THE ELEMENTS of PERMANENT INFLUENCE
Discourse Delivered in the Fifteenth Street
Presbyterian Church, Washington, D. C.,
Sunday, February 16, 1890,
by
EDWARD W. BLYDEN, LLD,
Author of "Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race", "The African
Problem."
_______________________
PUBLISHED BY REQUEST
________________________
Washington: R. I. Pendleton Printer. 438 7th Street, N.W.
1890
THE ELEMENTS OF PERMANENT INFLUENCE
"But now they desire a better country." -Heb. xi-16
Among all nations civilized or uncivilized, and in all languages, life
is represented as a journey- a pilgrimage; and because there are
successive stages and changes, there is implanted in us a
Restlessness, a constant desire to improve the present. Man never is
but always to be blest.
We ourselves undergo changes, both voluntary and involuntary. Changes
take place in our physical conditions. We grow or decay constantly.
There is no cessation to the movements childhood, youth, manhood, old
age. There are changes which take place by our voluntary efforts. As
in early years we begin to observe, the impressions we receive from
contact with objects around, change our mental attitudes. But more
directly we change through the influence of the school upon us, when
we come in contact with those whose business it is to modify our
conceptions of things to give us larger knowledge of ourselves and of
the external world. But there is always in us, whether we are
undergoing the unconscious changes which external conditions produce
upon us, or the revolution through which we constantly pass under the
influence of teachers - an undercurrent of desire for the better. As
we take our places in life -- if there is anything in us -- this all
pervading desire is the unfailing stimulus of progress. The merchant,
the scholar, the artist, the statesman, having visions of amelioration
both for themselves, for their professions and for humanity, are
lifted out of the region of sloth and indifference and carried onward
and upward.
One of the blessings of life - a blessing, perhaps, in disguise - are
it's illusions. We are allured in the desert of our earthly pilgrimage
by mirage after mirage, and, though illusion after illusion is
dispelled, we still think that the full and fresh and overflowing
fountain is but a few steps beyond- and in our imagination we see it
sparkling in the sunlight. We press on. In this way, in spite of
ourselves, advancements made. Or, to change the figure, we chase the
butterflies, which cover the landscape of our imagination, regardless
of the ruggedness and fatigue of the way, until, whether- we have
seized the gorgeous insect or not, we have traversed a long distance.
All changes, however, are not real changes. We can transfer ourselves
in dreams to other scenes. We can, in imagination, take the wings of a
dove and fly to some distant mountain - to some isle in the sea. We
can stand on the summit of our towers in Spain - our airy castles -
and catch the breezes and view the landscape of a richer country; but,
alas, from those heights we must descend to reality. We find that the
imaginary - the ideal - is cold and lonely, and we come back again to
the warmth of the actual and practical.
But there is always a desire for something not in our possession and
which we long for as desirable, if not indispensable. This leads me to
consider SOME OF THE ELEMENTS OF A GENUINE AND PERMANENT PROGRESS.
FIRST. There must be the desire for better. This desire implies a
recognition of imperfection-- a knowledge of deficiency. It is
unnecessary to point out that all the backwardness everywhere,in all
departments of life, and among all peoples, is owing, as a rule, to
lack of desire for improvement.
SECOND. The desire will avail nothing, if there be no movement. When
the prodigal son came to himself, realized that is, his condition, and
the intense desire for a better state of things was awakened in his
soul, he said, " I will arise and go to my father," and he arose and
went. There is little use in the most ardent prayers, and even in the
exceeding bitter cry, if there is no movement.
"Where fore criest thou to me?" said God to Moses, "Speak to the
children of Israel that they go forward." The Apostle Paul seemed to
place all his hope for perfection on this constant movement - this
going. "This one thing I do, forgetting the things that are behind, I
press toward the mark," &c.
Of course, then, a third and essential element of permanent progress
is righteousness.
Movement on the wrong course is worse than standing still. There is a
general righteousness and specific righteousness. There is a
righteousness for a business man- not merely a spiritual
righteousness, but what might be called a temporal or a secular
righteousness or rightness.
