xt7v9s1khr5j https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7v9s1khr5j/data/mets.xml Nourse, James Duncan, 1817-1854. 1847  books b92-242-31439697 English Morton & Griswold, : Louisville, Ky. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. History Philosophy. Remarks on the past and its legacies to American society  / J.D. Nourse. text Remarks on the past and its legacies to American society  / J.D. Nourse. 1847 2002 true xt7v9s1khr5j section xt7v9s1khr5j 


RE MARKS



             ON THE



PAST AND ITS LEGACIES


               TO



AMERICAN



SOCIE TY.



" WESTWARD TILE STAR OF EM4PIRE TAKES ITS WAY."




   BY J. D. NOURSE.





     LOUISVILLE, KY:
   MORTON  GRISWOLD.
         1847.

 























Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1R47, by
                 J. D. NOURSE,
     In the Clerk's Office of the District of Kentucky.



Morton  Griswold's Power Press.

 









ADVERTISEMENT.



  I venture with great diffidence to lay before the
public the results of the thought and reading of
some years, compressed by repeated revision into
the smallest possible compass. It may seem pre-
sumptuous for a young backwoodsman, who has
written nothing to prepare the way for the present
work, except a little romance, founded on the tra-
ditions of his native State, to enter the lists with
Schlegel, Guizot, and Macaulay; but I trust my
countrymen will give me a fair hearing. I am in-
debted not only to the writers mentioned but to a
host of others, as the auctioneers say, "too tedious
to mention."
  Bardstown, Ky.,
    Dec. 26th, 1846. i

 This page in the original text is blank.

 







PREFATORY REMARKS.



                 DESIGNED TO BE READ.


  IN the prosecution of my favorite study of history,
I have thought that I discerned two great events,
towards which the movements of society and the
arrangements of Providence have converged, in the
ancient and modern worlds respectively:-the intro-
duction of Christianity and the birth of the Amer-
ican Democracy. In regard to the former, I have
not the slightest claim to originality, and merely as-
pire to present, in a somewhat striking and popular
form, views long entertained by the profoundest of
the continental philosophers ; but if I am right in the
belief that American society is not only the last, but
the noblest birth of Time, an American thinker,
especially if he be a Protestant, is more favorably
situated for taking just views of the philosophy of
modern history, than one, however able and learned
who has grown up in the shadow of those ancient
institutions which have outlived their original uses.
  In the following pages I have attempted to trace
the progress of society down to that remarkable
epoch, when the best products of the Christian civil-
ization were transplanted to the virgin soil of Amer-
ica. I have reserved that stirring and productive

 


PREFACE.



period, extending from the commencement of our
struggle with England to the end of Napoleon's em-
pire, for a subsequent work, if the success of the
present should warrant another and similar under-
taking.
  The reader will soon discover that the nature of
this work precludes the necessity of frequent refer-
ence to historical details. Whenever I have made
a statement in illustration of a principle, I have been
careful to satisfy myself of its accuracy by consult-
ing the best authorities.
  In a few of the first pages following, which were
written some years ago, the reader may find some
resemblance to the peculiar style and topics of Mr.
Carlyle. I confess that I love him so much, that
were I to meet him knowingly in the streets of the
great Babel, I would certainly astound the Cock-
neys, by giving him the hearty salutation of a back-
woodsman, without waiting for an introduction.



VI


 












    I.
THE CROSS.

 This page in the original text is blank.

 








THE CROSS.



