VII.—THE JOHN BROWN OF THE ENGLISH SLAVES.
Macaulay has remarked as singular the fact that two great relics of barbarism in England were never abolished by law: disappeared, melted away before the advance of civilization. These were feudalism and human slavery.
It is also a remarkable fact that there never was in England an insurrection of the laboring classes, save one, that in the reign of Richard II., of sad fortune. The same can not be said of any other nation. This favorable contrast for England is due to several causes which we need not recount. But England’s one servile rising came very near putting an abrupt end to serfdom by violence; emancipation was sanctioned and pardoned by royal writs, and would have been confirmed by act of Parliament had that body contained fewer slaveholders at the time; i. e., had it been more truly a representative body of the English people.
Wat Tyler was the John Brown of that movement, and Richard of Bordeaux came near being its Abraham Lincoln. Death in the guise of the Black Plague had struck a fierce blow at English slavery about the middle of the fourteenth century. [See last Chautauquan.] It made labor so scarce that the old laws binding the laborer to the soil and compelling him to work without hire, proved abortive; insomuch that we find Parliament soon at work passing the new “Statute of Laborers.” It was made to reach as well freedmen as serfs, for it said any man who was out of work “must serve the first employer who shall require him to do so,” and must not accept higher wages than obtained before the plague; and it forbade him going beyond his parish to hire out, under pain of arrest as a vagabond, branding on the forehead with a hot iron being one of the penalties. But this statute did not work, either; for succeeding Parliaments adopted it over and over again. That was the way they made laws more binding. King Edward I. reaffirmed to respect the Great Charter some thirty times. And yet, farmers and lords whose lands were lying waste, or whose herds were running wild for want of help, would offer large pay to get it and men were reckless enough to hire out to those who would pay the most, the much-enacted Statute of Laborers to the contrary, notwithstanding.
Then a crazy step was taken. An effort was made to supply landlords with unrequited help by remanding freed serfs to slavery on frivolous pretexts and legal technicalities, the ex-master usually controlling the decision of the manorial court before which these questions were tried. Of course the accused freedman had there little chance for right. The consequence was that the woods and wastes Boon became filled with bands of men who had been slaves, had tasted the sweets of freedom, and had turned outlaws and chronic vagabonds sooner than come within the reach of such “justice.”
While this was going on, during twenty years, other things helped to create the spirit of insubordination. John Wickliffe had begun to thunder against the tyranny of Rome and the corruptions of the clergy, and to preach individual liberty of conscience. The sect of Lollards, of which he was the head, had offshoots of ruder tenets and practices. A preacher named John Ball had for many years itinerated, with all England for his circuit and the fields, market-places and church-yards for his chapels. He “preached politics” with an unction and genuine eloquence, as this condensed report of one of his sermons will show:
“Good people, things will never go well in England so long as there be villeins and gentlemen. By what right are they whom we call lords greater than we? Why do they hold us in serfage? If we all came of the same father and mother, of Adam and Eve, [see the danger of putting the Bible into common people’s hands!] how can they say or prove that they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gain for them by our toil what they spend in their pride? They are clothed in velvet and warm in their furs and their ermine, while we are covered with rags. They have wine and spices and fair bread, we oat-cake and straw and water to drink. They have leisure and fine houses; we have pain and labor, the rain and wind in the fields. And yet it is of us and of our toil that these men hold their state.”
And John Ball, like all men who move the masses, boiled his whole political and religious platform down into a motto with a rhyme to it, so that the most stolid ignorance could learn and remember it—for, mark you, poetry is the aspiration of the ignorant as well as the inspiration of the gifted:
When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?
Immortal old epigrammatist and poet of democracy! His lines are heard to-day wherever manhood rebels against the pride and tyranny of property. It was in every poor man’s mouth in England for a quarter of a century, and it did a wonderful work, that little couplet. Such is the power of a thought!
There were other street orators and other poets. An Oxford student wrote “The Plaints of Piers, the Ploughman,” the saddest, fiercest protest against caste that England ever heard.
While all this work was going on in the huts and fields of England, her proud nobles were squabbling over the dotage and around the dying bed of Edward III., and for the control of his grandson, Richard II.; and while they were thus dissipating government, her enemies were assailing her on all sides. Armies and fleets were raised, and campaigns and expeditions fooled away, while the treasure was squandered in both military failures and court prodigality and corruption. Taxes were laid, on the heels of defeats which made the old archers of Cressy, Nevill’s Cross, and Poictiers mad with shame and rage.
The crowning act of folly and injustice came when Parliament laid a poll-tax on every person in the kingdom over fifteen years of age. This made the poor man pay as much as the rich; and more, if the poorer the man the larger his family, which was probably the case then as now. There were no census statistics, and the tax-gatherers had to make a domiciliary visit in every case, an inquisition Englishmen especially resent; for the feeling that every man’s house is his castle dates back to the life of family segregation for which they were remarked in old Roman times. The tax, payable in money, came hard on poor people, who generally worked for their food and clothing, paid in kind. With an exaggerated idea of the population of England, Parliament had not levied a large enough unit per head. The rich, instead of helping the poor heads of families to pay the tax, as directed in the writs, shirked their own share. Thus the returns were insufficient to meet government needs, and the tax-gatherers were sent out again, with sheriffs’ posses, to glean more thoroughly.
With all these exactions when the times were ripe for an outbreak, you may be sure England was soon in a fever of excitement. Collectors’ processes began to be resisted, and they and their posses driven away by force. One day a rough collector went into the house of a man in Dartford, Kent, named Walter, a tyler by trade. Demanding his tax the collector insisted, in spite of the mother’s denial, that the eldest daughter was over fifteen years of age, and at last, to settle the dispute, he made an insulting proposition and laid hands on the girl. The screams of the mother and children brought the father running from his shop, hammer in hand, and seeing his daughter struggling in the arms of the man, he smashed his brains out with the hammer, regardless of the royal coat-of-arms. Walter himself had worn that uniform, for he had been a brave campaigner in France. The deed was done, and his life was forfeit. Instead of shrinking from the consequences, he placed himself at the head of his neighbors, who now gathered around him. His hammer had struck the percussion cap to the mine long prepared.
In another part of Kent there was another outbreak. A noble claimed a runaway bondsman and shut him up in Rochester Castle. The people stormed the castle and delivered the prisoner-slave to a double freedom. Couriers now went through all England bearing calls to rise, couched in rude rhymes which tell at once of the lowly state of the masses and of the art of those who called to arms. One ran thus:
“John Ball greeteth you all,
And doth for to understand he hath rung your bell,
Now, right and might, will and skill,
God speede every dele.”
There were several other leaders, and some of the proclamations were issued anonymously. They ran thus:
“Help truth and truth shall help you. Now reigneth pride in place and covetise [covetousness] is counted wise, and lechery withouten shame, and gluttony withouten blame. Envy reigneth with treason, and sloth is taken in great season. God do bote! for now is time.”
“Jack Carter prays you all that ye may make a good end of that ye have begun, and do well and aye better and better. For at the even men heareth the day.”
“Truth hath been set under a lock, and falseness and guile reigneth in every stock. True love is away that was so good and clerks [priests] for wealth work us woe. God do bote for now is tyme.
[signed] “Jack Trewman.”
These unmistakable references to preparations already made, help us to understand how it was that almost in a day Wat Tyler found himself at the head of a hundred thousand men marching on London. One force under a leader named Jack Straw, came by Canterbury, which threw open its gates, as “the whole town was of their sort,” and they gutted the palace of the archbishop, who had ground the face of the poor by assuming a monopoly of all the grinding of grain in his district, on which he had placed excessive toll.
There is something very pathetic in this movement on London. They would appeal to the young king himself, and not to the selfish dukes, his uncles, who guarded him and misgoverned the realm. The son of the Black Prince, the defender of England, and, so long as he lived, the protector of the people against the cruelty of the nobles, should hear their appeal and do them right. It was said the boy king was no better than a prisoner in his uncles’ hands; peradventure they might deliver him and themselves by the same blow. All the way to London they made everybody they took swear allegiance to Richard. But all the lawyers they captured they hung, as the instruments of oppression, the contrivers of technicalities by which freedmen had been re-enslaved.
