Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel Part 9

He had thought of how truly it might be said of him, that "There is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel." He had felt inclined to derive comfort for the church, and to those to whom he was doubly dear, from the pa.s.sage in the Apocalypse, "I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors: and their works do follow them." He did not know whether others would be present to take part in the services. But Bro. Kurfees was here from the churches in Louisville, and, as a representative of the _Guide_, Bro.

McDiarmid, from Cincinnati, to represent his a.s.sociates in our other publis.h.i.+ng interests, and Bro. Azbill, from Indianapolis, connected with our missionary interests, while he himself brought the sympathies of those in the College of the Bible. He felt there was a suitableness in all this, for all these things were dear to the heart of our brother.

He then proceeded to give a sketch of his life and career. There were several distinct periods in his history. The first was from his birth, March 7, 1836, to his marriage in 1856, a period of about twenty years. Here he spoke of his early struggles for an education, and of the signs of a useful life manifested even then.

The second, from the time of his marriage till his entry upon general evangelistic work, about 1866. During this decade he became a Christian, resolved to preach the gospel, and entered and pa.s.sed through a course of collegiate studies in Eminence College. The third period began with his evangelistic labors. During this time he became a pastor of the Mt. Byrd church. During this period most of his public discussions were held. It was through these labors that he was revealed to his brethren as a man who was greater than we knew.

The last period began with his editorial career, and closed with his death. He became first a contributing editor of _The Apostolic Times_, and afterwards co-editor. Then he became the proprietor and editor of _The Old-Path Guide_, which, in the course of events, was consolidated with the _Times_, and became _The Apostolic Guide_.

President Graham then spoke of his character and his characteristic abilities. He was a sincere man, he was a conscientious man, he was a brave, true man; he was a pure-minded man, he was a G.o.dly man.

His ability was not that of the great scholar, but of the logician of keen, accurate perceptions. He was not an encyclopedia, but a compact volume of naked logic. He was capable of the very nicest discriminations; and he had the faculty of pointing out a fallacy with marvelous clearness, and of turning an objection to his position into an argument in its favor.

He was sometimes misunderstood; but he was always true to his convictions, and there was no honorable thing he would not do for the truth's sake. He believed in the gospel as the power of G.o.d unto salvation; and he made no compromises with doctrines in conflict with his conviction that the gospel must be believed and obeyed by those who would be saved.

The speaker said many tender and fatherly things to the bereaved family and to the church, one of which was that we who knew of our brother's sufferings, could have had but the one motive of selfishness for detaining him an hour longer than he lingered with us.

Bro. M. C. Kurfees followed the remarks of President Graham with some comforting reflections on Bro. Allen's views of death and of the future life. He spoke of his willingness "to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better." Heaven is not a far off place, but an actual spiritual presence with G.o.d. He spoke of the blessedness of being always ready for this change from our life in the body to our life with G.o.d in the invisible world.

Bro. McDiarmid closed the services with suitable remarks and an earnest prayer. After the singing of the song, "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," came the final leave-taking, and the departure from the church to the grave. Not the least touching of these scenes was the breaking down in grief of the st.u.r.dy yeomen of the congregation as they stood around the bier of their dear brother and former pastor, and looked on that manly face and form for the last time.

Finally we laid him to rest in the burying-place near by. At the grave the closing prayer was offered by Bro. Wm. Buchanan, who referred tenderly to his aged mother and absent relatives. And thus the final scenes closed.

His resting-place is a lovely spot, overlooking the city of Madison, commanding an extended view of the river valley, and in sight of the stream and of all the vessels that go by. It is near to his "Cottage Home" and to the church he so much loved; and the spot will be all the dearer now that he sleeps in it.

Only four days ago the writer said in a letter to the family: "I linger on the eve of taking a long voyage, and he may soon go on a very short one; but which of these shall be made the occasion of saying 'good-bye,' I hardly know." Even then the solitary voyager was on his way. The breakers dashed about him as he launched; the great billows roared beneath and around him as he went out; the waves broke over each other in ripples as he pa.s.sed on; and the ripples hushed into whispers as he neared the other sh.o.r.e. At last he took the adorable divine Guide by the hand, and pa.s.sed beyond our view.

PART II.--ADDRESSES.

