It is not the quality of the idea which a man entertains that kills him. Freedom for every creature that bears God's image—the breaking of the rod of the oppressor and letting the oppressed go free—this is a good idea. It is so great, so broad, so full, so flowing, that a world of men might gather around it for a time as they do around Niagara, and grow divine in its majestic music and the vision of the wreath of light which heaven holds above it. If a man undertake to live upon a single idea, it really makes very little difference to him whether that idea be a good or a bad one. A man may as well get scurvy on beans as beef. I suppose a diet of potatoes would be quite as likely to support life comfortably as a diet of peaches. It is because the human soul cannot live upon one thing alone, but demands participation in every expression of the life of God, that it will dwarf and starve upon even the grandest and most divine idea.

The agitators and reformers are very ready to see the dwarfing effect of a single idea or a single range of ideas upon the Christian ministry, and a large number of Christian men. I admit the accuracy of their observations in this matter, and, admitting this, I can certainly ask the question whether they hope to escape depreciation when the Christian idea—the divinest of all—-is insufficient of itself to make a man, and fill him, and give him all desirable health and wealth and growth. As I have touched upon this point, I may say that it is coming to be understood that a man or a minister, in order to be a Christian, must be something else—that Christianity received into nature and life is only one of the elements of manhood—and that a man may become starved and mean and bigoted and essentially insane by feeding exclusively upon religion. What means the vision of these sapless, sad, and sanctimonious Christians—these poor, thin, stingy lives—but that all ideas save the religious one have been shut out from them? Is it not notorious that a minister who has fed exclusively upon religion is a man without power upon the hearts and minds of men? Is it not true that he has most efficiency in pulpit ministration who has the largest knowledge of and sympathy with men, the broadest culture, and the widest acquaintance with all the ideas that enter as food and motive into human life? Is it not true that in the life-long, absorbing anxiety and carefulness of a multitude of souls to secure their salvation, those souls are constantly becoming less valuable, and thus—to use the language of the market—less worth saving?

I cannot fail, however unwilling, to see much that is dry and stiff and unlovely in the style of Christianity around me. It has no attraction for me. I do not like the people who illustrate it; and the reason is, not that they have got too much of Christianity, but that they have not got enough of any thing else. Flour is good, but flour is not bread. If I am to eat flour, I must eat it as bread; and either milk or water must be used to make it bread. If a little milk is used, the bread will be dry and heavy and hard. If a good deal is used, the flour will be transformed into a soft and plastic mass, which will rise in the heat, and come to my lips a sweet and fragrant morsel. Christianity is good, but it wants mixing with humanity before it will have a practical value. If only a little humanity be mixed with it, the product will be dry and tasteless; but if it be combined with the real milk of humanity, and enough of it, the result will be a loaf fit for the tongues of angels. No: the divinest idea that has yet been apprehended by the human mind is not enough for the human mind. That which God made to be fed by various food cannot be fed with success or safety by a single element. We cannot build a house of dry bricks. It takes lime and sand and water in their proper proportions to hold the bricks together.

This selection of a single idea from the great world of ideas to which the mind is vitally related, and making it food and drink, and motive and pivotal point of action, and supreme object of devotion, is mental and moral suicide. It makes that a despotic king which should be a tributary subject. It enslaves the soul to a base partisanship. It is right to make money, and it is right to be rich when wealth is won legitimately; but when money becomes the supreme object of a man's life, the soul starves as rapidly as the coffers are filled. It is right to be a temperance man and an anti-slavery man, and an advocate of any special Christian reform; but the effect of adopting any one of these reforms as the supreme object of a man's pursuit, never fails to belittle him. One of the most pitiable objects the world contains is a man of generous natural impulses grown sour, impatient, bitter, abusive, uncharitable, and ungracious, by devotion to one idea, and the failure to impress it upon the world with the strength by which it possesses himself. Many of these fondly hug the delusion to themselves that they are martyrs, when, in fact, they are only suicides. Many of these look forward to the day when posterity will canonize them, and lift them to the glory of those who were not received by their age because they were in advance of their age. So they regard with contempt the pigmy world, wrap the mantles of their mortified pride about them, and lie down in a delusive dream of immortality.

Whether the effect of devotion to a single idea be disastrous or otherwise to the devotees, nothing in all history is better proved—nothing in all philosophy is more clearly demonstrable— than the fact that it is a damage to the idea. If I wished to disgust a community with any special idea, I would set a man talking about it and advocating it who would talk of nothing else. If I wished to ruin a cause utterly, I would submit it to the advocacy of one who would thrust it into every man's face, who would make every other cause subordinate to it, who would refuse to see any objections to it, who would accuse all opponents of unworthy motives, and who would thus exhibit his absolute slavery to it. Men have an instinct which tells them that such people as these are not trustworthy—that their sentiments and opinions are as valueless as those of children. If they talk with a pleasant spirit, we good-naturedly tolerate them; if they rant and scold and denounce, we hiss them if we think it worth while, or we applaud them as we would the feats of a dancing bear. If they say devilish things in a heavenly sort of way, and clothe their black malignities in silken phrases, we hear them with a certain kind of pleasure, and take our revenge in despising them, and feeling malicious towards the cause they advocate. It would kill us to drink Cologne water, but the perfume titillates the sense, and so we sprinkle it upon our handkerchiefs.

No great cause can be forwarded by the advocacy of men who have no character, and no man can devote himself to an idea without the loss of character. When a man comes forward to promulgate an idea, we inquire into his credentials. How large a man is this? How broad are his sympathies? How wide is his knowledge? What relation does he bear to the great world of ideas among which this is only one, and very likely a comparatively unimportant one? Is he so weak as to be possessed by this idea, or does he possess it, and entertain a rational comprehension of its relations to himself and the community? I know that multitudes of good men have been so disgusted with the one-sided, partisan character of the advocates of special ideas and special reforms, that they would have no association with them. We have only to learn that a man can see nothing but his pet idea, and is really in its possession, to lose all confidence in his judgment. When in a court of justice a man testifies upon a point that touches his personal interests or feelings or relations, we say that his testimony is not valuable—not reliable. It decides nothing for us. We say that the evidence does not come from the proper source. We do not expect candor from him, for we perceive that his interests are too deeply involved to allow sound judgment and utterly truthful expression. It is precisely thus with all professional agitators and reformers—all devotees of single ideas. They are personally so intimately connected with their idea—have been so enslaved by their idea—are so interested in its prosperity—-that they are not competent to testify with relation to it.



LESSON XVI.

SHYING PEOPLE.

"It is jealousy's peculiar nature To swell small things to great; nay, out of naught To conjure much: and then to lose its reason Amid the hideous phantoms it has formed." YOUNG.

"I will not shut me from my kind; And, lest I stiffen into stone, I will not eat my heart alone, Nor feed with sighs a passing wind." TENNYSON.

"Fear is the virtue of slaves; but the heart that loveth is willing." LONGFELLOW.

Reader, did you ever drive a horse that had the mean habit of shying? If so, then you will remember how constantly he was on the lookout for objects that would frighten him. He would never wait for the bugbear to show its head; but he conjured it up at every point. Every hair upon his sides seemed transformed into an eye; and there was not a colored stone, nor a stick of wood, nor a bit of paper, nor a small dog, nor a shadow across the road, nor any thing that introduced variety into his passage, that did not seem to be endowed with some marvellous power of repulsion. First he dodged to the right, after having foreseen the evil from afar, and wrought himself up to a fearful pitch of sidelong excitement; and then he dodged to the left, having been surprised into passing a cat without alarm; and so, dodging to the right and left, he has half worried the life out of you. Being constantly on guard, and always watching for objects of alarm, and suspicious of dangers in disguise, he has had no difficulty in maintaining a condition of permanent fright, which has worked itself off in spasms of shying. To a man who has driven a horse up to a locomotive without danger or fear, such an animal as this seems to be unworthy of the name of a horse; and to one who has read of the spirit and fearlessness of the war-horse, a shying horse seems to be the most contemptible of his race.

Well, I have met shying men, and I meet them upon the sidewalk almost every day. I have watched them from afar, and known by their eyes and a certain preparatory nervousness of body, that they would "shy" at me. I have been conscious, however, that there was nothing in me to shy at. I have had no pistols in my pocket, and no Bowie knife under my coat-collar. I have been innocent of any intention to leap upon and throttle them. I have had no purpose to trip their heels by a sudden "flank movement," and not even the desire to knock their hats off. Indeed, I have felt toward them a degree of friendliness and kindness which I would have been very glad to express, had they afforded me an opportunity; but they were shying men by nature, or by habit, or by whim. So far as I have been able to ascertain the causes of their infirmity, it is the result of a suspicion that they are not quite as good as other people, and a belief that other people understand the fact. Far be it from me to deny that their suspicions touching themselves are well-grounded; but that is no reason why other people should not speak to them politely. There is a class of men and women who are always looking out for, and expecting, slights from those whom they suppose to be their superiors. They get a suspicion that a certain man feels above them; so when they pass him in the street, they shy at him—go around him—will not give him an opportunity to be polite to them. They are martyrs, as they suppose, to unjust social distinctions. They act as if they were painfully uncertain as to whether they are men and women or spaniels.

