On the other hand, some counselled self-interest: “It is not necessary that you should settle in Brooklyn; with your talent you will make more show in New York.” “I didn’t come to make a show,” he replied. “I came to preach what I understand to be the Gospel of Jesus Christ to men, and this is the first opening, and I take it.” He did not propose to have any misunderstanding on the part of his new church as to the course he should pursue. He intended to make that very plain and at the outset. If they wanted him they would have to take him with their eyes open—_wide_ open. October 10, the first Sunday after his arrival, he preached in the new church, both morning and evening. “My first sermon, I think, was directed to the Source of all true religion—the Lord Jesus Christ and His power. In my second sermon—on the evening of the first Sunday—I recollect that I lifted up the banner and blew the trumpet in the application of Christianity to intemperance, to slavery, and to all other great national sins. I said to those who were present: ‘If you come into this church and congregation I want you to understand distinctly that I will wear no fetters; that I will be bound by no precedent; that I will preach the Gospel as I apprehend it, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, and that I will apply it without stint, and sharply and strongly, to the overthrow of every evil and to the upbuilding of all that is good.’” Well-meaning but timid friends took alarm at this bold declaration. It was not customary; it was not what they were used to; they came to him to “counsel him for his own good,” they said. “Save yourself, anyway; don’t ally yourself to unpopular men nor unpopular causes. There is no need of it. You can have your own notions about abolition; what is the use of preaching anti-slavery sermons?” To their great distress their counsels had just the opposite effect intended: “I despised them all, and preached like thunder on those subjects, especially before pew-renting. For a period of more than ten years I never let a month elapse before pew-renting that I did not come out with the whole strength of my nature on the abominations of American slavery. I remember saying, with some discourtesy and with language that I should not use now: ‘If you don’t want to hear such doctrines, don’t take a pew here next time.’ It had something of youthful eagerness in it, but I am proud that it pleased God to ally me to causes that were weak but right. It has ever been a cause of great gratification to me that I have not lost that spirit, and that I ally myself to that which I think to be right; and I do not care what man says to me, provided only I can believe that God likes it, and that I have the testimony of His approval in myself.” To have remained silent in the presence of such great evils was to have shared the responsibility of their existence. We quote here his views on this subject, uttered from his pulpit many years later: