The Universalist. [volume], March 26, 1887, Page 2, Image 2

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'i'sshc Universalist Sermon Yage.
REV. H.W. THOMAS, D.D.
People's Church, Chicago.
HENRY WARD BEECHER, THE GREAT PREACHER:
A SERMON delivered to (he cotigrt-ga'ion of the People’s Church, Chicago, in MoVicker’s
Theatre, on Sunday, March 13,1887, by the pastor, Rev. H. W. Thomas, D. D. Re
vised by Dis. Thomas for The Uniyek-aeist.
[“Who passing through tho valley of Baca,
make it a well; the rain al30 fllieth the pools.
Psalm lxxx. 6.
"I have preached righteousness to tho great
congregation: lo, I have notrofrained my lips,
O Lord, thou knowest.”—Psalm xl. 9.J
Science tells of the birth and death
of worlds ; of the mighty changes from
chao3 to order; from order back to
chao3. Compared to these longer ages
and mightier forces, the years of man
are few; and the events of his life may
seem almost as nothing. The oceans
and the continents, the earth and the
sky remain; the generations of men
come and go. They “pass through the
valley of Baca”—the valley of weeping;
and the places that knew them once
know them no more.
In this strange scene of life and
death man is not alone. lie moves
along with a vast procession ; he forms
a part of the pathetic order of the ever
becoming and ever unbecoming. Phys
ically, he shares in a common life and
destiny; he is brother to the grass and
flowers and trees; to birds and animals;
he breathes the same air; is fed from
the soil, and warmed by the heat of the
sun; and, like all these, his body re
turns to the earth from which it was
taken.
Everything that was or is, that lives
and dies, leaves some sign or mark to
tell that it has been. The tornado
leaves its desolate path in the forest;
the extinct volcano leaves its crater;
the dried up river or stream leaves its
banks; the glacial ages leave upon
mountain and plain the marks of the
once slow-moving fields of ice. The
coral formations tell of the millions of
little toilers in the sea, and in the rocks
are the graves—the fossil remains of
forms of life in the Silurian age. The an
imal leaves its track in the sand; the
bird its nest in the tree.
Man is a higher being ; he toils upon
a higher plane, and hence tc leaves
other and greater evidences of where he
has been, and of what he has done. He
leaves cities and monuments; he leaves
languages and literatures; governments
and religions. The Pyramids, rising up
out of the sands of Egypt, and the
“Books of the Dead” and the tombs of
buried kings tell of the civilization of
that ancient land and people. The ex
cavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii
have brought to light the life and the
cities that long lay buried beneath the
ashes of Vesuvius. The explorations
of Schleimann have verified the walls
of Troy and the Trojan wars, of which
Homer sung. In England and on the
Continent one walks as if in a vast cem
etery ; so many are the buried dead and
so thick are the graves and monuments
that tell of the millions and the mighty
ones who have lived and died. The old
stone walls tell of the Roman occupa
tion of England ; the marks of cannon
balls on castles and towers tell of the
wars of Cromwell. Beneath the great
cathedral at Cologne are the ruins of a
pagan temple; in Paris are the streets
that ran red with the blood of the mas
sacred Huguenots, and out beneath the
sky and the sun lies the field of Water
loo, where Napoleon Buffered defeat.
And all along, through and within
these external marks and memorials of
man's life in the past, lived and ran his
thought and his spirit. The wars of
Ceesar, and Charlemagne, and Fred
erick the Great marked periods and
transitions in human affairs, ideas of
government and religion, and so did the
pencil and the brush of Raphael and
Rubens. In later years came the tran
sitions from the military to the indus
trial type of civilization, and along with
these the age of science and of liberty.
And thus, man appears as a higher be
ing, a worker upon the plane of reason
and morals; he aspires after higher
ideals ; he comes to toil, not alone, nor
upon the task of a day, but to toil with
the millions and to labor upon a vast
plane of world developmeut that runs
through the ages. He comes to dig
wells in the valleys that are dry ; wells
to catch and hold the falling waters
that those who come after may quench
their thirst. In passing through this
valley of weeping he is to do what he
can to dry the tears of sorrow, and briug
gladness to the hearts that are sad.
Viewed in snch a light, the life of
man takes on great meaning, and we
look with a profounder interest, not
only upon the life of society, but upon
the paths and schools of thought and
action along which the world moves,
and in which the thinkers and workers
take their places—in the great drama of
time. And hence it is that we look
with so much interest and concern upon
the great leaders of mankind. Cajsar,
Charlemagne, Napoleon, Cromwell, aud
Washington concreted in their lives
great historic movements of national
and world interests. And so did Lu
ther aud Calvin and the great leaders
in the Reformation; and hence it is
that their names till so large a place in
history. These leaders were great in
themselves, but their greatness was not
that of isolation, but of association ;
the greatness of the times in which they
lived, and the importance of the issues,
for good or evil, for which they stood.
When any one rises to the position of a
leader, he stands for, and, in a seuse,
gathers into himself all for which the
movement that he represents stands.
Out of this long past, and over from
the old world to the new came the great
question of government, aud liberty,
and of church and religion, and natur
ally here, as there, the men of deepest
conviction and greatest strength were
pushed to the front as leaders. The
first powerful struggle was the war of
the revolution, that gave us National
independence, and then came the task
of securely fouuding the new republic ;
and in such great years there arose a
Washington, and an Adams, and a Jef
ferson. That crisis passed, next came
| the period of development—of the evo
| lution into higher forms of the princi
ples of civil and religious liberty. It
was not possible for liberty and human
slavery to long live side by side in the
same land. Hence came the war of the
rebellion. And in the evolution of
thought and moral consciousness it was
only natural that the doctrines of relig
ion should seek higher and better forms
of expression. These struggles have
come in the last fifty years or more, and
in that time other great leaders of
thought and action have been called to
the front.
From the Reformation in Europe,
and from England in the years succeed
ing Cromwell, came the sturdy and lib
erty-loving Puritans; and hence from
the region of New England, where
these pioneers of freedom landed, have
come the great anti-slavery aud relig
ious debates, and the powerful leaders
along these lines of thought and prog
ress, and in the last few years one by one
these great souls have been passing
away. Horace Greeley, Charles Sumner,
Wendell Phillips, Garrison, Lovejoy,
Lincoln, Grant, have gone away from
our world. Gone are Channing, Chapin,
and Emerson. Their great souls, in
“passing through the valley” of earth—
the valley of weeping—have caused
many “wells” to appear; they have
dried many tears and done much to
make fairer and better the land they
loved.
The last to go was the Rev. Henry
Ward Beecher. Descended from Puri
tan stock, he naturally inherited the
great Puritan strength and love of lib
erty. And hence he naturally took his
place as the friend of liberty, the friend
of the oppressed, the friend of the rights
of man, woman, and child, the friend
of the slave. And from his wonderful
strength and breadth and candor and
sympathy he naturally became a leader
in the great political and religious ques
tions of the day. And because of this
larger ability, he went farther and did
more than others, and in some things
left all others behind.
This country has produced thousands
of good preachers, and hundreds of more
than ordinary power, and a few of very
marked ability; but it has produced
only three who, in the midst of such
high standards of comparison, can be
called really great—Simpson, Chapin,
Beecher; but of them, Beecher was
the greatest. The power of Bishop
Simpson was largely spiritual and sym
pathetic ; and this, finding expression
in strong, clear and earnest thought,
and in a natural and cumulative form of
oratory, gave him an almost unequaled
power over both the mind and hearts
of those who listened to his impassion
ed words. Being a bishop, he seldom
spoke but on large occasions, and going
from place to place, he put his strength
into a few great sermons. Like Beecher,
he enlarged the sphere of his ministry,
until, especially during the war, it took
in national questions. Beecher stood
in one pulpit for forty years, and made
that pulpit the greatest in the land;
and more than Simpson he entered into
the wilder realms of politics and science.
That is the crucial test of power—to be
able to stand for a life-time in one place,
and to deal with the whole world of
thought. Unlike either Simpson or
Beecher, and more polished in thought
and style, but less sympathetic, Chapin
was majestic, standing up like a pyra
mid or a mountain. And yet Dr. Cha
pin was not cold; the sun shone on the
heights; but it was not like the rays
that nestle and dance and laugh in the
valleys. I heard Beecher and Chapin
in their own pulpits the same Sabbath;
when Beecher was done, I wanted to
take him by the hand—he drew me to
him ; when Chapin was done, 1 felt like
I had been standing on the Alps. I
wanted to go off and be alone. I heard
one sermon from Simpson that burned
in my breast like fire for months after.
