1849.] Character of his Discourses. 439 within us, and those hearts are not wholly hardened by indifference, selfishness, and worldly cares, we shall view this restoration from this temporary death of sleep with feelings of devout thankfulness, similar to those with which we anticipate our final resurrection from the grave." pp. 121, 122. Another extract, of a different character, may awaken a sense of our responsibilities, and of the fearful consequences of not heeding and acting up to them in our daily life. It is from the sermon entitled "Human Responsibility." "Another year has fulfilled the mission of its destiny; the balance of its good or evil, in respect to all of us, has just been struck, and has been recorded in the book of God's remembrance. Do any think this subject has been now overstated or urged too far? Let them not satisfy themselves with vague thought or vague talk upon the subject, but look at it just as it is, just as it has been written upon human bosoms by the hand of God, just as it has been taught by his Son, just as it is continually authenticated in the history of human life. They will then find that it stands high above this feeble attempt to reach it, that it spreads out far beyond this humble effort to grasp it. And if, in connection with it, they will seriously think of life, of its brevity, of its uncertainty, especially think of its religious opportunities, of the capacity of men to rise into a likeness with God himself, and to be happy with Him forever, and, on the other hand, of their liability to fail in all this, and to turn all these means of improvement into instruments of their own condemnation, it will appear to them, as it really is, a very solemn thing to live, simply to exist, in a world like this. . . "The text on which these remarks are founded allows no escape, no excuse, no palliation from the legitimate effects of our own conduct. What is its language? Be not deceived; God is not mocked: whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.' 'Whatsoever,' this is the term; the very thing, that precise act, thought, feeling, which is in your mind at this moment, this, this is the seed whose fruit you must reap; and it is a fruit that will answer precisely to the seed you sow, and the harvest, therefore, will be one of weal or woe, as every conscious moment is well or ill employed. This is a solemn retribution indeed, and one before which the common ideas on this subject, horrible as they are, fade into insignificance." pp. 13, 14. These specimens give a good idea of Dr. Brazer's style and manner of sermonizing. Ministries the most happy have their days of darkness and occurrences that depress the most buoyant spirits. Pastors the most approved and cherished have to experience many painful vicissitudes and to pass through many tribulations. Not least among these trying mutations is the waning of the popular preacher's popularity, the diminishing interest of his hearers in his public services. This is an inevitable consequence of being made much of, perhaps too much, at first. As novelty gives place to familiarity, and as the topics are exhausted which admit of the kind of treatment and embellishment that make a preacher popular, a change comes over his hearers with their perception of a change in the matter and style of the preacher. This often happens from no other cause than that he becomes more conscientious and more deeply in earnest, and impressed with the duty of preaching "not as pleasing men, but God, who trieth the heart." Brilliancy is exchanged for solidity; catering to the taste and imagination gives place to searching appeals to the conscience. The momentous themes of repentance, conversion, newness of life, preparation for judgment and eternity, with kindred topics, constitute the staple of his sermons. Hearers who go to church to be pleased with fine preaching are no longer interested. Their admiration has subsided into decent respect. Half a day's attendance suffices. In short, the minister has become only an humble, hard-working, devout and devoted, health-and-comfort-sacrificing servant of God, laboring on under many discouragements, striving so to fulfil his ministry that he may save himself, and as many as he can persuade to live the life they live in the body by faith in the Son of God, the faith that makes holy and overcomes the world. Thus has it often happened, that, the more earnestly the pastor labors to promote the spiritual interests of his people, the less attached the majority become to him. It is certainly among the most discouraging prospects for the utility and happiness of the ministry, that the pastoral relation has for a long time been of very uncertain, and, in most of our parishes, of brief continuance. We cannot but think that "the former days," in this respect, "were better than these" days of strange and frequent divorce in this sacred connection. "Pastor and flock, erewhiles, like man and wife, His heart was with his charge to live and die, To train them up for heaven and meet them there; 441 Where the relation continues, the advancing years of the minister are saddened by the apprehension of failing strength and of failing support at the last. Worn down with labor and anxiety, broken in health, and wellnigh hopeless of relief, he either travels South to try the effect of a change of climate, where, like the subject of this notice, he lies down. to die, "glad to have reached the end of a long and wearisome journey, and to be at rest ;" or he survives his strength to labor, a superannuated incumbent of his pulpit, which is a synonym with incumbrance in the vocabulary of many of his people, to whom a stinted and reluctant support is voted; or he is turned over to the cold charity of a subscription, or of relatives, if he have them, or to the colder charity of an alms-house. This is no fiction, as the experience of many a faithful pastor, outliving his usefulness, has proved. not the opulent and humane of our cherished faith contribute of their abundance to the fund proposed to