USA > New York > New York City > Recollections of persons and events, chiefly in the city of New York; being selections from his journal > Part 14
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there were the daily sacrifices ; there the great fes- tivals at which all Israel must appear before the Lord. And why? why this concentration of privileges in the one city. It was because Jeru- salem as a city was a great radiating point, giving forth a moral influence to be felt far and wide, and so long as she retained her allegiance to Jehovah, the nation could not well sink into idolatry. Hence did God so fortify that metropolis as a cita- del of truth and worship; and although in the present state of the world cities may in some re- spects not sway whole lands as in ancient times, yet still, what Jerusalem was to the people of Israel, every metropolis must be and will be in a great degree to the vast majority of the entire nation. In our day, let Paris set a fashion and all France follows it. The great man in London is a great man through all England.
A very careful regard was had to this principle of social and moral influence, in the labors of our Lord and His apostles. It is recognized in the very first directions given to the twelve when they received their commission. " And it came to pass," we are told, " that when Jesus had made an end of commanding His twelve disciples, He departed
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thence to teach and to preach in their cities ;" and afterwards when He "appointed other seventy also, He sent them two and two before His face into every city and place whither He Himself would come." Accordingly, while you find Him at times preaching the gospel and performing wonder- ful works on the side of the mountain, on the shore and bosom of the sea, it was in cities like Caper- naum and Bethsaida, but especially in the city of Jerusalem that He was most frequently found ma- king Himself known as the promised Messiah. And when He had suffered and was received up into glory, and instructed His disciples that " repen- tance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations," how carefully does He add, "beginning at Jerusalem." That com- mand they faithfully obeyed ; and after they had . filled Jerusalem with their doctrine, we next find them in the city of Samaria, the aspiring rival of Jerusalem as a Capital in the Holy Land. Then as we follow them they are in Damascus, a city celebrated for its wealth and power from the days of Abraham. Then Cesarea with its gorgeous palaces and temples, receives the gospel from Peter and others of the apostles; and in that city the first
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fruits of the Gentile world are converted to the faith. Afterwards they are in Antioch, long known as the most powerful city in the east, and there the disciples are first called Christians, the name by which they have been known ever since, and will be known to the end of the world. Next we trace them to Philippi, expressly described in Scripture as the " chief city in that part of Mace- donia, and a colony." Athens, still renowned for her schools and her philosophers; Ephesus, with a fame world-wide for her temple of Diana; Corinth, noted for her riches, her elegance and her luxuries; all in their turn are fields of apostolic labor ; and at length we find them in Rome herself, penetrating into the very household of Cæsar, and in that Im- perial city "the Acts of the Apostles" leaves Paul laboring year after year till his life was surrender- ed in martyrdom. Nor should it be forgotten that to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, Thessalonians and Colossians, many of the inspired Epistles were immediately addressed, thus leaving a conspicuous and imperishable rec. ord of the responsibility resting on the inhabit. ants of cities as guardians of Gospel truth.
In this manner was Christianity spread in apos-
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tolic times, and by apostolic men speaking and acting ." as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." They did not neglect "the regions round about," but their first aim was to occupy and Christianize the great cities of every land to which they came, as the most effectual way of reaching and influ- encing the nation at large.
And now farther on this point. I have said that in the present state of mankind, cities may not in some respects sway whole nations as in ancient days. But there are other respects, in which their influence has become greatly increased in modern times. In all highly civilized countries, commerce has become, in our day, what is ofen called a Third Estate, a new embodiment or centre of power; and as commerce creates our cities, the increased importance of the one must enhance the influence of the other. And then, as a means of rendering this influence the more extensive, we must remember, that owing to the present facility of intercourse between places once viewed as widely separated, the remotest corners of a country are brought into daily if not hourly communication with the city, imbibing from it its views, sympathies and impulses, as much so indeed as though thesc
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once distant regions had become suburbs of the town. And all this again has no doubt contrib). uted, to what wise observers and careful statists have shown to be one great distinction of the present age; I mean the tendency to concentration in cities. England never saw so large a number of her people gathered into London as she sees now. The same may be said of France with regard to Paris, the same of Germany also, with regard to her chief capitals. And notwithstanding the fruit- ful fields which invite strong hands and willing hearts into the rural districts in our own favored land, our cities are filling up with a rapidity that far outstrips the country.
