning.”
Ernest felt deeply the mysterious power of this unseen
music. is not the ear a finer avenue to the spirit than
the eye ? Faint and more faint, the chant died away
with the retiring voices; and then Edith beckoned Ernest
to follow her. The Portress opened the door of the con-
vent to one always there privileged ; and leading the way
through many passages to a window, she pointed silently
out upon the church-yard. Nothing could have been more
touching than that scene. Slowly the procession was
winding among the simple crosses, which 'marked the
graves, to where the hillock of fresh-dug earth showed the
resting place for their sister. Four young girls, clad in
white, with garlands of white roses followed the chant-
ing priest, and the boys with swinging censers, two and
two; - then came four nuns, in their long black veils,
with white scarfs around their necks, supporting the
coffin, itself covered with a long white pall, like nature's
snowy winding sheet. Two by two the sisters followed ;
then two by two the children, — in long tapering files,
all, even to the littlest, bearing the lighted candles.
Beautiful symbol! that the good fight is fought, the victo-
ry won, and that the conquering soul, unquenched by
death, has ascended to brighter worlds of never dying
light.
When the solemn rite was ended, as Edith calmly
crossed herself, and turned to go, Ernest thought he had
never seen her so serenely beautiful. It seemed to him
mon symbolelille


236
Ernest the Seeker. . [Oct.
as though her parted friend had dropped the mantle of
her peace. There was a depth in her dark eye, a sacred
sweetness on her pale brow and colorless cheek, which
awed him.
“I have spent hours and hours with her," said Edith,
as they passed homeward. “She had imbibed from the
world all its elegant tastes and high accomplishments, and
had dedicated them to God. She never checked my prat-
tle, but seemed to rejoice in the fresh springing flowers of
a young heart. And then so gently she instilled her holy
faith, never arguing, never explaining, but living so happi-
ly, so gently, in the pure wisdom of her spiritual love. I
have watched her, kneeling by the sleeping children, in
winter nights for hours, till I fell asleep, gazing at a bright
star which shone over her, and when I awoke found her
still kneeling there, wrapped in her long robes, — and day
was breaking. And then she was so patient. Once, after
some rudeness, I remember seeking her pardon, and asking
whether she could still love me; and her answer was so
holy, yet so simple! I love you all in God, dear children.
He loves us all. I cannot mourn for her, I hardly dare
to pray for her! But for myself I must pray. Adieu !
I must be alone.”
Thus speaking, as she entered the door, she took his
hand, bowed gently, and withdrew to her apartment.
Ernest stepped for a moment into the boudoir, and in
her album wrote these words from Novalis :
“Friendship, love, and piety should be mysteriously
treated. It is only in very rare confiding moments we
should speak of them. Many things are too tender to be
thought of, many more to be expressed."
He felt that the shrine of a sweet sister's inmost life had
once again this day been opened to him, and he was a
purer man. “When the world is redeemed,” thought he,
as he walked on, “ will not women be the prophets to us?
Surely, through a holy woman, infinite gooodness smiles
upon us in its gentle glory, as it does not elsewhere.
And how heaven has marked her as his consecrated ves-
sel. Beauty in her is hateful, loathsome, where it is not
pure ; and devoutness brightens the homeliest features into
grace, as the lamp reveals the picture in the rough porce-
lain shade. And we would have them all be wives and moth-


1840.]
237
Ernest the Seeker.
ers ; — wives of busy idlers, mothers of worldly slaves ?
Alas! it would be no mockery too commonly to decorate
the marriage feast with cypress. How often is that prom-
ised Eden but a waste wilderness. Must innocence for-
ever be driven out of the garden by seeking after unknown
good, and find the flaming sword of remorse opposing its
return? O Experience! Experience! can the elixir of
life be found only by squeezing your thorny fruit? And
then the world's insolent neglect, or selfish use of those
who will not sell themselves to the stranger, and marry, for
marriage's empty privileges, the unworthy. Wonder is in-
deed, that Protestants have no sacred retreats, no holy sis-
terhoods. Heaven keep thee ever his own, dear Edith ! or
give thee a fitting friend."
The scene of the morning had so deeply touched him,
that the thought of study was irksome; and he deter-
mined to pay a visit to the bishop. Several persons, whose
dress and manner proved them to be of quite different
classes of society, were seated, each waiting his turn for
conversation in the little parlor ; and retiring till the good
father's words of consolation and counsel had been given,
Ernest withdrew into the recess to commune with the copy
of Raphael's divinest Madonna. The picture was so hung,
that light through a window above, and hidden from the
spectator, was poured full upon the clouds of dim cherub
faces, and on the heads of the mother and child. The
colors had somewhat faded ; but the drawing and expres-
sion were in a purer style than any work, which Ernest
had ever seen. Soft deep shadows around the eyes gave a
tender thoughtfulness to the Virgin's look. The name
he had heard years before given to this picture, thrilled
through him - « The Girl-Mother.” Yes! There stood
that sweet peasant, in the joyous innocence of her youth,
full of all harmonious affections, sobered in prophetic awe.
The dignity of womanhood had robed her suddenly ; and
gayety was veiled in blessedness. How lightly she rested
on the light vapor, as if already ethereal ; — how buoyantly
her garments floated there. And O! what majesty, what
calm, unconscious power, what pure swelling instincts,
what conceptions, too grand for words, seemed to crown
the divine boy, as with easy attitude he sat on the throne,
which God had consecrated, of his mother's reverential
love.


238
Oct.
Ernest the Seeker.
Ernest was thankful that chance had led him hither,
thus to finish his morning's meditation ; for the words of
the German mystic rose to his memory : “ The mysterious
charm of the Virgin — that which renders her so unspeak-
ably attractive — is the presentiment of maternity. She is
the aptest emblem of the Future.”
He turned aside to examine the books upon the nearest
shelves; and accidentally opening a volume of the Dublin
Review, his eye was attracted by an article, headed “Gal-
ileo - The Roman Inquisition.” This called to mind
some startling statements he had heard in a late address,
which he longed to have disproved or verified; and, as
absorbed, he rapidly skimmed the pages, the bishop laid
his hand upon his shoulder, and saluted him with ; « Ah!
my young friend ! doubtless you think that excellent wri-
ter is but whitening, with the chalk of sophistry, the foul
spots upon the skirts of the church.”
“Not so! I was rather astonished at this new proof of
how a pistol shot, well echoed, can be made to sound like
thunder. The story of Galileo's sufferings for truth has
been so often and so confidently told, I never doubted its
truth; and from my youth have associated the name of
the great astronomer with a vision of dungeons and of
papal tyranny."
* No wonder ! no wonder !” said the old man, mildly,
“ we are sadly, cruelly slandered. Shall I tell you, briefly,
the true tale of Galileo's prosecution, not persecution.*
Nicholas, the Cusan, a poor ultramontane, first ad-
vanced the startling proposition, Quod cælum stet, terra
autem moveatur,' the earth moves, the heaven is at rest,'
and for this noble service to science was raised by Nicho-
las the Fifth, before 1464, to the dignity of the Cardinal's
hat, and to the bishopric of Brixen. Behold the first
punishment of this “ heresy." In 1510, Leonardo da
Vinci adopted, as established, the same doctrine ; for
already in 1500, Copernicus, in the very heart of Rome,
had taught it to overwhelming crowds. Ay! more! when
in 1536, it was known that Copernicus was too poor to
* Vide Dublin Review, No. IX. for July, 19:38, p. 79, from which
what follows is condensed, as the Roman Catholic version of Galileo's
life.


1840.]
239
Ernest the Seeker.
print bis great work, Cardinal Scomberg, and after him
Gisio, charged themselves, from unparallelled liberality,
with all the necessary expenses of its publication; and
thus, as has been beautifully said, the successor of St.
Peter flung over the infant theory the shield of his high
protection. What reason then was there, after this long
favoring of this new scientific discovery, and after delibe-
rate inculcation of it, at a later day, to stifle it? And
now to pass to Galileo, when he first visited Rome, for the
purpose of making palpable and plain,' as he said, 'the
thing that by God's help he had discovered,' how was he
greeted ? With suspicion and insult? No! prelates and
cardinals vied to do him honor; gardens and palaces
were flung open for his use."
“But surely,” said Ernest, “there is some foundation
for the story of his being a martyr for science, — some
real face to hang the hideous mask upon.”
“ You shall hear, young friend, and verily I think, you,
will agree, the mask was hung upon a senseless block.
Galileo, not content with scientific demonstrations, began
a series of theological epistles, attacking the established
mode of interpreting certain texts; and it was for this,
and for this alone, that he was denounced and warned to
confine himself to his system and its demonstration,
and leave explaining views of Scripture to the theolo-
gians, whose particular province it was to discuss them.'
Thus, as has been well said, 'Galileo was persecuted not ,
for having been a good Astronomer, but a bad Theologian."
But Galileo was passionate, headstrong, heated; he would
- not limit himself; he absolutely forced the decision of this
question of texts upon the Pope and Inquisition; and
therefore, and only therefore, was it necessary, to bind
him to total silence; which was done by Bellarmine in
the kindest, and least public way; immediately after which
he was admitted to a long and friendly audience with the
Pope. And was he then disgraced ? Far, far from it; he
was admired, courted as before ; Cardinal Barberini wrote
verses in his praise and mounted the papal throne ; and
Galileo came to Rome loaded with honors. And now,
young friend ! mark me. What return did Galileo make ?
He published his Four-days-dialogues; and on the very
first page, to the Discreet Reader, attacked with bitter


240
[Oct.
Ernest the Seeker.
irony and sarcasm the decree of 1616. All this he did,"
continued the Bishop, opening the volume and reading
aloud, “« till in an evil hour, intoxicated by success, he
burst, in the wantonness of wayward pride, through the
restraint of personal respect, public order, and even private
gratitude; and levelled the shafts of his satire against the
very highest personage in the land — the same, his own
best benefactor. Then, and not till then, was he made to
feel the heavy hand of power, when he had stung it to the
quick; then, and not till then, was he made to bite the
dust of humiliation before the authority he had insulted.
Yet even then the sage was not forgotten in the delinquent,..
nor the claims of the High Priest of Science, lost on the
clemency and consideration of his judges.' And what,
after all, was the sentence? Simply this. "The Church
has not condemned the system, nor is it to be considered
heretical, but only rash. In a word, young friend, the
system, though probable, was not proved; and Galileo was
bid to wait. This was all ; and for this every pert protes-
tant writer is to fling in the face of our venerable mother
his insults at her bigotry. But I will pardon them! His-
tory has been hoodwinked long enough. We shall be
better known in the next age. But I fear I have wearied
you. Let us talk of other topics."
“No! dear Sir! No!” said Ernest. “I long to hear
from your lips an explanation of your exercise of spiritual
power over the mind. Tell me, if time and inclination
are propitious, why and how far you would limit liberty."
The bishop looked at him steadfastly, for a moment, as
if with his luminous grey eye he would throw a light into
the most secret chambers of Ernest's consciousness, and
then opening a large port-folio, he selected an engraving,
and set it before him, with these few words:
“ The rule of the Church is almost too simple and natu-
ral to explain ; that divine picture embodies it."
It was Raphael's cartoon of Christ's last interview with
his disciples on the lake of Galilee. How touching was
the contrast between the calmness of the master, and the
eager enthusiasm of the disciples. Firmly and gracefully,
in perfect equipoise, stood Jesus, pointing with one hand
to the feeding flock, and with the other to the kneeling
Peter, who, overwhelmed in mingled shame and confidence,


1840.)
241
Ernest the Seeker.
seemed pleading the truth of his grateful affection. Ern-
est could almost hear the mild command from the open-
ing lips, which he read in the beaming benignity of the
soft eyes, “ Feed my sheep.”
“The duty of the Church is protection, you mean,"
said he, looking up.
“ Yes! my son! She is put in charge by the Great
Shepherd of his little ones; and woe to her if she is not
faithful. Can she allow the poor lambs to wander astray
in the fogs of speculation, or be lost in the drifting snows
of skepticism, or ruined by wolfish doubts ? "
“Blessed be the meek-hearted, Father! who are willing
to be led by the still waters in the green pastures; but I
am a wild chamois, finding spare feed on the dizzy heights
of thought, among the cataracts of untried instincts.”
“Even so ! even so ! But I have hope of one so true.
God forbid, that you should only be brought into the
fold, bleeding and crippled. Why waste your years in
seeking what is already stored up for you, if you will take
it? Look there !” continued the bishop, pointing to long
rows of volumes of the Fathers; " there is contained all,
and far more than you will find in the superficial, half-
grown writers of our time. Why drink always of the
muddy pools, which have dripped from the fountain into the
dusty road, when you may dip from the bubbling spring
itself?”
" But how am I to know you have all truth?” asked
Ernest. “I have little faith in human infallibility.”
"Ah! what sad prejudices darken us all. The Church
is infallible, young friend, only because it embraces the
consenting testimony of all ages. No one man is infalli-
ble. But I ask you, is not our faith the most of all rea-
sonable in the mere way of argument? The Lord prom-
ised to be with his Church to the end of the world! Will
he most readily visit the minds of the consecrated and
devoted ministers of his truth, or the uncultured, wild
minds of those perplexed in the world ?"
Here a mother, leading in a truant and deceitful daughter
to be exorcised of the demon by the good bishop's words,
interrupted the conversation, and Ernest withdrew.
As he walked homeward, he murmured to himself,
“ wolfish doubts” — , Father, we must give up our free
vol. 1. -No. II.
31


242
(Oct.
Woodnotes.
thought. You may be right. But I am not yet ready.
I must examine fresh suggestions, that come to my tent-
door. They may be lepers to blast me with disease, but
they may be also angels in disguise.
WOODNOTES.
For this present, hard
Is the fortune of the bard
Born out of time;
All his accomplishment
From nature's utmost treasure spent
Booteth not him.
When the pine tosses its cones
To the song of its waterfall tones,
He speeds to the woodland walks,
To birds and trees he talks :
Cæsar of his leafy Rome,
There the poet is at home.
He goes to the river side, -
Not hook nor line hath he:
He stands in the meadows wide, -
Nor gun nor scythe to see;
With none has he to do,
And none seek him,
Nor men below,
Nor spirits dim.
Sure some god his eye enchants :-
What he knows, nobody wants :
In the wood he travels glad
Without better fortune had,
Melancholy without bad.
Planter of celestial plants,
What he knows nobody wants;
What he knows, he hides, not vaunts.
Knowledge this man prizes best
Seems fantastic to the rest;
Pondering shadows, colors, clouds,
Grass buds, and caterpillars' shrouds,
Boughs on which the wild bees settle,
Tints that spot the violets' petal,
Why nature loves the number five,
And why the star-form she repeats ;
Lover of all things alive,
Wonderer at all he meets,


1840.]
243
Woodnotes.
Wonderer chiefly at himself,
Who can tell him what he is;
Or how meet in human elf
Coming and past eternities?
II.
And such I knew, a forest seer,
A minstrel of the natural year,
Foreteller of the vernal ides,
Wise harbinger of spheres and tides,
A lover true, who knew by heart
Each joy the mountain dales impart;
It seemed that nature could not raise
A plant in any secret place,
In quaking bog, on snowy hill,
Beneath the grass that shades the rill,
Under the snow, between the rocks,
In damp fields known to bird and fox,
But he would come in the very hour
It opened in its virgin bower,
As if a sunbeam showed the place,
And tell its long descended race.
It seemed as if the breezes brought him,
It seemed as if the sparrows taught him,
As if by secret sight he knew
Where in far fields the orchis grew.
There are many events in the field,
Which are not shown to common eyes,
But all her shows did nature yield
To please and win this pilgrim wise.
He saw the partridge drum in the woods,
He heard the woodcock's evening hymn,
He found the tawny thrush's broods,
And the shy hawk did wait for him.
What others did at distance hear,
And guessed within the thicket's gloom,
Was showed to this philosopher,
And at his bidding seemed to come.
III.
In unploughed Maine he sought the lumberers' gang,
Where from a hundred lakes young rivers sprang,
He trode the unplanted forest floor whereon
The all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone;
Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear,
And up the tall mast runs the woodpecker.
He saw beneath dim aisles in odorous beds
The slight Linnea hang its twin-born heads,
And blessed the monument of the man of flowers,
Which breathes his sweet fame through the northern bowers.


244
(Oct.
Woodnotes.
He heard when in the grove at intervals
With sudden roar the aged pinetree falls,
One crash, the death-hymn of the perfect tree,
Declares the close of its green century.
Low lies the plant to whose creation went
Sweet influence from every element;
Whose living towers the years conspired to build,
Whose giddy top the morning loved to gild.
Through these green tents, by eldest nature drest,
He roamed content alike with man and beast :
Where darkness found him he lay glad at night,
There the red morning touched him with its light.
Three moons his great heart him a hermit made,
So long he roved at will the boundless shade.
The timid it concerns to ask their way,
And fear what foe in caves and swamps can stray,
To make no step until the event is known,
And ills to come as evils past bemoan.
Not so the wise; no coward watch he keeps
To spy what danger on his pathway creeps;
Go where he will, the wise man is at home,
His hearth the earth;- his hall the azure dome,
Where his clear spirit leads him, there's his road,
By God's own light illumined and foreshowed.
IV.
'T was one of the charmed days,
When the genius of God doth flow,
The wind may alter twenty ways,
A tempest cannot blow:
It may blow north, it still is warm;
Or south, it still is clear;
Or east, it smells like a clover farm;
Or west, no thunder fear.
The musing peasant lowly great
Beside the forest water sat:
The rope-like pine roots crosswise grown
Composed the network of his throne,
The wide lake edged with sand and grass
Was burnished to a floor of glass,
Painted with shadows green and proud
Of the tree and of the cloud.
He was the heart of all the scene;
On him the sun looked more serene,
To hill and cloud his face was known,
It seemed the likeness of their own;
They knew by secret sympathy
The public child of earth and sky.
You ask, he said, what guide
Me through trackless thickets led,
Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and wide;
I found the water's bed.


1840.)
245
Life and Death.
The watercourses were my guide,
I travelled grateful by their side,
Or through their channel dry;
They led me through the thicket damp,
Through brake and fern the beavers' camp,
Through beds of granite cut my road,
And their resistless friendship showed;
The falling waters led me,
The foodful waters fed me,
And brought nie to the lowest land,
Unerring to the ocean sand.
The muss upon the forest bark
Was polestar when the night was dark,
The purple berries in the wood
Supplied me necessary food.
For nature ever faithful is
To such as trust her faithfulness.
When the forest shall mislead me,
When the night and morning lie,
When sca and land refuse to feed me,
'T will be time enough to die;
Then will yet my mother yield
A pillow in her greenest field,
Nor the June flowers scorn to cover
The clay of their departed lover.
LIFE AND DEATH.
The moaning waves speak of other lands,
Where men have walked in noble bands;
Ages have passed since they trod the earth,
Yet they too had fallen from their high birth.
Like us for the pure and right they fought;
Like us they longed and earnestly sought;
And they too found little with all their pride;
He was the noblest who nobly died;
Not one of them all led a manly life; -
Alas for mankind with its ceaseless strife!


