man in the various issues of life, when he becomes actually convinced
that its truths and sanctions are _genuine_. In other words, the
conception of a moral government, of a directing Providence, and of
eternal realities, vividly apprehended by the intellect, kept fresh in
the heart, and assimilated to the entire spiritual nature, is a personal
inspiration. It elevates the platform of a man's being, so that all
things appear in true proportion. It clears his vision to detect
principles, and endows him with moral courage. I do not know that I can
better suggest its influence as a help here, in the conditions of the
city, than by asking you to imagine what _would_ be the state of things
in the spheres of toil and traffic--in all the multiform relations of
our humanity--if men really apprehended and believed it? _It_, I
say--not some special dogma or institution, but the absolute spirit and
truth of Christianity. For I do not think that, generally, this _is_
actually credited. I think that, with many professions of religion, and
much outward respect for it, and an extensive circulation of vague
conceptions about it, it is _not_ commonly felt and vitalized--it is not
apprehended in its blessedness and power, and absolute excellence. To
the habits of the soul it does not represent and mean realities as a
written contract does, or a bank-bill--something that men precipitate
themselves upon, and that sways the under-currents of their action. New
York, with its Broadway and its Wall Street; with its proud buildings
and its bristling masts; is a reality--but that city of which the text
makes mention; that city which good men seek, and which in the
Apocalypse of Faith they see; whose splendors glitter through the solemn
twilight; nay, which hems them around for ever, and shines down upon
them brighter than the noonday sun; to thousands, toiling, sinning, and
suffering here, is _not_ a reality. For, I ask you, my friends, if it
_were_ realized, could there be so much abject need among us; so much
stony-hearted selfishness; so much shuffling in trade, and corruption
in politics, and meanness in intercourse, and foolish superficial
living? I know, and you know, that one of the greatest evils is--not
merely that men are worldly, irreligious, bound up in sad conditions and
narrow conceits; but that they are so, because they do not apprehend the
nature and do not feel the reality of religion. For I say once more,
that a conviction of its reality must be a great help in adjusting the
problems of life. And this, because it acts upon the centre of all the
sin, and much of the suffering of the world. This personal application
of religion stands before all other remedies for the removal of these
evils. Others are attempted--others are, in a degree, successful; but
none go so deep and produce results so sure. It seems to me that the
position of humanity in this respect, is illustrated in the narrative of
the Demoniac of Gadara. We are told that he had been bound with chains,
but in his fierce madness had burst them asunder. And then, again, men
had tried various expedients, but they could not tame him. But when the
influence of Jesus fell upon his soul, it took hold of it with sweet
authority; the legion left him, and the poor, wounded, houseless man sat
clothed and in his right mind. So is it with man in society; so is it
with some of these social evils. The power of _law_ has been invoked;
and it has its legitimate sphere of operation. It checks the purposed
violence. It arrests the overt act. It may consistently be summoned to
purify all those channels of social action which it assumes to regulate;
and, instead of patronizing the wrong, to set its face and hand against
it. Thus it may prevent public harm, though it cannot stop self-injury,
and remove occasions of temptation, though it cannot impart moral
strength. It has no efficacy to change the assassin's heart, yet we call
upon it to guard us against murder. We bid it close the den of infamy,
though it does not quench guilty passion. And we may use it to stop the
sale of intoxicating drinks, though it does not destroy the drunkard's
appetite. And this indicates both the function and the limitation of the
law. Thrown over the wild forces that rage in the human heart, and that
afflict community, it is like the fetters on the limbs of the demoniac.
