SERMON.
Fourscore Years.*
BY G. L. DEMAREST, D. D.
“I have been young, and now am old;
vet have I not seen the righteous forsaken,
nor his seed begging bread.”—Psalm
xxxvii. 25.
OF H COUENOT ANCESTRY.
ON the 13:h of December, 1816, I
brst bieathed the breath of life.
Since then eighty years have passed:
years of wonlerful activity and his
tory, material, mental and spiritual.
The geography of the world has been
strangely changed; its history has
developed new phases; its knowledge
has vastly increased; its science and
philosophy wonderfully advanced;
its literary stores augmented; its
faith broadened and vitalized; its
hope brightened; its sympathies
quickened; its comforts multiplied.
Of all this progress I have had my
due snare of enjoyment, personal
and social, and my life has indeed
been “worth living.” It has been
said that this “depends upon the
liver,” with a double meaning. In
the lower sense, I have been highly
blest. I have been able to realize the
experience of blessing, while taking
littli thought of the ordinary discom
forts of life, and able to bear its
more seriouB experiences with phil
osophy and Christian resignation. In
the higher sense of the phrase I can
claim no eulogy. My ancestry be
queathed to me a wealth of constitu
tional healthiness, the value of which
I appreciate more highly today than
ever before. I am not aware of any
scholastic honorB among them. But
remotely they were French Hugue
nots, of blood equal to the best, noble
men if not noblemen, faithful to
their convictions unto exile or death,
of vigorous Calvinistic principles. I
cling firmly and gladly to their fun
damental thought—the sovereignty of
God. It was my paternal grandfa
ther’s experience to become an earn
est Methodist before my day. I still
joyfully hold to the distinguishing
doctrine of John Wesley, in which I
was brought up to youth, that love is
the supreme attribute of the Divine
Being. And it used to be supposed
that Calvinistic thought mingled with
Wesleyan thought, earnestly held,
waB sufficient to account for Univer
salist predilections. But in middle
age I learned that my maternal grand
father had shared in an early Uni
versalist movement in my native city.
It was not remarkable, then, that
when, in youth, the opportunity
came, I was prepared to accept the
prophetic, the apostolic, the trans
cendency Christian faith,—“to hear,
mark, learn and inwardly digest
it.” This Calvinistic-Wesleyan
Universalism, thus flowing into
the stream of my life, has not
“cut the nerve” of conscience, of
reverence, o' Christiau activity, of
brotherly love; but on the contrary
has tended to stimulate and sustain
it; and it has made “life worth liv
ing” more abundantly.
NEW YORK CITY.
The geography of the earth has
greatly changed within these years.
Referring to our land, and beginning
with my native city, New York, its
population at the time of my birth
was about 94,000; that of Brooklyn
about 6,000. Now, soon to be made
one—already made one by legislative
enactment,—their total population is
9,000,000. New York was then by
natural selection competing with
Philadelphia for the primacy among
the American cities.
The enterprise of the State of New
York soon settled the question by
the construction of the Erie Canal,
which connects the waters of Lake
Erie with those of the Hudson River.
This was begun in 1817 and com
pleted in 1825. I well remember the
triumphal procession in the city of
New York in the latter year which
celebrated this great enterprise. This
opened the highway of commercial
progress between the region of the
great lakes and the great ocean, and
gave the city its pre eminence, as the
business and fiuancial American me
tropolis, which it has thus far main
tained.
‘‘the new country.”
My earliest recollections embrace
the fact that parental relatives were
removing to the “new country,” which
proved to be Central and Western
New York, And when, later by ten
years "the Far West” was spoken of,
it referred to the region just west of
the Mississippi. In 1833, when I was
but sixteen years old, Chicago was
organized as a village, having but
twenty-eight voters, now it boasts a
population of a million and three
quarters. It was only in 1838 that
any considerable emigration beyond
the Northern Mississippi took place,
and the first territorial organization
'My U't ‘ birthday'' occurred on the
13th of December, which fell upon
Sunday. Arrangements bad been made by
my friends at Nottingham, N. I)., wlio
deemed me their pastor for fifteen years,
to hold a commemoration on that duy, of
which my sermon was to form a j«irt.
