The Strong Staff Broken and the Beautiful Rod;
A SERMON,
DELIVERED IN THE SENATE CHAMBER, JULY 1, 1852, ON THE OCCASION OF THE FUNERAL OF THE HON. HENRY CLAY.
“How is the strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod!”—JER. xlviii. 17.
BEFORE all hearts and minds in this august assemblage the vivid image of one man stands. To some aged eye he may come forth, from the dim past, as he appeared in the neighboring city of his native state, a lithe and ardent youth, full of promise, of ambition, and of hope. To another he may appear as in a distant state, in the courts of justice, erect, high-strung, bold, wearing the fresh forensic laurel on his young and open brow. Some may see him in the earlier, and some in the later, stages of his career, on this conspicuous theatre of his renown; and to the former he will start out on the back-ground of the past, as he appeared in the neighboring chamber, tall, elate, impassioned—with flashing eye, and suasive gesture, and clarion voice, an already acknowledged ‘Agamemnon, King of Men;’ and to others he will again stand in this chamber, ‘the strong staff’ of the bewildered and staggering state, and ‘the beautiful rod,’ rich with the blossoms of genius, and of patriotic love and hope, the life of youth still remaining to give animation, grace, and exhaustless vigor, to the wisdom, the experience, and the gravity of age. To others he may be present as he sat in the chamber of sickness, cheerful, majestic, gentle—his mind clear, his heart warm, his hope fixed on Heaven, peacefully preparing for his last great change. To the memory of the minister of God he appears as the penitent, humble, and peaceful Christian, who received him with the affection of a father, and joined with him in solemn sacrament and prayer, with the gentleness of a woman, and the humility of a child. ‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness.’ ‘How is the strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod!’
But not before this assembly only does the venerated image of the departed statesman, this day, distinctly stand. For more than a thousand miles—east, west, north, and south—it is known and remembered that, at this place and hour, a nation’s representatives assemble to do honour to him whose fame is now a nation’s heritage. A nation’s mighty heart throbs against this capitol, and beats through you. In many cities banners droop, bells toll, cannons boom, funereal draperies wave. In crowded streets and on sounding wharfs, upon steamboats and upon cars, in fields and in workshops, in homes, in schools, millions of men, women, and children have their thoughts fixed upon this scene, and say mournfully to each other, ‘This is thehour in which, at the capitol, the nation’s representatives are burying Henry Clay.’ ‘Burying’ Henry Clay! Bury the records of your country’s history—bury the hearts of living millions—bury the mountains, the rivers, the lakes, and the spreading lands from sea to sea, with which his name is inseparably associated, and even then you would not bury Henry Clay—for he lives in other lands, and speaks in other tongues, and to other times than our’s.
A great mind, a great heart, a great orator, a great career, have been consigned to history. She will record his rare gifts of deep insight, keen discrimination, clear statement, rapid combination, plain, direct, and convincing logic. She will love to dwell on that large, generous, magnanimous, open, forgiving heart. She will linger, with fond delight, on the recorded and traditional stories of an eloquence that was so masterful and stirring, because it was but himself, struggling to come forth on the living words—because, though the words were brave and strong, and beautiful and melodious, it was felt that, behind them there was a soul braver, stronger, more beautiful, and more melodious, than language could express. She will point to a career of statesmanship which has, to a remarkable degree, stamped itself on the public policy of the country, and reached, in beneficent practical results, the fields, the looms, the commercial marts, and the quiet homes of all the land, where his name was, with the departed fathers, and is with the living children, and will be, with successive generations, an honored household word.
I feel, as a man, the grandeur of this career. But as an immortal, with this broken wreck of mortality before me, with this scene as the ‘end-all’ of human glory, I feel that no career is truly great but that of him who, whether he be illustrious or obscure, lives to the future in the present, and linking himself to the spiritual world, draws from God the life, the rule, the motive, and the reward of all his labor. So would that great spirit which has departed say to us, could he address us now. So did he realize, in the calm and meditative close of life. I feel that I but utter the lessons which, living, were his last and best convictions, and which, dead, would be, could he speak to us, his solemn admonitions, when I say that statesmanship is then only glorious, when it is Christian: and that man is then only safe, and true to his duty, and his soul, when the life which he lives in the flesh is the life of faith in the Son of God.
Great, indeed, is the privilege, and most honorable and useful is the career, of a Christian American statesman. He perceives that civil liberty came from the freedom wherewith Christ made its early martyrs and defenders free. He recognises it as one of the twelve manner of fruits on the Tree of Life, which, while its lower branches furnish the best nutriment of earth, hangs on its topmost boughs, which wave in Heaven, fruits that exhilarate the immortals. Recognising the state as God’s institution, he will perceive that his own ministry is divine. Living consciously under the eye, and in the love and fear of God; redeemed by the blood of Jesus; sanctifiedby His Spirit; loving His law; he will give himself, in private and in public, to the service of his Saviour. He will not admit that he may act on less lofty principles in public, than in private life; and that he must be careful of his moral influence in the small sphere of home and neighborhood, but need take no heed of it when it stretches over continents and crosses seas. He will know that his moral responsibility cannot be divided and distributed among others. When he is told that adherence to the strictest moral and religious principle is incompatible with a successful and eminent career, he will denounce the assertion as a libel on the venerated Fathers of the Republic—a libel on the honored living and the illustrious dead—a libel against a great and Christian nation—a libel against God himself, who has declared and made ‘godliness profitable for the life that now is.’ He will strive to make laws the transcripts of the character, and institutions illustrations of the providence of God. He will scan with admiration and awe the purposes of God in the future history of the world, in throwing open this wide continent, from sea to sea, as the abode of freedom, intelligence, plenty, prosperity, and peace; and feel that in giving his energies with a patriot’s love, to the welfare of his country, he is consecrating himself, with a Christian’s zeal, to the extension and establishment of the Redeemer’s kingdom. Compared with a career like this, which is equally open to those whose public sphere is large or small, how paltry are the trade of patriotism, the tricks of statesmanship, the rewards of successful baseness! This hour, this scene, the venerated dead, the country, the world, the present, the future, God, duty, Heaven, hell, speak trumpet-tongued to all in the service of their country, to beware how they lay polluted or unhallowed hands
‘Upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause!’
Such is the character of that statesmanship which alone would have met the full approval of the venerated dead. For the religion which always had a place in the convictions of his mind, had also, within a recent period, entered into his experience, and seated itself in his heart. Twenty years since he wrote—‘I am a member of no religious sect, and I am not a professor of religion. I regret that I am not. I wish that I was, and trust that I shall be. I have, and always have had, a profound regard for Christianity, the religion of my fathers, and for its rites, its usages, and observances.’ That feeling proved that the seed sown by pious parents was not dead, though stifled. A few years since, its dormant life was rëawakened. He was baptized in the communion of the Protestant Episcopal Church; and during his sojourn in this city, he was in full communion with Trinity Parish.