It may restrain for a time; but in some sweep of temptation it is
spurned and snapped asunder. On the other hand, we have the expedients
of the _reformer_. He comes with props and palliatives; soothing some
cutaneous irritation, or removing some foul condition. And let us
recognize the legitimacy of _his_ endeavor. We must approach the human
heart through the web of its external circumstances, as well as
directly. Nay, often this is the only way by which we can get at it at
all. And well may we rejoice over the rescue from specific vices, and
commend the zeal and patience which fasten upon some colossal evil to
batter and drive it from the world. But notwithstanding such noble
achievement, how many have remained among the tombs, or gone back to the
wilderness--demoniacs still! It is an old truth, but I say it as though
it were in the conviction of a fresh fact forced upon me by these great
problems that heave up in the currents of City Life; it is an
unavoidable conclusion that there is only one influence that can make
safe, and pure, and strong in goodness, those recesses out of which
issue so much social evil, and so much personal suffering. And that is
the influence not of the law-giver, nor of the reformer; but of the
Redeemer. It is that power which flows through the soul in a practical
conviction of the reality of religion. It is the help which comes from
its inspiration of divine truth and goodness in the breasts of
individual men, turning them from evil, rendering them strong against
temptation, and sending out from their lives fresh forces of
righteousness and love.
Indeed, I believe that any man who really thinks and feels, and who has
much experience of Life, will become convinced of the _necessity_ of
Religion. I would leave its claims not to the argument of the Moralist,
or the advocacy of the Pulpit, but as they urge themselves upon us here
out of the whirl, and weariness, and vicissitudes of the City. Surely,
as its calm voice appeals to the sons of men, striving in this heated
atmosphere; chasing phantoms that rise out of the dust; absorbed in the
fickle game of fortune; borne along for a little while on the top-waves
of excitement, and then dying unmarked as a rain-drop that falls into
the sea; surely as its voice appeals to these, saying--"Come unto me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!" it
strikes the deepest chords in thousands of hearts. I will not adopt now
any professional argument to prove the great necessity of Religion as a
Help in Life. But I would take my stand, in imagination, at some corner
of yonder tumultuous street. How multiform the crowds that sweep by me;
how diverse the faces; what a kaleidoscope of human conditions! And yet,
when you attempt to classify them, how few are the actual _types_ of
men--how many fall into a common group; and when you try them by the
profoundest standard--that of a common experience and common wants--how
marvellously alike they all are! How similar in inward expression, the
rich man who walks yonder, to that poor drudging son of toil, who bows
his back and strains his sinews until they ache! How similar in effect
the burdens which they both bear--the burden of wealth, and the burden
of poverty, in the fact that they _are_ burdens upon the heart and the
soul! And are they not both struggling with the realities of life, and
moved by quenchless desires, and looking up into the same infinite
mystery? Ah! my friends, I hardly think it would be the most effectual
way to preach Religion in this church on Sunday, as a matter of
course--but to stand out there on week-days, and strike the deepest
chords throbbing unconsciously in the bosoms of those who pass me by. I
would appeal to you, O disappointed, almost heart-broken man, who for
years have endeavored to earn a competency to lift your head above the
sheer necessities of life, but have failed in the chase, and been beaten
back, and seen others who have exerted themselves not near as much, not
so honorably, perhaps, rise to the very top of the stream and sail clear
ahead;--or to you, O "favorite of fortune," as the world calls you, who
find your palace to be only a stately sepulchre, in which all genuine
feeling and simple enjoyment lies dead and wrapped in cerements of
chilling etiquette--whose daughter, perhaps, has mocked your fondest
plans; or whose son has turned out a miserable weed of dissipation--a
degenerate fopling, a rake, a fool;--or to you, O butterfly of fashion,
sailing with embroidered wings in search of admiration and of pleasure;
or still again, to you who have just gathered together the means of
enjoyment, and ease, and everything, to make life pleasant, and lo!
