CHAPTER XXIV.

THE CHURCH IN MODERN TIMES.

Character of Henry III.――Assassination of the Duke of Guise.

――Cruel Edicts of Louis XIV.――Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

――Sufferings of Protestants.――Important Question.――Thomas

Chalmers.――Experiment at St. John.――His Labors and Death.

――Jonathan Edwards.――His Resolutions.――His Marriage.――His Trials.

――His Death.――John Wesley.――His Conversion.――George Whitefield.

――First Methodist Conference.――Death of Wesley.――Robert Hall.

――His Character and Death.――William Paley.――His Works and Death.

――The Sabbath.――Power of the Gospel.――Socrates.――Scene on the

Prairie.――The Bible.

THE seventeenth century opened with almost universal corruption,

outside of the limited circle of the true disciples of Jesus Christ.

The moral and political world presented the aspect of a raging sea

darkened by storm-clouds, with the waves dashing upon every shore.

The utmost profligacy of manners prevailed generally in courts; while

the masses of the people were ignorant and degraded. The Papal Church,

which had degenerated into a towering organization of worldly ambition,

had become corrupt almost beyond the power of the pen to describe.

Henry III. had succeeded his miserable brother, Charles a IX.,

upon the throne of France. While Duke of Anjou, he had distinguished

himself by his malignant hostility to the Protestants, or Huguenots

as they were there called. He was as weak as he was wicked, and never

hesitated to employ the dagger of the assassin to rid himself of

those he feared. Impelled by his infamous mother, Catharine de Medici,

he endeavored to wage exterminating war against the Protestants who

had survived the massacre of St. Bartholomew. But they, led by Henry

of Navarre,――subsequently Henry IV. of France,――and aided by other

Protestant powers, made a vigorous defence. Wretched France was thus

devastated by the most cruel civil war.

Fearing the rising power of the Guises, who were the devoted partisans

of the Papacy, Henry secured the assassination of the Duke of Guise,

and of his brother the cardinal. This exasperated the pope. Henry was

stabbed by a fanatic monk. The Pope, Sixtus V., in full consistory,

applauded the deed. He apparently wished to encourage the assassination

of all sovereigns who were not obsequiously obedient to the Papacy.

The regicide he pronounced, in declamatory phrase, “to be comparable,

as regards the salvation of the world, to the incarnation and the

resurrection, and that the courage of the youthful assassin surpassed

that of Eleazar and Judith.”

The Catholic historian, Chateaubriand, declares that “it was of

importance to the pope to encourage fanatics who were ready to murder

kings in the name of the Papal power.” The annalist Brantome says that

he saw a bull of the pope ordering the assassination of Elizabeth, the

Protestant queen of England.

Upon the accession to the throne of France of Henry IV.,――who, with his

mother, had been at the head of the Protestant armies of Europe,――Henry,

who had been politically a Protestant, not spiritually a disciple of

Jesus, found it expedient to adopt the Catholic faith, saying with

nonchalance, “A crown is surely worth a mass.” He, however, continued

to befriend the Protestants. In the year 1598 he issued a famous decree,

called the Edict of Nantes, which allowed Protestants the free exercise

of their religion, and gave them equal claims with Catholics to all

offices and dignities. They were also left in possession of certain

fortresses which had been ceded to them for their security.

But Louis XIV., grasping at absolute power, grew more and more fanatic

during his long reign, oppressing the Protestants with ever-increasing

cruelty. Edict after edict deprived them of their civil rights; and

dragoons were sent into their provinces to compel them to abjure their

faith. The persecution was so merciless, that, notwithstanding the king

guarded his frontiers with the utmost vigilance, more than five hundred

thousand Huguenots escaped to the Protestant countries of Switzerland,

Germany, Holland, and England.

The fanaticism of the Catholics was such, that the Edict of Nantes

undoubtedly cost Henry IV. his life. The assassin Ravaillac, who

twice plunged his dagger into the bosom of the king, said in his

examination,――

“I killed the king, because, in making war upon the pope, he made war

upon God, since the pope is God.”

Louis XIV., while assuring the Protestant powers of Europe that he

would continue to respect the Edict of Nantes, commenced issuing a

series of ordinances in direct contravention of that contract. He

excluded Protestants from all public offices; forbade their employment

as physicians, lawyers, apothecaries, booksellers, printers, or even

nurses. In many of the departments of France, the Protestants composed

nearly the entire population. Here it was impossible to enforce the

atrocious decrees. In other places, where parties were more equally

divided, riots and bloodshed were excited.

These ordinances were soon followed by others prohibiting marriages

between Catholics and Protestants. Catholic servants were forbidden

employment in Protestant families; and Catholics were also forbidden to

employ Protestant servants. On the 17th of June, 1680, the king issued

the following decree:――

“We wish that our subjects of the pretended reformed religion, both

male and female, having attained the age of seven years, may, and it

is hereby made lawful for them to embrace the Catholic, Apostolic, and

Roman religion; and that, to this effect, they may be allowed to abjure

the pretended reformed religion, without their fathers and mothers and

other kinsmen being allowed to offer them the least hinderance under

any pretext whatever.”

This law enabled any one to go before a Catholic court, and testify

that any child had made the sign of the cross, or kissed an image of

the Virgin, or had expressed a desire to enter a Catholic church, and

that child was immediately wrested from its parents, and placed in a

convent for education, while the parents were compelled to defray all

the expenses.

A decree was then issued, that all Protestants who would abjure their

faith might defer the payment of their debts for three years; should be

exempt from taxation, and from the burden of having soldiers quartered

upon them. Those who refused were punished with a double portion of

taxation and a double quartering of soldiers. Officers were sent to the

sick-beds of Protestants, that, by importunity and urgent solicitation,

they might convert them to the Catholic faith. Physicians were ordered,

under a heavy penalty, to give notice if any Protestants were sick. If

any convert from Catholicism were received into any Protestant church,

that church edifice was immediately closed, and the further privilege

of public worship prohibited; while the Catholic convert was punished

with confiscation of property, and banishment from the realm.

From four to ten dragoons were lodged in the house of every Protestant.

These fanatic and cruel men were ordered not to kill the Protestants

with whom they lodged, but to do every thing in their power to

constrain them to abjure their Christian faith.

“They attached crosses to the muzzles of their muskets to force

the Protestants to kiss them. When any one resisted, they thrust

these crosses against the face and breasts of the unfortunate people.

They spared children no more than persons advanced in years. Without

compassion for their age, they fell upon them with blows, and beat them

with the flat of their swords and the ♦butt of their muskets. They did

this so cruelly, that some were crippled for life.”[213]

The Protestants were prohibited from attempting to leave the kingdom,

under penalty of perpetual consignment to the galleys. Every book in

advocacy of Protestantism, which the most rigorous search could find,

was burned. When a representation was made to the king of the terrible

suffering these enactments were inflicting upon two millions of

Protestants, he replied,――

“To bring back all my subjects to Catholic unity, I would willingly

with one hand cut off the other.”

The king flattered himself that he was thus absolutely exterminating

Protestantism from France. His officers wrote him very flattering but

false accounts of the success which was attending their efforts. It

was reported to him, that, by the persuasive energies of this rigorous

persecution, sixty thousand Protestants in the district of Bordeaux,

and twenty thousand in Montauban, had been converted to the Catholic

faith.

In September, 1685, Louvois wrote to the king,――

“Before the end of the month, there will not remain ten thousand

Protestants in all the district of Bordeaux, where there were a hundred

and fifty thousand the 15th of last month.”

The Duke of Noailles wrote, “The number of Protestants in the district

of Nîsmes is about a hundred and forty thousand. I believe, that, at

the end of the month, none will be left.”

Deluded by these reports, Louis XIV., on the 18th of October, 1685,

signed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In the preamble to this

fatal act, he said,――

“We see now, with the just acknowledgment we owe to God, that our

measures have secured the end which we ourselves proposed, since the

better and greater part of our subjects of the pretended reformed

religion have embraced the Catholic faith; and the maintenance of the

Edict of Nantes remains, therefore, superfluous.”

By this act it was declared that the Protestant worship should be

nowhere tolerated in France. All Protestant pastors were ordered to

leave the kingdom within fifteen days, under penalty of being sent

to the galleys. Protestant pastors who would abjure their faith were

promised a salary one-third more than they had previously enjoyed.

Parents were forbidden to instruct their children in the Protestant

religion. Every child born in the kingdom was to be baptized and

educated by a Catholic priest. All Protestant Frenchmen, out of

France, were ordered to return within four months, under penalty of

confiscation of property. Any Protestant layman or woman who should

attempt to leave France, was, if arrested, doomed to imprisonment for

life.

Such were the infamous decrees enacted in France but two hundred

years ago. The woes they caused can never be gauged: the calamities

they entailed upon France have been awful. Hundreds of thousands, in

defiance of poverty, the dungeon, and utter temporal ruin, adhered

to their faith: thousands, haggard with want and despair, through all

conceivable suffering, effected their escape.

