ENTHUSIASM OF BENEFICENCE.
To say that the principle of disinterested benevolence had never been
known among men before the publication of Christianity would be an
exaggeration;—an exaggeration very similar to that of affirming that the
doctrine of immortality was new to mankind when taught by our Lord. In
truth, the one had, in every age, been imperfectly practised, and the
other dimly supposed; yet neither the one principle nor the other
existed in sufficient strength to be the source of any very substantial
benefit to mankind. But Christ, while he emphatically "brought life and
immortality to light," and so claimed to be the Author of hope for man,
did also with such effect lay the hand of his healing power upon the
human heart, long palsied by sensualities and selfishness, that it has
ever since shed forth a fountain of active kindness, largely available
for the relief of want and misery.
As a matter of history, unquestionable and conspicuous, Christianity
has, in every age, fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and redeemed
the captive, and visited the sick. It has put to shame the atrocities of
the ancient popular amusements, and has annihilated sanguinary rites,
and has brought slavery into disesteem and disuse, and has abolished
excruciating punishments: it has even softened the ferocity of war; and,
in a word, is seen constantly at work, edging away oppressions, and
moving on towards the perfect triumph which avowedly it meditates—that
of removing from the earth every woe which the inconsideration, or the
selfishness, or the malignancy of man inflicts upon his fellows.
It remains, then, to ask, By what _special_ means has Christianity
effected these ameliorations? and it will be found, that the power and
success of that new principle of benevolence which is taught in the
Scriptures, are not more remarkable than are its constitution and its
ingredients. Christian philanthropy, though it takes up among its
elements the native benevolence of the human heart, is a compound
principle, essentially differing from the spontaneous sympathies of our
nature. Now, as this new and composite benevolence has, by a trial of
eighteen centuries, and under every imaginable diversity of
circumstance, proved its practical efficiency, and its immense
superiority over the crude elementary principle of mere kindness, it
would be a violation of the acknowledged methods of modern science to
adhere pertinaciously to the old and inefficient element, and to contemn
the improved principle. All we have to do on an occasion wherein the
welfare of our fellows is so deeply interested, is to take care that our
own benevolence, and the benevolence which we recommend to others, is of
the true and genuine sort; in other words, that it is Christian. If, as
every one would profess, we desire to live, not for selfish pleasure,
but to promote the happiness of others, if we would become, not idle
well-wishers to our species, not closet philanthropists, dreaming of
impracticable reforms, and grudging the cost of any effective relief,
but real benefactors to mankind, we must take up the lessons of New
Testament philanthropy, just as they lie on the page before us, and
without imagining simpler methods, follow humbly in the track of
experience. By this Book alone have men been effectively taught to do
good.
A low rate of activity, prompted merely by the spontaneous kindness of
the heart, may easily take place without incurring the danger of
enthusiastical excesses; but how is enough of moral movement to be
obtained for giving impulse to a course of arduous and perilous labors
such as the woes of mankind often call for, and yet without generating
the extravagances of a false excitement? This is a problem solved only
by the Christian scheme, and in briefly enumerating the peculiarities of
the benevolence which it inspires, we shall not fail to catch a glimpse,
at least, of that profound skill which makes provision, on the one side
against inertness and selfishness, and on the other against enthusiasm.
The _peculiarities_ of Christian philanthropy are such as these: it is
vicarious, obligatory, rewardable, subordinate to an efficient agency,
and it is an expression of grateful love.
* * * * *
I. That great principle of vicarious suffering which forms the centre of
Christianity, spreads itself through the subordinate parts of the
system, and is the pervading, if not the invariable law of Christian
beneficence.
The spontaneous sympathies of human nature, when they are vigorous
enough to produce the fruits of charity, rest on an expectation of an
opposite kind; for we first seek to dispel from our own bosoms the
uneasy sensation of pity; then look for the gratitude of the wretch we
have solaced, and for the approbation of spectators; and then take a
sweet after-draught of self-complacency. But the Christian virtue of
beneficence stands altogether on another ground; and its doctrine is
this, that whoever would remedy misery must himself suffer; and that the
pains of the vicarious benefactor are generally to bear proportion to
the extent or malignity of the evils he labors to remove: so that, while
the philanthropist who undertakes the cure only of the transient ills of
the present life, may encounter no greater amount of toils or
discouragements than are amply recompensed by the immediate
gratifications of successful benevolence, he who, with a due sense of
the greatness of the enterprise, devotes himself to the removal of the
moral wretchedness in which human nature is involved, will find that the
sad quality of these deeper woes is in a manner reflected back upon
himself; and that to touch the substantial miseries of degenerate man is
to come within the infection of infinite sorrow.