And thus they settled down on Blackheath, before London, June 12, 1381. Panic had gone before them. John, the Duke of Lancaster, fled to Scotland, deserting the young king he had overruled with no gentle hand. All the knights and nobles about the king threw themselves into the tower. The king’s mother, the widow of the Black Prince, hearing of the disturbance in her country home, made brave by a mother’s fear, hastened to London, passing through the camp of the insurgents unhurt and with honor; she kissed Walter Tyler and Jack Straw and took their devotion to her son.
In the general panic Richard was the only man in England equal to the emergency. Man! He was only sixteen, but at about that age his father had won his spurs at Cressy. He took boat on the Thames and rowed down to the insurgents’ camp. The Archbishop of Canterbury and some ministers were with him, and when Tyler asked the king to land and talk with them, promising respect and loyalty, this prelate prevented him, thus confirming the stories of the king’s duress. The rescue of their sovereign became their first object. They marched on the city, and the sympathizing citizens threw open the gates.
Lancaster’s stately Savoy Palace was soon in flames; also the Marshalsea and the King’s Bench Temple, the dwellings and offices of the hated lawyers. But one of their number who undertook to carry off a silver tankard from the destruction was immediately drowned in the Thames. “We are no thieves and robbers; we are not nobles and bishops; we are honest workingmen, come to deliver the king and ourselves,” said Tyler. The next day they captured the tower, took the archbishop, the royal treasurer, and the commissioner of the poll-tax, and cut off their heads as traitors on Tower Hill.
The king, now delivered from his court, sent word to Tyler that he would meet them at Mile-End, just out of London, to hear their grievances. The knights of the Tower and the guards wanted to gather a force and attack the mob, but the king rode out unarmed, with a few companions, to this historic appointment.
It was a memorable scene, and a poetic coincidence. The day was the anniversary of that other demand for rights from King John. Just one hundred and sixty-six years before Magna Charta has been wrung from a king at Runnymede. Now the boy king and the peasant leader meet to treat on equal terms. Justice levels all distinctions. The graceful, delicate and beautiful descendant of the Plantagenets and the rough, unkempt, Celto-Saxon artisan—the personification of the two armies at Hastings—the types of the extremes of English civilization; extremes destined to draw nearer together through centuries of civil war, of martyrdoms for free thought and speech, of sufferings and defeats, ever bravely and persistently renewed by generation after generation of laborers on the one side: through discrownings, beheadings and gradual curtailment of royal power on the other. Two chief agencies were to draw these extremes together—gunpowder and printer’s ink. The one to blow feudalism off the earth and put an end to baronial domination—the other to unlock the storehouses of thought and introduce the rule of mind, to the permanent limitation of those other two classes of tyrants: priests and kings. The despised class, represented by the ruder of these two “high contracting parties,” is to rise by slow and stormful evolution: the slave to become freeman—the freeman, yeoman—the yeoman, citizen—the citizen, an elector of rulers; out of all to be evolved that splendid, conservative, expansive power of England, the Middle Class. Happy England! that the two extremes stood that day and thereafter not as antagonists but as treaty-makers.
Richard found the Toussaint l’Overteur of that day prepared with very distinct and well-grounded grievances, though not numerous or unreasonable. He asked—
First—The abolition of slavery.
Second—Limitation of rent of land to fourpence an acre.
Third—Liberty to buy and sell in all markets and fairs, without favoritism or toll.
Fourth—Pardon for what they had done in order to obtain this interview.
The young king, more just than well-informed, more generous than politic, promised it all, and said he would immediately cause franchises and letters of pardon and emancipation to be drawn up under the royal seal. Great shouts of joy went up—premature shouts indeed!
During all that day and succeeding night thirty clerks were busy drawing up the charter of freedom and amnesty for every parish and township; and the next day the great body of the insurgents marched home, the king’s proclamation in their hands, the king’s banners over their heads, and in their hearts such joy as the children of Israel felt when Miriam’s timbrel rang out its triumph over the Red Sea.
Well if this had been the end of it; but there was to be a dark and bloody finale for Richard and Walter. Walter Tyler and many of the Kentish men remained behind, dissatisfied with the terms of the writs. We do not know the causes of Tyler’s refusal to accept the charters. Perhaps he foresaw what must and did come: that as soon as this pressure was removed from the young king, and his evil counselors again got control, all that had been given to the people would be withdrawn, and he wanted guaranties of fulfillment, just as the barons had done with John. However it was, we only know that the King and his attendants riding through Smith Fields the next day, chanced upon Tyler and his followers. Tyler rode out alone to speak with the king, and the mayor of London reproached him for approaching the king uninvited. Hot words followed, and the mayor stabbed Tyler dead, in sight of all his men.
Instantly thousands of arrows were drawn to let fly on the king and his party. Well for him had they sped and ended his unhappy career there, with the crown of emancipator upon it, instead of the failure, disgrace, and violent death that were to terminate it. Putting spurs to his horse he rode directly into the midst of the angry mob. “I will be your captain! Follow me!” he cried. This seemed to their simple-minded loyalty the obtaining of the end for which they had come out, and they followed the boy with docility to the fields at Islington, where a considerable force of royal troops was met. The king restrained the courage which now returned redundantly to the nobles and forbade the slaughter they were anxious to begin, dismissing the peasants to their homes.
And now the nobility began their revenge everywhere, and the embers of resistance were again blown into flames here and there. Green sketches the stamping-out of the fire:
“The revolt, indeed, was far from being at an end. A strong body of peasants occupied St. Albans. In the eastern counties 50,000 men forced the gates of St. Edmondsbury and wrested from the trembling monks a charter of enfranchisement for the town. Sittester, a dyer of Norwich, headed a strong mass of the peasants, under the title of the ‘King of the Commons,’ and compelled the nobles he had captured to act as his meat-tasters, and to serve him during his repast. But the warlike Bishop of Norwich fell lance in hand on the rebel camp and scattered them at the first shock. The villagers of Billericay demanded from the king the same liberties as their lords, and on his refusal threw themselves into the woods and fought two hard fights before they were reduced to submission.”
For many years there were camps of refuge of these outlawed peasants in forests and upon lonely islands—Englishmen exiles in their own country for the cause of human rights.
The prelates and lawyers gathered around Richard with their sophisms and technicalities, to show him he had done an unlawful thing with his proclamations of emancipation and clemency; the barons backed the constitutional arguments up with fierce threats about this “royal usurpation,” insomuch that Richard within two weeks recalled and canceled all his charters, and let loose the unrestrained arrogance of the nobles on the people. So many and such unwarranted executions took place that Parliament subsequently granted an act of indemnity to the savage perpetrators, who, it says, “made divers punishments upon the said villeins and other traitors without due process of law, but only to appease and cease the apparent mischief.” All manumissions were declared void. But Richard submitted to the Parliament the proposition to abolish slavery if Parliament would lend its sanction. The lords and gentlemen replied, “The serfs are our chattels, and the king can not take our property from us without our consent. And this consent we have never given, and never will give were we all to die in one day.” Had Richard insisted on keeping faith with the lower classes of his subjects, had he placed his crown and life in the scale against human slavery, he would have gone into history as the Great Emancipator of Englishmen, or as Freedom’s Greatest Martyr. Either destiny was preferable to the ignominious end he did meet. He was a man for an emergency, but not a statesman for one of the world’s great crises. But in a boy of sixteen were not his conduct and his attempt at a great deed wonderful?
It is a curious thing to reflect on that Abraham Lincoln, in a government of constitutional law and in a position of very limited powers, could with a stroke of the pen decree emancipation, while Richard, a ruler of almost absolute powers in an age of ill-defined authority and much lawless administration, could not take the chains off one of his subjects.
At this distance it is difficult to determine just how much influence the only servile uprising of England had upon the emancipation of her serfs. It at least stamped a wholesome dread of the laboring classes into the selfish souls of the nobles, a dread that had much influence on the contentions of succeeding reigns, and raised the common people in importance. Slavery did not disappear for over two centuries; “Good Queen Bess” got her much gain by selling her subjects for slaves in the West Indies. But if “they never die who perish in a good cause,” the blood of Walter the Tyler aided the cause of human liberty, and he ought to be canonized as one of her martyrs, instead of being treated as the violent and bloody rioter that most historians make him.
[To be continued.]