At the time of the Revocation, the Protestant population of France

was estimated at between two and three millions. Though the edict was

enforced by the government with the utmost severity, many noble-hearted

Catholics sympathized with the Protestants, befriended them in various

ways, and aided them to escape. Though guards were placed upon every

road leading to the frontiers, and thousands of fugitives were arrested,

still thousands escaped. Some, in armed bands, fought their way with

drawn swords; some obtained passports from kind-hearted Catholic

governors; some bribed their guards; some travelled by night from

hiding-place to hiding-place; some assumed the disguise of peddlers

selling Catholic relics. It is estimated by Catholic writers that about

two hundred and thirty thousand escaped. Antoine Court, one of the

Protestant pastors, places the number as high as eight hundred thousand.

M. Sismondi thinks that as many perished as escaped: he places the

number of each at between three and four hundred thousand.

The suffering was awful. Multitudes perished of cold, hunger,

and exhaustion. Thousands were shot by the soldiery. So many were

arrested, that the prisons and galleys of France were crowded with

victims. Among these were many men illustrious in rank and culture. The

arrival of the fugitives, emaciate and woe-stricken, upon the soil of

Protestant countries, created intense sensation. From every Protestant

court in Europe a cry of indignation arose. England, Switzerland,

Holland, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, received the sufferers with warm

demonstrations of hospitality and sympathy.

The loss to France was irreparable. Only one year after the Revocation,

Marshal Vauban wrote,――

“France has lost a hundred thousand inhabitants, sixty millions of

coined money, nine thousand sailors, twelve thousand disciplined

soldiers, six hundred officers, and her most flourishing manufactures.”

The fanatic king, instead of being softened by these woes, became more

unrelenting. He issued an ordinance requiring that all the children

between five and sixteen years of age, of parents suspected of

Protestantism, should be taken from their homes, and placed in Catholic

families. All books which it was thought in any way favored the

Protestant faith were seized and burned. “The Bible itself, the Bible

above all, was confiscated and burned with persevering animosity.”[214]

But no power of persecution could utterly crush out between two and

three millions of Protestants, nearly every one of whom was ready to

go to the stake in defence of his faith. In some of the provinces the

Protestants were in so large a majority, and were organized under such

able military leaders, that the king was unable to enforce with any

efficiency his sanguinary code.

In contemplation of such scenes of fanaticism and suffering, one is

led to inquire if Christianity has, on the whole, proved a blessing to

mankind. But let it be remembered, that as secular history is mainly

occupied with a record of the wars and the woes of humanity, while

years of tranquillity and peace have no annalists; so historians

of the Church have been mainly occupied with the corruptions which

human depravity have introduced into the pure, simple, and beneficent

principles of the religion of Jesus. But there is little to be recorded

of the millions upon millions of Christians in private life, who,

from youth to old age, have had their hearts purified, their manners

softened, their homes cheered and blessed, by those quiet virtues which

their faith has inculcated. Every joy of their lives has been magnified,

and every grief solaced, by their piety.

They have fallen asleep in Jesus, triumphant over death and the grave,

and are now with angel-companions in the paradise of God. No man can

estimate the multitude of these redeemed ones: their number is “ten

thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.” And now, to

use the glowing language of inspiration,――

“Are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his

temple; and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They

shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun

light on them, nor any heat: for the Lamb which is in the midst of the

throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of

waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”[215]

In the accompanying group of portraits, the reader will find correct

likenesses of some of the most distinguished of the Protestant clergy

during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Illustration: EMINENT CLERGY OF THE 18TH CENTURY

Thomas Chalmers, one of the most eloquent and renowned of the

Presbyterian clergy of Scotland, was born at Anstruther, in Fifeshire,

the 17th of March, 1780. At the early age of twelve, he entered the

University of St. Andrew’s. Distinguishing himself as a scholar, he was

licensed to preach in his nineteenth year. When he was first ordained

minister of a small parish at Kilmany, his mind was chiefly occupied

with studies of natural science, and in speculating upon moral, social,

and political questions. Though he devoted little time, comparatively,

to the pulpit, still, with powers of glowing and impassioned eloquence

which drew great multitudes to hear him, he enforced the highest

principles of worldly morality. Though the audiences listened, charmed

by his eloquence, he testifies, that, at the close of twelve years, he

could not perceive that any good had been accomplished by his preaching.

This led him to inquire why the preaching of the gospel by the apostles

produced results so different from those which he witnessed.

These anxious questions, in connection with a dangerous illness and

severe domestic bereavements, led him to a renewed examination of the

New Testament. He then perceived that he had been a stranger to the

gospel of Christ, and that he had been preaching simply a code of

morals, without regard to those great doctrines which are the “wisdom

of God, and the power of God unto salvation.” From his sick-bed he

returned to the pulpit, a new man, to proclaim to his congregation,

with increasing fervor of utterance, salvation through faith in an

atoning Saviour. The style of his preaching was thoroughly changed. The

themes upon which he dwelt, and upon which he brought to bear all the

powers of his rich and varied culture and his impassioned eloquence,

were the lost state of mankind by the fall; the atonement for human

guilt made by the sufferings and death of the Son of God upon the

cross at Calvary; redemption from sin and its penalty, obtained

through penitence and faith in this atoning Saviour; regeneration,――the

recreating of the soul by the energies of the Holy Spirit; and the

endeavor to live a Christ-like life, as the result of this renewal

by the Holy Ghost.

There was vitality in these doctrines; they inspired the preacher

with zeal unknown before; and, from that hour to the day of his death,

Thomas Chalmers preached the glad tidings of the gospel with power,

and with success unsurpassed, perhaps, by any other preacher in Great

Britain or America. He still continued to prosecute his literary and

scientific studies, but brought all his resources to the advocacy

of the gospel. In one of his published articles, he alludes with

admiration to the history of Pascal, “who, after a youth signalized

with profound speculations, had stopped short in a brilliant career

of discovery, resigned the splendors of literary reputation, renounced

without a sigh all the distinctions which are conferred upon genius,

only to devote every talent and every hour to the defence and

illustration of the gospel.”[216]

His pulpit eloquence attracted listeners from great distances. An

article which he wrote for “The Encyclopædia” in 1813, upon “The

Evidences of Christianity,” attracted great attention, and was

immediately republished in separate volumes. Several review articles

which he wrote upon scientific and political questions added greatly

to his renown. In 1815 he was invited to the pastoral charge of a

parish in Glasgow. Here, for eight years, he stood, as a pulpit orator,

without a rival. The most distinguished philosophers and the most

unlettered men were alike charmed by his address.

Jeffries describes the impression produced by his sermons as

similar to the effect created by the most impassioned strains of

Demosthenes. Wilberforce wrote in his diary, “All the world is wild

about Dr. Chalmers.” He delivered a series of weekly lectures on

“The Connection of the Discoveries of Astronomy and the Christian

Revelation.” They were listened to with intense admiration, and, being

published in 1817, secured an immense sale, rivalling even the Waverley

Novels in popularity.

His fame was such, that, being invited to London to preach, the most

distinguished men in the kingdom crowded the church, and listened

with admiration to his glowing utterances. Several articles which he

contributed to “The Edinburgh Review” added much to his celebrity as

a philosopher, a statesman, and an accomplished scholar. Through his

influence, the old parochial system of Scotland was thoroughly revised;

and the whole community was divided into small sections, so as to

bring every individual under educational and ecclesiastical influences.

The parish of St. John, which contained two thousand families, eight

hundred of whom were not connected with any Christian church, was

intrusted, as an experiment, entirely to his supervision. The support

of the poor in that parish had been costing seven thousand dollars a

year. In four years the poor were in far more comfortable circumstances,

and the expense of their support amounted to but fourteen hundred

dollars a year. Every street and lane was systematically visited.

In the year 1823, Dr. Chalmers accepted the professorship of moral

philosophy in the University of St. Andrew’s; and in the year 1828

he was transferred to the higher sphere of professor of theology

in the University of Edinburgh. Here he remained for fifteen years.

The enthusiasm inspired by his ardor and eloquence crowded his

lecture-room, not only with students, but with men of the highest

literary distinction, and clergymen of every denomination. In the year

1833 he made a tour through Scotland, collecting funds, and urging

forward a movement which would so increase the churches of the country,

that the claims of religion should be urged upon every individual heart.

He had became the recognized leader of what was called the Evangelical

party. In the General Assembly of 1834――of which Dr. Chalmers was

moderator――a resolution was passed, that no minister should be forced

upon any parish against whom a majority of the congregation should

remonstrate. This gave rise to a very violent controversy. The civil

courts declared this to be contrary to the law of the land. Thus the

church and the civil courts came into collision.

The result was, that, after a struggle of ten years, four hundred and

seventy clergymen withdrew from the Established Church, and associated

themselves as the “Free Church of Scotland,” choosing Dr. Chalmers

their moderator. The last four years of Dr. Chalmers’s busy life

were spent in organizing the new church, in performing the duties of

president of the Free Church College which had been founded, and in

writing for “The North-British Review,” which had been established

under his superintendence. In the midst of these arduous labors, Dr.

Chalmers was suddenly called to his final rest. He had just returned

from London, where he had been consulting some eminent statesmen upon

his views of national education, when he was found, on the morning of

the 31st of May, 1847, dead in his bed, at Morningside, near Edinburgh.

During the night, he had “fallen asleep in Jesus.” The tranquillity

of his features showed that the soul had taken its upward flight from

the body without a struggle or a pang. He had attained the age of

sixty-seven years.