  HISTORY is the first of sciences. In its widest sense it
may be said to include every other science,-all that has
been preserved of what has been said, done and written
by man since the foundation of the world.
  There are two great revelations of God, and of the high-
est truth, the revelation of nature and the revelation of history.
  The Bible is a part of the historic revelation, but by far
the most important part, for it gives us the key of the whole.
The records of Christianity furnish us with a central and
lofty point of view, from which we may marshall around us
the leading facts of universal history in such order, that we
may hope to deduce a consistent and intelligible theory of
the existence of man upon earth, and humbly trace the
majestic footsteps of Eternal Providence.
  Indeed our opinions respecting the Christian records will
determine our views of history at large. They will deter-
mine whether we shall regard the movements of society,
and the revolutions of empires, as a mere aimless tragi-com-
edy, played off for the amusement of the higher Powers, or
as a solemn and mysterious evolution of a mighty purpose
and a lofty destiny.
  A melancholy thought strikes us at the threshold. Of all
the vast materials of history, of all the sayings and doings,
manners and institutions, the moral and intellectual manifes-
tations, in short, of the generations that have gone before us,
what an infinitely small part has been preserved. Even
since mankind emerged from the cloud of mythical tradition

 


THE CROSS.



into the clear light of authentic history, their annals have
done little more than mark the bubbles that have floated upon
that fathomless stream of life, which, issuing from the great
deep of eternity past, is lost in the darkness of eternity to
come.
  If we would trace to their sources the mightiest manifes-
tations of spiritual life, language, religion, philosophy,
government and the arts, we are carried beyond the feeble
illumination of profane history into the twilight of an almost
impenetrable antiquity. A few chapters in Genesis comprise
all that is known to us of those mighty ages, the time-defying
relics of whose unparallelled civilization startle the travel-
ler in the silent deserts of Upper Egypt, in the "marble
wilderness " of Syria, the jungles of India, and the cyclopeau
ruins of Greece and Italy. What is known of the spiritual
manifestations of the past, bears but a small proportion to
what has forever perished from the memory of man and tlhe
records of history.
  Forever, did we say, and is all that has been buried under
the "wrecks of time " irretrievably lost No! Not thus,
we are persuaded, does God deal with his rational creatures.
There is a volume and a recording angel before His throne,
and in the light of that ineffable Presence, the bulletin of the
battle between Heaven and Hell, of which earth is the field
and Eternity the prize, will one day be published to the
Universe. No conquest ever made from the empire of ig-
norance, sin and misery, however small,-no victory ever
gained over evil passions, however obscure,-no dark and
fearful struggle with the temptations of the world and the
despotism of Nature, shall go unchronicled. No tear of
compassion or sorrow has ever fallen unheeded by the Father
of us all. No great and heroic deed,-no winged words of
light or hope or consolation, though forgotten on earth, shall
ever be lost from the memories of Eternity.



10

 




  Yet the comparatively small part of universal history which
is known to us now, is an unfathomable mine, and rich in the
ore of thought. A glory breaks out from the tombs of de-
parted generations, and amid the chaos of facts arid the
ruins of empires, are many bright points of light in the past,
that may serve to illumine the present and the future. We
vill endeavor to collect some of these scattered rays, and if
we should discover nothing absolutely new, we may at least
refresh and deepen the impression of those old, but not the
less glorious truths, which are the wholesome food of spirit-
ual life.
  And here I beg leave to enter my protest against what
may be called the un-historical or anti-historical philosophy
so fashionable at the present day, especially among the culti-
vators of the physical sciences, a philosophy which is at once
the off'spring and parent of a shallow scepticism. This
school of illuminati and radical reformers, looking too exclu-
sively at the errors and imperfections that have incrusted the
organized forms, in which the great principles of moral life
and social progress have from time to time taken up their
residence, have brought themselves to regard the Past, as an
inextricable maze of weak self-delusion, or wholesale jug-
glery.
  If deep and life-giving realities, which have given birth to
the poetry, chivalry, and religion of the "fervent days of
old," have been mixed up with error and superstition, our
ph ilosopiers conclude that all these things have been founded
in delusion or imposture. To save themselves the trouble of
separating the pure bullion of truth from the alloy with
which it has passed current among masses of men, they has-
tily consign the whole to the limb of exploded chimeras.
According to this philosophy nature is a machine, life is the
the motion of particles, history is a tissue of folly, selfishness
and priestcraft.