246
(Oct.
Record of the Months.
RECORD OF THE MONTHS.
The Works of William E. Channing, D. D. Four Volumes.
Third Edition. Glasgow : 1840.
We welcome this beautiful edition, from a foreign land, of the
writings of our eminent countryman. It is the only complete
and correct collection of the works hitherto published, which he
wishes to appear under his name; and, on that account, as well
as for the intrinsic value of its contents, we rejoice that a corre.
sponding edition is soon to be issued from the press in this city.
The present volumes afford a striking illustration of the course
of their author, as a believer in social progress, and the advocate
of reform. There is a severe, logical consistency in the gradual
unfolding of his views, which, to the inattentive reader, is fre-
quently concealed by the rich and flowing style, of which Dr.
Channing is such an admirable master. The statements, which
are here brought together, in regard to the nature of man, the
essential character of religion, the condition of society, and the
hopes of the human race, may all be traced back to one or two
predominant ideas, which have strongly acted on the mind of the
author, which he clearly comprehends, and to which he is never
false. He commences with the recognition of the moral princi-
ple, as the highest element in human nature. The purpose of
religion is to develope and mature this principle, to give it a
practical ascendancy over the soul, and to preserve it from de.
gradation by the corruptions of the world. This principle con.
nects man with his Maker, makes him conscious of a Divinity
within him, guarantees to him the enjoyment of immortality,
imposes the obligation of duty, and calls him to a sublime desti-
ny. Religion, accordingly, is not the reception of a creed, but
the cultivation of life; not the observance of forms, but inward
holiness; it cannot cramp, enfeeble, and depress the mind;
but its true influence is joyous, and ennobling ; it reveals God to
his children, in the brightest and most attractive forms, and com-
mands them to be like him. But if the moral principle is the
highest attribute of man, and the medium of his connexion with
God, all other distinctions become trivial and unimportant. The
possession of a moral nature makes man the equal of man ev.
erywhere. Hence, all assumption of authority over the con-
science, all restrictions on freedom of mind, all claims to prop-
erty in man, all pretension to superority on account of outward


1840.)
247
Record of the Months.
privileges, are contrary to the Divine law. They do injustice
both to the nature of man and the purposes of God. Now these
principles give us a test of social arrangements. They must be
applied as the measure of civilization. Every institution of man
must be brought into judgment before their tribunal. The so.
ciety, which does not ensure to every individual the means of
unfolding and exercising his highest capacities, which permits
any to pine in hopeless want, which values external prosperity
more than moral perfection, which makes the pursuit of wealth
the primary object, and neglects the culture of the soul, is not in
accordance with the principles of religion, or the laws of human
nature.
Such are the conclusions, at which Dr. Channing arrives, and
which he enforces on the world, with the fearless earnestness of
a martyr. He commenced with theology ; here his purpose
was not so much to attack, as to explain ; to redeem the moral
element of Christianity from the speculations which concealed
it, and vindicate the spirit of Jesus, as a spirit of freedom, of
charity, of holiness, of universal truth. His position now is that
of a social reformer. In his mind, the religion of love cannot
be unfruitful. He has faith in man, in Christ, and in God; and
accordingly he looks forward to a better future than the past.
His writings, which will be most honored by the coming genera-
tions, relate to this object. They cannot fail to appreciate aright
the magnanimity with which he refuses to yield to popular preju-
dices, the calm wisdom with which he looks into prevailing
abuses, the courage and firmness with which he withstands the
current of obloquy that a divine charity for the welfare of man
always at first calls forth, and the hopeful serenity with which
he watches the struggle between light and darkness, that beto-
kens the speedy dawning of a better day.
The Preface to this edition contains the following pregnant
words, which may be regarded as his own confession of faith,
and which embody the creed of the youth of this country, who
are beginning, not so much to protest against the past, as to live
in the present, and construct for the future.
“These volumes will show, that the author feels strongly the need of
deep social changes, of a spiritual revolution in Christendom, of a new
bond between man and man, of a new sense of the relation between
man and his Creator. At the same time, they will show his firm be-
lief, that our present low civilization, the central idea of which is
wealth, cannot last forever; that the mass of men are not doomed hope-
lessly and irresistibly to the degradation of mind and heart in which
they are now sunk; that a new comprehension of the end and dignity
of a human being is to remodel social institutions and manners; that in
Christianity and in the powers and principles of human nature, we have
the promise of something holier and happier than now exists. It is a
privilege to live in this faith, and a privilege to communicate it to
others."


248
(Oct.
Record of the Months.
Two Sermons on the Kind Treatment and on the Emancipa-
tion of Slaves. Preached at Mobile, on Sunday, the 10th,
and Sunday the 17th of May, 1840. With a Prefatory Slale-
ment. By George F. SIMMONS. Boston: William Crosby
and Co.
These Sermons form a signal exception to the manner in
which the instructions of the pulpit are usually dispensed. They
were pronounced before an audience, scarce one of which could
be presumed to sympathize with the views that were urged;
they were intended not to set aside a speculative error, nor to
enforce an abstract moral precept, but to rebuke a sin that
was deeply fixed in the habits of the people ; and, so far from
being adapted to win for the preacher the golden opinions of his
hearers, he uttered them at the risk of his popularity, his reputa-
tion, nay, of his personal safety. He might have had good
reason to believe, that when he left that pulpit, in which he stood
to discharge a painful, but imperative duty, he would never be
suffered to lift up his voice in it again, if, indeed, he should not
fall a prey to the wild wrath of those, whose social corruptions
he had probed to the quick.
The position which Mr. Simmons occupied was one of no
common privilege, calling for the exercise of a lofty valor, ena.
bling him to accomplish an act of wise and noble self-sacrifice,
presenting one of those solemn moments, in which a soul of true
vitality lives more than in many years of sloth and worldly in.
dulgence. Here was a young man, fresh from the cold refine-
ments of the schools, nurtured in the enervating atmosphere of a
dainty literature, connected with a religious sect, which reckons
a cautious prudence among the cardinal virtues, and tempted by
the counsels and customs of society 10 overlook a vice, that was
so prevalent as to be feared. The sight of human beings in
bondage moved his spirit to expressions of rebuke and pity. He
could not conceal from himself the sin into the midst of which
he was thrown. He saw it in its true light. He judged it by
the standard of the divine law. He felt that it was one of the
chief duties of a servant of Christ, to compare the practice of his
hearers with the principles of his Master, and to give his public
testimony to its character, with an emphasis and distinctness,
that should not fail to be understood. It is easy to conceive of
the struggle which such a mind must go through, before it could
form the resolve to utier the most offensive truths to men, with
whom the speaker had lived in intimacy, with whose characters,
in many respects, ne cherished a sincere sympathy, and from
whom his faithfulness might alienate him forever.
The spirit, in which Mr. Simmons performed his difficult task,


1840.]
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Record of the Months.
was suited to disarm the opposition even of an enemy. His
statements are nicely weighed; they are free from the semblance
of exaggeration; not a particle of anger infects the purity of his
rebuke; he approaches the wounds he would cleanse and heal
not with rudeness, but with sorrow and love ; he shows that he
does not hate the slaveholder, while he defends the rights of the
slave; he fully appreciates the circumstances which palliate the
offence, recognises the good qualities which grow in an ungenial
soil, and admits the distinction between the victim of vicious
institutions, and the deliberate, wilful violator of a Divine law.
His language is like that of a brother pleading with a brother, of
a Christian, whose moral indignation is mingled with deep grief ;
of a man, who, conscious of infirmity himself, can make a just
allowance for the infirmity of others.
In his first Discourse, Mr. Simmons urges the duty of compas-
sion and indulgence towards the slave. “The negro,” says he,
" is our brother. To be regarded with fraternal feeling is,
therefore, his due. We bestow it on him not as a favor, but as
a debt."
In the second Discourse, he points out the inferences that
proceed from this principle. It entirely overthrows slavery.
Christianity makes all men our brethren. Slavery makes men
our tools. The spirit of Christianity must finally cast off every
yoke. Slavery is wrong. We can own servants only as we
own wives and children. They cannot be a part of our proper.
ty ; nor, without great injustice, can they be treated as such.
These are the general principles, on which all right endeavors
for the emancipation of the slave are founded. It is the purpose
of those, who are now laboring for this object, to give the widest
currency to these principles, to bring them home to the moral
sense of society, and to apply them to the heart and conscience
of all, who are concerned in the perpetuation of slavery. Their
triumph will be the triumph of moral truth over material in.
terests.
The immediate effect of these Discourses might have been
anticipated by those who are aware of the jealous and sensitive
spirit, which is always produced by the assertion of an unjust
claim. Truth courts discussion ; the consciousness of right in.
vites the most searching examination ; it fears nothing so much
as judgment without inquiry ; it loves the light; and brings all
its deeds and words to that test. No man wishes to wink out of
sight what he does not know to be wrong. But evil always
makes cowards of those whom it infects. Its anxiety to hush
up the faintest whisper betrays its character. Hence the timid.
ity of the slaveholder. Hence the frantic violence with which
he opposes all discussion, by which his deeds may be reproved.
Hence the primitive manner in which a servant of Christ is
VOL. I. NO. 11.
32