Jonathan Edwards, perhaps, takes the rank of the most illustrious of

American divines. He was born at East Windsor, Conn., on the 5th of

October, 1703. Dr. Chalmers said of him,――

“On the arena of metaphysics, Jonathan Edwards stood the highest of his

contemporaries. The American divine affords, perhaps, the most wondrous

example in modern times of one who stood gifted both in natural and

spiritual discernment.”

Sir James Mackintosh says of him, “This remarkable man――the

metaphysician of America――was formed among the Calvinists of New

England. His power of subtle argument, perhaps unmatched, certainly

unsurpassed, among men, was joined with a character which raised his

piety to fervor.”

Robert Hall writes, “Jonathan Edwards ranks with the brightest

luminaries of the Christian Church, not excluding any country or any

age.”

In a family of ten sisters, Jonathan was an only son. His father and

his grandfather, on his mother’s side, were both eminent ministers of

the gospel. His father was distinguished for scholarship in Hebrew,

Greek, and Latin. Under the tuition of his father and his accomplished

elder sisters, the youthful intellect of Jonathan was very rapidly

developed. Before he was ten years of age, he became deeply concerned

for his soul’s salvation, and engaged very earnestly in a life of

devotion, praying five times a day in secret. At that early age he

wrote a treatise, ridiculing the idea that the soul is material. When

twelve years of age, there was a remarkable revival in his father’s

parish. In a letter to an absent sister, he wrote,――

“The very remarkable outpouring of the Spirit of God still continues:

but I have reason to think that it is in some measure diminished; yet,

I hope, not much. Three have joined the church since you last heard;

five now stand propounded for admission; and I think above thirty

persons come commonly on a Monday to converse with father about the

condition of their souls.”

In September, 1716, when in his thirteenth year, Jonathan entered Yale

College. He devoted himself assiduously to study; and the character of

his mind may be inferred from the fact, that, when but fifteen years

of age, he was discussing with the utmost interest such questions as

“whether it were possible to add to matter the property of thought:”

he argued that “every thing did exist from all eternity in uncreated

idea;” that “truth is the agreement of our ideas with the ideas of

God;” that “the universe exists nowhere but in the divine mind;” &c.

When about sixteen years of age, while in college, his mind seems to

have settled into a calm trust in God. His theological opinions became

unalterably formed. The peace which thus dawned upon his mind he

describes in his diary in glowing language:――

“The appearance of every thing was altered. There was, as it were, a

calm, sweet cast, or appearance, of divine glory in almost every thing.

God’s excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear

in the sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass,

flowers, trees; in the water, and in all nature.”

After taking his degree, he remained for two years at New Haven,

studying theology; and, before he was nineteen years of age, was

invited to preach in a Presbyterian church in New York. He preached

with great fervor, and in the enjoyment of intense spiritual delight,

for eight months, when he returned to his father’s home in East Windsor,

where he continued his severe and unremitting studies. Here, with much

prayer, the young Christian wrote a series of seventy resolutions to

guide him in the conduct of life. We find in them the resolves,――

To act always for the glory of God and for the good of mankind in

general; to lose not one moment of time; to live with all his might

while he did live; to let the knowledge of the failings of others only

promote shame in himself; to solve, as far as he could, any theorem

in divinity he might think of; to trace actions back to their original

source; to be firmly faithful to his trust; to live as he would if it

were but an hour before he should hear the last trump; to strive every

week for a higher and still higher exercise of grace.

In the diary of this young man of nineteen we find the following

narrative: “They say there is a young lady in New Haven who is beloved

of that great Being who made and rules the world; and that there are

certain seasons in which this great Being, in some way or other, comes

to her, and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight; and that she

hardly cares for any thing except to meditate on him; that she expects

after a while to be received up where he is,――to be raised up out of

the world, and caught up into heaven, being assured that he loves her

too well to let her remain at a distance from him always. There she

is to dwell with him, and to be ravished with his love and delight

forever. Therefore, if you present all the world, with the richest of

its treasures, she disregards it, and cares not for, and is unmindful

of, any path of affliction.

“She has a singular purity in her affections; is most just and

conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do

any thing wrong or sinful if you would give her all this world, lest

she should offend this great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness,

calmness, and universal benevolence, especially after this great God

has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from

place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy

and pleasure, and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking

the fields and groves; and seems to have some one invisible always

conversing with her.”

This young lady, Sarah Pierrepont, eventually became the wife of

Mr. Edwards. Though several congregations invited him to become their

pastor, he decided to devote two more years to study before assuming

the responsibilities of a parish. In June, 1724, he was appointed tutor

in Yale College. The duties of this station he fulfilled with great

success, devoting himself with tireless assiduity to study, practising

great abstinence both from food and sleep. In February, 1727, he

entered upon the office of colleague-pastor with Rev. Solomon Stoddard,

his mother’s father, in Northampton, Mass., then, as now, one of the

most beautiful towns in New England. Immediately after his settlement,

he sought the hand of Sarah Pierrepont as his bride.

“She listened to his urgency; and on July 28, about five months after

he was settled, the youthful preacher was joined in wedlock at New

Haven with the wonderfully-endowed bride of his choice. She was pure

and kind, uncommonly beautiful and affectionate, and notable as a

housekeeper; he, holy and learned and eloquent, and undoubtedly the

ablest young preacher of his time; she seventeen, he twenty-three.

What was wanting to their happiness? The union continued for more than

thirty years; and she bore him three sons and eight daughters.”

Rapidly the fame of the young preacher spread; for in his sermons

were found a union of the closest reasoning, glowing imagination, and

fervid piety. A wonderful revival of religion soon followed his earnest

ministrations, exceeding any thing which had then been known in North

America. Edwards wrote an account of the surprising conversions which

took place, which narrative was republished in England and in Boston.

Thus the years passed rapidly, prosperously, and happily away, as his

powers of eloquence and the productions of his pen extended his fame

through Europe and America. But suddenly a bitter controversy arose in

the church to which he ministered. The Rev. Mr. Stoddard, a man of mild

character and lax discipline, had introduced to the church many who did

not profess to be in heart Christians, the subjects of renewing grace.

It had been tacitly assumed that the Lord’s Supper was a converting

ordinance, and that any person of respectable character might unite

with the church, and partake of the Lord’s Supper, as he might attend

upon the preaching of the gospel. But Edwards urged that true

conversion should precede admission to the communion. In these views

Edwards was overborne by the majority of the church, who refused to

allow him to deliver a course of lectures upon the subject. Thus, after

years of a very unhappy controversy, Mr. Edwards was driven from his

parish in the twenty-fourth year of his pastorate. He was drawing near

the decline of life, had ten children dependent upon him, and was left

without any visible means of support. The magnanimity and firmness

which Mr. Edwards displayed has won for him the admiration of posterity.

In the town of Stockbridge, among the mountains of Berkshire, there was

a remnant of a band of Indians called Housatonics. A few white settlers

had also purchased lands, and reared their farm-houses in that region.

A society in London, organized for the purpose of propagating the

gospel, appointed him as missionary to these humble people. His income

was so small, that it was found necessary to add to it by the handiwork

of his wife and daughters, which was sent to Boston for sale.

As Mr. Edwards preached to the Indians extempore, and through an

interpreter, he found more leisure for general study than he had ever

before enjoyed; and from this retreat in the wilderness, during six

years of intense application, he sent forth productions which arrested

the attention of the whole thinking world. His renowned dissertations

upon “The Freedom of the Will,” upon “God’s Last End in the Creation

of the World,” upon “The Nature of True Virtue,” and on “Original Sin,”

placed him at once in the highest ranks of theologians and philosophers.

While thus laboring in his humble home in the then inhospitable

frontiers of Massachusetts, he was invited to the presidency of

Princeton College, one of the most prominent seminaries in the country.

The small-pox was raging in the vicinity, and he was inoculated as an

act of prevention. The disease assumed a malignant form; and on the 22d

of March, 1758, he died at Princeton, N.J., thirty-four days after his

installation as president. He had attained the age of fifty-four years.

Fully conscious that death was approaching, he sent messages of love to

the absent members of his family. His last words were, “Trust in God,

and you need not fear.”

There is probably no name in the modern history of Christianity more

prominent than that of John Wesley. It is certain that the denomination

of Methodists, of which he is the father and the founder, has exerted

an influence in reclaiming lost souls to the Saviour second to that of

no other branch of the Church of Christ. In November, 1729,――less than

a hundred and fifty years ago,――John Wesley, then a young student but

twenty-six years of age in Oxford University, England, with his younger

brother Charles and two other students, united in a class for their own

spiritual improvement. Their strict habits and methodical improvement

of time led their fellow-students to give them, somewhat in derision,

the name of Methodists. They accepted the name, and made it honorable.

Such was the origin of a denomination of Christians which has now

become one of the largest and most influential in the world. According

to the statistics given in the Methodist Almanac for 1872, the

denomination now numbers, in the United States alone,――

21,086 Preachers.

1,436,396 Church-members.

193,979 Sunday-school teachers.

1,267,742 Sunday-school scholars.

$64,098,104 Value of church edifices and parsonages.[217]

John Wesley was the son of a mother alike remarkable for her piety and

her intellectual endowments. He was born at Epworth, England, on the

17th of June, 1703. At the age of seventeen, he entered the University

at Oxford. Taking his first degree in 1724, he was elected fellow

of Lincoln College, and graduated master of arts in 1726. He was at

this time quite distinguished for his attainments, particularly in the

classics, and for his skill as a logician. Being naturally of a sedate,

thoughtful turn of mind, he had from childhood been strongly inclined

to the Christian ministry. The teachings of his noble mother had

inspired him with the intense desire of being useful to his fellow-men.

Being ordained to the ministry, he was for a short time his father’s

curate. Returning to Oxford still further to prosecute his studies,

he expressed strong dissatisfaction at the want of zeal manifested in

the Established Church for the conversion of sinners. This led him to

consecrate himself with great solemnity to the more strict observance

of the duties of religious life.

He formed a society for mutual religious improvement, which consisted

at first only of himself, his younger brother Charles, and two others

of his fellow-students. The number was, however, soon increased to

fifteen. Ten years passed away with their usual vicissitudes, nothing

occurring worthy of especial note. In 1735, Mr. Wesley was induced to

go to Georgia to preach to the colonists there, and more especially

to labor as a missionary among the Indians. The mission proved very

unsuccessful. The disturbed state of the colony was such, that he

could get no access to the Indians. Though at first he had a large

and flourishing congregation of colonists to address in Savannah,

there soon sprang up very bitter alienation between him and the people

of his charge. They rebelled against the strictness of discipline

which he attempted to introduce. He refused to admit dissenters from

the Episcopal Church to the communion, unless they were rebaptized;

insisted upon immersion as the mode of performing that rite; and became

involved in a very serious matrimonial difficulty.

The result was, that he soon found his influence at an end in Georgia.

After a residence of two years at Savannah, he returned to England,

“shaking the dust off his feet,” as he said, in testimony against the

colonists. Recrossing the Atlantic, he visited the colony of Moravian

Christians, or United Brethren as they were also called, at Hernhult,

in Upper Lusatia. This colony was founded by Count Zinzendorf upon

what he considered as the model of the primitive apostolic Christians.

Leaving out all the distinctive doctrines of the various Protestant

denominations, he adopted as articles of faith only those fundamental

scriptural truths in which all evangelical Christians agree.

Mr. Wesley soon made the extraordinary discovery, as he himself

states, that he had never been truly converted. While crossing the

ocean to lead others to the Saviour, he had never come to that Saviour

himself. “He felt,” he said, “a want of the victorious faith of more

experienced Christians.” Agitated by these thoughts, he at length, in

his estimation, became a subject of that renewing grace entitled in

the Bible being “born again.” So sudden was this change, that he could

not only point out the day and the hour, but the moment also, when it

took place. “It was,” he says, “at quarter before nine o’clock on the

evening of May 24, at a meeting of a society in Aldergate Street, when

one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans.”

In this respect, the experience of Mr. Wesley was somewhat similar

to that of Dr. Chalmers. He at once began his labors of preaching

the gospel of Christ, with zeal and success, perhaps, never surpassed.

George Whitefield, one of the most impassioned and eloquent of sacred

orators, joined him. They both preached several times a day in the

prisons, and at all other places where they could gain an audience.

Their fervor attracted crowds; and strong opposition began to be

manifested against them. As the Established clergy refused to open

their churches to these zealous preachers, they addressed audiences

in the open fields, and particularly in an immense building called the

Foundery at Moorsfield. Here Mr. Wesley organized his first church of

but eight to ten persons. There was at that time great deadness in the

Established Church. Many of the nominal pastors were utterly worldly

men, who made no profession of piety. The clergy were often younger

sons of nobles, who had been placed over the churches simply through

the influence of their fathers, that they might enjoy the revenues

of the church. Reckless men, devoted to pleasure, they were called

“fox-hunting parsons;” and the church became often the scene only of

a heartless round of ceremonies. The masses of the people found nothing

in such a religion either to cheer them in their sorrows, or to animate

them to a holy life.

The preaching of Wesley and his companions came directly home to the

hearts of the people. It was the earnest and impassioned utterance to

weary souls of the good news and glad tidings of the gospel. The little

church of eight or ten members which he established at the Foundery was

composed of those who, as Wesley testifies, “came to him and desired

him to spend some time with them in prayer, and advise them how to

escape from the wrath to come.”

The church at the Foundery rapidly increased in numbers: crowds flocked

to listen to the earnest preaching. The building was converted into a

chapel, and became the centre of operations. From this centre, Wesley

and his associates made constant journeys into the surrounding country,

sometimes to a great distance, preaching wherever they went. They

generally preached twice every day, and four times on the sabbath. At

Kensington Common, Wesley at one time addressed a concourse estimated

to be not less than twenty thousand persons.

“Wesley devoted himself to his work in Great Britain with such

completeness, that scarcely an hour was abstracted from the cause on

which he had set his heart. He seldom travelled less than forty miles a

day; and until near the close of life, when he used a chaise, generally

went on horseback. It is said that not an instance can be found, during

a period of fifty years, wherein the severest weather hindered him for

a single day. His journeys extended to Ireland, Scotland, and Wales,

in each of which countries he preached with great success. He formed

societies, and placed lay preachers over them; appointed class-leaders,

and established schools, the most important of which was that of

Kingswood, near Bristol, which was designed more particularly for the

education of the sons of preachers. The most extraordinary revivals

followed his ministry, especially among the poor and destitute in the

mining and manufacturing districts.”[218]

Though Wesley continued to adhere to the Established Church, still the

principles of tolerance which he advocated tended more and more, every

day, to cause the rapidly-increasing Methodist churches to be regarded

as a distinct sect. At the first conference of the Methodist clergy at

the Foundery Chapel, in 1744, eight preachers were present. Wesley then

said,――

“You cannot be admitted to the church of Presbyterians, Baptists,

Quakers, or any others, unless you hold the same opinions with them,

and adhere to the same mode of worship. The Methodists alone do not

insist upon your holding this or that opinion; but they think, and let

think. Neither do they impose any particular mode of worship; but you

may continue to worship in your former manner, be it what it may. Now,

I do not know any other religious society, either ancient or modern,

wherein such liberty of conscience is now allowed, or has been allowed

since the days of the apostles. Here is our glorying, and it is a

glorying peculiar to us.”

In the year 1752, Wesley married a widow with four children. But the

religious zeal which inspired him was singularly manifested in the

marriage contract, in which it was stipulated that he should not preach

one sermon the less, nor travel one mile the less, on account of his

change of condition. It is, perhaps, not strange that the marriage did

not prove a happy one. After a life of activity and usefulness to which

few parallels can be found, John Wesley died in London on the 2d of

March, 1791, in the eighty-third year of his age. The last four days of

his life were days of Christian triumph, in which the veteran servant

of Christ found that faith in Jesus did indeed make him victor over

death and the grave. It is estimated, that, during his ministry of

sixty-five years, he travelled about two hundred and seventy thousand

miles, and delivered over forty thousand sermons, besides addresses,

exhortations, and prayers. The denomination of which he was the founder

is now exerting in England and the United States an influence second

certainly to that of none other; and it is every hour increasing in all

the elements of prosperity and power.

Robert Hall, one of the brightest ornaments of the Baptist Church, by

universal assent occupies one of the most prominent positions among men

of genius and of culture, his works having given him renown throughout

Christendom. The celebrated Dr. Parr, who was his intimate friend, says

of him,――

“Mr. Hall has, like Jeremy Taylor, the eloquence of an orator, the

fancy of a poet, the subtlety of a schoolman, the profoundness of a

philosopher, and the piety of a saint.”

Robert Hall was born at Arnsby, Leicestershire, England, in August,

1764. His father, who was a Baptist clergyman of considerable note,

early perceived a wonderful degree of intellectual development in his

child. He said to a friend,――

“Robert at nine years of age fully comprehended the reasoning in

the profoundly argumentative treatises of Edward on the Will and the

Affections.”

When fifteen years old, Robert became a student in the Baptist College

at Bristol; and in his eighteenth year entered King’s College, Aberdeen.

Here he became acquainted with Sir James Mackintosh, which acquaintance

ripened into a life-long friendship.

Upon leaving college, Mr. Hall commenced preaching, and with a power

which immediately drew around him, and elicited the admiration of,

crowds of the most intellectual of hearers. His biographer says of

him,――

“Mr. Hall’s voice is feeble, but very distinct: as he proceeds,

it trembles under his energy. The plainest and least-labored of his

discourses are not without delicate imagery and the most felicitous

turns of expression. He expatiates on the prophecies with a kindred

spirit, often conducting his audience to the top of the ‘Delectable

Mountains,’ where they can see from afar the gates of the Eternal

City. He seems at home among the marvellous revelations of St. John;

and, while he dwells upon them, he leads his hearer breathless through

ever-varying scenes of mystery far more glorious and surprising than

the wildest of Oriental fables. He stops where they most desire he

should proceed, where he has just disclosed the dawnings of the inmost

glory to their enraptured minds, and leaves them full of imaginations

of things not made with hands, of joys too ravishing for similes.”

Robert Hall’s life was devoid of adventure, having been spent almost

exclusively in the study and the pulpit. His conversational powers

were of the highest order; and, in every social circle, crowds gathered

around him, charmed by the unstudied eloquence which flowed from his

lips. He was an indefatigable student; and, though one of the most

profound thinkers, was one of the most childlike of men in unaffected

simplicity of character. His pre-eminence in the pulpit was universally

acknowledged, and his extraordinary powers ever crowded his church

with the most distinguished auditors. During his life he issued

several pamphlets, which obtained celebrity throughout all Christendom.

A sermon which he preached upon Modern Infidelity was published in

repeated editions, and “sent a thrill to every village and hamlet of

Great Britain.” Its arguments were so unanswerable, that no serious

attempt was made to reply to them.

“Whoever,” Dugald Stewart wrote, “wishes to see the English language

in its perfection, must read the writings of that great divine, Robert

Hall. He combines the beauties of Johnson, Addison, and Burke, without

their imperfections.”

A very severe chronic disease of the spine caused him throughout his

whole life severe suffering. Once or twice the disease so ascended to

the brain, that the mind lost its balance; and Mr. Hall was compelled

for a short time to withdraw from his customary labors.

The works of this distinguished man are still read with admiration,

and will be ever regarded as among the highest productions of the human

intellect. He died, universally beloved and lamented, on the 21st of

February, 1831, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.

There is, perhaps, no divine of the Church of England whose name

is more prominent in ecclesiastical annals, or more widely known

throughout the Christian world, than that of William Paley. He was born

in Peterborough, England, in July, 1743. His father, who was curate of

a parish, carefully instructed him in childhood, and, when his son was

sixteen years of age, entered him at Christ College, in Cambridge. The

superior intellect even then developed by the young man is evidenced by

the remark of his father, “He has by far the clearest head I ever met

with.”

At the university he applied himself very diligently to his studies,

and rapidly attained distinction. After graduating in 1763, he spent

three years as a teacher, and then returned to his college as a tutor.

In 1775 he was presented to the rectory of Musgrove, in Westmoreland;

and, marrying, he retired from the university to his living.

The life of Paley was in many respects quite the reverse of that of

Wesley. He was by no means an ardent Christian. His piety, and his

appreciation of Christianity, were intellectual far more than spiritual

or emotional. He was not a popular preacher: his appropriate field

of labor was the silence and solitude of the study. From this retreat

he issued works upon God, Christian Morals, and the Evidences of

Christianity, which greatly baffled infidelity, and silenced its cavils.

Being promoted from one living to another as he gained reputation, in

1782 he was advanced to the Archdeanery of Carlyle. Three years after

this he published his first important work, entitled “The Principles

of Moral and Political Economy.” Though some of its principles were

violently assailed, it commanded the respectful attention of all

thoughtful men. The work became exceedingly popular even with the

masses, as Paley had the power of making the most abstruse truths

clear and entertaining to the popular mind.

Five years after this, in 1790, Paley published another work,

entitled “Horæ Paulinæ,” which is generally deemed the most original

and ingenious of all his writings. In this work, which obtained renown

through all Christendom, he maintained with irresistible force of logic

the genuineness of St. Paul’s Epistles and of the Acts of the Apostles,

from the reciprocal supports they received, from the undesigned

coincidences between them. This work added greatly to the celebrity

of the already distinguished writer, and secured for him still more

lucrative offices in the English Church.

Four years later, in 1794, he issued another volume, entitled “View

of the Evidences of Christianity.” It may be safely said that the

arguments here brought forward in attestation of the divine origin of

the religion of Jesus of Nazareth never have been, and never can be,

refuted. In clearness of diction, beauty of illustration, and force

of logic, the work has never been surpassed. It has been adopted as

a text-book in many of the most distinguished universities, and is

considered one of the most cogent arguments to be found in any language

in favor of the divine authority of Christianity.

Thus does God raise up different instruments to accomplish his

great purposes of benevolence. While Wesley and his coadjutors were

traversing thousands of miles, and, by their impassioned eloquence,

were rousing the humble and unlettered masses to an acceptance

of the glad tidings of the gospel, Paley, in the lonely hours of

entire seclusion in his study, was framing those arguments which

intellectually enthroned Christianity in the minds of the thoughtful

and the philosophic.

At the close of a studious life of sixty-two years, spent in his study

and his garden, with but few companions and few exciting incidents,

this illustrious servant of the Church of Christ fell asleep on the

25th of May, 1805.

For nearly nineteen centuries, Christianity has struggled against

almost every conceivable form of human corruption. All the energies of

the powers of darkness have been combined against it. In this unholy

alliance, kings have contributed imperial power; so-called philosophers,

like Voltaire, have consecrated to the foul enterprise the most

brilliant endowments of wit and learning; while all “the lewd fellows

of the baser sort” have swelled the ranks of infidelity with their

legions of debauchees, inebriates, and blasphemers; but all in vain:

generation after generation of these despisers have passed away, and

perished.

Christianity has been steadily triumphing over all opposition, and was

never before such a power in the world as at this day. Could you, upon

some pleasant sabbath morning, look down from a balloon, as with an

angel’s eye, over the wide expanse of Europe, witnessing the movement

of its myriad population, and, as with an angel’s ear, listen to the

sounds which sweep over its mountains, its valleys, and its plains, how

wonderful the spectacle which would meet the eye, and the vibrations

which, like the fabled music of the spheres, would fill the air!

Suppose it to be such a sabbath morning as Herbert describes,――

“Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky:”

you would hear the chime of millions of church-bells floating in

Æolian harmony over crowded cities and green fields, melodious as

angel-voices proclaiming the praises of God. As you inquire, “What

causes this simultaneous clangor of sweet sounds over thousands of

leagues of territory, regardless of the barriers of mountains and

rivers, of national boundaries and diverse tongues? whence comes the

impulse which has created this wondrous summons to hundreds of millions

of people, spread over a majestic continent, under diverse institutions,

speaking different languages, inhabiting different climes, and under

all varieties of forms of government?” you would be told,――and not

an individual on the globe would dispute the assertion,――“It is the

religion of Jesus of Nazareth.”

As you listen, you look; and, lo! thronging millions are crowding

towards innumerable temples of every variety of form, size, and

structure. The gilded chariot waits at the portals of the castle and

the palace for the conveyance of nobles and kings to these sanctuaries.

Through all the streets of the cities, and over many green-ribboned

roads of the country, vehicles of every description may be seen,

crowded with men, women, and children, all peacefully pressing on to

alight at the doors of these temples. The pavements of the crowded

towns are thronged; pedestrians, in their best attire, are hastening

along the banks of the rivers, and crossing the pastures and the

flowery plains; while, some in wagons, some in carts, some on horseback,

the mighty mass, unnumbered and innumerable, moves on to ten thousand

times ten thousand cathedrals and village churches, and to the humblest

edifices, where coarsely-clad and unlettered peasants meet for praise

and prayer.

The innumerable throng sweeps along the base of the Carpathian

Mountains, threads the passes of the Tyrol, and winds its way through

the gorges of the Alps and the Apennines. In Russia, wrapped in furs,

they struggle through snow-drifts, and breast the gale, as they crowd

to the Greek Church. On the sunny banks of the Mediterranean, in Italy,

France, and Spain, through vineyards and orange-groves, cheered by the

songs of birds and the bloom of flowers, nobles and peasants, princes

and subjects, press along to the massive, moss-covered churches where

their ancestors for centuries have worshipped according to the rites

of the Catholic Church. In Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and through all

the highways and byways of England, Scotland, and Wales, the inmates of

lordly castles, and humble artisans from mines and manufactories, are

moving onward to the churches where the religion of Jesus is inculcated

in accordance with the simple rites of the Protestant faith.

And, if we cross the Atlantic, we witness the same sublime spectacle,

extending from the icy regions north of the St. Lawrence to the Gulf

of Mexico, and from the Atlantic coast almost to the base of the Rocky

Mountains, and again repeated upon the Pacific shores through the

rapidly-populating plains of California and Oregon. Scarcely have the

hardy settlers reared half a dozen log-huts ere the spire of the church

rises, where the religion of Jesus is taught as the first essential to

the prosperity of the growing village. And so through South America:

through its conglomeration of States, where light is contending with

darkness; through Chili, Peru, Bolivia, and along the majestic streams

and wide-spreading savannas of the vast empire of Brazil,――the religion

of Jesus of Nazareth, notwithstanding the imperfections which fallen

humanity has attached to it, is potent above all other influences in

enlightening the masses, and in moulding their manners and their minds.

And now we begin faintly to hear, along the western coast of Africa

and the southern shores of India, and upon many a green tropical island

emerging from the Pacific, the tolling of the church-bell, indicating

that that religion which has became dominant in Europe and America

is destined to bring the whole world, from pole to pole, under its

benignant sway.

And it is worthy of note that the most thoroughly Christian nations are

the most enlightened, moral, and prosperous upon the globe. Where we do

not find this religion, we meet effeminate Asiatics, stolid Chinamen,

wandering Tartars, and Bedouins of the desert. They are the Christian

nations who stand forth luminous in wealth, power, and intellect. These

are the nations which seem now to hold the destinies of the globe in

their hand; and it is the religion of Jesus which has crowned them with

this wealth and influence.

And again: it is well to call attention to the fact, that every

literary and scientific university in Christendom, where the ablest men

in all intellectual culture do congregate, is mainly under the control

of those who bow in cordial assent to Jesus of Nazareth as their

Teacher and Lord.

The Universities of Cambridge and Oxford in England, of Edinburgh and

Glasgow in Scotland, of Harvard and Yale in the United States, declare

through their learned professors, with almost one united voice, that

the salvation of humanity can come only through the religion of Jesus

the Christ. In France, Italy, Germany, Russia, in all the renowned,

time-honored universities of Continental Europe, the name of Jesus

is revered as above every name, and his teachings are regarded as the

wisdom of God and the power of God. There is hardly a university of

learning of any note, in Europe or America, where Jesus of Nazareth is

not recognized as the Son of God, who came to seek and to save the lost.

The standard of what is called _goodness_ in this world greatly varies.

“There is honor among thieves.” A gang of debauchees, gamblers, and

inebriates, has its code of morals. The proudest oppressors who have

ever crushed humanity beneath a merciless heel have usually some

standard of right and wrong, so adroitly formed as to enable them to

flatter themselves that they are to be numbered among the good men.

Socrates, unenlightened by revelation, simply through the teachings of

his own honest mind, declares him only to be a good man who tries to

make himself, and all whom he can influence, as perfect as possible.

The definition which Jesus gives of goodness, even more comprehensive

and beautiful, is, that a man should love his Father, God, with all

his heart, and his brother, man, as himself. This is the only real

goodness,――angelic goodness, divine goodness. Now, it may be safely

said that you cannot find at the present time, or through all past ages,

a truly good man, in either of the above definitions of the term, whose

character has not been modelled by the principles laid down by Jesus of

Nazareth.

Let the mind run along the list of great and good men, who, with loving

hearts and pure lives and beneficent actions, have been the ornaments

of humanity; men and women who have made their own homes happy, who

have ever had an open hand to relieve the distressed, whose hearts

have yearned over the wandering, and whose lips have entreated them to

return to the paths of virtue; and where can you find one who has not

manifested the spirit of Jesus, and drawn his main inspiration from the

principles which he has inculcated?

There are now many men and women all over Christendom, of self-denying

lives, active in every good word and work, sympathizing with the

afflicted, helping the needy, praying for and trying to reclaim their

brothers and sisters of the human family who are crowding the paths of

sin; searching out the children of abandonment, destitution, and woe,

from the depravity of the streets and from homes of wretchedness, that

they may be clothed and educated and made holy,――there are thousands of

such; and yet it would be difficult to find one, a single one, who does

not recognize the religion of Jesus as the only moral power which can

reclaim a lost world.

We have in the Bible the history of the world, and the biography of

its leading individuals, from the dawn of creation until those modern

days in which secular history takes up the record. Through all these

ages not a single man can be found, who by the purity of his own life,

by the beneficent influence of his example, and by his self-denying

efforts to promote the happiness of others, has not developed the

principles uttered by the lips of Jesus.

Indeed, there is an absolute, invincible necessity that every truly

good man should embrace these principles, and diffuse them to the

utmost of his power. The moment one awakes to the grandeur of his own

being,――an immortal created in the image of God,――and begins to breathe

the prayer, “O God! help me to resist every sin, and aid me to cherish

every virtue,” he finds at once, that, infinitely above all other books,

the Bible is the book to help him in this new and noble life. He finds

that every duty which his conscience suggests that he ought to perform,

the religion of Jesus urges upon him by motives of infinite weight. He

finds that every allurement, every indulgence, which would retard his

moral growth, the religion of Jesus urges him, by motives of infinite

weight, to avoid.

All through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, there is one

continual strain of urgency, enforced by every variety of argument,

warning, and illustration, to aid a man to attain a celestial character.

Ought we to watch over our bodies, that by appetite and passion they

be not defiled; over our thoughts, that impurity enter not the secret

chambers of the soul; over our words, that we may ever speak as in

the audience-chamber of God; over our minds, that we may store them

with all valuable knowledge; over our hearts, that we may love God our

Father, and man our brother; over our actions, that every deed may be

such as God will approve? Then it is to Jesus of Nazareth we must look

as our teacher, our guide, our helper.

The Bible is the book which the good mother gives her boy as he goes

from home; and she knows full well, that if her boy will read that

book daily, and make it the guide of his life, he will be safe for time

and for eternity. Many a man has said years after a sainted mother has

ascended to her crown, “It was the Bible which my mother gave me which

rescued me from ruin.”

How noble is the character of the Christian wife and mother formed upon

the model of Jesus the Christ! Many of our readers have seen the most

beautiful exemplification of this in their own homes. You have seen

your mother all-forgetful of herself in her generous devotion to others.

You have seen her moving like an angel of light in the dark homes of

poverty, and around beds of suffering and death, ever unmindful of her

own ease if she could only heal broken hearts and soothe the cry of

anguish. Such nobility the world will ever recognize, and love to honor.

Many such are found in the homes of our own land. Many a reader can

say, “Such was my mother, God bless her!” You have seen her bending

over the cradle, pale, gentle, loving as an angel; you have seen her

placid and cheerful amidst all the annoyances and wasting cares of

domestic life; you have seen her return home in the morning, after

watching during the night with a sick neighbor, to toil all day long

with fingers which never seem to tire, and with a gentle spirit which

even your waywardness could never discompose.

And, when the village-bell tolled her funeral, you have seen every

house emptied as rich and poor came together to weep over the departure

of one who was the friend and benefactor of them all. Oh, how glorious

must be the flight of such a spirit, ennobled by suffering, victor over

death and the grave, to join the peerage of heaven, and to receive a

coronet in the skies! Now, characters of this stamp――of imperial type,

though found in lowly homes――are invariably formed upon the model which

Jesus Christ has presented.

The men of true nobility who are found in almost every village of our

land――men devoted to every thing that is good, opposed to every thing

that is bad――are men who have deliberately enlisted in the service

of Jesus Christ as his disciples, his imitators. They perseveringly

struggle against all that is unworthy; they hunger and thirst for every

celestial virtue; they battle against temptation in whatever form it

may come; cultivate moral courage, that they may boldly advocate the

cause of their Saviour, amidst opposition and derision if need be; and

thus they are nerved to glorious achievements in triumphing over the

allurements to sin, and in bringing themselves into entire subjection

to their divine Master.

Material grandeur of crag and cataract has its sublimity; but there is

something in moral excellence which far surpasses, in all the elements

of the sublime, any combinations of ocean, earth, or sky. When a man

towers above his fellow-men in self-denial, in devotion to the welfare

of others, in the endeavor to extend virtue, piety, and happiness, a

spectacle is presented upon which angels gaze with admiration. When

we reflect upon what we may become in social loveliness, in majesty of

virtue, in dignity of character, we can hardly wonder that even the Son

of God should be willing to die upon the cross to save such a one from

the ruin of sin. Here below, in the midst of all man’s frailties and

wickedness, we catch glimpses of the angel dignity from which he has

fallen, and to which he may again soar.

The wreck is to be repaired; the ruin is to be rebuilt. What a glorious

creation will man become, when, redeemed, regenerated, created anew in

Christ Jesus, he emerges from the fall in more than the majesty of his

original grandeur, no longer but a “little lower” than the angels, but

on an equality with the loftiest spirits who bow before God’s throne!

And, oh! it is so sad――the saddest sight of earth――to see one who

is created of a noble nature, with glowing intellect and gushing

affections, formed to move like an angel of light amidst sorrowing

humanity, to cheer the heart-stricken, to strengthen the tempted, to

support the weak, to win and save the lost,――it is, indeed, a sad sight

to see such a one, all unmindful of his lofty lineage and glorious

inheritance, casting every thing that is noble away, and living

miserably for self and sin! Earth is full of such melancholy wrecks, as

of archangels ruined. All material ruins, all mouldering turrets, and

towers of baronial castles,――Melrose, Drachenfels, Heidelberg,――before

such moral wrecks, pale into insignificance.

There is a ship in a foreign port. The rude sailors from the forecastle

have gone on shore to the drinking-saloon and the dancing-hall to spend

the night in revelry and sin. But one has remained behind. With the

moral courage of a martyr, he has braved the insults and ridicule of

his companions. And now it is midnight. He is kneeling beside his berth

in prayer. There is a half-closed book by his side. Does any one doubt

what that book is? Is there any other book but the Bible which can

inspire him with such moral courage as this? It is from its pages that

he has learned that it is better “to suffer affliction with the people

of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.”[219]

Far away upon the lonely prairie, there was a settler in his solitary

log-cabin. From his humble door-sill, nought was to be seen in the wide

expanse of many leagues but the prairie’s undulating ocean of grass and

flowers, broken here and there with a clump of trees, emerging as an

island from the silent sea. In that vast solitude there was a Christian

family, impoverished by misfortune, struggling to rear for themselves

a new home: it consisted of a father, mother, and nine children. Death

came. The mother, who had ever been an angel of light in her home, was

stricken down by death. There were no neighbors to help; there was no

Christian minister near to offer the supports of the gospel. Sadly the

father dug the grave; sadly, with the aid of his weeping children, he

bore the sacred remains to their burial; sadly, silently, with a broken

heart, he filled up the grave, which entombed all his earthly hopes and

joys.

The evening sun was just sinking beneath the distant horizon of the

prairie: that Christian father, in his desolated cabin, crushed with

grief, had assembled, as had ever been his wont, his little household

around him, to seek the blessing of God. They were all bowed together

upon their knees. The angels hovering over them could hear the sobs of

the children and the moaning prayer of the father.

Upon the table there was one book,――one open book, from which the

husband and father had been reading. Can any one doubt what that book

was? It was opened at the consoling passage,――

“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God; believe also in me.

In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have

told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And, if I go and prepare

a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that

where I am, there ye may be also.”[220]

What words of comfort to the mourner! O precious Bible! thou instructor

of the ignorant, guide of the erring, consoler of the afflicted,

supporter of the dying; thou unfailing friend of all the weary and the

heart-crushed; thou only hope of humanity,――thou art indeed God’s best

gift to our fallen race.

In the natural world there is infinite variety,――room for the

gratification of every diversity of taste. Here rise the craggy

mountains, with their eternal glaciers,――their pinnacles, thunder-riven,

storm-torn, piercing the skies; there sleeps the placid lake, embowered

in groves, fringed with blooming meadows, and upon whose bosom float

the graceful many-colored waterfowl undisturbed: here extends the

limitless prairie, an ocean of land, embroidered with flowers whose

hues Solomon, arrayed in all his glory, could not outvie; there

Sahara’s boundless sands in dreary desolation glisten in the sun; and

there the Dismal Swamp, which even the foot of the moccasoned Indian

cannot penetrate, frowns in eternal gloom,――all subserving some good

end, all ministering to the glory of God and the good of his children.

So in the Bible, God’s Word, we find that which is adapted to every

variety of taste, every condition of mind, every gradation of intellect

and of culture. One page conducts you back to the pastoral simplicity

of the world’s infancy: you wander with the patriarchs as they pitch

their tents and tend their flocks beneath the sunny skies of the Orient.

Another page moves your soul with the sublime denunciations of the

prophets, before which denunciations monarchs trembled, and empires

crumbled to ruin. You turn the leaf; and the majestic dynasties of

the long-buried ages pass before you in sombre procession, with all

their vicissitudes of pomp and of death, of revelry and of wailing. You

open to another chapter; and your soul is soothed with the penitential

sweetness of the Psalms of David, whose pensive strains bring solace

to your soul in its hours of deepest sadness. Again your spirit is

ennobled by the precepts of Jesus, who spake as never man spake; and

your whole being is inspired by the magnificent revelations of life and

immortality brought to light in the gospel.

Here is food alike for all,――for the peasant, for the philosopher, for

the dairyman’s untutored daughter, and for the profoundest philosopher

who ever honored humanity by his intellectual achievements. Indeed,

Christianity carries its own evidence. “If any man will do his will,”

says Jesus, “he shall know of the doctrine.”[221] And again: “He that

believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.”[222]

It is true that any child can ask questions which no philosopher

can answer. The infidel, be he never so weak in mind and shallow in

attainments, can easily present difficulties which no philosopher can

solve. The infidel is almost invariably a self-conceited man of “little

learning.” To him the remark of Lord Bacon is applicable: “A little

learning tendeth to unbelief; but more bringeth us back to religion.”

And what is this religion of Jesus, which is ever winning in

such increasing numbers the homage of human hearts? What are those

principles which have undermined and overthrown the proudest systems

of ancient idolatry, and which seem to be now commanding the assent of

every honest mind?

There is one God, existing as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He is the

common Father of us all; and therefore we are bound to love and worship

him. All men are brothers, of whatever race, color, or condition: as

kind brothers, they should seek to promote each other’s welfare. All

men have been and are sinners: they should therefore repent, implore

forgiveness, and abandon every thing which an enlightened conscience

teaches to be wrong. The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity,

assumed human nature, and, by his sufferings and death, made atonement

for sin. Salvation is now freely offered to all who will accept that

Saviour, and honestly and perseveringly endeavor to return to a holy

life. God’s desire to save his rebellious children is so strong,

that not only has he given his Son to die for us, but he has sent the

Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, on a special embassage

to plead with us, that we may return to him. All who yield to these

strivings of the Spirit, and, with penitence and faith, try to live as

the Son of God by example and precept has taught us, will be received

to heaven, and made eternally happy there, as if they had never sinned.

All those who refuse and continue in rebellion will be forever excluded

from heaven, and will be imprisoned with the Devil and his angels,

where their wickedness will make them ever wretched, but where they

can no longer mar the happiness of those who love and serve God.

Now, these are the fundamental principles of Christianity, as avowed in

the creeds and confessions of the overwhelming majority of Christians,

of all languages and every name, through all the centuries. How simple

and how grand are these principles! It must be manifest to every candid

mind, that in their acceptance is to be found the only hope of our lost

world. It is manifest that each individual can here only hope for any

permanent happiness in this life or in that which is to come. In this

wilderness of time, in the midst of the storms with which we are driven

and shattered here, there can be no repose for the soul but in the

well-founded conviction that peace is made with God through penitence

for sin, and the cordial acceptance of salvation through the atonement

of Jesus Christ.

One fact is certain,――no man will deny it,――there have been hundreds

and thousands, who, on a dying-bed, have mourned most bitterly, with

anguish more dreadful than words can describe, that they have not lived

in accordance with the teachings of Christianity. In that dread hour,

gloom impenetrable has settled down upon the soul as the dying sinner

has exclaimed, “The harvest is past; the summer is ended; and we are

not saved.”[223]

Another fact is equally certain: there never was an individual,

who, on a dying-bed, regretted that he had repented of sin, accepted

Jesus as an atoning Saviour, confessed him before men, and that he had

endeavored to live the life of the Christian. There cannot be found,

in the history of the world, one single such case. On the contrary,

there are millions――more than can be numbered――who have found, in

the hour of death, that faith in Jesus has dispelled all gloom from

the dying-chamber, and has inspired the departing soul with the most

triumphant and rapturous joy. It is the Christian alone who can say

with Paul, when upon the pillow of death,――

“I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept

the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,

which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not

to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”[224]

Footnotes.

1 – Luke i. 5–38.

2 – Isa. vii. 14.

3 – Mic. v. 2.

4 – Mark i. 15.

5 – Mark i. 22.

6 – Luke iv. 32.

7 – Life of Christ by William Hanna, D.D., p. 198.

8 – Luke iv. 40.

9 – Jesus of Nazareth. p. 178.

10 – Luke vi. 12.

11 – Matt. x. 2–4.

12 – Luke vii. 12–16.

13 – Matt. xi. 20–30.

14 – Mark v. 18–20.

15 – Matt. ix. 35.

16 – No commentator has given a satisfactory explanation of the

meaning, in this connection, of these last words.

17 – So called from their want of wealth, rank, learning, and

whatever the world calls _great_.

18 – John vi. 25–71.

19 – Mark vii. 35.

20 – Mark viii. 26.

21 – Matthew expresses the same idea by the words, “Till they

see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” This wonderful

expansion of the kingdom of Christ was indeed witnessed on

the day of Pentecost, and in many subsequent scenes.

22 – Matt. xvii. 20, 21.

23 – Matt. xviii. 2–4; Mark ix. 31, 33–36.

24 – Matt. xviii. 6–9; Mark ix. 44–50.

25 – John vii. 34.

26 – John viii. 2–7.

27 – John viii. 13–18.

28 – John x. 25–31.

29 – The Author of the resurrection, and the Giver of eternal

life.

30 – Luke ix. 51.

31 – Luke ix. 58.

32 – Luke x. 30–37.

33 – Luke xi. 2–4.

34 – Luke xiv. 9–25.

35 – Luke xiv. 1–24.

36 – Luke xvi. 1–31.

37 – Luke xvii. 24–30.

38 – Luke xii. 5–8.

39 – Luke xviii. 11–14.

40 – Matt. xix. 3–12.

41 – Matt. xix. 29.

42 – Mark x. 33, 34.

43 – Matt. xx. 26–28; Mark x. 43–45.

44 – Matt. xxvi. 10–13.

45 – John xii. 12, 13.

46 – Matt. xxi. 8, 9.

47 – Luke xix. 41–43.

48 – Matt. xxi. 28–42.

49 – Matt. xxi. 24–30; Mark xii. 18–25; Luke xx. 27–36.

50 – Luke xx. 37, 38.

51 – Matt. xxii. 32.

52 – Luke xxi. 3, 4.

53 – Luke xii. 42, 43.

54 – John xii. 44–50.

55 – See Matt. xxiii. 13–37.

56 – Mark xiii. 9–13.

57 – Matt. xxiv. 30–34.

58 – The Life of Christ, by Rev. William B. Hanna, D.D., LL.D.,

p. 567.

59 – Matt. xxv. 31–46.

60 – John xiii. 18–21.

61 – John xiii. 28, 29.

62 – Converted,――when thou art _turned_ to me, after having

forsaken me.

63 – By “works” is here probably meant _all that the apostles

did_ to make an impression upon mankind.

64 – “Ye shall continue to see me by faith.”

65 – John xvi. 1–23.

66 – John xvii.

67 – Luke xxii. 43, 44.

68 – “Cruel hands disrobed the still uncomplaining sufferer.

Brawny arms wielded upon his naked back the fearful

scourge, whose thongs of leather, loaded with sharp metal,

cut at every stroke their bloody furrow in the quivering

flesh. This torture, beneath which many a strong man had

given up his life, could not extort from the steadfast

heart of Jesus a single groan.”――_Life of Jesus of

Nazareth by Lyman Abbott_, p. 469.

69 – This probably refers to Caiaphas, the high priest, as

representing the Jewish authorities.

70 – Luke xxiii. 13–16.

71 – This last phrase was a proverbial expression. A “green

tree” represented the righteous; the “dry tree” the wicked,

fit only to be burned.

72 – Matt. xxvii. 64.

73 – Matt. xxviii. 5, 6.

74 – This was a kind message to Peter, who had so recently

denied his Lord. It assured him of his forgiveness.

75 – The word translated “_fools_” does not imply reproach, as

the word does with us. It means that they were thoughtless,

not attending to the evidence that Jesus was to die and

rise again.

76 – Luke xxiv. 17–31.

77 – See Luke xxiv. 34, and 1 Cor. xv. 5.

78 – Doubts, suspicions.

79 – The meaning of this passage is supposed to be, that, in

founding the Church, the apostles should be taught by the

Holy Ghost on what terms and to what characters God would

extend forgiveness of sin.

80 – John xx. 30.

81 – Matt. xxviii. 17–20.

82 – About a hundred and thirty-two yards.

83 – The third time to the disciples collectively.

84 – More than these other apostles. Peter had professed, before

his fall, superior attachment.

85 – John xxi. 2–23.

86 – Luke xxiv. 44–49.

87 – Acts ii. 38.

88 – Acts iv. 12.

89 – Acts iv. 19, 20.

90 – Acts v. 15, 16.

91 – Acts v. 29–32.

92 – Acts vii. 51–53.

93 – Acts vii. 57–60.

94 – Acts xxvi. 10.

95 – Acts xxvi. 11.

96 – Acts viii. 3.

97 – Acts ix. 1, 2.

98 – Acts xxii. 6–12. In the account which Luke gives of this

event (Acts ix. 1–6), some incidents are recorded which

Saul omits.

99 – Acts ix. 16.

100 – Acts xxvi. 19, 20.

101 – Acts ix. 22.

102 – Gal. i. 17, 18.

103 – Acts ix. 26.

104 – Acts iv. 36.

105 – Gal. i. 18.

106 – Acts xxii. 18–21.

107 – Saron was the well-inhabited plain which extended from

Lydda to Joppa (Acts ix. 36).

108 – Acts x. 20.

109 – All that have lived and died, or shall live when the

archangel’s trump shall sound, will stand before the

judgment-seat of Jesus Christ.

110 – Acts x. 34, 43.

111 – Acts x. 45, 46.

112 – Acts xi. 21.

113 – Acts xi. 24.

114 – Acts xii. 6–17.

115 – Josephus, Ant. xix. 8–12.

116 – Acts xiii. 16–41.

117 – Acts xiii. 45.

118 – Isa. xlix. 6.

119 – Acts xiv. 21–23.

120 – About ten years before.

121 – Acts xv. 7–11.

122 – Acts xv. 22–29.

123 – Gal. ii. 11–16.

124 – 2 Pet. iii. 15.

125 – Acts xv. 36.

126 – 2 Tim. i. 5.

127 – Phil. ii. 22.

128 – Acts xvi. 5.

129 – Acts xvi. 14, 15.

130 – Acts xviii. 2.

131 – “How often,” says Cicero, “has the exclamation, ‘_I am

a Roman citizen!_’ brought aid and safety, even among

barbarians in the remotest parts of the earth!”――_Cicero_,

Verr. v. 57.

132 – 1 Thess. iv. 13–17.

133 – 2 Thess. ii. 1–4.

134 – Acts i. 11.

135 – 2 Pet. iii. 1–13.

136 – Acts xvii. 5–7.

137 – Acts xvii. 11, 12.

138 – Paradise Regained.

139 – Acts xvii. 18.

140 – _Too superstitious._――The meaning of the words thus

translated would be better conveyed to us by the phrase,

“More than others, ye reverence the deities.”

141 – Acts xvii. 22–31.

142 – 1 Cor. i. 14.

143 – Acts xviii. 18.

144 – Probably the Pentecost.

145 – Acts xviii. 23

146 – Acts xviii. 28.

147 – Acts xix. 10.

148 – Acts xix. 25–27.

149 –The original image of Diana was supposed to be a gift from

heaven.

150 – Matters beyond the jurisdiction of the courts.

151 – Acts xix. 35–40.

152 – See John xx. 26, and 1 Cor. xvi. 2.

153 – Acts xx. 18–38.

154 – Acts xi. 28.

155 – Acts xxi. 11.

156 – Life, Times, and Travels of St. Paul, Conybeare and Howson,

vol. ii. p. 235.

157 – Acts xxi. 28.

158 – A name of reproach which the Jews gave the Christians.

159 – Acts xxiv. 2–8.

160 – Acts xxiv. 26.

161 – Acts xxv. 10, 11.

162 – Acts xxv. 14–21. Augustus and Cæsar were the titles adopted

by the Roman emperors.

163 – Acts xxv. 24–27.

164 – Acts xxvii. 21–26.

165 – Acts xxviii. 7–10.

166 – The hope which the Jews cherished of the coming of the

Messiah.

167 – Works of Tacitus, Oxford translation, p. 423.

168 – Histoire du Christianisme, par l’Abbé Fleury. The

abbé gives all the authorities upon which he bases

his narrative.

169 – Luke xxi. 20–24.

170 – Matt. xxiv. 15–22.

171 – L’Abbé Fleury, p. 101.

172 – Luke vi. 31.

173 – 1 John v. 10.

174 – 2 Thess. ii. 11.

175 – Rev. ii. 8–10.

176 – Acts xvii. 26.

177 – Matt. vii. 12.

178 – Mark xii. 31.

179 – Isa. xiv. 9–12.

180 – Histoire du Christianisme, par l’Abbé Fleury.

181 – Histoire du Christianisme, par l’Abbé Fleury, t. i.

p. 432.

182 – Eusebius, Vit. 11, c. 34.

183 – Histoire du Christianisme, par l’Abbé Fleury, t. i.

p. 480.

184 – Encyclopædia Americana.

185 – Matt. xii. 30.

186 – Histoire du Christianisme, par l’Abbé Fleury, livre

quinzième, s. liii.

187 – Theod. iv. c. 2, 3.

188 – Histoire du Christianisme, par l’Abbé Fleury, t. i.

p. 639.

189 – Gibbon, after a careful calculation, estimates the number

of inhabitants at a million two hundred thousand.

190 – Gibbon.

191 – Gibbon.

192 – Gibbon, chap. xxxii.

193 – Rom. viii. 28.

194 – Vol. iv. p. 84.

195 – Vol. v. p. 8.

196 – Encyclopædia Americana.

197 – Encyclopædia Americana.

198 – Koran, iii. 40.

199 – John xv. 26.

200 – Price, vol. i. p. 13.

201 – Rev. xx. 2, 3.

202 – Eighteen Christian Centuries, p. 269.

203 – Eighteen Christian Centuries, Rev. James White, p. 131.

204 – Eighteen Christian Centuries.

205 – Empire of Austria, by John S. C. Abbott.

206 – The History of the Protestants in France, by G. de Félice,

p. 58.

207 – Encyclopædia Americana.

208 – The History of the Protestants of France.

209 – Encyclopædia Americana.

210 – Encyclopædia Americana.

211 – Encyclopædia Americana.

212 – The History of France, M. Guizot, vol. i. p. 530.

213 – Histoire de l’Édit de Nantes, t. iv. p. 479.

214 – History of the Protestants in France, by Prof. G.

de Félice.

215 – Rev. vii. 15–17.

216 – New American Encyclopædia.

217 – According to the same authority, there are, in the

United States, Baptist church-members, of the various

divisions of that body,――Calvinist, Freewill, Seventh-day,

Campbellite, and Winnebrunarians,――amounting to 1,795,406.

The Presbyterians number 615,776; the Congregationalists

report 300,362; and the Episcopalians, 176,685.

The Catholics, counting all nominal Catholics as

church-members, irrespective of moral character, number

between three and five millions.

218 – New American Encyclopædia.

219 – Heb. xi. 25.

220 – John xiv. 1–3.

221 – John vii. 17.

222 – John v. 10.

223 – Jer. viii. 20.

224 – 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8.

Transcriber’s Notes.

The following corrections have been made in the text:

Page 59:

Sentence starting: Then, apparently apprehensive that....

– duplicated word removed ‘a’

(John was not “a reed shaken)

Page 237:

Sentence starting: It was in the arena of this....

– ‘martrydom’ replaced with ‘martyrdom’

(and won the crown of martyrdom.)

Page 318:

Sentence starting: The city of Nice, one....

– ‘Bythinia’ replaced with ‘Bithynia’

(the principal cities of Bithynia,)

Page 347:

Sentence starting: IN reference to the death....

– ‘JN’ replaced with ‘IN’

(IN reference to the death)

Page 424:

Sentence starting: Hoping by menaces or bribes....

– ‘Protestanism’ replaced with ‘Protestantism’

(the voice of Protestantism,)

Page 438:

Sentence starting: Upon his return to....

– ‘Wittenburg’ replaced with ‘Wittenberg’

(return to Wittenberg,)

Page 471:

Sentence starting: Without compassion for their age,...

– ‘but’ replaced with ‘butt’

(and the butt of their muskets.)

End of Project Gutenberg's The History of Christianity, by John S. C. Abbott