Early in December I suffered an affection
of one of my eyes which precluded prep
aration and brought subsequent disap
pointment to my friends. They, however,
pleaded for the birthday sermonjon a Sun
day of the following spring; and accord
ingly on the 33rd of May I delivered the
discourse now printed. Two weeks after
ward I repeated it to my friends in Cin
cinnati, O., and on the 25th of July to the
congregation, in Manchester, N. H., which
two churches I had also served as pas
tor for brief periods
there, that of Iowa, was established.
This mainly covered settlements
along and near the Mississippi, the
capital being Burlington.
THE UNITED STATES.
At my birth th're were but nine
teen states in the Union, the nine
teenth, Indiana, having been ad
mitted but two days before. The
number was increased by August,
1821, to twenty-four, at which it re
mained for fifteen years. The pres
ent number, forty-five, indicates the
phenomenal growth of the country
both in territory and population.
The measure of national possessions
had expanded in 1816 to 2,000,000
square miles. They now extend to
three and one-half millions, an in
crease at a ratio of fifty-eight per
cent, while the population has grown
from nine to seventy millions, an in
crease of seven hundred per cent.
CALIFORNIA AND AUSTRALIA.
Do we remember that less than
fifty years ago San Francisco was a
mere trading post, months away from
our own cities? It was described as
“a small village composed of a few
adobe houses and a few hundred in
habitants,” and a foreign city within
the limits and under the control of
Mexico. The whole population of
California in 1850, the year subse
quent to the rise of the gold fever, at
which time it had been largely in
creased, was about 90,000; but it
grew in two years to nearly three
times that number, and now boasts a
population of a million and a half.
San Francisco is rated at 300,000, the
seventh city of the Union, Brooklyn
being absorbed in New York; and it
is the fifty fifth city of the world.
Among the antipodes similar marvels
are apparent. Melbourne, in Austra
lia, was founded in 1837, the year of
the Queen's accession: its population
is now half a million, equal to that of
Boston, a city four and one half
times its age. The Australian Con
tinent now shows, with neighboring
islands, great and prosperous English
colonies, with free governments, a
large portion of which have agreed
upon a federation like that of the
Dominion of Canada. The whole
continent of Africa has been explored
within fourscore years, and immense
regions have been opened for coloni
zation by European nations.
OCEAN STEAMERS.
The rapid changes of settlement to
which allusion has been made, with
many others, have resulted, not alone
from the natural increase of popula
tion and the former rate of travel.
The wonderful improvemeut of trans
portation produced by the practical
inventive genius of the age, enlight
ened by the revelations of science,
has led to their possibility. While
steam had been successfully applied
to manufacture iu 1785, it was twenty
two years later before the steamboat
became practically successful for use
on our rivers, and not until 1838,
when I had become of full age, did
the Sirius from Liverpool, in less than
seventeen days, and the Great West
ern in les3than thirteen, from Bristol,
reach New York, and demonstrate
the practicability and profitableness
of oceanic transportation by steam.
These were the precursors of the
great fleet of steamers which have
reduced the transit from the British
Isle from an average of forty days to
little more than one-eighth of that
time. This has been accomplished
by improvement of form and machin
ery and change of the mode of pro
pulsion from side wheels to screws.
The diminution of the trip time and
its regularity, have resulted in great
diminution of cost; and the total
number of immigrants to this country
since 1838 appears to be seventeen
millions, but little short of the pres
ent population of Brazil, or Spain—
one and a half times that of Mexico
—twice that of Scotland and Ireland
combined—equal to that of the Uni
ted States in 1840, when I gave my
first presidential vote—equal to the
combined population of the States of
New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and
Michigan in 1890.
RAILROADS.
But akin to the improvement of
ocean transportation has been the
wonderful change in the land car
riage. It is a matter of history that
General Washington died at Mount
Vernon on the 14th of December; but
the first intelligence reached Congress
in session on the 19th in Philadel
phia: five days, one hundred and
forty miles. In 1816, by river and
coach, to reach Washington from New
York, three days' time was required;
New York to Philadelphia, in summer
fifteen hours, but in winter twenty
seven and one-half; to Boston, thirty
eight hours, returning, fifty-two
hourB. Of course the carriage of
freight required much greater time.
