Miscellaneous Paragraphs

§ 1. To do good to 7nen is the great work of life; to make them true Christians is the greatest good we can do them. Every inyestigation brings ns round to this point. Begin here, and you are like one who strikes water from a rock on the summits of the mountains; it flows down over all the intervening tracts to the very base. If we could make each man love his neighbour, we should make a happy world. The true method is to begin with ourselves, and so to extend the circle to all around us. It should be perpetually in our minds.

§ 2. Beneficence. — There are two great classes of philanthropists, namely, those who devise plans of beneficence, and those who execute them. If we cannot be among the latter, perhaps we may be among the former. Invention is more creative than execution. Watt has done more for mechanics than a thousand steam-engine makers. The devisors of good may again be divided into those who devise particular plans, such as this or that association or mode of operation, and those who discover and make known great principles. The latter are the rarer and the most important. Hence a man who never stirs out of his study may be a great philanthropist; if he employs himself in discovering from the study of the Scriptures and the study of human nature, those laws which originate and condition all effectual endeavours for human good.

§ 3. Byron, — I have been looking into a dreadful book, Morris’s life of Byron, — the life of one debauchee wi’itten by another. It is instructive, amidst all its impiety. It is the most forcible comment I ever read on that divine word, “The way of transgressors is hard.” Voluptuary as he was, ever sighing after some new pleasure, and drinking to its depth the cup of worldly and sensual enjoyment, Byron seems to have endured little less than a hell upon earth. Here I read in awful colours the tormenting power of uncontrolled selfishness. Here I see abject ignorance of all religion in one of the greatest human minds. Remorse without repentance, and self-contempt without amendment, are dreadful scourges. From country to country he fled, but he carried the scorpion with him. His later works are only the disgorging of tumultuous tliouglits and cruel passions, lust, mortified pride, and malignity; as if lie would outrage the world, even at the expense of every pang in his own bosom. Happy the poorest, weakest sufferer, that believes in Christ!

§ 4. God in Nature. — Sweet showers about sunrise. How refreshing! Methinks we have not books enow which connect the exercises of religion with the delights of external scenery. Though an infidel said it, I assent to it as true, that I have found no temple so inspiring as the open vault of heaven and the green earth. Every thing around me breathes of divine benignity. The sparrow has laid her young in a rose-tree just beside my door-sill, another has built in the vine by the woodhouse. The bluebirds seem to be tenanting the house I prepared for them over the arbour, and I am looking for the return of my wrens to their lodge above the swing. The indigo bird, and some unknown pied bird appear among my young elms. I also have seen a dark bird with a dash of crimson on the back. The catbird sings almost all day in the large cherry-tree by our ice-house; and in the orchard just beyond, bobo’lincoln indulges in his caprices, morning, noon, and night. But no song so affects me as the plaintive note of the robin, heard at a distance in the evening. It tells of solitude and care. It is siicli a strain as, were I a bird, I could not choose but sing myself. All these praise God. To attend to them, and note their proceedings on the Lord’s day, need not trouble the strictest Sabbatarian; it is but to paraj)hrase and illustrate the 104th psalm. I am no Pantheist, but I love to honour a God in nature, in whom all that is has life, and not only life, but being. “The meanest flower that blows has power to raise, thoughts in me that lie too deep for tears.” Pansies have called forth such thoughts to-day. Blessed be God for summer, and for the thousand, thousand varied manifestations of life in the animal and vegetable world.

§ 5. See God in Nature. — When the prospects of the heavens or the verdant summer earth look most beautiful to me, I most think of God. But let us be careful how we see God in nature. TJie Pantheist sees the visible phenomena as a part of God. This is a sort of Atheism. The poet sees heauty order.^ the picturesque or the sublime and this he makes his God. The Christian sees in the glories of nature not merely the effect of God’s hand, but its presence; not only God’s work, but God working. He not only created that landscape of field, wood, and orchard which I see from my window, but he upholds it, he gives it its existence, lie causes every change, at every moment — at every moment there is a coming forth of his attributes into action. And these innumerable acts are each of them a display of some perfection; each is divine. I behold God in his works, I do not merely see a mark that the Creator has been there, but a token that he is there. Just as when I hear the footstep of my dearest friend in his chamber, I know that he is there present.

§ 6. On the late cloudy Weather.

Clouds on clouds have long been here,

Overhanging all our sky;
Scarce a sunny hour did peer

Through the mantle spread on high.

Yet we know the sun is still

Keigning in his bridegroom power,

And the happy instant will

Pour his radiance through the shower.

Then the tinted promise-bow,

Spanning woods and meads, shall smile.

Then the cornfields brilliant glow,
If meek patience wait a while.

Nature is the type of grace — Spirits have their cloudy time;

‘Tis, alas! our present case,
While we wait the dawn sublime.

Yet in darkness we will hope,
He is coming who is Light,

Though we may disheartened grope
For a season — as in night —

He is coming; lo! his beam
Gilds already yonder hill,

Streaks of opening clearness seem
The horizon’s edge to fill.

Come, expected brightness, come.
We are panting for thy ray,

Let not Jiopeless grief benumb
Souls that do thy word obey.

Weeping may a night endure,
Yet the morning shall be joy;

Trust the promise — it is sure,
Hopeful toil be thine employ.

He who loves me makes my day,

Clouds but minister his will;
Christ is waiting to display

Charms that every wish shall fill.

§ T. Converse with God. — It is not enough to know of God that lie is, or even what he is, unless in the latter we include that he is conversable with us, that we have access to him, that we may commune with him. On this most interesting and momentous point, see Howe’s “Living Temple.” The persuasion that we can really hold converse with God, as a friend with a friend, or even as a slave with a sovereign, is one of the most delightful which can reveal itself to a human soul How would Socrates, Plato, TuUj, or Seneca have received the annunciation! A great part of religion consists in seeking and maintaining this converse.

§ 8. God is the Portion the one portion. Li him is rest. Head on this a Kempis, Leighton, and Fenelon. I have been thinking a good deal lately of the sin and folly of seeking happiness in any thing but God. Every other object we must seek for the sake of something else, but God for the sake of himself.

§ 9. Writing Books. — In writing a book, as much as any thing in the world, it is important for a man to be himself to be unshackled, to act out his own character. Hence not alw ays good to take the advice of one of a different richtung — it chills. A plan or schedule or programme hinders the work, quoad genialitat. A book should be a growth rather than a building. The most taking books have been written off-hand. There is too little “abandon “in my writing; my best have had the most — e. g. the review of Macaulay, and in a less degree the review of Chalmers.” The best things are those which do not come into your head till you begin to write, and which

* 111 Princeton Review.

cannot, therefore, be included in a plan made beforehand. To write in the way I mean, a man must be in earnest, and without a trammel; hence every degree and kind of fiction is adverse. The novel, the poem, the pretended letter, even the anonymous one, are unfavourable to this perfect freedom.

§ 10. Be careful for Notldng. — Our pleasures and pains are often trifles, when Providence hangs out greater pleasures and greater pains just before us. Why am I so much troubled about these little crosses or disappointments? They will come and be over in much less time than I have spent in carking about them. Time and oblivion have ah*eady washed out a thousand such impressions on the sandy beach of my heart. To be abased is to be haj)py. A large proportion of our cares would go, if pride were to dej)art. Our distress after failures is often chagrin as to what man will think of us, rather than contrition for having offended God.

§ 11. How shall Mankind he made Hapy. — What a poor pitiful thing do the little niceties and elegancies of science and letters appear, when placed by the side of true religious and philanthropic wisdom. I can scarcely look with patience on myself or others, spending solid days on petty philosophy, criticism, poetry of the minor sort, belles-lettres, or on botany.

arcliseology, antiquarianism, or any of these things in which the pedantry of learning boasts itself, when the great question is trumpeted in our ears, how shall manltind he made happy? When a man has attained middle life, he ought to be doing something towards the solution of this problem. He ought to be in earnest. I, therefore, respect Channing for his choice of subjects, though not always for his way of treating them. The grand problem regards the ajpjplication of Christianity to the progress of Society. ISTations are tumultuating like oceans. Society seems like to be thrown anew into the crucible. The power that is to order the future mould is the power of opinion. Unless it be Truth, all must go wrong. The great thing then is to impregnate the existing mass with truth — moral truth — divine truth. How to do this, should be our question. Many of our old and roundabout methods will probably have to be given up. They stand in relation to the measures needed, as the tactics of old Wurmser, to those of I^apoleon. We must go to work more directly than heretofore. And methinks it were well if some of us old-fashioned martinets in religion and literature, could cut off our pig-tails and work away in the dishabille of the age. Do so we must, or be left in the rear. Learning we want indeed, but not pedant-learning, names and classifications, but good living truths., such as lie deep, and as yet imqiiarried in the Book of Books, but which are yet to be brought out for the revolution of the world.

§ 12. Against Solitude. — A life of study lias always appeared to me an unnatural life. Is it not better to converse with the living than the dead? Some one will yet have to write a book on the excess of literature. The ancient Greek way of studying abroad, in the Porch, or the Academy, on the Ilissus and under the platanus, among the haunts of man, was better for the health both of body and mind. Recluse habits tend to sadness, moroseness, selfishness, timidity, and inaction. The mind has better play m ajpHco. Collision produces scintillation of genius, and proximity of friends opens a gush for the affections. The early Christians seem to have been out-of-door people, rehearsing to one another the wisdom which had been given to them orally. Lessons which go from mouth to mouth, take a portable shape, because dense, pithy, and aj)othegmatic: such are the proverbs of all ages. We are made for action, and life is too short for us to be always preparing. A breath of pure air seems to oxygenate the intellect, and the best thoughts of the scholar are sometimes during the half hour of twilight, when he has laid aside his books, and taken his walking-stick. Then he is more of a man, feels his fellowship not only with nature, but with his kind. I sometimes wish I had been less a reader of books; that I had exercised my prerogative over the beasts of the field, mastered horses, or traversed countries as a reckless pedestrian. Ever turning the thoughts inward produces corrosion. “We should have something, it is true, within, but it should tend outwards. He has not fulfilled his vocation, who has spent his score of years in solitary delight over ancient authors, and eaten his morsel alone. Gray, with all Greece in his mind, pacing up and down the green alleys of a college walk, was but half the man he should have been. Horace Walpole, revelling in the virtu of Strawberry Hill, degenerated into a mere toyman, and filled the most elegant letters extant with the matching of old chairs and Sevres china. It is to let the mind run to seed in a corner; transplantation is necessary. To live for others is the dictate of religion. And what to do for others is best done by actual approaches, face to face, eye looking into eye, and hand pressing hand. It is not enough to say, this or that recondite pursuit may turn to somebody’s advantage. So it may, if you live to be a Methuselah or a Lamech. But your ever-increasing stock should not be all hoarded. The sum is, go forth among mankind. Lay aside the cowl, and make one of the groat company. Every day renew the electrie touch with the common mind. Fall into the circle, to give and take good influences. It is not too late if your heart is not ossified to the core. I hope it is not so bad as that in Tullj’s phrase, locus ubi stomachus fuit, concaluit. It is worth an efibrt. The air of a saloon or a market-place will do you good, and you will gain something from brushing the crowd in a thoroughfare.

§ 13. Dying J^videices. ^-Between sleep and wake, these thoughts came to me. When I am dying, what will certify to me these truths of Christianity, which are my support? Suppose I doubt them. What will prove them to me in that brief urgent trial? Can I then go over all the evidences? ‘No! the truth will be in me self-evidencing — the same truths which I now have in notion I will then have in faith. That which is now the matter of opinion and probable judgment will be transformed into real truth — faith rather than knowledge.

§ 14-. Pain. — When a bodily pain occurs, every man who has any sense of religion feels that it is his duty to acquiesce in it, as sent of God, for some end unknown as yet. But the feeling is not so prompt, when a mental pain arises, such as is produced by a fear, an insult, an injury, or the like. Yet the latter, no less than the former, are under the disposal of God,

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and form a part of his providential arrangement. “We should in such cases feel this.

