Lecture Vii.

OF THE DIVINE WISDOM AS MANIFESTED IN THE REALM OF TRUTH, AND OF THE CONFLICT OF THE AGE WITH ERROR.

God is a spirit of truth; and in the realm of truth, therefore, the divine order, and the law of wisdom which reigns therein, shines forth with an especial clearness--with a higher degree of evidence or greater perspicuity than even in the region of nature, which for us is for the most part half-dark, or at the very best but a chiaro-oscuro--a mixture of light and darkness. But man, formed out of the dust of the earth, placed, as it were, in the very center of nature, as its first-born son or its earthly lord, is in this respect himself a natural being. Even in his susceptibility for higher and divine truth, man is tied to and is dependent on a similar and collateral grade of development in the life of nature, which can in no case be violently broken, nor a step in it arbitrarily overleaped, without involving the most disastrous consequences as the penalty of so unnatural a course. Even in education there reigns a similar law of gradual development according to the natural progression of the different ages of life. With the boy of good and natural abilities, who shows an aptness and willingness to learn when knowledge is presented to his mind, and implanted in a true and living form, the teacher’s first care is to improve this disposition, and to strengthen and to foster it, and, by furnishing it with the due measure and the right quality of intellectual culture, gradually to develop its powers. At this age the moral part of education will wisely confine itself to laying a foundation of good habits, to the careful exclusion of all evil communication and the deadly contagion of wicked example. In the soft and yielding character of the child there can scarcely be as yet any question about principles or sentiments. But the case is very different with youth. If at this time of life the moral character be not carefully formed simultaneously with its scientific cultivation, then is the good season irreparably lost, and rarely, if ever, can the deficiency be afterward supplied. For when this stage of intellectual and moral culture is once passed, when the mind has begun at last to move with greater freedom and to mature itself, the young man is at once admitted to the full light of science, or enters into the busy course of active life, to be there brought to the touchstone of experience.

And a similar series of gradation may be observed on a larger scale in the historical succession and development of the ages of the world. For such is, in every case, the gradual expansion of man’s consciousness, as he is at present constituted. His senses must be first excited and expanded; then, and then only, with any good result, can the soul be led to the good and divine, which, however, not content to dismiss them after the first look of wonder and amazement, it must rather dwell upon with the full and deep feelings of admiration and reverence; until at last, being wholly filled with them, it derives from their inspiration a new stimulus and excitement, and thereby is forever and permanently directed to the true end and aim of existence. And now at last can the free spirit apprehend aright the divine truth, and, in the spirit of this knowledge, act with vital energy, conformably to that position in God’s great world which has been assigned and allotted to him.

And this order can not be transgressed with impunity. None of its intermediate steps can be overleaped without involving the most fearful consequences. If the senses be not first of all excited and expanded, then will it be lost labor to attempt to win and fortify the heart, or to turn the soul toward the never-setting sun of divine truth. And, accordingly, how many attempts, both on a large and a small scale, at the moral regeneration of mankind have totally failed even for want of the first step of a forerunning light and previous illumination, by which the observation should have been roused, the senses stimulated, and the eye opened. But when, on the contrary, the full light is imparted to or gained by the mind, while the soul still remains enveloped in darkness and fast wedded to its evil habits, without attaining to a higher exaltation, then, indeed, the result is equally grievous, though different from that which follows from the mistake of overleaping at the first step. It has an effect; it does not remain without an influence. So long as the moral part of man is wholly neglected, and is either left rude and barbarous, or suffered to become degenerate, then science works indeed, but only as a destroying element. In so bad a soil the true knowledge is ever transformed into false, and the more profoundly it is apprehended--the more vividly and vigorously it is pursued--the more fatally, perniciously, and destructively does it work. The examples and the proofs of the injurious consequences of too rapid and premature development of scientific enlightenment amid a general prevalence of moral depravity, and the subversion of those principles which are the foundation of national existence and prosperity, might easily be found at no great distance from our own age. And they admit also of being demonstrated as clearly and convincingly by earlier instances from the history of the Greeks and Romans. The production of these proofs, however, would carry us beyond our present limits, and the truth they would establish is not, moreover, the end to which our present disquisitions are directed. The theme of this Lecture is the course observed by eternal wisdom, or the divine order in the realm of truth. My object is to call your attention to the care with which Providence observes a gradual progression in its mental development of the human race, lovingly suiting and adapting itself to the weakness and finiteness of humanity, and to the imperfection of earthly creatures, according to that principle of divine condescension, so often mentioned already, which, throughout the divine operations in the world, and His influence on man, is distinctly visible.