11



THE CROSS.

 




  The favorite themes of these lights of the world, at least
of the most thorough-going and consistent among them, are
the folly and ignorance of believing ages, the "march of
intellect," and the progress of the physical sciences, which
are to regenerate the species, revolutionize our views of
man and his destiny, and disenchant life of all those beauti-
ful delusions of our benighted fathers, which have inspired
self-devotion, moral heroism and hopes that grasp at infinity.
  This spirit is manifestly incompatible with any definite re-
ligious belief, which must be founded upon historical
evidence, corroborated by moral intuitions. Some of our
philosophers, it is true, may preserve a prudent and worldly
acquiescence in the religion of their country or their neigh-
bors, which is far less worthy of respect than earnest inquir-
ing scepticism. Others may regard religion as an useful
humbug, which wise men should tolerate until society is
prepared to do without it, but this capitulation with error is
scouted by the higher class of sceptics, who hold that truth
alone is good, and that no system radically false can be
productive of any real or lasting benefit to mankind.
  The same spirit, brought to bear directly upon historical
inquiry, has given birth to what may be called the " humbug"
philosophy of history, of which Hume is perhaps the great-
est representative, and which, by making a great show of
wisdom and impartiality, has been the source of more fallacy
and injustice, than all the most passionate disquisitions of the
most enthusiastic partizans. IIi this school of history, every
great, but irregular nature, full of fiery earnestness about
matters with which the writer happens to have no sympathy,
is a hypocrite, an impostor or a fanatic; every half enlight-
ened but still glorious manifestation of the divinest part of
man's nature is sneered at, as an outburst of silly enthusiasm,
or a trick of selfish ambition.
  Contempt for the past is moral desolation. It excludes



12



THE CROS9S.

 




God and His Providence from history, saps the foundation
of religion and tends to bring into doubt almost everything
which exalts and embellishes society. It is a dreary, soul-
chilling, practical Atheism.
  Take the following illustration of our views upon this
subject:
  Nowhere else in the annals of mankind are the traces of
a beneficent Providence so clearly to be seen as in the histo-
ry of the Christian religion. All the vast movements and
revolutions of the ancient nations converge to one mighty
purpose, the introduction of Christianity. It has been the
soul of modern society, the most efficient agent in civilizing
mankind, the main life-bearing stem upon which has been
engrafted every thing beautiful and glorious in the vigorous,
progressive and ever expanding civilization of the Christian
nations. According to the "humbug " philosophy, either
the Divinity concerns himself not with the affairs of his
creatures, or he has chosen as the means of conferring his
greatest blessings upon them, a boundless scheme of elabo-
rate imposture.
  Contempt for the past, especially in relation to civil con-
cerns, is an error to which, from obvious causes, American
society is peculiarly exposed, and which it therefore becomes
the duty of the American writer to combat. We are in little
danger of falling into that opposite extreme, which in Europe
takes the form of high conservatism, and with desperate
perversity throws itself into direct opposition to the resist-
less tendencies of modern society. From the nature of the
case, toryism can never take deep root in American soil, and
it is idle to aim our blows at an imaginary foe, while a real
and portentous tendency threatens the extinction of all rev-
erence for the Past, and with it all of that ennobling class of
emotions, which are allied to such reverence as their parent
stock. This tendency is fostered by the grovelling dema-



13



THE CROSS.