Such a service would now be exceed
ingly inadequate, and incontinently
voted out of date. Though experi
m at had been conducted earnestly
and ingeniously for a number of
years, it was not until 1829 that
George Stephenson found practical
success in an engine which averaged
a speed of fourteen miles an hour,
and even attained a velocity of
twenty-nine miles an hour. That
was really the birth year of the loco
motive. In 1830, an engine imported
was operated on a railroad in South
Carolina, and in the same year the
first locomotive built in this country
was made by Peter Cooper in Balti
more. In this year I reached four
teen years of age. More than one
fourth of a million persons are now
engaged in the railway service in the
United States. What a vast develop
ment of industry, with what vast re
sults, has accrued in less than three
score years and ten!
MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH.
The marvellous improvement of
means of transportation, both in speed
and effectiveness, has resulted, not
merely in the greater distribution of
population, but in the vast increase
of trade and commerce, and in the
readiness of communication among
the nations. These offices have been
vastly reinforced by the invention of
the magnetic telegraph, which be
came a practical fact in 1844, on a
line from Baltimore to Washington.
I was then twenty-seven. The length
of lines in the United States at the
present time is said to exceed 190,000
miles. The problem of rapid trans
mission of intelligence across the
seas was solved by the laying of the
Atlantic Cable, a stupendous triumph
of science, faith and skill, in 1858;
but defects of insulation developed,
and it was not until 1866 that a new
and perfect cable was successfully
laid. What with steam and wire and
cable, the newer generation can hard
ly realize the changed conditions. It
is authoritatively stated that, in the
year of my birth, the arrival of a
vessel was heralded as bringing news
forty days later from Europe; and a
Havre packet arrived, whose latest
date was fifty nine days old. These
facts do not merely indicate the
length of packet ship transit across
the Atlantic, but the want of postal
organization, and the lack of trading
vessels. The treaty of Ghent between
the United States and Great Britain
was concluded December 24, 1814—
ten days before the battle of New
Orleans. With present facilities the
news would have prevented the
b .ttle. It did not reach the United
States until the 11th of February
following: a lapse of forty-nine days.
In cases of difficulty among the na
tions of the earth, it may readily be
seen how much broader are now the
opportunities of diplomacy. The
vmbassador or envoy at London, at
Paris, at Berlin, at Madrid, at Rome,
-it St. Petersburg, at Stockholm, at
Constantinople, at Pekin, at Tokyo,
can report within an hour or two of
actual time, or seek and receive in
struction, in any important emer
gency: whereas in the olden time it
might require three or even six
months to determine his duty in the
issue. And the more rapid commun
ication between the merchants of
either or all the continents results in
more frequent and more rapid ex
changes and the reduced cost of
supplies.
TELEPHONE.
The means of conveying intelligence
and facilitating personal intercourse
are still further enforced by the tele
phone, an invention dating but
twenty years back, whereby conver
sation can be carried on at a distance
of a thousand miles, if needful, as if
the parties were in the same room:
recalling the imaginary wonders of
the Arabian Nights. And merchants
and traders would be loth to part
with the instrument, as a necessity
of business. The telephone was an
outcome of the telegraphic system,
and there are now nearly 675,000 in
struments in the hands of licenses of
the American Bell Company, and
over 750,000,000 exchange connec
tions in a year in the United States.
MANUFACTURES.
The application of steam to trans
portation of travellers and goods ac
complishes the least of its triumphs,
and not the first of them. It had al
ready worked wonders of construc
tion and utility. The steam engine,
as has been said, was first applied to
cotton manufacture, which at once
received great impetus. It had so
increased in the United States as to
use in 1815 tweuty-sevbn milliou
pounds of new cotton, employing
350,000spindles: in 1896, nearly 1,300
000,000 pounds were used, employing
nearly 17,000,000 spindles. Similar
progress has been made in other tex
tile manufacture. But within my
fourscore years the steam engine has
been applied to countless forms of
constructive machinery, until almost
all the working forces of present
civilization are greatly multiplied, to
the promotion of human comfort
and the variety of human life. So
great has been the increase of the
number employed in manufactures
in this country that in 1890, 4,700,000
persons, one-fifteenth of the total
population, were so employed.
PRINTING PRESSES.