Thus, then, in the knowledge immediately imparted to man by a higher providence we may discern a preliminary period--a previous illumination, in order to reopen the eye of man, which heathenism had blinded to the truth, that it might be able to see and discern God. This first step of revelation was little more than a preparation for the future; but the second was, or has been, an illumination of the soul--a vital renewal of it--a total conversion of it from the state of darkness to the Everlasting Light and the Sun of Righteousness. But in this living development of the highest life, which is even the divine light of the Spirit, the third and last step (which indeed commences in and is involved in the second, even as it also had its germ in the first) is the full enlightenment of the spirit or mind. And accordingly this full revelation is in Scripture itself, as being the close and completion of the whole, expressly described, and named the last time.

Before attempting, however, to point out the divine order in the education of the human race, by the gradual revelation of truth, two general and preliminary remarks seem called for. I observe, then, first of all, that when we speak of sense, soul, and spirit, as the successive terms in the growing capacity of the human consciousness for a higher knowledge and heavenly training, and for truth in general, but more especially for divine truth, then the general sense of truth, which such an hypothesis supposes, and which indeed is its essential foundation, must be understood as comprising all those other particular species, branches, or departments which we have already enumerated. I mean the common sense of sound reason. For that susceptibility for the impressions of nature, and the understanding, which, as I said before, constitute the sense for the revelation of spirit, or the spirit of revelation--whether written or historical--are alike comprised in that one and common sense for truth. Or perhaps we may rather say, that by their joint operations they form it; while, however, in its special application, now this now that constituent preponderates--or perhaps that this one and universal sense for truth is called into action, and made to co-operate now in this direction and now in that. Moreover, that internal concurrence and assent of the will, which I have endeavored to show is the proper sense in man for God and for divine things, belongs also, as an essential and element of its constitution, to this general sense for truth. For that the opposite fault of self-will and obstinacy is in the highest degree a hinderance of good, even in the acquisition of knowledge and the recognition of truth, is found by experience in the earliest essays of education. But not only in the elementary principles of learning, but even in the most highly-finished and elaborate systems of metaphysical ideas, constructed by the profoundest thinkers and philosophers, does this spirit of negation and contradiction show itself, and prove the greatest obstacle to truth and the most fruitful source of error.

The second remark which we have to make before entering upon the immediate subject of our Lecture refers to the natural progression of the living development of the human consciousness. This gradation, we would observe, holds good, and is applicable, not merely to the moral education of man, but also to the intellectual improvement of man’s capacity, as at present constituted, for all higher and divine verities. But, however true this may be, where the general sense for truth is not from the first open and full of light, where the soul is not already perfectly free and pure; yet on the other hand there is nothing against--on the contrary, every thing favors the supposition, that the earliest revelation imparted to mankind--the illumination which was given to the first man, and bestowed upon him as his heavenly inheritance on earth, was a full and perfect enlightenment of his mind [geist]. For his senses were open and clear, his soul as yet incorrupt, pure, and free. Both were directed to God, and being one with and at unison with nature, were keenly alive to and deeply impressed by every token of God’s glory and majesty in creation. It is quite an error to assume, or, rather, to fancy, that this state of purity and innocence was a state of ignorance like that of the child or of the wild man. The tree of life was given to him entirely and without reserve, as also dominion over the earth, whose first-made living creatures the Lord subjected to his dominion, bringing them before him to call and to name them. The knowledge of death was indeed designedly withheld from him, as also the existence of the evil spirits, even because it was exactly therein that his trial and probation were to consist. And so both are perfectly reconcilable: that height of knowledge in the clearest light of nature, which the sacred traditions of all primitive nations so positively and unanimously assign to the first man, is in nowise inconsistent with that ignorance of death which is no less expressly ascribed to him. Moreover, had man but preserved and kept alive in his heart this feeling of God, he would immediately have recognized his enemy, and even thereby have triumphed over him, and become the redeemer of nature, instead of requiring, now that he has failed in that his high destination, a Redeemer for his own fallen race. This first revelation, therefore, was, we may well assume, in the beginning as it will also be in the end, a full enlightenment of the spirit of man, but which, however, was soon darkened by his disobedience and fall. This, too, is the shape which the matter assumes in the legendary history of all the primeval nations of antiquity, and these are the threads of light which in the labyrinthine confusion of legends, symbols, and tongues of earliest heathendom, carry us safely out of its mazes and back to the clear starting-point of the pure and undefiled revelation of God. It were not difficult to show how, through the first two millenniums and a half, or five-and-twenty centuries, a higher providence and divine guidance was ever quietly carrying on these luminous threads of original truth, and from time to time renewing them. But this history of the human mind in the primeval world, however highly attractive, would take us out of our proper limits. Upon the eclipse of man’s soul, when spiritual darkness universally prevailed, the senses originally open to a higher light were closed against it. His better perceptions were overwhelmed or buried beneath a chaos of true and false or half-true images and symbols. Then it was that the natural law of spiritual development commenced in its full force. It followed the progression already described. In the first term the numbed and deadened sense had to be awakened and quickened again, and in its second the soul renewed, purified, and converted, before either could become susceptible of the full and perfect illumination of the Spirit. To trace this natural law in the human consciousness and in the divine education of mankind, and to ascertain the progressive steps in the divine revelations, expressly given and designed to effect that gradual development, is the object of the present Lecture.

The first step or term thereof was the selection of a single people to be the schoolmaster of the whole human race. When the heathenish mass of legends or myths and symbols had reached the height of confusion, and the evil had become otherwise incurable, one nation was chosen and set apart by God as His instrument in opening the eyes of men to the abyss of error in which the whole world was plunged, and to direct their looks exclusively to the future. Many prophets were sent to the chosen people, and it was at first guided and ruled by none but prophets. And, perhaps, we can not form a more correct notion of the character and history of this people, so peculiarly distinguished from all the other nations of the ancient world, than by thinking of it absolutely and in its destination as the prophetic people exclusively intended to point to a distant future, and whose leading ideas and inmost feelings were to be attached to, and to look far into, a remote futurity. Three strokes or words, at most, comprise the highly-simple revelation of the first stage--the first ray of light at the beginning--in which, however, lies contained the hidden key and solution for the chaos of legends, and all the enigmas of the primitive world and of primeval history. But this brief and simple revelation was accompanied with a strict line of demarcation between the Gentiles and the chosen people, who were separated from all the heathen nations by customs and laws, while a long ray of hope reached far into the distant future. This point of light at the beginning was, however, but little considered and ill-understood; the line of demarcation, too, was often transgressed upon the slightest pretext and most ordinary temptations. And when at last it was more strictly kept, it was observed, not in its spirit, but in the letter; and, in consequence, even that high and lofty-hope which irradiated it was totally misunderstood, being interpreted, in a narrow spirit of national exclusiveness, of a temporal Redeemer, and a political redemption from the yoke of the Roman oppressor. This delusion, and the extreme ingratitude with which, consequently, the Light that came into the world was, on the whole, received by those to whom It was in the first place communicated, has been often painted in the darkest colors of indignant censure by the stern pen of history. The stiffneckedness of the Jews has been a fruitful theme for virtuous indignation. But, for my part, I hardly know whether, in this respect, a different and more favorable sentence can be passed on the generations which have witnessed the subsequent steps of divine revelation in its further development. Full time was allowed to the prophetic people to develop itself; and, after the lapse of twenty-fire centuries, which make up the first age of the world, a millennium and a half was allowed to this initiatory step of revelation. And now, at length, after forty centuries of preparation and hope, when the long, dark winter of the olden idolatry was over, the historical development of the human race reached its culminating point, and with the vernal solstice [Fruhling’s-Solstitium] of this new manifestation commenced the second term in this series of revelation or of the divine education of the human race. Even from its very first opening, every thing characterizes this second term of development as not intended for a complete and final revelation of spirit and knowledge. Promising, and reserving to the future that final manifestation, it forms, in this respect, a marked contrast to the highly-cultivated science of the Greeks, which, however, in spite of its high pretensions, did but become continually more and more sensuous in its character. The immediate object of this second enlightenment of the whole human race was to be a total conversion of the soul from its previous earthly darkness to the everlasting light and the one and only Sun of Truth, and thereby to effect a complete renewal of life, and a reformation of all its habits, customs, and institutions. This alone did God require; and glorious, and noble, and deeply-touching was the conflict in which this wholly new but heaven-descended sentiment had to engage with the opposing spirit of the old world.

But men soon relapsed into their former discord; and it is now our painful task to point out the rise and growth of this dissension through the succeeding eras of history. For thus only--by considering, in every period, man’s relation, or, rather, his opposition, to the divine revelation--is it possible, amid the rapid progress of the widening disagreement, to trace the divine order which rules amid the anarchy of mind, and to follow it along its path of light up to its appointed end, and to its close and conclusion.

In the first three or four centuries of Christianity, this spirit of opposition showed itself in two different forms. In the one, the new and simple faith was first of all perverted into a chaos of philosophical fictions of an old Asiatic character. In the other, a secret and half infidelity hid itself behind a veil of words, against which the faith must defend itself behind an outwork of words also; and in this period of history, a subtile and refined logomachy first of all attained to a great and lasting importance for mankind. In this dispute, the simple foundation of the faith was indeed maintained and defended, in its purity and integrity, against all hostile attacks; but the first-love lost much of its freshness and ardor. Consequently the new life, which sprung up with the new faith, was unable to fulfill the hopes which at its first rise men had reasonably entertained of it, and, by reforming the corrupt civilization of the old Roman world, to renew it entirely in God. Accordingly, an alien and purely physical element had to be associated with it. The northern nations were called in to infuse fresh energy into the worn-out races of England.