It is difficult to classify or to analyze
the power of such a man as Beecher;
and it is not possible to estimate his
influence upon the world. lie had a
strong, sound body, a powerful and
well-modulated voice, a commanding
presence, a sympathetic heart, and a
marvelously fertile and imaginative
mind, that was at the same time re
markable for its clearness and breadth
of perception; and whilst poetic and
rhetorical rather than logical in type,
it was strong in the field of reason.
These were natural endowments, but
all brought to their best, and held there
by long and continuous culture and
use. It takes a great deal to make a
great man in any department of life—a
great general, a great business man, a
great scholar, or lawyer, or doctor, or
journalist, or author; but it takes more
to make a great preacher than either.
He must be great in so many ways—
great in knowledge, in thought, in rea
son, in oratory, in sympathy, in love
and faith and hope, and all that com- j
bines to make a great and good life.
But with all these natural and ac
quired advantages, something more was
needed to make Brother Beecher the
greatest preacher of the nineteenth
century. lie was, to the last, a hard
worker; he was unreservedly conse
crated to his work ; he stood on what
he believed to be the right side of all
questions, and he had the courage to
follow his convictions and his thinking
to the end. When he went to the Ply
mouth pulpit, more than forty years ago,
he lifted up the standard of liberty, of
justice, of brotherhood, of the rights of
man, and of a spiritual and rational
Christianity; and from these great
principles be never for one moment,
not even in the darkest hours, ever
wavered.
It meant something, thirty or forty
years ago, to stand for any broad inter
pretation of such principles; but in the
days when slavery rested upon the
Bible, and had beneath it the Constitu
tion, and was enthroned in political
power, Mr. Beecher declared himself on
the side of liberty and opposed to hu
man bondage; he declared himself the
friend of the dark race, and with all the
powerful eloquence of justice and love
he pleaded for the rights of the poor
slave. Aud when the inevitable war of
the rebellion came he stood for the
Union, and in the darkest days fainted
not. And when the wealth and caste
and aristocracy of England, and through
them the sympathies of the common
people, were largely on the side of the
South, this lover of his country, this
lover of liberty aud justice, this friend
of the black man, had the courage to
stand up in Liverpool, and London, and
Edinburgh, and boldly defend his coun
try and plead for the slave ; and he had
the heaven-inspired power to turn the
raging tides of thought and sympathy
to his own side. What other man;
w’hat other hundred men, could have
done what he did ? We know the
strength and prejudice of the English
mind when aroused. I was in a great
political meeting in Manchester last
summer when the excitement ran high,
and was almost afraid to be there, let
alone to speak; but Mr. Beecher faced
all opposition and carried the press and
carried the masses over to the side of
his struggling country, and never did
the power of a great personality and a
divine oratory achieve a greater victory.
Brother Beecher felt that in those trying
hours God was with him, and God was
with him; and men who have any mem
ory and who are capable of rising above
political littleness and religious big
otry do not forget the debt we all owe
to this great and good friend of man
and friend of liberty. It took the ortho
dox priests and those high in the church
to plait the crown of thorns and place
it upon the head of the suffering Christ;
and it takes a cold orthodox Congrega
tional minister to refuse sympathy to
the dying Beecher.
The deep sense of divine and human
love and justice, and the manly cour
age that made Mr. Beecher the cham
pion of liberty and human rights and
the friend of the oppressed race, were
elements of power in his great ministry.
He carried the same breadth and sym
pathy into the pulpit; and hence his
religious life and teachings could not
be less than large and generous. He did
more than any dozen other men to lift
up and free the pulpit from narrow
conventionalities, and to give to preach
ing a wider range of discussion and in
fluence. He was in no sense a priest
—cared very little for the letter of the
law, or for forms and ceremonies; but
he was, in the higher sense, a prophet,
a teacher, a preacher; and his long
ministry of fifty years was instinct
with the life of his day. Slavery, seces
sion, polygamy, temperance, wealth,
learning, labor and capital, the rights of
the poor, and the rights of women and
children, were all familiar themes in
the Plymouth pulpit. There was no
evil so high—so enthroned in power
and position, but feared his tongue and
pen; and the poorest laboring man,
and the orphan upon the street were
sure of his sympathy and support.