death has entered, and your hopes are darkened and in the dust; I appeal
to you, O types of this streaming humanity, that wears so many masks,
yet, carries under all a common heart; and ask you, if there is not some
void that no earthly good can fill--that no finite thing can sustain and
satisfy? Can you go on with the common business of the world, discharge
all its obligations, control yourself in its excitements, resist its
evil solicitations, bear up under its trials, and, finally, reach that
period in life when you must ask--"What is all this worth?--these years
of toil, these eager enterprises, this golden accumulation or
unfortunate failure--what are they all worth, and what do they
mean?"--can anybody well get along with all this, without Religion? My
friends, I say to you that, not consciously, perhaps, like the old
saints who wrought and prayed and walked with upward-looking faces--but
really, in the deep yearning and the secret gravitation of the soul--you
_do_ confess that here we have no continuing city, and you are seeking
one to come. At least, it seems to me that without the Help of Religion,
there is only the alternative of moral indifference--a cold, hard
worldliness, or of recklessness and spiritual despair. And is not this
the alternative which is exhibited in the midst of all our
civilization--in the midst of this gorgeous materialism of the
nineteenth century? Thousands, it is to be apprehended, do exhibit one
or the other of those extremes which the poet has so well described:
"For most men in a brazen prison live,
Where, in the sun's hot eye,
With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly
Their minds to some unmeaning task-work give,
Dreaming of naught beyond their prison wall;
And so, year after year,
Fresh products of their barren labor fall
From their tired hands, and rest
Never yet comes more near.
Gloom settles slowly down over their breast,
And while they try to stem
The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest,
Death in their prison reaches them
Unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest.
"And the rest, a few,
Escape their prison, and depart
On the wide ocean of life anew.
There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart
Listeth, will sail;
Nor does he know how there prevail
Despotic on life's sea,
Trade-winds that cross it from eternity.
Awhile he holds some false way, undebarred
By thwarting signs, and braves
The freshening wind, and blackening waves,
And then the tempest strikes him, and between
The lightning bursts is seen
Only a driving wreck,
And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck
With anguished face and flying hair,
Grasping the rudder hard,
Still bent to make some port he knows not where,
Still standing for some false impossible shore,
And sterner comes the roar
Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom,
Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom."
But, before I quit this head of my discourse, let me say that in order
to be accepted as the great Help of Life, Religion must in some way be
_presented_ as a reality. It must not be held forth as a mere
abstraction--it must be precipitated into its concrete relations.
Parting with none of its sanctity, it must be stripped of its vagueness
and technicality, and be spoken in the fresh language of the time. I
feel sure that amidst prevalent irreligion, nothing is so much needed as
a definite statement of _what_ religion is; and that men should learn to
recognize its vascular connection with every department of action. It
must be understood that "being religious" is not a work apart by itself,
but a spirit of faith and righteousness, flowing out from the centre of
a regenerated heart into all the employments and intercourse of the
world. Not merely the preacher in the pulpit, and the saint on his
knees, may do the work of religion, but the mechanic who smites with the
hammer and drives the wheel; the artist seeking to realize his pure
ideal of the beautiful; the mother in the gentle offices of home; the
statesman in the forlorn hope of liberty and justice; and the
philosopher whose thought treads reverently among the splendid mysteries
of the universe. I know that some will deem this a secularization of
religion--a desecration of its holy essence by worldly alliances. But
they are mistaken. It is a _consecration_ of pursuits and spheres that
have been cut off from all sacredness, and devoted to secondary ends.
Are not the just, the useful, the beautiful, from God, as well as the
good and the holy? And, therefore, is not any practice which serves
these, a service of God? It is needed that men should feel that every
lawful pursuit _is_ sacred and not profane; that every position in life
is close to the steps of the divine throne; and that the most beaten and
familiar paths lie under the awful shadow of the Infinite; then they
will go about their daily pursuits, and fill their common relationships,
with hearts of worship and pulses of unselfish love; instead of
regarding religion as an isolated peculiarity for a corner of the closet
and a fraction of the week, and leaving all the rest of time and space
an unconsecrated waste, where lawless passions travel, and selfishness
pitches its tents. O! if religion _were_ thus a diffusive, practical,
every-day reality, there would be a marvellous change in the aspects of
life and the conditions of humanity around us. The great city, now so
gross and profane, would become as a vast cathedral, through whose stony
aisles would flow perpetual service; where labor would discharge its
daily offices, and faith and patience keep their heavenward look, and
love present its offerings. Yea, the very roll of wheels through its
busy streets would be as a litany, and the sound of homeward feet the
chant of its evening psalm.
