Aspirations of nature

Contents

PAGE

I. — The Dawn, ... .9

II. — The Beauty, . . . . 15

Preface

Loyal to Keason, they repudiate these false tenets, and endeavor to find or construct a religion agreeable to the laws of man's intelligence, and commensurate with all the wants of Human Nature.

Another class have discarded all denominable religions, and betake themselves to the different movements of the day in hopes of obtaining the solutions of the dark enigmas of life, and of finding the satisfaction which their religious instincts demand.

The following pages are addressed to these men. Let them be read in the spirit in which they were written, in earnestness, in sincerity, and in unswerving loyalty to Truth.

THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.

I

" How beautiful that yesterday, that stood Over us like a rainbow ! I am alone. The past is past." Alex. Smith.

THE first sensations of the happiness of our being, consist in the pleasure to look upon, and enjoy the exquisite charms which nature spreads with a lavish hand every where, to attract and win our attention.

The flowers, the sea, the air, the sky, the whole earth, is instinct with and breathes a life which entrances our senses, steals into and dilates the soul, and imparadises the heart. 1*

Nature, in all and through, all things, smiles on us in our childhood. Fascinated by her charms, we yield ourselves willing captives to her embraces, and are happy beyond measure, and we know it not.

Such are childhood's opening scenes, and its early blessings. Were these only lasting, life would seem sufficient joy, and earth a paradise.

But kind nature deceived us. We were not happy. This was only an infant's dream of bliss ; a faint echo of lost Eden ; an enchantment whose charm was soon broken ; and, alas, we were left alone ! and strangers to that nature which appeared as though it were " bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh/'

Childhood's sweet blossoms are crushed ; and we find ourselves strangers everywhere, to every one, to our own selves even ! Mystery covers all that hitherto stood open to our gaze and seemed so familiar. It is, indeed, strange to be conscious of loneliness in the wide world of things and existences, while all is around, and so near us ! To stand apart, to feel ourselves outside of all things ! To be fearfully alone, and to discover the prophet speaking our own language : " I beheld the earth, and lo it was void and nothing ; and the heavens, and there was no light in them. I beheld the

THE DAWN.

birds of the air, they were gone, and lo there was no man ! " *

What has robbed us of our early joys ? Is childhood's blissful vision for ever gone ? Oh, we ask no ray of light to see into the future, we would be a child again !

Alas ! its fair dreams have fled. Eeality is making its prey of all that was so beautiful to behold. The flowers look faded ; the song of the birds is cheerless ; the air has lost all its freshness ; the earth, the sea, the sky, and all things are as though they were not. All is void : the heart forsaken ; paradise is closed ; the golden age is past ; and the soul, like the fabled Psyche, no longer content with past imperfect joys, is doomed to toil and wo, until it has realized the promises of its new-born capacities.

This is life's greatest moment, when the soul unfolds capacities which reach beyond earth's boundaries. We seem no longer the beings we were. New depths are broken up in the soul. Hidden energies come forth to light. A fresh life stirs within us. We know what we see is not what we seek, and what we seek we know not. Dimly opens to our vision a loftier and fairer world, promising an ampler bliss. The soul beholds its

* Jeremiah.

goal, and like the butterfly which lias escaped tlie chrysalis, finds now that its lot is away !

All great minds have recognized this fact : that man has capacities to conceive sublime truths ; powerful aspirations, noble presentiments which carry the soul beyond the region of sense, and lead it on to that brighter world where dwells the First True, the First Good, the First Fair — the eternal type of all perfections, and aim of all our strivings ; —

" That even in savage bosoms There are longings, yearnings, strivings For the good they comprehend not." *

It is written on every page and breathed through all the works of genius. The philosophers, from Plato to Kant, vainly strove to sound these secret depths of the soul ; the poets, from the author of " Prometheus Bound" to the author of the "Intimations of Immortality," exhausted their gifts to express it ; the pencil and the chisel have alike failed adequately to embody this mysterious birth of the conscious soul, — a birth which is the starting point of all philosophy, the ideal of all genius, and the basis of all religious beliefs.

* Hiawatha.

THE DAWN.

No man of the world can be wholly unaware of the moment in his soul's history when he first became distinctly conscious of his own personal existence. It is this fact which throws so strange an interest around that most beautiful creation of genius, Undine.

How many hearts have thrilled ; how many a one has recognized that the sentiments are drawn from the secret depths of his own being, which Undine expresses, when she exclaims, half musing with herself, half inquiring from her newfound teacher :

" ' There must be something lovely, but at the same time something most awful about a soul ! In the name of God, holy man, were it not better that we never shared a gift so mysterious ? '

" She paused and restrained her tears as if waiting for an answer. She, however, seemed to have eyes for no one but the holy man ; a fearful curiosity was painted on her features, and this made her emotion appear terrible to others.

