I have said nothing yet about your grandfathers religious character, and yet this was by far his greatest excellence. He was truly and sincerely pious. By which I mean he truly loved, trusted in, and obeyed Christ. But, although I am a preacher, I do not intend to write you a sermon, and I hope you will not take it as so intended, in what I am about to say to you of the religious character of Mr. Charless. I esteem it by far your greatest loss, in his death before you were old enough to understand him, that you are deprived of the means of learning something about true religion as it was exemplified in him.
Most young people, if not pious themselves, have an idea that religion is in its nature gloomy, or at least that it would interfere with the happiness and vivacity of youth. I know this, for I once thought and felt so myself. And it is just to correct this that I so much regret that you did not know your grandfather Charless; you could not have known him without knowing that he was truly pious, nor could you have helped seeing that he was a happy man, and that his religion, yes, his religion, so far from interfering with, promoted his happiness. You may meet with other examples, but you will rarely find one so striking as his. And I hold, as a matter of fairness, that religion should be judged by just such examples. I know that there are truly pious persons who are not attractive, who are melancholy, or who are sometimes even repulsive in their characters. Do you ask, Why not judge the effect of religion from these as well as from better and more pleasing cases? My reply is: What you see and judge may not be religion at all. In the repulsive it may be only the coarse, rough natural character; with the melancholy it may be dyspepsia. You do not form your estimate of what the glorious light of the sun does in gladdening and beautifying the earth, by its vain struggles with mists and fogs; it may fail to make a potato patch sublime or grand, and yet be in itself both sublime and grand. No, you judge of it by objects in themselves calculated to reflect its excellence, by the life and joy it diffuses on all animated nature, and especially by the exquisite beauty it imparts to some lovely valley, or to grand old mountains whose snow summits it drenches in light until they glitter and radiate like the gates of heaven. So, precisely, in fairness, you should judge religion. Hence I insist that men like Mr. Charless are examples by which religion should be judged. Nature did much for him, made him generous and kind, gave him a large heart and noble impulses. Grace elevated, strengthened, purified all these natural qualities, and brought him in harmony and fellowship with God; set before him, as an object of love, confidence, and imitation, the blessed Saviour; gave him a hope which earthly losses could not dim, and a peace which they only know who have felt it. Why should it not have added to his happiness? Had he lived he would have told you himself that what real happiness he had in this life came more from his religion than all other sources. My young friends if you still stand in doubt on this point I can only say make the experiment yourselves, and if you find what I have said not true, judge me a false witness.