of God. Does He not work by His Spirit? He has breathed it, in some
measure, into all creatures, chiefly into man; and is it not the necessity
of its nature to work? There is something of it in every living thing, and
this something is its true life. From our abounding harvests select a
grain of wheat or corn. Within that little seed lodges a power which no
man fully comprehends, but which is essential to the world's life. Ask it
to explain itself, and it says not a word; grind it to powder, and the
dust is but dust. Keep it whole, and in the spring-time within the ground,
its spirit will come out first in the green blade, and last in the golden
ears. This is always the method of God, to work from within outward; from
the spirit to the work. What is the course of nature but the going forth
of life from the spirit to the work, and from the work back again to the
spirit, all genuine growth multiplying the vitality from which it sprung?
It is what the philosopher calls the law of ultimates, or the process
from firsts to lasts and from lasts to firsts. The Gospel is its best
illustration; for it put a new spirit into men, and worked itself out in
new works, all its works diffusing and quickening the spirit from which
they sprung. It took hold of the world practically, and made it a business
to do away with old evils, and build up a kingdom more enlarged, and
kindly, and pure,--more spiritual than the earth had seen before.
But how apply these thoughts to business now,--how insist upon fervor of
spirit in pursuits whose aim is money-making; and, on our own principles,
is not the spirit of trade itself the thing needed? We reply that
money-making of itself is not the proper or the general end of trade, but
only a means to a higher end. Trade is one of the essential forms of
industry, and a true man will pursue it that he may do his part well in
the world, and care well for all who depend upon or who justly claim his
care. Money is one step in the process, not the end, and that man is a
poor creature, below even the common worldly standard, whose success,
instead of fixing his thoughts on his hoards, does not fill his mind and
heart with new hopes for his family and friends, and people his unromantic
counting-house with hovering images of his children and home, visions of
ampler culture and nobler charities. Leaving out of the account some
miserable creatures, who heap up gold for themselves, and crush their
heart under the heap, we must allow that there is much heart in trade, and
the better class of business men have kindly and elevated aims in view.
How much the arts and sciences, letters, philanthropy, and religion, owe
to the merchant, the whole career of commerce shows. Think of what trade
has done for the higher aims of society; study the fruits of commerce in
modern times; read of the Medici, the Roscoes, the Gurneys, and the noble
men in our land who have endowed our best institutions, and say what you
please of the miser, but say not a word against the true merchant. Justice
may be his ruling virtue, but mercy is not wholly absent, since
forgiveness is often called for, and no liberal merchant can be found who
cannot repeat honestly the prayer, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive
our debtors." There is much heart in trade, yet not enough by any means,
and a cold worldliness sometimes gains ground with those worthy of better
things, and, in fact, desirous of better things. Men worthy of better
things become more superficial and ostentatious with time and increased
means, and, instead of acting independently and sensibly, join in vain
rivalry of a set of people, whose emptiness is proved every time their
mouths are opened. When shall the due check be found, and the true heart
abound, and the spirit be fervent indeed?
* * * * *
We rest our answer upon the last clause of the apostle: "Serving the
Lord." It places before us distinctly the true end of life,--the service
of God, and insists upon our regarding this in the choice and conduct of
our business, so that it shall be a part of our religion. Does this seem
chimerical? Not so; for it is surely the only view of religion that
business men will consent to call practical. They think little of mere
professions, and judge of men by their doings. They make merry at the
thought of trusting a man's word, because he belongs to some specified
church; and they can quote too many cases of solemn persons who try to
trade upon their alleged piety, who seem to think long prayers an offset
to a little double dealing, and who, in more ways than one, shorten the
commandments to piece out the catechism. Such judgment is well, only let
it be consistent, and teach the judging party to look well to its ways,
and lay hold of the substance in disgust at the mere shadow.