It is since his withdrawal from the sittings of the senate, that I have been made particularly acquainted with his religious opinions, character, and feelings. From the commencement of his illness healways expressed to me his persuasion that its termination would be fatal. From that period until his death, it was my privilege to hold frequent religious services and conversations with him in his room. He avowed to me his full faith in the great leading doctrines of the Gospel—the fall and sinfulness of man, the divinity of Christ, the reality and necessity of the Atonement, the need of being born again by the Spirit, and salvation through faith in a crucified Redeemer. His own personal hopes of salvation, he ever and distinctly based on the promises and the grace of Christ. Strikingly perceptible, on his naturally impetuous and impatient character, was the influence of grace in producing submission, and ‘a patient waiting for Christ,’ and for death. On one occasion he spoke to me of the pious example of one very near and dear to him, as that which led him deeply to feel, and earnestly to seek for himself, the reality and the blessedness of religion. On another occasion, he told me that he had been striving to form a conception of Heaven; and he enlarged upon the mercy of that provision by which our Saviour became a partaker of our humanity, that our hearts and hopes might fix themselves on him. On another occasion, when he was supposed to be very near his end, I expressed to him the hope that his mind and heart were at peace, and that he was able to rest with cheerful confidence on the promises, and in the merits of the Redeemer. He said, with much feeling, that he endeavored to, and trusted that he did repose his salvation upon Christ; that it was too late for him to look at Christianity in the light of speculation; that he had never doubted of its truth; and that he now wished to throw himself upon it as a practical and blessed remedy. Very soon after this, I administered to him the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Being extremely feeble, and desirous of having his mind undiverted, no persons were present, but his son and his servant. It was a scene long to be remembered. There, in that still chamber, at a week-day noon, the tides of life flowing all around us, three disciples of the Savior, the minister of God, the dying statesman, and his servant, a partaker of the like precious faith, commemorated their Saviour’s dying love. He joined in the blessed sacrament with great feeling and solemnity, now pressing his hands together, and now spreading them forth, as the words of the service expressed the feelings, desires, supplications, confessions, and thanksgivings, of his heart. His eyes were dim with grateful tears, his heart was full of peace and love! After this he rallied, and again I was permitted frequently to join with him in religious services, conversation, and prayer. He grew in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Among the books which, in connection with the Word of God, he read most, were ‘Jay’s Morning and Evening Exercises,’ the ‘Life of Dr. Chalmers,’ and ‘The Christian Philosopher Triumphant in Death.’ His hope continued to the end to be, though true and real, tremulous with humility rather than rapturous with assurance. When he felt most the weariness of his protracted sufferings, it sufficed to suggestto him that his Heavenly Father doubtless knew, that after a life so long and stirring, and tempted, such a discipline of chastening and suffering was needful to make him more meet for the inheritance of the saints—and at once words of meek and patient acquiescence escaped his lips.
Exhausted nature at length gave way. On the last occasion, when I was permitted to offer a brief prayer at his bedside, his last words to me were that he had hope only in Christ, and that the prayer which I had offered for his pardoning love, and his sanctifying grace, included every thing which the dying need. On the evening previous to his departure, sitting for an hour in silence by his side, I could not but realize, when I heard him, in the slight wanderings of his mind to other days, and other scenes, murmuring the words, ‘My mother! Mother! Mother!’ and saying ‘My dear wife!’ as if she were present, and frequently uttering aloud, as if in response to some silent Litany of the soul, the simple prayer, ‘Lord, have mercy upon me!’—Icould not but realize then, and rejoice to think how near was the blessed rëunion of his weary heart with the loved dead, and with her—Our dear Lord, gently smooth her passage to the tomb!—who must soon follow him to his rest—whose spirits even then seemed to visit, and to cheer his memory and his hope. Gently he breathed his soul away into the spirit world.
‘How blest the righteous when they die!
When holy souls retire to rest,
How mildly beams the closing eye,
How gently heaves the expiring breast!
‘So fades the summer cloud away,
So sinks the gale when storms are o’er,
So gently shuts the eye of day,
So dies the wave upon the shore!’
Be it ours to follow him, in the same humble and submissive faith, to heaven. Could he speak to us the counsels of his latest human, and his present heavenly, experience, sure I am that he would not only admonish us to cling to the Saviour, in sickness and in death; but abjure us not to delay to act upon our first convictions, that we might give our best powers and fullest influence to God, and go to the grave with a hope, unshadowed by the long worldliness of the past, or by the films of fear and doubt resting over the future.
The strong staff is broken, and the beautiful rod is despoiled of its grace and bloom; but in the light of the eternal promises, and by the power of Christ’s resurrection, we joyfully anticipate the prospect of seeing that broken staff erect, and that beautiful rod clothed with celestial grace, and blossoming with undying life and blessedness in the Paradise of God.