And it was entirely natural that this
greatest of all preachers should have
been progressive in his beliefs. And
this is the unpardonable offense in the
eyes of the orthodox churches that he
grew away from his inherited faith and
from the creeds of the past; and that he
had the courage and the candor to say
so. He says of himself: “I have never
preached what I did not believe; I
never asked myself whether to preach
a truth 1 did believe would be popular
or unpopular.” lie could say, “I have
preached righteousness to the great
congregation ; I have Dot refrained my
lips, O Lord, thou knowest.” He stood,
prophet-like, before man and God, be
fore earth and heaven, to catch and in
terpret and translate into life and prin
ciple and duty, the great truths of reve
lation and of nature. lie reverenced
truth and right; but he refused to wear
the chains of men, or to be bound by
the beliefs of the dark ages.
And now, what were the beliefs of
this great preacher that made so many
of the Congregational clergy of our city
afraid to express sympathy for his aged
wife, lest they might be thought to
sympathise with what they call his
heresies!1 And some of the preachers
of other orthodox churches have been
just as careful to say that they do not
accept Mr. Beecher’s theology. lie
believed in a personal living God; he
believed in the divinity of Christ ; he
believed in the inspiration of the Bible;
he believed in immortality, and in fu
ture rewards and punishments; and he
believed in prayer and repentance and
regeneration, and in holiness of heart
and life. What was it, then, that he
did and did not believe, of which they
are much afraid ?
This greatest of preachers believed in
a theistic evolution; he believed in
God, and he believed in evolution as
the method of creation; that the high
er forms of life were evolved from the
lower; and that possibly—on this he did
not positively affirm—man’s physical
being came in the same way. He did
not believe that all the differentiated
forms of vegetable and animal life were
the results of special acts of creation.
He did not believe that the word was
made in six days. He believed in in
spiration ; but he did not believe in the
verbal theory or that every word is in
spired. He believed in thetdivinity of
Christ, and in the atonement; that
“God was manifest in the flesh;” that
“God was in Christ, reconciling the
world to Himself.” Hut he did not be
lieve that God was angry and had to
lie “reconciled” by the death of his Son;
that the innocent had to be punished
to make good ths law before the guilty
could be pardoned. He believed that
God is love ; that love suffers for the
lost, and hence has come forth in
Christ to seek and to save.
Mr. Beecher did not believe in the
old doctrine of the fall of roan; that
the first pair were created some six
thousand years ago; that they were
created perfect; that they fell, and that
all meu sinned and fell in their sin; and
hence he rejected the whole system of
salvation based upon that unvevifiable,
and as he believed, unscientific dogma.
He believed in the continuity of the
life of the good in the world to come,
but he did not believe in the conscious
endless suffering of any soul, but that
the ungood would cease to be; at least
the whole trend of his thought in later
years seemed to be in the direction of
the annihilation of the wicked. And
on this point he was in accord with the
belief of Dr. Lyman Abbott, the Con
gregationalist, and Dr. J II. Vincent,
the Methodist, and many other devout
ministers and able scholars. Person
ally I do not agree with these thinkers
on this point, for I believe that man is
essentially, and in the deepest center of
his being, a spirit; and hence that he
is immortal; but I do agree with Broth
er Beecher in denying endless punish
ment. And upon the subject of the
nature of the atonement, this great
preacher was in substantial accord with
Dr. Bushnell and Dr. Abbott, and
many other able Congregational divines;
and upon the doctrine of evolution he
was in accord with the greatest theistic
scientific thinkers of the age. And no
one ever accused Mr. Beecher of not
preaching a high morality and a deep
and profound Christian life and exper
ience.
What then, was and is the trouble ?