250
[Oct.
Record of the Months.
forced to leave the scene of his labors, reminding us of Paul let
down by night in a basket, or the earlier disciples, as they were
persecuted from one city, fieeing into another.
On Monday morning, Mr. Simmons was accused before the
Grand Jury. They looked into the offence, examined many
witnesses, and dismissed the complaint. He was then waited on
by his friends, who were anxious for his welfare and for the
public peace. They advised him to withdraw from the imme.
diate presence of the multitude. He complied with their sugges-
tions, and passed the night out of the city. The next day, the
irritation increased ; the neglect of the Grand Jury exasperaled
still more the minds of individuals ; and the danger of personal
violence became imminent. He was unanimously counselled to
go away. He followed the counsel, and left the city. In his
own opinion, he was expelled from Mobile not by the people of
Mobile, but solely by a cabal in it.
We are inclined 10 think, that it would have been better had
he remained on the post of danger, and submitted to the worst.
We know not that his life would have been the sacrifice. If it
had been, we believe that he would have found such a death not
without joy. To die for the assertion of a truth, on which the
welfare of man depends, is not the greatest of evils by far. The
man, who dies for the freedom of the soul, for the meek defence
of a brother's rights, for the rebuke of sin in high places, for
sympathy with the down-trodden and forsaken, is happier than
he, whom death finds in the carnage of the battle-field, or on
the softest couch of selfish luxury. In this instance, he would
have probably escaped with personal indignity and suffering.
Every example of this manfully borne is a great gain. Every
example of heroic fortitude, amidst the mistaken judgments, or
the open hostility of the world, is an accession to its highest
wealth. We need men who love their duty better than their
lives, who can take joyfully the spoiling of their goods, and the
destruction of their hopes, who are willing to be made of no
reputation for the sake of advancing the progress of truth and
good, and who have cheerfully volunteered their services on the
forlorn hope of humanity. The author of these Discourses was
not called to such a fiery trial. We trust, however, that he has
a soul that will never shrink from it; and that the voice of popu-
lar applause, and the temptations of society, will never lead him
to forget the dreams of his youth.
We have a few words to add, in regard to the manner in which
Mr. Simmons has spoken of those, to whom our country is in.
debted for the most effectual assertion of freedom for all 'its in.
habitants. We think the impartial verdict of history in their
behalf will be of a different character from that which he has
recorded. We say this without any personal bias; for our ac-


1840.]
251
Record of the Months.
quaintance with individual abolitionists is very limited; we have
never been in the habit of acting with them ; we have no case
to make out in their favor; but our opinion is formed from their
published writings, which we have read diligently. Their ob.
ject is to declare to the world the convictions which they have
attained in private, to make it universally felt that the holding of
property in man is a sin, and thus, by peaceful measures, to de.
stroy the crying vice of this nation, and the disgrace of our age.
In the defence of their principles, no doubt, there may be the
leaven of human imperfection ; for man still shares in the fall of
Adam ; there may be much bad rhetoric; there may be a vio.
lation of the decorous courtesies, which hold well-bred people in
such fear of each other, that they dare not speak out their minds ;
they may sometimes utter the voice of rebuke and warning in
tones that grate harshly on ears, which are daily soothed by
the sweetest music of flattery. This is natural enough. It
could hardly have been avoided. But they keep higher laws
than they break. “We must pardon something to the spirit
of liberty," which fills their souls. It is in their ranks that we
must look for the most disinterested devotion to a great cause,
for the deep sincerity which will not let the tongue stay dumb,
for a noble disregard of fashion and prejudice, for the intense
perception of the rights of universal man, and for a willingness
to brave persecution, contumely, and death, in their defence.
Such qualities cannot long be overlooked. Once seen, they
cannot be despised. The heart is true as steel to their attrac-
tions. Though now condemned, in their most prominent dis-
plays, by the ephemeral society of this instant, to-morrow the
voice of humanity will echo in their honor.
A Letter to those who think. By EDWARD PALMER. Wor.
cester. 1840.
The author of this letter has been the pastor of a church in the
vicinity of Boston, and is distinguished, as we understand from
those to whom he is personally known, for the unpretending
simplicity of his character, the purity of his intentions, and his
fearless inquiries into the foundation of prevailing institutions
and opinions. He is one of the increasing number in our free
land, who do not regard the voice of the multitude as the test
of truth, nor ask permission of society to express their convic-
tions. We honor him, therefore, as a sincere thinker; and no
difference of opinion shall prevent us from doing justice to the
record of his ideas.
The tone of this letter is one of great calmness; it is attrac-
tive by the chaste simplicity of its style ; and wins attention by


252
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Record of the Months.
the air of genuine texperience with which it is pervaded. The
leading purpose of the writer is to express his desire for a pure
and noble manifestation of religion, which shall comprehend all
the elements of human nature, elevate the soul to the highest
perfection of which it conceives, and advance society in free.
dom, holiness, and love. “ Though it is no small matter to be
a true Christian," says Mr. Palmer, “I now see that it is much
more to be a whole, a simple, and a true man.” He would
have man disencumber himself of creeds and forms, not live by
recorded precedents, or upon the experience of others, but go
forth freely and spontaneously, in accordance with the prompt-
ings of his own moral nature. He needs but to know himself,
to cultivate and exercise the noble nature with which he is en-
dowed, to bring into harmony and beautiful order all that per-
tains to his interest and happiness as an individual and a social
being.
These statements, considered in reference to prevalent relig.
ious ideas, will be assented to by many, over whose minds those
ideas have no influence. It is in vain to disguise the fact, that
the present administration of religion calls forth secret misgiv.
ings, or open dissent, from no small portion of those for whom
it is designed. Men are fast coming to the conviction, that the
highest sentiments of their nature demand a more generous
culture than they have received ; that the soul can be content
with naught but the most severe and stern reality; and that to
be truly religious is a thing of more vital and solemn import,
than the frivolous and worldly spirit of our age has ever imag-
ined. A higher form of religion, than that which lulls the
drowsy soul to death-like sleep, in the midst of appalling corrup-
tions and sins, is now looked for with as much earnestness by
thousands of hearts, which as yet have only breathed out their
longings in the faintest whispers, as was the coming of the Mes.
siah, in those dark days of Jewish degradation, which preceded
the advent of the truest light that has ever shone upon the
spiritual eye of man. These hopes are to be realized, as we
believe, by a clearer insight into the essential spirit of Christ.
ianity, and its application to the heart of society, in its simplest
and most universal form. This is the problem which our age is
called upon to solve, and it is now addressing itself to the
task, with a calm, but intense determination, which guarantees
its triumphant completion.
With these convictions, we do not assent to the conclusion
which Mr. Palmer thus announces. “I am convinced that
Christianity is to be superseded, as that has superseded Judaism.
The human soul is outgrowing it, as it has previously outgrown
other systems and technicalities.” In this statement, we think,
that Mr. Palmer has fallen into an error, by supposing that the


1840.)
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Record of the Months.
Christianity of Jesus is the popular religion of society. He
confounds the pure, simple, divine ideas of Christ, which place
him at such a wide distance from other religious teachers, with
the " systems and technicalities," which from the days of Con-
stantine to the present, have received the honors of Christian
baptism. But there is an essential distinction between the ideas
of Jesus, and the forms in which they have been represented ;
between the divine truth to which he came into the world to
testify, and the construction which it has received from different
ages ; between the universal laws which he announced, and the
enactments which have been added to them by the legislation of
men. The former constitute the religion of Jesus ; the latter,
the dress which disguises it ; the former are everlasting ; the
latter must pass away.
We do not believe, then, that society has outgrown Christian-
ity ; nor that it can ever outgrow it, any more than it can out-
grow the divine laws of nature. The characteristic idea of
Jesus was the supremacy of moral over physical power; he
directed men to the manifestation of God within their souls; he
assured them that all who received his word should enjoy the
Spirit of Truth as their comforter and friend forever; and thus
aitain the dignity and freedom of " simple, true, and whole
men." This idea is to be applied as a test to our present modes
of worship, to the institutions of society, to the character of its
members. So far as the prevailing religion of society is not in
accordance with this, it must be superseded. But the superse-
ding of this will be the exaltation of Christianity. A religion
which concentrates the sanctities of life in certain days, which
makes more account of formal worship than of the beauty of
holiness, which gives divine authority to a priestly interpreter
between conscience and God, which erects tribunals to sit in
judgment on the human soul, which fails to recognise the spirit-
ual equality and brotherhood of men, which takes no effectual
means for the removal of oppression, social wrongs, and national
sins, which exalts the service of Mammon over the service of
God, and permits men to lay up treasures on earth, while any
within their reach are starving for the bread of life, which has
no faith in an order of society, established on the divine prin.
ciples of justice and love, — such a religion, by whatever name
it may be called, is not the religion of Christ. It is in opposi.
tion to his teachings; still more in opposition to his life ; and as
men are aroused from the slumbers of sin, made to comprebend
the startling import of the ideas which now soothe the sleek
transgressor in his Sabbath repose, and quickened to a new
sense of responsibility by the stings of a faithful conscience,
which wounds to heal, this religion will pass away, and the re.
ligion of Jesus be reinstated in its place.


