Chapter XXXII: Interpretation of Language (2)

Men being thus terribly incapacitated for right action, so that they have no power "to amend their depraved nature," nor even "to dispose themselves for its amendment," the whole race became liable not only to the pains and penalties of sin through this life, but to _eternal_ and hopeless misery beyond the grave. Nor could any one of the race do a single thing to escape this doom, or to induce the Author of their Being to pity or help them. Instead of this, a certain portion of the race were "elected" by God to be restored to the state from which their first parents fell by "the Holy Spirit regenerating them," while all the rest were left to eternal torments, "to illustrate God's justice and hatred of sin!" Moreover, whoever was thus elected was sure to "persevere." These tenets are usually called the "five points of Calvinism," viz., _original sin_, _total depravity_, _election_, _regeneration_, and _saints' perseverance_.

Pelagius denied that there was any difference between the mental constitution of Adam and his descendants, or any other connection between his and their sins than always exists between the sins of children and those of their parents. Of course, the vitiated nature imparted directly or indirectly by God, and the tenets based on it, were denied by him.

At this period all matters of doctrine were settled by ecclesiastical councils. The first council on this matter was in Africa, and, led by Augustine, they condemned the views of Pelagius. The two next councils were in Palestine, and both sustained his teachings. Next, in Italy, the Pope, then at the early period of pontifical power, first sustained Pelagius, but finally, by the exertions of Augustine and his party, was led to condemn him with the greatest severity. Finally, the emperors were enlisted against him with their civil pains and penalties. The result was, Pelagius and his followers suffered the perils and miseries of civil and ecclesiastical persecution. "And thus," says the historian, "the Gauls, Britons, and Africans by their councils, and the emperors by their edicts, demolished this sect in its infancy, and suppressed it entirely."

It is very probable that, if Pelagius had had the power and adroitness of Augustine, the edicts of emperors and decrees of councils would have maintained _his_ views, and those of Augustine would have gone into obscurity. But ever since that day the organized power of the Latin, Greek, and Protestant churches have been arrayed to sustain the theories thus inaugurated.

But the common sense and the moral nature of man have maintained a feeble but ceaseless warfare against the tenets of the Augustinian and Calvinistic creed, while now this "conflict of ages" is invigorated by the intervention of a new power. The authority of councils, popes, and emperors is on the wane, while _the people_ are fast advancing to that position of umpires in the moral and religious world which they have gained in the political.

In this long and unequal struggle, the principal actors since the days of Pelagius have been, in the first place, _Arminius_ at the time of the Reformation. While maintaining the foundation dogma of a depraved mental constitution consequent upon Adam's sin, he strove to give some slight feature of humanity and tenderness to the consequent system by maintaining that there was _some_ way in which man, in spite of his ruined nature, could attain some right feeling and action acceptable to his Creator, and tending in some degree to remedy the dreadful calamity inflicted on the race.

The historian thus narrates:

"After the appointment of Arminius to the theological chair at Leyden (University), he thought it his duty to avow and vindicate the principles which he had embraced, and the freedom with which he published and defended them exposed him to the resentment of those that adhered to the theological system of Geneva (Calvinistic), which prevailed in Holland. The Arminian doctrines gained ground under the mild and favorable treatment of the magistrates of Holland, and were adopted by several persons of merit and distinction. The Calvinists appealed to a _national synod_. Accordingly, the Synod of Dort was convened (by the States-General), and was composed of ecclesiastical deputies from the United Provinces, as well as from the Reformed churches of England, Hessia, Bremen, Switzerland, and the Palatinate.

"It was first proposed to discuss the principal subjects in dispute, and that the Arminians should be allowed to state and vindicate the grounds on which their opinions were founded.

"But some difference arising as to the proper course of conducting the debate, _the Arminians were excluded from the assembly, their case was tried in their absence, and they were pronounced guilty of pestilential errors, and condemned as corrupters of the true religion_!

"In consequence of this decision, the Arminians were considered as enemies to their country and its established religion, and were much persecuted. They were treated with great severity, deprived of all their posts and employments, their ministers silenced, and their congregations suppressed. The great Barnevelt was beheaded, and the learned Grotius fled and took refuge in France."

Thus it is seen that, while Pelagius and his followers were wasted by persecution in the commencement of the Calvinistic system under Augustine, the attempt to soften its hard features by Arminius was put down by the same method.

But, in spite of all such opposition, Arminianism gained ground, and the Arminian and Calvinistic systems have existed side by side in most Protestant communions. In the Church of England, and formerly in the Methodist churches, these two parties have existed. So in the Presbyterian, Congregational, and Baptist churches, there has always been a division in reference to the tenets of Calvinism, some holding them strictly according to Augustine and Calvin, and others more or less modifying their sterner features by various theories and expositions.

The main point of difference between these two classes is in reference to that most disheartening and deplorable tenet of men's entire inability to "amend their depraved nature," or even to "dispose themselves for its amendment." The strict Calvinist maintains that the mind of man is so entirely ruined in its nature that no one but the Author of mind can rectify it, while he can in no way be moved to this act of mercy (justice?) by any thing the _unrenewed_ creature can do. The Arminian sects hold that, though the "natural man" is utterly incapable of any acceptable moral action in himself, yet, through the atonement of Jesus Christ, he is endowed with "a gracious supernatural ability," by which he can accept the offers of salvation. This, it is supposed, is a statement that most Arminians would accept as expressing their views.

In our own country, the earliest leader of an attempt to modify the Calvinistic system was the celebrated metaphysician, Jonathan Edwards. While maintaining, as did Arminius, the foundation theory of an utterly depraved mental constitution of the race as a penalty for the first act of disobedience, he first labored to prove this penalty to be _just_, inasmuch as in some mysterious way the whole race existed in Adam, and sinned just as he did, thus becoming the authors of their own mental ruin and incapacity.

And inasmuch as our moral nature revolts from the infliction of penalties for not doing what there is _no power_ to do, he originated a metaphysical theory to this effect: that, in spite of the injury resulting from this first sin of the whole race, there is full power and obligation in every human being to obey all that the laws of God demanded, but that man is _unwilling_ instead of _unable_. This _unwillingness_ is the result of that first sin of the race; and so great is its pertinacity, that no man ever did or ever will feel or act right in a single case, from the beginning to the end of life, until "regenerated by the Holy Spirit." Neither will they do any thing "to amend their depraved nature," or to "dispose themselves to its amendment;" nor will any man, before "regeneration by the Holy Spirit," do a single thing that has even any _tendency_ to gain this Divine aid, but it is all dependent on "sovereign, unconditional election." Still worse, the more efforts an unrenewed man makes to love and obey God, the more wicked he grows, because he is _voluntarily_ resisting increased light and obligation in refusing to regenerate himself, which, on this theory, he had full power to do.

As it respects God, this theory, indeed, relieves his character very essentially; but as to affording any comfort to man, it only adds a new thorn to wound sensitive consciences. For no man could possibly help feeling that when, according to High Calvinism, he had _no power at all_ to do right, he was relieved from some portion of obligation, even if, six thousand years ago, he did join Adam in that sinful repast. But President Edwards and his followers took away this small alleviation, and put the whole blame entirely on the depraved and guilty creature, both for the ruin of the fall and the refusal to remedy the evil.

This attempt to prove that _God does not require men to perform what they have no power to do_, has been regarded as a most terrific heresy by the strict Calvinist, while for nearly a hundred years New England and the whole Presbyterian Church have been agitated by it. Again and again, some of the wisest and best of their clergy have been arraigned for this heresy, with the threatened or inflicted penalty of loss of character, profession, and daily bread for themselves and their families. Three times the author has seen a revered parent thus arraigned. And in these ecclesiastical trials, she has herself heard otherwise sensible persons maintaining that men were required by their Maker to do what they had no power of _any_ kind to do, under the penalty of eternal damnation, and that it was a dangerous heresy to maintain that God did not thus require it.

Another attempt to modify the Augustinian dogma is found in the work entitled "The Conflict of Ages," by the Rev. Edward Beecher. The theory there presented was first started by the great and learned Origen in the third century, and has been advocated by individuals ever since. It assumes the entire and fatal depravity of the mental organization, but relieves the Creator of all blame by assuming that every human mind was created with a perfect mental organization, and placed in the most favorable circumstances possible in a _pre-existent state_; and yet the same sad results then occurred as our race are approaching, viz., the existence of two classes of minds, the holy and the sinful. Meantime this world was prepared as a merciful arrangement to afford a _second_ probation to those who ruined themselves in the pre-existent state.

This theory entirely relieves the Creator of all blame, but gives no other help or comfort to the miserable race of man. It certainly _is_ a comfort to feel that our Maker is not a being who ruins his creatures in the very process of creation, and then exposes them to eternal, hopeless misery as the consequence of it. But whoever believes this pre-existent theory takes the load of a guilty conscience for all he considers as wrong in his own mental constitution, and for all the dreadful consequences.

These several theories all were originated to escape from the inevitable deduction of reason, that _God, as the author of a depraved constitution of mind, is himself depraved_.

And yet neither of them avails but one of the two _pre-existent theories_, that makes man himself the author of this ruin of his own mind, either _in_ Adam or _before_ Adam, while neither of these is supported either by reason or revelation.

Moreover, neither of these theories _could_ be established by revelation for want of means to prove a revelation to beings who find themselves endowed with _miscreated_ minds, as has been shown on pages 287 and 288 of this volume.

Another effort to change the hard features of Calvinism was by the New Haven school of theologians. These gentlemen maintained that _a holy nature_ and _a sinful nature_ were not what _could be_ created, inasmuch as all sin implies a knowledge of what a morally right choice is and power to make such a choice, while it consists not at all in a wrong _nature_ or _constitution_, but solely in _wrong voluntary action_.

This is precisely what, as the author supposes, was the doctrine of Pelagius in opposition to that of Augustine, and for the propagation of which, popes, emperors, and councils drove Pelagius and his followers from their churches.

A similar penalty seemed for a while to await the New Haven innovators; for, as professors in a theological seminary connected with the most influential university in the nation, their doctrine on this subject occasioned a controversy that agitated all the New England as well as the Presbyterian churches.

At the same time, an earnest controversy was in progress with the Unitarian sect, which had adopted this tenet of Pelagius as a part of their creed. Of course, the charge, both of Pelagianism and Unitarianism, was rife all over the land against these innovators on the established creed of the churches.

To meet this, these gentlemen maintained that they had not essentially departed from the system of New England divinity as exhibited in the writings of President Edwards. Thus they had two labors to perform--the one to maintain the doctrine that sin consisted solely in wrong _action_ and not at all in _nature_, and the other to show that in this they did not differ from Edwards.

In attempting the first, at one time and another, they have maintained that mankind _since the fall_ are as truly created in God's image as Adam was; that the nature of man is still like the nature of God; that a corrupt, depraved, or unholy nature can not be affirmed of the human mind in any proper use of these terms.

The inquiry, then, must arise, in many minds that are familiar with the writings of President Edwards, how it is possible that men so intelligent and so honest should maintain that on this subject they had not departed from the system of New England divinity as exhibited by Edwards.

To the author this enigma is solved by the character of Edwards's writings, which, like those of many other metaphysicians who hold theories contrary to common sense, are _contradictory and inconsistent_. Thus it is seen that one class of very acute minds find in Edwards's _Treatise on the Will_ the most complete exposition and defense of _fatalism_, and thus the author regards it. Another class, equally acute, claim this same essay as a full exposition and defense of the contrary doctrine of _free agency_.

The Augustinian theory of a totally depraved mind, transmitted through the Catholic Church to its reformed offsets, was received by Edwards. He perceived that if God was the cause of this depravity, he is the author of sin, and so he labored to prove that all mankind "sinned in Adam and fell with him," and thus caused their own depravity.

He perceived, too, that requiring men to originate holy acts with a totally depraved nature seemed to demand what they had no power to perform, and thus made God unjust. So he brought forth his _Treatise on the Will_ to prove that man had a _natural ability_ to obey God, and a _moral inability_; and so at once he established _fatalism_ to one class of minds, and _free agency_ to another.

Thus it is that the New Haven divines find language in Edwards that sustains their views, while their antagonists find as much, or more, that condemns them.

The ancient followers of Pelagius, the modern Unitarians, and the leaders of the New Haven school of divines, all hold exactly the position set forth in this work of the _perfect organization_ of the human mind, while the only depravity maintained by them is that of _voluntary action_. At the same time, it is believed that but a very small portion of the younger clergy of _any_ theological school in New England, or in a large portion of the Presbyterian churches, would openly avow a belief in the depraved mental constitution of man as created by God, either directly at or near birth, or indirectly by hereditary transmission.

It is interesting, yet sad, to trace the dominant influence of the Augustinian theory of a depraved mental constitution in originating most of the leading sects of the present Christian world.

Man being assumed to be thus miserably miscreated, and his sole hope being the gift of the Holy Ghost to recreate, the priesthood soon claimed to be the only medium through which this gift could pass; and having the eternal life and death of the soul in their hands, they speedily thus gained that domestic, civil, and religious power which made the papal hierarchy the most tremendous tyranny that earth ever witnessed.

The question of the transmission of this power through properly ordained persons was the chief feature of the Episcopal organization.

Most of the other large sects in this country are descended from the Puritans, who, as it appears, were the first to institute "a church" as consisting solely of persons who "profess" to be "regenerated" on the theory of the renewal of a misformed or depraved mind.

The Greek, Roman, Episcopal, Scotch, and European Protestants recognize no such organization, all being born into the Church; and this seems to have been the case in the first churches of the New Testament, where parents and _their families_, and all who joined their communities, were considered as constituting the Christian Church, whether "regenerated" or not.[4] So, in the Jewish Church, all who submitted to the initiatory rite were members, without respect to religious attainments in character. This new principle of organization, originating with the Puritans, is retained among most sects in this nation, and is the foundation of their separate organizations.

Thus the Baptists are separated on the question of the mode of administering the _rite of admission_ to this Church.

The Presbyterians and Congregationalists separate on the question of _appointing the officers_ of this organization.

The Methodists are an offset from the Episcopal Church, with reference chiefly to modes of bringing men into their Church.

All agree that it is "regenerate persons" alone who are fully members of this organization.

There are diversities of opinion as to the relation of baptized children to this body, but none allow them to be admitted to its distinctive ordinance except they profess to be "regenerated."

It is a matter for interesting conjecture as to the probable results on Christendom had the theory of Pelagius been established by pope, emperor, and councils instead of that of Augustine.

In that case we may suppose that the efforts and energies of the churches, instead of to these rites and forms, would have been mainly directed to the _right training_ of the human mind in obedience to all the physical, domestic, social, and moral laws of the Creator.

Instead of instituting two standards of right and wrong, the "common" and the "evangelical," as is now so generally done, children would have been taught that all that was just, honorable, benevolent, and lovely in their feelings and conduct was as acceptable and right to God as it is to men. Their parents, instead of that sense of helpless inability resulting from the belief that their little ones could feel and do nothing but sin until new mental powers were given, and that the gift was bestowed by the rule of sovereign "election," would have felt that every successful effort to cultivate all lovely and right habits and feelings was advancing their offspring nearer to God and their heavenly home, and that, when their wisdom failed, the promise of "the Comforter" was given to encourage them in this great work.

Thus they would expect their children to become "new creatures in Christ Jesus" by the combined influence of the heavenly and earthly parents gradually transforming their ignorance and selfishness to knowledge and benevolence.

That the theory of Augustine, originally established in the Christian churches by pains and penalties, is still sustained there by such influences, is apparent from these facts.

Although there is a large amount of real virtue and piety that is not within the pale of any sectarian organization, yet the vast majority of conscientious persons are either enrolled in _the Church_, or intimately connected with it in principle and feeling. All this intellectual and moral power is organized into various denominations, each controlled and led by a number of highly-educated, conscientious, and religious men.

With these denominations are connected high positions in the pulpit, with great influence and liberal salaries; literary institutions, with posts of honor and competency; and theological seminaries that are the central ecclesiastical mainsprings of influence.

Then there are connected with each denomination large voluntary associations for benevolent purposes, with officers who control large pecuniary means. Finally, each sect has its quarterlies, monthlies, and its religious newspapers, whose editors are speaking every day to the minds of thousands and hundreds of thousands.

Now it is a fact that this vast array of wealth, position, influence, and ecclesiastical power is actually combined to sustain these theological theories. So much is this the case, that a minister, theological professor, president of a college, secretary of a benevolent society, or editor of a periodical or newspaper, could not openly deny this Augustinian tenet but under penalty of the loss of reputation, position, influence, and the income that sustains himself and family. Our largest and best theological seminaries demand an avowal of belief in this dogma as a condition of holding any professorship, and in some of them it must be renewed by all the professors every few years.

At the same time, this dogma of a depraved mental constitution transmitted from Adam is inwrought into all the standard works of theology, the sermons, the prayers, the sacred poetry, the popular literature, and even the Sunday-school and family literature of childhood.

The power of such influences is intensified by the present stringency of sectarian organization. By those who have marked the tendencies of the religious world, it will be remembered that, at the time the associations for religious benevolence began their great work, all sects seemed to be harmonizing and uniting in the efforts to send Bibles, tracts, and missionaries to the destitute. At this period, the questions that separated Christians in reference to modes of ordination, baptism, and church officers, seemed to disappear as matters of small moment among all whose great aim was to save the lost of every name and nation.

But, while this served to liberalize the feelings and opinions of good men in all sects, it soon became apparent to the leaders that, if these tendencies were not counteracted, the sects would all come together.

If this should happen, where would be all the great machinery that was supported by these several denominations for their distinctive aims?

Soon the tide turned, and, though now there is less sectarian bitterness, and most sects can allow each other to be Christians with different names and badges, yet each is active for its own separate interests more decidedly than ever. And now the _leading_ concern of each denomination seems to be, to increase its own separate churches, schools, colleges, theological seminaries, religious periodicals, and benevolent associations, not because the salvation of the lost depends on these distinctive matters, but chiefly as modes of increasing the _extent_, _respectability_, and _influence_ of their sect. In order to do this, the importance of the points which divide each from the other must be magnified; for if there is but a trifling difference between an Old School and New School Church, or a Baptist, Congregational, or a Presbyterian, then, in small places, and especially in our new settlements, all these would unite in one large, harmonious church, that could properly support all its own ordinances, and send of its surplus to supply the destitute. On the contrary, if these differences are magnified, there will be two, three, or four small churches, all contending with each other, poorly supporting their own ordinances, and, instead of helping the destitute, sending to other churches of their own sect for help.

Thus it is that we see vast sums raised every year to multiply these needless, weak, and militant churches all over the land. There are facts on this subject that should be deeply pondered.[5]

So in regard to education; although intelligence has diminished the acerbity of sectarianism, it has led to a higher appreciation of educational institutions as an element of _sectarian influence_ and _respectability_. From this has come the struggle to multiply colleges and female seminaries in each of the several denominations. Each is now acting _as a sect_ in starting new institutions all over the land, that demand immense investments for buildings, apparatus, and endowments, and this without reference to the actual wants of the community. For example, in Indiana, where the low state of common school education makes such institutions least patronized, there are _eleven endowed_ institutions, with an aggregate income from these endowments of $14,000 _per annum_, besides tuition. In Ohio there are _twenty-six_ colleges and professional schools, with an annual income from endowments of $25,000; and yet, as appears in the public prints, $100,000 has been subscribed in one city in this same state to start another college for the Old School Presbyterians, who are expected to raise as much more among that sect. Besides endowments to support teachers, vast sums are expended in buildings, some of which are standing unused for the purpose for which the money to build them was given. This is a fair specimen of what is transpiring in most of the other states in raising new institutions or increasing the funds of those already started. In this way, two, three, and four colleges are often found as competitors in a section that could properly patronize scarcely one.

After each sect has thus reared an institution, it must then struggle to find pupils, and thus multitudes of young boys, who are to go into future pursuits where such knowledge will be of little or no service, are pressed into a Latin and Greek course, which probably the larger portion of them forsake before it is completed, with little knowledge of ancient literature, and far less of their own mother tongue. The waste of educational benefactions in this way is little realized, while the effect of congregating the young in boarding-school life, away from home and parental influence, is most disastrous.

How can it be otherwise? To take the unformed youth at the most excitable period of the nervous system, at the point where temptations are strongest, and habits of self-control the weakest, away from mothers, sisters, and home influences; herd them promiscuously with good and bad; stimulate the brain to excess; end all the healthful domestic exercise, and what could be expected but just such wrecks of health, morals, home habits, and all that is good and pure, as is constantly going on in such institutions?

If parents could hear the details that have come from mothers and their young sons of the experiences of boarding-school and college life all over the land, especially in reference to that most contaminating and horrible literature and prints that no care can exclude, they would understand only a small part of the evils included in such institutions for the young.

Not only colleges, but female seminaries, and even private schools, are becoming more and more sectarian, as especially patronized by some one denomination, and relying on this for success.

All this sectarian influence in education is, in fact, operating to sustain the Augustinian theories _by the pains and penalties_ that first enforced them; for no teacher of a school, or college, or female seminary could avow a dissent from theories so powerfully sustained, without subjecting himself, his institution, and his sect to attacks from other sects and institutions, as one mode of supplanting a rival.

It was this powerful array of antagonistic influences that for years withheld the author from any public expression of some of the views set forth in this work.

It has been stated in the introduction that, while teaching mental science, in connection with the Bible, to highly gifted minds, an octavo volume was printed, but not published, which embraced the leading features of this work. In that, the principles of reason and interpretation were _not_ applied to the theories of a depraved mental constitution, which at that time were not, to her own mind, satisfactorily solved, but to theories on the character and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, where relief was first experienced by the writer.

On taking advice as to the publication of such a work, it became clear that it would probably result in such powerful theological influences as would end a connection with a public institution, and all labors as a teacher.

In obedience to the counsel of friends, it was concluded to go quietly on as an educator, and work out practically all that could be done without innovating on accepted opinions, and wait till time and circumstances should afford more maturity and completeness to the writer's own views; for it was soon perceived that no one ever objected to having children trained exactly according to the author's present views, provided nothing was said against the accepted theological theories. So faithfully has this method been pursued, that it is probable that there is not an individual with whom the writer has been associated as an educator, who will not, for the first time, learn her views on the Augustinian and Calvinistic theories from this work; while, even in her own family circle, though opinions have been expressed freely, all discussions on this subject have been avoided.

In pursuing the course of a practical educator, the first years were spent mainly in the intellectual department, at the period when the "higher branches" first began to enter as a part of female culture. Surrounded by some of the most gifted female minds in the country as both teachers and pupils, and all excited by the interest of pioneers in the effort to elevate the standard of female education, there resulted such an amount of intellectual activity and enthusiasm as has never been witnessed by the author before or since.

Ignorant of the laws of health, and unaware of any danger from excess, the result was such entire and irretrievable prostration of the nervous system as forbade forever any farther labor as a practical teacher.

Extensive journeyings to restore health among a widely-dispersed family connection led to frequent reunions with former pupils. Thence resulted a deep conviction of the necessity of _training the domestic habits and tastes_ of young girls as had never yet been attempted, and of the extreme suffering and _ill health_ consequent on the neglect of it as _a part of school education_. This led to two works on Domestic Economy, one of which was designed as a text-book for girls at school, and the other for their use after they became housekeepers.

Continued ill health, inducing frequent resort to health establishments, where invalids from all classes were congregated, increased the conviction that modes of education and other causes were fatally undermining national health, especially that of women. Thus originated a work on Health, and another on Physiology and Physical Training.

Incapacitated from labor as a teacher, the only field of effort to the author was in more general efforts to interest her own sex to enlarged and _organized_ efforts to secure the proper training of woman for her distinctive duties, and also to provide _employment_ for her in her appropriate profession.

Two small works addressed to American women on this subject were issued by her, and two organizations were the result: one conducted by ladies in Boston, and one by Governor Slade as General Agent of the Board of National Popular Education.

As both of these restricted their efforts mainly to providing employment for teachers already educated, the next attempt was to secure an organization to prepare woman for her _distinctive duties_ on a more complete and comprehensive scale.

In this attempt, it was perceived that the other sex have always secured proper attention to any particular department of education by _endowments to support highly-educated teachers to give their whole time to that object_. Thus chemistry, agriculture, and the practical sciences are made honorable, and are insured as branches of liberal instruction. The question then arose, Why should not this method be taken to make woman's _distinctive_ profession honorable, and to secure a proper training for it?

The business of a woman is divided into three as distinct departments as the liberal professions of law, medicine, and divinity for men, which are so honored and endowed. Nor are they less important or universal. For, in the first place, woman is to train the human mind at just that period when principles, tastes, and habits are most firmly fixed; next, she has the care of the human body all through its period of development, when the physical habits are formed, and also in periods of sickness for all ages. Lastly, she has charge of the whole circle of domestic economy, and of all the _home_ interests of the family state. Educator, nurse, and housekeeper, these three departments are not less in importance than law, medicine, and divinity.

The leading feature, then, in this attempt was to secure an organization of American women, who should aim to establish model institutions for woman, that should prepare her _thoroughly and properly_ for the three distinctive employments of her profession, by means of endowments to support highly-educated teachers for this express object. In all other female institutions, the training of the _intellect_ has been the leading object; in these, the preparation of woman for her distinctive duties was to be the leading object.

To the common remark that the mothers must do this _at home_, it is replied, in the first place, that the mothers, to a great extent--_as the general rule, having but few exceptions_--are not qualified to do this; and, next, if they were, they have not the _health_, or they have not the _time_, or they have not the _will_ to do so. When men wish to perfect and honor any profession, they provide _endowments_ to sustain teachers of the highest order. Thus, for example, though it may be said that farmers can best train their sons for their own profession, still agricultural professorships in our colleges, and teachers sustained by endowments, are found to be indispensable to honor and raise that pursuit to a _science_ and a _profession_.

While the young women of the nation see every thing else more honored and provided for than the very profession and future business of their lives, they will grow up to neglect and despise such duties.

The education of woman, to be what Heaven designed for the race, should unite the _home training_ of the parents with the _school training_ of the teacher. Instead of taking young girls from all domestic interests and pursuits, and turning all the energies of their nervous system into the intellectual department of the brain, there should be an equable and healthful training, at once, of the bodily powers, the social and domestic habits, the intellect, and the moral nature; and in effecting this, the parents and the teachers should _work together_ harmoniously. It is in reference to this that the tendency of this age and country to conduct the education of the higher and middling classes in _boarding-schools_ instead of _at home_ is most disastrous. Boarding-schools should be the exceptions to meet the wants of a sparse population. Instead of this, the country sends its daughters to city boarding-schools, and the city sends to country boarding-schools, and so _home_ education is becoming more and more neglected.

The consequences to the health, happiness, and moral interests of woman are more and more disastrous.

In reference to this, the efforts of the above association have been confined to establishing what it is hoped would become _model institutions_ in the _centres of influence_ of the states where they were located, in which the funds should _not_ be spent in providing great buildings to take children away from all home influences and domestic pursuits, but rather in providing such teachers and influences as would have a direct bearing on the homes of the pupils, and aid the parents in cultivating _home habits_, _home virtues_, and _home tastes_ and _pursuits_.

This brief history of the writer's efforts is given because its results will now be seen to form a part of the "history of the dogma" which is the subject of this section.

For, during the whole period of these efforts to promote the _right training of the human mind by woman as the Heaven-appointed minister for this end_, the influence of this dogma has been constantly forced on attention as the real antagonistic force. That is to say, the whole energies of the Christian Church, in its distinctive character, are organized to remedy the evil _after the mind is educated wrong_, while little is attempted by the powerful agency of _organization_ to secure its _right education_. In proof of this, it will be seen that all the great benevolent organizations for which collections are enforced from the pulpit are for adults, with one only seeming exception. There is an organization to send Bibles, another to send tracts and colporteurs, another to send missionaries abroad, another to send home-missionaries, another for the sailor, another for the slaves, another to educate ministers, another to raise up colleges, another for temperance, and so on. All these have as their direct aim those who are educated wrong, and are to be redeemed from sinful habits. Not one has any direct reference to the _formation of right habits in the daily training of every-day life_.

The Sunday-school is the only seeming exception. But this is only a weekly exercise of an hour or two, in which every sect secures the training of its children in its own religious system, while this system, in most cases, is based on the Augustinian doctrine of the inability of children to feel or do a single right thing till they are "regenerated," while not only the teaching, but the Sunday libraries for children all enforce this dogma. The practical influence of this, though counteracted more or less by other influences, is fairly illustrated in the mental history of the author in the Introduction.

Thus the Christian Church has all its organizations to _cure_ diseased and miseducated mind, and not a single one to _prevent_ this ruin by its right training.

This being so, this effort to promote the neglected and yet great end of Christian effort has been looked on with indifference, or as a small concern to receive its mite, while all others are to receive their hundreds and thousands.

Moreover, the enterprise has been looked upon with jealousy by many whose attention has been called to it as a _covert_ sectarian movement to promote the interests of that denomination with which some of its movers have been connected. Then, too, because it really has not favored any one sect, it has secured the special favor and sympathy of none. There has never been a time when its movers have not been made to understand that success in raising endowments would be certain if the anti-sectarian feature could be relinquished, and the enterprise could assume a sectarian banner.

The most influential clergy of the large sects are engaged in denominational enterprises, to found colleges or theological seminaries, or to establish book or newspaper agencies _devoted to the interests of their sect_. The great body of laymen who have wealth to bestow in large sums are more or less influenced by their clergymen, either as personal friends or as spiritual advisers. Especially is this true of the few benevolent ladies who have such independent means as to be able to furnish endowments.

And thus it has come to pass that this first attempt yet known to organize Christians _as Christians_, to train woman for her great work of forming the physical, social, domestic, and moral habits of childhood by methods deemed indispensable by man for his professions, is on the verge of failure, after four years of trial. And this is not owing to the fact that the motives, or the plan, or the conductors of it have been extensively distrusted, or in any particular disapproved. On the contrary, the leading clergymen of most of the Protestant sects have given their unqualified approval, while the Board of Managers embraces a large proportion of the most distinguished female educators and authoresses, with some of the most distinguished business men and financiers of our land. At the same time, the agents and educators who have performed for four years the details of the enterprise have secured the entire approval and confidence of the public as to their qualifications.

The real difficulty at the root of all is the indifference to the training of the habits of childhood, resulting from the long-established dogma of a misformed mind, whose propagated incapacity is not within the reach of educational training. Meantime, the chief energies of the Christian Church are now tending to the extending of sectarian organizations, based on peculiarities as to baptism, ordination, and church officers, which no intelligent person believes are either indispensable to salvation, or even so important as to be subjects of direct Divine commands.

It is this view of the subject that has at last brought the author to relinquish any farther practical educational efforts, and now to attempt whatever may be in her power in directing public attention to what seems to be one grand impediment in the Christian world to the right training and development of the human race.

In presenting this work to the special attention of the laity, the author does not intend to imply that theologians are not to take the lead in all discussions and investigations that are to guide and enlighten mankind in their special department.

The aim is rather to lessen the general impression that the whole matter is to be left exclusively to them; that it is a _professional_ concern, in which a layman is to resign his own judgment as he does to his physician or lawyer. Instead of this, there are some reasons why the laity have superior advantages to the clergy in cases where long-accepted theological errors are to be eradicated.

In the first place, they are free from the strong influence of _a system_ into which the mind has been _educated_. The power of a system over men who are trained to reason, and who reason on that subject which involves all the greatest interests of existence both for time and eternity, is most insidious and incalculable. To this is added the reverence, love, and veneration felt by pious persons for those great and good men who, like Augustine, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards, have been the revered masters of theological systems for ages. Under these two influences, every new opinion is compared with _a system_, and when it is seen to be inconsistent with it, all the veneration attached, both to that and to its authors and advocates, stands opposed to any innovation.

The powerful influence of educational training, and of love and reverence to a revered parent, has taught the author to understand and sympathize with other minds similarly influenced.

From all such biasing influences the laity are far more free than their clerical guides.

Add to this the fact that the "pains and penalties" attached to all change in theological opinions have very little reach among the laity. Any layman, if he adopts new views, can quietly withdraw from one religious communion and join another more congenial, or remain unconnected with any, while no man can call him to an account. But men connected with parishes, colleges, and all educational institutions, are subject to the supervision of councils, presbyteries, synods, and many other organs of surveillance, making it indispensable that all changes should be known to the public. Thus profession, reputation, and daily bread become more or less involved.

And here it is but justice to express the author's convictions, which an extensive acquaintance with the clergy of various sects has induced, that there is not another body of men, of equal number and education, who are so free from personal considerations of this kind in forming and maintaining opinions.

The entrance on the clerical profession in this country involves the sacrifice of all hope of wealth and its advantages, and includes often poverty and a painful dependence on the vacillating favor of parishes; so that, to a man of talents and worldly ambition, the command to enter this profession is very nearly equivalent to that of the Great Master's, "Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and come and follow me."

But while allowing that, as a class, this profession is, most of all, free from biasing influences of the kind indicated, it can not but be allowed that they are subject to like temptations as other men, and that these considerations must have more influence with them than with the laity, who are exposed to little or nothing of this kind.

To this, add the fact that men in other professions are far more habituated to look at all questions in a _practical_ relation, and to use the principles of _common sense_ more than the principles of _a system_.

The writer has had frequent occasion to notice how the well-trained reasoners of other professions throw aside the theories and systems of theology, and settle down on the great practical truths of Christianity.

It has sometimes been a matter of wonder to perceive how little attention is often given by some of the most gifted and well-trained laity, even those that are devoutly religious, to questions deemed of paramount and absorbing interest by the clergy.

In presenting this work to public attention, the author is not animated with the expectation of any immediate or very striking results.

Long-established and time-honored opinions, especially when they are entwined with the sacred hopes and interests of religion, are changed only by slow and gradual transitions, and these, often, almost imperceptible.

