No More Learning

Richard H. Dana, William D. Sohier, Henry W. Paine, Edward D.
Sohier, with others whose names are now almost forgotten. These
men formed a bar the like of which has seldom if ever been assem-
bled in any one jurisdiction. Here too Mr. Choate at once came to
the front. With every talent which could make a man a great advo-
cate, with a marvelous memory, a keen logical intellect, a sound
legal judgment, he had now acquired a large professional experience
and a very complete professional training. As has been seen, he had
a thorough classical training,- that is, of the kind best fitted to his
needs. His professional studies before beginning his professional
practice had been the best then attainable; very possibly, for him,
they were quite as good as can be had at any of the law schools of
to-day. His range of reading and information was extremely wide.
He had had several years of experience at Washington in Congress.
-


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RUFUS CHOATE
3653
And ever since leaving the law school his mere professional studies
had been most severe. It is hard to see how any man could be
better equipped for professional practice than Mr. Choate was at this
time.
His success at the Boston bar was phenomenal. He was in a con-
test with giants. Mr. Webster alone could be deemed to dispute
with Mr. Choate the place of supremacy. The general verdict has
been that for pure intellectual power Mr. Webster was the superior.
But it may well be doubted whether as an all-round advocate Mr.
Choate did not carry off the palm. The common idea of Mr. Choate
has been that his marvelous eloquence was his great source of
strength and success in his forensic contests. This is an error.
Eloquent he undoubtedly was; few men have ever been more so.
But unless in frontier communities, eloquence alone has never com-
manded great success at the bar-if indeed it has ever existed-
without strong logical power and sound judgment. The power of
convincing intelligent men always depends largely and mainly on
soundness of judgment in the selection of positions. Especially is this
so in the profession of the law. There have been, no doubt, many
instances where men of eloquence have captivated juries by appeals
to passion or prejudice. But in the vast majority of cases, success
as an advocate cannot be had without sound judgment in the selec
tion of positions, coupled with the power of clear logical statement.
Mr. Choate was no exception to this rule. Mr. Henry W. Paine, one
of the leaders of the Boston bar in Mr. Choate's time,- himself one
of the most logical of men,- once said that he did not care to hear
Mr. Choate address a jury, but to hear him argue a bill of exceptions
before the full bench of the Supreme Court was one of the greatest
intellectual treats. With the ordinary twelve men in a jury-box Mr.
Choate was a wizard. His knowledge of human nature, his wide and
deep sympathies, his imagination, his power of statement, with his
rich musical voice and his wonderful fascination of manner, made
him a charmer of men and a master in the great art of winning
verdicts. So far as the writer is able to form an opinion, there has
never been at the English or American bar a man who has been his
equal in his sway over juries. Comparisons are often condemned, but
they are at times useful. Comparing Mr. Choate with Mr. Webster,
it must be conceded that Mr. Webster might at times carry a jury
against Mr. Choate by his force of intellect and the tremendous
power of his personal presence. Mr. O'Conor once said that he did
not consider Mr. Webster an eloquent man. "Mr. Webster," he said,
<< was an intellectual giant. But he never impressed me as being an
eloquent man. " The general judgment is that Mr. Webster had
eloquence of a very high order. But Mr. Choate was a magician.


## p. 3654 (#642) ###########################################

3654
RUFUS CHOATE
With any opponent of his time except Mr. Webster, he was irresistible
before juries. Mr. Justice Catron of the United States Court is
reported to have said of Mr. Choate, "I have heard the most eminent
advocates, but he surpasses them all. " His success came from a
rare combination of eloquence, sound logical judgment, and great
powers of personal fascination.
In another respect the common opinion of Mr. Choate must be
corrected. His great powers of persuasion and conviction undoubtedly
gave him some victories which were not deserved by the mere merits
of his cases. From this fact there went abroad the impression that
he was a man without principle, and that his ethical standards were
not high in his selection and conduct of cases. This impression is
quite contrary to the judgment of the competent. The impression
was due largely to his success in the celebrated defense of Tirrell.
Tirrell was indicted for the murder of a woman named Bickford, with
whom Tirrell had long associated, who was found dead in a house of
ill-repute. At about the hour when the woman lost her life, either
by her own hand or by that of Tirrell, the house caught fire. The
cause of the fire was not proved. Tirrell had been in her company
the preceding evening, and articles of clothing belonging to him.
were found in the morning in her room. Many circumstances seemed
to indicate that the woman had been killed by Tirrell. He was also
indicted for arson in setting fire to the house. In addition to other
facts proved by the defense, it was shown by reputable witnesses
that Tirrell had from his youth been subject to somnambulism; and
one of the positions taken by Mr. Choate for the defense was that
the killing, if done by Tirrell at all, was done by him while uncon-
scious, in a condition of somnambulism. Tirrell was tried under
both indictments and was acquitted on both. The indictment for
murder was tried before Justices Wilde, Dewey, and Hubbard. The
indictment for arson was tried before Chief Justice Shaw and Justices
Wilde and Dewey. The foreman of the jury stated that the defense
of somnambulism received no weight in the deliberations of the jury.
The judgment of the profession has been that the verdicts were the
only ones which could properly have been rendered on the evidence.
In the arson case the charge to the jury was by Chief Justice Shaw,
and was strongly in favor of the defense. No doubt the defense was
extremely able and ingenious. But the criticisms against Mr. Choate
for his conduct of those cases, in the opinion of those members of
the profession best qualified to judge, have been held to be without
good foundation. Lawyers—that is, reputable ones-do not manu-
facture evidence, nor are they the witnesses who testify to facts.
The severe tests of cross-examination usually elicit the truth. No
one ever charged Mr. Choate with manufacturing evidence.
And no