 




goguism that curses our country: a moral pestilence more to
be dreaded by a people than the greatest physical calamities.
  Popular sycophants would fain make us believe that polit-
ical wisdom and the great principles of liberty, like potatoes
and tobacco, are indigenous to American soil; and some are
absurd enough to contend for what they call an American
education, which shall cut us off from the past and cancel
all our obligations to the old world. But no nation ever
became great by this process, nor ever will. We must re-
collect that, if we can see a little farther than those who have
gone before u3, we stand upon a mental pyramid piled up by
the labors of countless generations; that it is our business to
carry it still farther towards heaven, not to look down with
scorn upon the great works of our predecessors, or become
little in the contemplation of our own greatness. Other na-
tions may still have the remnants of old abuses to demolish,
our task is not to destroy but to preserve and build up. We
have nothing to spare of the legacies of the past.
  The shallow unhistorical illuminism of radical destructives
and materialist philosophers is an evil which with many com-
pensating benefits has been bequeathed to mankind by that
tremendous collision between the new and the old, the
French Revolution. Or to speak with more precision, it is
the offspring of that powerful and pervading tendency of
modern society, of which the French revolution was the
mightiest and most destructive outburst. In the warfare
which freedom of inquiry, and civil equality on the one
hand, have waged against venerable authority, and arbitrary
privilege on the other, the tremendous assaults, which have
been made upon ancient institutions that have outlived their
original uses, have not always spared the truth and good
which those institutions were designed to perpetuate.
  The human mind can entertain but one passion at a time,
sufficiently overruling and intense to effect great changes in



14



THIE CROSS.

 


THE CROSS.



society, and revolutionary ardor has been so busy with the work
of demolition, that it is not wonderful that many should turn
their backs upon the past, forgetful of its greatness, and their
own obligations to it, and look forward to the future with
boundless hopes, and chimerical schemes for the radical re-
generation of society. Yet there is nothing more certain,
than that no moral or political organization wholly severed
from the past can live. We may repair dilapidated institutions
from time to time, and adapt them to the new exigencies of
society; but we must preserve the old foundations, the great
prirlcqples, or our structures will not stand the test of time
and experience. It is the order of Providence, that the new
should be evolved from the old in such a manner, that the
life and soul of the one should be gradually transfused into
the other. Great revolutions may seem to interrupt this order
for a time, but after the earthquake has rolled away, the
stream resumes its former channel, only clearer, broader, freer
from obstructions than before. We may borrow an image
from Scandinavian Poetry, and compare the progressive de-
velopment of man's destinies upon earth to a mighty tree.
We may prune it and lop the sapless branches, but we must
not forget that the most beautiful flowers of modern civiliza-
tion, the most noblest fruits which have ripened in the blaze
of modern science, have drawn their vital sap from broad
roots buried in the remotest antiquity, through a mighty trunk
whose growths are eras, and boughs that have battled with
the storms of revolutions.
  We need not hope to understand any important portion of
history thoroughly, without attaining some elevated point
which will give us a view of the whole. It is not a line but
a web, and each part is intertangled with every other part in
the vast and intricate texture of Providential arrangements.
Yet by collating facts far separated in time and space, and
discerning their relations to each other, and to the evolution

 




of the vast plans of Eternal Providence, we may hope to
frame a general theory of historical philosophy, which will
collect the scattered rays that break out in distant ages and
different quarters of the globe, and reflect the concentrated
light thus gathered from the whole upon each successive
portion, as it passes in review before us. I am far from sup-
posing myself equal to so vast and difficult an undertaking.
I only hope to throw out a few suggestions which may facili-
tate the solution of this greatest of philosophical problems.
  Without such generalization, we should be unable to catch
the true spirit and import of any of the great movements of
society, from those meagre delineations of public transactions,
which make up the greater part of our histories, and exhibit
only proximate or occasional causes. We mark the move-
ments of armies, the doings of politicians and the intrigues
of courts, things which float upon the surface of society, while
the real fountains of moral and intellectual life are hidden fai
below in its quiet and silent depths.
  Every one knows, that, in the natural world, the mightiest
results are brought about by the steady operations of quiet
and unobtrusive agencies. The sudden storm at sea may
mingle their spray of billows with the clouds of heaven; but
in a few hours all traces of the tempest's rage have vanished,
while, in the blue ocean above, the stars in quiet beauty wheel
in their everlasting courses, impelled by a power unseen, un-
heard and only known by its stupendous effects.
   The same is true of the moral world. But this is a trite
theme and I will not dwell upon it. I cannot, however, refrain
from noticing a beautiful illustration of the thought in the
Hebrew scriptures, notwithstanding it has often been refer-
red to by other writers. It is one of the most brilliant gems
in that exhaustless mine of divine philosophy and inspired
poetry.
   The Prophet sat upon Mount Horeb, waiting for a visita-



16



THE CROSS.