Anecdotes in Sermons.—The fashion which once prevailed of introducing historical anecdotes into addresses from the pulpit, is illustrated by the following extract from a sermon by the martyr Bishop Ridley: “Cambyses was a great emperor, such another as our master is; he had many lord-deputies, lord-presidents, and lieutenants under him. It is a great while ago since I read the history. It chanced he had under him, in one of his dominions, a briber, a gift-taker, a gratifier of rich men; he followed gifts as fast as he that followed the pudding; a hand-maker in his office, to make his son a great man; as the old saying is, ‘Happy is the child whose father goeth to the devil.’ The cry of the poor widow came to the emperor’s ear, and caused him to flay the judge quick, and laid his skin in his chair of judgment, that all judges that should give judgment afterward should sit in the same skin. Surely it was a goodly sign, a goodly monument, the sign of the judge’s skin. I pray God we may once see the sign of the skin in England.”
[PHYSIOLOGY.]
Physiology is a science, because it embodies a collection of general principles and ascertained truths relating to a particular subject, and is called a natural science because these truths are founded on observation. The word “physiology” is derived from two Greek words meaning a discourse about nature; but it is used in a restricted sense, and is the science of the functions of the different parts of any living body. Thus we have animal and vegetable physiology, while the former is divided into human and comparative. The first of these divisions relates only to man, while the other reviews the entire animal kingdom.
Our object is to teach some of the simple truths of human physiology; such as may be intelligible without any extended knowledge of other sciences. It must be remembered, however, that a more thorough and complete study of physiology can not be undertaken without a considerable acquaintance with such sciences as mechanics, hydraulics, optics, etc., without which the action of the muscles, the circulation of fluids, and vision can not be properly and fully comprehended.
Whenever a piece of mechanism, designed for some particular use, is brought under our notice, and we wish to understand its manner of working, we naturally inquire about its structure; for without some knowledge of how its component parts are put together, and by what means it is put in motion, we can not hope to understand how it performs the part which we see it do. Such is the case, for example, with a watch or steam engine; their parts must be carefully studied in order that their workings may be fully understood.
Hence, it will be observed from what has been said, that it is impossible to study the uses of various parts of the body without some knowledge of anatomy, this being that branch of knowledge which treats of structure.
In order that anatomy may be studied the organs must be dissected.
The words “anatomy” and “dissection” have the same literal meaning, the former being derived from the Greek language, and the latter from the Latin, meaning to cut apart or separate. But anatomy is employed to signify the science of structure in living bodies, and dissection is used to denote the unravelling or laying bare the parts of the body, by means of which anatomy is studied.
The words “organ,” “organization,” and “organize,” are so convenient and necessary that we must know what they mean. The word “organ” signifies some part or parts of the body that have a particular use or function: thus, muscles are organs of motion, and nerves of sensation; the eye is the organ of sight, and the heart and blood vessels are the organs for circulating the blood. Now, any structure is said to be organized, or to have organization, that possesses the properties which distinguish a living body from one that never had life. Therefore we speak of the organic world as distinguished from the inorganic; the former includes plants and animals, the latter minerals, etc.
The nature of that mysterious principle which we call life is unknown to scientists. Yet we may know and understand many of those things which are believed by physiologists concerning life. Certain of them believe that life is a phenomenon that follows organization; or, in other words, that organization is the cause, life the result; while others contend that organization is the result of life. In the former life is produced by changes that take place in matter, under the influence of those forces of nature called heat, light, electricity, and chemism; by the latter theory all these forces are present and act under the influence of a potent force called life. This will be our belief: Life is a distinct endowment, capable of propagation, and superior to all other forces by which it is attended. Let us see by what means living bodies are distinguished from unorganized. Living bodies increase in size; so do minerals; the former by the addition of material throughout the tissue, the latter by outside additions. Organized bodies have a limited existence. All are subject to constant change, and to final dissolution. They all spring from a parent, and only originate in this method. The opposite characteristics belong to unorganized matter.
It has been the business of chemistry to determine the ingredients of the earth and atmosphere, by resolving them into what are called elements. By the word element we mean that which can not be resolved into any simpler form. For example, take a piece of chalk; by chemical action it can be divided into a gas called carbonic acid, and a solid called lime; therefore, it is known that chalk is a compound body. If we take a piece of iron or gold there is no process known by which we can resolve it into simpler form, and these are therefore elements. There are over sixty elements and many of them are found in the human body. All these elements are derived from unorganized matter, and the special conditions under which they are formed in organisms is due to the principle of life. The predominant elements that make up the human body are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, while iron, potassium, sodium, phosphorous, calcium, exist in smaller quantity. These different elements are variously combined to form compounds, of which water is the most abundant, for it forms more than two-thirds of the entire weight of the body: water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen. The principal organic compounds are albuminous, of which the white of the egg is a typical example; the gelatinous, or jelly-like compounds, including cartilage, oleaginous, or fatty compounds, and saccharine, or sugary compounds, such as starch. The first two contain nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, while fat and starch are rich in carbon, but lack nitrogen. In tracing back the development of living matter to its simplest form, it is found to exist as specks without any definite shape or structure, or as granules of extreme minuteness, perhaps the ten thousandth part of an inch in diameter.
This elemental living matter is called protoplasm. Its simplest form is termed a cell, and the word is applied to little bodies varying much in form. Thus some cells are really little bags filled with fluid. Such are those in which the fat is deposited; others are disk like, others lengthened, while some so-called cells are simply masses of jelly.
Out of these organic compounds all the softer tissue of the body is formed, such as fibrous, muscular, cellular, and adipose tissue.
Fibrous tissue consists of fine threads, arranged in various ways, to adapt it to some special use; some of these threads are elastic, others are wholly inelastic. These tissues of mixed character form what is called connective tissue, which is found throughout the body.
Fat is deposited in little cells situated in the connective tissue.
Muscular tissue, which forms the great bulk of the body, is easily recognized by its ruddy color, and it constitutes what is known as “flesh.” It is fibrous, and if these fibers be examined under the microscope there will appear, in those under the influence of the will, transverse markings, while the muscles not under the will-power lack these markings.
Nervous tissue is that which superintends all the actions of the living body. It is accumulated in nerve centers of which the principal is the brain. It consists of minute cells in these nerve centers, and of delicate tubes filled with nervous matter throughout the organs of the body. Such tubes are called nerves.
The skeleton is the frame-work of the body, and serves to support all the softer organs as well as to protect them. It is composed of bones which serve as attachments for the muscles.
Bone is the firm tissue of the body, and to a certain degree is hard and brittle. If bone be burned its brittleness is very much increased, but if it be placed in acid it loses its brittle properties. Thus we see that bone is made of two entirely different materials. The one called “animal matter” is easily burned out, while the other called “mineral matter” resists the action of heat, but is quickly dissolved by acid. The mineral matter is a compound of lime. This it will be seen gives to the bones their rigidity. Bones are of various shapes and sizes, adapted to the work which they have to perform.
The most remarkable part of the skeleton is the spinal column, commonly called the back-bone. It is made up of twenty-six bones, or spines, which are united together in a marvelous manner, combining strength and freedom of motion. Each spine has a central aperture which communicates with that of the adjoining spines, thus forming a long canal in which the spinal cord lies. This cord connects the brain with the various parts of the body. There is a soft cushion of cartilage between each spine, which adds much to the elasticity of the back-bone, protecting the brain from shocks. This protection is further accomplished by the curvature of the spine. These bones are not placed directly over each other, but are so arranged as to give three curves to the spinal column. Along the column there are openings, at each joint, through which the nerves come to supply fibers to the different organs of the body.
The spine rests on the pelvis, which is a large double bone, basin-shaped, that sustains the abdominal organs. The pelvis, in turn, rests on the thigh bones.
The thigh bone, “femur,” is the largest single bone in the body; it is joined to the pelvis by a ball and socket joint, an arrangement which permits its motion in any direction. The femur is supported by the bones of the leg. These are two in number in each leg, the tibia and fibula. The former is much the larger, and the latter is often called the “splint bone.”
The bones of the arm corresponding to those of the leg are the humerus, the radius, and the ulna. The humerus is the bone of the upper arm, and is large and strong; it articulates with the body in so perfect a manner that the great variety of motions required to be performed is easily and gracefully accomplished. This bone is fastened by a ball and socket joint, but is not, like the thigh bone, firmly fixed to an immovable bone. It is attached to a broad bone called the scapula, or blade bone; this is fastened to the body by muscles which give it great freedom of motion. The bones of the fore arm are the radius and ulna: these are nearly of the same size; in this they differ from the leg bones.
