Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

worth his troubling himself about it; his aim, his plan, his course is a different one, and the implication is a wiser one.

Yes, the very wisdom implied in religion is frequently accounted to be wisdom of but an humble order; the wisdom of dulness or of superstitious fancy or fear; or, at most, a very scholastic, abstract, useless wisdom. And the very homage which is usually paid to religion, the hackneyed acknowledgment that it is very well, very proper, a very good thing; or the more solemn, if not more dull confession of "the great importance of religion;" and more especially the demure and mechanical manner in which these things are said, proclaim, as plainly as anything can, that it has not yet become a living interest in the hearts of men. It has never, in fact, taken its proper place among human concerns. I am afraid it must be said that with most men, the epithet most naturally attaching itself to religion, to religious services, to prayers, to books of sermons, is the epithet dull. And it is well known, as a fact very illustrative of this state of mind, that for a long time, parents in this country were wont to single out and destine for the ministry of religion the dullest of their sons.

I know of nothing more important, therefore, than to show that religion takes its place among objects that are of actual concern to men and to all men; that its interests are not only of the most momentous, but of the most practical character; that the wisdom that winneth souls, the religion that takes care for them, is the most useful, the most reasonable of all wisdom and discipline. It is of the care of the soul, then, that I would speak; of its wisdom, of its reasonableness, of its actual interest to the common sense and welfare of men.

The ministry of the gospel is often denominated the care of souls; and I consider this language, rightly explained, as conveying a very comprehensive and interesting description of the office. It is the care of souls. This is its whole design, and ought to be its whole direction, impulse, strength, and consolation. And this, too, if it were justly felt, would impart an interest, an expansion, a steady energy, a constant growth, and a final and full enlargement to the mind of the Christian teacher, not surpassed, certainly, in any other profession or pursuit in life. Whether the sacred office has had this effect to as great an extent as other professions, is, to the clergy at least, a very serious question. I am obliged to doubt whether it has. Certainly, to say that its spirit has been characterized by as much natural warmth and hearty earnestness as that of other pursuits; that its eloquence has been as free and powerful as that of the senate and the bar; that its literature has been as rich as that of poetry or even of fiction, this is more than I dare aver.

But not to dwell on this question: it is to my present purpose to observe, that the very point from which this want of a vivid perception of religious objects has arisen, is the very point from which help must come. Men have not perceived the interests of the mind and heart to be the realities that they are. Here is the evil, and here we must find the remedy. Let the moral states, experiences, feelings of the soul, become but as interesting as the issue of a lawsuit, the success of business, or the result of any worldly enterprise, and there would be no difficulty; there would be no complaint of dulness, either from our own bosoms or from the lips of others.

Strip off from the inward soul those many folds and coverings-the forms and fashions of life, the robes of ambition, the silken garments of luxury, the fair array of competence and comfort, and the fair semblances of comfort and happiness-strip the mind naked and bare to the view, and unfold those workings within, where feelings and principles make men happy, or miserable; and we should no more have such a thing as religious indifference in the world! Sin there might be-outbreaking passion, outrageous vice; but apathy there could not be. It would not require a sentiment of rectitude even, it would hardly need that a man should have any religion at all, to feel an interest in things so vital to his welfare. Why do men care as they do for worldly things? Is it not because they expect happiness, or think to ward off misery with them? Only let them be convinced, then, that happiness and misery depend much more upon the principles and affections of their own minds, and would they not transfer the greater portion of their interest to those principles and affections? Would it not result from a kind of mental necessity, like that which obliges the artisan to look to the mainspring of his machinery? Add, then, to this distinct perception of the real sources of happiness, an ardent benevolence, an earnest desire for men's welfare; and from this union would spring that spiritual zeal, that ardour in the concerns of religion and benevolence, of which so much is said, so little is felt, and of which the deficiency is so much lamented. I am willing to make allowance for constitutional differences of temperament, and indeed for many difficulties; but still I maintain that there is enough in the power of religious truths and affections to overcome all obstacles. I do maintain, that if the objects of religion were perceived to be what they are, and were felt as they ought to be, and as every man is capable of feeling them, we should no more have such things among us as dull sermons, or dull books of piety, or dull conferences on religion, than dull conversations on the exchange, or dull pleadings at the bar, or even than dull communications of slander by the fire-side.

I have thus far been engaged with stating the obvious utility and certain efficacy of the right conviction on this subject. But I have done it as preliminary to a closer argument for the right conviction. Let us, then, enter more fully upon consideration of the great spiritual interest. Let us, my brethren, enter somewhat at large into the consideration of religion as an interest; and of the place which it occupies among human interests. Among the cares of life, let us consider the care of the soul. For it is certain that the interior, the spiritual being, has as yet obtained no just recognition in the maxims of this world.