 


THE CROSS



tion from on High. A storm-wind swept through the moun-
tain passes, but the Lord was not in the wind; an earthquake
rent the rocks, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; a
fire darted through the clefts, and roared among the moun-
tain pines, but the Lord was not in the fire; but there came
a still small voice, like soft music from afar, and the thrilling
frame and kindling soul of the Prophet acknowledged the
presence and power of the Eternal Spirit.
  When the natural philosopher discerns in a multitude of
facts phenomena essentially the same, though to a greater
or less degree modified by peculiar circumstances, he intui-
tively refers them to certain invariable laws or intrinsic pro-
perties of matter, and goes to work to find out the causes
that have varied the results in particular instances. We see
no reason why the same procedure should not be adopted
in historical investigations; for in like manner, while wed is-
cern marked peculiarites in the spiritual developments of
different nations, there are certain great features of life and
principles of action which run through all ages and all tribes
and kindreds of the earth, that have attained to any consider-
able height of knowledge and refinement, or played any im-
portant part in history.
  Nations have left their original seats and wandered to
distant portions of the globe; empires have fallen and their
treasures of art and knowledge have been buried beneath
their ruins; the world has been a scene where the demons
of lust, ambition and revenge have rioted in crime and
bloodshed; yet amid all these mighty changes, and world-
wide confusions, certain phenomena have been manifested
by every age and nation of which any monuments have been
)reserved.
  Among these universal facts, are the belief of a First
Cause, and a recognition of his right to prescribe the laws
of our being; an ideal more or less distinct of the specific



17

 



perfection of man and society, and a sense of actual short-
coming and moral debasement; attempts by self-immolation
and sacrifices of other victims to avert the penalties of the
Divine law, not only in the present but a future life, and
finally a perpetual struggle between the animal and selfish
passions and that higher part of our strange nature which
links us to God and Eternity. Nowhere has the human
soul been so completely darkened,-at no time have its finer
chords been so entirely unstrung, but that through the up-
roar of strife, the curses of rage and the shrieks of despair,
some gushes of heavenly music have been heard from time
to time, which have brought solace from above to the pil-
grim and stranger upon earth.
  In the great tree of moral life there are the main stem of
the primitive revelation, growing up through the Hebrew
theocracy to its glorious maturity in christianity; the almost
sapless branches of Chinese philosophy, and Mahommedan
deism; the rich foliage and flowers of Indian and Grecian
mythology; the mossy, storm-riven boughs of Scandinavian
poetry and Celtic druidism; but withal its roots are far down
in Eternity and its top reaches to Heaven.
  The materialist, the despiser of the Past, regards these
great moral facts, which have lived throughli all the vicissi-
tudes of savage and cultivated society, as mere chimeras or
the fever-dreams of a long night of ignorance and supersti-
tiom, which the light of modern science is to put to flight
forever. According to him this modern science must be a
melancholy business. It disrobes the world of the beauties
which Poetry has stolen from the gardens of Paradise, anrd
represents nature not as a kind, though sometimes stern
mother, rearing the sons and daughters of immortality, but
as a blind monster sitting on a pile of skulls and devour-
in, her own children.
  That profoundest philosophy which recognizes the Divine



is



THE CROSS.