Simply this: Mr. Beecher thought fur
ther, and, as many think, higher and
better than others; and he had the can
dor and the courage to preach what he
believed. T^ey could not keep him
still. He wmid talk. He felt that the
great truths of Christianity were pro
found realities, but that they needed a
re-statement, and that it was the duty
of the ministry of this age of unsettling
and doubt to lighten the burdens of be
lief that rest so heavily upon honest
minds and hearts. This he honestly
tried to do, and he has helped make
clearer and easier the way of faith for
the future. For this his family was
refused sympathy by some in his dying
hour, and others hasten to say that they
are not in sympathy with his teachings.
But with this great preacher it will
be as it has been with other great re
formers who have had the strength and
the courage to go before in the progress
of thought. “Their fathers stone the
prophets, and their children build their
tombs.” One generation condemns,
the next applauds. Forty years ago
there was nothing too hard to be said
of Garrison, and Phillips and Lovejoy;
now they are honored. Channing and
Parker were denounced in their day;
now the writings of Channing are read
the world over, and the more radical
views of Parker are finding a larger
favor. Thirty years ago the theories of
Colenso were heard with alarm; now
they are accepted by the ablest school
of critics in Europe. Some have thought
that if Beecher could have lived longer
he would have returned to the old the
ology; but in this they are mistaken.
All the long lines of his thought, and
all the deep sympathies of his great
soul were running in one direction. Men
of courage and conviction do not turn
back, and thousands of young preach
ers are coming into the field, and upon
them the mantle of this inspired
prophet of God will fall. The re
straints of power, and the cries and
threats of heresy cannot seal their lips,
and in twenty-five years the world will
wonder that Beecher was called a
heretic.
.Even now, in all the land—from sea
to sea, from Portland to San Francisco,
in the North and in the South, and in
the lands beyond the ocean, the hearts
of the millions are touched, and their
sympathies are poured out. And we
wonder, and we aie sad, that in Chica
go alone must be found the twelve
preachers who could at such a time, re
fuse one word of comfort to the sorrow
ing wife and children of this man of
God. And why did they refuse? Lest
they might in any way seem to counte
nance his religious beliefs. He was a
heretic, and that was enough to put
him beyond the pale of sympathy. The
past troubles of this great preacher’s
life had nothing to do with this heart
less refusal; it was not a question of
what he was, or what he had done, good
or bad; not a question of conduct or
character, but purely one of what he be
lieved.
And now, what shall we say of this
action of these clergymen of this city ?
It would be unfair to blame the Congre
Rational church for what so many of its
ministers have hastened to repudiate;
and certainly the religion of Christ
should not suffer because some of his
ministers seem to know so little of his
great love. And the condemnation
should rest more upon the theology of
such preachers as Drs. Goodwin and
Little than upon themselves. \Ve must
believe that they are sincere; that they
believe what they profess; and believing
this their conduct was logical and con
sistent. If their theology is true, Beech
er’s is false; and the fact that the great
preacher was dying did not change the
character of his teachings, but tended
rather through sympathy to make them
only the more dangerous. And why ex
press a human sympathy for one who
had deliberately given his great powers
to the teaching of falsehoods; to the
undermining and overthrowing of
ChristianityV Why sympathize with
one whom God would condem? It has a
cold, heartless God; and what a small
thing it is to withhold a little sympa
thy in the dying hour, when their God
will withhold his mercy forever? That
is the logic of such a theology; and such
is its tendency upon those who really
believe it. Such a theology “has no
time to spend over dead pagans,” and
no sympathy to waste over dying here
tics; and very little for you, and me,
and the millions whom it condemns to
endless torment for not believing what
our reason and our moral consciousness
compel us to deny. It is the same spirit
and policy that turn living men out
of the pulpits—that turned Professor
Swing out of the Presbyterian, and my
self out of the Methodist church.
The larger intelligence and tolerance
of our day rises up to condemn such
narrowness and bigotry; but the weight
of censure will at last rest upon the
theology that makes them possible. In
hardly any other way could the better
doctrines and the larger generosity of
the great preacher have been so power
fully emphasized. Men will say, if such
doctrines could make a Beecher, with
his world-wide sympathy and love,that
is the doctrine we want. And the age
that sees the chains falling from the
slaves, that sees justice, and liberty,
and brotherhood, and humanity coming
on earth cannot be held to a belief in a
heartless God and a hopeless hell. The
great spring-time is here, and the old
icebergs of belief must melt away.
