P. S. I read this letter to my wife last evening, and I told her
of your criticism on the sermon at Providence. She made the very
rejoinder that I made to you,--"The power to cast one's self on the
great Christian resource, to put one's self in relation with God the
Father and with spiritual help, is the very power which he denies to
human nature, and the very thing that Mr. H. contended for." Nor yet
do I like your mode of statement, for Christianity does not represent
itself to me as a sort of Noah's Ark, and human nature as in stormy
waters,--to be saved if it can get its foot on that plank, and not
otherwise. I prefer my figure of the shower specially sent on the
feeble and half-withered plant. All the divines of every school have
always said that there is light enough in nature, if with true docility
and love men would follow it. Christ came to shed more light on our
path, not the only light; to lift up the lame man, not to create limbs
for him or to be limbs for him.
And I confess, too, that I do not like another aspect in the state of
your mind; and that is, that your newly wakened zeal should fasten,
as it seems to do, upon the positive facts and the supernaturalism of
Christianity. Not, as I think, that I undervalue them. I do not know if
any rational and thinking man that lays more stress on them in their
place than I do. But certainly there is something beyond to which they
point; and that is, the [199] deep spiritualism of the Gospel, the deep
heart's repose and sufficiency in things divine and infinite. If your
mind had fastened upon this as the newly found treasure in the Gospel,
I should have been better satisfied. I am writing very frankly to you,
as you are wont to write to me (and I believe that you and I can bear
these terms, and bless them too), and therefore I will add that my
greatest distrust of your spiritual nature turns to this very point:
whether you have, in the same measure as you have other things, that
deep heart's rest, that quiet, profound, all-sufficing satisfaction
in the infinite resource, in the all-enbosoming love of the All-Good,
in silent and solitary communion with God, settling and sinking the
soul, as into the still waters and the ocean depths. Your nature runs
to social communions, to visible movements, to outwardness, in short,
more than to the central depths within. The defects in your preaching,
which I have heard pointed out by the discerning, are the want of
consistency,--of one six months with another six months,--and the want
of spiritual depth and vitality; of that calm, deep tone of thought and
feeling that goes to the depths of the heart.
God knows that I do very humbly attempt to criticise another's religion
and preaching, being inexpressibly concerned about the defects of my
own. And, dear friend, I speak to you as modestly as I do frankly. I
may be wrong, or I may be only partly right. But in this crisis I think
that I ought to say plainly what I feel and fear. I cannot bear, for
every reason,--for your sake and for the sake of the church, in which,
for your age, you are rooting yourself so deeply,--that you should make
any misstep on the ground upon which you seem to be entering.
[200] To Rev. William Ware.
SHEFFIELD, Dec. 6, 1847.
MY DEAR WARE,--I think my pen will run on, with such words to start
from, though it have spent itself on the weary "Sermons." This is
Monday morning, and I am not quite ready in mind to begin on a new
one. The readiness, with me, is nine tenths of the battle. I never, or
almost never, write a sermon unless it be upon a. subject that I want
to write upon. I never cast about for a subject; I do not find the
theme, but the theme finds me. Last week I departed from my way, and
did lot make good progress. The text, "What shall it profit t man?"
struck upon my heart as I sat down on Monday Horning, and I wrote it
at the head of my usual seven sheets of white paper, and went on. But
the awfulness if the text impressed me all the while with the sense of
allure, and though the sermon was finished, I mainly felt at the end
that I had lost my week.
One thing I find in my preaching, more and more, and hat is that the
simplest things become more and more weighty to me, so that a sermon
does not require to be my thing remarkable to interest me deeply.
Everything hat I say in the pulpit, I think, is taking stronger and
stronger hold upon me, and that which might have been lull in my
utterance ten years ago, is not so now. I say his to you, because it
has some bearing on one of the natters discussed in our last letters;
that is, whether I should leave the pulpit. If I leave it, it will
be with a fresher life in it, I think, than has stirred in me at any
previous part of my course. And certainly I have long believed that
it was my vocation to preach, above all things,--more than to visit
parishioners, though I always [201] visit every one of them once a
year,--more than to write, though you say I have written to some
purpose (and your opinion is a great comfort to me). Certainly, then,
I shall not retire from the pulpit, but upon the maturest reflection
and for what shall seem to be the weightiest reasons. And I did not
mean that the things I referred to should be prima facie reasons for
retirement; but the question with me was whether my unprofessional way
of thinking and acting were not so misconstrued as to lessen my power
to do good; whether the good I do is in any proportion to the strength
I lay out.
But enough of myself, when I am much more concerned about you. I see
plainly enough how intense is your desire to go to Rome. I see how all
your culture and taste and feeling urge you to go, and yet more what a
reason in many ways your health supplies. And I declare the author of
Zenobia and Probus and Julian ought to go to Rome! There is a fitness
in it, and I trust it will come to pass. But you should not go alone.
Every one wants company in such a tour,--that I know full well; but
your health demands it. You must not be subject to sudden seizures in a
strange city,--a stranger, alone. Your family never will consent to it,
and I think never ought to. Do give up that idea entirely,--of going
alone. Have patience. There will be somebody to go with next spring, or
next summer. I would that I could go with you where you go, and lodge
with you where you lodge. But somebody will go. Something better will
turn up, at any rate, than to go alone. There are young men every year
who want to go abroad in quest of art and beauty and culture, and to
whom your company would be invaluable. I do not forget the difficulty
about expense. But there are those who, like you, would be [202] glad
to go directly by Marseilles or Leghorn. It is quite true that movement
is the mischief with the purse.-Abiding in Rome or Florence, you can
live for a dollar a day. A room, or two rooms (parlor and little
sleeping-room), say near the Piazza di Spagna, or the Propaganda just
by, can be hired, with bed, etc., all to be kept in order, for three
or four pauls (thirty or forty cents, you know) a day. And you can
breakfast at a colt; any time you fancy, while wandering about, for two
pauls, and dine at a trattoria for from two to four pauls. I have more
than once dined on a bowl of soup and bread and butter for two pauls. I
hate heavy dinners. In Rome, one should always take a room in which the
sun lies. "Where the sun comes, the doctor does n't," they say there.
But you won't go before I come and see you and talk it all over with
you. Don't fail to let me know if you set seriously about it, for I
shall certainly come. The truth is, Airs. Ware should go with you. It
is true the women are very precious when it comes to casting them up
in a bill of expense, as in all things else. Does not that last clause
save me, madam? And, madam dear, I want to talk with you about this
project of William's, as much as I want to hear what he says.
About the war, dear Gulielmus, and slavery, and almost everything else
under heaven, I verily believe I think just as you do; so I need not
write. And my hand is very tired. With ten thousand blessings on you,
Yours ever,