Sermons preached chiefly in the college chapel

I. Reason, Faith, And Duty

(Published in 1876 )

11. ;^

SERMONS. (Published in 1S61.)

BOSTON:

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION.

S e^nR Co n'S

PREACHED CHIEFLY IN THE COLLEGE CHAPEL

BY

JAMES WALKER, D.D., LL.D.,

LATE PRESIDENT OF HARVARD COLLEGE.

BOSTON:

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION.

1 890.

Univkrsity Press : John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.

The revered author of these Discourses should not be held responsible for their publication. Long since, he gave to the flames far the greater part of Ms unpublished Sermons. After repeatedly refusing the friend, to tchoin he had given the scant ij remnant, the privilege of publishing a portion of them, he allowed his scruples to be in a measure overcome, at the time of their last interview.

Should any surviving friend of President Walker ask whether he himself valued one of these Sermons above another, we might reply. The only one, hitherto unpublished, which he designated, is that " Upon the Sin of being Led Astray.''^

Introduction

O HOULD there be found any one to ask, " AMio was Janiea Walker ? " there are many to answer, " He was the man who first made me believe that religion is a real thing : in my college days, the strength of his logic, and the majesty of his earnestness, took my mind and heart captive."

Others, whose memories go back fm'ther, will reply, " More than all men else, he was ' a son of consolation ' when my house was left unto me desolate." And they will add, " He built up a strong parish from slender beginnings ; his church in Chailestown stood like a lighthouse to warn the young, from far and near, of their perils ; wherever he preached, he was listened to as if men saw in his every look and word the unmistakable credentials of a ' gi'eat ambassador. ' In the homes of the people he was simple as a child, yet profound as a philosopher ; at one moment overflowing with pungent humor, his countenance the next moment eloquent with pathetic seiiousness . ' '

He was a man mirivalled in sententious conversation, one who, in later life, drew toward him the mingled homage and respect of the learned men around him in other chairs of the College which he honored successively as Professor and President ; the man on whose counsel the student pre-eminently relied, when his mind was vexed with those problems which concern themselves with the conduct of life, or the choice of a profession. And he lived to grow old ; he went gently to his rest with the benedictions of pupils following him from their widely scattered homes, with the gratitude of the

VI INTRODUCTION.

liroken households who yet survived to revere the Pastor who had served them more tlian thirty years before.

Never devoid of catholicity of spirit, the vehemence of the youthful theologian became more and more mellowed by a wide course of reading, and through the experience of life, until at last we saw in him an impersonation of the apostolic " meekness of wisdom," the like of which, in this world, we can scarce believe that om* eyes shall rest upon again.

Is it too much to hope, that without the magic of that voice which filled all the chambers of the soul which it pierced, without that pleading look which compelled the prodigal to " come to himself," without the kingly silence in which the preacher seemed to stand enthroned, without the retinue of thirsting eyes which we saw fastened upon him, — these words of his, saved from the ashes to which he had almost doomed them, may fan the embers of our better natm'es into a flame of heartier consecration?

* Jamks Walker was born in Burlington (near Woburn), Mass., Aug. 16, 1794. He was fitted for Harvard College (which he entered in 1810) tinder Mr. Caleb Butler, Precei^tor of the Grotou Academy.

He delivered the second English cration at his gi-aduation, in 1814. Among the classmates gathered before him, when he appeared as theii- class-orator that year, were the late Kev. Dr. Greenwood, and the historian, Prescott. Upon leaving college, he spent a year at Exeter, N. H., as an assistant teacher in connection with the memorable Dr. Benjamin Abbot, Principal of " Phillips Exeter Academy."

The two subsequent years he passed in the pursuit of his Theological studies at Cambridge, graduating in the class which first left the Divinity School, in 1817.

* In the preparation of this biographiial notice, we have been verj' much iiided by a discriminating and beautiful sketcli of President Walker, prepared by Professor Joseph Levering, his life-long friend, for the " American Academy of Arts and Sciences."

INTRODUCTION. vii

After declining an invitation to settle in Lexington, Mass., he was ordained as the Pastor of the Harvard Church in Charlestown, Mass., Feb. 11, 1818. During the twenty-one years of this ministry (which was a ministry to the social and educational interests of the town, as well as to his own parish), he was challenged again and again to come foi'th as a leader, upon conspicuous occasions. In 1832, he addressed " the citizens of Charlestown upon the one hundredth anniversary of Washington's birth-day." His ringing voice, bidding men " be of good cheer," carried courage to many a faint-hearted church and its youthful minister, upon the day of ordination- The pages of the " Christian Examiner " bear witness to his zeal in " eveiy good word and work." Besides many contributions at other periods to its pages, he was its sole editor between the years 1831 and 1839. But a change of employment was at hand.