In this work of physical regeneration three centuries were again spent. But at the close of this first period, it was seen, on a sudden, how little the olden spirit of dissension had been really conquered, or even mollified. The faith, it was said, may, in all essential points, be perfectly identical, but a division may be, and still subsists, notwithstanding. But what does that mean, but that the God and Savior of the world worshiped by the East, is different from Him whom the West acknowledges? And thus the one God and the one faith was in the life of man again divided into two; and this singular schism, without any adequate cause, still subsists to the present day. In the following great period a fresh life blossomed in rich and manifold expansion out of that revelation of love which, properly speaking, now first of all put forth its full vital energies, giving a new shape to all the institutions of human society, and impressing on art, as well as on moral and political science, a new character, totally different from that which they possessed among the most enlightened nations of antiquity. Viewed in its loving aspect, i.e., in its chivalry, there is much in this period to attract and engage our enthusiasm and sympathies, but for the fearful discord which broke out within it, and set one half of the world in hostile array against the other. The two powers which ought to work together for one divine end--the two swords of which the Lord had said, “It is enough,”--the spiritual sword of the kingdom of faith and truth, and the civil sword of earthly justice, were drawn and held in threatening attitude against each other, by which, however, the minds of men were torn and distracted by the inward struggle of conflicting duties in a far greater degree than the external peace of society was disturbed. But it was not merely in such a collision that the strife alone showed itself; but it extended even to the confusion of the two domains, and a forgetfulness of their proper duties and respective positions.

In the instance, it is true, of the mailed ecclesiastic, however, at first sight, the union in one person of such opposite characters as the soldier and priest may startle the mind, the gallant and noble bearing of the spiritual knight soon reconciles us to the strange phenomenon. So, too, when he whose vocation it was to hold the pastoral staff began also to sway the scepter of a civil prince, the eminent skill and judgment with which the difficult task of discharging the double and often conflicting duties of so mixed a sovereignty was accomplished, silence every murmur of a protest. But when he who ought to carry the crosier of peace hoisted the pennon of war, such a sight naturally gave great offense, and sadly perplexed the minds of men.

Thus, then, passed seven centuries more, making, with the eight already described, fifteen altogether that have elapsed from that great center of the world’s history, when the spiritual sun reached its meridian altitude in this earthly life. These, added to the fifteen which had previously passed from the first shining of the light of revelation, make no less than three millenneums. And to these, again, three centuries more are to be added. Such is the extremely slow course of the divine guidance of the world, as regulated by the inexhaustible patience and long-suffering of God in the education of his human creatures.

In this last period, however, the spirit of discord has become still more general, and has broken out in all its violence, gradually attacking and drawing into the dispute every institution of society and every department of life. In the wonderful coincidence of many and great discoveries, simultaneously made in widely-distinct and independent branches of science, the spirit of man read the proclamation of his majority. Conscious of this intellectual ripeness, in the first use of its new powers it assumed toward the faith an attitude of estrangement and controversy, instead of calmly advancing along the assigned path toward perfection. Even at the very commencement of this period, the hostile relation between the new science and the ancient faith is perceptible enough. But it soon showed itself more distinctly, as the rupture became wider and more general, till at last the discord extended to the very faith itself, which was henceforth broken up into bitter and opposing parties. Still later, a newer and deeper animosity divided the faith in general from the whole civil and political life, from which in many places its religious foundation was altogether removed. And now that life was thus deprived of its higher and spiritual significance, the strife became universal and complete. Involving science and life into the discord, it set them also in deadly array against each other--for life thus unspiritualized could no longer reconcile itself to the dreamy ideal of a science which at most was but partially true, while life itself could not satisfy the requisitions of science. And fearful was the outbreak in which this last antagonism of principle openly displayed its animosity.

This fourfold schism, then--first, between science and faith; secondly, in the faith itself; thirdly, between life and faith; and lastly, between the new science (which usurped the place of the faith it had discarded) and life itself--this fourfold schism, with its several branches and ramifications, extending to every department of human existence, lies now before us, in the present age, as the still-unsolved problem of life.

