lothing. "The American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions" even, might dare to protest against
that wolf. I have heard of boards, and of American boards, but it
chances that I never heard of this particular lumber till lately. And
yet I hear of Northern men, and women, and children, by families, buying
a "life membership" in such societies as these. A life-membership in the
grave! You can get buried cheaper than that.

Our foes are in our midst and all about us. There is hardly a house
but is divided against itself, for our foe is the all but universal
woodenness of both head and heart, the want of vitality in man, which
is the effect of our vice; and hence are begotten fear, superstition,
bigotry, persecution, and slavery of all kinds. We are mere figureheads
upon a hulk, with livers in the place of hearts. The curse is the
worship of idols, which at length changes the worshipper into a stone
image himself; and the New-Englander is just as much an idolater as
the Hindoo. This man was an exception, for he did not set up even a
political graven image between him and his God.

A church that can never have done with excommunicating Christ while it
exists! Away with your broad and flat churches, and your narrow and tall
churches! Take a step forward, and invent a new style of out-houses.
Invent a salt that will save you, and defend our nostrils.

The modern Christian is a man who has consented to say all the prayers
in the liturgy, provided you will let him go straight to bed and sleep
quietly afterward. All his prayers begin with "Now I lay me down to
sleep," and he is forever looking forward to the time when he shall go
to his "long rest." He has consented to perform certain old-established
charities, too, after a fashion, but he does not wish to hear of any
new-fangled ones; he doesn't wish to have any supplementary articles
added to the contract, to fit it to the present time. He shows the
whites of his eyes on the Sabbath, and the blacks all the rest of the
week. The evil is not merely a stagnation of blood, but a stagnation of
spirit. Many, no doubt, are well disposed, but sluggish by constitution
and by habit, and they cannot conceive of a man who is actuated by
higher motives than they are. Accordingly they pronounce this man
insane, for they know that they could never act as he does, as long as
they are themselves.

We dream of foreign countries, of other times and races of men, placing
them at a dista