"The thing is of the Lord;" and is to be viewed as among the significant signs of the times. I have often spoken of the present age as a period of preparation ; a period, in which God is ordering and arranging the state of the whole earth, so as to provide for the wide and rapid spread of the Gos- pel which is to bring in the glory of the Millennial day. That great revolution is to be accomplished with a suddenness, which men are little inclined to expect, and which is designed more fully to prove the work to be His with whom "one day is as a
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thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." So has He Himself described it, when He says, " As the lightning which lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven, so shall the Son of man be in His day." And here we see one of the instrumentali- ties which God is preparing for the great and rapid conversion of the world unto Himself. We see it in His gathering so large a portion of. the human family into cities, where His word can reach multitudes the more speedily, and at the same time, the new converts go forth with the increased advantages of this social and civil posi- tion, to spread His triumph through whole lands. Accordingly, it is foretold by Isaiah, "In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan and swear to the Lord of Hosts;" and then it follows, "In that day there shall be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar in the border thereof to the Lord." But before the whole land or the borders thereof, shall be pervaded by the worship of God and the spirit of truth, the cities must speak the language of Canaan, and avow their allegiance unto God.
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'I will not pursue the discussion of this princi- ple any farther. Let me contemplate its applica- tion. It has a language to New York that cannot be mistaken, and ought to be deeply pondered. I have alluded in another place to her numbers increasing with a rapidity that seems . almost fabu- lous; to her territory reaching from sea to sea, and to the wealth flowing into her lap from every quarter of the globe. Nor is this growth the result of accident or of contingencies that might change in a day. The Almighty hand that has marked out the channels of rivers and the ranges of mountains on this spacious continent, has or- dained it by His unchangeable decree, that the streams of commerce must all mainly centre here; and besides, He has so planted our hemisphere on the map of the globe, that the trade of Europe with Eastern Asia must ultimately pass through the hands of our merchants. Judging from the past, in ten years more New York will be the second city in the civilized world, and in less than a hundred years she will be the first, first in num- bers, first in wealth, and what is more still, first in that elastic and indomitable energy which is our leading distinction among the nations of the earth.
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What a future does this open for our children and our children's children ! But what a fearful responsibility does it throw upon them and upon us! If from him to whom much is given, much shall be required, how high must be the scale of our duties to God and His Gospel ! Should reli- gion either lose, or fail to strengthen its hold on this city by our supineness, "the shadow on the sun- dial" both for the land and the world, will have gone back far beyond " ten degrees."
I fondly hope for better things, and my hope is strengthened, when I look back to our early his- tory. It must be to all of us a token for good, that this and other chief cities of our country, were founded by men who brought their religion with them from the land of their fathers; and among the first dwellings reared for themselves was a house for divine worship. The street on which stood the church where I spent the first years of my ministry, is endeared to me by that association. There had been erected one of the oldest churches in our City; and it is said to have been the first place of worship occupied by the inhabitants, after they ventured to hold their assemblies outside of the walls or stockade erected to protect the infant
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settlement from the sudden attacks of the Indians. Generation after generation has since passed away, and yet New York has never been left "without a seed to serve" the God of their fathers from the time its inhabitants were so few that "a child might count them." And now when like Tyrus of old "situate at the entrance of the sea," our city has become the "merchant of the people of many isles," our name known, and our commerce sought by every nation on the face of the earth, what are we doing to meet our high responsibilities result- ing from our increased and daily increasing power ? Is our influence felt for good or for evil throughout our land, our continent, if not our world ? Are we careful to study the measure of our duty both to God and to man, and the temptations to evil by which we are beset? It is not to be denied that there are channels arising out of our position as a great commercial metropolis, through which "ini- quity is coming in like a flood," and which should be watched with increasing vigilance.
We are the point at which the inhabitants of the two hemispheres are made to meet; we form the great gate-way through which the people of foreign lauds come to us in ever increasing multi-
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tudes; and while among them are those who should be welcomed as valuable acquisitions to both the church and the state, there are too many who bring with them a rabid infidelity which aims to overthrow every thing precious whether civil or sacred ; a spirit of blasphemy which, in its wild ravings, seems akin to that of which our Lord has said, "This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." Are we doing what we can to infuse the life of religion into this dark mass of ignorance and unbelief which lies piled up at our door, to exorcise this demoniac spirit which may in the end obtain the mastery over us, if we do not soon obtain the mastery over it ?
We have in the midst of us sinks of iniquity where orgies are held too vile to be named, and dens of the gambler where every species of fraud and blasphemy are practised by night and by day. Their doors leading down to death stand boldly open to draw in their victims, especially from the ranks of the young, and to blast them with a curse that may follow them for time and for eternity. If we are not willing to put forth our own hands to abate these deadly nuisances, to cleanse our city from these Augean stables, are we faithfully and
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promptly sustaining those who are engaged in the self-denying, martyr-like work ?