And who but God alone shall or is able to solve it? As a question of dispute, this problem--and especially its inmost root, the schism in the faith--can be profitably discussed only in the spirit of love and mutual forbearance between cognate and kindred minds, who, while they think differently on a few points, yet agree in most. Many works might be adduced on both sides, composed in that conciliatory spirit of approximation which is most accordant with true philosophy, whose first effort is, in all cases, directed to reconciling and removing the deeply-rooted animosities of human nature. To a complete decision, however, of the whole matter in question, we shall never arrive on the road of disputation. Even though the dispute were maintained with the most valid reasoning, and were conducted with the most dignified forbearance and mildness, the attempt would only be lost labor. For there exists no supreme court of appeal to whose sentence both sides would be ready to submit. On the one side, the reason--which advances with unlimited freedom in its investigations--and faith on the other, with its assumed authority to decide in the last instance, would alike refuse to acknowledge its adversary as a competent tribunal.

Thus deeply piercing into the very marrow of humanity, and thus mortal is the conflict. Indeed, a man can scarcely touch upon it without being carried almost involuntarily into the very midst of the strife, and very fortunate may he account himself if he retires from it unscathed. And if it were only from a mere human point of view of a scientific dispute that I had to consider it, good reason should I have to be on my guard, lest on this matter my mind should be, as it were, forcibly rent and divided into two halves. I have, however, at present no anxiety of the kind. For my purpose is solely and entirely to trace out the divine order in the revelation progressively given to mankind, and following this luminous thread to lead reflection up to the finishing close of God’s education of the human race, where, in the full shining of the perfect day, there shall be no more controversy and no more doubt. Viewing the matter in this light, I see but little to attract my sympathies in the publicly-conducted controversy, however highly important and pre-eminent a place it may hold in the history of the world. Far more attractive to me are those isolated and retiring spirits on both sides who, taking but little, if any, part in the prevailing dispute, have their eyes directed rather to the future, in watchful expectation of that full and final illumination, with all its attendant promises--among which we must reckon, first and foremost, the peace and joy of believing--in the last revelation of divine mind. Of these calmer spirits, however, some have actually fallen, and others have been on the very brink of falling, into the plausible error of regarding this third step of enlightenment as an absolutely new revelation, whereas it is quite clear that it will be nothing more than the simple completion of the earlier steps. For a revelation which should give itself out as perfectly new, apart from and independent of that saving illumination of the soul which marks the second step, and which we are already in possession of--which should disavow this earlier divine revelation of the heart, of love and life in faith, which is withheld from no one, and which every one knows, would, even by such an announcement, proclaim its own falsity. New heavens and a new earth are indeed expressly promised among the blessings of this last age. Mention is also made of a Gospel that shall be preached “unto all them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” This Gospel, however, is nowhere called a new one; since in the old one there is enough for life, if only it be duly observed, and also for knowledge, if only it be rightly understood. But it is called the “everlasting” Gospel; and by this term it is plain that nothing is to be understood but this full light of divine knowledge now made perfect in God, and which has become one with faith, and, consequently, fully reconciled with life also. In this domain, and in this spiritual sense, it is not necessary that the fair morning-star of faith, which has guided us through the dark night, and lighted us to the day-spring, should become extinct when the sun ascends the heavens in his full meridian splendor. On the contrary, it shall burn the more brightly; or, rather, to speak more correctly--for here no such contrast finds a place--it is the morning-star itself that shall expand into the full sun, and illuminate the whole world with its light.

Waiting, therefore, for this manifestation, we must endure with the more patience the existing discord so long as our lot is placed amid it, and show greater moderation toward it, since we are subject to it in hope. Only let me not be thought of as recommending a spurious impartiality, which, in truth, is little better than a culpable indifference to questions the most important that can agitate our own generation and all humanity--or the indiscriminating contempt of an arrogated superiority, which is even still more offensive and baneful to truth than the most vehement adoption of either of the conflicting views, if associated with honesty of purpose and conviction. As little, too, would I be thought to favor the presumptuous decisions of individuals, which, adopting a peculiar principle, or, as it is styled, a higher point of view, even though occasionally it does justice to each in part, yet on the whole materially wrongs them both. In the first ages of this intellectual disease, great names were arrayed on either side; and that through all its variations brilliant talents and scientific attainments maintained the conflict, while there was much that was false and wrong in both parties, is equally unquestionable. But what avails the unrighteousness of man against the righteousness of the cause, when, as we must, we regard the latter as the cause of God?

The painful feature of the conflict is the fact that, in a certain measure, God Himself has become the object of man’s rancor and animosity. In sacred lore and tradition, but pre-eminently in revelation, God Himself became as it were a child; and in the childlike language of the heart, and in the most confiding manner, gave Himself into the hands of men. But now, even this marvelous child and the divine word is near being torn asunder by the disputants, like the child in the old story or parable. Two mothers, we are told, came and stood before the king, disputing violently whose was the child that had been overlaid, and whose was the living one. But the true mother, for both had fallen asleep in the night, was recognized by her prayer that the child might not be divided in two by the sword of justice, but preferred that her son should live, even though she must lose it by resigning it to the other. Whereupon the king ordered his officers in no wise to slay the living child, but to give it to her who by her love had proved herself its mother.