Up to my boyhood the printing
presses used were of the old style in
vogue in Franklin’s day, somewhat
improved, it is true, yet of the same
type. One of the latest improve
ments at the time was a device by
which one pressman could work the
press and ink the form at the same
time, saving one man’s labor; but it
was Btill a hand press. After a while
this became wholly inadequate for
the work required, especially for the
newspaper. In 1834, the first steam
printing pre9s was introduced into
New York City, probably into the
United States. It needed to wait for
the demand; and in that year it was
adopted by The Sun. The most
rapid pressman could not pull im
pressions enough to meet the morn
ing call. One of the New York pa
pers now claims a daily average
circulation of 820,000, and a Sunday
average circulation of 680,000; and
that the press work was accomplished
by “three great octuple presses, the
largest ever made, added to a press
equipment now unequalled in any
daily newspaper office on earth; be
ing the equivalent of fifty-seven
single presses, designed for an out
put of 744.00 eight page papers per
hour.”
POWEB OF THE PRESS.
Who can comprehend or estimate
the power of the press in its daily
emissions? a power for good or a
power for evil. We may expect it to
be no better than its makers, and no
worse, upon the whole, than its aver
age clientage. We often think that
many matters are published which,
though not morally harmful, are un
interesting and wasteful of room; but
somebody is interested, and they are
published for the sake of such. We
get the news more cheaply than ever
before, sometimes apparently con
tradictory; but we finally reach the
facts if we can suspend judgment for
a day or two. We dislike the appar
ent onesidedness of intelligence in
volving human character, which gives
ground for despair of our civilization,
as we read of fraud aud murder, po
litical corruption and all sorts of
crime, announced with sensational
embellishments, with no display of
contrary virtues, save in the rarest
aud most exceptional instances.
There seems no relief from the black
ness of vice and moral offense. So,
from time to time, and oft with flar
ing headlines, announcement is made
of railroad disasters and ocean wrecks
with great loss of life; so that one
might think that travel by land and
sea is extra hazardous, especially as
we have no word of those who escape
not merely, but of those who never
become liable to danger. It was said
by a writer that in a certain year
when not a passenger had lost his
life in a railway disaster in the state
of Massachusetts, a score of persons
had been killed in the city of Boston
alone by falling downstairs. Shall
we say that it is extra hazardous to
live in a house of more than one
story?
CORRECT LIFE THF. MATTER OF CODRSE.
It is trua that there ie much wicked
ness in the world; but the world is large
and numerous. The rogues, though
many, are a lean minority of our seventy
or more millions. The honest outnum
ber the thieves and swindlers vastly.
But their story does not thrill, as do
those of the offenders against property
and social order. If the etory of human
virtue could ever have a fair show with
that of humaa weakness and paBeion, it
would be seen that,after all, correct life
is the matter of course; is therefore not
surprising or sensational; and is on that
account taken for granted, and rarely
Hude publication. The crimes appear in
the front becauee though frequent they
are unusual. Vet with all its faults we
could ill spare the newspaper.
IS THE WORLD BETTER?
But have we any ground for affirming'
according to our wish, that the world
has risen on the scale of moral force? Is
the world better? We read what the
papers have to tell us, accented by the
art of the printer, of crime and barbar
ism. What frightful scenes are often
brought to public notice, of riotous mobs
and social feud, in which participants
think they do God service, and falla
ciously suppose that crime can he
checked by crime! What can we do but
confess that there are still, as there have
been all along the yearB, evidences of
savage life even in this country, of which
we fondly boast as the most enlightened
of the earth? It is said that the human
embryo presents in its several stages of
development all the characteristics suc
cessively of the several lower orders of
animated being. Similarly, human civ
ilization shows the progressive stages of
its development, but in co-existent
strata. Thus we cannot deny, we eec,
the fact of elements of eavage and bar
barous life in our laud. Xnes? low
grades are not apparent in the majoruy
of our people; in the great body of those
who occupy our homes. Theee protest
against the evil. There ie a struggle for
the beet things, and notwithstanding
the sneer of the cynie and the despair of
the pessimist, there ie evidence of pro
gress in virtue and brotherly kindness.