The wrist, composed of eight bones, forms the support for the tendons, blood vessels, and nerves which pass to the hand. To these are attached the metacarpal bones which support the phalanges, or bones of the fingers. The arrangement of the bones of the foot is, in many respects, like that of the hand. However, the bones of the foot form an arch which acts like a spring when the weight of the body falls on it, thus helping to ward off shocks and jars.
The skull is a large bony case in which the brain is lodged, and by which it is protected. It is composed of several pieces firmly united by a very irregular line of union. The attachments of the skull are the jaw bones, nasal bones, and the cheek bones.
Joints have been provided wherever parts of the skeleton require motion; they are of several kinds, chief among which are the ball and socket, hinge, and flat joints. The hip has been mentioned as a perfect example of the ball and socket joint, while the knee presents an example of the hinge.
Muscles are necessary to all motion, and are found everywhere throughout the body. They are the active agents, which, under the control of the nerve centers, do all the work necessary to carrying on the functions of the organs. They are endowed with a remarkable property called contraction. How this is accomplished is not fully understood, but when stimulated by nerve force or electricity they shorten and widen. This brings their ends nearer together; also the parts to which they are attached. They are always attached to movable parts; their attachment is a tendon at one end, and a fan-like distribution of their fibers at the other. Tendons are inelastic fibrous tissue, very strong, and consequently much smaller than the muscle. They are to muscles what tugs are to horses. Muscles are either flexors or extensors; the former bend the joints, the latter straighten them.
The skin forms an exterior covering for the body, and is employed for other and very important functions. Its appendages are the hair and nails. Some of the uses of the skin are these: It is highly sensitive and capable of distinguishing various sensations; it has the property of excreting, of secreting, and of absorbing. It is an organized texture containing blood vessels, glands and nerves. It is composed of several layers; the outside, called the epidermis, is not supplied with blood vessels, and is produced by the under layers.
The glands of the skin are first, those which secrete the perspiration. This is poured out to keep the temperature of the body even, also to rid the circulation of many injurious substances. Then there are glands which secrete an oily matter which aids in preserving the softness and pliability of the skin. These glands are called sebaceous glands. Hair is said to be an appendage of the skin because its texture is essentially similar to that of the cuticle. Nails, also, are but modifications of the skin. The fact that the epidermis is being constantly cast off and renewed, and that matter is both secreted and excreted continually, renders frequent washing of the skin necessary to health.
Digestion—In animals the arrangements which exist for converting aliment into blood are more or less complicated according to the requirements of each class; and this conversion is called assimilation, a term which includes digestion and those changes which take place in the blood and tissues, by which new material is added to them.
The preparation of the food for assimilation by the tissues is accomplished in a long tube called the alimentary canal. This canal is made up of various parts having different functions and different construction. These parts we will briefly describe. They are the mouth, pharynx, æsophagus, stomach, small and large intestine.
As solid food requires to be broken up or ground before it passes into the stomach, the mouth is provided with teeth firmly implanted in the jaws, while the lower jaw is moved by strong muscles in two directions, one vertical, the other lateral. Man is supplied with two sets of teeth; the first adapted to the jaws of childhood; the second larger, which replace the former, are designed to last through life. The rudiments of each set are found in the jaws before birth. During the grinding or mastication of the food it is moistened and softened by a fluid called saliva. This also acts chemically upon it, changing the starch into sugar. The food is carried from the mouth to the stomach in a long tube called the æsophagus, by means of the muscular contraction of this tube.
The stomach is a flask-shaped organ consisting of a double wall of tissue, the outer one being muscular, the inner one vascular. This latter membrane has a large supply of blood vessels, which convey the blood out of which the gastric juice is manufactured and secreted by the little glands of this membrane. The gastric juice is a fluid which contains an active ingredient called pepsin. This, aided by the acid which this fluid contains, effects a remarkable change on the albumen of the food, making it a liquid. From the stomach the food passes into the small intestine, where it receives from a small tube the pancreatic juice which changes the fat into an emulsion.
The intestine is a tube, about twenty-five feet in length, which, like the stomach, has a double wall. Its inner coat contains multitudes of little projections called “villi.” These contain blood vessels which absorb and carry off the liquified food. It also secretes a fluid called intestinal juice, which acts upon the unchanged starch, making it into sugar. Its muscular wall by a continuous contraction produces a motion known as the “peristaltic motion,” which carries the food onward in its course. The intestine also receives the bile, a fluid produced by the liver.
The liver is the largest gland in the body. It receives the portal vein which conveys the blood from the intestines. This vein, after dividing and sub-dividing, thus bringing blood into communication with all parts of this organ, is again collected into a main trunk which passes on toward the heart. During its passage through the liver the bile is eliminated from the blood by the little cells of which this gland is composed. From the liver the bile is carried toward the intestine, into which it is poured to assist in digesting the food, and to be itself changed.
Besides the little blood vessels in the villi of the intestines there is another set of vessels called the lacteals, which aid in taking up the digested food and pouring it into the circulation; also, throughout the body a set of similar vessels collect the waste material and pour it into the great veins, returning to the heart, in order that it may be renovated or cast off; these are the lymphatics.
The kidneys are great excretory organs, and are similar in shape to those of a sheep, but are somewhat larger. They are glands, and excrete urea, as well as other salts and waste materials, all of which are highly poisonous if not removed from the blood.
Blood is the life-giving fluid of the body: it is the source from which all tissues are built, and it is the workman that carries the waste material away from the tissues. In order to accomplish its work it must circulate, and this requires a separate set of organs. First, the impure blood must be carried back from the different parts of the body; then it must be distributed again. It must also be made to flow onward in a continuous current. Blood is a viscid fluid, of a red color, containing over seventy per cent. water, with solid matter. Its color differs on each side of the heart. When it returns from the body it is blue, but when it leaves it is red. Under the microscope it is seen to contain minute globules, or disk-like cells; to these the blood owes its color. It possesses the remarkable property of spontaneous coagulation when drawn from the veins. It is forced on by the heart.
The heart is a muscle and consists of four cavities; two called auricles having weak walls, and two ventricles with strong muscular walls. The blood returning from the body is poured into the right auricle, thence into the right ventricle; from this cavity it is forced through the lungs and returns again to the heart, being poured into the left auricle, which empties into the left ventricle. This ventricle forces the blood throughout the body. The blood received by the heart from the body is impure, and is sent to the lungs, where it gives up part of its impurities and receives oxygen from the air.
Arteries are those vessels that distribute the blood, while the veins collect it and return it to the heart, thus all streams of blood leaving the heart are conveyed in arteries, and those pouring into it are carried in veins.
The lungs are the organs that purify the blood, and in order that this be thoroughly done, the blood is distributed throughout their substance in minute capillary vessels. The lungs themselves are vascular; being made up of a multitude of air cells, their surface is greatly increased; hence their power of absorption. The diaphragm is a muscular partition lying below the lungs. It is dome-shaped, and when its fibers are shortened it enlarges the cavity in which the lungs are situated. This creates a partial vacuum, causing the air to rush into the lungs. The blood absorbs the oxygen from the air and gives up carbonic acid gas. When the muscles of the diaphragm are relaxed the elastic force of the air cells in the lungs expels the remaining gases from the lungs. The diaphragm is assisted by the action of muscles situated between the ribs; these lift the ribs and enlarge the cavity of the thorax. The lungs also act as a reservoir for the air used in the production of vocal sounds. They communicate with the atmosphere by means of a tube called the trachea; this terminates in the pharynx, with which the nostrils also communicate, thus completing a passage to the outside air.
The voice is produced by the modifications which the teeth, tongue, lips and throat make upon the sound produced by the vocal cords. The vocal cords are stretched across the upper end of the trachea, which is called the larynx. The air from the lungs is forced past them, setting them in vibration, thus producing sound.
The nervous system consists first of all of the brain. This is composed of nervous matter and constitutes the mass contained in the skull. It is divided into three parts: the cerebrum, the cerebellum, and the medulla oblongata. These three parts seem to preside over different functions. Thus, the cerebrum is the seat of the faculties of the mind, while the cerebellum presides over the muscular actions. The brain is connected with distant parts of the body by means of fibers which are distributed to all parts. These fibers are of two kinds, one set carrying the impressions to the brain, the other carrying the stimulus from the brain to the organs. The former are called sensitive, the latter motor nerves. A deep fissure separates the brain into two lateral halves, and these parts are connected with opposite sides of the body. Besides these nerves, which originate in the brain and pass through the spinal cord, there are twelve pairs that pass directly through the skull to the organs which they supply. These are called cranial nerves, and are distributed to the eyes, the nose, the ears, the larynx, the lungs, the face, stomach, etc. Ten of these pairs of nerves originate in the medulla oblongata. Of the functions presided over by these nerves may be mentioned those performed by the tongue, (taste), eyes, ears, and nose.