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RUFUS CHOATE
3655
lawyer of good judgment, so far as the writer is aware, has ever
charged him with practices which were not in keeping with the very
highest professional standards.
In the space here allotted, any attempt to give an adequate idea
of Mr. Choate's professional and public work is quite out of the
question. In addition to the conduct of an unusually large profes-
sional practice he did a large amount of literary work, mainly in the
delivery of lectures, which at that time in New England were almost
a part of the public system of education. Throughout his life he
took an active part in politics. He attended the Whig convention at
Baltimore in 1852, where General Scott received his nomination for
the Presidency, and where Mr. Choate made one of the most elo-
quent speeches of his life in his effort to secure the nomination for
Mr. Webster.
Mr. Choate finally killed himself by overwork. Though a man of
great physical strength and remarkable vitality, no constitution could
stand the strain of his intense labors in the different lines of law,
literature, and politics. His magnificent physique finally broke down.
He died on July 13th, 1859, being not quite sixty years. His death
was an important public event. In the public press, at many public
meetings throughout the country, and by public men of the highest
distinction, his death was treated as a public misfortune.
In his day
he rendered distinguished public services. He had the capacities
and the interests which fitted him to be a great statesman. Had
it not been for our system of short terms, and rotation in office,
Mr. Choate would probably have remained in public life from the
time of his entry into Congress, would have been a most valuable
public servant, and would have left a great reputatio as a states-
man. As it was, he left, so far as now appears, only the ephemeral
reputation of a great advocate.
This scanty sketch can best be closed by a quotation from the
address of Richard H. Dana at the meeting of the Boston bar held
just after Mr. Choate's death. That extract will show the judgment
of Mr. Choate which was held by the giants among whom he lived
and of whom he was the leader:
-
«The wine of life is drawn. The golden bowl is broken. ' The age of
miracles has passed. The day of inspiration is over. The Great Conqueror,
unseen and irresistible, has broken into our temple and has carried off the
vessels of gold, the vessels of silver, the precious stones, the jewels, and the
ivory; and like the priests of the temple of Jerusalem after the invasion from
Babylon, we must content ourselves as we can with vessels of wood and of
stone and of iron.
"With such broken phrases as these, Mr. Chairman, perhaps not altogether
just to the living, we endeavor to express the emotions natural to this hour of


## p. 3656 (#644) ###########################################

3656
RUFUS CHOATE
our bereavement. Talent, industry, eloquence, and learning, there are still,
and always will be, at the bar of Boston. But if I say that the age of mira-
cles has passed, that the day of inspiration is over, if I cannot realize that
in this place where we now are, the cloth of gold was spread, and a banquet
set fit for the gods,— I know, sir, you will excuse it. Any one who has lived
with him and now survives him, will excuse it;-any one who like the youth
in Wordsworth's Ode,-
-
(by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended,
At length
perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day. >»
It will also tend to secure justice to Mr. Choate's memory, if
there be here recorded the statement by Judge Benjamin R. Curtis
of the judgment of the men of Mr. Choate's own profession, as to the
moral standards by which Mr. Choate was governed in his practice.
Judge Curtis said in his address at the same meeting of the Boston
Bar:-
"I desire, therefore, on this occasion and in this presence, to declare our
appreciation of the injustice which would be done to this great and eloquent
advocate by attributing to him any want of loyalty to truth, or any deference
to wrong, because he employed all his great powers and attainments, and
used to the utmost his consummate skill and eloquence, in exhibiting and
enforcing the comparative merits of one side of the cases in which he acted.
In doing so he but did his duty. If other people did theirs, the administra-
tion of justice was secured. »
West listiny
Stickney


## p. 3657 (#645) ###########################################

RUFUS CHOATE
3657
All the citations are from 'Addresses and Orations of Rufus Choate': copy-
righted 1878, by Little, Brown and Company
THE PURITAN IN SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS LIFE
From Address Delivered at the Ipswich Centennial, 1834
TURN
URN first now for a moment to the old English Puritans, the
fathers of our fathers, of whom came, of whom were, plant-
ers of Ipswich, of Massachusetts, of New England,— of
whom came, of whom were, our own Ward, Parker, and Salton-
stall, and Wise, Norton, and Rogers, and Appleton, and Cobbet,
and Winthrop,- and see whether they were likely to be the
founders of a race of freemen or slaves. Remember then, the
true, noblest, the least questioned, least questionable, praise of
these men is this: that for a hundred years they were the sole
depositaries of the sacred fire of liberty in England after it had
gone out in every other bosom,- that they saved at its last
gasp the English Constitution, which the Tudors and the first
two Stuarts were rapidly changing into just such a gloomy des-
potism as they saw in France and Spain,- and wrought into it
every particle of freedom which it now possesses,- that when
they first took their seats in the House of Commons, in the
early part of the reign of Elizabeth, they found it the cringing
and ready tool of the throne, and that they reanimated it, remod-
eled it, reasserted its privileges, restored it to its constitutional
rank, drew back to it the old power of making laws, redressing
wrongs, and imposing taxes, and thus again rebuilt and opened
what an Englishman called "the chosen temple of liberty," an
English House of Commons,- that they abridged the tremen-
dous power of the crown and defined it, and when at last
Charles Stuart resorted to arms to restore the despotism they
had partially overthrown, that they met him on a hundred fields.
of battle, and buried, after a sharp and long struggle, crown
and mitre and the headless trunk of the king himself beneath
the foundations of a civil and religious commonwealth. This
praise all the historians of England - Whig and Tory, Protes-
tant and Catholic, Hume, Hallam, Lingard, and all-award to
the Puritans. By what causes this spirit of liberty had been
breathed into the masculine, enthusiastic, austere, resolute char-
acter of this extraordinary body of men, in such intensity as to
mark them off from all the rest of the people of England, I
cannot here and now particularly consider. It is a thrilling and
-


