Speeches, Addresses, And Occasional Sermons Volume Iii Part 13

"G.o.d save the Commonwealth!" proclaims the Governor. G.o.d will do his part,--doubt not of that. But you and I must help Him save the State.

What can we do? Next Sunday I will ask you for your charity; to-day I ask a greater gift, more than the abundance of the rich, or the poor widow's long remembered mite. I ask you for your justice. Give that to your native land. Do you not love your country? I know you do. Here are our homes and the graves of our fathers; the bones of our mothers are under the sod. The memory of past deeds is fresh with us; many a farmer's and mechanic's son inherits from his sires some cup of manna gathered in the wilderness, and kept in memory of our exodus; some stones from the Jordan, which our fathers pa.s.sed over sorely bested and hunted after; some Aaron's rod, green and blossoming with fragrant memories of the day of small things when the Lord led us--and all these attach us to our land, our native land. We love the great ideas of the North, the inst.i.tutions which they founded, the righteous laws, the schools, the churches too--do we not love all these? Aye. I know well you do. Then by all these, and more than all, by the dear love of G.o.d, let us swear that we will keep the justice of the Eternal Law. Then are we all safe. We know not what a day may bring forth, but we know that Eternity will bring everlasting peace. High in the heavens, the pole-star of the world, shines Justice; placed within us, as our guide thereto, is Conscience. Let us be faithful to that

"Which though it trembles as it lowly lies, Points to the light that changes not in heaven."

FOOTNOTES:

[18] The late Mr. John Parker.

[19] This took place at a meeting in Faneuil Hall to welcome Mr. George Thompson.

[20] At the "Union meeting" two days before the delivery of this sermon.

[21] Nor even yet. November 24, 1851.

[22] Subsequent events have shown the folly of this statement.

Clergymen, it is said, are wont to err, by overrating the moral principle of men. See the next sermon.

[23] Recent experiments fortunately confirm this, and, spite of all the unjust efforts to pack a jury, none has yet been found to punish a man for such a "Crime."

[24] Mr. William Craft, and Mrs. Ellen Craft.

[25] This also appears to have been a mistake. Still I let the pa.s.sage stand, though it is apparently not at all true.

VI.

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE.--A SERMON DELIVERED AT THE MELODEON, BOSTON, ON FAST DAY, APRIL 10, 1851.

My Friends,--This is a day of Public Humiliation and Prayer. We have one every year. It is commonly in the city churches only a farce, because there is no special occasion for it, and the general need is not felt.

But such is the state of things in the Union at this moment, and particularly in Boston, that, if it were not a custom, it would be a good thing, even if it were for the first time in the history of our country, to have such a day for Humiliation and Prayer, that we consider the state of the nation, and look at our conduct in reference to the great principles of religion, and see how we stand before G.o.d; for these are times that try men's souls.

Last Sunday, I purposely disappointed you, and turned off from what was nearest to your heart and was nearest to mine,--a subject that would have been easy to preach on without any preparation. Then I asked you to go to the Fountain of all strength, and there prepare yourselves for the evils that we know not of. To-day, the Governor has asked us to come together, and consider, in the spirit of Christianity, the public sins of the community, to contemplate the value of our inst.i.tutions, and to ask the blessing of G.o.d on the poor, the afflicted, and the oppressed. I am glad of this occasion; and I will improve it, and ask your attention to a sermon of The Chief Sins of this People.

I have said that these are times that try men's souls. This is such an occasion as never came before, and, I trust, never will again. I have much to say to you, much more than I intend to say to-day, much more than there are hours enough in this day to speak. Many things I shall pa.s.s by. I shall detain you to-day somewhat longer than is my wont; but do not fear, I will look out for your attention. I simply ask you to be calm, to be composed, and to hear with silence what I have to say.

To understand these things, we must begin somewhat far off.

The purpose of human life is to form a manly character, to get the best development of body and of spirit,--of mind, conscience, heart, soul.

This is the end: all else is the means. Accordingly, that is not the most successful life in which a man gets the most pleasure, the most money or ease, the most power of place, honor, and fame; but that in which a man gets the most manhood, performs the greatest amount of human duty, enjoys the greatest amount of human right, and acquires the greatest amount of manly character. It is of no importance whether he win this by wearing a hod upon his shoulders, or a crown upon his head.