The excellence of the former time is
overtopped. I remember when the pro
test Bgainet intemperance was feeble in
deed: when an occasional lapse was re
garded with emilee, ae droll, rather than
blameworthy; when only chronic drun
kenness wae deemed unmanly. The
liret public temperance eociety in the
United States was organized in 1326, and
in this antedated all other nations.
Drunkenness ie now disgrace as well as
danger; and holy war is waged against
it and the forcee which abet it. If any
one ie doubtful as to the plane and
strategy of the conflict, or mourns the
differences among its leaders, it ie none
the less manifest that the protest ie
weighty, and that ite force ie vastly
mightier than the former reserve. The
love of mankind is taught more irapree
eively than ever both by religion and by
ecience. There ie more altruism, thought
for others, than ever before. The bene
factions of the rich for education, in va
rious forme and directions, are often
phenomenal. And benevolences for the
aid of suffering humanity are innumera
ble. Theee are also personal as well ae <
financial. Much effort is for the preven
tion rather than thecu.eof misery. The
defective classes are more successfully
cared for; the prisoner's manhood more
faithfully recognized and respected, ar.d
the world is learning hotter and better
how to exemplify the spirit of Jesus the
Christ. Let the lesson be learned still
more fully, with loftiest inspiration and
ever increasing effect.
ELECTRIC UTILITIES.
Returning to our narrative: Among
motive forces, the more modern in its
general application is the electric, whose
evolution in transportation dates within
the last fifteen years. It may be se
riously assumed that its practical power
hue not yet reached its full development.
Its use in the arts and in medicine is of
older date, though there have been many
recent appliances. Within forty years
the electric light was first used for light
house illumination; just twenty years
ago it waB firBt employed for street light
ing. The streets of New York were first
lighted by gas in 1824-25. Before that
whale oil lampB were used. 1 have seen
the home light evolved from the tallow
dip, through the mould-tallow, the sperm
candle, the whale oil, camphene, mineral
oil, kerosene lamps and gas, until now
in some homes the incandescent wire is
in use.
ENGENDERING HEAT.
This loads me to modes of engendering
heat. In my boyhood the common peo
ple had no means of warming and cook
ing, but by wood, sold by the load from
the vessels that brought it to the city,—
referring to my native place. In fierce
winters, when the rivers were frozen, it
was brought on sleds from the country.
‘‘Coal was in very little use for domestic
purposes,” and this was “sea-coal,” be
yond the ability of the common people
It was not until 1830, I think, at a time
when the price of wood was enormous
that coal, anthracite, came into general
use. For cooking purposes it was hardly
in use until a later day than that just
mentioned. And now gas is successfully
used for heating and cooking fuel, re
quiring new forms of stove or range,
While wood was in common use, the re
newing of the fires in the morning or
after a vacation, was rendered practica
ble by uncovering the live coals which
had been preserved under the ashes of
the preceding night and kindling it; but
if the fire had been lost, resort to the
tinder box with the flint and steel was
necessary. It was not until 1834 th«t
friction matches came into common use.
INDIA RUBBER,
Ween I went to school we had India
rubber in email cubes for erasing pencil
marks. About that time live hundred
pairs of rubber shoes were imported in
to Boston, the first to be used in the
United States. These were of the crud
est sort, probably moulded by dipping
into the liquid gum forms, rude lasts,
made of earth, which were broken when
the gum had hardened. The consider
able manufacture of rubber goods began
not until 1832. Goodyear succeeded
only in 1839 in hardening the gum so as
to extend its use by vulcanizing it, or
combining it with sulphur. It was in
1840 that he invented the hard rubber as
a substitute for horn or tortoise shell.
PENS.
When I went to eehool, again, the
only pens in use were made of the gooBe
quill. One of our scholastic arts was
pen making; and a pen knife was a nec
essary implement of the schoolroom,
and a necessary appurtenance of a writer
or clerk. Not before 1832 did the steel
pen come into common use. No one
who has not used both can conceive of
the greater convenience of the latter.
Silver had been used for pens, but the
sale wbb restricted and the price relative
ly costly, and it was soon discarded. In
time it waB found practicable to manu
facture gold penB, tipped with points of
iridium, the hardest of the metals; and
the combination secured an implement
incorruptible and enduring. Some find
the fountain pen a great convenience,
being the combination of a gold pen
with a portable ink-holder,
EDUCATION.
