Volume I Part 2 (1/2)
Brothers and Sisters: let us be true to our sentiments and ideas. Let us not imitate another's form unless it symbolize a truth to us. We must not affect to be singular, but not fear to be alone. Let us not foolishly separate from our brothers elsewhere. Truth is yet before us, not only springing up out of the manly words of this Bible, but out of the ground; out of the heavens; out of man and G.o.d. Whole firmaments of truth hang ever o'er our heads, waiting the telescopic eye of the true-hearted see-er. Let us follow truth, in form, thought or sentiment, wherever she may call. G.o.d's daughter cannot lead us from the path. The further on we go, the more we find. Had Columbus turned back only the day before he saw the land, the adventure had been worse than lost.
We must practise a manly self-denial. Religion always demands that, but never more than when our brothers separate from us, and we stand alone.
By our mutual love and mutual forbearance, we shall stand strong. With zeal for our common work, let us have charity for such as dislike us, such as oppose and would oppress us. Let us love our enemies, bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for such as despitefully use us. Let us overcome their evil speech with our own goodness. If others have treated us ill, called us unholy names, and mocked at us, let us forgive it all, here and now, and help them also to forget and outgrow that temper which bade them treat us so. A kind answer is fittest rebuke to an unkind word.
If we have any truth it will not be kept hid. It will run over the brim of our urn and water our brother's field. Were any truth to come down to us in advance from G.o.d, it were not that we might forestall the light, but shed it forth for all His children to walk by and rejoice in.
”One candle will light a thousand” if it be itself lighted. Let our light s.h.i.+ne before men so that they may see our good deeds, and themselves praise G.o.d by a manly life. This we owe to them as to ourselves. A n.o.ble thought and a mean man make a sorry union. Let our idea show itself in our life--that is preaching, right eloquent. Do this, we begin to do good to men, and though they should oppose us, and our work should fail, we shall have yet the approval of our own heart, the approval of G.o.d, be whole within ourselves, and one with Him.
Some of you are venerable men. I have wondered that a youthful ardor should have brought you here. Your silvery heads have seemed a benediction to my work. But most of you are young. I know it is no aping of a fas.h.i.+on that has brought you here. I have no eloquence to charm or please you with; I only speak right on. I have no reputation but a bad name in the churches. I know you came not idly, but seeking after truth.
Give a great idea to an old man, and he carries it to his grave; give it to a young man, and he carries it to his life. It will bear both young and old through the grave and into eternal Heaven beyond.
Young men and women, the duties of the world fall eminently on you. G.o.d confides to your hands the ark which holds the treasures of the age. On young shoulders He lays the burden of life. Yours is the period of pa.s.sion; the period of enterprise and of work. It is by successive generations that mankind goes forward. The old, stepping into honorable graves, leave their places and the results they won to you. But departing they seem to say, as they linger and look back: Do ye greater than we have done! The young just coming into your homes seem to say: Instruct us to be n.o.bler than yourselves! Your life is the answer to your children and your sires. The next generation will be as you make it. It is not the schools but the people's character that educates the child. Amid the trials, duties, dangers of your life, religion alone can guide you. It is not the world's eye that is on you, but G.o.d's; it is not the world's religion that will suffice you, but the religion of a Man, which unites you with truth, justice, piety, goodness; yes, which makes you one with G.o.d!
Young men and women--you can make this church a fountain of life to thousands of fainting souls. Yes, you can make this city n.o.bler than city ever was before. A manly life is the best gift you can leave mankind; that can be copied forever. Architects of your own weal or woe, your destiny is mainly in your own hands. It is no great thing to reject the popular falsehoods; little and perhaps not hard. But to receive the great sentiments and lofty truths of real religion, the Christianity of Christ; to love them, to live them in your business and your home, that is the greatest work of man. Thereby you partake of the spirit and nature of G.o.d; you achieve the true destiny for yourself; you help your brothers do the same.