 




and imperishable in man, always appears first in the forms
of poetry and music, twin sisters and the hand-maids of reli-
gion. It is a remarkable fact, that in the earliest periods of
civilization, in the robust and fervid youth of great nations,
Poetry, that divine melody of thought and words, is always
the first language of the newly awakened intellect. Moral
reproof and instruction and even the laws of the heroic ages
were embodied in the forms, and vitalized by the spirit of
Poetry.
  As civilization advances, and the cold abstractions of sci-
ence take the place of the life-like creations of the imagina-
tion, Poetry withdraws herself more and more from the
domain of the understanding. But though a high state of
intellectual cultivation more clearly defines the respective
boundaries of science and poetry, it is by no means neces-
sarily unfavorable to the latter, as many have supposed.
  It is true that rude ages allow greater freedom to the ex-
cursions of the imagination. But what is lost in one respect,
is gained in another. Poetry more and more hemmed in
by reality, finds in reality new and inexhaustable resources.
  The vulgar and trivial details of actual life are apt to
blunt our perceptions of its greatness. Yet man, whatever
the materialists may think about the matter, is not merely a
beast but also a god, and this world is not altogether a sty
but also a temple of the Divinity, paved with the bones of
the dead, but roofed by the starry dome, and peopled by
beautiful and awfill mysteries. The bright dreams of youth,
and the thoughtful sadness of maturer years; the deep com-
munings of the soul with nature and with God; the fond
loyalty which cherishes the memories of heroes and great
benefactors of mankind; self-sacrificing patriotism which
attaches to the idea of country an infinite import, and sacred
obligations; rapt devotion, whether it recognize the Divine
Presence in the Gothic Cathedral, amid the forest aisles, or



19



THIE CROSSf.

 



on the sounding sea-shore,-what are all these things but the
rising undulations of that deepest part of our mysterious na-
ture, in which are the fountains of poetry and religion.
   If we imagine a rational creature upon a level with the
highest of our species to reach the maturity of his powers in
another state of being, and then to have all his perceptions
and sensibilities suddenly opened upon this world in any of
its brightest or most fearful aspects, what deep thoughts,
what childish wonder, love, or awe, would fill his whole
soul! The poetical temperament preserves in a greater or
less degree this childlike freshness, which custom withers in
other men, and by mysterious affinities draws to itself the
poetry of life and nature from the alloy of common place
ingredients.
  It is unquestionably the greatest triumph of art to idealize
the present; for distance either in time or space renders the
materials of poetry more pliant. Through the same mists
which conceal from us the vulgar and trivial details, the
grander features of the scene loom up into shapes of beauty
or terror. Campbell's illustration of this thought will occur
to every reader. If " distance " " robes the mountain in its
azure hue," it also leaves the imagination free to rove
through shadowy and sequestered dells or fairy regions, be-
yond the blue summits that seem to prop the heavens.
  This fact discloses the true secret of the highest poetical
effect, and throws much light on the nature of poetry in gen-
eral. If we wish to exalt the actual into the ideal, we must
take care not to fetter the imagination by such clear and
sharp outlines as leave no room for vaguc associations and
undefined but powerful emotions, which transcend the limits
of the partial present and grasp at the infinite whole. Fan.-
tasy must be set free from the chains of the actual.
  But what, it may be asked, has all this to do with the phi-
losophy of history Aluch, as I hope will be seen hereafter,



20



THE: CROSS.

 