Here is the liberal and strict doctrine: that all of life is under God's
government, and should be conformed to the order of His law and
Providence. Our business is part of our life, and should bear upon its
highest spiritual interest. Any principle short of this is utter
worldliness, and any principle that goes further than this, and shuts
religion up in creeds and forms, is bigotry and superstition. The
principle comes to nothing, unless it shapes our plans, and we start and
go on with the resolution not to sacrifice true life in pursuit of the
means of living. It comes to nothing, unless we follow a plan which makes
a business of religion, instead of a religion of business, and insists
upon a daily method which will give the mind and heart its due, careful
quite as much of the claims of home affections, refined tastes, and
elevating thoughts, as of the price-current and the market-place. Business
is full of stubborn facts, and the true service of God or religion must
be made as stubborn a fact as any of them, and keep its ground for all
honesty, and purity, and kindness, and fidelity. It may be done, and the
very method and energy trained in practical affairs may complete the plan
of true living, and make and keep a place in the heart for home and
friends, for humanity and God.
Is there not imperious call for such service,--for a decided stand in
behalf of the moral and spiritual interests of our being? If men are ever
so successful, how poor their success is apart from generous and Christian
aims,--how poor is wealth, if it is only the means of a demoralizing
extravagance, and he who began life as an industrious worker sinks into a
swollen Sybarite, pampering his daughters into simpering, vaporing
fashionists, and his sons into dainty, inefficient, good-for-nothing
spendthrifts. How noble, on the other hand, is success, when it helps out
worthy aims; and the friend of arts and letters, charity and piety, it
gives peace to the soul in rendering service to God. If success do not
come, and reverses follow, how essential is the stronghold of faith and
peace, which will not fail to keep a man safe from the worst evil if he
has faithfully kept himself within its covert. For the demands of either
fortune, as well as for the good, not temporal but eternal, men are called
to add to their diligence in business fervor of spirit in the service of
God.
* * * * *
Street-preaching is, we are told, to be the order of the day, and the poor
and neglected are to hear the Word from lips before strange to them. Not
only in the haunts of the miserable, and the streets narrow and wretched,
is such ministry needed. Many a street, stately with warehouses and banks,
needs more than any thing a voice that can reach the heart, and enlist the
chiefs of business in a service better than luxury and worldliness. No
revival is more demanded than the conversion of the votaries of wealth,
not to some new creed or mannerism, but to a true and godly way of life.
In some way this must be done, and God must have the sagacity and force
for his own cause which are so often in bondage to the world. His spirit
must breathe new life along the great arteries of trade, and make men
better without making them less strong, multiplying the examples of
characters like Gurney the banker, devout and charitable without ceasing
to be shrewd, or, like Peel the statesman, using the comprehensive
judgment, learned in practical business, for the welfare of his country
and the glory of God. We need and must have a new order of men, and of
their coming many bright signs appear,--men at once practical and
spiritual, knowing well the world and its ways; not to be its servants,
but to subdue its fierce forces into obedience to the kingdom not of this
world. There are dreamers enough, and drudges enough. The want is of men
with eyes wide open, and hearts quick and true. In no age more than ours
has the deep need and earnest hope of society better interpreted the
apostle's definition of a truly practical man, "Not slothful in business,
fervent in spirit, serving the Lord."
God himself seems to stoop from heaven and show the worth of this
character, in showing in himself the grand archetype of the practical
mind. Nearer he comes, and reveals in all powers and laws, in the light,
and air, and rain, in tree and rock, in earth and man, the working of his
mind. He tells us anew, that he made the world, and that we find out the
wisdom of his work, as we learn to do our work wisely. With him the useful
goes with the lovely and the spiritual. Every dew-drop or sunbeam does a
mighty business for him, and shows his loveliness and illustrates his
service as it cheers the landscapes and helps the harvest. With reverence
be it spoken, yet with all confidence: the God in whose image we are made
is the eternal exemplar of the practical mind. In Christ we are followers
of him when we do all our work earnestly, spiritually, faithfully, under
his government; and open within our business a door into all the home
affections and friendly graces of the earth,--all the sweet charities and
blessed hopes of heaven.