254
[Oct.
Record of the Months.
We differ, moreover, from Mr. Palmer, in regard to the reme-
dy which he proposes for the spirit of selfishness, the morbid
love of gain, the low standard of morality, and the glaring ine-
qualities of condition and opportunity, which to so great an
extent characterize modern society. In his opinion, the pres.
ent property system is the principal source of the crime and
wretchedness which prevails; it compels a violation of the nat-
ural laws; and the selfish and exclusive principles, upon which
the intercourse and business of men are now conducted, must
be exchanged for the benevolent and fraternal. In this way, he
supposes a community of interest, if not a community of prop-
erty, would be established ; the clashing interests of the many
would be brought into unity; and the practice of giving and
requiring bonds, notes, and metal pledges, at every turn, would
be superseded.
With regard to the evils alluded to by Mr. Palmer, there is,
we suppose, but one opinion among those who have made the
condition of society an object of study. They now engross the
attention of many of the most vigorous minds of Europe ; they
are beginning to awaken a deep interest in this country ; philos-
ophy forsakes its speculative abstractions to investigate the caus-
es of social suffering ; religion has learned that the salvation of
the soul involves the elevation of man; and the age, which has
perceived the great problem, will not be content till it is solved.
But the cure of these evils must not be looked for in a change of
systems. The heart must be set right; the true purposes of life
comprehended ; the divine relations of man with man understood
and acted on, before the most perfect outward organization could
be carried into effect, even if it were discovered. The social
ideas remaining the same, no good could come from the adoption
of a new system. You do not destroy the love of gain, by dis-
pensing with the tokens of value; you may give an egg for
an apple, instead of a coin; but the difficulty is in nowise re.
moved. Society must be inspired with correct social ideas ; the
divine law of love must be proclaimed, until it commands the
universal heart; and the true idea will not fail, in due time, to
organize itself in a true institution.
The great social evils of our day grow out of the lust of accumu-
lation for personal objects. The remedy for these evils is the effec-
tual assertion of Christian principles. If the spirit, which Jesus
insisted on as the characteristic of his disciples, pervaded every
community which bears his name, there would be no suffering
for the want of means to sustain life, for every individual to un-
fold his whole nature, to attain the culture, gentleness, and dig.
nity of a true man. The strong would help the infirmities of the
weak, and the very thought of selfish gratification, at the expense
of another's happiness or improvement, would be spurned. The


1840.]
255
Record of the Months.
early Christians, we are told, had all things in common; no man
said that aught which he had was his own; but they did not ad.
vocate the abolition of private property, nor a community of
goods. They were impelled by a common sympathy to bring of
their treasures to a common stock; the wants of the destitute
were thus supplied ; no man was suffered to need anything ;
but their reliance was placed on the soul, not on a system ; they
were led by the impulses of Divine love, not by the rules of an
organization, to indulge themselves in no needless expense, while
one of their brethren was destitute and suffering.
The Christian idea is not yet carried out in any Christian so-
ciety. This idea, as clearly set forth in the character of Jesus,
is that of entire self-abnegation, in obedience to God, for the
benefit of man. The disciple is to have no will, other than the
Divine will ; his own interests cannot be regarded as superior to
the interests of others ; he is as much bound to labor for the
good of all whom he can help, as if it were his own; he is com-
manded to sell all that he has, to consecrate his whole being,
for the sake of the cause, in which his Master died. Christ
renounced everything, called nothing his own, became of no
reputation, had no certain dwelling place, and died on the cross,
in order that, by his sacrifices, truth and good might be advanced
in the world. The disciple is called to essentially the same
duty. The form may be different, but the spirit is identical.
Unless he loves man as Christ loved him, he is false to the
title in which he glories. If he has wealth, he is bound to use
not a portion of it, but the whole of it, as the steward of the
Lord ; if he devotes it to his own selfish purposes, regardless of
the claims of others, he is among the rich men who cannot enter
into the kingdom of God; the moment he ceases to be a steward
for man, he ceases to be the servant of Christ, and becomes faith-
less to the cause, which he is pledged to support.
This idea of the uses of wealth is clearly in accordance with
the example of Jesus and his disciples, with the practice of the
first Christians, and the natural laws of our being. If this idea
were acted on, few external changes in the arrangements of
property would be required; and until it were acted on, no ex-
ternal changes would be of permanent avail. Still we rejoice in
every calm and temperate discussion of this subject. Men are
looking for light, and will not rest till they find it. They per-
ceive that the present system of intense competition for personal
benefits is fatal to the healthy growth of the soul, destructive of
the highest charms of social intercourse, at war with the bland
and graceful amenities of life, and the progress of the largest
civilization. Its tendency is to transform men into money-getting
machines ; to reduce the free and joyous varieties of natural
character to the dead level of plodding mediocrity; and to smoth-


256
Record of the Months.
(Oct.
er the gushing life of the spirit beneath a silver veil. It adjusts
social rank according to the successful pursuit of wealth ; meas.
ures men by what they possess, not by what they are ; identifies
life with “ getting a living ;” makes our nation a nation of iraf.
fickers, not of thinkers ; and substitules the laws of trade for the
laws of God. It is written, however, “ Take no thought for the
body; seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall
be given to you.”
This is the Christian creed. The true Church must rest on
this foundation. Wealth must be sought, not for our own per-
sonal advancement, but to promote the empire of justice and
love ; and then the fever of gain will be assuaged.
PROFESSOR WALKER'S VINDICATION OF PHILOSOPHY.
The manly and judicious Discourse of Dr. Walker before the
Alumni of the Cambridge Theological School, produced a deep
impression on the large audience which listened to its delivery.
We hoped to have seen it before this time in print. It would
afford an interesting subject of discussion. As it has not yet
been brought before the public, we must content ourselves with
copying a slight sketch of it, which appeared in the “ Boston
Daily Advertiser,” soon after it was pronounced.
- The Annual Discourse before the • Alumni of the Cambridge
Theological School' was delivered on Friday last by the Rev.
Dr. Walker, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University.
The subject chosen for this occasion was · The Connexion be-
tween Philosophy and Religion ;' and, addressed by a philo-
sophical teacher to an audience of religious teachers, was as
appropriate as any that could be presented ; while the manner
in which it was treated, the vigor and independence of the
speaker, his lucid discrimination of thought, his wise insight
into the respective claims of philosophy and religion, his just
description of the present state of speculation in the scientific
world, and its connexion with the practical interests of society,
gave it an importance which rarely belongs to our popular An.
niversary Addresses. It is certainly a striking feature in our
community, that the most abstract subjects are brought before
the mass of the people; words of learned length and porten-
tous sound are familiarly heard in the saloons and on 'Change;
systems of philosophy, which in other countries are explained
from the chair of the Professor, are here pronounced upon in the
Insurance Office, and at the tea table. No true republican will
find fault with this, of course ; but, as a necessary consequence,
we must, now and then, hear the expression of opinions that are
more ludicrous than edifying, and characterized rather by ve.


1840.]
257
Record of the Months.
hemence than wisdom. The ears, that have ached uncom.
plainingly under such inflictions, must have found something
healing in the well-weighed words of a man who spoke from
knowledge, not from hearsay, and who had taken the pains to
comprehend the scientific questions on which he was called to
pass judgment.
" The purpose of Dr. Walker was to show the importance of
the study of philosophy to the teacher of religion. In intro-
ducing the subject, he set forth one or two just distinctions be.
tween religion, considered as the subject of philosophical dis-
cussion, and the religious character, or the condition of being
religious; and between religion, as a system of absolute truths,
and the views of religion which are taken by the human mind.
Philosophy, he maintained, was by no means essential to a high
degree of personal religious experience; a man might be truly
devout, who did not understand the meaning of the word ; nor
was it the foundation of those realities which form the substance
of religious faith, under all its various expressions. But it is
the province of philosophy to enable us to give an account to
ourselves ; and, of course, to explain the facts of religion, no
less than other facts which come under our cognizance.
“ The necessity of an acquaintance with philosophy was argued,
from the general tendency of thought at the present day. Men
now look into the reason of things on all subjects. They desire
to give an account to themselves of whatever engages their at-
tention. The discussion of first principles awakens the deep-
est interest in the most active and cultivated minds. Hence the
tendency of the age to philosophical investigation. This ten-
dency is visible in the popular movements for social reform.
They, who go to the greatest length in these attempts, are dis-
tinguished from reformers who preceded them, by the fact, that
they seek to establish their principles on a philosophical basis,
instead of appealing to the authority of the letter. They de.
fend their views by an exposition of human nature, as well as
by texts of Scripture. This tendency is also visible in modern
literature. The greatest poets have not escaped its influence.
Byron and Wordsworth are indebted to it for their popularity,
as well as to their unquestioned genius. It is still more dis-
tinctly visible in theological literature. It is seen even in the
title pages of books which have the widest circulation. Instead
of · Essays,' • Treatises,' • Evidences, and so forth, we now
have · The Philosophy of Man's Moral Nature,'· The Philoso-
phy of the Evidences of Christianity,' and the like. The taste
for works on philology, criticism, the interpretation of the
Scriptures, and ihe external evidences of religion, has yielded
to a deeper interest in questions relating to the ultimate foun.
VOL. 1. — NO. 11. 33