O, what a beautiful scene was that
at the funeral, when Methodist, and
Baptist, and Presbyterian, and Uni
versalist and Unitarian churches, were
opened and thronged with people, and
all their ministers and the Jewish Rabbi
forgot their differences in the presence
of the mighty dead. If Beecher’s spirit
was there—and I think it was—with
what joy must he have looked upon that
scene of brotherhood and love that his
long life and ministry had helped make
possible. In “passing through this val
ley of weepiug, he had caused it to be
a well;” he had “preached righteous
ness to the great congregation”—and
plead for every cause of justice and lib
erty; plead for love and brotherhood;
tried to beat down the separating walls
and barriers that kept men apart; and
now, how beautiful to see them coming
together around hi3 grave. “Behold
how good and how pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell together in unity.”
Oh! what must it be for such a man
to die ; to close his eyes upon the beauty
of the earth and sky upon which they
had so often gazed; to go away from
the world where he had lived and la
bored so long. What is it for a heart
that throbbed in sympathy with the
want and sorrow and hope of his race
to beat no more; what is it for the
voice that had spoken to the millions to
be silent. Never perhaps has the death
of any man in our country touched so
many hearts as that of this great preach
er for no other has lived so long and said
and done so much.
But he is not dead; with Lovejoy
and Lincoln; with Phillips and Garri
son and Greeley; with Chauning and
Chapin and Simpson, and with many a
poor slave whom he helped to make
free, Ilenry Ward Beecher lives in the
immortal world. lie left his impress
upon his age, and long will his memory
and influence live among men.
OPPOSING GOD’S WILL.
We think it will be admitted by all
believers in the Bible, that it is wrong
to oppose God’s will. When we admit
that God is a perfect being, it clearly
follows that all his attributes are per
fect and work in harmony together.
This being so it also follows, that God
would not will anything which his jus
tice or any ether attribute would for
bid. Hence, when God willed the sal
vation of all mankind, (1 Tim. ii. 4)
he saw, as a matter of course that it
was in accord with justice. In the
light of this plain truth it will not do
to say, as some do, that justice demands
the endless ruin of many, because this
would clash with the revealed will of
God. Now we hold, that any theory
that arrays itself against the will of God
is not only wrong but wicked. God’s
will is framed according to the dictates
of influite and unerring wisdom, per
meated by influite and unchanging love.
Therefore, to oppose his will is to op
pose God, and sectarians do this when
they oppose the salvation of all man
kind, which the Bible clearly affirms is
the will of God. Itisascleartoourmind
as the noonday sun, that a doctrine
that is in harmony with God’s will is
right, and a doctrine which antagonizes
the will of God is wrong. We ask the
candid reader to bear this in mind and
be governed accordingly. To oppose
the doctrine of universal salvation is to
oppose God’s will. To preach a doc
trine which affirms the endless misery
of many is equally opposed to God’s
will. Now we hold that when we
preach something that is not God’s
will, we preach error ; and that when
we preach the final salvation of all men
we preach God’s will, and people should
believe it and rejoice in so doing.
Universalists, therefore, should thank
God and take courage, being assured
that they are preaching the will of our
heavenly Father which in his own
good time will be accomplished. In
the memorable prayer of our Lord, he
commands us to pray: “Thy will be
done.” Has he commanded us to pray for
something which will be a failure?
Never, never,Juover I For wejare else
where assured that “God worketh all
things after the counsel of his own
will.” The ultimate salvation of all
men is the only doctrine preached
which is endorsed by the will of our
heavenly Father. All doctrines that
deny the salvation of all men are op
posed to the will of God, and therefore,
cannot by any possible means be true
and should be rejected; while Uni
versalism is endorsed by the mission
of Jesus, the will of God, the prayers
of Christians and all true Christian
effort. Brethren, press forward—we
are right—we have the truth—we have
the will of God on our side, and “if
God be for us who can be against ns?”
—Universalist Herald.
SPASHODICS IN RELIGION.
There are some minds so peculiarly
constituted that they are either on the
height of enthusiasm or deep in the val
ley of humility and abasement. There
seems to be no even temper to such
lives; they are either aglow with heat
or shaking with cold. There are, how
ever, aside from this constitutional pe
culiarity, many very respectable people
who have a quality of character built
up by a class of motives which can
never give steadfastness or stability.