And this is the law of success in the Christian ministry—that highest
work of philanthropy. Every right-minded and heaven-commissioned
minister of religion is "baptized with the baptism wherewith his Lord
was baptized." In an inferior, yet a real sense, he is, like his Lord, a
vicarious person, and has freely undergone a suretyship for the immortal
welfare of his fellow-men. He has charged himself with a responsibility
that can never be absolutely acquitted while any power of exertion or
faculty of endurance is held back from the service. The interests which
rest in his hand, and depend on his skill and fidelity—depend, as truly
as if divine agency had no part in the issue—are as momentous as
infinity can make them; nor are they to be promoted without a
willingness to do and to bear the utmost of which humanity is capable.
Although the servant of Christ be not unconditionally responsible for
the happy result of his labors, he is clearly bound, both by the terms
of his engagement and the very quality of the work, to surrender
whatever he may possess that has in it a virtue to purchase success; and
he knows that, by the great law of the spiritual world, the suffering of
a substitute enters into the procedures of redemption.
He who "took our sorrows and bore our griefs," left, for the instruction
of his servants, a perfect model of what should ordinarily be a life of
beneficence. Every circumstance of privation, of discouragement, of
insult, of deadly hostility, which naturally fell in the way of a
ministry like his, exercised among a people profligate, malignant, and
fanatical, was endured by him as submissively as if no extraordinary
powers of relief or defence had been at his disposal.
On the very same conditions of unmitigated toil and suffering he
consigned the publication of his religion to his apostles: "Ye shall be
hated of all nations for my name's sake: Whosoever killeth you shall
think that he doeth God service: Behold, I send you forth as sheep among
wolves." Though endowed with an opulence of supernatural power for the
attestation of their commission, the apostles possessed none for the
alleviation of their own distresses; none which might tend to generate a
personal enthusiasm by leading them to think that they, as individuals,
were the darlings of Heaven. And in fact, they daily found themselves,
even while wielding the arm of omnipotence, exposed to the extremest
pressures of want, to pain, to destitution, to contempt. "Even unto this
present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are
buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place." Such was the deplorable
lot, such to his last year of houseless wanderings, houseless except
when a dungeon was his home, of the most honored of Heaven's agents on
earth. Such was the life of the most successful of all philanthropists!
Nor have the conditions of eminent service been relaxed: the value of
souls is not lowered; and as the "sacrifice once offered" for the sins
of the world remains in undiminished efficacy, so, in the process of
diffusing the infinite benefit, the rule originally established
continues in force; and although reasons drawn from the diversity of
character and of natural strength, among those who are the servants of
God, may occasion great apparent differences in the amount of suffering
severally endured by them, it is always true that the path of Christian
beneficence is more beset than the common walks of life with
disheartening reverses. Whoever freely takes up the cause of the
wretched, is left to feel the grievous pressure of the burden. The
frustration of his plans by the obstinate folly of those whom he would
fain serve, the apathy, the remissness, or the sinister oppositions of
professed coadjutors, the dangerous hostility of profligate power, and
worse than all, the secret misgivings of an exhausted spirit; these, and
whatever other instruments of torture Disappointment may hold in her
hand or have in reserve, are the furniture of the theatre on which the
favorite virtue of Heaven is to pass its trial.
But this law of vicarious charity is altogether opposed to the
expectations of inexperienced and ardent minds. Among the few who devote
themselves zealously to the service of mankind, a large proportion
derive their activity from that constitutional fervor which is the
physical cause of enthusiasm. In truth, a propensity rather to indulge
the illusions of hope, than to calculate probabilities, may seem almost
a necessary qualification for those who, in this world of abounding
evil, are to devise the means of checking its triumphs. To raise fallen
humanity from its degradation, to rescue the oppressed, to deliver the
needy, to save the lost, are enterprises so little recommended, for the
most part, by a fair promise of success, that few will engage in them
but those who, by a happy infirmity of the reasoning faculty, are prone
to hope where cautious men despond.