It is the character, and not the crown, I value. The crown perishes with the head that wore it; but the character lives with the immortal man who achieved it; and it is of no consequence whether that immortal man goes up to G.o.d from a throne or from a gallows.

Every man has some one preponderating object in life,--an object that he aims at and holds supreme. Perhaps he does not know it. But he thinks of this in his day-dreams, and his dreams by night. It colors his waking hours, and is with him in his sleep. Sometimes it is sensual pleasure that he wants; sometimes money; sometimes office, fame, social distinction; sometimes it is the quiet of a happy home, with wife and children, all comfortable and blessed; sometimes it is excellence in a special science or art, or department of literature; sometimes it is a special form of philanthropy; and sometimes it is the attainment of great, manly character.

This supreme object of desire is sometimes different at different times in a man's life, but in general is mainly the same all through. For "The child is father of the man," and his days bound each to each, if not by natural piety, then by unnatural profaneness. This desire may act with different intensity in the active and pa.s.sive periods, in manhood and in age. It is somewhat modified by the season of pa.s.sion, and by the season of ambition.

If this object of special desire be worthy, so is the character in general; if base, so is the man. For this special desire becomes the master-motive in the man; and, if strong, establishes a unity in his consciousness, and calls out certain pa.s.sions, appet.i.tes, powers of mind and conscience, heart and soul; and, in a long life, the man creates himself anew in the image of his ideal desire. This desire, good or bad, which sways the man, is writ on his character, and thence copied into the countenance; and l.u.s.t or love, frivolity or science, interest or principle, mammon or G.o.d, is writ on the man. Still this unity is seldom whole and complete. With most men there are exceptional times, when they turn off a little from their great general pursuit. Simeon the Stylite comes down from his pillar-top, and chaffers in the market-place with common folks. Jeffries is even just once or twice in his life, and Wilkes is honorable two or three times. Even when the chief desire is a high and holy one, I should not expect a man to go through life without ever committing an error or a sin. When I was a youngster, just let loose from the theological school, I thought differently; but at this day, when I have felt the pa.s.sions of life, and been stirred by the ambitions of life, I know it must be expected that a man will stumble now and then. I make allowances for that in myself, as I do in others.

These are the exceptional periods in a man's life,--the eddies in the stream. The stream runs down hill all the time, though the eddy may for a time apparently run up.

Now, as with men, so it is with nations. The purpose of national life is to bring forth and bring up manly men, who do the most of human duty, have the most of human rights, and enjoy the most of human welfare. So that is not the most successful nation which fills the largest s.p.a.ce, which occupies the longest time, which produces the most cattle, corn, cotton, or cloth, but that which produces the most men. And, in reference to men, you must count not numbers barely, but character quite as much. That is not the most successful nation which has an exceptional cla.s.s of men, highly cultured, well-bodied, well-minded, well-born, well-bred, at the one end of society; and at the other a mighty mult.i.tude, an instantial cla.s.s, poor, ill-born, ill-bred, ill-bodied, and ill-minded too, as in England; but that is the most successful nation which has the whole body of its people well-born, well-bred, well-bodied, and well-minded too; and those are the best inst.i.tutions which accomplish this best; those worst, which accomplish it least. The government, the society, the school, or the church, which does this work, is a good government, society, school, or church; that which does it not, is good for nothing.

As with men, so with nations. Each has a certain object of chief desire, which object prevails over others. The nation is not conscious of it,--less so, indeed, than the individual; but, silently, it governs the nation's life. Sometimes this chief desire is the aggrandizement of the central power,--the monarchy: it was so once in France; but, G.o.d be praised! is not so now. Then devotion to the king's person was held as the greatest national excellence, and disrespect for the king was treason, the greatest national crime. The people must not dare to whisper against their king. Sometimes it is the desire to build up an aristocracy. It was once so in Venice. It may be an aristocracy of priests, of soldiers, of n.o.bles, or an aristocracy of merchants.

Sometimes it is to build up a middle cla.s.s of gentry, as in Basel and Berne. It may be a military desire, as in ancient Rome; it may be ecclesiastical ambition, as in modern Rome; or commercial ambition, as in London and many other places.