§ 15. Blessings of Trial. — The trials which befall us, are the very trials which we need. The little daily excoriations of temper speedily heal themselves, but when the pain lasts, they have an errand to accomplish, and they accomplish it. These, as well as greater sufferings are ordered. They must be submitted to with patience, resignation, and meekness, and if they enable us to see ourselves, and gain a victory over our pride, they are of great value. Instead of vain and impotent wishes to fly from them, or the circumstances which occasion them, it is the part of manly virtue to fear and forbear, and by grace to wax stronger and stronger.

§ 16. Looh forward. — To look forward is better than to look back, and this is as true of literature as of life. How Ions: has the world been lookino; back on the remains of the classics, and how slowly did modern Europe disentangle itself from the perplexities of pagan mythology. Dante and Ariosto, Chaucer and Milton are all encumbered with it. Goethe tells us how he came to give up all the pantheon but Amor and Luna. Another school reverts to a later era, and with an antiquarian spirit endeavours to live over the baronial or the conventual life of the middle ages.

But literature, to have a true life, must adapt itself to the age in which it exists, and breathe forth the very spirit of the time. And as Christianity, now opening on the world with a new power, is the grand element of the age, our literature is Christian. It should take its post above the common level, and look forward into the great tracts which are opened by the advance of science and civilization, and on which the sun of prophecy throws a cheering light. I often think we should gain, if men of letters, when somewhat possessed of what has been achieved in past ages, would close the ponderous volume, and take wing on their proper pinions, into the inviting regions of futurity.

§ 17. Influence of out Actions. — With a mighty but imperceptible influence, divine truth is going on, working in the world the change which has been predicted. Every church that is founded, every soul that is converted, every Bible that is printed, every minister that is ordained, and every sermon that is preached, tend towards this result. Nothing is more certain than the result; but as it is to be accomplished by free beings, under the influence of motives, it is highly important that we watch over all our actions, as tending to this result. Our talent is not for the napkin or the earth, but for trade and increase. The very formation of our individual character tends in a certain degree to the great result. Every example and every word of ours has a bearing on the same; all we do, in our most careless hours, is so much to help or to hinder. ‘No wrong action is neutral. Could a single individual stand forth all his life embodying some great principle, his influence would be felt on future generations.

§ 18. Musing. — Few habits are more injurious than musing, which differs from thinking, as pacing one’s chamber does from walking abroad. The mind learns nothino;, and is not strenothened. but weakened; returning perpetually over the same barren track. Where the thoughts are sombre, the evil is doubly great, and not only time and vigour are squandered, but melancholy becomes fixed. It is really a disease, and the question, how it should be treated, is one of the most important in anthropology. The subject of this evil is generally aware of it. He is conscious that the longer he continues in these trains of thought, the less able he is to fly from them; that the troubles on which he ponders grow greater with his thoughts. But the mistake into which the sufferer commonly falls, is that of supposing himself able to throw ofl’ the painful burden by a process of counter-thinking. Nothing can be vainer. It is but floundering in the same slough. The only possible escape is by cutting oif the whole train — and the more abruptly the better. Whatever does this is good. Sometimes even a new wave of trouble comes in with happy effect, to obliterate the old one. Active employment is still better, indeed the best of all cures for spleen — “fling but a stone, the monster dies.” The thing needed is energy to put forth this effort — power to originate a new series of action — motive to abandon the painful objects, which exercise a mysterious fascination, leaving the patient in the belief, that some great evil will ensue, if even for a season he stops thinking about them. To counteract this last hallucination is one of the main points. The sufferer must settle it in his mind, that no possible good can arise from persevering in meditation on the evil: that no possible evil can ensue, if he never thinks of it again. What a blessed thing would it be if the melancholy man could have an infusion of dare-devil recklessness for a little while, and if, instead of lashing himself to the helm in the long dark night of storm, he could for once leave the vessel a little to be the sport of the winds. There is no danger of his going too far in this, and, therefore, he may be safely advised to it. Caution and foresight are morbid and unreasonable when they are directed to objects beyond their sphere, and when they are for ever at work, without any results. How true, how wise, how philosophical, how beneficent, is the advice of our compassionate Redeemer, “Take no thought for the morrow.” How self-evidencing its wisdom! how certain a cure for the disease! Yet how difficult of self-application.

§ 19. True Poetry. — How can poetry ever reach its acme till its theme is religion! ISTot the outward, but the inward. Milton, great as he is, has not touched the greatest themes of religion. Watts, and “Wesley, and Eowe have done so, but not with the height of poetic afflatus. I think the world yet waits to behold a Christian poet of the highest order. There never was a falser notion than that of great earthen Johnson, that religion was not a fit theme for the highest poetry. Yet I must acknowledge that, to my mind, it exists only in hypothesis. If we could perfectly understand the Hebrew of the prophets, we should know what it means. A mind loosened from all earthly regards, and singing %Lnto God, would produce it. Such a mind must be so rapt as to forget all that belongs to human praise. The heathen sometimes sang thus to their false gods; why do not Christians sing thus to Christ? What greater inspiration do they wait for?

§ 20. Day Thought. — The People. — Eyqyj shadow is a shadow of something.

The ciy which echoes from so many writers, and even sects, in behalf of the people, and the poor, means something. There are prescriptive evils which have come down for ages — yes, for ages! Think of it! AYhat Owen, St. Simon, and Fourier aim at is a real desideratum, but their way is wrong.

I pity, I love the poor, and it goes to my heart to hear the scoffing way in which they are often treated. Even the little wretches who plague everybody with their white mice, awaken my affection. This is not the world’s philosophy. May I never learn philosophy from the world!

§ 21. Religion as Excitement, — Religion is just the excitement which many men need to make them happy. There are apertures in the human soul which nothing else can fill. The soul was made for this. We look back with a sigh to the animation of childhood, and even to the passion of youth. The craving for excitement leads us, in manhood, to pleasure, to business, to gain, to the chase for power. All these are successively, and often too late, discovered to be insufficient. In such a state of disappointment, what a pearl is found by him who believes in Christ! Religion surpasses all other excitements in this, that it is an excitement of love, and love is pleasurable, essentially. It exceeds all other love, in this, that its

MISCELLANEOrS PAKAGEAPHS. 437

object is infinite. ‘Till men learn to love God, they have powers wliicli are altogether latent. As if certain cells of the lungs should- never be filled by a perfect inhalation.

§ 22. Bool’s and Solitude. — Much may be learned without books. To read always is not the way to be wise. The knowledge of those who are not bookworms has a certain air of health and robustness. I never deal with books all day without being the worse for it. Living teachers are better than dead. There is magic in the voice of living wisdom. Iron sharpeneth iron. Part of every day should be spent in society. Learning is discipline; but the heart must be disciplined as well as the head; and only by intercourse with our fellows can the aff’ections be disciplined. Bookishness implies solitude; and solitude is apt to produce ill weeds: melancholy, selfishness, moroseness, suspicion, and fear. To go abroad is, therefore, a Christian duty. I never went from my books to spend an hour with a friend, however humble, without receiving benefit. I never left the soli- tary contemplation of a subject in order to compare notes on it with a friend, without finding my ideas clarified. Ennui is not common where men properly mingle the contemplative with the active life. The natural and proper time for going abroad is the evening. Such intercourse slioiild be encouraged in one’s own liouso as well as out of it. Solitary study breeds inliospitality: we do not like to be interrupted. Every one, however wearisome as a guest, should be made welcome, and entertained cordially. Women surpass men in the performance of these household duties; chiefly because they are all given to habits of solitary study. The life which Christ lived among men is a pattern of what intercourse should be for the good of society. I have a notion that the multiplication of books in our day, which threatens to overleap all bounds, will, in the first instance, produce great evils, and will afterwards lead men back to look on oral communication as a method of diffusing knowledge which the press has unduly superseded; and that this will some day break on the world with the freshness of a new discovery.

§ 23. Dcdhj Conflict. — Our resignation and our faith must not be merely general, but particular. It is in special instances we are put upon our trial. We must not say, I could endure another sort of vexation, but not this. I could bear a different annoyance, but not this. This is precisely the one which God assigns to us, and, perhaps, for the very reason that we are so intolerant of it.

The duty of humble submission is as imperative under this as under any other trial. The privilege of faith is as great under this as under any other. The promises of the Gospel are not excluded from this case. Could we look into the reasons of state in the mediatorial kingdom, we should see that we are visited with this annoyance rather than any other for a definite purpose, and that one of infinite grace. When this purpose is accomplished, it will assuredly be removed. But to bear it is better than to have it removed. True wisdom counsels us not to shrink from the trial, but to face it, in God’s strength. Great fruits are reaped in this field. We account a man cowardly who shrinks from an enemy in natural things. We should apply this to our daily mortifications and distresses. It would be a noble habit of soul, if we could bring ourselves to regard every occurrence of this sort as a means of exercising our graces, and gaining new strength.

§ 24. 6 MiKpoKOG-ijLO’;. — The ancients talked of the microcosm / the little world within. We might have done better than disuse the yi’egnant phrase. We measure things too much by a material scale. Tlierc is a scale, on which Niagara, or a universe of matter, as such, measures no more than a sigh or an aspiration. The world within us is great. Revolutions take place there. It is mind that moves matter.

Who can tell the moment of one thought of a !N”apoleon or a Pascal! So in comparing two men, we compare only the outside: we cannot sound the cavern within. So of depravity: a man says he performs his duty, and is not a sinner; God will not punish him. But God sees a world within him, which is godless. There the mind is everlasting,

% 25. ‘’ Thy Word is Truth:’

Poor twinkling man! thy ray can little pierce

The scanty circle of thy nearest cloud,

Far less the spaces of infinity.

Let modest Reason fold her wing and learn!

See in the darksome Toid a guiding beam,

A glimmering point at first, a star, a sun —

‘Tis light from higher worlds to guide thee on.

Ten thousand volumes, laboured by the wise

Of other ages, cumber still our shelves,

Vex all our schools, and fill the roll of fame.

In all how mean a portion that is true,

Save what is borrowed from the Sacred Word.

There, in few sentences is writ the lore

Which king and prophet, master, priest, and sage,

Toiled for in vain, and died obscure and lost.

Let me hang breathless on the page divine!

Here ends my quest, for God hath spoken here.

None can reject, improve, or wrest;

None need discover, for the end is found.

Interpret, ponder, practise, and believe,

This thy sole task — be humble and be wise.

While others search all nature to explore
Her treasured secrets, finding thus at best
Only some laws of this our lower state,
And feeble inklings of the world divine, — My soul contented, shall the record view
Of God’s own deeds of old, and gifts of love,
And ample promise, and foreshadowing sign,
And gaze upon the bright and lovely form
Of the Messiah, God incarnate, given
To image forth the Lord invisible.

§ 26. Modes of Self. — How hard, even on questions touching the honour of God and the purity of his church, to keep out self! How hard to be willing to appear to others what we are to ourselves, no more, no less! In regard to ignorance, indecision, vacillation, &c., we wear a mask. We often through pride affect the very qualities which we know we want, and over the want of which we secretly mourn. It is hard to say how far a man should go in keeping his own frailties secret. But silence is often safe. A debate arises; we grow warm, we take positions, we stick to them. After thoughts make us doubt whether we have not gone too far; but we act Pilate’s part; Quod scrijpsi, scrijpsi. This j)ride must be brought low. Truth must triumph. Suppose we lose; very well. Truth gains. Our character is in God’s hands. If we do his will, he will take care of our good name.

So many things commonly received seem to me to have no groimd in the Scriptures that I often tremble. Then again certain things which I have got out of the mine myself, seem so plain and firm that my soul reposes on them. Hence, the more I go to the word itself, the freer from shaking.

§ 27. Sow to vieto Nature. — The work of nature, to be viewed aright, should be viewed under the crxcTL^ under which the inspired saints viewed it. But this is opposite to that of the Pantheist, who looks on nature, and as his soul expands wdth a philosophic or poetic admiration, lets his reverence terminate on the (paLvcopevov, as a divine development. ‘Not so David: “Praise ye Him, sun and moon; praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heaven of heavens, and ye waters, that be above the heavens. Let them praise Jehovah; for he commanded, and they were created.”

§ 28. Apothegms for the time:

(1.) Every evil that befalls is deserved: but every evil is ordered in covenant love.

(2.) With what is past, beyond amendment, we have nothing to do but to repent and submit.

(3.) Pride being one of your greatest ills, must be slain: and what mortifies it is a real, unspeakable good.