I.--CULTURE AND CHRISTIANITY: THEIR RELATION AND NECESSITY.

[An Address Delivered Before Eminence College, June 8, 1877.]

There are periods in our history which form the oases in the desert of life. In one of these our spirits are to-day refreshed. Its dark shade and cooling fountain strengthen us for the onward pilgrimage. From its green sward we pluck bright flowers, whose fragrance will linger with us till the end of life's journey. From these let us to-day weave fresh garlands, which shall ever exhale the sweetness of these a.s.sociations.

This is ever a proud day for Eminence College. Annually on these festive occasions do the hearts of the many thousands who have gone out from these cla.s.sic halls turn to them again with longing. Memory, unfettered by s.p.a.ce, walks again amid these lovely bowers and responds unconsciously to the greetings of other days. Though separated far, and mingling in the busy scenes of life, how their souls revel in these delights! These college a.s.sociations are the golden links which bind many hearts in an unbroken chain. The chords so exquisitely touched in our hearts to-day will vibrate for an age. Ere these sweet strains die away on the distant air they will be caught up by responsive hearts and reechoed round the earth. These are times in our college life that must ever be linked with the future. Memory will ever delight to lift the heavy curtain of material life, and behold again these visions of beauty, and paint in fancy these rose tints of youth. Then let this day be one whose brightness shall shed a ray of celestial light along the path of life. Let our spirits bathe in the fountain of living waters, while the chords of our hearts are swept with entrancing melodies.

"Then th' inexpressive strain Diffuses its enchantment. Fancy dreams Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves, And vales of bliss; the intellectual power Bends from his awful throne a wandering ear, And smiles."

As a theme worthy of your consideration to-day, I have selected

"_Culture and Christianity: Their Relation and Necessity_."

The Greek word for man, [Greek: anthropos], signifies etymologically to _look upward_. Man is the only terrestrial being capable of looking inward and upward. In this there lies between him and the animal creation an impa.s.sable gulf. Man alone can look into his inner nature, and thereby make his very failures the stepping-stones to a higher life. G.o.d designed that man's progress should be upward; hence his high destiny is attained, not by creation, but by development. The ladder at whose foot he begins his immortal career rests upon the eternal throne.

This is not a development _into_ man, but a development _of_ man. The theory of development into man is of the flesh; but the development of man is of the spirit. Since man is destined for eternity, it is not befitting that he should attain perfection in time. Hence he does not develop as the beast of the field, or the fowl of the air. They soon learn all that they ever know. They soon enjoy all they are capable of enjoying. They soon attain to the perfection of their being, and fulfill the end of their creation. The swallow builds her nest and the beaver his dam precisely as they did in the days before the flood. Nor can it ever be otherwise. But it is not so with man. This life is too short and this world too small for his development. He but begins to live in this world. This life is simply a state of probation. Our faculties but begin to unfold on the things of time when we are called hence. This unfolding of our faculties, this development of our inner self, is the result of culture--a culture not of the flesh, but of the spirit; not of the outer, but of the inner man.

Culture and Christianity, properly considered, are inseparable. He who relies on culture apart from Christianity misconceives the end of his being. He appreciates not his high destiny. Animals have minds susceptible of a high degree of cultivation, but not of a culture which reaches beyond time. Their culture is wholly a thing of this life; but not more so than is the culture of men unsanctified by the religion of Christ. A culture that terminates with death is in harmony with the nature of a horse, but contrary to the nature of a man. What is culture? This is a question on whose solution man's eternal destiny is largely suspended. Our age prides itself on being an age of culture; but do we know in what true culture really consists? As a whole, I think not. A smattering of sentimental literature, a superficial refinement of manners, a few borrowed phrases and appropriated customs of "society," the rendering of a few pieces by rote, and fas.h.i.+onable dress, const.i.tute with, alas! too many the standard of culture. How unworthy of their race are those who entertain the thought! All this may be but the gilding of barbarism; beneath this external glitter there may be a heart and character steeped in moral rudeness and degradation.

True culture consists not in the cultivation of outward accomplishments.