Many of these nerves are not sensitive, in the ordinary use of the word. Thus, the retina of the eye is the expansion of the optic nerve, and, while it is sensitive to light, it is not to ordinary impressions, such as material contact. Also, the nerve of the ear is only sensitive to the vibrations of fluids. We see by light reflected from objects. This light passes through a set of lenses, and by means of these an image is formed on the retina, which impression is carried to the brain. Just how all this is accomplished is not known. The nerve of the ear floats in a fluid called lymph. This fluid receives the vibrations of bodies through the air, through the membranes and chain of bones, and thus the nerves receive and transmit them to the brain, which act constitutes hearing.
Volumes could not tell all that one single fiber of muscle contains that is instructive, much less the entire functions, constructions, and mysteries of a single organ of special sense. And to perform all the allotted functions every part must be in the best repair. This constitutes health. Health is maintained by cleanliness, by repose, by muscular activity, by moderate eating, by plenty of fresh air, by a contented disposition, and a clear and active mind. Watch over your body with a jealous care, for all your future depends upon its good condition.
[SUNDAY READINGS.]
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SELECTED BY THE REV. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.
[April 1.]
THE LAW OF THE HOUSEHOLD.
By E. A. WASHBURN, D.D.
“Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”—Exod. xx: 12.
We open this second division of the Law with the duties of man to man; and at its head stands the commandment of the household. I must repeat here the remark of eminent scholars, that each of the original tables probably contained five statutes; and thus the maxim we now consider was directly joined with the four concerning the worship of God. Such a view gives us indeed a new insight into the Hebrew religion, which linked the first of social truths with a divine faith; it is the anticipation of his Gospel, who has taught us that the love of parent and children is the type of our holier bond in the family of Christ. But there is a yet further thought in the words of this “commandment with promise.” That “thy days maybe long in the land.” Those earlier commandments tower above us like the lonely heights, where Moses communed with God; but as we read this sentence, we see rise on the eyes of the lawgiver the landscape of far Judea, with its laughing fields, the voice of children and the home of calm old age. These words suggest the whole line of our reasoning on this subject. Filial reverence is the fountain of all affections, all duties; it flows like the river of Eden, parted into its branching heads, through every channel of human life.
It is then the family, as the institution which God has implanted in our nature, and Christianity has hallowed, that we are to consider. I know indeed no richer study than thus to trace its growth. I have no theories to offer you. It is the simplest of facts. There has been no more favorite field for our philosophers than that of the origin of human government. Some have fancied that men met together in formal compact; others have held the state of nature that of a pack of wolves, at last brought together by self-interest to choose some kingly wolf, who could keep the peace; and we have to-day our sages, so enamored of their researches into comparative anatomy, that they can pass by all the nobler facts of social history, and find the primitive man in some anthropoid ape. Yet as the grandest laws of God are revealed in the nearest example, we learn more than volumes of such theory in the life of our own households. Government began with the family. It is no artificial thing. It was not imposed by force. There is no state of nature that goes before it; but as all our discoveries in organic life lead to the primary cell, so all social formations are only the enlargement of this little human embryo. We need no other truth than that he, who gave us this moral being, made us to dwell in mutual dependence; and thus the germ of all authority lies in the relation of parent and child, in the care it calls forth, in the weakness of infancy, and the natural reverence that springs from the heart. Open the Book of the Genesis; you see the patriarch Abraham dwelling in the tent with his children; you see this household passing into tribes, linked in a bond of brotherhood, reverencing the father of them all, who is priest and head; and you trace further on a Mosaic commonwealth. History repeats the same early chapter in the Arab of the desert to-day, or in the beginnings of ancient Rome. “Society in primitive times,” it is said by one of the wisest of English jurists, in his work on Ancient Law, “was not a collection of individuals; it was an aggregation of families.” Among all early peoples the law of the household is thus supreme; it embraces all duties, and reaches to the nicest detail of courtesy. The oldest laws of China are as rich in their family wisdom as any in the world. Filial reverence was the corner-stone of the state. I well remember with what surprise I saw the son of a venerable Parsee, himself a man of fifty, wait behind his father’s chair during a long interview; it was a vestige of the stately manners of the East, strangely contrasting with our civilized rudeness. But if we will find the finest examples in the past, we must turn to those scenes in the Old Testament, where the aged patriarch lays his hands on his eldest born in token of his birth-right, or the twelve gather reverently about the bed of the dying Jacob to receive his blessing. In this household life, interwoven with all their social habits, the heart of the Hebrew was nursed; and in many a quiet home, like that of Nazareth, there grew the blossoming graces of childhood, that made this history so pure amidst all its decays.
But we must pass from this earlier view to the new life of Christianity, if we would know its nobler influence. Many pure affections and virtues grew without doubt in a heathen civilization. But the family authority was almost a despotism; the father had power of life and death over the child, and woman was little more than a slave. The one great feature of all social progress, we are told by the jurist already cited, has been the recognition of the rights of the person, instead of absolute family dependence. Here it was that the religion of the Gospel had its living power, and I ask you to study this wonderful fact in its early history. As we look back on the state of society at that time, we are struck everywhere with the decay of those fair examples of chastity, of maternal virtue, of household strength which bloomed in the old Roman commonwealth. Family life had withered, because it had not in its ancient pagan form those elements which could preserve its influence amidst the shameless sensuality of the world. The public talk of the forum, the theater, the games, the busy out-of-door existence, such as you see to-day in Southern Europe, were everything; nor was there a purer tide flowing into the great city, as from the country homes of England and America, to cleanse and freshen it. Religion was a brilliant temple pageantry. Thus, as in all pagan lands, you have the same striking facts; the degradation of woman and the degradation of man with it. This it was that the religion of Christ changed. It taught, as its first truth, that God was our Father, and all men one brotherhood in Christ. What a revelation was this beyond all that the pagan mind had known! The paternal power was no longer a despotism to the believer; the father knew that he had a Father in heaven, and that his child was no serf, but the household tie was a type of the holier family of God. Read that clear utterance of the household law in St. Paul: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord; fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.” The Gospel cherished above all else the family authority; yet it hallowed, sweetened, enlarged it. It nursed the virtues of the household. It made woman the companion of the heart and home; it hallowed marriage; it taught the love of Christ and the brethren, contentment, industry, frugality, sacrifice, and charity to the poor. What picture so fair as in the letters of that time of its fresh, healthful life; that “church in the house,” breathing the soul of the early religion? The kingdom came without observation, without noise; and a new home-born, home-bred society grew in the midst of the dying civilization.
[April 8.]
THE LAW OF THE HOUSEHOLD.
In this light, then, we can understand, brethren, the place of the Christian family, as always the first of social institutions. Such is the view I wish to urge, because I believe that, far more than we suppose, this law of the family enters into the most real questions of our time as to popular education or social reform. We live in a day of theories; and in such a day we are most apt to forget the simple truths, which, in Coleridge’s words, “are so true, that they lie bed-ridden by the side of the most exploded errors.” I speak no mere sentiment; I address myself to the plain sense and Christian experience of all. It is the problem that presses on us to-day more than ever, when we look at the mingled good and evil of our modern world; when we enter one of our great cities, where wealth glitters as if there were no suffering, yet a step apart there lurks a world of beggary and crime, which our Christianity has hardly pierced, although it has sent a Livingston into the heart of Africa;—what is the hope of Christian more than pagan progress, of a Paris or New York more than a Rome? I give the answer, which I think all history as well as the Gospel gives. The purity of the household is the salt of our civilization. I know no other answer. Need I then, state the ground on which such a truth rests? The only lasting influence which can preserve or heal the social body is one that works from the root. We can not, with dreamers like Rousseau, believe the savage better than the civilized state. Art and science bring manifold vices with the good, yet we can never grapple with the sins of our day by vague railing against luxury. In the decaying age of the Roman world a Jerome retired into his cave at Bethlehem; but his idle despair did not cure the evil. We often indulge the same false humor. We speak of a London or a New York as the swollen ulcer of society, but we forget that we may as well talk of a body without its brain; that it is in mutual circulation, the country feeding the city with fresh blood, the city pouring it back enriched in its double circuit, the life is maintained; and thus while we see the vices, we should see also the enlarged activities, the myriad callings for the poor, the treasures of art and culture for all, the uncounted charities walking in every haunt of sorrow or sin. But this growth of civilization has in it no self-preserving might. A refined culture is no safeguard against our moral diseases. We repeat often that this American people is abler to keep its freedom and virtue, because of the education of all: yet it is one of those surface truths that may cover a fallacy. I believe heartily in popular education. But there is a more knowing vice as well as virtue. The mob of Paris is more intelligent than the country boor; but it is a witty and polished animal. Such training, without a deeper root, only quickens the weeds in the rank field of our time, and chokes the public conscience.
