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BY REV. SAMUEL T. SPEAR, D.D.,

PASTOR OF THE SOUTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BROOKLYN, N. Y.

RADICALISM AND THE NATIONAL CRISIS.

"AND now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down, and cast into the fire."-MATT. 3: 10.

To place the axe at the root of the tree is a figure to denote that the tree is to be cut down at the roots; not simply trimmed, but actually destroyed. The reason is found in the fact that it does not bring forth good fruit.

By the use of this figure John the Baptist meant to say to the Jews that, as a people, they had fallen upon searching times. The great Teacher and Reformer was about to come, establishing a kingdom of justice and truth. It would no longer do for them to say: "We have Abraham to our father." Principles and conduct were to be examined to their very foundations. Judaism was to be sifted; and whatever, in the notions or practice of the people, could not stand the test of truth, was to be discarded. In the person of Jesus a radical dispensation-a ministry of truth that goes down

to the very roots of things-was about to commence its reformatory career. Such we take to be the meaning of the text in its application to the Jewish people.

There are many people in whose minds the terms radical and radicalism, are about equivalent to the terms fanatic and fanaticism. To their understanding these words mean evil, and only evil, and that continually. Hence they are convenient terms with which to excite the prejudices of men, and awaken popular odium. Sometimes they are used as a substitute for ideas, and quite often as the slang phrases of those who have some interest in promoting error, or practicing iniquity. I have no desire to make a plea for extremists and fools; yet there is a grand and glorious meaning connected with these much-abused terms, which I wish, if possible, to rescue from all misapprehensions and evil associations. I very much doubt whether it is best to be frightened simply because somebody cries out radical; and I am equally clear that the term conservative has no natural right to monopolize the claim to either purity or wisdom. The so-called conservatives are sometimes the weakest and most selfish of men. The Pope of Rome has always been a conservative; and so were the Pharisees in the days of Jesus.

Prosecuting the object I have just indicated, let me then,

IN THE FIRST PLACE, GIVE YOU A BRIEF ANALYSIS OF THE WORDS IN QUESTION. The true meaning of the term radical-the one which its etymology authorizes-is furnished by the figure of the text. It simply means to lay the axe at the root of the tree; and this means to go down to the bottom of things, and keep going down till you strike what may be properly designated as the hard-pan of fundamental truth. This is what John the Baptist did, what Jesus did, what the apostles did, what Luther did, and what all agency that is effectually curative of evil must always do.

The specific design of this process is to find the truth touching the matter involved, and then set it forth in contrast with, and contradistinction from, the error or the vice which it is the province of truth to expose and rebuke. Hence the great inquiry is not, what do the Pharisees think, or what does Cæsar think, but rather what is truth,-truth in science, truth in practical life, truth in morals, and truth in religion? Such in all ages has been the professed aim of the radical spirit. I am well aware that the history of this spirit has not always been equal to its profession. Sometimes it has been rash, impetuous, impatient, intolerant, dictatorial; sometimes, also, it has torn up the very foundations of society, being so vehement and lawless as utterly to fail of its own end; and yet it is equally true that this spirit proposes to realize one of the grandest theories that ever inspired the breast of humanity. Fixing its eye on truth, it designs to assert it fearlessly and boldly, launching its sharp and oft-repeated thunders against sin and error. Not infrequently, yea, perhaps, generally, it makes a

commotion in the world. It stirs human society, and sets men to thinking. It is itself a very thinking spirit.

In relation to humanity-its facts, its conditions, its wants, its duties, and its destiny,-this spirit is the bone and sinew, the life and impulse of all real progress, alike in the Church and the State. The truth is, since the fall of Adam this world has never been just right; it is not so now; and it will not be for some time to come. There is a vast accumulation of error among men, and also a vast accumulation of iniquity in various forms pervading human society. Human nature wants improvement. Society wants it. Hence the practical question is this:-Shall we leave things as they are, because they are? or shall we attempt to make them better, rooting out the error and the wrong, and introducing the truth and the right? This is the question with which we have to deal ; and to it the radical spirit always returns but one answer. It clamors for correction, improvement, and progress. It is, indeed, the spirit of progress. The enlightened radical is the man of progress. The fact that things are, is not, in his judgment, conclusive proof that they ought to be. He takes the liberty of inquiring into their nature, and when he has reached a conclusion, he frankly and firmly tells the world of it. Galileo, for example, was an astronomical radical; he saw that, contrary to the notions of the age, the earth moved around the sun, and not the sun around the earth. By a perfectly radical investigation of the facts, he caught this truth; and although it subverted the cycles and epicycles of the old theory, although the Pope took the alarm and tried to keep him still, Galileo held fast to his conviction, and, so far as he could, made it known to others. He was the man of progress, and the world now recognizes him as such. Those who would exorcise the Galileos in science, morals, and religion, are practically the enemies of all progress. They may not always intend this; yet this is the legitimate effect of their theory.