But for us the great sentence which is to decide all controversies, and can alone put an end to this discord, is not yet pronounced. But, in truth, the more confirmed symptoms of the deepening intellectual strife which mark the present generation, furnish one proof the more of the near approach of the day of final decision. And then the perfect triumph of divine revelation and the fiery baptism of the Spirit, which in those last days shall be administered, shall bring with it the long-promised universal peace of the soul when under a divine leader--the invisible One now become visible--all that hope in Him, of all kindreds and families, shall be reunited in Him in one love and one fellowship. A universal and perfect peace like this, which, according to revealed truth, is the last that is to be imparted to the human race, and is even to continue for ever, must, it is natural to suppose, be preceded by a violent but closing conflict. And do we not in our own age see such a one developing itself in a manner unparalleled by all that have gone before in it? To this conflict of our age, then, I must now devote a few words, and consider pre-eminently the relations subsisting between it and science.

In many and various ways, unquestionably, was the spirit of man called upon in this beautiful era of the restoration of science to consider itself ripe and mature; its feelings, too, answered to the call, and, in some respects, perhaps it was even so. But let us examine the matter by the same law of sound reason that we should judge of a corresponding case in ordinary and social life. Let us suppose a youth to have attained his legal majority, or, perhaps, by his father’s will, declared of age at a still earlier period. Is it right for him, all at once, to forget the love wherewith his mother has nursed and reared him? Is it right in him, misinterpreting altogether the motive of his father’s dying wish, to cast off and trample under foot all the wise and useful lessons with which, according to the measure of his years, his mind was stored at school, merely because he has remarked or experienced that there is much in life which was not touched upon in his school-learning? If we saw this in private life, should we not form a very bad opinion of such a youth who so suddenly throws off all restraint, and take care that sooner or later he should fall under another and stricter oversight, since he has all at once outgrown parental control. Why, then, should we form a different judgment in the realm of science and truth? All eyes and universal expectation were directed to this restoration of science. And these hopes were right in so far as through the lapse of these last times which are hastening to a close, the course and trial of human nature are even to lie therein. But if, as already pointed out, they fell into a grave error, who, even while they kept within the bounds of faith, looked upon the promised completion and final triumph of the divine and eternal revelation in the light of a new manifestation of truth, and almost as a new religion; far greater was the aberration of those who formed the conception of, and hoped to attain to, an ever-advancing science altogether without God, or at least one which, proceeding side by side with Him, should never come into vital contact with Him! But men can not thus pass along by the side of Omnipotence, without coming into contact with him; and every effort to rise into the higher regions of truth, which is begun and intended to remain wholly without God, will, sooner or later, be directed against Him. And every branch of knowledge, and more especially the highest, if it be without God, is but a false light of the mind [geist], which will only too soon beguile it into the olden darkness of the soul. And so it came to pass then. For under this smooth surface of a seeming moral mildness, the lurking poison suddenly broke out, as it were, by a fearful conspiracy of the times, spreading its contagion far and wide, and corrupting every thing that came within its reach--even as it had been predicted of it in the second book of the future.

For even out of the struggle of good against evil, the latter suddenly arose again in a new and unexpected shape, coming forth, as it were, out of the sea, and the moral world was transformed into a sea of blood. And so, indeed, in these prophetic pages, it is predicted of the enigmas of the last days. Now, throughout this great catastrophe of the world, so far as it can be regarded as a peculiar and especial, but historical warning from God, and a revelation of the divine will, we may trace, among the better disposed, the same gradation of illumination, advancing through the ascending series of sense, soul, and spirit, that we have already noticed, on a larger scale, in the course of the history of mankind. The senses of many individuals become, indeed, more and more open, the more clearly they recognized, by its historical characters, the fatal abyss to which the age of the world was drawing nigh. The epoch of the restoration was, moreover, followed by a general revolution in the sentiments, the moral principles, and prevailing pursuits of men. The third step, however, of a right and true knowledge which, from the position of a full scientific enlightenment of the mind or spirit, should penetrate into the profoundest depths of truth, is still wanting, or at any rate exists as yet only in a very imperfect degree. This property is the defective point in the problem of the age, and in all attempts hitherto made to solve it.

