Alexander Crummell

“ It is the genius of Christianity which has produced the philanthropy of civilized countries. It is the spirit of Jesus' religion which has prompted that high art, that marvellous skill, and those humane institutions by which, in all Christian lands, disease is conquered, life is lengthened out, and pain is neutralized. It is thus that Jesus' presence is felt in the world, even in matters physical and temporal. No other religion has ever prompted such generous benevolent skill, or thus provided fur the miserable and the outcast. ”

“ Even the satisfaction of this gracious work, which we inaugurate to-day, is neutralized by the contemplation of disease, which it forces upon us, and by the knowledge of loathsomeness, of agony, raid of sickening decay, which it is designed to neutralize. While our minds would fain dwell upon mercy and benevolence to man, bruised bodies and aching limbs force themselves upon our imagination or our sight. While we would delight ourselves in the harmonious tones of human joy. our ears are filled with the sighs and groans of men's misery. ”

“ Indeed, this world of ours, ever since the fall of Adam, has been a scene of suffering and woe. Bodily distress and physical anguish have ever been the common portion of man all over the globe. The condition of man may but too justly be characterized as a condition of suffering. With respect to the body as well as to the sensitive soul, the words of Scripture are erprally true, that "man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward." The frames of but few, born into this world, are whole, and strong, and healthy. ”

“ We cannot, if we would, escape the notice of soul-suffering in this world. We have to recognize the presence of spiritual as well as bodily disease among our fellow-creatures. By sense, and thought, and reason, and observation, and experience, by each and all, we have had forced upon our attention those internal disarrangements, those mental fractures, and those spiritual lacerations, which are wasting away the better portion of man's being, and of which, indeed, physical ailments and bodily pain are but the outward signs and symbols. ”

“ We are fully convinced, that in prayers, and preaching, and sacraments, He is not a far-off, but an ever-present Lord. But where is the warrant for the dubitating thought, that this presence is vouchsafed only to those offices which are called distinctively religious, and which pertain exclusively to the soul? Where is the ground for supposing that the Lord's presence is confined to those things alone which we specially entitle spiritual. ”

“ Is there nothing in it for us in our work here save as reminiscence? Are men to receive these words in no other way than the literal? Do you so magnify these undoubted miracles that when their distinct and characteristic marks vanish, the Church of God sinks to a lower and utterly diverse manifestation of Divine power, so that she is confined to the outward signs of miracles for her interpretation of these large and glorious promises? ”

“ The human heart, of itself, never originates efforts and institutions of the kind we are originating this day. It is not of man to assuage suffering, to heal the sick, to save the miserable. It was left to the sublime and humane spirit of Christianity to start such works of mercy and such works of love. Jesus had to come into the world, and since His advent the poor, the maimed, the wretched, the blind, and the deaf have been cared for. Wherever His holy religion has been established, there hospitals, almshouses, and reformatory institutions have sprung up all over Christendom ”

“ And while indeed "holding the Head," even the Lord Jesus, as the fountain of all bodily as well as all spiritual good to man, we bless God, also, for all the noble men and women who in all the ages of Christianity have drank in fully the spirit of our common Master, and have gone about among widows and orphans, among the sick and the diseased, the blind, the lame, and the deaf, imitating the Lord's example, "doing good to men." ”

“ We bless Him for all the philanthropic schemes by which the drunkard is made sober and saved, the outcast Magdalen is made pure in both body and soul, the poor slave is emancipated and becomes a man, the leper is cared for, and his sorrow and desolation mitigated, the prisoner is blessed, the sailor rescued, and the crippled and the diseased are cured. ”

“ In truth, brethren, to deny, or even doubt, Jesus' presence, as pertaining to the body as well as spirit of man, to the whole man, is to hold a mere brutal theory about man, and to make nugatory the efficacy of our Lord's incarnation. ”

“ The body is but the machinery and instrument of the immaterial essence which inhabits it; and while, indeed, desirous, both by skill and kindness, to adjust and restore this machinery, when fractured, or disarranged, or lacerated, or under decay; yet, by so much as the soul is superior to the body, so do we estimate its superior value, and aim the more, directly and indirectly, to seek its good. ”

“ The age of miracles has gone; but it may well be doubted whether, since Jesus came into this world, any distinct power or influence He once exerted, has ever departed, entirely and in every way, from among men. After the birth in Bethlehem, Jesus is ever present in this world;—His presence is never again to depart from it, until the consummation of all things. ”