(4.) Man’s judgment of ns is a mere nothing; God’s judgment of us is of infinite moment.

(5.) It is idle and wicked to resist the will of God. (6.) God has never forsaken: He never will.

§ 29. TJioughts on reading Kant:

(1.) How little the body and essence of our pliilosopiiy of life is affected by such speculations!

(2.) They are ever-varying from age to age, and they determine nothing.

(3.) The best light in which they can be received, is as an intellectual luxury.

(4.) They foster a dreamy disposition, and disqualify for the business of life.

(5.) True wisdom tends to the happiness of the race. It is the science of philanthropy.

(6.) Let me honour those forms of truth which tend constantly and directly to elevate the mass of men, and lessen human misery.

(7.) Consider the teachings of Christ as the incarnate wisdom; in regard to its beneficence. His action and his precepts are simple, plain, and popular but behind them lie the profoundest principles.

(8.) The more conversant you are with real distress, the more you will escape that which is imaginary.

§30. The Scriptures.

Guideless and darkling; Oh, how poor
Is man! forsaken and impure,
He cannot for a day, an hour,
Go safe, without superior power.
Away, ye false lights of an age,
When pride enveloped every sage.
The garden where Platonic lore
Its honeyed current once did pour;
The Porch of Zeno, and the walk
Where once the Stagyrite did talk;
The haunts of Epicurus — all
Are desert, and to ruin fall.
Nor could their lordly patrons show
The way of life they could not know.
In vain, bewildered, o’er their page
I hang, my sorrow to assuage.
An endless guessing is the best
They give, to put my doubts at rest.
A truth, half seen, may twinkle far,
As murky evenings show a star,
But in their most meridian light
There glimmers but a Greenland night.
The hour-glass notes the noon of day,
The dial owns the sun away.
From these conjectures, lo! I turn
To sources which, while sceptics spurn,
I see, I feel, I know, are fraught
With wisdom, by a Saviour taught.
I hail thee, sacred volume, then,
Product of many a burning pen.
By sage, and seer, and martyr driven,
To picture forth the charms of heaven.

§ 31. Maxims:

(1.) He is too busy, who is too busj to be kind.

(2.) No thing is cheaper than kind looks and kind words; but nothing is dearer.

(3.”) What we suffer from another’s injury, teaches us our own.

(4.) Half humility and half meekness will not answer; be meek and humble, and you conquer.

(5.) Our trials arc in a multitude of cases such as produce mortification rather than grief. These are trials of our pride, and they are good for us, though painful to the flesh.

§ 32. Goethe. — I have just finished a reperusal of Goethe’s Autobiography. It reaches to 1775, i. e. to his 26th year. To many persons the book is dull; to many it would be injurious; to me it has been deeply interesting. It is a frank development of his thinking and feeling during the formation period; and in the bad parts I see myself over again. Goethe is not an amiable character. He seems to have looked on himself as on a great development, wonderfully working. from day to day, by a kind of fatality, or rather by an irresistible nisus. He lets every thing go on, careless whether it be good or evil; himself being the phenomenon, which to inspect, is the business of his life. Tlicrcfore there is no compunction about his worst works; and his apology for “Wertlier, is as if one apologized for a viper — a natural curiosity, which must be as it is. Goethe had two grand defects — want of conscience, and want of benevolence. Hence his great mind, exquisite taste, and amazing erudition, under the fostering patronage of an Augustaii Court, and acting through a literary life, longer than Yoltaire’s, resulted in nothing which tends to make the world wiser or better. His whim, whatever it was, became embodied in prose or verse. It was not argument settling truth, or goodness arriving at beneficence, but genius and taste, revelling in their owu development.

His faithlessness in love, his wassail, his darker excesses dimly set forth, his disregard of friends, his errantry and abandon, are detailed with coolness, and without contrition, even in his old age.

It is interesting to study the manner in which his youthful melancholy, of which both Werther and Faust are symptoms, was sloughed off, and how the almost Chinese sang-froid of his serene manhood supervened.

In religion he was a hopeless infidel. If neither Lavater nor the saintly Mademoiselle von Klettenberg could win his youthful mind, there could be little hope for him in mature life. All that he says about theology and the Bible, is a melancholy proof that

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the greatest genius, when intellectnal yride leads him away from God’s revelation, plunges deej)er and deeper into self-contradiction. To me Goethe seems as little a believer as Yoltaire. Without the persiflage and venom of the Frenchman, he is as godless. Since his death, the extreme Hegelians, and “Young Germany,” as represented by Heine, have shown to what his principles lead. Moral evil, as such, seems not to exist for them. Sin, in their vocabulary, is a mere specific form. The beautiful even in morals, they recognize, not, however, morally, but sesthetically.

§ 33. John Hoice. — A little reading in pages of great thought will sometimes set one thinking, as if by a happy contagion, or as the sight of ten prophets caused Saul to prophecy. Such pages are those of John Howe. Do not go to them when you are gay, and wish to skim the surface. Do not search in them for sentences, brilliant quaintnesses, or the sacred mirth that sparkles in Gurnall or Flavel. Howe moves heavily and strikes out lengthily in a medium of resisting density, but then it is an ocean; and if you accompany him, he will lead you to deyths which contain secrets unknown to those who play above. His argumentation is like none other. It throws oif the common habiliments of the school-logic, and girds itself for a less regular but more athletic contest. Wait upon him, and he will reward you with abundant spoils.

Sometimes Howe rises to flights more sublime than those even of his great brother Puritans. Less terse than Bates, less polemic than Owen, less pathetic than Baxter, he is more philosophical, original, profound, and impressive than all these. Especially does he command our admiration and love, when he touches his favourite theme, the unity of Christian experience, as above the party difl’erences of all the sects. How mean the squabbles of Christianity appear under the strokes of his overwhelming sarcasm! How we grow ashamed of our Shibboleths, when he takes us up from the fords of Jordan, to the top of Pisgah, and shows us the goodly prospect of a united church.

It was eminently his province to disparage and depreciate worldly things, without one shade of melancholy. The very dimness of this life is produced by the efl’ulgence which he shows in another.

§ 34. On Reading the Epistles. — Having this day read, without note or comment, a great deal in the epistles, I have endeavoured to open my mind to their genuine impressions, and am much impressed with the result.

(1). The absence of every thing that savours of

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the ritualism of the Oxonian school. Ko stress is hiid on priests, altars, ceremonies, or even sacraments. It is wonderful how largely sacraments figure in modern liturgies, and how little in the New Testament, which contains not even the word.

(2.) The intense supranaturalism of the New Testament writers. Every good thing is from above. Calling, faith, love, joy, all are of grace, and all of the Spirit. The communication is perpetually alluded to, as a matter of fact and experience. Early Christians lived in a heavenly atmosphere, and felt that by the grace of God they were what they were.

(3.) The heavenly ethics of the New Testament. Trust, love, yatience, courtesy, meekness, forbearance, gentleness, long-suffering, forgiveness, hospitality, humility; these are what they felt and recommended. The power of Christianity was in these things. Believers lived in a tender love one to another. The world saw it, and were reproved and attracted.

(4.) The attachment of saints to the person of Jesus, lie was not an abstraction. He was known of them, as one who had recently been among them, wIkj had left them only for a season, and who was still within reach; a priest abiding continually, and ever living to make intercession for them.

§ 35. One Truth. — He who sets one great truth afloat in the world, serves his generation.

§ 36. Central Truths. — N’o truth can be unimportant, or be without advantage if uttered. But the nearer a truth lies to the great centres, the more imj)ortant is its utterance. To utter one such is more than to gain a field at Granicus or Waterloo. To attain such truths, is one of the great objects of living. Prayerful thought, in moments deemed idle, is often fruitful of such. They come in many a moment of re]30se, and absence from books and papers; we are less masters of our own trains of thought, than we flatter ourselves.

§ 3T. Truth in Trains. — Those meditations which are in such a sense our own that they are little mingled with names, authorities, citations, and other men’s thoughts and words, are most valuable to us, and most useful to others. They are worth waiting for. “We cannot expect many of them; but we should seize them with thankfulness. In no period of my life has this so much struck me as lately; forming a sort of epoch in my mental experience. I think it a little affects my preaching. The trains of thought I mean are not scholastic ratiocinations. Though unspeakably above all experience or attainment of my own; the reflections of Bacon and Pascal exemplify my notion.

§ 38. Exiles often Constrain. — Many of the common rules for the conduct of the mind, are too much like rules for the management of the body. Even the body, if alive, must not be dealt with altogether as brute matter.

I never could understand those people who divide their day into portions, with a pair of compasses, and allot so much to one study, and so much to another. I used to make such schedules when I was a lad. Great credit did I take to myself for making them, and great shame for breaking them; which I did day by day. I am now convinced that any attainments which have fallen to my lot, were really not made in these compulsory hours.

When a mail is roaming about his library, taking down now this book, and then that, pacing the floor, scribbling on a bit of paper, humming a tune, and seeming to others and to himself to trifle, he is often engaged in his most profitable exercise.

“Where there is an active inquiring mind, something is always brewing. There is no such thing as idleness. If he is not eating, he is ruminating. If he is not gathering the raw material, he is elaborating that which has been gathered. Many of these processes go on without our control. Our best trains of thought come and go without our bidding. The man who never knows what it is to throw himself upon these waves, and go whither they carry him, is not likely to have very genial thoughts.

Every kind of knowledge comes into play sometime or other; not only that which is systematic and methodized, but that which is fragmentary, even the odds and ends, the merest rag or tag of information. Single facts — anecdotes — expressions — recnr to the mind, and by the power of association, just in the right place. Many of these are laid in during what we think our idlest days.

All that fund of matter which is used allusively in eimilitudes and illustrations, is collected in diversions from the path of hard study. He will do best in this line whose range has been the widest and the freest. A man may study so much by rule as to lose all this: just as one may ride so much on the highway as to know nothing that is off the road.

The mind is capacious in its workings. It loves to assert its independence, and insists upon being consulted as to whether it will do this or that. Therefore in her highest actings she abhors task-work, and shakes off the yoke.

§ 39. Diversities of religious Opinion. — With one and the same Bible before them, how wonderful are the differences of human creeds! The catalogue of sects, schools, and doctrines, might itself fill a volume. This is at times a most painful thought to every considerate mind. I have sometimes thought those happy who cling without scruple to what they have been taught, and have no agitations about other peoj)le’s opinions. But such cannot be the condition of one who is set for the defence of the truth. It is doubtful, also, whether an independent mind can enjoy firm confidence, except as the result of some shaking from the arguments of opposing reasoners. I have observed that in perusing any able statement of a heterodox creed, I am for the time being afiected with their force; and it is not till afterwards that the mind recovers itself, and comes to rest. It may be likened to the needle of a compass, drawn aside by an accidental attraction. At length it finds its true meridian: but not without some anxiety and disquietude.

This state of mind is never produced by reading the simple text of the Scripture. The mind then points towards its proper pole and is at rest.

It is not good to be much conversant with error, even though the object be to refute it; it is disturbing, if not defiling.

Private and unlettered Christians, who value their’ own peace, will not willingly hear j)reacliers, or read books, which inculcate error.

The same reasons show the importance of dealing as much as possible with the sacred oracles themselves.

§ 40. Reflection. — The error is great of supposing that the mind is making no progress and acquiring no knowledge, when it is not conversing with books; and it is one of the errors of bookish men. There are pauses amidst study, and even pauses of seeming idleness, in which a process goes on which may be likened to the digestion of food. In those seasons of repose, the powders are gathering their strength for new efforts; as land wdiich lies fallow, and recovers itself for tillage.

To be worth much the mind must sometimes be left to itself. It must pursue its bent, and sometimes condescend even to trifles. Perpetual readers violate this law of the mental constitution, and never with imyunity. Those especially who are so exclusively professional in their pursuits as to do every thing by rule and comj)ass, to the neglect of all generous literature, and gentle, graceful entertainment, never fail to become rigid, barren of invention, and cold in expression. The grateful interrujDtion of family hours and company are as good for the mind as for the body. Hence I think a married man is more likely to be a successful scholar than a bachelor.

Kefiective minds cannot be wholly idle. Even in play, they work on, in spite of themselves. Seasons of intermission often give birth to the best thoughts.