Thus furnished for their work by a constitutional contempt of frigid
prudence, and engaged cordially in services which seem to give them a
peculiar interest in the favor of Heaven, it is only natural that
benevolent enthusiasts should cherish secret, if not avowed hopes, of
extraordinary aids, and of interpositions of a kind not compatible with
the constitution of the present state, and not warranted by promise of
Scripture. Or if the kind-hearted visionary neither asks nor expects any
peculiar protection of his person, nor any exemption from the common
hazards and ills of life, he yet clings with fond pertinacity to the
hope of a semi-miraculous interference on those occasions in which the
work, rather than the agent, is in peril. Even the genuineness of his
benevolence leads the amiable enthusiast into this error. To achieve the
good he has designed does indeed occupy all his heart, to the exclusion
of every selfish thought: what price of personal suffering would he not
pay, might he so purchase the needful miracle of help! How piercing,
then, is the anguish of his soul when that help is withheld; when his
fair hopes and fair designs are overthrown by a hostility that might
have been restrained, or by a casualty that might have been diverted!
Few, perhaps, who suffer chagrins like this, altogether avoid a relapse
into religious—we ought to say, irreligious—despondency. The first
fault, that of misunderstanding the unalterable rules of the divine
government, is followed by a worse, that of fretting against them. When
the sharpness of disappointment disperses enthusiasm, the whole moral
constitution often becomes infected with the gall of discontent.
Querulous regrets take the place of active zeal; and at length vexation,
much more than a real exhaustion of strength, renders the once laborious
philanthropist "weary in well doing."
And yet, not seldom, a happy renovation of motives takes place in
consequence of the very failures to which the enthusiast has exposed
himself. Benevolent enterprises were commenced, perhaps, in all the
fervor of exorbitant hopes; the course of nature was to be diverted, and
a new order of things to take place, in which what human efforts failed
to accomplish should be achieved by the ready aid of Heaven. But
Disappointment, as merciless to the venial errors of the good, as to the
mischievous plots of the wicked, scatters the project in a moment. Then
the selfish, and the inert, exult; and the half-wise pick up fragments
from the desolation, wherewith to patch their favorite maxims of frigid
prudence with new proofs in point! Meanwhile, by grace given from above
in the hour of despondency, the enthusiast gains a portion of true
wisdom from defeat. Though robbed of his fondly-cherished hopes, he has
not been stripped of his sympathies, and these soon prompt him to begin
anew his labors, on principles of a more substantial sort. Warned not
again to expect miraculous or extraordinary aids to supply the want of
caution he consults Prudence with even a religious scrupulosity; for he
has learned to think her voice, if not misunderstood, to be in fact the
voice of God. And now he avenges himself upon Disappointment, by
abstaining almost from hope. A sense of responsibility which quells
physical excitement, is his strength. He relies indeed upon the divine
aid; yet not for extraordinary interpositions, but for grace to be
faithful. Thus, better furnished for arduous exertion, a degree of
substantial success is granted to his renewed toils and prayers. And
while the indolent, and the over-cautious, and the cold-hearted, remain
what they were; or have become more inert, more timid, and more selfish
than before, the subject of their self-complacent pity has not only
accomplished some important service for mankind, but has himself
acquired a temper which fits him to take rank among the thrones and
dominions of the upper world.
* * * * *
II. Christian philanthropy is obligatory.
Natural benevolence is prone to claim the liberty and the merit that
belong to pure spontaneity, and spurns the idea of duty or necessity.
