CHAPTER XII

RELIGION AND MORALS:   1810-1850

"Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He
that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his
heart."—Psalm 15 : 1 /.

" In what consists [Christianity's! true glory, unless it is in the fact that where it
is thus ascendant millions of intelligent and immortal beings, in the solitude of their
retirement and in the noise and bustle of the world, in the depression of their grief
and in the tranquillity of their joy, in the secrecy and publicity of their devotions,
in the rectitude, truthfulness, and benignity of their deportment toward God and
their fellow-men, manifest his glory, who is 'the only begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth'?"—Gardiner Spring, "The Glory of Christ," Vol. II, pp. 39 ff.

AS the last chapter was devoted to the pastor, so
this one is devoted to the people of the Brick
Church during this period of forty years.
But the task now set before us is the harder of the
two. Nothing, indeed, is more difficult than to
ascertain the facts regarding the inner life of the peo¬
ple of former times, and in spite of a careful use of
records and biographies and reminiscences, it is to
be feared that we shall but attain to a picture of ex¬
ternals after all. It will be possible to state with some
fulness what were the means used to bring the duties
of religion home to the hearts of individuals and to
control or correct their morals; but when we seek
further a knowledge of the actual results, an acquaint¬
ance with the regenerated men and women themselves
and of the thoroughness of their regeneration, we
shall be able to do little more than catch a few tantaliz-

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