DISCOURSE I. RELIGION A LIFE, NOT A SPECIAL EXPERIENCE. IF THE PROPHET HAD BID THEE DO SOME GREAT THING, WOULDEST THOU NOT HAVE DONE IT? 2 Kings v. 13. AFFLICTED with a disease which was probably regarded by the Syrian, no less than by the Hebrew, as a special mark of divine displeasure, Naaman, the Syrian officer, sought relief from Elisha, the prophet, on the suggestion of a Hebrew maiden who had been taken as a captive. Regarding the leprosy as a judgment from some one of the Syrian deities, offended by some acts of his own or of his ancestors, Naaman probably expected some striking display of power from the God of the Hebrews. This expectation may have been founded on the imagined hostility of the national God of the Hebrews to the national or local deities of Syria. The compliment which Naaman viewed himself as offering to the Hebrew Deity, he supposed would elicit from Jehovah a special, instantaneous, and brilliant display of divine favor in his behalf. His highwrought expectations were painfully disappointed, and he impatiently turned away, in contempt and anger, when Elisha offered him the simple and natural direction, "Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thou shalt be clean." Natural laws were not suspended; the Hebrew Deity made no marked exhibition of favor in his behalf; he was only directed to test the healing efficacy of the stream of Jordan. "Lo!" said the Syrian in his rage, "I surely thought this prophet would come forth to me, and striking his hand upon me, heal me instantly, while calling on the name of Israel's God, Jehovah. Wash me in the Jordan! Are not Abana and Pharpar, waters of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? If washing is to cleanse me, may I not wash in them, and be healed of my leprosy?" But as his wrath subsided, and a milder mood admitted of reflection, a servant or friend sincerely interested in Naaman's welfare, drawing near, said, in a friendly spirit: "My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then obey, when he only says, 'Wash, and be clean'?" This narrative of the Syrian leper may be viewed as illustrating in some respects the opinions of many men with respect to religion and life. It is never gratifying to dwell upon the differences among Christians, and the alleged importance of each peculiar doctrine in the estimation of its special friends. How pleasing would it be to gain the assent of all to some grand, controlling, practical rule, which would smooth down all the roughnesses of the way, along which, in this present and real life, we are compelled to walk together, whether kindly or unkindly, as mutual helpers or mutual opponents, retarding or promoting our common progress. Could the attention of nominal Christians be attracted to, and concentrated upon, some catalogue of obvious and acknowledged duties, such duties as demand immediate and entire attention,-sectarian dissensions would soon cease, and society would speedily assume another, a more gratifying and more hopeful aspect. But human imagination always has been active, and, when unrestrained by immediate realities, it has usually tended to throw the mind forward, beyond present realities, into that which is unseen and only possible. What seems most of all to be wanted in the world is something which might be in reality, if not in name, a Philosophy of Life, - some principle of general application, so clearly defined, so rational, so solid, and so comprehensive, as to command at once the assent of every sound and reflecting mind. We have religions enough, doctrines enough, and philosophies enough, but no one of them, nor all of them combined, as yet has furnished a practical and acceptable philosophy of life. We have natural philosophies, and mental philosophies, and moral philosophies, and all these, though valuable, and indispensable in their respective spheres, do not supply the whole demand. We have philosophies of the future life too, but these do not supply the world's present want. They all start with some assumed original or primitive condition of man's spiritual nature, and, at one vast leap, they pass to the final destiny of man's spiritual nature, — leaving the whole interval of real, active existence here in darkness unilluminated and mystery unexplained. Then we have philosophies of human nature too; but these do not supply the want, for they are all sectarian or theological. They are not philosophies, but only theories, connected with, and a part of, some theology. They originate in, and are based upon, some proposition in some creed or catechism, some man's or some church's interpretation of the Bible. They all ask, and they all attempt to answer, these two questions: Whence came man? Whither does man go? And the reply to both seems only a conjecture, for there is no uniform and acknowledged interpretation, either of nature or of Scripture. Yet common observation proves, that each and every particular interpretation is by the intellect transformed into spiritual nutriment, and the most fanciful theory appears to be converted by faith into a spiritual reality;-showing the power of mind to transmute poison into food, or at least to extract the sweetness of honey from the bitterness of aloes. But in conjecturing something as to whence came man's life, and whither goes man's life, the great interval is overlooked, leaving unpropounded and unanswered the only determinable question, What is man's life? Would he be esteemed a judicious instructor, who should teach his pupils that their principal duty is to wonder, meditate, and speculate on what they shall be, and how they shall feel, when they become men? Since, speculate and wonder as they may, children never can foresee where they may be, nor what may be their feelings, ten or twenty years in advance of their actual experience, the obvious duty of the teacher is, to develop in his pupils their actual capacities, instructing them in a knowledge of themselves, and the nature and use of things immediately around them. This, not only because it would be the very best means of fitting them for virtue, success, and usefulness wheresoever they might be in manhood, but because this would be manifestly in harmony with the true design of their youthful existence, because such instruction and knowledge would be the necessary means and indispensable conditions of true enjoyment, even in their youthful life, though they should never reach the maturity of manhood. The child who is taught to perplex himself in fancying where and what he may be in the maturity of his years, however favorably situated he may find himself on actually attaining manhood, can find in this no recompense for the time misspent, the anxiety endured, and the happiness lost, during his earlier years, which were passed in dreamy wonderings, profitless conjecturings, and painful solicitudes as to the possibilities of his position and employment in the years then far before him. Why then should the mature man neglect his mental culture, weaken his energies, and diminish his actual happiness at present, by dwelling on the possibilities of his locality or his employment in a remote and now necessarily incomprehensible eternity? We see how much of the pulpit discourse, and most of the church ceremonies, tend to disjoin religion from common life, as if religion related to the soul only, in the future, and not more directly to the whole man here in the present; - as |