The successful man of business is he who is endowed with certain
peculiar gifts - a sense of order, of the value of time, a presence of
mind in difficulty, a power of seeing the thing to be done at the
proper time, insight into the relations of different kinds of wealth.
These are the qualities which have filled this land and Europe with
the magnates of riches.
This is a bettering of the outward conditions. But the elements of
usefulness and permanence are lacking where the man of money has no
proper idea of his possessions, when he uses them only for himself -
only to get on - only to push forward his family or his friends: with
no larger aim for the interests of the community and when he has
advanced in years he will have wearied old age, magnificence and
splendor in his outward surroundings, but no largeness of heart--
forgotten, and justly forgotten, the day after his death.
Take the artist. He has the means of leading men to the better country
intellectually and morally- of lifting them by his work to a higher
plane. He has the gift of revealing the inner beauty of the universe -
the gift of giving noble pleasure - the gift of teaching men how to
see and to love what they see. But if he uses these gifts for himself
- for making money and fame for himself, they will lose their power,
or, rather, the living ideas which give them their power. All true
inspiration and true use of it comes of throwing one's self into the
interests, feelings, and movements of humanity. The musician can make
noble music when the beats of inspiration are harmonious with the
beats of general heart; when love, not self, is at the root. The
writer or speaker who wishes to leave to the world of men a legacy of
true thoughts, true work, should take into himself the whole world of
men. When he ceases to recognize the fact that every good and perfect
gift is from above - from the common father - when he is tempted to
pride himself upon the divine things in him as if they were his own
and for his own use, and to think himself specially favored of God,
and separated by his gifts from the rest of mankind, then his work is
either destroyed or rendered imperfect.
Take the stateman. Here is the man whose professions and aims are to
improve by legalization or diplomacy the conditions around him. He
desires literally a better country. If we study at all the course of
contemporary history, we find, throughout the world, from the Indian
to the Pacific Ocean, that the desire of rulers and lawmakers - the
aspirations of classes and professions - are for a better country. But
now here, or, at least, only in exceptional cases, do we find
commended or adopted, the only principles through which a better
country can be secured, the principles laid down by Him of whom it is
said that His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. Men construct other
kingdoms, organise powerful political parties, lay other foundations
for power and greatness, but they have in them the elements neither of
beneficence nor perpetuity. There is no way of winning an enduring
kingdom over men's heart, but the way which is built within us by the
righteousness of God and without us by His love and loving
righteousness.
The races now holding power in the world have not always held it; but,
because by the use, at various times, of unchristian methods they have
secured power, which must, owing to its origin and use, be brief, even
if it lasts a thousand years, they indulge in boast of the very
qualities in spite of which not because of which, they have extended
their ways to the end of the earth.
We heard a few weeks ago, a distinguished statesman from his place in
the Senate, introduce an oration for which the whole country had
waited with anxious expectation in the following terms:
"Mr. PRESIDENT, the race to which we belong is the most arrogant and
rapacious, the most exclusive and indomitable in history. It is the
conquering and the unconquerable race, through which alone man has
taken possession of the physical and moral world. To our race humanity
is indebted for religion, for literature, for civilization. It has a
genius for conquest, for politics, for jurisprudence and for
administration. The home and the family are its contributions to
society. Individualism, fraternity, liberty and equality have been its
contributions to the state. All other races have been its enemies or
its victims."
Now, in this remarkable utterance, the sentences that are true are not
commendable, and the sentences that are commendable are not true. The
last sentence exposes the hollowness of the boast. All other races
have been its enemies or victims. The "individualism, the fraternity
and the equality" have been for itself, not for humanity.