This claim might be allowed if the free emotions of kindness were
sufficiently common, and sufficiently vigorous, to meet the large and
constant demand of want and misery. But the contrary is the fact; and if
it were not that an authoritative requisition, backed by the most solemn
sanctions, laid its hand upon the sources of eleemosynary aid, the
revenues of mercy would be slender indeed. Even the few who act from the
impulse of the noblest motives, are urged on and sustained in their
course of beneficence by a latent recollection that, though they move
freely in advancing, they have no real liberty to draw back. If the
entire amount of advantage which has accrued to the necessitous from the
influence of Christianity could be computed, it would, no doubt, be
found, that by far the larger share has been contributed, not by the few
who might have done the same without impulsion, but by the many whose
selfishness could never have been broken up except by the most
peremptory appeals. To ensure, therefore, its large purpose of good-will
to man, the law of Christ spreads out its claims very far beyond the
circle of mere pity, or natural kindness; and in the most absolute terms
demands, for the use of the poor, the ignorant, the wretched, (and
demands from every one who names the name of Christ) the whole residue
of talent, wealth, time, that may remain after primary claims have been
satisfied. On this ground, when the zeal of self-denying benevolence has
laid down its last mite, it does not deem itself to have exceeded the
extent of Christian duty; but cheerfully assents to that rule of
computing service which affirms that, "when we have done all, we are
unprofitable servants; having performed only what we were commanded."
Manifestly, for the purpose of giving the highest possible force and
solemnity to that sense of obligation which impels the Christian to
abound in every good work, the ostensible proof of religious sincerity,
to be adduced in the momentous procedures of the last judgment, is made
to consist in the fact of a life of beneficence. Those, and those only,
shall inherit the prepared blessedness, who shall be found to have
nourished, and clothed, and visited the Lord to his representatives—the
poor. The "cursed" are those who have grudged the cost of mercy.
And it is not only true that the funds of charity have been, in every
age, immensely augmented by these strong representations, and have far
exceeded the amount which spontaneous compassion would ever have
contributed, but the very character of beneficence has been new-modelled
by them. In the mind of every well-instructed Christian, a feeling
compounded of a compunctious sense of inadequate performance, and a
solemn sense of the extent of the divine requirements, repugnates and
subdues those self-gratulations, those giddy deliriums, and that vain
ambition, which beset a course of active and successful beneficence.
This remarkable arrangement of the Christian ethics, by which the
largest possible contributions and the utmost possible exertions are
demanded in a tone of comprehensive authority, seems, besides its other
uses, particularly intended to quash the natural enthusiasm of active
zeal. It is a strong antagonist principle in the mechanism of motives,
ensuring an equilibrium, however great may be the intensity of action.
We are thus taught that, as there can be no supererogation in works of
mercy, so neither can there be exultation. Nothing, it is manifest, but
humility, becomes a servant who, at the best, barely acquits his duty.
Let it, for example, have been given to a man to receive superior mental
endowments, force of understanding, solidity of judgment, and richness
of imagination, command of language, and graces of utterance; a soul
fraught with expansive kindness, and not more kind than courageous; and
let him, thus furnished by nature, have enjoyed the advantages of rank,
and wealth, and secular influence; and let it have been his lot, in the
prime of life, to be stationed just on the fortunate centre of peculiar
opportunities; and then let it have happened that a fourth part of the
human family, cruelly maltreated, stood as clients at his door,
imploring help; and let him in the very teeth of ferocious selfishness,
have achieved deliverance for these suffering millions, and have given a
deadly blow to the Moloch of blood and rapacity: and let him have been
lifted to the heavens on the loud acclamations of all civilized nations,
and blessed amid the sighs and joys of the ransomed poor, and his name
diffused, like a charm, through every barbarous dialect of a continent.
Let all this signal felicity have belonged to the lot of a Christian—a
Christian well taught in the principles of his religion; nevertheless,
in the midst of his honest joy, he will find place rather for
humiliation than for that vain excitement and exultation wherewith a man
of merely natural benevolence would not fail, in like circumstances, to
be intoxicated. Without at all allowing the exaggerations of an affected
humility, the triumphant philanthropist confesses that he is nothing,
and, far from deeming himself to have surpassed the requirements of the
law of Christ, feels that he has done less than his duty.
Christian philanthropy, thus boldly and solidly based on a sense of
unlimited obligation, acquires a character essentially differing from
that of spontaneous kindness; and while, as a source of relief to the
wretched, it is rendered immensely more copious, is, at the same time,
secured against the flatteries of self-love, and the excesses of
enthusiasm, by the solemn sanctions of an unbounded responsibility.
