From "A Lecture: " Philadelphia, 1840.

40. THE PROSPECTS OF ART IN THE UNITED STATES.

It is well for those who have sufficient wealth, to bring among us good works of foreign or ancient masters, especially if they allow free access to them for students and copyists. The true gems are, however, rare, and very costly. A single masterpiece would swallow up the whole sum which even the richest of our countrymen would be willing to devote in the way of paintings. I hope, however, soon to see the day when there shall be a fondness for making collections of works by American artists, or those resident among us. Such collections, judiciously made, would supply the best history of the rise and progress of the arts in the United States. They would, more than any other means, stimulate artists to a generous emulation. They would reflect high honor upon their possessors, as men who love Art for its own sake, and are willing to serve and encourage it. They would highly gratify the foreigner of taste who comes curious to observe the working of our institutions and our habits of life. He does not cross the sea to find Vandykes and Murillos. He can enjoy them at home; but he wishes to discover what the children of the West can do in following or excelling European example. The expense of such a collection could not be very great. A few thousands of dollars, less than is often lavished upon the French plate glass and lustres, damask hangings, and Turkey carpets of a pair of parlors (more than which few of our houses can boast), would cover their walls with good specimens of American art, and do far more credit to the taste and heart of the owner.

RICHARD FULLER.1 ISOS-.

From a Sermon.

41. THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS SHALL COME. Haggai ii. 7.

FOLLOW the adorable Jesus from scene to scene of ever deepening insult and sorrow, tracked everywhere by spies hunting for the precious blood. Behold his sacred face swollen with tears and stripes; and, last of all, ascend Mount Calvary, and view there the amazing spectacle: earth and hell gloating on the gashed form of the Lord of Glory; men and devils glutting their malice in the agony of the Prince of Life; and all the scattered rays of vengeance which would have consumed our guilty race converging and beating in focal inten

1 A Baptist divine of much distinction; a native of South Carolina, but long settled in Baltimore.

sity upon Him of whom the Eternal twice exclaimed, in a voice from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." After this, what are our emotions? Can we ever be cold or faithless? No, my brethren, it is impossible, unless we forget this Savior, and lose sight of that cross on which he poured out his soul for us.

That is an affecting passage in Roman history which records the death of Manlius. At night, and on the Capitol, fighting hand to hand, had he repelled the Gauls, and saved the city, when all seemed lost. Afterwards he was accused; but the Capitol towered in sight of the forum where he was tried, and, as he was about to be condemned, he stretched out his hands, and pointed, weeping, to that arena of his triumph. At this the people burst into tears, and the judges could not pronounce sentence. Again the trial proceeded, but was again defeated; nor could he be convicted until they had removed him to a low spot, from which the Capitol was invisible. And behold, my brethren, what I am saying. While the cross is in view, vainly will earth and sin seek to shake the Christian's loyalty and devotion; one look at that purple monument of a love which alone, and when all was dark and lost, interposed for our rescue, and their efforts will be baffled. Low must we sink, and blotted from our hearts must be the memory of that deed, before we can become faithless to the Redeemer's cause, and perfidious to his glory.

ALBERT TAYLOR BLEDSOE.1 About 1809-.

From "The Theodicy."

42. MORAL EVIL CONSISTENT WITH THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

THE argument of the atheist assumes, as we have seen, that a Being of infinite power could easily prevent sin, and cause holiness to exist. It assumes that it is possible, that it implies no contradiction, to create an intelligent moral agent, and place it beyond all liability to sin. But this is a mistake. Almighty power itself, we may say with the most profound reverence, cannot create such a being, and place it beyond the possibility of sinning. If it could not sin, there would be no merit, no virtue, in its obedience. That is to say, it would not be a moral agent at all, but a machine merely. The power to do wrong, as well as to do right, is included in the very idea of a moral and accountable agent, and no such agent can possibly exist without being invested with such a power. To suppose such an agent to be created, and placed beyond all liability to sin, is to suppose it to be what it is, and not what it is, at one and the same time; it is to

1 The most prominent among the living philosophical writers of the south; at present editor of the Southern Review.

suppose a creature to be endowed with a power to do wrong, and yet destitute of such a power, which is a plain contradiction. Hence Omnipotence cannot create such a being, and deny to it a power to do evil, or secure it against the possibility of sinning.

HENRY WARD BEECHER. 1813-. (Manual, p. 480.)

From the "Star Papers."

43. A PICTURE IN A COLLEGE AT OXFORD.

I WAS much affected by a head of Christ. Not that it met my ideal of that sacred front, but because it took me in a mood that clothed it with life and reality. For one blessed moment I was with the Lord. I knew him. I loved him. My eyes I could not close for tears. My poor tongue kept silence; but my heart spoke, and I loved and adored. The amazing circuit of one's thoughts in so short a period is wonderful. They circle round through all the past, and up through the whole future; and both the past and future are the present, and are one. For one moment there arose a keen anguish, like a shooting pang, for that which I was; and I thought my heart would break that I could bring but only such a nature to my Lord; but, in a moment, as quick as the flash of sunlight which follows the shadow of summer clouds across the fields, there seemed to spring out upon me from my Master a certainty of love so great and noble as utterly to consume my unworth, and leave me shining bright, as if it were impossible for Christ to love a heart without making it pure and beautiful by the resting on it of that illuming affection, just as the sun bathes into beauty the homeliest object when he looks full upon it.

44. FROST ON THE WINDOW.

BUT the indefatigable night repairs the desolation. New pictures supply the waste ones. New cathedrals there are, new forests, fringed and blossoming, new sceneries, and new races of extinct animals. We are rich every morning, and poor every noon. One day with us measures the space of two hundred years in kingdoms- a hundred years to build up, and a hundred years to decay and destroy; twelve hours to overspread the evanescent pane with glorious beauty, and twelve to extract and dissipate the pictures. Shall we not reverently and rejoicingly behold in these morning pictures, wrought without color, and kissed upon the window by the cold lips of Winter, another instance of that Divine Beneficence of beauty which suffuses the heavens ?

From the "Sermons." Second Series.

45. THE TRUTH OF RELIGION PROVED BY EXPERIENCE.

BUT there are men who say, “My doubt goes deeper than that. I cannot say that I believe - -on rational grounds I cannot say it." O that men were as willing to explore the unknown as Columbus was, who saw nothing, who heard nothing, but, moved by an invincible faith, through the night and through the day, through clouds and baffling winds, and in spite of insurrectionary companions, still pressed forward until the happiest hour of mortal life was his, when, dim in the horizon, he saw the long-believed land, long sought, and now found. Not all the reckoning in the world, nothing, would have convinced Columbus that land was not there, but sailing towards it. That settled the problem.

Now, we hold out to men, not certain theories, not a certain schedule of beliefs. We hold out to men the idea of a higher manhood than belongs to them by nature. We say that it is possible to force up the faculties. We say that it is possible to inspire your life with disclosures and developments such as you know nothing of in the natural state; and we declare to you that you never can find out whether it is true or not except by going towards it. Prove it; for it is one of those things which are susceptible of demonstration in no way so much as by actual experiment. Truths of emotion are never known by ratiocination. They are known only by experience. Pre-eminently religion is a matter of personal experience; and, therefore, when a man says, “I am rationally sceptical," I say, "You are irrationally a sceptic."

JOHN MCCLINTOCK. 1814-1870.

From a Sermon on "The Ground of Man's Love to God."

46. THE CHRISTIAN THE ONLY TRUE LOVER OF NATURE.

It is not too much to say that the only true lover of nature, is he that loves God in Christ. It is as with one standing in one of those caves of unknown beauty of which travellers tell us. While it is dark, nothing can be seen but the abyss, or, at most, a faint glimmer of ill-defined forms. But flash into it the light of a single torch, and He sees myriad splendors crowd upon the gaze of the beholder. long-drawn colonnades, sparkling with gems; chambers of beauty and glory open on every hand, flashing back the light a thousand fold increased, and in countless varied hues. So the sense of God's love in

1 Distinguished among the Methodist clergy for eloquence and learning; a native of Pennsylvania.

the heart gives an eye for nature, and supplies the torch to illuminate its recesses of beauty. For the ear that can hear them, ten thousand voices speak, and all in harmony, the name of God! The sun, rolling in his majesty,

"And with his tread, of thunder force,
Fulfilling his appointed course,'

is but a faint and feeble image of the great central Light of the universe. The spheres of heaven, in the perpetual harmony of their unsleeping motion, swell the praise of God; the earth, radiant with beauty, and smiling in joy, proclaims its Maker's love; and the ocean, that

"Glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests," ,,

as it murmurs on the shore, or foams with its broad billows over the deep, declares its God; and even the tempests, that, in their "rising wrath, sweep sea and sky," still utter the name of Him who rides upon the whirlwind and directs the storm. In a word, the whole universe is but a temple, with God for its deity, and the redeemed man for its worshipper.

ORATORS AND LEGAL AND POLITICAL WRITERS OF
THE ERA OF THE REVOLUTION.

JOHN DICKINSON. 1732-1808. (Manual, p. 486.)
From The Address of Congress to the States." May 26, 1779.

47. THE ASPECT OF THE WAR.

To our constituents we submit the propriety and purity of our intentions, well knowing they will not forget that we lay no burdens upon them but those in which we participate with them -a happy sympathy, that pervades societies formed on the basis of equal liberty. Many cares, many labors, and may we not add, reproaches, are peculiar to us. These are the emoluments of our unsolicited stations; and with these we are content, if you approve our conduct. If you do not, we shall return to our private condition with no other regret, than that which will arise from our not having served you as acceptably and essentially as we wished and strove to do, though as cheerfully and faithfully as we could.

Think not we despair of the commonwealth, or endeavor to shrink from opposing difficulties. No! Your cause is too good, your objects too sacred, to be relinquished. We tell you truths because you are freemen, who can bear to hear them, and may profit by them; and when they reach your enemies, we fear not the consequences, because we are