Let not the thought lose itself in generalities. Our business men are
strong and earnest in many things, and are probably as enterprising and
efficient as any set of men in the world. Merchants, do you hold precious
your written obligations? What of the unwritten? What would your credit be
if you slighted your business promises as you often slight your Christian
obligations, and treated the world as you treat the moral and spiritual
interests of your home and church? Think seriously and do better. In
spirit and in truth as well as in energy, be "followers of God as dear
children."
Your pursuits train you to calculation; despise not the word, but keep it,
and weigh it well. It is a noble word, and the calculus is one line of the
Divine reason. God calculates,--he geometrizes--he seeks due proportion,
and number, and weight,--he counts time, and the round of the seasons; and
the paths of the planets point the days, even the seconds, on the
dial-plate of the heavens, and prove the punctuality of God. Calculate
well and as he does. The good Samaritan calculated when he took care of
the wounded man, and the priest calculated as he left him by the
road-side. Howard calculated when he gathered the statistics of
philanthropy, and Arnold calculated when he sold his country for gold and
ambition. Judas calculated when he betrayed his Master for the pieces of
silver, and Jesus calculated when he asked, "What does it profit a man if
he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in
exchange for his soul?"
Among the great facts of our welfare, place the mind and heart, home
affections, heavenward thoughts, and our business will have new blessings
from Him whom we serve.
Summer in the Country.
SUMMER IN THE COUNTRY.
That was a beautiful and expressive ordinance of the Old Dispensation
which enjoined a rural festival upon the conscience of the faithful. Every
year the whole nation were ordered to pass a week in rural bowers woven of
the boughs of goodly trees, in remembrance of the time when their fathers
dwelt in the wilderness, and God led them to the Land of Promise. By the
Israelites, the ancient festival is still remembered, and one of the most
gifted of their modern writers thus describes its observance in Southern
Europe.
"Large branches of the palm and cedar, the willow, acacia and the oak, cut
so as to prevent their withering for the seven days, formed the walls of
the tent; their leaves intermingling overhead so as to form a shelter, and
yet permit the beautiful blue of the heavens to peep within. Flowers of
every shade and scent formed a bordering within, and bouquets, richly and
tastefully arranged, placed in vases, filled with scented earth, hung from
the branches forming the roof. Fruit, too, was there,--the purple grape,
the ripe, red orange, the paler lemon, the lime, the pomegranate, the
citron."
This festival in its ancient form, Christians do not observe, although we
may see some of its traces in the camp-meetings of Methodism and in the
evergreen boughs of Catholicism. Yet its essential idea should, and does
remain. Each year we are sadly dull and worldly, if the luxuriance of
summer does not lift our thoughts to Him who sustained our fathers in
their hard conflict with rude nature, and enabled them to change the
savage wilderness into fertile fields, and peaceful groves. Grovelling
indeed we are, if, upon our return from the pleasant retreats where we
have sought rest and recreation, we cannot bring back some grateful
remembrances of what we have seen and enjoyed in rural places.
The old festival, kept as it was by the whole nation at Jerusalem, in
green tents, was a kind of annual consecration of the relation between the
city and the country. Thus the feast had at once a special and an
universal meaning. The bigot may have thought only of the years of
wandering, when, in nomad tents, the chosen race escaped from their
oppressors. But more enlarged and sensitive minds, of the race of David
and Isaiah, interpreted the season far more generously; and we are assured
by the presence of Him who went from Nazareth to take part in the scene,
that some eyes looked upon those rural tabernacles which stood among the
streets of Jerusalem, as emblems of the permanent relations which man
should sustain to nature,--of the constant ministry of the works of God to
man.
Our topic now is the relation between the town and the country, especially
the power of rural life upon them who dwell in cities.
