MR. CHAIRMAN: I hardly felt, in finding this house this morning, that I
had come into the right hall. I came, as I supposed myself summoned, to a
little committee meeting, for some practical end, where I should happily
and humbly learn my lesson; and I supposed myself no longer subject to
your call when I saw this house. I have listened with great pleasure to
the lessons which we have heard. To many, to those last spoken, I have
found so much in accord with my own thought that I have little left to
say. I think that it does great honor to the sensibility of the committee
that they have felt the universal demand in the community for just the
movement they have begun. I say again, in the phrase used by my friend,
that we began many years ago,—yes, and many ages before that. But I think
the necessity very great, and it has prompted an equal magnanimity, that
thus invites all classes, all religious men, whatever their connections,
whatever their specialties, in whatever relation they stand to the
Christian Church, to unite in a movement of benefit to men, under the
sanction of religion. We are all very sensible—it is forced on us every
day—of the feeling that churches are outgrown; that the creeds are
outgrown; that a technical theology no longer suits us. It is not the ill
will of people—no, indeed, but the incapacity for confining themselves
there. The church is not large enough for the man; it cannot inspire
the enthusiasm which is the parent of everything good in history, which
makes the romance of history. For that enthusiasm you must have something
greater than yourselves, and not less.
The child, the young student, finds scope in his mathematics and
chemistry or natural history, because he finds a truth larger than he is;
finds himself continually instructed. But, in churches, every healthy and
thoughtful mind finds itself in something less; it is checked, cribbed,
confined. And the statistics of the American, the English and the German
cities, showing that the mass of the population is leaving off going to
church, indicate the necessity, which should have been foreseen, that
the Church should always be new and extemporized, because it is eternal
and springs from the sentiment of men, or it does not exist.[217] One
wonders sometimes that the churches still retain so many votaries, when
he reads the histories of the Church. There is an element of childish
infatuation in them which does not exalt our respect for man. Read in
Michelet, that in Europe, for twelve or fourteen centuries, God the
Father had no temple and no altar. The Holy Ghost and the Son of Mary
were worshipped, and in the thirteenth century the First Person began to
appear at the side of his Son, in pictures and in sculpture, for worship,
but only through favor of his Son. These mortifying puerilities abound
in religious history. But as soon as every man is apprised of the Divine
Presence within his own mind,—is apprised that the perfect law of duty
corresponds with the laws of chemistry, of vegetation, of astronomy, as
face to face in a glass; that the basis of duty, the order of society,
the power of character, the wealth of culture, the perfection of taste,
all draw their essence from this moral sentiment, then we have a religion
that exalts, that commands all the social and all the private action.
What strikes me in the sudden movement which brings together to-day
so many separated friends,—separated but sympathetic,—and what I
expected to find here, was some practical suggestions by which we were
to reanimate and reorganize for ourselves the true Church, the pure
worship. Pure doctrine always bears fruit in pure benefits. It is only
by good works, it is only on the basis of active duty, that worship
finds expression. What is best in the ancient religions was the sacred
friendships between heroes, the Sacred Bands, and the relations of the
Pythagorean disciples. Our Masonic institutions probably grew from the
like origin. The close association which bound the first disciples of
Jesus is another example; and it were easy to find more. The soul of
our late war, which will always be remembered as dignifying it, was,
first, the desire to abolish slavery in this country, and secondly,
to abolish the mischief of the war itself, by healing and saving the
sick and wounded soldiers,—and this by the sacred bands of the Sanitary
Commission. I wish that the various beneficent institutions which are
springing up, like joyful plants of wholesomeness, all over this country,
should all be remembered as within the sphere of this committee,—almost
all of them are represented here,—and that within this little band that
has gathered here to-day, should grow friendship. The interests that
grow out of a meeting like this should bind us with new strength to the
old eternal duties.