2. Some time after my return to Christianity, I spent a few days in the house of a Primitive Methodist, a farmer, on the Cheshire Hills. I seemed in Paradise. The master and the mistress were cheerful and kind, and the daughters and girls were almost continually singing delightful Christian melodies while busy at their work. One moment they were singing of a Beautiful Stream, and then of a Happy Land. One would begin, "Jesus, Lover of my soul"—and when that was finished, another would begin with, "When I can read my title clear, to mansions in the skies,"—and the singing and the work went on together all the day. It was heaven. And a thousand such facts might be given.
3. My own experience is in harmony with these facts. My return to Christ made me happy beyond measure. It brought me enjoyments, transports, to which, for years, I had been an utter stranger. The fact is, for a long time the worth of my life was well-nigh gone. I lived, because I felt I ought to live, for the sake of those who were dear to me. But for myself, the light and joy of my life seemed gone for ever. My existence was a long dark struggle with crushing destiny. Though naturally hopeful, I was made to feel the bitterness of blank despair. I had moments of relief, but I had weeks of gloom and despondency. Now all is changed. I have moments of sadness and depression; but weeks and months of joy and gladness. I see the universe in an entirely different light. And instead of murmuring at Nature as cruel, I adore a gracious and merciful God. Of my errors and misdoings I must always feel ashamed, and a consciousness of them must for ever tend to make me sad at times; yet notwithstanding all drawbacks, I have enjoyed more satisfaction, more real happiness, a hundred times over, during the last twelve months, than I enjoyed during the whole period of my alienation from God. The simple-hearted Christian knows what he says, when he tells you "There's something in religion." It has a power and a blessedness altogether different from anything else under heaven. Knowledge is sweet, and love is sweet, and power and victory are sweet; but religion—the religion of Christ—is sweeter, infinitely sweeter than all. It is the life and blessedness of the soul. It is its greatness, its strength, its glory: its joy, its paradise, its heaven.
4. If the churches abound with defects, the cause is in humanity, and not in Christianity. Men are not imperfect because they are Christians, but because they are not Christian enough. The worst men are the farthest from Christianity, and the best are nearest to it. And the worst creeds are the least Christian, and the best are the most Christian. And Christianity is better than the best. There is not a virtue on earth, nor a truth in the universe, which does not form a part, or a consistent and fitting appendage, of the Christian system. The best, the wisest, the noblest man on earth is no better, no wiser, no nobler, than the teachings of Jesus tend to make the whole human race.
5. The influence which Jesus exerted on the world, and the influence which He is still exerting, is the mightiest and most beneficent ever experienced by mankind; and the monument which He has raised for Himself, the Christian Church, with all its institutions, its literatures, its agencies and achievements is, beyond all comparison, the grandest, the noblest, and in all respects the most magnificent and glorious that the history of the world can boast. He has indeed gained for Himself a name above every name; a glory and a power which have no equal and no resemblance; and His followers may well adore Him as the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of His love and majesty.
6. And what can we do better than chime in with the anthem of His worshippers? What can we do better than teach His beneficent doctrines, and follow His glorious example? Talk as we will, the noblest and the happiest life a man can live is a life of Christian love and beneficence. And the best association on earth is that which is organized on the principle of love to Christ, pledged to the self-sacrificing labors of a wise philanthropy, the work of serving and blessing mankind.
7. A belief in Christ gives one a power to do good to mankind which no skeptic can have. It kindles love, and stimulates to activity, as nothing else does. And it inspires courage, and produces patience, and gives comfort under persecution. And it lays on us no unnecessary restraints. It leaves us free to every good word and to every good work. And it is friendly to science and to unlimited progress. It offers a bond of union for all great minds, and for all good hearts. It increases our power to reform both churches and states, without urging us to wild and revolutionary measures, which might imperil the interests of both. To accept this religion, to avow this faith, involves nothing of which we need be ashamed, but everything in which we may reasonably glory. We escape alike the follies of theological dreamers, and the gloom and horrors of infidel philosophy. We live amidst the soft mild glories of eternal light; we cheer ourselves with the richest and most glorious hopes, and we spend our lives in the grandest contemplations and the noblest occupations the heart of man can conceive.
8. The vainest of all vain things, the most unseemly and revolting of all forms of pride, is the pride of disbelief in God and immortality. And the maddest if not the wickedest of all occupations, is to labor to destroy the faith and blight the hopes of others. What good, humane, or merciful motive can a man have to impel him to such a horrible undertaking?
9. How soothing the thought that your sufferings are marked by a loving God, and will be overruled for your good! And how cheering the thought, when life is in danger, or drawing to a close, that death is the gate of a higher life! And how comforting the thought, when your loved ones are leaving you, that they are going before you to a happier home, and that by-and-by you will see their faces, hear their voices, and share their presence and society again! And what a relief, when visiting the sick, the sorrowing, or the dying, to be able to speak to them of an infinite Father, of another life, and of brighter scenes, and of a happier lot, in a better land!
10. We have spent time enough among the dead. And you can see with your own eyes which are the living, loving, and laboring portions of the Church. You can see which portions build the most schools, teach the most children, reclaim the most drunkards and profligates, and do most to develop and cultivate the religious and moral sentiments of the masses. And one of the lessons we always pressed on you was, to judge a tree by its fruits. We do not intend to swerve from our plan of avoiding sectarian and theological controversy; but we may ask you to compare the amount of good religious work done by the Methodists in fifty years, with the good done by the so-called liberal Christians, and to draw your own conclusion. The Primitive Methodists alone, with the smallest amount of means, have done incalculably more good in fifty years, than the Unitarians, with unlimited supplies of wealth, and all the advantages of learning and position, have done in a hundred and fifty years. We have cast in our lot with the living, working portion of the Church. It is our home. We had rather be a doorkeeper of the humblest living, hard-working church in the land, than dwell with the spiritually dead and cold in the palaces of princes. We will help the men that are doing the hard and needful work of humanity. If you can see such men as the Primitive Methodists and the orthodox Churches generally, working as they do work, and succeeding as they do succeed, and not respect them and love them, and take part in helping them, you have not the heart of tenderness and the spirit of Christian manliness for which we have given you credit.
11. The influence of Christianity cannot be otherwise than beneficial; nor is it possible that Christianity should become the ruling power on earth without greatly abating, if not entirely curing the evils of humanity, and making mankind as happy as their nature and capacities admit.