§ 41. Regulate the Heart. — It is more important to regulate the sfirit than the 8te]y8. A right heart is better than a right method. A man may have ever so good a plan of duties, but he will do none of them if the feelings be wrong; whereas, if the affections be right, he will be almost sure to do what is proper. Hence praying is better than planning.

This derives force from the consideration that we seldom find the duties of any one day exactly what we laid out on the day before. Our performance, when it is best, is often called forth by emergencies.

There may be fruitless care about even the duty of the morrow.

The best preparation for the week’s work is the communion of the Sabbath.

The best preparation for the coming day is the devotion of the previous evening.

“When the Scripture is let alone, the wheels of duty roll heavily.

§ 42. The Power of the m’ZZ. — The power of the ‘Will to change states of mind and trains of thought, deserves consideration. It is not a direct power, and it has certain limits; yet we all know that man’s activity has a certain scope, even in regard to this class of objects. It is true, a man who hates cannot by a

Yolition cause himself to love that which he just now hated. Nor can one who is in deep sorrow cause himself instantaneously to rejoice, by merely willing it. Yet we are not therefore to lie down in a condition of absolute passivity, and yield ourselves to the cogency of evil tempers by a sort of fatality. There are moments in which we all feel that we are aroused to a sudden exercise of volition, which scatters the preceding feelings as the sun scatters clouds. The melancholy man, brought to a sense of the folly, wretchedness, and danger of his brooding, resolves to break the charm, and is successful. Query: How far this concerns the faculty of Attention? The mind checks its present current — it directs itself to new objects — it regards motives which have hitherto lain in the shade — it finds a corresponding and often immediate change in its temper and moods.

§ 43. Aphorisms on Self-denial of Appetite: (1.) Pain is to be incurred, or else there would be no self-denial: it is, therefore, to be expected and submitted to.

(2.) The pain of denied gratification may be very great, especially in the beginnings of self-denial; but there is no pain which so surely decreases and disappears. .Short pains, for a good end, certainly resulting in pleasure, may be encountered with cheerfulness and bome with resolution. There is even a sort of pleasure in bearing such pains.

(3.) Solicitations of appetite address themselves to our lower nature through animal senses, and must therefore be put down harshly and summarily. It is not enough to plead and reason against them. Venter noil habit aures. They must be ejected instantly, without parley, as you would cast out a noxious beast.

(4.) For this reason, every animal association should be cut off, which might remain as a fomes of the appetite. Therefore most attempts to break off an evil habit by degrees fail, when the habit is complicated with an appetite. This is frequently observed in the case of ardent spirits. Suppose a reforming drunkard to take a teaspoonful of brandy let diem. This would suffice to keep up the taste, and suggest indulgence. The only safety is therefore in absolute abnegation.

§ 44. God Overrules. — God overrules even those events in which we have acted erroneously. Wretched should we be, if he did not. ITone of our choices, purposes, and arrangements, are free from sin. All need to be washed in the blood of Christ. Take an instance: Hastily, and perhaps carelessly, I allow a dear friend to set out on a perilous journey. In this

458 THOUGHTS ON PREACHINa.

there is certainly a measure of sin, which God might visit. I am in great anxiety for the safety of this friend; and this anxiety is increased by the fear that I have done wrong, which prevents filial confidence. But how gracious is our Covenant God! He prevents our errors from comiog back upon us in judgment. The Covenant of Grace, being founded on Christ’s perfect merits, works its blessed fruits even when we are sinners. Even in such junctures we should confidently roll our burden on the Lord, with penitence for our sin, and trust in his abounding mercy.

§ 45. 3fo7’6 Maxhns:

(1.) He Vvdio begins to love his neighbour as himself, will be more cast down for the sake of others than for his own sake.

(2.) Melancholy is so much promoted by musing idleness, that the best preventive of it is to pass rapidly from one employment to another, all day long, without any intervals of solitude or revery.

(3.) As we go on in life, we ought to be more public-spirited, and to make our anxieties, projects, and prayers devote themselves to some matter of general concern.

(4.) Never give over the endeavour to overcome bad habits of mind or body, or those complicated of both.

(5.) Seize the happy moment of entlmsiasm, when the impulse is in a right direction. In the same degree, flee from those sudden exaltations which tend to evil. Cry avaunt! and encourage the feeling of abhorrence.

(6.) Our need of preventive grace is nowhere more felt than when a temptation comes upon us suddenly. At such moments, if left to ourselves, we are weakness itself. Under such access of the enemy, great crimes have been committed.

§ 46. ThirJv for Yourself. — A thinking man’s thoughts gradually grow into a system. The less he follows other men’s lives, the more will his own fabric of method compact itself. It is not always best to counterwork this tendency. The great points of any one’s scheme will come out in his preaching. In treating these favourite topics will be his princij)al strength.

Those on which he dwells most frequently, and with most delight, are such as are central to his system of belief.

§ 47. Physical Discipline. — My mind turns upon the subject of physical discipline as subject to religious principle. The E’ew Testament is somewhat remarkable for the entire absence of that ascetic element, which reigns so much in many false religions.

and wliicli played so large a part in the Christian Church during all its period of decadence. The body is not treated as necessarily evil. Abstinences are not enjoined. There are no fasts assigned to particular days. Macerations and penances are not so much as alluded to, except in the way of rebuke.

But while this is true, it is not less undeniable, that the ‘New Testament makes it a duty to keep the body in a subordinate place, namely, in subjection to the soul, and in perpetual obedience and fitness to be the holy instrument of all spiritual acts. We perceive at once, that there is a pampering of the flesh which is inconsistent with a holy life. There must be some self-denial and subjugation of the lower part, in order to keep it from that horrid inversion in which appetites and passions acquire the dominancy. All habits of self-indulgence are to be prevented and broken up. We form in our better moments the ideal of a life, in which the character is produced by moderation, temperance, reserve in things lawful, frugality, simplicity, adherence to natural tastes, the cutting off of pleasures which are seducing, or in any degree tend to enslave.

§ 48. Bimjple Rule. — Do that which you think will please God, and you will keep a good conscience. By so doing you will, in the long run, as much avoid the censure of men as if jou made it a special object to please them. Every act of your life will be tending to form the right kind of character. You will be more likely to be useful, and will certainly be hapj)ier. If you fail, you will not have the additional pain which arises from blaming yourself.

This is the simplest of all rules of life. It admits of perpetual application, nor is there any conceivable case which it does not reach.

Please not yourself, nor vain human creatures, but God.

§ 49. The man who undertakes to go through life upon a settled plan, which he is not to modify according to circumstances, is much like one who should undertake to traverse a country in a mathematical straight line.

§ 50. Use of Knowledge. — There are two very common but very opposite ways of employing erudition and science. The one is that of learned commentators and disquisitioners, who accumulate stores of antiquarian and recondite lore, multiply quotations,, and 2:)roduce great volumes, which may have a zest for a few virtuosos, but which in the common mind can awaken only amazement or alarm. This is the method by which men acquire great fame in the republic of letters.

The other way is the liiimble mode of those who write for the instruction of the people. Equal perhaps in real learning to the former, they never acquire the same notoriety. Their ambition is to smooth the way for humbler minds, to make the profundities of science accessible, and to furnish the high distillation from varied researches. It is my ambition to belong to the latter class. Even if no higher object should be gained than to simplify science for children or apprentices, or to make religion fully known in a plain way, to the sons of ignorance, I should think it a task worthy to employ a lifetime.

§ 51. When we sunniion the worldly to abandon the world, it is not so much like asking the mariner to cast his wares into the sea in order to save his life, as it is like the command to the Israelites to leave their farms and their possessions, and go up to the tem]3le-feast, in the assurance that God vrould provide for them.

§ 52. PliilosopliiGal Studies. — Lately my mind has been much engaged about the ethical heresies of Paley and the Utilitarians. It has almost seemed my duty to go into the investigation, and I have been readinof some of Plato and the Platonists. I am doterred chiefly by the fear of that philosophy, falsely so called, which is denounced in Scripture. My object is truth, and I am sure if it were revealed to me to be riixht, I would this moment forswear all other reading but the Bible for life. But I am almost sure this would be altogether wrong.

I like good F. Scott’s notion, that we are bees, that we seek every sort of flower, but bring our gains back to one Hive, namely, the Bible.

It is one of the glories of the Bible, that it expresses the grandest principles of the highest philosophy in the language of children.

§ 53. Take no Thought for the Morrow. — “We might accomplish more if we were not foolishly asking ourselves so often, hov, long such and such a great work would take us. Professor Rob. B. Patton used to engage in most laborious lexicographical works. When asked how he had patience to go on, he said, that he never thought of asking how long it would take him, but vent on as if it were to be his work for life.

Dr. John Breckinridge made the same remark, when asked about those immense journeys which he takes to collect money — he never looks upon them as thino-s which must end.

Addison tells me he finds the same thing good in his commentary on Isaiah. Our Lord’s maxim about taking thought for the morrow, seems to have very wide applications.

§ 54. A Student s SaVbath. — Preachers and other students seldom have any day of rest. True, they make, if conscientious, some change in labours, but on the Lord’s day they read, read, read, as indeser enter commoidy as on other days. This is a great fault and folly. Just as really as the working man needs rest from hammer and flail, does the thinking man need rest from thought. I think students ought to make the Sabbath a delight, by closing books, except the lighter and devotional parts of Scripture, by gentle nursing, by cheerful religious talk, by singing God’s praise, and by works of mercy.

§ 55. Variety in the Bible. — The Scriptures are not the same to all readers, any more than the flowers of the garden are the same to all insects. One man seeks this, another seeks that; none extract all the sweetness. Under the guidance of the Spirit, each believer gains that which is needful for him, discovering and assimilating this by a gracious affinity. When such men systematize their deductions, they are far from being the same. How unlike the Scriptural treasures of Augustine, of Luther, of Howe, of Edwards, of Bunyan, of Hale, and of Chalmers! Yet each one may get truth and holiness in this garden. These trees yield twelve manner of fruit.

The Scriptures are not the same to the readers of all ap-es. Primitive believers saw not all that we see. Let me here be guarded. Truth is the same forever; that which is Scripture truth to-dav will be so to eternity. Nothing can be added to the truth of the inspiration. But there may be great additions to our knowledge of it; and it is not unreasonable to believe, that the Holy Spirit in leading believers into all needed truth, adapts his ministrations of light to the exigencies of particular times.

This should guard us against relying too much on the deductions of other men, however great and good, as if they had seen all, and left nothing to be gleaned in the field of original inquiry. However wonderful the discoveries of an Austin, a Calvin, or an Owen — however true, however extensive — they are not the inspired originals; I may not confine myself to their teachings. They saw and appropriated all that the Spirit saw to be suitable for their own personal good and the good of the church in their day, and I will thankfully sit at their feet, and be guided by their experience. But my personal good, and the personal good of the church in our peculiar day, may demand other truth in other method, and these I must endeavour to get for myself from the Scriptures, under the guidance of the same Spirit. As we approach the latter glory and the return of the Messiah, there is reason to believe that the scroll of prophecy will be 20-^ yet more unrolled, and that truths hitherto left in the shade will be brought out in brilliant prominency.

What an inducement have we here to study the Bible day and night — to look with our own eyes for hidden veins in this mine — to seek for it as for hid treasures I In expectation of this, and in faithful reliance on that Spirit who gave the revelation, and seeking that anointing which abides with all the elect (1 John), we may well leave for a season the commandments of men, and ponder on the pure original text. Perhaps as we pray and wait over the holy word, we may receive communications better suited to our personal wants and our relation to the world that now is, than if we were to master all the fathers, all the schoolmen, and all the reformers.

§ 56. Argument the Basis of Devotion. — The following experience I have often had, but, I believe, never committed to writing. On Sabbath and other occasions, I have wearied myself with attempts to awaken devotional feeling, by reading compositions of a merely hortatory kind — practical and .experimental writings. Our devotion must have a solid basis, and I believe it is in many cases the best thing we can do to go into the very strongest parts of theological argument, and feed upon such strong meat as one finds in Calvin. Rivet, Turretin, Witsius, and Owen.