258
[Oct.
Record of the Months.
dation of faith, and the testimony to religion presented by the
human soul. A few years since, in this community, a valuable
work on the Old Testament, on the Gospel history, or an origi-
nal Commentary, would have produced a sensation ; now such
works may be published, without any sensation whatever. Men
are seeking truth on a different order of questions ; questions,
which it is the business of philosophy to illustrate and expound.
" It is in vain for men to shut their eyes on the existence and
importance of this philosophical movement, or to affect to wink
it out of sight. They may correct it, where it is wrong; but
they must first study its character. They may endeavor to ar-
rest its progress ; but they must first understand its direction.
They may put down Trancendentalism, if they can; but they
must first deign to comprehend its principles.
"But it may be said, that philosophical systems are tempo-
rary, and, therefore, it is not worth while to make them the ob-
ject of study. Admitting that systems are temporary, the truth
which they embody is permanent. The discoveries of philoso-
phy remain, are incorporated with the whole texture of popular
thought, act on the institutions of society, long after the person
to whom they owe their origin has passed into comparative ob-
scurity, and ceased to number any professed followers. There
are no Cartesians now; but the reasonings of Descartes on
matter and spirit influence the opinions of every student of hu-
man nature. There are no Hartleians now ; but the doctrines
of Hartley, in regard to the association of ideas, belong to our
established science. There are no Kantians now, it is said, in
Germany ; but it is certain, that the influence of the profound
analysis of the mind by the great philosopher of Königsberg is
everywhere visible.
“Besides, systems of philosophy are as permanent as any
scientific systems, with the exception only of pure mathematics.
Geology has experienced changes which well nigh baffle the
student; and even now the experiments of Mr. Faraday bid
fair to introduce a complete revolution into the science of chem-
istry.
« But it is said, moreover, that philosophy tends to infidelity,
and that its connexion with religion endangers the interests of
the latter. It is thought that the only safety for religion con-
sists in never looking philosophy in the face.
“It is not a little remarkable, that this objection has been
uniformly brought against the best systems of philosophy on
their first promulgation. Their authors have been accused of
atheism, decried as dangerous, and exposed to the attacks of
popular clamor. Descartes was called an atheist ; Locke was
called an atheist; Kant was called an atheist; and recently, the


1840.]
259
Record of the Months.
eminent French Eclectic, Cousin, has been called an atheist ; in
the latter case with as much propriety as in the former, and
with not a whit more.
“ But the objection, that philosophy tends to infidelity, is not
sustained by historical facts. The skepticism of the most dis-
tinguished English infidel, David Hume, was not founded in
philosophy, but in the want of philosophy. He called in ques-
tion the power of the mind to gain a knowledge of truth ; his
purpose was to pick everything to pieces ; he built up nothing,
and argued against philosophy, with as much zeal as his relig.
ious opponents have done since. The French philosophy of the
last century did not produce the infidelity of the French nation :
it had its own origin in the infidelity which had long been prev-
alent; and the modern philosophical movement in that country,
so far from being of an infidel character, exhibits an earnest
faith in religion, and is friendly, to say the least, to Christianity.
Neither did German infidelity proceed from German philosophy.
It commenced with critics and philologists. Semler is usually
regarded as at the head of this movement; it was carried on
by Michaelis and Eichhorn, philologists both; and the return to
a higher order of ideas, to a living faith in God, in Christ, and
in the Church, has been promoted by the philosophical labors of
such men as Schleiermacher and De Wette. This tribute is
due in justice to the last named individuals, ill-adapted as their
views may be to meet the popular wants in our own country.
“ After noticing some other less important objections to the
study of philosophy, Dr. Walker closed his discourse with an
admirable description of the spirit with which this study should
be carried on, in connexion with religion. The philosopher,
when approaching the loftiest themes of human thought, espe-
cially when he attempts to investigate the Divine essence and
attributes, should be impressed with the solemn nature of his
inquiries, should cherish a meek and reverent disposition, like
the seraphim, who, when they bow before the presence of God,
veil their faces with their wings.
“ We trust that this powerful and luminous Discourse will be
soon given to the public from the press. It may do much to
correct many prevalent, and, at first view, almost hopeless er-
rors with regard to the true nature and purposes of Transcen-
dental inquiry. A religious community has reason to look with.
distrust and dread on a philosophy, which limits the ideas of the
human mind to the information of the senses, and denies the
existence of spiritual elements in the nature of man. They will
welcome a philosophy of an opposite character, a philosophy
which maintains a sublime harmony with the teachings of reve.
lation, which brings home the most vital truths to individual


260
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Record of the Months.
consciousness, and which establishes the reality of freedom and
holiness, as the noblest object of human endeavor. Such a phi-
losophy has been taught in Great Britain by Butler, Price, Stew-
art, Reid, and Coleridge ; in Germany by Kant, Jacobi, and
Schleiermacher; in France by Cousin, Jouffroy, and De Geran-
do; and we rejoice to add is now taught with signal ability, in
the halls of our venerated University, by the author of this dis-
course.”
THE ATHENEUM ExhibiTION OF PAINTING AND SCULPTURE.
THE gallery of paintings has been well worth visiting this
year, if only to see the very beautiful copy of the Madonna,
and the heads of Raphael, Guido, and the Fornarina, each of
which unlocks a treasury of fine suggestions. The Fornarina
shows to great advantage between Newton's two pictures, so
excellent in their way, the Dutch girl and Spanish girl.
These are such pretty pictures of modern fine ladies in costume,
and seem to represent the idea which a highly cultivated fashion-
able society entertains of grace and romance, while the Forna-
rina represents the wild luxuriant growth of real romance, and
suggests Wordsworth's lines —
“ O, lavish Nature, why
That dark unfathomable eye,
Where lurks a spirit that replies
To stillest mood of softest skies,
Yet hints at peace to be o'erthrown,
Another's first, and then her own.”
“ The Dream" is a fine picture in the romantic style. It is
one of those works which, if not themselves of commanding
excellence, waft to us the sweet breeze from an age capable of
all excellence. Among the pictures by modern artists, we notice
with great interest, several by Page. This artist has a fine eye
for nature, and a contempt for all show and exaggeration. His
pictures are always full of character. He does not seem born
particularly for a portrait painter, inasmuch as these heads are
not new revelations, but persons such as we have seen and
known them. But all, that we do find, is true, full of life and
freshness. His heads of children are excellent, in a style of
great naiveté and sweetness; they are not well dressed little
cherubs, but rich in the promise of sincere and natural man.
hood and womanhood. Should this artist ever be able to unfold
his powers in a congenial element, he is able to go a great way
and may turn over a new leaf for America. Two little land.
scapes by Miss Clarke deserve greater attention than from their


1840.]
261
Record of the Months.
size and position they are likely to receive. They show a pro-
found and quiet feeling of nature, perfect chasteness and delicacy
of taste. They are deficient in freedom and fulness of expression,
but give reason to hope for the attainment of these also. Several
other pictures seem to claim our stay ; but the present limits
oblige us to hasten into the ball of Sculpture, which demands
our especial attention now from its novelty; the opening of
which, indeed, forms to us quite an important era in the history
of Boston.
We reflect with great pleasure, that these calm and fair ide-
als, manifested in this spotless and durable material, have for
the most part adorned for some years the houses of our citizens,
and, doubtless, have been the sources of love and thought to a
great number of minds. But that the public should be suffi-
ciently interested in such objects, to make it worth while to col-
lect them yearly for exhibition, is none the less an important
event. It is very pleasing to see how this influence has gone
forth from the private to the public sphere. The movement
has been gradual, genuine, and therefore has meaning; and it is
of no trifling significance when men learn to love to see thoughts
written in stone. They must look to a noble futurity ; they
must know how to value repose.
It is never so pleasant to see works of art in a collection, as
when they are the ornaments of a home. Each picture, each
statue claims its niche to be seen to due advantage. And yet,
in this hall, there is an almost compensating pleasure in walking
as it were amid a grove or garden of beautiful symbols, taken
from the ages of mythus, and of beings worthy the marble, from
the days of action. We can see many of them on all sides
and study the meaning of every line.
And here are many objects worth study. There is Thor-
waldsen's Byron. This is the truly beautiful, the ideal Byron.
This head is quite free from the got up, caricatured air of dis.
dain, which disfigures most likenesses of him, as it did himself
in real life; yet sultry, stern, all-craving, all-commanding.
Even the heavy style of the hair, too closely curled for grace,
is favorable to the expression of concentrated life. While
looking at this head you learn to account for the grand failure
in the scheme of his existence. The line of the cheek and
chin are here, as usual, of unrivalled beauty.
The bust of Napoleon is here also, and will naturally be
named in connexion with that of Byron, as the one in letters,
the other in arms, represented more fully than any other the
tendency of their time ; more than any other gave it a chance
for reaction. There was another point of resemblance in the
external being of the two, perfectly corresponding with that of


262
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Record of the Months.
the internal, a sense of which peculiarity drew on Byron some
ridicule. I mean that it was the intention of Nature, that neither
should ever grow fat, but remain a Cassius in the commonwealth.
And both these heads are taken, while they were at an early
age, and so thin as to be still beautiful. This head of Napo-
leon is of a stern beauty. A head must be of a style either
very stern or very chaste, to make a deep impression on the
beholder; there must be a great force of will and withholding
of resources, giving a sense of depth below depth, which we
call sternness ; or else there must be that purity, flowing as from
an inexhaustible fountain through every lineament, which drives
far off or converts all baser natures. Napoleon's head is of the
first description ; it is stern, and not only so, but ruthless. Yet
this ruthlessness excites no aversion ; the artist has caught its
true character, and given us here the Attila, the instrument of
fate to serve a purpose not his own. While looking on it, came
full to mind the well known lines —
“Speak gently of his crimes.
Who knows, Scourge of God, but in His eyes those crimes
Were virtues,"
His brows are tense and damp with the dews of thought. In
that head you see the great future, careless of the black and
white stones ; and even when you turn to the voluptuous beauty
of the mouth, the impression remains so strong, that Russia's
snows, and mountains of the slain, seein the tragedy that must
naturally follow the appearance of such an actor. You turn
from him, feeling that he is a product not of the day, but of the
ages, and that the ages must judge him.
Near him is a lead of Ennius, very intellectual; self-centred
and self-fed; but wrung and gnawed by unceasing thoughts.
Yet even near the Ennius and Napoleon, our American men
look worthy to be perpetuated in marble or bronze, if it were
only for their air of calm unpretending sagacity. If the young
American were to walk up an avenue lined with such effigies,
he might not feel called to such greatness as the strong Roman
wrinkles tell of, but he must feel that he could not live an idle
life, and should nerve himself to lift an Atlas weight without re-
pining or shrinking.
The busts of Everett and Allston, though admirable as
everyday likenesses, deserved a genius of a different order
from Clevenger. Clevenger gives the man as he is at the mo.
ment, but does not show the possibilities of his existence. Even
thus seen the head of Mr. Everett brings back all the age of
Pericles, so refined and classic is its beauty. The two busts of
Mr. Webster by Clevenger and Powers are the difference be-