There are two great classes of motives
that move men, subject to infinite de
tail in each class. The one is embraced
in the hopes of men, the other in their
fears. We are often told with great
emphasis that fear is just as legitimate
as hope. If it be meant that there are
things to be feared, and that man is so
constituted that when he sees them he
naturally fears them, it is quite true;
but if it be meant that fear as a motive
to high attainment of character is as
legitimate as hope, it is a proposition
that indicates very slight attainment
either in ethics or in spiritual things.
Fears—so far, at least, as this world
is concerned—spring from transient
causes. They cannot operate steadily;
they are not steadily present; they can
bring no permanent, legitimate fruit
age, and when we attempt to arouse the
fears of men by affirmations touching
another world, the grounds of such af
firmation, whether true and permanent
or not, are so far removed from men
that they cabnot be made to operate
permanently. They never have and
never will. It is too long range. Mo
tives springing, therefore, from fear
are, in the nature of the case, transient.
Motives springing out of the hopes of
men, which hopes are based on the eter
nal reality of things, are, in their nat
ure, permanent, continuously operative,
ever at hand, fitted to the work they are
expected to perform. If it were possi
ble for the human mind to be oppressed
perpetually by the hazards which the
church has so infinitely employed in
centuries, either one of two things
would happen, the attention would
cease, or the human mind would break
down under the pressure. It is impos
sible to maintain any given portion of
the waters of the ocean at a level pos
itively higher than the general level.
There is a general level in every human
life. That level is modified by the
qualities that build up the heart and the
charactor, and that general level may
be maintained by the motives which
spring out of the existing realities of
life. A man is counselled by the doc
tors of divinity to see to it that he
makes a deep and abiding work of
grace. There is no work of grace in it.
It is the fright that a threatened hell
gives a man. He cannot remain per
manently in a fright; there comes a
calm, and there is such a wonderful dif
ference between the fright and the calm
that the man verily tbink3 he is born
again, and so he is taken into the church;
the activity, the enthusiasm presently
subside; the cause that produced the
effect passes away; the sunshine and
the flowers obliterate it, and he falls
back into his condition of moral cold
ness. To lift him to something higher
and better, to regenerate that man,
open the doors of heaven to his view.
Follow the Master’s rule. He comes
revealing a universal Father. It is not
an empty name, but it is full of life
giving power. On the one hand, there
fore, you have spasmodic attendance
upon Christian worship and observ
ances, spasmodic endeavors in the lines
of self-sacrifice, spasmodic manifesta
tions of nobility of character and life.
On the other hand, you have what does
not strike you so much—an evenness,
and an integrity, and a sweetness of
charity, and openhandedness, which as
you view it by and by seems to you
quite surprising.—Rev. A. A. Miner,
D. D.
The excavations in Kome are now be
ing conducted by the National Govern
ment, the Municipal Government and
private citizens. Hundred of statues and
busts have been found, some of marble,
others of oostly bronze, many in perfect
preservation. The government has spent
within the last twelve years not far from
SI,OCX),000, but it has been a rema; table
business investment, for the value of the
finds is placed at 84,(XX),000. So rapidly
is the work going on that it is Hlmoet im
possible to store properly from day to
day the results of excavation.
VARIOUS THINGS.
—Rev. John Hancock Pettingel 1, a t-he
ologioal writer of wide repntation, died
in New Haven, CoDn., on a recent Sun
day, aged seventy-two.
- Cardinal Taschereau, of Quebec, has
prohibited Catholics from attending the
meetings of the Salvation Army. Tracts
and hymn books distributed by the Sal
vationists are ordered to be thrown into
the fire.
—At no time in the history of this
country, says the New York Advocate
(Methodist), did true Christian manhood
weigh more, and a merely nominal church
membership less, than now, in the esti
mate of the business world. In this we
think the Advocate states tha exact
truth.
—The Rev. Marcus Rainsford is prob
ably the first clergyman to preach in a
sewer. When a new sewer in the north
of London was recently being built, Mr.
Rainsford, whose work is among the peo
ple of that neighborhood, went into the
sewer one evening and held services for
the workmen.
