The volumes containing Dr. Chapin's sermons, orations, and addresses are so many, and their character in substance and style so uniformly attractive, that we hardly dare venture on quotations from them, even if space were allowed us. As a specimen, however, we present his strong and glowing words in conclusion of his Fourth of July oration, in 1854, at the Crystal Palace, in New York city.
"Men constitute eras. Washington himself was the embodiment of the Revolution, and may fitly personate to other men and other ages the principles of that movement. But let not even the greatness of Washington overshadow the merits of the least of those who labored and sacrificed in that early struggle. Come up before us to-day from many a battle-ground, from many a post of duty; from the perilous enterprise and the lonely night-watch! The pageant of this hour sinks from my sight. This temple of industry, with all its emblems of civilization, dissolves into thin air. These tokens of a great and prosperous people pass away. This magnificent city dwindles to a provincial town. I am standing now upon some village green, on an early summer morning, when the dew is on the grass, and the sun just tips the hills. I see before me a little band clothed in the garb that is now so venerable. There are the cocked hat, the continental coat, the well-worn musket. They have turned away from their homes; they have turned from the fields of their toil; they have heard the great call of freedom and of duty, and before God and man they are ready. Hark! it is the tap of a drum, and they move forward to the tremendous issue. That drum-beat echoes around the world! That movement was the march of an irresistible Idea—the Idea of the spiritual worth and the inalienable rights of every man; out of which grow the stability of nations, and the unity of the world."
A more positive and thorough expositor of the doctrine of Universalism could not be heard from the pulpit than Dr. Chapin. This has been acknowledged on all hands by those who were most constant and attentive listeners to him. But the great aim of his ministry was to make men know and feel the power of the inner life of the Gospel. He distinctly states this in the first published volume of his discourses:—
"The great end of preaching is to reform the life, to reconcile man to duty and to God. The great principle to be propagated and established in the souls of men is not this or that particular ism, but the spirit of Christ. Without this no denomination can be right, no society can flourish, no soul can live."
Mr. Chapin was a poet as well as an orator. Some of his hymns, long used in our church services, are of great merit, having the beauty of Moore with the spiritual fervor of Charles Wesley. The writer takes pleasure in transcribing one of them for these pages, which was written from a sense of duty, and at the close of a very hot day in July, when we had been very diligently at work on the new Hymn Book, compiled by us jointly for Mr. Abel Tompkins, publisher, in 1845. We were about to make up the last package of matter for the press. The writer had prepared one or two hymns expressly for the book, while such of Mr. Chapin's as had a place in it, were selected from papers and church service programmes of the time. He was urged to write one then wanted for the miscellaneous department of the book, the subject to be, "During or After a Destructive Storm." Wearied as he was, he consented, and standing at the desk, wholly absorbed in his theme, soon brought out the following, which speaks for itself:—
Amid surrounding gloom and waste,
From nature's face we flee,
And in our fear and wonder haste,
O nature's Life, to thee!