These books, and others of like character, were extensively circulated in Germany, and called the attention of the public to the benevolent faith advocated with so much learning and piety. An exciting controversy was the result; and learned men on both sides put forth all their strength for and against this controverted doctrine.
But I have not time to say more about the history of Universalism in Germany. Ever since the Reformation, that faith has been gaining adherents, and at the present time, it is almost universally entertained by the Protestants of that country. Says Dr. Dwight, in “Travels in North Germany,” “The doctrine of endless punishment is almost universally rejected. I have seen but one person who believed it.” Not only in Germany and England, but in Holland, Switzerland, France, Scotland, and in other parts of Europe, the doctrine of Universal Salvation prevailed at an early day, and at the present time is widely diffused. It exists more or less in all the Protestant denominations. There is no sect in Europe called Universalist, but the sentiment is found in all sects, and encounters very little opposition.
I also spent three weeks in the north part of Iowa. Lectured in Lyons, Marshalltown, Newton, Iowa City, Washington, and in many other places. T. C. Eaton, who resides in Des Moines, has labored very successfully in the interior of that state. He has long been in the West—has resided in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, as well as in Iowa—and wherever he has lived, has always been a faithful laborer in the Master’s vineyard. J. P. Sanford, is in Marshalltown, and is an eloquent speaker, and laborious worker. Some fifteen years since, I was introduced to him in Bentonsport, Iowa. He was then a Methodist, and asked many questions concerning the liberal faith. Six months afterward he commenced preaching, and has been in the ministry ever since. He was in the army two years during the late rebellion, and was captain, colonel, chaplain. He has traveled some in Europe, and, it is said, delivers some interesting lectures concerning “the old country.” He is also a noted masonic lecturer. In Newton met A. C. Edmonds, who resides and preaches in the place. He has spent several years in California and Oregon, traveling and preaching; has also published a denominational paper in those states. Our people have a meeting-house, also a society, in Newton. In Iowa City, the Universalists own a church edifice, and J. Kinney is pastor of the society. He is an excellent man, and the good cause prospers under his ministry.
I have labored in Iowa, more or less, most every year, for a long time, and until lately my journeys were made on horseback. In this way I have traveled over about two thirds of the state. Iowa abounds in good soil, and will, in a few years, be a rich and populous country. Now is the time to establish our beautiful faith in that young and vigorous state. It will improve the people spiritually and morally, while they are making themselves pleasant homes, and developing the resources of the land. Said a man to me in Marshalltown:
“Do you think the assassin Booth can be saved?”
“Jesus said, ‘I came to seek and save the lost.’ ‘They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.’ And the apostle Paul teaches, that Christ came to save the chief of sinners. As it was the mission of our Savior to save the lost, the morally sick, the chief of sinners, I dare not say, that even Booth cannot be saved. But if Orthodoxy is true, I had rather have Booth’s chances for heaven than Mr. Lincoln’s. The latter received his death wound without a moment’s warning, and was not conscious an instant after the fatal bullet struck his head. He belonged to no church, was not a professor of religion; and so according to Orthodoxy, died impenitent, unregenerated, a sinner, and must be lost eternally. But Booth lived one or two hours after he was wounded, and was perfectly conscious to the last moment of his life. And who knows but he repented of his great crime before he expired? And if he did, according to Orthodoxy, he went straight to heaven. But if there is any truth in Orthodoxy, Mr. Lincoln had no chance whatever, for he died ‘impenitent.’ If Partialism is true, as a general rule, murderers are saved, while the murdered are lost, for in nine cases of every ten, the latter, being killed suddenly, without any intimation of their doom, and so have not time to say ‘Lord save me,’ are eternally lost; while the former, the murderers, having timely warning of their fate, and special effort being made for their regeneration, almost invariably swing from the gallows soundly converted, and so go from the gibbet to immortal glory. It takes Orthodoxy to translate the bloody criminal into a saint, and fit him for heaven between his monstrous crime and the halter; but Universalism is required to save the murdered, the victim of his iniquity. While I was residing in St. Louis, a wretch by the name of Lamb, held with his own hands, his young and confiding wife in the Mississippi river, till she was dead. He was arrested, confessed his guilt, and was hung; and on the gallows said, ‘I have a hope within me that bears me up—a hope that I shall live with God, and be happy with him, and that I shall sing his praise. I die with a trust in God.’ And Dr. Anderson, a Presbyterian, his spiritual adviser, published in the papers that he was ‘satisfied of the reality of Lamb’s penitence.’ Behold the abominations of Orthodoxy! That woman belonged to no church, had not ‘got religion,’ and so was banished from the murderer’s hands to the devil, to be the victim of his diabolical cruelty eternally. But the incarnate fiend, whom the law called her husband, was transported a few months afterward, from the gallows to the third heaven, according to Orthodoxy.”