Whatever, then, the form of our civilization, it must depend on the tone of our household life for its healthy growth, because this precedes all else in its shaping power. All the germs of personal character, truth, purity, honesty, reverence of law, must be implanted in this soil. The state rests on it. The church rests on it, and its teaching is barren, unless it begin with home nurture. We may make what laws we will for the suppression of vice, what plans we will of education, what better methods of industry; but what are they without the education of the character? What is our most perfect theory of government, unless there be a self-governed people? What are commercial rules, if there be no conscience of integrity and honor? Study this truth in its widest bearings. Our time is marked by its noble efforts for reform. We hail each healthy improvement in the condition of the poor, the opening of new channels of labor, the breaking down of false monopolies.
It is thus, my friends, we are to learn the bearing of such a truth on our own land and time. We can not study the growth of society, especially in our great cities, without observing that there are many influences, such as I have already described in the old Pagan civilization, which tend to impair the purity of home. The family habits decay in the larger world of sensual splendor. It is becoming a hard thing for our young men of fashion to afford the luxury of marriage; and our young women learn that the aim of life is a rich husband, who can supply the gold for the wardrobe and the glitter of an establishment. We have imported from abroad within these few years many of the loose ideas of modern Epicurism. But there are, besides, influences peculiar to our American society, which are developing a type of precocious youth not pleasant to look upon. I know not whether it be the abuse of our free institutions, that begets our style of manners: but we are too fast losing the habits of home authority and filial reverence. It has been truly said of us, that we have as much family government as ever, but the young govern the parents. We have no children now-a-days. Our infants leap from the nursery into the drawing-room; and while abroad a son or a daughter has hardly left the retreat of home, here they are already veterans in the ways of fashion, and society is quite surrendered to them. Many of our foreign visitors have repeated the remark of De Tocqueville, that an American girl has more of self-poised ease, but is wanting in the fresh charm seen so often in the young maidens of England or France. I doubt not there is a better side to this. I would not keep them, as is too often done abroad, shut in nursery or convent without the education of the character. I love the intelligence, the generous freedom of youth, but I wish we might not lose with these the modest heart, the simple tastes of past years. It maybe the passing excess of our national childhood, but it is not to be flattered as it is too often. I know that I am very old-fashioned in my ideas, yet it may be well if we soberly reflect on these things. We may grow in wealth and all the arts of social culture, but let these fast habits of the time, this whirl of our modern life eat into the heart of our home piety, and the whole body must die of its own gangrenes.
In that conviction I urge on you, my friends, your personal obligation. Who of us can enough appreciate its meaning? Who of us, if he could keep afresh the feeling of awe and tenderness with which he looked on the face of his first-born infant, and felt what an undiscovered world was opened to him, who would ever need to learn his duty? What a work it is, how ceaseless, how growing at each step, how delicate in all its adaptations, how asking all our love, our thoughtfulness, our patience! I offer you no system of education. I repeat only the principle, which I thank God is the root of all wholesome teaching, that a Christian godliness is the growth of the whole character; and therefore it begins with the recognition of the child as a new-born member of the family of Christ; and plants its simplest truths in the moral affections, and blends them with the real duties of life. This is sound sense and piety. This, in Wordsworth’s happy line, is
Pure religion breathing household laws.
Give your offspring this training of the character; teach them to be frank and open-hearted, to hate a lie or a mean action, to be kind to the poor, to protect the weaker, to respect gray hairs, to reverence your authority from love not fear, to cherish the natural pleasures and employments of home, a book or a ramble more than the finery of modish children young or old; above all to be always constant in their Christian habits, with no affectations of a premature piety, with a child’s faults, but a child’s sweet faith; give them, I say, this training, if you will have them men and women indeed.
[April 15.]
FINDING AND BRINGING.
By the Rev. WILLIAM M. TAYLOR, D.D.
It is a great thing when a man “finds” Christ. Now, in working out this thought, we must have a clear idea of what we mean by “finding” Christ. Andrew and John were in visible and bodily contact with Jesus, and it might seem, therefore, that it was an easier thing to come to Christ when he was on earth, than it is now, when he is enthroned in heaven. But that is a mistake. Many came to converse with him when he lived in the world, who yet failed to find the Savior in him. Multitudes might be pushed into contact with him that day when the poor woman timidly sought a cure by touching his clothes; but it was to her alone that he referred when he said, “Somebody hath touched me.” Therefore, the contact in her case must have been something more than physical, and could be nothing else than the application of her soul to him in simple faith for healing.
In like manner, the finding of the Messiah by Andrew and John must have been something else than their coming into conversation with him, and could be nothing less than a description of the fact that they were intellectually convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah, and were sincerely willing to accept him as their Savior and guide.
But the presence of Jesus in actual humanity before us is not essential to the exercise of such confidence as that; and so soon as a man becomes convinced that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and is willing to accept salvation at his hands, he “finds” Christ just as truly as he was found by Andrew and John, as recorded in this section of the sacred narrative. Now, when a man “finds” Christ thus, it is for him the greatest event of his life, dominating and directing every after-circumstance in his career.
How much the history of the world has been affected by the discoveries which men have made! Take a few. The discovery of America; the invention of printing; the discovery of the power of steam, and the manifold application of the steam-engine; the invention of the telegraph: who shall say how much all these have done for the progress of civilization? But put them all together, they have not done so great things for the world at large as the discovery of Christ does for every soul that “finds” him. It opens up a whole new world for his exploration; it enstamps a new name and nature upon his heart; it brings him under the influence of a motive principle which “laughs at impossibilities,” and removes mountains; and it gives him a means of communication with the unseen as real, as mysterious, and as immediate as that hidden cable whereon the messages of two hemispheres vibrate in response to each other. It relieves his conscience from the weight of guilt; it elevates his intellect; it purifies his affections; it forms his character; it gives a new aim to his life and new center to his heart, and brings him so under the constraining influence of the love of Christ, that, while retaining the great outstanding marks of his individuality, he may yet truly be said to be a new man. See how this comes out in Paul. Converted or unconverted, the man of Tarsus would still have been a leader of his fellows. But mark how, after he has found Christ, his whole being goes into a new direction, and becomes transfigured and ennobled by the change. His energy becomes sublimed, his ambition purified, his nature elevated. Behold, also, how it appears in Peter! What a contrast between the fisherman and the Apostle! And how much this discovery of Christ made by him, through Andrew’s guidance, did to give him character and influence among men! Had he never found the Messiah, who had ever heard his name. But from this hour he begins to be illustrious! Said I not truly, therefore, that it is a great thing when a man finds Christ? It is indeed the very greatest thing for safety, for happiness, for usefulness, for honor, that can be said of any man, when it is affirmed of him that he has found Christ. My hearer, can it be truly said of you?
Notice, thirdly, that when a man has found Christ, he ought to bring others to Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to tell to another the good news which had already thrilled his own heart. So Philip, as recorded in this same chapter, found Nathanael, and repeated this same news to him. Indeed, it is quite worthy of note how often this “finding” occurs in this delightful narrative. Andrew “findeth” Messiah; then he “findeth” his brother. Jesus “findeth” Philip; and Philip “findeth” Nathanael. So that, as Trench has beautifully said, in allusion to the well-known exclamation of Archimedes in connection with one of his discoveries, this “is the chapter of the Eurekas.”[I] “I have found him! I have found him!” Indeed, the promptings of one’s own nature here are in perfect accordance with the commands of the Lord; for we can not but tell to others the tidings which have made us glad; and in proportion to the happiness which they have produced in us, will be our eagerness to make others sharers with us in our delight. As Matthew Henry says here, “True grace hates all monopolies, and loves not to eat its morsels alone.” The woman of Samaria ran to tell her townspeople of the great Messiah, and the disciples who were scattered abroad by the first persecution “went everywhere preaching the Word.” The command is, “Let him that heareth say, Come!” and every Christian should become thus a missionary of the Cross. Indeed, we have not rightly heard, if there is not within us an impulse to say “Come.” If there be no enthusiasm within us for the diffusion of the Gospel, or the conversion of sinners, we make it only too apparent that we have not the spirit of Christ; but if our souls are stirred at the sight of our perishing fellow-men, and our hearts prompt us to make efforts for their salvation, we prove that we are in sympathy with those celestial beings among whom there is “joy over one sinner that repenteth,” and that the same mind is in us which was in him who died that men might be redeemed.