But religion is not only a help in and for ourselves; it has a
ministration for others--for this great mass of destitution and
suffering that broods in the midst of the city. Christianity is not
merely a theory of existence--it is a _working-power_. Its precepts are
practical, and enjoin not merely states of mind and heart, but
conditions of activity. There is an entire magazine of working-forces in
that one great law--"Love thy neighbor as thyself." Hear the words of
an apostolical commentator upon it. "If a brother or sister be naked,
and destitute of daily food," says he, "and one of you say unto them,
Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them
not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." And wherever
Christianity has existed and been apprehended, it has produced
beneficent results for humanity. It has gone over the earth like its
Divine Author, with healing and with help for the woes of the race.
Anybody who takes his stand at the head-waters of modern history, will
see that a mighty energy was then poured into the world, whose influence
is evident in the truest civilization, in the best results, of ages. In
estimating the practical power of Christianity, we must look at the
_positive_ phase of things--we must consider what has actually been
done; not merely what remains to be done. We must adopt proportionate
standards, not the little measures of to-day and yesterday, in which the
tides of human melioration may oscillate, and even seem to flow
backward and at the best to make slight headway. But take up the cycle
of history that preceded the advent of Christianity, and compare it with
the present period; and is there not an entirely different expression on
the face of things, so far as conceptions of humanity and influences of
philanthropy are concerned? Contrast "a Roman holiday," its butchery and
its blood, with a modern anniversary that clasps the round world in its
jubilee, and see if humanity has not been helped by religion. Or look
back upon Grecian art and refinement, and tell me what oration or poem,
or pantheon of marble beauty, is half as glorious as the plain brick
free-school; the asylum of industry; the home for the penitent, the
disabled and the poor? Ah! my friends, these are such familiar things
that we may not think them the great things they really are; and in
gazing upon the colossal evils that yet tower up before us, they may
seem slight achievements. But they _are_ great: and when I see the poor
drunkard return to a renovated home--the demoniac sitting clothed and in
his right mind once more; when I see the dumb write, and hear the blind
read, and little rescued children sing their thankful hymns; I think
humanity _has_ been helped a great deal since that Divine Teacher walked
the earth, and took the lambs to his bosom, and made the foul leper
clean, and partook with publicans and sinners, and bade the guilty go
and sin no more. I think that currents of love and self-sacrifice, from
that heart that was pierced for us upon the cross, have found their way
through the channels of ages, through all the impediments of worldliness
and selfishness, and inspired and blessed men far more than they know.
But if, turning from the positive achievement, you point to the evils
that still exist--if you lift the coverings of respectability and custom
from the ghastly facts that are embedded here in our so-called
civilization; if you bid me mark the vice, the poverty, the crime, the
oppression, the grinding monopoly, the prejudice, the gigantic
materialism and practical atheism that are mixed up with it, and seem to
be inseparable parts of it; then I ask you--how would it be _without_
the Help of Religion? What interpretation should we obtain from the
dark creed of the skeptic, what inspiration from the philosophy of
annihilation, and of fate? To say nothing of those forces of Love and
self-sacrifice which it sheds abroad in the world, and to which I have
just alluded,--Religion, in one single proposition, sends pregnant
elements of direction and relief into the midst of these giant evils.
That one proposition is the immortality of man--the priceless
spirituality of every man--the ascription of a nature more glorious and
imperishable than a star. Here is the spring of its perpetual antagonism
to the world, and to the evil of the world. The latter bases its
estimate of man upon outward conditions; estimates his name and his
title, his equipage and his parentage, the bulk of his gold, the color
of his skin, his _apparent_ success or defeat. Christianity points to
that vivid centre of a soul, in whose light all these external
distinctions fade, are fused into dross, become comparatively naught.