" 6 Heavily must the soul weigh down its possessor,' she pursued, when no one returned her any answer ; 6 very heavily ! for already its approaching image overshadows me with anguish and mourning, and, alas ! I have till now been so merry and light hearted,' " *

* Undine, oh. 3.

Every effort to undo the soul's recognition of the great fact of its existence, seems but to fix it more firmly. We may writhe and struggle ; we may resolve to be as we were ; and these efforts tend only to make this mysterious and new-awakened life more powerfully felt. For weal or for woe it is

" Born to perish never, Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavor,

Nor man, nor boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy."*

* Wordsworth.

II

** These struggling tides of life that seem In wayward, aimless course to tend, Are eddies of the mighty stream That rolls to an appointed end."

Bryant.

THE soul naturally aspires to something which is better, higher, nobler, greater than itself. This aspiration is no fiction. For every act of a created being presupposes other existences.

We cannot think where there is nothing to be thought. We cannot love where there is nothing to be loved. We cannot act where there is nothing whereupon to act. Nothing can come of nothing.

The denial of this is the denial of the things we see, touch, taste, hear and smell ; it is the denial of our own existences, the world's existence, and God's existence. It is the denial of all things. For the evidence of our being, and the evidence of the world's being, and the evidence of God's being, are seen simultaneously, and enter into one and the same fact of consciousness.

And the certitude of their several existences, is of equal authority ; for, although the organs through which Reason operates are not precisely of the same character, nevertheless Eeason is one and indivisible, and is of equal authority in all that it duly attests.

Every operation of our faculties, therefore, is an incontestable evidence of the real being of something independent of our own being.

The certainty of our faculties is not only incontestable in regard to the fact of other existences, their certainty is equally incontestable in regard to the qualities and characteristics of those existences.

A rose does not affect us in the same way as a fine strain of music ; the sight of the ocean does not excite the same emotions as the society of our friends or families ; the remembrance of the Traitor Arnold produces quite different impressions from that of the patriot Washington.

Whilst we have remained the same, we have been subject to very diverse impressions. Why

THE REALITY.

is this ? The reason is simple and plain. The objects before us were changed, and these being of a different character, we were consequently differently affected. For it is not the mind that creates things, or originates their qualities or characteristics, but it is these which inform and shape the mind.

The mind, therefore, takes cognizance of the existence not only of things, but also of their qualities and characteristics, and its authority is no less reliable in the latter functions of its activity than in the former.

But the cognizance of existences and of their qualities is the cognizance of Truth, — for Truth is all which is or exists. The mind of man, therefore, is the organ of Truth.

We take, therefore, our stand upon the unquestionable certitude of our faculties, and will permit no attempt to undermine their authority.

A well-organized and healthy mind will not allow an entrance to the slightest doubt concerning the evident authority of the operations of its own faculties.

To entertain such a doubt is no mark of wisdom, but rather a proof of folly. For it involves the palpable absurdity of proving that worthless which serves as the basis and instrument of proof.

Existence is not a dream, but a solemn reality. Life was not given to be thrown away on miserable sophisms, but to be employed in earnest search after Truth.

There is a doubt, however, which springs from a deficiency of evidence, or from a lack of information. This we respect, for it is an honest doubt — a mark of an honest, and the sign of the working of an independent mind. It

" Springs like a shoot, around the stock of truth ; And it is nature, from height to height, On to the summit prompts us." *

The other kind of doubt, the pretended doubt, the one which professes to doubt whether the light we see be light, or whether what we know we know ; this is mental cowardice, or the symptom of a diseased intellect.

One day, Dr. Johnson was asked by Boswell what he thought of the pretended demonstration of certain would-be philosophers of the nonexistence of matter ? The Dr. answered with alacrity by striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone till he rebounded from it, " I refute it thus/'

Let those whom this answer does not suffice,

* Dante.

THE REALITY.

be sent to an Insane Asylum ; for, according to their own showing, if one has no certitude of anything, they condemn themselves to an eternal silence, or to talk nothing but nonsense.

To doubt, therefore, the evidence of our faculties, is a sign of an unsound intellect ; to deny the authority of their evidence, is to banish oneself outside of the domain of Eeason, and, let us add, out of that also of humanity.

For the men that history enshrines on her immortal pages, the men whose memories are embalmed in the hearts of their fellows for all ages, were men who placed unfaltering trust in the loftiest convictions of the soul, and consecrated life and death to their realization.