* * * * *
III. A nice balancing of motives is obtained from an opposite quarter in
the Christian doctrine, of—The rewardableness of works of mercy. This
doctrine, than which no article of religion stands out more prominently
on the surface of the New Testament, having been early abused, to the
hurt of the fundamentals of piety, has, in the modern Church, been
almost lost sight of, and fallen into disuse, or has even become liable
to obloquy; so that to insist upon it plainly has incurred a
charge of Pelagianism, or of Romanism, or of some such error. This
misunderstanding must be dispelled before Christian philanthropy can
revive in full force.
Amidst the awful reserve which envelops the announcement of a future
life by our Lord and his ministers, three ideas, continually incurring,
are to be gathered with sufficient clearness from their hasty allusions.
The _first_ is, that the future life will be the fruit of the present,
as if by a natural sequence of cause and effect. "Whatsoever a man sows
that shall he also reap." The _second_ is, that the future harvest,
though of like species and quality with the seed, will be immensely
disproportioned to it in amount. "The things seen are temporal; but the
things unseen are eternal;" and the sufferings of the present time are
to be followed by "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;"
and those who have been "faithful over a few things, will have rule over
many." The _third_ is, that though the disparity between the present
reward and the future recompense will be vast and incalculable, yet will
there obtain a most exact rule of correspondence between the one and the
other, so that, from the hands of the "righteous Judge" every man will
receive "severally, according as his work has been." Nor shall even, "a
cup of cold water," given in Christian love, be omitted in that accurate
account; the giver shall "by no means lose his _reward_."
Such are the explicit and intelligible engagements of him whose commands
are never far separated from his promises. It cannot then be deemed a
becoming part of Christian temper to indulge a scrupulous hesitation in
accepting and in acting upon the faith of these declarations. And as
there is no real incompatibility or clashing of motives in the Christian
system, any delicacy that may be felt, as if the hope of reward might
interfere with a due sense of obligation to sovereign grace, must spring
from an obscured and faulty perception of scriptural doctrines. The
intelligent Christian, on the contrary, when, in simplicity of heart, he
calculates upon the promises of Heaven; and when, with a distinct
reckoning of the "great gain" of such an investment, he "lays up for
himself treasures that cannot fail;" is, at the same time, taught and
impelled by the strongest emotions of the heart, to connect his hope of
recompense with his hope of pardon. And when the one class of ideas is
thus linked to the other, he perceives that the economy which
establishes a system of rewards for present services can be nothing else
than an arbitrary arrangement of sovereign goodness, resolving itself
altogether into the grace of the mediatorial scheme. The retribution,
how accurately soever it may be measured out according to the work
performed, must, in its whole amount, be still a pure gratuity; not less
so than is the gift of immortal life, conferred without probation upon
the aborigines of heaven. The zealous and faithful servant who enters
upon his reward after a long term of labor, and the infant of a day, who
flits at once from the womb to the skies, alike receive the boon of
endless bliss in virtue of their relationship to the second Adam, "the
Lord from heaven." Nevertheless, this boon shall conspicuously appear,
in the one case, to be the apportioned wages of service, an exact
recompense, measured, and weighed, and doled out in due discharge of an
explicit engagement; while in the other, it can be nothing but a
sovereign bestowment.
But it is manifest that this doctrine of future recompense, when held in
connection with the fundamental principles of Christianity—justification
by faith, tends directly to allay and disperse those excitements which
naturally spring up with the zeal of active benevolence. The series or
order of sentiments is this:—
The Christian philanthropist, if well instructed, dares not affect
indifference to the promised reward, or pretend to be more disinterested
than were the Apostles, who labored, "knowing that in due time they
should reap." He cannot think himself free to overlook a motive
distinctly held out before him in the Scriptures: to do so were an
impious arrogance. And yet, if he does accept the promise of recompense,
and takes it up as an inducement to diligence, he is compelled by a
sense of the manifold imperfections of his services, to fall back
constantly upon the divine mercies as they are assured to transgressors
in Christ. These humbling sentiments utterly refuse to cohere with the
complacencies of a selfish and vain-glorious philanthropy, and
necessitate a subdued tone of feeling. Thus the very height and
expansion of the Christian's hopes send the root of humility deep and
wide; the more his bosom heaves with the hope of "the exceeding great
reward," the more is it quelled by the consciousness of demerit. The
counterpoise of opposing sentiments is so managed, that elevation cannot
take place on the one side without an equal depression on the other; and
by the counteraction of antagonist principles the emotions of zeal may
reach the highest possible point, while full provision is made for
correcting the vertigo of enthusiasm.