It consists not in intellectual acquirements. It consists in the development of the triune man--body, soul and spirit--in their divine harmony. Without a cultivation of the spirit in harmony with its immortal destiny, all that this world calls culture is but the gilded tinsel that bedecks the putrefaction of death. The truly cultured man is developed in harmony with the laws of his being. This being is compound, having a fleshly and a spiritual side. Hence, to cultivate one to the neglect of the other is to disproportion him whom G.o.d created in His own image. As we exist first in time and next in eternity, that culture which loses sight of either state misconceives the full mission of man. Man's conception of his present mission and ultimate destiny determines his standard of culture. He must have an ideal, and if that ideal be low, his life will be correspondingly low.

Nothing but Christianity can furnish man an ideal worthy of himself; and nothing but Christian culture can develop him in the direction of that ideal.

Cla.s.sical antiquity never conceived a destiny worthy of man. It never contemplated him in that relation of Christ-likeness to his G.o.d, which the Bible reveals. Even Aristotle, the most cultivated of all heathen philosophers, thought that only a part of mankind possessed a rational soul. With such a conception man is incapable of the highest culture.

It is degrading to his dignity. All culture based on such a hypothesis must be a culture of the flesh, and not of the spirit. It is the culture of materialism, not of Christianity. Between modern materialism and the cultivated heathenism of the ancient Greeks the difference is not worth the naming. "To a.s.sume the existence of a soul," says Vogt, "which uses the brain as an instrument with which to work as it pleases, is utter nonsense. Physiology distinctly and categorically p.r.o.nounces against any individual immortality, and against all ideas which are connected with a figment of a separate existence of the soul." "Man," says Moleschott, "is produced from wind and ashes. The action of vegetable life called him into existence.... Thought consists in the motion of matter, it is a translocation of the cerebral substance; without phosphorus there can be no thought; and consciousness itself is nothing but an attribute of matter." This deification of the flesh, this "gospel of dirt," makes man consist simply of what he eats.

The missionaries of this heathen gospel have no need to address the reason of men; only feed them on the right kind of food and their regeneration is accomplished! Materialism is a religion of the flesh, a deification of matter; its laver of regeneration is the chemist's retort; its new birth, phosphorus! Give the brain plenty of phosphorus by high living, and you develop the _soul_ of materialism! Yet the heralds of this soulless gospel talk flippantly about culture!

Man's fall was due to an attempt to acquire knowledge at the expense of heart culture. Here, amid the bowers of "paradise lost" is found the root of all false culture, and from that root the world has ever been filled with a noxious growth. True culture consists in a correction of the process which

"Brought death into the world, And all our woe."

Man in his spiritual nature must be educated back to the divine image from which he fell. No culture comprehending less than this has ever proved a permanent blessing to the race. The highest culture hitherto attained apart from Christianity was incapable of saving its devotees from ruin. Greece and Rome were never more cultured, in a popular sense, than when they began to go down in death. Materialistic culture was their winding-sheet, and "A Religion of the Flesh" should be their epitaph. As Christlieb has truly said: "Wherever civilization is not made to rest on the basis of moral and religious truth it can not attain to any permanent existence, and is incapable of preserving the nations possessed of it from spiritual starvation, to say nothing of political death."

It is idle to boast of Liberty when the foundations of her temples are not laid in divine truth. Of this, Greece and Rome have furnished the world examples. In Greece freedom had a field peculiarly her own; she breathed her inspiration into the people, and her spirit into their literature; she lived in the deeds of their youth, and was sung by the muse of their bards. This spirit was diffused in Rome. Plato, Aristotle and Homer were transplanted to the Rhine, the Seine, and the Thames.

Their land was full of liberty and culture, but not the liberty nor the culture of the soul. When we learn from Tacitus that "in the first century, in a time of famine, all the teachers of youth were banished from the city, and six thousand dancers were retained," we have an example of that culture which made Rome a sink of iniquity. It is not impossible that the fatal mistake of Greece and Rome should be repeated in our own country. We are venturing to some extent on the slippery places from which they fell. The evil star of their national ruin is that on which the eyes of many of our political leaders are fixed. The G.o.dless spirit that animated the Roman senate is being nursed into new life in American politics, and this nursing is not simply in the halls of legislation, but in the homes of the people. Here lies the trouble.

If the American republic ever goes down in ruin, the power that hurls it from its high position will be enthroned in the family circle.