Men whose minds were of this temper the whole human race cherish with enthusiasm and deathless attachment. Nations rear monuments to perpetuate the remembrance of their noble deeds. The bare mention of their names causes the hearts of men to palpitate with life, and fires the breasts of millions with heroic resolves. Such is the faith of man. These are the sentiments of humanity. And sentiments of such majesty, imparted to the entire human race, can not but be the impressions of the Divinity.

A philosophy, therefore, which does not justify

THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.

and support the high, and glorious promises of our nature, misapprehends the powers of Keason, fails to recognize the nobility of the soul, is false to its mission, and deserves not a thought of a human being who respects himself, or who comprehends the great end of existence.

Kesting, then, on the primary certitude of the operations of the human faculties as an incontestable and immovable basis, we affirm with their authority, and that of their great Author, that the very fact of the soul's possessing convictions which stretch forth beyond earth's horizon, is indisputable evidence of a world of realities corresponding to them.

in.

M Call to mind from whence ye sprung ; Ye were not formed to live the life of brutes ; But virtue to pursue, and knowledge high."

Dante.

MAN is gifted with an intelligence to see naturally into a world of more momentous realities, and as surely, as lie sees with his eyes the material objects in the world around him. This world of unrealized realities is within his reach.

For what reason has man in being, if the noblest desire of his breast is the thirst after truth, and the truth does not exist, or exists beyond the scope of his capacities ? If this be man's lot, then better were we quiet earth again, or rather, better had we never been aught but dust !

22 THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATUEE.

But the fault does not lie here, for truth does exist ; the striving after it is ample evidence that it does. Not is man doomed, Tantalus-like, to strive after truth in vain ; for reason was given the capacity to lay hold of truth. The fault, then, is not on the side of truth, or in our faculties.

Wherein lies the fault ? The fault is in our neglect to use our faculties, or in not using them rightly.

And truth is not an ugly and merciless sphinx, but a fair and gentle maid. Eagerly she goes forth to meet the earnest seeker, and is easily won by the heroic lover. Earnestness in the search after truth, heroism in following it when found, these are the essential requisites for those •who aspire to her friendship and love.

With a manly heart and bold resolves there is no true conception of the mind, no real aspiration of the heart, which may not be reached and realized. " Else desire was given to no end/'

Indifference or unconcernedness in regard to the realization of the bright inspirations of divine truths, is no mark of a noble mind. This is an unmistakable evidence of the absence of those original convictions which constitute the sours nobility and the dignity of our nature.

LOYALTY.

" Fame of such the world hath none, Nor suffers ; Mercy and Justice scorn them both. Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by." *

These lofty aspirations, these boundless instincts, are traces of man's native nobility, and indicate the grandeur of his destiny. We should cherish them as our fondest hopes, and hold them dearer than life. Better live in a tub like Diogenes, and feed on wild roots, than submit to the dreadful degradation of yielding them up unrealized. For man has no other reason for living, but to unite his noblest capacities to their proper objects. This, and this alone, is the accomplishment of the great end of his present existence.

They give up the soul, and shrink into the grovelling instincts of the worm, who

" Pause not to inquire Why we are here, and what the reverence Man owes to man, and what the mystery That links us to the greater world, beside "Whose borders we but hover for a space." t

Our sublime destiny and supreme happiness lie in the answer to our highest aspirations. The highest objects correspond to our highest capacities. Above Keason there is the Most High alone.

* Dante.

t Bryant.

The Most High is the answer to our high aspirations and glorious destiny. Nothing less than the Infinite can content man's noble and most sovereign Keason.

But the relation of the soul with the infinite is Eeligion. Eeligion, therefore, is the answer to that cry of Eeason which nothing can silence, that aspiration of the soul which no created thing can meet, that want of the heart which all creation cannot supply.

Where shall we find Eeligion ?

IV. Closing t\t WH%t

"One good gift has the fatal apple given — Your Eeason : — let it not be oversway'd By tyrannous threats to force yon into faith 'Gainst all external sense and inward feeling."

Bteon.

THEEE is a large class of men who cherish the lofty aspirations of their nature, and are loyal to their religious convictions. They feel deeply their religious necessities, and yearn and seek after a religion which, at the same time that it answers to these wants, does not contradict the universal dictates of reason.

We have it from authentic sources of information, that this class of minds compose more than one-half of our population who have arrived at the age of manhood ; and it includes many, if not most of our intellectually-gifted and noble-minded countrymen.

