VII.—THE HOPE OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED YEARS.
Now let us see how the Great Hope of the Redeemer's Life was fulfilled,
after the lapse of some eighteen hundred years!
We will come down to the year 1775—we will make a rapid journey
over the earth—
Saviour of the world where are thy People, where are the millions for
whom thou didst suffer, and bleed, and die?
Let us look over Europe—what see we there?
Magnificent temples—crowds of Priests—rivers of blood!
But thy millions, Saviour of the World—where are they? The children
of Toil—those who wear the Mechanic's garb—those for whom thou
didst weep such bitter tears, in the Ages long ago—where are they?
In the deep mines—in the hot fields—in the hotter workshops—bending
beneath heavy burdens—crouching beneath the lash—these, these are thy
People, O Redeemer of the World!
And was it for this, that the tears of Gethsemane fell—the groans of
Calvary arose?
Was it to build these temples—to rear these thrones—to crush these toiling
millions into dust?
Here, in Rome where St. Paul spoke forth words that made Emperors
tremble for their thrones—here you see nothing but lordly priests
walking on to power, over a strange highway—the necks of a kneeling and
down-trodden People!
But this is Rome—benighted—Pagan Rome—let us go to liberal enlightened,
Protestant Europe!
Go to Germany—go to the scene of the Reformation—what see you
there?
Why the tears of persecuted Innocence rain down upon the very grave
of Martin Luther—yes, the sweat, the blood of the millions sink into the
Great Reformer's grave, and drench his bones!
But ah, this is Germany—doubtless Protestant Persecution rages here,
and dyes the land in blood—but still there is a hope for the human race!
Let us pass by benighted France, with its Monarch, its Priests, its slaves
—its throne—its temples—its huts and its Bastile—let us go over the
channel to Christian England!
Here Saviour of the world, here thy Religion has found a home—for is
not the broad Isle crowded with churches—is there an hour in the day unsanctified
by a Prayer?
It is true, for every church there is a factory, a poor-house, or a jail—it
is true for every prayer that ascends to heaven, a miserable convict is
pitched from some gibbet into Eternity—it is true, that if every groan
wrung from the Poor Man's heart, could harden into a pebble, then might
these Priests build them a church, as large as ten thousand St. Pauls heaped
on each other—
But is not this enlightened, liberal, Protestant, Reformed England!
Look, in yonder palace of Windsor, sits a man with a glassy unmeaning
eye—a drivelling lip—a man buried in robes of Purple, a crown on his receding
brow, a sceptre in his gouty hand!
And this is Thy Representative, O, Man of Nazareth! This is the
Head of the Church—Defender of the Faith—this, this is the British
Pope!
Yes, this is the Defender of the Faith!—And let us look at this faith—
so kind, so merciful, so beautiful!
So anxious is Pope George to defend the Faith, that even now he is
gathering Missionaries, who will carry this faith across three thousand
miles of ocean!
Go there to the barracks—the dockyards—go there and find his missionaries,
preparing for their high duties with bayonets in their hands!
A goodly band of Missionaries! Look—their numbers are swelled by
convicts from the jail—nay even the Murderer on the gibbet comes down—
takes the rope from his neek—puts a red coat on his back, a musquet on
his shoulder—and stands forth—a Holy Missionary of Pope George!
And whom are these Missionaries to convert?
Blessed Redeemer look yonder, far over the waters! Look yonder,
upon that New World, where the Outcasts of the old world have built a
Home, a Nation, a Religion! That Home a refuge for the oppressed of
all the earth—that nation a Brotherhood founded by the Men of Plymouth
rock—by the Catholic of Baltimore—by the Quaker of the Delaware!
That Religion, Hope to Man! Hope to Toil! Hope to Misery in its
hut—Despair in its cell!
And now after this nation—this home—this religon—have built the altar
of the rights of man in the wilderness—behold George the Pope of England
is sending his missionaries far over the waters to the New World, to
butcher its men, to dishonor its women, to drench its soil in blood!
Already the brothers of these missionaries have begun their work—
already they have endeavored to teach their mild persuasive doctrines to the
people of the new world—but these heathens reject the British Missionaries—yes,
on Bunker Hill, Concord, Lexington, the heathens of the new
world, trample the flag of England into dust—and bury that flag beneath
the dead bodies of these Missionaries of the British Pope!
And while these new crowds of Missionaries are leaving the shores of
England, look yonder I pray you, and behold that solitary man, short in
stature, clad in a plain brown coat—see him embark on shipboard, behold
him leave the shores of England.
Do you know that yonder solitary man in the brown coat, is destined
to do more harm to the British Pope, than centuries will repair? Did
George of Hanover but know, what great thoughts are stirring in the
brain of this little man, as leaning over the side of the receding ship, he
gazes back upon the white cliffs of Albion—he would tear his royal robes
for very spite, nay offer the little man an earldom, a title, wealth, baubles,
power, rather than he should depart from the English shore with such great
thoughts working in his great soul.
Let us follow this unknown man in the brown coat.
We are in Philadelphia in 1775—it is the time when a body of rebels
who impudently style themselves, the “Continental Congress,” hold their
sessions, on yonder edifice somewhat retired from Chesnut Street, called
Carpenter's Hall.
You may have seen this building? It still is standing there—yes, up a
dark alley in Chesnut Street, between Third and Fourth it stands, the hall of
the first Continental Congress, now used as the sale room of an auctioneer!
We have a great love for antiquities in Philadelphia—we reverence the
altars of the past, for lest any lying foreigner should charge us with the deseretion
of holy places, we tear down the old house of William Penn, sell
chairs and clocks and ponies in Carpenter's Hall, and degrade Independence
Hall, that altar of the world, into a nest for squabbling lawyers!