But this was a strange boast, even if it were well founded, for the
representative of a Christian nation to indulge in on so important an
occasion - a nation professing to hold in reverence, above all other
peoples, that book which teaches the duty of humanity and the beauty
of sacrifice, which professes to follow Him who taught that SERVICE
not POWER is the measure of true nobility, and evidence of Christian
discipleship; who took upon Himself the form of a servant, who,
according to the touching narrative of the loving disciple. -
"Knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that
He was come from God, riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments,
and took a towel and girded himself. After that he poureth water into
a basin, and began to wash his disciples' feet and to wipe them with
the towel, wherewith he was girded. "
Here was the evidence of enduring power - service. It was His constant
teaching to His disciples - He that would be chief among you let him
become your servant;" and this among His last acts, was intended to
give an impressive object lessons to be transmitted through them to
all his followers. "I have given you an example," He said at the close
of the ceremony, "that you should do as I have done onto you. "
And this is the ground of all honor and greatness in the sight of God
and man. No kingdom, not founded on this, whatever its glare and
glitter, and however protracted its influence, can be permanent. If we
will take a glance at history, past and contemporary, we shall find
that, after all, the instincts of humanity are to honor service, not
power. To whom are the monuments erected in the great centers of
civilization? Are they to men who only exercised power? You will find
that the names around which the heart's reverence and devotion pour
their choicest perfumes are not those of the merely powerful. It is
not the illustrations of the rapacity of men that will ring down the
ages. It is not these that, like a refreshing stream, will rush
through the desert of the future, giving life by their overflow and
producing abundant harvests. No; the greatest men have not been the
rapacious conquerors or the kings or political leaders, but the martys
for truth and righteousness - those who set free the bodies and souls
of men - the prophets, the inventors, the poets, the philosophers, the
artists. Not the author of the Fugitive Slave Bill be immortal in the
annals of the nation, but the writer of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Not the boast of Senator Toombs that he would call the roll of his
slaves under the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument, but the sayings of
Philips and Garrison and Sumner - the songs of Whittier, of
Longfellow, of Lowell. Not the memory of Jeff Davis will send a thrill
throughout humanity, but the recollection of the so-called insanity of
John Brown. The men who wrought and spoke for righteousness, for
justice, for freedom - these are the men who have eternal power; their
voices right now in our ears; their words move us now into new
passions, which exait our life; their actions kindle in us aspirations
and efforts which lift us to higher levels. The power of warriors, and
kings, and wealth, and rank sinks into insignificance before this
power, and men are beginning at last to learn this truth.
" Right forever on the scaffold;
Wrong forever on the Throne;
Yet the scaffold sways the future;
And behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above His own. " 2
That poet whom the Christian world is at this moment lamenting sang
with his latest breath -
"Of one who never turned his back, but march'd breast forward;
Never doubted clouds would break;
Never dream'd though Right were worsted.
Wrong would triumph;
Held we fall to rise, are battled to fight better;
Sleep to wake. "
When the orator says that to the Caucasian race "humanity is indebted
for religion, for literature, for civilization," he is speaking with
the inexactness not of the historian, but of the politician. Everybody
knows that the basis of the civilization and literature of present day
was on the Nile and not among the Caucasian race - not on the Ilissus,
the Tiber, the Rhine or the Thames, but on the rivers of Ethiopia.
There were only two steps between Egypt and modern Europe - Greece and
Rome. Greece took not only civilization and literature but even
religion from Ethiopia. Such were the wonderful developments of
civilization and literature and religion in that country, that the
early poets and historians of Greece, unable to understand such
marvelous indigenous growth attributed it to the direct interference
of the gods, who they affirm went every year to feast with the
Ethiopians.
But even if - passing by the great religions of China and India,
professed by more than one-half of the human race and with the
founding of which Caucasians had nothing whatever to do - we take the
three highest religions - Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism, the
Caucasian can not claim to be their exclusive originators. Moses the
founder of Judaism, was born in Africa and trained in Egyptian
philosophy, learned, we are told," in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians." Though the founder of Christianity was Semitic or
Caucasian, his life was threatened in his infancy by the jealous and
ambitious Caucasian ruler; and it was in the land of Hamites and by
Hamitic solicitude and hospitality that he was preserved; and when,
during the last hours of his life one set of Caucasians condemned him
to death by false accusations and another set imposed upon him the
burden of his own cross, it was an African who came to the support of
that greatest of prophets. Again, when the religion of Islam would
have perished in the place of its origin, by Caucasian intolerance and
persecution, it was to the land of Ham that its few adherents fled for
shelter and protection: so that if these religions did not originate
in Africa, Africa was there nursing mother.