When my own life is measured by the ideal of that young Nazarene, I know how little I deserve the name of Christian; none knows that fact so well as I. But you have been denied the name of Christian because you came here, asking me to come. Let men see that you have the reality, though they withhold the name. Your words are the least part of what you say to men. The foolish only will judge you by your talk; wise men by the general tenor of your life. Let your religion appear in your work and your play. Pray in your strongest hours. Practise your prayers. By fair-dealing, justice, kindness, self-control, and the great work of helping others while you help yourself, let your life prove a wors.h.i.+p.
These are the real sacraments and Christian communion with G.o.d, to which water and wine are only helps. Criticize the world not by censure only, but by the example of a great life. Shame men out of their littleness, not by making mouths, but by walking great and beautiful amongst them.
You love G.o.d best when you love men most. Let your prayers be an uplifting of the soul in thought, resolution, love, and the light thereof shall s.h.i.+ne through the darkest hour of trouble. Have not the Christianity of the street; but carry Christ's Christianity there. Be n.o.ble men, then your works must needs be great and manly.
This is the first Sunday of a new year. What an hour for resolutions; what a moment for prayer! If you have sins in your bosom, cast them behind you now. In the last year, G.o.d has blessed us; blessed us all. On some his angels waited, robed in white, and brought new joys; here a wife, to bind men closer yet to Providence; and there a child, a new Messiah, sent to tell of innocence and heaven. To some his angels came clad in dark livery, veiling a joyful countenance with unpropitious wings, and bore away child, father, sister, wife, or friend. Still were they angels of good Providence, all G.o.d's own; and he who looks aright finds that they also brought a blessing, but concealed, and left it, though they spoke no word of joy. One day our weeping brother shall find that gift and wear it as a diamond on his breast.
The hours are pa.s.sing over us, and with them the day. What shall the future Sundays be, and what the year? What we make them both. G.o.d gives us time. We weave it into life, such figures as we may, and wear it as we will. Age slowly rots away the gold we are set in, but the adamantine soul lives on, radiant every way in the light streaming down from G.o.d. The genius of eternity, star-crowned, beautiful, and with prophetic eyes, leads us again to the gates of time, and gives us one more year, bidding us fill that golden cup with water as we can or will.
There stand the dirty, fetid pools of worldliness and sin; curdled, and mantled, film-covered, streaked and striped with many a hue, they s.h.i.+ne there, in the slanting light of new-born day. Around them stand the sons of earth and cry: Come hither; drink thou and be saved! Here fill thy golden cup! There you may seek to fill your urn; to stay your thirst.
The deceitful element, roping in your hands, shall mock your lip. It is water only to the eye. Nay, show-water only unto men half-blind. But there, hard by, runs down the stream of life, its waters never frozen, never dry; fed by perennial dews falling unseen from G.o.d. Fill there thine urn, oh, brother-man, and thou shalt thirst no more for selfishness and crime, and faint no more amid the toil and heat of day; wash there, and the leprosy of sin, its scales of blindness, shall fall off, and thou be clean for ever. Kneel there and pray; G.o.d shall inspire thy heart with truth and love, and fill thy cup with never-ending joy![2]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Rev. John Pierpont.
[2] See note at the end of this volume.
III.
A SERMON OF WAR, PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JUNE 7, 1846.
EXODUS XV. 3.
”The Lord is a Man of War.”
1 JOHN IV. 8.
”G.o.d is Love.”
I ask your attention to a Sermon of War. I have waited some time before treating this subject at length, till the present hostilities should a.s.sume a definite form, and the designs of the Government become more apparent. I wished to be able to speak coolly and with knowledge of the facts, that we might understand the comparative merits of the present war. Besides, I have waited for others, in the churches, of more experience to speak, before I ventured to offer my counsel; but I have thus far waited almost in vain! I did not wish to treat the matter last Sunday, for that was the end of our week of Pentecost, when cloven tongues of flame descend on the city, and some are thought to be full of new wine, and others of the Holy Spirit. The heat of the meetings, good and bad, of that week, could not wholly have pa.s.sed away from you or me, and we ought to come coolly and consider a subject like this. So the last Sunday I only sketched the back-ground of the picture, to-day intending to paint the horrors of war in front of that ”Presence of Beauty in Nature,” to which with its ”Meanings” and its ”Lessons,” I then asked you to attend.