“ For the terms of the large promises of Jesus justify us in looking for, and assuring ourselves in, the presence and strength of our mighty Lord in. all our work and labors, in which we aim at the welfare of the bodies of men. Moreover, the very fact that our Lord went up on high in our flesh, seems to show that that glorified body is still the sympathizing medium between "GOD manifest in the flesh," and frail humanity, in pains and misery. ”

“ His glorified body is indeed in Heaven; but He is with His Church always, even unto the end of the world. And, being present, those wondrous powers, and that mighty energy, which He wrought among men, in the days of His manifestation, are likewise ever present, and never shall depart. There is not one of us here to-day, but who believes in Jesus' personal presence in this church. We all have a firm faith that He is really and undoubtedly with his ministry and people, in all their work and service in His behalf on earth. ”

“ The Indian in the western wilds of America casts out the emaciated and the helpless to the ravenous wolf without pity or remorse. We see here among the heathen, at times, the utter absence of sensibility or feeling for those, even relations or parents or children, who are suffering pain and agony, or who are sick unto death. Even in that religion of which Christianity is an offshoot, the religion of the Jews, although mercy and kindness are marked peculiarities, still we discover no special provisions for the sick ”

“ This stream of pitifulncss for the suffering has its rise in the merciful bosom of our own risen and glorified Lord. All the philanthropy of this world, whether flowing in legitimate or indirect channels, has been prompted by and caught up from this precious faith of Jesus. Whether men reclaim the drunkard, or free the poor slave, or give sight to the blind or hearing to the deaf, or rectify fractured limbs, they learned it all in the school of Christ. The religion of Jesus is the only one which cares for both body and soul. ”

“ If the wonder-making phase of miracles has gone, their restorative and compassionate features are still continued by our Lord, in this sinful world. For Jesus Christ came upon earth, and took upon Him our flesh, for this very purpose of good and blessedness to man. He came to touch man with a saving power, and therefore He took our bodily nature upon Him, not to touch and heal men for the brief period of His earthly stay among men, but unto the world's end ”

“ Every consideration suggests these happy feelings, and prompts such pleasurable emotions. There is no jar here, to-day, of selfish pride, or dissonance of injurious and boisterous passions. We are not a crew of base malignants; nor are we the agents of dark disaster to our fellow-men. ”

“ And these are sufficient, without any other evidences, that God, in his word, appoves those gracious saving efforts, which are designed to lessen the miseries of earth, to mitigate the pains and sufferings of men, to assuage the griefs of wretched humanity, and, at the same time, to increase the sum of human happiness, and to give comfort, well-being, and satisfaction to our fellow-creatures. ”

“ The very touch sent forth healing efficacy. So now healing still continues to go out from His body—His touch still works a curative influence. That glorious body on the right hand of the Father still gives forth a power to repair, a health and life-giving energy, a healing influence, to weak and wretched men. ”

“ The form and mode in which power goes out from Jesus, is different now from what it was when men approached, and saw, and felt, and handled that awful person; but the essence and the energy are the same. ”

“ We claim, as we have the right to claim, that this is the work of our Lord. No matter what may be the agencies used in the conversion of men, or who may have been the ministers or teachers who led them to Christ, we deny the glory to these agents; we claim that Jesus worked their spiritual restoration. ”

“ We have met with no sinister purposes before us; nor do we aim at objects that are to bring woe and anguish to any portion of our kind. On the contrary, every thing here designed, contemplated and expected in this undertaking, is for good and blessedness. We would lessen pain. We would end suffering. We wish to neutralize bodily anguish; to arrest the deadly progress of disease = ”

“ Wherever, in its practical workings, there is a forgetfulness or neglect of either of these portions of our humanity, there Christianity appears misshapen, one-sided, deformed; neither do her advocates gain any real advantage for her by excessive devotedness to one portion of man which is purchased by neglect of the other ”

“ Somewhere, in every one's system, there is a tender point, or an infirm organ, or a weakened nerve, or a fractured limb, or a heart not altogether sound, or a lingering cancer, or just the taint of corruption, which will cause a diseased lung, and in the end produce consumption. ”

“ So, in like manner with regard to all eleemosynary works and houses, though we recognize the zeal of warm-hearted men and gentle women, the large charities and the heroic self-sacrifice of fearless nurses and physicians, yet Ave claim all for Christ. ”