The Caucasian characteristic impatience of guidance and control, which
nailed the Redeemer of mankind to the cross, makes it difficult now
for them to carry the Gospel to races alien to themselves. They have
gone to foreign lands and the natives of those lands do not consider
them as following the principles of the religion they profess to have
founded. The backward races "become their victims or their enemies. "
The African boasts not of the service which his country and his people
have rendered to civilization and religion; but he knows that through
all the ages and all the continents he has rendered service in the
highest and in the lowest walks. He has for three hundred years been
the colossal servant of the Western Hemisphere. But he takes the word
of the great Master for it, that he who serves will reign. He that
will be chief first becomes a servant. Therefore, he has defied the
rapacity of the all-conquering Caucasian; and his abounding vitality
on this side of the Atlantic is filling with dismay the dominant and
invincible race. The spectre of reaction from service to rule is
haunting the visions of many of the thoughtful Caucasians in the
southern part of this country. But the rapacious instincts of the
conquering races are being neutralized by the pervading principles of
Christianity, which in spite of individual views, are taking
possession of nations.
In spite of brag, and boast, and bluster, the kingdoms of the world
are becoming the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. It's being
found out that the rapacity was not a cause of, but a hindrance to,
wide and permanent influence. It is beginning to be seen that not
wealth and material comfort, and commercial prosperity and political
power, are the greatness of nation; these are good and desirable, but
the true greatness of a nation does not abide in them alone.
It is under the influence of these convictions that the young Emperor
William of Germany is giving Europe a sensation - troubling the
rapacious instincts of his race by the suggestion of an international
labor conference, with a view of meeting the needs and desires of the
working classes -- to promote their health, morality and proper
renumeration, and to preserve their claims to equality before the law.
He is endeavoring to make the laws of his country in relation to the
poor, the enslaved, the overworked, the lost and the outcast,
Christian laws.
Mr. Gladstone, also, the leader of the advanced views of the other
great - perhaps the greatest - Caucasian nation, is endeavoring to
bring the glad tidings of the Gospel to the poor. We all know his self-
denying labors for Ireland. Only a few weeks ago, speaking of India,
he said,
"There are many transactions, which ought to raise a blush of shame on
the cheeks of Englishmen; but principles of right were remembered by
those who now governed India. *** Enormous as was the field for
enterprise (in that country) still more remarkable was the field for
courage and for virtue, and for showing that the Christian profession
of England was not a mere name, but that they hoped to recommend
Christianity to the good will and favor of the people of India by
showing the fruits that it produced in the lives of those who
professed it." *
European explorers and pioneers are paying respect to the teaching of
Christianity. The civilized world read with surprise and
gratification, a few days ago, that Stanley, the great African
traveler, was an earnest student of the Bible-- that for six months he
had been studying the new version of the Holy Scriptures-- that he had
a reverential turn of mind; while others speak of luck he speaks of
Divine Providence.
The missionary work in Africa is also taking a forward move and will
be conducted on a higher plane - that is, more in accordance with the
teachings of Christ. Men from the higher Universities of Europe - of
deeper culture, greater spiritual insight, wider sympathies, are now
enlisting in the work. On the Niger, on the Congo and on the great
Lakes these enlightened heralds of Christianity are lifting up the
standard of the cross.
All this insures a better future for humanity. The natural rapacity of
the Caucasian is coming under the controlling influence of the Prince
of Peace.
Science is also contributing toward this humane end. Men are learning
more and more the vastness of humanity and persistency of the great
types, and the importance to the whole of this persistency. It is only
as we move in narrow grooves, and know nothing of the vast life beyond
us, that we are narrow and contracted, and think that outside of our
little sphere there is nothing worth consideration - nothing worth
respecting or preserving. Some of you here will remember the
description given by Wordsworth of how he felt when he first went from
the country to London. A weight of ages, he says, descended on his
heart - no thought embodied, no distinct remembrances, but weight and
power -- power growing under weight.