“As ye go, preach.” “Go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.” These are what the Great Duke once styled the “marching orders” of believers; and it is at our peril, if we refuse to carry them out. But when the word “preach” is used, let us beware of supposing that we need all the outward accessories of a crowded congregation and a modern church, in order to obey this command. The meaning simply is, that we should tell the good news as we have opportunity. We may “preach” by conversing with our friend as we walk down with him to business in the morning, or by an incidental remark introduced, not obtrusively and impertinently, but naturally and lovingly, as we talk with our fellow-traveler in the steamboat or in the railway car; or by the giving of an interesting volume that contains the truth to some ingenuous youth upon his birthday; or by repeating at the couch of some sick one the leading portions of a sermon which we have just heard in the sanctuary; or by teaching a class in the Sabbath-school; or by bringing a friend with us to church where we know that the faithful preacher will be sure to have some word that will point out the way to the Cross; or even, without a word at all, we may preach the most eloquent and powerful of all sermons, by simply living for Jesus where we are. There is a sphere for every one; and none can claim exemption from this great Gospel law, “As ye go, preach.”
But who would desire exemption when there is so great need for the exertions of all? See how earnest the apostles of evil are to allure men to destruction, through one or other of the several avenues that lead to death; and shall we be less eager to labor for their salvation? Behold how indefatigable are the endeavors of those who live to spread abroad the news of every day! What telegraphic agencies they use to bring to this one center the record of important occurrences the world over! What magnificent machinery they employ to multiply the number of impressions of their journals! And how eager they are to send forth their messengers in the gray morning twilight, to leave at every door their daily photographs of God’s providence as it reveals itself to their eyes—alas! not always clear enough to read it right. Shall they be so enthusiastic about the news of earth, and we be inactive with the better news of the Gospel? It is told of the commentator Thomas Scott that, as he went to preach in a church in Lothbury at six o’clock in the morning, he used to observe that, if at any time in his early walk he was tempted to complain, the sight of the newsmen, equally alert, and for a very different object, changed his repining into thanksgiving. So, every time we take up a newspaper let us feel reproved for our remissness in telling the good news of God’s salvation to our fellow-men; let us be stirred up to self-sacrifice and devotion in this glorious cause, and let us resolve to do our utmost in bringing others to the Savior whom we have found for ourselves.
Notice, in the fourth place, that, in seeking to bring others to Jesus, we should begin with those most intimately connected with us. Andrew first went to find Simon, his “own brother.” In like manner, Philip sought his friend Nathanael. And the Lord Jesus himself laid down the same general law when he commissioned his disciples to preach repentance and the remission of sins “among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” Now, this is a point of pre-eminent importance; for among those who really desire to be useful in the world the idea is too common, that they must go somewhere else than where they are in order to find their proper and peculiar work. They look so far away, and so high up, for a missionary field, that they overlook the work that is already waiting for them just at their feet. Thus, while professing to be eager for labor, they are standing in the market-place, “all the day idle.”
[April 22.]
FINDING AND BRINGING.
In spiritual activity, as in all other matters, it is a good rule to begin at the beginning. How many, in trying to learn some of the sciences—say geology, for example—have disdained the use of hand-books for the mastering of the elements, and, plunging at once into some elaborate treatise, which presupposed familiar acquaintance with the rudiments, have felt themselves unable to understand it, and have thrown up the whole study in disgust! Now, it is just thus many do in Christian work. They begin at the wrong place, and so they speedily become discouraged. Work from the center out, and the radii of your influence will go out to every point of the circumference; but if, leaving your own proper center, you take your station somewhere on the circumference, your labor will produce very little result. Now, home is the center of every man’s sphere; and it is there he must begin to work for Jesus. Let the husband begin with the wife, and the wife with the husband; the parents with the children; and the children, where need is, lovingly and humbly, with the parents; the brother with his sister; and the sister with her brother. Then, when the home sphere is filled up, let your life’s influence flow over, and seek to benefit those with whom you are coming into daily business contact. Thus the branches of your vine will “run over the wall,” and your sphere will widen ever with your endeavors.
“Oh yes!” you will say to me, “that may be all very true. But it is far more difficult thus to begin at home than to commence abroad. I would rather teach a class in the mission-school than to speak to my own family about Jesus. I would almost sooner address a meeting than make a private appeal to my brother or my sister.” But why is this? Surely it can not be because you love those who are nearest to you less than you do those who are farther away! Can it be because you would get more prominence and honor among men, by working abroad, than you could secure by laboring at home? Or is it because you are conscious that your home conduct would destroy the influence of any teachings on which you might venture there? You know best. But whatever be its cause, let me beseech you to revise your whole procedure, and make home the headquarters of your effort. Can it be that there are here a wife and husband who have never had one hour of heart communion with each other on this all-important matter? If there be, may God himself in some way break that silence that has sealed their tongues; and let us all rest assured that the truest revival of religion will be gained when our church members are resolved to test what shall be the result of beginning to labor thus for Christ at home.
We are making far too little in these days of the Church in the house. We are waiting for our children to be converted by outside influences, when, if we were to look at the matter rightly, it should be our ambition to be ourselves the leaders of our sons and daughters to the Lord. Some years ago I read an account of the manner in which a cold church was stirred into warmth and vitality; and as it bears directly on the point to which I am now referring, I will take the liberty of introducing it here. At one of the conference meetings, a simple man, not remarkable for fluency or correctness of speech, made an appeal something to the following effect: “I feel, brethren, real bad about the people who don’t love the Lord Jesus Christ here in our own neighborhood. We’re not as we ought to be, that’s very certain, but it’s hard work rowing against the stream. We find that out when we talk to men about religion on Sunday who haven’t any religion all the week. They don’t mind us. And just so with the young folks. Their minds all seem running one way. Now, what’s to be done? Not much with the grown folks, for they aren’t controlled by us, and we can only drop a word now and then, and pray for them. But here’s our own children. I have four boys, and only one of them comes to the communion with his mother and me. And I don’t think I have done my duty to those younger boys. They love me, and God knows I love them; but I kind o’ hate to speak to them about religion. But rather than see them go farther without my Jesus for their Jesus, I’m going to ask them to join him. I’m going to pray with them; and if I can’t tell them all they want to know, why, our minister can. Brethren, I’m going to try to turn the stream for my boys. Home is the head of the river. I mean to begin to-night. Won’t some father do like me with his boys, and give me his word out?” Scarcely had he seated himself, when, one after another, some thirty people pledged themselves, saying, “I’ll do the same at my house;” and the pledge was kept. In a short time the minister’s labors began to tell as they had never done before. The influence spread, but there was no excitement. On the occasion of the communion service, from family after family, one and another came to enroll themselves among the followers of Jesus, and nearly every one that came was under twenty-five years of age. So, through revived home effort, the work of God was stimulated both in the church and in the neighborhood. My friends, this witness is true, “Home is the head of the river.” Is there no one here to-night who will join in the resolution made by that earnest man, and say, “By the grace of God I’ll do the same at my house?”
Notice, finally, that in following this plan of working for Christ we may, all unconsciously to ourselves, be the means of introducing to Jesus one who will be of far more service than ever we could have been. It was Simon Peter whom Andrew brought to Christ. We do not hear much in the New Testament of Andrew’s after-history, but if he had never done anything else than lead his brother to the Lord, it was worth living for just to do that; and when we get to heaven, we shall see that the lustre of Peter’s crown casts special radiance on Andrew’s face. When we read of the conversions on the Day of Pentecost; of the heroic protest before the council; of the conversion of Cornelius; and above all, when we peruse those two precious letters which Peter has indited, let us not forget that, humanly speaking, but for Andrew, Peter would not have been himself a Christian. Doubtless, God could have called him by some other instrumentality, but he made use of Andrew to teach us the lesson that, in doing the good that lies at our hands, we may at length really do more for the Church than we could have effected by more ostentatious effort in other places. Let the lowly and timid, therefore, take courage. They may not have shining talents or commanding position, yet by working where they are they may be honored in bringing to Jesus some who shall take foremost places in the Church, or become leaders in some missionary or evangelistic movement.