The chief object of desire is not always the same in the course of a nation's history. A nation now greatens the centripetal power, strengthening the king and weakening the people; now it greatens the centrifugal power, weakening the king and strengthening the people. But, commonly, you see some one desire runs through all the nation's history, only modified by its youth, or manhood, or old age, and by circ.u.mstances which react upon the nation as the nation acts upon them.

This chief object of desire may be permanent, and so govern the whole nation for all its history. Or it may be, on the other hand, a transient desire, which is to govern it for a time. In either case, it will appear prominently in the controlling cla.s.ses; either in the cla.s.ses which control all through, or in such as last only for a time. Thus the military desire appeared chiefly in the patricians of old Rome, and not much in the plebeians; the commercial ambition appeared in the n.o.bles of Venice; the ecclesiastical in the priests of modern Rome, where the people care little for the church, though quite as much perhaps as it deserves.

As the chief desire of the individual calls out appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions, which are the machinery of that desire, and reconstructs the man in its image; so the desire of a nation, transient or permanent, becoming the master-motive of the people, calls out certain cla.s.ses of men, who become its exponents, its machinery, and they make the const.i.tution, inst.i.tutions, and laws to correspond thereto.

As with one man, so with the millions, there may be fluctuations of purpose for a time. I cannot expect that one man, or many men, will always pursue an object without at some time violating fundamental principles. I might have thought so once. But as I live longer, and see the pa.s.sion and the ambition of men, see the force of circ.u.mstances, I know better. No ship sails across the ocean with a straight course, without changing a sail: it frequently leaves its direct line, now "standing" this way, now that; and the course is a very crooked one, although, as a whole, it is towards the mark.

America is a young nation, composite, not yet unified; and it is, therefore, not quite so easy to say what is the chief desire of the people; but, if I understand American history, this desire is the Love of Individual Liberty. Nothing has been so marked in our history as this. We are consciously, in part, yet still more unconsciously, aiming at democracy,--at a government of all the people, by all the people, and for the sake of all the people. Of course that must be a government by the higher law of G.o.d, by the Eternal Justice to which you and I and all of us owe reverence. We all love freedom for ourselves; one day we shall love it for every man,--for the tawny Indian and the sable Negro, as much as for you and me. This love of freedom has appeared in the ideas of New England,--and New England was once America; it was once the soul, although not the body of America. It appeared in its political action and its ecclesiastical action, in the State and in the church, and in all the little towns. In general, every change in the const.i.tution of a free State makes it more democratic; every change in local law is for democracy, not against it. We have broken with the old feudal tradition,--broken forever with that. I think this love of individual liberty is the specific desire of the people. If we are proud of any thing, it is of our free inst.i.tutions. I know there are men who are prouder of wealth than of any thing else: by and by I shall have a word to say of them. But in Ma.s.sachusetts, New England, in the North, if we should appeal to the great body of the people, and "poll the house," and ask of all what they were proudest of, they would not say, of our cattle, or cotton, or corn, or cloth; but it is of our freedom, of our men and women. Leaving out of the calculation the abounding cla.s.s, which is corrupt everywhere, and the perishing cla.s.s, which is the va.s.sal as it is the creature of the abounding cla.s.s, and as corrupt and selfish here as everywhere, we shall find that seven-eighths of the people of New England are eminently desirous of this one thing. This desire will carry the day in any fifty years to come, as it has done in two hundred and fifty years past. The great political names of our history are all on its side: Washington, the Adamses--both of them, G.o.d bless them!--Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, these were all friends of liberty. I know the exceptions in the history of some of these men, and do not deny them. Other American names, dear to the people, are of the same stamp.

The national literature, so far as we have any national literature, is democratic. I know there is what pa.s.ses for American literature, because it grows on American soil, but which is just as far from being indigenous to America as the orange is from being indigenous to Cape Cod. This literature is a poor, miserable imitation of the feudal literature of old Europe. Perhaps it is now the prominent literature of the time. One day America will take it and cast it out from her. The true American literature is very poor, is very weak, is almost miserable now; but it has one redeeming quality,--it is true to freedom, it is true to democracy.