This was met in him by a corresponding amplitude of mind; and the
sense of all the great city had done and suffered, was doing and
suffering still. Then followed the deep impression of the vastness and
unity of man. He began to realize their joys, sorrows, sins, efforts,
passions as outside of his own personality.
Something like this we see taking place in the bosom of Europe - in
relation to the great dark continent. By a better acquaintance with
the vastness of its tribes, scientific and commercial adventures are
learning that the newly discovered peoples are too valuable, in their
intellectual and moral possibilities, to be destroyed. The terrible
indictment drawn by Canon Farrar against the drink traffic in Africa
is haunting Europe like a nightmare. Representatives of the various
branches of the European races are meeting in conference to devise
measures to protect the African from the ravages of their unscrupulous
trade. Europe is rising and her leading minds are contending for an
international reparation to that continent for the wrongs inflicted
upon her.
The examples of the past in dealing with weaker races are being
ignored. It is no longer considered creditable to " expunge the savage
like figures from a slate. " A spirit is being more and more infused
into the progress of the world, which tends to destroy race enmities,
to diminish the victims of race rapacity, and to reconcile nation with
nation. Men begin to feel that when for their own interest, or their
own selfish purposes, they violate by war or by oppression justice or
freedom or individuality in other nations or support those who violate
these things, they are not acting in accordance with Christian but
Pagan traditions.
And it is to the progress of these principles in this land that we
must trust for the rectification of whatever is unjust and oppressive
in the relation of the races. Those who claim that this is their
country exclusively, as against all who wear the " shadowed livery of
the burnished sun." and aspire after a better country by means of
oppression and injustice are performing the labors of Sisyphus or
weaving the web of Penelope, or, worse still, sowing the wind. The
only solution of suffering on the one hand and of arrogance and
anxiety on the other is the application of the other Golden Rule--"All
things what so ever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so
to them. "
In my travels in this country and my observations among the colored
people, I have been struck with the marked improvement which they have
made in the brief period since the fundamental laws of the land have
recognized their manhood. The history of no modern people furnishes
such evidences of providential guidance and innate possibilities.
Twenty years of freedom find the Russian serfs very little if any
better of than they were when freed from their masters. The American
Negro, in view of his achievements in five and twenty years, is a
wonder to the world; and among the candid observers of his history, he
inspires the hope and confidence in his capacity for the work of the
future -- the great work of reconstruction in the land of his fathers.
For him as to his future influence upon and position in the great
human family, nil desperandum is the doctrine I preach. Having
overcome so much he will overcome more.
"O passi-gravoria dabit deus quoque finem."
He now pines with desire amid his uncomfortable surroundings for a
better country, he will reach one and, in many respects, here in the
land of his birth.
He is learning to organize, to think, to express himself. The
influence of this, both upon himself and upon his neighbors, must be
transforming and elevating.
The courtesy of your pastor has allowed me the opportunity of saying a
few words to you before I leave the country. I am glad to thank you
for the kind reception and cordial welcome which you have always
accorded to me. I know that many of you live in a state of
dissatisfaction and unrest on account of the conditions of our people
in this country. But believe me, I see no grounds for despondency or
despair. On the other hand, there is much for encouragement and joy.
Remember the reply of Samson's mother to Manoah, when he said, "We
shall surely die, because we have seen God." She said, with true
womanly insight, "If the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not
have received a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at our hands,
neither would He have showed us all these things, nor would He at this
time, have told us these things" - Judges xiii-23.
There is a talent entrusted to you. It is your duty to call into
action the highest forms of your being. Do not invert the true order
of your lives by loving yourselves and the world instead of the Lord
and your neighbor. It does not matter what your calling may be -
whether it be what men call menial or what the world calls honorable -
whether it be to speak in the halls of Congress or to sweep out those
halls - whether it be to wait upon others or to be waited on-- it is
the manner of using your faculties that will determine the result-
that will determine your true influence in this world and your status
in the world to come.