Such, in a word, is my analysis of the radical spirit, taken,-first, in its elementary meaning,-secondly, in its direct and specific aim,-thirdly, in its relation to the progress and development of man from an imperfect to a more perfect form of life. This is what I mean by the phrase. This I hold to be the true and proper import of the phrase. I come, then,

IN THE SECOND PLACE, TO INQUIRE INTO THE ACTUAL HISTORY OF THIS SPIRIT IN ITS BEARING UPON THE INTELLECTUAL, SOCIAL, POLITICAL, MORAL, AND RELIGIOUS FORTUNES OF THE WORLD. This, as you see, is a question of vast dimensions. The answer that I propose for your acceptance, with its reasons, is the following:-That while this spirit has sometimes by misapprehension, and sometimes by excess, been productive of evil, its general history is one of untold blessings to mankind.

If you turn your thoughts to the field of purely scientific re

search, you will find that the men who have distinguished themselves on this field, and contributed most largely to the advancement of human knowledge, are not the men who have trodden the beaten track of their fathers, governed by the precedents of opinion, and content to retail old ideas, but the bold, the fearless, the original, the radical investigators of truth. These are the men who have made their mark on the thinking of the world. Lord Bacon, in laying down the fundamental principles which should govern all investigation, and by those principles exposing the sophistries practiced by the schoolmen of the dark ages;-Sir Isaac Newton, in that profound inquiry after truth by which he at length discovered the great law that gives regularity and harmony to the motion of the heavenly bodies;-Dr. Franklin, in catching the lightnings of heaven with a key, and resolving their phenomena into an electrical agency; our own illustrious Morse, the inventor of the electric telegraph, in conceiving both the idea and the mechanism by which he could give a tongue to this agency;-John Locke, in his deep exploration of the origin of knowledge, correcting many of the cherished errors of former times :-these, and men of like stamp, were intellectual radicalists, going to the bottom of things, advancing beyond the ideas which had preceded them, and cutting for themselves and for the world new channels in the great domain of thought. Plato did this in his age, and Aristotle in his age. Such men refuse to bow to the authority of mere precedents. Assuming that ideas must at last rule the world, they not only drive the plowshare of truth into the errors of the past, but also greatly enlarge the kingdom of human ideas. True, they may sometimes go astray; they may delude themselves and mislead others ; yet to this class of men the world is mainly indebted for those sciences that have conferred such exalted honors on our nature, as well as those arts and inventions which have done so much to improve the condition of mankind. But for their life and mental activity, the intellectual status of earth would be stationary, perhaps retrogressive.

Passing out of the circle of pure science into the sphere of reformatory movements, we find that the progress of the world is largely due to the same style of agency. A reform supposes an evil existing in human society, intrenched in some fundamental error of thought, or fortified by some vicious feeling, or,-what is generally the fact,-supported by both of these causes in combination. Now, in the very nature of things, a reformer must attack this evil; he must make an exhibition of its nature; he must reason about it; he must try it by some standard of truth; he must make an appeal to the conscience of men; and in doing this, he must of necessity lay the axe at the root of the tree. He proposes a fundamental change in the notions and practice of men; and this can be gained only by truth as fundamental as the

change itself. The truth must be as deep as the error-deep enough, at least, to go to the bottom of the error. Take an example:

The immortal Wilberforce, being impressed with the horrible iniquities of the slave-trade, as tolerated and fostered under the prestige and patronage of the British government, exposed it and denounced it in the English Parliament and before the British public, till the moral sense of the nation awoke to the enormity of the system, and sternly demanded that it should come to an end. The merchants of Liverpool and the merchants of London, the men who were interested in this infamous traffic, denounced Wilberforce as a radical, a fanatic, an agitator; like the men of Ephesus, when their craft was in danger, they cried out: "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" Even Pitt, contrary to his personal pledges, had not the moral courage to breast the storm and do his duty; yet Wilberforce, the radical, the man whom all honest men now delight to honor, held steadily to his purpose till he carried his point. He kept the ear of England tingling with the terrible wickedness of the slave-trade, till England's conscience could no longer bear the sound. England now makes that piracy punishable with death, on which she once bestowed her sanction. It was the radical spirit of Wilberforce that brought about this result.

So, all the reformatory movements which have marked the history of England, or that of this country, and I may add that of the world, have sprung from the same spirit, and been conducted by the same class of men. Who are the men that have resisted the assumptions of despotic power,-curtailed the prerogatives of kings, -made the monarchies of Europe far more liberal and just than they were a century ago,-contended for the doctrine of popular rights, sympathized with the suffering, the oppressed, and the down-trodden of our species,-contributed to the emancipation and dignity of labor,-enlarged the right of suffrage,-pleaded most earnestly for the education of the masses,-poured forth their blood like water upon the altars of freedom;-yes, who are the men that have done these things? Who projected the American Revolu tion ? Who wrote the Declaration of Independence, than which a more radical document never met the eye of earth or heaven? Who supported it with their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor? To whom are we indebted for the political and civil system under which we have so long, and until lately, so happily lived? The plain and honest voice of history will tell you, that these achievements are mainly due to those men who have acted on the principle of laying the axe at the root of the tree, and then cutting down every tree that did not bring forth good fruit. Sometimes called Roundheads, sometimes Puritans, sometimes disorganizers, sometimes agitators, sometimes radicals, sometimes fanatics, sometimes one thing, and sometimes another, they have neverthe

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