In view of the religious destitution already described, of the crowds that have no heart for the sanctuary of God's worship, and could find no room if they had the heart, are we doing what we can to supply the want which forebodes so much evil in the future. The cause of Domestic Mis- sions has not been entirely neglected by the churches of our land; but whether much or little is done on our frontiers and other destitute parts of our country, City Missions have been most unwisely and unhappily denied their due share of attention. From what has been said it is evident that the religious welfare of both city and country requires that our cities be carefully guarded, and adequate provision made for their religious wants. In no city is this of more import- ance than our own, and I hail it as an auspicious sign that some of our churches are bestirring them- selves in the work with a zeal which shows that
they feel the responsibility resting upon them. I hope that the example will be followed by many others, and that these enterprises now commenced for the establishment of new churches will not be
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allowed to fail from the want of patience and per- severance. I have seen too many instances of these shortlived efforts, and men amply qualified for their work retiring from the field, exhausted and perhaps broken-hearted by the conviction that they had failed in their object and that their labors were lost. It is not enough that such men have our con- tributions and our prayers. They should have the presence and co-operation of men who from their station in the Christian Community would strengthen the hands of the preacher, and contrib- ute to create confidence in him and his enterprise in the minds of those among whom he is labor- ing.
In connection with this destitution of sanctuary privileges, look at the present state of the rising generation. Every heart will bless God for our Sunday-Schools. They have stayed a plague that might otherwise have spread death worse than the grave among our own sons and daughters. Their rise and progress are among the richest blessings that have distinguished the last half century. I can remember when the Sunday-School was un- known in our churches; and when the early move- ments were made to enlist the Christian community
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in the cause, so little was it understood and appre- ciated that it was for a time earnestly opposed by some of our good men as leading to a profanation of the Lord's day. But these prejudices have been overcome. Though the first labors were compara- tively partial in our city, the tree, if small, made itself known by its fruits. "The little one has become a thousand," and the church would scarce be viewed as deserving her name that had, not her Sunday-School. But notwithstanding all that has been done, how much remains to be done! There is yet " much land to be possessed." Though thou- sands have been saved as " brands plucked out of the burning," what hideous spectacles of juvenile depravity blacken the records of our courts, and startle us with horror as we read their foul history day after day ! Our jails and penitentiaries still em- brace within their dreary walls many who, though young and tender in years, are old and hardened in crime ; nor can this frightful dominion of guilt be arrested and overcome till Christians shall gird themselves up with new zeal to save these victims of vice from the ruin to which they are hastening.
If wealth is poured into our hands with un- wonted abundance, what are we doing with it?
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Are we making it an idol, wasting it in prodigality hurtful to ourselves, or employing it for God ?
No wise observer can fail to perceive how just and solemn are the words of Him " who spake as never man spake," when He warns us against the " deceitfulness of riches," and adds, "How hardly shall a rich man enter the kingdom of Heaven." In a city like this, we see it every day in the multi- tudes who employ overflowing wealth to pam- per their appetites, to minister to their pride, and harden their hearts in forgetfulness of the Giver by abuse of His gifts. But the evil does not end with those who glory in this abuse of their abundance. No watchman can have stood on Zion's walls till he has grown gray in the service, who has not seen how few Christians possess much of this world without having their hearts more or less infected and distracted by the love of it. They may not themselves perceive the injury they are suffering; they may be the last of all to see it; thus showing how great is that "deceitfulness of riches" against which we have our Lord's solemn warning ; how insidiously they wind themselves into the heart and steal it away from God and from the duties we owe Him. There is but one effectual security against
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the seductive temptation. It is by using our wealth freely for the service of Him who gave it to us. This, and this alone, can take the poison from it; and to this conviction Christians must be brought, before their own hearts can be safe, or the Church at large become animated by that spirit which is yet to bring the whole earth to the knowledge of the Gospel.
We must all rejoice to see that this spirit is ex- tending itself among the churches in our day. In some cases, large fortunes are inherited, and in others large fortunes are acquired; and "the owners thereof" feel that they have something better to do . with their large means than to squander their money, or hoard it for the benefit of their heirs. And well, both for themselves and their heirs, that it should be so. "There is a sore evil," says Solomon, "which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt ; but those riches perish by evil travail; for he begetteth a son and there is nothing in his hand;" or, he hath nothing in his hand, that is, he has nothing to do, as some interpret the words. And the sore evil which Solomon may have seen, perhaps felt to his own sorrow, hoarded riches
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making idlers of a man's sons, we may see every day. Here are two youths of the same age, of like talents and training ; but the one has large expec- tations on which to lean, and the other is obliged to rely, under God, on his own exertions. Where will you find the two, and how will they compare, when they have lived to advanced manhood ? The one scarce known except among idlers like himself, his mind morbid and diseased from inaction, tired of life, tired of himself, or perhaps, from want of employment, seeking for excitement in sensual in- dulgence which is hurrying him to his grave. The other, with his faculties developed and his face brightened by a life of honorable activity, is known and felt throughout the community as a man who, in his exertions for his own advantage, is also building up our city and our country in character and strength ; with a hand accustomed to work, he gives his ready aid to whatever promotes the public good; and in the consciousness of aiming to do his duty faithfully, he enjoys life and enjoys himself. True, there are honored exceptions to the dark side of this picture. We have men who in- herit fortunes, and who instead of being idlers are active benefactors in the community, and who em-
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ploy their abundant resources with a liberal hand to promote the public good both in Church and State. But these are exceptions, not samples of the class to which they belong. It cannot be otherwise. All our institutions are based on the principle that we are a nation of working men, and that if there must be an aristocracy in every country, the aris- tocracy with us is not an aristocracy of wealth or of birth, but of enterprise, industry, and integrity. We have nothing about us to perpetuate or coun- tenance idlers as a class. In our stirring nation, such men are exotics, and are often driven in self- defence to go abroad in order to find company to sympathize with them in the unenviable distinc- tion of having nothing to do.