If you desire a better country in this world let your motto be "Onward
and Upward. "
Not enjoyment and not sorrow,
In our destined end of way;
But to act that each tomorrow
Find us further than today. "
Every one should do his part to advance humanity. Each should exert
himself to be a helper in progress. Whatever your condition, you do
occupy some room in the world; what are you doing to make return for
the room you occupy? There are so many of our people who fail to
realize their responsibility, who fail to hear the inspiring call of
the past and the prophetic call of the future.
Brethren, are you living the daily round of the present without care
of prayer, without effort or sacrifice for the cause of human
progress? When you look back at the distance which, as a people, you
have traversed, you have cause for gratitude, and when you look before
you and around you to the facilities for growth and work which
Christian civilization supplies, and the increasing responsibilities,
there is surely sufficient to stimulate your zeal.
The great fields of wide and increasing necessities do not lie afar
off now. Man can go around the world in less than eighty days. This
brings to your very doors the needy continent across the waters to
which by blood you are allied. Events are moving on for its
regeneration; and the grand march of progress will go on whether you
join it or not. There are many for whom the past has no inspiration
and the future no meaning. But the way to the Golden Gate of the
better country for the race will be hewn out whether they aid or not.
Now I commend you to God and to the world of his grace. I urge you to
desire and seek after that better country to which the text refers,
even heavenly. For, after all, the things that are seen are temporal,
but the things that are not seen are eternal.
To those who are just entering life; upon whom the freshness and joy
of youth still rest, I would say, life is fleeting and it is hardly
worth while to follow anything but that which makes for the up
building of humanity. Fill your life with love and righteousness, with
meekness and peacemaking, with humbleness of heart, with faithful work
for God and man.
In a short time, most of us, who have reached the middle way in life,
will find our feet stumbling among the graves. If it is my privilege
to return to this country, I may find that those who are now bright
and young have ripened in years - sadder without - but I trust more
joyful within. But whether I may be permitted to return or not, I know
that in a few years at most, there will be nothing left of any of us
but a few green spaces in the burial ground. Therefore, let me urge
you, amid all your temptations and trials, believe in the eternal
Love. Keep love yourselves, never lose its impulse, and you will be
more and more fitted for a final citizenship and enfranchisement.
When you approach the close of the crisis, your fellow citizens of the
glorious city will come to you, angel visitants will attend you and
minister to you as you cross the stream to that better country, whose
inhabitants never say I am sick, or I am weary or foot sore.
And there should be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the
Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him; and they shall
see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there
shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither the light of
the sun; for Son of God giveth them light; and they shall reign
forever and ever.
FOOTNOTES
1 The Prodigal son is one of the most well known parables/moral
stories of the Christian Bible. It illustrates forgiveness that is
given when the offender finally finds the strength to seek it out.
2 Exodus. . . . Or as in the case of the children of Israel, in their
frustration following Moses into the promised land from egyptian
bondage when he chastised them saying "Wherefore cirest thou to
me?". . . . .
3 Philipians chapter 3, verse 13.
Phillips was one of the abolitionists, those who led the movement for
the abolition of slavery, as were William Lloyd Garrison, Charles
Sumner. Horace Greenleaf Whittier, Henry Wadsorth Longfellow and James
Russell Lowell were famous English poets who espoused the abolitionist
cause.
4 Jefferson Davis was a leader of the confederacy movement that fought
to maintain the status quo with regard to slavery in America.
5 John Brown was a champion of the cause of freedom for slaves. He is
imortalised in precisely the sense that Blyden tries to illustrate
here in the famous song "John Brown lies a-mouldering in the grave,
but his soul goes marching on, glory , glory halleluiah!"
6 James Russell Lowell. Both quotations are from Lowell who died that
year.
1Later Dean Farrar of westminster Abbey.
The brothers Alexander and Francis Grimke were personal friends of
Blyden. One was the pastor of the 15th Street AME church in
Wahinigton, DC where this sermon was delivered. They are alleged to
have been illegitimate sons of one of the Founding Fathers of the
republic, their mother being a slave. At the death of their father,
they were educated by their legitimate half-sister.
--
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