* * * * *
We consider first the various objects which present themselves for
contemplation. Cowper's contrast may have been too strong, when he said
that "God made the country, and man made the town," for, in both places,
we are surrounded by the works of God and man. The farm, as well as the
busy street, shows what human toil can do, and they that live in cities
are in themselves, and in the plenty that sustains them, constant proofs
of the bounty of God; whilst upon all places the sunshine and the rain do
fall with equal mercy. Yet, in the country, we see more of nature in its
divine adaptations, less perverted by the artifices of man. The eye is not
limited by streets and walls to some narrow spot, nor is the landscape
curtailed of its breadth and beauty to suit the grasping policy of
traffic. Generally the hand of rural art and labor rather interprets than
obscures the plan of nature. The regions well cultivated are often the
most picturesque, and at once charm by their scenery, and instruct by
their varied uses and adaptations. We see man in just relations towards
the soil as its cultivator, and towards the animal world as their master
and friend. He lives in close sympathy with the heavens, the earth, the
animated tribes. The sun in its rise, and course, and setting, counts to
him the hours, and divides his times of labor and repose. He breathes the
air as the Creator mingled it, and draws from the soil something of that
quickening, vital force, which the great Mother never refuses to her
children, who seek her. He enlarges the circle of his friendships more
widely even than in metropolitan coteries, and has friends among birds and
fowls; while, with the sheep, and horse, and ox, as well as with kindly
neighbors, he can keep company. He is daily called to see the harmonious
plan of the universe, the co-operation between light, and air, and rain,
and dew, between all elements and all creatures in the universe of God. In
fact, apart from any philosophical curiosity, the very necessity of his
calling must make him not a little a sage in the observation of nature.
When science is added to observation, the greater, of course, the
privilege of his position, the more readily does he unlock the treasures
around him, and his rural hours may be hours of favored vision, nay, of
sacred communion.
But is not man the crown of nature? and where is man to be found in such
perfection, as in the great centres where men congregate? If we would be
wise, why not seek the great multitude and dwell most among the crowd? I
will not disparage city life as a school of instruction in the science of
human nature. He who knows nothing of the great market-places, and social
resorts of his race, is ignorant certainly of our nature under very
important aspects. But to be constantly mingling with men, is a very
different thing from the true knowledge of man. The judicious analysis of
a few characters will teach more wisdom than a superficial observation of
ten thousand passers by, just as the dissection of a plant or an animal
shows more of its structure than a glance at a whole kingdom or continent
frequented by the same tribes. Human nature may be wisely studied wherever
it is to be found, and if extent, as well as sharpness of observation is
essential, we must remember that all men do not live in cities; that the
country has its own forms of humanity; and moreover, that they who dwell
among the great crowd, learn best in more quiet scenes to judge of the
true meaning of the bustling life around them; and they that are wisest in
their views of the busy town, are they who have been able to survey its
characters and circumstances frequently, from the commanding elevation and
distance of rural retirement.
Men and their arts, indeed, appear in utmost number and force in cities;
but without the constant reinforcements from the country, the tribute of
fresh energy and enterprise, the products of mechanical ingenuity, and of
agricultural labor, the metropolis would soon languish, deprived at once
of its daily bread, and its best intellectual resources. Even the
beautiful arts, which adorn the homes and halls of cities, appeal to an
eye and taste that ought to be well schooled in the observation of nature,
and the canvas can never reveal its best meaning to minds conversant only
with crowded streets and busy marts. If we must go to the city to see the
gathered treasures of rural labor and skill, we must go to the country to
learn to comprehend the affluence of the city, to understand the secret of
its wealth, and to interpret the wonders of its useful and beautiful
arts.