All the evil of the world stands upon the assumption of the former
rule--upon the ground of external and material valuation--which, as has
been well observed by another, is a "method of studying the problems of
the universe by fetching rules from the _wider_ sphere (therefore the
_lower_) to import into the _higher_.... So long as this logical
strategy is allowed, the Titans will always conquer the gods; the
ground-forces of the lowest nature will propagate themselves, pulse
after pulse, from the abysses to the skies, and _right_ will exist only
on sufferance from _might_." On the other hand, I say, Religion,
Christianity, starts from the centre outward--starts with the dignity
and sanctity of the human soul--and in this is the great element of all
progress and reform. Out of this have sprung the achievements of modern
freedom. Assuming this inward birthright of every man, men have snapped
feudal fetters, and broken the seals of ancient proscription, and torn
up branching genealogies, and trodden diadems in the dust. It was this
fact that inspired Sidney's speech, and Hampden's effort, and
Washington's calm determination. It is this that erects itself against
majorities, policies, institutions, charters, and will not be beaten
down, and will agitate, and will triumph. It is this that sends
philanthropy upon its mission; and bids it stoop to the most fallen, and
search under the darkest depravity. "Go abroad," it says, "amidst the
guilt and misery of the great city. In the rags, the filth, the
abomination, there are jewels fallen from heaven. There are souls upon
which angels look with solicitude. There are interests for which Christ
died. Search patiently, and deeply, and never give up the endeavor to
find, to lift up, to restore." Is not all the spring of benevolent
effort, then, in this single proposition of Religion? This one great
Truth it utters amidst the suffering and injustice of the world--that
men are heirs of one inheritance; possessors of a birthright by virtue
of which all outward inequalities fade away. It bases a demand for
mutual help and love, upon the fact that we are all on a
pilgrimage--high, low, honored, degraded, master, slave, we go forth
together, and these earthly distinctions all drop away. Rich man with
rows of real-estate, with money safe in bank, with solid securities
walled around you--you will carry no more away than Lazarus yonder--in
God's eyes you are no richer than he. Because here we have no continuing
city. The destinies of our common humanity flow forward into another and
more enduring one.
And, if still this problem of human degradation and suffering presses
upon us, I say further, that where the constituents of this problem are
most prominent, there religion is the most active. The heaviest poverty
is belted about by the brightest charities; the hot-beds of crime
generate the most radical efforts for its prevention and its cure; and
while oppression is at work, setting its dark types upon virgin soil to
print off its own shame and condemnation, indignant voices expose it and
indignant hearts react against it. And more and more, every day, it is
felt and proclaimed that religion is a working-principle--a practical
power. Never was it more profoundly felt than in this very age that men
must be confessors of Christianity as well as professors. And in the
light of this conception, proffering fresh and willing help, Religion
walks abroad; and lo! waste places grow verdant, and the strongholds of
guilt and misery sink down, and blessed institutions rise up, and
industry takes the place of crime, and cursings are exchanged for songs,
and the poorest sees the immortal light, and is lifted up by the grand
thought--that "here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to
come."
We have thus seen that Religion is a Help as to the fact of sin, when
men are convinced of it as a great reality; and a help as to the fact of
human suffering, because it is a working-power. But, over and above all
this, there are problems that perplex us, and demand some answer;
problems as to the How, and the Wherefore, and the End. There are times
when our thoughts rise above all specific instances, and we take up
humanity and existence as a whole, and ask--"What means it all?"
Sometimes this question starts out of an individual experience. The
shock of affliction has jarred our hearts; our expectations have come to
naught; bereavement has broken up the routine of our life; or our own
souls have surprised us with sudden revelations. At any rate, we find
our being here involved with mystery. There is something that our
understanding cannot entirely grasp; something that our unassisted eyes
cannot see. And the only help for us in such a case is the Help of
Religion, presenting us, through faith, with an _interpretation_ of
human life--an interpretation which tells us that what we now experience
and behold is only transitional, preliminary, and that we see through a
glass darkly, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.
And is it necessary for me to dwell upon the strength which has thus
been imparted to sad and wounded spirits, when with perfect trust in
Infinite Goodness they have thus realized that they stand only on one
round of an upward course--only in a little segment of the immense plan?
I will merely say now, that if, through faith, religion is a help to
these by interpreting life in harmony with individual experience, so
through this faith does it help the meditative man troubled by the
general problem of existence and humanity. The meaning of these various
conditions in the city--the meaning of these sins, and sorrows, and
inequalities--the meaning of this tide of life itself that rolls in
endless succession through these stony arteries--does it perplex you?
Accept, then, the help which religion gives by interpreting it as only
preliminary and transitional; only a portion of a wider scheme.