The mind, indeed-if we would but understand it is the great central power in the movements of this world's affairs. All the scenes of this life, from the busiest to the most quiet, from the gravest to the gayest, are the varied developments of that same mind. The world is spread out as a theatre for one great action-the action of the mind; and it is so to be regarded, whether as a sphere of trial or of suffering, of enjoyment or of discipline, of private interests or of public history. Life, with all its cares and pursuits, with all its aspects of the superficial, the frivolous, and the gross, is but the experience of a mind. Life, I say dull, plodding, weary life, as many call it, is, after all, a

D

spiritual scene; and this is the description of it that is of the deepest import to us.

I know and repeat, that the appearances of things, to many at least, are widely different from this representation. I am not ignorant of the prevailing and worldly views of this subject. There are some, I know, who look upon this life as a scene not of spiritual interests, but of worldly pleasures. The gratifications of sense, the opportunities of indulgence, the array in which fashion clothes its votaries, the splendour of entertainments, the fascinations of amusement, absorb them; or absorb at least all the admiration they feel for the scene of this life. Upon others, again, I know that the cloud of affliction descends; and it seems to them to come down visibly. Evil and trouble are to them, mainly, things of condition and circumstance. They are thinking chiefly of this thing as unfortunate, and of that as sad; and they forget that intrinsic character of the mind which lends the darkest hue, and which might give an aspect of more than earthly brightness to all their sufferings. And then again; to the eyes of others toil presents itself; with rigid sinews and strong arm, indeed, but weary too-weary, worn down with fatigue, and perhaps disconsolate in spirit. And to its earthly-minded victims-for victims they are with that mind-it seems, I know, as if this world were made but to work in; and as if death, instead of being the grand entrance to immortality, were sufficiently commended to them as a rest and a release. And last of all, gain, the master-pursuit of all, since it ministers to all other pursuits, urges its objects upon our attention. There are those, I know, to whom this world-world of spiritual probation and immortal hope as it is-is but one great market-place; a place for buying and selling and getting profit; a place in which to hoard treasures, to build houses, to enjoy competence, or to lavish wealth.

And these things, I know, are called interests. The matters of religion are instructions; aye, and excellent instructions-for men can garnish with epithets of eulogium the objects on which they are to bestow nothing but praise. And such, alas! are too often the matters of religion; they are excellent instructions, glorious doctrines, solemn ordinances, important duties; but to the mass of mankind they are not yet interests. That brief word, with no epithet, with no pomp of language about it, expresses more, far more, than most men ever really attribute to religion and the concerns of the soul. Nay, and the interest that is felt in religion-I have spoken of dulness-but the interest that is felt in religion is often of a very doubtful, superficial unreal character. Discourses upon religion excite a kind of interest, and sometimes it might seem as if that interest were strong. And strong of its kind it may be. But of what kind is it? How deep, how efficient is it? How many are there that would forego the chance of a good mercantile speculation, for the moral effect of the most admirable sermon that ever was preached? Oh, no: then it is a different thing. Religion is a good thing by the bye; it is a pleasant thing for entertainment; it is a glorious thing to muse and meditate upon; but bring it into competition or comparison with real interests, and then, to many, it at once becomes something subtile, spiritual, invisible, imperceptible:- it weighs nothing, it counts nothing, it will sell for nothing, and in thousands of scenes, in thousands of dwellings in this world, it is held to

be good for nothing! This statement, God knoweth, is made with no lightness of spirit, though it had almost carried me, from the vividness of the contrast which it presents, to lightness of speech. How sad and lamentable is it, that beings whose soul is their chief distinction, should imagine that the things which most concern them are things of appearance. I said, the vividness of the contrast; yet in truth it has been but half exhibited. It seems like extravagance to say it, but I believe it is sober truth, that there are many whom the very belief, the acknowledged record of their immortality has never interested half so deeply as the frailest leaf on which a bond or a note is writtenmany whom no words of the gospel ever aroused and delighted, and kindled to such a glow of pleasure as a card of compliment or a sentence of human eulogium! Indeed, when we draw a line of division between the worldly and spiritual, between the beings of the world and the beings of the soul, between creatures of the outside and creatures of the intellect and of immortality, how few will really be found among the elect, the chosen, and faithful. And how many, who could scarcely suspect it, perhaps, would be found on the side of the world-would be found among those who, in their pursuits and judgments, are more affected by appearances than by realities; who are more powerfully acted upon by outward possessions than by inward qualities; who, even in their loftiest sentiments, their admiration of great and good men, have their enthusiasm full as much awakened by the estimation in which those men are held as by their real merits.