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§ 57. Thought of the Day. — “We must work more oictioards. We must bring Christian principles to bear more on the masses of men. We must show them that what they seek by vain philanthropy, is realized wherever true Christianity takes effect. If all men were good Christians, the evils of society would be in a good degree abated. Prescriptive wrongs would cease. Property would be equalized. The rich would communicate of their wealth, and the poor would rise by industry, temperance, frugality, and wisdom. The Bible is made for all ages, and with qyqyj new discovery in science, it meets us and shows a coincidence. The worldly philosopher and philanthropist dreams of a perfect state of society — good-will among men and universal peace. l!^ow, the Bible not only predicts this, but shows how it is to be attained. The principles of Christianity tend to produce that very state. All the high civilization and humanity of the best nations is in fact the product of Christianity. In countries where science, literature, and the arts are in a high state, without true religion, we see luxury, excessive pleasure, hardness of heart, false honour, duelling, and suicide. Of this France is a ffreat instance. The true wav then to benefit, and even remodel society, is to make it Christian. This method is as simple as it is powerful. It proceeds upon no false or doubtful hypothesis, either of politics or economy. While men endlessly differ and dispute about these, and change one experiment for another in an endless round, losing their beginnings by the change, and destroying human peace in the fruitless and soon abandoned trials, the humble Christian endeavours are going forward, with a noiseless but mighty efficacy.

Place a thousand men in a Utopian community, such as Owens, and try to mould them by the visionary principles of the “New Social World,” and the result is discord, failure, and misery. But place a thousand men anywhere in the world, and make them true Christians, and you attain really all the good ends sought in the former experiment, and render them as happy as men can be in our world. Hence the man who does most to bring over those around him to the principles and practice of true religion, is the truest philanthropist.

§ 58. Take Time to Decide. — When a difficulty, or an objection, or a specious error is presented to the mind, so as greatly to stagger it, we are not forthwith to be disconcerted. All minds are not capacious enough, or quick enough, to resolve such doubts at a moment’s warning. Let the matter rest a little. The intellect will collect its strength, and after some rest and meditation, the judgment will come to a sound conclusion. This I have experienced many times. It takes place sometimes without occupying the thoughts in any stated or deliberate mamier on the subject, during the interval. The process resembles the oscillations of a pendulum, which at length settles in its proper direction. Hence it is not always right to answer an objection immediately. This slow process is perhaps most commonly that of judicious and experienced persons. Temporary scepticism is distressing; but when we find by experience that it is relieved by wise delay, it need give no serious distress. “With a crafty man, who suspects others, because he knows his own way to be the way of stratagem, the best way of dealing is the freest and most open. It wonderfully confounds his toils, while here as elsewhere it is the most easily maintained.

§ 59. Thoughts for the Time.

(1.) Learned labours give little help in hours of alarm.

(2.) Sudden fears and troubles startle us, and drive us to thoughts of plain religion.

(3.) A certain important habit of soul is produced by the custom of daily silence and meditation.

(4.) The more bookish a man is, the more does he need both for his intellect and his heart, these moments of contemplative retreat.

(5.) Pauses of indisposition often force on ns that self-communion and thought of God.

(6.) All is well when we apprehend God’s ordering. His will is supreme law. Holiness is acquiescence in that will.

(7.) Faith is indispensable in times of panic: great knowledge is not so. Here the humblest mind commonly fares best.

(8.) Peace in trouble comes not from reasoning, but from faith, hope, and love.

(9). The graces which sustain us in trial, proceed from the immediate and almighty agency of the Holy Ghost.

(10.) In affliction, especially in surprises, the soul falls back on its prevalent habits, whether wavering or fixed.

(11.) In the religious habits of our common days, we are all the while preparing for the hour of affliction and the hour of death.

(12.) It is all-important to be every day living in the belief of the unseen world, and as in the felt presence of Christ.

(13.) A few minutes in the busy day spent in absolute abstraction from the world, with a complete rupture of worldly threads, are among the best means we enjoy. They are to the day what the Sabbath is to the week.

(14.) Well would it be, often in the day, to seek those quiet frames which sometimes come when we compose ourselves for sleej).

(15.) In true retirement of soul there is nothing of perturbation or of gloom, but rather of cheerfulness. It is a healthy state.

(16.) These states of mind are allied to humility and meekness.

(17). The true position of the soul is like that of constant childlike waiting on God for these influences.

(18.) The medium through which these graces
descend, is the Lord Jesus Christ.

(19.) Wc cannot reason ourselves into holy frames; it is better to say. Lord, increase our faith!

(20.) Keep very low before God, and seek to please him rather than man, and you will find yourself armed against mortifications.

(21.) Cherish those views which agree most with pity for every kind of human suffering, and active labours for Christ’s people.

(22.) No thing is more remarkable in the religious experience of the Bible, than its childlike simplicity. It is the aroma of the patriarchal life, as of a field which the Lord has blessed. See it in the Apostle John. I know an ancient disciple in whom it is very apparent.

(23.) Much in our religion is borrowed from the accidents of individual religious exjDerience, find not from the Bible.

(24.) We are liealtliy in our frames when they lead us much to the Bible, and much to the throne of grace.

(25.) External beneficence is a happy antidote to the poisons that grow rank in the shade of scholastic study.

§ 60. Wait for Uoicom7non Grace. — Life is too short to be spent in renewing vain experiments. What I ought to be, I should seek to be without delay. I have been brought to feel to-day that there is a snare in many books as much as in abundance of company. They occupy the thoughts, and keep them away from holy objects. This explains what I have long found true, that my best religious thoughts are in two situations, when I am abroad, and when I am in bed; in both cases away from the literary objects of my study. There is scarcely any moment, in which a student may not take down some volume, to gratify the craving, or suit the present mood. But this brings in thoughts of other men, which is the same as the diversion of company; and how seldom do we make conscience of the kind of book. It may be innocent or useful, it may be needed, and yet it may have nothing of spiritual nurture. The case is different, when we make our chief book the Bible; and hence the great advantage of a preacher and pastor. And hence also a certain disadvantage in my professorship, which leads me in no case directly to the Scriptures, in their spiritual meaning. Nothing is more fully made out to me by observation and experience, than that the way of holiness and happiness is that of constant reading of God’s word, with prayer.

§ 61. Great Christians. — How little adventurous independent piety! Bold thinking, but tame mimic religion. “We feel and do as others feel and do; reproduce their diaries, rehearse their prayers, and catch the fashion of their awakenings. To be a great Christian, would be to become very unlike the men around us; hence great Christians have been in solitudes, in missions, or among persecutions. Sometimes I think we are more tied down to a conventional iiety than the very Romanists. Their great saints went astray, and are not to be imitated; but they did not adhere to the old, hereditary ways; they broke out in a new direction. Are not yearnings after better things among God’s ways of producing them? Are not strange trials, pains, mortifications and humblings, among God’s ways of training the soid? Should not such JTinctures be faithfully seized upon, for making higher reaches of experience? Ilaye not special seasons of devotion, with long-continued prayers and praises, been remarkably owned of God? Can eminent iiety be reached without them?

We are presumptuous in figuring to ourselves the type of piety which we ought to attain. Perhaps God is forming us to a different type. Perhaps God intends a type unknown in any other; for the inward countenance of man is as peculiar to the individual as the outward. It is only by waiting in comparative quietude, that we can discern which way this divine tendency guides, and there is danger of running whither we are not sent, and even of grieving the holy Spirit of grace.

It seems to me that in our day we take the pattern and measure of our religion too commonly from what is popular, that is from what is bustling, outward, and full of eclat. But it may appear in another world, that some of the mightiest influences have proceeded from souls of great quiet. No book it is supposed of human composition, has had greater influence than the Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Ivempis. Some of the greatest characters have been formed in secret, as some of the wonders of nature are wrought under the earth. ‘No man knows what God has made him for. Some men, for all we know, may be sent into miscellanp:ous paeagkapss. 475

the world chiefly to form other men. The grand act of a servant of Christ, for which God has been preparing him for many years, may be to give an impulse to some other man, and this may be accomplished in a moment, and when neither of the two suspects it. Ko man knows when the great act of his life takes place. No man knows when he is doing the greatest good. The old monk who directed young Martin Luther, possibly did nothing so important in his life. Sometimes it is a child, and whom would a Christian more joyfully influence than the son of his bosom? It is for him we labour, pray, suffer, and live. How do we know but the chief purpose for which God has spared our lives is, that we may form an instrument for his work in our own family? Thus the flowering plant dies when it has matured a fruit full of seed. How insignificant was Jesse, or Obed, or Boaz, compared with David; or Zacharias and Zebedee, compared with the two Johns and James. A due sense of what God demands of our sons, and an insight into his method of planning and bestowing for a series of generations, would make us importunate for gifts of the Spirit in our character as educators, and gifts on those who sit as loving learners at our knees.

Philip the Evangelist yrobably preached no sermon like that in the chariot. “We may, therefore, err by forcing matters. The guard must be set here against inaction, under pretence of spiritual waiting. But after a certain point of experience is attained, we readily distinguish humble waiting for God’s influences, from indolent, carnal sloth.

The more we believe in a direct influence of the Holy Sint in sanctification, the more ready shall we be to expect this influence in ways which are uncommon. We have no pledge that we shall be operated on, after the rubrics of other men; nor that the ways in which we may be led shall always be pleasing to other men, even of the household of faith. Our tendencies are not to be necessarily of the Spirit because they seem so: they are to be tried by the word; and they are most apt to be so, in and over the world. Earnest prayer for so vast a blessing is all-important. There is no promise more explicit or more precious, than that of the Spirit. It is sealed by the reference to our beloved children, and the gifts which we, though evil, give to them. It is all things in one. Therefore it is not wonderful that so much is made in the ‘New Testament of the Spirit; the contrast being painful between this and the popular theology.

After all, if God did not work in us, beyond our knowledge and our seeking, we should come to nothing. 0, give us thy Holy Spirit!

§ 62. Bong hi the Night.

Safe in thine arms I lie,

Dismissing every fear,

For sure my Lord is here,

And every ill shall fly;

While from his throne above

The dews of heavenly love

Shall fall continually.

Be thine o’erspreading wing

Above us every one,

Till the rejoicing sun,

A bridegroom from the east

Shall pour his ray of joy.

And give serene employ

To every sacred power,

As when the opening flower

Turns its fair chalice to the dawn,

And o’er the greening lawn

A thousand flowery eyes look out and smile.

Come, everlasting Light,

Thou fount of what is bright,

Source of all life and bliss,

Let no ill dream of night

Dare to despoil of this.

§ 63. Spiritual Changes. — Few truths have been more sacredly impressed on me than this: We must seek great and needful spiritual changes, not so much from bringing our own minds under rational considerations, however true and useful, as from direct influences of the Holy Spirit. Experience shows that God,

4T8 THOUGHTS ON PKEACHING-.

in his sovereign pleasure, often leaves us to do wrong, under the very presence of admitted reasons to the contrary. It is a part of the Christian conflict, set forth in the 7th cha]3ter of Komans. The understanding is convinced; the will itself is somewhat moved; yet there is not such an active volition as secures right action. This motive power must be supplied by the Divine Spirit. There is then nothing we have such need to ask, as the influences of the Holy Spirit.

§ 64. Real Knowledge and Book Learning. — Often and often I have thought of the superfetation of books. Look at libraries, trade-sales, catalogues. Hear the bibliographical talk of some men. Recall the innumerable books you have turned over.

Distinguish properly between real knovvdedge and book learning. Oral wisdom, methinks, will one day resume its ancient honours, for this very cause. Books will crowd one another out. What is said by word of mouth is simplest and most lasting. The early progress both of Christianity and philosophy, was by such means. The best part of education is so conveyed now. Extempore speaking derives some of its advantages from this. We ought all to practise it more.

§ 65. The Manifestation of God. —

(1.) It is made the duty, as it is the happiness of man, to admire, love, and imitate the character of God.

(2.) God is infinitely removed from human apprehension, and cannot be known any farther than he is pleased to reveal himself.

(3.) The affections the man is bound to feel towards God, are impossible without some knowledge of God.

(i.) If there were no pouits of likeness between God and man, we do not see how man could arrive at any knowledge of God. If, as is probable, there are attributes of God which have no analogy in man, we can arrive at no more conception of them, than of objects or qualities for which we have no sense.

(5.) But man was made in the likeness of God, and on this is founded his knowledge of God.

(6.) Though this likeness has been impaired, it is not entirely destroyed. Man still has mind, morals, immortality.