If, then, our men of wealth would not injure their children by it, they must employ it freely for purposes of good. I would say to them, give your children a wise share of it, enough to enable them to begin life with advantage and on a scale corre- sponding with your present rank and position in the world, but not enough to make them feel that they have nothing to do for themselves. You will thus have given them both excitement and en ' couragement to act well their part. You will
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render their patrimony not a loss, but a gain. With the goods of this world which they inherit from you, they will inherit a name all the more honored among men because you will have signalized it by your own deeds of piety and mercy; and they will inherit a blessing from God which He is pleased to bestow on those whose fathers have served Him faithfully and devotedly with all that is theirs. And then, too, you will have trained them to acquire respect and gain a high station in a land where, as we have said, no nobility is known but that which a man creates for himself. Indeed, I have sometimes thought that one design of the Most High in framing the social structure of this nation on the principles of freedom and equality which distinguish us, was to constrain men of affluence to set the Christian world a noble ex- ample of how wealth should be employed ; to show that he who has most of it should neither squander nor hoard it, but should view himself as a steward under God on a larger scale ; and should act, not like the barren sands of the desert, which, though saturated with rain from heaven, give back neither life nor beauty, but like the genial soil which God has blesse'l, and which in return for
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Heaven's rain and sun, displays its fertility in flowers chat fill the air with fragrance, and in harvests that sustain health and life in every thing that lives.
Let us be assured such a time is coming-a time when the claims of God and His Gospel on the rich will be felt and owned ; and if, in view of that widespread darkness which has long covered the earth, I am asked,' 'Watchman, what of the night ?- watchman, what of the night ?" I can answer, " The morning cometh," for I can see a token of the breaking day in the goodly number of those who are educating their minds up to a stand- ard of duty befitting their means of doing good, and the day in which they live. Among them are men who stand high among our merchant princes. Let them cultivate the spirit of large-hearted generosity which already distinguishes them, and they will be followed by others who will show themselves ready to every good word and work. Every one must see that at the present time the heart of the city is greatly enlarged. War has its evils, and frightful evils, especially when it is a civil war like ours. And yet good may be evoked from the calamity, terrible as it is. A generous
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feeling has been shown, not only to the wounded and suffering of our armies, but to the Command- ers who have led them to victories which do honor to the nation. Such a spirit of munificence grows by exercise, and the generosity thus awakened will last and be felt when the present scenes of bloodshed no longer call for either pity or gratitude. This benevolence towards men is closely allied to a liberal spirit in the cause of religion ; and we view it as the harbinger of enlarged gifts for the spread of the Gospel. Let our rich men lead the way as some of them are doing now ; let our merchants contribute of their gains on a scale commensurate with their ability and their position in this great commercial metropolis, and one of the predicted signs of the coming millennium will already be seen. "The daughter of Tyre," says David, "shall be there with a gift ; even the rich among the people shall entreat Thy favor."-"The merchandise of Tyre," says Isaiah, "shall be holiness to the Lord; it shall not be treasured or laid up." . And again, "surely the isles shall wait for me, the ships of Tarshish first," that is, the choice merchantmen of the day taking the lead, " the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy
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sons from afar, their silver and their gold with them unto the name of the Lord thy God and to the Holy One of Israel, because He hath glorified thee."
Happy the man who in this spirit pours forth his abundant stores at the foot of the Cross; and happy the city where such men dwell! Thrice happy the city whose merchants will be the first to show the illustrious example, who will bring the " ships of Tarshish, their silver and their gold with them" into that leading place which the prophet has assigned them in the work of spreading salvation to the farthest borders of the earth ! Thrice happy the city that will thus arise as a morning star of hope to our now benighted world; as a leading star in that bright constellation which will pour its radiance over all nations, when "the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be seven-fold, as the light of seven days !"
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