Now by the side of the person who carries an unsuspicious, self-respectful, open face, into any presence, such people as these seem unworthy of the race to which they belong. It is not the bold, brassy, self-asserting man who is their superior, because his sort of offensive forwardness originates in even a worse state of mind and heart than the habit of shying. When a man shies, he only suspects that he is inferior to his surroundings. When a man offensively puts himself forward, and talks loudly among his betters, he knows he is mean, and knows that he is not where he belongs. You will find a professional gambler to be a loudmouthed man, who not only does not shy at his betters, but who seeks all convenient opportunities for associating with them, and claiming an equality with them. The shying man is one who has not much respect for himself, who is envious and jealous of others, and who, however strongly he may protest against the charge, has the most abject respect for social position and arbitrary social distinctions. If he see a man who either assumes or seems to be above him, it is a reason in his mind why that man should not notice him. The result is that decent men soon take him at his own valuation, and notice him no more than they would a dog; and they serve him right.

I know of no more thankless task than the attempt to assure shying people that we love them, respect them, and are glad to continue their acquaintance. The instances in which old school-mates meet in the journey of life with a sickening coolness, in consequence of changed circumstances and relations, are of every-day occurrence. Two persons who separated at the school-house door in dawning manhood, with equal prospects, come together later in life. One has risen in the world, has won hosts of friends, has been put forward by them into public office, perhaps, and has acquired a competence. The other has remained upon the old homestead, has had a hard life, and has won neither distinction nor wealth. The fortunate man grasps the hand of the other with all the cordiality of his nature and of his honest friendship; but he meets a reserve which may be almost sullen. He strives to call up the scenes gone by—the old school-sports—the school companions, boys and girls—the old neighborhood friendships—but they will not come. All attempts to touch the heart of his former schoolmate, and bring him into sympathy through the power of association, fail. The poor fool suspects his friend of patronizing him, and he will not be patronized. Feeling that his friend has got along in the world better than himself, he cannot understand why he should not be regarded as an inferior, and treated as such. Thenceforward, the fortunate man must seek the society of the unfortunate man, or he will never have it. The former may give practical recognition of entire equality, to the best of his ability, but it will avail nothing, for the latter will not "toady" to his friend, nor be "patronized" by him. At last the fortunate man becomes tired of the effort to make his unfortunate friend understand him, and he kicks him and his memory aside, and calls it a friendship closed forever, without fault upon his part.

I have often wished that it could be understood by these people who are so uncertain in regard to their position, and so suspicious that everybody has the disposition to slight them, and so much afraid of being patronized, and so averse to the thought of "toadying" that they stand stiffly aloof from the society which they envy, and so much offended with people for feeling above them, that their sentiments and feelings are sufficient reasons for society to hold them in contempt. There is a lack of self-respect—a meanness—in their position, that is really a sufficient apology for treating them with entire social neglect. They habitually misconstrue those among whom they move; they are exacting of attention to the last degree; they are always uncomfortable, and they are ready to take offense at the smallest fancied provocation. I have now in my mind an artisan whom I had occasion to get acquainted with a dozen years ago; and I have compelled him to speak to me every time I have met him since. I really do not know what he had done to make him regard himself so contemptuously, but I think he has never to this day fully believed that I have the slightest respect for him. He has tried to dodge me. He has shied repeatedly, but I have compelled him to make me a good-natured bow, till he begins to like it, I think— till he expects it, at least.

Many children are bred to the idea that certain families are socially above them. They are taught from their cradles to consider themselves in a certain sense inferior. How few American children are taught that there is no degradation in poverty, and that a humble employment and an obscure position are entirely consistent with self-respect, under all circumstances, in whatever society. I do not mean to say that they have not heard their parents remark that they were "as good as anybody." There is enough of this talk; and it is precisely this which teaches children that they are born to what their parents consider dishonor,—inferiority to their neighbors. It is impossible for children who have been bred in this way ever to outgrow, entirely, their feeling of inferiority. The people who are entirely self-respectful never have any thing to say about their position in the presence of their children; and it is a cruel thing to teach a child, not that there is a grade of society which is actually above him, but that the persons who occupy that grade look down upon him—and, in the constitution of society, have the right to look down upon him—with contempt. To see an honest lad in humble clothing actually awed by finding himself in the presence of a well-dressed child of affluence, is very pitiful; and there are thousands of these poor boys who, having won wealth and distinction, never in their consciousness lose their early estate sufficiently to feel at home with those among whom the advance of fortune has brought them.

A thoroughly self-respectful person will command respect anywhere. A man who carries into the world an unsuspecting, unassuming face, who is polite to everybody, minds his own business, and does not show by his demeanor that he bears about with him a sense of degradation and inferiority, and who gives evidence that he considers himself a man, and expects the treatment due to a man, will secure politeness and respect from every true gentleman and gentlewoman in the world. The man who shies, and suspects, and envies, and is full of petty jealousies, and is always afraid that he shall not get all that is due to him in the way of polite attention, and manifests a feeling of great uncertainty and anxiety concerning his own social position, is sure to be shunned at last, and he will well deserve his fate. No real gentleman, and no true gentlewoman, ever has feelings like these. It is only those who are neither, and who do not deserve the position of either, that are troubled in this way. I give it as a deliberate judgment that there is far less of contempt for the poor and obscure among what are denominated the higher classes of society than there is of envy and hatred of the rich and renowned among the poor and humble; and that the principal bar to a more cordial and gentle intercourse between the two classes, is the lack of self-respect which pervades the latter, and the mean, degrading humility which they manifest in all their relations with those whom they consider above their level.

American society is mixed—heterogeneous—more so, probably, than that of any other country. There is no such thing as well-defined classification. There is no nobility, no gentry, no aristocracy, no peasantry. The owners of palaces were bred in log cabins; men of learning are the children of boors; and one can never tell by a man's position and relations in society into what style of life he was born. The boy goes into the city from his father's farm, carrying only a hardy frame, a good heart, and a suit of homespun, and twenty years frequently suffice to establish him as a man of fortune, and marry him to a woman of fashion. There is no bar to progress in any direction for the ambitious man, except lack of brains and tact. Society erects no barriers of caste which define the bounds of his liberty. Notwithstanding this, there is always, in every place, a body of people who assume to be "the best society." The claim to the title is rarely well substantiated, and is based on different ideas in different places. We shall find in some places, that society crystallizes around the idea of wealth; in others, around the idea of literary culture; in others, around certain religious views, so that, as it may happen, the "best society" is constituted of the Presbyterian, or Episcopalian, or Unitarian, or other sectarian element. In other places, an old family name is the central power, and, in others still, a certain style of family life attracts sympathetic materials which assume the position of "the best society."

Whatever may be the central idea of the self-constituted elite, they are always the objects of the envy of a large number of minds. Silly people "lie awake nights" to get into the best society. Those who are securely in, of course sleep soundly in their safety and their self-complacency; and those who are too low to think of rising to it, and those who do not care for it, go through the six to ten hours of their slumber "without landing," as the North River boatmen say. But a middle class, who range along the ragged edges of society, know no rest. They sail along in an uncertain way, like the moon on the border of a cloud— sometimes in and sometimes out—feeling naked and very much exposed among the stars, and rather foggy and confused in the cloud, as if, after all, they did not belong there. It is in this class that we meet with shying men and shying women. It is in this class that we find heart-burnings, and jealousies, and envyings, and sensitive misunderstandings. It is a sort of purgatory through which the rising man and woman pass to reach the paradise of their hope, and from which an unhappy soul is never lifted. These people do not stop to inquire whether they have any sympathy, or any thing in common with the society which they seek—whether they would be lost, or whether they would be at home in it. They do not even seem to suspect that much of that which is called the best society, is the last society that a sensible, good man should seek.

Let us suppose that wealth is the central idea of the best society, and then let the aspirant to this society ask himself whether he has wealth. Has he a fine house and an elegant turnout? Does he dress expensively, and is he able to give costly entertainments? Is he prepared to unite, on a plane of perfect equality, with those who give the law to this society? If so, it will not be necessary for him to seek it, for the society will seek him,—that is, if he be an agreeable man. If he be very rich indeed, why, it is not necessary that he be agreeable at all. But suppose literary culture be the central force of this society—has the aspirant any fitness for, or sympathy with it? Can he meet those who form this society as an equal, or mingle in it as a thoroughly sympathetic element? Would he feel happy and at home in a literary atmosphere? Those questions indicate a legitimate direction of inquiry, touching every case of this kind. Multitudes of those who are dissatisfied with their position have nothing in common with the society to which they aspire, and would be so much out of place there that they would be very unhappy. My idea, then, is, that so far as society is concerned, men and women naturally find their own place. A true gentleman and a genuine gentlewoman, wherever they may appear, and whoever they may be, are as readily known as any objects; and really good society recognizes its affinities for them at once. They do not have to seek for a place, for they fall into their place as naturally as a soldier falls into, and joins step with, his company.

Now what can be meaner than the jealousy which sits in the circle where it is really most at home, and regards with its green and greedy eyes, a circle for which it has no affinities, except the affinities which envy has for that which it considers above itself? It is a meanness, too, which has two sides to it. It is notorious that the black overseer upon the plantation is severer with his companions in slavery than a white man would be, and it is just as notorious that the man who has abjectly bowed before the distinction of wealth and social standing, always becomes insufferably pretentious when fortune or favor lifts him to the place of his desire. The man who shies those he esteems his betters is always a proud man at heart, or if the adjective be allowable, an aristocratic man; and he is very careful to preserve his position of comparative respectability with relation to those below him. He will always be found to be pretentious in his own circle, and supercilious with relation to those in lower life. Is it not true that half of the neighborhood quarrels that take place, and three-quarters of the slander, and all the gossip that are indulged in, result from these petty jealousies between circles, and the sensitiveness that is felt regarding social standing on the part of those who are not quite so high in the world as they would like to be?

I can only notice briefly the shying that is done by the other side of society. In effect, I have done this already, perhaps, but it is proper to say directly that there are many moving in what is called the best society, who, with a suspicion that they do not belong there, or a feeling that their position is not secure there, shy a humble man when they meet him, and dodge all vulgar associations. I suppose that no true gentleman is ever afraid of being mistaken for any thing else. A gentleman knows that there is nothing which is more unlike the character of a gentleman than the supercilious treatment of the humble, and the fear of losing caste by treating every class with kindness and politeness. I recognize no difference between the two shying classes—the men who shy their fellow-men because they are high, and the men who shy their fellow-men because they are low. Both are mean, both are unmanly, and both are deficient in the self-respect necessary to the constitution of a gentleman. There are no better friends in the world—no men who understand each other better—none who meet and converse more freely at their ease—none who have more respect for each other—than a genuine gentleman and a self-respectful humble man, who knows his place in the social scale, and is abundantly satisfied with it. There is no need of any intercourse between men, of whatever difference of social standing, less dignified and gentle than this.



LESSON XVII.

FAITH IN HUMANITY.

"Say, what is honor? 'Tis the finest sense Of justice which the human mind can frame, Intent each lurking frailty to disclaim, And guard the way of life from all offense, Suffered or done." WORDSWORTH.

"A child of God had rather ten thousand times suffer for Christ, than that Christ should suffer by Him."—JOHN MASON.

"For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along Round the earth's electric circle the swift flash of right or wrong; Whether conscious or unconscious, yet humanity's vast frame Through its ocean-sounded fibres feels the gush of joy or shame;— In the gain or loss of one race, all the rest have equal claim." LOWELL.

One of the most reliable supports of that which is best in man is faith in other men. In truth, I believe that no man can lose his faith in men and women, and remain as good a man as he was before the loss. Better evidence that a man is rotten in some portion of his character, or rotten clean through his character, cannot be found than real, or pretended, loss of faith in his fellows. When a young man tells me that he has no doubt that certain persons, publicly reputed to be good, take sly drinks in their own closets, and descend into grosser indulgences when in strange places; that the best men are hypocrites; that there is no such thing as womanly virtue; and that appetite and selfishness outweigh everywhere principle and manly honor, I know that, ninety-nine times in one hundred, he finds a reason in his own heart and life for his declarations. I know that he simply wishes to maintain a certain degree of self-respect, and that he finds no way to do this save by bringing everybody around him down to his own level. A man who has lost his virtue, and is still suffering under the blows of conscience, is very both to believe that there is any virtue in the world.

Yet there are circumstances in which faith in humanity is lost without fault, though never without damage, on the part of the loser; and very sad cases they are. I remember an abused, broken-hearted, and forsaken wife, who declared to me her belief that her husband was no worse than other men (pleasant for me, wasn't it?)—that there was not a man in the world who could withstand temptation, or who would have done differently from her husband under the same circumstances. Why was this? She had loved this man with all the devotion of which her warm woman's heart was capable; she had respected him as an embodiment of all manly qualities; he had impersonated her beau ideal. If he—the peerless, the prince—could fall, and forsake, and forget, who would not? He who had once been to her the noblest and best man in the world, could never become worse than the rest of the world. Now one of the foulest wrongs and one of the deepest injuries which this man had inflicted upon his wife was the destruction of her faith in men. He had not only blotted out her faith in him, but he had blotted out her faith in humanity, and, of course, her faith in herself. What safeguards of her own virtue fell when her faith in man was destroyed, she did not know; but, in her innermost consciousness, she must have grown careless of herself— possibly desperate.

Hardly a month passes by in which we do not hear of some defalcation, some lapse from integrity, by a man who, through many years of business life, had maintained an untarnished reputation. I have half a dozen such cases in my memory now, and I do not know what to make of them. When I see a character standing to-day above all reproach, compacted through many years of manly, honest, Christian living, overthrown to-morrow, and trodden in the mire, I am shocked. If such men fall, where are we to look for those who will not? If such men, with worthy natures, and long practice of virtue, and myriad motives for the maintenance of an unspotted character, yield to temptation, and are suddenly overthrown, what reason have I to suppose that my partner, my brother, myself, shall escape? I am scared, and grow cautious, and suspicious.

Did you ever think that there is one individual, at least, in the world—that possibly there are ten individuals, possibly one hundred, possibly more—who believe that you are, as a man or a woman, just as nearly right as you can be? Did you ever think that there are people who pin their faith to you, who believe in you, who trust you, and that among those people your own reputation is identified with the reputation of the race? I care not how humble a man may be, there are always those who trust in him. Think of the trust which a family of children repose in their parents, and of the faith which the parents have in their children. Very humble the parents may be—very untrustworthy as moral guides, and judges, and authorities; but if they were angels, with the light of heaven in their eyes, they would not be more confided in and relied upon by the little ones who cling to their knees. So, at all ages, we garner our faith in individuals; and so, all men and women, however humble and unworthy they may be, become the objects and recipients of this faith.

Now, if there be ten men and women who have garnered their faith in me—who believe in me, through and through—and whose faith in all humanity would be sadly shocked, if I should fall, and prove to them that their confidence had been entirely misplaced, then I hold for those ten persons the reputation of the human race in my hands. If you, my reader, have attracted to yourself the honest faith of a thousand hearts, then you hold in your hands, for those hearts, the good name of humanity. Upon the shoulders of each man in the community, there rests a great responsibility. He has not only his own reputation to take care of, but he has the reputation of his race. If all mankind are to be thought more meanly of by mankind, to be less trusted, and less loved, because I have been untrue, though my untruth touch but one person directly, I commit a great crime against my race. Yet this crime is nothing by the side of that which I commit against those who have trusted in me. It injures them to think meanly of mankind—to have their confidence shaken in humanity—much more than it injures humanity to be thought meanly of. A man may as well stab me as to destroy my faith in my kind, for the comfort and happiness of my life depend upon the maintenance of this faith.

There are not a few men and women in this world who are thoroughly conscious that not only their immediate personal friends think better of them than they deserve, but that the community—all who know them—accord to them a higher excellence of heart and life than they really possess. There are some who seem fitted by nature to attract the affection, and secure the respect of all those with whom they come into contact, in a very remarkable degree; and, yet, these persons may be painfully conscious, all the while, that they are not so good as they are thought to be. They are not hypocrites; they have never intended to deceive anybody; they have never pretended to be what they are not; but people believe in them without limit. A person who has this power of attracting the confidence of men has forced upon him an immense responsibility. To say nothing of his duty to himself and his God, he owes it to his race to be, or to become, as good as he seems. It is essentially a crime against humanity for one who draws the hearts of men to him easily, to do any thing which will tend to depreciate their estimate of his character. A man should carry a life thus extravagantly over-estimated, as he would carry a cup of wine—careful that none be spilled, and careful that no impurity fall into it. It is a great blessing to be loved and respected— nay to be admired for admirable qualities—and when men are generous enough to pay in advance for excellence, they should never be cheated in the amount and quality of the article.

There is such a thing as honor among men; there are such things as modesty, truth, and integrity. They are qualities that belong to humanity, irrespective of religion and of Christian culture. There are men so true to their higher natures that I would trust them with my name, my gold, my children, my all, without a doubt. I am proud to claim kinship with such men. They confer dignity upon the race of which I am a member. I am glad to take their hands in mine. Suppose one of these—or such things have been— should deceive me, and I should discover that my name had been abused, my gold wasted or stolen, and my children ruined by this man: could I ever trust again? Should I not be humiliated? Should I not feel disgraced? Should I ever be willing to let another man into my heart? Should I not doubt whether there are, indeed, such things as honor, and modesty, and truth, and integrity, in the world; and thus doubting, would not the strongest defences of my own virtue be thrown down? The truth is, that no man can do an unmanly thing without inflicting an injury on the whole human race. No man can say "I will do as I choose, and it will be nobody's business." Every man's sin is everybody's business, literally. Every sin shakes men's confidence in men, and becomes, whatever its origin, the enemy of mankind; and all mankind have a right to make common cause in its extermination.

I once heard a careless fellow say that he "professed nothing and lived up to it;" but "professing nothing" does not exonerate a man at all, so far as relates to the personal maintenance of honor, purity, and truth. The man who would excuse a lapse from virtue, or any obliquity of conduct, on the ground that he did not profess any thing, simply announces to me the execrable proposition that every man has a kind or degree of right to be a rascal until he pledges himself to be something better. There are altogether too many men in the world who am keeping themselves easy with the thought that if they are not very good, they never pretended or professed to be,—as if this failure publicly to pronounce themselves on the side of the highest morality, were a sufficient apology for minor delinquencies! It seems to be a poultice of poppies to some sensitively inflamed consciences, that, whatever they may have done, they have never broken promises voluntarily made, to do right—as if there were a release from the obligation to do right, in failing to make the promise! If it will help a man to do right, publicly to profess to do right, and to do good to other men by placing his influence on the right side, then the first duty a man owes to his race, is to make this declaration. But I will not linger here, because my words have led me to the discussion of the obligations of those who have made a profession of Christianity, and taken upon themselves the vows of Christian church-membership.

When a man joins a Christian church, he becomes related to that church in the same way that nature makes him related to humanity. The reputation of the church is placed in his keeping. He cannot do an unchristian thing without injury to the church, or without depreciating, in the eyes of the world, every other member. Think what a blow is inflicted upon the church of Jesus Christ by such scandalous immoralities as some of its most prominent members have been guilty of—by forgeries, and adulteries, and drunkenness! These cases are not common, but when they occur, they are blows under which the church reels. The outside world looks on, and scoffs: "Aha! That's your Christianity, is it?"

I declare that I do not know of a position that more strongly appeals to a man's personal honor than that of membership in a Christian church. Even if a man in such a position should say within himself: "This costs more than it comes to. I love my vices more than I love the Master whose name I profess. Either openly or secretly, I will give rein to my appetites and passions"—he should be arrested by the consideration that he proposes to do that which will wound the feelings, and degrade the position, and injure the influence, of thousands of the best men and women in the world; that he proposes to inflict an irreparable injury upon a cause which has never injured him, and whose office it is to save him, and all mankind. Perhaps he is so weak, and temptation is so strong, that he feels, in the stress of his trial, that he can afford to perjure his own soul; but if he does, he has no right to wound others. Better fight the devil until the animal within us bleeds at every vein—until it dies, if that must be— than "offend one of these little ones." A man who will join a church, and then lead an unchristian life, not only demonstrates before the world his hypocrisy, but he voluntarily undertakes to prove that he has no personal honor. An honorable man will sacrifice himself always before he will voluntarily inflict injury upon a cause he has pledged himself to sustain, and upon men and women whose good name is in his hands. When a member of a church has become so hardened in a course of bad living, that no pang comes to him when he thinks of the injury he is inflicting upon the Christian church, he is bad enough for a prison. I would not trust him the length of my arm.

We have had, within the last ten years, too many notable instances of falls from virtue among the clergy; and every fall has been like an avalanche. They come from a point so near to heaven, and fall so far, that mountain-sides are scarred and whole communities whelmed by the calamity. It takes, often, many years for the villages that lie at their feet to smile again. All Christendom feels the shock, and mourns with downcast eyes the consequences. I freely grant that, as a class, the American clergy, of all denominations, are the purest and best men whom I know; but I cannot resist the conviction that there are many of them who forget what the responsibility is that rests upon them. It was the remark of an aged clergyman, retired from pulpit duties, that if he were a layman he should watch with more anxiety and carefulness than laymen do the relations that exist between pastors and the women of their flock. I do not understand this as a statement that there is any general looseness of conduct among the clergy at all; but as one which covers a kind of impropriety for which there is no name and no punishment. There are women whose affection for their husbands is uprooted through their intercourse with their pastors. There shall never be an improper word spoken; there shall never be a deed committed that would bring a blush to the most sensitive cheek; yet a susceptible woman in the society of a minister of strong and magnetic sympathies, may become as passive as a babe. Led toward him by her religious nature, attracted and held by his intellectual power and the graces of his language, yielding to him her confidence, it is not strange that, before she is aware, she is a captive without a captor, a victim without an enemy, a wreck without a destroyer.

Now I know that there is not a pastor of a strong and graceful and sympathetic nature who reads these words without understanding what I mean—who does not know that there are women in his congregation who are, either consciously or unconsciously, the slaves of his will. I have no doubt that there are some such pastors who will read this essay with a flush of guilt upon their faces. They have never meant these women any ill—they would not harm them for the world—but they are conscious of a selfish and most unchristianly pleasure in these conquests of female natures— these parlor triumphs, God forgive them! Perhaps they go further, and, by the lingering, fervent pressure of a hand, or the glance of an eye, or the utterance of some bit of gallantry or flattery, send into a woman's heart an unwomanly and an unchristian thought. Perhaps they take special delight in the society of some half a dozen female members of their flock, and find themselves dressing for them—betraying to them their weaknesses—opening, in various ways, avenues by which the quick eyes and instincts of these women can see directly into them. The number of pastors is not small, I think, who are not aware that there is one woman, or that there are some women, who know more of what is in them, to their disadvantage, than any man—that before certain lenient—possibly sad and forgiving eyes—they stand as men who indulge in essentially unchristian vanities of purpose and life.

Of all woman-killers in this world, I know of none so disgusting as one whose chosen profession it is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A clerical fop, a ministerial gallant, a man who preaches the love of God on Sunday, and lays snares for an innocent heart on Monday afternoon, is a disgrace to Christianity, and a sad burden to the Christian cause. Does such a man think that he can add a little zest to a leisure hour and a humdrum life, by toying with a tender friendship, and giving lease and latitude to his desire for personal conquest, and yet that no one shall know it? Ah, the fallacy! I know of eminent clergymen— earnest workers—who, by yielding to this desire once, have been shorn of their power for good forever, so far as those are concerned who really know them and their weakness. There are ministers in America before whom strong men tremble, and great congregations bow themselves, who could be laughed to scorn and smothered in a cloud of blushes, by some girl to whom, in a weak moment, they betrayed the vain heart that beats within them. Ah! ye men of the black coat and the white neck-cloth—toying with women, under whatever disguise; indulging in the vanity of personal power, however ingeniously you mask it, is not for you. You can never do it without an injury to the religion which you profess to preach. If you find that you are too weak to resist these temptations—and they are great to such as you—then you should leave the desk forever. You, at least, are bound in personal honor to quit the public advocacy of a cause which your private life dishonors.

Easy to preach, you say? Easier to preach than practise? Nobody knows it better than I—unless it be you. I do not expect perfection in this world, of anybody;—I do not expect impossibilities of anybody. But there are certain duties which men owe to humanity and their race, and which members of Christian churches and teachers of Christian churches owe to Christianity and to their brotherhood, which are possible to be performed, and which I insist upon. I do not appeal to the highest motives—at least I do not appeal to religious motives. I appeal to personal honor. I say that every man, high or low, is bound in honor so to conduct himself as not to disgrace humanity—as not to shake the confidence of men in human honor. I say that every man who belongs to a Christian church—no matter what his internal life may be—is bound in honor so to carry himself before men and women, that the Christian name receive no damage and the Christian cause no prejudice in their eyes. Every man carries the burden of his race and his brotherhood; and if he be a man, he will neither ignore it nor try to shake it off.



LESSON XVIII.

SORE SPOTS AND SENSITIVE SPOTS.

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased; Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; Raze out the written troubles of the brain?" SHAKSPEARE.

"I have gnashed My teeth in darkness till returning morn, Then cursed myself till sunset; I have prayed For madness as a blessing; 'tis denied me." BYRON.

Alessandra. Methinks thou hast a singular way of showing Thy happiness—what ails thee, cousin of mine? Why didst thou sigh so deeply? "Castiglione. Did I sigh? I was not conscious of it. It is a fashion, A silly—a most silly fashion I have When I am very happy. Did I sigh?" POE.

There is a hill opposite to my window, up which, during all the long and weary day, horses are drawing heavy loads. The majority of them crawl patiently along, with their heads down and with reeking flanks and shoulders, pausing occasionally as the water-bars brace the wheels, and impatient only with the flies that vex their ears, and the insufficiency of their short and stumpy tails to protect their quivering sides. Some of these animals are not so patient, but are nervous and spasmodic and unhappy. I have noticed one among them particularly, that has a very bad time every morning with his first load. He is what the teamsters call "balky," though evidently an excellent horse. Much coaxing and not a little whipping seem necessary to get him started; and then he plunges into his work as if he were determined to tear his harness and his load all in pieces. I notice that there are certain unusual fixtures about his collar, and learn that the poor animal has a galled shoulder, so raw and inflamed that all his first efforts in the morning are attended by pain, and that he only works well after the flesh has become benumbed by pressure. I ask his driver why he does not turn the creature into the pasture, and let the ulcer heal, and am told that he has been treated thus repeatedly, but that it always returns when labor is resumed. There is a livery stable that I visit frequently; and while I wait to be served I notice what the grooms are doing. I see that when the currycomb or brush touches a certain spot upon the horse's skin there is a cringe, and usually a kick and a squeal,— possibly a harmless nip at the groom's shoulder. I learn, too, that there is a certain place upon the back of every horse that the grooms are not permitted to bathe with cold water.

These sore spots and tender spots and sensitive spots on horses have very faithful counterparts in the minds and characters of men. I do not know that I ever met a man who had not on him, somewhere, a sore spot, or a tender spot, or a sensitive spot—a spot that would either gall under the collar of labor, or bring on hysterics if harshly rubbed, or communicate a damaging shock to the nervous system when suddenly cooled. Very few men arrive at thirty-five years of age without getting galled, and very few entirely recover from the abrasion while they live. The spot never thoroughly heals, and the old collar only needs to be put on, even after the longest period of rest, to develop the ulcer in the same old place. I heard a young clergyman preach recently, and I instantly learned that he had a sore spot under his collar. He was a young man of fine powers, bold intellect, a strong love of freedom, and a will determined to do honor to his convictions. He had formed his own opinion upon certain points of doctrine, and had insisted upon it in the presence of his elders. The consequence was that he had been bitterly opposed, and was with great difficulty settled over his parish. The screws had been put tightly down upon him, and he had felt, in the very depths of his sensitive soul, that the liberty wherewith Christ had made him free had been tampered with. So he could neither pray nor preach without showing that he had a sore spot on him. He did not betray it by refusing to draw at all; but he drew violently, as if he had been hitched to the leg of an obtuse Doctor of Divinity, and intended to give all the other Doctors of Divinity notice to get out of the way. Now that sore spot on that young man's shoulder is sure to color all his efforts from this time henceforth, until he puts on another kind of collar. The same old sting will be in all his preaching—a tinge of personal feeling—that the masses of those who hear him preach will not understand, and that he, at last, will become unconscious of. Ministers have more sore places under their harnesses than any class of men I know of.

A minister who has adopted unpopular views, and, in his advocacy of them, has rubbed against the fixed opinions or prejudices of the people to which he is called to preach, is very sure to get sore; and he will either wince with the friction or oppose himself to it with violence. His soreness will always be calling attention to that which caused it, so that if his wound was procured in the advocacy of some infernal doctrine like "infant damnation," why, infant damnation will seem to become a very precious doctrine to him, and he will always be talking about it, and enforcing it. If he has preached against slavery, or intemperance, or any other public wrong or popular vice, and been fiercely and persistently opposed by any portion of his charge, he will betray the sore under his collar on all occasions, and very possibly become so fractious and violent that his flock will be obliged to turn him out to pasture. A minister who gets sore under the friction of any particular collar seems to feel that it is necessary for him to wear that particular collar all the time; and he fails to remember that the reason why he has so much feeling with this collar on, is that it has made him sore. Not unfrequently he becomes so sensitive and so nervous that he kicks out of the traces, and runs away with, and smashes up, the vehicle to which he is attached.

No small degree of the sourness and bitterness and violence of the advocates of special reforms comes from wearing too long the collar of the public apathy, or the public contempt. The men are very few, who, with the consciousness of being actuated by a good motive, can work against opposition a long time, without getting sore, and without betraying their soreness, either by stubbornness or violence. Touch them anywhere but upon the galled spot, and they will be as calm as clocks, and as good-natured as kittens; touch them there, and we are sure to get a kick and a squeal, and a nip at the shoulder. Heartless practical jokers understand where "the raw" is, and know exactly what to say to provoke a galled man to make a fool of himself.

The conscience is very liable to become sore with friction. One entire section of the American nation became sore, even to madness, with working in the collar of the world's condemnation. The slave States of America were very comfortable with slavery so long as they could hold it with self-respect, and so long as the world regarded them rather with sympathy and pity than with condemnation. As the popular opinion against slavery strengthened and became intensified, both in this and other countries, they became sore and sensitive. First, they tucked a constitutional rag between the collar and the skin; and as that did not seem to relieve them, they lined it with leaves from human philosophy; and philosophy soon wearing out, they tore their Bibles into pieces for materials with which to soften the cushion, and set the Christian church to making padding. Every thing failing to produce the desired result, and relieve them of their pain, they refused to draw their portion of the national load, kicked the Union in pieces, and ran away. They will never be happy again until slavery is abolished, or the attitude of the nation and of the world towards slavery is changed. This sore under the collar will never heal, either in or out of the Union, until the cause shall in some way be removed.

It is the same with individuals as with peoples. A man cannot long wear a collar that presses upon his conscience, without getting through the skin—down upon the raw. When a man who sells liquor to his neighbors for drink, voluntarily apologizes to me for it, or justifies himself in it, I know very well that his conscience has a raw place upon it, and that it gives him trouble. When a woman takes particular pains to tell me that she is exceedingly economical, and that she really has had nothing for a year, I cannot but conclude that she has been making some expenditure, or some series of expenditures, that she knows she cannot afford, and that there is a raw place upon her conscience in consequence. In truth, I have never known a woman who wished to impress me with a sense of her rigid economy, who was not more anxious to convince herself of it than me. When a man undertakes to soften the character of any crime by apologies, and by arguments, it is invariably for the purpose of relieving its pressure upon a galled conscience, or shaping it to a different place. I am afraid the men are few who have escaped a galled spot upon their consciences.

Pride has had a terrible time of it in the world. It is, perhaps, the most sensitive spot in human nature. Collars, curry-combs, and cold water have alike served to torment it. A great multitude of men and women have been obliged to work in the collar of poverty, against a galled pride, during all their life. They never start in the morning without flinching, and never work without violence, until their pride has become entirely benumbed by pressure. Ah! if society could be unveiled, how few would be found with pride free from scars and raw places! I once heard a simple boy tell a young man that his legs were crooked; and though the lad was very innocent, and only supposed that he had made and announced a pleasant discovery, he had, alas! hit the man's pride on the very centre of its soreness and sensitiveness. One never knows, in large things, where he will hit the sensitive places in the pride of those he meets; but in little things he is pretty sure to learn it concerning everybody. It is always safe to suppose that a very small man is sore on the subject of bodily dimensions. It will never do for a tall man to propose to measure altitude with him in the presence of women. It is never safe to inquire the age of any lady whom one knows to be more than twenty-five years old. There is not one man or woman in a hundred who possesses an unpleasant personal peculiarity, without getting a galled spot upon personal pride in consequence. A long nose, a squint eye, a clumsy foot, a low forehead, a hump in the back—any one of these will not bear mention in the presence of its possessor.

It is quite amusing to witness the various methods resorted to for cheating the world with regard to these sore places in personal pride. Men who are conscious that they do not possess a particle of musical taste, and are really ignorant of the difference between Dundee and Yankee Doodle, will profess to be "very fond of music," and will not unfrequently convince themselves that they are so. Men who are exceedingly sensitive touching any eccentricities of person, will be constantly joking about their own long noses, or red hair, or big feet, and run on about them in the pleasantest sort of way, and persist in doing it on all occasions, as if the matter were exceedingly amusing to them, when the fact is that their pride is very sore in that particular spot. A woman who has passed her hour of bloom, and feels with sensitive pain the creeping on of ancient maidenhood, will talk charmingly, and with superfluous iteration, about the usefulness of old maids, and the independence of their lot—determined to cover up the galled spot that burns upon the surface of her personal pride. The trick of keeping up the appearances of wealth, after wealth is departed, is a familiar one; and though if rarely deceives, it is likely to be persisted in to the end of time. It is often very pitiful to witness the ingenuity of the efforts that are made to cover from public observation the soreness of personal pride, caused by a change of circumstances. The Hepsibah Pynchons abound in houses of less than seven gables.

There is probably no harness so apt to gall the shoulder of personal pride as that of ambition. The number of men in the world whose personal pride has a sore on it, inflicted by disappointed ambition, is sadly large. I have seen many a worthy man utterly spoiled by his failure to reach the political, social, or literary eminence at which he has aimed. Thenceforward, his hand has been against every man, and he has imagined that every man's hand has been against him. All who contributed to his defeat, and all in any way associated with them, have become the subjects of his hatred and his animadversion. He has retired into himself, sneering at every thing and everybody, doubtful of the sincerity of all friendly professions, and regarding himself as "a passenger," while the poor fools among whom he once so gladly numbered himself, chase the baubles by which his life has been so miserably cheated of its meed. It is very hard for a proud man, with a strong will, to feel that he has been baffled and beaten; and a really noble man, defeated in his objects by trickery and meanness, will sometimes become half insane with the wound which his pride has received. He will never forget it; and the old sore can never be touched, even in the most accidental way, without calling the fire into his eye, and the color into his cheek. In the domain of politics, "sore heads" notoriously abound, and I suppose they always will.

Literary life is probably as prolific of failures, and as full of "sore heads" as political. The number of men and women who are ambitious of literary distinction, and who make great efforts to win it, is very large—larger than the world outside of the publisher's private office dreams of. The number of manuscripts rejected and never published is greater than the number published; and of those which are published, not one in ten satisfies, in its success, the ambition of its author. I suppose that it is within the bounds of truth to say that nine authors in every ten are disappointed men—men whose personal pride is wounded, who believe that the world has treated them unjustly, and who cherish a sore spot on their personal pride as long as they live. Some of these refuse to draw in any harness, and give themselves up to poverty and laziness, as the victims of the world's undiscriminating stupidity. Some become critics of the works of successful authors, and take their revenge in the hearty abuse of their betters. Others enter into other departments of effort, but carry with them through life the belief that they are out of their place, and the conviction that if they had been born in a nobler age they would have been recognized as the geniuses they imagine themselves to be.

There is still another class which get sore with drawing in a harness that God puts upon them, and in the adoption of which they have had nothing to do. A man of poetic sensibilities finds himself engaged in the pursuit of some humdrum calling. He sees how beautiful poetry is; he feels its influence upon his soul; but he has no power to create it. Another feels something of the divinity of music, but muscular facility has been denied to him so that he cannot play, and his voice is harsh or feeble so that he cannot sing. He melts and glows under the sway of eloquence, and worships at a distance the power of the orator over the hearts and minds of men; but he knows that if he were in the orator's place, he would break down and become the object even of his own contempt. Great susceptibilities these people have—passive spirits—open to all good impressions, appreciative of that which is best in nature and art, yet without the power to act. They must always be plates to receive the picture, and never suns and cameras to imprint it. They must always live within sight of great and beautiful powers, but never have the privilege of wielding them. Doomed to the attitude of receptivity, they see that they can never change it; and that they can never be to others what others are to them. Thus they grow sore with the thought of their weakness, and a sense of the circumscription of their faculties. They see wonderful things—they apprehend the grace and the glory of great actions—but they can achieve nothing. Many of these walk as in a dream through life—with a sense of wings upon their shoulders, clipped or lashed down. They see their companions rising, but they cling to the earth, and feel the difference as a humiliation. Alas! how many souls chafe against the consciousness of inferior powers, till even the fine susceptibilities with which nature endowed them are destroyed!

There would seem to be no end of the causes which produce sore and tender and sensitive spots upon the human soul. I have said nothing of grief and love and pity and anger, and a whole brood of powerful passions, but they are all operative toward the results which we are discussing. The cure for these sensitive sores is obvious enough. I would prescribe for a man as I would for a horse—go out to pasture, or adopt another kind of collar, and never wear the old one again. If a man has become sore by working against the apathy, the misconceptions, the misconstructions, and the prejudices of the world, so that he feels the galling burden of the collar in all his actions, let him change his style of labor until the ulcer heal. If the conscience becomes sore, relieve it of that which made it sore, and never believe that padding can effect a cure. Even wounded pride will heal if we let it alone, and refrain from opening the wound on all occasions, and rubbing it against the causes which inflicted it. All the natural peculiarities of our constitution which wound our pride may be happily got along with by ignoring them. If my neighbor is a lovable man, I do not love him any the less because he wears a long nose, and I should never think of it if he were not always joking about it, and trying to convince me that it did not offend him. A man who quarrels with his own constitution, and questions the benevolence that adjusted it to its conditions, quarrels with, and questions, his Maker. I believe there are no sorenesses of the sort we are considering which time or change will not heal.

It seems to me a very melancholy thing for a man to carry a mental ulcer with him through life—to feel its prick and pang in every effort—to be conscious of its presence every hour—to be engaged in covering it from sight, or in the attempt to deceive the world with regard to it. Life is altogether too good a thing to be spoiled by a little sore, or a large one, when there exists an obvious mode of cure. It is our immense and intense self-consciousness that stands in our way always in this matter. The truth is that the world does not think half so much about us as we imagine it does. A man may walk through the city of New York with a face "as homely as a hedge-fence," thinking about it all the time, and wondering what people think of it, and not a man of all the throng will even see it. It is so in the world at large. Our personal peculiarities, our personal failures, our personal weaknesses, our personal affairs generally possess very little interest for others. They have enough to do in taking care of themselves, and have weaknesses, and failures, and peculiarities enough of their own; and if the world should spurn our well-meant efforts in its behalf, why, let it go. It mends nothing to get sore and sensitive over it. When a man truly learns how little important he is in the world, he is generally beyond the danger of becoming galled by his harness, whatever it may be.



LESSON XIX.

THE INFLUENCE OF PRAISE.

"Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances as I delivered them unto you."—ST. PAUL.

"O popular applause! What heart of man Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?" COWPER.

"Arbaces. Why now, you flatter. "Mardonius. I never understood the word." A KING AND NO KING.

"Praising what is lost Makes the remembrance dear." SHAKSPEARE.

It is pleasant to be praised. The man does not live who is insensible to honest praise. The love of approbation is as natural to every human soul as the love of offspring, or the love of liberty. It was planted there by God's hand, and it is as useful and important in its fruit, as it is fragrant and beautiful in its flower. I repeat that the man does not live who is insensible to honest praise. That great orator who seems to be a king in the world, independent of his race, holding dominion over human hearts, lifted far above the necessity of the plaudits of those around him, will pause with gratified and grateful ear, to listen to expressions of approval and admiration from the humblest lips. The greatest mind drinks praise as a pleasant draught, if it be honest and deserved. Perhaps you think that Doctor of Divinity who weighs two hundred pounds more or less, and is clad in glossy broad-cloth, and lifts his shining forehead above a white cravat, as Mont Blanc pierces a belt of cloud, and talks articulated thunder, and veils his wisdom behind gold-mounted spectacles, and moves among men with ineffable dignity, is above the need of, and the appetite for, praise. Ah! you don't know the soft old heart under that satin waistcoat! It can be made as warm and gentle and grateful, with just and generous praise, as that of a boy. Nay, the barber who takes his reverent nose between his thumb and finger, and sweeps the beard from his benevolent chin, understands exactly what to say in order to draw from his pocket an extra sixpence. There is no head so high, there is no neck so stiff, there is no back so straight, that it will not bend to take the flowers which praise tosses upon its path.

"It's a sign of weakness, after all," sighs my friend, who is not praised quite as much as he would like to be. Begging your pardon, sir, it is no such thing. The strongest Being in the universe— the God of the universe—is the one who demands, receives, and accepts the most praise. Listen for a moment to those marvellous ascriptions which rise to Him from the bosom of Christendom as ceaselessly and beautifully as clouds from the Heaven-reflecting ocean: "Thou art the King, immortal, invisible. Thou art the Source of all life, the Author of all being, the Fountain of all light and love and joy. Thou art Love itself; Thou art the Sum of all perfections. For what Thou art, we worship Thee; for what Thou hast done for us, in Thy infinite loving-kindness, we praise Thee. We bless Thy Holy Name. We call upon our souls and all within us to magnify Thy name forever and ever." The Bible itself has given us almost numberless forms of expression into which we may cast our divinest adoration, and the broadest outpourings of our hearts. The poets of all ages have been touched to their finest utterances in the rapture of worship and of praise.

Now why should God want praise of us? It certainly is not because He is weak. Can it be because He wishes by means of it to produce some desired effect in us? Is there no hearing of this praise in Heaven? Are we who sing and shout mere brawlers, who get a little strength of lungs by the exercise? There are some poor souls, doubtless, who believe this, as they believe that prayer has significance only as a moral exercise, and effect only as it reacts upon the soul. I believe that praise is pleasant to Him who sits upon the throne—that the honest and sincere expressions of love and adoration, and gratitude and praise, that rise to Him from the earth are at least shining ripples upon the soundless ocean of His bliss. Out from Him proceed, through myriad channels of effluence, the expressions of His love for those whom He has made and endowed with intelligence; and I believe that it is requisite for His happiness that back along these lines of manifestation there should flow a tide of grateful recognition and adoring praise. Even a God would pine in loneliness and despair if there should come back no echoes to His loving voice—no refluent wave to the mighty bosom which makes all shores vocal with its breath and beating. God demands of all men that which all men owe to Him—that which His perfections and His acts deserve.

This love of approbation in men, then, is Heaven-born and Godlike. The desire for approbation is as legitimate as the desire for food. I do not suppose that it should be greatly a motive of action—perhaps it should never be; but when a man from a good motive does a good thing, he desires the approval of the hearts that love him, and he receives their expressions of praise with grateful pleasure. Nay, if these expressions of praise are denied to him, he feels in a certain sense wronged. He feels that justice has not been done him—that there is something due to him that has not been paid. I met a friend the other day who unveiled his heart to me; and I caught in the vision his heart's sense of the world's injustice. He had been a very poor boy, and had been bred under a poor boy's disadvantages; but a strong will, a good heart, fine talents, and a favoring fortune, brought to him gold, and lands, and equipage. They brought these not only, but they brought the power to be a benefactor of his native town. He won competence for himself, and then he became a public-spirited citizen, and did that for his home which no other man had done. Now he felt that he had done for himself and for those around him nobly; and it was natural that he should desire some response— some expression of praise. He did not get it. People either envied him, or they misconstrued his actions; and he felt that his townsmen had been and were unjust—-that they owed him something which they had failed to pay.

The world is so much accustomed to confound praise with flattery that if I were to go to a man with an honest tribute like this: "My friend, I admire you very much; I think you possess noble talents, fine tastes, and an excellent heart; and I regard your course of action and your life with the warmest approval," he would, nine times in ten, look into my face either with astonishment, or amusement, or offense. He would not know whether I intended to insult him or to practice a joke upon him. Praise between man and man is so rare that we neither know how to bestow it nor how to receive it. This is carried to such an extent that one-half of the family life of Christendom is deprived of it. The husbands who never have a word of praise for their wives, the wives who never have a word of praise for their husbands, and the parents who only find fault with their children, are, I fear, in the majority. I know that the women are numberless who devote themselves throughout all their life to the comfort, the happiness, and the prosperity of their husbands, and who lie down in their graves at last, thirsty for their praise. Their patient and ceaseless ministry is taken as a matter of course, without the slightest recognition of its value as the expression of a loving and devoted heart. Now I believe that praise is due to the love and unselfish devotion of a wife, just as really as it is to the loving-kindness and beneficent ministry of God, differing only in kind and degree. Husbands may die worth millions, and leave it all to their wives, (subject to the usual contemptible provision that they do not marry again,) and yet be shamefully indebted to them forever and forever.

Children are often spoiled because they get no credit for what they do. Of censure, they get their due; but of praise, never. They do a thing which they feel to be praiseworthy, but it is not noticed. When a child takes pains to do well, it feels itself paid for every endeavor by praise; and the most unsophisticated child knows when praise is its due. It often comes to its mother's knee in natural simplicity, and asks for it. It is very well for men to say that "virtue is its own reward," and that the highest satisfactions are those which spring from a sense of duty accomplished; but praise is pleasant and precious to men who not only say this, but feel it. Many a noble and sensitive pastor is disheartened because no one of the multitude which he so carefully and constantly feeds, ever tells him, with an open, honest utterance, his good opinion of him, and his satisfaction with his labors. Many an excellent author toils over his work in secret distrust, and issues it in fear and trembling, feeling that a word of praise will exalt him into a grateful and fruitful joy, and that an unjust and unkind criticism will half kill him.

It is true that the mind is unhealthy which lives on praise; and it is just as true that he is mean and unjust who fails to award praise to those who earn it. The appetite for praise may become just as morbid and greedy by improper stimulus and abuse, as any other natural and legitimate appetite. It frequently does so, in those who associate it very intimately with success and gain. Actors and public singers, and all those whose success in life and whose pecuniary income depend upon the amount of popular praise they can win, are very apt to become greedy of praise, and will not unfrequently receive it in its most disgusting forms. There are lecturers and public speakers who depend upon praise for strength to speak an hour—men who, if their performances are repetitions, wait at certain points for applause, as a horse, travelling over a familiar road, stops always at certain hills to rest and take breath, and at certain wayside cisterns to drink. Many of these men demand praise, talking about themselves continually, and begging assent to their self-laudations. In these cases, praise becomes the dominant motive, and degrades and belittles its subjects always. The voluntary profanity and the impure jests that so often offend the ears of decent people at the theatre, are put forth to call out a cheer from groundlings whose praise is always essential disgrace. The jealousy and the quarrelsomeness of authors, actors, and singers, result from the fact that praise has become so much the motive of their life that they grudge the applause awarded to their fellows.

The difference between praise and flattery is as wide as that between praise and blame. Praise is a legitimate tribute to worth and worthy doing. It is entirely unselfish in its motive. It is the discharge of a debt. Flattery originates always in a selfish motive, and seeks by falsehood to feed an unhealthy desire for praise. A man whom it is proper to praise cannot be flattered, and a man who can be flattered ought not to be praised. It is always safe to praise a man who really deserves praise. Such a man usually knows how much he deserves, and will take only the exact amount. Indeed, he will be very particular to give back the right change. The flatterer is like the man who stands behind a bar to deal out poison to a debased appetite for gain. The man who utters honest praise is noble; the man who receives it does so without humiliation, and is made strong by it. The flatterer is always a scoundrel, and the glad receiver of his falsehoods is always a fool—natural or otherwise.

The desire for praise is often very strong in those who never do any thing to deserve it, and who are never ready to award it to those who have earned it. There are men in every community who are universally recognized as supremely selfish, yet supremely greedy of praise. This desire does not arise from over-indulgence in the article, for they never had even a taste of it. They are known to be selfish and hard and mean, yet they long for praise and popularity, with a desire that is almost ludicrous. They never give a dollar to the poor, they never deny themselves for the good of others, they are shut up in themselves—without any good or great or generous qualities—yet they clutch at every word that sounds like praise as if they were starved. The only use of the desire in these men is to furnish the world with a nose by which to lead them.

It is a mistake to suppose that praise should be rendered directly in all cases to the persons to whom it is due, for the relations between debtor and creditor may be such as to forbid it. I may be a humble admirer of some great and good man, who has been the doer of great and good deeds, but my personal relations to him may be such that it is not proper for me to approach him, and pay my tribute into his hands. Men are often careful of the channels through which the response to their deeds, in the hearts of other men, reaches them; but I may discharge my debt, nevertheless, by sounding their praise in other ears. It is usually the work of those who stand next to a man, to gather up the tributes of a grateful and admiring community or people, and bear them to him to whom they belong. Because I may not approach a praiseworthy man, with the offering which I feel to be his due, it is none the less incumbent upon me to discharge the debt. Just and generous praise will come from every just and generous nature in some form, and will be deposited in some bosom subject to the draft of the owner.

It is not easy for any man to work alone, out of the sight of his fellows, and beyond the recognition of his deeds. However self-sufficient he may be, he is stronger, and he feels stronger, in the approbation of generous and appreciative hearts. We are very much in the habit of thinking that men of great minds and noble deeds and self-reliant natures do not need the approval of other minds, and do not care for it; but God never lifted any man so far above his fellows that their voices were not the most delightful sounds that reached him. If this be true of great natures, how much more evidently true is it of smaller natures! We, the people of the world, go leaning on each other; and we totter sometimes, even to falling, when a shoulder drops from underneath our hand. We need encouragement with every step. In the path of worthy doing, we need some loving voice to witness with our approving consciences, that we have done that which becomes us as men and women. We long to hear the sentence, "well done, thou good and faithful servant," from day to day; and when we hear it, we are ready for further labor. We need also to give this daily meed of praise to those who deserve it, that we may keep ourselves unselfish, and root out from ourselves all niggardliness. We owe it to ourselves to pay off every debt as soon as it is incurred, and never, under any selfish motive, to withhold it.

It is notorious that the finest spirits of the world, and the world's greatest benefactors, have gone through life unrecognized. They have lain down in their graves at last without having received a tithe of the debt which their generation owed to them. When the turf has closed over their bosoms, and the mean jealousies of their cotemporaries have been vanquished by death, then whole nations have thronged to do them honor. Songs have been sung to their memory; and the words of praise which would have done so much to cheer and strengthen them once, are poured out in abundance when the need of them is past. Stately monuments are erected to them, and their children are petted and caressed, and a tardy, jealous, and hypocritical world strives to win self-respect by the payment of a debt long overdue. "Speak nothing but good of the dead" is a proverb that had its birth in the world's sense of its own meanness,—the consciousness that it had not done justice to the dead while they were living. Many a man is systematically abused during all his active life, only to lie down in his grave amid the laudations of a nation. I know of nothing in all the exhibitions of human nature meaner than this. It amounts to a virtual confession of fraud. It is the acknowledgment of a debt, which, while the creditor could get any benefit from it, the world refused to pay. Posthumous fame may be a very fine thing; but I have never known a really worthy man, with a healthy nature and a healthy character, who did not prize far above it the love, the confidence, and the praise of the generation to which he gave his life.

It is the mark of a noble nature to be quick to recognize that which is praiseworthy in others, and ready on the moment to award to it its fitting meed. Such a nature looks for that which is good in men, sees it, encourages it, and gives it the strength of its indorsal. All that is noble in other men thrives in the presence of such a nature as this. It is sunshine and showers and healthful breezes to all that is amiable and laudable in the souls around it. Woman grows more womanly and lovable and happy in its presence. Men grow heroic and unselfish by its side. Children gather from it encouragement and inspiration, and impulse and direction into a beautiful life. What knows the charming wife whom we lay in the tomb, of the tears we shed above her, of the endearments we lavish upon her memory, and of the praises of her virtue with which we burden the ears of our friends? This same wife would have drunk such expressions during her life with satisfaction and gratification beyond expression. Why can death alone teach us that those whom we love are dear? Why must they be placed forever beyond our sight before our lips can be unsealed? Why must it be that in our public, social, and family life we have penalties in abundance, but no rewards—censure in profusion, but no praise—fault-finding without stint of freedom, but approbation dealt out by constrained and niggardly hands?



LESSON XX.

UNNECESSARY BURDENS.

"I groan beneath this cowardice of heart Which rolls the evil to be borne to-day Upon to-morrow, loading it with gloom." ALEXANDER SMITH.

"There are two ways of escaping from suffering; the one by rising above the causes of conflict, the other by sinking below them; for there is quiet in the soul when all its faculties are harmonized about any centre. The one is the religious method; the other is the vulgar, worldly method. The one is called Christian elevation; the other, stoicism."—BEECHER.

There were few houses of the old time in New England that did not contain a well-thumbed volume of the Pilgrim's Progress; and there were few children who did not become acquainted with its contents, either through its text or its pictures. I am sure that all the children felt as I did—very tired with sympathy for the poor pilgrim who was obliged to lug that ugly pack from picture to picture, and very "glad and lightsome" when at last it fell from his shoulders, and went tumbling down the hill. We did not marvel that "he stood still awhile, to look and wonder," or that "he looked, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks." It was a great thing for a man who was bent on progress to be freed from an unnecessary burden; and it may be pleasant to know that at the foot of the hill of life the same sepulchre which swallowed the burden of Bunyan's Pilgrim, so that he "saw it no more," still stands open, and has room in it for all the burdens of all the pilgrims there are in the world.

I wonder whether all the pilgrims who have undertaken the journey "from this world to that which is to come" ever lose the pack whose fastenings were so quickly dissolved when our favorite old Pilgrim looked upon the Cross? I doubt it. I hear many people groaning throughout the whole course of their Christian experience with the oppressive weight of this same burden. Instead of losing it at the sight of the cross, they hold to it, and will not let it go. They mean well enough; but they do not understand that the cross was reared, and the meek sufferer nailed to it, that the burden of the penitent soul might be forever rolled off. They carry their own sins, and never yield the pack to Him who bore it for them "in His own body, on the tree." They are never "light and gladsome" with a sense of great relief; and their Christian progress is sadly impeded by the burden from which the central truth of the Christian scheme releases them. If there be any such thing as forgiveness, then there is such a thing as release; but I think there are many subjects of free and full forgiveness who insist on carrying their old, dirty packs to their graves, staggering under them all the way.

But this is not what I started to write about. A great many men carry their life as an author carries a book which he is writing— never losing the sense of their burden. When a writer undertakes a book, and feels the necessity of perfect continuity of thought and symmetry of structure, he can never lay it wholly aside. When once he has taken up the first chapter, and comprehended his materials and machinery and end, he does not dare to lay down his work, or diverge from the grand channel of his thought, until the last chapter is finished. He can take no three months' vacation; he can read no books that do not contribute to his progress in the chosen direction; he can never wholly lay aside the burden that is on him. It is like lifting upon one's shoulder the end of a long pole, and then walking under it from end to end. The burden upon the shoulder is not relieved until the whole length has been passed, and it drops as we walk from under it. Such is the way that many men, and, perhaps, most men, carry life. If their business troubles them, they have no power to throw it off, and no disposition to try to do it. They are entirely aware that they gain nothing by carrying their tedious burden, but they carry it. Not content with doing their duty, and trying their best while actively engaged, they take home with them a long face, breathe sighs around them in the saddest fashion, and really unfit themselves for the healthy exercise of their reason, and the active employment of their faculties.

With men of this stamp, it makes little difference whether they are prosperous or otherwise. If times are good, and they really have no fault to find with matters as they exist, they become troubled about bad times that may possibly lie just ahead. "Oh, it's all well enough to-day," they say, "but you can't tell what is coming;" so they bind the burden of the future upon them, and undertake to steal a march on God's providence. Such a thing as doing the duty of a single day, and doing it well, and then throwing off the burden of care, and having a good time in some rational way, until the hour comes for the commencement of the next day's duty, they are strangers to. They walk into their houses with a cloud upon their faces. They have no words of cheer for those whom they have left at home during the day. They are moody and sullen and sad—absorbed by their troubled thoughts— taking no interest in the schemes, and having no sympathy with the trials, of their wives and children, and making no effort to relieve themselves of their burdens. If they pray at all, they practically pray like this: "Give us this day our daily bread, and to-morrow, and next day, and the day after, and next year, and fifty years to come; and lest Thou shouldst forget it, or neglect to answer us, we have undertaken to look after the matter ourselves."

To say nothing of the constant sadness, uneasiness, and discomfort of such a life as this, to all those who lead it, and to all who are intimately associated with them, the permanent effect of it upon the character of its subjects is to make them selfish and hard, and small and mean. Whatever may be their circumstances, they become sensitive upon any expenditure of money for purposes beyond the simplest necessities of personal and family life. This result is both natural and inevitable. A man whose life, in and out of his counting-room, is absorbed by business, ceases, at last, to be any thing but a man of business; and his mind contracts and hardens down to its central, motive idea. That which becomes the dominant aim and the grand end of life, always determines the character of life; and I have known young men, even before they have approached middle age, to become mean and miserly to such a degree as to disappoint and disgust their friends, simply in consequence of a few years' absorption in business. Business is not life, nor is it life's end. It is simply a means of life; and all true living lies outside of it. Ministry is the mission of business—ministry to necessity, to comfort, and to a personal, family, and social life into which business never enters, save with an unwelcome foot and a disturbing hand. This everlasting hugging of the burden of business, is, therefore, not only a painful task, but it is permanently damaging to all who indulge in it.

"It is very easy to talk," says my friend, with a load upon his shoulders, "but talking does not pay notes at the bank, and keep creditors easy, and provide for one's family." Granted: and now will you be kind enough to tell me how many notes you ever paid at bank, and how much provision you ever made for your family by "mugging" over your troubles out of business hours? If your retort is good for any thing, mine is. You never accomplished one good thing in your life by making yourself and others unhappy through constant dwelling upon trouble when not engaged in active efforts to extricate yourself from it. You never gained a single inch of progress by dwelling upon miscarriages in business which you could not avoid. All your absorption, all your sad reflection, all your misgivings about the future, all your care beyond the exercise of your best ability in action, has not only been utterly useless, but it has injured the comfort of all around you, destroyed the peace of your life, cheated you out of the reward of your labor, and made a smaller, harder, meaner man of you. If any good result could be secured by carrying the burden of your business into all your life, then there would be some apology for it; but you know that no such result can be secured. "It is very easy to talk," my friend persists in saying, "but one cannot always command one's mind, in such a matter as this." Did you ever try? Have you ever systematically tried to do this? Is it your regular aim, after you have discharged the business of the day, to throw off care until the next day's business is undertaken? No? Then how do you know whether it is easy or not?

I believe it is in the power of every man, who has not too long abused himself, to lay aside every night his pack of mental care and anxiety, and enter into life. Not only this, but I believe that it is absolutely essential to his business success that he do this. A man who dwells constantly upon the dark side of his affairs, and is troubled and gloomy in his apprehensions concerning the future, becomes a weak and timid man—disqualified in many essential respects for the work of his life. His mind needs rest and revivification. Suppose an ass were to be treated in the manner in which men treat themselves. Suppose the burden which we place upon him during the day were kept lashed to his back at night, so that he must bear it, either standing or lying, off duty as well as on. How long would he be worth any thing for labor? The illustration is apposite in every particular. If the mind is to be kept fit for business, it is at regular periods to be kept out of business. A great multitude of business failures are attributable, I have no doubt, to the debilitating and damaging effect of carrying the burdens of business between business hours. Men become in a measure sick and insane by dwelling upon their affairs, when they should be receiving rest and refreshment.

Again, men who insist upon keeping their packs upon their shoulders, practically deny the existence of the providence of a Being superior to themselves, and dominant in all human affairs. If I were to say to one of these men: "you do not believe in Providence at all," he would accuse me of a harsh judgment, and feel injured by it; but it is certainly legitimate for me to ask him what evidence he gives of his belief. All, indeed, profess to believe in Providence, in a certain general way. The popular idea is very foggy upon the matter. We somehow imagine that God knows every thing in general and nothing in particular—that He takes interest in, supervision of, and controlling influence over, matters at large, with an imperial disregard of details—that He moulds with a majestic hand the character and destiny of nations, but never condescends to meddle with the small and insignificant affairs of individuals. Providence, in this view, would seem to be very much like certain tongs used in a blacksmith's shop, whose jaws do not wholly close—convenient for handling large pieces of iron, but incapable of grasping a nail. Or, Providence is like a great general, who only directs the movements of large bodies of men, deals only with the officers, and never thinks of so small a thing as looking after the blanket of a private soldier, or dressing a wounded finger.

It is very easy to perceive that such a Providence as this has no practical value in every-day, individual life. Very evidently it is not that Providence which numbers the hairs of men's heads, and without whose notice not a sparrow falls to the ground. One is a Providence made by men who undertake to measure God by themselves; the other is the Providence revealed in the Bible. God exercises a special providence, which reaches to the minutest affairs of the most insignificant man, or we are all in a condition of essential orphanage. A special Providence denied, and prayer becomes a mockery, devotion a deceit, and the sense of individual responsibility slavery to a superstitious idea. Now I do not pretend to address myself to men who do not believe in prayer. I know men well enough to know that there are very few of them who do not believe in prayer, and that there are very few of them who do not, particularly in moments of danger, pray. Deep down under the thickest crusts of depravity there lies the conviction, always ready to rise in painful emergencies, that God takes cognizance of every man, and is able to help him. Smooth away the idea of Providence as we may, into an unmeaning generality, the time comes, in every man's life, when he recognizes the fact that God is dealing with him; and he may as well recognize the fact all the time as when he is driven to feel that he has no help in himself.