(7.) Still the character of God is at an infinite distance, and must be brought nearer to the analogy of humanity to be contemplated with satisfaction or profit.

(8.) This is accomplished by the Incarnation, whereby God becomes man.

(9.) Morality is the same in God as in man, as to kind, but infinitely different in degree.

(10.) But the holiness of God, in itself considered, is so far removed from our sphere, that we need to have it brought nearer to us, and as it were projected on the plane of humanitj. Holy attributes are not appreciated till we behold them in the guise of manhood. Then we sympathize with them, understand them, and feel as if we could imitate them.

(11.) The divine excellencies are there embodied before our eyes in the Lord Jesus Christ.

(12.) These are really divine excellencies, though appearing in the human nature. For holy affections and volitions, in the man Christ Jesus, are perfectly coincident with the holy affections and volitions of the united Godhead; and so they reveal God to us. It is God in Christ, whom we see, admire, love, and imitate.

(13.) The historical representation of Christ in the “New Testament is thus to us a manifestation of God.

(14.) This manifestation in the gospel is the great study of man’s life. It reveals God. It shows us our law, our model, and our portion.

(15.) There is no other manifestation of God that shows so much of his moral glory.

(16.) Our contemplation of this is the great means of sanctification. “Beholding as in a glass, &c.”

(IT.) The Holy Spirit makes use of this contemplation to make us like God.

(18.) When the Spirit takes the things of Christ, and shows them unto us, he doubtless takes these very things which are recorded in the gospels.

(19.) “We- are therefore in the way of duty and of improvement, when we place ourselves before these things in the way of meditation and study.

§66. Death-hed Rejgentance. — Perhaps we do great wrong to God’s ihfinite grace, by talking as we sometimes do about Death-bed Repentance. To terrify sinners from their sins is a good object, but it should be sought by no means but truth. Shall we please God by exaggerating in his behalf? Shall we not in the end even frustrate our own end in the awakening of sinners? True, the ungodly will abuse the doctrine that God sometimes gives repentance on a dying bed; but which of the doctrines of religion is it which they do not abuse? The case of the dying thief is the great Scriptural instance. But there are numerous instances of the same, so far as we can judge, on dying beds now. In my own ministry I have seen many. “Train up a child,” is often here fulfilled. There is a wonderful tendency on dying beds to take on afresh the experience of childhood. What an encouragement to pious mothers! Infantine emotions I am. sure often return in the last days of life, and a mother’s voice rings in the ears of the prodigal son. This gives me greater hope in talking with those who, however wicked, have been trained for God in their infancy.

§ 67. Chrysostom and Augustine. — Many a person on beino; asked which were the sounder and soberer interpreters, the Greeks or the Latins, would answer the Latins. Yet the reverse is true in many cases. Augustine is full of childish allegories; Chrysostom is almost always close to the letter.

§ 68. Christianity operates on mankind in two ways, viz., in the church, and out of the church. Li the church it is constantly operating, and legitimately; but each church-organization seems after a time to lose its charm. Churches grow effete, but the church lasts, and we see the vigour breaking out in vital action in some new place. But we must not be surprised to find doctrine, feeling, and life going behindhand in once favoured churches.

Out of the church Christianity also operates; and this too much escapes notice. Beyond question, the j)rinciples of Bible humanity and philanthropy are gaining ground in the world. Infidelity indeed claims this as its own triumph; but these principles were all borrowed from the Bible. As the world advances, we may hope to see this becoming more and more true.

§ 69. Dr. Green. — Two things Dr. Janeway said about Dr. Green, which are too good to be lost. 1.” Dr. Green, from the time of his early ministry to the close of his life, used to spend the first Monday of

MlSCKLLANi:OUS PARAGKAPIIS. 483

every iiiontli as a day of fasting and prayer. 2. In one of my visits to him in Philadelphia, lie said, ‘Brother, I pray for you every day, and for both branches of our church, and for that church of which you and I were so long collegiate pastors.’”

§ 70. LiJces and Dislikes. — How far a man should be governed by his penchants and antipathies, his likes and dislikes, in the conduct of his life, is a very difficult question. The juste milieu is hard to be found. Suppose we go to the rigorous extreme, and say that one ought to work out his course on principles of severe duty, and follow this implicitly, without paying the slightest regard to the promptings of nature, or to any constitutional tendencies, shutting his ears to every whisper of disgust, and steeling himself against every repugnance. Men have been found who, under strong moral or religious convictions, have so lived; indeed this is the very soul of the ascetic life. When the constitution is firm, and the will imperative, no doubt great actions have jDroceeded from this source. There is something great in getting the victory of natural cravings, and keeping under the flesh by a perpetual struggle. Men who have so lived have often aimed high, and accomplished wonderful results.

It may be questioned, however, whether in any case these have been the most genial and creative minds. Natm-e does not move in right lines, nor grow well in moulds and frames, however wisely adjusted. A certain violence is done to the heavings of inward forces tending towards developement. These inward forces are often the very indications of Providence, by which man learns whither he ought to go. It is universally allowed, even by the sternest moralists, that in the choice of a profession, of connections in life, of one’s place of abode, and the like, the inward propension is to be taken as an element in the calculation. Even in so gi-ave and sacred a matter as a call to the Christian ministry, all men give a certain weight to the powerful, and sometimes ahnost irresistible, tendency towards it in the mind of the proponent. Great geniuses, in every department of science, literature, soldiership, the fine arts, and philanthropy, have broken away from the heartless toil to which seeming duty first tied them down. How remarkably has this been the case with painters. All the strait-lacing of Pennsylvania quakerism could not keep Benjamin West from the easel. The same has been true of poets and theologians. And on looking back upon the lives of such, we cannot but recognize in these interior struggles a providential guidance towards particular ends. How can we deny then, that in some of the most important concerns in life, it is allowable to have some regard to the strong promptings of inward desire?

Excellency in every human calling has some dependence on the zest and enthusiasm with which it is pursued. Few things which are done in cold l)lood are well done. Providence does not mean all men to follow the same things; and, in nine cases out of ten, that which a man follows is pointed out to him by some dominant taste which is not in other men, and for which frequently no adequate cause can be assigned. Hence some are lawyers, some generals, and some laborious students in recondite and new branches of learning. Obedience to such monitions has produced the greatest works known among men. And it is remarkable that the order of Jesuits, which, above all other communities, has adopted for its yrinciple of education, the suppression of individual will, and subjection of all private like and dislike to the dictate of superiors, has produced no great and world-renowned work on any subject.

It seems clear that we mav c:o to an extreme in governing our whole path of life, in contempt of all natural propensities and preferences.

But the question still returns, how fiir we may be governed by such in the daily steps of our ordinary vocation. Even here it would be an overstrained virtue, which would altogether forswear a consultation with feelings of like and dislike, which may sometimes be the indications of Providence. Where there is nothing else to decide the question between contending claims, we may very natm-ally and wisely bring in the consideration of the agreeable and disagreeable. A man’s daily work may be to such a degree repngnant to his feelings, that it will be next to impossible for him to persevere in its prosecution.

§ Yl. — The days we call idle, sometimes produce as much eventual strength as is derived by vegetable growth from the fields lying fallow, or from the winter repose of the tree. AYe walk the floor, we open book after book, we read a little, write a little, muse a little, and in the evening condemn ourselves for want of diligence, perhaps justly, so far as the motive is concerned. Yet in nothing am I surer, than that this very process results in subsequent energy. Especially when I consider that those who have these lapses, on certain occasions, are, at others, employed for hours, or even days together, at the very stretch of all their powders. In a studious life, if the scholar did not sometimes leave his formal prescribed tract, and expatiate, as it were at random, to pick up the scattered, variegated, un classed flowers of common, and even little truths, he would fail to have his mind filled with a thousand things wdiich, however hetero-MISCELLANEOUS PAKAGllAPHS. 487

geneous at first, go through the digesting and assimilative process; become the material of future argument, or furnish embellishment, illustration, or example. Casting ourselves on Providence, in studies as in all things else, we find ourselves led by ways that we knew not.

§ 73. Consecration of Learning, — To consecrate all that one has to Christ, is the ruling purpose of every Christian. In the esteem of the Master it is this purpose, or this abiding tendency of soul, which is the thing regarded. Is it a draught from the well, an alabaster box of ointment, or a gift of funeral spices? it is received. Is it a visit to the prisoner or the invalid, or clothes to the naked? it is accepted as done to Christ. The rich disciple bestows his gold, and the scholar may bestow his learning. These are as frankincense and myrrh. The great point is, that he who has aught must make a free-will ofifering at the beloved shrine. The accumulations of learning and the refinements of taste may be withheld, even after voluntary designation, and thus the sin of Ana-. nias and Sapphira may be repeated, in a matter more precious than goods and lands. But when all the fruits of study are made over with a full and ready mind, science and literature may be truly said to be laid in the temple. These are the votive treasures, which will be more numerous, as better days dawn on a more enlightened and holier church. Then it is that erudition ceases to be idolatrous and selfish,

when their choicest fragrance exhales towards heaven.

The carved work of the Sanctuary, the chasing of Bezaleel, and the graving of Aholiab, the music of Heman, and the song of David, were as welcome offerings as the beasts which smoked in the courts of the Lord’s house. There is such a thing as- reaping in the fields of classical entertainment, and then suffering the sheaves to perish on the earth, instead of garnering them up for God. When we feel the inspiring influence of books, when we are lifted on the wings of ancient genius, we should jealously avoid the perversion of the gift. The children of this world have their research and accomplishment, and enough is done for pleasure and fame; but the Christian scholar will rebuke himself, unless he finds it in his heart to be more alive in devotion to heavenly things, at the very moment when he has breathed the aroma of poetry and eloquence.

Such a disposition of mind will keep him from being puffed up by his attainments, from resting in the transient satisfaction, from forgetting God amidst his favours, and from sacrificing to gain or ambition what he has gathered from the labours of study. The transition in a Christian disciple from worldly literature to the Scrij)tures, is not violent. He feels the immeasurable disparity, and rises to a new level when he follows the guidance of prophets, of apostles, and of the Holy Spirit himself. Attainments of learning made in such a temple are sacred, however remote the subject may seem to be from biblical research. These gains are for eternity. They are not only not lost in this world, amidst the wreck of fortune and health, but as belonging to the spiritual part in which God’s image chiefly resides, they abide and survive the dissolution of death, and emerge in the better state, only to be the germs of new developement in that unexplored world of everlasting progress.

Powers strengthened by all the most efiective discipline of earthly schools, are dedicated to the greatest and holiest work. High as the intellect may soar, it will never cease to have above it the august cope of heaven; human philosophy will never exhaust or even reach the greatness of divine ideas. These mysterious objects, like the starry heavens, are liberally offered to every eye, and the poor man, the slave, and the very infant gain and enjoy something from the celestial wonders, which Pascals and Newtons lose themselves in vainly attempting to comprehend. Yet the tribute rendered, by differing capacities, though equally sincere, is not equally great. When God bestows genius and cultivates talent, and enlarges by 21^ providential culture the opening reason, lie does this in order to draw from such natures a service far vaster than that of common minds, however pious. Education is, therefore, a fearful gift, bringing tremendous accountability; it should lead to humility, thanksgiving, activity, and devotion. When these are wanting, a godless prostitution of the powers is the result; offensive to God in the proportion in which the subject of these qualities is raised above the vulgar population of the globe. Witness the extreme cases of a Yoltaire and a Byron. When such instances are numerous, giving character to a nation or a generation, we have the spectacle of Atheistic France, and apostate Germany. The Christian scholar should pray with every breath, that he be not high-minded, but fear. In proportion as he rises in attainments, he should sink in veneration, and dissolve in love; striving to increase his simple devotions as he increases his mental discoveries. Is there not reason to think, that many learned persons feel somehow absolved from the private daily duties of religion which they would themselves enjoin on humbler minds? that they pray less, read God’s word less, and sing God’s praise less, while they are filling up every hour with eager pursuit of knowledge? To live thus is to belie our own professions. We declare our belief that truth concerning God in Christ, is the summit of all truth, and that cold science is insufficient; that these glorious objects tire to be tasted by faith, and kept constantly before the mind by devotion. Thus believing, we should not grudge the time bestowed on closet exercises. If these are animated by the Spirit of grace, they are the most sublime engagements of the mind, this side of heaven. And as religion in general is the highest science, so those truths of religion which are cardinal, are the noblest eminences of the mighty range. The plan of Grace, the Incarnation, the Person of Christ, the Atonement, the Paraclete, the Second Coming, are the local points on which the spiritual mind will be fixed, exercising itself according to the degree of its previous culture.