## p. 3658 (#646) ###########################################

3658
RUFUS CHOATE
awful history of the Puritans in England, from their first emerg-
ing above the general level of Protestants, in the time of Henry
VIII. and Edward VI. , until they were driven by hundreds and
thousands to these shores; but I must pass it over. It was just
when the nobler and grander traits - the enthusiasm and piety
and hardihood and energy-of Puritanism had attained the high-
est point of exaltation to which, in England, it ever mounted up,
and the love of liberty had grown to be the great master-passion
that fired and guided all the rest,-it was just then that our
portion of its disciples, filled with the undiluted spirit, glowing
with the intensest fervors of Protestantism and republicanism.
together, came hither, and in that elevated and holy and re-
solved frame began to build the civil and religious structures
which you see around you.
Trace now their story a little farther onward through the
Colonial period to the War of Independence, to admire with me.
the providential agreement of circumstances by which that spirit
of liberty which brought them hither was strengthened and re-
inforced; until at length, instructed by wisdom, tempered by vir-
tue, and influenced by injuries, by anger and grief and conscious
worth and the sense of violated right, it burst forth here and
wrought the wonders of the Revolution. I have thought that if
one had the power to place a youthful and forming people like
the Northern colonists, in whom the love of freedom was already
vehement and healthful, in a situation the most propitious for
the growth and perfection of that sacred sentiment, he could
hardly select a fairer field for so interesting an experiment than
the actual condition of our fathers for the hundred and fifty
years after their arrival, to the War of the Revolution.
They had freedom enough to teach them its value and to
refresh and elevate their spirits, wearied, not despondent, from
the contentions and trials of England. They were just so far
short of perfect freedom that instead of reposing for a moment
in the mere fruition of what they had, they were kept emulous
and eager for more, looking all the while up and aspiring to rise
to a loftier height, to breathe a purer air, and bask in a brighter
beam. Compared with the condition of England down to 1688,
-compared with that of the larger part of the continent of
Europe down to our Revolution,- theirs was a privileged and
liberal condition. The necessaries of freedom, if I may say
so, its plainer food and homelier garments and humbler habita-
-


## p. 3659 (#647) ###########################################

RUFUS CHOATE
3659
tions, were theirs. Its luxuries and refinements, its festivals,
its lettered and social glory, its loftier port and prouder look and
richer graces, were the growth of a later day; these came in
with independence. Here was liberty enough to make them love
it for itself, and to fill them with those lofty and kindred senti-
ments which are at once its fruit and its nutriment and safe-
guard in the soul of man. But their liberty was still incomplete,
and it was constantly in danger from England; and these two
circumstances had a powerful effect in increasing that love and
confirming those sentiments. It was a condition precisely adapted
to keep liberty, as a subject of thought and feeling and desire,
every moment in mind. Every moment they were comparing
what they had possessed with what they wanted and had a right
to; they calculated by the rule of three, if a fractional part of
freedom came to so much, what would express the power and
value of the whole number! They were restive and impatient
and ill at ease; a galling wakefulness possessed their faculties
like a spell. Had they been wholly slaves, they had lain still
and slept. Had they been wholly free, that eager hope, that
fond desire, that longing after a great, distant, yet practicable
good, would have given way to the placidity and luxury and
carelessness of complete enjoyment; and that energy and whole-
some agitation of mind would have gone down like an ebb-tide.
As it was, the whole vast body of waters all over its surface,
down to its sunless, utmost depths, was heaved and shaken and
purified by a spirit that moved above it and through it and gave
it no rest, though the moon waned and the winds were in their
caves; they were like the disciples of the old and bitter philoso-
phy of paganism, who had been initiated into one stage of the
greater mysteries, and who had come to the door, closed, and
written over with strange characters, which led up to another.
They had tasted of truth, and they burned for a fuller draught;
a partial revelation of that which shall be hereafter had dawned;
and their hearts throbbed eager, yet not without apprehension,
to look upon the glories of the perfect day. Some of the mys-
tery of God, of Nature, of Man, of the Universe, had been
unfolded; might they by prayer, by abstinence, by virtue, by
retirement, by contemplation, entitle themselves to read another
page in the clasped and awful volume?
-


## p. 3660 (#648) ###########################################

3660
RUFUS CHOATE
THE NEW-ENGLANDER'S CHARACTER
From Address Delivered at the Ipswich Centennial, 1834
I
HOLD it to have been a great thing, in the first place, that we
had among us, at that awful moment when the public mind
was meditating the question of submission to the tea tax, or
resistance by arms, and at the more awful moment of the first
appeal to arms, that we had some among us who personally
knew what war was. Washington, Putnam, Stark, Gates, Pres-
cott, Montgomery, were soldiers already. So were hundreds of
others of humbler rank, but not yet forgotten by the people whom
they helped to save, who mustered to the camp of our first
Revolutionary armies. These all had tasted a soldier's life.
They had seen fire, they had felt the thrilling sensations, the
quickened flow of blood to and from the heart, the mingled
apprehension and hope, the hot haste, the burning thirst, the
feverish ture of battle, which he who has not felt is uncon-
scious of one-half of the capacities and energies of his nature;
which he who has felt, I am told, never forgets. They had slept
in the woods on the withered leaves or the snow, and awoke to
breakfast upon birch-bark and the tender tops of willow-trees.
They had kept guard on the outposts on many a stormy night,
knowing perfectly that the thicket half a pistol-shot off was full
of French and Indian riflemen.
I say it was something that we had such men among us.
They helped discipline our raw first levies. They knew what an
army is, and what it needs, and how to provide for it. They
could take that young volunteer of sixteen by the hand, sent by
an Ipswich mother, who after looking upon her son equipped
for battle from which he might not return, Spartan-like, bid him.
go and behave like a man—and many, many such shouldered a
musket for Lexington and Bunker Hill - and assure him from
their own personal knowledge that after the first fire he never
would know fear again, even that of the last onset. But the
long and peculiar wars of New England had done more than to
furnish a few such officers and soldiers as these.
They had
formed that public sentiment upon the subject of war which
re-united all the armies, fought all the battles, and won all the
glory of the Revolution. The truth is that war in some form or
another had been, from the first, one of the usages, one of the