Many of the greatest men the Church has known have been converted through the agency of individuals all but unknown. A humble dissenting minister, whose name was scarcely heard of a few miles from his manse, was honored to be of signal service to Thomas Chalmers in the crisis-hour of his history; and I have heard Mr. Spurgeon tell how he was led to the Lord by a sermon preached by an unlettered man in a Primitive Methodist chapel.
Some of the greatest theologians the Church has ever seen, and some of the most useful ministers who have ever lived, have been made and molded by so common a thing as a mother’s influence. Robert Pollok, whose “Course of Time” used to be a household book throughout Scotland, said once of his poem, “It has my mother’s divinity in it.” Mother, will you take note of that? Many a time you have regretted that you could not take part in any public work for Christ, by reason of the bond that held you to your boy. Regret no more, but bring that boy to Christ, and he will live to do his own work and his mother’s too; and when the crown is placed upon his head its diamonds will flash new glory upon your countenance.
The sum of what we have been saying, then, is this: that each of us should begin to do all that he can, where he is, for Christ. But if we would succeed in that effort, we must be sure that we have already found him for ourselves. A minister had preached a simple sermon upon the text, “He brought him to Jesus;” and as he was going home, his daughter, walking by his side, began to speak of what she had been hearing. She said, “I did so like that sermon.” “Well,” inquired her father, “whom are you going to bring to Jesus?” A thoughtful expression came over her countenance as she replied, “I think, papa, that I will just bring myself to him.” “Capital!” said her father, “that will do admirably for a beginning.” This, brethren, is the true starting-point. We must be good, if we would do good. Bring yourselves to Jesus, therefore; and, as iron by being rubbed upon a magnet, becomes itself magnetic, so you, being united to Christ, will become partakers in his attractive power, and will draw men with “the cords of a man,” which are also “the bands of love.”
[April 29.]
FAITH THE SOLE SAVING ACT.
By WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD, D.D.
In asking their question, the Jews intended to inquire of Christ what particular things they must do, before all others, in order to please God. The “works of God,” as they denominate them, were not any and every duty, but those more special and important acts, by which the creature might secure the Divine approval and favor. Our Lord understood their question in this sense, and in his reply tells them, that the great and only work for them to do was to exercise faith in him. They had employed the plural number in their question; but in his answer he employs the singular. They had asked, “What shall we do that we might work the works of God,” as if there were several of them. His reply is, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” He narrows down the terms of salvation to a single one; and makes the destiny of the soul to depend upon the performance of a particular individual act. In this, as in many other incidental ways, our Lord teaches his own divinity. If he were a mere creature; if he were only an inspired teacher like David or Paul; how would he dare, when asked to give in a single word the condition and means of human salvation, to say that they consist in resting the soul upon him? Would David have dared to say: “This is the work of God,—this is the saving act,—that ye believe in me?” Would Paul have presumed to say to the anxious inquirer: “Your soul is safe, if you trust in me?” But Christ makes this declaration, without any qualification. Yet he was meek and lowly of heart, and never assumed an honor or a prerogative that did not belong to him. It is only upon the supposition that he was “very God of very God,” the Divine Redeemer of the children of men, that we can justify such an answer to such a question.
The belief is spontaneous and natural to man, that something must be done in order to salvation. No man expects to reach heaven by inaction. Even the indifferent and supine soul expects to rouse itself up at some future time, and work out its salvation. The most thoughtless and inactive man, in religious respects, will acknowledge that thoughtlessness and inactivity if continued will end in perdition. But he intends at a future day to think, and act, and be saved. So natural is it, to every man, to believe in salvation by works; so ready is every one to conceive that heaven is reached, and hell is escaped, only by an earnest effort of some kind; so natural is it to every man to ask with these Jews, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”
But mankind generally, like the Jews in the days of our Lord, are under a delusion respecting the nature of the work which must be performed in order to salvation. And in order to understand this delusion, we must first examine the common notion upon the subject.
When a man begins to think of God, and of his own relations to him, he finds that he owes him service and obedience. He has a work to perform, as a subject of the Divine government; and this work is to obey the Divine law. He finds himself obligated to love God with all his heart, and his neighbor as himself, and to discharge all the duties that spring out of his relations to God and man. He perceives that this is the “work” given him to do by creation, and that if he does it he will attain the true end of his existence and be happy in time and eternity. When therefore he begins to think of a religious life, his first spontaneous impulse is to begin the performance of this work which he has hitherto neglected, and to reinstate himself in the Divine favor by the ordinary method of keeping the law of God. He perceives that this is the mode in which the angels preserve themselves holy and happy: that this is the original mode appointed by God, when he established the covenant of works; and he does not see why it is not the method for him. The law expressly affirms that the man that doeth these things shall live by them; he proposes to take the law just as it reads, and just as it stands,—to do the deeds of the law, to perform the works which it enjoins, and to live by the service. This we say, is the common notion, natural to man, of the species of work which must be performed in order to eternal life. This was the idea which filled the mind of the Jews when they put the question of the text, and received for answer from Christ, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” Our Lord does not draw out the whole truth, in detail. He gives only the positive part of the answer, leaving his hearers to infer the negative part of it. For the whole doctrine of Christ, fully stated, would run thus: “No work of the kind of which you are thinking can save you; no obedience of the law, ceremonial or moral, can reinstate you in right relations to God. I do not summon you to the performance of any such service as that which you have in mind, in order to your justification and acceptance before the Divine tribunal. This is the work of God,—this is the sole and single act which you are to perform,—namely, that you believe on him whom he hath sent as a propitiation for sin. I do not summon you to works of the law, but to faith in me, the Redeemer. Your first duty is not to attempt to acquire a righteousness in the old method, by doing something of yourselves, but to receive a righteousness in the new method, by trusting in what another has done for you.”
I. What is the ground and reason of such an answer as this? Why is man invited to the method of faith in another, instead of the method of faith in himself? Why is not his first spontaneous thought the true one? Why should he not obtain eternal life by resolutely proceeding to do his duty, and keeping the law of God? Why can he not be saved by the law of works? Why is he so summarily shut up to the law of faith?
We answer: Because it is too late for him to adopt the method of salvation by works. The law is indeed explicit in its assertion, that the man that doeth these things shall live by them; but then it supposes that the man begin at the beginning. A subject of government can not disobey a civil statute for five or ten years, and then put himself in right relations to it again, by obeying it for the remainder of his life. Can a man who has been a thief or an adulterer for twenty years, and then practices honesty and purity for the following thirty years, stand up before the seventh and eighth commandments and be acquitted by them? It is too late for any being who has violated a law even in a single instance, to attempt to be justified by that law. For, the law demands and supposes that obedience begin at the very beginning of existence, and continue down uninterruptedly to the end of it. No man can come in at the middle of a process of obedience, any more than he can come in at the last end of it, if he proposes to be accepted upon the ground of obedience. “I testify,” says St. Paul, “to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law” (Gal. v: 3). The whole, or none, is the just and inexorable rule which law lays down in the matter of justification. If any subject of the Divine government can show a clean record, from the beginning to the end of his existence, the statute says to him, “Well done,” and gives him the reward which he has earned. And it gives it to him not as a matter of grace, but of debt. The law never makes a present of wages. It never pays out wages, until they are earned,—fairly and fully earned. But when a perfect obedience from first to last is rendered to its claims, the compensation follows as matter of debt. The law, in this instance, is itself brought under obligation. It owes a reward to the perfectly obedient subject of law, and it considers itself his debtor until it is paid. “Now to him that worketh, is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. If it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.”
[End of Required Reading for April.]
Translation.—A Welsh curate having preached several sermons which were considered superior to his own powers of composition, was asked by a friend how he managed? He replied: “Do you see, I have got a volume of sermons by one Tillotson, and a very good book it is; so I translate one of the sermons into Welsh, and then back again into English; after which the devil himself would not know it again.”