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.

HE 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, “Acrown 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, Iwould 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. Ibelieve, 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.

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 Ihave reason to think that it is in some measure diminished; yet, Ihope, not much. Three have joined the church since you last heard; five now stand propounded for admission; and Ithink 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. Awonderful 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. Afew white settlers had also purchased lands, and reared their farm-houses in that region. Asociety 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,—

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, Ido 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. Asermon 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 Iever 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,—

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.” Agang 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, “OGod! 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, Iwould have told you. Igo to prepare a place for you. And, if Igo and prepare a place for you, Iwill come again, and receive you unto myself; that where Iam, there ye may be also.”220

What words of comfort to the mourner! Oprecious 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: “Alittle 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; Ihave finished my course; Ihave 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