## p. 3661 (#649) ###########################################

RUFUS CHOATE
3661
habits, of colonial life. It had been felt from the first to be
just as necessary as planting or reaping to be as likely to
break out every day and every night as a thunder-shower in
summer, and to break out as suddenly. There have been
nations who boasted that their rivers or mountains never saw
―
the smoke of an enemy's camp. Here the war-whoop awoke
the sleep of the cradle; it startled the dying man on his pil-
low; it summoned young and old from the meeting-house, from
the burial, and from the bridal ceremony, to the strife of death.
The consequence was that the steady, composed, and reflecting
courage which belongs to all the English race grew into a lead-
ing characteristic of New England; and a public sentiment was
formed, pervading young and old and both sexes, which declared
it lawful, necessary, and honorable to risk life and to shed
blood for a great cause, for our family, for our fires, for our
God, for our country, for our religion. In such a cause it
declared that the voice of God himself commanded to the field.
The courage of New England was the "courage of conscience. »
It did not rise to that insane and awful passion, the love of
war for itself. It would not have hurried her sons to the Nile,
or the foot of the Pyramids, or across the great raging sea of
snows which rolled from Smolensko to Moscow, to set the stars
of glory upon the glowing brow of ambition. But it was a
courage which at Lexington, at Bunker Hill, at Bennington,
and at Saratoga, had power to brace the spirit for the patriot's
fight, and gloriously roll back the tide of menaced war from
their homes, the soil of their birth, the graves of their fathers,
and the everlasting hills of their freedom.
OF THE AMERICAN BAR
From the Address before the Cambridge Law School, 1845
SOME
OMETHING such has, in all the past periods of our history, been
one of the functions of the American bar. To vindicate
the true interpretation of the charters of the colonies, to
advise what forms of polity, what systems of jurisprudence,
what degree and what mode of liberty these charters per-
mitted, to detect and expose that long succession of infringe-
ment which grew at last to the Stamp Act and Tea Tax, and
compelled us to turn from broken charters to national independ-


## p.
3662 (#650) ###########################################

3662
RUFUS CHOATE
ence, to conduct the transcendent controversy which preceded.
the Revolution, that grand appeal to the reason of civilization,-
this was the work of our first generation of lawyers: to con-
struct the American constitutions: the higher praise of the
second generation. I claim it in part for the sobriety and learn-
ing of the American bar; for the professional instinct towards
the past; for the professional appreciation of order, forms, obe-
dience, restraints; for the more than professional, the profound
and wide intimacy with the history of all liberty, classical,
mediæval, and above all, of English liberty,-I claim it in part
for the American bar that, springing into existence by revolu-
tion, revolution, which more than anything and all things
lacerates and discomposes the popular mind,-justifying that
revolution only on a strong principle of natural right, with not
one single element or agent of monarchy or aristocracy on our
soil or in our blood,-I claim it for the bar that the constitu-
tions of America so nobly closed the series of our victories!
These constitutions owe to the bar more than their terse and
exact expression and systematic arrangements: they owe to it
in part, too, their elements of permanence; their felicitous recon-
ciliation of universal and intense liberty with forms to enshrine
and regulations to restrain it; their Anglo-Saxon sobriety and
gravity conveyed in the genuine idiom, suggestive of the grand-
est civil achievements of that unequaled race. To interpret
these constitutions, to administer and maintain them, this is the
office of our age of the profession. Herein have we somewhat
wherein to glory; hereby we come into the class and share in
the dignity of founders of States, of restorers of States, of pre-
servers of States.
I said and I repeat that while lawyers, and because we are
lawyers, we are statesmen. We are by profession statesmen.
And who may measure the value of this department of public
duty? Doubtless in statesmanship there are many mansions,
and large variety of conspicuous service. Doubtless to have
wisely decided the question of war or peace,-to have adjusted
by a skillful negotiation a thousand miles of unsettled boundary-
line, to have laid the corner-stone of some vast policy whereby
the currency is corrected, the finances enriched, the measure of
industrial fame filled,- are large achievements. And yet I do
not know that I can point to one achievement of this depart-
ment of American statesmanship which can take rank for its


## p. 3663 (#651) ###########################################

RUFUS CHOATE
3663
consequences of good above that single decision of the Supreme
Court which adjudged that an act of legislature contrary to the
Constitution is void, and that the judicial department is clothed
with the power to ascertain the repugnancy and to pronounce
the legal conclusion. That the framers of the Constitution
intended this should be so is certain; but to have asserted it
against the Congress and the Executive,- to have vindicated it
by that easy yet adamantine demonstration than which the
reasonings of the mathematics show nothing surer,-to have
inscribed this vast truth of conservatism on the public mind, so
that no demagogue, not in the last stage of intoxication, denies
it, this is an achievement of statesmanship of which a thousand
years may not exhaust or reveal all the good.
―
DANIEL WEBSTER
From Eulogy delivered at Dartmouth College, 1853
So
COMETIMES it has seemed to me that to enable one to appre-
ciate with accuracy, as a psychological speculation, the
intrinsic and absolute volume and texture of that brain,
the real rate and measure of those abilities,-it was better
not to see or hear him, unless you could see or hear him fre-
quently, and in various modes of exhibition; for undoubtedly
there was something in his countenance and bearing so express-
ive of command, something even in his conversational lan-
guage when saying "Parva summisse et modica temperate,” so
exquisitely plausible, embodying the likeness at least of a rich
truth, the forms at least of a large generalization, in an epithet,
an antithesis,—a pointed phrase,- a broad and peremptory
thesis, and something in his grander forthputting, when roused
by a great subject or occasion exciting his reason and touching
his moral sentiments and his heart, so difficult to be resisted,
approaching so near, going so far beyond, the higher style of
man, that although it left you a very good witness of his power
of influencing others, you were not in the best condition imme-
diately to pronounce on the quality or the source of the in-
fluence. You saw the flash and heard the peal, and felt the
admiration and fear; but from what region it was launched, and
by what divinity, and from what Olympian seat, you could not
certainly yet tell. To do that you must, if you saw him at all,
-