—A lady was once lamenting the ill
luck which attended her affairs, when a
friend, wishing to console her, bade her
“ look upon the bright side.” “ Oh I ” she
sighed, “there seems to be no bright
side.” “ Then polish up the dark one,”
was the reply. Thi3 was sound advice.—
Living Church.
—The Swiss Cross says that for two
hours an immense flight of butterflies
passed over the city of Salzburg. They
flew from northeast to southwest at a
considerable height, and must have num
bered millions. Such a flight of these
winged insects some years ago passed
over Galveston Island.
—Messrs. C. L. Webster & Oo., of New
York are now putting into type the me
moirs of Pope Leo XIII,expeoting to have
it out in time to celebrate the fiftieth an
niversary of the beginning of the Pope’s
ministerial labors. 'Che first edition will
be 100,000 copies. It is edited by the
Kev. Bernard O’Reilly, D. D., with the
personal co-operation of His Holiness.
—Not long ago the pupils of an Epis
copal parish sohool were asked by the
the rector, on one of his visitations,
to write down the Apostles’ Creed. He
was horrified to find that one of the
boys, instead of writing, “ I believe in
the Holy Catholio Churoh,” had written,
in entire good faith, “ I believe in the
Holy Oat in the Churoh.”
—There is a strange sect in England
called the “New and Latter House of
Israel." This people are building a tem
ple at Chatham Hill. The object is to
provide a place where “ the remnant ” of
the people of Israel—the 144,000 spoken
of in the Book of Revelation—may gath
er. The leader has lately died, and
“ Mrs. Jezreel ” reigns in his stead.
—There will be no leap year between
1896 and 1904. The ordinary test of
division by 4 would make 1900 a leap
year, since no remainder would be left;'
but in revising the calendar Pope Greg
ory XIII. fouud it would be necessary to
count as leap years only those oenturial
years which would be divisible by 400
without a remainder.
—There are many oranges of curious
shape and flavor we seldom or never see
in this country. Such are the pear
shaped kind grown in the far East; the
orange of the Philippines, which is no
larger than a good-sized cherry; the
double orange, in whioh two perfeot
oranges appear, one within the other; and
the fingered citron of China, which is
very large, and is placed on the table
by the Celestials rather for its exquisite
fragrance than for its flavor. — Church
Messenger.
—An exchange says: “ A house of
straw is now being made at Philadel
phia for the American Exhibition whioh
opens in London, May 2. It is a suburb
an villa, very high, and covering a space
of 42x50 feet. It is built entirely of ma
terials manufactured from straw, founda
tions, timber, flooring, sheeting, roofing;
everything, in fact, including the chim
neys, the material being fire-proof as
well as water-proof. The inside finish
will be in imitation of various kinds of
wood.
—The most ourious book in the world
is one that is neither written nor printed.
Every letter of the text is cut into the
leaf, and as the alternate leaves are of
blue paper, it is as easily read us the best
print. The lubor required and the pa
tience necessary to cut eaoh letter may
be imagined. The work is so perfect
that it seems as though done by machin
ery, but every character was made by
hand. The book is entitled, “ The Pas
sion of Christ,” and is now in a museum
in France.
—There are ten thousand wandering
households in Great Britain—gypsies and
others who live in “ caravans.” Hitherto
little attention has been paid to their
social condition, and their children have
been allcwed to grow up with half sav
age tribal relations, and isolated from
civilization. Mr. George Smith, widely
know for philanthropic endeavor, is now
seeking by the “ Movable Dwellings bill"
to secure the official registry of all these
nomadio families, the inspection of their
habitations and the attendance at school
of their children.—Advocate (New York).
—The true way to make pure and
wholesome our own share in the cease
less tide of words which is forever flow
ing around us is to strive to make pure
and wholesome the heart within. “ Keep
thy heart,” says the wise man, “ keep thy
heart with all diligence, for out of it are
the issues of life.” If once our hearts
have been trained to care very deeply for
what is >best and purest in life; for what
is beautiful and true in thought, our
heartiest mirth, our freest jest, our hasty
words, will not be those of men and wo
men who are indifferent, who care noth
ing for noble living, nothing for a Chris
tian life, nothing for a Christian spirit—
Dean Bradley.