§ 7S. — As a man gets older, his pursuits should change, and it is important to consider how. Till a certain point of feebleness, action should have more, and study less. After that point, example, counsel, and prayer, would seem to be the duties of a Christian old age. But plans of suitable change should precede these decays. When one feels himself to have no longer any ascending ground in the journey, he should pause, and readjust his methods. What is good for 40, is not good for 50. In regard, for instance, to study; all studies of preparation, arc merely auxiliary studies, and most studies of education should be put away, lew languages, unless they can be made to fall under the head of necessary amusement, should be dropt. “New sciences and arts fall under the same rule.

To consolidate and methodize, and complete what has been most successfully begun in former years — to turn theory into practice — to attack with vigour the great task of life — to cast out old evils, and by grace to exhibit a holy character, these are the duties of him who is growing old. The whole prospect is deeply serious, though it need not be alarming.

§ Y4. — Powerful exertion of the will, under influences of the Holy Spirit, tends to drive away the tempter, and confirm habits of holiness.

§ 75. Jforccl Education. — Reading a passage in the Apology of Socrates, I was more forcibly struck than ever before with the grand defect of our education. “What should be the aim of all our education of youth? It should be to make them good men and good citizens. This should be ap]3arent in every hour of every day. It is not so apparent. The languages and sciences are taught, but what morals and duty?

Leaving out the question of the Bible in schools, closely connected with this subject, how remarkable that we have no text-books and no .classes, having reference to morals. There are no examinations to discover whether pupils are prepared for the duties of life. When we ask a boy concerning his progress, it is “How far have you got in Algebra?” or “Have you read Homer?” and not “What are the temptations of youth?” ‘’ What are the evils of gambling or strong drink? “” What are the dangers arising from corruption in voters? — The moral and practical part of education kept out of view.

Education includes teacJmig and training.

§ 76. — Morality may exist in practice without religion. Here we do not mean universal holiness, or the highest virtue, which is itself religion. Morality is equivalent to the maintenance of certain relations between man and his fellows, or between man and society, or between man and his own interests considered objectively. These relations may subsist without any inward right feeling.

§ 77. — The mental acts of devotion to God are thought of unworthily by most. In no acts can the human soul be more nobly employed. Nothing we can do is so safe. In this employment of our souls we might well be willing to be arrested by death. No man can gaze long on the face of God in Jesus Christ, without being elevated. No one will love to do so, unless he has been born from on high. God grant me more of the spirit of true devotion.

§ Y8. — There is a wisdom wliicli is not in books. It may be gathered from books, considered as parts of innumerable real som-ces. Into books it maj be transcribed, but only they will comprehend it, who have been taught it from some other quarter.

§ 79. — He who comes down from the mount loving God, or from the cross loving Christ, needs no new frame or impulse for loving his brother also. And how beautifully, in all the texture of St. John’s epistles is Love interwoven with Light! “What a radiant holiness; what a holy illumination! The two seem almost one, in the apostle’s mind, as they are in the infinite, primeval source; for God is light, and God is love. And so, in regard to the creature, “he that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.” The acting of this principle in the new creature will be constantly purging out its oj)posites; and this by painful struggles. Contrary principles of native selfishness will manifest themselves, but will be shamed and excluded. Every successful struggle of this kind will make the next easier, and will put it further ofi’. Selfishness and love will come to be readily known; and here will be a portable rule, to be applied in the absence of all lesser regulations. The study of Christ’s character will first educe love to him, and put it into exercise, and then create a disposition to walk in love as lie hath loved US. Thus faith will work by love.

Oh, for greater measures of this Christian grace! Oh, for quickness to detect, and strength to cast out, the first poisons of anger, malice, envy, jealousy, and covetousness.

§ 80. — It is unreasonable to hope for a situation where men will not be found to oppose, envy, and blame. To expect this would be childish. Humble perseverance in plain duty, is the way to maintain an easy mind. Apj)ly the Lord’s rule about anxiety for the morrow. Work by the day, you may not live till to-morrow. Why cripple to-day’s exertions by forecasting a trouble which may never come. Such vexations are trials sent of God. They have been common to all saints. Learn to bear the reproaches of even good men, for many sincere Christians are far from perfection in wisdom, and there are degrees in knowledge and experience, and diversities of opinion, and there are strange and extravagant tempers. Some virtue is put to the test by every one of these troubles. Humility, patience, meekness, courage, fortitude, love of truth, faith, hope, and charity, are exercised thus. If a man’s ways please the Lord, he will cause even his enemies to be at peace with him.

§ 81. Work at the Interior. — Keep right principles.

Guard the heart. Do what is right. Approve yourself to God. Eye the Judgment. Live as before God, and with Christ. Take good counsel, but confer not with flesh and blood. Let your whole life be a preparation for dying. Give your answers clearly, franldy, simply, and meekly; and learn when, and where, and how to answer the fool according to his folly, and when to answer not. Be harmless as the dove. Study Christ’s methods under the contradiction of sinners which he endured. Feel your own incompetency for any part of labour, and own your obligation to grace for every measure of success. Throw self overboard, and walk vfith singleness of mind, and you will certainly have success. Modern preachers ought to be ashamed to complain of opposition when they read of what befell the apostles and early teachers. God’s words in vision to Paul at Corinth should be our encouragement, “Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace, for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee; for I have much people in this city.” At Ephesus this apostle ministered amidst opposition, “Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears and temptations.” Acts 20, 19. He journeyed on, knowing that “bonds and afflictions” abode him.

§ 82. — The communications of a pastor with a parishioner are not to be made an affair of ceremony.

Pastoral visits are not to be regulated by the laws whereby fine ladies govern their morning calls. A spiritual message is what Christ’s minister carries to a house, and has in it something too solemn to be treated like a visiting-card.

§ 83. — Great care is needful to avoid harshness and spiritual pride in dealing with weak professors. “We must copy the wise physician, who often has to condescend to the nervous and whimsical. The gentleness of Paul and Paul’s divine Lord should be always before us.

§ 84. A Batch of Maxims. —

(1.) Make not too much of maxims; they are, after all, but measuring-rules.

(2.) Give ten thoughts to the question. What will God think of it, before one to. What will men think of it.

(3.) If you could act like an angel, some would blame; do your best, and in the long run you will please more than by doing any thing for the bare purpose of pleasing.

(4.) ]N”ever give over striving against a bad habit. Begin again and again a thousand times. Victory will come.

(5.) Return daily and hourly to the study of Scripture.

(6.) For comic and cliildisli jocularity, substitute mild, loving, and if you possess it, witty demeanour and discourse.

(7.) Truth is food; falsehood is poison; error is injurious. Apply this to the reading of erroneous books, even when necessary.

(8.) Some minds are more susceptible of harm from contact with falsehood than others.

(9.) Infinite wisdom in the Scriptures is always accessible.

(10.) The more you are dwelling in truth unalloyed, the more healthful will your thoughts be.

(11.) Some minds, from susceptibility to the unsettled influence of error, are not fitted to be polemics.

(12.) Do not discredit those convictions which have grown out of former investigations, even though the explicit arguments for them are forgotten. The mind should make jDrogress in conviction as well as in knowledge.

§ 85. Chi’istian Love. — In this dreary, windy, winter night, when some of my household are ill, and some in bed, I feel in my loneliness the need of communion with other spirits than my own. And how grateful to the soul at such an hour to know, that this inward craving is met by all the teaching of the gospel, and that no man liveth unto himself!

The commuiiioii of saints and the communion of humanity are best connected with communion with Christ. Here is their origin and this is their bond. The man who has no love of the brethren has no love -of his kind: the widest philanthropy is found in union with Christian graces. The Spirit, who unites men with God, through Christ, unites them to one another. This holy love, which we speak of even to triteness, and against which we are daily sinning, is more worthy of pursuit than all the objects of philosophy. I am from different lines of inquiry brought perpetually to the point, that the chief way of helping mankind is to work deeply within. True charity begins at home. But from its very beginning it cultivates a reference to those who are without. Christ, who teaches as none other ever taught, and wraps up whole volumes in a word, has taught us the grand secret of forgetting self. We are to lay all at his feet. We are to seek his kingdom. We are to cease from loving our own life, nay, we are to lose it. Loving our neighbour as ourselves, we are to lay down life for the brethren, and to do all possible good to those whom we can reach, as if doing it to him. iever forgetting the inimitable and mediatory parts of his life and death, we see in them also an example of self-forgetfulness and sublime benevolence.

The constant effort of the soul in this direction,

Tinder the Holy Spirit, is the chief activity in religion. It connects itself with all doctrines and with all graces. Humility, penitence, submission, patience, faith, hope, meekness, gentleness, self-denial, sympathy, diligence, truth, desire of truth, purity, generosity, courage, justice, veracity, candour, and cheerfulness, all ally themselves, as so many sisters with love.

§ 86. “I am reading John Owen on the Sabbath. The difficulties of this subject increase on me very much. To understand what they are, read a page of Owen (Exercitations preliminary to his Exposition of Epistle to the Hebrews). Part 5, Exerc. 1, § 5, p. 268, of Goold’s Edinburgh edition. He gives sixteen queries, which afford matter for deep rumination. My chief puzzles have always been about the questions. How much of Sabbath observance comes from Creation — how much from Moses — how much is abolished — how much remains. Now and then the great old fellow says a mighty sly thing, e. g.,” Most men act as if they were themselves liable to no mistakes, but that it is an inexpiable crime in others to be mistaken.” “Some men write as if they were inspired, or dreamed that they had obtained to themselves a Pythagorean reverence.”” Only I fear some men write books

* This, and the remaining paragraphs, arc extracted from letters to his son, while a student in the Theological Seminary at Princeton.

MISCELLANEOUS PAEAGKAPtlS. 501

about them, because they read none.” A sentence of his about preaching is worth being copied as a maxim: “I^or must we in any case quit the strengths of truths because the minds of some cannot easily possess themselves of them.” Dr. Mason used to say that all his theology was from Owen on the Hebrews, and my father often remarked, that with all Owen’s power, erudition, and originality, he never deviated in his theology into any thing eccentric or hazardous.

§ 87. Don’t make your sermon fine. Remember “great Julius’s” word, and avoid verlum insolituin veluti scojpuliim. Don’t mistake the language of imagination for the language of passion; the sin of our young ministry. I wish I had you for half an hour a day, to give you some voice training; I have paid much attention to this, with one certain result, that I have learned to speak long and loud without fatigue. Nothing can be done on paper, however. All is only an expansion of old Sheridan’s s])eah as you talli.

Read aloud and study in your club, Monod’s article, Bib. Eep. for 1843, pp. 191-211. He “is himself the great sublime he draws.” Nothing in all my history ever did me so much good. Sec the remarkable notes on pp. 205-G, and 208. This last

602 THOUGHTS ON PREACniNCr.

opened my eyes to the matter. Read it and re-read it. I have the noble original, and have heard the matchless exemplification.

§ 88. I hope you will let no kind of reading keep you from looking daily — if only for five minutes — into a class of writers, who are not attractive in regard to letters, but who unite great talents, great Bible knowledge, and great unction. At the head of these stands Owen. My father used to say one should read “Owen’s Spiritual Mindedness” once a year. I add his “Forgiveness of Sin;” his “Indwelling Sin,” and his “Mortification of Sin.” Here we have philosoj)hical analysis applied to phenomena of experience. Yet more Platonic and seraphic are Howe’s “Delight in God,” and “Blessedness of the Righteous.” Flavel’s “Keeping the Heart,” is less deep, but more clear, purling, and delicious. As to Baxter, I think his English equal to any ever written. One such book kept near at hand, and opened for a few moments every morning, seasons the thoughts. So of good biographies — so one does not seek to copy details and idiosyncrasies; Simeoivs Life — Martyn’s — Brainerd’s (with due allowance of his diseased gloom) — Edwards’ — above all Haliburton’s. I have no doubt of your becoming sufiiciently learned; but 1 have great fears lest you should look for happiness too much in the sesthetie, than the divine, part of the To KAAON; lest literature and art should occupy the place of spiritual communion. It requires great striving, to keep an academical life from promoting habits of mind out of sympathy with the great activities of good men in the arena and battle of the church.

