The age, and especially the country, in which we live, are peculiar. They, therefore, require a peculiar kind of instruction, and, I may say, a peculiar mode of dispensing christian truth. They are unlike any which have preceded us. They are new, and consequently demand what I have called a new Dispensation of Christianity, a dispensation in perfect harmony with the new order of things which has sprung into existence. Yet of this fact we seem not to have been generally aware. The character of our religious institutions, the style of our preaching, the means we rely upon for the production of the christian virtues, are such as were adopted in a distant age, and fitted to wants which no longer exist, or which exist only in a greatly modified shape.
It is to this fact that I attribute that other fact, of which I have heretofore spoken, that our churches are far from being filled, and that a large and an increasing portion of our community take very little interest in religious institutions, and manifest a most perfect indifference to religious instruction. These persons do not stay away from our churches because they have no wish to be religious, no desire to meet and commune in the solemn Temple with their fellow men, and with the Great and Good Spirit which reigns everywhere around and within them. It is not because they do not value this communion, that they do not come into our churches, but because they do not find it in our churches. They cannot find, under the costume of our institutions, and our instructions, the Father-God, to love and adore, with whom to hold sweet and invigorating communings; they are unable to find that sympathy of man with man which they crave—to obtain that response to the warm affections of the heart, which would make them love to assemble together and bow together before one common altar.
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But were this difficulty obviated, were seats easily obtained by all, and so obtained as to imply on the part of no one an assumption of superiority, or a confession of inferiority, the preaching which is most common is far from being satisfactory, and the wants of the times would by no means be met. I say the preaching which is most common is far from being satisfactory; but not because it is not true. I accuse no preacher of not preaching the truth. The truth is, I believe, preached in all churches, of all denominations, to a certain extent at least; but not the right kind of truth, or not truth under the aspects demanded by the wants of the age and country. All truth is valuable, but all truths are not equally valuable; and all aspects of the same truths are not at all times, in all places, equally attractive. The fault I find with preaching in general is, that it is not on the right kind of topics to interest the masses in this age and country. The topics usually discussed may once have been of the highest importance; they may now be very interesting to the scholar, or to the student in his closet, or with his fellow-students; but they are, to a great extent, matters of perfect indifference to the many. The many care nothing about the meaning of a Greek particle, or the settling of a various reading; nothing about the meaning of dogmas long since deprived of life, about the manners and customs of a people of whom they may have heard, but in whose destiny they feel no peculiar interest; they are not fed by descriptions of a Jewish marriage-feast, a reiteration of Jewish threatenings, nor with beautiful essays, and rounded periods, on some petty duty, or some insignificant point in theology. They want strong language, stirring discourses on great principles, which go deep into the universal mind, and strike a chord which vibrates through the universal heart. They want to be directed to the deep things of God and humanity, and enlightened and warmed on matters with which they every day come in contact, and which will be to them matters of kindling thought and strong feeling through eternity.
That our religious institutions, or our modes of dispensing christian truth, are not in harmony with the wants of the times, is evinced by the increase of infidelity, and the success infidels have in their exertions to collect societies and organise opposition to Christianity. There is sustained in this city a society of infidels: free inquirers, I believe they call themselves. Why has this society been collected? Not, I will venture to say, because their leader is an infidel. People do not go to hear him because he advocates atheistical or pantheistical doctrines; not because he denies Christianity, rejects the bible, and indulges in various witticisms at the expense of members of the clerical profession; but because he opposes the aristocracy of our churches, and vindicates the rights of the mind. He succeeds, not because he is an infidel, but because he has hitherto shown himself a democrat.
Men are never infidels for the sake of infidelity. Infidelity—I use not the term reproachfully—has no charms of its own. There is no charm in looking around on our fellow men as mere plants that spring up in the morning, wither and die ere it is night. It is not pleasant to look up into the heavens, brilliant with their sapphire gems, and see no spirit shining there—over the rich and flowering earth, and see no spirit blooming there—abroad upon a world of mute, dead matter, and feel ourselves—alone. It is not pleasant to look upon the heavens as dispeopled of the Gods, and the earth of men, to feel ourselves in the centre of a universal blank, with no soul to love, no spirit with which to commune. I know well what is that sense of loneliness which comes over the unbeliever, the desolateness of soul under which he is oppressed: but I will not attempt to describe it.
I say, then, it is not infidelity that gives the leader of the infidel party success. It is his defence of free inquiry and of democracy. In vindicating his own right to disbelieve Christianity, he has vindicated the rights of the mind, proved that all have a right to inquire fully into all subjects, and to abide by the honest convictions of their own understandings. In doing this he has met the wants of a large portion of the community, and met them as no church has ever yet been able to meet them. I say not that he himself is a free inquirer, but he proclaims free inquiry as one of the rights of man; and in doing this, he has proclaimed what thousands feel, though they may not generally dare own it. The want to inquire, to ascertain what is truth, what and wherefore we believe, is becoming more and more urgent; we may disown, unchurch, anathematise it, but suppress it we cannot. It is too late to stay the progress of free inquiry. The dams and dykes we construct to keep back its swelling tide are but mere resting-places, from which it may break forth in renovated power, and with redoubled fury. It is sweeping on; and, I say, let it sweep on, let it sweep on; the truth has nothing to fear.
Next to the want to inquire, to philosophise, the age is distinguished by its tendency to democracy, and its craving for social reform. Be pleased or displeased as we may, the age is unquestionably tending to democracy; the democratic spirit is triumphing. The millions awake. The masses appear, and every day is more and more disclosed
"The might that slumbers in a peasant's arm."
The voice of the awakened millions rising into new and undreamed-of importance, crying out for popular institutions, comes to us on every breeze, and mingles in every sound. All over the christian world a contest is going on, not as in former times between monarchs and nobles, but between the people and their masters, between the many and the few, the privileged and the unprivileged—and victory, though here and there seeming at first view doubtful, everywhere inclines to the party of the many. Old distinctions are losing their value; titles are becoming less and less able to confer dignity; simple tastes, simple habits, simple manners are becoming fashionable; the simple dignity of man is more and more coveted, and with the discerning it has already become more honourable to call one simply a MAN than a gentleman.