## p. 3664 (#652) ###########################################

3664
RUFUS CHOATE
see him many times; compare him with himself and with others;
follow his dazzling career from his father's house; observe from
what competitors he won those laurels; study his discourses,-
study them by the side of those of other great men of this coun-
try and time, and of other countries and times, conspicuous in
the same fields of mental achievement,- look through the crys-
tal water of the style down to the golden sands of the thought;
analyze and contrast intellectual power somewhat; consider what
kind and what quantity of it has been held by students of mind
needful in order to great eminence in the higher mathematics,
or metaphysics, or reason of the law; what capacity to analyze,
through and through, to the primordial elements of the truths of
that science; yet what wisdom and sobriety, in order to control
the wantonness and shun the absurdities of a mere scholastic
logic, by systematizing ideas, and combining them, and repress-
ing one by another, thus producing, not a collection of intense
and conflicting paradoxes, but a code, scientifically coherent
and practically useful, consider what description and what
quantity of mind have been held needful by students of mind in
order to conspicuous eminence - long maintained-in statesman-
ship; that great practical science, that great philosophical art,
whose ends are the existence, happiness, and honor of a nation;
whose truths are to be drawn from the widest survey of man,-
of social man,- of the particular race and particular community
for which a government is to be made or kept, or a policy to be
provided; "philosophy in action," demanding at once or afford-
ing place for the highest speculative genius and the most skillful
conduct of men and of affairs; and finally consider what degree
and kind of mental power has been found to be required in
order to influence the reason of an audience and a nation by
speech,- not magnetizing the mere nervous or emotional nature
by an effort of that nature, but operating on reason by reason
-a great reputation in forensic and deliberative eloquence,
maintained and advancing for a lifetime, it is thus that we
come to be sure that his intellectual power was as real and as
uniform as its very happiest particular display had been impos-
ing and remarkable.
―
-
—


## p. 3665 (#653) ###########################################

3665
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
347-407)
(A. D.
BY JOHN MALONE
STRONG Soldier of the Cross and from good fighting stock
was that John of Antioch who, among the people that were
first of the earth to bear the name of Christian, was called
Chrysostom "mouth of gold. " His father Secundus, who died about
the time of Chrysostom's birth, was a military commander in Syria
under Constantine and Constantius II. John was born at Antioch,
A. D. 347, when the Eastern Empire and the City of Constantine
were new. His young mother Arethusa, a Christian, then but twenty
years of age, devoted herself to widowhood and the education of her
son in the city of his birth. The youth's early years were passed
under her careful guidance, and at the age of twenty he entered on
the study of oratory and philosophy under the celebrated Libanius.
In 369 he became a baptized Christian and reader in the house of
Melitius the bishop. The unhappy reigns of Valens and Valentin-
ian, when neo-paganism in the West and in the Gothic settlement in
the East began to work the Empire's fall, saw John devoted to an
ascetic life, after the example of the monks and hermits who shel-
tered in the mountains about the gay and queenly city of his birth.
His mother's grief and loneliness brought him back from his cave to
an energetic career as an outspoken preacher of God's Word and the
eternal profit of good stout-hearted workaday well-doing. He made
himself dear to the people of Antioch, for he had eloquence such as
had been unknown to Greeks since Demosthenes, and he shrank not
from labor and self-denial. So they called him "golden-mouth," as
the Indians call their tried men "straight-tongues. " On the death
of Nectarius, the successor of Gregory of Nazianzus, Theophilus of
Alexandria and Arcadius the Emperor made him Metropolitan of Con-
stantinople, A. D. 397. All before this time he was laying about him
with good ear-smiting Greek at vice and luxury, of which there
was abundance both in palace and in hovel; and his elevation to an
Imperial neighborhood did not stay him. He cleared Byzantium of
pagan shows, gathered the relics of the martyrs, and sent mission-
aries to preach to the Goths in their own speech. Not many years
of this kind of leadership were allowed him. Arcadius, well disposed
but indolent, was under the rule of a willful woman; and when
Chrysostom turned his swayful voice against her pet vanities, the
vexed Eudoxia intrigued his deposition. In 403 John went to exile
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3666
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
in Bithynia, with the words "The Lord hath given, the Lord hath
taken away" upon his lips. A great earthquake so frightened the
Imperial City and family that with one outcry they called Chrysostom
back. When the fear of the infirm earth had worn away, Eudoxia
remembered her enmity and took it back to nurse. So one day when
John had said in his sword-like invective that "Herodias was raging
again," she showed less mercy than the Baptist had obtained; for
under the plea that his restoration had been unwarranted, the Metro-
politan was sent to a forced wandering in the wilds of outer prov-
inces, from which there returned of him only the venerated relics of a
martyr. Driven from spot to spot, sometimes in chains, always under
the prod of guarding spears, one day of September 407 he dragged
himself to the tomb of the martyr Basiliscus at Comana in Pontus,
and laid his soul in the hands of God. Thirty years afterward, Theo-
dosius the Younger brought the body back to Constantinople.
In person Chrysostom was small and spare. His life of rigorous
fasting and toil made him still more slight and hollow-cheeked, but
it is told that there was always a blaze of fire in the deep-set eyes.
The work of Chrysostom was chiefly ecclesiastical oratory, in which
no one of his own or later time surpassed him. First of the great
Christian preachers after the Church came from the caves, he was
not less able as a teacher. His letters, full of sweetness and firm
honesty; his poetry, delicate and musical; and his philosophic essays,
rich with the clear-cut jewels of dialectics,― are worthy of his station
in the first order of the Doctors of the Church.
Jnalelone
[The following extracts are from 'A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-
Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series. Published by the
Christian Literature Company, New York. ]
THAT REAL WEALTH IS FROM WITHIN
From the Treatise to prove that no one can harm the man who does not
injure himself ›
WHA
THAT I undertake is to prove (only make no commotion)
that no one of those who are wronged is wronged by
another, but experiences this injury at his own hands.
But in order to make my argument plainer, let us first of all
inquire what injustice is, and of what kind of things the material
of it is wont to be composed; also what human virtue is, and
what it is which ruins it; and further, what it is which seems to


