Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–80) was an American preacher and the editor of The Christian Leader. A Universalist minister, author, and social reformer, he was also a poet, responsible for the poem “Burial at Sea,” which is the origin of a famous folk song, “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.”
Born in Union Village, New York, Chapin attended a seminary at Bennington, Vermont, and became a pastor in 1838. After ten years of serving congregations in Virginia and Massachusetts, he settled in New York City as pastor of the Church of the Divine Paternity, serving there for thirty years. The church was renamed the Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York, and Chapin’s oratory attracted crowds of almost 2,000 each Sunday.
Chapin’s works included the collections of sermons The Crown of Thorns: A Token for the Sorrowing (1847,) Duties of Young Women (1849,) Living Words (1860,) and God’s Requirements and Other Sermons (1881.)
Chapin was the author of the poem “Ocean Burial” or “Burial at Sea,” which was set to music by composer George N. Allen. This popular song became a sailor’s song and developed into another song, “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.”
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Edwin Hubbell Chapin
All evil, in fact the very existence of evil, is inexplicable till we refer to the fatherhood of God.—It hangs a huge blot in the universe till the orb of divine love rises behind it.—In that we detect its meaning.—It appears to us but a finite shadow, as it passes across the disk of infinite light.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Evils
Whatever touches the nerves of motive, whatever shifts man’s moral position, is mightier than steam, or caloric, or lightning.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Motivational, Motivation
To me there is something thrilling and exalting in the thought that we are drifting forward into a splendid mystery—into something that no mortal eye hath yet seen, and no intelligence has yet declared.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Gayety is often the reckless ripple over depths of despair.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
The city is an epitome of the social world.—All the belts of civilization intersect along its avenues.—It contains the products of every moral zone and is cosmopolitan, not only in a national, but in a moral and spiritual sense.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Cities
Poetry is the utterance of deep and heart-felt truth—the true poet is very near the oracle.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Poets, Poetry
Through every rift of discovery some seeming anomaly drops out of the darkness, and falls, as a golden link, into the great chain of order.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Discovery
Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Fashion
Under the shadow of earthly disappointment, all unconsciously to ourselves, our Divine Redeemer is walking by our side.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Trials
The essence of justice is mercy.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Justice
The most fearful characteristic of vice is its irresistible fascination—the ease with which it sweeps away resolution, and wins a man to forget his momentary outlook, and his throb of penitence, in the embrace of indulgence.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Vice
There is no mockery like the mockery of that spirit which looks around in the world and believes that all is emptiness.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
There is less misery in being cheated than in that kind of wisdom which perceives, or thinks it perceives, that all mankind are cheats.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Deceit
The creed of the true saint is to make the most of life, and to make the best of it.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Happiness, Life
Not in achievement, but in endurance, of the human soul, does it show its divine grandeur and its alliance with the infinite.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Endurance
Do not ask if a man has been through college; ask if a college has been through him—if he is a walking university.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Graduation, Education
Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge, and dares forgive an injury.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Forgiveness
Let us not fear that the issues of natural science shall be scepticism or anarchy.—Through all God’s works there runs a beautiful harmony.—The remotest truth in his universe is linked to that which lies nearest the throne.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Science
Public feeling now is apt to side with the persecuted, and our modern martyr is full as likely to be smothered with roses as with coals.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Sympathy
There is no happiness in life, and there is no misery, like that growing out of the dispositions which consecrate or desecrate a home.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Home
The temptation is not here, where you are reading about it or praying about it. It is down in your shop, among bales and boxes, ten-penny nails, and sandpaper.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Temptation
The weak sinews become strong by their conflict with difficulties.—Hope is bom in the long night of watching and tears.—Faith visits us in defeat and disappointment, amid the consciousness of earthly frailty and the crumbling tombstones of mortality.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Difficulty, Difficulties
Do not judge from mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over the depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that covers a divine peace and joy.—The bosom can ache beneath diamond brooches; and many a blithe heart dances under coarse wool.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Understanding, Appearance
All nature is a vast symbolism; every material fact has sheathed within it a spiritual truth.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Nature
When private virtue is hazarded on the perilous cast of expediency, the pillars of the republic, however apparent their stability, are infected with decay at the very centre.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
No language can express the power and beauty and heroism and majesty of a mother’s love. It shrinks not where man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, and over the wastes of worldly fortune sends the radiance of its quenchless fidelity like a star in heaven.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Mother, Pregnancy
It is a most fearful fact to think of, that in every heart there is some secret spring that would be weak at the touch of temptation, and that is liable to be assailed. Fearful, and yet salutary to think of, for the thought may serve to keep our moral nature braced. It warns us that we can never stand at ease, or lie down in the field of life, without sentinels of watchfulness and campfires of prayer.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Temptation
Christianity has made martyrdom sublime, and sorrow triumphant.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Events are only the shells of ideas; and often it is the fluent thought of ages that is crystallized in a moment by the stroke of a pen or the point of a bayonet.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Life, Ideas
We have not the innocence of Eden; but by God’s help and Christ’s example we may have the victory of Gethsemane.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Innocence
The child’s grief throbs against its little heart as heavily as the man’s sorrow; and the one finds as much delight in his kite or drum, as the other in striking the springs of enterprise, or soaring on the wings of fame.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Children
The golden age is not in the past, but in the future; not in the origin of human experience, but in its consummate flower; not opening in Eden, but out from Gethsemane.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
There never was a man all intellect; but just in proportion as men become so they become like lofty mountains, all ice and snow the higher they rise above the warm heart of the earth.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it foregoes revenge, and dares to forgive an injury.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Forgiveness
It is difficult to believe that a true gentleman will ever become a gamester, a libertine, or a sot.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Tribulation will not hurt you, unless as it too often does; it hardens you and makes you sour, narrow and skeptical.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Adversity, Trouble
Objects close to the eye shut out much larger objects on the horizon; and splendors born only of the earth eclipse the stars. So it is with people who sometimes cover up the entire disc of eternity with a dollar, and so quench transcendent glories with a little shining dust.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Vision, Prophecy
A patient, humble temper gathers blessings that are marred by the peevish and overlooked by the aspiring.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Blessings, Patience
The downright fanatic is nearer to the heart of things than the cool and slippery disputant.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
Topics: Fanaticism
Impatience dries the blood sooner than age or sorrow.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin
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