In the Revolution this desire of the nation was prominent, and came to consciousness. It was the desire of the most eminent champions of liberty. At one time in the history of the nation, the platform of speakers was in advance of the floor that was covered by the people at large, because at that time the speakers became conscious of the idea which possessed the hearts of the people. That is the reason why John Hanc.o.c.k, the two Adamses, and Jefferson, came into great prominence before the people. They were more the people than the people themselves; more democratic than the democrats. I know, and I think it must be quite plain in our history, that this has been the chief desire of the people.

If so, it determines our political destination.

However, with nations as with men, there are exceptional desires; one of which, with the American nation at present, is the desire for wealth.

Just now, that is the most obvious and preponderate desire in the consciousness of the people. It has increased surprisingly in fifty years. It is the special, the chief desire of the controlling cla.s.s. By the controlling cla.s.s, I mean what are commonly called "our first men."

I admit exceptions, and state the general rule. With them every thing gives way to money, and money gives way to nothing, neither to man nor to G.o.d.

See some proofs of this. There are two ways of getting money; one is by trade, the other is by political office. The pursuit of money, in one or the other of these ways, is the only business reckoned entirely "commendable" and "respectable." There are other callings which are very n.o.ble in themselves, and deemed so by mankind; but here they are not thought "commendable" and "respectable," and accordingly you very seldom see young men, born in what is called "the most respectable cla.s.s of society," engaged in any thing except the pursuit of money by trade or by office. There are exceptions; but the sons of "respectable men," so called, seldom engage in the pursuit of any thing but money by trade or office. This is the chief desire of a majority of the young men of talent, ambition, and education. Even in colleges more respect is paid to money than to genius. The purse is put before the pen. In the churches, wealth is deemed better than goodness or piety. It names towns and colleges; and he is thought the greatest benefactor of a university who endows it with money, not with mind. In giving name to a street in Boston, you call the wealthy end after a rich man, and only the poor end after a man that was good and famous. Money controls the churches. It draws veils of cotton over the pulpit window, to color "the light that cometh from above." As yet the churches are not named after men whose only virtue is metallic, but the recognized pillars of the churches are all pillars of gold. Festus does not tremble before Paul, but Paul before Festus. The pulpit looks down to the pews for its gospel, not up to the eternal G.o.d. Is there a rich pro-slavery man in the parish? The minister does not dare read a pet.i.tion from an oppressed slave asking G.o.d that his "unalienable rights" be given him. He does not dare to ask alms for a fugitive. St. Peter is the old patron saint of the Holy Catholic Church. St. Hunker is the new patron saint of the churches of commerce, Catholic and Protestant.

Money controls the law as well as the gospel. The son of a great man and n.o.ble is forgotten if the father dies poor; but the mantle of the rich man falls on the son's shoulders. If the son be only half so manly as his sire, and twice as rich, he is sure to be doubly honored. Money supplies defects of character, defects of culture. It is deemed better than education, talent, genius, and character, all put together. Was it not written two thousand years ago in the Proverbs, it "answereth all things?" Look round and see. It does not matter how you get or keep it.

"The end justifies the means." Edmund Burke, or somebody else, said "Something must be pardoned to the spirit of liberty." Now it is "Something must be pardoned" to the love of money, nothing "to the spirit of liberty." We find that rich men will move out of town on the last day of April, to avoid taxation on the first day of May. That is nothing. It is very "respectable," very "honorable," indeed! I do not believe that there is any master-carpenter or master-blacksmith in Boston who would not be ashamed to do so. But men of the controlling cla.s.ses do not hesitate! No matter how you get money. You may rent houses for rum-shops and for brothels; you may make rum, import rum, sell rum, to the ruin of the thousands whom you thereby bring down to the kennel and the almshouse and the jail. If you get money by that, no matter: it is "clean money," however dirtily got.

A merchant can send his ships to sea, and in the slave-trade acquire gold, and live here in Boston, New York, or Philadelphia; and his gold will be good sterling gold, no matter how he got it! In political office, if you are a Senator from California or Oregon, you may draw "constructive mileage," and pay yourself two or three thousand dollars for a journey never made from home, and two or three thousand more back to your home. So you filch thousands of dollars out of the public purse, and you are the "Honorable Senator" just as before. You have got the money, no matter how. You may be a Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts, and you may take the "trust fund," offered you by the manufacturers of cotton, and be bound as their "retained attorney," by your "retaining fee," and you are still "the Honorable Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts," not hurt one jot in the eyes of the controlling cla.s.ses. If you are Secretary of State, you may take forty or fifty thousand dollars from State Street and Wall Street, and suffer no discredit at all. At one end of the Union they will deny the fact as "too atrocious to be believed" at this end they admit it, and say it was "honorable in the people to give it," and "honorable in the Secretary to take it."