What lias brought about this state of things ? Does it spring from a want of religious sentiment, or earnestness on their part ? We opine that it does not. No people are more susceptible of religious impressions, no people are more in earnest in all that regards religion, than the American people. Witness the countless churches, the Sunday-school unions, missionary enterprises, Bible and Tract societies, and other religious institutions, broadcast over this extensive land. The man who would charge our people with infidelity, skepticism, or indifference in religious matters, would only display his unacquaintance with the heart and mind of the nation.

What, then, is the cause of this strange phenomenon of a people sincerely and earnestly religious, and yet having no fixed Christian belief ? Ask them, and those who have reflected will answer, in the lines of the poet Schiller :

' What's my Keligion ? None of all the sects Which thou hast named. And why not ? From Religion."

The prevailing beliefs have presented Keligion in such a light that men of mature thought could

CHOOSING THE WAY.

not, without a feeling approaching to shame, and a certain sense of self- degradation, submit to their pretensions.

If Christianity be presented to men in such a way as to leave but the one choice, either to become fanatics or to profess no religion, where is there one who possesses a spark of reason, or has a manly feeling in his breast, that would not rather stand aloof from all religious sects, and pay such worship to his Creator as accords with the dictates of Eeason and the inward convictions of the soul ? Eeliance on the rational convictions of our nature is the first of all duties.

The time is gone by when men can easily be made to believe that that is Eeligion which leads its votaries to contradict the dictates of Eeason, or trample down the convictions of conscience. Nor does it sound well in the ears of* an enlightened people, to tell them that the first step to Eeligion is to abdicate that which distinguishes man from the brutes which perish.

A large class of intellectual men share the conviction, that the only stable foundation for Eeligion is the human intelligence. They proclaim it openly to the world, that " Eeligion is yet to be settled on its fast foundations in the breast of man/'

This is the great object to be aimed at in the present age. Would that those whom it concerns understood it ! Never can that be God's Eeligion which gainsays Season's dictates and shocks the feelings of our moral nature.

The present generation of men, having receded from the common systems of Christian belief as unsatisfactory, have fallen back upon Human Nature. Human Nature alone can be taken for granted. The Eeligion, therefore, that is to meet the wants of the age, and answer its demands, must take its starting point from man's nature. It is, therefore, upon the essential and indestructible elements of Human Nature that Eeligion, particularly in this country, has to raise the foundations of its temple. The sanctuary of Eeligion must be restored to the place where the God of nature placed it, in the human soul.

The work of doubt, denial, destruction, is ended ; it awakens no enthusiasm. The cry for edification is heard abroad in the land.

Wearied with fruitless search, disgusted with mere negation, freed from the awful nightmare of doubt, the time for action is at hand. The age demands a Eeligion which unites reverence for God with a profound respect for the divinely-gifted intelligence and the heaven-born freedom of man.

CHOOSING THE WAY.

Say not that an inquiry after the true Keligion is not called for. It is. The teachers followed "by our Fathers are destitute of the truths which the age demands. It is the cry of Eeason, of the Soul, of all earnest minds, of the people of our country. They demand a Eeligion which opens a future worthy of their youthful energies, which answers to their high aspirations, and elicits from their hearts deeds of generous and noble self-sacrifice.

What else is the meaning of all the modern spiritualisms and evocations of departed spirits, except that the religious sentiment, finding in the common system of modern religious belief no satisfactory support or adequate answer to its demands, goes blindly groping about in its distress among the realms of the dead to discover something which will satisfy its deep, deathless, and irresistible yearnings ?

We must therefore suffer the insupportable yearnings of our religious nature, or find the Eeligion which will afford them ample satisfaction.

The question of Eeligion is not a question of opinion. The question of Eeligion is one of life and death. To attempt to be and live without Eeligion is a gross injustice to our Eeason, a cruel mutilation of our nature, and an insult offered to

God. To be without Eeligion is to be not a man, but a monster. Our people are famishing for it ; and we must have religion, the true Eeligion, or die, — die of despair or inanition. For Eeligion is man's inmost being and existence.

We may, however, be told that this inquiryafter the true Eeligion is difficult ? Difficult ! Well, suppose it is, what then ? Are we not here to conquer difficulties ? For what purpose was the light of Eeason bestowed on man if not to discover the Truth ? For what purpose was the strength of his will given, if not to employ it in search of Truth ? No ! truth is not so difficult of discovery as some would have us believe. Truth is ever ready to show herself to the sincere, the earnest, and hastens to the arms of the ingenuous lover.

Let us give ear to the cry of an " Earnest Seeker."

"THE CONFESSIONS

OF

"AN EAKNEST SEEKEE.

V. « Ian."

" are conscious of an intense and painful

T ? void within our breast. How are we to be relieved of this ? Eelief there must be, for it is insupportable. The insensibility of death were preferable. Forgetfulness a boon.

" Forge tfulness — Of what, — of whom, — and why ?

Of that which is within me ; Read it there —

Ye know it, and I cannot utter it."*

" The world may appear beautiful ; the ties of friendship, kindred, love, seem dear and sweet ;

* Byron.

THE ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE.

life may appear fall of liope and bright prospects ; Alas ! what are all these joys to the soul, so long as deeper needs deprive us of their enjoyment ?

" A different object do these eyes require ; My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine > And in my heart the imperfect joys expire." *

" All sacrifices would be to us as steps to bliss, and renunciation enjoyment, so that we found what answers to our nobler necessities. A journey to the torrid zone, were we sure to meet it there, would be but a trip of pleasure. Somewhere it must be ; if not, the heavens will reveal it. This confidence is stronger than death.

" Thank God ! we were left unfettered and unswayed in our belief, in our childhood and youth. We are in our full manhood, in possession of our reason and freedom. Happy is the man who is ready to receive the whole of God's everlasting truth, and searches after it with all the energies of his being.

" The possession of Truth, not the simple search of it, is the true end of Eeason and the source of all true life. Whenever, therefore, the Truth is presented to the mind with rational and sufficient evidence, it matters not by whom, to

* Gray.

THE "SEEKER'S CONFESSIONS/'

withhold one's assent., is to reduce Eeason to the ignominious servitude of passion, and to inflict upon the soul the most painful of deaths, — the death of inanition.

" The slave is noble, his chains brilliant ornaments, he is free, in comparison with the man who enslaves his godlike Eeason by his passions, shackles it by his prejudices, or lets it rust unused from slavish fears.

" Eeason affirms its own authority, and can admit of no other which does not support its claims, and coincide with its dictates. Of all forms of slavery, that of the soul is the most abject, degrading, and cruel. The negro slave possesses his soul, but the man who yields up the authority of his Eeason, abdicates his manhood, and renders his soul a chattel.

" Endowed with Eeason, man has no right to surrender his judgment. Endowed with Free- Will, man has no right to yield up his liberty. Eeason and Free- Will constitute man a responsible being, and he has no right to abdicate his independence. J udgment, Liberty, Independence, these are divine and inalienable gifts ; and man cannot renounce them if he would.

" As an intellectual being, man has the right to know the Truth. As a moral being, man has 2* the right to follow the Truth. Any authority that interferes with our exercise of these, violates the natural rights of man, and insults their Divine Author.

" The assent of Eeason to truth is not the subjection of Eeason, but its sublimest assertion. The voluntary following of Truth is not a restriction of our Free-Will, but the only and the truest expression of its liberty. The acknowledgment and acceptance of Truth constitute man's true Independence, Dignity and Glory.

" Man cannot be thought of consistently with just and honorable ideas of his Creator, otherwise than as good, in possession of all his faculties, whose primal tendencies are in accordance with the great end of his being.

" There is no earthly Dignity equal to that of Human Nature, for there is stamped upon it, in glowing characters, the perfect resemblance of its Divine Author.

" Let us therefore be loyal to the dictates of Eeason, knowing that they will lead us to our Archetype and Divine Original.

" Let the light of Truth be our guide. Let Eeason be our Authority. "We fear not to follow where they point the way. What contradicts Eeason contradicts God.

VI

TTTE go forth in earnestness and in hope, with T i the sacred torch of Keason in our hand, to seek, to find, and to accept true Keligion, resolved at the same time to cast aside all creeds and systems of belief which exact the surrender of our judgment, independence, or liberty.

" If we find a religion to tell us that the truth we see is not truth, but falsehood ; if we find a religion to tell us that the good we love is not good, but evil ; if we find a religion to tell us that our good deeds are not virtues, but vices ; we in indignation answer : 6 To the dogs with such a religion. We ask not its heaven ; nor fear its hell. Such a religion comes not down from heaven, but up from the bottomless pits below/

" A religion which, gainsays the plain dictates of Eeason, which is hostile to our holiest affections, or mutilates our nature, is no religion, but a base imposition. It is treason against God and Human Nature to listen to its horrid and impious creed. No, rather die a heathen or infidel than submit to a religion which outrages God by making the creatures of his own likeness, abject, base, accursed.

" We say, with the voice and the united energies of our soul, and the Author of our being : 6 Let the religion perish from the face of the earth which invades the sacred boundaries that constitute man's Eeason, or which would diminish the dignity of Human Nature/