We complain that those in authority have not the fear of G.o.d before their eyes. We lift our hands in holy horror at the public corruption which brings our nation into dishonor before the world. But who is to blame? One political party is ever ready to ascribe all the corruption of the country to its political rival. But this G.o.dless disregard of national honor and national interest is confined to no party. Neither is it confined to party leaders; but it controls the people on whom the leaders rely for support. Here is the seat of the disease which is gnawing at the vitals of the republic. The man who now refuses to cater to the depraved tastes of the ma.s.ses, can not, as a rule, be promoted to office. How many men can sit in the halls of legislation, or even on our benches of justice, who persistently refuse to influence men's votes by money, or inflame their pa.s.sions and sway their judgment with strong drink? When a man of a high sense of moral honor seeks promotion by the suffrage of his fellow-citizens, he soon learns that he must come down from his "stilted dignity" or be defeated. In the excitement of the canva.s.s he yields to base motives to prevent defeat. He compromises his high sense of honor, deadens his conscience, and sells out his manhood to secure an honorable (?) position. We should not expect men to manifest a high sense of honor in public places as long as we require them to compromise their honor in order to secure such places. The thing is both unreasonable and unjust. As well expect sweet water to flow from a fountain which we have made bitter!

Party spirit is hostile to moral purity. As one becomes filled with the spirit of party, to that extent does he surrender the freedom of a man.

He can neither think nor speak impartially. He stifles the convictions of conscience and shouts the s.h.i.+bboleth of party. With him the triumph of party is infinitely dearer than the maintenance of principle. Hence the conflict becomes a struggle, not for principle, but for victory.

The people are distracted and the nation brought to the verge of ruin over the most trivial matters. The Eastern empire was once shaken to its foundation by parties which differed only about the merits of charioteers at the amphitheater.

This ruinous party spirit is fostered by ignorance. The ma.s.ses who are controlled at the ballot-box by the basest influences, because they will not be controlled by any other; and who in turn control the ballots of our country, are, as a rule, the uncultured part of society.

The better cla.s.s of citizens are not approached with the influences which control the ignorant. Therefore, the remedy is in the _correct_ education of the ma.s.ses. The emphasis is correctly made; for any kind of education will not accomplish this end. Only as people are _truly_ cultured do they cease to be tools of politicians. Then their intelligence, not their pa.s.sions, must be addressed. When the ma.s.ses are thus cultured they will refine instead of demoralize our public men.

As a remedy, then, for the demoralization of all cla.s.ses we need a better system of education. We must have a free education if we would have a free people. Our children must be educated in just principles, if we would perpetuate a just government. To make this remedy effectual, when the means of education are provided for the ignorant, they should be required to appropriate them, or forfeit their right of suffrage. No man should have a voice in determining the destiny of our nation, who rejects the means of that culture which alone can qualify him to act intelligently. A man who has not spirit enough to avail himself of the benefits of an elementary education, when placed within his reach, is not worthy of being a citizen of a free government.

Not only must the ballot-box be elevated by culture, if this government would number its centennials, but it must be purified by Christianity.

We need to erect a high standard of moral qualification for positions of trust and honor. Those in authority will ever be about what the people require of them. When unG.o.dliness and moral corruption are at a discount among the people, and party spirit can not atone for the darkest crimes, then may we expect more purity in high places; not before. This standard must be erected at the ballot-box or our liberties will find an untimely grave.

This government was established on a false idea--the idea that man is capable of self-government. G.o.d never intended that man should govern himself. Consequently, in the strictest sense of the word, he is incapable, both individually and collectively, of self-government.

Since, by his own wisdom, man is incapable of governing himself he is likewise incapable of governing others. The men and the nations, in the ages of the past, that attempted this, failed of the high destiny for which G.o.d gave them being. The ultimate prosperity of men and nations depends on the government of G.o.d. Only He who created man fully understands his ultimate destiny and the laws of his being to attain to that end. Therefore, only when man is thus governed is his life a success. All sacred history shows that G.o.d rules in the governments of men; and only when this fact is practically acknowledged may nations expect permanent prosperity. That nation whose laws are framed and executed regardless of the law of G.o.d will eventually fall under the divine chastis.e.m.e.nt. No more can the statesmans.h.i.+p of this world, unsanctified by divine wisdom, save a nation from the wrath of G.o.d, than the wisdom of man can save a soul from eternal death, regardless of Him, "who of G.o.d is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." For the disregard of G.o.d's will, nations are punished here, because as nations they do not exist hereafter. On this the Lord has clearly spoken: "At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it: If that nation against whom I have p.r.o.nounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it: If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them." Thus it is that nations are in the hands of G.o.d as clay in the hands of the potter. Only, therefore, when they purge themselves from unG.o.dly legislation, will they become "vessels unto honor, sanctified and meet for the Master's use."

The voice of G.o.d, then, must be heard and heeded in our nation, and if the people rule, and the nation prosper, the voice of G.o.d must become the voice of the people. _In this sense, and this only, are any people capable of self-government._ To this end we need more extended culture, and that of a higher order. Our politics must be purified by our religion, and our religion must be a religion of the spirit, not of the flesh. We need more religion in our politics, and less politics in our religion. The history of other nations fully confirms the language of Goethe: "All epochs," says he, "in which faith prevailed have been the most heart-stirring and fruitful, both as regards contemporaries and posterity; whereas, on the other hand, all epochs in which unbelief obtains its miserable triumphs, even when they boast of some apparent brilliancy, are not less surely doomed to speedy oblivion." Liberty is the twin sister of Faith. In the language of Seneca: "To obey G.o.d is freedom. A nation that desires to be free must believe, and a nation that will not believe must be in servitude; only despotism can dispense with faith, but not liberty."

History clearly proves that national prosperity depends on an appreciation of the intimate relation existing between culture and Christianity. Of this relation Christlieb truly speaks: "No one, indeed," says he, "will wish to deny that in our modern culture there is much that is false, egotistic, and selfish; much that is misleading and exaggerated, and consequently opposed to true culture. Against these untrue elements of culture, Christianity will and must always take the field; it must not oppose progress, although it is at all times bound to show itself hostile to the _sins_ of progress, just as from its very commencement it has always testified and striven against such sins. Between Christless culture and Christianity a bridge of accommodation can no more be built than between light and darkness, and woe to him who undertakes this! But whatever in our modern culture is thoroughly _Christless_, and therefore G.o.dless, is unworthy of the name and can, therefore, claim from us no further consideration; it is mere naked rudeness and selfishness, ill-disguised by the gaudy rays of outward decency; a mere cheris.h.i.+ng of the sensual nature which, left to itself, would soon degenerate into monstrous barbarism, of which we already see many indications."

Intellectual, at the expense of moral, culture is one of the curses of this age. By such culture man acquires power without the principles which alone can make that power a blessing. Intellect is deified; but intellect unsubdued by Christianity is a remorseless G.o.d. True culture would lift man above this low conception of his own nature. It would give him a more comprehensive view of himself; of the infinite development of which he is susceptible; of the rulings of an all-wise Providence, whose loving care

"From seeming evil still educing good, And better thence again, and better still, In infinite progression."

True culture consists not in an acc.u.mulation of facts or ideas, but in developing a force of thought that is ever a ready and willing servant.

To educate is to lead out and develop the faculties, not to break them down with the endless rubbish of other minds. The collection of facts amounts to but little unless with those facts we build towers from which to take higher and wider views of truth. Thus it is that culture demands them as a means, not as an end. To build up the mental and moral faculties, so as to comprehend and appreciate the great principles which control the life that now is, and that which is to come, is the highest culture in our probationary state. This can be accomplished only by an education in which the Bible and the _authority of Christ_ are made paramount. On this, as we have seen, our free inst.i.tutions and the perpetuity of religious liberty depend. This is the secret of Roman Catholic opposition to the Bible in our public schools. And it is not simply the Bible in the public schools that Rome opposes; she is opposed to the existence of the schools themselves; to the system of free education. No people understand better than the Catholics the power of religious teaching in connection with education.

Hence they are the foe to all religion in connection with education that is not Catholic. Rome is the friend of education and religion when that education is priestly and that religion Romish; otherwise she is the enemy of both. Hence those who support Catholic schools foster the deadliest foe of our religious liberties. There will ever be, therefore, an irrepressible conflict between Roman Catholicism and Christian culture. Let him who doubts this study impartially the history of Catholic countries. We ask no more.