Speaking of school the progress in the
modes of teaching and in education and
knowledge are suggested. The kinder
garten has been in more or lees vogue
for thirty years, perhaps; but the
methods of Froebel, the inspirer of them,
were founded upon those of Pestalozzi
the Swiss educator, who developed them
quite early in the present century. It
was very long, however, before the sys
tem, that of object lessons, came into
vogue. Vet it was the natural system,
applicable to all teaching, things before
names—from the known to the unknown
—from the particular to the general,
from what we can see or know to what
we cannot see or know, but which we
may infer from description and compar
ison. It has not yet become general,
but is becoming. The training schools
are instructing would-be teachers in the
methods of reasonableness, and the
schools of the land are profiting by their
work. It is a great contrast to the old
teaching, when the verbal memory, not
the observing and reasoning faculties,
was the subject of cultivation, and the
correct reciter of a form of words was
supposed to understand them. The
common schools of the United States
are liberally sustained by the people, in
a number of them Free State Universi
ties being generously supported. There
were nearly 390,000 teachers employed
in the common schools in 1893-4, and
nearly 14000,000 pupils taught. The
number of colleges in 1816 was thirty
seven; in 1896, four hundred and seven
teen.
PROGRESS OP SCIENCE.
The progress of science has been
wonderful. Geology has opened remark
able developments, and become systema
tized since my early days. The study of
the heavens has produced rich harvests
of philosophic fact. The asteroids
coursing through the heavens between
Mars and Jupiter have increased in the
lists of observers from four to two hun
dred and fifty. Two moons have been
found to attend upon Mars. A new
planet has revealed itself beyond Ura
nus, known at school by the name of
Herschel, its discoverer, Neptune was
discovered by "the mind's eye" of Le
V9rrier, a French mathematician, who
had not seen it, but who instructed a
Berlin astronomer where to find it, ac
cording to bis calculations: one of the
noblest victories of the human intellect.
The stars supposed to have been fixed
are found to be in perpetual movement.
The distances of some of them have been
approximately calculated. The nature
of their respective elements has been
determined by that wonderful instru
ment, the spectroscope, invented within
forty years; and by the Barneinstrument,
compounded with the telescope, their
movements are observed, whether hither
or beyond. Experts have been search
ing into the principles of things, and in
ventors have been devising practical
applications of them. New departments
of science have been evolved: Biclogy,
Sociology, Anthropology, are recent ad
ditions to the list, while Chemistry,
Meteorology, Magnetism and other
forms of energy have been rewritten.
Especially has the correlation of the
physical forces, motion, heat, light, mag
netism, electricity, been demonstrated
within forty years. Within the same
period have scientists come to agree
ment as to the evolution of all physical
life from the simplest elements in the
long ages of terrestrial time.
MEDICINE AND SURGERY.
The practice of medicine and surgery
has been greatly improved. The latter,
save in its mechanical dependence upon
anatomy, has been thoroughly reformed.
Had the physicians attendant upon Pres
ident Garfield known, that valuable life
might have been prolonged. The skill
ful surgeon now knows how to prevent
blood poisoning from wounds. The use
of new amesthetice has relieved surgery
of many horrorB. The physician, through
improvement of physiological knowl
edge and continued research and experi
ment, haB become more helpful. He
has largely become the adviser of his
clients as to the prevention of disease.
He has ceased to starve his fever pa
tient, and to prevent his refreshment by
water; he no longer withdraws his
blood, reducing his strength, or if it is
ever done, it is in the most emergent
case. In most cases he has abandoned
the use of calomel, which in my youth
appeared to be commonly administered
in fevers, to the frequent detriment of
the patient’s general health, if at all to
his temporary benefit. Research has
revealed the causes of many diseases,
epidemic und contagious, as living
germs, and experiment is determining
methods of cure which promise to put
under control the pestilences and
plagues which have so seriously affect
ed humanity. The physician no longer
administers heroic doseB, or very rarely.