Surely, then, we cannot but recognize the worth of the country in respect
to the objects which it presents. Its beauty, although in some measure
expressive of the work of man's hand, is most eloquent with the glory of
God. Its plainest utilities bloom into loveliness, and to a devout ear
sing out in anthems. Its wealth speaks less of man's arrogance than of
heaven's bounty. We might institute in this respect a comparison between
the pursuits of men in town and country. They are in both situations
toiling for gain, and in both cases more or less in competition with men,
and in contact with natural laws. But in the country, men depend less upon
shrewd bargaining, and far more upon the direct return of their labor in
the products of the soil. They deal more directly with their Creator, and
there is more constancy and security, if not so much excitement of hope
and fear in their gains. Refreshing and instructive it is for those whose
business habits lead them to look upon the chances of traffic as the
source of wealth, to learn for themselves how much stronger security the
Creator has given for the sustenance of man; and important as are finance
and traffic, the best treasures of man come from the soil in return for
his skill and industry. Surely the pursuits most habitual in rural life
teach many a sober lesson to men fevered with the competitions of traffic.
We might show also that the country may afford quite as valuable hints in
the simplicity of its pleasures, as in the sobriety of its industry. They
who are in the habit of regarding enjoyment as the result of some costly
dissipation, need to learn of nature a stern, yet blessed lesson, and
find that true happiness is not a far-fetched luxury, but is very near us,
when we live near to God, and true to his laws. Wretched are they who make
of their seasons of recreation but a new round of dissipation, and repeat
the orgies of the winter in the retreats of the summer!
* * * * *
It is often asked whether life in the town or the country is, on the
whole, most favorable to the formation of character,--the pursuit of true
wisdom, virtue, happiness. Without being obliged to take either side of
the question, it is sufficient at present to urge the importance of
guarding against the peculiar exposures of each condition; and especially,
of urging people of the town to look well to the sins that beset them, and
seek in the broad fields truths that they need in their own homes.
They live in the midst of excitement and need sobriety. If they have more
intensity, they have also more fever of mind, and may take counsel wisely
of those whose temper is more serene, if, perhaps, sometimes more
sluggish, and whose habits are likely to be more equable, if in danger of
becoming sometimes monotonous. We absolutely need the influence of rural
life to soothe our spirits and calm our nerves. The pulse itself abates
its fevered beat, and the heart is quieted down into harmony with the
gentler pulse of nature. If the town offers stimulus to the visitor from
the country, the country repays the gift by giving calmness, and thus the
power of new energy to the visitor from the city.
A serene frame of body and mind is certainly one requisite of wisdom, and
not the only requisite which rural life favors. We need to look beyond the
horizon of fashion and conventionality, which we are so apt to mistake for
the entire world, and correct our observations by careful notes of those
forms of rural life, which, after all our city pride, we must regard as
most expressive of the common lot of man in all nations and ages. The man
who sums up all his views of rural manners in the contemptuous word
_countrified_, will do well to remember that there is not a little reason
to form a more contemptuous word in reference to such persons as himself,
and call the fop, who mistakes his circle of loiterers for the human race,
and his haunts of folly for the world of wisdom, as sillier than the
simplest rustic, farther from the true mark in being _citified_ than the
latter in being _countrified_. They that dwell in crowds very easily
become very knowing, but not necessarily wise. They that frequent the
haunts of vice and frivolity learn many things that do but add to their
folly. They do not view life in its best aspects and true aims, nor
interpret it as its Divine Author teaches. Even those whose minds are open
to the true science of humanity, need to flee from the crowd to ponder
soberly upon its lessons. In the busy world, they are constantly finding
seeds of thought, but in a far less troubled soil these seeds must be
nurtured and matured. Probably the wisest meditations upon man, society,
Providence, have been engaged in by persons well taught indeed in the ways
of the great world, but ruminating in quiet upon its teachings, and
correcting the prejudices of the hour by the sober reasonings of calmer
scenes and influences. To such truthful judgment of distant things
surveyed from its serener retreats, rural life adds a wisdom peculiarly
its own,--a wisdom such as Solomon so sagaciously incorporated in his
proverbs, and Jesus so divinely presented in his parables.