In one of my sermons in Washington, I spoke as follows:
As man is susceptible of physical improvement, is he not also of intellectual and moral? Cannot the soul develop, grow, as well as the body? What a vast difference there is between the infant mind and that mind which has devoted years to intellectual and moral culture? The soul is a germ; and as the germ in the seed, under favorable circumstances, will bud, blossom, and yield a rich harvest, so this spiritual germ, if no obstructions interdict, will develop its heavenly proportions to perfect manhood. The race, like each individual, has its childhood, its youth, and perfect manhood. One individual is a representative of the race. As one progresses the rest may. Suppose every human being who walks the earth for five hundred years, should make intellectual and moral improvement, the great end and aim of his life, all other pursuits subordinate to that one, what would be the consequence? Would not Americans and Europeans, at the expiration of that time, be as far in advance of their present condition as they are now in advance of the New Hollanders, Hottentots, and inhabitants of the South Sea Islands? Undoubtedly they would. The whole race would then be in the kingdom of God. Sin would no longer be nurtured on earth. There would be no soil for it to grow in. The long hoped for, and prayed for, Millenium would be ushered in—all would know the Lord from the least to the greatest—the lion and the lamb would lie down together. This glorious era is predicted by Holy Writ, and God’s elder Scriptures. Revelation and nature unite in testifying that mankind, God’s noblest and best work, and for whom the universe was made, are susceptible of infinite improvement, that they will shine brighter and brighter to the perfect day.
It may require more than five centuries to produce such results; it probably will; but eternity is before us. Our race is in its dawn only. The morning twilight has just appeared. The darkness of barbarism still lingers in the horizon. The chains of intellectual and moral despotism are still clanking in our midst. But the race, as well as the individual, will reach noon-day. The sun of righteousness will mount the zenith, and disperse all darkness and melt all chains. Such characters as Moses, Homer, Plato, Lord Bacon, Shakspeare, Newton, Napoleon, Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Clay, Webster, Beecher, Chapin, and a multitude of others in INTELLECT; and such as Socrates, St. John, St. Paul, Melancthon, Howard, Channing, Oberlin, Speer, and others too numerous to mention, in MORAL WORTH, indicate the intellectual and moral heights all may ultimately attain. They stand out in bold relief from the mass of mankind, indicating the capabilities of human nature. They are pioneers in the intellectual and moral field, and the ground they occupy will ere long be occupied by all. They are beacons on the rushing stream of life to pilot humanity into the celestial haven.
The history of the earth and all therein and thereon, as revealed by science and history, illustrates the law of progress. This earth has been a theater of life for innumerable ages—how long it is not for us to know. Many of the remains of the old world are embedded in the crust of the earth; and from them we learn, that from the first appearance of life in the vegetable form, up to man, there has been a regular progressive development. The order seems to have been about thus: 1. Gross matter; 2. Mineral; 3. Marine Plants; 4. Fish; 5. Reptiles; 6. Birds; 7. Marsupial; 8. Mamalia; 9. Man, the flower, the crown, the lord of creation. All these classes are interlinked, one hand reaching up, and the other down, and all are ascending in the line of the spiral, up to man. Every succeeding class is superior to the preceding, from the first to the last, and each class is moving onward. The last type of the vegetable kingdom is infinitely superior to the first, and so of all the other classes. And man of the sixtieth century is far superior to man of the first century. No miracle was wrought in bringing any of these species into existence. No law of nature was violated, or suspended; but all, from the lowest grade up to man, were brought on to the stage of life according to perfect and immutable laws, emenating from the great Fountain of the Universe.