He has found it needless to exhibit his
remedies in gross, drenching his patient
with disgusting mixtures, but has found
how to produce the results he deBires by
more concentrated forms, more influen
tial though less overpowering. With
out entering into the debate of the vari
ous schools, I may say that evidently
the diminution of the use of drugs in
quantity is largely due to the appear
ance and success of the practice of
homoeopathy, which, although formula
ted in 1810, was not introduced into this
country until 1825. Even the mere dis
continuance of drugs has sometimes led
to cure, and there are some physical
troubles which are frequently subject
to a roused will. Reformed dietary
habits, regulation and regularity of
meals, temperance in food as well us in
drink, tend to physical health; and at
tention to sanitary principles, and the
effective execution of sanitary laws in
our larger cities and towns, with the
improvements in medical and surgical
science, have tended to prolong the
average of human life upon the earth.
NOVELTIES.
Time (ails me to do more than refer
to a few instances of things now Beam
ingly necessary to home and general
comfort and prosperity, of which the
people were destitute, or the use waB
not available, when my life began:
1 steel pens, gold pens, fountain penB,
friction matches, sewing machines, writ
ing machines, anthracite coal, heaters,
ball stoves, coal cooking stoves, blotting
paper, rubber overehoes, bathrooms in
private houses and hotele, postal stamps
and envelopes, postal orders, false col
lars and cuffs, ice cheats, cold storage,
photographe and photographic engrav
ings, tomatoes as esculents, dates, grape
fruit, eo-called, canned meats, vegeta
bles and fruits; sewerage in cities,
transatlantic steamers, railroads, the
electric telegraph and submarine cables,
the telephone and phonograph, street
railroads, electric lights, heat and care,
copying presses, steam printing presses,
expresses, the bicycle, athletic clubs,
steam tire engines, illuminating gaB.
Toe list might be extended. But how
could we find social and physical com
fort without these things? We did not
realize the want of them; we had not
experienced the value of them; the
world went on very well then in its
ancient grooves, and we were comfort
able and happy without them. 1 do not
recall any discomforts in my early days,
although some of the changes have
surely been in the line of real improve
ment. As I write here I recall wring
ing and washing machines and agricul
tural machinery as reducing the sum of
human drudgery: and doubtless I have
omitted many thiugs in my list of nov
elties.
CAITSE FOR REJOICING.
I have all too long detained you with
these rambling notices of the daye that
are goue, and have failed if I have not
shown good reason why I should rejoice
that I have lived in this grand and awe
inspiring age, blessed, though, compared
with the Supreme Life, the couree of
man's ie evauescent. I have failed, too,
if I have not satisfied some weary or
doubting eoul that it is a great privilege
to live at this time, near the close of a
century eo active in research, in inven
tion and discovery, ItB fruits are the
inheritance of the tier century, and
^—————
form the basis of new hopes and expec
tations from the advancement of the
sciences and arts of the present date.
But I must needs, before I close, have
something to say of Theology—of man’s
thought of God, and of his relations to
him and to mankind: concerning the na
ture and extent of salvation, especially.
PROGRESSIVE FAITH.
In my youth the dominant faith of
the Protestant churches was Calvinis
tic: not merely in relation to the sover
eigoty of God, to which I have already
affirmed my adherence, but also in par
ticulars abhorrent to reason and broth
erly kindness. And although the
Methodist churches vigorously arraigned
the Calvinistic philosophy, they alike
held to the divided destination of man
kind, the one part to endless heaven,
the other to endless doom. The univer
sal Fatherhood was ignored alike by
nearly or quite all so-called evangelical
churches. Instead of the Father the
people beheld the awful Judge, and the
executioner of doom. The churches
often pictured the infernal horrors in
such tones and colors as to frighten nerv
ous hearers into madness. Should any
of the members have denied the worthi
ness of such views of God's providence,
they were denounced and incontinently
excommunicatedj'and no one who could
not accept the current baleful creeds
was admitted to the fellowship of their
adherents. The relatively very few Uni
versalist preachers of the time mightily
combated the Calvinistic view, and the
Arminian; as well as the Arminio-Cal
vinism into which some congregations
were led under the leadership of Dr. Ly
man Beecher. The result was a contro
versy, waged most earnestly, with re
sults. A toleration of Universalists
in so called evangelical churches
in time ensued, the preaching of the
awful judgment and sentence wbb
toned down, and gradually the churches
became very pleasant resting-places for
such Universalists as were content to
dwell therein, with an unsatisfyirg
but not offensive Gospel. A further re
sult is that old Universalist interpreta
tions have often been found satisfactory
by orthodox students of the record, and
the Universalist philosophy has been
warmly accepted by many in the popular
churches. The new interpreters are not
far from the kingdom, but are not there,
I am tempted, as an illustration of pro
gress, to quote Dr. Lyman Abbott, the
successor of H. W. Beecher, from a ser
mon which has fallen under my eye
while preparing this discourse. He
was especially addressing fifteen per
sons who were present for admission to
church fellowship.
