Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-04-23
Mans Want of Unity and SeIf-HarmOny.
Henry Ward Beecher thus discoursed in a

Mans Want of Unity and SeIf-HarmOny. |
Henry Ward Beecher thus discoursed in /
late sermon:
Manymen, ALSO are living in a state of such |
unreguated inward society that there is never |
an hour without feud between one faculty
and another.
In old border times in Scotland, and in
frontier times among our Indians, nothing
was so common, so much part of ordinary
life, as raids and forays into other peoples
territories, catching flocks, destroying pro-
perty, and committing all manner of depre-
dations.
That is much the condition in which our
minds are living. The faculties are in a con-
slant warfare with each other. To-day that
old Baron Vanity gets the upper hand. He
| carries his invasion SO far that he seems to
| have got the advantage of all the other parts
| of the mind, and then runs back to his castle
| again. But afterward every one Of the other
| feelings complain that they have been cheated
and injured. There are protests, and defenses,
and reprsals. There is not a man, Isuppose,
that does not admit, every single day of his
| life, that he has wronged other parts of his
| mind by the incursions of vanity.
Pride is worse than this in some natures.
1t charges through the mind and carries off
much property belonging to many lords and
| barons who are suddenly all IN protest.
kingdom at unawares, and sweeps all before
it; and all the rest of the faculties are grieved
at its conduct. .t .f.r ..... .....
Then comes rout OF rabbie passions, an
unwaghed crowd, that soil whatever they
touch; aud when these vandals have left, the
soul is like meadow after a freshet. 1t was
full of flowers but they are gone, and sand
and mud only are left. ..-l....
And there is hardly day in which there
is not quarrel in the soul. By turns, reason
is at variance with every other faculty.
When man comes to that he says 81 have
done wrong there; l have done what ought
not to- have done there; / have missed the
mark there" There are hundreds of men
that can strike straight furrow across q
field, where there is one that can look upon
, his Ii ie and see that it has been any othel
than sigzag all the way through. We dC
, not pl ow straight we do not live straight
= A mans love condemns the conduct of hi
selfstlness. Every day he is wounding him
self, nd he is conscious of it. A mans con
science is an everlasting protestant, and al
his faculties are so many depressing popes
A ma MS spirituality is shocked by his fieshl,
induluences. A mans taste is perpetual,
in disagreement with his conductin ordinar,
things.
The mind is like an Italian kingdom, gov
erned by pope or king, and in either cas-
misgoVerned and wronged. Whatever yo
think ABOUT doctrines, tnere is no man tina
does mot think and does not know, when h
looks at his ordinary life, that the facultie
: are continually picking quarrels with eacl
i other, playing tricks upon each other, an,
!. keepi ng up conflict among themselves.
u Imagine an orchestra with such discor
u anon g the various instruments. Seized wit
e a sud den fancy, the trumpet, instead of play
X, ing the passages designed for the trumpe
y leaps into the trombone's part. The tron
70 bone takes the part of the flute; the flute thi
~ of the clarinet; the clarinet that of ii
g. trum pet; and so on. There is feud anon
all the instruments and parts which seel
: with endless clashings, to override each othe
y They are exceedingly philharmonic
u And this is what is continually going on /
the human mind. By turns each faculty, III
restrained by any governing principle in II
soul, steps out of its own proper sphere an
invad es the spheres of the other facultie
Consequently, every one ofthe feelings of Il
~ mind, being injured, protests; and the sum
sst their protestations makes up what we ci
II, the unhappiness Of human life. For whi
bo men are happy by sparks, no man is hapI
'' by steady burning. There are very fe
Z men that are so much under the influence
nif religion as to have an even, steady flame
Us enjoyment.
re In consequence of these things there is
' wan of unity; the whole soul does not mo
Tia toge lher, nor in the same direction. Maj
parts are not on speaking terms with ca
" other r, and many parts are at open feud. 7
" whole mind is at discord with itself.