The false science, even that unhuman and godless science which has been already described, can only be overcome and conquered by the true. The mere method of negation--which, generally, indeed, is seldom the right one--is here, too, insufficient for the purpose. And so, in fact, when clouds of dust darken the air, or swarms of noxious insects fill it, it may suffice if the goodman of the house shuts to his casement, as he may lawfully do, even because it is his own; but when the fearful thunderstorm is lowering in the heavens, the closed window will but little insure the safety of his dwelling, unless he has more wisely provided against the danger, by a good lightning-conductor. But what is that? And how came man first to think of it? Why, by studying the electrical phenomena, and arriving at a full understanding of its nature, and so, in obedience to its laws, contriving a counteracting and diverting agent for the electric current, and converting the natural action of the threatening element into an instrument of protection. And just in the same way will a true wisdom proceed in the domain of science and truth. It is only by a good power, of a like kind and similar action to its own, that the supremacy of evil can be overcome. Even, therefore, and to this purport was the earnest warning uttered by the mouth of Truth Itself against those who, although they sat in Moses’s seat, neither went in themselves nor suffered others that were entering to go in.

And what a different picture does Holy Writ set before us in the noble example of Moses! No doubt the preparation for the work to which he was to be called, of leading successfully the people intrusted to him by God out of their Egyptian darkness through the fearful Red Sea and all the wanderings in the wilderness, to the borders of the promised land, was even the forty years of solitude among the noble pastoral people with whom he spent the long period of his exile. But still it is not without a deep significance that it is written that the daughter of the Egyptian monarch, having adopted the foundling of the waters, brought him up and educated him as her own son. So, too, assuredly is it not without design that it is said so emphatically of him, that he “was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” In the first place, we have good reason to rejoice at and to acknowledge the comprehensive spirit and wide standard of judgment which Holy Writ here sets up. For whereas it passes a severer sentence of reprobation on the Egyptians than on any other heathen nation or people, for their moral depravity, it yet acknowledges that they possessed a scientific wisdom, which amply rewarded the labor of its acquisition, while it proved the very errors wherewith in their extreme corruption they had overloaded it, to be only the more culpable and deserving of punishment. Shallow and superficial skeptics may, indeed, as many have already done, avail themselves of such an admission, and cry, “There! it is plain enough--Moses borrowed every thing from Egypt and the hieroglyphics.”

But this is not the case. No doubt both the first ten and the last twelve letters of the Hebrew alphabet are hieroglyphics, as their very names indicate; but in its primary natural roots, nevertheless, and, above all, in its whole spirit, and structure, and tone, this language differs widely from the hieroglyphical Egyptian. Certainly Moses did learn from Egypt all that there was for him to learn. And this learning enabled him the more easily to disperse the thick Egyptian darkness, and the less cause, consequently, had he to fear the false arts of the Egyptian magicians and serpent-charmers. He took from them all that was available for his purpose, but he made it quite new again, and gave it another nature by the end to which he employed it. He despoiled them of their “jewels of gold and jewels of silver,” by a theft permissible in the realm of science and truth. For it is lawful for man to wrest from the evil power all that may be converted into a means of honoring the things of God and His revealed truth, and which thereby is better employed, spiritualized, and invested with a higher and better significance. This is true even of our own days, as it was then, and, indeed, always has been.

Oh, that the many great men who, in our own generation, have deserved so well of mankind, by devoting themselves to the noble work of re-establishing right sentiments and principles, had, in this their good design, followed the great example set them by this man so highly preferred of God! But, with one or two exceptions, it is impossible to boast of them that, like Moses, they were “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” And hence the fact is at once explicable why, with such ardent and unbounded zeal, they should have effected comparatively so little against the modern Egyptians, and the new Egyptian darkness of our own days.

An intellectual conflict about truth, and, indeed, about divine truth, is the struggle of our age. This fact is already seen and admitted by a few, but, ere long, it will be still more generally acknowledged. God is a spirit of truth; and even on this account is His adversary, the spirit of contradiction, termed “a liar from the beginning;” and, of all the powerful instruments and wicked devices of that evil one, the lie is the first and chiefest. And this suggests to me to notice, in passing, a point in the moral systems of our day, notwithstanding that it does not properly lie within our prescribed limits. In most of our ethical treatises the question of falsehood and untruth is but carelessly treated, and seldom discussed with that prominence and gravity which its great importance demands. Overt transgressions of the laws belong rather to jurisprudence than to ethics, which properly treats of and analyzes the leading faults of human character as so many diseases of the soul. Now, the worst among these are usually denominated mortal, i.e., likely to bring the soul unto death; but the lie, in the full import of the term--the intrinsic proper lie of the soul, as the predominant fault in a character of untruth--a whole life become, as it were, one great lie, is far more than mortal--it is even death itself. And it is even of this sin--this secret revolting against and wounding of the Spirit, even the divine Spirit of Eternal Truth--that is said in Holy Writ, that it shall be forgiven neither in this world nor in the next.

