Chapter IX: Section 24: "And I can see no reason why a person, who, without (6)

What is patriotism? Is it a narrow affection for the spot where a man was born? Are the very clods where we tread entitled to this ardent preference because they are greener? No, sir; this is not the character of the virtue, and it soars higher for its object. It is an extended self-love, mingling with all the enjoyments of life, and twisting itself with the minutest filaments of the heart. It is thus we obey the laws of society, because they are the laws of virtue. In their authority we see, not the array of force and terror, but the venerable image of our country's honor. Every good citizen makes that honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious, but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense, and is conscious that he gains protection while he gives it. For what rights of a citizen will be deemed inviolable when a State renounces the principles that constitute their security? Or, if his life should not be invaded, what would its enjoyments be in a country odious in the eyes of strangers and dishonored in his own? Could he look with affection and veneration to such a country as his parent? The sense of having one would die within him; he would blush for his patriotism, if he retained any, and justly, for it would be a vice. He would be a banished man in his native land.

I see no exception to the respect that is paid among nations to the law of good faith. If there are cases in this enlightened period when it is violated, there are none when it is decried. It is the philosophy of politics, the religion of governments. It is observed by barbarians--a whiff of tobacco smoke, or a string of beads, gives not merely binding force, but sanctity to treaties. Even in Algiers a truce may be bought for money; but, when ratified, even Algiers is too wise, or too just, to disown and annul its obligation. Thus, we see neither the ignorance of savages nor the principles of an association for piracy and rapine, permit a nation to despise its engagements. If, sir, there could be a resurrection from the foot of the gallows, if the victims of justice could live again, collect together and form a society, they would, however loath, soon find themselves obliged to make justice, that justice under which they fell, the fundamental law of their state. They would perceive it was their interest to make others respect, and they would therefore soon pay some respect themselves to the obligations of good faith.

It is painful, I hope it is superfluous, to make even the supposition, that America should furnish the occasion of this opprobrium. No, let me not even imagine that a republican government, sprung as our own is, from a people enlightened and uncorrupted, a government whose origin is right, and whose daily discipline is duty, can, upon solemn debate, make its option to be faithless--can dare to act what despots dare not avow, what our own example evinces, the states of Barbary are unsuspected of. No, let me rather make the supposition that Great Britain refuses to execute the treaty, after we have done everything to carry it into effect. Is there any language of reproach pungent enough to express your commentary on the fact? What would you say, or rather what would you not say? Would you not tell them, wherever an Englishman might travel, shame would stick to him--he would disown his country. You would exclaim, England, proud of your wealth, and arrogant in the possession of power--blush for these distinctions, which become the vehicles of your dishonor. Such a nation might truly say to corruption, Thou art my father, and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister. We should say of such a race of men, their name is a heavier burden than their debt.

I can scarcely persuade myself to believe that the consideration I have suggested requires the aid of any auxiliary. But, unfortunately, auxiliary arguments are at hand. Five millions of dollars, and probably more, on the score of spoliations committed on our commerce, depend upon the treaty. The treaty offers the only prospect of indemnity. Such redress is promised as the merchants place some confidence in. Will you interpose and frustrate that hope, leaving to many families nothing but beggary and despair? It is a smooth proceeding to take a vote in this body; it takes less than half an hour to call the yeas and nays and reject the treaty. But what is the effect of it? What, but this? The very men formerly so loud for redress, such fierce champions that even to ask for justice was too mean and too slow, now turn their capricious fury upon the sufferers and say by their vote, to them and their families, No longer eat bread; petitioners, go home and starve; we can not satisfy your wrongs and our resentments.

Will you pay the sufferers out of the treasury? No. The answer was given two years ago, and appears on our journals. Will you give them letters of marque and reprisal to pay themselves by force? No; that is war. Besides, it would be an opportunity for those who have already lost much to lose more. Will you go to war to avenge their injury? If you do, the war will leave you no money to indemnify them. If it should be unsuccessful, you will aggravate existing evils; if successful, your enemy will have no treasure left to give our merchants; the first losses will be confounded with much greater, and be forgotten. At the end of a war there must be a negotiation, which is the very point we have already gained; and why relinquish it? And who will be confident that the terms of the negotiation, after a desolating war, would be more acceptable to another House of Representatives than the treaty before us? Members and opinions may be so changed that the treaty would then be rejected for being what the present majority say it should be. Whether we shall go on making treaties and refusing to execute them, I know not. Of this I am certain, it will be very difficult to exercise the treaty-making power on the new principles, with much reputation or advantage to the country.

The refusal of the posts (inevitable if we reject the treaty) is a measure too decisive in its nature to be neutral in its consequences. From great causes we are to look for great effects. A plain and obvious one will be the price of the western lands will fall. Settlers will not choose to fix their habitation on a field of battle. Those who talk so much of the interest of the United States should calculate how deeply it will be affected by rejecting the treaty; how vast a tract of wild land will almost cease to be property. The loss, let it be observed, will fall upon a fund expressly devoted to sink the national debt. What, then, are we called upon to do? However the form of the vote and the protestations of many may disguise the proceeding, our resolution is in substance, and it deserves to wear the title of a resolution to prevent the sale of the western lands and the discharge of the public debt.

Will the tendency to Indian hostilities be contested by any one? Experience gives the answer. The frontiers were scourged with war till the negotiation with Great Britain was far advanced, and then the state of hostility ceased. Perhaps the public agents of both nations are innocent of fomenting the Indian war, and perhaps they are not. We ought not, however, to expect that neighboring nations, highly irritated against each other, will neglect the friendship of the savages; the traders will gain an influence and will abuse it; and who is ignorant that their passions are easily raised, and hardly restrained from violence? Their situation will oblige them to choose between this country and Great Britain, in case the treaty should be rejected. They will not be our friends, and at the same time the friends of our enemies.

But am I reduced to the necessity of proving this point? Certainly the very men who charged the Indian war on the detention of the posts, will call for no other proofs than the recital of their own speeches. It is remembered with what emphasis, with what acrimony, they expatiated on the burden of taxes, and the drain of blood and treasure into the western country, in consequence of Britain's holding the posts. Until the posts are restored, they exclaimed, the treasury and the frontiers must bleed.

If any, against all these proofs, should maintain that the peace with the Indians will be stable without the posts, to them I will urge another reply. From arguments calculated to produce conviction, I will appeal directly to the hearts of those who hear me, and ask whether it is not already planted there. I resort especially to the convictions of the western gentlemen, whether, supposing no posts and no treaty, the settlers will remain in security. Can they take it upon them to say that an Indian peace, under these circumstances, will prove firm? No, sir; it will not be peace, but a sword; it will be no better than a lure to draw victims within the reach of the tomahawk.

On this theme, my emotions are unutterable. If I could find words for them--if my powers bore any proportion to my zeal--I would swell my voice to such a note of remonstrance, it should reach every log house beyond the mountains, I would say to the inhabitants, Wake from your false security; your cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehensions, are soon to be renewed; the wounds, yet unhealed, are to be torn open again; in the daytime, your path through the woods will be ambushed; the darkness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. You are a father--the blood of your sons shall fatten your corn-field; you are a mother--the war-whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle.

On this subject you need not suspect any deception on your feelings. It is a spectacle of horror which can not be overdrawn. If you have nature in your hearts, it will speak a language compared with which all I have said or can say will be poor and frigid.

Will it be whispered that the treaty has made a new champion for the protection of the frontiers? It is known that my voice as well as vote has been uniformly given in conformity with the ideas I have expressed. Protection is the right of the frontiers; it is our duty to give it.

Who will accuse me of wandering out of the subject? Who will say that I exaggerate the tendencies of our measures? Will any one answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preaching? Will any one deny that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty, for the vote we give? Are despots alone to be approached for unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects? Are republicans unresponsible? Have the principles, on which you ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings, no practical influence, no binding force? Are they merely themes of idle declamation, introduced to decorate the morality of a newspaper essay, or to furnish pretty topics of harangue from the windows of that state house? I trust it is neither too presumptuous nor too late to ask, Can you put the dearest interest of society at risk without guilt, and without remorse?

It is vain to offer as an excuse, that public men are not to be reproached for the evils that may happen to ensue from their measures. This is very true, where they are unforeseen or inevitable. Those I have depicted are not unforeseen; they are so far from inevitable, we are going to bring them into being by our vote. We choose the consequences, and become as justly answerable for them as for the measure that we know will produce them.

By rejecting the posts, we light the savage fires--we bind the victims. This day we undertake to render account to the widows and orphans whom our decision will make, to the wretches that will be roasted at the stake, to our country, and I do not deem it too serious to say, to conscience and to God. We are answerable, and if duty be anything more than a word of imposture, if conscience be not a bugbear, we are preparing to make ourselves as wretched as our country.

There is no mistake in this case; there can be none. Experience has already been the prophet of events, and the cries of our future victims have already reached us. The western inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplaining sacrifice. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of their wilderness. It exclaims, that while one hand is held up to reject this treaty, the other grasps a tomahawk. It summons our imagination to the scenes that will open. It is no great effort to the imagination to conceive that events so near are already begun. I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture. Already they seem to sigh in the west wind--already they mingle with every echo from the mountains.

It is not the part of prudence to be inattentive to the tendencies of measures. Where there is any ground to fear that these will be pernicious, wisdom and duty forbid that we should underrate them. If we reject the treaty, will our peace be as safe as if we executed it with good faith? I do honor to the intrepid spirit of those who say it will. It was formerly understood to constitute the excellence of a man's faith to believe without evidence and against it.

But as opinions on this article are changed, and we are called to act for our country, it becomes us to explore the dangers that will attend its peace, and to avoid them if we can.

Few of us here, and fewer still in proportion of our constituents, will doubt that, by rejecting, all those dangers will be aggravated. . . .

ST. ANSELM (1032-1109)

St. Anselm, who has been called the acutest thinker and profoundest theologian of his day, was born in Piedmont about 1032. Educated under the celebrated Lanfranc, he went to England in 1093 and became Archbishop of Canterbury. He was banished by William Rufus as a result of a conflict between royal and ecclesiastical prerogative. He died in 1109. Neale calls him the last of the great fathers except St. Bernard, and adds that "he probably possessed the greatest genius of all except St. Augustine."

The sermon here given, the third of the sixteen extant, is given entire from Neale's translation. It is one of the best examples of the Middle-Age style of interpreting all Scripture as metaphor and parable. It contains, moreover, a number of striking passages, such as, "It is a proof of great virtue to struggle with happiness."

THE SEA OP LIFE

"And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him to the other side, while he sent the multitude away." (Matt, xiv, 22.)

In this section, according to its mystical interpretation, we have a summary description of the state of the Church, from the coming of the Savior to the end of the world. For the Lord constrained his Disciples to get into a ship, when he committed the Church to the government of the Apostles and their followers. And thus to go before him unto the other side,--that is, to bear onwards towards the haven of the celestial country, before he himself should entirely depart from the world. For, with his elect, and on account of his elect, he ever remains here until the consummation of all things; and he is preceded to the other side of the sea of this world by those who daily pass hence to the Land of the Living. And when he shall have sent all that are his to that place, then, leaving the multitude of the reprobate, and no longer warning them to be converted, but giving them over to perdition, he will depart hence that he may be with his elect alone in the kingdom.

Whence it is added, "while he sent the multitude away." For in the end of the world he will "send away the multitude" of his enemies, that they may then be hurried by the Devil to everlasting vdamnation. "And when he had sent the multitude away, he went up in a mountain to pray." He will not send away the multitude of the Gentiles till the end of the world; but he did dismiss the multitude of the Jewish people at the time when, as saith Isaiah, "He commanded his clouds that they should rain no rain upon it"; that is, he commanded his Apostles that they should preach no longer to the Jews, but should go to the Gentiles. Thus, therefore, he sent away that multitude, and "went up into a mountain"; that is, to the height of the celestial kingdom, of which it had been written, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall rise up in his holy place?" For a mountain is a height, and what is higher than heaven? There the Lord ascended. And he ascended alone, "for no man hath ascended up into heaven save he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven." And even when he shall come at the end of the world, and shall have collected all of us, his members, together, and shall have raised us into heaven, he will also ascend alone, because Christ, the head, is one with his body. But now the Head alone ascends,--the Mediator of God and man --the man Christ Jesus. And he goes up to pray, because he went to the Father to intercede for us. "For Christ is not entered into holy places made with hands, which are figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us."

It follows: "And when the evening was come, he was there alone." This signifies the nearness of the end of the world, concerning which John also speaks: "Little children, it is the last time." Therefore it is said that, "when the evening was come, he was there alone," because, when the world was drawing to its end, he by himself, as the true high priest, entered into the holy of holies, and is there at the right hand of God, and also maketh intercession for us. But while he prays on the mountain, the ship is tossed with waves in the deep. For, since the billows arise, the ship may be tossed; but since Christ prays, it cannot be overwhelmed. ...

We may notice, also, that this commotion of the waves, and tottering or half-sinking of Peter, takes place even in our time, according to the spiritual sense daily. For every man's own besetting sin is the tempest. You love God; you walk upon the sea; the swellings of this world are under your feet. You love the world; it swallows you up; its wont is to devour, not to bear up, its lovers. But when your heart fluctuates with the desire of sin, call on the divinity of Christ, that you may conquer that desire. You think that the wind is then contrary when the adversity of this world rises against you, and not also when its prosperity fawns upon you. For when wars, when tumults, when famine, when pestilence comes, when any private calamity happens even to individual men, then the wind is thought adverse, and then it is held right to call upon God; but when the world smiles with temporal felicity, then, forsooth, the wind is not contrary. Do not, by such tokens as these, judge of the tranquillity of the time; but judge of it by your own temptations. See if you are tranquil within yourself; see if no internal tempest is overwhelming you. It is a proof of great virtue to struggle with happiness, so that it shall not seduce, corrupt, subvert. Learn to trample on this world; remember to trust in Christ. And if your foot be moved,--if you totter,--if there be some temptations that you cannot overcome,--if you begin to sink, cry out to Jesus, Lord, save me. In Peter, therefore, the common condition of all of us is to be considered; so that, if the wind of temptation endeavor to upset us in any matter, or its billows to swallow us up, we may cry to Christ. He shall stretch forth his hand, and preserve us from the deep.

It follows: "And when he was come into the ship, the wind ceased." In the last day he shall ascend into the ship of the Church, because then he shall sit upon the throne of his glory; which throne may not unfitly be understood of the Church. For he who by faith and good works now and always dwells in the Church shall then, by the manifestation of his glory, enter into it. And then the wind shall cease, because evil spirits shall no more have the power of sending forth against it the flames of temptation or the commotions of troubles; for then all things shall be at peace and at rest.

It follows: "Then they that were with him in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God." They who remain faithfully in the Church amidst the tempests of temptations will approach to him with joy, and, entering into his kingdom with him, will worship him; and, praising him perpetually, will affirm him of a truth to be the Son of God. Then, also, that will happen which is written concerning the elect raised from death: "All flesh shall come and shall worship before my face," saith the Lord. And again: "Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; they will always be praising thee." For him, whom with their heart they believe unto righteousness, and with their mouth confess to salvation, him they shall see with their heart to light, and with their mouth shall praise to glory, when they behold how ineffably he is begotten of the Father, with whom he liveth and reigneth, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God to all ages of ages. Amen.

THOMAS ARNOLD (1795-1842)

Doctor Thomas Arnold, the celebrated head master of Rugby was born June 13th, 1795, at West Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, where his father, William Arnold, was a Collector of Customs. After several years at Winchester school, he went to Oxford where in 1815 he was elected a fellow of Oriel College. His intellectual bent showed at Oxford, on the one hand, in fondness for Aristotle and Thucydides, and on the other in what one of his friends has described as "an earnest, penetrating, and honest examination of Christianity." As a result of this honesty and earnestness, he became and remains a great force wherever English is spoken. Elected head master of Rugby in December 1827, and remaining in charge of that school for nearly fourteen years, he almost revolutionized and did much to civilize the English system of public education. When he left Rugby, in December 1841, it was to go to Oxford as professor of Modern History, but his death, June 12th, 1842, left him remembered by the English-speaking world as "Arnold of Rugby." He left five volumes of sermons, an edition of 'Thucydides,' a 'History of Rome' in three volumes, and other works, but his greatest celebrity has been given him by the enthusiastic love which his manly Christian character inspired in his pupils and acquaintances, furnishing as it did the master motive of 'Tom Brown at Rugby,' a book which is likely to hold the place it has taken next to 'Robinson Crusoe' among English classics for the young.

The sermon here republished from the text given in 'Simons's Sermons of Great Preachers,' is an illustration of the eloquence which appeals to the mind of others, not through musical and beautiful language so much as through deep thought and compact expression.

THE REALITIES OF LIFE AND DEATH

"God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."--Matt. xxii. 32

We hear these words as a part of our Lord's answer to the Sadducees; and, as their question was put in evident profaneness, and the answer to it is one which to our minds is quite obvious and natural, so we are apt to think that in this particular story there is less than usual that particularly concerns us. But it so happens, that our Lord, in answering the Sadducees, has brought in one of the most universal and most solemn of all truths,--which is indeed implied in many parts of the Old Testament, but which the Gospel has revealed to us in all its fullness,--the truth contained in the words of the text, that "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."

I would wish to unfold a little what is contained in these words, which we often hear even, perhaps, without quite understanding them; and many times oftener without fully entering into them. And we may take them, first, in their first part, where they say that "God is not the God of the dead."

The word "dead," we know, is constantly used in Scripture in a double sense, as meaning those who are dead spiritually, as well as those who are dead naturally. And, in either sense, the words are alike applicable: "God is not the God of the dead."

God's not being the God of the dead signifies two things: that they who are without him are dead, as well as that they who are dead are also without him. So far as our knowledge goes respecting inferior animals, they appear to be examples of this truth. They appear to us to have no knowledge of God; and we are not told that they have any other life than the short one of which our senses inform us. I am well aware that our ignorance of their condition is so great that we may not dare to say anything of them positively; there may be a hundred things true respecting them which we neither know nor imagine. I would only say that, according to that most imperfect light in which we see them, the two points of which I have been speaking appear to meet in them: we believe that they have no consciousness of God, and we believe that they will die. And so far, therefore, they afford an example of the agreement, if I may so speak, between these two points; and were intended, perhaps, to be to our view a continual image of it. But we had far better speak of ourselves. And here, too, it is the case that "God is not the God of the dead." If we are without him we are dead; and if we are dead we are without him: in other words, the two ideas of death and absence from God are in fact synonymous.

Thus, in the account given of the fall of man, the sentence of death and of being cast out of Eden go together; and if any one compares the description of the second Eden in the Revelation, and recollects how especially it is there said, that God dwells in the midst of it, and is its light by day and night, he will see that the banishment from the first Eden means a banishment from the presence of God. And thus, in the day that Adam sinned, he died; for he was cast out of Eden immediately, however long he may have moved about afterwards upon the earth where God was not. And how very strong to the same point are the words of Hezekiah's prayer, "The grave cannot praise thee, Death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth"; words which express completely the feeling that God is not the God of the dead. This, too, appears to be the sense generally of the expression used in various parts of the Old Testament, "Thou shalt surely die." It is, no doubt, left purposely obscure; nor are we ever told, in so many words, all that is meant by death; but, surely, it always implies a separation from God, and the being--whatever the notion may extend to--the being dead to him. Thus, when David had committed his great sin, and had expressed his repentance for it, Nathan tells him, "The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die": which means, most expressively, thou shalt not die to God. In one sense David died, as all men die; nor was he by any means freed from the punishment of his sin: he was not, in that sense, forgiven; but he was allowed still to regard God as his God; and, therefore, his punishments were but fatherly chastisements from God's hand, designed for his profit, that he might be partaker of God's holiness. And thus, although Saul was sentenced to lose his kingdom, and although he was killed with his sons on Mount Gilboa, yet I do not think that we find the sentence passed upon him, "Thou shalt surely die;" and, therefore, we have no right to say that God had ceased to be his God, although he visited him with severe chastisements, and would not allow him to hand down to his sons the crown of Israel. Observe, also, the language of the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel, where the expressions occur so often, "He shall surely live," and "He shall surely die." We have no right to refer these to a mere extension on the one hand, or a cutting short on the other, of the term of earthly existence. The promise of living long in the land, or, as in Hezekiah's case, of adding to his days fifteen years, is very different from the full and unreserved blessing, "Thou shalt surely live." And we know, undoubtedly, that both the good and the bad to whom Ezekiel spoke died alike the natural death of the body. But the peculiar force of the promise, and of the threat, was, in the one case, Thou shalt belong to God; in the other, Thou shalt cease to belong to him; although the veil was not yet drawn up which concealed the full import of those terms, "belonging to God," and "ceasing to belong to him": nay, can we venture to affirm that it is fully drawn aside even now?

I have dwelt on this at some length, because it really seems to place the common state of the minds of too many amongst us in a light which is exceedingly awful; for if it be true, as I think the Scripture implies, that to be dead, and to be without God, are precisely the same thing, then can it be denied that the symptoms of death are strongly marked upon many of us? Are there not many who never think of God or care about his service? Are there not many who live, to all appearances, as unconscious of his existence as we fancy the inferior animals to be? And is it not quite clear, that to such persons, God cannot be said to be their God? He may be the God of heaven and earth, the God of the universe, the God of Christ's Church; but he is not their God, for they feel to have nothing at all to do with him; and, therefore, as he is not their God, they are, and must be, according to the Scripture, reckoned among the dead.

But God is the God "of the living." That is, as before, all who are alive, live unto him; all who live unto him are alive. "God said, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;" and, therefore, says our Lord, "Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob are not and cannot be dead." They cannot be dead because God owns them; he is not ashamed to be called their God; therefore, they are not cast out from him; therefore, by necessity, they live. Wonderful, indeed, is the truth here implied, in exact agreement, as we have seen, with the general language of Scripture; that, as she who but touched the hem of Christ's garment was, in a moment, relieved from her infirmity, so great was the virtue which went out from him; so they who are not cast out from God, but have anything: whatever to do with him, feel the virtue of his gracious presence penetrating their whole nature; because he lives, they must live also.

Behold, then, life and death set before us; not remote (if a few years be, indeed, to be called remote), but even now present before us; even now suffered or enjoyed. Even now we are alive unto God or dead unto God; and, as we are either the one or the other, so we are, in the highest possible sense of the terms, alive or dead. In the highest possible sense of the terms; but who can tell what that highest possible sense of the terms is? So much has, indeed, been revealed to us, that we know now that death means a conscious and perpetual death, as life means a conscious and perpetual life. But greatly, indeed, do we deceive ourselves, if we fancy that, by having thus much told us, we have also risen to the infinite heights, or descended to the infinite depths, contained in those little words, life and death. They are far higher, and far deeper, than ever thought or fancy of man has reached to. But, even on the first edge of either, at the visible beginnings of that infinite ascent or descent, there is surely something which may give us a foretaste of what is beyond. Even to us in this mortal state, even to you advanced but so short a way on your very earthly journey, life and death have a meaning: to be dead unto God or to be alive to him, are things perceptibly different.

For, let me ask of those who think least of God, who are most separate from him, and most without him, whether there is not now actually, perceptibly, in their state, something of the coldness, the loneliness, the fearfulness of death? I do not ask them whether they are made unhappy by the fear of God's anger; of course they are not: for they who fear God are not dead to him, nor he to them. The thought of him gives them no disquiet at all; this is the very point we start from. But I would ask them whether they know what it is to feel God's blessing, For instance: we all of us have our troubles of some sort or other, our disappointments, if not our sorrows. In these troubles, in these disappointments,--I care not how small they may be,--have they known what it is to feel that God's hand is over them; that these little annoyances are but his fatherly correction; that he is all the time loving us, and supporting us? In seasons of joy, such as they taste very often, have they known what it is to feel that they are tasting the kindness of their heavenly Father, that their good things come from his hand, and are but an infinitely slight foretaste of his love? Sickness, danger,--I know that they come to many of us but rarely; but if we have known them, or at least sickness, even in its lighter form, if not in its graver,-- have we felt what it is to know that we are in our Father's hands, that he is with us, and will be with us to the end; that nothing can hurt those whom he loves? Surely, then, if we have never tasted anything of this: if in trouble, or in joy, or in sickness, we are left wholly to ourselves, to bear as we can, and enjoy as we can; if there is no voice that ever speaks out of the heights and the depths around us, to give any answer to our own; if we are thus left to ourselves in this vast world,--there is in this a coldness and a loneliness; and whenever we come to be, of necessity, driven to be with our own hearts alone, the coldness and the loneliness must be felt. But consider that the things which we see around us cannot remain with us, nor we with them. The coldness and loneliness of the world, without God, must be felt more and more as life wears on: in every change of our own state, in every separation from or loss of a friend, in every more sensible weakness of our own bodies, in every additional experience of the uncertainty of our own counsels,--the deathlike feeling will come upon us more and more strongly: we shall gain more of that fearful knowledge which tells us that "God is not the God of the dead."

And so, also, the blessed knowledge that he is the God "of the living" grows upon those who are truly alive. Surely he "is not far from every one of us." No occasion of life fails to remind those who live unto him, that he is their God, and that they are his children. On light occasions or on grave ones, in sorrow and in joy, still the warmth of his love is spread, as it were, all through the atmosphere of their lives: they for ever feel his blessing. And if it fills them with joy unspeakable even now, when they so often feel how little they deserve it; if they delight still in being with God, and in living to him, let them be sure that they have in themselves the unerring witness of life eternal:--God is the God of the living, and all who are with him must live.

Hard it is, I well know, to bring this home, in any degree, to the minds of those who are dead: for it is of the very nature of the dead that they can hear no words of life. But it has happened that, even whilst writing what I have just been uttering to you, the news reached me that one, who two months ago was one of your number, who this very half-year has shared in all the business and amusements of this place, is passed already into that state where the meanings of the terms life and death are become fully revealed. He knows what it is to live unto God and what it is to die to him. Those things which are to us unfathomable mysteries, are to him all plain: and yet but two months ago he might have thought himself as far from attaining this knowledge as any of us can do. Wherefore it is clear, that these things, life and death, may hurry their lesson upon us sooner than we deem of, sooner than we are prepared to receive it. And that were indeed awful, if, being dead to God, and yet little feeling it, because of the enjoyments of our worldly life these enjoyments were of a sudden to be struck away from us, and we should find then that to be dead to God is death indeed, a death from which there is no waking and in which there is no sleeping forever.

CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR (1830-1886)

If "Eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary and no more." President Arthur's inaugural address is one of its best examples. He was placed in a position of the gravest difficulty. He had been nominated for Vice-President as a representative of the "Stalwart" Republicans when that element of the party had been defeated in National convention by the element then described as "Half-Breeds." After the assassination of President Garfield by the "paranoiac" Guiteau, the country waited with breathless interest to hear what the Vice-President would say in taking the Presidency. With a tact which amounted to genius, which never failed him during his administration, which in its results showed itself equivalent to the highest statesmanship, Mr. Arthur, a man to whom his opponents had been unwilling to concede more than mediocre abilities, rose to the occasion, disarmed factional oppositions, mitigated the animosity of partisanship, and during his administration did more than had been done before him to re-unite the sections divided by Civil War.

He was born in Fairfield, Vermont, October 5th, 1830. His father, Rev. William Arthur, a Baptist clergyman, born in Ireland, gave him a good education, sending him to Union College where he graduated in 1848. After teaching school in Vermont, he studied law and began practice in New York city. Entering politics as a Henry Clay Whig, and casting his first vote in 1852 for Winfield Scott, he was active as a Republican in the Fremont campaign of 1856 and from that time until elected to the Vice-Presidency took that strong interest in public affairs which led his opponents to class him as a "professional politician." During the Civil War he was inspector-general and quarter-master general of New York troops. In 1871 President Grant appointed him collector of the port of New York and he held the office until July 1878. when he was suspended by President Hayes. Taking an active part in the movement to nominate General Grant for the Presidency to succeed Mr. Hayes. he attended the Republican convention of 1880, and after the defeat of the Grant forces, he was nominated as their representative for the Vice-Presidency. He died suddenly in New York city, November 18th, 1886, having won for himself during his administration as President the good-will of so many of his political opponents that the future historian will probably study his administration as that during which the most notable changes of the decade were made from the politics of the Civil War period.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS (Delivered September 22d, 1881)

For the fourth time in the history of the Republic its chief magistrate has been removed by death. All hearts are filled with grief and horror at the hideous crime which has darkened our land, and the memory of the murdered President, his protracted sufferings, his unyielding fortitude, the example and achievements of his life and the pathos of his death will forever illumine the pages of our history.

For the fourth time, the officer elected by the people and ordained by the constitution to fill a vacancy so created, is called to assume the executive chair. The wisdom of our fathers, foreseeing even the most dire possibilities, made sure that the government should never be imperiled because of the uncertainty of human life. Men may die but the fabric of our free institutions remains unshaken. No higher or more assuring proof could exist of the strength and permanence of popular government than the fact that though the chosen of the people be struck down, his constitutional successor is peacefully installed without shock or strain except that of the sorrow which mourns the bereavement. All the noble aspirations of my lamented predecessor, which found expression during his life, the measures devised and suggested during his brief administration to correct abuses, to enforce economy, to advance prosperity, to promote the general welfare, to insure domestic security and maintain friendly and honorable relations with the nations of the earth, will be garnered in the hearts of the people and it will be my earnest endeavor to profit and to see that the nation shall profit by his example and experience.

Prosperity blesses our country. Our fiscal policy as fixed by law is well-grounded and generally approved. No threatening issue mars our foreign intercourse and the wisdom, integrity, and thrift of our people may be trusted to continue undisturbed the present career of peace, tranquillity, and welfare. The gloom and anxiety which have enshrouded the country must make repose especially welcome now. No demand for speedy legislation has been heard; no adequate occasion is apparent for an unusual session of Congress. The constitution defines the functions and powers of the executive as clearly as those of either of the other two departments of the government, and he must answer for the just exercise of the discretion it permits and the performance of the duties it imposes. Summoned to these high duties and responsibilities, and profoundly conscious of their magnitude and gravity, I assume the trust imposed by the constitution, relying for aid on divine guidance and on the virtue, patriotism, and intelligence of the American people.

ATHANASIUS (298-373)

Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria, owes his great celebrity chiefly to the controversy with the Arians, in which for half a century he was at the head of the orthodox party in the Church. He was born at Alexandria in the year 298, and was ordained a priest at the age of twenty-one. He accompanied his bishop, Alexander, to the Council of Nice in 325, and when under thirty years old succeeded to the bishopric, on the death of Alexander, His success in the Arian controversy was not achieved without cost, since, as an incident of it, he spent twenty years in banishment. His admirers credit him with "a deep mind, invincible courage, and living faith," but as his orations and discourses were largely controversial, the interest which now attaches to them is chiefly historical. The following was preached from the seventh and eighth verses of the Forty-Fifth Psalm.

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

Behold, O ye Arians, and acknowledge hence the truth. The Psalmist speaks of us all as fellows or partakers of the Lord, but were he one of things which come out of nothing and of things generated he himself had been one of those who partake. But since he hymned him as the eternal God, saying, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever," and has declared that all other things partake of him, what conclusion must we draw, but that he is distinct from generated things, and he only the Father's veritable word, radiance, and wisdom, which all things generate partake, being sanctified by him in the Spirit? And, therefore, he is here "anointed," not that he may become God, for he was so even before; nor that he may become king, for he had the kingdom eternally, existing as God's image, as the sacred oracle shows; but in our behalf is this written, as before. For the Israelitish kings, upon their being anointed, then became kings, not being so before, as David, as Ezekias, as Josias, and the rest; but the Savior, on the contrary, being God, and ever ruling in the Father's kingdom, and being himself the Dispenser of the Holy Ghost, nevertheless is here said to be anointed, that, as before, being said as man to be anointed with the Spirit, he might provide for us more, not only exaltation and resurrection, but the indwelling and intimacy of the Spirit. And signifying this, the Lord himself hath said by his own mouth, in the Gospel according to John: "I have sent them into the world, and for their sakes do I sanctify myself, that they may be sanctified in the truth." In saying this, he has shown that he is not the sanctified, but the Sanctifier; for he is not sanctified by other, but himself sanctifies himself, that we may be sanctified in the truth. He who sanctifies himself is Lord of sanctification. How, then, does this take place? What does he mean but this? "I, being the Father's Word, I give to myself, when become man, the Spirit; and myself, become man, do I sanctify in him, that henceforth in me, who am truth (for 'Thy Word is Truth'), all may be sanctified."

If, then, for our sake, he sanctifies himself, and does this when he becomes man, it is very plain that the Spirit's descent on him in Jordan was a descent upon us, because of his bearing our body. And it did not take place for promotion to the Word, but again for our sanctification, that we might share his anointing, and of us it might be said, Know ye not that ye are God's temple, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? For when the Lord, as man, was washed in Jordan, it was we who were washed in him and by him. And when he received the Spirit, we it was who, by him, were made recipients of it. And, moreover, for this reason, not as Aaron, or David, or the rest, was he anointed with oil, but in another way, above all his fellows, "with the oil of gladness," which he himself interprets to be the Spirit, saying by the prophet, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me"; as also the Apostle has said, "How God anointed him with the Holy Ghost." When, then, were these things spoken of him, but when he came in the flesh, and was baptized in Jordan, and the spirit descended on him? And, indeed, the Lord himself said, "The Spirit shall take of mine," and "I will send him"; and to his Disciples, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." And, notwithstanding, he who, as the word and radiance of the Father, gives to others, now is said to be sanctified, because now he has become Man, and the Body that is sanctified is his. From him, then, we have begun to receive the unction and the seal, John saying, "And ye have an unction from the Holy One"; and the Apostle, "And ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." Therefore, because of us, and for us, are these words. What advance, then, of promotion, and reward of virtue, or generally of conduct, is proved from this in our Lord's instance? For if he was not God, and then had become God--if, not being king, he was preferred to the kingdom, your reasoning would have had some faint plausibility. But if he is God, and the throne of his kingdom is everlasting, in what way could God advance? Or what was there wanting to him who was sitting on his Father's throne? And if, as the Lord himself has said, the Spirit is his, and takes of his, and he sends it, it is not the Word, considered as the Word and Wisdom, who is anointed with the Spirit, which he himself gives, but the flesh assumed by him, which is anointed in him and by him; that the sanctification coming to the Lord as man, may come to all men from him. For, not of itself, saith he, doth the Spirit speak, but the word is he who gives it to the worthy. For this is like the passage considered above; for, as the Apostle hath written, "Who, existing in form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but humbled himself, and took a servant's form," so David celebrates the Lord, as the everlasting God and king, but sent to us, and assuming our body, which is mortal. For this is his meaning in the Psalm, "All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia"; and it is represented by Nicodemus's and by Mary's company, when he came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pounds weight; and they took the spices which they had prepared for the burial of the Lord's body.

What advancement, then, was it to the Immortal to have assumed the mortal? Or what promotion is it to the Everlasting to have put on the temporal? What reward can be great to the Everlasting God and King, in the bosom of the Father? See ye not, that this, too, was done and written because of us and for us, that us who are mortal and temporal, the Lord, become man, might mate immortal, and bring into the everlasting kingdom of heaven? Blush ye not, speaking lies against the divine oracles? For when our Lord Jesus Christ had been among us, we, indeed, were promoted, as rescued from sin; but he is the same, nor did he alter when he became man (to repeat what I have said), but, as has been written, "The word of God abideth forever." Surely as, before his becoming man, he, the Word, dispensed to the saints the Spirit as his own; so also, when made man, be sanctifies all by the Spirit, and says to his Disciples, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." And he gave to Moses and the other seventy; and through him David prayed to the Father, saying, "Take not thy Holy Spirit from me." On the other hand, when made man, he said, "I will send to you the Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth"; and he sent him, he, the Word of God, as being faithful.