If, in the early ages of the Church, the expectation of future reward
was abused, to the damage of fundamental principles, in modern times an
ill-judged zeal for the integrity of those principles has produced an
almost avowed jealousy towards many explicit declarations of Scripture:
thus, the nerves of labor are either relaxed by the withdrawment of
proper stimulants, or are absolutely severed by the bold hand of
antinomian delusion.
Moreover, a course of Christian beneficence is one peculiarly exposed to
reverses, to obstructions, and often to active hostility; and if the
zeal of the philanthropist be in any considerable degree alloyed with
the sinister motives of personal vanity, or be inflamed with enthusiasm,
these reverses produce despondency; or opposition and hostility kindle
corrupt zeal into fanatical virulence. The injection of a chemical test
does not more surely bring out the element with which it has affinity,
than does opposition, in an attempt to do good, make conspicuous the
presence of unsound motives, if any such have existed. Has it not
happened that when benevolent enterprises have consisted in a direct
attack upon systems of cruel or fraudulent oppression, the quality of
the zeal by which some were actuated in lending their clamors to the
champions of humanity, has become manifest whenever the issue seemed
doubtful, or the machinations of diabolical knavery gained a momentary
triumph? Then, the partisans of truth and mercy, forgetful, alas! of
their principles, have broke out almost into the violence of political
faction, and have hardly scrupled to employ the dark methods which
faction loves.
But there is a delicacy, a reserve, a sobriety, an humbleness of heart,
belonging to the hope of heavenly recompense, which powerfully repels
all such malign emotions. Who can imagine the circumstances and feelings
of the great day of final reward, and think of hearing the approving
voice of him who "searches the heart," and at the same time be told by
conscience that the zeal which gives life to his labors in the cause of
the oppressed ferments with the gall and acrimony of worldly animosity,
that this zeal prompts him to indulge in exaggerations, if not to
propagate calumnies; and exults much more in the overthrow of the
oppressor, than in the redemption of the captive? If the greatness of
the future reward proves that it must be altogether "of grace, not of
debt," then, unquestionably, must it demand in the recipient a temper
purified from the leaven of malice and hatred. Thus does the Christian
doctrine of future reward correct the evil passions that are incident to
a course of benevolence.
* * * * *
IV. Christian beneficence is only the subordinate instrument of a higher
and efficient agency. "Neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that
watereth; but God that giveth the increase." Such, on the scriptural
plan, are the conditions of all labor, undertaken from motives of
religious benevolence. But the besetting sin of natural benevolence is
self-complacency and presumption. It is perhaps as hard to find
sanctimoniousness apart from hypocrisy, or bashfulness without pride, as
to meet with active and enterprising philanthropy not tainted by the
spirit of overweening vanity. The kind-hearted schemer, fertile in
devices for beguiling mankind into virtue, and rich in petty
ingenuities, always well-intended, and seldom well-imagined, verily
believes that his machineries of instruction or reform require only to
be put fairly in play, and they will bring heaven upon earth.
But Christianity, if it does not sternly frown upon these novelties,
does not encourage them; and while it depicts the evils that destroy the
happiness of man as of much deeper and more inveterate malignity than
that they should be remedied by this or that specious method, devised
yesterday, tried to-day, and abandoned to-morrow, most explicitly
confines the hope of success to those who possess the temper of mind
proper to a dependent and subordinate agent. All presumptuous confidence
in the efficiency of second causes is utterly repugnant to the spirit
that should actuate a Christian philanthropist; and the more so when the
good which he strives to achieve is of the highest kind.
* * * * *
V. Lastly, Christian beneficence is the expression of grateful love. The
importance attributed throughout the New Testament to active charity is
not more remarkable than is this peculiarity which merges the natural
and spontaneous sentiments of good-will and compassion towards our
fellows, in an emotion of a deeper kind, and virtually denies merit and
genuineness to every feeling, how amiable soever it may appear, if it
does not thus fall into subordination to that devout affection which we
owe to him who redeemed us by his sufferings and death. The reasons of
this remarkable constitution of motives it is not difficult to perceive.