1840.]
263
Record of the Months.
tween prose, healthy, and energetic prose indeed, but still prose,
and poetry. Clevenger's is such as we see Mr. Webster on any
public occasion, when, his genius is not called forth. No child
could fail to recognise it in a moment. Powers's is not so good
as a likeness, but has the higher merit of being an ideal of the
orator and statesman at a great moment. It is quite an Ameri-
can Jupiter in its eagle calmness of conscious power.
Of the groups many are our old friends and have been no-
ticed elsewhere. The sleeping Cleopatra cannot be looked
at enough, always her sleep seems sweeter and more grace-
ful, always more wonderful the drapery. A little Psyche, by a
pupil of Bartolini, pleases us much thus far. The forlorn
sweetness with which she sits there, crouched down like a
bruised butterfly, and the languid tenacity of her mood are
very touching. The Mercury and Ganymede with the Eagle
by Thorwaldsen are still as fine as on first acquaintance.
Thorwaldsen seems the grandest and simplest of modern
sculptors. There is a breadth in his thought, a freedom in
his design, we do not see elsewhere.
A spaniel by Gott shows great talent and knowledge of the
animal. The head is admirable ; it is so full of playfulness
and of doggish knowingness.
But it is impossible in a short notice to particularize farther.
For each of these objects, that claims attention at all, deserves
a chapter to express the thoughts it calls out. Another year we
hope to see them all again, and then to have space and time to
do them such honor as feeling would prompt to-day.
We hope the beauty of the following lines, suggested to a
“ friend and correspondent” by a picture now in the Atheneum
Gallery, called “The Dream," may atone for the brevity and
haste of our little notice.
“THE DREAM.”
A youth, with gentle brow and tender cheek,
Dreams in a place so silent, that no bird,
No rustle of the leaves his slumbers break;
Only soft tinkling from the stream is heard,
As its bright little waves flow forth to greet
The beauteous One, and play upon his feet.
On a low bank beneath the thick shade thrown,
Soft gleams over his brown hair are flitting,
His golden plumes, bending, all lovely shone;
It seemed an angel's home where he was sitting;
Erect beside a silver lily grew;
And over all the shadow its sweet beauty threw.


264
(Oct.
Record of the Months.
Dreams he of life? O, then a noble maid
Toward him floats, with eyes of starry light,
In richest robes all radiantly arrayed
To be his ladye and his dear delight.
Ah no! the distance shows a winding stream;
No lovely ladye comes, no starry eyes do gleam.
Cold is the air, and cold the mountains blue;
The banks are brown, and men are lying there,
Meagre and old. But what have they to do
With joyous visions of a youth so fair ?
He must not ever sleep as they are sleeping,
Onward through life he should be ever sweeping.
Let the pale glimmering distance pass away;
Why in the twilight art thou slumbering there?
Wake and come forth into triumphant day,
Thy life and deeds must ali be great and fair;
Canst thou not from the lily learn true glory,
Pure, lofty, lowly? – such should be thy story.
But no! I see thou lov'st the deep-eyed Past,
And thy heart clings to sweet remembrances.
In dim cathedral-aisle thou ’lt Jinger last
And fill thy mind with flitting fantasies.
Yet know, dear One, the world is rich to-day,
And the unceasing God gives glory forth alway.
Select List of Recent PUBLICATIONS.
Airs of Palestine, and other Poems. By John Pierpont.
Boston: James Munroe and Company. 12mo. pp. 334.
Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature. Edited by
George Ripley. Vols. VII., VIII., IX. Containing German
Literature, translated from the German of Wolfgang Menzel.
By C. C. Felton. In Three Volumes. Boston: Hilliard, Gray,
and Company. 12mo. pp. 352, 428.
Two Years before the Mast. A Personal Narrative of Life
at Sea. New York: Harper and Brothers. 12mo. pp. 483.
This is a voice from the forecastle. Though a narrative of
literal, prosaic truth, it possesses something of the romantic
charm of Robinson Crusoe. Few more interesting chapters
of the literature of the sea have ever fallen under our notice.
The author left the halls of the University for the deck of a
merchant vessel, exchanging "the tight dress coat, silk cap,
and kid gloves of an undergraduate al Cambridge, for the loose
duck trowsers, checked shirt, and tarpaulin hat of a sailor,"
and here presents us the fruits of his voyage. His book


1840.)
265
Record of the Months.
will have a wide circulation ; it will be praised in the public
prints; we shall be told that it does honor to his head and heart;
but we trust that it will do much more than this ; that it will
open the eyes of many to the condition of the sailor, to the
fearful waste of man, by which the luxuries of foreign climes
are made to increase the amount of commercial wealth. This
simple narrative, stamped with deep sincerity, and often dis.
playing an unstudied, pathetic eloquence, may lead to reflec.
tions, which mere argument and sentimental appeals do not
call forth. It will serve to hasten the day of reckoning be-
tween society and the sailor, which, though late, will not fail to
come.
Theory of Legislation ; by Jeremy Bentham. Translated
from the French of Etienne Dumont, by R. Hildreth. In Two
Volumes. Boston: Weeks, Jordan, and Company. 12mo. pp.
278, 268.
The Law and Custom of Slavery in British India, in a Series
of Letters to Thomas Fowell Buxton, Esq. By William Adam.
Boston: Weeks, Jordan, and Company. 12mo. pp. 279.
The Laboring Classes. An Article from the Boston Quar.
terly Review. By 0. A. Brownson. Third Edition. Boston:
Benjamin H. Greene. 8vo. pp. 24.
Oration before the Democracy of Worcester and Vicinity,
delivered at Worcester, Mass., by 0. A. Brownson, July 4,
1840. Boston and Worcester. 8vo. pp. 38.
Remarks on the Bunker Hill Monument, addressed to the
Ladies engaged in getting up the Fair for its Completion. By
Elliott. Portsmouth : C. W. Brewster. 12mo. pp. 12.
A Discourse on Liberty, delivered before an Assembly of the
Friends of Emancipation, in the Christian Chapel, in Providence,
July 4, 1840. By Thomas P. Rodman. Providence. 8vo. pp.
15.
Faust; A Dramatic Poem, by Goethe. Translated into Eng.
lish Prose, with Notes, &c. By A. Hayward, Esq. First
American, from the third London Edition. Lowell and New
York. 12mo. pp. 317.
A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett,
selected and arranged, with a Preface, by Theodore Sedg.
wick, Jr. In Two Volumes. New York. 12mo. pp. 312, 336.
Social Destiny of Man: or Association and Reorganization
of Industry. By Albert Brisbane. Philadelphia. 12mo. pp.
480.
This work is designed to give a condensed view of the system
of M. Fourier, for the improvement and elevation of produc-
tive industry. It will be read with deep interest by a large class
of our population. The name of Fourier may be placed at the
VOL. 1. — NO. 11.
34


266
[Oct.
Record of the Months.
head of modern thinkers, whose attention has been given to the
practical evils of society and the means of their removal. His
general principles should be cautiously separated from the de-
tails which accompany their exposition, many of which are so
exclusively adapted to the French character, as to prejudice their
reception with persons of opposite habits and associations. The
great question, which he brings up for discussion, concerns the
union of labor and capital in the same individuals, by a system
of combined and organized industry. This question, it is more
than probable, will not be set aside at once, whenever its impor-
tance is fully perceived, and those who are interested in iis de-
cision will find materials of no small value in the writings of
M. Fourier. They may be regarded, in some sense, as the
scientific analysis of the coöperative principle, which has, within
a few years past, engaged the public attention in England, and
in certain cases, received a successful, practical application.
The Ecclesiastical and Political History of the Popes of
Rome, during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries. By
Leopold Ranke. Translated from the German, by Sarah Aus-
tin. In Three Volumes. London : Murray.
This beautiful work gives a sketch of the history of the
Church from the time of Christ to Leo Tenth ; then a minute
history of the epoch of the Reformation, and especially of the
attempts made in good faith, within the church, for its reforma-
tion, and shows how these proved abortive, notwithstanding the
sincerity and enlightened views of many Catholic prelates.
The rise and progress, corruption and destruction of the Jesu.
its is carefully told. The work closes with a view of the bis.
tory of the church up to the time of Napoleon ; and the present
state of things. In design and execution, the work is truly a
poem ; and it has been adequately translated.
Poetry for the People and other Poems. By Richard Monck.
ton Milnes. London: Moxon.
Democracy in America. Part the Second. By Alexis De
Tocqueville. In Two Volumes. Translated by Henry Reeve,
Esq. London.
The Life of Luther; with Notices and Extracts of his Popu.
lar Writings. Translated from the German of Gustavus Pfizer,
by T. S. Williams. With an Introductory Essay, by the Au-
thor of “ Natural History of Enthusiasm." London
The Universal Tendency to Association in Mankind, analyzed
and illustrated. With Practical and Historical Notices of the
Bonds of Society, as regards Individuals and Communities. By
John Dunlop, Esq. London.
The Last Days of a Condemned. From the French of M.
Victor Hugo. By Sir P. Hesketh Fleetwood, Bart., M. P. Lon-
don.