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ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
3667
ruin it but really does not. For instance (for I must complete
my argument by means of examples), each thing is subject to
one evil which ruins it: iron to rust, wool to moth, flocks of
sheep to wolves. The virtue of wine is injured when it ferments
and turns sour; of honey when it loses its natural sweetness and
is reduced to a bitter juice. Ears of corn are ruined by mildew
and drought, the fruit and leaves and branches of vines by the
mischievous host of locusts, other trees by the caterpillar, and
irrational creatures by diseases of various kinds; and not to
lengthen the list by going through all possible examples, our
own flesh is subject to fevers and palsies and a crowd of other
maladies. As then each one of these things is liable to that
which ruins its virtue, let us now consider what it is which
injures the human race, and what it is which ruins the virtue of
a human being. Most men think that there are divers things
which have this effect; for I must mention the erroneous opinions
on the subject, and after confuting them, proceed to exhibit that
which really does ruin our virtue, and to demonstrate clearly that
no one could inflict this injury or bring this ruin upon us unless
we betrayed ourselves. The multitude then, having erroneous
opinions, imagine that there are many different things which
ruin our virtue; some say it is poverty, others bodily disease,
others loss of property, others calumny, others death, and they
are perpetually bewailing and lamenting these things: and whilst
they are commiserating the sufferers and shedding tears, they
excitedly exclaim to one another, "What a calamity has befallen
such and such a man! he has been deprived of all his fortune at
a blow. »
Of another again one will say, "Such and such a man
has been attacked by severe sickness and is despaired of by the
physicians in attendance. " Some bewail and lament the inmates.
of the prison, some those who have been expelled from their
country and transported to the land of exile, others those who
have been deprived of their freedom, others those who have been
seized and made captives by enemies, others those who have
been drowned, or burnt, or buried by the fall of a house, but
no one mourns those who are living in wickedness; on the con-
trary, which is worse than all, they often congratulate them, a
practice which is the cause of all manner of evils. Come then
(only, as I exhorted you at the outset, do not make a commo-
tion), let me prove that none of the things which have been
mentioned injure the man who lives soberly, nor can ruin his


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ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
virtue. For tell me, if a man has lost his all either at the hands
of calumniators or of robbers, or has been stripped of his goods
by knavish servants, what harm has the loss done to the virtue
of the man?
But if it seems well, let me rather indicate in the first place
what is the virtue of a man, beginning by dealing with the sub-
ject in the case of existences of another kind, so as to make it
more intelligible and plain to the majority of readers.
What then is the virtue of a horse? is it to have a bridle
studded with gold and girths to match, and a band of silken
threads to fasten the housing, and clothes wrought in divers
colors and gold tissue, and head-gear studded with jewels, and
locks of hair plaited with gold cord? or is it to be swift and
strong in its legs, and even in its paces, and to have hoofs suit-
able to a well-bred horse, and courage fitted for long journeys
and warfare, and to be able to behave with calmness in the
battle-field, and if a rout takes place, to save its rider? Is it not
manifest that these are the things which constitute the virtue of
the horse, not the others? Again, what should you say was the
virtue of asses and mules? is it not the power of carrying bur-
dens with contentment, and accomplishing journeys with ease, and
having hoofs like rock? Shall we say that their outside trap-
pings contribute anything to their own proper virtue? By no
means. And what kind of vine shall we admire? one which
abounds in leaves and branches, or one which is laden with
fruit? Or what kind of virtue do we predicate of an olive? is
it to have large boughs and great luxuriance of leaves, or to ex-
hibit an abundance of its proper fruit dispersed over all parts of
the tree? Well, let us act in the same way in the case of
human beings also: let us determine what is the virtue of man,
and let us regard that alone as an injury, which is destructive to
it. What then is the virtue of man? Not riches, that thou
shouldst fear poverty; nor health of body, that thou shouldst
dread sickness; nor the opinion of the public, that thou shouldst
view an evil reputation with alarm, nor life simply for its own
sake, that death should be terrible to thee; nor liberty that thou
shouldst avoid servitude: but carefulness in holding true doc-
trine, and rectitude in life. Of these things not even the devil
himself will be able to rob a man, if he who possesses them
guards them with the needful carefulness, and that most mali-
cious and ferocious demon is aware of this.