And when we consider all this, when we look upon the strife of human passions too, the zeal, the eagerness, the rivalship, the noise and bustle with which outward things are sought; the fear, the hope, the joy, the sorrow, the discontent, the pride of this world-all, to so great an extent, fastening themselves upon what is visible and tangible, it is not strange that many should come almost insensibly to feel as if they dwelt in a world of appearances, and as if nothing were real and valuable but what is seen and temporal. It is not altogether strange that the senses have spread a broad veil of delusion over the earth, and that the concerns of every man's mind and heart have been covered up and kept out of sight by a mass of forms and fashions, and of things called interests.

And yet, notwithstanding all these aspects of things, I maintain, and I will show, that the real and main interest which concerns every man lies in the state of his own mind; that habits are of far more consequence to him than possessions and treasures; that affections, simple and invisible things though they be, are worth more to him than rich dwellings, and broad lands, and coveted honours. I maintain, that no man is so worldly, or covetous, or voluptuous-that no man is so busy, or ambitious, or frivolous, but this is true of him. Let him be religious or not religious, let him be the merest slave of circumstances, the merest creature of vanity and compliment that ever existed, and still it is true, and none the less true, that his welfare lies within. There are no scenes of engrossing business, tumultuous pleasure, hollow-hearted fashion, or utter folly, but the deepest principles of religion are concerned with them. Indeed, I look upon all these varied pursuits as the strugglings of the deeper mind,-as the varied developments of the one great desire of happiness. And he who forgets that deeper mind, and sees nothing, and thinks of

nothing but the visible scene, I hold to be as unwise as the man who, entering upon the charge of one of our manufactories, should gaze upon the noisy and bustling apparatus above, should occupy himself with its varied movements, its swift and bright machinery, and its beautiful fabrics, and forget the mighty wheel that moves all from beneath.

But let us pursue the argument. The mind, it will be recollected, is that which is happy or unhappy-not goods and fortunes; not even the senses; they are but the inlets of pleasure to the mind. But this, as it is a mere truism, though a decisive one in the case, is not the proposition which I am to maintain. Neither am I to argue, on the other hand, that the mind is independent of circumstances; that its situation, in regard to wealth or poverty, distinction or neglect, society or solitude, is a thing of no consequence. As well say that its relation to health or sickness is a thing of no consequence. But this I say and maintain, that what every man has chiefly at stake, lies in the mind; that his excellence depends entirely upon that; that his happiness ordinarily depends more upon the mind itself, upon its own state and character, than upon any outward condition; that those evils with which the human race is afflicted are mainly evils of the mind; and that the care of the soul which religion enjoins, is the grand and only remedy for human wants and woes.

The considerations which bear upon this estimate of the real and practical welfare of men, may be drawn from every sphere of human life and action; from every contemplation of mankind, whether in their condition, relations, or attributes: from society, from God's providence, from human nature itself. Let us, then, in the first place, consider society in several respects; in a general view of the evils that disturb or afflict it; in its intercourse; in its domestic scenes; in its religious institutions; and in its secular business and worldly condition. These topics will occupy the time that remains for our present meditation. It is the more desirable to give some latitude to this part of our illustration, because it is in social interests and competitions especially, that men are apt to be worldly; i. e. to be governed by considerations extrinsic and foreign to the soul. The social man, indeed, is often worldly, while the same man in retirement is, after his manner, devout. What, then, are the evils in society at large? I answer, they are, mainly, evils of the mind. Let us descend to particulars. Some, for instance, are depressed and irritated by neglect, and others are elated and injured by flattery. These are large classes of society around us; and the first, I think, by far the largest class. Both are unfortunate, both are wrong, probably; and not only so, but society is wrong for treating them in these ways, and the wrong, the evil in every instance, lies in the mind. Some, again, want excitement, want object; and duty and religion would fill their hearts with constant peace, and with a plenitude of happy thoughts. Others want restraint, want the power to deny themselves, and want to know that such selfdenial is blessed; and true piety would teach them this lofty knowledge; true piety would gently and strongly control all their passions. In short, ennui and excess, intemperance, slander, variance, rivalship, pride, and envy,--these are the miseries of society, and they are all miseries that exist in the mind. Where would our account end if we were to enumerate all the things that awaken our fears in the

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »