Farewell to the First Congregational Church in Norwalk, Conn. (bound with other addresses)

all this, — to see it with God's open word before him, and his secret voice within, — and keep all unspoken their united condemnation'? This, friends, is the question — stripped of its sophisms, seen in its naked- ness — which circumstances have thrust between us ; this, and this only. Say, merely, that the preacher should not be continually presenting the topic in question, — should not give it prominence among his selected topics : it is assented to. Say, further, that he should never present it with a view to political and party ends, — never with the spirit and tone of a par- tisan : it is assented to. But say that he should never present it at all ; that it should be for him an inter- dicted topic : it is denied. The assertion is most pre- posterous. It is to be instantly and earnestly repelled. r marvel at the presumption that proposes the exclu- sion of this subject from the pulpit and the church, and its surrender to the politician and to party. Yet more do I marvel that the pulpit and the church, with any living sense of their responsibilities, should ever have consented to such surrender; as, in in- stances not a few, they have, and, in so doing, been manifestly recreant to their trust. If it may be so with this evil and wrong, then why not with any and every other 1 feeding, though they may be, on the very vitals of the community, and carrying wretched- ness and degradation to uncounted homes. They, too, because legislation inay have taken them up, and par- 14 ties been formed in relation to them, may be barred out from the circle of permitted topics, and Eeligion be left to look out upon them from her sacred places, and be dumb before them, — ay, give them the ap- proval which silence, by implication, is. The very obvious fallacy which runs through much that is said and written about politics in the pulpit, in the con- nection spoken of, is the assumption that the subject of slavery is primarily and exclusively a political one, and that its discussion in the pulpit must necessarily be on party grounds and in a party spirit. Both of these assumptions being false, the cojiclusions drawn from them are therefore forceless. And, apart from all other considerations, one is disposed to but little respect for this outcry of " political preaching," at every assertion of the unrighteousness of our country's cherished institution, when he sees how many of those most forward to raise it are quite forgetful to do so in the hearing of preaching equally obnoxious to the appellation, as regards the subject-matter of it, be- sides being inhuman and atheistic, — the preaching, namely, that apologizes for this instituted oppression, and elevates its enactments above the statutes of the Almighty. ' Again, it is said, " The subject should be excluded from the pulpit because it is an exciting one : it hurts people's feelings ; it stirs bad blood ; it sets a,flame the passions of the caucus-room and the polls. Men 15 enter the church in a pleasant, amiable mood, with all their good feelings uppermost, and leave it irritated and enraged." Here is, I allow, a most lainentable result, more especially so as viewed in connection with its cause. That a protest against unrighteous- ness, that a plea for humanity, should be thus produc- tive, is the saddest part of it. But the result is actual ; and the question is, what sort and measure of regard the pulpit is to have for it. Is it so far to consult human weakness and waywardness in the selection of its topics as to refrain from the discussion of those, whatever their intrinsic claim to attention and regard, which are supposed to be exciting and offensive to a portion of its hearers 'i Where would the acceptance of such a proposition take us-'? What, adopting it, would the pulpit hel Apply it to the case in ques- tion ; and tell me, is it a reason, which God and con- science accept, for being silent in the presence of this gigantic wrong, that all rebukeful mention of it dis- turbs and angers a few, or many, of a congregation 1 May not the state of things thus indicated have come to ekist through that very negligence on the part of the pulpit for whose continuance it is made a plea ? It would seem the thought of some, that the preacher is responsible for the ill temper thus ex- cited ; as if he created it, — as if he put it within the heart. But was it not all there, in its elements, before ] Has he done aught but show it forth, — but 16 bring it to the birth. ? Beneath that bland and placid surface lay coiled those ugly passions, slumbering and silent, which, at the preacher's word, awoke, and forthwith spake in their vernacular. What great gain were it, if they had been allowed to slumber on, and their possessors had gone to their homes, uncon- scious of their presence, with unwarranted self-gratu- lation"? The pity is that they are there, not that they were put into temporary activity. That, for its self-revelation, may prove a blessing. But the preach- er, I hold, is not to concern himself about effects. They are not his guide to duty. He is a servant of the truth; and his foremost obligation, having pre- pared himself through its own consecrating influence, is to bear witness to it, — alike to willing and unwill- ing ears, to receptive and repellent hearts. He has a word given him, if he be a living man, which he must speak ; in the exercise, of course, of a thought- ful wisdom as to times and modes. But speak it he must, whether men hear, or whether they forbear. Do you think the great Teacher of Nazareth withheld the truth that was given him because there were those in hearing whom it offended % On the contrary, I read that he drove men from his presence by his hated words ; in the excitement of their wrath, seek- ing how they might destroy him. And' where and what had we been, spiritually, if that holy brother- hood in the past, fellow-laborers with him for a 17 world's redemption, — apostles, confessors, reformers, — had retained the truth intrusted to them until no prejudice, and no selfishness, and no evil heart of unbelief, had offered it resistance ] until, like the whispering breezes of a summer's evening, it had ruf- fled not a feather of self-complacency or sfelf-love '? And, if we will look at effects, let us look at all. Let us consider that there are those who gladly welcome what to others is offensive ; those who are needing its utterance, — for the confirmation of a previous con- viction, or the removal of a lingering distrust, or the awakening of a holier interest, or the incitement to a neglected duty, with regard to it. Kut it' is further said, " The introduction of this subject into the pulpit destroys the peace and har- mony of a society ; fomenting discords and animosities between its members, and ill feelings and distrusts towards its minister ; hindering thus his influence, and lessening his usefulness." Admitting the truth of this, what, I ask, is a minister to do \ With con- victions which he cannot stifle in relation to slavery, — seeing, feeling its inherent wrongfulness and its resulting evils, — what is he to do % Regard policy 1 take counsel of expediency "? and give or withhold his convictions as these — blind guides that they are — shall seem to direct him "? Or, purging himself of all personal and worldly aims ; casting himself, in humble confidence, — himself and all his interests, — upon a 18 spiritual Providence, shall he speak as God in that same hour shall teach him ? assured, that, whatever the immediate effects, none other than good can ulti- mately ensue. Harmony in a parish is a good thing. But its value depends upon its quality, — upon the basis on which it rests. That harmony, methinks, is of but little worth whose continuance is conditioned upon the minister's repressing in aught his honest convictions, — which a manly, outspoken word can break. At any rate, the minister has a higher work than to keep peace. He was not ordained for that. He is to deal with truth. If the truth agitate, let it agitate. Agitation is not the worst of conditions. Nature teaches us better when she sends down her storms upon the stagnant peacefulness of her waters. Agitation is often a process, and the only possible one, in the moral as in the natural world, to purifica- tion; and the only peace the pulpit has a right to seek, as a specific aim, is that which comes of purity. " First pure, then peaceably." And as to a minister's influence being hindered by his faithfulness, I believe it not. , It is a suggestion of the tempter. By a " Get thee behind me, Satan ! " would I put it by. I believe in a Providence ; I. believe in man, and that, in the secret depths of each human soul, there is a respect for the honest and faithful man, however much his honesty and faithfulness may cause offence. Clouds of prejudice may, for a time, surround him, and the 19 sun of his influenee seem hopelessly obscured; but sooner or later, while he is living or when he has gone, it shall again break forth, and all the brighter for its temporary eclipse. Again, it is asked, "What good can the pulpit promise itself from a discussion of this subject 1 The harm is evident. Where is the good % " And where is it 1 I do not know ; I do not care to know. Ask Him who formed the soul for truth, to find therein its sustenance and salvation, and whose kingdom is to come in the world only through his blessing upon the spoken and the manifested truth. Ask him who " for this end was born, and for this cause came into the world, that he might bear veitness to the truth," and who bore witness to it against scoff and sneer, the frown of power and the threatening of hate, in the sublime faith that it would win for itself, at length, a universal triumph. Ask the thousands who, in a like faith, have lived and died for it, — lived in persecution, died in martyrdom ; scattering as they went, on the world's bleak waysides, its celestial seed, to spring and bloom above their graves. O friends ! if we really believed that that kingdom of God for which we pray were indeed to come only through the fidelity of individual man, we should not ask, of the simplest word, from the humblest lips, in the narrowest sphere, spoken from the fulness of a loyal heart, "What good will it do?" 20 Again, it is said, " The evil you thus force on our attention, however great, is a distant one. What have we to do with it 1 How can we reach it 'i Surely, there are evils enough that are near, and, as such, more nearly concern us. Why will not the pulpit keep itself, to these 1 " The evil is distant as an insti- tutional existence ; but, as an influence and a power, is it not all .around us 1 Yea, is it not enthroned as such in our republic, and feared and flattered and fallen before and worshipped, by tens of thousands, in every part of if? — What have we to do with it ? Alas ! it has much to do with us. But, were it not so, the question is heartless, is heathenish. There is no warmth in it of Christian faith or love. Have we not learned that the opprfessed through all the world have claims upon us to the extent of our power to help them ? claims, at least, for our sympathy, — the word, ,the plea, the prayer, which it shall dictate ] — How can we reach it'? Through the force of a Christianized public sentiment, in the want of which alone it has extension and existence, — a public senti- ment which each individual helps to form. -^ Are there not evils nearer ] Yes : and let the pulpit be faithful also with them as with this.