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ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
3669
Thus in no case will any one be able to injure a man who
does not choose to injure himself; but if a man is not willing to
be temperate, and to aid himself from his own resources, no one
will ever be able to profit him. Therefore also that wonderful
history of the Holy Scriptures, as in some lofty, large, and broad
picture, has portrayed the lives of the men of old time, extend-
ing the narrative from Adam to the coming of Christ: and it
exhibits to you both those who are vanquished and those who
are crowned with victory in the contest, in order that it may
instruct you by means of all examples that no one will be able
to injure one who is not injured by himself, even if all the world
were to kindle a fierce war against him. For it is not stress of
circumstances, nor variation of seasons, nor insults of men in
power, nor intrigues besetting thee like snow-storms, nor a crowd
of calamities, nor a promiscuous collection of all the ills to which
mankind is subject, which can disturb even slightly the man who
is brave and temperate and watchful; just as on the contrary
the indolent and supine man who is his own betrayer cannot be
made better, even with the aid of innumerable ministrations.
Copyrighted by the Christian Literature Company, New York.
ON ENCOURAGEMENT DURING ADVERSITY
From the Letters to Olympias'
T
My Lady, the most reverend and divinely favored Dea-
coness Olympias, I John, Bishop, send greeting in the
Lord: Come now, let me relieve the wound of thy despond-
ency, and disperse the thoughts which gather this cloud of care
around thee. For what is it which upsets thy mind, and why
art thou sorrowful and dejected? Is it because of the fierce
black storm which has overtaken the Church, enveloping all
things in darkness as of a night without a moon, and is growing
to a head every day, travailing to bring forth disastrous ship-
wrecks, and increasing the ruin of the world? I know all this
as well as you; none shall gainsay it, and if you like I will form
an image of the things now taking place so as to present the
tragedy yet more distinctly to thee. We behold a sea upheaved
from the very lowest depths, some sailors floating dead upon the
waves, others engulfed by them, the planks of the ships break-
ing up, the sails torn to tatters, the masts sprung, the oars


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3670
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
dashed out of the sailors' hands, the pilots seated on the deck,
clasping their knees with their hands instead of grasping the
rudder, bewailing the hopelessness of their situation with sharp
cries and bitter lamentations, neither sky nor sea clearly visible,
but all one deep and impenetrable darkness, so that no one can
see his neighbor; whilst mighty is the roaring of the billows, and
monsters of the sea attack the crews on every side.
But how much further shall I pursue the unattainable? for
whatever image of our present evils I may seek, speech shrinks
baffled from the attempt. Nevertheless, even when I look at
these calamities I do not abandon the hope of better things,
considering as I do who the Pilot is in all this-not one who
gets the better of the storm by his art, but calms the raging
waters by his rod. But if he does not effect this at the outset
and speedily, such is his custom-he does not at the beginning
put down these terrible evils; but when they have increased and
come to extremities, and most persons are reduced to despair,
then he works wondrously and beyond all expectation, thus
manifesting his own power and training the patience of those
who undergo these calamities. Do not therefore be cast down.
For there is only one thing, Olympias, which is really terrible,
only one real trial, and that is sin; and I have never ceased
continually harping upon this theme: but as for all other things,
plots, enmities, frauds, calumnies, insults, accusations, confis-
cation, exile, the keen sword of the enemy, the peril of the
deep, warfare of the whole world, or anything else you like to
name, they are but idle tales. For whatever the nature of
these things may be, they are transitory and perishable, and
operate in a mortal body without doing any injury to the vigi-
lant soul. Therefore the blessed Paul, desiring to prove the
insignificance both of the pleasures and sorrows relating to this
life, declared the whole truth in one sentence when he said,
"For the things which are seen are temporal. " Why then dost
thou fear temporal things which pass away like the stream of a
river? For such is the nature of present things, whether they
be pleasant or painful. And another prophet compared all human
prosperity not to grass, but to another material even more
flimsy, describing the whole of it "as the flower of grass.
he did not single out any one part of it, as wealth alone, or
luxury alone, or power, or honor; but having comprised all the
things which are esteemed splendid amongst men under the one
>>>


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ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
3671
designation of glory, he said, "All the glory of man is as the
flower of grass. "
Nevertheless, you will say, adversity is a terrible thing and
grievous to be borne. Yet look at it again compared with
another image, and then also learn to despise it. For the railing,
and insults, and reproaches, and gibes, inflicted by enemies and
their plots, are compared to a worn-out garment and moth-eaten
wool, when God says, "Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither
be ye afraid of their revilings, for they shall wax old as doth a
garment, and like moth-eaten wool so shall they be consumed. "
Therefore let none of these things which are happening trouble
thee; but ceasing to invoke the aid of this or that person, and
to run after shadows (for such are human alliances), do thou
persistently call upon Jesus whom thou servest, merely to bow
his head and in a moment of time all these evils will be
dissolved. But if thou hast already called upon him, and yet
they have not been dissolved, such is the manner of God's
dealing (for I will resume my former argument); he does not
put down evils at the outset, but when they have grown to a
head, when scarcely any form of the enemy's malice remains.
ungratified, then he suddenly converts all things to a state of
tranquillity and conducts them to an unexpected settlement. For
he is not only able to turn as many things as we expect and
hope, to good, but many more, yea infinitely more. Wherefore
also Paul saith, "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we ask or think. " Could he not, for
example, have prevented the Three Children at the outset from
falling into trial? But he did not choose to do this, thereby
conferring great pain upon them. Therefore he suffered them to
be delivered into the hands of barbarians, and the furnace to be
heated to an immeasurable height and the wrath of the king to
blaze even more fiercely than the furnace, and hands and feet to
be bound with great severity, and they themselves to be cast
into the fire; and then, when all they who beheld despaired of
their rescue, suddenly and beyond all hope the wonder-working
power of God, the supreme artificer, was displayed, and shone
forth with exceeding splendor. For the fire was bound and the
bondmen were released; and the furnace became a temple of
prayer, a place of fountains and dew, of higher dignity than a
royal court, and the very hairs of their head prevailed over that
all-devouring element which gets the better even of iron and