§ 89. In thinking upon any subject, with a view either to writing or speaking, the mind is apt to flit away, or to fall into sterile revery. Against this, the common remedy is the pe7i; and it is valuable. But it is not indispensable, or even the best. Let me suggest a device which I never met with in books, but which I have practised in bed and on horseback. StaJce down eveiy attainment in your thinlcing by a verlal ‘proioosition. The thing of emphasis is the prepositional foi*m. “We are not now considering whether it is true, or important, or in due sequence; put your thought into words, as affirming or denying. After a little turning of it, put the result into words. Seek to deduce another from the one you have. ]N”. B. These will often prove heads of discourse. K you have a dozen of these on any subject your work is blocked out. The aid to memory is surprising. Wretched as that no-faculty is in me, I always remember such propositions from one day or week to the next. In early efforts it may be well to utter them audibly. It shows you that you are going on — and how fast — and when you have come to a logical dead-lock. This has often been my only preparation for speaking. I consider this so important, and am so much afraid of being misunderstood, that I will give you an example, being the last subject which thus engrossed my attention, in Broadway and in bed; preferring it for the very reason, that it has not yet thrown itself into any crystallization: 2 Tim. 3 4,” lovers of pleasure more than lovers of GodP 1. Man loves pleasure. 2. The propensity to such pleasure exists by nature in all men. 3. The merely animal nature is governed by this as a law. 4. Pleasure must not be taken to include absence of pain. 5. He who gives full swing to this propensity, so as to do just what he pleases or wishes, does not thereby reach perfection. 6. He does not thereby attain moral excellence. Y. I^ay, he dose not attain happiness, the very thing he seeks. 8. Such indulgence is ruinous. 9. Consequently, this cannot be the highest law of man. 10. Many go great lengths this way, though nature itself cuts them short. 11. As absolute self-indulgence is ruinous, the love of pleasure must te checked. 12. The normal life is therefore one of checks and counterpoises. 13. Strength, happiness, and every great quality are produced by such

// struggles and antagonisms. 14. Hence men seek pleasure in toil labour iKtin navigation, hunting, fighting. 15. Happiness is more in effort than indulgence. 16. Seeing then that propensity must be checked, it must be considered what principles can be brought in, to countervail a tendency so powerful. 17. Selfish interest is not strong enough. 18. Reasoning is not strong enough 19. Mere conscience is not strong enough. 20. Love is not strong enough. 21. Honour is not strong enough. 22. The text declares what is strong enough: the love of God: <&:c., &c. This will suggest something as to the genesis of thought. Each proposition brings forth the next. Sometimes the series is not so much thus, A as thus, A

B BCD

Sometimes the next proposition will be only a neater enumeration of the preceding; and this process is eminently useful to the mind. Sometimes !N^o. 2 will be an example of ]S”o 1. Sometimes you will see that the order is capable of improvement; so above, I perceive that the order (on rhetorical grounds), should be 20, 21, 19, 22. If a man will only pursue this process far enough, he will acquire plenty of material, in such quality as agrees with his other knowledge and native powers.

The principal thing gained by this method is, I own, ile fixing of attention. But this is after all the principal thing in all processes of productive thought. What is it that a man does in thinking out any subject, beyond keeping his mind’s eye looking in a certain direction? What shall arise in that quarter is as unknown to him as to any one else. This is one of the greatest mysteries in the origin of thoughts. The turning of certain leading thoughts, as they arise, into propositions, marks the rate of progress, indicates direction, and blazes one’s way through the forest. Each stake tethers the thought, which would wander. There is an additional advantage in this, that we never have the fall use of language, as an instrument of thought, unless when we cause our thoughts to fall into assertory shape. These have been views, regulating my practice for a great many years; but I have only of late come to think that they are overlooked by many. This is to be considered rather as marking progress than contributing to the generation of thought; though it indirectly does the latter. — It is to be observed, that many of the thoughts which rise, and even take this propositional form, are to be immediately resisted, as false, irrelative, or superfluous. Making the proposition is only putting them into a shajDe in ^vhicll they can be tested.

As the getting of something to say, (the ancient Inventio) is the prora et puppis of all preparation, I have dwelt a little on this point. Such endeavours are not to be made invita Minerva. All times are not equally good for production. This belongs to the passivity of the mind in these processes. We must wait upon it; sometimes leave it, to rest or expatiate, return to the task again, and especially catch at moments of inspiration. Generally speaking, faithful thinMng gives pleasure. But the beginnings are generally tentative. Change the scene. A subject will look differently, in the study, in the forest, by the seaside, and in the crowded thoroughfare. External circumstances often stimulate, while they seem to interrupt the productive faculty; just as shaking a solution will sometimes fix a crystallization. Best, especially in sleep, greatly helps. Clearing up of the general health is useful. For these reasons trains given up as impracticable will be successfully re — sumed after months.

Thus I have spun out a long yarn upon this simple expedient of fixing one’s thoughts in propositions, during the process of excogitation. No one method has been so much employed by me in sermonizing, and mostly when walking up and down the floor, or some path among the trees.

§ 90. I have sometimes thought of writing yon a letter on maxims but time has failed me. It is a subject which has occupied much of my thoughts, and, I suppose, has somewhat modified my character, such as it is. By a maxim, I mean a general principle of conduct, expressed in a concise, portable, applicable manner. When it hits public taste and runs through society, it becomes a proverl). The best thing Lord John Russell ever said, was his definition of a proverb: “the wisdom of many — the wit of one.” (Study a little on this.) I have a great penchant for lroverbs, in spite of Lord Chesterfield’s denunciation. I have several collections, and I wish I had more. But to return to maxims, which are not all proverbs, they are generalizations from the wisdom of experience. Here minds difier very much. Some men seem to lay up no general conclusions, however long they may observe. Your grandfather used to say, that old Samuel Yenable was the wisest man he ever knew; that like Franklin he was continually treasuring up the lessons of experience, and framing resultant rules, which often would be highly valuable to others. You may remember some good things in French, on this point. But at present my aim is not so much to lead you to enjoy other people’s maxims, as to frame your own. ‘No man can begin too soon to philosophize upon mind, manners, morals, and religion. Make maxims. Make a maxim every day. Do not force it — but if you watch for it, it will come. When you are not looking for quail, the shrill “Bob White “reaches your ear without impression; but when quail are your special quarry, you catch the most distant whistle. He that is on the look out for maxims will find them. A young man’s maxims must be juyenile and often hasty, but that particular turn of mind which frames them is all important. Let me take an humble instance. At a certain period of my life, I was much afflicted with a sort of bodily inertia. If I was on the sofa, I did not like to take a chair. If I was in my fauteuil, it irked me to get up. My flute was in the attic, but the trouble of mounting so high overbalanced the desire to play. This grew on me so much, and so killed all alacrity, that I laid down this rule to myself, Never avoid doing any tiling because of the short bodily trouble it may occasion. It has saved me a world of useless regrets. From little things, we shall by degrees proceed to great. He that has his mind most stored with such tried conclusions, will be best armed for the battle of life. Tlicre is no reason why he should blurt them out to others: they are his own pocket rules. It is not a matter of indifference how these are expressed. A terse, felicitous maxim is like an instrument brought to its perfect state. The thought may pass through a thousand minds, (the wisdom of many,) before it comes to a shape of memorable and crystalline expression (the wit of one). It may be compared to one of your happy formidas, in mathematical analysis. Many a man had discovered it, before one happy punster said Amicus certus in re in certd cernitur. One such conclusion (even without the happy form) is a gain for life; and is like a sum laid up in store for coming days. But chiefly do I refer to rules for one’s own conduct, derived from one’s own ex]perience. This word ‘’ experience,” means the sum of such knowledge. That man’s exjDerience is most serviceable, which is most reduced to palpable formulas; as that philosopher’s observations are most valuable when distinctly methodized Do not think I wish to make you a coiner of proverbs. He might be proud, who could make a single good one. But the proverb, like the epic and the fable, is an extinct genus. The collection of Solomon’s is wonderful; you may imagine how much is lost by a version which

is literal, modern, and occidental. I find lists of proverbs very good reading. But to return — it is not to provoke you to make proverbs, but to lead you to maximize / first, to deduce some law, fact, or general rule; secondly, to give it a memorable shape. We are constantly doing so. on a small scale. Thus, after some painful experiments, a young man arrives at a maxim like this — •’ always to break off any dispute when I find myself growing warm.” What we call wisdom, as distinct from knowdedge, consists very much in the habit of observing and amassing such conclusions. A very great fondness for the sententious has made me a lover of what are called adages, or apothegms. There are many such in Horace and Terence. They abound in Seneca. You know how Sancho Panza’s mouth was filled with them; therefore they must have hit the fancy of Cervantes. The Spaniards derived their taste for them from the Arabians. Some of the Spanish proverbs are very racy; e. g., 1. Touch a sore eye only with your elbow 2. Take your wife’s first advice, not her second. 3. Leave your jest while most pleased with it. 4. Setting down in writing is a lasting memory. Apropos of which last proverb, I have found much pleasure in waiting down at night wdiat I call the tJiourjht of the day; that is, some reflection derived from the day’s observation, especially if it can be couched in a single sentence.

§ 91.^^ Prefer a subject with which you have some

* From a letter to his son in college.

acquaintance. The more special the subject, the more you will find to say on it. Boys think just the reverse; they write of Virtue Honour, Liberty, &c. It would be easier to write on the pleasures of Yirtue, the Honour of knighthood, or the difference between true and false Liberty; which are more syecial. Take it as a general rule, the more you narrow the subject, the more thoughts you will have. And for this there is a philosophical reason, which I wish you to observe. In acquiring knowledge, the mind ^xoo^QQ^^ fro’in particulars to generals. Thus Newton proceeded from the falling of an apple to the general principle of gravity. A great many particular observations were to be made on animals, before a naturalist could lay down the general law, that all creatures with cleft hoofs and horns, are gramnivorous, or that all birds with two toes before and two behind, built in holes. This process is called generalization. It is one of the last to be developed. Hence it requires vast knowledge and mature mind to treat a general subject, such as Yirtue, or Honour, and it is much better to begin with particular instances. It may be added, that this mental process, of deducing general laws or principles from numerous instances, is also called Induction. It is by a consideration of minute facts, called an “induction of particulars,” that we infer (in-ducimus) a general principle. And this, simple as it seems, is the foimdation of the whole Baconian or In’ductive philosophy. If you will carefully attend to what I have written, you will have clearer views than are common among young men, on a fundamental point in Metaphysics.

§ 92. I recommend you to keep an Ephemeris, journal, or every-day hook, not for putting down religious frames, but facts, notes of conversations, dates, and hints towards more extended composition. Some most valuable Eoswellisms are laid up in these volumes. I regret that I did not begin till 1834, but since then my series is full and unbroken. Thoughts jotted down there have a peculiar freshness. Pascal’s “Thoughts” had this origin. In Tangier’s edition they are printed just as Pascal left them, with all their errors, blanks, &c. In one place he even says that, on taking the pen, he forgets the thought which he intends to record. In my humbler endeavours, these “thoughts of the day,” vary from one sentence in length, to fifty pages; and on enumeration I find them more than a thousand. It is wonderful how things will grow, if you do the least lit every day. It is so in learning languages. Many of these paragraphs of mine are scholia upon Scripture passages. Some of them are prayers, the writing of which, as also the re-perusal long afterwards, I have found of great value. When we spend some time together, I will read to yon some of my occasional notes on preaching, from these boohs.

§ 93. My father used to say to me: Think long and deeply on your subject, and as if nobody had ever investigated it before. I did not then know what he meant. One of the chief uses of writing sermons is, that it keeps one a-thinking. The pen seems to recall the thoughts. Some cannot think without it; which is bad — very bad. This is all a matter of habit. The greatest other nse of writing is, that the matter is preserved. For I will not include correctness, and polish of style, &c., which can be fully obtained by the other method.*

* These paragraphs should have been included in the Homiletical Paragraphs, but were procured too late for insertion there.