He retired from his auspicious ministry in Charlestown, July 14, 1839, that he might become '• Alford Professor of Natural Theology, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity" in Harvard College. The public foresaw his illustrious career at Cambridge (for his name had been suggested in some quarters as a candidate for President as early as the date of the lamented President Kirkland's resignation in 1828). But we cannot wonder that his devoted parish clung to him to the very last, and interposed every possible solicitation to compel him to decl.ae this invitation to the Alford Professorship. Nor were they wholly alone in their regrets. In the many homes in which Mr. Walker was enthusiastically welcomed, when he made " an exchange of pulpits," there must have been those among old and young, whose hearts sadly testified that this summons, " Friend, go up higher," betokened their being left, far more than before, beyond the range of his voice or the clasp of his hand. After leaving the impress of his character upon many successive classes who were brought into more familiar relations with him than often happens at college, at the expiration of fourteen years viii INTBODVCTION.

(in 1853) he -was transferred from the Professor's chair to the office of President; which latter post he filled with signal ability during the ensuing seven years, until, in 1860, his impaired health counselled his resignation. But this event did not remove him from all concern in the interests of the Col- If^ge which he had loved so intensely all his life; the College towards which he had long since taught the eyes of Charlestown boys to look wistfully. To its councils he had been called thirty-five years previous as Overseer ; of its Corporation he had been a member for nineteen years, before he became its President. And now, after a brief respite, we find him once more, for ten years, a member of the Board of Overseers.

He survived his retirement from the Presidency more than fourteen years. He had so meekly borne the honors with which men had crowned him, that these later years of comparative retirement were not rendered insipid from lack of excitement, but were, as he alleged, among his happiest; save only that a portion of them were overshadowed by the death of the wife, who for nearly forty years had been the companion of his studies, and the eager dispenser of his hospitality. Mrs. Catherine Walker (daughter of Dr. George Bartlett of Charlestown, Mass.,) died June 13, 1868, aged 70.

On his eightieth birth-day, Aug. 16, 1874, through the happy instigation of his life-long friend, Rev. Dr. Samuel Osgood, of New York, a beautiful cup and salver were presented to him by friends who had known and loved hiin in Charlestown, Cambridge, and elsewhere. A few weeks previous, he had the rare felicity of welcoming at his dinner table, upon Commencement Day, seven of his surviving classmates.

Dr. Walker edited " Reid's Essay on the Intellectual Pcwers, abridc^ed, with notes from Sir William Hamilton," and Dugald Stewart's " Philosophy of the Active and INIorpl Powers of Man."

In 1840, and for three consecutive years, he delivered courses of lectures, before the Lowell Institute, upon Natu-

INTRODUCTION. ix

raJ Religion, which excited a very deep and wide-spread interest.

In 1863, a memoir of Hon. Daniel Appleton White, of Salem, Mass., was printed, which Dr. Walker had prepared at the request of the Massachusetts Historical Society; and in 1867, he prepared a memoir, for the same society, of President Quincy.

The fervor of his patriotism was attested alike at the beginning and at the close of our gigantic civil war. In 1861, he published a kindling discourse, delivered in King's Chapel, Boston, upon " The Spirit proper to the Times." The oration which he delivered, in 1863, before the Alumni of Harvard College, remains in its massive simplicity an inspiring memorial of his patriotic counsels.

A former series of sermons was published by him after liis retirement from the College Presidency.*

He died Dec. 23, 1874. His remains rest in Forest Hills Cemetery, West Roxbury.

w. o. w.

Keene, N. H.,

October, 1876.

The compiler takes great pleasure in acknowledging the assistance of Rev. Hexry W. Foote, of Boston, in the preparation of this volume for the press.

* Dr. Walker testified his attachment to Harvard University in the gift, hy his will (with liberal increase), of the timely' and generous benefaction which his friends had sent him upon his resigning the ottice of President. This bequest amounted to fifteen thousand dollars In iddition, he gave the College, in tlie same instrument, his entire library. He bequeathed one thousand dollars each to the American Unitarian Association, and to the " Societ}' for the Relief of Aged and Indigent Clergymen."

OuK Duty in Respect to Other Men's Consciences 424