"Alas! the small discredit of a bribe Scarce hurts the master, but undoes the scribe."

It would sound a little strange to some people, if we should find that the judges of a court had received forty or fifty thousand dollars from men who were plaintiffs in that Court. You and I would remember that a gift blindeth the eyes of the prudent, how much more of the profligate!

But it would be "honorable" in the plaintiffs to give it; "honorable" in the judges to take it!

Hitherto I have called your attention to the proofs of the preponderance of money. I will now point you to signs, which are not exactly proofs, of this immediate worship of money. See these signs in Boston.

When the Old South Church was built, when Christ's Church in Salem Street, when King's Chapel, when Brattle Square Church, they were respectively the costliest buildings in town. They were symbols of religion, as churches always are; symbols of the popular esteem for religion. Out of the poverty of the people, great sums of money were given for these "Houses of G.o.d." They said, like David of old, It is a shame that we dwell in a palace of cedars, and the Ark of the Most High remains under the curtains of a tent. How is it now? A crockery shop overlooks the roof-tree of the church where once the eloquence of a Channing enchanted to heaven the worldly hearts of worldly men. Now a hotel looks down on the church which was once all radiant with the sweet piety of a Buckminster. A haberdasher's warehouse overtops the church of the Blessed Trinity; the roof of the shop is almost as tall as the very tower of the church. These things are only symbols. Let us compare Boston, in this respect, with any European city that you can name; let us compare it with gay and frivolous Vienna, the gayest and most frivolous city of all Europe, not setting Paris aside. For though the surface of life in Paris sparkles and glitters all over with radiant and iridescent and dazzling bubbles, empty and ephemeral, yet underneath there flows a stream which comes from the great fountain of nature, and tends on to the ocean of human welfare. No city is more full of deep thought and earnest life. But in Vienna it is not so. Yet even there, above the magnificence of the Herrenga.s.se, above the proud mansions of the Esterhazys and the Schwartzenbergs and the Lichtensteins, above the costly elegance of the imperial palace, St. Stephen's Church lifts its tall spire, and points to G.o.d all day long and all the night, a still and silent emblem of a power higher than any mandate of the Kings of earth; ay, to the Infinite G.o.d. Men look up to its cross overtowering the frivolous city, and take a lesson! Here, Trade looks down to find the church.

I am glad that the churches are lower than the shops. I have said it many times, and I say it now. I am glad they are less magnificent than our banks and hotels. I am glad that haberdashers' shops look down on them. Let the outward show correspond to the inward fact. If I am pinched and withered by disease, I will not disguise it from you by wrappages of cloth; but I will let you see that I am shrunken and shrivelled to the bone. If the pulpit is no nearer heaven than the tavern-bar, let that fact appear. If the desk in the counting-room is to give law to the desk in the church, do not commit the hypocrisy of putting the pulpit-desk above the counting-room. Let us see where we are.

The consequence of such causes as are symbolized by these facts must needs appear in our civilization. Men tell us there is no law higher than mercantile! Do you wonder at it? It was said in deeds before words; the architecture of Boston told it before the politicians. Money is the G.o.d of our idolatry. Let the fact appear in his temples. Money is master now, all must give way to it,--that to nothing: the church, the State, the law, is not for man, but money.

Let the son of a distinguished man beat a watchman, knowing him to be such, and be brought before a Justice (it would be "levying war" if a mulatto had done so to the marshal); he is bailed off for two hundred dollars. But let a black man have in his pockets a weapon, which the Const.i.tution and laws of Ma.s.sachusetts provide that any man may have if he please, he is brought to trial and bound over for--two hundred dollars, think you? No! but for six hundred dollars! three times as much as is required of the son of the Secretary of State for a.s.saulting a magistrate![26]

The Secretary of State publicly declared, a short time since, that "The great object of government is the protection of property at home, and respect and renown abroad." I thank him for teaching us that word!