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3672
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
stone, and masters every kind of substance. And a solemn song
of universal praise was instituted there by these holy men,
inviting every kind of created thing to join in the wondrous
melody: and they uttered hymns of thanksgiving to God for that
they had been bound, and also burnt, as far at least as the
malice of their enemies had power; that they had been exiles
from their country, captives deprived of their liberty, wandering
outcasts from city and home, sojourners in a strange and barba-
rous land: for all this was the outpouring of a grateful heart.
And when the malicious devices of their enemies were perfected
(for what further could they attempt after their death? ) and the
labors of the heroes were completed, and the garland of victory
was woven, and their rewards were prepared, and nothing more
was wanting for their renown, then at last their calamities were
brought to an end, and he who caused the furnace to be kindled,
and delivered them over to that great punishment, became
himself the panegyrist of those holy heroes and the herald of
God's marvelous deed, and everywhere throughout the world
issued letters full of reverent praise, recording what had taken
place, and becoming the faithful herald of the miracles wrought
by the wonder-working God. For inasmuch as he had been an
enemy and adversary, what he wrote was above suspicion even
in the opinion of enemies.
Dost thou see the abundance of resource belonging to God?
his extraordinary power, his loving-kindness and care?
Be not
therefore dismayed or troubled, but continue to give thanks to
God for all things, praising and invoking him; beseeching and
supplicating; even if countless tumults and troubles come upon
thee, even if tempests are stirred up before thine eyes, let none
of these things disturb thee. . For our Master is not baffled by
the difficulty, even if all things are reduced to the extremity of
ruin. For it is possible for him to raise those who have fallen,
to convert those who are in error, to set straight those who have
been ensnared, to release those who have been laden with count-
less sins, and make them righteous, to quicken those who are
dead, to restore lustre to decayed things, and freshness to those
who have waxen old. For if he makes things which are not to
come into being, and bestows existence on things which are
nowhere by any means manifest, how much more will he rectify
things which already exist!
Copyrighted by the Christian Literature Company, New York.


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ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
3673
CONCERNING THE STATUTES
From Homily VIII.
Κ
NOWING these things, let us take heed to our life: and let us
not be earnest as to the goods that perish; neither as to
the glory that goeth out; nor as to that body which
groweth old; nor as to that beauty which is fading; nor as to
that pleasure which is fleeting: but let us expend all our care
about the soul, and let us provide for the welfare of this in every
way. For to cure the body when diseased is not an easy matter
to every one; but to cure a sick soul is easy to all: and the
sickness of the body requires medicines, as well as money, for
its healing; but the healing of the soul is a thing easy to procure,
and devoid of expense. And the nature of the flesh is with
much labor delivered from those wounds which are troublesome;
for very often the knife must be applied, and medicines that are
bitter; but with respect to the soul there is nothing of this kind.
It suffices only to exercise the will and the desire, and all things
are accomplished. And this hath been the work of God's provi-
dence. For inasmuch as from bodily sickness no great injury
could arise (for though we were not diseased, yet death would in
any case come, and destroy and dissolve the body); but every-
thing depends upon the health of our souls; this being by far
the more precious and necessary, he hath made the medicining
of it easy, and void of expense or pain. What excuse therefore
or what pardon shall we obtain, if when the body is sick, and
money must be expended on its behalf, and physicians called in,
and much anguish endured, we make this so much a matter of
our care (though what might result from that sickness could be
no great injury to us), and yet treat the soul with neglect?
And this, when we are neither called upon to pay down money,
nor to give others any trouble, nor to sustain any sufferings; but
without any of all these things, by only choosing and willing,
have it in our power to accomplish the entire amendment of it:
and knowing assuredly that if we fail to do this, we shall sus-
tain the extreme sentence, and punishments, and penalties, which
are inexorable! For tell me, if any one promised to teach thee
the healing art in a short space of time, without money or labor,
wouldst thou not think him a benefactor? Wouldst thou not sub-
mit both to do and to suffer all things, whatsoever he who prom-


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3674
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
ised these things commanded? Behold now, it is permitted thee
without labor to find a medicine for wounds, not of the body,
but of the soul, and to restore it to a state of health without
any suffering! Let us not be indifferent to the matter! For
pray what is the pain of laying aside anger against one who
hath aggrieved thee? It is a pain indeed to remember inju-
ries, and not to be reconciled! What labor is it to pray, and to
ask for a thousand good things from God, who is ready to give?
What labor is it, not to speak evil of any one? What difficulty
is there in being delivered from envy and ill-will? What trouble
is it to love one's neighbor? What suffering is it not to utter
shameful words, nor to revile, nor to insult another? What
fatigue is it not to swear? for again I return to this same admo-
nition. The labor of swearing is indeed exceedingly great.
Oftentimes, whilst under the influence of anger or wrath, we
have sworn, perhaps, that we would never be reconciled to those
who have injured us.
I am now for the sixth day admonishing you in respect of
this precept.
Henceforth I am desirous to take leave of you,
meaning to abstain from the subject, that ye may be on your
guard. There will no longer be any excuse or allowance for
you; for of right, indeed, if nothing had been said on this.
matter, it ought to have been amended of yourselves, for it is
not a thing of an intricate nature, or that requires great prepa-
ration. But since ye have enjoyed the advantage of so much
admonition and counsel, what excuse will ye have to offer, when
ye stand accused before that dread tribunal and are required to
give account of this transgression? It is impossible to invent
any excuse; but of necessity you must either go hence amended,
or if you have not amended, be punished, and abide the
extremest penalty! Thinking therefore upon all these things,
and departing hence with much anxiety about them, exhort ye
one another, that the things spoken of during so many days
may be kept with all watchfulness in your minds; so that
whilst we are silent, ye instructing, edifying, exhorting one
another, may exhibit great improvement: and having fulfilled
all the other precepts may enjoy eternal crowns; which God
grant we may all obtain through the grace and loving-kindness
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Copyrighted by the Christian Literature Company, New York.
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