1840.]
267
Record of the Months.
Account of the Recent Persecution of the Jews at Damascus :
With Reflections thereon, and an Appendix, containing various
Documents connected with the Subject. By David Solomons,
Esq. London.
The Fine Arts in England, their State and Prospects, con-
sidered relatively to National Education. Part I. The Admin-
istrative Economy of the Fine Arts. By Edward Edwards, of
the British Museum. London.
Memoirs and Letters of Sir Samuel Romilly, with his Political
Diary. Edited by his Sons. Second Edition. In Three Vol.
umes. London. 8vo.
Goethe's Theory of Colors. Translated from the German,
and edited, with Notes, by Charles Lock Eastlake, R. A. Lon.
don.
Materialism in Religion; or Religious Forms and Theologi.
cal Formulas. Three Lectures, delivered at the Chapel in
South Place, Finsbury. By Philip Harwood. London.
The title of this pamphlet would lead one to expect some-
what significant in its contents. Such an expectation is not dis-
appointed on the perusal. We find here no stale thoughts re.
peated till the breath of life is pressed out of them, but the
fresh and bold, though now and then crude, expressions of a
mind that is clearly in earnest, and wont to look at man and
nature, through no veil. The spirit, which ceases not to work
through evil report and good report in the midst of our own
society, is quick and powerful abroad. It is indeed almost start-
ling to listen to the echoes of familiar voices, as they are borne
to us from strange lands. Let them be welcomed from what-
ever quarter they come, as proofs, pleasing though not needed,
of the identity of truth, and its affinity with the human soul.
The author of these Lectures proposes to consider the ten-
dency, more or less observable in all the great religious organi-
zations of mankind, to materialize religion ; to clothe the relig-
ious idea in a material garb, and confine it in material forms.
He pursues this tendency, through the religious history of the
world, in three of the most remarkable phases which it has suc-
cessively assumed, - Judaism, Catholicism, and sectarian Protes-
tantism. The following passage explains his point of view.
“I have no controversy, then, with the tendency to materialize re-
ligion. There is truth in it; it is, in a manner, the beginning and the
end, the Alpha and the Omega of all religion. To read the spiritual
in the material, the infinite in the finite, the invisible things of God in
the things that he has made, and then to re-embody our spiritual con-
ceptions in new material forms of life and action - this is all the
religion that the wisest of us can have. The two principles of spirit-
ualism and materialism are antagonistic in their lower developments
only. In their perfected form they coincide: the climax of the one is


268
(Oct.
Record of the Months.
also the climax of the other. Thus a rude, coarse Christianity is ma-
terial; clings to the mere personality of Christ; worships Christ;
makes a God of him; will hear of nothing but faith in Christ, love to
Christ, obedience to Christ. A more refined and spiritual Christianity
(as represented, for instance, by the Unitarians of Priestley's School)
leaves the man Christ Jesus rather in the background; and takes his
doctrines, his precepts, his religion, and worships these ; and says that
it does not very much matter what we think of him, or whose son he
was, so that we take his religion, and believe that. A yet higher and
more spiritual Christianity comes back to the personality of Christ,
and sees that he is his own religion ; that he is a sort of incarnation of
God, a word of God made flesh; that he is the word, the revelation,
the text -- and all the rest mere marginal comment, more or less au-
thentic. In like manner, a rude, coarse Natural Religion clings to
material nature ; makes graven images, and bows down to worship
them. The first step in refinement is to leave the material; to break
the images; to seize the conception of the Spirit that made the heav-
ens and the earth, and dwells a part, outside the material world. At
the next step the mind reunites the spiritual and the material, and
grasps the mighty thought of the all-pervading Intelligence and Power,
the all-quickening Love, in whom we live, and move, and have our
being; who dwells in us, and we in Him, through whom, and by whom,
and to whom are all things.” — pp. 7, 8.
The spirit of life, however, tends always to break through the
material forms, with which it is obstructed.
“ Yet, after all, strong as the material form may be, the spirit — the
living soul - is stronger still. Natural, vital growth is mighty even
as a mechanical force. The softest seed, if there be but life in it, will
burst the hardest shell; and the growing power of a principle will
make its way through all the wrappages and encasings of a form.
The prophetic administration of religion - free, bold, reaching forth
and pressing forward to the future — will ever be too strong for the
priestly — mechanical, servile, leaning lazily upon the past. There is
Judaism, with all its passovers, and burnt-offerings, and golden can-
dlesticks, down, sunk like lead in the depths of the past: and here is
Christianity, up, now this moment at the top of the world, with its di-
vine, everlasting symbols stimulating new thought, and yielding new
results of life and action, (like the tree of life in the Apocalypse, that
bare her fruit every month) - beaming light in life and hope in death,
bracing the will of philanthropy and steadying its aims, - a Com-
forter, a Spirit of Truth and of God, a Holy Spirit, dwelling with us
forever, with inspiration as new and fresh, as when Christ had it first in
his cottage-home at Nazareth.” — pp. 16, 17.
There is unquestionable truth in the idea of the Catholic
Church, which the author thus interprets.
“ Undoubtedly there is (or, if not is, might, could, and should be)
A Church Universal, a Communion of Saints, a fellowship of good and
true minds, reaching through all time and spread over all lands; &
union of all minds and hearts in great moral convictions in a faith
- faith in one another, faith in truth, and in a true God: we can con-
1.


1840.]
269
Record of the Months.
ceive of such a fellowship, or Church, as this — a kingdom of heaven,
of heavenly truth and love, upon the earth: we can forin the idea ; it
was the idea in which Christ lived and died :— we may conceive of
such a Church (whether with or without what is called ecclesiastical
polity') - a general pervasion of the spirit of humanity with Christ's
spirit, a kingdom of Christ and of God, which, beginning like a grain
of mustard seed, should gradually grow up, by the expansive vitality
that is in all true and good things, into a tree - a tree of life - giving
fruit and shelter to all the kindreds of men. This is the Christian con-
ception of a Church Catholic or Universal. — And such a Church
would have authority; it would (to borrow the favorite old Jesuit illus-
tration, be a kind of Soul of the World, whose will would be law to
the body, guiding and governing all the movements of the body, cir-
culating vitality to every limb, sending the light of faith and the life
of love through all social in titutions and organizations. Such a
Church would be, in a manner, infallible; the united moral concep-
tions of a community of minds, each of them free, and dealing with
reality on its own account - the conscience of the human race — can-
not be false. We might almost say of such a Church, that its theo-
logical interpretations of Scripture would be infallible; since, if we
could but know the general, collective impression which Scripture
makes on the collective intellect of mankind - exercised freely, un-
bribed and unintimidated — we should have, in this united and con-
sentatious experience of myriads of ininds, variously endowed and
trained — what now we have not, and cannot have the natural sense
of Scripture, the sense which it is naturally fitted to convey: error
would neutralize error, leaving a clear balance of truth; and, after
striking out of the account, as accidental and exceptional, all inter-
pretations that have not stood the test of the general intellectual ex-
perience of mankind, we should have, in the residual faith of the
Church universal, something like a standard Scriptural theology. And
such a Church would realize the idea of the Apostolical Succession,
the Christian hierarchy, or royal priesthood; would be quickened by
the same Holy Spirit, or divine breath, that made fishermen and me.
chanics kings and priests unto God; a spirit not at all confined to one
little territory of sonc miles square, called Apostolic See,' or one
solitary dynasty of Italian princes called Popes' - but filling all
things, with an omnipresence as of the God whose spirit it is.
There is an essential element of truth, then, in these favorite ideas of
Catholicism.” - pp. 25, 26.
Neither are monastic institutions without beauty.
“ By its monastic institutions, the Catholic Church materializes the
idea of Unworldliness, Heavenly-mindedness. Here, likewise, is
truth — vital, essential truth — but turned into pernicious falsehood
by being hardened into mechanism. There is something grand and
beautiful in the principle that prompted the aspiration after a diviner
life than man lives here, that gave men strength to renounce earth for
heaven, to escape from the world and the evil of the world together,
and make a bright green garden spot - an Oasis of God - in the
midst of the world's wilderness, where piety, learning, meditation,
kindheartedness should reign sequestered and alone, and the soul rest


270
(Oct.
Record of the Months. ..
in God, and serve Him day and night in his temple, with prayer, and
vigil, and solemn chant - where a thoughtful philanthropy could tend
and trim the sacred fire which, then fickering on the verge of extin-
guishment, was, in after-days, to burn forth with a brightness as of
the sun in his strength; - this is, or was, very grand and beautiful:
who can read, even now, such a book as that of Thomas à Kempis,
without the sympathy of reverence for the earnest, deep-thoughted
pietism that it enshrines ? - All this, or great part of it, was true
once; and it is right that the debt which civilization and humanity
owe to those gatherings of the gentle and the wise should be paid in
a generous and kindly appreciation.” — pp. 29, 30.
We hope the imagination of the author has not thrown a
false light around the tendencies of the age.
“Meanwhile there is, and increasingly must be, a mutual approxi-
mation of the simply and wisely good, of all churches and of no
church. The great tendencies of modern thought and feeling are
essentially unsectarianizing; move in the direction of an appreciating
sympathy with the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, by whatever
strange, uncouth nomenclature they may chance to disguise them-
selves. However it may fare with sects and churches, (which, after all,
matters extremely little,) there is, and must be, a progressive and uni-
ted approximation of free and true minds from all points