be established for the relief and aid of ministers who survive their strength to labor, and who have saved nothing from their usually inadequate means of support during the days of their strength? Will The Sermons of Dr. Brazer will be prized and read with interest and delight by the intellectual, and by all serious persons of a cultivated literary taste, who enjoy clear and logical argument, or lucid and definite statements of religious truth and duty. They abound in awakening and awe-inspiring appeals to the conscience. They speak less of a loving and trusting heart than of the strict obedience, the watchfulness and self-denial, necessary to the saving of the soul. Human responsibility, as it is often stated in its rigorous application and extent, is fitted to startle and terrify rather than to incite and encourage to an earnest and cheerful endeavour to grow in love and filial obedience to God, in fraternal love and doing good to men, in which, after all, consists the true Christian life. Reiterating and dwelling ever upon the stern law of duty repels and discourages, certainly is not calculated to win souls to Christ. If it do not recall to mind the dreadful phantom of a Deity hostile to mankind, from which horror," according to Fichte, "the presVOL. XLVI. - 4TH S. VOL. XI. NO. III. 38 ent age has been delivered by Christianity," it is apt to produce an impression that we live under the government of an exacting God, jealous, of his authority and rights, extreme to mark iniquities, instead of a gracious Father, who is love, and who requires of his children only to do what is best and happiest for them, and to avoid being or doing what is hurtful to themselves or others. God's love and Christ's love to us are not so often made the ground of appeal and motive of loving obedience in return, as the fearful retributions which await the negligent and disobedient. Dr. Peabody's sermons, recently noticed in this journal, leave no such painful impression upon the mind of the reader. Yet they are not deficient in showing men their duties and their transgressions, and the consequences of living at selfish and worldly life. But with "pointed rebuke" there is "kind encouragement." The poetical element, so living and salient in him, had but faint existence in the friend whose sermons are now under our notice. In the one, faith, hope, and charity, especially the greatest of the three, while they shone out in the life and character, were the main source of the beauty and attractiveness of his discourses. We doubt not they dwelt richly in the inmost heart of the other; but they did not enter so largely into his preaching, nor, if these are taken in proof, did they impart so much of their cheerful light to his views of life, of human character and destiny. Appeals to the conscience and the heart, to those natural sentiments which are universal and eternal, when uttered in simple and natural phrase, and in tones of true brotherly kindness, never fail to awaken a response in the heart of the hearer or reader. The appropriate imagery and illustrations, as well as the originality and beauty of the thoughts, are strong attractions in whatever Dr. Peabody has written. Dr. Brazer speaks more to the intellect than' to the heart, its generous sympathies, and that natural love of the right, the true, and the beautiful, inherent in all souls, though often dormant, and waiting only the fitting speech to awaken and call it forth. He deals much in argument, in the logic of duty and the sins of disobedience, more in the ethical and didactic than in the spontaneous, the devotional, and spiritual. He addresses his exhortations rather to the reason than to the feelings. He would enforce persuasion by demonstration. He accumulates particulars, but seldom generalizes. He says all that he can find to say upon his topics, and 1849.] Household Education. 443 leaves little to be supplied by the imagination or reflection of the reader. He says well what has been said by thousands before him. He is never obscure, neither is he ever profound. He urges with earnestness and solemnity the necessity of repentance, of a heart right with God, of living for duty, for virtue, not for pleasure or enjoyment, sternly rebukes vice, worldliness, and frivolity, and shows strongly the inevitable issues to which they lead. No one can read these Sermons, we think, without deriving from them the most salutary impressions and powerful incitements to a sober, righteous, and godly life. J. F. ART. VI. HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. HOME! How many associations of life and joy are there in that one word! How dear to the human heart the place which it designates! How stronger than all else the hold which it has on human affections! How, when the mind of the absent muses in solitude, does it turn, with a fondness which no other theme awakens, to this! How do thought and memory overleap all barriers of time and space, of months and years, of mountains and seas, to reach it, to range over it, to bring it near, though but in imagination, to bring it up in all its wonted endearments and attractions, and enshrine it anew in the heart! The traveller who climbs the pyramids, or is storing his mind with images of wonder, magnificence, and beauty among the broken columns and falling arches of Greece and Rome, breaks away from his classic raptures with a deeper and diviner glow of feeling than they inspire, to think of the humble spot in which all that is dearest in life is embraced; and would gladly sacrifice all their thrilling visions for one glimpse of home. He who, full of sincerest devotion, has gone to the far-off Holy Land of his faith, to tread the soil which was once pressed by the feet of the Saviour, and visit the scenes hallowed by the special presence and revelations of God in days gone by, even he turns back with intense longing to the land he has * Household Education. By HARRIET MARTINEAU, Author of "Eastern Life," etc. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard. 1849. 12mo. pp. 212. |