On this point, then, I think that moral theory and teaching can never be stern and rigorous enough in its precepts, especially as regards individuals. It is not, indeed, a question about words, but about their interpretation, and what is meant by those who use them; and in this respect there may be, and often is a false and over-scrupulous delicacy of conscience. When, however, we remember how, in particular ages of history, oaths have been played with--millions of oaths lavishly proffered and shortly retaken in quite a different and opposite sense, and soon again abjured with as little difficulty; and when we consider the evil effects this trifling with the most solemn of obligations must have had on the moral character of a people, we can not but see some excuse in this monstrous fact for certain small communities of Christians who absolutely refuse to take an oath in any case. For when, in the important point of truth and falsehood, a grave error has been committed on one side, it is better to meet it on the other by too great strictness. A rigorous severity can never entail such fearful consequences in such a case, as the opposite fault of an over-indulgent laxity, or, what is even still more false and erroneous, the regarding the matter as trifling and indifferent. But the further prosecution of this topic would lead me out of my proper province, and I have only touched upon it in passing to that which lies more immediately before us.

If, then, there is nothing so dangerous to the character of an individual, both inwardly and outwardly--if there is nothing that works so insidiously, conveying its secret poison to the very lowest roots and extremities of the moral character, as untruth and the spirit of lying, how much more fearful must its malignant influence prove when it is become the universal and prevailing fault of an age which has not only wandered far from the truth, but is even animated with a deadly hatred of it!

It is to this spirit of lies, and the false splendor of his colossal empire, and to the final conflict which truth will have to wage with it on earth, that the most awful of the prophecies already alluded to refer. And the application is easily made, since a greater part of their warning denunciations have in our age already come to an actual fulfillment. If, then, this giant spirit of destruction and untruth was strong enough even in his cradle to throttle two quarters of the world, what must it be now that the permitted interval of rest has passed away without being profitably employed to the cause of truth, and now that this same spirit of murder and lies, with a far greater body, and endued with far more magical powers, is let loose again to tread the earth for a while with iron feet, and to deceive the nations?

Those whose responsible position in public life, or comprehensive sphere of intellectual activity, enable them to take in at one glance all the various elements of evil and pernicious principles and destructive tendencies which are so actively at work in our days, will not, perhaps, be disposed to regard these remarks as groundless or exaggerated; others, perhaps, may make a mock at them--but they may go on in their delusion for a while.

In conclusion, I have but three observations to add. The first regards the divine permission of evil, and is intended to form a supplement to that Theodicée which I have attempted, in the only way that such a justification of the divine ways is permissible to man, by appealing, viz., to his feelings, rather than by attempting to force his conviction by the rigor of demonstration. The full justification of the ways of Providence is reserved for a future day, when all mouths shall be stopped, whether that awful crisis be near at hand or yet tarries for a while. If, now, the human race be actually sick and in a sickly state, as indeed can not well be denied, then must God’s overruling providence in the affairs of the world be judged of in the same light as, and be compared to, the wise treatment of a skillful physician. For as the latter, in the case of a patient whose death was to be apprehended from a total prostration of his bodily powers and energy, might wish for or even venture to super-induce a violent paroxysm, in the hope that in it he might perhaps be able to throw off his fatal lethargy; even so, in God’s government of the world, those predetermined counsels, which seem so singular, but, nevertheless, are so expressly foretold, may have a somewhat similar design. In the times of the last struggle the power of darkness will probably work itself to death on the earth; and while the remnant shall come out of the crisis and fiery trial purer and healthier, the divine truth is to gain a complete triumph over sin and death.

The second remark I have to make applies to ourselves and all the well-disposed among our cotemporaries, and refers to the disunion which subsists in these evil times even among the best of men. Were two nations threatened in common by a formidable enemy, would they not, however widely they might differ in, or perhaps be estranged from each other by their respective constitutions languages, and customs, forget in the moment of danger their characteristic differences, and, laying aside all previous feelings of jealousy or estrangement, unite for their mutual protection and safety? My heart’s wish, therefore, is that all the truly pious and well-wishers of truth, on whichever of the two sides of the now divided faith they may stand, would unite together without sacrificing those more intimate differences which can not at present be got rid of or reconciled, and, making a righteous peace of mutual forbearance, join together in a firm alliance against the common enemy of all truth and all faith. For that the dearest interests of religion are in our generation exposed to a violent assault, and menaced with great and immediate danger, will not be denied by any lover of truth, even though his conception of the truth may differ from mine.

Lastly, the third observation that I promised will not take the form of the utterance of a wish, as rather of the expression of the firmest conviction, that, however awful and severe this final conflict may prove, the good cause will not eventually be lost, but that the great battle will have a favorable issue in the complete victory of divine revelation, and the celestial wisdom in the government of this kingdom of truth will be fully manifest both to men and angels.