if the reader has patience to follow the train of thought
which has led me to the views that I entertain upon that
subject; There are strong affinities between our opinions
upon such subjects, that at first sight seem to have no direct
connection. Our views of history must depend in a great
measure upon our notions of the nature of man and the pur-
poses of his manifestations.
  If man be a machine, and all the purposes of his existence
be limited to the present world, then poetry is simply an
illusion, and a pernicious one, for those bodying forth of the
ideal which fill the soul with an infinite love, or grief, or ter-
ror, are the dreams of a distempered imagination, and blind
men to their present and real good by fostering vague but
glorious anticipations which must be finally disappointed.
For, consciously or unconsciously, the poetical temperament
links everything finite and perishable with the infinite and
imperishable, and our little life here with the boundless and
everlastino existence that awaits us. Whatever form poetry
may take, and whatever may be the nature of the materials
which it draws from the actual world, its essential inspira-
tion is the ineradicable desire of the human soul for a wider,
a more beautiful, a more powerful existence than the present.
  When the Poet is destitute of religious faith, the mighty
cravings of his soul, and a vivid sense of the frightful dis-
crepancy between the aspirations and the supposed destiny
of man, may eat into his own heart, tear asunder his whole
natmie, and fever into despair, madness or suicide. A hap-
pier creed may overarch life with the rainbow of hope, and
pour over nature the light of eternity. In either case, the
poet filled with the ideal and that infinite love and awe which
only the ideal can inspire, becomes the unconcious prophet
of a deeper and mightier truths than the boasted deductions of
science. Even in science no great thing was ever done by
a man who had not a spice of poetry in him.



21



THRE CROSS.

 




  As will appear more fully in the progress of our inquiry,
those branches of art and literature, which strive to embody
the aspirations of man in forms of ideal beauty or power,
have performed a very important part in human culture. It
is therefore perfectly consistent for our philosophers, who
look upon history as little better than a tissue of delusion,
selfishness and imposture. to regard poetry as a pleasant
cheat, which may serve to amuse a vacant hour.
  Religion is the union of the highest philosophy with the
highest poetry. Philosophy has to do with substances, quali-
ties, relations, all which are objects of pure intellect, not of
passion; but when those substances and qualities are em-
bodied or manifested in sensible forms, such as may excite
love, terror or admiration, they come within the province of
Poetry. Religion is the recognition of God, the central sun
of all truth, in two modes; first, philosophically as an absolute
essence, with certain qualities and relations; secondly, poetical-
ly, as manifested in the various forms of life and beauty around
us, which call forth our love, admiration or reverence, which
is the union of the other two feelings, in proportion as they
rise in the scale of being towards the Infinite. In idolatry
the poetical element of religrion predominates, almost to the
exclusion of the philosophical. In cold, absolute theism the
exact reverse takes place. Christianity alone has eflected in
the God-man, our Saviour, a happy and perfect union of
philosophy and poetry.
  It will not be out of place to remark just here, that all the
poetry, which has made any considerable contributions to
the progress of society in christian ages and nations, has had
a vital connection with the Christian religion. 'This will ap-
pear more fully hereafter. Indeed the history of Christianity
itself, including the life and death of its Divine Founder, the
moral heroism of its martyrs and apostles, an(l the long war-
fare which it has waged against ignorance, sin and misery, is



22



THIE CROSS.

 


THE CROSS.



a mighty epic, of which God is the author; and the refine-
ments of chivalry, the triumphs of art and the glories of sci-
ence are the episodes. Religion has directly or indirectly
been the source of that poetry of action, which has shed a
never-dying glory over the great and stirring periods of mod-
ern history.
  It is obvious that we use the term Poetry in its general
sense of passionate recognition of all beautiful, glorious and
sublime things, manifested, not only in verse, painting, sculp-
ture, architecture, but any thing which ennobles man, embel-
lishes life, or refines society, provided it can be embodied in
sensible forms, or associated with images more or less distinct.
Not only the greatest works of art, but the finest traits and
noblest triumphs of civilization, are manifestation of that
divine and perennial spirit of Poetry, without which, life
would be a poor despicable round of sordid cares and ani-
mal gratifications.
  In this connection I will venture a few thoughts on the
origin and philosophy of civilization in general.
  Civilization originally meant the condition of civil society,
which in the Latin mind was indissolubly associated with
cities. The term as used by modern writers is more corn-
prehensive. I will define civilization to be that state of so-
ciety, which surrounds the individual members thereof with
circumstances positively propi