For, in the first place, it is evident that the love of the Supreme
Being can exist in the heart only as a dominant sentiment, drawing every
other affection into its wake. Even the softest and purest tendernesses
of our nature must yield precedence to the higher attachment of the
soul; for he who does not love Christ more than "father and mother, wife
and children," loves him not. Much more, then, must the sentiment of
general benevolence own the same subordination. Again; as the promise of
future recompense, and the doctrine of dependence upon divine agency,
elevate the motives of benevolence from the level of earth to that of
heaven, they would presently assume a character of dry and visionary
abstraction, unless animated by an emotion of love, belonging to the
same sphere. Zeal without love were a preposterous and dangerous
passion: but Christian zeal must be warmed by no other love than that of
him who, "for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might
be made rich."
It has already been said that religious enthusiasm takes its
commencement from the point where the emotions of the heart are
transmuted into mere pleasures of the imagination; and assuredly the
excitements incident to a course of beneficence are very likely to
furnish occasions to such a transmutation. But the capital motive of
grateful affection to him who has redeemed us from sin and sorrow,
prevents, so far as it is in active operation, this deadening of the
heart, and consequent quickening of the imagination. The poor and the
wretched are the Lord's representatives on earth; and in doing them good
we cherish and express feelings which otherwise must lie latent, or
become vague, seeing that he to whom they relate is remote from our
senses.
This motive of affection to the Lord makes provision, moreover, against
the despondences that attend a want of success; for although a servant
of Christ may, to his life's end, labor in vain, although the objects of
his disinterested kindness should "turn and rend him;" yet, not the
less, has he approved his loyalty and love; approved it even more
conspicuously than those can have done whose labors are continually
cheered and rewarded by prosperous results. Affection, in such cases,
has sustained the trial, not merely of toil, but of fruitless toil, than
which none can be more severe to a zealous and devoted heart.
* * * * *
It appears, then, that Christian benevolence contains within itself a
balancing of motives, such as to leave room for the utmost imaginable
enhancement of zeal without hazard of extravagance. In truth, it is easy
to perceive that the religion of the Bible has in reserve a spring of
movement, a store of intrinsic vigor, ready to be developed in a manner
greatly surpassing what has hitherto been seen. Such a day of
development shall ere long arrive, the time of the triumph of divine
principles shall come, and a style of true heroism be displayed, of
which the seeds have been long sown; of which some samples have already
been furnished; and which waits only the promised refreshment from above
to appear, not in rare instances only, but as the common produce of
Christianity.
In the present state of the world and of the Church, when communications
are so instantaneous, and when attention is so much alive to whatever
concerns the welfare of mankind, if it might be imagined that a great
and sudden extension of Christianity should take place in the regions of
superstition and polytheism; and that yet no corresponding improvement
of piety, no purifying, no refreshment, no enhancement of motives,
should occur in the home of Christianity, there is reason to believe
that the influx of excitement might generate a blaze of destructive
enthusiasm. If every day had its tidings of wonder—the fall of popery in
the neighboring nations—the abandonment of the Mohammedan delusion by
people after people in Asia—the rejection of idols by China and India;
and if these surprising changes, instead of producing the cordial joy of
gladdened faith, were gazed at merely with an unholy and prurient
curiosity, and were thundered forth from platforms by heartless
declaimers, and were grasped at by visionary interpreters of futurity;
then, from so much agitation, uncorrected by a proportionate increase of
genuine piety, new prodigies of error would presently start up, new
sects break away from the body, new hatreds be kindled: and nothing
scarcely be left in the place of Christianity, but dogmas and
contentions. Thus the cradle of religion in modern times would become
its grave.
But a far happier anticipation is with reason indulged; for it may well
be believed that the same Benignant Influence which is to remove the
covering of gross ignorance from the nations, shall, at the same moment,
scatter the dimness that still hovers over the Church in its most
favored home; and then, and under that influence, the fervors of
Christian zeal may reach the height even of a seraphic energy, and yet
without enthusiasm.