CONGREGATIONAL UNI VERSA LISM.
“If ever . . , it seems to you that
sin is victorious, and that ambition and
pride and avarice and hate are trium
phant, if it 6eeme to you that 6vil is surg
ing over the world and conquering the
world; if it seems to you that sin and
death are getting the mastery, then come
back to this declaration, of the text, ‘God
is Love,’ and that other declaration,
‘Where sin doth abound,there grace shall
much more abound.’ God is not to be
conquered; He is coming,—conquering
and to conquer. And if in this little life
of ours he sometimes Beams to bo van
quished, we need not despair, for he has
all eternity to work in. The m»rey of
God indureth forever. Bo as you look
o.’t upro this life, with its enigma, its
sorrow, its Bin, and its strife, look out
also upon another where the mercy of
God goes on forever and ever. Wiien at
last that mercy has accomplished its
purpose, this is the congregation that
will sing the song: ‘ADd every creature
which is in heaven, and on the
earth, and under tha earth, and
such as are in the sea, and all that are
in them, heard I saying, Blessing and
honor and glory and power be unto him
that sitteth upon the throne, and unto
the lamb forever and ever.’ ”
THE ELY IN THE AMBER.
Moat heartily I eay, Amen! It recalls
the glowing strains of Murray, and
Ballou, and Cnapin, and Miner, and
Sawyer. And reading only thus far who
ehall eay that Doctor Abbott is not a
Universaliet, though he says nay! We
go a little further on: "That at the last
some lips may be sealed in eternal
silence is possible; that any will be vocal
in blasphemy Bnd hate impossible." Dr.
Abbott is too amiable not to recoil in
horror at the thought of endless doom
even for any of God'a most rebellious
children. And be falls back upon the
theory of the endless unconsciousness of
such. Here is the worm, immured in
the precious amber. The Doetor’e faith
in God's conquering power covers—only
those He succeeds in conquering! There
will, after all, ‘‘at the last," be some
souls He cannot vanquish! Some souls
will bs silent, because the love of God is
not wise enough or not influential enough
to win them to love and praise—to sing
the song of universal glory and joy!
And yet he goes on to say: "If Goo is
Love and God is going to eo quer, Love
is going to conquer; and when Love con
quers the universe will be tropi. si, and
the kingdoms, not of this world only,
but of all worlds, will be the hi igdo.ua
of our Lord ai d of His Christ." And
Dr. Abbott welco ed Hi new d voiples
“to the Love that knows no e ding, to
the patience that cannot be worn out,
to the fidelity that cannot be destroyed
by any infidelity on their part, to the
Love that is resolved that all His chil
dren shall love Him, a Love that cannot
be conquered; to the God who is Love,
and to Jesus Christ His Son, whose
character is the eternal mani estation of
God's love.”
FCIXNE68 OF JOY.
Dr. Abbott adopts Universaliet prin
ciples, but is not able, or not willing, or
too timid, to accept their logical result.
Ho has a large company of sympathizers,
both in hie faith and in hie doubt. I re
joice in the former tact, and confidently
hope that the number may be increased,
and t at the doubt will be removed, so
that their joy may be full: that they
may truly and thoroughly believe in the
universal, impartial, all-powerful, all
wise, all-eflicient, love of Q d:
“Whose love is as great as His power.
And knows neither measure nor end. ’’
And Heaven spued the auspicious day
when the who.e Christian world will
hail with joy the GoBpei of a world’s
salvation to the uttermost from all die
belief and sin, and from all spiritual v
silence; and all mankind at last sing with
the spirit and the understanding the
anthem of universal love and praise.
And may we who anticipate the glory
and joy of that day now exemplify our
faith and hope by righteous and helpful
lives, consistently with the Gospel we
profess.