It is the hope of the author to do something to promote at least a _renewed discussion_ of these subjects, under more favorable auspices than have heretofore existed.

The circumstances that favor and indicate such a renewal are, in the first place, a gradual change that has been going on the last thirty years in the theological world as the result of discussions on these very subjects. Some of the most candid and acute minds that have been interested in such discussions have, more and more, been led to feel the difficulties involved in the accepted theory of Augustine; and though few have come to such clear convictions on the subject as to feel warranted in taking any public stand as innovators or reformers, many are ready to examine and discuss in a very different attitude of mind from what has ever before been so extensively experienced.

One striking indication of this change is the almost universal neglect of "indoctrinating preaching" among the younger clergy in those sects where, forty years ago, it was deemed indispensable to success to thus establish the "five points of Calvinism."

A still more important change is an increase in that _practical_ preaching that urges on the consciences of men all their domestic, social, and moral duties, _as constituting an essential part of religion, as truly as the affections toward God and the special duties owed to him_.

An equal or greater change is apparent among the laity. The strong Calvinistic doctrines that used to be so reverently received are either simply tolerated or quietly rejected. This is particularly the case with mothers and teachers, both in the family and in the secular and Sunday schools. Thousands of practical, tender mothers utterly refuse to teach their little ones that a depraved nature has descended to them from Adam, and that they can never perform any thing that is right or pleasing to God till this nature is recreated; or, if they use such language, it is with explanations entirely un-Calvinistic.

Instead of this, they teach their offspring that they can please and obey their Heavenly Parent as truly and acceptably as they do their earthly parents; that when they have so learned to love and please Him (or to feel and act right) that it is their _chief desire_ thus to do, they have a _new life_. This "new birth," they also teach, is the result of that aid from the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, which both parents and children so need that they can never succeed without it, and yet which is promised to all who earnestly desire it, and seek it by proper methods.

Multitudes of parents and teachers are pursuing this method in churches whose ministers would entirely revolt from the idea of denying the Augustinian theory or the system of Calvin resting upon it. Many are doing this, unconscious that they are taking a course that is contrary to the standards of their Church.

In conclusion, the author would ask attention to the chief points presented in this volume.

The main question is, are these principles of reason or common sense, and the rules for interpreting language here set forth, accepted as guides in deciding the great questions of life?

Next, are the deductions gained by their aid as to what can be learned without a direct revelation from the Creator accepted?

Lastly, is the Augustinian theory of a depraved mental constitution consequent on the sin of the first parents of the race, as tried by these principles, supported either by reason or the Bible; and, if not, should not all men renounce it, both theoretically and practically?

In answering this last, it is to be remembered that the question is not one of _fact_ as to the _depraved action_ of mind, but of the _philosophy_ of this fact, or _the cause_ of this wrong action. A man may not be able to form any satisfactory theory on this question, and be content, as the early Christians used to be, to remain without one. The repudiation of the Augustinian theory does not necessarily involve the adoption of any other, while it does remove insurmountable difficulties from just and generous minds in accepting the Bible as of Divine authority while encumbered with what seems so contrary both to the moral sense and the common sense of mankind.

* * * * *

It has been the privilege of the author all her life to be intimately associated, by family and other connections, with the ministers of religion in a variety of denominations--those intelligent, excellent, and pious men who, more than any other class, can understand that heavy burden of spirit connected with that awful subject, _the eternal loss of the human soul_.

Before closing, they will permit a few inquiries in reference to this subject. The almost universal cessation of "revivals" of religion, the diminished attendance of the masses on Sabbath worship, the decrease in the relative proportion of the ministry, the diminution of spirituality and the consequent laxness in the Church, the increase of skepticism and infidelity of various grades, the terrific rush of worldliness on all classes, as wealth, and luxury, and temptations of all kinds abound, are not all these signs of the times of fearful import, foreshadowing either some dreadful judgments, or the advent of some moral forces that are appropriate to such a crisis?

In this position of the moral world, is it to be supposed that theology alone, of all departments of science, has reached its culminating point, so that there is no possibility of improvement? Is there not manifestly needed far more powerful motives than any now wielded to stop the inrushing tide of worldliness? In former times, when revivals abounded, it was the principle of _fear_ that was first appealed to with such wonderful results. But where now are such appeals made as once shook men's consciences with fears of "_the wrath to come_?"

If such preaching abounds in any quarter of our nation, where is it? In all her travels the writer finds it wanting, and the testimony of others is similar.

Here, now, is the great question: Could the ministry _now_ preach the _distinctive_ theories of Calvinism, and at the same time those awful views of the _eternal loss of the soul_, warranted by Scripture language, with any prospect of being sustained by the moral sentiments of the great body of benevolent and intelligent hearers? Would not some be driven to reckless worldliness, others to infidelity, others to Universalism, others to another style of preaching, till the remainder could scarcely maintain any preaching at all? Is not this perceived and felt by many ministers, and is not this one great reason why that terrible doctrine, on which the whole Gospel is based, is now so hidden or so slightly recognized in the pulpit ministrations?